Julie, you care to answer my question that I asked George ? How many Macs are left in Greece and how many of us are in Turkey ? Do you not think an apology is owed to us ?

Yes, their homes were taken away as were mine Julie. This is a sick debate we are in right now. Suffereing is suffereing and one's suffereing is not paramount to anothers.
Just be thankfull there are more Macedonians in Greece than there are Greeks in Turkey.
I really dont know in how many different ways I have to explain this to you.

As you say Voltron, suffering is suffering.
I am not going to repeat my family's suffering, am sure you have read it all.
It does not matter whether one is Macedonian, Greek, Turkish, or martian, whatever, there is no more or less, there is suffering.
I dont know how many Macedonians are in Aegean Macedonia right now, but the first step is in recognition. And in the rights we all have as human beings, are basic god given right, that we are all equals, that we have the right to speak our own language, the ability to bury our dead, and not have the trauma of being turned away because one was as a small infant one if the "child refugees", without a passport or citizenship, and there fore considered an alien. Never to be able to return to their birthplace.
The atrocities committed are dreadful and the enforced assimilation , goes against humanity, especially considering the land being divided, neing renamed for Gods sake.

I will let George answer the question you have asked of him,
Was your family one of the families that had the population exchange to decrease Macedonian numbers in the Aegean Voltron?
I dont know enough about the treatment of Greeks in Turkey post the civil war, but if you had to endure name changes, and were forbidden to speak your language and were not recognised as a minority, then you deserve an apology , just like the Aegean Macedonians do today, who still suffer the traumatic effects, of their lives
To see ones parent still crying , some 60 years later, and growing up hearing about it, from aunts, uncles and still traumatised parents, that is dreadful. Because it harbors pain in the offspring
My mums sister overseas , at the age of 4 was one of those refugee children. She aches to go to her birthplace, her home, and has given up trying anymore. She is 67 years old, and will die like that, she cannot even go over the border for an hour to visit her home. There are people that were divided as youngsters that have been turned away as recently as few months ago, to bury their dead parents they have never seen as an adult. An apology, does not heal the pain for these people, but recognition needs to happen. Greece is the only country in the entire world that does not recognise any minority within the confines of its borders. Greece is in big shit now with their corruption and greed, financially crippled, and its karmic.

[QUOTE=julie;103621]As you say Voltron, suffering is suffering.
I am not going to repeat my family's suffering, am sure you have read it all.
It does not matter whether one is Macedonian, Greek, Turkish, or martian, whatever, there is no more or less, there is suffering.
I dont know how many Macedonians are in Aegean Macedonia right now, but the first step is in recognition. And in the rights we all have as human beings, are basic god given right, that we are all equals, that we have the right to speak our own language, the ability to bury our dead, and not have the trauma of being turned away because one was as a small infant one if the "child refugees", without a passport or citizenship, and there fore considered an alien. Never to be able to return to their birthplace.
The atrocities committed are dreadful and the enforced assimilation , goes against humanity, especially considering the land being divided, neing renamed for Gods sake.

I will let George answer the question you have asked of him,
Was your family one of the families that had the population exchange to decrease Macedonian numbers in the Aegean Voltron?
I dont know enough about the treatment of Greeks in Turkey post the civil war, but if you had to endure name changes, and were forbidden to speak your language and were not recognised as a minority, then you deserve an apology , just like the Aegean Macedonians do today, who still suffer the traumatic effects, of their lives
To see ones parent still crying , some 60 years later, and growing up hearing about it, from aunts, uncles and still traumatised parents, that is dreadful. Because it harbors pain in the offspring
My mums sister overseas , at the age of 4 was one of those refugee children. She aches to go to her birthplace, her home, and has given up trying anymore. She is 67 years old, and will die like that, she cannot even go over the border for an hour to visit her home. There are people that were divided as youngsters that have been turned away as recently as few months ago, to bury their dead parents they have never seen as an adult. An apology, does not heal the pain for these people, but recognition needs to happen. Greece is the only country in the entire world that does not recognise any minority within the confines of its borders. Greece is in big shit now with their corruption and greed, financially crippled, and its karmic.[/QUOTE]

I am aware of what your family went through and I feel really bad about it. It is hard and by all means its hard to get through the post traumatic stress over it. Even years after.

I agree with eveything you said except the minority issue. You dont need minority status to express your culture as you mentioned. The minority status is political tool used to segregate people against each other. Whatever problems we may have now, just know that it is political in nature, nothing more than that.

Voltron how would i know the exact no of people in the agean macedonia.But from what i have read it's about 1 million.There's so much fakery going on with the greek govt that it's not really transparent.I know for a fact that macedonians prior to 1913 were over 2million people & that greeks were 10% of the population.After the population exchanges like a million were taken out & in its place were put the prosfeges the greek (turks).
See your argument does not hold water that if only a small amount of macedonians were affected by greek attrocities.The greeks in 1913 took the whole of the agean of 2million people that's a lot of people & enmasse they committed attrocities on them.You can't say offhand like that that you suffered more & the macedonians suffered less.How do you measure it.
The events of the two wars and the final partition are the best indications of the limits to which nationalist and chauvinist passions can corrupt humanity. For example, in pursuing the Bulgarian army during the second conflict, Greek forces systematically burnt to the ground all Macedonian villages they encountered, mass-murdering their entire populations. Likewise, when the Greek army entered Kukush (Kilkis) and occupied surrounding villages, about 400 old people and children were imprisoned and killed. Several dozen distinguished Macedonians were victims of the persecution in Kukush, previously marked for death as potential hazards for Greek occupation. Specially trained Greek units destroyed over 40 Macedonian villages.
About 4,000 refugees from Kukush had gathered in the village of Akandzheli when on July 6, 1913, a Greek military unit entered the village. Though met with white flags, the village was burnt down and in the massacre which followed 356 refugees were killed, including children and the elderly. In Serres, Greek police imprisoned about 200 Macedonians and subsequently executed them. About 1,000 men were slain in the town of Ingrita alone. On the whole, in the region of southern Macedonia, the Greeks destroyed 16,000 houses and 100,000 Macedonians were forced to leave their homes and flee to neighboring countries.

Nor were these events to be the last tragic consequences of the Balkan Wars: an enormous number of refugees from Macedonia were compelled by threats and force to leave their homes and flee. About 112,000 refugees sought shelter in Bulgaria, 50,000 of whom were Macedonians. Greece received 157,000 refugees, mostly Turks and Greeks, who settled on the properties of Macedonian refugees. About 1,000 refugees settled on Macedonian territory occupied by Serbia. About half a million people became refugees, driven across newly-created borders-driven from one part of Macedonia to another by the rampaging armies.
On March 1, 1913, the Macedonian colony in St. Petersburg sent a memorandum on the independence of Macedonia to the conference of Great Powers in London, along with a geographical-ethnic map of Macedonia made by Dimitrija Chupovski. "Europe is about to make the same mistake as in 1878. Instead of Macedonia being proclaimed an independent state, its liberators decided to divide it among themselves... The Macedonians have gained the right to self-determination through their recent history... A horrible terror now reigns in Macedonia-there are no limits to the 'freedom' of the allies. Not a single Macedonian has the right to travel outside Macedonia and go abroad to protest to the European states. Whoever attempts to do that is either killed or imprisoned. The allied armies have enclosed Macedonia in an iron grip."
"The Macedonian people needs:
"One, Macedonia to remain an individual, indivisible, independent Balkan state within its geographic, ethnographic, historical and economic-political borders; and
"Two, that, on the basis of a general election, a Macedonian people's assembly be convened in Thessaloniki as soon as possible, to work out the internal organization of the state and define its relations with the neighboring countries."

On April 21, 1913, in the St. Petersburg newspaper Slavjanin (A Slav), D.Chupovski, writing under the pseudonym Upravda, published the article "The Macedonian State" in which he predicted:
"...Despite vigorous opposition by the Macedonians themselves, the partition of Macedonia will undoubtedly lead to internecine blood-shedding among the allies... The Balkan Peninsula is too small for several greater-state ideals to coexist. Only a federal state constituted of all Balkan peoples, in which Macedonia will be included on an equal footing as an indivisible state, independent in its internal affairs-only such a federation that can provide peaceful coexistence and progress of the Balkan peoples!"
On June 7, 1913, a second memorandum of the Macedonians was sent to the governments and peoples of the combatants of the Balkan Wars, stating that "in the name of natural right, in the name of history ... Macedonia is inhabited by a homogeneous population having its own history, and hence the right to self-determination. Macedonia is to be an independent state, within its natural borders. The Macedonian state is to be a separate equal unit of the Balkan League, with its own church established on the foundations of the ancient Ohrid archbishopric", requesting that a people's representative body be convened in Thessaloniki. This memorandum was signed by members of the Macedonian colony in St. Petersburg.
Despite the obvious fact that in the partition of Macedonia a nation had been divided, in the Paris Peace Conferences (June-September, 1919) the Great Powers, protecting their own interests, confirmed with minor alterations only the decisions of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest.
During the conference the Macedonian issue, in one form or another, confronted any possible settlement of World War One's Balkan front. Three proposals were placed before the Committee on the Formation of New States. On June 10, 1919, the Italian delegation proposed that Macedonia be given the status of autonomy within the framework of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Macedonia would possess an autonomous assembly and the Macedonian governor would be responsible to it, although he would be appointed by the Yugoslav government. Opposed by the French delegation, at the following session of the committee the Italian representative changed the proposal on political autonomy of Macedonia and reduced it to a proposal for administrative self-management with a central council in Bitola.
The French delegation, protecting the interests of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (viewed as a key ally in the region) categorically opposed any kind of autonomy for Macedonia and proposed that the Macedonian Question be discussed in terms of minority issues. The treaties of protection for minorities would be a sufficient guarantee of freedom and protection for the population of Macedonia. The British delegation offered in turn a proposal for special control of Macedonia by the League of Nations, in order to reinforce minority guarantees. The insistence of France that the Macedonian Question be removed from the agenda ended culminated in the statement of its delegation that "the Macedonians do not have a clearly defined nationality and the population is divided into parties which, in view of the events, change their character." Supporting the request by Pashich that the new state, the Kingdom of the SCS (Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) be provided with "a strategic border", France upheld Yugoslav control of the region, and any protection for the Macedonians must be limited to the framework of minority rights in general.
Unfortunately, the Great Powers had no interest in the voice of the Macedonian-the partition of Macedonia had already been accomplished, and no power seriously endorsed revision of the partition. Accordingly, Greece maintained its lion's share of Macedonian territory, some 35,169 square kilometers; the Kingdom of the SCS retained 25,774 square kilometers; and Bulgaria maintained, after minor revision, 6,798 square kilometers.
While before the Ilinden Uprising there were an estimated two and a half million people in Macedonia, after the Paris Peace Conference the totaled populations of Aegean (Greek); Pirin (Bulgarian) and Vardar (Yugoslav) Macedonia was 2,028,000, hardly past the two million mark. War and economic collapse had reduced the population of Macedonia by 270,000 people, a negative growth most visible in Aegean Macedonia. In 1896, there were 681,451 inhabitants of Aegean Macedonia, 354,406 of them ethnic Macedonians, 68,000 Greek, 195,000 Turks and about 66,000 of other nationalities. In 1920, on this same territory, the population had dwindled to 584,294 inhabitants, with a Macedonian population reduced by 46,763 to a total of 307,643 and a Greek population of 107,437, an increase of 38,927.
In vain were protests, applications, declarations, memorandums or personal appeals by representatives of the Macedonian people to the Peace Conference, the governments of the Great Powers, or to Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece that the Macedonian people should not be considered "an amorphous mass", that "the spiritual unity" of the Macedonian should be respected and Macedonia raised to the rank of "an independent state.

From the beginning of the 19th century, and particularly after the liberation of Greece, the Patriarchate of Constantinople became the principal medium for Greek national propaganda activity in Macedonia. The Patriarch Gregory V, for example, in 1860 and again in 1819 dispatched circular letters to all metropolitan dioceses in Macedonia with the request that they propagate the Greek language and Greek education among Christians. In other words the Patriarchate was building into its program a new, and extremely important, item: Graecization of the non-Greek Christian Peoples.
In accordance with this policy it declared the entire Orthodox population of Macedonia to be Greek, regardless of Ethnic origin. The Patriarchate, however, which was wholly in the service of Greek interests, was not amenable to the use of the vernacular language in either churches or schools, since it feared that if this were realized virtually the whole non-Greek orthodox population would be lost to the Greek nationalist cause. This cause, known as the "great idea", had become the banner of Greek expansionism in the Balkans and was expanded to the Greek assembly in 1844 by the Greek Prime minister Koletis. It envisaged the expansion of the Greek state to Constantinople and into Asia Minor (Nikos Svoronos, Episkopisi tis neoelinikis istorias, II, Athens, 1976, 84).
But the way led through Macedonia, and Macedonia, while having been proclaimed by the Greek ruling circles as "most Greek", was bound to Graecism by the church alone. Now, especially after the establishment of the new Slav Orthodox church (the Bulgarian Exarchate, 1870) a great many Macedonians and Vlachs began to leave the Greek church.
The Universal Patriarchate declared the Exarchate schismatic. An anathema was cast on all believers who left the Greek church and this intimidated the majority of Macedonians. This was the main reason why very many of them remained in the "church of their forefathers". Various societies organized by the central sylloges in Constantinople and in Athens, and with significant funding from the Greek government, intensified their activities on Macedonian soil, opening and supporting various clubs, schools, hostels, and hospitals.
With the assistance of the Greek consuls, the metropolitans were active in Macedonian villages, where they opened many schools, simultaneously spreading the network of the church and corrupting village leaders with the aim of winning their villages over to the Patriarchate. All of this had one single aim: to make "Greeks" of the Macedonians and to have arguments they could place before Europe to prove the "Greek" character of Macedonia and their "right" to it.
The fact that they were unable to achieve schools and various other instruments of propaganda was left for statistics to deal with. A supposed increase in the number of Greek schools, with no foundation in fact, led to the false conclusion that there was a numerical superiority of Greeks in Macedonia. Figures were published which were intended to demonstrate that the Greek element in Macedonia greatly surpassed that of the other Orthodox, etc.
In 1904 the French diplomatic representative in Salonica, M. Stegue, reckoning the Greek statistics to be extremely unreal, wrote among other things that of 130 000 Slav members of the Patriarchate in the Vilayet, "only about 10 000 could be considered to have been Graecised or to have gained for the Greek party".
The question of the language was the most delicate for the Greek side. It could not be concealed nor could it be "explained". The Macedonians were variously styled: "Slavophone Greeks", "Miktogloss Greeks" or "Bulgarophone Greeks". The following explanation was constructed in support of this: the Greek Language in Northern Macedonia had, in the course of time, supposedly suffered many admixtures that a "Helleno-Slavophone dialect" had developed which consisted of Greek, Latin, Slavonic and little Bulgarian (Filipidis Dim, I Makedonia-istorikos, entologikos, stratiotikos, en Athines, 1906, 36-7).
The most striking proof of the failure of the Greek policy of making Greeks of the Macedonians and of the Vlachs was the Ilinden Uprising of 1903. In the very place where a significant number of Macedonians recognized the Greek Patriarch, in the Kostur and Krushevo districts, the uprising was most widespread, most dynamic and achieved the greatest results. The Uprising was therefore declared to be an anti-Greek action by the Greek side.
Once it had been recognized in Athens that Macedonia could not be made Greek through the means of the church and schools, it was decided to supplement the old methods with force of arms. From the autumn of 1904 Greek bands, formed and armed in Greece and led by officers of the Greek army, began systematically to enter Macedonia to put the Greek Government9s program into practice: to compel the Macedonian and Vlach population by means of fierce reprisals, guns and knives to return to the rule of the Greek church and to declare themselves Greeks.
Expulsion of Ethnic Macedonians After 1913
"Following the partition of Macedonia in 1913, Aegean Macedonia was annexed by Greece and since then its indigenous people, the ethnic Macedonians, became the target and often the victim of the oppressive policies of Greek state. Today, after nearly ninety years of assimilation efforts by the Greek governments it seems that measures have proved to be unsuccessful in Hellenizing the region. Currently, the ethnic Macedonians, estimated around 1,000,000 by some sources, still constitute the majority of population in that part of the Greece, Aegean part of Macedonia."
After the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), the First World War (1914-1918) and especially after the Peace Treaties of Lausanne (1923), which gave the Macedonian issue a central place, there began a great ethnic cleansing of Macedonians, who in 1912 had numbered 374,000, from the Aegean part of Macedonia.
The large colonization brought about by the Greeks was followed by a law passed by the Greek government in 1926 on the change of the toponymy of the Aegean part of Macedonia. All villages, towns, rivers and mountains were renamed and given Greek names.Following the political partition of Macedonia in 1913, Greece launched upon an active policy of the denial of the nationality and the assimilation of the Macedonians. The name Macedonian and the Macedonian language were prohibited and the Macedonians were referred to as Bulgarians, Slavophone Greeks or simply "endopes" (natives).
At the same time, all the Macedonians were forced to change their names and surnames, the latter having to end in -is, -os or -poulos.The attacks on the Macedonian language culminated at the time of Ioannis Metaxas (1936). General Metaxas banned the use of Macedonian not only in everyday life in the villages, in the market-place, in ordinary and natural human communications and at funerals, but also within the family circle. Adult Macedonians, regardless of their age, were forced to attend what were known as evening schools and to learn "the melodious Greek language". The violation of the ban on the use of the Macedonian language in the villages, market-places or the closed circle of the family caused great numbers of Macedonians to be convicted and deported to desolate Greek islands.
Greece followed a policy of assimilating the Macedonian minority and Hellenizing the Macedonian region in northern Greece. The government changed place names and personal names from Macedonian to Greek, (Decree No. 332 of 1926) ordered religious services to be performed in Greek, and altered religious icons."
A few examples of changed village names : (click here for complete list)
Macedonian Name New Greek Name
Armensko Alonas
Banica Vevi
Bouf Akrita
Gabresh Gavros
Kostur Kastoria
Kukush Kilkis
Lerin Florina
Negochani Niki
Oshchima Trigonon
Solun Thessaloniki
Voden Edessa
Zhelevo Antartikon

1927 the Greek government issued a directive calling for the destruction of all Slavic inscriptions in churches and forbidding church services from being held in a Slavic language. Finally, in 1936 a law was passed ordering that all Slavic personal names, both first and last, be Hellenized (Human Rights Watch/Helsinki 1994b: 6-7). Jovan Filipov, therefore, became Yannis Filippidis, and Lena Stoikov became Eleni Stoikou."
If Macedonia was always Greek, why would the Greek government have to change the Macedonian names of people, towns, and villages to Greek?
The ABECEDAR Case

The Greek government, upon signing the Treaty of Sevres on August 10, 1920, undertook obligations to protect its national minorities. Articles 7,8,and 9 stipulated the free use of the minorities' language, education, religious services, etc.

The Greek government also notified the League of Nations that "measures were being taken towards the opening of schools with instruction in the Slav language in the following school year of 1925/26" and towards granting freedom to practice religion in the Slav language. The primer intended for the Macedonian children in this part of Macedonia, entitled ABECEDAR, was offered as an argument in support of this statement. This primer, prepared by a special government commission and published by the Greek government in Athens in 1925, was written in the Lerin-Bitola vernacular (even though Bitola was not within the Greek borders!) but printed in a specially adapted Latin alphabet (instead of the traditional Cyrillic, which was the official alphabet of Bulgaria and Serbia).
At the last moment before the deadline the Greek government replied by cable saying that "the population of these villages knows neither the Serbian nor the Bulgarian language and speaks nothing but a Slav-Macedonian idiom". Thus the Greek government officially recognized for the first time the separate national entity of the Macedonians within Greece's borders, which is also clearly confirmed by the pure language of the pnmer, ABECEDAR, published in Greece. Following the stormy and violent reaction in the press of the three monarchies the Greek government decided, with relief, not to introduce the primer, which was already published, into Macedonian schools.

Official policy, since the integration into the modern Greek State of the region called Macedonia, has been to deny the existence of the Slav-Macedonians as a distinct people, separate from the Greeks. But lingering just below the bright, hard surface of the discourse of authority is an ill-concealed malaise. In 1925, the country's education ministry prepared a primary school reader in Slav-Macedonian entitled Abecedar for submission to the League of Nations.
The book was to be held up as proof that the Macedonian Slavic tongue was neither Bulgarian nor Serbian, but a distinct language protected and encouraged by the State. On the delegation's return from Geneva, the Abecedar was confiscated and destroyed. Two years later, by government decree, all Slavonic church icons were repainted with Greek names.
Why had it become necessary to eradicate that which did not exist?

St. Atanas Church in Zhelevo, Aegean Macedonia
The original Macedonian inscriptions were wiped out and replaced with Greek writing

ABECEDAR, published in Greece in 1925
The dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-1940) was especially brutal in its treatment of the Slavic speakers of Aegean Macedonia, who by this time had increasingly begun to identify themselves as Macedonians. On December 18, 1936, the Metaxas dictatorship issued a legal act concerning 'Activity Against State Security.' This law punished claims of minority rights. Ont he basis of this act, thousands of Macedonians were arrested, imprisoned, or expelled from Greece. On September 7, 1938, the legal act 2366 was issued. This banned the use of the Macedonian language even in the domestic sphere. General Metaxas severely persecuted those who spoke Macedonian, even in private everyday life in the villages, at funerals, and at home.All Macedonian localities were flooded with posters that read, 'Speak Greek.'
Evening schools were opened in which adult Macedonian were taught Greek. No Macedonian schools of any kind were permitted. Any public manifestation of Macedonian national feeling and its outward expression through language, song or dance was forbidden and severely punished by the Metaxas regime. People who spoke Macedonian were beaten, fined, and imprisoned. Use of the Macedonian language meant harsh reprisals, including a "language tax". For every Macedonian word, you would be fined 30 to 40 drachmas (40 cents U.S.). Almost 5,000 Macedonians were sent to jails and prison camps for violating this prohibition against the use of the Macedonian language. Mass exile of sections of Macedonians and other 'difficult' minorities took place.
Macedonians Prohibited from Speaking their Native Language
During the period 1936-1940 about 5250 Slav-Macedonians were prosecuted for using Macedonian language in public places. Such practices continued well after WWII and are still prevalent in Greece today. The newspaper articles (with the accompanying translations) and the above photograph show how desperate and determined Greece is to eradicate any claim of a "minority".
Greek newspaper Eliniki Phon (8 Aug 1959) published in Florina (Aegean Macedonia) which reads:

"Tomorrow the inhabitants of Atrapos (original Slavic name Krapeshina) will swear before God and the people in an official ceremony that hence forward they will promise not to speak the Slav dialect, which in the hands of the Slav propagandists, has become a weapon pointed at the national consciousness of the Macedonians. The proud people of Atropos will take an oath to speak Greek only, so that in this way they may stress their Greek origin and the Greek consciousness"
Greek newspaper Phoni tis Kastorias (4 Oct 1959) reprints an article from the Salonika newspaper Makedonia which reads:


"During the last two months the inhabitants of some villages in northern Greece (Aegean Macedonia) in official mass ceremonies proclaimed that they will cease to use the Slav dialect and that in future they will only speak Greek. The first ceremony took place in the village of Trebeno, district of Kojani, which has, according to the census of 1952, 692 inhabitants. It was followed by other villages such as Breshcheni, Kostour district, (41 inhabitants), Atropos (Krapeshina), Florina district, (466 inhabitants) and so forth."
1959 - Village of Atrapos, Aegean Macedonia
people forced to swear the following oath:

"I do promise before God, the people, and the official state authorities, that from this day on I shall cease to speak the Slav dialect which gives ground for misunderstandings to the enemies of our country - the Bulgarians - and that I will speak always and everywhere the official language of our fatherland, the Greek language, in which the holy gospel is written."

Greek Acts against the Macedonians January 24, 2009
Posted by Yilan in Human rights abuses.
Tags: Greece, Greek, Greek crimes, Macedonia, Macedonian
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Greek Acts against the Macedonians

(1912 – 1994)

By Peter Medichkov

The following chronicles the methods employed by Greece in its effort to eradicate the centuries old Macedonian ethnic presence in Aegean Macedonia (Greek Macedonia) in the name of Greek territorial expansion. Specific laws and decrees are presented against the backdrop of relevant historical events affecting Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia.

The chronology begins in 1912 when Greece, for the first time ever, came into possession of Macedonian territory and this by force of arms, almost a decade after the 1903 Ilinden (St. Iliya Day) Uprising lead by the IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) in a failed effort to free Macedonia from the Ottoman yoke.

The ominous prophecy of Harilaos Trikoupis, Greek Prime Minister from 1882 to 1895, foretold what the neighboring Greek state had in mind for Macedonia and its people:

“When the Great War comes, Macedonia will become Greek or Bulgarian, according to who wins. If it is taken by the Bulgarians, they will make the population Slavs. If we take it, we will make all of them Greeks”.

——————————————————————————–

1912 Balkan Wars

Irredentist Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro drive a crumbling Ottoman Empire out of the Balkans and pursue territorial expansion into Macedonia. Greek army enters Aegean Macedonia ostensibly to “liberate” Macedonia from the Ottoman.

1913

The Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian alliance breaks down over competing claims for Macedonia. Bulgaria miscalculates and attacks Serbia and Greek armies. Ottoman forces rejoin the war against Bulgaria. Bulgaria defeated, loses territorial gains in Macedonia.

From “liberation to tyranny”, Greek army commences savage and bloody “ethnic cleansing” of the towns of Kukush, Doiran, Demir-Hisar and Serres in the Aegean Macedonia.

160 Macedonian villages burned, and atrocities committed. Mass exodus of refugees.

Treaty of Bucharest (Aug. 10, 1913), ends the War and partitions Macedonia.

Greece refers to conquered Macedonian lands as the “new territories” under “military administration”. Not yet officially incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece.

Military occupation augmented by influx of administrators, educators; police brought from Greece.

Professor R.A. Reiss reports to the Greek government: “Those whom you would call Bulgarian speakers I would simply call Macedonians…Macedonian is not the language they speak in Sofia…I repeat the mass of inhabitants there (Macedonia) remain simply Macedonians.”

1917

LAW 1051 Greece inaugurates new administrative jurisdictions for governing newly acquired lands in Aegean Macedonia.

1919 Treaty of Versailles (Paris)

England and France ratify the principles of the Bucharest Treaty and endorse the partition of Macedonia.

Greece pursues the forced expulsion and denationalization of Macedonians and begins colonization by transfering “Greeks” into Aegean Macedonia.

Article 51 of Treaty of Versailles espouses equality of civil rights, education, language, and religion for all national minorities which Greece violates and ignores.

Neuilly Convention and forced exchange of populations. About 70,000 Macedonians expelled from Aegean Macedonia to Bulgaria and 25,000 Greeks transfered from Bulgaria to Aegean Macedonia.

Greek Commission on Toponyms issues instructions for choosing Hellenized names for Macedonian places in Aegean Macedonia.

1920

Greek Ministry of Internal Affairs publishes booklet: “Advice on the change of the names of municipalities and villages” in Aegean Macedonia.

1925

76 names of Macedonian villages and towns in Aegean Macedonia Greekized since 1918 by Greek authorities.

League of Nations pressures on Greece to extend rights to Macedonian minority.

ABECEDAR Primer printed in Athens for use by Macedonian school children in Aegean Macedonia. Written in Latin alphabet and reflects the Macedonian language spoken in Bitola-Lerin (Florina) district in Western Aegean Macedonia.

Serbs and Bulgarians protest to League of Nations. Primer undermines their claim that Macedonians are Serbs and Bulgarians respectively.

Greece counters with last minute cable to League: “the population…..knows neither the Serbian nor the Bulgarian language and speaks nothing but a Slav-Macedonian idiom.”

Greece “retreats” so as to preserve Balkan alliances. Primer is destroyed after League of Nations delegates leave Salonika (Solun).

Thereafter, Greece denies existence of Macedonians. Refers to Macedonians as “Slavophone Greeks”, “Old Bulgarians” and many other appellations but not as Macedonians.

1926

Legislative Orders in Government Gazette #331 orders Macedonian names of towns, villages, mountains changed to Greek names.

1927

Cyrillic inscriptions ( Macedonian alphabet) in churches, tombstones and icons rewritten or destroyed. Church services in the Macedonian language are outlawed.

Macedonians ordered to abandon personal names and under Duress adopt Greek names assigned to them by the Greek state.

1928

1, 497 Macedonian place names in Aegean Macedonia Greekized since 1926.

English Journalist V. Hild reveals, “The Greeks do not only persecute living Macedonians., but they even persecute dead ones. They do not leave them in peace even in the graves. They erase the Macedonian inscriptions on the headstones, remove the bones and burn them.”

1929

Greek Government enacts law where any demands for national rights for Macedonians are regarded as high treason.

LAW 4096 directive on renaming Macedonian place names.

1936

Reign of terror by fascist dictator General Metaxas, (1936-40). Macedonians suffer state terrorism and pogroms.

Thousands of Macedonians jailed, sent to internal exile (EXORIA) on arid, inhospitable Greek islands, where many perish. Their crime? Being ethnic Macedonian by birth.

LAW 6429 reinforces Law 4096 on Greekization of toponyms (place names).

DECREE 87 accelerates denationalization of Macedonians.

Greek Ministry of Education sends “Specially trained” instructors to accelerate conversion to Greek language.

1938

LAW 23666 bans the use of the Macedonian language and strives to erase every trace of the Macedonian identity.

Macedonians fined, beaten or jailed for speaking Macedonian. Adults and school children further humiliated by being forced to drink castor oil when caught speaking Macedonian.

LAW 1418 reinforces previous laws on renaming.

1940

39 more place-names Greekized since 1929.

1945

LAW 697 more regulations on renaming toponyms in Aegean Macedonia.

1947

LAW L-2 citizens suspected of opposing Greek government in Civil War stripped of their citizenship, including relatives, arbitrarily and without due process.

1948

LAW M properties confiscated from citizens who fought against government and those accused of assisting.

28,000 child refugees, mostly Macedonians, from areas of heavy fighting evacuated to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Greece denies their right of return to this day.

RESOLUTION 193C (III) United Nations Resolution calls for repatriation to Greece of child refugees.

U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ARTICLE 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive an impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

DECREE 504 continues property confiscations of exiles and colonization of Aegean Macedonia with people from Turkey, Egypt and other parts of Greece. Parcels of land given to the colonists along with financial incentives.

1959

LAW 3958 allows confiscation of property of those who left Greece and did not return within five years.

Several villages in Aegean Macedonia forced to swear “Language Oaths” to speak only Greek and renounce their mother Macedonian tongue.

1962

DECREE 4234 reinforces past laws regarding confiscated properties of political exiles and denies them right to return.

1968

EUROPEAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS accuses Greece of human rights abuses.

1969

Council of Europe declares Greece “undemocratic, illiberal, authoritarian, and oppressive”. Greece forced to resign from Council of Europe under threat of expulsion.

Military Junta continues the policy of colonizing the confiscated lands in Aegean Macedonia. Land handled over to persons with a “proven patriotism” for Greece.

European Convention For the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms signed by Greece states: ARTICLE 10(1) “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers”.

1976

DECREE 233 suspends about 150 past decrees, government decisions and laws since 1913. Regulations for the confiscation of properties belonging to Macedonian political exiles not affected.

1979

135 places renamed in Aegean Macedonia since 1940. The Greek vigil regarding names is an indicator of the Macedonian ethnic identity in Aegean Macedonia.

1982

Greek internal security police urges intensive campaign to wipe out remaining Macedonian language and consciousness in Aegean Macedonia.

LAW 106841 political exiles who fled during the Civil War and were stripped of their citizenship are allowed to return providing they are “Greek by ethnic origin”. The same rights are denied to Macedonian political exiles born in the Aegean Macedonia.

U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ARTICLE 17, “No one can be deprived of his own property against his will”.

1985

DECREE 1540, Political exiles who fled during Civil War allowed to reclaim confiscated lands provided they are “Greeks by ethnic origin”. Same rights denied to Macedonian exiles born in Aegean Macedonia.

U.N. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ARTICLE 13, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, as well as to return to his own country”.

1986

International writers’ organization, PEN, condemns Greece’s denial of the existence of Macedonians and their language.

Greece escalates climate of fear in Aegean Macedonia.

Greece officially calls the Republic of Macedonia as the “Republic of Skopje”, after the name of its capital city; and Macedonians are called “Skopjans”.

The term “Skopjans” used to label Greek citizens who declare themselves as ethnic Macedonians. “Skopjans” laced with hatred, and racism. It connotes a traitor to Hellenism.

1990

CSCE COPENHAGEN CONFERENCE ON THE HUMAN DIMENSION, to which Greece is a signatory, states in ARTICLE 32: “Persons belonging to national minorities have the right freely to express, preserve, and develop their ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or religious identity and to maintain and develop their culture in all its aspects, free of any attempts as assimilation against their will”. ARTICLE 33: “Participating states will protest the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of national minorities…and create conditions for the promotion of that identity”.

GREEK HIGH COURT DECISION 19 refuses registration of “CENTER FOR MACEDONIAN CULTURE” in Florina (Lerin). Appeal is turned down by High Appeals Court in Salonika. Further appeal dismissed by Supreme Administrative Council of Greece in Athens.

1991

CSCE MEETING ON NATIONAL MINORITIES IN GENEVA, in which Greece participated states: “Issues concerning national minorities…are matters of legitimate international concern and consequently do not constitute exclusively an internal affair of the respective State…Participating States reaffirm, and will not hinder the exercise of, the right of persons belonging to national minorities to establish and maintain their own educational, cultural and religious institutions, organizations and associations”.

Belligerent anti-Macedonian propaganda incites Greek population into a state of chauvinistic hysteria.

Translation from Greek: “Hang the Skopje Gypsies”

1992

Greece and Serbia conspire to overthrow and partition the Republic of Macedonia.

1993

Macedonian human rights activists Hristos Sidiropoulos and Tasos Boulis were prosecuted under Greek Panel Code: Article 36, Para 191; disseminating false information; Para 192; inciting citizens to disturb the peace. Their crime? Declaring themselves as Macedonians in an interview for Greek magazine ENA.

Macedonian human rights activist and priest Nikodimos Tsarknias derobed and expelled by Greek Orthodox Church because of his human rights activities. Tsarknias refused a Greek bribe which would have elevated him to bishop in 1989. He received death threats.

1994

Extremists of Australia’s Greek Community burn two Macedonian churches, after Australian recognition of Macedonia.

Greece continues to deny the existence of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Greece continues repressive and unrelenting policies against Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia despite objections by international human rights organizations.

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Comments»
1. Aryiris Karipidis - January 25, 2009
How can Greeks come against Greeks????? Because Macedonians are one of the Greek tribes, (clans) like the Cretans, Epirotans, Thessalians, Peloponnisians etc. So the title of the article is oxymoron. Macedonians were , are and will be only Greeks. The right title for the article should be ; Greek acts against slavs of Vardarska Banovina, or against slavs who speak bulgarian.

Reply
Makedonka - September 9, 2010
MACEDONIANS ARE NOT GREEK,YOU ARE REPUBLIC OF ATHEN TRIBES

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2. Goran - January 26, 2009
My southern friend, you are oxymoron without the oxi.

You dare to talk about the Ancients, when you have nothing to do with them.

Although, France, Germany and UK created the Hellenism in 19 century, to provide roots for themselves, in practice you have Turkish culture.
Dont try to deny this.

Suflak, Baklava, even the NO word is derived from the Turkish language.

Yok — Yoki — oki — OHI

Would you read a bit about the Macedonians, and how we conquered the Greeks.

I will be not suprised if you say that Turks are also Greeks who “united” you in 1453.

Eventually, you will drown in your own stupidity.

Reply
3. make - January 26, 2009
Contemporary Macedonia newer was inhabited by ancient Macedonians. This territory was inhabited from ancient times from Paeonians a and another tribes, that doesn’t have nothing common with ancient Macedonians. Search in Google with “paeonians Maceodonia”, “paeonians Vardar” and see this:

[url]http://books.google.com/books?q=paeonians&hl=bg&as_brr=3[/url]

Reply
4. make - January 26, 2009
In the past and now in Greece:

[url]http://books.google.com/books?q=bulgarians+in+greece&hl=bg&as_brr=3[/url]

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5. Aryiris Karipidis - January 28, 2009
To Goran.

The word moron comes from the greek word moros that mean stupid. And the word idiot comes from the greek word idiotis that means stupid too. I Know those words because I am a macedon, a greek and I know greek language. You slav person have to learn greek to understand it.

As for the stupid linguistic tricks like ; ohi (no in greek) comes from turkish? So stupid argument. In the same way your name comes from greek; moros, moron, moran, goran!!! Nice!!! You slavs find your own identity, name, symbols and stop stealing greek ones.

Reply
6. Ladahift - February 3, 2009
Ваш сайт в опере не очень то корректо показывается, а так все отлично! спасибки вам за умные мысли!

Reply
7. ulcest - February 4, 2009
Благодарю!!!У Вас часто появляются очень интересные посты! Очень поднимаете мое настроение.

Reply
8. nomaAded - February 8, 2009
Благодарю!!!У Вас часто появляются очень интересные посты! Очень поднимаете мое настроение.

Reply
9. Beerrikeevem - February 8, 2009
Спасибо за статью. Восхищена как всегда

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10. dresProogs - February 8, 2009
Ты как обычно радуешь нас своими лучшими фразами спасибо, беру!

Reply
11. unsuct - February 9, 2009
Ваш сайт в опере не очень то корректо показывается, а так все отлично! спасибки вам за умные мысли!

Reply
12. Gonpreongomo - February 9, 2009
Уважаемый автор блога, а вы случайно не из Москвы?

Reply
13. EthiffCith - February 10, 2009
Опубликовал на своем блоге вашу статью, и напечатол там конечно-же обратную ссылку на вас. Но вот зашел посмотреть поевился ли трекбек, а его нет…

Reply
14. gr00vy - February 28, 2009
Интересно

Reply
15. Yanni - March 23, 2009
You are all idiots.

Reply
16. Фаддей - March 27, 2009
Я тоже в блоге про такое пишу, только на тему фильмы

Reply
17. Andrew - March 29, 2009
Very useful, objective information. Greece is the last European bastion of nationalism, hatred and outright fascism. It is an unworth EU state, and the EU should be ashamed for having such a retrograde member, reminiscent of the worst days of ethnic cleansing, medieval witch hunt, etc. However, we all know that this cannot last too long, and should Greece not change its policies and racist behaviors, it will soon defeat itself and drown into its own manure.

Reply
18. copsnormUnoni - April 3, 2009
ДА! Я у вас тут пиарюсь

Reply
19. assimalog - April 7, 2009
Автор, как долго такой текст писал? Ужасно интересно….

Reply
20. Kivauphospasp - April 8, 2009
Админ, как долго такой текст писал? Очень хочется узнать….

Reply
21. Mefefufariuth - May 11, 2009
Интересная статья, но по-моему в Ваших статьях не хватает юмора… Попробуйте добавить хоть капельку и читателей прибавится

Reply
22. mugunlott - May 13, 2009
Почему на блоге так мало тем про кризис, Вас этот вопрос не волнует?

Reply
23. Oppothvon - May 14, 2009
Действительно интересный сайт, добавил в избранное, буду заходить почаще

Reply
24. Sypeuseme - May 14, 2009
Суперский пост! Блог уже в ридере )

Reply
25. acictFeallFob - May 19, 2009
Весьма занятная запись. Внес Ваш ресурс в избранное.

Reply
26. Squackscugs - May 25, 2009
Можно ли взять одну картинку с Вашего блога? Очень понравилась. Линк на Вас есстественно поставлю.

Reply
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28. Флэш игры - September 24, 2009
Отлично написано.

Reply
29. midget - September 25, 2009
VeryGood. Thanks!

Reply
30. онлайн геи - September 25, 2009
Ничего так

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Бесплатное БДСМ видео на bdsmdevki.ru

Reply
32. nitaEmittevaw - October 19, 2009
A chto dlya vas vash blog? Vi proffesional’niy blogger ili eto prosto dlya dushi?

Reply
33. Смотреть порно - October 22, 2009
Бесплатное порно БДСМ видео на bdsmdevki.ru

Reply
34. новое порно - October 22, 2009
Класс добавил в избранное!

Reply
35. порно - November 1, 2009
Спасибо

Reply
36. порно фото зрел - December 22, 2009
порно геев смотреть

Reply
37. dogdudleyru - January 4, 2010
Читаешь иногда такое и понимаешь, что лучший собеседник – собака!

Reply
38. PortoPaderto - January 12, 2010
Потрясающе! Вот не ожидал…)

Reply
39. скачать сканер на телефон - February 10, 2010
а-а, спасибо )

Reply
40. tony - March 30, 2010
todays greeks have nothing in common with the hellenic race or the ancient hellenes they so much would like to be associated with. Todays greeks who chant racist slurs are not only ignorant about race but also hypocrites. Todays greeks are brownish looking mix of syrians, egyptians, arabs,persian and mongolian blood. Nothing puts them close to the blonde haired blue eyed tall chiseled body of ancient helens. And by the way the term hellenic at the time was not a political term. you have nothing to be proud of…the history u would like to claim as yours was written in blood by illyrians,macedonians and real greeks who vanished a long time ago.

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41. Dushko - September 20, 2010
This is all truth…my grandparents were exiled from Kostur (Kastoria) as children and no greek can tell me that Aegean Macedonia were greek or some shit alike….I was told, my grandmother had an aunt that was burnt alive in a furnace by the greeks, my grandfather was transported in Hungary and at 10 yesrs old and he saw his parents until 20 I think (10 years later)…your time will come greeks

Reply
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43. Deena - June 5, 2011
the parents of my granparents were refugees from Salonica( Thesalonikki) . The helenic army burned their place and forced them to leave and go to what is now Republic of Macedonia. My gran-grandad had a sister and he did not see her for 40 years, as the greeks didnt allow it.( she stayed in Salonica..)
The greeks are ignoring and covering up one of the biggest genocides in Europe in the past 100 yeaqrs

GREEK ATROCITIES COMMITTED DURING

THE 19th &20th CENTURIES

The Turks have well established reputation for ferocity and a notion of the “Terrible Turk” is deeply ingrained in the western mind. Unfortunately too little is known that during the 19 and 20 century the Turks have much more often been the victims of aggression than they have been aggressors .


They have been involved in two wars of aggression 2nd Balkan war of 1913 and the brief participation in the 1st world war which involved not allowing allied troops through the Dardenells of Gallipoli to help its enemy Russia. However Turkey has been invaded numerous times: once each by Italy, France, England, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro and Four times by Russia and Greece.
Greece was determined to exterminate as many Turks as possible.The Greek war of Independence set the tone for all that was to follow:

The orthodox Greeks at once fell upon their Turkish neighbours and slaughtered them indiscriminately.
To quote the distinguished historian

Mr William St.Clair:

"The Turks of Greece left few traces.They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821 unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world.It is hard to believe then that Greece had once contained a large population of Turkish descent living in small communities all over the country, prosperous farmers, merchants, and officials,whose families had known no other home for hundreds of years. As the Greeks said "The moon devoured them." Upwards of Twenty thousand Turkish men, women, and children were murdered by their Greek neighbours in few weeks of slaughter. They were killed deliberately, without qualm or scruple, and there were no regrets either then or later..."

All over the Pelopponense roamed mobs of Greeks armed with clubs, scythes, and a few firearms, killing, plundering, and burning. They were often lead by Christian priests who exhorted them to greater efforts in their holy work...Within a few weeks the Turkish and Moslem Albanian population of Pelopponse previously about ninth of the whole , had ceased to exit

During this period the inhabitants of the important islands of Hydra, Spetsae, and Psara decided to join the revolutionaries.... They armed their ships and began to attack traders flying the Turkish flag. They ranged all over the Aegean and beyond.

Many Turkish merchant ships were captured, their crews killed, or thrown overboard, and the booty brought back to port. On several occasions ships crowded with Moslem pilgrims on their way to or from Mecca were seized and the crews and passengers put to death.... The crew of a Turkish corvette, fifty-seven men in all, were brought back to Hydra in triumph and individually roasted to death over fires on the beach.

Crete

When Greece invaded Crete, in February 1897, Greek Muslims and Turks were slaughtered by the thousands. In the district of Sitia alone, 851 Persons (including 374 children) were killed. The eighty Muslim villages of Central Crete were entirely destroyed. The massacre was stopped only by the timely arrival of British and French military units. An eye-witness to the slaughter, a woman from the village of Roukaka, in the district of Sitia, gave the following deposition to French officials:

"Christians threw Halime, the pregnant wife of Huseyin Mehmedakis, on the ground and slit open her belly, taking the foetus out. They also knifed Fatime, daughter of Mustafa Omer Efendakis, cutting her open from her breasts to the middle of her back. They pushed the men into the mosque and, as they killed them, hurled them from the minaret, which they then set ablaze with gasoline. Dogs were running all over the village carrying half-burnt hands and feet. The children were stabbed to death, and a few were crushed beneath the minaret when it collapsed."

izmir

When the Greeks occupied the izmir region in 1919 and later, as they penetrated into central Anatolia, they carried out a policy of genocide on a grand scale. Typical was the Aydin massacre of June 25, 1919. Greek troops at first subjected the Turkish quarter of the town to an intensive artillery bombardment. All Turks who tried to escape were shot down by Greek soldiers or civilian auxiliaries. Then the Greek Army entered the quarter and continued its orgy of destruction. Some Turkish families were burnt alive when their homes were set on fire. Others were gunned down in the streets. When four women who had barricaded themselves into a building were captured, they were impaled on wooden stakes. Altogether, an estimated 9,716 Turks were butchered that day.

H.J.Psomiades in "The Eastern Question" points out that since 1912 some 4 million muslims (most of Turkish origin)had left Greece or areas occupied by Greece.

Their butchery didn’t stop with the Turks !



Jews were also driven out of Turkish territories seized by the Greeks. The fate of the Jews of Salonika was typical. According to Jacov Benmayor, an authority on subject:

In 1917 a great fire destroyed most of the town, leaving some 50,000 Jews homeless. The Greek government, which followed a policy of Helenizing the town, was ready to compensate the Jews whose house were destroyed, but it refused to let the Jews return to certain parts of the town, causing many of them to leave the country. . . . In 1922 a law(no. 236) was enacted which forced all the inhabitants of Salonika to refrain from working on Sundays, thus causing another wave of emigration.... In 1932-34 the Campbell riots, which accompanied the elections and were anti-Semitic in tone, took place. An entire Jewish neighbourhood was burned to the ground by hooligans, and most of the Jews who lived in the Campbell neighbourhood emigrated after the riots

Hellenization and Genocide

Today their policy of Hellenization and Genocide continues large scale human rights violations in western thrace will lead to the extermination of Turks living there as they cease to exit, yet no one car, And while the world turns a blind eye no doubt in a few years people will say, were their any Turks in western Thrace .No doubt their answere will be the same .

"The moon devoured them"

Greek Atrocities in Macedonia

Part 2 - Atrocities Committed in Kukush by the Greek Army

By Risto Stefov

June, 2005

[email][email protected][/email]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6


"When will the Greek State apologize to the Macedonian people for its 1912-1913 genocide in Northern Greece?"

"Ethnic cleansing" may be a modern term but its meaning is well understood by the Macedonian people living in northern Greece. Ever since Greece took possession of Macedonia, in the early 20th century, the Macedonian people have experienced ethnic cleansing first hand.

This series of articles will present evidence of atrocities perpetrated by the Greek State against the innocent Macedonian civilian populations prior to, during and after the Balkan wars. Most of the information contained in the articles is obtained from the 1913 Carnegie Inquiry and from Greek sources.

Before beginning with the atrocities committed by the Greek army against the Macedonian civilian populations in Kukush, I want to provide you with some background information on the overall situation in Macedonia in order to better understand what was happening.

For some thirty years prior to the 1912, 1913 Balkan wars, the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian States had established zones of influence inside Macedonia.

Initially, through their respective churches which operated freely inside Macedonia, they employed propaganda campaigns enforced by armed brigands, denationalizing the Macedonian population and swaying it, sometimes forcefully, into accepting Greek, Bulgarian, or Serbian national sentiments.

After the 1903 failed Ilinden Macedonian uprising, many Macedonians lost hope for self-liberation. Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, aware of this, began to exploit the situation. Again through their churches, they started new propaganda campaigns, this time promising to liberate the Macedonian people.

While reporting Turkish atrocities in Macedonia to the outside world, mostly instigated by their own agents, the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians were raising false hopes inside Macedonia. On one hand, their agents were working hard to vilify the Turks and gain the sympathy of the Great Powers and at the same time they were feverishly promoting the idea of liberation for the "Christian brothers" while all along their aim was "occupation and annexation".

Many leading Macedonians, including Krste Misirkov the author of "Macedonian Matters", understood that there would be a price to pay if foreign powers were allowed to invade Macedonia. There were warnings that if Macedonia was invaded, there would be consequences for the Macedonian people. Unfortunately, in view of the overwhelming Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian propaganda cries for liberation, those few voices of protest were drowned out.

By the first Balkan war, Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, through their respective church agents had established contacts inside Macedonia and had prepared the civilian population for liberation. Each State, village by village had strategically established who would support them and who would oppose them. Each State identified each village as "Greek friendly", "Bulgarian friendly", or "Serbian friendly" based on which sentiment the village majority supported. Villages with strong Macedonian sentiments were classified hostile. Villages with strong Greek sentiments were classified as "Greek Villages", those with strong Bulgarian sentiments were classified as "Bulgarian Villages" and so on.

I must strongly emphasize at this point that prior to 1912-1913 there were no "Greeks", no "Bulgarians" and no "Serbians" living in the Macedonian villages. Statistics produced by the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian States were based strictly on religious affiliation and not on national sentiments.

Because Macedonia at the time was not a State, it did not have its own church. As Christians, however, the Macedonians were entitled, according to Ottoman law, to pray in their church of choice. The majority, being Orthodox, chose the Orthodox Church. Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, as Orthodox States with their own active churches, took advantage of this situation and each established its own churches inside Macedonia. (The Ottoman authorities prohibited any other type of organization within its territories).

As part of their regular service, each church introduced their own brand of denationalization policies. Each offered its service not in Macedonian but in its own language, Greek, Bulgarian, or Serbian. Even though their parishioners were Macedonian, the parish registered them not as Macedonians but as Greeks, Bulgarians, or Serbians depending on which church they attended. The parishes also changed the parishioners' Macedonian names to reflect their new Greek, Bulgarian or Serbian identities. For example if a certain Macedonian was a parishioner of the Greek Church, then he would be given a Greek name, registered as a Greek and statistically counted as Greek. If his brother, on the other side of the village, was a parishioner of the Bulgarian Church then he would be given a Bulgarian name, registered as a Bulgarian and statistically counted as a Bulgarian. If their sister in mid-village was a parishioner of the Serbian church then she would be given a Serbian name, registered as a Serbian and statistically counted as a Serbian.

Many Macedonians who left Macedonia for the west during that period still carry foreign family names given to them by the foreign church clergy.

In addition to prayer, the competing foreign churches also offered Macedonian children free education. That too unfortunately was offered, not in Macedonian, but in foreign languages, Greek, Bulgarian, or Serbian.

This is how the Macedonian population of late 19th and early 20th century was denationalized and declared extinct.

Foreign propaganda in Macedonia was so effective that when the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian armies marched into Macedonia they were welcomed as friends. Even the old guard from the 1903 rebellion joined in and fought side by side with them. But as soon as the Turks were driven out, the Macedonian old guard and its leaders were arrested and jailed.

The second Balkan war was about the division of Macedonia. Neither Greece, Bulgaria, nor Serbia, after occupying Macedonia, was happy with what they had.

Since no division lines were agreed upon prior to Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia occupying Macedonia and treaties were broken as soon as they were made. The three States that entered Macedonia as allies quickly found themselves at adds with each other. Bulgaria who believed it fought the hardest to drive the Turks out, was not happy with its meager share. Greece who grabbed the most territory with the least effort was unwilling to share. So conflict was inevitable.

The second Balkan war was about grabbing territory and exacting revenge. As the armies clashed, there were winners and losers. The losers took revenge on the civilian population by looting, burning, killing and raping the Macedonian population.

"Deny that your enemies are men, and presently you will treat them as vermin". (P 95)

"When you have to deal with barbarians, you must behave like a barbarian yourself". (P 95, a quote from a Greek officer)

According to the Carnegie report, Greece was the first to instigate aggression by attacking Kukush on July 4, 1913. In retaliation Bulgaria attacked Demir-Hissar on July 7, Serres on July 11 and Doxato on July 13.

On July 12, according to the Carnegie report, King Constantine dispatched the following telegram to the representatives of Greece in the European capitals;

KING CONSTANTINE'S TELEGRAM

July 12, 1913.

The general commanding the Sixth Division informs me that Bulgarian soldiers under the command of a captain of gendarmes gathered in the yard of the school house at Demir-Hissar over one hundred notables of the town, the archbishop and two priests, and massacred them all. The headquarters staff ordered the exhumation of the bodies, with the result that the crime has been established. Further, Bulgarian soldiers violated young girls and massacred those who resisted them. Protest in my name to the representatives of the powers and to the whole civilized world against these abominations, and declare that to my great regret I shall find myself obliged to proceed to reprisals, in order to inspire their authors with a salutary fear, and to cause them to reflect before committing similar atrocities. The Bulgarians have surpassed all the horrors perpetrated by their barbarous hordes in the past, thus proving that they have not the right to be classed among civilized peoples.

(Signed) CONSTANTINE, King. (Page 300)

The accounts you are about to read are of those who either witnessed or themselves experienced the Greek atrocities at Kukush.

EVIDENCE OF FATHER JOSEPH RADANOV, of Kukush.

On July 2 he could distinctly see from Kukush that the surrounding villages were on fire, Salamanli among others. Fields of corn and stacks' of reaped corn had been set on fire even behind the Greek positions. The Greeks moreover had fired upon the reapers who had gone to work in the early morning in their fields. The refugees from the neighbouring villages began to arrive upon the heights called Kara-Bunar about a mile away, and were there bombarded by artillery.

Next day (July 3) the battle approached the town, but the Bulgarians retained their position. About midday the Greeks began to bombard Kukush, but when I left no house had taken fire. (Page 300)

FATHER JEAN CHIKITCHEV.

I took refuge after midday on July 3 with Father Michel and meant to stay with him. I saw the shells falling upon the sisters' orphanage. I saw the hospital struck by a shell. There were at this time no Bulgarian troops in the town, although they were in their positions in front of it. The town was unfortified. The bombardment seemed to be systematic. It could not be explained as a mistake incidental to the finding of the range. Quite forty shells fell not far from the orphanage and three or possibly four houses were set on fire. At this point I left the town and fled with the refugees. Next night it looked as if the whole plain were burning.

NOTE.-Both the above witnesses were priests of the Catholic Uniate Church. (Page 300)

MR. C. [the name may not be published] a Catholic resident in the village of Todoraki near Kukush, states than on July 6 the Greek commandant of Kukush arrived accompanied by thirty infantrymen and eighty armed Turks. He was bound and left exposed to the full sun without food or water from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. His house was pillaged, and 200 francs taken with all his personal property. On being released he learnt from the villagers that they had lost in all £T300 during the pillage. Two men were beaten and twelve were bound and sent down to prison in Salonica. The women were not maltreated. (Page 301)

PETER SHAPOV, of Zarovo near Langaza, a shepherd.

He was taking his sheep and goats on the road to Demir-Hissar when Greek cavalry overtook the refugees on the edge of the town and began to slash out with their sabres to left and right. They took 600 goats belonging to himself and his two brothers. One of his brothers was wounded by a cavalryman and died afterwards at the Bulgarian frontier. The Bulgarian army was quite half an hour's walk away. There were no Bulgarian troops near them. (Page 301)

MATE, Wife of Petro of Bogoroditsa, near Langaza.

I saw the Greek cavalrymen when they entered our village. I fled and in my haste was obliged to leave a baby of eighteen months behind in the village in order to flee with this one which I have with me, a child of three. I saw our village in flames. I want my child. (Page 301)

ELISAVA, Wife of Georghi of Zarovo, near Langaza.

We all fled when the shells began to fall in our village and got safely to Demir-Hissar. Then I heard people saying the Greek cavalry are coming. There was a panic; children fell on the ground and horsemen rode over them. I lost my children, save one whom I was able to carry. My husband had two others with him. I do not know what has become of him, and have not seen him since that day. (Page 301)

MITO KOLEV, a boy of fourteen from the village of Gavaliantsi, near Kukush.

On Wednesday, July 2, after the fighting at Kukush, the peasants fled from our village except a few old people. I fled with the rest and reached Kilindir. On Thursday I went back three hours' walk to our village to collect our beasts and find my mother. I found her and was going along the road back to Kilindir with others. As we were leaving our village I saw a Greek cavalryman in uniform on horseback. He fired his rifle at me and missed. I threw myself on the road, pretending to be dead. He then shot my mother in the breast and I heard her say as she fell beside me, "Mito, are you alive?" and that was the last word she spoke. Another boy came up and ran away, when he saw what had happened. The soldier pursued him, shot him, and then killed him with his sword without dismounting. Then I saw a little cripple girl named Kata Gosheva, who was in front of us hiding in a ravine. The soldier went after her, but I do not know whether he killed her. He then came back, passed us and met other cavalrymen. A certain miller of the village named Kaliu, who could speak both Greek and Bulgarian, then came up and lifted me up. The miller had a Mauser rifle. He hid in the ravine when he saw that the two troopers were hurrying back and I hid in some hay. I heard the horses' hoofs going towards the miller. They talked, and I suppose he must have surrendered. He then came back to where I was and the miller said, "Mito, Mito, come out or the cavalry will kill you." So I came out. We both then went to the school house where we found other Greek troopers. I was quite sure they were Greeks because I recognized the uniform.

They used to come to our village sometimes before the war broke out. They questioned the miller in Greek and wrote something and gave it to him. The miller then said, "Let's go to the mill. It is about fifteen minutes from the village." We stayed there for an hour. In the meantime, three other Greek troopers came up from another direction. The miller went to meet them and showed them his piece of paper. The miller told me to gather straw, and he did the same. The troopers set fire to it so as to burn down the mill.

[In reply to a question, Mito explained that the mill was not the miller's personal property. It belonged to the village community, which employed him.]

The miller took away his mattress on his horse, which was at the mill. The troopers then left us and went to the village. We followed and the miller said to me, "We had better ask them for another bit of paper so that they will let us go to Salonica." Then some cartridges which had been left behind began to explode in the mill. This brought up other troopers at a gallop. They fired on us. The miller said something to them in Greek, showed them the paper and they chatted. I saw them looking at me. Then one of them drew his revolver and fired. The ball went through my clothes without wounding me. I fell down, pretending to be dead. He fired again and this time the ball went in at my back and came out at my breast. Then, still on horseback, he struck me on the shoulder with his sabre and the same blow wounded my finger.

[Mito lay down and showed exactly how it happened. He still had the scars of all these wounds. The position was perfectly possible.]

Blood was flowing from my mouth. I hid in the corn all the rest of the day and saw the village take fire in three places. The cavalry then gathered together and then rode off. I was in pain, but managed to walk away. I met two neighbors on my way and one of them took me in his cart to Doiran. There I met my father and had my wounds dressed in the military hospital. We fled through the mountains, and I was taken to the hospital in Sofia. (Pages 301 and 302)

VLADIMIR GEORGHIEV of Dragomirtsi, near Kukush.

I left the village when the war began and afterwards went back to find some of my property. I saw the Greek cavalry, perhaps a whole regiment of them. There were ten in our village with officers. I managed to hide in some reeds near the village. I saw Cavaliantsi burning. About 2 o'clock eight cavalrymen passed and burned the mill. They then went into the village to finish the burning. I also saw our own village Dragomirtsi burning, and heard two or three shots fired. Toward 6 o'clock I fled and on my way met Mito Ko1ev, who was wounded and could hardly walk. Mito said he could not ride, so it was no use to offer him my beast. I left him and went on. (Page 302)

CHRISTO ANDONOV, of Gavaliantsi.

He was beaten by the Greek soldiers. He saw the mother of Mito Ko1ev near the Greek cavalrymen and supposes she must have been killed. He did not see what happened very distinctly as he was at considerable distance. He saw the boy named Georghi Tassev killed with a sabre thrust by a trooper who was one of five. Some way off Kata Gosheva, the lame girl, was killed with a sword. This he saw quite distinctly. He was hidden in the ravine at the time.

NOTE.-These two witnesses were in a crowd of refugees at Samakov. In passing through the market place we inquired whether anyone present came from the village of Gavaliantsi. They stepped forward and told the above stories when asked to explain what happened to them after the battle of Kukush. (Page 302)

To be continued ...

A Land of Sorrow

December 15th, 1915

Everything is in ashes and ruins, everything is devastated. Only the little white churches have been preserved, together with the small mills on the banks of streams: they can easily be seen from the hilltops.

Greek armies had marched here, devastating everything on their way. I do not know what was done in other parts of Macedonia by other peoples that conquered it one after the other: Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs. Probably the same, but here, in the region of Kukush, it was done by the Greeks. You can pass from village to village without meeting a living soul, except for the shepherds and their herds. Perhaps it is a village there in the distance? No, it is all in vain! It is nothing but ruins. The miserable huts have been pulled down. Nothing can be seen but the blackened walls overgrown by weeds. Nothing. Nobody. Only occasionally a rabbit dashes across the field, swift as lightning in the wilderness; hardly a bird fluttering its wings as its starts its flight, and then everything is silent and motionless again, under the clear sun in the glimmering blue light of December. The water is so clear that the horses can hardly stop drinking from it. They drink thirstily from every small stream that we pass by. Fields that could be tilled stretch around us, but there are no furrows in sight. Those that used to till it have been either killed or banished. Macedonia could be the granary of the Balkans. This is the conclusion to be made after one-sees those numerous mills and rich little churches.

Lieutenant V. Lebedev, En Macedoine avec l'armee Francaise. Impressions d'un officier Russe. Traduit du Russe par Paul Trogan Le Correspondant, 88 anee, 10 Septembre 1916, Paris, 1916, p.p. 842-849.

References:

George F. Kennan. "The Other Balkan Wars" A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 1993.