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Really? Greek evidence states otherwise. And why ignore the label association's through ecclesiastical leanings and propaganda? Of course because being a "greek" certainly did not mean ethnically "greek".A: Nobody claimed that Macedonians did not exist. They doubted that a separate Macedonian nation existed, that was not Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek or Turkish. Misirkov gives plenty of proof as he tries to create and define a possible Macedonian nation out of all these people.
What was the real population of these supposed greek speakers in Macedonia?
History will continue to topple your house of cards.Leave a comment:
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Some notes and answers on a long lecture by R. Stefov posted in this thread.
Q: In spite of the Macedonian people having risen in 1903 to fight for their freedom and to create an Independent Macedonian state, only ten years later, Macedonia was brutally invaded, occupied and partitioned by its neighbours Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria; a partition validated by the European Great Powers on August 10, 1913 by the Treaty of Bucharest.
Why did this happen? What were the factors leading up to it? And who wanted this to happen?
A: So, who wanted the Balkan Wars? The Balkan League did; the Christian Macedonians probably did; the Ottomans didn’t, the Jews didn’t, the peaceful people didn’t, the cowards didn’t and the Great Powers didn’t. Let’s hope these are rhetorical questions.
Q: If this is hard to believe or hard to accept that Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria intentionally committed genocide acts against the Macedonian culture and against the Macedonian people, then ask yourselves this;
Did Macedonians exist in Macedonia when it was brutally invaded, occupied and partitioned in 1912 and 1913 by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria?
YES they did! How do we know? Among other things, from historical evidence left behind!
A: Nobody claimed that Macedonians did not exist. They doubted that a separate Macedonian nation existed, that was not Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek or Turkish. Misirkov gives plenty of proof as he tries to create and define a possible Macedonian nation out of all these people.
Q: Unfortunately today both Greece and Bulgaria claim that Macedonians don’t exist? If that is true then what happened to them? Where did they all go? Did they all vanish? Were they all assimilated?"
A: Some of this population was never “ethnic-Macedonian” at the first place in 1900s. Their recent history is certainly known and they certainly didn’t vanish. These people (or their descendants) are today Greeks (in Greece), Macedonians and ethnic-Albanians (in Republic of Macedonia), Bulgarians (in Bulgaria), Turks (in Turkey). Also there are many smaller groups: ethnic-Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria, ethnic-Bulgarians and Muslims in Republic of Macedonia etc.
Q: Knowing that Macedonians did exist in 1903, on account of all those newspaper reports, then why did the Great Powers allow Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria to invade, occupy and partition Macedonia and suppress the existence of the Macedonian culture? Is that in itself not genocide?
A: Actually, the Great Powers did NOT allow Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia (and Montenegro) to attack Ottoman Empire. They gave a strict order to the Balkan League NOT to do it, but of course nobody listened to them. The Balkan Wars were certainly NOT related to “Suppression of Macedonian Culture” (what the hell is this?) or any “Genocide”. This (modern) term did not exist back then. The two wars of course included atrocities, devastation and war crimes, but this is usually the smallest issue about wars. The main question is always who will win and what the future situation and its’ implications will be.
Q: So, what did Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria do with the Macedonians they inherited in 1913? Well, from what history has shown, they assimilated some, they exiled some and they killed some, by the tens of thousands and by the hundreds of thousands at every opportunity! History is full of such examples.
A: Population exchanges, assimilation: YES.
Deaths in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands (!!): certainly NO. Where are your sources for these numbers?
Q: And what do we call acts like changing people’s names by force, prohibiting people from speaking their mother tongue, for some the only language they spoke? How do we define acts such as these? Are they not cultural genocide?
A: Are they? Let’s see here:
Q: Did you know that while the sons of Macedonians in Greece fought the Italians in the Albanian frontier during World War II and sacrificed themselves to preserve the integrity of Greece and to keep the Greeks safe, their fathers were sent to jail by the Greeks, to the Greek islands, for speaking Macedonian at home?! What do we dare call that?!
A: We call it a lie. Communists were not sent in exile for “speaking Macedonian”. It’s true that when the war broke (during Metaxas dictatorship) political prisoners (including Zachariades himself) generally remained in prison. These people were ALREADY in prison and they were not sent there during the war. It’s also ironic that when Greece lost the war, some Slav-Macedonian communists were released by the Bulgarian authorities at the first week of Axis Occupation, as part of their policy and propaganda (I mean you can’t blame the prisoners for that), while Greek communists remained imprisoned.
Q: Now let us ask ourselves this: “What possible reasons could Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria have to commit cultural genocide against the Macedonian people? Why couldn’t they just leave the Macedonian people alone?”
A: Uh, wait man. Bulgaria did the opposite, as part of its policy. It supported its Macedonian brothers and promised to liberate them one day. As for Greece and Serbia, they couldn’t “leave these people alone” because they were their citizens. They tried to assimilate them and eradicate what they saw as “Bulgarian influence”.
Q: As we know today, the Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians of that time knew that no “ethnic” Greeks, Serbians, or Bulgarians lived in Macedonia. How could they, when the Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian identity did not form through its natural course? How could there be when these identities were thrust upon these Balkan people practically overnight by the Great Powers?
A: Uh, didn’t you just spend two pages to prove the opposite? That Macedonia was not a homogenous place, but full of many ethnicities? Which ethnicities were these?
Q: But, how could Bulgaria ensure that the rebellion would fail?” By forcing the Macedonian people into a rebellion before they were ready! And why would the Macedonian leadership agree to take part in a rebellion before the people were ready?
A: Not only this is a ridiculous and original conspiracy theory, but it contradicts with the rest of the lecture that presents Iliden Uprising as the major event, a proof and argument for the Macedonian Cause.
Q: Gotse Delchev was against starting an early uprising because, as the supreme commander of the Macedonian forces, he was well aware of the fact that the Macedonians were not ready to start an Uprising and win. When Delchev became aware of the Solun meeting he was furious and wanted to rush to Smilevo in person and convince the delegates that it would be suicidal to start an uprising at this point in time when most of the regions were not ready.
On his way to Smilevo, Delchev was ambushed in Banitsa and killed!
Was this a coincidence?
So, how was it that he was suddenly not found, but killed? I can tell you this: History has shown that it was by no coincidence that Delchev was killed on his way to Smilevo. He was killed because he was preparing to stop the 1903 uprising from taking place.
So let us ask ourselves: “Was Delchev not a patriotic Macedonian? Did Delchev not want Macedonia to be liberated?” If he was and if he did then why would he want to stop the uprising from taking place? Unless, of course he believed that an early uprising would not succeed and would destroy the Macedonian people’s chance of liberating themselves?!
A: Ha? Didn’t that happen four months before the Iliden uprising?
Q: Before I finish with this example, let me say this:
We are all proud of the idea that the Macedonians, our forefathers, created the first Republic in Europe but do we, for a moment, think what it means? Our forefathers tried to create a Republic during a time when every country in Europe, including the Great Powers, was kingdom. If you understand what that means you will understand that creating a Republic in the middle of the most powerful kingdoms in the world was like entering a bear’s den blindfolded; like attempting to bring communism into a powerful capitalist state!
It was NOT the thing to do in those days!
What kind of impression do you think our forefathers left in the minds of the Great Powers when they decided to create a Republic in the middle of all those kingdoms? Think about it! And did they really think the Great Powers were going to help them? What a blunder!
Is there no Macedonian in the Macedonian government who does not know that the Ilinden Uprising took place and that it was a struggle for freedom and for the creation of a Macedonian state? So, why do we allow Greece and Bulgaria to publicly say we don’t exist?
A: Your forefathers created a temporary Government in Krusevo, not a national state or a predecessor of a national state. The committee in Krusevo had three equal participants from the three Christian Churches (Patriarchists, Exarchists and Vlachs) and was appealing for the participation of the most important local community, the Muslims/Albanians. I believe the whole thing lasted 10 days and it wasn’t a state, a kingdom or a democracy. (From a Greek point of view) it did not have any effect in the area of today’s Greece, either then or the following years.
I also doubt the Great Powers even heard about it before the Uprising was already squashed.
As for the “first republic in Europe”, I suggest you get a book about French Revolution.
As for the “only republic at the time in Europe”, I have one word again: FRANCE.
Q: But the final insult against the Macedonian people came when Greece, in the 1980’s, introduced the law on repatriation which allowed only “Greeks by birth” to return back to their place of origin! And who exactly are these Greeks by birth?
That means that everyone who left Greece during the Greek Civil War in 1949 was also Greek. So why would Greece need a law to repatriate “only Greeks by birth” if everyone in Greece was Greek in the first place? And who were these “other” people who were not Greeks by birth that Greece did not want back?
A: The term is not “Greek in birth” (many of these people were obviously born abroad), but Greek in genus (genre). It simply means Greek in conscience. These people generally have to pass a short interview, where they declare their Greekness. Some may not speak Greek, but they may show their willingness to learn; they will probably have to describe how they see themselves as Greek citizens.
Q: So, who are these “elusive” ethnic Greeks and where could they be found?
A: You can start in Canada. Then again, if you visited Greece and “couldn’t find them there”, you may not be too honest.
Q: I will read you a quote from one of those authors who loves Greece but loves the truth even more:
“Further back still beyond the War of Independence, when the modern nation-state of Greece came into being for the first time, the whole concept of Greece as a geographical entity that begins to blur before our eyes, so many and various were its shapes and meanings. But if geography can offer us no stable idea of Greece, what can? Not race, certainly; for whatever the Greeks may once have been, ...., they can hardly have had much blood-relationship with the Greeks of the peninsula of today, Serbs and Bulgars, Romans, Franks and Venetians, Turks, Albanians,..., in one invasion after another have made the modern Greeks a decidedly mongrel race. Not politics either; for in spite of that tenacious western legend about Greece as the birthplace and natural home of democracy, the political record of the Greeks is one of a singular instability and confusion in which, throughout history, the poles of anarchy modulated freedom has very rarely appeared. Not religion; for while Byzantium was Christian, ancient Hellas was pagan.” David Holden, “Greece without Columns”.
A: Modern Greeks (of 1820s) are mostly related to the Christian Greek-speaking Romans of 1700s, who are in turn related to the ones of 1600s and so on. Their geographic distribution is more or less known throughout Ottoman Empire, so is their historic evolution since antiquity.
Serbs, Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians are different nations; there were no Franks/Venetians at the time, only Greek Catholics, mostly remnants of previous invasions. So Greek is defined by language and religion; an element of political conscience during Ottoman yoke. (Greeks were fully Christianized by 300-500 AD).
I won’t say anything about the reference to politics and lack of Athenian democracy during Ottoman Empire since this is an obviously stupid argument.
Q: 2. Remain in limbo and remain a Greek hostage forever. Greece is inside, in the warm atmosphere of our home while we linger and protest outside in the cold so why would Greece care if this “problem” goes on forever? Greece has the upper hand. Greece possesses our lands and controls our destiny, so why would Greece seek a solution that might change all that. Greece would love to see this problem go on unresolved forever because it is in Greece’s interest. There is no incentive for Greece to solve this problem.
A: That’s not accurate. As a Greek I can assure you that time works against Greece, as the entity of Republic of Macedonia is established and the patience of International Community shrinks. Of course, I don’t imply there’s no cost on your side too.
Q: If you disagree with me then tell me, “What are we doing negotiating our own country’s name with our worst enemy?” Think about it!
A: Well, you don’t have much of a choice on that, unless you can find a perspective outside NATO and European Union.
Q: Thankfully one part of Macedonia is free. But unfortunately, three more parts are not. The largest part of Macedonia is still occupied.
So, what can be done to change the situation?
A: Realism and small steps I guess. What can Greece do to take back Constantinople? What can United Kingdom do to become again biggest power in the world?
Q: Has anyone in our entire folklore ever mentioned that we came to Macedonia from somewhere else? Where is the proof that we came from somewhere else? Our true history, however, tells a different story. Our true history is full of signs that point to us being indigenous to Macedonia. More correctly, we are the product of all the people, the indigenous Macedonians and all those people who set foot and left their mark in Macedonia since the melt of the last ice age.
A: The last part is correct, but it applies everywhere and it means nothing. It’s not only folklore, but language that decisively relates your people to South Slavs and the Slavic migration and not to ancient Macedonians. Of course you have suggested to change the language and adopt (Bible) Greek which you call the real Macedonian language.
That shit happens when you’re confused, but also when (unlike your father) you can’t speak Greek. But, it also shows how that connection to ancient Macedonia is weak in your mind also.
Q: If we are such great truth seekers why has not a single Macedonian in authority spoken the truth where it counts? What are we waiting for? Why haven’t we attacked the Greek identity the way they have attacked ours?
A: Gee, I thought that’s the only thing you are doing.Leave a comment:
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The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism, By Dmitri Obolensky
Page 176, footnotes:
- In 688 Justinian II transported some 80,000 Slavs to the Theme of Opsikion.
- In 762 Constantine V deported some Slavs from Thrace and Macedonia to Bithynia.
- Bithynia and Opsikion became centres of Slavonic colonization in Asia Minor in the seventh to ninth centuries.
- Lamansky has shown that these colonists retained their Slavonic characteristics at least up to the 15th century.
- These colonists were frequently reinforced by waves of Slavonic immigrants from the Balkans, the majority of whom settled in Bithynia.
The Asian themes of the Byzantine Empire c. 780.
As I have already indicated, many regions of Asia Minor were populated by Slavs and in some areas they likely represented outright majority (i.e. Opsikion, Bithynia).Leave a comment:
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Carlin, how can there be Slavs in Asia minor?
Your information and knowledge is top notch, please continue.Leave a comment:
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Interesting. The greeks have managed to control propaganda to such an extent only researchers are aware of these phenomenon.Leave a comment:
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Carlin
Please do continue.....altough we may have to change the title of the thread to..."Encyclopedia of greek Lies"
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Shall I continue?Originally posted by momce View Post
1) Harvard Historical Studies, Volume 88.
Page 122: The Vlachs were forcibly moved from Vizye to the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus. The transfer of the Vlach population took place in winter and thus gravely disrupted their cattle-based economy.
2) Asia Minor Slavs.
Slavs (Slavic-speakers) represented a rather significant population, numerically speaking, all over Asia Minor in the Middle Ages. Modern Pontian Greeks are to some extent of Slavic extraction (although I'm quite sure they would deny it vehemently).
Thomas the Slav
During Thomas' time Asia Minor was a multi-ethnic region largely inhabited by Slavs, Armenians, Georgians, Syrians, Persians, Arabs and numerous other tribes and peoples.
Thomas's rebellion was one of the largest in the Byzantine Empire's history, but its precise circumstances are unclear due to competing historical narratives, including claims fabricated by Michael that have distorted accounts of the revolt. Consequently, various motives and driving forces have been attributed to it. As summarized by the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, "Thomas's revolt has been variously attributed to a reaction against Iconoclasm, a social revolution and popular uprising, a revolt by the empire's non-Greek ethnic groups, Thomas's personal ambitions, and his desire to avenge Leo V."[1] Its effects on the military position of the empire are also disputed.
I have highlighted and underlined the part where it says how the revolt was orchestrated by the empire's (so-called) non-Greek ethnic groups. The last part of this sentence is a forgery of highest importance as it paints a mythological picture of everyone taking part in the revolt except (and against) the Greeks. This statement is worthless historically speaking.Last edited by Carlin; 03-07-2013, 08:58 PM.Leave a comment:
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Nice Carlin, and there are still people in this world who claim pure ancestry and genetic, haha. By the way what you give us here is gold, but the estimations here are not very representative of the truth, i don't say this is misinformation, but the westerners here give us a picture of Macedonia (and Thrace btw) wich is not close to the reality.
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I think it's important to repeat certain truths Ad nauseam.
Here is a list/summary of ethnographic and historical facts that most (not all) modern Greeks find 'disturbing'.
1) David George Hogarth (page 153, "The Nearer East"):
"Boeotia, with Euboea, is largely in the hands of Toskh Albanians; Thessaly in those of Vlachs and Anatolians, introduced from Konia about the tenth century; and Macedonia, north of Vistritza, in those of a blend of Slav with Bulgar mixed further with Vlach and Anatolian elements."
2) Benjamin of Tudela describes the Vlachs of Boeotia sweeping down "from the mountains to despoil and ravage the land of Greece".
- Curta 2005, pg. 357.
- The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, pg. 21.
3) The London Quarterly Review, published in April 1895 and July 1895:
"The Wallachians (Vlachs) ... are numerous in the Peloponnesus."
4) "Days in Attica", Ellen Sophia Bosanquet (published in 1914): According to this source, the Vlachs lived in a mountain range in the Athens area (Hymettus).
5) 'Great Wallachia' was a name for a medieval Vlach state which included the entire region of Thessaly and adjacent areas (existed between the twelfth and the thirteenth century). Epirus was likewise known as 'Upper Wallachia' (including Pindus mountains), while Aetolia-Akarnania and nearby territories were called 'Little Wallachia'. Achaia was known as 'Lower Wallachia'. This is according to medieval sources.
6) Source: Anonymi Descriptio Europae orientalis. Imperium Constantinopolitanum, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ruthenia, Ungaria, Polonia, Bohemia. Anno MCCCVIII exarata. Cracoviae, 1916: As per the anonymous traveler of Eastern Europe from the XIV century, it is stated that Vlachs (whom the author calls "Blasi"), are a numerous people living between Macedonia, Achaia and Salonika.
7) Source: Johann Thunmann, Untersuchungen uber die Geschichte der ostlichen europaischen Volker, I. Leipzig, 1774: The author states (estimates) that Vlachs represent half the population of Thrace, and three quarters of inhabitants of Thessaly and Macedonia.
8) Testimonies from Cousinery, Pouqeville, Heuzey, Tertsetis, Frantzis, and Deligiannis confirm that the populations of Epirus, Aetolia, Akarnania, and Western Macedonia were bilingual.
9) A Czech author by the name of Jirecek found a Peloponnesian tribe as a 'Latin'-speaking populace that eventually became Greek-speaking (Gesty Pobulgarsky, Praze 1888 p. 220 and Das Furstentum Bulgariens 1891 p. 119).
10) The French 19th century traveler Cousinery makes mention of Vlach-speakers in the market of the city of Argos (Argolis, Peloponnese) during his travel in Morea/Peloponnese shortly after the War of Independence, 1821. He specifically makes mention of the fact that these men and women spoke a Latinate language, similar to the Vlachs he met in Macedonia. These Vlachs told him that they were pastoral nomads with settlements in the surrounding mountains.
[Cousinery H.E.M., Voyage dans de la Macédoine, Book I. Paris, 1831]
11) In 1605 AD, half of Thesaloniki's Christian population was of Vlach origin. (Can provide source(s) upon request).
12) Constantine Buhayer (University of Westminster, London): Many of the Greeks of Crimea were Ellino-Vlachi.
13) The Making of the Cretan Landscape, By Oliver Rackham, Jennifer Moody. Page 88: "Cretans are descended, to varying degrees, from Albanians, Argives, French, Armenians, Bulgars, Germans, Hebrews, Spaniards, Venetians, Turks, Tartars, Negroes, Pelasgians, Dorians, etc ... , and Vlachs."
14) According to anthropologist Roger Just, most of the 19th century Greeks did not even speak Greek by preference, but rather Slavonic, Albanian, and Vlach dialects.
15) In 578, 10000 Armenians moved to Cyprus for colonization, given that the island was almost deserted at this time. ("History of the Greek nation," ed "Publishing Athens", Vol. H, pp. 183-4).
"Thus", says Evagrius, "land, which had been previously untilled, was everywhere restored to cultivation. Numerous armies also were raised from among them that fought resolutely and courageously against the other nations. At the same time every household was completely furnished with domestics, on account of the easy rate at which slaves were procured". (Quote from P. Charanis, see 16. below for more info)
16) Further deportations and settlement of Armenians all over the Byzantine empire, especially in Thrace, are attested for the eighth century. During the reign of Constantine V Copronymus, thousands of Armenians and monophysitic Syrians were gathered by the Byzantine armies during their raids in the regions of Germanicea (Marash), Melitene and Erzeroum and were settled in Thrace.
During the reign of Leo IV, a Byzantine raiding expedition into Cilicia and Syria resulted in the seizure of thousands of natives, 150,000 according to one authority, who were settled in Thrace. These, however, were chiefly Syrian Jacobites, though some Armenians may have also been included. Many of the Armenians settled in Thrace were seized by the Bulgar Krum (803--814) and carried away, but most of them eventually returned. According to tradition, the parents of the future Emperor Basil I and Basil himself were included among these prisoners, but there is reason to doubt the historical accuracy of this tradition.
The diverse ethnic groups established in Thrace were reinforced by later arrivals. In the tenth century, during the reign of John Tzimiskes, a considerable number of Paulicians were removed from the frontier regions of the east and were settled in Thrace, more exactly in the country around Phillippopolis. These Paulicians were most probably predominantly Armenians.
A little later, perhaps in 988, Armenians were settled also in Macedonia. They were brought there from the eastern provinces of the empire by Basil II in order to serve as a bulwark against the Bulgarians and also to help increase the prosperity of the country.
Meanwhile, other Armenians had been settled elsewhere in the empire. Nicephorus I used Armenians, among others, in his resettlement of Sparta at the beginning of the ninth century. Some time earlier, about 792, an unsuccessful revolt among the Armeniacs, a corps which was no doubt predominantly Armenian, led to the settlement of a thousand of them in Sicily and other islands.
In 885 Nicephorus Phocas, grandfather of the tenth century Emperor by the same name, settled a multitude of Armenians in Calabria.
Armenians, among others, were also settled in Crete following the recovery of that island in 961 by Nicephorus Phocas, the future Emperor. Two Armenian military settlements are known to have existed in western Asia Minor in the tenth century. These were the settlements at Prine and Platanion, which, according to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, furnished a number of Armenian troops in the expedition against Crete during the reign of Leo VI. Armenians, settled in the Thracesian theme, also participated in the expedition against Crete in 949.
[The Armenians in the Byzantine Empire, by Peter Charanis]Leave a comment:
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Oh man the modern greeks are the last people who should be questioning peoples ethnic identity. But hey no one else exists for them. Typical fascist parasites. Someone should take the parasite greece to the executioner. Wow so many things they dont teach you at geek school. I am convinced the geeks are pure parasites. They remind me of bacteria colonies actually.Originally posted by Makedonska_Kafana View PostLast edited by momce; 02-28-2013, 02:42 PM.Leave a comment:
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