assical Mythology Explained
With The Use of Macedonian Vocabulary
A Series of Studies in European Mythology
Part 1 - Is There a Practical Meaning to Mythology?
by Odisej Belchevsky
November, 2003
The information contained in this article is not of mythical or imagined content but is very real, which the reader should find exciting and interesting.
In this article I will take the reader through a fresh new look at classical mythology and bring out alternative meanings of the identities of Demeter, Saturn, Pluto/Hades and Zemele.
An inquiring mind may ask the following questions:
How is it that for the last 200 years European scholars have been able to attribute mathematics, physics, astronomy, government, military strategies, natural principles and even the understanding of human behavior to the ancient people of southern Europe and the Mediterranean yet when it comes to interpreting mythological figures they could only manage to provide imaginary, unrealistic, impractical, hard to understand and confusing explanations?
Is it possible that modern scholars and scholars of the “Romantic Era” in particular, did not have a clear understanding of the true meaning of the names of deities in relation to the deities’ roles and functions in nature?
I will begin my interpretation by providing the reader with a foundation for understanding the process by which the ancient Europeans created what we today call Classical Mythology. I will then show how the ancient Europeans used practical methods for naming their deities and each name such as Demeter, Pluto, Hades, Zemele, etc., had a special meaning for them which, when interpreted properly, makes sense even today.
To conduct our interpretations properly we must seek the oldest name of each deity and have a good knowledge of the deity’s attributes and characteristics. It is also essential that we have a good knowledge of the old Macedonian languages, Koine and Slavonic.
It is particularly important to know the oldest name of the gods and goddesses because many deities have been borrowed by various cultures and over time their names have been changed.
Over the years I have studied many details of these deities both from linguistic and historical sources and, although many books have been written on this subject, none can provide a simple and logical explanation. Most often the average person searching for meaning is left with a confusing, complicated, long, stretched out and generally difficult explanation.
By applying my knowledge of the Macedonian language, some of its older dialects and Old Slavonic I have been able to find simpler and more practical meanings for the names of the deities which not only identify the deities with nature but also put them in harmony with their characteristics and attributes.
In this article I would like to offer a practical meaning for the four deities: Demeter, Pluto, Hades and Zemele.
After establishing the meaning of the names of these four we can use the same method to explain the meaning and role of almost all known classical deities. We must also keep in mind that some names and their meanings have evolved over the years.
If we were to study the ancient societies from about 1500 to 500 B.C. we would find that their world was a world of agriculture. Most people in this period made their living from farming, so it is reasonable to assume that their survival depended on their ability to successfully work the land. More specifically, farmers had to have extensive knowledge of soil and weather conditions. They had to know the seasons, when to plant and when to harvest. They also had to know the importance of rain and its unpredictability. In the old days, as it is today, after planting farmers had to literally “pray” for the rain to fall. In all practicality, if the rain did not fall when it was needed, crops would suffer and yield poorly. The quality of soil was also an important factor in farming. If the soil was infertile the crop yield would be poor. The ancient farmers had to know that.
When comparing today’s societies with those of 3000 years ago we find that ancient people did not have the technology or the means to transport food over great distances so a failed crop meant suffering and starvation. In ancient times all the necessary work was done manually by humans and animals (in some regions of the world farming is still done this way). Today we have technology to till the land, plant seeds and harvest crops. We have fertilizing to enrich the soil and water delivery systems to water it. We also have better methods (although sometimes questionable) of predicting the weather.
Now that we have established that the ancient societies of 3000 years ago heavily depended on farming the land for their survival, we need to establish a rationale for their gods. First we need to establish the origin of these deities.
It was Plato (500-600 BC) that said “most gods and their traditions we have received from the Barbarians.” A few hundred years later Herodotus confirms Plato’s statement.
If these Barbarians, who according to Homer, were “as numerous as the leaves in the forest” had the capacity to create these gods and pass them on to the ancient Europeans, is it not possible that their other characteristics have also descended and remain with us today?
It is important to note here that the original meaning of the word barbarian was “misunderstood”. Today we know that barbarian does not mean ignorant but rather a non-speaker of the languages of the ancient Greek city states.
Many authors, I believe, have tried to interpret the rationale behind the ancient deities but did not go deep enough. In my opinion, their scope was too narrow and they could not find a rational and logical explanation. One of those authors was Edith Hamilton, a great scholar and world-renowned classicist who wrote a book about Greek and Norse Mythology. In her book, published in 1940, she talks about mythological fairy tales and stories of the imagination, pure fiction with little meaning or practicality that would connect the deities to every day life. Others too have hinged on the imagination of the ancients as the source for the creation of mythology.
I do have to admit that over time mythological stories most probably have been embellished by the storytellers and as a result have somewhat changed. But still we must not underestimate the ability of the ancient Europeans to apply reason and logic. We also have to maintain the notion that at the time of the “mythological creation,” which most likely was over a long period of time, all the gods were created by necessity and were an integral part of peoples’ lives. I have been carrying this notion for many years and as a result have searched for more rational and practical meanings in mythology.
Influenced by numerous literary sources connecting classical mythology to the ancient Greeks and Romans, most writers over the last hundred years or so have failed to widen their search and consider one of the largest linguistic groups, the Slavonic languages. Myself, I have discovered that the Slavonic languages offer an immense source of knowledge in many fields including mythology.
For example, consider the following excerpt;
... The daughter of Doimater (Demeter), Prosorpina – (Persephone) is “snatched” by Hades the god of the underworld and is taken underneath the earth for four months of the year. In the beginning, Demeter is furious as she frantically looks for her daughter. Her absence causes the earth to freeze and become barren of all fruits and gifts to the mortals. After some time Demeter accepts Persephone’s fate and allows her to become Hades’ bride and spend the winters beneath the surface of the earth…
In the spring, when Hades changes to Pluto (his brother), Persephone comes back to the surface bringing with her Pluto’s wealth of the agriculture and all Demeter’s gifts of nature back to the mortals …
Looking at the excerpt from a farmer’s point of view we find that the changing of the seasons is perpetual and universal. As daylight increases and the sun warms the earth, the earth comes back to life. The soil is plowed, seeded and bears the fruits that sustain life. This is an annual transformation that goes beyond the control of mere mortals (humans). As farmers, the ancient people paid careful attention to the seasons.
It is important at this point to note that the ancient creators of the gods modeled their deities after their own images and their relationships to one another. For example there were mother and father gods, children and sibling gods. These gods were part of their lives and daily existence.
It is also important to note that the various “myths” come to us from the well known “Homeric Hymns”.
For many thousands of years the ancient Europeans observed natural phenomena around them, phenomena such as the movement of the sun, lightning and thunder descending from the sky, the birth of new life, death, the falling of rain, the perpetual changing of day and night, the changing of the moon, the stars, the changing of the seasons, the enormous power of the uncontrollable seas, the phenomenon of fire, the fruitfulness of mother earth and many more.
People could not explain or control these powerful natural phenomena but accepted them as forces of nature. In their minds these powerful forces were responsible for the existence of all life on earth so naturally the early Europeans greatly respected, feared, honoured and accepted them as gods.
Today we are not much different. Even though our religions have greatly evolved, we still attribute things we don’t understand or wish for to our God. All religions basically teach us to be good, to love and respect one another, to be generous and to be honest and humble.
Unlike our ancestors, today we understand most of the natural phenomena like how clouds and rain are formed, what causes the changing of the seasons, etc. and no longer have the need to attribute them to the gods.
Also, in spite of what some modern scholars tell us, Ancient Europeans did not imagine or create their gods purely for fictional purposes but rather they modeled them after the powerful “natural phenomena” which they observed over long periods of time. The gods were created from the basic need to explain the natural forces that controlled their lives.
This becomes apparent when we use the Macedonian language to explain the role of the gods from the meaning of their names.
Most of the original names and characteristics of these deities clearly coincide with basic fundamental words found in the modern Macedonian and Slavonic languages. These words are part of language concepts that have created very large families of words with very deep etymological root connections pointing to a long and continual development. The Slavonic languages provide the most logical explanation and are unparalleled compared to other European and non-European languages. Evidence of this is very strong and is extremely hard to ignore.
The following table provides examples of the relationship between the meaning of the name of the deities and their role in nature:
Deity Name
Greek or Roman Attributes Macedonian
or Slavonic English Greek
Semele Thraco- Macedonian
Earth Goddess Zemja
Zemje Earth Homa
Saturn
Sadir-Sadene Agricultural God Sadi
Sadenje Planting Fiton
Doimater (Demeter)
Doi, Dos
Dos, Doi Doi Dos Nourishing
Feeding
Rain Theripticos
Pluto Riches of agriculture
later- wealth Plodo
Plod
(Plot) Fruitful Karpoforos
Hades Underworld
Snake Ghades Snake Ofis
The names of these Deities are interconnected in a most amazing functional conception. In fact they exist together in harmony in the Macedonian language today just as they always existed in nature. They are inseparable. If we separate them their meaning will be lost.
Zemele - Zemle - Semelhs
Zemele is an ancient root word that exists only in the Slavonic languages.
The following are Macedonian etymological words associated with the root word Zemele:
Zemja, Zemla the Earth
Zemjodelie agriculture
Zemjodelec crop farmer
Zemjak fellow countryman
Zemski earthly
Zemjotres earthquake
Prizemje partly underground
Temeli (Zemeli) foundations (the foundations are always dug into the Earth)
Temni to darken
Temno dark (it darkens as one descends deep into earth)
Temnica darkness
Podzemle underground
Nadzemle aboveground
Zemjani inhabitants of the earth
Zemun, Zemunik place names originally built with earth/ soil around them
Also, the above have close family ties with the following pre-Into-European words:
Zemle, Semle, Sem(l)e, Seme seed that is planted in the earth
Semeto se see the seed is planted in the earth
By losing the letter ’m’ above, we obtain;
Zemele, Semele, Seele, sele inhabiting the earth “living on the Earth”
Sele, na sele to inhabit, dwell
Selo, sela, nasele village (pre Slav– house, habitat)
and so on.
The word Zemele also has a number of “sister words” such as Zmija and zmej a snake or snake like monster, cold-blooded creatures that live below ground or in the underworld.
Now let’s review the characteristics and basic concepts associated with the earth.
The Earth has two main attributes:
1. It is able to bear fruit => Fruitfulness
2. Richness of the Soil => Plod => Pluto
Only a fruitful earth will bear “agricultural riches” associated with the god Pluto.
The word Pluto is closely related to the Macedonian word Plod or Plodo. In older versions of the Slavonic languages the letters and sounds of o and u were interchangeable. This is significant because if we replace the current letter ‘o’ with ‘u‘, we obtain Pludo. By the way, it is important to mention here that Pluto’s original name, or more precisely, one of Pluto’s older names is “Ploto”.
The word Plodo is part of a very large family of words many of which are functionally related in a language concept.
The earth contains all the ingredients and ability to nourish life which is planted into it. This is reflected and expressed in the words “Plodna Zemja” or “fruitful earth” .This only happens when the earth’s two attributes “fruitfulness and richness of soil” come together.
We know that everything that is alive bears fruit. Females (woman, Zhena) must be “fruitful” as well as be impregnated with a seed at the proper time or lunar cycle, in order to bear offspring and perpetuate life.
The seeds of every plant, when planted at the proper time (the spring), will be nourished by the falling rain or Dos / Dosdoi, as we call it in Macedonian. Coincidentally, the original name of Demeter was Doi (Doi) and Dos (Dos)
Also from the Homeric poems we know that Doine (Doine - qoine) means “feeding, nourishing”.
Again according to Homer, when the goddess Demeter came to earth to search for her daughter she used the name Doi.
There is also one important fact that I would like to mention at this point. According to one Macedonian tradition, which by the way is still practiced to this day in remote parts of Macedonia, there is a chant attributed to Doi that goes something like this;
“Doi - dole - Doidule
Dozhdo da zavrne
Da na doi zemlata”
These are actual words chanted to the rain goddess asking her to make it rain (Dos and Dozd) so that the earth can be nourished and the crops will grow and bear fruit.
It is important at this point to mention that Persephone, Demeter’s daughter was also known by an older name as “Preseffeta” which in Macedonian means “to bloom”. As we know all living plants bloom in the spring when Persephone is released by Hades and returns to the surface.
And now let’s look at Hades, the god of the underworld and his relationship to the natural world.
Ghades - Hades
We all know that during the winter months in the world where the climate is moderate the earth freezes and loses its ability to bear fruit. In other words, Doimater or Demeter “cuts off the fruitfulness, richness and gift of the soil” as Pluto (Plodo), the richness of the soil escapes into the underworld and becomes his brother Hades (Ghades).
Hades renews himself as he again snatches Demeter’s daughter who symbolizes spring and summer, the warm seasons, and takes her below the earth for another cycle. Hades’ renewal brings the end of the warm season and the beginning of the cold one. For the farmers of old, Hades was the “bad attribute” of the earth or the time when the soil lost its Plod or ability to bear fruit. Hades is also associated with decomposition, darkness and fear of the unknown.
Again, Ghades is a unique Slavonic word that does not exist in any other European language. In most Slavonic cultures, the word Ghades is associated with the snake but in Macedonian it could also mean something bad, unpleasant, terrible, undesirable, or slimy.
Ghad
Ghadeno
Ghadesh
Se ghadi
To be continued...
Odisej Belchevsky,
Macedonian Language Researcher
------------------------------
You can contact the author at: [email protected] or Risto Stefov at [email protected]
All rights in using or propagating this material are strictly reserved by the author, Odyssey Belchevsky.
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From Anthony Ambrozic, B.A., L.L., B.
Dear Friends,
I am sending you a copy of my paper presented to the international conference on “Traces of European History,” held in Ljubljana last month. Since its discovery some thirty years ago, the so-called Tavola da Este inscription has baffled linguists. Foremost of these, Anna Marinetti, in spite of her excellent transcription of lettering on the damaged artifact, has been completely stumped. Her customary approach via comparisons to the Greek and Latin again brought no tangible results.
As soon as I received her transcription through the good offices of Giancarlo Tomezzoli from Munich, I knew that translation by means of the Slovene, both dialectal and literary, could be the only resolution. Building on the interest expressed for the material presented to the two conferences last year, the Slovene World Congress this year again organized two conferences – one in Kobarid in the spring and a fall conference in Ljubljana. I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to present two papers this year.
One of the luminaries presenting a paper at Kovarid was Mario Alinei, Dean Emeritus of the University of Utrecht and director of several linguistic reviews. He is the progenitor of the Theory of Continuity, providing incontrovertible evidence that Indo-Europeans have lived in Europe basically in the same territories they occupy today ever since the Stone Age. For our purposes, I quote just two of the more poignant statements from his works:
“I have to commence by clearing away one of the most absurd consequences of the traditional chronology, namely, that of the ‘arrival’ of the Slavs into the immense area in which they now live. The only logical conclusion can be that the southern branch of the Slavs is the oldest and that from it developed the Slavic western and eastern branches…. Today only a minority of experts support the theory of a late migration for the Slavs… .”
To put the foregoing into somewhat broader perspective, I enclose a brief sketch of Alinei’s Theory in its relationship to the Indo-European beginnings.
THE “TAVOLA DA ESTE” INSCRIPTION
Anthony Ambrozic, Giancarlo Tomezzoli
click here to view the inscription
Web Posted January, 2004
Abstract
A division, translation, linguistic examination, and evaluation of the Tavola da Este inscription is presented. It appears that the artifact’s votive character may have served as a prayer formula at a religious site in the vicinity of Padua.
Dated from the period between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 4th century BC (~ 400 BC), the thin plate of bronze (23.5 x 29 cm.) – see Fig. 1 – was discovered in the 1970’s during excavations for the reconstruction of The Civic Hospital of Este, Veneto (Italy). Now stored at the Museo Nazionale Atestino at Este, the cylindrical man-made artifact is estimated to be only half of the original size. According to A. Marinetti [1], whose transcription shall be used in deciphering, division and translation, the alphabet employed, as well as the artifact, came to Este from the area of Padua, seemingly at a time when the writing on it was no longer understood. It appears that the bronze plate was cut up for eventual reuse.
Before we proceed with the division and translation of the inscription, which was written in continuo, we wish to state that we are in total awe of the absolute professionalism and astuteness of judgment of A. Marinetti in her transcriptional work. Passage after passage of the translated lines bears out the accuracy of her transcription.
Ancient inscribers unquestionably faced logistical handicaps the elimination of which over time we smugly have no conception of in our overregulated, overparsed conformity. They overcame them, often with no guidelines to go by, by ingenious adaptations. Some such peculiarities, such as the omission of the U-sound at the end of participles, will be pointed out as they arise. Another phenomenon is betatism. We also often encounter akanje (akanye), which is a tendency to substitute an A-sound for a short O of today. Also occurring frequently is the bare E which is now invariably preceded by a J to form JE (pr. YE as in yellow) for “is, it is”, cf. also [2,3].
In any event, also considering the punctuation, it appears that there are no hard and fast rules for this and other ancient scripts.
LINE ONE
Marinetti’s Transcription
1 ]o.m.kutetiiariqore.s.va.cso.n. q-[------------------(-----)]imo.i.s.toqi-[--]e : ne.i.j a.r.o.-[
1 ]omkudediaritoresvagsont-[ ]imoisdoti-[]e neibaro-[
Our Division:
[ ]om KUD E DIARITOR E SVAGS ON t-[ ] imoisdoti – [ ]e NEI BARO – [ ]
Pronunciational Guide and Punctuation
[ ]om KUD JE DJARITOR JE SVAGS(T) ON t-[ ] imoisdoti – [ ]e NEJ VARO(U) –[ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation:
[ ]om KJER JE DARITELJ JE ZVAGAN ON t-[ ] imoisdoti – [ ]e NAJ VAROVAL –[ ]
Eng. Translation:
[ ]om WHERE THE OFFEROR IS JUDGED t-[ ] imoisdoti – [ ]e LET BE PROTECTED –[ ]
Commentary:
KUD, also KUDA, is Sc. For “where”. The lit. Sln. Is KOD.
The etymology of DIARITOR is derived from DAR – “gift, present, donation”. However, here the votive context is obvious and the word’s similarity to the Sln. DARITEV – “sacrifice” is unambiguous. The translation really calls for ZHRTVOVALEC in Sln. and “sacrificer” in Eng. In form DARITELJ – “giver, donor” (pr. DARITEL) is closer to the original and does not provoke an etymological analysis which the Sln. ZHRTEV would, on account of its inherent meaning containing all the three components of the ancient ritualistic sacrifice, namely, that of the “VICTIM” (of a victory), being victimized by being “SACRIFICED” (lit. in L. “made holy”) and then consumed (Sln. “pozhrt – Eng. “devoured”) at a ritualistic meal.
SVAGS is a composition of the Sln. Prefix S – “with, by, at” and VAGS, an adj. form of VAGA (inf. VAGATI) – “balance, scale (of justice and weight)”, i.e. figuratively, “judgment”. Vide VAGTAIE in inscription M-01a, p. 29, GKU-AA.
NEI is a dial. Sln. counterpart of the literary Sln. NAJ – “let it, let it be that”. It appears as NEY in the inscription W-010 on p. 8 of GKU-AA; as NAI in the inscription III, p.9, GKU-AA; and lastly, as NII (ikanje) in inscription XV, p. 25, ATB-AA and in inscription II, p. 7, Appendix C, GKU-AA
BARO exhibits the phenomenon of betatism, an exchange among letters B, V and P. These share a similarity of sound originating in the labial area of the mouth. The original Venetic alphabet reflected this exchange by having the same symbol for both B and V. In respect to BARO [VARO(U) in dial. Sln.], another adaptive feature is the U-sound. It is quite often omitted. It is never inscribed at the end of participles. However, it is not improbable that it was not sounded at all. Today’s Croatian vernacular of Dalmatia and Lika invariably omit it. As a result, we encounter verbs in a transitive, iterative, uncompleted-action form in instances where today’s Sln. calls for an intransitive verb.
The very dial. Sln. VARO(U) (its lit Sln. counterpart being VARUJE) derives from the inf. VARATI which in its archaic origin meant “to protect, to watch over”. Vide VAR in two separate inscriptions on pp. 55 and 66, GKU-AA, VARA in inscription M-04, p. 27, GKU-AA, and the grammatical dual VORETO in the inscription XXXVIII, p. 60, ATB-AA.
Word and Meaning Comparison
Venetic Text
Meaning
Sln.
Meaning
KUD (Sc.)
where
KÓD
where
E
is
JE
is
DIARITOR
offeror, sacrificer
DARITELJ
giver, donor
(pr. DARITEL)
DARITEV
sacrifice
SVAGS
judged
ZVAGAN
weighed, balanced
ON
he
ON
he
NEI
let, let it be
NEJ (dial.)
let, let it be
NAJ (lit.)
BARO
protect
VARUOU (dial.)
protect.
VAROVAL (lit.)
(pr. VAROVAU)
LINE TWO
Marinetti’s Transcription:
2 ]-orecno.s.e.kvo.[-].jo.s.mo.1.qevejose.i.vito :X:ve.r.te.o.s.tiiariqo.r.jo.s.tane.i.v[-]-
a.q.qaplanam[
2 ]-oregnosekvo[i]bosmolteveboseivido :X:verdeosdiaritorbosdaneiv[-]-attaplanam[
Our Division:
[ ] OR E GNO SE K VO I BOS MOLTEV E BO SE I VIDO :X: VER DE OS
DIARITOR BOS DA NEI V ATTAPLANAM –[ ]
Pronunciational Guide and Punctuation:
[ ] OR JE GNO(U) SE K¶ VO I VOS MOLTEV JE BO SE I VIDO(U) :X: VER DJE
OS DIARITOR VOS DA NEI V (P)ATAPLANAM –[ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation (strained):
[ ] DARITELJ JE GNAL SE KO V VSO MOLITEV SE BO VIDEL TUDI BOG. BOG
VERI, DA JE OSTAL DARITELJ VES, DA NIV POTOPLJENJU-[ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation (looser):
[ ] DARITELJ JE GNAL SE, DA TUDI V VSEJ MOLITVI SE BO VIDEL TUDI BOG.
BOG VERI, DA OSTANE DARITEL CEL, DA NIV POTOPLJENJU-[ ]
Eng. Translation:
[ ] THE OFFEROR HAS STRIVEN THAT IN ALL HIS PRAYER SHALL BE SEEN
ALSO GOD. GOD, BE RELIABLE IN THAT THE OFFEROR REMAINS UNHARMED,
THAT HE NOT (END UP) IN DROWNING [ ]
Commentary:
-OR is very likely the suffix of DIARITOR, not only because of the context, but also because no other word in the text ends with –OR;
E is the aux. to the reflex. GNO SE, the three together to mean “pushed himself to, strived”, the subject being DIARITOR.
K is the dial. Sln. K¶ - “would it that, so that”. Vide inscription P-03, p.23 and inscription M-01b, p. 32, GKU-AA.
Still extant in Mac. and Rus., VO is the counterpart of the lit. Sln. V – “in, into, at”.
Much encountered in the Slavenetic inscriptions from ancient Gaul, the Sc. I – “and “ by its repeated use to the point of a fixation in the text, here has the meaning of “also” rather than “and”.
BOS is a very dial. Sln. VOS – “all, whole”. It is seen as VAS in the “Spada di Verona” inscription, p. 111, GKU-AA. Its contemporary colloquial equivalent is V¶S as well as VAS.
The Eng. word whole means “sound, healthy, uninjured”. It has equivalence of meaning in the Sln. CEL – “whole, all” which in the inf. CELITI – “to heal, to cure” or prefixed ZA-CEL-JEN – “healed, cured” reflects the unbrokeness of body as being “whole”.
The contemporary Sln. fut. tense has shed the additional aux. JE, but in E VO SE (-JE BO SE – “shall be”), we still encounter both the present and future tense forms of aux. BITI –“to be”.
MOLTEV is readily recognizable in today’s Lit. Sln. MOLITEV – “prayer”
VIDO is the dial. Sln. participial VIDO(U) of the lit. Sln. VIDEL (pr. VIDE(U)) – “seen”.
The context of the text predicates the symbolic representation of :X: to be for a deity. Not only does the sentence before the symbol end with it (omega), but the next sentence begins with it (alpha). We see an almost Hebraic reluctance to write the personal name of God. There is no such scrupulousness in other Slavic passages treated so far. Gods Sosin, Velis, Mithras, Ates and godess Kubeleya are quite openly named. Are the four dots on each side of the symbol to represent a cultic Tetragrammaton?
Who, then, is our offeror to stand out so staunchly to guard his God from the rest of the words in the text, as if from a contamination? That he is a seafarer is clear by his plea for protection against (P)ATAPLANAM – “drowning” and mirrored in KOMP – “boat”, VALGAM – “waves” and KERMENOS – “helmsman” (see later). To what distant eastern ports does he ply his trade?
VER (lit. Sln. VERI) is the dial. Sln. imp. of inf. VERITI – “to make reliable, trustworthy”.
DE (D¶JE and DJE) is a common colloquial contraction of DA JE - << that he/she/it is >>. The JE portion of it serves as aux. verb to OS – “remain”. Already encountered in several inscriptions from ancient Gaul and Anatolia, OS remained unaltered regardless of tense, mood or voice called for.
DA – “that, so that” is here encountered, probably because the word that follows it, i.e. NEI, starts with a consonant, and retaining the vowel A in DA makes for a more balanced cadence in speech.
NEI is the dial. Sln. NEJ – “not, is not” for the lit. NI.
V is the lit. Sln. “in, into, at”. We do not know whether an O or possibly an A followed it. The meaning, however, is clear.
-ATTAPLANAM is missing a letter at the front. By going through the alphabet the only candidate that fits is the letter P. This renders the word as the very akn. form of PATAPLANAM which can readily be identified in the contemporary lit. Sln. POTOPLJENJEM – “drowning”. This construction draws support from VALGAM – “waves” and KERMENOS – “helmsman” and KOMP – “boat, raft”.
Word and Meaning Comparison
Venetic Text
Meaning
Sln.
Meaning
(DIARIT)OR
offeror, sacrificer
DARITELJ
giver, donor
(pr. DARITEL)
E (aux.)
is, did
JE (aux.)
is, did
GNO SE (reflex.)
strived
GNAL SE
pushed himself
(pr. GNAU)
strived
(dial.) GNOU SE
K
that, so that
K¶
that, so that
VO
in, into
V
in, into
BOS
all, whole
VES (lit.)
all, whole
VAS, V¶S (dial.)
MOLTEV
prayer, plea
MOLITEV
prayer
E BO SE
shall be, will be
BO SE
shall be, will be
I
also
IN
and, also
VIDO
seen
VIDEL (pr. VIDEU)
seen
(dial.) VIDU
VER
make it trustworthy
VERI
make trustworthy
reliable
VER (dial.)
reliable
DE
that he/she/it is
D¶JE, DJE (dial.)
that he/she/it is
DIARITOR
vide supra
BOS
vide supra
DA
that, so that
DA
that, so that
NEI
not, is not
NI (lit.)
not, is not
NEJ (dial.)
V
in into
V
in, into
-ATTAPLANAM
drowning
POTOPLJENJEM
drowning.
(pr. dial. POTOPLENEM
LINE THREE
Marinetti’s Transcription:
3 ]eqa.i.io.n.va.l.ca.m.qo.om.mni.o.peto.n. : .e.lokvi.l.lo.s.to.u.ka.i.periko.n.voni.n.ko.m.pro .i.vo.s.[
3 ]etai(i)onvalgamtoom(m)niopedon : elokvillosdoukaiperikonvoninkomproivos[
Our Division:
[ ] E TAI I ON VALGAM TOOM M NIO PEDON : E LOK VIL L OS DOUKAJ PERIKON VONIN KOMP PROIV OS [ ]
Pronunciational Guide and Punctuation:
[ ] JE TAJ I ON VALGAM TOUOM M¶ NJOU PEDON : JE LOK VIL L¶ OS DOUKAJ PERIKON VONIN KOMP PROJV OS [ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation (strained):
[ ] JE TA IN ONI VALOVOM S TELESOM MI NJOJ U PEST ; JE LOK LE NAVIT OSTAL DOKAJ KOT NAPERJEN PRAV JE DUŠIN BROD OSTAL [ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation (looser):
[ ] JE SLEHERNI S TELESOM VALOVOM NJEJ (arch.) V PEST ; LE NAJ JE LOK OSTAL NAVIT DOKAJ KOT NAPERJEN V PRAVO SMER JE DUŠIN BROD [ ]
Eng. Translation:
[ ] HER BEING AND HIS THE WAVES AWAIT INTO THEIR CLUTCHING GRASP ; MAY THE BOW REMAIN UNDRAWN MUCH AS POINTED STRAIGHT – ARROW REMAINS THE SOUL’S RAFT [ ]
Commentary:
The Sc. TAJ has the Sln. counterpart in TA – “this”.
ON is lit. Sln. for “he”.
VALGAM – “to the waves” has a fem., pl., dat. case that predicates the nom. sing. to be VALGA. It is no coincidence that the Russian river VOLGA is pronounced in Rus. as VALGA.
TOOM – “with the body” omits the U one would expect between the two Os. We encounter the word as TOVO in inscription G-02, p. 45, GKU-AA and as TOBO in the Plumergat Stele inscription from Armorica (vide App. E, GKU-AA).
M is the dial. Sln. M¶ - “to me” and an example of the use of pers. pronouns for purposes of emphasis.
NIO (NJO) is fem., sing. acc. of ONA – “she”. Here it presents a grammatical dilemma in that it is not governed by VALGAM because VALGAM is pl. and dat.. The only way it could refer to VALGAM is by an implied VODA – “water” surfing in the thought process of the inscriber’s mind. An alternative explanation could be that there were other words, now lost to us, preceding E TAI containing a fem. noun to which NIO referred.
In respect to NIO, another facet is that the context of the passage at hand argues for a diphtonged NIOU, the U ushering the word that follows, PEDON, with a preposition. We have encountered such an omitted U in BARO, GNO and VIDO.
Literally meaning “into the (measure of a) span”, U PEDON conjures up the image of an outstretched hand or claw, ready to pounce.
E, JE is here aux. to VIL.
LOK is lit. Sln. – “bow”.
VIL is p.p. of inf. VITI – “to wind”.
PROIV => straight, just, right => PRAV => straight, just, right
OS => remains => OSTANE => remains
LINE FOUR
Marinetti’s Transcription:
4 ]i.me.r.ketaq--[-]-u.qe.i.tekome.i.tiie.i.kva.n.venev[?]i.s.pa.i.verokeno.n.[
4 ]imerkedat--[-]-uteidekomeidieikvanvenev[?]ispaiverokenon[
Our Division:
[ ] IM ER KE DAT ---(-) [-] U TEI DE KOMEI DIEI K VAN VENEV [?] I SPAI VERO K E N ON [ ]
Pronunciational Guide and Punctuation:
[ ] JIM JER KE DAT ---(-) [-] U TEJ D¶JE KOMEJ ZHE K¶ VAN VENEV [?] I SPAJ VERO(U) K¶ JE N¶ ON [ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation:
[ ] KER JIM TJA DATI ---(-) [-] V TEJ DA JE KOMAJ ZHE KO VEN VENEL (ODCVETEL) [?] IN V SPANJU VERIL DA NAJ JE ON [ ]
Eng. Translation:
[ ] BECAUSE THERE TO GIVE THEM ---(-) [-] IN THIS THAT HE NO SOONER WITHERED OUT THAN [?] AND SLEEPING SEEN TO IT THAT HE [ ]
Commentary:
For another instance of IM (JIM) – “them, to them” see IM in inscription B-01, p. 52 GKU-AA
ER (JER) is an arch. form of today’s lit. Sln. KER – “because”. Vide ER in inscription I p. 59, GKU-AA and inscription XXII, p. 33, ATB-AA.
KE – “there”. Vide KEDOKEY in inscription W-01b, p. 17, GKU-AA
DAT is still the Sln. colloquial usage for the lit. Sln. inf. DATI – “to give”.
U – “in, into” is still the colloquial-speech counterpart of the lit. Sln. V – “in, into”.
TEI (TEJ) – “to, to this one” is an arch. form for the fem. sing. dat. case of ONA – “she”, the preposition U preceding TEI predicating the dat. case. Vide TEJ in inscription XXXIV, p. 53, ATB-AA and in inscription W-01b, p. 17, GKU-AA.
DE (D¶JE and DJE) is a common colloquial contraction of DA JE – “that he/she/it is”.
KOMEI is the dial. Sln. for the lit. Sln. KÓMAJ – “scarcely, hardly”.
DIEI is a sound approximation of the dial. Sln. ZHEJ – “already, yet, as early as”. Due to the lack of diacritics, the ancients coined as best they could.
The second L is for the dial. Sln. L¶ - “let it, may it be that”.
OS, see OS under Commentary for Line Two.
DOUKAI – “much as, rather as” is the arch. diphtonged for of today’s DOKÁJ – “much, a good many, rather”
PERKON – “aimed, pointed at” has a contemporary lit. Sln. prefixed counterpart in (NA)PERJEN – “aimed, pointed at”.
VONIN – “of the soul, of the spirit” is an adjectivized VON – “soul, spirit” encountered in inscription III of App. C, p. 8 of GKU-AA and in inscription IV, p. 92, GKU-AA.
KOMP – “boat, raft” and PROJV – “straight, just right” for today’s PRAV with the same meaning exhibit the phenomenon of “conecutive same-sound letter reduction” seen in passages Dd-102, G-144, G-229, M-01b, M-02, W-08 and B01. Vide p. 114 GKU-AA for a fuller explanation.
For OS, see OS supra.
Word and Meaning Comparison
Venetic Text
Meaning
Sln.
Meaning
E
is
JE
is
TAI (Sc.)
this
TA
this
I
and
IN
and
ON
he
ON
he
VALGAM
to the waves
VALOVOM
to the waves
TOOM
with the body
TELOM (dial.)
TELES OM (lit.)
T¶UOM (dial.)
M
to me
M¶ (dial.)
to me
(emphasis)
MI (lit.)
(emphasis)
MIO
her
NJO (lit.)
her
NJOU (dial.)
PEDON
grasp, fist
PED
span
PEDENJ
(measure from
(pr. PEDEN)
the index to the last finger)
E (aux.)
is, did
JE (aux.)
is, did
LOK
bow
LOK
bow
VIL
wound
(NA) VIL
wound
OS
remain
OSTANE
remain
DOUKAI
much as, rather as
DOKAJ
much as, a good
many, rather
PERIKON
aimed, pointing at
(NA)PERJEN
aimed, pointing at
VONIN
of the soul
VONJEN
scented, aromatic
smelling
KOMP
boat, raft
KOMP, KOMPA
boat, raft
(Iterative, Enumeration)
SPAJ
sleeping
SPAJE
sleeping
(obsolescent)
V SPANJU
VERO
made reliable, trustworthy
VERIL (VERIV)
saw to it that it be
reliable, trustworthy
K
that, so that
K¶ (dial.)
that, so that
KO (lit.)
E
he/she/it is
JE
he, she, it is
N
let, may, may it happen
N¶ (dial.)
let, may it happen
that that
ON
he
ON
he.
LINE FIVE
Marinetti’s transcription:
5 ]preke.r.e.s.t[----]-o.1.qevejo.s.e.i.po.i.krivine.a.:\:ti.a[
5 ]-rekeresd[----]-olteveboseipoikrivinea.: \ : dia[
Our Division:
[ ] REK E RES D [-------(--)] –OLTEV E BO SE I POI KRIV I NEA :X: dia [ ]
Pronunciational Guide and Punctuation:
[ ] REK JE RAJŠ D¶ [-------(--)] –OLTEV JE BO SE I POJ KRIV I NEJA :X: dia [ ]
Sln. Lit. Translation:
[ ] JE REK RAJŠI DA [-------(--)] (M)OLITEV SE NE BO POTEM TUDI KRIVA :X: dja [ ]
Eng. Translation:
[ ] TO SAY RATHER THAT [-------](--)] THE PRAYER SHALL THEN NOT BE ALSO FALSE; DIA [ ]
Commentary:
REK – “to say” appears to be an arch. inf. of today’s dial. Sln. REKTI – “to say”.
RES is the Venetic counterpart of today’s dial. Sln. REJŠ and lit. Sln. RAJŠI, both meaning – “rather, better, sooner”.
D is the dial. Sln. D¶ for the lit. Sln. DA – “that, so that”.
Undoubtedly MOLTEV is an arch. form for the present day MOLITEV – “prayer”.
K is dial. Sln. K¶ for the lit. Sln. KO – “when, as”. KOMEI DIEI K is today’s idiom KOMAJ ZHE KO – “no sooner than”.
VAN is the Venetic counterpart for the contemporary dial. Sln. VAN and V¶N and the lit. Sln. VEN, all meaning – “out”.
VENEV is an exact sound replica of the lit. Sln. VENEL (pr. VENEV) – “withered, faded”.
I for – “and”. Even though standing alone I is Sc. for – “and”; Sln. also employs it as I …I in instances of iterative enumeration.
SPAI is a Sln. dial. gerund of the inf. SPATI – “to sleep”. However, the contemporary use of SPAJE – “sleeping” is obsolete and generally replaced by V SPANJU – “in one’s sleep”.
VERO is p.p. of inf. VERITI – “to make reliable, trustworthy”.
K is for the dial. Sln. K¶ - “that, so that”.
E is for JE – “he/she/it is”.
N is for the very dial. Sln. N¶ - “let, may, may it happen that”. Vide N in inscription G-136, p. 10 GKU-AA.
ON encountered above is for the lit. Sln. ON – “he”.
Word and Meaning Comparison
Venetic Text
Meaning
Sln.
Meaning
IM
to them
JIM
to them
ER
because
JER (dial.)
because
KER (lit.)
KE
there
DE (dial.)
there
TJA (lit.)
DAT
to give
DAT (dial.)
to give
DATI (lit.)
U
in, into
U, also V
in, into
TEI
to this one
TEJ (dial.)
to this one
TI (lit.)
DE
that he/she/it is
D¶JE, DJE
that he/she/it is
(both dial.)
KOMEI
scarcely, hardly
KOMEJ (dial.)
scarcely, hardly
KOMAJ (lit.)
DIEI
already, yet, as early as
ZHEJ (dial.)
already, yet,
ZHE (lit.)
as early as
K
when, as, that
K¶ (dial.)
when as, that
KO (lit.)
KOMEI DEI K
no sooner than
KOMAJ ZHE KO
no sooner than
VAN
out
V¶N, VAN (dial.)
out
VEN (lit.)
VENEV
withered, faded
VENEL (pr. VENEV)
withered, faded
I
(Sc.) and
IN
and
E BO SE I – “will also be” is the contemporary JE BO SE IN, BO SE TUDI. See E BO SE I under Line Two.
POI is still the adv. dial. Sln. (Gor.; RACNA) form POJ for the contemporary lit. Sln. POTEM – “then”.
KRIV is still the form of today’s lit. Sln. KRIV which has meanings ranging from “guilty, culpable, false” on one side to “curved, crooked, distorted, bent” on the other. When it comes to expressions of moral and religious judgement, it is the former group that is relevant and especially in the meaning of “false”. This can be seen in such expressions as KRIVA PRISEGA – “false oath”. PO KRIVEM – “falsely”, KRIVI BOGOVI – “false gods”, KRIV PREROK – “false prophet”, KRIVA VERA – “false belief, heresy”. Accordingly, since KRIV in the text at hand relates to (M)OLTEV – “prayer”, we are compelled to render KRIV as – “false”.
Word and Meaning Comparison
Venetic Test
Meaning
Sln.
Meaning
REK
to say
REKTI (dial. arch.)
to say
RECI (lit.)
E
is, it is
JE
is, it is
RES
rather
REJŠ (dial.)
rather
RAJŠI (dial.)
sooner
D
that, so that
D¶ (dial.)
that, so that
DA (lit.)
MOLTEV
prayer
MOLITEV
prayer
E BO SE I
will also be
(JE) BO SE IN
will also be
(strained)
SE BO TUDI
POI
then
POJ (dial.)
then
POTEM (lit.)
KRIV
false
KRIV
guilty, culpable,
false; crooked,
bent
NEA
is not
NIJE (Sc.)
is not.
LINE SIX
Marinetti’s Transcription:
6 ].s.toqikelut[-----]-niqa[--]okv-ker.me.n.oso.n.mo.l[
6 ]sdotikelud[-----]nita[--]okv-kermen-sonmol[
Our Division:
Due to its truncated state, it would be a chancy endeavor to place a definitive value on most of what is left of Line Six. The only word that comes out clearly is KERMENOS. This is an arch. form of today’s lit. Sln. KORMANUŠ – “helmsman”. The more frequent usage now is KRMAR from KRMA – “the stern (part of a boat)”. It would also be noted that A. Marinetti in the second version of the transcription [1] erroneously omits the letter O in KERMENOS which comes out quite clearly in the inscription.
Reflection
As already stated, we are indebted to Anna Marinetti for her excellent transcription. And this of an artifact that would not divulge its symbols even to photography. Her finding that the Venetic language is Indo-European of relative transparency in respect to morphology, lexicon, and syntax is also born out by the above translation.
Her further conclusion, on p. 419, that it is also tightly tied to Latin (“e anche strettamente legata (lingua) al Latino”), however, is unfortunate. It causes her to deduce by means of the Latin that the inscription has to do with “spatial” matters and has reference to animals (“ekvo(i)vos, moltevebos, elokvillos” – p. 420). Apparently, the similarity of the first of the above beasts to the Latin “equus” (horse) has induced her to this claim.
As a result, she argues that the inscription served a civic function, was of a possibly contractual nature, containing a juridical (notarial) disposition in respect to boundaries, real estate, and usufructs in relation thereto.
In view of our indebtedness for her fine transcription, we take no pleasure in having disproven her conclusions by the above translation.
Conclusion
It appears that the artifact’s votive character may have served as a prayer formula at a religious site in the vicinity of Padua. Being only some 20 miles from the Venetian Lagoon, Padua was at the center of the river systems that drain into the lagoon and into the Gulf of Venice. The prayer was structured for the mariner supplicants. The enigma of the çXç symbol in the inscription likely indicates an option as to which individual deity the supplicants plea was to have been addressed.
Bibliography
1. Marinetti A., Venetico 1976 – 1996. Acquisizioni e prospettive, in Protostoria e Storia del ‘Venetorum Angulus’, Atti del XX Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, Portogruaro – Quarto D’Altino – Este – Adria, 16-19 Ottobre 1996, Istituti Editoriali Poligrafici Internazionali, Pisa – Roma, 1999, ISBN 88-8147-169-8;
2. Ambrozic. A., Etymological Parallelism in Inscriptions, Tribal Names, Toponyms, Hydronyms, and Word Compounding from Ancient Gaul, Proceedings of the First International Topical Conference “The Veneti within the Ethnogenesis of the Central-European Population”, September 17-18, 2001 Ljubljana; Zaloznistvo Jutro, Ljubljana 2002.
3. Ambrozic A., Gordian Knot Unbound, Cythera Press, Toronto, 2002;
4. Ambozic A., Adieu to Brittany: a transcription and translation of Venetic passages and toponyms, Cythera Press, Toronto, 1999;
5. Tomezzoli G., Cudinov V. A., The “Spada di Verona”, Proceedings of the Conference “Ancient Settlers of Central Europe”, September 28, 2002, Ljubljana; Zaloznistvo Jutro, Ljubljana 2003.
Povzetek
=> Napis “Tavola da Esta”
Predstavljena je delitev, prevod, jezikoslovna raziskava in ovrednotenje napisa Tavola da Este. Videti je, da je predmet votivnega znacaja in da je sluzil kot molitveni obrazec v nekem svetiscu v blizini Padove.
Abbreviations
acc.
Accusative
fut.
Future Tense
p., pp.
Page(s)
adj.
Adjective
gen.
Genitive
pers.
Personal
adv.
Adverb
imp.
Imperative
pl.
Plural
akn.
Akanje
inf.
Infinitive
pr.
Pronounce
arch.
Archaic
L.
Latin
p.p.
Past Participle
aux.
Auxiliary Verb
lit.
Literary
reflex
Reflexive
dat.
Dative
Mac.
Macedonian
Rus.
Russian
dial.
Dialectal
masc.
Masculine
SC.
Serbo – Croatian
Eng.
English
nom.
Nominative
sing.
Singular
fem.
Feminine
O.Phr.
Old Phrygian
Sln.
Slovenian
Source URL: http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/ambrozic.html
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Musings on the Macedonian Language
by Odisej Belchevsky
November, 2003
If someone were to tell you there are words in the English language (as well as other European languages) that have their roots in Macedonian it might sound unusual and you may not readliy accept the idea.
After much study, however, I have analyzed some 2000 words and my work indicates they are related to the Macedonian language.
I have gone back to 1500 BC and confirmed the existence of Macedonian words in Europe's most ancient writings -- The Homeric Poems.
I have found words with roots in Macedonian that lead to other words. Many are actual language concepts with their structure in Macedonian. They form, or are part of, "families of words." These concepts do not exist in English, German or French, but are found in the so-called Slavonic languages.
How many are even aware that in 2003 the World Association for Rock Art Inscriptions established Macedonia as having the world's highest number of stone carvings and inscriptions since prehistory?
As part of my studies I have created a rule for establishing the roots of a word by the use of what I call "functional etymology". In simple terms, most words can be explained by finding their family and related or "sister" words and then searching for their functional meaning in practical life. I have taken a number of years to test this rule and proven it in many instances.
In official Oxford sources the root of many English words is given as "of unknown" or "obscure" origin. However, by using the Macedonian language some of them can be explained.
I have talked to linguists about this but usually their comments are evasive as they try to avoid the subject. There is not a single linguist in the Western world I know of that has done any related studies.
Let me make it clear that I am not talking here of universal words such as radio, tank, television, radar, coffee, laser, etc. I am talking about basic, fundamental words like: water, watch, wade, warden, book, trek, shire, path, meek, divine, odometer, etc. This, of course, is only a tiny example.
When comparing these words with Macedonian words I had to go back and use the Old English and Old Germanic forms in order to acquire the proper meaning. I discovered that the older form is usually closer to the Macedonian meaning. Let me offer a few examples that explain how we can find the meaning of a word, its family relations, its roots and concepts:
Water - Wota - Woda - Voda
Water (Voda) conceptually derives its name because it is a liquid and moves. When we pour it, it takes the lead or moves ahead and creates its own path. By simply observing nature we see that rivers move and flow. These rivers, if large enough, are used as natural paths and roadways.
In Macedonian this word is important and at the root of the concepts of movement and leading as well as other related words. This is the "key" that unlocks the meaning of many other words and concepts.
Voda (Water) relates to vodi meaning to lead or to carry.
From here we have odi - to go, to travel, to move. This contains two fundamental word particles in Macedonian that indicate movement or displacement.
These are: "od" (from), and "do" (to) and together they create oddo (od + do) that again leads to "odi" meaning to go, to travel, to move. These particles are always used when describing movement, from one point to another.
Thus we get the following:
Voda - vadi, vade, navadi, livada (a moist or green pasture).
Note here the English term "wade" which means to move in water.
Vodi - to lead
Vodach - leader
Voditel - leader
Vodici - Holy day associated with water
Vodenje - leading
Voden, Vodensko, etc., place names of wet regions
Navodni, navadi - to water
Uvod - the beginning and summary of a book
Navod - to bring forward
Uvedi - to bring into a record
The Concept of Movement
The concept of movement has developed from water
Voda, Vodi = V + Odi
Odi, ode, ojde, ajde, otide, ide, idi
I have found the verb form idi (iti) in the Homeric poems dating back to 1500 BC.
Doide - came
Sjoide - went
Po-odi(e)- short walk
From here we can explain the meanings of many other words, for example:
Odometer - Odo = to move or go + Meter = to measure. In Macedonian (odomeri).
In electricity we have terms like, Anode. "An" is old Macedonian word for "Na" (Nad) meaning on or above + ode = go, move. Thus anode is explained as to go above or bring above.
Cathode - In Macedonian we have k'ti, kutni = bring down, + ode = go, move. Thus cathode is explained as to go down or to bring down.
Itinerary - has the Macedonian verb Idi (iti) = go, move, travel, as well as the noun Idenje = traveling.
If we turn briefly to Greek we can see that the Greek language has borrowed from this large family /concept the word -"Odos "- street and "odeo" to travel, mainly found in the Homeric poems. However this concept of movement simply does not exist in Greek, English or many other European languages (Except in the Slavonic languages).
Unfortunately, the Oxford and Webster authorities have referred to many of these words as "Greek" without any convincing proof as to their roots or families.
Here is a brief explanation of the remaining English words mentioned here:
Vardi, Varde - to watch or guard in Macedonian (Warden,Guard in English)
Bookva, bookvar - Book
Trk (trka trcha, trkalo) - Trek
Shirina, shirinka - Shire
Pat - Path
Mek, Meko - Meek
Divina, Divovi - Divine
In Macedonian "bookvar" is the very first "book" for learning to read and write. The word bookvar is related to a large family of words. This represents the larger concepts of learning and writing.
Alphabet, Learning, Writing and Science
Booka (buka) - In Macedonian this is a type of birch tree the bark of which is used to make paper tablets for writing*
Bukva, Bukvi - the letters of the alphabet
Bookvar - elementary learning book
Azbooka = (J)azik (Tongue or Language) + Bukva (Alphabetic Character) - used for reading and writing.
Nauka, uka - Science of learning, Learning
Nauchnik - Scientist
Nauchi, Uchi - to learn
Uchilishte - school
Uchitel - teacher
* In 1992 in Stobi, an ancient archaeological site near Veles, Macedonia, a wood-paged book was discovered along with a bottle for ink and a writing pen. Also in the Homeric Poems of approximately 1500 BC there is mention of the Ancient (Magic) wooden tablets that contained the letters /symbols that "spoke". The writing was done on the wooden surface prepared with natural bees wax and scratched with a solid /metal pen like tool .
These examples only "scratch the surface" of what I have found, but indicate the Macedonian language may have had an influence on other European languages from early times.
In the past many unknown inscriptions were dubiously identified as possibly Greek or unknown but, as I mentioned, they can easily be translated with the use of Macedonian and other Slavonic languages. Scholars will have to consider this influence if they want to get a better understanding of the languages in Europe.
Odisej Belchevsky,
Macedonian Language Researcher
You can contact the author at: [email protected]
All rights in using or propagating this material are strictly reserved by the author
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Confronting Ethnic Cleansing in Tetovo, Macedonia
Michael Seraphinoff
July 21, 2002
click here for a printable version
The Issue
The term "ethnic cleansing" first gained widespread usage in the English language by way of Serbo-Croatian during the time of the war in Bosnia following the break up of Yugoslavia in the mid 1990s. It might be defined as a systematic campaign of terror waged by one ethnic group in a region in order to drive out another group that makes its home there.
The victims of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans belong to nearly every ethnic group, as do the perpetrators. Serbs have ethnically cleansed Bosnian Muslims from villages in eastern Bosnia. Croats have ethnically cleansed Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia. Albanians have ethnically cleansed Gypsies and Serbs from Kosovo and Macedonians from western Macedonia. Greeks have for over a hundred years been engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Macedonians from northern Greece. And Macedonians are also responsible for a recent incident of ethnic cleansing, when a Macedonian mob in the central Macedonian town of Bitola burned down the shops and homes of Albanians there in retaliation for the murder of Macedonian soldiers from Bitola by Albanians in the western Macedonian town of Tetovo.
The fact that members of nearly every ethnic group have at some time victimized their neighbors has provided outsiders with an easy rationale for ignoring desperate pleas for help from individuals and communities under attack. "Those people have always been killing each other" is a mantra that is often used to drown out the cries of the victims.
For those who choose the lovely simplicity of this response, there is little that one can say or do that would stir them to action on behalf of the victims of ethnic cleansing. It is responses such as this that allowed a ship filled with thousands of Jews to be sent back to Germany from a U.S. port of entry during the height of the Holocaust. This is why 6000 unarmed men in Srebrenica, Bosnia could be slaughtered by Serbian soldiers while U.S. jet fighter planes sat idly nearby in 1995.
This is why nearly a million people of Rwanda, men, women and children, could be slaughtered by their raging neighbors while the world looked on.
Yet I know that there are those who would, in the name of justice, bear witness to such crimes against humanity. To them I offer the following documented accounts of the brutal campaign of intimidation and murder of Macedonians in western Macedonia by organized Albanian groups. In the absence of widespread public knowledge and condemnation of the ethnic-based violence committed against these people, their suffering will only serve the aims of their tormentors. It will only serve the forced eviction of the minority ethnic Macedonian community in western Macedonia from ancestral homes in thousand-year-old settlements.
Background
The fighting in western Macedonia began as isolated attacks in the early spring of 2001 by armed and uniform wearing Albanian insurgents who claimed that their quarrel was with the government and its forces in Macedonia.
They also claimed that their goal was to achieve more equal rights for the Albanian minority population of Macedonia. However, in July of 2001 after achieving a sufficient mobilization of the local Albanian population, they began the conquest of territory where the Albanian population formed the majority.
Western journalists have continued to portray this insurgency as some kind of armed civil rights movement, but the reality on the ground is quite different. The insurgents have, in fact, achieved a permanent occupation of territory through an on-going campaign of ethnic cleansing. It is now clear that in July of 2001 there was a sudden shift in the focus of their movement from conflict with police and army units to systematic terrorization of the civilian ethnic Macedonian minority in the occupied territories.
Evidence
One of the first documented cases of such terrorization in occupied western Macedonia occurred on July 8, 2001 in the village of Neproshteno, about 7 miles north of the city of Tetovo. Thirty year old Darko Boshkovski was alone, unarmed and in civilian clothes when he was abducted from his car at a road block near his home that day. He reported that it was about 6:30 in the evening when a group of about 150 men in Albanian National Liberation Army NLA uniforms stopped his car and forced him at gun point to accompany them first to the nearby village of Poroj, and then to Drenovec 2, and finally to the village of Gjermo.
There he was locked in a horse stall with two horses. He was blindfolded and questioned about his father, a retired policeman who had worked on drug-related crimes, and his possible family connection to Interior Minister Ljube Boshkovski. Then his arms were stretched and bound behind him with a rope that also bent his back to the point where breathing was made difficult. He was then repeatedly beaten over the course of the evening by a series of men, some with fists, others with clubs or shovels. He was also tied to a horse and dragged around the barn and later force fed horse urine and dung.
About 1:30 in the morning NLA commander Avzi came and told him that they were releasing him. They then took him by car to the city of Tetovo and delivered him to his waiting family, his wife and parents, who had paid a ransom for his release. He was warned not to reveal what had happened to him under the threat of further violence.
He was later treated for numerous wounds, including serious internal injuries, at the local hospital and later at a sanatorium in Serbia. When his family was finally able to return to their home in the village months later they discovered that their house, shop and outbuildings had all been looted and burned. Darko's automobile, a tractor and all of the goods from their building supply business had been stolen.
A year later the family remains homeless and destitute. All that they had slowly built up or acquired over the years was gone. And visits to the village or nearby town are made all the more painful by the open presence, after the public amnesty of the rebels, of those who tortured him and destroyed his family's home and livelihood in western Macedonia. It wasn't just the Macedonian authorities and press who were reporting such incidents either. According to a report issued on July 26 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, their mission human rights specialists found evidence of numerous human rights violations by the rebel NLA forces. Their report on their meeting with three young Macedonian men who were being treated for injuries at the hospital in Tetovo on Friday, July 20, 2001 is typical of what they found during their investigation.
Although the young men refused to participate in a formal interview, the Mission report states that they were able to learn the following: "These persons appeared extremely fearful of Mission's presence, but ultimately consented to showing their injuries to the investigator. There were chafing marks on their wrists that appeared consistent with their hands being bound. By observing the pattern of the bruises and abrasions, it appeared they had been beaten whilst their hands were bound behind their backs. From the appearance of their injuries, it appeared they had been struck with rifle butts and wooden or metal rods, objects typically associated with the kinds of deep bruising observed on the subjects.
[One person stated briefly that a particular pattern of injuries had been caused by being struck with a wooden broom handle and a police baton.]
All had been beaten on the soles of their feet as well as on the back of the legs.
One had reduced kidney function upon admission, but was improving. These impressions were later confirmed in conversations with the attending doctor. It was also discovered that the 3 young men had attended an engagement party and were standing outside the house of one of them when a car with 3 armed NLA members drove up and accosted them. They were roughed up, blindfolded, and driven to a location where the beating was administered."
These two incidents were among the first of what soon proved to be a series of abductions and beatings of unarmed individuals or small groups of Macedonian civilians in the western part of the country. By July 23, the OSCE Mission had received credible information that at least 25 people had been abducted at gun point in the Tetovo region. The ethnic cultural basis for these attacks can be seen in the case of Macedonian Orthodox Christian priest Perica Bojkovski. He was first threatened by an Albanian armed group on July 14, 2001. At that time he was pulled out of his car by an armed group that blocked the road at the village of Odri. At that time men dressed in the black uniforms and wearing the insignia of the Albanian NLA beat the priest and told him not to come back to his parish.
Three weeks later on August 9 Father Bojkovski was stopped again during a visit to one of the mountain villages that were his responsibility. At the time he was riding in a car with Pero Marchevski on the way to the village of Dobroshte. They were both dragged from the car by armed men wearing NLA uniforms. They were taken by car to the village of Djepchishte, where they were put in a barn. There they were questioned about the names of reserve policemen and the location of army and police units in the villages they visited. When their interrogators didn't receive the answers they sought, they began to beat the two men with guns and fists. They also put a gun barrel in the priest's mouth during the interrogation.
Their captors then drove them to another location in the village where about fifteen young men in civilian clothes awaited them in a cellar.
This new group continued the beating, which included demands that the priest sing Albanian nationalist songs and the call of the Moslems to worship.
Eventually the priest lost consciousness and was revived with cold water. When it was discovered that he was coughing up blood, he and his companion were driven back to the village of Dobroshte, where they were again beaten and then released at their car.
Father Bojkovski was later treated at the Military Hospital in Skopje, where doctors found injuries over the entire length of the priest's body.
This maltreatment of a cleric who carried no weapons and traveled openly in his religious dress on his priestly duties was clearly intended to intimidate the Christian Macedonians in that parish. It was meant to teach the lesson that no one from their ethnic religious cultural community was safe there any longer. Ethnic cleansing in western Macedonia by organized Albanian armed groups took on a truly mass character on the 23rd of July 2001. At that time the NLA launched a series of attacks on the mixed Macedonian-Albanian villages of Tearce and Neproshteno and the all-Macedonian village of Leshok in direct violation of a cease fire that their leadership had signed on to the preceding week. Poorly armed policemen and a few local reservists tried to defend the villages, but they were overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of hundreds of heavily armed NLA fighters.
The NLA soldiers went door to door rousting people from their homes, from the smallest child to the oldest grandmother. Several thousand people were driven out with little or no time to gather any possessions and with little hope that there would be anything to return to later. Long lines of people, many hundreds, were forced to make their way on foot to the nearby Macedonian hamlets of Ratae and Zhilche.
Some did resist. Men who had invested years of their lives in the creation of a home, and those who could not bring themselves to abandon homesteads and communities with over a thousand years of family history in them. Some defended their homes with guns. Many resisted the invaders until it was clear that they could not win, and then they retreated along with their families.
Others resisted until they were wounded or killed by the NLA. About a dozen men of Leshok and Neproshteno were wounded that day and one, Gjoko Lazarevski, died from his wounds. He was 30 years old. He had just completed construction of a new home, and he was soon to be married.
The NLA aggression and ethnic cleansing of Leshok, Gjoko Lazarevski's home village, was among the most indefensible acts of the recent conflict.
The aggression took place in direct violation of a cease-fire agreement signed by the NLA with NATO mediation. It involved the occupation of a village that had never had a single Albanian inhabitant in its several thousand year history. It resulted in the criminal looting and destruction of the lifelong personal possessions and property of all of the residents.
The NLA would later, completely outside the military conflict, set explosive charges under the foundation of a Macedonian and world cultural monument in Leshok, a beautiful Orthodox church, first built in the 14th century and expanded into a grand cathedral in the 20th century, reducing the Church of St. Atanasij to a pile of rubble. And one young man who tried to resist this ethnic cleansing was made the ultimate example of what resistance would bring, when he paid with his life.
The campaign of ethnic cleansing that day also included one of the worst crimes of terror imaginable, the abduction that ends in disappearance of individuals from a community. On July 23, 2001 NLA gunmen abducted 52 year old Cvetko Mihajlovski from a wheat field near his home in the village of Neproshteno. At the same time they took his 37 year old son Vasko, whose wedding had taken place the night before, and an elderly neighbor, 69 year old Krsto Gogovski, from their homes in the same village. They were led at gunpoint in some unknown direction and have never been reliably heard from since.
That same day 62 year old Dimo Dimoski, who was visiting his wheat field in the neighboring settlement of Djepchishte, was also taken by NLA gunmen.
And the next day 60 year old Sime Jakimovski was literally taken off the street of a suburb of Tetovo called Drenovec 1. The day after that, July 26, 2001, in that same northern suburb of Tetovo, where some of the most heated fighting between NLA and government troops would occur, 47 year old Gjoko Sinadinovski and 28 year old Bobi Jeftimovski were taken. Elsewhere on that same day the NLA apparently also took 48 year old Ilko Trajchevski and his 25 year old son Vasko Trajchevski. Two weeks later, also in the vicinity of Drenovec, two brothers, 59 year old Slavko and 42 year old Boshko Dimitrievski were taken by the NLA.
The families and friends of these 12 men have endured over a year of agony-filled uncertainty concerning the fate of their loved ones. NLA commanders claim no knowledge of these men. Swedish Ambassador to Macedonia Lars Wahlund recently headed an international commission to determine the facts of some 20 cases of unsolved abductions during the time of the conflict last year. His commission concluded that NLA commanders probably know the fate of the Macedonians abducted, and Macedonian officials may know the fate of several missing Albanians and a Bulgarian, but no one will reveal what they know.
Angelina Mihajlovska has waited for over a year for news of her husband Vasko. The day after their wedding she and her husband and most of the guests at their wedding were kidnapped by the NLA. She and some others were released after three days. But there is a rumor that she received her husband's ear and a hand later from local NLA commander Leka. This was said to be in retaliation for Vasko having pulled a gun on Leka when he and his men appeared at their wedding. The commission concluded that it was likely that Leka in particular does know the fate of 8 of the Macedonian men seized in his district of operations in July of 2001. Several bodies exhumed from a site near Neproshteno, according to the commission report may yet prove to be some of the missing. But people like Angelina Mihajlovska have no choice but to continue a campaign of public protest before the public, the government and the international community in Macedonia until the fate of their loved ones is resolved.
And today they must occasionally pass amnestied NLA leaders such as commander Leka on the streets, men who probably know of their missing men even if they are not directly responsible for their fate.
During the six month's of the open conflict 15 civilians from the Tetovo region are known to have been killed and many others injured. The dead included Naca and Petar Petrovski, a mother and son whose car hit a land mine set by Albanian rebels on the road between Leshok and Zhilche in mid July of 2001. It also included the particularly gruesome murder of two night custodians at the Hotel Brioni in the village of Chelopek. One night late in August Albanian gunmen appeared at this Macedonian-owned business. They took the two hotel employees present at the time prisoner, named Svetislav Trpkovski and Bogoslav Ilievski. They then mined the premises with explosive charges and blew up the hotel, at the same time killing the two workmen, who they had tied up and left inside the building to die.
Other grisly crimes committed against Macedonian civilians by armed Albanian groups during this period included the abduction and torture on August 8, 2001 of four construction workers from a site on the Tetovo-Skopje highway.
These four men, who were later released, reported to authorities that in addition to beatings, they were subjected to sexual abuse by their Albanian captors, and in a final act of barbarism before letting them go, they carved the initials of the rebel group into the living flesh of the backs of their captives with knives.
Abductions, robberies and brutal beatings of unarmed civilians in the Tetovo region have continued since the open conflict ended in the fall of 2001.
On the 3rd of November 2001, for example, 32 year old Cane Trpevski was returning to his home in the village of Ratae from Tetovo, where he had gone to pick up his monthly wages, when he was captured by an armed Albanian group. They robbed him and then held him for two days. During that time they beat him over the entire length of his body, while keeping his hands tied and with a feed sack placed over his head. He reported that the worst part of his ordeal had been the fact that during that entire time they had refused to give him a single drop of water to drink.
Reserve policeman Dushko Simoski received similar treatment as recently as April 14, 2002, when he was taken prisoner by an armed Albanian group in the village of Shemshevo. They also held him bound and blindfolded in a livestock stall, while brutally beating him for over two days, before he was finally released. Of course, active policemen and soldiers of the Macedonian army have suffered their share as well at the hands of Albanian armed groups, but at least their suffering came in the course of their sworn service, for which they are honored today for their sacrifices.
The continued campaign of terror, death and destruction includes the looting and burning of over thirty churches in the Tetovo region since hostilities began last spring and many hundreds of houses. As recently as this past month the looting and destruction of Macedonian homes continued in outlying villages such as Otunje or Varvara, and even certain Tetovo neighborhoods continue to lose residents who find life unbearable there.
It also includes the destruction of many Macedonian-owned businesses, thus denying the people their livelihoods. These have included destruction of a textile factory and bakery in the village of Tearce, small shops, restaurants and gas stations in Tetovo, and the infamous destruction of the Brioni Hotel in the village of Chelopek. Of course, many thousands of people were denied their livelihood simply because they did not dare to go to work this past year. Farmers couldn't reach their fields and other workers couldn't drive the roads to various workplaces. And the Popova Shapka major ski center on the picturesque mountain above Tetovo had no tourist season this past year.
Conclusions
While the practice of ethnic cleansing is universally condemned as a crime against an entire people, it is rarely ever stopped or reversed once it begins somewhere. The fear and hatred that it creates only serves to accelerate the further division of the ethnic communities. It takes some enormous effort of public will and the expenditure of considerable resources by a society or state or the international community to halt the process.
Therefore, it is particularly important at this time that Macedonians, inside and outside the country, consider carefully whether they are willing to support their countrymen trapped today in the tragedy of the on-going ethnic cleansing of the Tetovo region. Real security must be reestablished there. Schools, churches, businesses and homes must be rebuilt. Hope for a peaceful and prosperous future there must be restored.
However, this will only be possible with money and support from outside.
The Macedonians of Tetovo cannot do it by themselves. And so far they have mainly received only "lip service" from concerned government agencies, including the international community. Far too little help has actually reached them. As a result, Macedonians continue to offer their property for sale in predominantly Albanian areas, with the aim to leave Tetovo and their unhappy memories of recent life there forever behind them.
This is something that should concern all Macedonians. All who take some pride in the language, the history, the culture, the land and the people, should consider what kind of a Macedonian homeland will remain if the historically Macedonian, resource rich Tetovo region loses its entire Macedonian population and is finally traded off in a "land for peace" arrangement not unlike the one that Israelis and Palestinians are slowly being drawn into. Only a long-term effort by the entire Macedonian community can possibly avert such a disaster from happening. There certainly are things that each of us can do individually, and things that we can do collectively. Victor Bivell has suggested one of the most important of these in his recent article, "Restoring Peace and Prosperity to Macedonia - The Rule of Numbers", where he urges serious consideration of how to facilitate the return of Macedonian emigrees and their off-spring to their homeland. But this must include some serious consideration of how to facilitate return to places such as Tetovo, where Macedonians today understandably look only for ways to escape.
Michael Seraphinoff July 21, 2002
Ph.D. Slavic Languages and Macedonian Studies, University of Washington, USA Author of the book, The 19th Century Macedonian Awakening, University Press of America, 1996. Examiner Responsible for Macedonian for the International Baccalaureate Organization, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Sources for this article:
OSCE Human Rights Report, July 26, 2001 web posted: realitymacedonia.org.mk
Dnevnik, "Pogreban Gjoko Lazarevski - branitel na Lesok" 7/31/01 dnevnik.com.mk
Nova Makedonija, "Teroristite me kidnapiraa, me tepaa i me teraa da pejam kako odja!" 17 Avgust 2001
Macedonian Information Agency, "Terrorists demolished more than 30 churches and monasteries" web posted October 16, 2001 realitymacedonia.org.mk
Dnevnik, "They were beating me for two days, without even giving me some water" web posted: November 8, 2001, realitymacedonia.org.mk
Dnevnik, "Dene sozivot, noke - bez zivot!" 12/02/01 dnevnik.com.mk
Sitel TV, "All the Civilian Casualties" Saroska, Marina (transl. Ilievska, Aleksandra) web posted: December 11, 2001 realitymacedonia.org.mk
Dnevnik, "Opustoseno seloto Varvara - Tetovsko" 3/13/02 dnevnik.com.mk
Vest, "Potresna ispoved na zitel od tetovskoto selo Neprosteno" 4/6/02 vest.com.mk
Dnevnik, "Nasilstvata na albancite prodolzuvaat", Nikolovski, Dejan. 4/25/02
Australian Macedonian Weekly, "Restoring Peace and Prosperity to Macedonia - The Rule of Numbers", Bivell, Victor. July 2, 2002
A1 Vesti, "ONA i MVR ja znaat vistinata za kidnapiranite" 7/8/02 a1.com.mk
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Tetovo and Greater Albania:
Tetovo During World War II, 1941-1944
By Carl K. Savich
August 26, 2001
Introduction
The practical implementation of the Greater Albania ideology was achieved during World War II when Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini established a German/Italian sponsored Albanian state, which incorporated Western Macedonia, Illirida, Kosovo-Metohija, Kosova, and southern Montenegro. Hitler and Mussolini set the historical and political precedent for the creation of Greater Albania, which existed from 1941 to 1944. The Orthodox Slavic populations, the Roma and Jewish populations were to be exterminated and deported. Albanian was made the official language in Kosovo, Western Macedonia, and southern Montenegro. The Albanian Lek was introduced as the official currency. The Albanian national flag, a double-headed black eagle on a red background, was raised in the occupied areas. Hitler and Mussolini had achieved a Greater or Ethnic Albania. The UCK, the so-called Albanian Liberation Army, known also by the acronyms the NLA/KLA/ANA/KPC/LAPMB, seeks to re-establish and to re-create the Greater Albania first created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The agenda, the goals, and the objectives of the UCK are identical to those of the ideologues of Greater Albania during World War II who created a Greater Albania in Western Macedonia, Kosovo-Metohija, and southern Montenegro. Western Macedonia and the city of Tetovo are integral and inseparable components or parts of the Greater Albania ideology. Greater Albania would be incomplete without Western Macedonia. What is being witnessed in Kosovo and in Macedonia today is a repeat or replay of what occurred during World War II, when Hitler and Mussolini established Greater Albania.
Albanian Nazi's were especially brutal to Orthodox clergy
Murder of an Orthodox priest in Devic, WWII
Tetovo during World War II: Italian Occupation, 1941-1943
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini established Greater Albania in 1941 following the occupation and dismemberment of Yugoslavia. On April 6, 1941, Germany and allies Italy, Albania, Hungary, and Bulgaria invaded Yugoslavia in Operation Punishment. Yugoslavia was subsequently occupied and dismembered. Hitler and Mussolini then sponsored a Greater Albanian state, which included territory from Western Macedonia, Kosovo-Metohija, and southern Montenegro.
Tetovo became a part of Albania. The borders of Albania were enlarged to include not only Tetovo, or Tetova in Albanian, but all of Western Macedonia (Illirida), Kosovo-Metohija, and regions of Montenegro. Present-day Macedonia (Republic of Macedonia) was divided between Albania and Bulgaria. Tetovo was in the Italian zone of occupation until September 3,1943, when Italy surrendered and Germany re-occupied Macedonia. Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia formed the National Albanian Committee to advance the Greater Albania movement and agenda. The Balli Kombetar (BK, National Union) was formed by Midhat Frasheri and Ali Klissura to advance the Greater Albania ideology or cause. The Slavic Orthodox populations were targeted for deportation or murder. The Jews and Roma were similarly to be deported or killed.
Hitler and Mussolini had given the ethnic Albanians Greater Albania. In August 1941, the Italian occupation forces in Tetovo established a prison for prisoners of war. The Italian occupation authorities gave the civil authority and administration to the Albanian population. All Albanian-inhabited territories, Western Macedonia, Illirida, Kosovo-Metohija, Kosova, and southern Montenegro, were integrated completely into Albania proper. Albanian language schools, an Albanian press, an Albanian radio network were established and an Albanian governmental and political administration was created. Vulnetara, an Albanian paramilitary formation, was organized. Albanian police units were established by the Italian occupation force. Albanian became the official language as Western Macedonia or Illirida became a part of Albania. The Albanian national flag, the double-headed black eagle on a red background, was raised in Tetovo and other cities and towns in Western Macedonia. The Albanian Lek was introduced as the official currency. Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, Debar, and Kichevo were the key municipalities and districts in Western Macedonia incorporated into Albania, a Greater Albania. Eastern Macedonia was occupied by Bulgarian military forces.
Macedonia was divided between Albania and Bulgaria. Hitler and Mussolini sought to delineate the borders between Greater Albania and Greater Bulgaria. The Albanians and their Italian sponsors wanted to enlarge the borders of Albania eastward encroaching on Bulgarian occupied territory. The Bulgarians sought to expand westward. On April 20 and 21, 1941, the German foreign minister, Joachim Ribbentrop, and the Italian foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, met in Vienna to discuss the Bulgarian occupation zone and the enlargement of the borders of Greater Albania eastward. Ribbentrop emphasized the importance of the mines in Kosovo-Metohija and Macedonia that were vital to the strategic interests of Germany. The German and Italian supreme commands reached an agreement on the final demarcation line in Macedonia. Hitler approved the agreement on April 25. The agreement was tentative, however, and was not a final, complete agreement on demarcation lines. The agreement was abandoned later as Italy and Bulgaria could not agree on a border between their two occupation zones in Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija. Later in 1941, the two sides were able to reach an understanding on where the border should be.
The Italian occupation forces appointed Albanian Dzaferi Sulejmani the president of the Tetovo district. The vice-president was Albanian Munir Tevshana who had come from Albania. Later, Zejnel Starova and Shaib Kamberi replaced him. Kamberi worked for the Italian intelligence service. Selim Shaipi was the representative for Tetovo and was the leader of the Albanian youth movement. Shaipi was also a representative of the Second League of Prizren and was the president of the Third Balli Kombetar Committee. Shaipi fled with the German Army when Tetovo was evacuated in 1944. Husein Derala was made the commander of the gendarmes units in Tetovo by the Italian occupation forces.
The Albanian administration targeted the Orthodox, Slavic populations for elimination, disenfranchisement, de-recognition, and expulsion. Feyzi Alizoti called for the extermination and deportation of non-Muslims. The Greater Albania ideology was anti-Orthodox, anti-Slavic in nature, and atrocities, deportations, and murders were committed against the Slavic, Orthodox populations. Josip Kovac, a Slovenian who was placed in charge of the Tetovo hospital by the Axis forces, described the anti-Orthodox, anti-Christian, anti-Slavic activity of Alizoti as follows:
There were exceptionally hard times in the annexed areas of Western Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija when Fejzi Alizoti, the High Commissioner, visited. He gave a speech in Tetovo that demanded the annihilation of the non-Muslim communities. Publicly and openly he stated that there would be no peace until the last foreigner---Orthodox Christians---leaves his territory and settles across the border and only ethnic Albanians are left behind. Following his visit, the situation deteriorated and became unbearable for all non-Muslims.
Albanian Nazi's destroyed many Orthodox shrines in WWII
Nuns return to the ruins of the Devic Monastery in 1950
The Italian military intelligence service, OVRA, formed an independent battalion in occupied Tetovo. The battalion was named "Ljuboten", a special unit made up of ethnic Albanians in the Tetovo region. This Italian-created Albanian Axis unit was to uncover, question, and annihilate any resistance to the occupation. After the surrender of Italy in 1943, the German forces retained this Albanian formation allowing the unit to keep their Italian-issued uniforms and weapons. Members of the Balli Kombetar later joined the Ljuboten battalion. At the end of 1943, the Ljuboten unit was engaged in the attack on Kichevo in Macedonia.
The Italian occupation of Western Macedonia allowed the Albanian population to create an ethnic Albanian-ruled region. Albanian police and paramilitary units were formed as a proxy army by the Italian forces. The civil administration was entrusted by the Italians to Albanian leaders. Albanian became the official language; the civil and police administration was taken over by ethnic Albanians; Albanian schools, newspapers, and radio stations were established. Tetovo became Tetova, an Albanian Muslim city in the newly-expanded Albanian state.
Early History
From the 14th century, Tetovo has been an Orthodox Slavic settlement founded around the Orthodox Church of Sveta Bogorodica (Saint Mother of God) near the mountain source of the Pena River in the Polog valley. Sveta Bogorodica was built in the 13th century when Tetovo began to be regarded as a major Orthodox Church center. Tetovo was the first center of the Orthodox episcopate. The oldest settlement in Tetovo is the region around the Sveta Bogorodica Orthodox Church. The modern city of Tetovo grew from this small medieval Orthodox Slavic settlement of Htetovo with the building and construction of houses around the Orthodox Church.
The Ottoman Turkish Muslim Empire invaded and occupied present-day Macedonia beginning in the 14th century. The Muslim Turks began settling and colonizing Macedonia with Turkish settlers. The Ottoman Turks began the Turkification and Islamicization of Macedonia. The Ottoman Turks altered the Orthodox Slavic nature of Tetovo, which in Turkish was renamed Kalkandele. The Ottoman Turks began settling the level lowlands of Tetovo. The Colored or Painted Mosque (Aladzha or Sharena Dzamija), also known as the Pasha Mosque, was built in 1459 by the Ottoman Turks. The earlier Slavic Orthodox population concentration in Tetovo was on the high ground and on the foothills of the Shar Planina or Mountain range.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the city began to expand greatly. The city was divided into the Orthodox Slavic quarter and the Muslim Turkish quarter. The Orthodox Slavic quarter or section was on the left side, on the Pena River, made up of the Potok, Dva Bresta, Koltuk, Sveti Nikola, Dol, Pevchina, and Dolno regions. The Turkish Muslim quarter or section included the following regions: The Colored Mosque (Sharena Dzamija) region, Banja, Gorna Charshija, Gamgan, and Saat. After World War II, the ethnic mosaic of the city changed with the displacement of the Serbian Orthodox and Turkish Muslim populations. The city then acquired its present ethnic configuration of Macedonian Orthodox and Muslim Albanians. Different city subdivisions emerged. New settlements and districts were formed such as Przhova Bavcha, Tabakaana, Gazaana, the Teteks textile plant district, and the Boulevard "Boris Kidric".
In the town of Leshok, which had been known as Legen Grad, in the Tetovo municipality, is located the Leshok Monastery which includes the Orthodox Church of the Holy Virgin built in 1326 and the Sveti Athanasius Orthodox Church built in 1924. The tomb of the Orthodox scholar Kiril Pejchinovic lies in the Leshok Monastery. The Church has three layers of frescoes: The lower layer was built in 1326, the middle layer was built in the 17th century, and the top layer was built in 1879. The Leshok Monastery symbolizes the Christian Orthodox origin of the region. The UCK separatists deliberately mined and demolished the Monastery in August 2001, to eradicate and cleanse any Christian Orthodox influence. Cultural cleansing is to be followed by the ethnic cleansing of the Christian Orthodox population. The UCK has ethnically cleansed or driven out much of the non-Albanian population from the Tetovo district.
Tetovo and its population have undergone an evolution and development over the centuries. Like a palimpsest, a parchment that has been written upon over time but that leaves impressions made on earlier layers and substrata, the city of Tetovo has accumulated layers and strata of the different populations, religions, and cultures that have existed in the city. The city presents a palimpsest or mosaic of the differing populations and cultures that have not been erased but remain to reveal the development and growth of the city.
In the 15th century, Tetovo began to be regarded as a major city in the region. The Turkish writer Mehmed Beg in 1436 in the Vakuf noted that Tetovo had stores and shops and was one of the most prosperous regions in the Polog valley. In 1470, Mehmed Kebir Chelebija noted the rapid development of Tetovo. In 1565, under Ottoman Turkish rule and occupation, Tetovo was refereed to as the "episcopal religious place Htetovo", an Orthodox religious center, the seat of the Orthodox Church and domicile of the Orthodox religious leader. Haji Kalfa in the 17th century noted in his writings that Kalkandele, the Turkish name for Tetovo, that the city was expanding.
In the 19th century, the population of Tetovo began to increase with settlement from the surrounding villages. The French traveler Ami Bue noted that the population was approximately 4,000-5,000 persons in the 1900s. Half of the population was made up of Orthodox Slavs. In the Turkish quarter, there were the upper and lower Turkish charshi and the Konaci of the wealthy Turkish begs. Many clean streets were noted by the travelers. A. Griezenbach estimated there were 1,500 houses or dwellings in the city. By the end of the 19th century, the population increased as Tetovo became an important trading center. In 1912, the population declined due to the migration of the Turkish population and their resettlement to Turkey.
A large garrison of Ottoman Turkish troops was stationed in Tetovo during the 19th century when the city was a major military/strategic base. During the latter half of the 19th century, Ottoman Turkey was referred to as "the sick man of Europe" because it could not maintain its occupation and colonies in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Ottoman Turkey suffered military defeats as a consequence of the Bosnian Insurrection by the Serbian Orthodox populations of 1875 and the First Balkan War in 1912.
Herbert Vivian published his account of his travels to Macedonia in 1904 and offered his eyewitness accounts of Kalkandele (Tetovo) under Turkish rule. Vivian described Tetovo as follows:
Kalkandele is even more beautiful than most Turkish towns. Every house has its garden and a rippling rivulet, tall poplars and cypresses rise up beside the glistening minarets, storks' nests, are poised upon the chimneys, weather-beaten wooden dwellings of fantastic shape are relieved by the gay arrangement, always artistic, of Turkish shops, and the women are among the most gorgeously attired in all Macedonia.
Vivian described the Macedonian system as a "semi-feudal system". The landed estates are governed by chifji or seigneurs. The peasants have to pay a third of their crop every year in lieu of rent. Macedonians "lead a medieval life". Vivian noted the tension between the Orthodox Christians and the Muslim Albanians. Muslims were allowed to own weapons, but Christians were forbidden to own any arms. Vivian explained:
This question of arms is one which exercises the Macedonians excessively. It is a standing grievance with the Christians that they are forbidden to possess arms, while the Albanians bristle with weapons.
Vivian observed the ethnic and religious polarization and animus between the Orthodox Christian population and the Muslim Albanian population. In Tetovo, he was a guest of the Serbian Orthodox Prota, or archdeacon. Vivian described the residence as follows:
His house was like a fortress. A high wall protected his smiling garden and huge doors were heavily barricaded at sundown. ... I asked the cause of all these precautions, and was told much about the fanaticism of the population, who might at any time wish to raid a Christian household.
Albanian Muslims sought to incorporate Western Macedonia, Illirida, into a Greater Albanian state following the 1878 Albanian League of Prizren in Kosovo-Metohija, which enunciated the Greater Albania ideology. In 1912, Albanian insurgents seized and occupied Skopje itself, demanding that the Ottoman Turkish regime grant them a Greater Albania.
Settlement
In the 18th century, the population of Tetovo began to increase. Residents from the following surrounding villages and suburbs began to settle in Tetovo: Brodec, Lisec, Selce, Poroj, Shipkovica, Gajre, Zhelino, Dobri Dol, Zherovjane, Novake, Gorno Palchiste, Senokos, Kamenane, and Gradec. Orthodox Macedonians, Bektashi and Sunni Muslim Albanians, Sunni Muslim Turks, Orthodox Serbs, and Roma were the major population groups of the city. By the end of the 19th century, the population of Tetovo was 19,000. The Slavic Orthodox villages and towns in the Tetovo municipality or district included Vratnica, Staro Selo, Tearce, Leshok, Belovishte, Jegunovce, Rogachevo, and Neproshteno.
Tetovo or Htetovo was originally an Orthodox Christian settlement. With the Ottoman Turkish conquest, the city was settled by Turks from Anatolia, Asia Minor, and Bulgaria. For much of its history, Tetovo was divided between the Orthodox Slavic section and the Muslim Turkish section. The majority of the Albanian settlement of Tetovo and the surrounding villages resulted due to an influx of Albanian migration and settlement from Albania. Albanian settlement is relatively recent and is due to Albanian migrations from Albania proper into the Polog valley. The Albanian migrations originated in the Albanian districts of Findi Berdita and Luma in Albania. Albanian migration and settlement in Tetovo and the surrounding villages from Albania began only in the 18th and 19th centuries. The massive, intensive migrations of Albanian settlers from Albania proper began slowly to alter the ethnic composition of the majority Slavic Orthodox city. Settlers also came from Kosovo-Metohija. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Orthodox Christians migrated out of Tetovo for economic and political reasons. The total Slavic migration out of the city amounted to 5,500 during this period. During World War I, 2,000 left. After World War I, 5,000 Turks migrated to Turkey. Following World War II, another large group of Turks migrated out of the city. These migrations of Turks again changed the ethnic make-up of the city leaving Macedonian Orthodox and Albanian Muslim populations as the bulk of the population of the city.
Tetovo: German Occupation, 1943-44
The surrender of Italy on September 3, 1943 forced Germany to re-occupy Tetovo and Western Macedonia. Germany organized the XXI Mountain Corps, led by General Paul Bader, made up of the 100th Jaeger Division, the 297th Infantry Division and the German 1st Mountain Division, to occupy the territory abandoned by the Italian forces. The German forces wanted to recruit and enlist ethnic Albanians into proxy armies that would assist the German occupation. The Germans retained the Albanian "Ljuboten" battalion initially formed by the Italian occupation forces. The Waffen SS sought to incorporate the Albanian manpower of the region into Waffen SS formations, as a German/SS proxy army to maintain the military occupation of the Orthodox populations. In 1943, the German occupation authorities sponsored the formation of the Second League of Prizren, reviving the 1878 League. The Germans sought to use the racist, extremist, anti-democratic, anti-Orthodox, anti-Slavic agenda of the Greater Albania ideology to maintain and support their occupation of Kosovo and Western Macedonia. Bedri Pejani, the president of the central committee of the Second League of Prizren, a militant and extremist Greater Albania ideologue, even wrote Himmler personally to request his assistance in establishing a Greater Albania and volunteering Albanian troops to work jointly with the Waffen SS and German Wehrmacht. Himmler read the Pejani letter and agreed to form two ethnic Albanian Waffen SS Divisions. Like Hitler and Mussolini, Himmler became an active sponsor of the Greater Albania ideology.
On April 17, 1944, Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler approved the formation of an Albanian Waffen SS Division, which was then subsequently approved by Adolf Hitler. The SS Main Office envisioned an Albanian division of 10,000 troops. The Balli Kombetar, the Albanian Committees, and the Second League of Prizren submitted the names of 11,398 recruits for the division. Of these, 9,275 were adjudged to be suitable for drafting into the Waffen SS. Of this number, 6,491 ethnic Albanians were actually drafted into the Waffen SS. A reinforced battalion of approximately 200-300 ethnic Albanians, the III/Waffen Gebirgsjaeger Regiment 50, serving in the Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Handzar" or "Handschar" were transferred to the newly forming division. To this Albanian core were added veteran German troops from Austria and Volksdeutsche officers, NCOS, and enlisted men. The total strength of the Albanian Waffen SS Division would be 8,500-9,000 men.
The official designation of the division would be 21. Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" (Albanische Nr.1). Himmler planned to form a second Albanian division, Albanische Nr. 2. The SS Main Office designed a special arm patch for the division, consisting of a black, double-headed eagle on a red background, the national flag/symbol for Albania. The UCK/KLA/NLA/ANA/LAMBP would have an identical arm patch in their separatist/terrorist war for "greater rights" and "human rights" in the 1998/99 Kosovo conflict and the "insurgency" in Macedonia in 2001.The SS Main Office also designed a strip with the word "Skanderbeg" embroidered across it as well as a gray skullcap with the Totenkopf (Death's Head) insignia of the SS below the Hoheitszeichen (the national symbol of Nazi Germany, consisting of a silver eagle over a Nazi swastika). Josef Fitzhum, the SS leader in Albania, commanded the division during the formation stages. In June, 1944, August Schmidhuber, the SS Stardartenfuehrer in the 7th SS Division "Prinz Eugen", was transferred to command the division. Alfred Graf commanded the division in August and subsequently when the division was reorganized.
The 21st SS Skanderbeg Division indiscriminately massacred Serbian Orthodox civilians in Kosovo-Metohija, forcing 10,000 Kosovo Serbian Orthodox families to flee Kosovo. Albanian colonists and settlers from northern Albania then took over the lands and homes of the displaced/cleansed Orthodox Serbs. The goal of the Skanderbeg SS division was to create a Serbien frei and Juden frei and Roma frei Kosova, an ethnically pure and homogenous region of Greater Albania. In Illirida, or Western Macedonia, the Skanderbeg SS Division sought to create a Macedonian frei, Orthodox frei, Slavic frei region. The Albanian SS troops played a key role in the Holocaust, the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, which the sponsor of the Greater Albania ideology, Heinrich Himmler, organized. On May 14, 1944, the Skanderbeg SS Division raided Kosovo Jewish homes and businesses in Pristina. The Albanian SS troops acting as a proxy for the German occupation forces rounded up 281 Kosovo Jews who were subsequently killed at Bergen-Belsen. The Skanderbeg SS Division targeted Macedonian and Serb Christians, Roma, and Jews when the division occupied Tetovo and Skopje and other towns and cities in Western Macedonia. The goal and agenda of the ethnic Albanian Skanderbeg Waffen SS Division was to advance the Greater Albania ideology by deporting and killing the non-Albanian populations of Western Macedonia.
The Skanderbeg SS Division was formed at a time in the war when Germany was retreating and withdrawing its forces from the Balkans. The Russian Red Army was inflicting severe losses on the German military forces. By November, 1944, the Germans were withdrawing their forces from the Aegean islands and from Greece. At this time, the Skanderbeg Division remnants were reorganized into Regimentgruppe 21. SS Gebirgs "Skanderbeg" when it was transferred to Skopje. The Kampfgruppe "Skanderbeg", in conjunction with the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", defended the Vardar River valley in Macedonia to allow Alexander Loehr's Army Group E to retreat from Greece and the Aegean. The Vardar Valley was crucial as an escape corridor for the retreating German military forces.
The Skanderbeg SS Division crossed into Macedonia and occupied Tetovo and Skopje in the early part of September, 1944. The purpose for the occupation was to garrison Macedonia and safeguard the retreat of German troops from Greece and the Aegean peninsula. By 1944, the German forces in the Balkans were in a defensive posture and were focusing their strategic efforts on a well-ordered retreat and withdrawal. The Bulgarian forces and the Italian forces had occupied Macedonia. The Bulgarian army continued to occupy Macedonia and their presence threatened the German retreat. The Skanderbeg SS Division occupied the Skopje and Kumanovo regions of Macedonia and the Preshevo and Bujanovac region of southern Serbia. The German XXI Mountain Corps was based in Tirana. The Germans also had the 181st Infantry Division at Lake Scutari and the 297 Infantry Division at Valona, both based in Albania, to prevent an Allied landing force in the Adriatic. The German XXI Mountain Corps crossed into Macedonia from Tirana, the capital of Albania and moved northward past Debar and the Tetovo and Gostivar area. By October 1, 1944, the 21st SS Division Skanderbeg then occupied Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. The first Regiment of the Skanderbeg Division occupied Tetovo. A Reconnaissance Battalion of Skanderbeg occupied Djakovica while a Signals Battalion occupied Prizen in Kosovo-Metohija. The Skanderbeg SS Division was based in the towns of Tetovo, Skopje, Prizren, Pec, Djakovica, Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina, and Novi Pazar.
The SS ideology in forming "volunteer" Waffen SS Divisions of non-German nationalities was that the Waffen SS was advancing the cause of national liberation and national freedom for oppressed/repressed nationalities and aggrieved ethnic minorities. So the Waffen SS perceived itself as a military organization under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler which was made up of national "freedom fighters" advancing the cause of national liberation, freedom, and independence. NATO/US/EU would adopt the identical interventionist/occupation strategy or paradigm in the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict and the 2001 Macedonian conflict. The policy was divide and conquer. The SS exploited minorities and nationality groups in the various countries they sought to occupy and dismember. These oppressed/repressed national/ethnic groups and minorities were a natural Fifth Column in every country targeted for military occupation. Heinrich Himmler's SS took on the cause of "liberation" and freedom/independence for oppressed/repressed minorities and nationality groups. Foremost amongst the groups for SS sponsorship were the ethnic Albanians in the Balkans and the Palestinians in the Middle East. Indeed, Palestinian national leader Haj Amin el Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, worked closely with Himmler and the SS and supported the Albanian and Bosnian Muslim aspirations to "independence" and separatism from Slavic Orthodox Christian countries. The SS argued that the countries the SS sought to occupy and dismember were "artificial" nations or states. But how is an artificial state to be defined and who was to make the conclusion? Germany itself was an "artificial" state established by Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck through military occupation and annexation. Germany consisted of many ethnic groups and many different religions. Bismarck launched wars against Denmark and Austria-Hungary to dismember those nations and to annex their territory to a Greater Germany. The creation of the artificial German state was through military force, through annexation and occupation, achieved by a Prussian military dictatorship and not through democratic means. Germany was thus itself an "artificial" state achieved through war by the Prussian army. National liberation of oppressed/repressed nationalities and minorities nevertheless remained the ideological basis for the Waffen SS. Later, this identical paradigm would be adopted by NATO/US/EU.
Heinrich Himmler was buttressed in his support of the Greater Albania ideology by Italian archeological research that purported to show that the Albanian Ghegs were of Aryan/Nordic origin, that they were the herrenmensch, the master race. Himmler planned to establish two ethnic Albanian Waffen SS Divisions but the war ended before this could be accomplished. This is the reason the Skanderbeg SS Division is referred to as the "Albanische Nr.1" in the SS records.
By January, 1945, remnants of the Skanderbeg Waffen SS Division would retreat to Kosovska Mitrovica in Kosovo and then to Brcko in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Skanderbeg remnants would reach Austria in May, 1945, when Germany surrendered following the military and political collapse of regime.
Albanian and German Occupation Forces in Macedonia
The German occupation forces retained the Albanian civil, political, military, and police control and administration of Western Macedonia. The Albanian national flag was flown, the official language was Albanian, and the Albanian Lek remained the official currency in Illirida. The Germans retained the incorporation of Western Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija into a Greater Albania. Rejeb Bey Mitrovica, however, was replaced by Fikri Dine as the Prime Minister of the Greater Albanian state occupied by the German Wehrmacht. The Albanian Minister of the Interior was Dzafer Deva. Mustafa Kruja and Mehdi Bey Frasheri also held high positions in the Albanian regime. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who had replaced Reinhard Heydrich as the leader of the SD, was instrumental in setting up the Albanian Nazi Party, which replaced the Albanian Fascist Party that the Italian authorities had set up previously. Much of the civilian and military administration was exercised by ethnic Albanians during both the Italian and German occupations. In Tetovo, there was a total of 1,500 ethnic Albanian Waffen SS troops, members of the 1st Regiment of the Skanderbeg SS Division. In Gostivar, there were 1,000 Albanian SS troops, while in Struga there were 100, and 900 in Debar. In Kichevo, there were 1,500 Albanian SS troops. The total number of Albanian SS troops in Western Macedonia was 5,000. The Albanians made up the police force in Western Macedonia: In Tetovo, there were 16 members of the police force, in Gostivar 10, in Struga 11, in Debar 16, and in Kichevo, 5. There were a total of 5,500 members of the Balli Kombetar in Macedonia, 2,000 of which were based in Tetovo. There was a total of 250 Albanian gendarme units, or armed police units, in Tetovo. An Albanian Battalion for Security made up of 800 members was based in Tetovo. In addition, there were 80 Albanian finasi troops and border guards. The total number of Albanian police and paramilitary units in Tetovo during the German occupation was 4,646. The German Army only had 450 German troops and three Gestapo agents in Tetovo and a total of 2,180 troops and 34 Gestapo agents in all of Western Macedonia. Instead, the German occupation forces created a proxy army and police staff made up of ethnic Albanians, collaborationists who acted as the proxies for the German military forces. Like the Italian occupation forces had done before them, the German military was able to use the Albanian police and paramilitary forces as a proxy force.
The German Army used Albanian separatists to create a proxy army of occupation and administration in Tetovo and other cities and towns in Western Macedonia which were annexed to Albania. By furthering and advancing the agenda of the Greater Albania ideology, the German occupation forces ensured that their military occupation of the region would be safeguarded and assured. The German Army in 1998-2001 would play a similar role in the Kosovo and Macedonia conflicts. NATO would pursue an identical policy to that of the Italian/German occupation forces during the 1941-1944 period. The Greater Albania ideology would serve the same purpose again, expediting the military occupation and establishing a proxy army that would act on behalf of the NATO occupation forces. The racist and separatist Greater Albania ideology would be sponsored and furthered by NATO, like it had been by the German/Italian forces, to expedite the occupation and military, economic, and political control and exploitation of first Kosovo-Metohija and then Macedonia.
Conclusion
The Greater Albania established by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini from 1941 to 1944 set the historical precedent for establishing an ethnically homogenous Albanian state which would encompass all areas settled by Albanians. The UCK/KLA/NLA/ANA/KPC/LAMPB goal and agenda is to re-establish and re-form Hitler's and Mussolini's Greater Albania. The Albanian nationalist goal, the UCK goal, is Greater Albania. The terrorist insurgency by the UCK, first in Kosovo-Metohija, then in Southern Serbia, and then in Macedonia, ostensibly to obtain "greater rights" and "equal" and "human rights" is in fact a war of territorial occupation and partition. The British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG) has noted that Tetovo is the focus of the Greater Albania movement which seeks to turn the Slavic Orthodox city into a center or capital of an ethnically pure Albanian district or municipality. The BHHRG stated that the population of Tetovo was 40% Macedonian Orthodox but that there was intense pressure to make the city into an Albanian town, based on the model of Kosovo where the Serbian Orthodox towns and cities were depopulated of non-Albanians creating an ethnically pure and ethnically homogenous Kosova, a de facto "independent" statelet demanding de jure recognition. The BHHRG alleged that Arben Xhaferi of the DPA appointed all local police chiefs in Tetovo. The DPA radicalizes the Albanian population and pressures the Albanian youth to become nationalist and separatist according to the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. The Group further alleges that Albanian youth are being pressured to attend the Albanian-language University of Tetova with a ideological curriculum based on that followed in Tirana and Pristina. The University of Tetova is nothing more than a boot camp for the indoctrination and training for the establishment of a Greater Albania. Xhaferi seeks to repeat in Tetovo what was done in Pristina. According to BHHRG, this compelled and forced separatist and Greater Albania ideological agitation has not met with unanimous approval within the Albanian population in Tetovo: "Not all local Albanians are happy with these developments. During the war some sent their sons to Serbia to prevent their mobilization into the KLA." The BHHRG further alleged that "the regional weapons market is run from Tetovo." Menduh Thaci of the DPA is alleged to control Tetovo's shops and the black market, such as in oil. There is widespread political corruption and collusion with political leaders. The goal of the Albanian policies, according to the BHHRG, is to force Macedonians to leave Tetovo by a "subtle ethnic cleansing." The Christian population is the target of the Greater Albania separatists. The Kosovo model is being repeated in Tetovo, transforming an Orthodox Christian Slavic city into an Islamic Albanian city. Pristina is the blueprint. Kosovo is the model. The ultimate goal or agenda of the UCK separatists/terrorists is the partition/federalization of Western Macedonia, Illirida. Autonomy or de facto partition is the short-term goal. Independence from Macedonia is the long-term goal based on the Kosovo paradigm.
The UCK seeks to re-establish and re-create the Greater Albania created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini from 1941 to 1944. History is being repeated and replayed in Macedonia.
Bibliography
Ivanov, Pavle Dzeletovic. 21. SS Divizija Skenderbeg. Belgrade, Yugoslavia: Nova Knjiga, 1987. (In Serbian.)
Kane, Steve. "The 21st SS Mountain Division." Siegrunen: The Waffen-SS in Historical Perspective. Vol.6, 36, October-December, 1984.
Landwehr, Richard. "The 21. Waffen-Gebirgs Division der SS 'Skanderbeg' (Albanische Nr. 1)." Siegrunen: The Waffen-SS in Historical Perspective. Vol. 6, 36, October-December, 1984.
Munoz, Antonio. Forgotten Legions: Obscure Combat Formations of the Waffen SS. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1991.
Stefanovski, Zhivko, and Eftoski, Gojko. Tetovo i Okolinata. Tetovo, Macedonia: Centar za Informiranje i Izdavachka Dejnost "Polog", 1980. (In Macedonian.)
Vivian, Herbert. The Servian Tragedy. London, UK: Grant Richards, 1904.
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Tetovo and Greater Albania:
Tetovo During World War II, 1941-1944
By Carl K. Savich
August 26, 2001
Introduction
The practical implementation of the Greater Albania ideology was achieved during World War II when Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini established a German/Italian sponsored Albanian state, which incorporated Western Macedonia, Illirida, Kosovo-Metohija, Kosova, and southern Montenegro. Hitler and Mussolini set the historical and political precedent for the creation of Greater Albania, which existed from 1941 to 1944. The Orthodox Slavic populations, the Roma and Jewish populations were to be exterminated and deported. Albanian was made the official language in Kosovo, Western Macedonia, and southern Montenegro. The Albanian Lek was introduced as the official currency. The Albanian national flag, a double-headed black eagle on a red background, was raised in the occupied areas. Hitler and Mussolini had achieved a Greater or Ethnic Albania. The UCK, the so-called Albanian Liberation Army, known also by the acronyms the NLA/KLA/ANA/KPC/LAPMB, seeks to re-establish and to re-create the Greater Albania first created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The agenda, the goals, and the objectives of the UCK are identical to those of the ideologues of Greater Albania during World War II who created a Greater Albania in Western Macedonia, Kosovo-Metohija, and southern Montenegro. Western Macedonia and the city of Tetovo are integral and inseparable components or parts of the Greater Albania ideology. Greater Albania would be incomplete without Western Macedonia. What is being witnessed in Kosovo and in Macedonia today is a repeat or replay of what occurred during World War II, when Hitler and Mussolini established Greater Albania.
Albanian Nazi's were especially brutal to Orthodox clergy
Murder of an Orthodox priest in Devic, WWII
Tetovo during World War II: Italian Occupation, 1941-1943
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini established Greater Albania in 1941 following the occupation and dismemberment of Yugoslavia. On April 6, 1941, Germany and allies Italy, Albania, Hungary, and Bulgaria invaded Yugoslavia in Operation Punishment. Yugoslavia was subsequently occupied and dismembered. Hitler and Mussolini then sponsored a Greater Albanian state, which included territory from Western Macedonia, Kosovo-Metohija, and southern Montenegro.
Tetovo became a part of Albania. The borders of Albania were enlarged to include not only Tetovo, or Tetova in Albanian, but all of Western Macedonia (Illirida), Kosovo-Metohija, and regions of Montenegro. Present-day Macedonia (Republic of Macedonia) was divided between Albania and Bulgaria. Tetovo was in the Italian zone of occupation until September 3,1943, when Italy surrendered and Germany re-occupied Macedonia. Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia formed the National Albanian Committee to advance the Greater Albania movement and agenda. The Balli Kombetar (BK, National Union) was formed by Midhat Frasheri and Ali Klissura to advance the Greater Albania ideology or cause. The Slavic Orthodox populations were targeted for deportation or murder. The Jews and Roma were similarly to be deported or killed.
Hitler and Mussolini had given the ethnic Albanians Greater Albania. In August 1941, the Italian occupation forces in Tetovo established a prison for prisoners of war. The Italian occupation authorities gave the civil authority and administration to the Albanian population. All Albanian-inhabited territories, Western Macedonia, Illirida, Kosovo-Metohija, Kosova, and southern Montenegro, were integrated completely into Albania proper. Albanian language schools, an Albanian press, an Albanian radio network were established and an Albanian governmental and political administration was created. Vulnetara, an Albanian paramilitary formation, was organized. Albanian police units were established by the Italian occupation force. Albanian became the official language as Western Macedonia or Illirida became a part of Albania. The Albanian national flag, the double-headed black eagle on a red background, was raised in Tetovo and other cities and towns in Western Macedonia. The Albanian Lek was introduced as the official currency. Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, Debar, and Kichevo were the key municipalities and districts in Western Macedonia incorporated into Albania, a Greater Albania. Eastern Macedonia was occupied by Bulgarian military forces.
Macedonia was divided between Albania and Bulgaria. Hitler and Mussolini sought to delineate the borders between Greater Albania and Greater Bulgaria. The Albanians and their Italian sponsors wanted to enlarge the borders of Albania eastward encroaching on Bulgarian occupied territory. The Bulgarians sought to expand westward. On April 20 and 21, 1941, the German foreign minister, Joachim Ribbentrop, and the Italian foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, met in Vienna to discuss the Bulgarian occupation zone and the enlargement of the borders of Greater Albania eastward. Ribbentrop emphasized the importance of the mines in Kosovo-Metohija and Macedonia that were vital to the strategic interests of Germany. The German and Italian supreme commands reached an agreement on the final demarcation line in Macedonia. Hitler approved the agreement on April 25. The agreement was tentative, however, and was not a final, complete agreement on demarcation lines. The agreement was abandoned later as Italy and Bulgaria could not agree on a border between their two occupation zones in Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija. Later in 1941, the two sides were able to reach an understanding on where the border should be.
The Italian occupation forces appointed Albanian Dzaferi Sulejmani the president of the Tetovo district. The vice-president was Albanian Munir Tevshana who had come from Albania. Later, Zejnel Starova and Shaib Kamberi replaced him. Kamberi worked for the Italian intelligence service. Selim Shaipi was the representative for Tetovo and was the leader of the Albanian youth movement. Shaipi was also a representative of the Second League of Prizren and was the president of the Third Balli Kombetar Committee. Shaipi fled with the German Army when Tetovo was evacuated in 1944. Husein Derala was made the commander of the gendarmes units in Tetovo by the Italian occupation forces.
The Albanian administration targeted the Orthodox, Slavic populations for elimination, disenfranchisement, de-recognition, and expulsion. Feyzi Alizoti called for the extermination and deportation of non-Muslims. The Greater Albania ideology was anti-Orthodox, anti-Slavic in nature, and atrocities, deportations, and murders were committed against the Slavic, Orthodox populations. Josip Kovac, a Slovenian who was placed in charge of the Tetovo hospital by the Axis forces, described the anti-Orthodox, anti-Christian, anti-Slavic activity of Alizoti as follows:
There were exceptionally hard times in the annexed areas of Western Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija when Fejzi Alizoti, the High Commissioner, visited. He gave a speech in Tetovo that demanded the annihilation of the non-Muslim communities. Publicly and openly he stated that there would be no peace until the last foreigner---Orthodox Christians---leaves his territory and settles across the border and only ethnic Albanians are left behind. Following his visit, the situation deteriorated and became unbearable for all non-Muslims.
Albanian Nazi's destroyed many Orthodox shrines in WWII
Nuns return to the ruins of the Devic Monastery in 1950
The Italian military intelligence service, OVRA, formed an independent battalion in occupied Tetovo. The battalion was named "Ljuboten", a special unit made up of ethnic Albanians in the Tetovo region. This Italian-created Albanian Axis unit was to uncover, question, and annihilate any resistance to the occupation. After the surrender of Italy in 1943, the German forces retained this Albanian formation allowing the unit to keep their Italian-issued uniforms and weapons. Members of the Balli Kombetar later joined the Ljuboten battalion. At the end of 1943, the Ljuboten unit was engaged in the attack on Kichevo in Macedonia.
The Italian occupation of Western Macedonia allowed the Albanian population to create an ethnic Albanian-ruled region. Albanian police and paramilitary units were formed as a proxy army by the Italian forces. The civil administration was entrusted by the Italians to Albanian leaders. Albanian became the official language; the civil and police administration was taken over by ethnic Albanians; Albanian schools, newspapers, and radio stations were established. Tetovo became Tetova, an Albanian Muslim city in the newly-expanded Albanian state.
Early History
From the 14th century, Tetovo has been an Orthodox Slavic settlement founded around the Orthodox Church of Sveta Bogorodica (Saint Mother of God) near the mountain source of the Pena River in the Polog valley. Sveta Bogorodica was built in the 13th century when Tetovo began to be regarded as a major Orthodox Church center. Tetovo was the first center of the Orthodox episcopate. The oldest settlement in Tetovo is the region around the Sveta Bogorodica Orthodox Church. The modern city of Tetovo grew from this small medieval Orthodox Slavic settlement of Htetovo with the building and construction of houses around the Orthodox Church.
The Ottoman Turkish Muslim Empire invaded and occupied present-day Macedonia beginning in the 14th century. The Muslim Turks began settling and colonizing Macedonia with Turkish settlers. The Ottoman Turks began the Turkification and Islamicization of Macedonia. The Ottoman Turks altered the Orthodox Slavic nature of Tetovo, which in Turkish was renamed Kalkandele. The Ottoman Turks began settling the level lowlands of Tetovo. The Colored or Painted Mosque (Aladzha or Sharena Dzamija), also known as the Pasha Mosque, was built in 1459 by the Ottoman Turks. The earlier Slavic Orthodox population concentration in Tetovo was on the high ground and on the foothills of the Shar Planina or Mountain range.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the city began to expand greatly. The city was divided into the Orthodox Slavic quarter and the Muslim Turkish quarter. The Orthodox Slavic quarter or section was on the left side, on the Pena River, made up of the Potok, Dva Bresta, Koltuk, Sveti Nikola, Dol, Pevchina, and Dolno regions. The Turkish Muslim quarter or section included the following regions: The Colored Mosque (Sharena Dzamija) region, Banja, Gorna Charshija, Gamgan, and Saat. After World War II, the ethnic mosaic of the city changed with the displacement of the Serbian Orthodox and Turkish Muslim populations. The city then acquired its present ethnic configuration of Macedonian Orthodox and Muslim Albanians. Different city subdivisions emerged. New settlements and districts were formed such as Przhova Bavcha, Tabakaana, Gazaana, the Teteks textile plant district, and the Boulevard "Boris Kidric".
In the town of Leshok, which had been known as Legen Grad, in the Tetovo municipality, is located the Leshok Monastery which includes the Orthodox Church of the Holy Virgin built in 1326 and the Sveti Athanasius Orthodox Church built in 1924. The tomb of the Orthodox scholar Kiril Pejchinovic lies in the Leshok Monastery. The Church has three layers of frescoes: The lower layer was built in 1326, the middle layer was built in the 17th century, and the top layer was built in 1879. The Leshok Monastery symbolizes the Christian Orthodox origin of the region. The UCK separatists deliberately mined and demolished the Monastery in August 2001, to eradicate and cleanse any Christian Orthodox influence. Cultural cleansing is to be followed by the ethnic cleansing of the Christian Orthodox population. The UCK has ethnically cleansed or driven out much of the non-Albanian population from the Tetovo district.
Tetovo and its population have undergone an evolution and development over the centuries. Like a palimpsest, a parchment that has been written upon over time but that leaves impressions made on earlier layers and substrata, the city of Tetovo has accumulated layers and strata of the different populations, religions, and cultures that have existed in the city. The city presents a palimpsest or mosaic of the differing populations and cultures that have not been erased but remain to reveal the development and growth of the city.
In the 15th century, Tetovo began to be regarded as a major city in the region. The Turkish writer Mehmed Beg in 1436 in the Vakuf noted that Tetovo had stores and shops and was one of the most prosperous regions in the Polog valley. In 1470, Mehmed Kebir Chelebija noted the rapid development of Tetovo. In 1565, under Ottoman Turkish rule and occupation, Tetovo was refereed to as the "episcopal religious place Htetovo", an Orthodox religious center, the seat of the Orthodox Church and domicile of the Orthodox religious leader. Haji Kalfa in the 17th century noted in his writings that Kalkandele, the Turkish name for Tetovo, that the city was expanding.
In the 19th century, the population of Tetovo began to increase with settlement from the surrounding villages. The French traveler Ami Bue noted that the population was approximately 4,000-5,000 persons in the 1900s. Half of the population was made up of Orthodox Slavs. In the Turkish quarter, there were the upper and lower Turkish charshi and the Konaci of the wealthy Turkish begs. Many clean streets were noted by the travelers. A. Griezenbach estimated there were 1,500 houses or dwellings in the city. By the end of the 19th century, the population increased as Tetovo became an important trading center. In 1912, the population declined due to the migration of the Turkish population and their resettlement to Turkey.
A large garrison of Ottoman Turkish troops was stationed in Tetovo during the 19th century when the city was a major military/strategic base. During the latter half of the 19th century, Ottoman Turkey was referred to as "the sick man of Europe" because it could not maintain its occupation and colonies in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Ottoman Turkey suffered military defeats as a consequence of the Bosnian Insurrection by the Serbian Orthodox populations of 1875 and the First Balkan War in 1912.
Herbert Vivian published his account of his travels to Macedonia in 1904 and offered his eyewitness accounts of Kalkandele (Tetovo) under Turkish rule. Vivian described Tetovo as follows:
Kalkandele is even more beautiful than most Turkish towns. Every house has its garden and a rippling rivulet, tall poplars and cypresses rise up beside the glistening minarets, storks' nests, are poised upon the chimneys, weather-beaten wooden dwellings of fantastic shape are relieved by the gay arrangement, always artistic, of Turkish shops, and the women are among the most gorgeously attired in all Macedonia.
Vivian described the Macedonian system as a "semi-feudal system". The landed estates are governed by chifji or seigneurs. The peasants have to pay a third of their crop every year in lieu of rent. Macedonians "lead a medieval life". Vivian noted the tension between the Orthodox Christians and the Muslim Albanians. Muslims were allowed to own weapons, but Christians were forbidden to own any arms. Vivian explained:
This question of arms is one which exercises the Macedonians excessively. It is a standing grievance with the Christians that they are forbidden to possess arms, while the Albanians bristle with weapons.
Vivian observed the ethnic and religious polarization and animus between the Orthodox Christian population and the Muslim Albanian population. In Tetovo, he was a guest of the Serbian Orthodox Prota, or archdeacon. Vivian described the residence as follows:
His house was like a fortress. A high wall protected his smiling garden and huge doors were heavily barricaded at sundown. ... I asked the cause of all these precautions, and was told much about the fanaticism of the population, who might at any time wish to raid a Christian household.
Albanian Muslims sought to incorporate Western Macedonia, Illirida, into a Greater Albanian state following the 1878 Albanian League of Prizren in Kosovo-Metohija, which enunciated the Greater Albania ideology. In 1912, Albanian insurgents seized and occupied Skopje itself, demanding that the Ottoman Turkish regime grant them a Greater Albania.
Settlement
In the 18th century, the population of Tetovo began to increase. Residents from the following surrounding villages and suburbs began to settle in Tetovo: Brodec, Lisec, Selce, Poroj, Shipkovica, Gajre, Zhelino, Dobri Dol, Zherovjane, Novake, Gorno Palchiste, Senokos, Kamenane, and Gradec. Orthodox Macedonians, Bektashi and Sunni Muslim Albanians, Sunni Muslim Turks, Orthodox Serbs, and Roma were the major population groups of the city. By the end of the 19th century, the population of Tetovo was 19,000. The Slavic Orthodox villages and towns in the Tetovo municipality or district included Vratnica, Staro Selo, Tearce, Leshok, Belovishte, Jegunovce, Rogachevo, and Neproshteno.
Tetovo or Htetovo was originally an Orthodox Christian settlement. With the Ottoman Turkish conquest, the city was settled by Turks from Anatolia, Asia Minor, and Bulgaria. For much of its history, Tetovo was divided between the Orthodox Slavic section and the Muslim Turkish section. The majority of the Albanian settlement of Tetovo and the surrounding villages resulted due to an influx of Albanian migration and settlement from Albania. Albanian settlement is relatively recent and is due to Albanian migrations from Albania proper into the Polog valley. The Albanian migrations originated in the Albanian districts of Findi Berdita and Luma in Albania. Albanian migration and settlement in Tetovo and the surrounding villages from Albania began only in the 18th and 19th centuries. The massive, intensive migrations of Albanian settlers from Albania proper began slowly to alter the ethnic composition of the majority Slavic Orthodox city. Settlers also came from Kosovo-Metohija. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Orthodox Christians migrated out of Tetovo for economic and political reasons. The total Slavic migration out of the city amounted to 5,500 during this period. During World War I, 2,000 left. After World War I, 5,000 Turks migrated to Turkey. Following World War II, another large group of Turks migrated out of the city. These migrations of Turks again changed the ethnic make-up of the city leaving Macedonian Orthodox and Albanian Muslim populations as the bulk of the population of the city.
Tetovo: German Occupation, 1943-44
The surrender of Italy on September 3, 1943 forced Germany to re-occupy Tetovo and Western Macedonia. Germany organized the XXI Mountain Corps, led by General Paul Bader, made up of the 100th Jaeger Division, the 297th Infantry Division and the German 1st Mountain Division, to occupy the territory abandoned by the Italian forces. The German forces wanted to recruit and enlist ethnic Albanians into proxy armies that would assist the German occupation. The Germans retained the Albanian "Ljuboten" battalion initially formed by the Italian occupation forces. The Waffen SS sought to incorporate the Albanian manpower of the region into Waffen SS formations, as a German/SS proxy army to maintain the military occupation of the Orthodox populations. In 1943, the German occupation authorities sponsored the formation of the Second League of Prizren, reviving the 1878 League. The Germans sought to use the racist, extremist, anti-democratic, anti-Orthodox, anti-Slavic agenda of the Greater Albania ideology to maintain and support their occupation of Kosovo and Western Macedonia. Bedri Pejani, the president of the central committee of the Second League of Prizren, a militant and extremist Greater Albania ideologue, even wrote Himmler personally to request his assistance in establishing a Greater Albania and volunteering Albanian troops to work jointly with the Waffen SS and German Wehrmacht. Himmler read the Pejani letter and agreed to form two ethnic Albanian Waffen SS Divisions. Like Hitler and Mussolini, Himmler became an active sponsor of the Greater Albania ideology.
On April 17, 1944, Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler approved the formation of an Albanian Waffen SS Division, which was then subsequently approved by Adolf Hitler. The SS Main Office envisioned an Albanian division of 10,000 troops. The Balli Kombetar, the Albanian Committees, and the Second League of Prizren submitted the names of 11,398 recruits for the division. Of these, 9,275 were adjudged to be suitable for drafting into the Waffen SS. Of this number, 6,491 ethnic Albanians were actually drafted into the Waffen SS. A reinforced battalion of approximately 200-300 ethnic Albanians, the III/Waffen Gebirgsjaeger Regiment 50, serving in the Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Handzar" or "Handschar" were transferred to the newly forming division. To this Albanian core were added veteran German troops from Austria and Volksdeutsche officers, NCOS, and enlisted men. The total strength of the Albanian Waffen SS Division would be 8,500-9,000 men.
The official designation of the division would be 21. Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" (Albanische Nr.1). Himmler planned to form a second Albanian division, Albanische Nr. 2. The SS Main Office designed a special arm patch for the division, consisting of a black, double-headed eagle on a red background, the national flag/symbol for Albania. The UCK/KLA/NLA/ANA/LAMBP would have an identical arm patch in their separatist/terrorist war for "greater rights" and "human rights" in the 1998/99 Kosovo conflict and the "insurgency" in Macedonia in 2001.The SS Main Office also designed a strip with the word "Skanderbeg" embroidered across it as well as a gray skullcap with the Totenkopf (Death's Head) insignia of the SS below the Hoheitszeichen (the national symbol of Nazi Germany, consisting of a silver eagle over a Nazi swastika). Josef Fitzhum, the SS leader in Albania, commanded the division during the formation stages. In June, 1944, August Schmidhuber, the SS Stardartenfuehrer in the 7th SS Division "Prinz Eugen", was transferred to command the division. Alfred Graf commanded the division in August and subsequently when the division was reorganized.
The 21st SS Skanderbeg Division indiscriminately massacred Serbian Orthodox civilians in Kosovo-Metohija, forcing 10,000 Kosovo Serbian Orthodox families to flee Kosovo. Albanian colonists and settlers from northern Albania then took over the lands and homes of the displaced/cleansed Orthodox Serbs. The goal of the Skanderbeg SS division was to create a Serbien frei and Juden frei and Roma frei Kosova, an ethnically pure and homogenous region of Greater Albania. In Illirida, or Western Macedonia, the Skanderbeg SS Division sought to create a Macedonian frei, Orthodox frei, Slavic frei region. The Albanian SS troops played a key role in the Holocaust, the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, which the sponsor of the Greater Albania ideology, Heinrich Himmler, organized. On May 14, 1944, the Skanderbeg SS Division raided Kosovo Jewish homes and businesses in Pristina. The Albanian SS troops acting as a proxy for the German occupation forces rounded up 281 Kosovo Jews who were subsequently killed at Bergen-Belsen. The Skanderbeg SS Division targeted Macedonian and Serb Christians, Roma, and Jews when the division occupied Tetovo and Skopje and other towns and cities in Western Macedonia. The goal and agenda of the ethnic Albanian Skanderbeg Waffen SS Division was to advance the Greater Albania ideology by deporting and killing the non-Albanian populations of Western Macedonia.
The Skanderbeg SS Division was formed at a time in the war when Germany was retreating and withdrawing its forces from the Balkans. The Russian Red Army was inflicting severe losses on the German military forces. By November, 1944, the Germans were withdrawing their forces from the Aegean islands and from Greece. At this time, the Skanderbeg Division remnants were reorganized into Regimentgruppe 21. SS Gebirgs "Skanderbeg" when it was transferred to Skopje. The Kampfgruppe "Skanderbeg", in conjunction with the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", defended the Vardar River valley in Macedonia to allow Alexander Loehr's Army Group E to retreat from Greece and the Aegean. The Vardar Valley was crucial as an escape corridor for the retreating German military forces.
The Skanderbeg SS Division crossed into Macedonia and occupied Tetovo and Skopje in the early part of September, 1944. The purpose for the occupation was to garrison Macedonia and safeguard the retreat of German troops from Greece and the Aegean peninsula. By 1944, the German forces in the Balkans were in a defensive posture and were focusing their strategic efforts on a well-ordered retreat and withdrawal. The Bulgarian forces and the Italian forces had occupied Macedonia. The Bulgarian army continued to occupy Macedonia and their presence threatened the German retreat. The Skanderbeg SS Division occupied the Skopje and Kumanovo regions of Macedonia and the Preshevo and Bujanovac region of southern Serbia. The German XXI Mountain Corps was based in Tirana. The Germans also had the 181st Infantry Division at Lake Scutari and the 297 Infantry Division at Valona, both based in Albania, to prevent an Allied landing force in the Adriatic. The German XXI Mountain Corps crossed into Macedonia from Tirana, the capital of Albania and moved northward past Debar and the Tetovo and Gostivar area. By October 1, 1944, the 21st SS Division Skanderbeg then occupied Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. The first Regiment of the Skanderbeg Division occupied Tetovo. A Reconnaissance Battalion of Skanderbeg occupied Djakovica while a Signals Battalion occupied Prizen in Kosovo-Metohija. The Skanderbeg SS Division was based in the towns of Tetovo, Skopje, Prizren, Pec, Djakovica, Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina, and Novi Pazar.
The SS ideology in forming "volunteer" Waffen SS Divisions of non-German nationalities was that the Waffen SS was advancing the cause of national liberation and national freedom for oppressed/repressed nationalities and aggrieved ethnic minorities. So the Waffen SS perceived itself as a military organization under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler which was made up of national "freedom fighters" advancing the cause of national liberation, freedom, and independence. NATO/US/EU would adopt the identical interventionist/occupation strategy or paradigm in the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict and the 2001 Macedonian conflict. The policy was divide and conquer. The SS exploited minorities and nationality groups in the various countries they sought to occupy and dismember. These oppressed/repressed national/ethnic groups and minorities were a natural Fifth Column in every country targeted for military occupation. Heinrich Himmler's SS took on the cause of "liberation" and freedom/independence for oppressed/repressed minorities and nationality groups. Foremost amongst the groups for SS sponsorship were the ethnic Albanians in the Balkans and the Palestinians in the Middle East. Indeed, Palestinian national leader Haj Amin el Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, worked closely with Himmler and the SS and supported the Albanian and Bosnian Muslim aspirations to "independence" and separatism from Slavic Orthodox Christian countries. The SS argued that the countries the SS sought to occupy and dismember were "artificial" nations or states. But how is an artificial state to be defined and who was to make the conclusion? Germany itself was an "artificial" state established by Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck through military occupation and annexation. Germany consisted of many ethnic groups and many different religions. Bismarck launched wars against Denmark and Austria-Hungary to dismember those nations and to annex their territory to a Greater Germany. The creation of the artificial German state was through military force, through annexation and occupation, achieved by a Prussian military dictatorship and not through democratic means. Germany was thus itself an "artificial" state achieved through war by the Prussian army. National liberation of oppressed/repressed nationalities and minorities nevertheless remained the ideological basis for the Waffen SS. Later, this identical paradigm would be adopted by NATO/US/EU.
Heinrich Himmler was buttressed in his support of the Greater Albania ideology by Italian archeological research that purported to show that the Albanian Ghegs were of Aryan/Nordic origin, that they were the herrenmensch, the master race. Himmler planned to establish two ethnic Albanian Waffen SS Divisions but the war ended before this could be accomplished. This is the reason the Skanderbeg SS Division is referred to as the "Albanische Nr.1" in the SS records.
By January, 1945, remnants of the Skanderbeg Waffen SS Division would retreat to Kosovska Mitrovica in Kosovo and then to Brcko in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Skanderbeg remnants would reach Austria in May, 1945, when Germany surrendered following the military and political collapse of regime.
Albanian and German Occupation Forces in Macedonia
The German occupation forces retained the Albanian civil, political, military, and police control and administration of Western Macedonia. The Albanian national flag was flown, the official language was Albanian, and the Albanian Lek remained the official currency in Illirida. The Germans retained the incorporation of Western Macedonia and Kosovo-Metohija into a Greater Albania. Rejeb Bey Mitrovica, however, was replaced by Fikri Dine as the Prime Minister of the Greater Albanian state occupied by the German Wehrmacht. The Albanian Minister of the Interior was Dzafer Deva. Mustafa Kruja and Mehdi Bey Frasheri also held high positions in the Albanian regime. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who had replaced Reinhard Heydrich as the leader of the SD, was instrumental in setting up the Albanian Nazi Party, which replaced the Albanian Fascist Party that the Italian authorities had set up previously. Much of the civilian and military administration was exercised by ethnic Albanians during both the Italian and German occupations. In Tetovo, there was a total of 1,500 ethnic Albanian Waffen SS troops, members of the 1st Regiment of the Skanderbeg SS Division. In Gostivar, there were 1,000 Albanian SS troops, while in Struga there were 100, and 900 in Debar. In Kichevo, there were 1,500 Albanian SS troops. The total number of Albanian SS troops in Western Macedonia was 5,000. The Albanians made up the police force in Western Macedonia: In Tetovo, there were 16 members of the police force, in Gostivar 10, in Struga 11, in Debar 16, and in Kichevo, 5. There were a total of 5,500 members of the Balli Kombetar in Macedonia, 2,000 of which were based in Tetovo. There was a total of 250 Albanian gendarme units, or armed police units, in Tetovo. An Albanian Battalion for Security made up of 800 members was based in Tetovo. In addition, there were 80 Albanian finasi troops and border guards. The total number of Albanian police and paramilitary units in Tetovo during the German occupation was 4,646. The German Army only had 450 German troops and three Gestapo agents in Tetovo and a total of 2,180 troops and 34 Gestapo agents in all of Western Macedonia. Instead, the German occupation forces created a proxy army and police staff made up of ethnic Albanians, collaborationists who acted as the proxies for the German military forces. Like the Italian occupation forces had done before them, the German military was able to use the Albanian police and paramilitary forces as a proxy force.
The German Army used Albanian separatists to create a proxy army of occupation and administration in Tetovo and other cities and towns in Western Macedonia which were annexed to Albania. By furthering and advancing the agenda of the Greater Albania ideology, the German occupation forces ensured that their military occupation of the region would be safeguarded and assured. The German Army in 1998-2001 would play a similar role in the Kosovo and Macedonia conflicts. NATO would pursue an identical policy to that of the Italian/German occupation forces during the 1941-1944 period. The Greater Albania ideology would serve the same purpose again, expediting the military occupation and establishing a proxy army that would act on behalf of the NATO occupation forces. The racist and separatist Greater Albania ideology would be sponsored and furthered by NATO, like it had been by the German/Italian forces, to expedite the occupation and military, economic, and political control and exploitation of first Kosovo-Metohija and then Macedonia.
Conclusion
The Greater Albania established by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini from 1941 to 1944 set the historical precedent for establishing an ethnically homogenous Albanian state which would encompass all areas settled by Albanians. The UCK/KLA/NLA/ANA/KPC/LAMPB goal and agenda is to re-establish and re-form Hitler's and Mussolini's Greater Albania. The Albanian nationalist goal, the UCK goal, is Greater Albania. The terrorist insurgency by the UCK, first in Kosovo-Metohija, then in Southern Serbia, and then in Macedonia, ostensibly to obtain "greater rights" and "equal" and "human rights" is in fact a war of territorial occupation and partition. The British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG) has noted that Tetovo is the focus of the Greater Albania movement which seeks to turn the Slavic Orthodox city into a center or capital of an ethnically pure Albanian district or municipality. The BHHRG stated that the population of Tetovo was 40% Macedonian Orthodox but that there was intense pressure to make the city into an Albanian town, based on the model of Kosovo where the Serbian Orthodox towns and cities were depopulated of non-Albanians creating an ethnically pure and ethnically homogenous Kosova, a de facto "independent" statelet demanding de jure recognition. The BHHRG alleged that Arben Xhaferi of the DPA appointed all local police chiefs in Tetovo. The DPA radicalizes the Albanian population and pressures the Albanian youth to become nationalist and separatist according to the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. The Group further alleges that Albanian youth are being pressured to attend the Albanian-language University of Tetova with a ideological curriculum based on that followed in Tirana and Pristina. The University of Tetova is nothing more than a boot camp for the indoctrination and training for the establishment of a Greater Albania. Xhaferi seeks to repeat in Tetovo what was done in Pristina. According to BHHRG, this compelled and forced separatist and Greater Albania ideological agitation has not met with unanimous approval within the Albanian population in Tetovo: "Not all local Albanians are happy with these developments. During the war some sent their sons to Serbia to prevent their mobilization into the KLA." The BHHRG further alleged that "the regional weapons market is run from Tetovo." Menduh Thaci of the DPA is alleged to control Tetovo's shops and the black market, such as in oil. There is widespread political corruption and collusion with political leaders. The goal of the Albanian policies, according to the BHHRG, is to force Macedonians to leave Tetovo by a "subtle ethnic cleansing." The Christian population is the target of the Greater Albania separatists. The Kosovo model is being repeated in Tetovo, transforming an Orthodox Christian Slavic city into an Islamic Albanian city. Pristina is the blueprint. Kosovo is the model. The ultimate goal or agenda of the UCK separatists/terrorists is the partition/federalization of Western Macedonia, Illirida. Autonomy or de facto partition is the short-term goal. Independence from Macedonia is the long-term goal based on the Kosovo paradigm.
The UCK seeks to re-establish and re-create the Greater Albania created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini from 1941 to 1944. History is being repeated and replayed in Macedonia.
Bibliography
Ivanov, Pavle Dzeletovic. 21. SS Divizija Skenderbeg. Belgrade, Yugoslavia: Nova Knjiga, 1987. (In Serbian.)
Kane, Steve. "The 21st SS Mountain Division." Siegrunen: The Waffen-SS in Historical Perspective. Vol.6, 36, October-December, 1984.
Landwehr, Richard. "The 21. Waffen-Gebirgs Division der SS 'Skanderbeg' (Albanische Nr. 1)." Siegrunen: The Waffen-SS in Historical Perspective. Vol. 6, 36, October-December, 1984.
Munoz, Antonio. Forgotten Legions: Obscure Combat Formations of the Waffen SS. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1991.
Stefanovski, Zhivko, and Eftoski, Gojko. Tetovo i Okolinata. Tetovo, Macedonia: Centar za Informiranje i Izdavachka Dejnost "Polog", 1980. (In Macedonian.)
Vivian, Herbert. The Servian Tragedy. London, UK: Grant Richards, 1904.
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Ancient Macedonian Words Found in the Modern Macedonian Language
Interview with Professor Tome Boshevski
Courtesy, Liljana Ristova
Editor, Canadian Macedonian News
(Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)
Did the Slavs come to the Balkans from behind the Carpathians or did they cross the Carpathians fleeing north to avoid the Roman invasions? This is a problem that can be easily and logically remedied.
After five Macedonian-Roman wars fought in the second century BC with Philip V and his son Perseus, a large number of Macedonians including most of the elite and ruling class, fled Macedonia and headed north away from the conflict. Fearing a slaughter from the Roman armies descending on Macedonia from the south, from Peloponnesus, they fled the Balkans and resettled north as far as Siberia. No people leave their homes voluntarily on masse unless they are coerced. This massive evacuation was certainly coerced by the violent Roman invasion which accounted for about half of Macedonia's population leaving Macedonia. The other half still remained and lived on Macedonian territory.
We cannot accept the notion that the Macedonian-Roman wars "cleansed out" the entire Ancient Macedonian population as much as we cannot accept the notion that the Ancient Macedonians who fled the conflict disappeared altogether. There are well documented historic facts that prove that Ancient Macedonians not only survived the Roman invasion but many who fled north in fact, over time, returned to their ancestral lands in the Balkans.
Professor Boshevski, you and your colleague Professor Aristotel Tentov, a while ago, made a sensational discovery of great importance to the Macedonian people and to world history. You were able to successfully decipher the center text on the Rosetta Stone, which for over two hundred years, no one was able to decipher. Even though you are not a linguist by profession you are obviously very much interested in the subject. What compelled you to take on such a great task?
Professor Boshevski: With regards to the decipherment, we were not the first to attempt the center text translation. There were other translations made before us but we were not content with their results. I worked for forty years in the field of nuclear energy and I am no stranger to the types of methods necessary to solve complex problems. I investigated other's attempts at the translation but their analysis fell short of meeting our expectations.
The idea that drove us to the assumption that this indeed may be the writing of the Ancient Macedonians is that we refused to believe the notion of mainstream science that the Ancient Macedonians were illiterate and had no writing system or language of their own. To us it was illogical to assume that two-thousand years ago a people capable of creating an empire with all the elements of a complex civilization could not read and write in their own language! It would be impossible for such people to build grand libraries like never before and populate them with such great knowledge if they were not able to read and write.
It is illogical to assume that if we have no knowledge of something that it doesn't exist! Many things from that period for various reasons are still not known and have not been identified. The center text on the Rosetta Stone is a good example where something discovered over two hundred years ago is still an enigma to this very day for many scientists, including the world authorities on ancient languages.
Having said that however, it is well accepted that the center text on the Rosetta Stone is a distinct language with distinct writing. Since it was found in Egypt it is assumed to be an Egyptian language and because it appeared to be rare, it was assumed to be an official Egyptian language. Regarding the language's use, the academic world seems to be divided with some believing it is an Egyptian demotic or a peoples' language yet others believing it is an official Egyptian language.
If this language was indeed an Egyptian official language then it must have been used by the then Egyptian rulers and the Pharaoh himself to write his decrees. Interestingly, the Egyptian rulers of the time were the Ptolemaic dynasty which lasted for about three hundred years. It is well known, especially in the academic world, that the Ptolemaic dynasty was a Macedonian dynasty that originated inside the Balkans or more precisely inside Macedonia in a town today called "Ptolemaida". The name of the dynasty comes from Ptolemy Soter, the first Ptolemy. Ptolemy Soter was one of Alexander the Greats' generals. He inherited Egypt, a part of Alexander's empire, after Alexander's death. Ptolemy Soter's family name comes from his town of origin located about fifty kilometers south of present day Bitola, Republic of Macedonia.
The language Ptolemy Soter spoke was the language of the Pelagonian plain. The Pelagonian plain is located in the triangle between Lerin, Voden and Bitola. So it is not unusual to assume that some words or linguistic elements from Ptolemy Soter's time, survived the two-thousand years and may be present in the Macedonian language of today. If our assumption was correct that Ptolemy Soter's descendents ordered the center text to be inscribed in the Ancient Macedonian language which he brought with him from the Pelagonian plain, then we should be able to find clues of it in the modern Macedonian language or at least in the Macedonian dialectal language of the Pelagonian plain. If indeed this was the language of the Ancient Macedonians than its roots are not Egyptian but Balkan. Ptolemais, from Ptolemy Soter to Cleopatra VII the last Macedonian ruler of Egypt may have used this language for as long as they ruled Egypt. These were our first assumptions.
It is understandable that as in science or in mathematics, the first step to solving a complex problem is to devise a sound theory and then look for evidence to support it. Our theory was based on the above premises which we believed were sound, logical and would lead us to the right solution.
We cannot say that the problem was not complex. It was quite the opposite. Besides being faced with deciphering the meaning of each symbol, we also had to identify sounds and figure out how they would fit into constructing a language. It was a puzzle with many undefined elements but luckily we found that today's science does have knowledge of this kind of writing which exists in the larger territory of Europe. Almost all ancient European writing comes from the Pelasgians, the Etruscans, the old Dannans and other ancient northern people who had syllabic writing similar to that identified on the Rosetta Stone. Our latest findings have indicated that the Canadian Eskimos too had a writing system with markings which in large part are similar to the ones on the Rosetta Stone. This kind of information is widely available even in encyclopedias. All you have to do is look up any title or literature with references to the writing of the Canadian Eskimos and other American indigenous people or to the writing of the ancient European people.
There is no need to dispute the syllabic nature of this writing system. It has been in official use for long periods of time in Europe before the Roman period and before the arrival of the Latin script on the European continent.
On account that you have established that the writing is syllabic, what is the most appropriate name to call it?
Professor Boshevski: We have not given it any particular name; we call it by its characteristics "syllabic writing" or "the center text on the Rosetta Stone". This is a script of a very old civilization spanning the territory of Europe and Asia Minor which at some point in time was brought to the North American continent and was widely used by many nations. The Ptolemais used a downscaled sophisticated version of it with a reduced number of symbols. This way its keepers would have had an easier time remembering its rules and keeping track of them.
Our job was to unravel this language's mystery which meant that we needed to identify its grammatical rules. After some investigation and by using today's Macedonian language as reference, a certain number of grammatical rules began to surface such as the formation of the superlative adjective with the prefix "na" (on, upon, to, up to, at, against) or its plural "nai". More about this can be found in our publication "Po Tragite na pismoto i jaziko na antichkite Makedontsi" (Tracing the Ancient Macedonian Writing and Language). Interestingly we found the term "na" in use three times.
This discovery gave us some confidence that we were on the right track and that this may be the language of the Ancient Macedonians. This may indeed be the syllabic writing of the Ancient Macedonian language whose roots place it in the center of the Balkans on the Pelagonian plain. If so then this would be a script of European origins, older than the Roman civilization and from an aspect of writing, preceding the Glagolic and Cyrillic scripts of Kiril and Metodi which by the way, also originated in the same region.
According to one of our most recognized cultural activists, Chernorizets Hrabar who by the way also was one of our motivators for starting this project, the people of the Balkans, before the brother saints Kiril and Methodi gave us our current writing, wrote in "cherti i retski" (lines and incisions). Interestingly we also found this term in the Pharaoh's decree. The actual term was "nareitsi" which by just looking closely is similar to the term "narestsi" and "cherti" and "retski".
Russian literature describes the "cherti i retski" (lines and incisions) as a form of pre-Slav writing but does not tell of its time or how widely it was used. However in view of our discovery we know for certain that the inscription on the Rosetta Stone was made in 196 BC. From this we can conclude that this type of writing existed before the second century BC.
Professor Boshevski, you made reference to this language as being older than the Roman civilization as in "pre-Roman". But we know that before Rome there was Macedonia, a state with all the components of a civilization which lasted a long time. Why has no one used the term "Macedonian Civilization"?
Professor Boshevski: This is a question for which I have no logical answer. Our contemporary educators tell us that there are verifiable Egyptian and Persian civilizations. It is well known that the Macedonian Empire followed the Persian Empire just like the Roman Empire followed the Macedonian Empire. We also know that the Persian Empire to a large degree existed within the Egyptian Civilization. So if we line them up we have the Egyptian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman Empires which in part or in whole, ruled the European continent for long periods of historic time.
It is sad that our contemporary educators have shown little or no respect for the Macedonian Civilization. This is another reason which motivated us to pursue this project.
All prior and subsequent empires carried the ethnic name of the people who initiated them, however, only the Macedonian Empire is called "Alexander the Greats' Empire". Doesn't this negate the Macedonian identity?
Professor Boshevski: I can't say I fully agree with all of this. No one can challenge the name of the Ancient Macedonians like they question their ethnic identity. The name by itself "Ancient Macedonians" no one dares to dispute. When we began to solve this problem, we thought that we would provide a great contribution to science and build a database of knowledge with which one can learn to read the texts written by the Ancient Macedonians and find out for themselves who these people were, how they spoke and naturally use this knowledge to write Macedonia's history. Thinking along those lines, our initial aim was to identify the actual writing with which the text was written, to become familiar with its meaning and then create a methodology for reading and writing in that language.
As most people know by now, there are three different texts written on the Rosetta Stone; the top text is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the bottom text is written in the language of the Dannans, a writing closely resembling that of today's Greek alphabet, and the center text, which was deemed by some scholars to be the "Demotic" or "peoples" language of the Egyptians. I just want to mention here that the name "Dannans" was what the Ancient Macedonians called the people who understood the bottom language on the Rosetta Stone.
We know in essence this is syllabic writing, which some analysts referred to as "a writing with which the laws were written". In today's terms that means it was the "official writing" of the authorities who at the time were the Ptolemaic dynasty. In other words, the Ancient Macedonians.
As it is in nuclear physics where the construction of matter consists of protons and neutrons where protons are the carriers of individual characteristics of each chemical element, and neutrons serve as their binds, so is the construction of a language where we have the consonants and vowels. Consonants are the carriers of the contents of the word, and vowels serve as their binds constructing the flow of pronunciation. In some of our trials we deciphered ordered letters with only consonants and assumed the vowels. We were successful in deciphering 26 different symbols which turned out to be consonants. Then by rotating each consonant 90 degrees on its plane, we were able to connect it with 4 vowels. And then by mirroring it we were able to connect it with 4 more vowels for a total of 8. For example let's say an asymmetrical symbol represents the consonant "r". In its vertical position it may assume the vowel "a" for "ra". By rotating it clockwise 90 degrees it assumes another vowel say "o" for "ro", Rotating it again 90 degrees clockwise it assumes a their vowel say "i" for "ri". Rotating it one more time by 90 degrees will assume a fourth vowel, say "u" for "ru". Above these four rotations we can now mirror each image of the rotated consonant and assume four more vowels.
By using this technique we were able to define a method for writing where a single symbol by being rotated and mirrored on its plane could assume up to 8 vowels thus creating up to 8 syllables.
Of the 26 symbols we identified as consonants, 13 are asymmetrical, with the dominant position being on the vertical line. Symmetrical symbols can be rotated but cannot be mirrored thus giving us only 4 vowels. Once we developed the above method, we were ready to start wiring for sounds.
We were hoping to have connected all the consonants in the Cyrillic alphabet, which to this day have been used in the Balkans and wider. We have defined the most characteristic consonants in the Macedonian language, including "?", "?", "?" and others but not "?". We have identified some letters from the Cyrillic alphabet, which are in use today by the Macedonian language, like the symbol "??" (sht) which is predominant in Macedonian dialects, especially in those of the Ohrid region. "??" is also found in other Slavic languages such as the Slovenian, Bulgarian and others.
In today's Slovenian literary language for example, there are 8 consonants from which 5 are found in the Macedonian literary language and the other 3 are present, to a large degree, in the dialects (such as the "Mijachkian", "Rechanskian" and others) of the Macedonian language.
In other words, I can say that we created a syllabic alphabet consisting of 26 consonants and 8 vowels and ordered it in a regular fashion of writing and then we were ready to turn our attention to reading parts of the text.
I also want to mention that this text was written in a contiguous line from right to left with no spaces between words, no capital letters and no start or end marks to signify beginning or end of sentences. In order for us to identify words we had to identify re-occurring groups of symbols. We were hoping to identify about a couple of hundred of these, enough to be able to adequately test their meaning against today's Macedonian language.
I am happy to say that we identified more than enough and when we wired them for sound we were able to reconstruct 160 words. The meaning of most of which has been preserved in our contemporary Macedonian dialects.
We were always of the opinion that we did not need much to reconstruct the language of the Ancient Macedonians.
Were you successful in uncovering the entire meaning of the text?
Professor Boshevski: As you know the uncovering of the meaning of the text was done some time ago as a result of our decipherment but I must tell you it does not have the identical message as the other two texts. There are assumptions out there that all three texts have the same meaning but here we are talking about a Pharaoh's decree. If you consider the Pharaoh was Macedonian he could not have possibly given the same message to the rulers, the Macedonians, as he gave to the ruled, the Egyptians. Among the Egyptians were the Dannans who were also ruled by the Macedonians. The message for the Egyptians written in hieroglyphs and the message for the Dannans written in what we call "Greek" today were written for the people the Pharaoh ruled. The center text was directed to the rulers that is why the messages are different. Had we assumed the texts to be identical or similar, we would have not been able to appropriately translate the center text. The pharaoh had addressed his compatriots, the Ancient Macedonians, in a different manner than he had addressed the Egyptians he ruled. We could see that the order of the sentences like the order of the words within the sentences were not the same. The order of the address to the king was not the same either. For example, after the designation of the pharaoh, in the Dannan text there is a last name, whereas in the center (Macedonian) text there was one more epitaph and after that was a name. The dynasty or family name was at the end. It would have been very risky and we would have made fundamental errors had we assumed the meaning in the texts to be same.
What was most interesting is that we found an expression in the Pharaoh's text which has a similar meaning in Macedonian today. For example when the Pharaoh ordered the text to be scribed on the stone he used the expression "da se naveze" meaning "to embroider". Interestingly this expression is still in use in some parts of Macedonia today to refer to "well written" letters.
Can you mention some words you found on the stone that are similar to today's Macedonian language?
Professor Boshevski: The three upright dashes, or vertical lines as we call them, refer to "God". We recognized this designation because we had seen it before in a Russian publication called "Slavianska Pismenost" (Slavian Literacy). Here Russian scientist Grinevich talks about the existence of old writing found in Russia, the Ukraine and Poland and in this writing he eludes that the three vertical lines are a reference to "God". We found over one-hundred occurrences of this in our text so we were pretty convinced we were on the right track. We also found evidence in a Vincha stone artifact from 7,000 BC where the three vertical dashes were prominent and possibly meant "God".
All in all we had three different sources from three different regions which was sufficient evidence to lead us to believe that we were on the right track. Not being one-hundred percent certain though, since the Vincha writing and the Russian texts were not proven, we set out to find our proof on the Egyptian text. There we found an adjective written with the symbols which we identified to mean "Bozhen" (devine). Similarly in front of Alexander the Great's name we found "Bozhenstveniot" (devine). By then we were convinced we were on the right track.
I just want to add that this writing which we found in Egypt, and no doubt was brought there by the Macedonians, we believe has its beginnings in the Balkans. It lasted a long time until it was replaced by Kiril and Metody's Cyrillic script. In the words of Chernorizets Hrabar this was the language in which "the Slavs wrote and foretold".
I believe this writing system began to decline first as a result of Roman intervention and later as a result of the interference of the Catholic Church. Roman authorities forbade use of this writing fearing that the Macedonian State may rise again. Romans used every opportunity to make sure that the name of its preceding empire was never mentioned. That's why Rome divided Macedonia into four pieces and that's why it forbade communication and travel between those four pieces. The Romans even forbade marriages between Macedonians separated by their artificially imposed borders. Along with forbidding the writing, the Romans also destroyed artifacts written in this language.
In this Ancient Macedonian text there are many words which are used in today's Macedonian language. Is the ancient Macedonian language a precursor to our modern Macedonian language?
Professor Boshevski: We believe that the Ancient Macedonian language is a precursor not only to most modern Balkan languages but also to all of today's Slavic languages. We believe, and time will prove this, that all these languages have descended from the Ancient Macedonian language. Let's say that the Ancient Macedonian language is a proto-Slav language.
Until now we were led to believe that the Slavic speaking populations arrived in the Balkans around the seventh century AD speaking a "Slavic language". With your discovery we now have a basis to establish a new idea, the idea that the so-called "Slavic languages" have their roots in the ancient Macedonian language. Are we now faced with a great contradiction?
Professor Boshevski: It appears that we have come to the same conclusion. In the beginning of the interview I said that we wanted to identify the writing on this stone and if possible reconstruct its language which we naturally assumed would be the language of the Ancient Macedonians. We wanted to know what the Ancient Macedonians themselves had to say, in their own writing, in their own language, not to learn about them from other sources. Based on our discovery, on the evidence we found, we have to come to our own conclusions even if they don't agree with mainstream science. We must apply the facts as we see them even if we need to push aside the mistakes of history with regards to certain migrations of people, origins of people and origins of languages.
Here is a text left by the ancients which is satisfactorily long and rich, which gave us the opportunity to reconstruct and bring to light an alphabet and the rules for reading and writing and to reconstruct what was thought to be a lost language.
All discoveries up to now tell us that this is the text of the Ptolemais who ruled Egypt for about 300 years. We know the Ptolemaic dynasty was Macedonian. We know their origins are from the Balkans, more precisely, from the Pelagonian valley.
The next step for us is to have these facts acknowledged by world science. We need our world contemporaries to verify our work and what we have found and then to appropriately revise science as required.
There are remarks made by some who believe it's impossible to have two thousand year old words survive in a language when speaking about our current Macedonian language. In other words they say two thousand years is far too long for Ancient Macedonian words to have survived in the modern Macedonian language. If that were so then I pose this question to them: "How can some words, such as those from the third text on the Rosetta Stone, survive two thousand years and be present in today's modern Greek language?" Why is no one disputing that fact and better yet why are they not making remarks about it? Why does it bother people that in today's Macedonian language there are words the Ancient Macedonians spoke?
No one can now deny or destroy the writing on the Rosetta Stone. Once our methodology is verified and proven, then no one will be able to contest it.
With regards to your discovery what kind of reaction did you get from the Macedonian intellectuals and from corresponding world institutions?
Professor Boshevski: Up no now there has been no significant reaction. The publication we printed was well accepted and is receiving attention in creating interest locally as well as in some European circles. We sent an electronic version to various world centers, including the Institute of Eastern Languages in Chicago, to Oxford, to London and to Germany. We can't expect immediate reactions; it takes time to interpret our results before people can truly understand our discovery. What we found will shake the foundations of our contemporary understanding. Everything up to now that has been written about the Ancient Macedonians can't easily change. A great deal has been invested in the creation of our current understanding and now we appear with our findings out of nowhere telling everyone they were wrong. A lot of time will pass before people are comfortable with the idea, before it sinks in and before we see any reactions. In the meantime we will stand by our convictions and be at everyone's disposal to conduct dialog and eventually solve this problem.
This article appeared in the newspaper "Canadian-Macedonian News" in Toronto in January 2007
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The British Foreign Office
and Macedonian National Identity - 1918-1941
by Andrew Rossos
Slavic Review, vol. 53, number 2, Summer 1994
click here for a printer-friendly version
The study of the Macedonian identity has given rise to far greater controversies and debates than that of most, if not all, other nationilisms in eastern Europe. This has been only in part due to the hazy past of the Slavic speaking population of Macedonia and to the lack of a continuous and separate state tradition, a trait they had in common with other "small" and "young," or so-called "non-historic," peoples in the area. Controversy has been due above all to the fact that, although it began in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Macedonian nationalism did not enjoy international acceptance or legitimacy until the Second World War, much later than was the case with other similar national movements in eastern Europe.[1] Recent research has shown that Macedonian nationalism developed, generally speaking, similarly to that of neighboring Balkan peoples, and, in most respects, of other "small" and "young" peoples of eastern, as well as some of western, Europe.
But Macedonian nationalism was belated, grew slowly and, at times, manifested confusing tendencies and orientations that were, for the most part, consequences of its protracted illegitimate status.[2]
For a half century Macedonian nationalism existed illegally. It was recognized neither by the theocratic Ottoman state nor by the two established Orthodox churches in the empire: the Patriarchist (Greek) and, after its establishment in 1870, the Exarchist (Bulgarian). Moreover neighboring Balkan nationalists-Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian-who had already achieved independence with the aid of one or more of the Great Powers, chose to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian identity; indeed they claimed Macedonia and the Macedonians as their own. They fought for Macedonia with propaganda and force, against each other and the nascent Macedonian nationalists. A prolonged struggle culminated in 1913 with the forceful partition of Macedonia after the Second Balkan or Inter-Allied War between Bulgaria, on one side, and allied Greece and Serbia, on the other.[3] Each of these three states consolidated their control over their respective parts of Macedonia, and throughout the inter-war years inaugurated and implemented policies intended to destroy any manifestations of Macedonian nationalism, patriotism or particularism- Consequently, until World War II, unlike the other nationalisms in the Balkans or in eastern Europe more generally, Macedonian nationalism developed with-out the aid of legal political, church, educational or cultural institutions. Macedonian movements not only lacked any legal infrastructure, they also were without the international sympathy, cultural aid and, most importantly, benefits of open and direct diplomatic and military support accorded other Balkan nationalisms.[4] Indeed, for an entire century Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire before 1913 but in actual fact, both before and after that date, against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the Great Powers.[5]
The denial of a Macedonian identity by the neighboring Balkan states, and their irreconcilably contradictory claims, motives, justifications and rationalizations, are mirrored by the largely polemical and tendentious Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian literature on the Macedonian question.[6] But the attitudes of the individual Great Powers and the thinking, motivations and internal foreign policy establishments have not yet been studied. In this article I will focus on the British Foreign Office and its attitude toward the Macedonian question during the inter-war years. The British Foreign Office provides a case study because Great Britain played a leading role in the area after the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano; during the inter-war years respect for national self-determination and for the rights of national minorities was, at least in theory and in official policy, the accepted and prevailing norm.
For the Macedonians the inter-war period was conditioned by the Balkan wars and the partition of their land. The peace conferences and treaties which ended the Great War, represented for many "small" and "young" nations of eastern Europe the realization of dreams of self-determination. But with some minor territorial modifications at the expense of Bulgaria, these treaties confirmed the partition of Macedonia agreed upon in the Treaty of Bucharest. For the victorious allies, especially Great Britain and France, this meant putting the Macedonian problem finally to rest. It also meant that the allies could satisfy two of their clients which were pillars of the new order in south-eastern Europe: the Kingdom of Greece and the former Kingdom of Serbia, now the dominant component in the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia. Even though their territorial acquisitions in Macedonia did not necessarily satisfy their max-imal aspirations, official Athens and Belgrade also pretended that Macedonia and the Macedonian problem had ceased to exist. Belgrade proclaimed Vardar Macedonia to be Old Serbia and the Macedonians Old Serbians; for Athens, Aegean Macedonia became simply northern Greece and the Slavic speaking Macedonians were considered Greeks or, at best, "Slavophone" Greeks. Although Bulgaria had enjoyed the greatest influence among the Macedonians, because of its defeat in the Inter-Allied and the Great Wars, it was accorded the smallest part, Pirin Macedonia, or the Petrich district, as it became known during the inter-war years. Unlike official Athens and Belgrade, the ruling elite in Sofia did not consider the settlement permanent; but without sympathy among the victorious Great Powers and threatened by revolutionary turmoil at home, they had to accept the settlement for the time being. In any event, the Macedonian question was not a priority for the Agrarian government of A. Stamboliski.[7] Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria all sought to destroy all signs of Macedonianism through forced deportation, so-called voluntary exchanges of populations and internal transfers of the Macedonian populations. They also implemented policies of colonization, social and economic discrimination, and forced denationalization and assimilation based on total control of the edu-cational systems and of cultural and intellectual life as a whole.
These policies were particularly pursued with great determination in Yugoslavia and Greece. Though he approved of these policies, C. L. Blakeney, British Vice-Consul at Belgrade, wrote in1930:
It is very well for the outsider to say that the only way the Serb could achieve this [control of Vardar Macedonia] was by terrorism and the free and general use of the big stick. This may be true, as a matter of fact one could say that it is true ...On the other hand, however, it must be admitted that the Serb had no other choice ... He had not only to deal with the brigands but also with a population who regarded him as an invader and unwelcome foreigner and from whom he had and could expect no assistance.[8]
Ten years later, on the eve of Yugoslavia's collapse during the Second World War, it was obvious that the Serbian policies in Macedonia had failed. R.I. Campbell, British minister at Belgrade, now denounced them to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary:
Since the occupation by Serbia in 1913 of the Macedonian districts, the Government has carried out in this area, with greater or lesser severity, a policy of suppression and assimilation. In the years following the Great War land was taken away from the inhabitants and given to Serbian colonists. Macedonians were compelled to change their names and the Government did little or nothing to assist the economic development of the country...[9]
Athens was even more extreme than Belgrade: under the guise of "voluntary" emigration they sought to expel the entire Macedonian population. Colonel A.C. Corfe, chairman of the League of Nations Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration, reported in 1923: "In the course of conversation, Mr. Lambros [Governor General of Macedonia], actually said that the present was a good opportunity to get rid of the Bulgars [sic] who remained in this area and who had always been a source of trouble for Greece." [10] This could be achieved at least superficially: Athens made a concerted effort to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme and tragic dimensions during the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the privacy of the home to a people who knew Greek scarcely or not at all, and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but their own. [11] In 1944 Captain P.H. Evans, an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spent eight months in western Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) and station commander, condemned the Greek policies in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He described the attitude "even of educated GREEKS towards the SLAV minority" as "usually stupid, uninformed and brutal to a degree that makes one despair of any understanding ever being created between the two people." However, he also left no doubt that the Greek government's policies had failed:
It is predominantly a SLAV region not a GREEK one. The language of the home, and usually also of the fields, the village Street, and the market is MACEDONIAN, a SLAV language... The place names as given on the map are GREEK...; but the names which are mostly used - - - are - - - all Slav names. The GREEK ones are merely a bit of varnish put on by Metaxas... GREEK is regarded as almost a foreign language and the GREEKS are distrusted as something alien, even if not, in the full sense of the word, as foreigners. The obvious fact, almost too obvious to be stated, that the region is SLAV by nature and not GREEK cannot be overemphasized.[12]
Revisionist Bulgaria, where major trends in Macedonian nationalism were well entrenched in Pirin Macedonia and among the large Macedonian emigration to its capital, assumed a more ambiguous position. Sofia continued its traditional attitude towards all Macedonians, acting as their patron but claiming them to be Bulgarians. To a certain extent it left the Macedonians to do what they wanted; unlike Athens and Belgrade, it tolerated, or felt compelled to tolerate, the free use of the name "Macedonia" and an active Macedonian political and cultural life.[13] In its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, the British Legation at Sofia referred to the Pirin region as "the autonomous kingdom of Macedonia" and stressed that "Bulgarian sovereignty over the district - - - is purely nominal and, such as it is, is resented by the irredentist Macedonian element no less strongly than is that of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Government over the adjacent area within their frontier." [14] Indeed, it could be argued that, after the overthrow of the Stamboliski regime in June 1921, Sofia not only encouraged Macedonian discontent in all three countries but also sought to take advantage of it to further its own revisionist aims.[15] Bulgaria's revisionism split the ranks of the partitioning powers and was of great significance for the future of Macedonian nationalism. For no matter how much Greece and Yugoslavia, and their patrons among the Great Powers, especially Great Britain, pretended officially that the Macedonian question had been resolved, Bulgarian policies helped to keep it alive. [16]
More importantly still, the Macedonians, both in the large emigration in Bulgaria and at home, rejected the partition of their land and the settlement based upon it. As the British Legation at Sofia warned: "the Governments of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, if not that of Greece, are faced with practically an identical problem in the pacification and control of a district overlapping both the frontiers inhabited by a population hostile to both Governments for different reasons and determined on strengthening the hands of the opposition parties in each country."[17] Disturbing to London were calls for open resistance to foreign rule. Early in 1922 W.A.F. Erskine, the minister in Sofia, drew Lord Curzon's attention to an anonymous article in the newspaper Makedonija, purportedly from a Macedonian professor at the University of Sofia, which exhorted the Macedonians to follow the example of the Irish, who after a bitter struggle lasting through centuries, have succeeded in gaining their autonomy. "Their country is today free. Ours, too, will be free if we remain faithful to our own traditions of struggle and if we take as our example the lives of people, who, like the Irish, have "never despaired of the force of right." [18]
To be sure, organized Macedonian activity in Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, which had declined after the bloody suppression of the Ilinden uprising of 1903 and the repeated partitions of 1912-1918, came to a virtual standstill immediately after World War I. Virtually the entire Exarchist educated elite, most Macedonian activists from Aegean Macedonia and large numbers from Vardar Macedonia had been forced to emigrate and now sought refuge in Bulgaria.[19] Furthermore, the remaining Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia, overwhelmingly rural and lacking an educated elite, found itself after the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) a minority in its own land as a result of the Greek government's settlement there of large numbers of Greek and other Christian refugees from Asia Minor.[20] The situation among the Macedonians in Bulgaria was only slightly more encouraging: while there were large concentrations of Exarchist educated Macedonians and Macedonian activists both in the Pirin region and in Sofia, there were deep divisions within each group. Demoralization had set in and a long process of regrouping ensued among the Macedonians there.[21]
Nonetheless, opposition to foreign rule existed in all three parts of Macedonia from its imposition and systematic anti-Macedonian policies only intensified it. That this discontent was considerable was clearly evident in the support given to the terrorist activities of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in the 1920s. A popular revolutionary movement in the early twentieth century, by the mid-1920s IMRO had emerged as a terrorist organization. It virtually ruled Pirin Macedonia and was a state within the state of Bulgaria, pursuing its own self-saving ends by relying on Bulgarian reaction and Italian fascism, and allowing itself to be used by both. However, officially and very conspicuously-it promulgated the aims and the slogans of the older movement: "united autonomous or independent Macedonia" and "Macedonia for the Macedonians." IMRO conducted repeated, so-called "Komitaji," armed raids and incursions into Vardar and, to a lesser extent, into Aegean Macedonia until the military coup in Sofia of May 1934 when the new regime liquidated the organization. More than anything else, it succeeded in maintaining the Macedonian question on the international scene and, as champion of Macedonia and the Macedonians, it continued to enjoy considerable support throughout most of the 1920s.[22]
Widespread opposition to foreign rule is also demonstrated by the results of the first post-war elections held in Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the freest to be held during the inter-war years.
Significant support in all three parts of Macedonia went to the newly formed communist parties, which also rejected the status quo and declared themselves champions of Macedonia and the Macedonians.[23] As Erskine reported from Sofia: "The program of the Communists, therefore, at the instigation of Moscow, was modified to a form of cooperation with the Macedonian revolutionaries - - - to stir up trouble generally - - - and to pave the way for a revolution by creating disorder."[24] Commenting on the election in Yugoslavia, the British minister at Sofia, R. Peel, stressed that although Serbian troops had resorted to the worst excesses in order to terrorize the inhabitants into voting for government lists, "...a large proportion of communist deputies were returned from Macedonia."[25] Clearly, the communist vote was, in effect, a Macedonian protest against foreign rule.[26] This cooperation between communists and Macedonians, dating from the end of World War I, intensified in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Balkan communist parties, after long and heated debates, officially recognized Macedonia as a distinct Slav nation with its own language, history and territory. The Comintern followed suit in 1934 and thus supplied the first formal international recognition of Macedonian nationalism.[27]
Both rightist and leftist activities-the renewal of terrorism by IMRO, led by I. Mihailov, and the association of Macedonian nationalism with international communism-led to a revival of the Macedonian question as the central issue dividing the Balkan states and hence as the major cause of instability in southeastern Europe. These activities not only represented rejections of the territorial and political terms agreed to at the Paris Peace Conference, but also were serious challenges to Great Britain, one of the architects of the treaty and its main defender throughout the inter-war years.
For some time following World War I, London refused to consider the unrest in Macedonia and, hence, the revival of the Macedonian question. A lengthy memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," prepared by the Central Department of the Foreign Office in 1925, maintained that "While amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs - - - do not care to what nationality they belong."[28] DJ. Footman, the vice consul at Skopje, echoed a similar sentiment when he wrote, "I believe that 80 percent of the population merely desire a firm, just and enlightened Administration, and regard Nationalism as of minor importance." [29] If there was a problem, the explanation for it could be found in Bulgaria: London blamed Sofia not only for tolerating, but for encouraging and sponsoring an organized Macedonian movement, revolutionary organizations and armed bands on its own territory.[30] A more sophisticated explanation for the unrest could be based on a combination of social, economic and especially administrative causes: reports from the Balkans pointed to the economic backwardness of Macedonia and to the exacerbation of its economic woes by the partition, which had destroyed traditional trade routes and markets. They further stressed the lack of government reforms and constructive policies to alleviate the prevailing condition: communications remained as primitive or non-existent as they had been before the Great War, and towns such as Bitola, Skopje and Ohrid were in a state of general decline. The peasantry appeared to be slightly better off, but "this was less the result of agrarian reform or of the government colonization policy than of the energy and initiative shown by the peasantry, who have, in many cases, bought land either individually or in corporations, from Turks or Albanians who have emigrated to Anatolia."[31] "Such discontent as exists springs from genuine economic distress," wrote O.C. Harvey of the Foreign Office after a visit to Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia in April 1926: "Although the peasants are said to be doing well, the towns are dying from lack of trade. And wherever else the Serb is spending his money, he does not seem to be spending it in Macedonia. Yet this country is perhaps really the biggest problem for the Serbs." [32] Or, as R.A. Gallop, third secretary in the legation in Belgrade, put it: "What discontent there is comes from economic causes and the Government must seek palliatives. This of course will take time and cost money, but to my mind the key to the Macedonian question is now this: a prosperous Macedonia will be a contented one." [33]
But most reports to London singled out the administration as the root cause for discontent in Macedonia. The new rulers had forced on the Macedonians their own, that is foreign, administrative and legal codes ''without regard to local conditions or requirements." Their manner of administration was considered even worse:[34] it was described as invariably harsh, brutal, arbitrary and totally corrupt. As Colonel Corfe wrote: "One of the Macedonian's chief grievances is against the Greek Gendarmerie and during our tour we saw many examples of the arrogant and unsatisfactory methods of the Gendarmerie, who comandeer from the peasants whatever food they want...One visits few villages where some of the inhabitants are not in Greek prisons, without trial..."[35] DJ. Footman described the Serbian officials in Vardar Macedonia as poorly qualified, underpaid, arbitrary and corrupt. "Officials depend for their promotions and appointment on the service they can render their political party... ," he wrote. "It is therefore only natural for them to make what they can while they are in office. I regard this as the factor which will most militate against improvement in administration."[36] And, after a twelve-day motor tour in the same part of Macedonia, Major W.H. Oxley, the military attaché at Belgrade, reported: To start with they [the Prefects] have practically unlimited power over the local inhabitants and ... I gathered that they must exercise a pretty firm control. Further, we were informed that on the whole they were corrupt and were liable to use their power either to blackmail their flock or to accept bribes from over the frontiers, in order to allow terrorists to pass through their areas...[37]
The Central Department of the Foreign Office admitted all this and more. Its lengthy review of 1930 of the Macedonian question stated: At present Jugoslavia lacks the material out of which to create an efficient and honest civil service. This want is especially felt in the new and "foreign" provinces such as Serb-Macedonia. To make matters worse, the Jugoslav Government,... are compelled to pursue a policy of forcible assimilation, and, in order to "Serbise" the Slavs of Serb-Macedonia, must necessarily tend to disregard those grievances of the local inhabitants which spring from the violation of their local rights and customs.[38]
Although this authoritative statement of the Foreign Office acknowledged the existence and the seriousness of the Macedonian problem, the underlying assumption was that, once the economic and administrative causes for grievance were allayed, it would be finally resolved. But while the Foreign Office endeavored to avoid dealing with the national dimension and implications of the problem until as late as 1930, by the mid-1920s its position was already being questioned and challenged by Foreign Office officials in the Balkans, and was becoming untenable. It was difficult to reconcile the use of three different terms-Slavophone Greeks, Old Serbians and Bulgarians-when referring to a people who called themselves Makedonci and spoke Macedonian or dialects of it.[39] The British could maintain their position only as long as relations between Athens and Belgrade remained friendly; and a crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations in the mid-1920s provoked a heated debate over the national identity of the Macedonians -Although unwillingly, the Foreign Office was also drawn into this debate and was forced to consider: "Who are the Macedonian Slavs?"
Ironically, the crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations was sparked by the conclusion of the abortive Greek-Bulgarian Minorities Protocol of 1924, which "connoted the recognition on the part of Greece that the Slavophone inhabitants of Greek Macedonia were of Bulgarian race."[40] This infuriated the Serbs and the Belgrade government broke off its alliance with Greece on 7 November 1924; [41] it also launched a press and a diplomatic campaign that Greece protect the rights of what it called the "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia.[42] The Yugoslav government clamored for a special agreement with Greece similar to the abortive protocol between Bulgaria and Greece. "The object of this move is quite patent," wrote C.H. Bateman of the Foreign Office. "All that the Serbs want is that the Greeks should recognize a Serbian minority in Greek Macedonia in the same way as they recognized a Bulgarian minority in l924."[43] In the end, even though Greece did not sign such an agreement with Yugoslavia, relations between these two countries returned to normal; but the debate concerning the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs that this crisis had instigated in the Foreign Office continued well into the 1930s.
The debate was not entirely new or confined to Britain. The national identity of the Macedonians had sparked continuous and heated controversies before the Balkan Wars and the First World War. However, the debate assumed far greater relevance and urgency after the peace settlement because all democratic governments had embraced the principle of national self-determination. This principle was supposedly the basis for the entire settlement in east central Europe; and it supposedly bound all overnments of the "New Europe" to respect the national rights of those national minorities who for one reason or another could not exercise their right to national self-determination. Hence, to a certain extent the fate of the peace settlement in this part of Europe hinged on this principle and it was thus of particular interest to Great Britain, perhaps its chief architect and defender.
Even before the Greek-Serbian dispute London had received reports that the causes for the revival of the Macedonian problem were not solely economic or administrative, but rather that they were primarily ethnic or national. While noting in its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, that "the province known as Macedonia has, of course, no integral existence," the Chancery of the British Legation at Sofia had emphasized that as an entity it still existed "in the aspirations of men of Macedonian birth or origin scattered under the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria." It also had added that Macedonia has "clearly defined geographical boundaries."[44] Colonel Corfe had written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing to say in their presence:
But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling us 'damned Bulgars"' ... To my question "What do you want? An autonomous Macedonia or a Macedonia under Bulgaria?" the answer was generally the same: "We want good administration. We are Macedonians, not Greeks or Bulgars...We want to be left in peace."[45]
The Greek-Serbian crisis, however, forced the Foreign Office to concentrate its attention, as never before, on the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs and, indeed, on the question: who are the Macedonians? On 30 June 1925, DJ. Footman, the British vice consul at Skopje, the administrative center of Vardar Macedonia, addressed this issue in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He wrote that "the majority of the inhabitants of Southern Serbia are Orthodox Christian Macedonians, ethnologically slightly nearer to the Bulgar than to the Serb.." He acknowledged that the Macedonians were better disposed toward Bulgaria than Serbia because, as he had pointed out: the Macedonians were "ethnologically" more akin to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs; because Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia in the time of the Turks, largely carried on through the schools, was widespread and effective; and because Macedonians at the time perceived Bulgarian culture and prestige to be higher than those of its neighbors. Moreover, large numbers of Macedonians educated in Bulgarian schools had sought refuge in Bulgaria before and especially after the partitions of 1913. "There is therefore now a large Macedonian element in Bulgaria," continued Footman, "represented in all Government Departments and occupying high positions in the army and in the civil service...." He characterized this element as "Serbophobe, [it] mostly desires the incorporation of Macedonia in Bulgaria, and generally supports the Makedonska Revolucionara [sic] Organizacija [the IMRO]." However, he also pointed to the existence of the tendency to seek an independent Macedonia with Salonica as its capital. "This movement also had adherents among the Macedonian colony in Bulgaria. It is supported by the parties of the Left in Bulgaria, and, at least theoretically, by large numbers of Macedonians."[46]
The Central Department of the Foreign Office went even further in clarifying the separate identity of the Macedonians. In a confidential survey and analysis of the entire Macedonian problem it identified the Macedonians not as Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, but rather as Macedonian Slavs, and, on the basis of "a fairly reliable estimate made in 1912," singled them out as by far the largest single ethnic group in Macedonia.[47] It acknowledged, as did Footman, that these Slavs spoke a language "understood by both Serbs and Bulgars, but slightly more akin to the Bulgarian tongue than to the Serbian"; and that after the 1870 establishment of the Exarchate, Bulgarian propaganda made greater inroads in Macedonia than the Serbian or Greek. However, it stressed that "While it is probable that the majority of these Slavs are, or were, pro-Bulgar, it is incorrect to refer to them as other than Macedo-Slavs. To this extent both the Serb claim that they are Southern Serbs and the Bulgarian claim that they are Bulgarians are unjustified."[48]
By declaring that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Bulgarians nor Serbs, the survey acknowledged implicitly that they were different from both and hence that they constituted a separate south Slav element. However, it did not go so far as to recognize them explicitly as a distinct nationality or nation. It sought to explain this omission by maintaining, without convincing evidence, that "while amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs... do not care to what nationality they belong."[49] The real reason for the omission, however, lay elsewhere. In view of the prevailing acceptance of the principle of national self-determination, the recognition of the Slav Macedonians as a distinct nationality would have legitimized the Macedonian claims for autonomy or at least for national minority rights. This would have connoted the tearing up or at least the revision of the peace treaties and of the frontiers, neither of which was acceptable to Britain's clients, Greece and Yugoslavia, or indeed, to Great Britain itself. "In all the circumstances the present partition of Macedonia is probably as good a practical arrangement as can be devised," declared the Central Department, "and there is no real reason or consideration of political expediency which could be quoted to necessitate a rearrangement of the present frontiers."[50]
Indeed, the Foreign Office was contemplating a different and, as it turned out, an illusory solution to the Macedonian problem. It accepted as valid the official Greek determination of the low number of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia and assumed that with time they would be assimilated.[51] It also assumed that with time the Yugoslav hold on Vardar Macedonia would become more secure, that this would be followed "as a natural consequence" by the "rounding up of Macedonian agents," and that the Macedonian organization operating from Bulgaria would "suffer correspondingly through the lack of funds and general support forthcoming from that district...." And, as organized Macedonian activity declined, the prospect of more cordiality between Bulgaria and the Serb-Slovene-Croat kingdom will become brighter, and pro tonto, the idea of Serb-Bulgar Slav confederacy will become more feasible. The formation of such a Slav State in the Balkans will settle the Macedonian question once and for all. Other considerations arising out of the formation of such a confederacy must be reserved for the future. [52]
A few months later, on 3 March 1926; C.H. Bateman, a second secretary in the Foreign Office, issued the official position in a separate "Memorandum on 'Serbian Minorities' in Greek Macedonia."
In this strong statement he reiterated the main points of the Central Department's memorandum of 26 November 1925: "Most authorities are agreed that by all ethnological and language tests the Macedonian Slav is more akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." Again, without substantiation, he declared that the deciding factor in the national allegiance of the Macedonian Slavs "is the national consciousness of the individual who changes his allegiance according to circumstances... His national allegiance is largely a matter of the propaganda which is exercised upon him...,"[53] in effect, under the influence of propaganda, Bulgarian, Greek or Serbian, the Macedonian Slav would become a loyal Bulgarian, Greek or Serb. Bateman therefore sided with the Greeks in the Greek-Serbian dispute: "Taking the broadest interpretation of the Macedonian Slavs, one thing is certain, namely, that the Serbs have only the flimsiest of rights to intervene at all on their behalf. The Greeks are correct in contesting this right and contending that it is a matter that touches the internal administration of Greece."[54] If, as it appears, Bateman's aim was to put an end to the Foreign Office debate concerning the Macedonian national question, he failed. Although the Greek-Serbian dispute came to nothing, this debate intensified. R.A. Gallop, third secretary of the Legation at Belgrade, spent a week in April 1926 in Vardar Macedonia; his report after the tour is most revealing:
The most striking thing to one familiar with North Serbia [Serbia proper], who has been accustomed to hear Macedonia described as Southern Serbia and its inhabitants as Serbs, was the complete difference of atmosphere which was noticeable almost as soon as we had crossed the pre-1913 frontier some miles south of Vranje. One felt as though one had entered a foreign country. Officials and officers from North Serbia seemed to feel this too, and I noticed especially in the cafes and hotels of Skopje that they formed groups by themselves and mixed little with the Macedo-Slavs. Those of the latter that I met were equally insistent on calling themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians.... There seemed to be no love lost for the Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their friends...[55]
Moreover, in his response to Bateman's memorandum, Gallop defined more clearly than ever before the central issue in the Greek-Serbian dispute. He reminded Bateman that the Serbian claim is founded not on the contention that among the Slavs of Greek Macedonia there are some that can be picked as Serbs, but on the contention that the population is of exactly the same stock on both sides of the border. The Serbs see that to admit that the Macedonians in Greece are Bulgars weakens their case that the Macedonians in South Serbia are Serbs. While he agreed with Bateman "that the Macedonian Slavs used, before the days of propaganda, to call themselves 'Christians' rather than Serbs or Bulgars," Gallop did not agree "that the Macedonian Slavs are nearer akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." In any case, he questioned the impartiality of so-called "authorities" and emphasized the actual reality that "nowadays" the Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves "Makedonci." [56]
Oliver C. Harvey of the Foreign Office, who visited both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, reinforced Gallop's views. Indeed, in his "Notes" on the fact-finding mission he left no doubt about the existence of a distinct Macedonian consciousness and identity. In connection with Vardar Macedonia he reported that "The Slavophone population of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say they are 'Macedonians,' and they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identify themselves with the Bulgars, although the latter seem undoubtedly to be regarded as nearer relatives than the Serbs."[57] As far as Aegean Macedonia was concerned, Harvey noted that in its eastern and central part "the Slavophone population had 'voluntarily' emigrated and their place had been taken by 500,000 Greek refugees" from Asia Minor. "'Voluntary' emigration," he observed, "is a euphemism; incoming Greeks were planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate." Such upheaval did not take place in its western part and large numbers of Slavophones remained there, in the area around and south of Florina (Lerin). "These of course constitute the much advertised "Serb minority," he continued. "But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they speak Macedonian, and call themselves Macedonians and sentimentally look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."[58]
Through this internal debate, the Foreign Office appeared to have reached a virtual consensus that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Serbs, nor Bulgarians nor Greeks, a de facto acknowledgment that they comprised a separate southern Slav national group. But they were not given official recognition as a distinct nationality or nation; as I have already shown, the Foreign Office hoped to see the Macedonian problem disappear by their eventual assimilation into the three nations that ruled over them. In the meantime, during the second half of the 1920s and until its dissolution in 1934, the IMRO intensified its activities in Bulgaria and armed incursions into Vardar Macedonia, thereby reminding London of the Macedonian national question.
Unlike in Greece and Yugoslavia, in Bulgaria the various aspects of the Macedonian problem were generally argued freely and publicly. This was only partly due to the traditional Bulgarian paternalism toward the Macedonians; it also reflected the strength and influence of the organized Macedonian movement in the Pirin region, in Sofia and in other major urban centers. Consequently, British diplomats there were more deeply and broadly versed in all the intricacies of the Macedonian problem than their counterparts in Athens and Belgrade, and they were more apt to search for alternative solutions.
` Early in 1928 Charles ES. Dodd, the charge d'affaires at Sofia, assured the Foreign Office that the IMRO "would at once desist from its sinister activities" "if the Jugoslav Government would grant educational and religious autonomy to Macedonia." To DJ. Footman, whose reaction from Skopje had been sought by the Foreign Office, this read "like pious hope" rather than "a practical proposition." He did not reject the idea in principle; indeed, he even used the terms "nationality" and "national minority" when referring to the Macedonians, and argued that if such autonomy had been introduced immediately after the war "the results would no doubt have been beneficial." Now, however, "it would not suffice to wipe out the bitterness felt against the Serbs"; it would no longer satisfy the entire Macedonian movement. Instead, he warned, Macedonian activists would interpret it "as a confession of failure and a sign of weakness on the part of Serbs, to be exploited to the utmost possible extent." He considered (and the future proved him right) that "the best chance for real progress in Macedonia" was "the removal of the Serb predominance in the Jugoslav state."[59] The Foreign Office dismissed Dodd's suggestion and showed little appreciation of Footman's pessimistic, but rather sensitive and measured analysis of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia. "It is quite clear, however," wrote Orme Sargent, a counselor and a future assistant under secretary of state, "that it would be impossible to expect the Jugoslav Government to adopt measures which would recognize the population of Southern Serbia as a political minority." Inasmuch as he had convinced himself that the discontent in Macedonia was "due to economic and administrative conditions rather than psychological or racial issues," he endorsed instead a proposal made by H.W. Kennard, the minister at Belgrade, to grant financial loans to Yugoslavia to improve internal conditions "in Southern Serbia and thus help to lessen the present sullen discontent of the population." Most important, such expenditure, Sargent concluded, would not have the appearance of being extorted from the Jugoslav Government at the point of the Macedonian bayonet, nor would it commit the Jugoslavs in any way to a recognition of the claim of a separate Macedonian nationality. Reforms on these lines could therefore be carried out at any time without loss of face by the Jugoslav Government. [60]
Obviously Sargent was concerned with the sensitivities and interests of the Yugoslav government and not with the demands of the Macedonians and consciously sought to minimize "the psychological and racial issues" as the basis of Macedonian discontent. This did not go unnoticed at the British Legation at Sofia: in a rather blunt and less than diplomatic manner, R.A.C. Sperling, the new minister at Sofia, accused the "Powers," meaning, of course, primarily his own government and that of France, of always unfairly taking the side of Yugoslavia against Bulgaria and the Macedonians. Or as he put it, "Jugoslavia continues flagrantly to violate the provisions of the Minorities Treaty of 1919. The Powers as well as the League of Nations accept any quibble advanced by the Jugoslav Government as a pretext for not raising the question of the Macedonian minority."[61]
The exchange of views provoked by Sperling's "outburst," as O. Sargent called it, is most revealing about the Foreign Office's thinking on the Macedonian national question. Howard Kennard, Sperling's counterpart at Belgrade, was so taken aback by it that he did not wish to comment on it officially. In a letter to 0. Sargent, however, he expressed his "private regrets that Sperling cannot understand that it is not a question of taking sides one way or the other, but of assisting in preserving the peace in the Balkans, which is, after all, our only political raison d'etre here."[62] C.H. Bateman accused Sperling of holding general views "that are not only erroneous but certainly dangerous ...His Majesty's Government has long since decided that what are nebulously called Macedonian aspirations are impossible of realization, and that to give way to Macedonian agitation would be the best way to create upheaval in the Balkans." [63] Sargent felt that Sperling's "outburst" ought not to go unnoticed; but instead of an official reprimand he proposed to send him a private letter.[64] This was approved by R.G. Vansittart, private secretary to the Prime Minister and assistant under secretary of state in the Foreign Office, who added that "the next time this sort of thing happens, he [Sperling] should have it officially."[65] Sargent's lengthy private letter was polite, but direct. He pointed out that Serbia was the signatory "of one minorities treaty," that signed at St. Germain on 20 September 1919. "In your dispatch you make mention of a Macedonian minority. But what is this minority?" he asked. "You will find no mention of it in the Jugoslav Minorities Treaty... He also reiterated the well known view of the Foreign Office that the grievances which "the population of Southern Serbia complain of are common to all and are due to the general low level of administrative ability among the local officials and not to the intentional ill treatment of any particular race, sect or language." Finally, he rejected Sperling's suggestion that some satisfaction of the "Macedonian national aspirations" might lead to a solution of the Macedonian problem. "What are we to understand by such aspirations?" asked Sargent. "If Macedonian autonomy is what is aimed at it can be said at once that it is impossible of realisation." To aim at it would be to play into the hands of Italy and other revisionist elements, and Britain was determined "to stick strenuously to the peace terms."[66]
Sperling was not deterred by the hostile reaction of his superiors. He responded to Sargent with a lengthy letter of his own in which he reduced the Macedonian problem to its bare essentials by asking bluntly two questions: "a, Is there such a thing as a Macedonian minority?" and "b, If there is, is it ill treated by the Serbs?" He then went on to answer them. "Sounds superfluous," he wrote, "but you ask 'What is the Macedonian minority?' I can hardly believe you want me to quote all the authorities from the year one to show you that there is such a thing as a Macedonian." He referred him specifically to the earlier reports by Gallop, Harvey and Footman, and stressed that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia called themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonians. With regard to the second question, Sperling argued that it made no difference to the Macedonians "whether these things were due, as you say, to the general low level of Serbian administrative ability or to the intentional ill treatment of a particular race. ... The fact remains that their charges stand..."[67]
London was not prepared to listen and, indeed, wished to put an end to the expression of views that seemed to run counter to the main tenets of Britain's policies in southeastern Europe. C.H. Bateman suggested to Sargent that "a short reply would be sufficient to point to the confusion of thought which appears to exist at our legation at Sofia on this Macedonian question."[68] Otherwise, his comments, which were drafted by Sargent into a letter to Sperling, reveal a characteristic British slighting of nationalism and national movements among the so-called "small" and "young" peoples in eastern Europe. He argued that just because the Slavs of Macedonia called themselves Macedonians, "there was no reason why We or you should consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory... which has not for a thousand years been an autonomous entity in any sense..."[69] However, he could not come up with another, more acceptable name for them, except perhaps "Macedo-Slavs," which was in effect the same thing.[70]
Such intervention and argumeilts do not seem to have been sufficient to silence the legation at Sofia. At any rate, R.A.C. Sperling left Sofia shortly after,[71] and his successor-, Sidney P.P. Waterlow, held views on the Macedonian problem that were, if anything, even more revisionist. He expressed them most cogently in a long, thoughtful and courteous letter to R.G. Vansittart,[72] who had in the meantime become permanent under secretary of state for foreign affairs. He did not believe, as the Foreign Office did, that the Macedonian problem would simply disappear when the militant revolutionaries had been destroyed in Bulgaria and when Yugoslavia had provided the Macedonians with good administration and a civilized minority regime. Unlike Nevile Henderson, Kennard's successor as minister at Belgrade, he could not see how any amount of good administration, even if it would improve the atmosphere and facilitate the suppression of the IMRO, could be an ultimate solution. He argued that only genuine home rule-freedom to manage local affairs, churches, schools, etc.-could do that, but even here he had doubts. In any case, he seemed convinced that Belgrade was not capable of giving its Macedonian subjects anything like real local autonomy or, at least, not so long as the Macedonians considered themselves Macedonian.
It is this that dictates the present policy of intense Serbification. But it is this that makes it impossible to introduce a genuine minority regime until there is no minority to give the regime to, and it is just this that Bulgaria, with her Macedonian exiles (the most stubborn and intelligent people in the Balkans) and her indigenous Macedonian population, can never wholeheartedly accept ...[73]
Thus, even if the revolutionaries were destroyed and Serbian Macedonia was ruled with "kindly wisdom," the Macedonian question would most likely remain unresolved, an apple of discord, a stumbling block to stability in the Balkans, etc. In Waterlow's search for a solution "that might bring real peace at long last," he seriously considered the idea, which seemed entirely logical to him but at the same time not altogether practical from the perspective of British foreign policy, of an autonomous united Macedonia. "I do not share the view of the department that Macedonia never having been a geographical or racial entity, the idea [an autonomous united Macedonia] is inherently absurd;" he wrote, "that is an exaggeration, inherited, I fancy, from the predominance of Serb views at the Peace Conference." He believed that, united and independent, the Macedonians "might play the part which God seems to have assigned to them in the Balkans, but which man has thwarted-that, namely, of acting as a link between their Serb and Bulgar brothers, instead of being a permanent cause of division." [74] He did not really expect a positive reaction to this idea from the Foreign Office; yet, as he concluded, "one's mind keeps flying back in this direction, as one goes over the problem day after day, only to find Alps upon Alps of hopelessness arise."[75] But when John Balfour at the Foreign Office read Waterlow's report, he did not consider this a logical idea and maintained that Britain "must continue to concentrate [on the peace treaties] in the forlorn hope that they will pierce a Simplon Tunnel through the Alps of despair."[76]
On the basis of this lengthy debate, which involved those in the Foreign Office and service most concerned with the Macedonian question, the Central Department drafted a new, updated memorandum on the Macedonian question in 1929.[77] Parts of the first version were revised shortly thereafter as a result of last minute critical comments and objections voiced by Waterlow.
The final draft of this lengthy and valuable document, dated 2 July 1930, presented the official British interpretation of the history of the Macedonian question since the 1860s, as well as an analysis of the contemporary political problem.[78] It acknowledged once again that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia, the Macedo-Slavs or Macedonians, were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, and thus implicitly recognized their separate and distinct identity. It also admitted the existence in Yugoslav Macedonia of "a uniquely dangerous minority problem, which is aggravated by the fact that the Macedonians are the most stubborn and hard-headed people in the Balkans." [79] It was therefore deeply concerned that the League of Nations could be dragged into the Macedonian problem, first of all, because it was a threat to international peace and, secondly and more importantly, because the Yugoslav minorities treaty, concluded at St. Germain in 1919, applied "to all territories acquired by Serbia as a result of the Balkan wars, and the enforcement of which is entrusted to the League Council."[80] Great Britain, however, could not allow the consideration of the Macedonian question in Yugoslavia by the League of Nations, the body that was specifically delegated to deal with and arbitrate national problems, conflicts and grievances, for it would "inevitably involve the airing of the whole Macedonian problem at Geneva and its discussion could hardly fail to precipitate a crisis which the League Council might find it very difficult to control."[81] London feared that League of Nations consideration of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia would amount to a de facto recognition of the Macedonian nationality. This would in turn legitimize to a certain extent the Macedonian demands for a united and independent Macedonia, thus challenging the existing status quo in the Balkans. The Memorandum made this quite clear: "Indeed, once the existence of a Macedonian nationality is even allowed to be presumed there is a danger that the entire Peace Settlement will be jeopardized by the calling into question, not merely of the frontiers between Jugoslavia and Bulgaria, but also of those between Jugoslavia and Greece and between Jugoslavia and Albania" [82] It strongly recommended that "this Balkan cancer" be treated "not by drastic surgical excision (e.g. plebiscite resulting in a change of frontiers....)" but rather "by the use of the healing properties of time and by the use of radium treatment of persuasive diplomacy, which while basing itself on the territorial status quo, shall endeavor gradually to eradicate the open sore that has for so long poisoned the relations of the Balkan states."[83]
The analysis and the recommendations of this memorandum remained the official British position on the Macedonian question virtually until the outbreak of World War II.
The Foreign Office interpreted the subsequent "degeneration" of the IMRO of Ivan Mihailov and, after the military coup in Sofia in 1934, the decline and cessation of its terrorist activities, as signs of the gradual eradication of "this Balkan cancer." In actual fact, this view represented a serious misreading, indeed, a rather crude misunderstanding of the transformation of Macedonian nationalism at the time. The IMRO, which had been divided between a right and a left wing from its very inception, finally split in 1924-1925. The left formed its own separate organization, the IMRO (United) and joined the Balkan Communist Federation and the Comintern. Unlike the right, it had a clearly defined social, economic and particularly national program; unlike the terrorist campaign of the right, it enhanced the cause of both nationalism and communism in Macedonia through underground work. By the early 1930s it had attracted a large following and was challenging Mihailov's IMRO for leadership. Waterlow informed the Foreign Office of the split and the growing strength of the left in his report on the proceedings of the Tenth Congress of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, the legal organization of Mihailov's IMRO, held in Sofia on 24-27january 1932.
The opposite view [the left], which has lately grown within the movement, which was suppressed at the congress, but which was clearly set out in the communist press, is that Mihailoff has forsaken the ideal of the Macedonian movement, that he does not fight for the liberation of Macedonia and that he has become the tool of the Fascist regime in Bulgaria, which uses the Macedonian organization for the sole purpose of maintaining its dictatorship ...
The Macedonian movement should again become national and independent, it should throw off the tutelage of the Bulgarian Government, which supports it only for its own ends, and it should fight for a genuinely independent Macedonia as part of a Balkan Federation under Soviet protection.[84]
The growth of the left undermined the support of the IMRO of Mihailov and forced the latter, for reasons of self-preservation, to free itself from the tutelage of the Bulgarian government and to identify itself with a Macedonian national program clearly calling for "the unification of Macedonian territories held by Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria, into an independent political entity within its natural geographical frontiers."[85] But it is safe to assume that this reorientation of the IMRO contributed to its suppression in 1934: by the second half of the 1930s most Bulgarians had become convinced "that the Macedonians have been more trouble in Bulgaria than they were worth and merely gave the country a bad name abroad without helping the national [Bulgarian] cause...."[86]
IMRO's suppression, in turn, helped to enhance the role of the Macedonian left, whose nationalist activities had previously been hampered by the IMRO and whose many activists had fallen victims of the mihailovist terror. As Bentinck, the new minister at Sofia, pointed out:
Since the coup d'etat last year, however, the Macedonian communists became much more active, especially in Sofia and Bulgarian Macedonia. I am told the intention was to detach the three portions of Macedonia belonging to Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and to unite them into a Soviet Republic - - - At the same time the communist parties in Bulgaria, Jugoslavia and Greece were ordered by Moscow to support the Macedonian communists...[87]
Thus, contrary to the hopes and expectations of the Foreign Office, neither the dissolution of the terrorist IMRO nor "the healing properties of time" resolved the Macedonian problem or caused it to disappear. Macedonian nationalism was forced underground and into the embrace of international communism, where it continued to grow. As Simeon Radev, a prominent Bulgarophile Macedonian and a well known retired Bulgarian diplomat, pointed out to Waterlow, "no solution of the [Macedonian] problem could be expected by the mere aflux of time. There was no prospect whatever of the population acquiescing in the policy of Serbianisation pursued by Belgrade...." He also emphasized "that the Macedonian sense of nationality was not a sense of Bulgarian nationality. It took the shape, especially with the younger generation, of an aspiration for autonomy." [88] On a private visit to Istanbul in September 1933, E. Venizelos, the great Greek statesman, expressed similar sentiments to Sir George Clerk, the British ambassador: Venizelos had always counselled that the Jugoslav Government should make a serious effort to content the Slav Macedonian minority... M. Venizelos maintained that these people, of which Greece has a small share...., are not pure Bulgarians, but something between Bulgarian and Serbian, and he had, he said, always been ready to give them Slav Macedonian schools and other reasonable privileges.[89]
Furthermore, as Radev had also argued, a driving force behind the Macedonian movement at this time was the fundamental belief that anything, however improbable, might occur in a world of flux. And central to this belief was "a desire for a union of all Macedonians in an autonomous state..." [90] As the outbreak of the Second World War approached the growing challenges to the status quo in Europe intensified this belief and desire in the second half of the 1930s.[91] In addition to the USSR or, rather, the communist movement, which already enjoyed widespread support among the Macedonians, by the end of the decade both Germany and Italy actively advocated schemes for "the liberation of Macedonia" with which "they are trying to attract Macedonians ..."[92]
While the Foreign Office either minimized or was ignorant of the strength of Macedonian nationalism on the left, it was not ready to overlook the spread of German and Italian influence in the area. And it was this more than anything else, that brought about a renewed British interest in the Macedonians and the beginning of a British reappraisal of the Macedonian national problem. After the fall of France in summer 1940, G.W. Rendel, the minister at Sofia, warned of the increased Soviet, German and Italian activities in Macedonia and concluded that "Presumably' however the Macedonians would accept any 'autonomous' Macedonian state which a great power succeeds in establishing."[93] He analyzed the aims of the Macedonians in greater detail in a private letter to P.B.B. Nichols of the Foreign Office written ten days later:
My impression is that there is now a fairly large section of the Macedonians who look to Russia for their salvation. ... I think the pro -Russian groups probably hope for the eventual creation of an autonomous Macedonian Soviet Republic as one of a chain of South Slav Soviet states running from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and to the German and Italian frontiers. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of Macedonians who are short sighted enough to be ready to intrigue with Germany and Italy...The Macedonians are notoriously difficult, and have many of the characteristics of the Irish, and my impression is that they are happiest in opposition to any existing regime...[94]
Early in 1941 the vice consul at Skopje provided the Foreign Office with an even more extensive and perceptive analysis of the current state of the Macedonian problem. He claimed that the vast majority of the Macedonians belonged to the national movement; indeed, he estimated "that 90 percent of all Slav Macedonians were autonomists in one sense or another...." Because the movement was wrapped in secrecy, however, it was extremely difficult to gauge the relative strength of its various currents, except that it could be assumed that IMRO had lost ground since it was banned in Bulgaria and its leaders exiled. While the vice consul acknowledged the close relationship between communism and "autonomism" or nationalism in Macedonia, he downplayed the frequently expressed contention that the communists used the Macedonian movement for their own ends.
Instead, he argued that since virtually every Macedonian was an autonomist, it was almost certain "that the Communists and autonomists are the same people..."; and, in any case, that Macedonian communists were not doctrinaire and were "regarded by other Balkan communists as weaker brethren...." "My own opinion," wrote Thomas, "is that they are autonomists in the first place and Communists only in the second."[95] He concluded his lengthy report by stressing what by then should have been obvious: the Macedonian problem was "a real one" and "an acute one" and that it "has in no way been artificially created by interested propaganda." He considered change unavoidable and felt that it was "in the interest of Jugoslavia to satisfy the aspirations of Macedonia."
He was equally convinced, however, that it was highly improbable, "in view of the instinctive dislike of the Serbs engendered by twenty years of Serbian rule, that anything short of autonomy would be acceptable.'' [96]
Rendel's and Thomas's appraisals of the Macedonian situation were not radically different from many produced by their predecessors stationed in the Balkans. However, with the world once more at war, the Foreign Office now accorded them more serious consideration and appeared, although grudgingly, to accept them. It seemed to accept the fact that Britain's hitherto refusal to officially recognize the existence of a Macedonian nationality, a policy that it had shaped and defended for over twenty years, might no longer prove tenable and most likely would not survive the war. In a highly revealing, indeed almost prophetic, comment on Thomas's report, Reginald J. Bowker of the Foreign Office conceded this when he wrote: "To the layman the only possible solution of the Macedonian problem would seem to be in giving the Macedonians some sort of autonomy within Jugoslavia. Possibly after the war the Jugoslavs may be willing to consider this. But such a measure would, no doubt, incur the risk of whetting the appetite of the Macedonians for complete independence."[97]
The lack of official recognition or legitimacy internationally and in the three Balkan states obviously had hindered the normal and natural development of Macedonian identity. However, it could not destroy it. Macedonianism in its various manifestations-particularism, patriotism, nationalism-was too deeply entrenched among the Macedonian people and among the small, but vibrant and dynamic intelligentsia, especially on the political left. During World War II, which began for the Balkans in late 1940 and early 1941, Macedonians in all three parts of their divided land joined resistance movements in large numbers and fought for national unification and liberation.[98] They did not achieve national unification; however, the Macedonians in Vardar or Yugoslav Macedonia won not only national recognition but also legal equality with the other nations of the new, communistled, federal Yugoslavia.
Notes
1. For a discussion of the significance of international recognition or legitimacy in the development of Balkan nationalisms, see especially John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 103-11, 115-16 and 373; and Alan Warwick Palmer, The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe since the Congress of Vienna (London: Macmillan, 1970), 28-29.
2. See especially Blaze Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija (Skopje: Misla, 1983), 1: 75-86, 163-87, 263-80. Ristovski is the leading authority on Macedonian national thought and development. His two volumes contain previously published studies on the subject. See also the following works published recently in the west: Fikret Adanir, Die Makedonische Frage. Ihre Entstchung und Entwicklung bis 1908 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979); Marco Dogo, Lingua e Nazionalita' in Macedonia: Vicende e pensieri di profeti disarmati, 1902-1903 (Milan: Jaca Book, 1985); Jutta de Jong, Die nationale Kern des makedonisehen Problems: Ansatze und Grundlagen einer makedonischen Nationalbeweguag (1890-1903) (Frankfurt: Lang, 1982); Andrew Rossos, "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verderv. eds.. Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.
3. The literature on the struggles in Macedonia is vast but rather uneven and polemical in nature. A good documentary survey in English of the activities of the neighboring Balkan states in Macedonia is to be found in George P. Gooch and Harold Temperley. eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914 (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1926-1938), 5: 100-23. Among the more useful works in western languages are Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988); Henry N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (1906, reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1980); Elizabeth Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (1950, reprint, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980); Jacques Ancel, La Macedoine (Paris, 1930); Gustav Weigand, Ethnographie von Makedonien (Leipzig, 1924). For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Jovan M. Jovanovic. Juzna Srbija od kraja XVIII veka do oslobodjenja (Belgrade. 1941) (Serbian); G. Bazhdarov, Makedonskjat vapros vchera i dnes, (Sofia, 1925) (Bulgarian); Georgios Modes, 0 makedonikos agon kai i neoteri makedoniki istoria (Salonica: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon. 1967) (Greek). Macedonan historians have turned their attention to this problem more recently. See Kliment Dzambazovski, Kulturno-opstestvenite vrski na Makedoncite so Srbija vo tekot na XIX vek (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija (Ini), 1960); Risto Poplazarov, Grckata politka sprema Makedonija vo vtorata polovina na XIX i pocetokot na XX vek (Skopje: Ini, 1973); Slavko Dimevski, Makedonskoto nacionalno osloboditelno dvizenie i egzarhijata (1893-1912) (Skopje: Kultura, 1963); Krste Bitoski, Makedonija i Knezevstvo Bugarija (1893-1903) (Skopje: Ini, 1977). On the partition of Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy. 1908-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981); Petar Stojanov, Makedonija vo vremeto na balkanskite i prvata svetska vojna (1912-1918) (Skopje: Ini, 1969).
4. Blaze Ristovski, Portreti i procesi od makedonskata literaturna i nacionalna istorija (Skopje: Kultura, 1990), 3: 34.
5. Ristovski, op cit. and 2: 24-72; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."
6. The Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian claims were extensively publicized. For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Tihomir R. Georgevich, Macedonia (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1918) (Serbian); Iordan Ivanov, La question macedoine (Paris, 1920) (Bulgarian); Cleanthes Nicolaides, La Macedoine (Berlin, 1899) (Greek). See also the works cited in note 3.
7. See (London) Public Record Office, FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 3-4. (All Foreign Office documents cited hereafter are found in the Public Record Office). See also Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, Velika Britania i makedonskoto prasnje na pariskata mirovna konferencija vo 19l9godina (Skopje: Arhiv na Makedonija, 1973); Ivan Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje. Makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje megju dvete svetski vojni (1919-1930) (Skopje: Kultura, 1977), 1: chap. 1. Katardziev provides the most comprehensive, valuable and interesting treatment of the Macedonian national question in the 1920s.
8. FO371/14316, A. Henderson (Belgrade) to N. Henderson, 9 May 1930, Enclosure 2, "Memorandum by Vice-Consul Blakeney."
9. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941. On developments in Vardar Macedonia during the interwar years, see also Katardziev, op.cit., 1: 23-85; Institut za nacionalna istorija, Istorija na makedonskiot narod (Skopje, 1969), 3: part 11; Aleksandar Apostolov, Kolonizacijata na Makedonija vo stara Jugoslavija (Skopje: Kultura, 1966), and "Specificnata polozba na makedonskiot narod vo kralstvoto Jugoslavija," Glasnik (Skopje) 16, no.1(1972): 39-62.
10. FO 371/8566, Bentinck (Athens) to Curzon, 20 August 1923, Enclosure, Colonel A.C. Corfe, "Notes on a Tour Made by the Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration in Western and Central Macedonia," 5. By "Bulgars," Lambros meant Macedonians.
11. On the situation of the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British Officer's Report, 1944," The Slavonic and East European Review (London) 69, no.2 (April 1991): 282-88. See also Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 85-106; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 13; Stojan Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija vo Egeiska Makedonija (1913-1940) (Skopje: Ini, 1981); Lazo Mojsov, Okolu prasanjeto na makedonskoto nacionalno malcinstovo vo Grcija (Skopje: Ini, 1954), 207-87; Giorgi Abadziev, et al., Egejska Makedonija vo nasata nacionalna istorija (Skopje, 1951).
12. Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 293-94. Captain P.H. Evans' "Report on the Free Macedonia Movement in Area Florina 1944" is given verbatim, 291-309.
13. FO371/12856, Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928
14. FO371/8568, 22. A few years later, O. Sargent, a counselor in the Foreign Office, complained that "the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation... defies openly the Bulgarian Government and practically administers and governs part of the Bulgarian territory" (FO371/12856, Sargent [London] to Sperling, 1 October 1928).
15. On Pirin Macedonia as well as the Macedonians in Bulgaria, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 107-19; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 12; Dimitar Mitrev, Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Nasa Kniga 1970), 126-202.
16. See Stefan Troebst, Mussolini, Makedonien und die Machte, 1922-1930: Die "Innere Makeodnische Revolutionare Organisation" in der Sudosteuropapolitik der faschistischen Italien (Cologne: Bohlau, 1987); and Barker, Macedonia, chap. 2; Leften S. Stavrianos, Balkan Federation: A History of the Movement Toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times (1944, reprint, Hamden: Archon Books, 1964), chaps. 8 and 9.
17. FO371/8568, p.22.
18. FO371/7375, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 25 January 1922. Harold Nicolson commented: "There is less disparity between the Irish and Macedonian temperament than might be supposed" (Minute, 1 February 1922).
19. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 2, chap. 1.
20. Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija, chap. 4.
21. Katardziev, op.cit.; Dino Kiosev, Istoria na makedonskoto natsionalno revoliutsionerno dvizhenie (Sofia: Otechestven front 1954) 493-99
22. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1:171-83 and part 2, chap. 2; Kiosev, ibid., 512- 28. On the activities of the IMRO in all three parts of Macedonia, see also the memoirs of its leader after 1924: Ivan Mikhailov, Spomeni, 4 vols. (Selci, Louvain, Indianapolis, 1952, 1965, 1967, 1973).
23. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 375-76; Istorija na makedonshiot narod, 3: 20-23, 176-78; Evangelos Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia (Salonica: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1964), 69; Dimitrios G. Kousoulas, Revolution and Defeat: The Story of the Communist Party of Greece (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 65.
24. FO371/7377, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 20 March 1922.
25. FO371/6197, Peel (Sofia) to Curzon, 10 February 1921.
26. See FO371/8568.
27. On communism and Macedonian nationalism, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 3, chaps. 1-4, 2: part 5, and ed., Predavnicite na makedonskoto delo (Skopje: Kultura, 1983), 5-56; Stojan Kiselinovski, KPG i makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje, 1918-1940 (Skopje: Misla, 1985), chaps. 2-4; Kiril Miljovski, Makedonskoto prasanje vo nacionalnata programa na KPJ (1919-1937) (Skopje: Kultura, 1962), 24-140; Dimitar Mitrev, BKP i Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Kultura, 1960), 42-59; Kofos, op.cit., chap. 4; Darinka Pacemska, Vnatresnata makedonska revolucionerna organizacija (Obedineta) (Skopje: "Studentski zbor," 1985). I have dealt with the subject in "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verdery, eds., Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.
28. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 4.
29. FO371/10793, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 6July 1925, Enclosure, Footman (Skopje) to Kennard, 30 June 1925, 5. John David Footman was a fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford (1953-1963) and author of several books on modern Russian history.
30. See especially ibid., 14 and FO371/8568, 3 and FO371/10667, 6.
31. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926; Enclosure R.A. Gallon. "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926, 4.
32. F0371111245, O. Ch. Harvey, "Notes on a Visit to Jugoslavia and Greece," April 1926, 6 May 1926, 3.
33. FO371/11405, 5.
34. FO371/10793, 6.
35. FO371/8566, 3.
36. FO371/10793, 6.
37. FO371/14316, N. Henderson (Belgrade) to A. Henderson, 13 May 1930, En-closures.
38. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930, 12.
39. See FO371/11337, Kennard (Belgrade) to H. Smith, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop "Notes," 23 April 1926.
40. FO371/11337, C.H. Bateman, "Memorandum on "Serbian Minorities in Greek Macedonia," 3 March 1926, 2.
41. Ibid.
42. See FO371/10793 and FO371/11337.
43. FO371/11337.
44. See FO371/8568.
45. FO371/8566.
46. FO371/10793. Footman dismissed the Serbian claims to a "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia and pointed to two other factors as the real causes of the Greek- -Serbian dispute: "a) Politically, the Serb displeasure at Slav inhabitants of Greek Macedonia being recognized as Bulgars; and b) Economically, the loss suffered by Serbian Macedonia and the Kingdom as a whole by being separated by a frontier from Salonica" (6).
47. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925. It gave the following figures: Macedonian Slavs 1,150,000; Turks 400,000; Greeks 300,000; Vlachs 200,000; Albanians 120,000;Jews 100,000; Gypsies 10,000 (2).
48. Ibid., 4.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 1, 4; See also Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 284-85, 290, 293-94.
52. Ibid., 7.
53. FO371/11337,1
54. Ibid., 4.
55. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop, "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926,1.
56. "I should like to know the names of any authorities who are impartial," wrote Gallop. "Certainly none of the Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, British or German ever are!" (FO371/11337, Enclosure, 23 April 1926).
57. FO371/11245, 2.
58. Ibid., p.3.
59. Footman argued that "such local autonomy would have greater chance of success were it to be introduced by some future government in which Croats and Slovenes held the preponderating position. There is throughout Macedonia a sullen bitterness against the Serbs..." (FO371/12856, Footman [Skopje] to Kennard, 4 February 1928 in Kennard [Belgrade] to Chamberlain, 18 February 1928).
60. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928, Minute, 24 February 1928; see also Sargent (London) to Kennard, 20 February 1928.
61. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Cushendun, 13 September 1928.
62. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 20 September 1928.
63. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 20 September 1928.
64. Ibid., 0. Sargent, Minute, 28 September 1928.
65. Ibid., R.G. Vansittart, Minute, 29 September 1928. Robert Gilbert Vansittart was knighted in 1929 and created a baron in 1941
66. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 10 October 1928
67. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Sargent, 10 October 1928.
68. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928.
69. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 22 October 1928
70. "The fact was of course that the framers of the Minorities Treaty hesitated to mention them under any specific name," wrote Bateman. "The most they could be called is Macedo-Slavs" (ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928).
71. Great Britain, Foreign Office, The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book for 1935 (London, 1935), 416.
72. FO371/14316, Waterlow (Sofia) to Vansittart, 21 May 1930.
73. Ibid., 7.
74. Ibid., 8-9.
75. Ibid., 9.
76. Ibid., J. Balfour, Minute, 2 June 1930.
77. FO371/13573, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 6 December 1929, 9 pp.
78. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930,16 pp.
79. Ibid., 9.
80. Ibid., 14.
81. Ibid., 15.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., 16.
84. FO371/57473, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 5 February 1932. According to the assistant to the Bishop of Nevrokop, one of the major centers of Pirin Macedonia, "The Revolutionary Organization itself was split by a growing Communist current, ... aiming at the liberation of Macedonia by the bolshevisation of the Balkans, while the local population was in its turn divided, about half being for the organization and half against, and the hostile half being largely Communist in feeling (FO371/15896, Waterlow [Sofia] to Simon, 22 June 1932; see also FO371/19486, Bentinck [Sofia] to Hoare, 16 September 1935 and 26 September 1935). On the left of the Macedonian movement see also the works cited in note 27.
85. FO371/16650, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 27 February 1933.
86. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940.
87. FO371/19486. Bentinck (Sofia) to Hoare, 26 September 1935.
88. FO371/16651, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 21 July 1933.
89. FO371/16775, Clerk (Constaninople) to Simon, ^ October 1933.
90. FO371/16651
91. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism on the left in the 1930s, see Biblioteka "Makedonsko zname," no.1, Ideite i zadachite na Makedonskoto progresivno dvizenje v Bulgaria (Sofia, 1933); Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i Makedonskata Nacija, 2: 481-560; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."
92. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)to F.O., 15 August 1940.
93. Ibid.
94. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940. George L. Clutton of the Foreign Office described the Macedonians as "discontented peasants who are anti-Jugoslav, anti-Greek, anti-Bulgarian, anti-German, and anti everything except possibly anti-Russian" (FO371/24880, Campbell [Belgrade] to F.O., 4 September 1940, G.L. Clutton, Minute, 10 September 1940).
95. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941, Enclosure, "Report on the General Situation in Southern Serbia by Mr. Thomas, British Vice-Consul at Skoplje."
96. Ibid..
97. Ibid., Reginald J. Bowker, Minute, l6 January 1941.
98. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism during the Second World War, see the informative and illuminating discussions by Kiril Miljovski, "Motivite na revolucijata 1941-1944 godina vo Makedonija," Istorija (Skopje) 10, no.1 (1974): 19ff; and by Cvetko Uzunovski, "Vostanieto vo 1941 vo Makedonija," Istorija, 10, no.2 (1974): 103 if.
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The British Foreign Office
and Macedonian National Identity - 1918-1941
by Andrew Rossos
Slavic Review, vol. 53, number 2, Summer 1994
click here for a printer-friendly version
The study of the Macedonian identity has given rise to far greater controversies and debates than that of most, if not all, other nationilisms in eastern Europe. This has been only in part due to the hazy past of the Slavic speaking population of Macedonia and to the lack of a continuous and separate state tradition, a trait they had in common with other "small" and "young," or so-called "non-historic," peoples in the area. Controversy has been due above all to the fact that, although it began in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Macedonian nationalism did not enjoy international acceptance or legitimacy until the Second World War, much later than was the case with other similar national movements in eastern Europe.[1] Recent research has shown that Macedonian nationalism developed, generally speaking, similarly to that of neighboring Balkan peoples, and, in most respects, of other "small" and "young" peoples of eastern, as well as some of western, Europe.
But Macedonian nationalism was belated, grew slowly and, at times, manifested confusing tendencies and orientations that were, for the most part, consequences of its protracted illegitimate status.[2]
For a half century Macedonian nationalism existed illegally. It was recognized neither by the theocratic Ottoman state nor by the two established Orthodox churches in the empire: the Patriarchist (Greek) and, after its establishment in 1870, the Exarchist (Bulgarian). Moreover neighboring Balkan nationalists-Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian-who had already achieved independence with the aid of one or more of the Great Powers, chose to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian identity; indeed they claimed Macedonia and the Macedonians as their own. They fought for Macedonia with propaganda and force, against each other and the nascent Macedonian nationalists. A prolonged struggle culminated in 1913 with the forceful partition of Macedonia after the Second Balkan or Inter-Allied War between Bulgaria, on one side, and allied Greece and Serbia, on the other.[3] Each of these three states consolidated their control over their respective parts of Macedonia, and throughout the inter-war years inaugurated and implemented policies intended to destroy any manifestations of Macedonian nationalism, patriotism or particularism- Consequently, until World War II, unlike the other nationalisms in the Balkans or in eastern Europe more generally, Macedonian nationalism developed with-out the aid of legal political, church, educational or cultural institutions. Macedonian movements not only lacked any legal infrastructure, they also were without the international sympathy, cultural aid and, most importantly, benefits of open and direct diplomatic and military support accorded other Balkan nationalisms.[4] Indeed, for an entire century Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire before 1913 but in actual fact, both before and after that date, against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the Great Powers.[5]
The denial of a Macedonian identity by the neighboring Balkan states, and their irreconcilably contradictory claims, motives, justifications and rationalizations, are mirrored by the largely polemical and tendentious Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian literature on the Macedonian question.[6] But the attitudes of the individual Great Powers and the thinking, motivations and internal foreign policy establishments have not yet been studied. In this article I will focus on the British Foreign Office and its attitude toward the Macedonian question during the inter-war years. The British Foreign Office provides a case study because Great Britain played a leading role in the area after the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano; during the inter-war years respect for national self-determination and for the rights of national minorities was, at least in theory and in official policy, the accepted and prevailing norm.
For the Macedonians the inter-war period was conditioned by the Balkan wars and the partition of their land. The peace conferences and treaties which ended the Great War, represented for many "small" and "young" nations of eastern Europe the realization of dreams of self-determination. But with some minor territorial modifications at the expense of Bulgaria, these treaties confirmed the partition of Macedonia agreed upon in the Treaty of Bucharest. For the victorious allies, especially Great Britain and France, this meant putting the Macedonian problem finally to rest. It also meant that the allies could satisfy two of their clients which were pillars of the new order in south-eastern Europe: the Kingdom of Greece and the former Kingdom of Serbia, now the dominant component in the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia. Even though their territorial acquisitions in Macedonia did not necessarily satisfy their max-imal aspirations, official Athens and Belgrade also pretended that Macedonia and the Macedonian problem had ceased to exist. Belgrade proclaimed Vardar Macedonia to be Old Serbia and the Macedonians Old Serbians; for Athens, Aegean Macedonia became simply northern Greece and the Slavic speaking Macedonians were considered Greeks or, at best, "Slavophone" Greeks. Although Bulgaria had enjoyed the greatest influence among the Macedonians, because of its defeat in the Inter-Allied and the Great Wars, it was accorded the smallest part, Pirin Macedonia, or the Petrich district, as it became known during the inter-war years. Unlike official Athens and Belgrade, the ruling elite in Sofia did not consider the settlement permanent; but without sympathy among the victorious Great Powers and threatened by revolutionary turmoil at home, they had to accept the settlement for the time being. In any event, the Macedonian question was not a priority for the Agrarian government of A. Stamboliski.[7] Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria all sought to destroy all signs of Macedonianism through forced deportation, so-called voluntary exchanges of populations and internal transfers of the Macedonian populations. They also implemented policies of colonization, social and economic discrimination, and forced denationalization and assimilation based on total control of the edu-cational systems and of cultural and intellectual life as a whole.
These policies were particularly pursued with great determination in Yugoslavia and Greece. Though he approved of these policies, C. L. Blakeney, British Vice-Consul at Belgrade, wrote in1930:
It is very well for the outsider to say that the only way the Serb could achieve this [control of Vardar Macedonia] was by terrorism and the free and general use of the big stick. This may be true, as a matter of fact one could say that it is true ...On the other hand, however, it must be admitted that the Serb had no other choice ... He had not only to deal with the brigands but also with a population who regarded him as an invader and unwelcome foreigner and from whom he had and could expect no assistance.[8]
Ten years later, on the eve of Yugoslavia's collapse during the Second World War, it was obvious that the Serbian policies in Macedonia had failed. R.I. Campbell, British minister at Belgrade, now denounced them to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary:
Since the occupation by Serbia in 1913 of the Macedonian districts, the Government has carried out in this area, with greater or lesser severity, a policy of suppression and assimilation. In the years following the Great War land was taken away from the inhabitants and given to Serbian colonists. Macedonians were compelled to change their names and the Government did little or nothing to assist the economic development of the country...[9]
Athens was even more extreme than Belgrade: under the guise of "voluntary" emigration they sought to expel the entire Macedonian population. Colonel A.C. Corfe, chairman of the League of Nations Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration, reported in 1923: "In the course of conversation, Mr. Lambros [Governor General of Macedonia], actually said that the present was a good opportunity to get rid of the Bulgars [sic] who remained in this area and who had always been a source of trouble for Greece." [10] This could be achieved at least superficially: Athens made a concerted effort to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme and tragic dimensions during the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the privacy of the home to a people who knew Greek scarcely or not at all, and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but their own. [11] In 1944 Captain P.H. Evans, an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spent eight months in western Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) and station commander, condemned the Greek policies in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He described the attitude "even of educated GREEKS towards the SLAV minority" as "usually stupid, uninformed and brutal to a degree that makes one despair of any understanding ever being created between the two people." However, he also left no doubt that the Greek government's policies had failed:
It is predominantly a SLAV region not a GREEK one. The language of the home, and usually also of the fields, the village Street, and the market is MACEDONIAN, a SLAV language... The place names as given on the map are GREEK...; but the names which are mostly used - - - are - - - all Slav names. The GREEK ones are merely a bit of varnish put on by Metaxas... GREEK is regarded as almost a foreign language and the GREEKS are distrusted as something alien, even if not, in the full sense of the word, as foreigners. The obvious fact, almost too obvious to be stated, that the region is SLAV by nature and not GREEK cannot be overemphasized.[12]
Revisionist Bulgaria, where major trends in Macedonian nationalism were well entrenched in Pirin Macedonia and among the large Macedonian emigration to its capital, assumed a more ambiguous position. Sofia continued its traditional attitude towards all Macedonians, acting as their patron but claiming them to be Bulgarians. To a certain extent it left the Macedonians to do what they wanted; unlike Athens and Belgrade, it tolerated, or felt compelled to tolerate, the free use of the name "Macedonia" and an active Macedonian political and cultural life.[13] In its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, the British Legation at Sofia referred to the Pirin region as "the autonomous kingdom of Macedonia" and stressed that "Bulgarian sovereignty over the district - - - is purely nominal and, such as it is, is resented by the irredentist Macedonian element no less strongly than is that of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Government over the adjacent area within their frontier." [14] Indeed, it could be argued that, after the overthrow of the Stamboliski regime in June 1921, Sofia not only encouraged Macedonian discontent in all three countries but also sought to take advantage of it to further its own revisionist aims.[15] Bulgaria's revisionism split the ranks of the partitioning powers and was of great significance for the future of Macedonian nationalism. For no matter how much Greece and Yugoslavia, and their patrons among the Great Powers, especially Great Britain, pretended officially that the Macedonian question had been resolved, Bulgarian policies helped to keep it alive. [16]
More importantly still, the Macedonians, both in the large emigration in Bulgaria and at home, rejected the partition of their land and the settlement based upon it. As the British Legation at Sofia warned: "the Governments of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, if not that of Greece, are faced with practically an identical problem in the pacification and control of a district overlapping both the frontiers inhabited by a population hostile to both Governments for different reasons and determined on strengthening the hands of the opposition parties in each country."[17] Disturbing to London were calls for open resistance to foreign rule. Early in 1922 W.A.F. Erskine, the minister in Sofia, drew Lord Curzon's attention to an anonymous article in the newspaper Makedonija, purportedly from a Macedonian professor at the University of Sofia, which exhorted the Macedonians to follow the example of the Irish, who after a bitter struggle lasting through centuries, have succeeded in gaining their autonomy. "Their country is today free. Ours, too, will be free if we remain faithful to our own traditions of struggle and if we take as our example the lives of people, who, like the Irish, have "never despaired of the force of right." [18]
To be sure, organized Macedonian activity in Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, which had declined after the bloody suppression of the Ilinden uprising of 1903 and the repeated partitions of 1912-1918, came to a virtual standstill immediately after World War I. Virtually the entire Exarchist educated elite, most Macedonian activists from Aegean Macedonia and large numbers from Vardar Macedonia had been forced to emigrate and now sought refuge in Bulgaria.[19] Furthermore, the remaining Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia, overwhelmingly rural and lacking an educated elite, found itself after the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) a minority in its own land as a result of the Greek government's settlement there of large numbers of Greek and other Christian refugees from Asia Minor.[20] The situation among the Macedonians in Bulgaria was only slightly more encouraging: while there were large concentrations of Exarchist educated Macedonians and Macedonian activists both in the Pirin region and in Sofia, there were deep divisions within each group. Demoralization had set in and a long process of regrouping ensued among the Macedonians there.[21]
Nonetheless, opposition to foreign rule existed in all three parts of Macedonia from its imposition and systematic anti-Macedonian policies only intensified it. That this discontent was considerable was clearly evident in the support given to the terrorist activities of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in the 1920s. A popular revolutionary movement in the early twentieth century, by the mid-1920s IMRO had emerged as a terrorist organization. It virtually ruled Pirin Macedonia and was a state within the state of Bulgaria, pursuing its own self-saving ends by relying on Bulgarian reaction and Italian fascism, and allowing itself to be used by both. However, officially and very conspicuously-it promulgated the aims and the slogans of the older movement: "united autonomous or independent Macedonia" and "Macedonia for the Macedonians." IMRO conducted repeated, so-called "Komitaji," armed raids and incursions into Vardar and, to a lesser extent, into Aegean Macedonia until the military coup in Sofia of May 1934 when the new regime liquidated the organization. More than anything else, it succeeded in maintaining the Macedonian question on the international scene and, as champion of Macedonia and the Macedonians, it continued to enjoy considerable support throughout most of the 1920s.[22]
Widespread opposition to foreign rule is also demonstrated by the results of the first post-war elections held in Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the freest to be held during the inter-war years.
Significant support in all three parts of Macedonia went to the newly formed communist parties, which also rejected the status quo and declared themselves champions of Macedonia and the Macedonians.[23] As Erskine reported from Sofia: "The program of the Communists, therefore, at the instigation of Moscow, was modified to a form of cooperation with the Macedonian revolutionaries - - - to stir up trouble generally - - - and to pave the way for a revolution by creating disorder."[24] Commenting on the election in Yugoslavia, the British minister at Sofia, R. Peel, stressed that although Serbian troops had resorted to the worst excesses in order to terrorize the inhabitants into voting for government lists, "...a large proportion of communist deputies were returned from Macedonia."[25] Clearly, the communist vote was, in effect, a Macedonian protest against foreign rule.[26] This cooperation between communists and Macedonians, dating from the end of World War I, intensified in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Balkan communist parties, after long and heated debates, officially recognized Macedonia as a distinct Slav nation with its own language, history and territory. The Comintern followed suit in 1934 and thus supplied the first formal international recognition of Macedonian nationalism.[27]
Both rightist and leftist activities-the renewal of terrorism by IMRO, led by I. Mihailov, and the association of Macedonian nationalism with international communism-led to a revival of the Macedonian question as the central issue dividing the Balkan states and hence as the major cause of instability in southeastern Europe. These activities not only represented rejections of the territorial and political terms agreed to at the Paris Peace Conference, but also were serious challenges to Great Britain, one of the architects of the treaty and its main defender throughout the inter-war years.
For some time following World War I, London refused to consider the unrest in Macedonia and, hence, the revival of the Macedonian question. A lengthy memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," prepared by the Central Department of the Foreign Office in 1925, maintained that "While amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs - - - do not care to what nationality they belong."[28] DJ. Footman, the vice consul at Skopje, echoed a similar sentiment when he wrote, "I believe that 80 percent of the population merely desire a firm, just and enlightened Administration, and regard Nationalism as of minor importance." [29] If there was a problem, the explanation for it could be found in Bulgaria: London blamed Sofia not only for tolerating, but for encouraging and sponsoring an organized Macedonian movement, revolutionary organizations and armed bands on its own territory.[30] A more sophisticated explanation for the unrest could be based on a combination of social, economic and especially administrative causes: reports from the Balkans pointed to the economic backwardness of Macedonia and to the exacerbation of its economic woes by the partition, which had destroyed traditional trade routes and markets. They further stressed the lack of government reforms and constructive policies to alleviate the prevailing condition: communications remained as primitive or non-existent as they had been before the Great War, and towns such as Bitola, Skopje and Ohrid were in a state of general decline. The peasantry appeared to be slightly better off, but "this was less the result of agrarian reform or of the government colonization policy than of the energy and initiative shown by the peasantry, who have, in many cases, bought land either individually or in corporations, from Turks or Albanians who have emigrated to Anatolia."[31] "Such discontent as exists springs from genuine economic distress," wrote O.C. Harvey of the Foreign Office after a visit to Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia in April 1926: "Although the peasants are said to be doing well, the towns are dying from lack of trade. And wherever else the Serb is spending his money, he does not seem to be spending it in Macedonia. Yet this country is perhaps really the biggest problem for the Serbs." [32] Or, as R.A. Gallop, third secretary in the legation in Belgrade, put it: "What discontent there is comes from economic causes and the Government must seek palliatives. This of course will take time and cost money, but to my mind the key to the Macedonian question is now this: a prosperous Macedonia will be a contented one." [33]
But most reports to London singled out the administration as the root cause for discontent in Macedonia. The new rulers had forced on the Macedonians their own, that is foreign, administrative and legal codes ''without regard to local conditions or requirements." Their manner of administration was considered even worse:[34] it was described as invariably harsh, brutal, arbitrary and totally corrupt. As Colonel Corfe wrote: "One of the Macedonian's chief grievances is against the Greek Gendarmerie and during our tour we saw many examples of the arrogant and unsatisfactory methods of the Gendarmerie, who comandeer from the peasants whatever food they want...One visits few villages where some of the inhabitants are not in Greek prisons, without trial..."[35] DJ. Footman described the Serbian officials in Vardar Macedonia as poorly qualified, underpaid, arbitrary and corrupt. "Officials depend for their promotions and appointment on the service they can render their political party... ," he wrote. "It is therefore only natural for them to make what they can while they are in office. I regard this as the factor which will most militate against improvement in administration."[36] And, after a twelve-day motor tour in the same part of Macedonia, Major W.H. Oxley, the military attaché at Belgrade, reported: To start with they [the Prefects] have practically unlimited power over the local inhabitants and ... I gathered that they must exercise a pretty firm control. Further, we were informed that on the whole they were corrupt and were liable to use their power either to blackmail their flock or to accept bribes from over the frontiers, in order to allow terrorists to pass through their areas...[37]
The Central Department of the Foreign Office admitted all this and more. Its lengthy review of 1930 of the Macedonian question stated: At present Jugoslavia lacks the material out of which to create an efficient and honest civil service. This want is especially felt in the new and "foreign" provinces such as Serb-Macedonia. To make matters worse, the Jugoslav Government,... are compelled to pursue a policy of forcible assimilation, and, in order to "Serbise" the Slavs of Serb-Macedonia, must necessarily tend to disregard those grievances of the local inhabitants which spring from the violation of their local rights and customs.[38]
Although this authoritative statement of the Foreign Office acknowledged the existence and the seriousness of the Macedonian problem, the underlying assumption was that, once the economic and administrative causes for grievance were allayed, it would be finally resolved. But while the Foreign Office endeavored to avoid dealing with the national dimension and implications of the problem until as late as 1930, by the mid-1920s its position was already being questioned and challenged by Foreign Office officials in the Balkans, and was becoming untenable. It was difficult to reconcile the use of three different terms-Slavophone Greeks, Old Serbians and Bulgarians-when referring to a people who called themselves Makedonci and spoke Macedonian or dialects of it.[39] The British could maintain their position only as long as relations between Athens and Belgrade remained friendly; and a crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations in the mid-1920s provoked a heated debate over the national identity of the Macedonians -Although unwillingly, the Foreign Office was also drawn into this debate and was forced to consider: "Who are the Macedonian Slavs?"
Ironically, the crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations was sparked by the conclusion of the abortive Greek-Bulgarian Minorities Protocol of 1924, which "connoted the recognition on the part of Greece that the Slavophone inhabitants of Greek Macedonia were of Bulgarian race."[40] This infuriated the Serbs and the Belgrade government broke off its alliance with Greece on 7 November 1924; [41] it also launched a press and a diplomatic campaign that Greece protect the rights of what it called the "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia.[42] The Yugoslav government clamored for a special agreement with Greece similar to the abortive protocol between Bulgaria and Greece. "The object of this move is quite patent," wrote C.H. Bateman of the Foreign Office. "All that the Serbs want is that the Greeks should recognize a Serbian minority in Greek Macedonia in the same way as they recognized a Bulgarian minority in l924."[43] In the end, even though Greece did not sign such an agreement with Yugoslavia, relations between these two countries returned to normal; but the debate concerning the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs that this crisis had instigated in the Foreign Office continued well into the 1930s.
The debate was not entirely new or confined to Britain. The national identity of the Macedonians had sparked continuous and heated controversies before the Balkan Wars and the First World War. However, the debate assumed far greater relevance and urgency after the peace settlement because all democratic governments had embraced the principle of national self-determination. This principle was supposedly the basis for the entire settlement in east central Europe; and it supposedly bound all overnments of the "New Europe" to respect the national rights of those national minorities who for one reason or another could not exercise their right to national self-determination. Hence, to a certain extent the fate of the peace settlement in this part of Europe hinged on this principle and it was thus of particular interest to Great Britain, perhaps its chief architect and defender.
Even before the Greek-Serbian dispute London had received reports that the causes for the revival of the Macedonian problem were not solely economic or administrative, but rather that they were primarily ethnic or national. While noting in its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, that "the province known as Macedonia has, of course, no integral existence," the Chancery of the British Legation at Sofia had emphasized that as an entity it still existed "in the aspirations of men of Macedonian birth or origin scattered under the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria." It also had added that Macedonia has "clearly defined geographical boundaries."[44] Colonel Corfe had written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing to say in their presence:
But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling us 'damned Bulgars"' ... To my question "What do you want? An autonomous Macedonia or a Macedonia under Bulgaria?" the answer was generally the same: "We want good administration. We are Macedonians, not Greeks or Bulgars...We want to be left in peace."[45]
The Greek-Serbian crisis, however, forced the Foreign Office to concentrate its attention, as never before, on the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs and, indeed, on the question: who are the Macedonians? On 30 June 1925, DJ. Footman, the British vice consul at Skopje, the administrative center of Vardar Macedonia, addressed this issue in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He wrote that "the majority of the inhabitants of Southern Serbia are Orthodox Christian Macedonians, ethnologically slightly nearer to the Bulgar than to the Serb.." He acknowledged that the Macedonians were better disposed toward Bulgaria than Serbia because, as he had pointed out: the Macedonians were "ethnologically" more akin to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs; because Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia in the time of the Turks, largely carried on through the schools, was widespread and effective; and because Macedonians at the time perceived Bulgarian culture and prestige to be higher than those of its neighbors. Moreover, large numbers of Macedonians educated in Bulgarian schools had sought refuge in Bulgaria before and especially after the partitions of 1913. "There is therefore now a large Macedonian element in Bulgaria," continued Footman, "represented in all Government Departments and occupying high positions in the army and in the civil service...." He characterized this element as "Serbophobe, [it] mostly desires the incorporation of Macedonia in Bulgaria, and generally supports the Makedonska Revolucionara [sic] Organizacija [the IMRO]." However, he also pointed to the existence of the tendency to seek an independent Macedonia with Salonica as its capital. "This movement also had adherents among the Macedonian colony in Bulgaria. It is supported by the parties of the Left in Bulgaria, and, at least theoretically, by large numbers of Macedonians."[46]
The Central Department of the Foreign Office went even further in clarifying the separate identity of the Macedonians. In a confidential survey and analysis of the entire Macedonian problem it identified the Macedonians not as Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, but rather as Macedonian Slavs, and, on the basis of "a fairly reliable estimate made in 1912," singled them out as by far the largest single ethnic group in Macedonia.[47] It acknowledged, as did Footman, that these Slavs spoke a language "understood by both Serbs and Bulgars, but slightly more akin to the Bulgarian tongue than to the Serbian"; and that after the 1870 establishment of the Exarchate, Bulgarian propaganda made greater inroads in Macedonia than the Serbian or Greek. However, it stressed that "While it is probable that the majority of these Slavs are, or were, pro-Bulgar, it is incorrect to refer to them as other than Macedo-Slavs. To this extent both the Serb claim that they are Southern Serbs and the Bulgarian claim that they are Bulgarians are unjustified."[48]
By declaring that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Bulgarians nor Serbs, the survey acknowledged implicitly that they were different from both and hence that they constituted a separate south Slav element. However, it did not go so far as to recognize them explicitly as a distinct nationality or nation. It sought to explain this omission by maintaining, without convincing evidence, that "while amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs... do not care to what nationality they belong."[49] The real reason for the omission, however, lay elsewhere. In view of the prevailing acceptance of the principle of national self-determination, the recognition of the Slav Macedonians as a distinct nationality would have legitimized the Macedonian claims for autonomy or at least for national minority rights. This would have connoted the tearing up or at least the revision of the peace treaties and of the frontiers, neither of which was acceptable to Britain's clients, Greece and Yugoslavia, or indeed, to Great Britain itself. "In all the circumstances the present partition of Macedonia is probably as good a practical arrangement as can be devised," declared the Central Department, "and there is no real reason or consideration of political expediency which could be quoted to necessitate a rearrangement of the present frontiers."[50]
Indeed, the Foreign Office was contemplating a different and, as it turned out, an illusory solution to the Macedonian problem. It accepted as valid the official Greek determination of the low number of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia and assumed that with time they would be assimilated.[51] It also assumed that with time the Yugoslav hold on Vardar Macedonia would become more secure, that this would be followed "as a natural consequence" by the "rounding up of Macedonian agents," and that the Macedonian organization operating from Bulgaria would "suffer correspondingly through the lack of funds and general support forthcoming from that district...." And, as organized Macedonian activity declined, the prospect of more cordiality between Bulgaria and the Serb-Slovene-Croat kingdom will become brighter, and pro tonto, the idea of Serb-Bulgar Slav confederacy will become more feasible. The formation of such a Slav State in the Balkans will settle the Macedonian question once and for all. Other considerations arising out of the formation of such a confederacy must be reserved for the future. [52]
A few months later, on 3 March 1926; C.H. Bateman, a second secretary in the Foreign Office, issued the official position in a separate "Memorandum on 'Serbian Minorities' in Greek Macedonia."
In this strong statement he reiterated the main points of the Central Department's memorandum of 26 November 1925: "Most authorities are agreed that by all ethnological and language tests the Macedonian Slav is more akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." Again, without substantiation, he declared that the deciding factor in the national allegiance of the Macedonian Slavs "is the national consciousness of the individual who changes his allegiance according to circumstances... His national allegiance is largely a matter of the propaganda which is exercised upon him...,"[53] in effect, under the influence of propaganda, Bulgarian, Greek or Serbian, the Macedonian Slav would become a loyal Bulgarian, Greek or Serb. Bateman therefore sided with the Greeks in the Greek-Serbian dispute: "Taking the broadest interpretation of the Macedonian Slavs, one thing is certain, namely, that the Serbs have only the flimsiest of rights to intervene at all on their behalf. The Greeks are correct in contesting this right and contending that it is a matter that touches the internal administration of Greece."[54] If, as it appears, Bateman's aim was to put an end to the Foreign Office debate concerning the Macedonian national question, he failed. Although the Greek-Serbian dispute came to nothing, this debate intensified. R.A. Gallop, third secretary of the Legation at Belgrade, spent a week in April 1926 in Vardar Macedonia; his report after the tour is most revealing:
The most striking thing to one familiar with North Serbia [Serbia proper], who has been accustomed to hear Macedonia described as Southern Serbia and its inhabitants as Serbs, was the complete difference of atmosphere which was noticeable almost as soon as we had crossed the pre-1913 frontier some miles south of Vranje. One felt as though one had entered a foreign country. Officials and officers from North Serbia seemed to feel this too, and I noticed especially in the cafes and hotels of Skopje that they formed groups by themselves and mixed little with the Macedo-Slavs. Those of the latter that I met were equally insistent on calling themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians.... There seemed to be no love lost for the Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their friends...[55]
Moreover, in his response to Bateman's memorandum, Gallop defined more clearly than ever before the central issue in the Greek-Serbian dispute. He reminded Bateman that the Serbian claim is founded not on the contention that among the Slavs of Greek Macedonia there are some that can be picked as Serbs, but on the contention that the population is of exactly the same stock on both sides of the border. The Serbs see that to admit that the Macedonians in Greece are Bulgars weakens their case that the Macedonians in South Serbia are Serbs. While he agreed with Bateman "that the Macedonian Slavs used, before the days of propaganda, to call themselves 'Christians' rather than Serbs or Bulgars," Gallop did not agree "that the Macedonian Slavs are nearer akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." In any case, he questioned the impartiality of so-called "authorities" and emphasized the actual reality that "nowadays" the Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves "Makedonci." [56]
Oliver C. Harvey of the Foreign Office, who visited both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, reinforced Gallop's views. Indeed, in his "Notes" on the fact-finding mission he left no doubt about the existence of a distinct Macedonian consciousness and identity. In connection with Vardar Macedonia he reported that "The Slavophone population of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say they are 'Macedonians,' and they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identify themselves with the Bulgars, although the latter seem undoubtedly to be regarded as nearer relatives than the Serbs."[57] As far as Aegean Macedonia was concerned, Harvey noted that in its eastern and central part "the Slavophone population had 'voluntarily' emigrated and their place had been taken by 500,000 Greek refugees" from Asia Minor. "'Voluntary' emigration," he observed, "is a euphemism; incoming Greeks were planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate." Such upheaval did not take place in its western part and large numbers of Slavophones remained there, in the area around and south of Florina (Lerin). "These of course constitute the much advertised "Serb minority," he continued. "But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they speak Macedonian, and call themselves Macedonians and sentimentally look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."[58]
Through this internal debate, the Foreign Office appeared to have reached a virtual consensus that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Serbs, nor Bulgarians nor Greeks, a de facto acknowledgment that they comprised a separate southern Slav national group. But they were not given official recognition as a distinct nationality or nation; as I have already shown, the Foreign Office hoped to see the Macedonian problem disappear by their eventual assimilation into the three nations that ruled over them. In the meantime, during the second half of the 1920s and until its dissolution in 1934, the IMRO intensified its activities in Bulgaria and armed incursions into Vardar Macedonia, thereby reminding London of the Macedonian national question.
Unlike in Greece and Yugoslavia, in Bulgaria the various aspects of the Macedonian problem were generally argued freely and publicly. This was only partly due to the traditional Bulgarian paternalism toward the Macedonians; it also reflected the strength and influence of the organized Macedonian movement in the Pirin region, in Sofia and in other major urban centers. Consequently, British diplomats there were more deeply and broadly versed in all the intricacies of the Macedonian problem than their counterparts in Athens and Belgrade, and they were more apt to search for alternative solutions.
` Early in 1928 Charles ES. Dodd, the charge d'affaires at Sofia, assured the Foreign Office that the IMRO "would at once desist from its sinister activities" "if the Jugoslav Government would grant educational and religious autonomy to Macedonia." To DJ. Footman, whose reaction from Skopje had been sought by the Foreign Office, this read "like pious hope" rather than "a practical proposition." He did not reject the idea in principle; indeed, he even used the terms "nationality" and "national minority" when referring to the Macedonians, and argued that if such autonomy had been introduced immediately after the war "the results would no doubt have been beneficial." Now, however, "it would not suffice to wipe out the bitterness felt against the Serbs"; it would no longer satisfy the entire Macedonian movement. Instead, he warned, Macedonian activists would interpret it "as a confession of failure and a sign of weakness on the part of Serbs, to be exploited to the utmost possible extent." He considered (and the future proved him right) that "the best chance for real progress in Macedonia" was "the removal of the Serb predominance in the Jugoslav state."[59] The Foreign Office dismissed Dodd's suggestion and showed little appreciation of Footman's pessimistic, but rather sensitive and measured analysis of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia. "It is quite clear, however," wrote Orme Sargent, a counselor and a future assistant under secretary of state, "that it would be impossible to expect the Jugoslav Government to adopt measures which would recognize the population of Southern Serbia as a political minority." Inasmuch as he had convinced himself that the discontent in Macedonia was "due to economic and administrative conditions rather than psychological or racial issues," he endorsed instead a proposal made by H.W. Kennard, the minister at Belgrade, to grant financial loans to Yugoslavia to improve internal conditions "in Southern Serbia and thus help to lessen the present sullen discontent of the population." Most important, such expenditure, Sargent concluded, would not have the appearance of being extorted from the Jugoslav Government at the point of the Macedonian bayonet, nor would it commit the Jugoslavs in any way to a recognition of the claim of a separate Macedonian nationality. Reforms on these lines could therefore be carried out at any time without loss of face by the Jugoslav Government. [60]
Obviously Sargent was concerned with the sensitivities and interests of the Yugoslav government and not with the demands of the Macedonians and consciously sought to minimize "the psychological and racial issues" as the basis of Macedonian discontent. This did not go unnoticed at the British Legation at Sofia: in a rather blunt and less than diplomatic manner, R.A.C. Sperling, the new minister at Sofia, accused the "Powers," meaning, of course, primarily his own government and that of France, of always unfairly taking the side of Yugoslavia against Bulgaria and the Macedonians. Or as he put it, "Jugoslavia continues flagrantly to violate the provisions of the Minorities Treaty of 1919. The Powers as well as the League of Nations accept any quibble advanced by the Jugoslav Government as a pretext for not raising the question of the Macedonian minority."[61]
The exchange of views provoked by Sperling's "outburst," as O. Sargent called it, is most revealing about the Foreign Office's thinking on the Macedonian national question. Howard Kennard, Sperling's counterpart at Belgrade, was so taken aback by it that he did not wish to comment on it officially. In a letter to 0. Sargent, however, he expressed his "private regrets that Sperling cannot understand that it is not a question of taking sides one way or the other, but of assisting in preserving the peace in the Balkans, which is, after all, our only political raison d'etre here."[62] C.H. Bateman accused Sperling of holding general views "that are not only erroneous but certainly dangerous ...His Majesty's Government has long since decided that what are nebulously called Macedonian aspirations are impossible of realization, and that to give way to Macedonian agitation would be the best way to create upheaval in the Balkans." [63] Sargent felt that Sperling's "outburst" ought not to go unnoticed; but instead of an official reprimand he proposed to send him a private letter.[64] This was approved by R.G. Vansittart, private secretary to the Prime Minister and assistant under secretary of state in the Foreign Office, who added that "the next time this sort of thing happens, he [Sperling] should have it officially."[65] Sargent's lengthy private letter was polite, but direct. He pointed out that Serbia was the signatory "of one minorities treaty," that signed at St. Germain on 20 September 1919. "In your dispatch you make mention of a Macedonian minority. But what is this minority?" he asked. "You will find no mention of it in the Jugoslav Minorities Treaty... He also reiterated the well known view of the Foreign Office that the grievances which "the population of Southern Serbia complain of are common to all and are due to the general low level of administrative ability among the local officials and not to the intentional ill treatment of any particular race, sect or language." Finally, he rejected Sperling's suggestion that some satisfaction of the "Macedonian national aspirations" might lead to a solution of the Macedonian problem. "What are we to understand by such aspirations?" asked Sargent. "If Macedonian autonomy is what is aimed at it can be said at once that it is impossible of realisation." To aim at it would be to play into the hands of Italy and other revisionist elements, and Britain was determined "to stick strenuously to the peace terms."[66]
Sperling was not deterred by the hostile reaction of his superiors. He responded to Sargent with a lengthy letter of his own in which he reduced the Macedonian problem to its bare essentials by asking bluntly two questions: "a, Is there such a thing as a Macedonian minority?" and "b, If there is, is it ill treated by the Serbs?" He then went on to answer them. "Sounds superfluous," he wrote, "but you ask 'What is the Macedonian minority?' I can hardly believe you want me to quote all the authorities from the year one to show you that there is such a thing as a Macedonian." He referred him specifically to the earlier reports by Gallop, Harvey and Footman, and stressed that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia called themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonians. With regard to the second question, Sperling argued that it made no difference to the Macedonians "whether these things were due, as you say, to the general low level of Serbian administrative ability or to the intentional ill treatment of a particular race. ... The fact remains that their charges stand..."[67]
London was not prepared to listen and, indeed, wished to put an end to the expression of views that seemed to run counter to the main tenets of Britain's policies in southeastern Europe. C.H. Bateman suggested to Sargent that "a short reply would be sufficient to point to the confusion of thought which appears to exist at our legation at Sofia on this Macedonian question."[68] Otherwise, his comments, which were drafted by Sargent into a letter to Sperling, reveal a characteristic British slighting of nationalism and national movements among the so-called "small" and "young" peoples in eastern Europe. He argued that just because the Slavs of Macedonia called themselves Macedonians, "there was no reason why We or you should consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory... which has not for a thousand years been an autonomous entity in any sense..."[69] However, he could not come up with another, more acceptable name for them, except perhaps "Macedo-Slavs," which was in effect the same thing.[70]
Such intervention and argumeilts do not seem to have been sufficient to silence the legation at Sofia. At any rate, R.A.C. Sperling left Sofia shortly after,[71] and his successor-, Sidney P.P. Waterlow, held views on the Macedonian problem that were, if anything, even more revisionist. He expressed them most cogently in a long, thoughtful and courteous letter to R.G. Vansittart,[72] who had in the meantime become permanent under secretary of state for foreign affairs. He did not believe, as the Foreign Office did, that the Macedonian problem would simply disappear when the militant revolutionaries had been destroyed in Bulgaria and when Yugoslavia had provided the Macedonians with good administration and a civilized minority regime. Unlike Nevile Henderson, Kennard's successor as minister at Belgrade, he could not see how any amount of good administration, even if it would improve the atmosphere and facilitate the suppression of the IMRO, could be an ultimate solution. He argued that only genuine home rule-freedom to manage local affairs, churches, schools, etc.-could do that, but even here he had doubts. In any case, he seemed convinced that Belgrade was not capable of giving its Macedonian subjects anything like real local autonomy or, at least, not so long as the Macedonians considered themselves Macedonian.
It is this that dictates the present policy of intense Serbification. But it is this that makes it impossible to introduce a genuine minority regime until there is no minority to give the regime to, and it is just this that Bulgaria, with her Macedonian exiles (the most stubborn and intelligent people in the Balkans) and her indigenous Macedonian population, can never wholeheartedly accept ...[73]
Thus, even if the revolutionaries were destroyed and Serbian Macedonia was ruled with "kindly wisdom," the Macedonian question would most likely remain unresolved, an apple of discord, a stumbling block to stability in the Balkans, etc. In Waterlow's search for a solution "that might bring real peace at long last," he seriously considered the idea, which seemed entirely logical to him but at the same time not altogether practical from the perspective of British foreign policy, of an autonomous united Macedonia. "I do not share the view of the department that Macedonia never having been a geographical or racial entity, the idea [an autonomous united Macedonia] is inherently absurd;" he wrote, "that is an exaggeration, inherited, I fancy, from the predominance of Serb views at the Peace Conference." He believed that, united and independent, the Macedonians "might play the part which God seems to have assigned to them in the Balkans, but which man has thwarted-that, namely, of acting as a link between their Serb and Bulgar brothers, instead of being a permanent cause of division." [74] He did not really expect a positive reaction to this idea from the Foreign Office; yet, as he concluded, "one's mind keeps flying back in this direction, as one goes over the problem day after day, only to find Alps upon Alps of hopelessness arise."[75] But when John Balfour at the Foreign Office read Waterlow's report, he did not consider this a logical idea and maintained that Britain "must continue to concentrate [on the peace treaties] in the forlorn hope that they will pierce a Simplon Tunnel through the Alps of despair."[76]
On the basis of this lengthy debate, which involved those in the Foreign Office and service most concerned with the Macedonian question, the Central Department drafted a new, updated memorandum on the Macedonian question in 1929.[77] Parts of the first version were revised shortly thereafter as a result of last minute critical comments and objections voiced by Waterlow.
The final draft of this lengthy and valuable document, dated 2 July 1930, presented the official British interpretation of the history of the Macedonian question since the 1860s, as well as an analysis of the contemporary political problem.[78] It acknowledged once again that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia, the Macedo-Slavs or Macedonians, were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, and thus implicitly recognized their separate and distinct identity. It also admitted the existence in Yugoslav Macedonia of "a uniquely dangerous minority problem, which is aggravated by the fact that the Macedonians are the most stubborn and hard-headed people in the Balkans." [79] It was therefore deeply concerned that the League of Nations could be dragged into the Macedonian problem, first of all, because it was a threat to international peace and, secondly and more importantly, because the Yugoslav minorities treaty, concluded at St. Germain in 1919, applied "to all territories acquired by Serbia as a result of the Balkan wars, and the enforcement of which is entrusted to the League Council."[80] Great Britain, however, could not allow the consideration of the Macedonian question in Yugoslavia by the League of Nations, the body that was specifically delegated to deal with and arbitrate national problems, conflicts and grievances, for it would "inevitably involve the airing of the whole Macedonian problem at Geneva and its discussion could hardly fail to precipitate a crisis which the League Council might find it very difficult to control."[81] London feared that League of Nations consideration of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia would amount to a de facto recognition of the Macedonian nationality. This would in turn legitimize to a certain extent the Macedonian demands for a united and independent Macedonia, thus challenging the existing status quo in the Balkans. The Memorandum made this quite clear: "Indeed, once the existence of a Macedonian nationality is even allowed to be presumed there is a danger that the entire Peace Settlement will be jeopardized by the calling into question, not merely of the frontiers between Jugoslavia and Bulgaria, but also of those between Jugoslavia and Greece and between Jugoslavia and Albania" [82] It strongly recommended that "this Balkan cancer" be treated "not by drastic surgical excision (e.g. plebiscite resulting in a change of frontiers....)" but rather "by the use of the healing properties of time and by the use of radium treatment of persuasive diplomacy, which while basing itself on the territorial status quo, shall endeavor gradually to eradicate the open sore that has for so long poisoned the relations of the Balkan states."[83]
The analysis and the recommendations of this memorandum remained the official British position on the Macedonian question virtually until the outbreak of World War II.
The Foreign Office interpreted the subsequent "degeneration" of the IMRO of Ivan Mihailov and, after the military coup in Sofia in 1934, the decline and cessation of its terrorist activities, as signs of the gradual eradication of "this Balkan cancer." In actual fact, this view represented a serious misreading, indeed, a rather crude misunderstanding of the transformation of Macedonian nationalism at the time. The IMRO, which had been divided between a right and a left wing from its very inception, finally split in 1924-1925. The left formed its own separate organization, the IMRO (United) and joined the Balkan Communist Federation and the Comintern. Unlike the right, it had a clearly defined social, economic and particularly national program; unlike the terrorist campaign of the right, it enhanced the cause of both nationalism and communism in Macedonia through underground work. By the early 1930s it had attracted a large following and was challenging Mihailov's IMRO for leadership. Waterlow informed the Foreign Office of the split and the growing strength of the left in his report on the proceedings of the Tenth Congress of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, the legal organization of Mihailov's IMRO, held in Sofia on 24-27january 1932.
The opposite view [the left], which has lately grown within the movement, which was suppressed at the congress, but which was clearly set out in the communist press, is that Mihailoff has forsaken the ideal of the Macedonian movement, that he does not fight for the liberation of Macedonia and that he has become the tool of the Fascist regime in Bulgaria, which uses the Macedonian organization for the sole purpose of maintaining its dictatorship ...
The Macedonian movement should again become national and independent, it should throw off the tutelage of the Bulgarian Government, which supports it only for its own ends, and it should fight for a genuinely independent Macedonia as part of a Balkan Federation under Soviet protection.[84]
The growth of the left undermined the support of the IMRO of Mihailov and forced the latter, for reasons of self-preservation, to free itself from the tutelage of the Bulgarian government and to identify itself with a Macedonian national program clearly calling for "the unification of Macedonian territories held by Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria, into an independent political entity within its natural geographical frontiers."[85] But it is safe to assume that this reorientation of the IMRO contributed to its suppression in 1934: by the second half of the 1930s most Bulgarians had become convinced "that the Macedonians have been more trouble in Bulgaria than they were worth and merely gave the country a bad name abroad without helping the national [Bulgarian] cause...."[86]
IMRO's suppression, in turn, helped to enhance the role of the Macedonian left, whose nationalist activities had previously been hampered by the IMRO and whose many activists had fallen victims of the mihailovist terror. As Bentinck, the new minister at Sofia, pointed out:
Since the coup d'etat last year, however, the Macedonian communists became much more active, especially in Sofia and Bulgarian Macedonia. I am told the intention was to detach the three portions of Macedonia belonging to Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and to unite them into a Soviet Republic - - - At the same time the communist parties in Bulgaria, Jugoslavia and Greece were ordered by Moscow to support the Macedonian communists...[87]
Thus, contrary to the hopes and expectations of the Foreign Office, neither the dissolution of the terrorist IMRO nor "the healing properties of time" resolved the Macedonian problem or caused it to disappear. Macedonian nationalism was forced underground and into the embrace of international communism, where it continued to grow. As Simeon Radev, a prominent Bulgarophile Macedonian and a well known retired Bulgarian diplomat, pointed out to Waterlow, "no solution of the [Macedonian] problem could be expected by the mere aflux of time. There was no prospect whatever of the population acquiescing in the policy of Serbianisation pursued by Belgrade...." He also emphasized "that the Macedonian sense of nationality was not a sense of Bulgarian nationality. It took the shape, especially with the younger generation, of an aspiration for autonomy." [88] On a private visit to Istanbul in September 1933, E. Venizelos, the great Greek statesman, expressed similar sentiments to Sir George Clerk, the British ambassador: Venizelos had always counselled that the Jugoslav Government should make a serious effort to content the Slav Macedonian minority... M. Venizelos maintained that these people, of which Greece has a small share...., are not pure Bulgarians, but something between Bulgarian and Serbian, and he had, he said, always been ready to give them Slav Macedonian schools and other reasonable privileges.[89]
Furthermore, as Radev had also argued, a driving force behind the Macedonian movement at this time was the fundamental belief that anything, however improbable, might occur in a world of flux. And central to this belief was "a desire for a union of all Macedonians in an autonomous state..." [90] As the outbreak of the Second World War approached the growing challenges to the status quo in Europe intensified this belief and desire in the second half of the 1930s.[91] In addition to the USSR or, rather, the communist movement, which already enjoyed widespread support among the Macedonians, by the end of the decade both Germany and Italy actively advocated schemes for "the liberation of Macedonia" with which "they are trying to attract Macedonians ..."[92]
While the Foreign Office either minimized or was ignorant of the strength of Macedonian nationalism on the left, it was not ready to overlook the spread of German and Italian influence in the area. And it was this more than anything else, that brought about a renewed British interest in the Macedonians and the beginning of a British reappraisal of the Macedonian national problem. After the fall of France in summer 1940, G.W. Rendel, the minister at Sofia, warned of the increased Soviet, German and Italian activities in Macedonia and concluded that "Presumably' however the Macedonians would accept any 'autonomous' Macedonian state which a great power succeeds in establishing."[93] He analyzed the aims of the Macedonians in greater detail in a private letter to P.B.B. Nichols of the Foreign Office written ten days later:
My impression is that there is now a fairly large section of the Macedonians who look to Russia for their salvation. ... I think the pro -Russian groups probably hope for the eventual creation of an autonomous Macedonian Soviet Republic as one of a chain of South Slav Soviet states running from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and to the German and Italian frontiers. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of Macedonians who are short sighted enough to be ready to intrigue with Germany and Italy...The Macedonians are notoriously difficult, and have many of the characteristics of the Irish, and my impression is that they are happiest in opposition to any existing regime...[94]
Early in 1941 the vice consul at Skopje provided the Foreign Office with an even more extensive and perceptive analysis of the current state of the Macedonian problem. He claimed that the vast majority of the Macedonians belonged to the national movement; indeed, he estimated "that 90 percent of all Slav Macedonians were autonomists in one sense or another...." Because the movement was wrapped in secrecy, however, it was extremely difficult to gauge the relative strength of its various currents, except that it could be assumed that IMRO had lost ground since it was banned in Bulgaria and its leaders exiled. While the vice consul acknowledged the close relationship between communism and "autonomism" or nationalism in Macedonia, he downplayed the frequently expressed contention that the communists used the Macedonian movement for their own ends.
Instead, he argued that since virtually every Macedonian was an autonomist, it was almost certain "that the Communists and autonomists are the same people..."; and, in any case, that Macedonian communists were not doctrinaire and were "regarded by other Balkan communists as weaker brethren...." "My own opinion," wrote Thomas, "is that they are autonomists in the first place and Communists only in the second."[95] He concluded his lengthy report by stressing what by then should have been obvious: the Macedonian problem was "a real one" and "an acute one" and that it "has in no way been artificially created by interested propaganda." He considered change unavoidable and felt that it was "in the interest of Jugoslavia to satisfy the aspirations of Macedonia."
He was equally convinced, however, that it was highly improbable, "in view of the instinctive dislike of the Serbs engendered by twenty years of Serbian rule, that anything short of autonomy would be acceptable.'' [96]
Rendel's and Thomas's appraisals of the Macedonian situation were not radically different from many produced by their predecessors stationed in the Balkans. However, with the world once more at war, the Foreign Office now accorded them more serious consideration and appeared, although grudgingly, to accept them. It seemed to accept the fact that Britain's hitherto refusal to officially recognize the existence of a Macedonian nationality, a policy that it had shaped and defended for over twenty years, might no longer prove tenable and most likely would not survive the war. In a highly revealing, indeed almost prophetic, comment on Thomas's report, Reginald J. Bowker of the Foreign Office conceded this when he wrote: "To the layman the only possible solution of the Macedonian problem would seem to be in giving the Macedonians some sort of autonomy within Jugoslavia. Possibly after the war the Jugoslavs may be willing to consider this. But such a measure would, no doubt, incur the risk of whetting the appetite of the Macedonians for complete independence."[97]
The lack of official recognition or legitimacy internationally and in the three Balkan states obviously had hindered the normal and natural development of Macedonian identity. However, it could not destroy it. Macedonianism in its various manifestations-particularism, patriotism, nationalism-was too deeply entrenched among the Macedonian people and among the small, but vibrant and dynamic intelligentsia, especially on the political left. During World War II, which began for the Balkans in late 1940 and early 1941, Macedonians in all three parts of their divided land joined resistance movements in large numbers and fought for national unification and liberation.[98] They did not achieve national unification; however, the Macedonians in Vardar or Yugoslav Macedonia won not only national recognition but also legal equality with the other nations of the new, communistled, federal Yugoslavia.
Notes
1. For a discussion of the significance of international recognition or legitimacy in the development of Balkan nationalisms, see especially John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 103-11, 115-16 and 373; and Alan Warwick Palmer, The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe since the Congress of Vienna (London: Macmillan, 1970), 28-29.
2. See especially Blaze Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija (Skopje: Misla, 1983), 1: 75-86, 163-87, 263-80. Ristovski is the leading authority on Macedonian national thought and development. His two volumes contain previously published studies on the subject. See also the following works published recently in the west: Fikret Adanir, Die Makedonische Frage. Ihre Entstchung und Entwicklung bis 1908 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979); Marco Dogo, Lingua e Nazionalita' in Macedonia: Vicende e pensieri di profeti disarmati, 1902-1903 (Milan: Jaca Book, 1985); Jutta de Jong, Die nationale Kern des makedonisehen Problems: Ansatze und Grundlagen einer makedonischen Nationalbeweguag (1890-1903) (Frankfurt: Lang, 1982); Andrew Rossos, "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verderv. eds.. Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.
3. The literature on the struggles in Macedonia is vast but rather uneven and polemical in nature. A good documentary survey in English of the activities of the neighboring Balkan states in Macedonia is to be found in George P. Gooch and Harold Temperley. eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914 (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1926-1938), 5: 100-23. Among the more useful works in western languages are Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988); Henry N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (1906, reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1980); Elizabeth Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (1950, reprint, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980); Jacques Ancel, La Macedoine (Paris, 1930); Gustav Weigand, Ethnographie von Makedonien (Leipzig, 1924). For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Jovan M. Jovanovic. Juzna Srbija od kraja XVIII veka do oslobodjenja (Belgrade. 1941) (Serbian); G. Bazhdarov, Makedonskjat vapros vchera i dnes, (Sofia, 1925) (Bulgarian); Georgios Modes, 0 makedonikos agon kai i neoteri makedoniki istoria (Salonica: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon. 1967) (Greek). Macedonan historians have turned their attention to this problem more recently. See Kliment Dzambazovski, Kulturno-opstestvenite vrski na Makedoncite so Srbija vo tekot na XIX vek (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija (Ini), 1960); Risto Poplazarov, Grckata politka sprema Makedonija vo vtorata polovina na XIX i pocetokot na XX vek (Skopje: Ini, 1973); Slavko Dimevski, Makedonskoto nacionalno osloboditelno dvizenie i egzarhijata (1893-1912) (Skopje: Kultura, 1963); Krste Bitoski, Makedonija i Knezevstvo Bugarija (1893-1903) (Skopje: Ini, 1977). On the partition of Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy. 1908-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981); Petar Stojanov, Makedonija vo vremeto na balkanskite i prvata svetska vojna (1912-1918) (Skopje: Ini, 1969).
4. Blaze Ristovski, Portreti i procesi od makedonskata literaturna i nacionalna istorija (Skopje: Kultura, 1990), 3: 34.
5. Ristovski, op cit. and 2: 24-72; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."
6. The Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian claims were extensively publicized. For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Tihomir R. Georgevich, Macedonia (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1918) (Serbian); Iordan Ivanov, La question macedoine (Paris, 1920) (Bulgarian); Cleanthes Nicolaides, La Macedoine (Berlin, 1899) (Greek). See also the works cited in note 3.
7. See (London) Public Record Office, FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 3-4. (All Foreign Office documents cited hereafter are found in the Public Record Office). See also Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, Velika Britania i makedonskoto prasnje na pariskata mirovna konferencija vo 19l9godina (Skopje: Arhiv na Makedonija, 1973); Ivan Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje. Makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje megju dvete svetski vojni (1919-1930) (Skopje: Kultura, 1977), 1: chap. 1. Katardziev provides the most comprehensive, valuable and interesting treatment of the Macedonian national question in the 1920s.
8. FO371/14316, A. Henderson (Belgrade) to N. Henderson, 9 May 1930, Enclosure 2, "Memorandum by Vice-Consul Blakeney."
9. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941. On developments in Vardar Macedonia during the interwar years, see also Katardziev, op.cit., 1: 23-85; Institut za nacionalna istorija, Istorija na makedonskiot narod (Skopje, 1969), 3: part 11; Aleksandar Apostolov, Kolonizacijata na Makedonija vo stara Jugoslavija (Skopje: Kultura, 1966), and "Specificnata polozba na makedonskiot narod vo kralstvoto Jugoslavija," Glasnik (Skopje) 16, no.1(1972): 39-62.
10. FO 371/8566, Bentinck (Athens) to Curzon, 20 August 1923, Enclosure, Colonel A.C. Corfe, "Notes on a Tour Made by the Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration in Western and Central Macedonia," 5. By "Bulgars," Lambros meant Macedonians.
11. On the situation of the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British Officer's Report, 1944," The Slavonic and East European Review (London) 69, no.2 (April 1991): 282-88. See also Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 85-106; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 13; Stojan Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija vo Egeiska Makedonija (1913-1940) (Skopje: Ini, 1981); Lazo Mojsov, Okolu prasanjeto na makedonskoto nacionalno malcinstovo vo Grcija (Skopje: Ini, 1954), 207-87; Giorgi Abadziev, et al., Egejska Makedonija vo nasata nacionalna istorija (Skopje, 1951).
12. Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 293-94. Captain P.H. Evans' "Report on the Free Macedonia Movement in Area Florina 1944" is given verbatim, 291-309.
13. FO371/12856, Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928
14. FO371/8568, 22. A few years later, O. Sargent, a counselor in the Foreign Office, complained that "the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation... defies openly the Bulgarian Government and practically administers and governs part of the Bulgarian territory" (FO371/12856, Sargent [London] to Sperling, 1 October 1928).
15. On Pirin Macedonia as well as the Macedonians in Bulgaria, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 107-19; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 12; Dimitar Mitrev, Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Nasa Kniga 1970), 126-202.
16. See Stefan Troebst, Mussolini, Makedonien und die Machte, 1922-1930: Die "Innere Makeodnische Revolutionare Organisation" in der Sudosteuropapolitik der faschistischen Italien (Cologne: Bohlau, 1987); and Barker, Macedonia, chap. 2; Leften S. Stavrianos, Balkan Federation: A History of the Movement Toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times (1944, reprint, Hamden: Archon Books, 1964), chaps. 8 and 9.
17. FO371/8568, p.22.
18. FO371/7375, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 25 January 1922. Harold Nicolson commented: "There is less disparity between the Irish and Macedonian temperament than might be supposed" (Minute, 1 February 1922).
19. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 2, chap. 1.
20. Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija, chap. 4.
21. Katardziev, op.cit.; Dino Kiosev, Istoria na makedonskoto natsionalno revoliutsionerno dvizhenie (Sofia: Otechestven front 1954) 493-99
22. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1:171-83 and part 2, chap. 2; Kiosev, ibid., 512- 28. On the activities of the IMRO in all three parts of Macedonia, see also the memoirs of its leader after 1924: Ivan Mikhailov, Spomeni, 4 vols. (Selci, Louvain, Indianapolis, 1952, 1965, 1967, 1973).
23. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 375-76; Istorija na makedonshiot narod, 3: 20-23, 176-78; Evangelos Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia (Salonica: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1964), 69; Dimitrios G. Kousoulas, Revolution and Defeat: The Story of the Communist Party of Greece (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 65.
24. FO371/7377, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 20 March 1922.
25. FO371/6197, Peel (Sofia) to Curzon, 10 February 1921.
26. See FO371/8568.
27. On communism and Macedonian nationalism, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 3, chaps. 1-4, 2: part 5, and ed., Predavnicite na makedonskoto delo (Skopje: Kultura, 1983), 5-56; Stojan Kiselinovski, KPG i makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje, 1918-1940 (Skopje: Misla, 1985), chaps. 2-4; Kiril Miljovski, Makedonskoto prasanje vo nacionalnata programa na KPJ (1919-1937) (Skopje: Kultura, 1962), 24-140; Dimitar Mitrev, BKP i Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Kultura, 1960), 42-59; Kofos, op.cit., chap. 4; Darinka Pacemska, Vnatresnata makedonska revolucionerna organizacija (Obedineta) (Skopje: "Studentski zbor," 1985). I have dealt with the subject in "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verdery, eds., Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.
28. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 4.
29. FO371/10793, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 6July 1925, Enclosure, Footman (Skopje) to Kennard, 30 June 1925, 5. John David Footman was a fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford (1953-1963) and author of several books on modern Russian history.
30. See especially ibid., 14 and FO371/8568, 3 and FO371/10667, 6.
31. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926; Enclosure R.A. Gallon. "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926, 4.
32. F0371111245, O. Ch. Harvey, "Notes on a Visit to Jugoslavia and Greece," April 1926, 6 May 1926, 3.
33. FO371/11405, 5.
34. FO371/10793, 6.
35. FO371/8566, 3.
36. FO371/10793, 6.
37. FO371/14316, N. Henderson (Belgrade) to A. Henderson, 13 May 1930, En-closures.
38. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930, 12.
39. See FO371/11337, Kennard (Belgrade) to H. Smith, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop "Notes," 23 April 1926.
40. FO371/11337, C.H. Bateman, "Memorandum on "Serbian Minorities in Greek Macedonia," 3 March 1926, 2.
41. Ibid.
42. See FO371/10793 and FO371/11337.
43. FO371/11337.
44. See FO371/8568.
45. FO371/8566.
46. FO371/10793. Footman dismissed the Serbian claims to a "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia and pointed to two other factors as the real causes of the Greek- -Serbian dispute: "a) Politically, the Serb displeasure at Slav inhabitants of Greek Macedonia being recognized as Bulgars; and b) Economically, the loss suffered by Serbian Macedonia and the Kingdom as a whole by being separated by a frontier from Salonica" (6).
47. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925. It gave the following figures: Macedonian Slavs 1,150,000; Turks 400,000; Greeks 300,000; Vlachs 200,000; Albanians 120,000;Jews 100,000; Gypsies 10,000 (2).
48. Ibid., 4.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 1, 4; See also Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 284-85, 290, 293-94.
52. Ibid., 7.
53. FO371/11337,1
54. Ibid., 4.
55. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop, "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926,1.
56. "I should like to know the names of any authorities who are impartial," wrote Gallop. "Certainly none of the Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, British or German ever are!" (FO371/11337, Enclosure, 23 April 1926).
57. FO371/11245, 2.
58. Ibid., p.3.
59. Footman argued that "such local autonomy would have greater chance of success were it to be introduced by some future government in which Croats and Slovenes held the preponderating position. There is throughout Macedonia a sullen bitterness against the Serbs..." (FO371/12856, Footman [Skopje] to Kennard, 4 February 1928 in Kennard [Belgrade] to Chamberlain, 18 February 1928).
60. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928, Minute, 24 February 1928; see also Sargent (London) to Kennard, 20 February 1928.
61. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Cushendun, 13 September 1928.
62. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 20 September 1928.
63. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 20 September 1928.
64. Ibid., 0. Sargent, Minute, 28 September 1928.
65. Ibid., R.G. Vansittart, Minute, 29 September 1928. Robert Gilbert Vansittart was knighted in 1929 and created a baron in 1941
66. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 10 October 1928
67. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Sargent, 10 October 1928.
68. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928.
69. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 22 October 1928
70. "The fact was of course that the framers of the Minorities Treaty hesitated to mention them under any specific name," wrote Bateman. "The most they could be called is Macedo-Slavs" (ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928).
71. Great Britain, Foreign Office, The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book for 1935 (London, 1935), 416.
72. FO371/14316, Waterlow (Sofia) to Vansittart, 21 May 1930.
73. Ibid., 7.
74. Ibid., 8-9.
75. Ibid., 9.
76. Ibid., J. Balfour, Minute, 2 June 1930.
77. FO371/13573, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 6 December 1929, 9 pp.
78. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930,16 pp.
79. Ibid., 9.
80. Ibid., 14.
81. Ibid., 15.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., 16.
84. FO371/57473, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 5 February 1932. According to the assistant to the Bishop of Nevrokop, one of the major centers of Pirin Macedonia, "The Revolutionary Organization itself was split by a growing Communist current, ... aiming at the liberation of Macedonia by the bolshevisation of the Balkans, while the local population was in its turn divided, about half being for the organization and half against, and the hostile half being largely Communist in feeling (FO371/15896, Waterlow [Sofia] to Simon, 22 June 1932; see also FO371/19486, Bentinck [Sofia] to Hoare, 16 September 1935 and 26 September 1935). On the left of the Macedonian movement see also the works cited in note 27.
85. FO371/16650, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 27 February 1933.
86. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940.
87. FO371/19486. Bentinck (Sofia) to Hoare, 26 September 1935.
88. FO371/16651, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 21 July 1933.
89. FO371/16775, Clerk (Constaninople) to Simon, ^ October 1933.
90. FO371/16651
91. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism on the left in the 1930s, see Biblioteka "Makedonsko zname," no.1, Ideite i zadachite na Makedonskoto progresivno dvizenje v Bulgaria (Sofia, 1933); Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i Makedonskata Nacija, 2: 481-560; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."
92. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)to F.O., 15 August 1940.
93. Ibid.
94. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940. George L. Clutton of the Foreign Office described the Macedonians as "discontented peasants who are anti-Jugoslav, anti-Greek, anti-Bulgarian, anti-German, and anti everything except possibly anti-Russian" (FO371/24880, Campbell [Belgrade] to F.O., 4 September 1940, G.L. Clutton, Minute, 10 September 1940).
95. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941, Enclosure, "Report on the General Situation in Southern Serbia by Mr. Thomas, British Vice-Consul at Skoplje."
96. Ibid..
97. Ibid., Reginald J. Bowker, Minute, l6 January 1941.
98. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism during the Second World War, see the informative and illuminating discussions by Kiril Miljovski, "Motivite na revolucijata 1941-1944 godina vo Makedonija," Istorija (Skopje) 10, no.1 (1974): 19ff; and by Cvetko Uzunovski, "Vostanieto vo 1941 vo Makedonija," Istorija, 10, no.2 (1974): 103 if.
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Interview with Mr. Stojko Stojkov
Co-President of the Five Member Executive
of the OMO Pirin Political Party in Pirin Macedonia
March, 2005
Courtesy of Liljana Ristova
Editor, Canadian Macedonian News
People's rights are the international norm
and a basic principal of the European Union
"To acknowledge that a Macedonian nation, language and such exist is also acknowledging that most of Bulgaria's national ideology is a lie"
1. Mr. Stojkov, you are one of the five member executive committee from the OMO Pirin political party, from the Pirin part of Macedonia. What are the organizing forms, political and national, that the Macedonians in Bulgaria are working with and what are they?
I am a co-president in the executive committee of the party and fight for the rights of the Macedonians in Bulgaria - a United Macedonian foundation - a party for economic integration and growth. The party was established in the year 2000 after the Bulgarian high court revoked the registration of the original Macedonian party OMO Ilinden Pirin. Our application for membership again in December 2002 was rejected with a simple accusation of using a flag of a foreign country. On our flag we had placed the star of Vergena which has been the flag of the Republic of Macedonia for around 10 years. There are also other, smaller Macedonian organizations and cultural foundations that we cooperate with and undertake mutual actions.
Our actions are developing at different levels. First, by public dialog with the general population we are trying to bring to attention our existence to demonstrate that there are Macedonians in Bulgaria. In this manner we are also testing the democracy of the country. Bulgaria retains that it is not crossing human rights, however, this is not the case, as is demonstrated during our public gatherings. It is forbidden to openly meet and to speak our language in public places and if we do, we are subjected to discriminatory and derogatory slogans and actions against the Macedonians in Bulgaria. We are now trying to document all these accidents so that they may be presented to different international organizing bodies.
The third level of our activities is to sue the government and the public for discrimination of the Macedonians. At the moment there are two ongoing court cases, one filed in Strazburg, Austria, and the other in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we enter the structure of our governing bodies and lobby for our interests. I believe this last one is worrying the Bulgarian government and that is the reason for forbidding the existence of OMO Ilinden Pirin. We are now getting ready to celebrate our national holidays and our heroes in organized manner while in all our meetings we strongly obey with the principals of democracy, the human rights and the laws of the country we live in. However, this is in contrast to the thinking of the Bulgarian government because now it has no basis for legal action or to defend it's stand.
2. How will you describe the current resolutions of the Bulgarian high court to disallow the registration of yours and other Macedonian parties and organizations?
The Bulgarian court quickly showed us that it is highly political and on side with the domestic nationalistic intentions. The refusal to approve our application is not, and never was, based on legal basis. Our application it appears was looked at from the " how to refuse them " angle and not " if they are based on proper basis for registration ". That is wy the legal actions were either bent and twisted or outright wrong. We are judged because we are Macedonians and not that we broke any laws. If they use the same criterium agains the rest of the parties and organizations in the country, then the political and the civil life will colapse because there would be no proper registration for any party that the government has doomed as an illegal structure. I can not speak in the name of the rest of the Macedonian organizations in Bulgaria but we have always obeyed the laws of the country and our applications have been prepared and verified by very experienced lawyers from the Helsinki Committee in Bulgaria.
Even if legal reasons do not exist to constantly refuse our registration, there is the political reason motivated by the same nacionalistic Great-Bulgarian extremists. With the refusal of our registration, the politicians are succeeding in keeping us away from the polictical life and further away from the general population. In public we are never refered to as " non-registered " but as " forbiden ", with the intentions that the public becomes afraid of us. As a non-registered party, the government has cut us from our will for national action. Let me tell you that they are aware that in the end we will get our registration in international court, but the time is on their side because the procedure in the bulgarian courts will last up to 3-4 years and another 4-5 years in international courts. To us, it means 10 lost years, and that is big!
3. Bulgaria expects to enter the European Union, but it is obvious that they are predominantly occupied with great-Bulgarian nationalism. Is it possible that it will reflect on their integration in the new European political union?
We want very much for Bulgaria to enter the European Union and we support it fully. It is in our interest, because once we are in the European Union our fight for our rights will be easier to accomplish. But it is not a rumor that Bulgaria does not fulfill all the requirements. The European representatives have said the same and they advise that the country take the necessary steps towards fixing it. They basically look after the function of the judicial system which is now on a very low level. For example, for two years we have not received an answer from them on our registration. And here lies the fact that Bulgaria does not respect the multicultural rights, specifically the rights of the Macedonian minority. It may turn into a serious reason for Bulgaria not to be admitted in the European Union. In that respect we have already prepared declarations which we will send to all European embassies in Bulgaria.
4. You have earned a Masters in History with a diploma from the University of Skopje. In your opinion, what are the roots of the Bulgarian nationalism against Macedonia?
The root is in wanting "greatness" and in parallel there is their complex, the feel of lesser worth which is typical of a small country. This, at the same time, is a an obsession of historical matters and delusions. However, if the entire national ideology of Bulgaria is projected to the maximum, to include all of Macedonia as a territory, as a culture and as a history, the acknowledgment of the Macedonian identity will without doubt bring a psychological cataclysm in Bulgaria. This is explained by the fanatic fight against us which is based on ideological-psychological and not a practical base. Today, the politics for taking over Macedonia and creating a large Bulgaria has lost every basis and perspective. The unification of Europe, have made such aspirations an absurdity. However, the emotion is still stronger here than the reason.
To acknowledge that Macedonian nation, language and such exist, it is the same as Bulgaria to acknowledge that a large part of their own ideology is a lie. Here are the many Macedonians who as Bulgarians have earned big privileges and a high status in the government and the private sector. Their influence is huge. Simply, our existence threatens them and alleges that they are our expatriates, and not true Bulgarians, and that affects not only their peace of mind but also to some point their attained status. Even if we don't have any intentions or allegations, with respect to the rights of every man, they still can not come to peace with our national divide. This is not only a problem with politicians of Macedonian decent.
The belief that Macedonians are Bulgarians has become a dogmatic one, where the rejection has been expected as a slight against us. Without any doubt the policticians know of the existence of Macedonians in Bulgaria. However, if they admit to it publicly they will be labeled as traitors and bid goodbye to their political status, so they choose the easy way out - silence. So all polictical entities have become enslaved by the lies of their predecessors. Others, with a bit more consience, earn easy points by acting patriotriotic towards the macedonians. In such a condition the bulgarian political hiearchy is not able to free itself of the jaws of their own delusion. They need help from the outside. In that respect, we find ourselves to be the only true patriots in this country because we are fighting to free them from it's most terrible tyrany that has broght it so far with three political catastrophies.
However, when there is no need to look the truth in the eye, the only thing left to do is to negate it. The added reason to negate the existence of Macedonians is that until Bulgaria thrutfully acknowledges that we exist and then jointly with their laws and their signed international documents for man's rights they simply owe us to give us all the rights. That may bring unexpected results. That is why the only way to give us our rights is to insist and tell the world that we are not there.
5. Does the Blagoevgrad incident of September 12th talk about oppression that is strong in the part in the country where you live?
Your statement is quite true. However, it has to be said that the country becomes more and more sophisticated and finds new methods of repression. Under international pressure it will not dare to openly and directly go against us but they use different means. This was very well illustrated by the September 12th incident of this year. The members of the anti-Macedonian party, VMRO, were instrumental in it. They occupied the monument where we wanted to lay wreaths and the police could simply do nothing to allow us to use our normal democratic and citizen rights.
Thereafter, it will defend itself as always stating that we have revolted the local community and that it is for our good (they are acting this way) and to avoid direct contact, the city did not allow us to hold the public meeting and public address. However, that kind of danger did never exits. The local community did not react negatively against us, because first of all most of them do feel as Macedonians, and the rest know very well that the Macedonia minority in Bulgaria truly exists. Therefore, the belief of the local government is a lie unless they think that the "local population" are the 10-15 members of the local VMRO who are very close to the Bulgarian police.
The country uses the following strategy: Through imbedded people and provocation they raise the extremist thoughts in our Macedonian parties and organizations and they raise the insults and slurs. The extremist views give Bulgaria a lawful excuse for discrimination. From another point, that stand promotes us in the international level who are sympathetic to our organization.
In this situation when we do not have the power to lobby the local authority ourselves, and who does not show any indication that it will do so willingly, and when Republic of Macedonia publicly declared that it has no means to support us, the loss of support from the international union is equal to a political suicide. The extremists, who usually (but not accidentally) advertise the Bulgarian mediums all around, stack the odds against us so that they may come to the local thinking in Bulgaria in support of the politics of discrimination against the Macedonians. They often portray us as "anti-country" and "anti-Bulgarian" factor. Our party has not fallen for this provocation, however, it is unfortunate that not all Macedonian organizations here have avoided the entrapment of this smart Bulgarian plot.
6. If these tendencies do continue, what are the plans of the Macedonian organizations and parties to bring this to the international community for people's rights?
These tendencies will most likely continue. For us, there is no denial around this question. Very often we were sure that within the country's ranks there is no good-will for the resolution of the Macedonian problems in Bulgaria. The only light in the tunnel is the offer from the higher international sector. Luckily for us the rights of the people and of the minorities is an international norm and it is a basic principal in the European Union. Bulgaria, who wants to become part of Europe and also from the international community will simply have to learn to respect and allow the Macedonians their rights. We will do all that is necessary to point the attention of the international medium to our problem and we will not allow the Bulgarian government to ignore and avoid us.
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The So-Called Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor
by Dr. George Nakratzas
February, 2007
E-mail: [email protected]
On around 15th September Greek television revived the issue of the Asia Minor catastrophe; once again, the leading players were stars of the patriotic PASOK party, such as Mr. G. Kapsis. This is a politician whose record includes the proposal which he laid before the Greek Parliament on 12th May 1997, together with MPs G. Haralambous and G. Diamantidis, that the 15th September be made an official day of remembrance in commemoration of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor.
Speaking on television Mr. Kapsis had much to say about his own version of history, but forgot, of course, to mention the crimes perpetrated by the Greek army before the Turkish troops occupied Smyrna, where - it is true - terrible crimes were committed (among the victims of these crimes were members of the author's family).
One might also mention the crime of genocide committed by Greek troops against the civilian Turkish population of Aydin on 28th and 29th June 1919.
To quote from the author's own work, Asia Minor and the origins of the refugees, page 123: While the Turkish forces counter-attacked against the Greeks, their successful approach to the bridge over the River Maiandros was the signal the Greeks had been awaiting. They first of all set fire to the four corners of the Turkish quarter, and then placed machine guns and armed soldiers and civilians at street corners, in high buildings and on the minarets. From these positions they opened fire on the local people, who attempted in terror to flee their burning houses. Injured people lying in the streets were compelled to return to their homes, where many poor people - old people, women and children - were burned alive.
In all 4400 people died - 4000 Muslims and only 400 non-Muslims. An act of genocide perpetrated by the Greek army against the entire Turkish population of the city of Aydin.
When it came to genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, it was in fact the Greek army, which led the way.
The first example was the slaying of 32,000 unarmed Turks and Jews in Tripoli in 1821, and the ethnic cleansing of the entire Slav-speaking population of Kilkis in 1913.
It is time Mr. Kapsis remembered the old proverb: People in glass houses...
OPEN LETTER
(After receipt of this letter, and after certain articles and letters in the newspaper Avyi Simitis withdrew from the National Printing Office the decree, already signed, and - having replaced the word 'genocide' with the word ' memory', sent it to the Council of State for their opinion.)
To:
The Right Honorable Kostas Simitis
Prime Minister of Greece
Athens
Dr. Georgios Nakratzas
Chest physician
Rotterdam, 20th February 2001
Subject: Presidential Decree on the Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor
I have followed with interest the reaction of the Greek press to the proposal by Mr. Venizelos, Minister for Culture in the Greek government, concerning the signing of a Presidential Decree on making the 15th September an official day of remembrance of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turks in 1922. The articles in the newspaper Avyi on 18th February 2001 were particularly impressive and informative.
As a writer and the descendant of refugees from Asia Minor, I believe it is incumbent on me to comment on the articles mentioned above, in order to fill in certain gaps in historical memory, especially that of the younger generation in Greece.
The draft law laid before Greek Parliament on 12th May 1997 by the Members of Parliament G. Haralambous, G. Diamantidis and G. Kapsis, on the introduction of the aforesaid official day of remembrance, contains the following words: ...in a geographical region which saw the magnificent achievement of the idea of the multi-ethnic state with Greek culture and consciousness, either at the time of the heirs of Alexander, or during the Roman era, the years of Byzantium or the age of the Ottomans...
This nationalistic text submitted by the three MPs reflects a conscious or unwitting absence of historical knowledge in respect of the issue of the ethnic consciousness of the Greek-speaking people of Asia Minor during the period of the Roman Empire of the East (Byzantium) or the Ottoman Empire.
During the Byzantine era and the early part of the Ottoman Empire the Greek-speaking but actually multiethnic populations of Asia Minor did not regard themselves as Greeks but Romaioi, a word later corrupted to Romioi.
National identities were invented by the theoretical thinkers of the western Renaissance, and mainly used after the French Revolution to combat theocracy and feudalism, systems which characterized the social structure of the various empires.
Concepts such as multinational state with Greek ethnic consciousness are a stark contradiction, in themselves contradicting the views of the MPs introducing this bill.
At another point in their text the 3 MPs claim that the backbone of Greek civilization was uprooted, together with all its traditions and a rich three-thousand year Greek presence, with no attempt made to save them...
The text is an attempt to present the Greek presence in western Asia Minor and Smyrna as continuing uninterrupted over the last three thousand years. This is a notion quite at odds with historical reality - a reality of which the three MPs are probably ignorant.
It is well known from historical sources that in 1333 Smyrna was a city in ruins, while in 1390, the date of the fall of the last Byzantine bastion in Asia Minor, Philadelpheia (Alasehir) the whole region, both Smyrna and its hinterland, was literally depopulated of Christians. In 1402 the Han of Mongolia, Tamerlaine, slaughtered or enslaved all the remaining Christian inhabitants of Smyrna and its hinterland, who had fled there for refuge, in order to punish the Sultan Vayazit. In a recent academic study Ms. Anagnostopoulou informs us that in 1520 in the villayet of Aydin the Christian population amounted to just 0.9% of the total population, increasing by the end of the same century to 1.55%. Even as late as 1717 the city of Smyrna had 19 mosques, 18 synagogues and just 2 Orthodox churches.
A wholesale migration of Orthodox Christians into the villayet of Aydin took place after 1839, following the publication of the Tanzimat - a decree promulgated by the Sultan to the effect that both Christian and Muslim serfs were now free to leave the feudal estates.
The Orthodox economic migrants of the villayet of Aydin came from the islands or the Balkan lands of the empire, settling there to seek work. It is for the descendants of these migrants that the three Greek MPs are now claiming a three-thousand year presence in the region!
In 1912, according to the statistics compiled by Sotiriadis, and used officially by the government of Eleftherios Venizelos, in the villayet of Aydin - a huge region consisting of the sadzak of Magnesia, Smyrna, Aydin, Denisli and Mendese - out of a total population of 1,659,529 the Orthodox Christians accounted for 622,810, or 37.75% of the population, while Anagnostopoulou puts the figure lower at 435,398 or 26.2%. Of the 622,810 Greeks cited by Sotiriadis as inhabitants of the villayet of Aydin, 395,559, or 63.5%, lived in six coastal districts of the sadzak of Ismir, i.e. in a relatively small strip along the shore. The remaining Orthodox Christians were submerged in the great sea of Muslim populations.
The Presidential Decree also contains the following statement:
...Thus more than 1.5 million Greeks of Asia Minor were forced, mainly after the dramatic events of 1922, to abandon the homes of their forebears in Asia Minor and settle, as refugees, in Greece and in other regions...
Despite the fact that the text of the Presidential Decree now awaiting signature is intended to make the 15th September an official day of remembrance, as a physician - even though my special area is the lungs, rather than the mind - I have to point out that the authors of the text are showing definite clinical symptoms of historical amnesia!
How little the homes of the Greeks of Asia Minor were really the 'homes of their forefathers' we have made clear in the preceding paragraph.
What the authors of the text fail to mention is the question of what the Greek army was doing in the regions of Proussa, Kutahya, Afion Kara-Hisar and the Sangari River - regions where the Greek population was either an insignificant minority or entirely non-existent.
Greeks were a minority only in the sadzak of Proussa, where, according to Sotiriadis, of a total population of 353,976, Orthodox Christians numbered 85,505, or 23.3%, mainly settled in the coastal areas.
According to Anagnostopoulou, the Romioi of the sadzak of Proussa numbered not 85,505 but just 56,233, while in the other regions mentioned above the number of Greeks was negligible, if indeed there was a Greek presence at all.
In 1922 the Greek army in this region was no more than an army of occupation, conducting an imperialist-expansionist campaign within the heart of Turkish national territory.
The text of the Presidential Decree also states that the Greeks were compelled - mainly after the dramatic events of 1922 - to leave their homes, but it is silent on two important details, i.e. what was the behaviour of the Greek populations before the battle of Ankara in 1922, and who imposed the compulsory exchange of populations.
To examine the first of these questions we might take as an example the behaviour of the Greek population of Proussa, who - according to Anagnostopoulou - amounted to 5100 individuals out of a population of 85,600.
The writer Adamantiadis, descended from a Proussa family, describes how the occupation of Eski-Sehir by the Greek army was celebrated by the Greeks of Proussa with a torch lit procession, while the Greek inhabitants of military age, although they were Ottoman subjects, joined the ranks of the Greek army of occupation and fought against the Turkish army of liberation, led by Kemal Attaturk, on the nearby front.
To really appreciate the importance of the events narrated by Adamantiadis, one needs to ask oneself how the Greek authorities would have reacted after the Second World War if - during the Bulgarian occupation of eastern Macedonia - the Slav-speaking Macedonians of Serres and Drama had welcomed with torch lit processions the Bulgarian troops, and if some of them had donned Bulgarian uniform and fought against the Greek army at some point of a hypothetical battlefront.
We are well aware of the moral contempt felt by the Greek people for those security squads wearing German uniforms during the Occupation of our own country. That the people of Proussa should have fled before the imminent onslaught of the Turkish army is all too understandable.
It is well known that the Greeks in areas not close to the battlefields were forced to flee as refugees, like, for example, the people of Cappadocia and eastern Thrace.
In the study by Svolopoulos - published by the extreme nationalist Society for Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki - it is explicitly stated that the compulsory exchange of populations was not proposed, and insisted on, by the Turkish government, but by the Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos. Svolopoulos states that since the Turkish government was opposed to the exchange, there was a widespread feeling within the Greek government that 500,000 Turks from northern Greece should be forcibly removed from their homes and taken to somewhere on the Turkish coastline. Svolopoulos writes that this idea was abandoned because of the very poor impression it would have made on the Europeans. In the end the Turkish government was obliged to consent to the Greek proposal for a compulsory exchange of populations.
It is not my purpose in writing this letter to hurl allegations of crimes committed in other times, in different social systems with different moral standards.
My purpose is instead to support the statement made by Professor Antonis Bredimas of the University of Athens, in an article he wrote for the Avyi newspaper on 18th February 2001, as follows:
But if one wants to look ahead and not back into the past, one must take to heart the recommendation made recently by a fellow academic of mine: The two peoples should recognize what they have suffered at each other's hands, and ask forgiveness for what they have done to one another.
Dr. Georgios Nakratzas
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GEORGIOS NAKRATZAS
ASIA MINOR AND THE ORIGINS OF THE REFUGEES
The imperialist Greek policy of 1922 and the Asia Minor catastrophe
BATAVIA PRESS, Thessaloniki, 2000
Central Distribution in Greece
Thessaloniki: tel. 031 237463
Athens: tel. 01 3639336
ISBN: 960-85800-6-4
GEORGIOS NAKRATZAS
Anadolu ve Rum Gocmenlerin Kokeni
The imperialist Greek policy of 1922 and the Asia Minor catastrophe
Central Distribution in Turkey
KITABENI, Catalcesme No 54/a, Istanbul
Istanbul Tel : 212.5124328 212.5112143
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Open Letter to the Greek Prime Minister Regarding
the Blacklisting of Macedonian Political Refugees
by Dr. George Nakratzas
July 26, 2003
E-mail: [email protected]
To the Right Honourable
Konstantinos Simitis
Prime Minister of Greece
Athens
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
On Wednesday 23 July 2003 we learnt to our surprise of the public statements made by the Governor of the Prefecture of Florina, Mr. G. Stratakis. According to these statements, the Greek government has made the following decisions in respect of political refugees:
a) On August 10th, 2003, 80 Macedonians will be denied admission to our country. (For political reasons these individuals have been placed on the blacklist, whose existence our government has hitherto denied).
b) No political refugee will be admitted into our country if the passport issued in his country of residence - Republic of Macedonia, Canada or Australia - does not state his birthplace in Greece, under its Greek name - i.e. the name of the village where he was born some 60 years ago.
c) The individuals in question will be allowed to remain in our country for no more than twenty days.
d) Finally, the Governor stated that no special reception ceremonies will be staged, but that if these individuals agree to meet him, he is prepared to receive them.
The Governor's statement provides official confirmation of the following:
1) Our government now officially confirms the existence of the blacklist, a list which is totally illegal for member states of the European Union.
By preventing the return to Greece of these 80 blacklisted Macedonians, and by preventing them from even visiting the villages where they were born, on the grounds purely and simply that these individuals regard themselves as ethnic Macedonians, the Greek state is officially admitting a policy which requires that its citizens demonstrate a sense of Greek identity and Greek patriotic feeling.
This is the same policy which was implemented during the Civil War and during the military dictatorship - when Papadopoulos threatened to place the whole Greek people 'in plaster' to cure them of their anarchic tendencies, and when undesirable individuals were exiled to the most barren of the Greek islands.
We now see the government implementing a more refined version of the same policy - one which involves a lifetime exile abroad for these individuals, far from the village where they were born. There are even a number of members of the present government who were victims of this inhuman policy.
It is particularly grotesque that the party forming the present government of Greece, PASOK, refers to itself as a socialist party - its members addressing one another, in all seriousness, as comrade!
2) Our government requires of people, most of whom do not even know Greek and left their villages at the age of 5-8, that they declare to the authorities of the state issuing their passport not the name of the village as they know it in their native language, but under the name imposed by the Greek government in 1917.
3) The period they may remain in Greece has been set at 20 days, instead of the period from 10 August to 30 October, as originally decided. It would be unthinkable for any of the more civilised and self-respecting countries of the European Union to reverse an official decision in this way.
4) Finally, the celebrations planned in Florina by the relatives of victims of the 'paidomazoma' - celebrations which would have involved singing and dancing and were to have been attended by the Governor, Mr. Stratakis, and the Minister, Mr. Lianis - have now been cancelled. At the remarkable celebrations held in the nearby village of Meliti, the young people danced and sang all night, singing Pontic and Macedonian songs alternately; it appears that this extraordinary peaceful demonstration was not to the liking of certain champions of the cold war and of hatred.
The Greek government's change of policy is described in the article by IOY journalists in the newspaper Eleftherotypia on 26-7-03. The journalists assert that:
The government retreat vindicates the professional alarmists and those who still regret the passing of the cold war, but also exposes to criticism the government officials who had announced the end of this last inheritance of the civil war.
These professional patriots were the 34 MPs of the right-wing New Democracy party, and the 3 socialist MPs from the PASOK party, led by the notorious champion of the patriotic cause, Mr. Papathemelis, whose family come from the Slav-speaking or formerly Slav-speaking village of Visoka, outside Thessaloniki.
In order to underline the shameless falsehoods employed by these apostles of hatred, I shall cite part of a parliamentary question put by the devout Mr. Papathemelis to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:
'These would-be compatriots of ours fought against the Greeks alongside the Germans and Bulgarians during the occupation...' .
Almost all those who fought in the Democratic Army have now passed away; the few still alive are old men, over 80 years old, and unlikely to come to Greece. If they do come, it is only from a desire to die in the village where they were born.
These men, who according to Papathemelis fought at the side of the Germans, were in fact just 5-8 years old at the time of the occupation; these are the victims of the so-called 'paidomazoma' who would be returning to their villages in Greece.
The professional patriots should be ashamed to deal in such falsehoods.
Yours,
Dr. G. Nakratzas
P.S. An English translation of this letter will be circulated around the world, distributed to the 600 EMPs and to
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Open Letter to the Greek Prime Minister
on the Matter of Greek Racial Profiling
by Dr. George Nakratzas
February 25, 2003
E-mail: [email protected]
To the Right Honourable
Konstantinos Simitis
Prime Minister of Greece
Athens
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
It was reported by the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada that last year three Canadian nationals of Macedonian descent had been denied entry to Greece.
This latest incident took place on 30th May 2002: entry to Greece was refused to Mr. Mendo Petrovski, a Canadian national of Macedonian descent.
When representations were made by the Canadian Embassy in Athens, the Greek authorities responded that nothing could be done because Mr. Petrovski had no relevant documents from the Niki border post, and did not know the name of the border official concerned in the decision.
If this accusation is true, then the official response of our government to the Canadian Embassy in Athens does little credit to our country - the country currently holding the Presidency of the European Union.
The Greek authorities must be perfectly well aware of the identity of the official on duty at the Niki border post on 30th May 2002.
The fact that this Canadian national had no document explaining why he was regarded as persona non grata in Greece, is entirely due to the failings of our own authorities. In all such cases, as in the case in question, the necessary stamp should have been placed in the Canadian passport.
Sir, no country with any self-respect can insult a tourist on the grounds that he has a suspect record without offering evidence to this effect, or at the very least communicating these grounds to the individual in question.
The truth is, however, that the facts of the matter are somewhat different.
It is well known that the border posts of the EU countries keep a list of individuals whose entry is deemed undesirable. However, this list contains the names of persons known for their criminal activities.
It is claimed - although I admit I have no certain knowledge of this - that our border posts also keep a second, unofficial list of names of individuals whose entry to our country is forbidden for purely political reasons. More specifically, this list contains the names only of those individuals who declare that they are ethnic Macedonians.
A similar incident in the relatively recent past involved a Mr. Karatzas, a 78-year-old resident of the Republic of Macedonia, who was refused entry to Greece. After international protests, and only following your own wise intervention, this old man, a veteran of the Democratic Army, was allowed to visit for the last time his village near Kastoria, the village where he spent his childhood. I learned of this visit - with great relief - from the man himself.
Do you not think that it is now time for this alleged second, unofficial list to be abolished - the list which names ethnic Macedonians as personae non gratae.
I ask you to imagine how we ourselves would react if we were to be refused entry at the borders of neighbouring countries, simply because we described ourselves as ethnic Greeks?
Yours faithfully,
Dr. George Nakratzas
P.S. I beg to inform you that copies of this letter, translated into English, will be forwarded to the 600 Members of the European Parliament, as well as other interested individuals.
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What's Up With FYROM?
Chris M. Purdef
June, 2003
get a printable version
I don’t know what it is with this “term,” more or less, plastered on the Republic of Macedonia’s head like a cheap toupee, but it seems to attract “international visitors” to Macedonia like flies swarming around freshly laid horse feces on Bitola’s city walkway.
At first glance, this abbreviation reminds me of one of those Japanese designed robots that can do aerobics and laundry, while humming Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark At the Moon.” After further scrutiny, I must concede that pronunciation by some of Macedonia’s recent “visitors” embellishes a whole new universe of meanings and associations, for instance:
“Fai-ROM”: CD ROM’s sister, or “FA-RUM” an exotic liquor named after the gentleman who couldn’t reach the fourth note in the musical scale after drinking his concoction, and finally “Fa-RAM,” the end result of drinking a whole bottle of “FA-RUM.”
What still remains a mini-mystery-series to me, however, is that Macedonia’s “international visitors” have no problem pronouncing words like “transparency”, “beleaguered and besieged,” “democracy in transition,” my favorite, “proportional response,” and of course, “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, yet they have trouble uttering, “Macedonia” from their finely tuned and polished lips. Yes, what’s up with FYROM?
For those of use not aware of the name issue, we must go back about ten years ago and review what happened in the United Nations on April 1993. This was just about the time Macedonia was beginning to receive it’s first “visitors.”
I should warn you my friends; the following contents are down right stale. Furthermore, by attempting to fathom why there wasn’t any outcry by the “ international visitors” who supposedly devote their time and government funds (taxes) flying across the globe, stamping out injustice, and crusading for harmony, we may stumble across some shaky ground, I mean, dissent is a faux pas these days. However, being the splintered personality that I am, why the hell not? So here’s my skinny on it:
On April 1993, under immense political and economic pressure from Greece, the tiny nation, then known as the Republic of Macedonian, was coerced into joining the United Nations under the improvised name of Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.
The obvious question to ask here is why would the Greeks open up this can of fishing goop? To be quite honest, I don’t truly understand the reasoning behind it myself. It has something to do with Greeks believing that the name Macedonia and everything that is understood to be Macedonian is exclusively of Greek Origin.
Interesting enough, but then, what do we do with those 2 million “misinformed souls” who have been living in Macedonia proper forever, and the hundreds of thousands of Ethnic Macedonians who live in Northern Greece and Bulgaria, and what about the other million or so who are living outside of region all together? Should we be timid and follow the official line and answer as the world has: Who Gives a Rats Ass?
GREEK KNOW IT ALLS
Alas, this historical debate we shall not get into. I mean who cares, right?
What non-academics profess to know and completely understand ancient history anyways? Oh, I know: The “Pan Macedonian” Association does.
The Pan Macedonian Organization claims to be made up of descendants of the “original Macedonians,” when in all reality they are a bunch of people from Asia Minor who have been transplanted into Northern Greece by the Greek Government to play the role of Ancient Macedonian leftovers. The charming fellows and gals have such historical prowess that in some of their commentary and writings have managed to reduced Harvard and Princeton professors, such as Dr. Eugene Borza, into nothing more than beer slugging, girl-chasing blokes who dwell at local bowling allies turning about the place, with their toothpicks as radars, looking to pick up the “pre-froshes” and drive them around in their cherry red, all terrain vehicles.
This same group just recently attempted to challenge US National Policy by secretly pushing Anti- Macedonian resolutions through state governments that claimed that Ancient Macedonians were Greek and that Macedonia was Greek. They were successful in getting resolutions passed in a handful of local legislatures before efforts by the Macedonian Ambassador and Macedonian American Friendship Association, an organization representing the voice of Ethnic Macedonians in the US, quelled attempts in the Texas State Legislature.
Interesting reading these days is that this same group of “Pan Macedonian geniuses” have decided to take up an international petition, collecting signatures in order to “present and prove” to US and EU government officials that they are the “true Macedonians.” Even more worrisome is that Greece has even enlisted the ranks of the Serbian Orthodox Church, a traditional foe of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, by issuing an ultimatum to the Macedonian Archbishop to give up the name of the Macedonian Church and resume function under the chauvinistic wing of the Serbian Church. This obvious Greek tactic has received malicious remarks by Ethnic Macedonians throughout the world, and ironically, has resulted in only uniting Macedonia’s largest two opposing political parties. But has there been any reaction by Macedonia’s “international visitors,” possibly to show some sort of solidarity with Ethnic Macedonians in light of everything that they have given up in the past two years to prove their loyalty to Europe and America? Are you kidding me?
Forget facts, forget history, forget that Ethnic Macedonians have been living on that disputed Macedonian territory for thousands of years, were subject to fierce Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek international policy (including ethnic cleansing), and forget that harsh remnants of these policies still exist and are continuously being pursued by the said countries! For the Ethnic Macedonians, there is no getting around this huge piece of Baklava (Which by the way is a Turkish dessert, not Greek). Unfortunately for them, they no longer possess the strategic geographical position of Bulgaria, the resources and landmass of Serbia and Montenegro, or the economic might of the Greeks. Yes, Ethnic Macedonians are once again forced to prove their very existence without much political influence, their land still divided, all by themselves. But worry not it has done this before!
LONG DIVISIONS
But if truth be told, no one actually denies that Macedonia was divided up almost one hundred years ago by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece each claiming their ethnocentric right. Are you kidding me? I’m the fool still waiting for all those Civil Rights Activist, the movie stars to come and speak for the Ethnic Macedonians. Come on Richard Gere, are you telling me you fell for that Albanian nonsense in Kosovo and Macedonia, yet you can’t recognize a people who have been literally, and historically “high-jacked” by Greek claims of Hellenic homogeneity all most as vehement as that of the Nazi campaign fifty years back?
And where the hell is Michael Moore now, ranting and raving about Dubya Bush’s “unholy” war against Iraq, yet claiming that what happened in Kosovo and Macedonia was justifiable? Why, because liberals introduced us to “humanitarian wars” and this type of war is ok?
Where are the mentions of the Ethnic Macedonian genocide in Greece and Bulgaria? Where is Steven Spielberg’s beautiful epic, and Oliver Stone’s film on this conspiracy? Can even the justice seeking movie makers deny that there may actually be Ethnic Macedonians living within those divided territories wondering when someone will recognize them and give them the same opportunities of Federalized land like the Ethnic Albanians received in Kosovo and Macedonia proper? Isn’t this the purpose of “international visitors?”
Screech! You know, historically speaking, “gun-slinging diplomacy” was never a Macedonian forte. This means of communication has always been reserved for the US and their Albanian Compatriots. It’s funny though, I know for a fact that Macedonians used to watch Cary Grant, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood movies in the former Yugoslavia, but I guess they also understood it was only fantasy.
But my sarcastic digression serves only to aggravate my karma, and it really doesn’t do the readers any good. Like I said before, who the hell cares, right? As long as we can see the “sexy” in war, injustice, and genocide, right? As long as news reporting is nothing more than a sound bite, a two-minute organism, then we can get on with our soda pop day, and American universities can continue pumping out fresh grads with their Master’s Degree in “compromise and imposition.” Newly manufactured “international visitors.”
LAWS (Remember them?)
Let’s focus on the legality of this issue for a spell, and ponder the reasons why “international visitors” seem to awkwardly understand that something is wrong with the UN decision to impose this name on the Republic of Macedonia, yet still insist on using FYROM-- Even when they’re trying to con everyone.
What are all these “international visitors” really doing in Macedonia? They are well received, make lots of money working for their respective organizations, live in some of Skopje’s (Macedonia’s Capital City) most luxurious apartments, feast with locals, and enjoy weekend trips to neighboring Greece (Aegean Macedonia) when they get sick of Lake Ohrid. Heck, they get two Macedonia’s for the price of one! How appropriate. For the most part I understand that they are in Macedonia as representatives of their government’s humanitarian sector, therefore, they should be considered promoters of peace, but a peace that should and will benefit their nation’s interest first, and everyone else only if convenient.
Don’t get me wrong; there is no such thing as altruistic foreign policy, but US representatives are promising a lot of “mullah” for Macedonia, most of which may in fact do the country some good. Yet what the hell is with all of these attached conditions that even the average everyday American wouldn’t stand for? It’s ok to expect a nation receiving tax fed foreign donations to be frugal, but come on boys; you don’t have to extort this tiny nation into changing it constitution or to accept that US soldiers will be exempt from international law. And IMF standards are preposterous, we all understand that Macedonia already doesn’t stand a chance with the economic giants who are just waiting to consume the Macedonian market for an appetizer, shouldn’t the IMF be a somewhat of a shield against these economic sharks? Yes, even the banking “international visitors” are in question.
‘MERIKANS DON’T LIKE “FA RUM” ANY LONGER
However, when it comes to name issue, I must give credit where credit is due, US officials are more consistently referring to Macedonia by its constitutional name these days, I guess there is some benefit in joining the “Coalition of The willing.” If Macedonians are lucky, this will last through Bush’s second term assuming he gets re-elected. If not, I don’t foresee a Democratic President going against Greek interests, a lobby that strongly supports and finances the National Democratic Party. Oh boy, I can see the bumper stickers now, “Kiss Me, I’m a FYROMian!”
The European Union’s “international visitors” on the other hand, OH MY GOD, what a bunch of purse carrying ignoramuses. Not to belittle, but if this hoard of weirdoes had a conceptual idea of how to run a union of modernized nations, let alone understand the stabilizing factor behind referring to Macedonia by its constitutional name, then maybe US redneck Congressmen wouldn’t be renaming French fries! The only thing the European Union has done right is Universal Health Care and some instances of liberalized marijuana usage laws. Hey, at least they’re mellow.
KICK IT UP A KNOTCH, BAM!
The important question to ask here is, what would happen if these “international visitors,” regardless from what “progressive and democratic” nation they come from, dared to call Macedonia, Macedonia? Probably nothing, except bring new vigor and a positive attitude to the Macedonian State, Help boost Economic Confidence, Draw a definite line in the sand against those who would seek to destabilize Macedonia. In essence, officially recognizing the Republic of Macedonia by its’ constitutional name will help ensure everything that the EU and the US have already promised they would help Macedonia achieve. Sovereignty.
What is even more ironic, all that money that the EU and US are promising Macedonia wouldn’t do as much good as official name recognition by President Bush. So then what are they all waiting for? What is keeping them from probably the easiest act since breast-feeding? Why aren’t all these “international visitors,” who have been living in Macedonia for the past five years, who are aware of how much this issue means to Macedonians, not pressuring their bosses into recognition of Ethnic Macedonians?
AFTER ALL THE QUESTIONS, THE ANSWER: COWARDICE- THE OFFICIAL LINE IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY
Is it that the EU and the US truly do not want to see Macedonia as a stable nation, prosperous, harmonious, and economically strong? Or, is it possible that these “international visitors” do not truly understand what it means to stand up and do the right thing? I don’t buy it.
I believe that even though Macedonia’s “international visitors” truly and wholehearted understand that by addressing Macedonia as FYROM they are causing this nation internal and external damage, and that they really don’t like the arrogant Greeks that much anyhow, they are just too scared to break the official line.
International policy is based on cowardice. After witnessing these same “international visitors” “shuttle” their way into Macedonia two years ago, imposing their “solution,” insisting that this tiny nation be “Brave,” to show “Resilience” and to break away from the “Cowardice of War,” I have no trouble labeling their double standard as nothing more than the very thing they, at one time, spoke out against, and that is cowardice.
A CIVICS REFRESHER: SELF DETERMINATION
According to Dr. Igor Janev, a Scientific Researcher at the University of Belgrade, The Republic of Macedonia was discriminated against by the United Nations (under Greek pressure) in two ways, the first of which was:
I. Self Determination:
“The inherent right for any state to have a name can be derived from the necessity that a juridical personality must have a legal identity. In absence of such an identity, the juridical person, such as a state, could to a large extent (or even completely) loose its capacity to interact with other such juridical persons…this right is not alienable, divisible or transferable, and is part of the right to “self-determination” (determination of one’s own legal identity) External interference with this basic right is inadmissible.”
The Second instance of Macedonia being discriminated against goes as following:
II. Imposition
“According to the interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter given in 1948 18 and accepted by the General Assembly, 19 the conditions laid down in that article are exhaustive (and not merely stated by way of guidance or example), they must be fulfilled before admission is effected, and, once they are recognized as having been fulfilled by the Security Council, the applicant state acquires an unconditional right to UN membership. This right is enshrined in Article 4 itself and comports with the universal character of the UN Organization. At the same time, and for the same reasons, the Organization has a duty to unconditionally admit such a state to UN membership.” By now you are probably saying to yourself, what’s the problem? Well, this is my problem, “The Security Council in the preamble of its resolution 21 recognizes that the applicant state (Macedonia) fulfills the required criteria for admission and yet, contrary to the accepted interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter, recommends that the applicant be admitted to membership with a temporary reference label (to be used for all purposed within the UN), and imposes an obligation on the future UN member to negotiate with a neighboring state about its own name.” What is even more, “The fact that the Security Council has ignored the strong objection 22 of Macedonian Government to such formulation of its resolution indicates that it considered that added conditions as necessary for giving the recommendation.”
ACTION, REACTION, AND THE “IMPOSITION”
International law has been broken, and the reactionaries of the world have not reacted.
Are not these globe prancing souls, seeking justice, freedom, and “Self-Determination” for all supposed to be calling up Amnesty International and the UN complaining and pursuing rights for the discriminated Macedonian? Or have the Ethnic Macedonians not played their cards correctly having, yet again, fallen victim to new super power crusade created by US liberals, and perfected by the current US administration: Imposing new governments and leaders, or “The Imposition.”
Thus far, actions that have been taken by “international visitors” in Macedonia have resulted in dire change in the structure of that tiny nation, ranging from an imposed peace agreement to stop a Kosovar Albanian attack on Macedonia for control of the sex and drug trade routes in Northwest Macedonia, to imposed change of the Macedonia constitution, to change of the Macedonian government, to finally, inaction when it comes to recognition of Macedonia’s name, culture, and language from blatant attacks by Greece in the United Nations or indirectly through the Serbian Church and extreme Bulgarian elements. And even though I must mention that there has been some positive change in Macedonia as a result of the Macedonian relationship with these very same “international visitors,” it is still a far cry from what they lobbied for Kosovar Albanians, or what their silence is providing Greek interest.
Plain and simple, the international community is cowardly. They know right from wrong, therefore should be the first in line to persuade their leaders to officially recognize Macedonia.
Instead of following the timid “official line” and pursuit of compromise at all costs, as they were taught in Grad School and Diplomatic Training, “international visitors” should realize that sometimes “disputes” should result in Principled Diplomatic Consequences, and that some “conflicts” deserve Decisive Response.
Seeing for myself how “international visitors” have “lived and died” with Ethnic Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia, if you ask me, recognition of Ethnic Macedonians should be their sole purpose in life. Period!
I should know, I used to be one of those “visitors,” and recognition of “my people” is one of my top priorities.
Chris M. Purdef
Macedonia American Friendship Association
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thnic Macedonian's Should Stop Negotiating with Greece
by Chris M. Purdef
October, 2004
We have witnessed the name issue with the Hellenic Republic dismissing Macedonian claims to its constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia. Up until recently, this issue seemed only to be an illegal, horror film, a movie that happens far away on the screen, and although terrified, Macedonians couldn't do anything about it. But now things are different. As we have been reading in the news lately, the Greek Government is consumed with security shortages hoping to avoid total political embarrassment and demise. A fact that became very evident to me as I was watching a sports special on HBO on how Athens is out of touch politically and socially. It was very abhorrent to see how this networks' reporter sent to Athens to report on the lowly standards of Greek security, easily walked into the main Olympic Arena, no security to be seen anywhere, openly shouting to the nearby Greek workers when they asked him what he was doing there, "Don't worry guys, I'm from Al-Qaeda, I just want to check out the construction work!" Happily they replied, "Oh, that's ok, go ahead!" This is a far cry in comparison to all of the security that was needed to keep Greek neo-Nazis from harassing Ethnic Macedonians trying to hold a peaceful congress in Solun. Is there something wrong with this picture? But the world has also taken notice that Macedonians have started to move in the other direction, becoming more courageous, responsible, and proactive. Nowhere is this more evident than with a slew of movements from 2001 to the present in which Macedonians have brought this tiny, barely recognized Balkan republic to the attention of NATO and the European Union. What is most ironic, Macedonians may not have realized that they have taken the first important steps in the formation of a coherent Macedonia National strategy. Something that your politicians have not known how, or have not had the backbone to do up to this point in your history. But it must not stop here. You as citizens understand that the name Macedonia has power in international forums. The time has come as modern day Macedonians to draw the line in the sand and declare the truth about your national identity.
Grassroots efforts should be continued and strengthened. They should by multi-ethnic and if they are going to work, they must be consistent. If need be, citizens should even consider boycotting work to attend sit-ins in front of consulates, and other international institutions in the Republic of Macedonia. These efforts should be focused on pressuring Macedonian politicians to unilaterally stop negotiations with Greek representatives in New York, declare that the Former Yugoslavia is no more, that there is no more dispute with Greece, that you forgive them, but that you are the Republic of Macedonia and that you will be just that until the end of days. Coincidentally, both NATO and the EU have showed positive signs that Macedonia will be invited into those families in the near future, what must be done now is accept their vibe and send out one of your own.
With pride, Macedonians must insist indoctrination into these two very powerful groupings only, and I say only, if recognized by the constitutional name. Most of us understand that the challenges are mammoth, and the reforms that are to be undertaken by Macedonia take up enough energy, but there must be a parallel front headed by local NGOs, institutions of higher education, and media to proclaim that Macedonia is coming full steam ahead and that you will not accept anything but full recognition of your name before entrance into NATO and the EU. Macedonians should have this mindset not only because you deserve to be respected by these institutions, but also because you've earned it!
You have done it before. Once during the unjust war of 2001 with the parodied "collection of arms" by Macedonia citizens who walked in drones to the center square in silent protest of the fake collection of NLA weapons by NATO forces. (Who, by the way, turned in pre-Balkan War muskets and cherry bombs) In retaliation to this farce, Macedonians wanted to take part in the "weapons" collection by introducing their own version of tragic comedy. Needless to say, NATO Troops found it amusing when they took home with them all the watermelons, goats, rakes, shoes, and other "very dangerous ammunition" that Macedonians provided. It was a classic movement, but for one reason or another, it was short lived. I still claim that had it continued, Macedonians would have been successful in getting their message across and more mediums would have sensed the sad nonsense of the whole conflict. The second successful movement in recent Macedonia history was, of course, the "Say Macedonia" campaign, where citizens were organized to write postcards to the European Council reminding them that they do exist, they are part of Europe, and yes, They are Macedonian! This campaign must continue. If not in the same fashion, in some other way, but it must continue. Macedonians are creative enough to come up with the context; they do not need outside help to do this. But they do need some encouragement. They do need to understand that the outside world is watching them, and we need a new inspirational story. By God, what is more inspiring than a down and out nation standing up for itself in the midst of these negative times? Let us all relive David and Goliath.
The third mini-movement occurred just recently when the Software giant, Microsoft changed its local website for their "Vision 2004" conference that referred to Macedonia as FYROM. All that was needed for this progress to take place was a rebuking article by the Macedonian Daily, "Vreme." And although there are still other discouraging mistakes and misinformation being used by Microsoft regarding the Republic of Macedonia, now that this ball is rolling I feel confident that those will be changed also. It is exactly these grassroots movements that have changed governments and swayed political thinking. Should we even mention the United States in the 60's with Dr. Martin Luther King, or the peace movement that eventually ended the Vietnam conflict? Politicians did not undertake these changes, so Macedonians must stop expecting their leaders to take up the name issue on their own without critical mass. Politicians are not in politics to make astounding change, but they are there to satisfy egotistical needs and to compromise, this is what they do for a living. It is exactly what you or I say that makes them more susceptible to our thinking not the other way around. Of course, this is a very pessimistic connotation, but only if you're a politician. And if they disagree, I challenge them to prove me wrong. The ball is your court.
Chris M. Purdef is Vice President of the non-profit organization Friends of Macedonia and is Youth Coordinator for the West Coast Region-Arizona of the Macedonian Orthodox Youth Association of North America. He can be reached at [email protected]
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