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  • George S.
    Senior Member
    • Aug 2009
    • 10116

    Macedonian History Books: Facts and Arguments

    In regard to the contents of resolution H. RES 521 introduced in the US House of Representatives on October 27, 2005 and the paper entitled “Propaganda and Irredentism: The Republic of Macedonia – present trends”, being distributed prior to the introduction of the Resolution, the following facts and arguments should be presented in view of clarifying this issue:

    - The history textbooks mentioned in both documents impartially present historical facts that correspond with the findings and archive materials collected in several European capitals, by European scholars and historians.

    - The maps in these textbooks, showing where Macedonians lived throughout history, are also drawn by non-Macedonian authors -- and in general, they are older than the Republic of Macedonia itself. All of them are entitled as "ethnic maps" and there is no any implication that the present borders are "temporary", or that they can, or should be changed.

    - Having in mind that the borders all over Europe were so frequently changed during the last few centuries, and large ethnics groups wound up living within different states, numerous examples can be presented to illustrate the irrationality of the objection on the use of such historical ethnic maps. These shifts of population and changes of the borders are historical facts that neither can be changed, nor should be hidden from the view of history and students.

    -- A review of history textbooks for grades 5-8 indicates that there are no maps or texts claiming that any Macedonian territory is now under Greek control, nor that Greek territory should be ceded or returned to Macedonia. Also, there are no texts suggesting the existence of a "Greater Macedonia", or texts that could be considered nationalist or hostile toward Greece.

    - On the other hand, there is not a single case in any history book in the Republic of Macedonia, where neighboring people and nations are presented in a hostile way, or existence of any negative stereotype with present implications. On the contrary, throughout the entire educational system, the good-neighborly policy and cooperation are presented as one of the basic principles and values of the Republic of Macedonia.

    - The example often used by Greek analysts is the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913. In the Macedonian textbooks these events are presented in a very unbiased and simple manner - they did happen; they did end with a change of existing borders; and the population of Macedonian ethnic origin did end up living in different countries. As for the feeling of injustice done by the Balkan wars, it is to a much greater extent stimulated in the educational system of other Balkan countries involved in these wars.

    - The terms assimilation, propaganda, etc., are used only to describe the fact that the population of Macedonian ethnic origin, was and still is, forbidden to express its ethnic identity in Greece. These facts are confirmed in numerous Governmental and NGO’s reports (such as State Department Annual Human Rights Reports, Council of Europe reports, Human Rights Watch Reports, Amnesty International Reports, etc.) and regional court’s rulings (European Court of Human Rights).

    - The implied “irredentist attitude and propaganda” does not exist in any textbook, unless the expectation for recognition and respect of the rights of the Macedonian minority in Greece and other neighbouring countries is considered as such.

    - Having in mind that the analyses and accusations in the paper are based on the persistent denial of the existence of the Macedonian nation and respectively, of Macedonian ethnic minority, it is not surprising that the Macedonian textbooks will be called unacceptable.

    - The facts about the existence of ethnic Macedonians in Greece can never be presented differently in the Macedonian history books. The expectance for the respect of European standards about minority rights can not be treated as irredentism. Based on these relevant standards and related documents, all European countries are obliged to uphold and improve the rights of their ethnic minorities.

    - Greece remains one of the few countries in Europe that have not yet ratified the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities, although Greece signed it 9 years ago.

    Furthermore:

    -- The Republic of Macedonia's signature on the 1995 interim agreement (Article 4) and the Government of Macedonia's subsequent amendment of the Constitution (Amendment 1 to Article 3 - "The Republic of Macedonia has no territorial pretensions towards neighbouring states"), rule out changes of borders or irredentist claims toward Greece.

    -- The Government of the Republic of Macedonia has never made any official statements suggesting irredentist claims toward Greece, nor has it taken action to instil in the population hostile attitudes toward that country. On the contrary, the Macedonian government has repeatedly emphasized its will to further the friendly relations with Greece.

    -- The Republic of Macedonia has strong trade relations with Greece. Greek companies are among the most prominent investors in Macedonia. Greece is a favoured tourist destination for Macedonians, and many Greeks vacation in southern Macedonia.

    -- Even though the mentioned textbooks do not include any of the alleged nationalist propaganda, it has to be known that they are no longer in use, since a new history curriculum was developed for all grades in 2003.

    -- The new curriculum was drafted in accordance with guidelines of the Council of Europe's EUROCLIO, an association of European instructors of history, which emphasize the use of historically accurate maps to illustrate political, ethnic and other developments during the specific historical period.

    Therefore,

    - Since the claim that the name - Republic of Macedonia - is a threat to Greece can not be justified, the arguments contained in the aforementioned paper are just another attempt to raise a non-existent issue of Macedonian school textbooks, in order to support an unsupportable cause – to demand from a sovereign country and its people to change their name.

    - This kind of initiative only hinders the efforts of both Governments, helped by the United Nations and supported by the US, for a just and timely resolution of the name issue that will further strengthen the stability and security in the Balkan region.
    "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
    GOTSE DELCEV

    Comment

    • George S.
      Senior Member
      • Aug 2009
      • 10116

      Address by Athanasios Parisis
      to the first International EBLUL Conference

      November 15, 2002

      See Related Articles:
      • Minority Languages, Plea For More Recognition
      • Minutes on Linguistic Diversity in Greece
      • Macedonians of Greece (MSWord .doc)

      Welcoming Address by the President of the Greek branch of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL), Mr. Athanasios Parisis to the first International EBLUL Conference Thessaloniki, 15 November, 2002

      Subject of conference: Promotion of the lesser used languages in Greece

      Mr. President, Bojan Brezigar, Honoured guests,

      On behalf of the Greek EBLUL Committee I take great pleasure in welcoming you to the first EBLUL international conference dedicated to the various linguistic groups in Greece.

      Across the European Union, no fewer than forty million people speak languages in their everyday lives, which are different from the official language of the state in which they are living. At present this figure represents 10% of the total European population, but shortly, with the expansion of the Union, the number of people speaking a different language from the official language of their state will be much, much greater. Greece, too, is no exception; however vigorously the state may deny it, the facts tell their own story. A by no means negligible section of the Greek population is bilingual. It is not possible to provide precise figures, since none of the censuses carried out to date has included a question on language. The one exception was the census of 1920, yet the figures it yielded for the northern regions of the country were never published.

      Moreover, the long-standing policy of marginalisation and suppression has succeeded, naturally enough, in reducing the actual number of those speaking the non-official languages. This hostile treatment of heteroglossy in Greece had its beginnings in the early days of the modern Greek state, 170 years ago. In those areas of the country where Arvanitika was prevalent, every effort was made to discourage its use. There was perhaps some justification for this in the desperate efforts being made to unite the regional populations into a single Greek state, using as a means to this end a policy of homogenisation of the various populations.

      At the beginning of the 20th century, when new territories were annexed by the Greek state, the process of displacing alternative languages and forcing their speakers to assimilate the Greek language and Greek national ideology - one state, one nation, one language, one religion - assumed new dimensions. The state resorted to violence, persecution, exchanges of populations and the mass 'cleansing' of villages, which refused to submit. Later, in the course of the Civil War, many tens of thousands of individuals, among them whole villages, were forced to flee as political refugees to eastern Europe. Some of the children of these refugees are still living in exile, a situation almost incomprehensible in the context of the modern Europe.

      Those of us who remained in Greece were subjected to special schooling, kept in the classroom all day to minimise our contact with our family environment - the environment where our native tongue was spoken. It is worth mentioning that the 1961 census lists just ten child day care centres for the region of Messenia, whereas in the area of Florina no fewer than 48 such centres were in operation. The numbers are, of course, inversely proportional to the size of population in each region actually in need of these centres. The selective policy of the Queen Frederika Foundation, which was accompanied by the movement of 'poor children' - the actual phrase used - to isolated schools in southern Greece, was intended to encourage the children to change their language and thereby further the process of national integration.

      In the years which followed the tactics of psychological violence, the undermining of the dignity of the child and the intimidation of the parent - all produced the results the state desired, the 'persuasion' of individuals to deny their own identity, their tradition, their language. And this in a Europe, which claims to respect the ideal, among others, of respect for human rights and the linguistic and cultural disparity of its peoples.

      As President of the Greek branch of EBLUL I should like to stress the need to introduce our languages into the Greek educational system. We also seek access for the linguistic communities of our country to the mass media, radio and television.

      We very much hope that in this endeavour we shall enjoy the support of the Brussels office, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council of Europe and all the other agencies of the European Union with an interest in these issues.

      Athanasios Parisis

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      "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
      GOTSE DELCEV

      Comment

      • George S.
        Senior Member
        • Aug 2009
        • 10116

        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 Hellenized 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 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 Hellenized since 1926.

        English Journalist V. Hild reveals, "The Greeks do not only persecute living Slavs (Macedonians)..., but they even persecute dead ones. They do not leave them in peace even in the graves. They erase the Slavonic 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 Hellenization 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 Hellenized 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.
        "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
        GOTSE DELCEV

        Comment

        • George S.
          Senior Member
          • Aug 2009
          • 10116

          Open Letter to the Greek Prime Minister
          on the Matter of Greek Racial Profiling

          by Dr. George Nakratzas

          February 25, 2003

          E-mail: [email protected]


          To the Right Honourable
          Konstantinos Simitis
          Prime Minister of Greece
          Athens

          Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

          It was reported by the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada that last year three Canadian nationals of Macedonian descent had been denied entry to Greece.

          This latest incident took place on 30th May 2002: entry to Greece was refused to Mr. Mendo Petrovski, a Canadian national of Macedonian descent.

          When representations were made by the Canadian Embassy in Athens, the Greek authorities responded that nothing could be done because Mr. Petrovski had no relevant documents from the Niki border post, and did not know the name of the border official concerned in the decision.

          If this accusation is true, then the official response of our government to the Canadian Embassy in Athens does little credit to our country - the country currently holding the Presidency of the European Union.

          The Greek authorities must be perfectly well aware of the identity of the official on duty at the Niki border post on 30th May 2002.

          The fact that this Canadian national had no document explaining why he was regarded as persona non grata in Greece, is entirely due to the failings of our own authorities. In all such cases, as in the case in question, the necessary stamp should have been placed in the Canadian passport.

          Sir, no country with any self-respect can insult a tourist on the grounds that he has a suspect record without offering evidence to this effect, or at the very least communicating these grounds to the individual in question.

          The truth is, however, that the facts of the matter are somewhat different.

          It is well known that the border posts of the EU countries keep a list of individuals whose entry is deemed undesirable. However, this list contains the names of persons known for their criminal activities.

          It is claimed - although I admit I have no certain knowledge of this - that our border posts also keep a second, unofficial list of names of individuals whose entry to our country is forbidden for purely political reasons. More specifically, this list contains the names only of those individuals who declare that they are ethnic Macedonians.

          A similar incident in the relatively recent past involved a Mr. Karatzas, a 78-year-old resident of the Republic of Macedonia, who was refused entry to Greece. After international protests, and only following your own wise intervention, this old man, a veteran of the Democratic Army, was allowed to visit for the last time his village near Kastoria, the village where he spent his childhood. I learned of this visit - with great relief - from the man himself.

          Do you not think that it is now time for this alleged second, unofficial list to be abolished - the list which names ethnic Macedonians as personae non gratae.

          I ask you to imagine how we ourselves would react if we were to be refused entry at the borders of neighbouring countries, simply because we described ourselves as ethnic Greeks?

          Yours faithfully,

          Dr. George Nakratzas

          P.S. I beg to inform you that copies of this letter, translated into English, will be forwarded to the 600 Members of the European Parliament, as well as other interested individuals.
          "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
          GOTSE DELCEV

          Comment

          • George S.
            Senior Member
            • Aug 2009
            • 10116

            Speech by Prof. Nestor Oginar
            Hyatt Regency-Reston Hotel, Washington D.C.
            Schiller Institute Annual Congress

            September 1-3, 2001


            The Balkans-Southeast Europe, has been, historically, one of the most crucial areas in the world. It has been, in the literal sense of the word, the landbridge between Europe and Asia. It is a crossroads of different cultures, nations, religions and ethnic groups. It is also a strategically crucial area between North-Central Europe and the South, the Middle East, Africa, Asia: It is the key bridge, the connecting point between east and west.

            This area, for the last one hundred years at least, could have been arguably one of the most economically developed areas in the world. Unfortunately, those world powers who want to prevent an economic and mutually beneficial collaboration and prosperity of the Balkan peoples have an interest to set it on fire, which is happening right now! It has been their way to maintain the oligarchical control of the world, at any cost, even if it involves destruction of entire countries, nations, cultures, and societies - which is nothing but a genocide, a bloody crime against humanity.

            So, we have had this history of war and suffering in the Balkans for generations and generations. Ask my beloved, my suffering Macedonian people and they will tell you. Look at them now, as they are today, hopeless, humiliated, homeless, displaced, ethnically cleansed, economically impoverished, under military aggression, under military occupation, wounded in body and soul, bleeding and dying, attacked by the wild Albanian terrorist hoards, and their puppetmasters, disguised as NATO and the
            "International Community," all in the name of peacekeeping, war-preventing, and human rights. What a sham, what a shame, what a theater of the absurd!

            Let me stress this point again: Macedonia is being destroyed, dismantled, completely annihilated from the map of the world, as a country, as a nation-state, as a society, as a constitutional democracy, as a peaceful member state of the United Nations. Astonishingly, all this is happening on the world stage before the wide open eyes of an apathetic audience.

            But I cannot, we cannot blame only the mercenary KLA, which are but a proxy, or better yet the puppets of greater and more insidious forces, whose commands they obey. We have to look at these forces, the real puppet-masters more closely, because what is at stake is not just the very existence of Macedonia, because what we are defending isn't just one small, proud, ancient, biblical land - Macedonia. We are defending, ladies and gentlemen, an idea, an ideal; above all we are defending a principle: the principle that Macedonia, like every other country in the community of mankind, has the fundamental, the inalienable right to its own national sovereignty, to its own self-determination, to its own national independence, and national dignity. The right of the people to be free of violence, of foreign interference and war mongering, from political and economic blackmail and coercion. The right of a people to organize its own democratic, economic and cultural development.

            And I contend before you that this is the reason why we the Macedonians have a moral obligation, and a right to ask for the help of any individual, any institution, any country of goodwill, include this illustrious Institute. Because we are convinced that in defending Macedonia on principle, we are defending a universal principle.

            I am convinced as I stand here before you now, that Macedonia must take and will take the lead on the international stage in the universal struggle of humanity against this New-World Globalized Order, piloted and manipulated by the predatory oligarchs, hiding in their headquarters in London, Washington, Brussels, or Wall Street. Just as in the manner in which my ancient and glorious king, Alexander of Macedonia, defeated the old oligarchs of the Persian empire, 2,330 years ago, just like Apostle Paul responded to the pleading voice of the biblical Macedonian man to come and help, we the Macedonia people, drawing on our rich, long history, that has survived many invasions, must stand up and fight an honorable and great battle of ideas, and give our contribution in the changing of the world system of injustice and looting to a more just and humane one.

            We call upon you, all of you, to join us the Macedonians in our fight against those who in the Balkans and elsewhere have drawn the georacist designs of maps, to join us in our struggle to fight the Zbybniew Brezynskis of the world, the Henry Kissingers of the world, the Lord Ownens of the world, the Lord Robertsons, the Javier Solanas, the James Wolfensons of the world, and he list goes on and on, ad-infinitum.

            We have a moral obligation to recognize that there is a monstrous design, a monstrous racism behind the policies and ideologies of these people and their likes, and we must do everything together to thwart them.

            Ladies and gentlemen, need I remind you that we live in some of the most tragic, dangerous, and trying times of our era, which test the very fiber of our souls and consciousness' as member of different nations of the civilized world, at the threshold of the twenty first century. I can stand proudly here before you and state clearly that as a Macedonian, and as an intellectual, I feel that Macedonia is not defected, the Macedonian people are not defeated, the people who know, love and cherish the common welfare of mankind are not defeated. So long as our spirit is untouched, we are not defeated, so long as our pride and dignity survive, we are not conquered.

            From this platform, I appeal to all of my fellow Macedonians, to all of my fellow Americans, to all of my fellows present here at this esteemed gathering, to all of mankind, we must resist the evil, dark forces that threaten to destabilize the world. We must resist the very same forces that like hungry vultures have descended upon the innocent living organism of Macedonia. In order to do that, we must recognize, I repeat, we must recognize that we are all drifting in a vast, dark sea of crisis,
            pilotless and starless.

            I am reminded here of a profound thought, expressed by Mr. Lyndon Larouche and published in the August 20th issue of the "New Federalist." Let me quote it for you: "Two things are required. First thing: people have to recognize how bad the crisis is. They also have to recognize how elementary in nature the solution is. And only when that perception of crisis occurs do we have the possibility, politically, of doing what we must do."

            For me, personally, as a Macedonian, but also as a human being, the biggest enemy with which we all are confronted in our time is not the Albanian terrorist organization KLA, it is not their mentors and puppet-masters embodied in NATO, EU and the "International Community." The biggest enemy of us all is the one that dwells and lurks within ourselves. Within the dark recesses of our detached and immobilized minds. The enemy is in our demoralization, in our apathy, in our resignation, in our moral capitulation, in our complacency and our readiness to accept the reality, the Hegelian reality, as it is thrust at us, on a daily basis.

            But I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in case you didn't know, that we the Macedonians have it in us, in our blood, in our veins, all the strength of our striving humanity, our national and cultural heritage, to strive, to overcome, to vanquish and never to yield, to all of our enemies from within or without.

            Countless generations of our proud Macedonian ancestors have bestowed on us a priceless heritage and tradition of resistance, of fight and never yielding to the forces of evil, no matter how powerful they may be.Our resistance must spring forth from the generosity of our hearts, from the clarity of our minds, and from the nobility of our spirit. We owe these values to our children, and all new generations.

            When we succeed to extricate ourselves from the double psychological trap of imposed fear and induced impotence, when we begin to realize that we are embarked on a mission of grandiose and epic proportions, only then will we be able to understand that we are not alone, isolated, abandoned and helpless sheep surrounded with the army of enemies, and we can summon strength to fight and to resist.

            Only then will we be able to realize that a small band of petty oligarchs, plutocrats, speculators and usurers masked behind the metaphors of the international community, the international monetary Fund, the World Bank, NATO and others, have subjected virtually the entire world to destruction, and that my beloved and proud Macedonia is only another victim in the vast gallery of horror.

            The only advantage of this evil is their ability, by way of brutal force and deception, to carry out the policy of "Divide et Impera," divide and conquer, to project the image of omnipotence, omniscience and invincibility, and to bully, frighten, degrade and humiliate, morally and psychologically, the countries which they choose to victimize in their pathological laboratories.

            I must say, over and over, so that I may be understood, that our allegedly invincible enemy is not nearly so powerful as they like to be perceived.

            I tell you that right now, as I speak, they are shivering in their offices, wherever they are, at the very notion that tiny Macedonia and its people will rise on mass, by the millions and say, "It is enough!" Stop this unjust invasion! Stop this military occupation! We do not accept this framework agreement being imposed on our pathetic, corrupt, inexperienced and cowardly government by way of military force, and political and economic blackmail. We refuse to accept it because it is in contradiction with the
            universal principles of democracy, with the constitution of Macedonia as a nation state, with the democratic processes as they are practiced all over the world, and with international law and order as we know it.

            Like the Nazi-Fascist apparatus of World War II, NATO, the International Community and its pathetic proxies, have overestimated their real strength, and we know that they are beginning to rot and collapse from within, as does the financial system that spawned them.

            So, you see, ladies and gentlemen, that there is no reason, no room for pessimism. We can win! As indeed we must! The real war, the factor that determines the final outcome is not a military war, it is a battle of ideas. It is a war of principles to be fought and played out, ultimately, in the theater of civilized humanity. The historical situation we encounter today requires from all of us, in the paraphrase of the great German poet and humanist, Friederich Schiller, that we become bigger than ourselves, so that a great historical moment does not find us again - small people.

            Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me conclude by reiterating the thought that we must not remain the mere spectator at what is happening. That no man is an island, an entity onto himself. If Macedonia is destroyed, can Europe ever be the same? Will she not be diminished, dishonored and humiliated? And, for that matter, can the world ever be the same after the demise of Macedonia?

            That's why it is crucial that we organize and unite in our struggle to save and preserve Macedonia, not only as a country, a nation state, a constitutional Democracy, but an idea, and an ideal founded on the inalienable universal principles of liberty, equality, justice and dignity of the common man!

            Macedonia is our one, only and last remaining hope and we must save her!


            Thank You
            Prof. Nestor Oginar
            "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
            GOTSE DELCEV

            Comment

            • George S.
              Senior Member
              • Aug 2009
              • 10116

              MOYANA Meets with US State Departement
              Office of Religious Freedom

              July 22, 2005

              Contact: Chris Purdef, (614) 296-0881

              Macedonian Orthodox Youth Association of North America representative Metodija A. Koloski on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 met with the Senior Editor of Western and Central Europe Religious Freedom Reports under the U.S. State Department Office of International Religious Freedom, Mr. Michael J. Mates. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the recent issuance of TOMOS by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the schismatic "Orthodox Church" in the Republic of Macedonia with its leader Zoran Vranishkovski, alias Bishop Jovan.

              Mr. Koloski pointed out to Mr. Mates that according to the 17th Rule of the 4th Orthodox Ecumenical Council and the 38th Rule of the 6th Ecumenical Council, the Macedonian Orthodox Church has the canonical and historic right to an autocephalous status. A prerequisite for having an independent church according to these Rules is having your own sovereign nation. The Macedonian Orthodox Church meets these criteria.

              The Macedonian Orthodox Church renewed in 1967, being abolished in 1767 by the orders of the Ottoman Sultan, received full blessings by the Serbian Patriarch German stating, "for the new inducted eparches and archimandrites in the Republic of Macedonia, within the Macedonian Orthodox Church the constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church is no longer valid." However, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church retracted their blessings and refused to form a dialogue with the Macedonian Orthodox Church between 1967 and 1991.

              Mr. Koloski briefed Mr. Mates that upon the declaration of independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991, the Greek and Serbian Orthodox Church intensified their efforts to take over the Macedonian Orthodox Church. In 2002, upon being charged by the Holy Synod of the MOC, of irregularities in his financial management and of embezzlement, Zoran Vranishkovski, then a Bishop in the MOC choose to leave the ranks of the MOC to join the ranks of the SOC. Months prior to this, the Greek and Serbian Orthodox Church made an agreement that should the Macedonian Orthodox Church take out the word "Macedonian" from its name, they would recognize the Macedonian Orthodox Church as an equal church in the International Orthodox Community.

              Zoran Vranishkovski since 2002 has been trying to build a parallel Orthodox Church in Macedonia naming it the Ohrid Archbishopric and self-declaring himself as the Archbishop of Ohrid, which is the name and the title of the head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The Macedonian people, and interestingly the Serbian minority in Macedonia have refused to recognize this church. With this in mind, the Macedonian government has full responsibility to deal with the political machinations of foreign churches that choose to meddle in the internal affairs of Macedonia.

              Mr. Koloski is thankful to have had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Mates to discuss the misunderstandings regarding the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Mr. Koloski asked what role the U.S. is playing and Mr. Mates informed him that he had met with Zoran Vranishkovski and states that the position of the State Department is that they support the right to religious freedom - the core objective of U.S. Foreign Policy - all over the world. Mr. Mates expressed his willingness to further discussions on the above mention matters.

              To read the 2004 Religious Freedom Report on Macedonia, please visit: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35470.htm

              MOYANA serves to activate and unite the Macedonian Orthodox parish youth for the preservation and promotion of the Orthodox Christian Faith through collective worship, fellowship, service and witness. MOYANA also helps to foster the productive values and morals of Orthodoxy within our youth in order to build stronger ties with the North American communities.

              MOYANA is an auxiliary of the American-Canadian Macedonian Orthodox Diocese, under the direct jurisdiction of the Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. MOYANA is the largest Macedonian youth organization in the world. For further information, please visit our Website: http://www.moyana.org
              "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
              GOTSE DELCEV

              Comment

              • George S.
                Senior Member
                • Aug 2009
                • 10116

                thnic Macedonian's Should Stop Negotiating with Greece

                by Chris M. Purdef

                October, 2004

                We have witnessed the name issue with the Hellenic Republic dismissing Macedonian claims to its constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia. Up until recently, this issue seemed only to be an illegal, horror film, a movie that happens far away on the screen, and although terrified, Macedonians couldn't do anything about it. But now things are different. As we have been reading in the news lately, the Greek Government is consumed with security shortages hoping to avoid total political embarrassment and demise. A fact that became very evident to me as I was watching a sports special on HBO on how Athens is out of touch politically and socially. It was very abhorrent to see how this networks' reporter sent to Athens to report on the lowly standards of Greek security, easily walked into the main Olympic Arena, no security to be seen anywhere, openly shouting to the nearby Greek workers when they asked him what he was doing there, "Don't worry guys, I'm from Al-Qaeda, I just want to check out the construction work!" Happily they replied, "Oh, that's ok, go ahead!" This is a far cry in comparison to all of the security that was needed to keep Greek neo-Nazis from harassing Ethnic Macedonians trying to hold a peaceful congress in Solun. Is there something wrong with this picture? But the world has also taken notice that Macedonians have started to move in the other direction, becoming more courageous, responsible, and proactive. Nowhere is this more evident than with a slew of movements from 2001 to the present in which Macedonians have brought this tiny, barely recognized Balkan republic to the attention of NATO and the European Union. What is most ironic, Macedonians may not have realized that they have taken the first important steps in the formation of a coherent Macedonia National strategy. Something that your politicians have not known how, or have not had the backbone to do up to this point in your history. But it must not stop here. You as citizens understand that the name Macedonia has power in international forums. The time has come as modern day Macedonians to draw the line in the sand and declare the truth about your national identity.

                Grassroots efforts should be continued and strengthened. They should by multi-ethnic and if they are going to work, they must be consistent. If need be, citizens should even consider boycotting work to attend sit-ins in front of consulates, and other international institutions in the Republic of Macedonia. These efforts should be focused on pressuring Macedonian politicians to unilaterally stop negotiations with Greek representatives in New York, declare that the Former Yugoslavia is no more, that there is no more dispute with Greece, that you forgive them, but that you are the Republic of Macedonia and that you will be just that until the end of days. Coincidentally, both NATO and the EU have showed positive signs that Macedonia will be invited into those families in the near future, what must be done now is accept their vibe and send out one of your own.

                With pride, Macedonians must insist indoctrination into these two very powerful groupings only, and I say only, if recognized by the constitutional name. Most of us understand that the challenges are mammoth, and the reforms that are to be undertaken by Macedonia take up enough energy, but there must be a parallel front headed by local NGOs, institutions of higher education, and media to proclaim that Macedonia is coming full steam ahead and that you will not accept anything but full recognition of your name before entrance into NATO and the EU. Macedonians should have this mindset not only because you deserve to be respected by these institutions, but also because you've earned it!

                You have done it before. Once during the unjust war of 2001 with the parodied "collection of arms" by Macedonia citizens who walked in drones to the center square in silent protest of the fake collection of NLA weapons by NATO forces. (Who, by the way, turned in pre-Balkan War muskets and cherry bombs) In retaliation to this farce, Macedonians wanted to take part in the "weapons" collection by introducing their own version of tragic comedy. Needless to say, NATO Troops found it amusing when they took home with them all the watermelons, goats, rakes, shoes, and other "very dangerous ammunition" that Macedonians provided. It was a classic movement, but for one reason or another, it was short lived. I still claim that had it continued, Macedonians would have been successful in getting their message across and more mediums would have sensed the sad nonsense of the whole conflict. The second successful movement in recent Macedonia history was, of course, the "Say Macedonia" campaign, where citizens were organized to write postcards to the European Council reminding them that they do exist, they are part of Europe, and yes, They are Macedonian! This campaign must continue. If not in the same fashion, in some other way, but it must continue. Macedonians are creative enough to come up with the context; they do not need outside help to do this. But they do need some encouragement. They do need to understand that the outside world is watching them, and we need a new inspirational story. By God, what is more inspiring than a down and out nation standing up for itself in the midst of these negative times? Let us all relive David and Goliath.

                The third mini-movement occurred just recently when the Software giant, Microsoft changed its local website for their "Vision 2004" conference that referred to Macedonia as FYROM. All that was needed for this progress to take place was a rebuking article by the Macedonian Daily, "Vreme." And although there are still other discouraging mistakes and misinformation being used by Microsoft regarding the Republic of Macedonia, now that this ball is rolling I feel confident that those will be changed also. It is exactly these grassroots movements that have changed governments and swayed political thinking. Should we even mention the United States in the 60's with Dr. Martin Luther King, or the peace movement that eventually ended the Vietnam conflict? Politicians did not undertake these changes, so Macedonians must stop expecting their leaders to take up the name issue on their own without critical mass. Politicians are not in politics to make astounding change, but they are there to satisfy egotistical needs and to compromise, this is what they do for a living. It is exactly what you or I say that makes them more susceptible to our thinking not the other way around. Of course, this is a very pessimistic connotation, but only if you're a politician. And if they disagree, I challenge them to prove me wrong. The ball is your court.

                Chris M. Purdef is Vice President of the non-profit organization Friends of Macedonia and is Youth Coordinator for the West Coast Region-Arizona of the Macedonian Orthodox Youth Association of North America. He can be reached at [email protected]
                "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                GOTSE DELCEV

                Comment

                • George S.
                  Senior Member
                  • Aug 2009
                  • 10116

                  What's Up With FYROM?

                  Chris M. Purdef

                  June, 2003

                  get a printable version

                  I don’t know what it is with this “term,” more or less, plastered on the Republic of Macedonia’s head like a cheap toupee, but it seems to attract “international visitors” to Macedonia like flies swarming around freshly laid horse feces on Bitola’s city walkway.

                  At first glance, this abbreviation reminds me of one of those Japanese designed robots that can do aerobics and laundry, while humming Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark At the Moon.” After further scrutiny, I must concede that pronunciation by some of Macedonia’s recent “visitors” embellishes a whole new universe of meanings and associations, for instance:

                  “Fai-ROM”: CD ROM’s sister, or “FA-RUM” an exotic liquor named after the gentleman who couldn’t reach the fourth note in the musical scale after drinking his concoction, and finally “Fa-RAM,” the end result of drinking a whole bottle of “FA-RUM.”

                  What still remains a mini-mystery-series to me, however, is that Macedonia’s “international visitors” have no problem pronouncing words like “transparency”, “beleaguered and besieged,” “democracy in transition,” my favorite, “proportional response,” and of course, “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, yet they have trouble uttering, “Macedonia” from their finely tuned and polished lips. Yes, what’s up with FYROM?

                  For those of use not aware of the name issue, we must go back about ten years ago and review what happened in the United Nations on April 1993. This was just about the time Macedonia was beginning to receive it’s first “visitors.”

                  I should warn you my friends; the following contents are down right stale. Furthermore, by attempting to fathom why there wasn’t any outcry by the “ international visitors” who supposedly devote their time and government funds (taxes) flying across the globe, stamping out injustice, and crusading for harmony, we may stumble across some shaky ground, I mean, dissent is a faux pas these days. However, being the splintered personality that I am, why the hell not? So here’s my skinny on it:

                  On April 1993, under immense political and economic pressure from Greece, the tiny nation, then known as the Republic of Macedonian, was coerced into joining the United Nations under the improvised name of Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.

                  The obvious question to ask here is why would the Greeks open up this can of fishing goop? To be quite honest, I don’t truly understand the reasoning behind it myself. It has something to do with Greeks believing that the name Macedonia and everything that is understood to be Macedonian is exclusively of Greek Origin.

                  Interesting enough, but then, what do we do with those 2 million “misinformed souls” who have been living in Macedonia proper forever, and the hundreds of thousands of Ethnic Macedonians who live in Northern Greece and Bulgaria, and what about the other million or so who are living outside of region all together? Should we be timid and follow the official line and answer as the world has: Who Gives a Rats Ass?

                  GREEK KNOW IT ALLS

                  Alas, this historical debate we shall not get into. I mean who cares, right?

                  What non-academics profess to know and completely understand ancient history anyways? Oh, I know: The “Pan Macedonian” Association does.

                  The Pan Macedonian Organization claims to be made up of descendants of the “original Macedonians,” when in all reality they are a bunch of people from Asia Minor who have been transplanted into Northern Greece by the Greek Government to play the role of Ancient Macedonian leftovers. The charming fellows and gals have such historical prowess that in some of their commentary and writings have managed to reduced Harvard and Princeton professors, such as Dr. Eugene Borza, into nothing more than beer slugging, girl-chasing blokes who dwell at local bowling allies turning about the place, with their toothpicks as radars, looking to pick up the “pre-froshes” and drive them around in their cherry red, all terrain vehicles.

                  This same group just recently attempted to challenge US National Policy by secretly pushing Anti- Macedonian resolutions through state governments that claimed that Ancient Macedonians were Greek and that Macedonia was Greek. They were successful in getting resolutions passed in a handful of local legislatures before efforts by the Macedonian Ambassador and Macedonian American Friendship Association, an organization representing the voice of Ethnic Macedonians in the US, quelled attempts in the Texas State Legislature.

                  Interesting reading these days is that this same group of “Pan Macedonian geniuses” have decided to take up an international petition, collecting signatures in order to “present and prove” to US and EU government officials that they are the “true Macedonians.” Even more worrisome is that Greece has even enlisted the ranks of the Serbian Orthodox Church, a traditional foe of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, by issuing an ultimatum to the Macedonian Archbishop to give up the name of the Macedonian Church and resume function under the chauvinistic wing of the Serbian Church. This obvious Greek tactic has received malicious remarks by Ethnic Macedonians throughout the world, and ironically, has resulted in only uniting Macedonia’s largest two opposing political parties. But has there been any reaction by Macedonia’s “international visitors,” possibly to show some sort of solidarity with Ethnic Macedonians in light of everything that they have given up in the past two years to prove their loyalty to Europe and America? Are you kidding me?

                  Forget facts, forget history, forget that Ethnic Macedonians have been living on that disputed Macedonian territory for thousands of years, were subject to fierce Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek international policy (including ethnic cleansing), and forget that harsh remnants of these policies still exist and are continuously being pursued by the said countries! For the Ethnic Macedonians, there is no getting around this huge piece of Baklava (Which by the way is a Turkish dessert, not Greek). Unfortunately for them, they no longer possess the strategic geographical position of Bulgaria, the resources and landmass of Serbia and Montenegro, or the economic might of the Greeks. Yes, Ethnic Macedonians are once again forced to prove their very existence without much political influence, their land still divided, all by themselves. But worry not it has done this before!

                  LONG DIVISIONS

                  But if truth be told, no one actually denies that Macedonia was divided up almost one hundred years ago by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece each claiming their ethnocentric right. Are you kidding me? I’m the fool still waiting for all those Civil Rights Activist, the movie stars to come and speak for the Ethnic Macedonians. Come on Richard Gere, are you telling me you fell for that Albanian nonsense in Kosovo and Macedonia, yet you can’t recognize a people who have been literally, and historically “high-jacked” by Greek claims of Hellenic homogeneity all most as vehement as that of the Nazi campaign fifty years back?

                  And where the hell is Michael Moore now, ranting and raving about Dubya Bush’s “unholy” war against Iraq, yet claiming that what happened in Kosovo and Macedonia was justifiable? Why, because liberals introduced us to “humanitarian wars” and this type of war is ok?

                  Where are the mentions of the Ethnic Macedonian genocide in Greece and Bulgaria? Where is Steven Spielberg’s beautiful epic, and Oliver Stone’s film on this conspiracy? Can even the justice seeking movie makers deny that there may actually be Ethnic Macedonians living within those divided territories wondering when someone will recognize them and give them the same opportunities of Federalized land like the Ethnic Albanians received in Kosovo and Macedonia proper? Isn’t this the purpose of “international visitors?”

                  Screech! You know, historically speaking, “gun-slinging diplomacy” was never a Macedonian forte. This means of communication has always been reserved for the US and their Albanian Compatriots. It’s funny though, I know for a fact that Macedonians used to watch Cary Grant, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood movies in the former Yugoslavia, but I guess they also understood it was only fantasy.

                  But my sarcastic digression serves only to aggravate my karma, and it really doesn’t do the readers any good. Like I said before, who the hell cares, right? As long as we can see the “sexy” in war, injustice, and genocide, right? As long as news reporting is nothing more than a sound bite, a two-minute organism, then we can get on with our soda pop day, and American universities can continue pumping out fresh grads with their Master’s Degree in “compromise and imposition.” Newly manufactured “international visitors.”

                  LAWS (Remember them?)

                  Let’s focus on the legality of this issue for a spell, and ponder the reasons why “international visitors” seem to awkwardly understand that something is wrong with the UN decision to impose this name on the Republic of Macedonia, yet still insist on using FYROM-- Even when they’re trying to con everyone.

                  What are all these “international visitors” really doing in Macedonia? They are well received, make lots of money working for their respective organizations, live in some of Skopje’s (Macedonia’s Capital City) most luxurious apartments, feast with locals, and enjoy weekend trips to neighboring Greece (Aegean Macedonia) when they get sick of Lake Ohrid. Heck, they get two Macedonia’s for the price of one! How appropriate. For the most part I understand that they are in Macedonia as representatives of their government’s humanitarian sector, therefore, they should be considered promoters of peace, but a peace that should and will benefit their nation’s interest first, and everyone else only if convenient.

                  Don’t get me wrong; there is no such thing as altruistic foreign policy, but US representatives are promising a lot of “mullah” for Macedonia, most of which may in fact do the country some good. Yet what the hell is with all of these attached conditions that even the average everyday American wouldn’t stand for? It’s ok to expect a nation receiving tax fed foreign donations to be frugal, but come on boys; you don’t have to extort this tiny nation into changing it constitution or to accept that US soldiers will be exempt from international law. And IMF standards are preposterous, we all understand that Macedonia already doesn’t stand a chance with the economic giants who are just waiting to consume the Macedonian market for an appetizer, shouldn’t the IMF be a somewhat of a shield against these economic sharks? Yes, even the banking “international visitors” are in question.

                  ‘MERIKANS DON’T LIKE “FA RUM” ANY LONGER

                  However, when it comes to name issue, I must give credit where credit is due, US officials are more consistently referring to Macedonia by its constitutional name these days, I guess there is some benefit in joining the “Coalition of The willing.” If Macedonians are lucky, this will last through Bush’s second term assuming he gets re-elected. If not, I don’t foresee a Democratic President going against Greek interests, a lobby that strongly supports and finances the National Democratic Party. Oh boy, I can see the bumper stickers now, “Kiss Me, I’m a FYROMian!”

                  The European Union’s “international visitors” on the other hand, OH MY GOD, what a bunch of purse carrying ignoramuses. Not to belittle, but if this hoard of weirdoes had a conceptual idea of how to run a union of modernized nations, let alone understand the stabilizing factor behind referring to Macedonia by its constitutional name, then maybe US redneck Congressmen wouldn’t be renaming French fries! The only thing the European Union has done right is Universal Health Care and some instances of liberalized marijuana usage laws. Hey, at least they’re mellow.

                  KICK IT UP A KNOTCH, BAM!

                  The important question to ask here is, what would happen if these “international visitors,” regardless from what “progressive and democratic” nation they come from, dared to call Macedonia, Macedonia? Probably nothing, except bring new vigor and a positive attitude to the Macedonian State, Help boost Economic Confidence, Draw a definite line in the sand against those who would seek to destabilize Macedonia. In essence, officially recognizing the Republic of Macedonia by its’ constitutional name will help ensure everything that the EU and the US have already promised they would help Macedonia achieve. Sovereignty.

                  What is even more ironic, all that money that the EU and US are promising Macedonia wouldn’t do as much good as official name recognition by President Bush. So then what are they all waiting for? What is keeping them from probably the easiest act since breast-feeding? Why aren’t all these “international visitors,” who have been living in Macedonia for the past five years, who are aware of how much this issue means to Macedonians, not pressuring their bosses into recognition of Ethnic Macedonians?

                  AFTER ALL THE QUESTIONS, THE ANSWER: COWARDICE- THE OFFICIAL LINE IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY

                  Is it that the EU and the US truly do not want to see Macedonia as a stable nation, prosperous, harmonious, and economically strong? Or, is it possible that these “international visitors” do not truly understand what it means to stand up and do the right thing? I don’t buy it.

                  I believe that even though Macedonia’s “international visitors” truly and wholehearted understand that by addressing Macedonia as FYROM they are causing this nation internal and external damage, and that they really don’t like the arrogant Greeks that much anyhow, they are just too scared to break the official line.

                  International policy is based on cowardice. After witnessing these same “international visitors” “shuttle” their way into Macedonia two years ago, imposing their “solution,” insisting that this tiny nation be “Brave,” to show “Resilience” and to break away from the “Cowardice of War,” I have no trouble labeling their double standard as nothing more than the very thing they, at one time, spoke out against, and that is cowardice.

                  A CIVICS REFRESHER: SELF DETERMINATION

                  According to Dr. Igor Janev, a Scientific Researcher at the University of Belgrade, The Republic of Macedonia was discriminated against by the United Nations (under Greek pressure) in two ways, the first of which was:

                  I. Self Determination:

                  “The inherent right for any state to have a name can be derived from the necessity that a juridical personality must have a legal identity. In absence of such an identity, the juridical person, such as a state, could to a large extent (or even completely) loose its capacity to interact with other such juridical persons…this right is not alienable, divisible or transferable, and is part of the right to “self-determination” (determination of one’s own legal identity) External interference with this basic right is inadmissible.”

                  The Second instance of Macedonia being discriminated against goes as following:

                  II. Imposition

                  “According to the interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter given in 1948 18 and accepted by the General Assembly, 19 the conditions laid down in that article are exhaustive (and not merely stated by way of guidance or example), they must be fulfilled before admission is effected, and, once they are recognized as having been fulfilled by the Security Council, the applicant state acquires an unconditional right to UN membership. This right is enshrined in Article 4 itself and comports with the universal character of the UN Organization. At the same time, and for the same reasons, the Organization has a duty to unconditionally admit such a state to UN membership.” By now you are probably saying to yourself, what’s the problem? Well, this is my problem, “The Security Council in the preamble of its resolution 21 recognizes that the applicant state (Macedonia) fulfills the required criteria for admission and yet, contrary to the accepted interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter, recommends that the applicant be admitted to membership with a temporary reference label (to be used for all purposed within the UN), and imposes an obligation on the future UN member to negotiate with a neighboring state about its own name.” What is even more, “The fact that the Security Council has ignored the strong objection 22 of Macedonian Government to such formulation of its resolution indicates that it considered that added conditions as necessary for giving the recommendation.”

                  ACTION, REACTION, AND THE “IMPOSITION”

                  International law has been broken, and the reactionaries of the world have not reacted.

                  Are not these globe prancing souls, seeking justice, freedom, and “Self-Determination” for all supposed to be calling up Amnesty International and the UN complaining and pursuing rights for the discriminated Macedonian? Or have the Ethnic Macedonians not played their cards correctly having, yet again, fallen victim to new super power crusade created by US liberals, and perfected by the current US administration: Imposing new governments and leaders, or “The Imposition.”

                  Thus far, actions that have been taken by “international visitors” in Macedonia have resulted in dire change in the structure of that tiny nation, ranging from an imposed peace agreement to stop a Kosovar Albanian attack on Macedonia for control of the sex and drug trade routes in Northwest Macedonia, to imposed change of the Macedonia constitution, to change of the Macedonian government, to finally, inaction when it comes to recognition of Macedonia’s name, culture, and language from blatant attacks by Greece in the United Nations or indirectly through the Serbian Church and extreme Bulgarian elements. And even though I must mention that there has been some positive change in Macedonia as a result of the Macedonian relationship with these very same “international visitors,” it is still a far cry from what they lobbied for Kosovar Albanians, or what their silence is providing Greek interest.

                  Plain and simple, the international community is cowardly. They know right from wrong, therefore should be the first in line to persuade their leaders to officially recognize Macedonia.

                  Instead of following the timid “official line” and pursuit of compromise at all costs, as they were taught in Grad School and Diplomatic Training, “international visitors” should realize that sometimes “disputes” should result in Principled Diplomatic Consequences, and that some “conflicts” deserve Decisive Response.

                  Seeing for myself how “international visitors” have “lived and died” with Ethnic Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia, if you ask me, recognition of Ethnic Macedonians should be their sole purpose in life. Period!

                  I should know, I used to be one of those “visitors,” and recognition of “my people” is one of my top priorities.

                  Chris M. Purdef

                  Macedonia American Friendship Association
                  "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                  GOTSE DELCEV

                  Comment

                  • George S.
                    Senior Member
                    • Aug 2009
                    • 10116

                    Open Letter to the Greek Prime Minister
                    on the Matter of Greek Racial Profiling

                    by Dr. George Nakratzas

                    February 25, 2003

                    E-mail: [email protected]


                    To the Right Honourable
                    Konstantinos Simitis
                    Prime Minister of Greece
                    Athens

                    Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

                    It was reported by the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada that last year three Canadian nationals of Macedonian descent had been denied entry to Greece.

                    This latest incident took place on 30th May 2002: entry to Greece was refused to Mr. Mendo Petrovski, a Canadian national of Macedonian descent.

                    When representations were made by the Canadian Embassy in Athens, the Greek authorities responded that nothing could be done because Mr. Petrovski had no relevant documents from the Niki border post, and did not know the name of the border official concerned in the decision.

                    If this accusation is true, then the official response of our government to the Canadian Embassy in Athens does little credit to our country - the country currently holding the Presidency of the European Union.

                    The Greek authorities must be perfectly well aware of the identity of the official on duty at the Niki border post on 30th May 2002.

                    The fact that this Canadian national had no document explaining why he was regarded as persona non grata in Greece, is entirely due to the failings of our own authorities. In all such cases, as in the case in question, the necessary stamp should have been placed in the Canadian passport.

                    Sir, no country with any self-respect can insult a tourist on the grounds that he has a suspect record without offering evidence to this effect, or at the very least communicating these grounds to the individual in question.

                    The truth is, however, that the facts of the matter are somewhat different.

                    It is well known that the border posts of the EU countries keep a list of individuals whose entry is deemed undesirable. However, this list contains the names of persons known for their criminal activities.

                    It is claimed - although I admit I have no certain knowledge of this - that our border posts also keep a second, unofficial list of names of individuals whose entry to our country is forbidden for purely political reasons. More specifically, this list contains the names only of those individuals who declare that they are ethnic Macedonians.

                    A similar incident in the relatively recent past involved a Mr. Karatzas, a 78-year-old resident of the Republic of Macedonia, who was refused entry to Greece. After international protests, and only following your own wise intervention, this old man, a veteran of the Democratic Army, was allowed to visit for the last time his village near Kastoria, the village where he spent his childhood. I learned of this visit - with great relief - from the man himself.

                    Do you not think that it is now time for this alleged second, unofficial list to be abolished - the list which names ethnic Macedonians as personae non gratae.

                    I ask you to imagine how we ourselves would react if we were to be refused entry at the borders of neighbouring countries, simply because we described ourselves as ethnic Greeks?

                    Yours faithfully,

                    Dr. George Nakratzas

                    P.S. I beg to inform you that copies of this letter, translated into English, will be forwarded to the 600 Members of the European Parliament, as well as other interested individuals.
                    "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                    GOTSE DELCEV

                    Comment

                    • George S.
                      Senior Member
                      • Aug 2009
                      • 10116

                      Open Letter to the Greek Prime Minister Regarding
                      the Blacklisting of Macedonian Political Refugees

                      by Dr. George Nakratzas

                      July 26, 2003

                      E-mail: [email protected]


                      To the Right Honourable
                      Konstantinos Simitis
                      Prime Minister of Greece
                      Athens

                      Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

                      On Wednesday 23 July 2003 we learnt to our surprise of the public statements made by the Governor of the Prefecture of Florina, Mr. G. Stratakis. According to these statements, the Greek government has made the following decisions in respect of political refugees:

                      a) On August 10th, 2003, 80 Macedonians will be denied admission to our country. (For political reasons these individuals have been placed on the blacklist, whose existence our government has hitherto denied).

                      b) No political refugee will be admitted into our country if the passport issued in his country of residence - Republic of Macedonia, Canada or Australia - does not state his birthplace in Greece, under its Greek name - i.e. the name of the village where he was born some 60 years ago.

                      c) The individuals in question will be allowed to remain in our country for no more than twenty days.

                      d) Finally, the Governor stated that no special reception ceremonies will be staged, but that if these individuals agree to meet him, he is prepared to receive them.

                      The Governor's statement provides official confirmation of the following:

                      1) Our government now officially confirms the existence of the blacklist, a list which is totally illegal for member states of the European Union.

                      By preventing the return to Greece of these 80 blacklisted Macedonians, and by preventing them from even visiting the villages where they were born, on the grounds purely and simply that these individuals regard themselves as ethnic Macedonians, the Greek state is officially admitting a policy which requires that its citizens demonstrate a sense of Greek identity and Greek patriotic feeling.

                      This is the same policy which was implemented during the Civil War and during the military dictatorship - when Papadopoulos threatened to place the whole Greek people 'in plaster' to cure them of their anarchic tendencies, and when undesirable individuals were exiled to the most barren of the Greek islands.

                      We now see the government implementing a more refined version of the same policy - one which involves a lifetime exile abroad for these individuals, far from the village where they were born. There are even a number of members of the present government who were victims of this inhuman policy.

                      It is particularly grotesque that the party forming the present government of Greece, PASOK, refers to itself as a socialist party - its members addressing one another, in all seriousness, as comrade!

                      2) Our government requires of people, most of whom do not even know Greek and left their villages at the age of 5-8, that they declare to the authorities of the state issuing their passport not the name of the village as they know it in their native language, but under the name imposed by the Greek government in 1917.

                      3) The period they may remain in Greece has been set at 20 days, instead of the period from 10 August to 30 October, as originally decided. It would be unthinkable for any of the more civilised and self-respecting countries of the European Union to reverse an official decision in this way.

                      4) Finally, the celebrations planned in Florina by the relatives of victims of the 'paidomazoma' - celebrations which would have involved singing and dancing and were to have been attended by the Governor, Mr. Stratakis, and the Minister, Mr. Lianis - have now been cancelled. At the remarkable celebrations held in the nearby village of Meliti, the young people danced and sang all night, singing Pontic and Macedonian songs alternately; it appears that this extraordinary peaceful demonstration was not to the liking of certain champions of the cold war and of hatred.

                      The Greek government's change of policy is described in the article by IOY journalists in the newspaper Eleftherotypia on 26-7-03. The journalists assert that:

                      The government retreat vindicates the professional alarmists and those who still regret the passing of the cold war, but also exposes to criticism the government officials who had announced the end of this last inheritance of the civil war.

                      These professional patriots were the 34 MPs of the right-wing New Democracy party, and the 3 socialist MPs from the PASOK party, led by the notorious champion of the patriotic cause, Mr. Papathemelis, whose family come from the Slav-speaking or formerly Slav-speaking village of Visoka, outside Thessaloniki.

                      In order to underline the shameless falsehoods employed by these apostles of hatred, I shall cite part of a parliamentary question put by the devout Mr. Papathemelis to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:

                      'These would-be compatriots of ours fought against the Greeks alongside the Germans and Bulgarians during the occupation...' .

                      Almost all those who fought in the Democratic Army have now passed away; the few still alive are old men, over 80 years old, and unlikely to come to Greece. If they do come, it is only from a desire to die in the village where they were born.

                      These men, who according to Papathemelis fought at the side of the Germans, were in fact just 5-8 years old at the time of the occupation; these are the victims of the so-called 'paidomazoma' who would be returning to their villages in Greece.

                      The professional patriots should be ashamed to deal in such falsehoods.

                      Yours,

                      Dr. G. Nakratzas

                      P.S. An English translation of this letter will be circulated around the world, distributed to the 600 EMPs and to
                      "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                      GOTSE DELCEV

                      Comment

                      • George S.
                        Senior Member
                        • Aug 2009
                        • 10116

                        The So-Called Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor

                        by Dr. George Nakratzas

                        February, 2007

                        E-mail: [email protected]


                        On around 15th September Greek television revived the issue of the Asia Minor catastrophe; once again, the leading players were stars of the patriotic PASOK party, such as Mr. G. Kapsis. This is a politician whose record includes the proposal which he laid before the Greek Parliament on 12th May 1997, together with MPs G. Haralambous and G. Diamantidis, that the 15th September be made an official day of remembrance in commemoration of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor.

                        Speaking on television Mr. Kapsis had much to say about his own version of history, but forgot, of course, to mention the crimes perpetrated by the Greek army before the Turkish troops occupied Smyrna, where - it is true - terrible crimes were committed (among the victims of these crimes were members of the author's family).

                        One might also mention the crime of genocide committed by Greek troops against the civilian Turkish population of Aydin on 28th and 29th June 1919.

                        To quote from the author's own work, Asia Minor and the origins of the refugees, page 123: While the Turkish forces counter-attacked against the Greeks, their successful approach to the bridge over the River Maiandros was the signal the Greeks had been awaiting. They first of all set fire to the four corners of the Turkish quarter, and then placed machine guns and armed soldiers and civilians at street corners, in high buildings and on the minarets. From these positions they opened fire on the local people, who attempted in terror to flee their burning houses. Injured people lying in the streets were compelled to return to their homes, where many poor people - old people, women and children - were burned alive.

                        In all 4400 people died - 4000 Muslims and only 400 non-Muslims. An act of genocide perpetrated by the Greek army against the entire Turkish population of the city of Aydin.

                        When it came to genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, it was in fact the Greek army, which led the way.

                        The first example was the slaying of 32,000 unarmed Turks and Jews in Tripoli in 1821, and the ethnic cleansing of the entire Slav-speaking population of Kilkis in 1913.

                        It is time Mr. Kapsis remembered the old proverb: People in glass houses...

                        OPEN LETTER

                        (After receipt of this letter, and after certain articles and letters in the newspaper Avyi Simitis withdrew from the National Printing Office the decree, already signed, and - having replaced the word 'genocide' with the word ' memory', sent it to the Council of State for their opinion.)

                        To:

                        The Right Honorable Kostas Simitis
                        Prime Minister of Greece
                        Athens

                        Dr. Georgios Nakratzas
                        Chest physician

                        Rotterdam, 20th February 2001

                        Subject: Presidential Decree on the Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor

                        I have followed with interest the reaction of the Greek press to the proposal by Mr. Venizelos, Minister for Culture in the Greek government, concerning the signing of a Presidential Decree on making the 15th September an official day of remembrance of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turks in 1922. The articles in the newspaper Avyi on 18th February 2001 were particularly impressive and informative.

                        As a writer and the descendant of refugees from Asia Minor, I believe it is incumbent on me to comment on the articles mentioned above, in order to fill in certain gaps in historical memory, especially that of the younger generation in Greece.

                        The draft law laid before Greek Parliament on 12th May 1997 by the Members of Parliament G. Haralambous, G. Diamantidis and G. Kapsis, on the introduction of the aforesaid official day of remembrance, contains the following words: ...in a geographical region which saw the magnificent achievement of the idea of the multi-ethnic state with Greek culture and consciousness, either at the time of the heirs of Alexander, or during the Roman era, the years of Byzantium or the age of the Ottomans...

                        This nationalistic text submitted by the three MPs reflects a conscious or unwitting absence of historical knowledge in respect of the issue of the ethnic consciousness of the Greek-speaking people of Asia Minor during the period of the Roman Empire of the East (Byzantium) or the Ottoman Empire.

                        During the Byzantine era and the early part of the Ottoman Empire the Greek-speaking but actually multiethnic populations of Asia Minor did not regard themselves as Greeks but Romaioi, a word later corrupted to Romioi.

                        National identities were invented by the theoretical thinkers of the western Renaissance, and mainly used after the French Revolution to combat theocracy and feudalism, systems which characterized the social structure of the various empires.

                        Concepts such as multinational state with Greek ethnic consciousness are a stark contradiction, in themselves contradicting the views of the MPs introducing this bill.

                        At another point in their text the 3 MPs claim that the backbone of Greek civilization was uprooted, together with all its traditions and a rich three-thousand year Greek presence, with no attempt made to save them...

                        The text is an attempt to present the Greek presence in western Asia Minor and Smyrna as continuing uninterrupted over the last three thousand years. This is a notion quite at odds with historical reality - a reality of which the three MPs are probably ignorant.

                        It is well known from historical sources that in 1333 Smyrna was a city in ruins, while in 1390, the date of the fall of the last Byzantine bastion in Asia Minor, Philadelpheia (Alasehir) the whole region, both Smyrna and its hinterland, was literally depopulated of Christians. In 1402 the Han of Mongolia, Tamerlaine, slaughtered or enslaved all the remaining Christian inhabitants of Smyrna and its hinterland, who had fled there for refuge, in order to punish the Sultan Vayazit. In a recent academic study Ms. Anagnostopoulou informs us that in 1520 in the villayet of Aydin the Christian population amounted to just 0.9% of the total population, increasing by the end of the same century to 1.55%. Even as late as 1717 the city of Smyrna had 19 mosques, 18 synagogues and just 2 Orthodox churches.

                        A wholesale migration of Orthodox Christians into the villayet of Aydin took place after 1839, following the publication of the Tanzimat - a decree promulgated by the Sultan to the effect that both Christian and Muslim serfs were now free to leave the feudal estates.

                        The Orthodox economic migrants of the villayet of Aydin came from the islands or the Balkan lands of the empire, settling there to seek work. It is for the descendants of these migrants that the three Greek MPs are now claiming a three-thousand year presence in the region!

                        In 1912, according to the statistics compiled by Sotiriadis, and used officially by the government of Eleftherios Venizelos, in the villayet of Aydin - a huge region consisting of the sadzak of Magnesia, Smyrna, Aydin, Denisli and Mendese - out of a total population of 1,659,529 the Orthodox Christians accounted for 622,810, or 37.75% of the population, while Anagnostopoulou puts the figure lower at 435,398 or 26.2%. Of the 622,810 Greeks cited by Sotiriadis as inhabitants of the villayet of Aydin, 395,559, or 63.5%, lived in six coastal districts of the sadzak of Ismir, i.e. in a relatively small strip along the shore. The remaining Orthodox Christians were submerged in the great sea of Muslim populations.

                        The Presidential Decree also contains the following statement:

                        ...Thus more than 1.5 million Greeks of Asia Minor were forced, mainly after the dramatic events of 1922, to abandon the homes of their forebears in Asia Minor and settle, as refugees, in Greece and in other regions...

                        Despite the fact that the text of the Presidential Decree now awaiting signature is intended to make the 15th September an official day of remembrance, as a physician - even though my special area is the lungs, rather than the mind - I have to point out that the authors of the text are showing definite clinical symptoms of historical amnesia!

                        How little the homes of the Greeks of Asia Minor were really the 'homes of their forefathers' we have made clear in the preceding paragraph.

                        What the authors of the text fail to mention is the question of what the Greek army was doing in the regions of Proussa, Kutahya, Afion Kara-Hisar and the Sangari River - regions where the Greek population was either an insignificant minority or entirely non-existent.

                        Greeks were a minority only in the sadzak of Proussa, where, according to Sotiriadis, of a total population of 353,976, Orthodox Christians numbered 85,505, or 23.3%, mainly settled in the coastal areas.

                        According to Anagnostopoulou, the Romioi of the sadzak of Proussa numbered not 85,505 but just 56,233, while in the other regions mentioned above the number of Greeks was negligible, if indeed there was a Greek presence at all.

                        In 1922 the Greek army in this region was no more than an army of occupation, conducting an imperialist-expansionist campaign within the heart of Turkish national territory.

                        The text of the Presidential Decree also states that the Greeks were compelled - mainly after the dramatic events of 1922 - to leave their homes, but it is silent on two important details, i.e. what was the behaviour of the Greek populations before the battle of Ankara in 1922, and who imposed the compulsory exchange of populations.

                        To examine the first of these questions we might take as an example the behaviour of the Greek population of Proussa, who - according to Anagnostopoulou - amounted to 5100 individuals out of a population of 85,600.

                        The writer Adamantiadis, descended from a Proussa family, describes how the occupation of Eski-Sehir by the Greek army was celebrated by the Greeks of Proussa with a torch lit procession, while the Greek inhabitants of military age, although they were Ottoman subjects, joined the ranks of the Greek army of occupation and fought against the Turkish army of liberation, led by Kemal Attaturk, on the nearby front.

                        To really appreciate the importance of the events narrated by Adamantiadis, one needs to ask oneself how the Greek authorities would have reacted after the Second World War if - during the Bulgarian occupation of eastern Macedonia - the Slav-speaking Macedonians of Serres and Drama had welcomed with torch lit processions the Bulgarian troops, and if some of them had donned Bulgarian uniform and fought against the Greek army at some point of a hypothetical battlefront.

                        We are well aware of the moral contempt felt by the Greek people for those security squads wearing German uniforms during the Occupation of our own country. That the people of Proussa should have fled before the imminent onslaught of the Turkish army is all too understandable.

                        It is well known that the Greeks in areas not close to the battlefields were forced to flee as refugees, like, for example, the people of Cappadocia and eastern Thrace.

                        In the study by Svolopoulos - published by the extreme nationalist Society for Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki - it is explicitly stated that the compulsory exchange of populations was not proposed, and insisted on, by the Turkish government, but by the Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos. Svolopoulos states that since the Turkish government was opposed to the exchange, there was a widespread feeling within the Greek government that 500,000 Turks from northern Greece should be forcibly removed from their homes and taken to somewhere on the Turkish coastline. Svolopoulos writes that this idea was abandoned because of the very poor impression it would have made on the Europeans. In the end the Turkish government was obliged to consent to the Greek proposal for a compulsory exchange of populations.

                        It is not my purpose in writing this letter to hurl allegations of crimes committed in other times, in different social systems with different moral standards.

                        My purpose is instead to support the statement made by Professor Antonis Bredimas of the University of Athens, in an article he wrote for the Avyi newspaper on 18th February 2001, as follows:

                        But if one wants to look ahead and not back into the past, one must take to heart the recommendation made recently by a fellow academic of mine: The two peoples should recognize what they have suffered at each other's hands, and ask forgiveness for what they have done to one another.

                        Dr. Georgios Nakratzas

                        BIBLIOGRAPHY
                        GEORGIOS NAKRATZAS
                        ASIA MINOR AND THE ORIGINS OF THE REFUGEES
                        The imperialist Greek policy of 1922 and the Asia Minor catastrophe

                        BATAVIA PRESS, Thessaloniki, 2000
                        Central Distribution in Greece
                        Thessaloniki: tel. 031 237463
                        Athens: tel. 01 3639336
                        ISBN: 960-85800-6-4

                        GEORGIOS NAKRATZAS

                        Anadolu ve Rum Gocmenlerin Kokeni
                        The imperialist Greek policy of 1922 and the Asia Minor catastrophe
                        Central Distribution in Turkey

                        KITABENI, Catalcesme No 54/a, Istanbul
                        Istanbul Tel : 212.5124328 212.5112143
                        "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                        GOTSE DELCEV

                        Comment

                        • George S.
                          Senior Member
                          • Aug 2009
                          • 10116

                          Interview with Mr. Stojko Stojkov
                          Co-President of the Five Member Executive
                          of the OMO Pirin Political Party in Pirin Macedonia

                          March, 2005

                          Courtesy of Liljana Ristova
                          Editor, Canadian Macedonian News

                          People's rights are the international norm
                          and a basic principal of the European Union

                          "To acknowledge that a Macedonian nation, language and such exist is also acknowledging that most of Bulgaria's national ideology is a lie"
                          1. Mr. Stojkov, you are one of the five member executive committee from the OMO Pirin political party, from the Pirin part of Macedonia. What are the organizing forms, political and national, that the Macedonians in Bulgaria are working with and what are they?

                          I am a co-president in the executive committee of the party and fight for the rights of the Macedonians in Bulgaria - a United Macedonian foundation - a party for economic integration and growth. The party was established in the year 2000 after the Bulgarian high court revoked the registration of the original Macedonian party OMO Ilinden Pirin. Our application for membership again in December 2002 was rejected with a simple accusation of using a flag of a foreign country. On our flag we had placed the star of Vergena which has been the flag of the Republic of Macedonia for around 10 years. There are also other, smaller Macedonian organizations and cultural foundations that we cooperate with and undertake mutual actions.

                          Our actions are developing at different levels. First, by public dialog with the general population we are trying to bring to attention our existence to demonstrate that there are Macedonians in Bulgaria. In this manner we are also testing the democracy of the country. Bulgaria retains that it is not crossing human rights, however, this is not the case, as is demonstrated during our public gatherings. It is forbidden to openly meet and to speak our language in public places and if we do, we are subjected to discriminatory and derogatory slogans and actions against the Macedonians in Bulgaria. We are now trying to document all these accidents so that they may be presented to different international organizing bodies.

                          The third level of our activities is to sue the government and the public for discrimination of the Macedonians. At the moment there are two ongoing court cases, one filed in Strazburg, Austria, and the other in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we enter the structure of our governing bodies and lobby for our interests. I believe this last one is worrying the Bulgarian government and that is the reason for forbidding the existence of OMO Ilinden Pirin. We are now getting ready to celebrate our national holidays and our heroes in organized manner while in all our meetings we strongly obey with the principals of democracy, the human rights and the laws of the country we live in. However, this is in contrast to the thinking of the Bulgarian government because now it has no basis for legal action or to defend it's stand.

                          2. How will you describe the current resolutions of the Bulgarian high court to disallow the registration of yours and other Macedonian parties and organizations?

                          The Bulgarian court quickly showed us that it is highly political and on side with the domestic nationalistic intentions. The refusal to approve our application is not, and never was, based on legal basis. Our application it appears was looked at from the " how to refuse them " angle and not " if they are based on proper basis for registration ". That is wy the legal actions were either bent and twisted or outright wrong. We are judged because we are Macedonians and not that we broke any laws. If they use the same criterium agains the rest of the parties and organizations in the country, then the political and the civil life will colapse because there would be no proper registration for any party that the government has doomed as an illegal structure. I can not speak in the name of the rest of the Macedonian organizations in Bulgaria but we have always obeyed the laws of the country and our applications have been prepared and verified by very experienced lawyers from the Helsinki Committee in Bulgaria.

                          Even if legal reasons do not exist to constantly refuse our registration, there is the political reason motivated by the same nacionalistic Great-Bulgarian extremists. With the refusal of our registration, the politicians are succeeding in keeping us away from the polictical life and further away from the general population. In public we are never refered to as " non-registered " but as " forbiden ", with the intentions that the public becomes afraid of us. As a non-registered party, the government has cut us from our will for national action. Let me tell you that they are aware that in the end we will get our registration in international court, but the time is on their side because the procedure in the bulgarian courts will last up to 3-4 years and another 4-5 years in international courts. To us, it means 10 lost years, and that is big!

                          3. Bulgaria expects to enter the European Union, but it is obvious that they are predominantly occupied with great-Bulgarian nationalism. Is it possible that it will reflect on their integration in the new European political union?

                          We want very much for Bulgaria to enter the European Union and we support it fully. It is in our interest, because once we are in the European Union our fight for our rights will be easier to accomplish. But it is not a rumor that Bulgaria does not fulfill all the requirements. The European representatives have said the same and they advise that the country take the necessary steps towards fixing it. They basically look after the function of the judicial system which is now on a very low level. For example, for two years we have not received an answer from them on our registration. And here lies the fact that Bulgaria does not respect the multicultural rights, specifically the rights of the Macedonian minority. It may turn into a serious reason for Bulgaria not to be admitted in the European Union. In that respect we have already prepared declarations which we will send to all European embassies in Bulgaria.

                          4. You have earned a Masters in History with a diploma from the University of Skopje. In your opinion, what are the roots of the Bulgarian nationalism against Macedonia?

                          The root is in wanting "greatness" and in parallel there is their complex, the feel of lesser worth which is typical of a small country. This, at the same time, is a an obsession of historical matters and delusions. However, if the entire national ideology of Bulgaria is projected to the maximum, to include all of Macedonia as a territory, as a culture and as a history, the acknowledgment of the Macedonian identity will without doubt bring a psychological cataclysm in Bulgaria. This is explained by the fanatic fight against us which is based on ideological-psychological and not a practical base. Today, the politics for taking over Macedonia and creating a large Bulgaria has lost every basis and perspective. The unification of Europe, have made such aspirations an absurdity. However, the emotion is still stronger here than the reason.

                          To acknowledge that Macedonian nation, language and such exist, it is the same as Bulgaria to acknowledge that a large part of their own ideology is a lie. Here are the many Macedonians who as Bulgarians have earned big privileges and a high status in the government and the private sector. Their influence is huge. Simply, our existence threatens them and alleges that they are our expatriates, and not true Bulgarians, and that affects not only their peace of mind but also to some point their attained status. Even if we don't have any intentions or allegations, with respect to the rights of every man, they still can not come to peace with our national divide. This is not only a problem with politicians of Macedonian decent.

                          The belief that Macedonians are Bulgarians has become a dogmatic one, where the rejection has been expected as a slight against us. Without any doubt the policticians know of the existence of Macedonians in Bulgaria. However, if they admit to it publicly they will be labeled as traitors and bid goodbye to their political status, so they choose the easy way out - silence. So all polictical entities have become enslaved by the lies of their predecessors. Others, with a bit more consience, earn easy points by acting patriotriotic towards the macedonians. In such a condition the bulgarian political hiearchy is not able to free itself of the jaws of their own delusion. They need help from the outside. In that respect, we find ourselves to be the only true patriots in this country because we are fighting to free them from it's most terrible tyrany that has broght it so far with three political catastrophies.

                          However, when there is no need to look the truth in the eye, the only thing left to do is to negate it. The added reason to negate the existence of Macedonians is that until Bulgaria thrutfully acknowledges that we exist and then jointly with their laws and their signed international documents for man's rights they simply owe us to give us all the rights. That may bring unexpected results. That is why the only way to give us our rights is to insist and tell the world that we are not there.

                          5. Does the Blagoevgrad incident of September 12th talk about oppression that is strong in the part in the country where you live?

                          Your statement is quite true. However, it has to be said that the country becomes more and more sophisticated and finds new methods of repression. Under international pressure it will not dare to openly and directly go against us but they use different means. This was very well illustrated by the September 12th incident of this year. The members of the anti-Macedonian party, VMRO, were instrumental in it. They occupied the monument where we wanted to lay wreaths and the police could simply do nothing to allow us to use our normal democratic and citizen rights.

                          Thereafter, it will defend itself as always stating that we have revolted the local community and that it is for our good (they are acting this way) and to avoid direct contact, the city did not allow us to hold the public meeting and public address. However, that kind of danger did never exits. The local community did not react negatively against us, because first of all most of them do feel as Macedonians, and the rest know very well that the Macedonia minority in Bulgaria truly exists. Therefore, the belief of the local government is a lie unless they think that the "local population" are the 10-15 members of the local VMRO who are very close to the Bulgarian police.

                          The country uses the following strategy: Through imbedded people and provocation they raise the extremist thoughts in our Macedonian parties and organizations and they raise the insults and slurs. The extremist views give Bulgaria a lawful excuse for discrimination. From another point, that stand promotes us in the international level who are sympathetic to our organization.

                          In this situation when we do not have the power to lobby the local authority ourselves, and who does not show any indication that it will do so willingly, and when Republic of Macedonia publicly declared that it has no means to support us, the loss of support from the international union is equal to a political suicide. The extremists, who usually (but not accidentally) advertise the Bulgarian mediums all around, stack the odds against us so that they may come to the local thinking in Bulgaria in support of the politics of discrimination against the Macedonians. They often portray us as "anti-country" and "anti-Bulgarian" factor. Our party has not fallen for this provocation, however, it is unfortunate that not all Macedonian organizations here have avoided the entrapment of this smart Bulgarian plot.

                          6. If these tendencies do continue, what are the plans of the Macedonian organizations and parties to bring this to the international community for people's rights?

                          These tendencies will most likely continue. For us, there is no denial around this question. Very often we were sure that within the country's ranks there is no good-will for the resolution of the Macedonian problems in Bulgaria. The only light in the tunnel is the offer from the higher international sector. Luckily for us the rights of the people and of the minorities is an international norm and it is a basic principal in the European Union. Bulgaria, who wants to become part of Europe and also from the international community will simply have to learn to respect and allow the Macedonians their rights. We will do all that is necessary to point the attention of the international medium to our problem and we will not allow the Bulgarian government to ignore and avoid us.
                          "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                          GOTSE DELCEV

                          Comment

                          • George S.
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2009
                            • 10116

                            The British Foreign Office
                            and Macedonian National Identity - 1918-1941

                            by Andrew Rossos

                            Slavic Review, vol. 53, number 2, Summer 1994

                            click here for a printer-friendly version

                            The study of the Macedonian identity has given rise to far greater controversies and debates than that of most, if not all, other nationilisms in eastern Europe. This has been only in part due to the hazy past of the Slavic speaking population of Macedonia and to the lack of a continuous and separate state tradition, a trait they had in common with other "small" and "young," or so-called "non-historic," peoples in the area. Controversy has been due above all to the fact that, although it began in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Macedonian nationalism did not enjoy international acceptance or legitimacy until the Second World War, much later than was the case with other similar national movements in eastern Europe.[1] Recent research has shown that Macedonian nationalism developed, generally speaking, similarly to that of neighboring Balkan peoples, and, in most respects, of other "small" and "young" peoples of eastern, as well as some of western, Europe.

                            But Macedonian nationalism was belated, grew slowly and, at times, manifested confusing tendencies and orientations that were, for the most part, consequences of its protracted illegitimate status.[2]

                            For a half century Macedonian nationalism existed illegally. It was recognized neither by the theocratic Ottoman state nor by the two established Orthodox churches in the empire: the Patriarchist (Greek) and, after its establishment in 1870, the Exarchist (Bulgarian). Moreover neighboring Balkan nationalists-Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian-who had already achieved independence with the aid of one or more of the Great Powers, chose to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian identity; indeed they claimed Macedonia and the Macedonians as their own. They fought for Macedonia with propaganda and force, against each other and the nascent Macedonian nationalists. A prolonged struggle culminated in 1913 with the forceful partition of Macedonia after the Second Balkan or Inter-Allied War between Bulgaria, on one side, and allied Greece and Serbia, on the other.[3] Each of these three states consolidated their control over their respective parts of Macedonia, and throughout the inter-war years inaugurated and implemented policies intended to destroy any manifestations of Macedonian nationalism, patriotism or particularism- Consequently, until World War II, unlike the other nationalisms in the Balkans or in eastern Europe more generally, Macedonian nationalism developed with-out the aid of legal political, church, educational or cultural institutions. Macedonian movements not only lacked any legal infrastructure, they also were without the international sympathy, cultural aid and, most importantly, benefits of open and direct diplomatic and military support accorded other Balkan nationalisms.[4] Indeed, for an entire century Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire before 1913 but in actual fact, both before and after that date, against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the Great Powers.[5]

                            The denial of a Macedonian identity by the neighboring Balkan states, and their irreconcilably contradictory claims, motives, justifications and rationalizations, are mirrored by the largely polemical and tendentious Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian literature on the Macedonian question.[6] But the attitudes of the individual Great Powers and the thinking, motivations and internal foreign policy establishments have not yet been studied. In this article I will focus on the British Foreign Office and its attitude toward the Macedonian question during the inter-war years. The British Foreign Office provides a case study because Great Britain played a leading role in the area after the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano; during the inter-war years respect for national self-determination and for the rights of national minorities was, at least in theory and in official policy, the accepted and prevailing norm.

                            For the Macedonians the inter-war period was conditioned by the Balkan wars and the partition of their land. The peace conferences and treaties which ended the Great War, represented for many "small" and "young" nations of eastern Europe the realization of dreams of self-determination. But with some minor territorial modifications at the expense of Bulgaria, these treaties confirmed the partition of Macedonia agreed upon in the Treaty of Bucharest. For the victorious allies, especially Great Britain and France, this meant putting the Macedonian problem finally to rest. It also meant that the allies could satisfy two of their clients which were pillars of the new order in south-eastern Europe: the Kingdom of Greece and the former Kingdom of Serbia, now the dominant component in the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia. Even though their territorial acquisitions in Macedonia did not necessarily satisfy their max-imal aspirations, official Athens and Belgrade also pretended that Macedonia and the Macedonian problem had ceased to exist. Belgrade proclaimed Vardar Macedonia to be Old Serbia and the Macedonians Old Serbians; for Athens, Aegean Macedonia became simply northern Greece and the Slavic speaking Macedonians were considered Greeks or, at best, "Slavophone" Greeks. Although Bulgaria had enjoyed the greatest influence among the Macedonians, because of its defeat in the Inter-Allied and the Great Wars, it was accorded the smallest part, Pirin Macedonia, or the Petrich district, as it became known during the inter-war years. Unlike official Athens and Belgrade, the ruling elite in Sofia did not consider the settlement permanent; but without sympathy among the victorious Great Powers and threatened by revolutionary turmoil at home, they had to accept the settlement for the time being. In any event, the Macedonian question was not a priority for the Agrarian government of A. Stamboliski.[7] Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria all sought to destroy all signs of Macedonianism through forced deportation, so-called voluntary exchanges of populations and internal transfers of the Macedonian populations. They also implemented policies of colonization, social and economic discrimination, and forced denationalization and assimilation based on total control of the edu-cational systems and of cultural and intellectual life as a whole.

                            These policies were particularly pursued with great determination in Yugoslavia and Greece. Though he approved of these policies, C. L. Blakeney, British Vice-Consul at Belgrade, wrote in1930:

                            It is very well for the outsider to say that the only way the Serb could achieve this [control of Vardar Macedonia] was by terrorism and the free and general use of the big stick. This may be true, as a matter of fact one could say that it is true ...On the other hand, however, it must be admitted that the Serb had no other choice ... He had not only to deal with the brigands but also with a population who regarded him as an invader and unwelcome foreigner and from whom he had and could expect no assistance.[8]

                            Ten years later, on the eve of Yugoslavia's collapse during the Second World War, it was obvious that the Serbian policies in Macedonia had failed. R.I. Campbell, British minister at Belgrade, now denounced them to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary:

                            Since the occupation by Serbia in 1913 of the Macedonian districts, the Government has carried out in this area, with greater or lesser severity, a policy of suppression and assimilation. In the years following the Great War land was taken away from the inhabitants and given to Serbian colonists. Macedonians were compelled to change their names and the Government did little or nothing to assist the economic development of the country...[9]

                            Athens was even more extreme than Belgrade: under the guise of "voluntary" emigration they sought to expel the entire Macedonian population. Colonel A.C. Corfe, chairman of the League of Nations Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration, reported in 1923: "In the course of conversation, Mr. Lambros [Governor General of Macedonia], actually said that the present was a good opportunity to get rid of the Bulgars [sic] who remained in this area and who had always been a source of trouble for Greece." [10] This could be achieved at least superficially: Athens made a concerted effort to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme and tragic dimensions during the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the privacy of the home to a people who knew Greek scarcely or not at all, and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but their own. [11] In 1944 Captain P.H. Evans, an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spent eight months in western Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) and station commander, condemned the Greek policies in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He described the attitude "even of educated GREEKS towards the SLAV minority" as "usually stupid, uninformed and brutal to a degree that makes one despair of any understanding ever being created between the two people." However, he also left no doubt that the Greek government's policies had failed:

                            It is predominantly a SLAV region not a GREEK one. The language of the home, and usually also of the fields, the village Street, and the market is MACEDONIAN, a SLAV language... The place names as given on the map are GREEK...; but the names which are mostly used - - - are - - - all Slav names. The GREEK ones are merely a bit of varnish put on by Metaxas... GREEK is regarded as almost a foreign language and the GREEKS are distrusted as something alien, even if not, in the full sense of the word, as foreigners. The obvious fact, almost too obvious to be stated, that the region is SLAV by nature and not GREEK cannot be overemphasized.[12]

                            Revisionist Bulgaria, where major trends in Macedonian nationalism were well entrenched in Pirin Macedonia and among the large Macedonian emigration to its capital, assumed a more ambiguous position. Sofia continued its traditional attitude towards all Macedonians, acting as their patron but claiming them to be Bulgarians. To a certain extent it left the Macedonians to do what they wanted; unlike Athens and Belgrade, it tolerated, or felt compelled to tolerate, the free use of the name "Macedonia" and an active Macedonian political and cultural life.[13] In its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, the British Legation at Sofia referred to the Pirin region as "the autonomous kingdom of Macedonia" and stressed that "Bulgarian sovereignty over the district - - - is purely nominal and, such as it is, is resented by the irredentist Macedonian element no less strongly than is that of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Government over the adjacent area within their frontier." [14] Indeed, it could be argued that, after the overthrow of the Stamboliski regime in June 1921, Sofia not only encouraged Macedonian discontent in all three countries but also sought to take advantage of it to further its own revisionist aims.[15] Bulgaria's revisionism split the ranks of the partitioning powers and was of great significance for the future of Macedonian nationalism. For no matter how much Greece and Yugoslavia, and their patrons among the Great Powers, especially Great Britain, pretended officially that the Macedonian question had been resolved, Bulgarian policies helped to keep it alive. [16]

                            More importantly still, the Macedonians, both in the large emigration in Bulgaria and at home, rejected the partition of their land and the settlement based upon it. As the British Legation at Sofia warned: "the Governments of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, if not that of Greece, are faced with practically an identical problem in the pacification and control of a district overlapping both the frontiers inhabited by a population hostile to both Governments for different reasons and determined on strengthening the hands of the opposition parties in each country."[17] Disturbing to London were calls for open resistance to foreign rule. Early in 1922 W.A.F. Erskine, the minister in Sofia, drew Lord Curzon's attention to an anonymous article in the newspaper Makedonija, purportedly from a Macedonian professor at the University of Sofia, which exhorted the Macedonians to follow the example of the Irish, who after a bitter struggle lasting through centuries, have succeeded in gaining their autonomy. "Their country is today free. Ours, too, will be free if we remain faithful to our own traditions of struggle and if we take as our example the lives of people, who, like the Irish, have "never despaired of the force of right." [18]

                            To be sure, organized Macedonian activity in Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, which had declined after the bloody suppression of the Ilinden uprising of 1903 and the repeated partitions of 1912-1918, came to a virtual standstill immediately after World War I. Virtually the entire Exarchist educated elite, most Macedonian activists from Aegean Macedonia and large numbers from Vardar Macedonia had been forced to emigrate and now sought refuge in Bulgaria.[19] Furthermore, the remaining Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia, overwhelmingly rural and lacking an educated elite, found itself after the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) a minority in its own land as a result of the Greek government's settlement there of large numbers of Greek and other Christian refugees from Asia Minor.[20] The situation among the Macedonians in Bulgaria was only slightly more encouraging: while there were large concentrations of Exarchist educated Macedonians and Macedonian activists both in the Pirin region and in Sofia, there were deep divisions within each group. Demoralization had set in and a long process of regrouping ensued among the Macedonians there.[21]

                            Nonetheless, opposition to foreign rule existed in all three parts of Macedonia from its imposition and systematic anti-Macedonian policies only intensified it. That this discontent was considerable was clearly evident in the support given to the terrorist activities of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in the 1920s. A popular revolutionary movement in the early twentieth century, by the mid-1920s IMRO had emerged as a terrorist organization. It virtually ruled Pirin Macedonia and was a state within the state of Bulgaria, pursuing its own self-saving ends by relying on Bulgarian reaction and Italian fascism, and allowing itself to be used by both. However, officially and very conspicuously-it promulgated the aims and the slogans of the older movement: "united autonomous or independent Macedonia" and "Macedonia for the Macedonians." IMRO conducted repeated, so-called "Komitaji," armed raids and incursions into Vardar and, to a lesser extent, into Aegean Macedonia until the military coup in Sofia of May 1934 when the new regime liquidated the organization. More than anything else, it succeeded in maintaining the Macedonian question on the international scene and, as champion of Macedonia and the Macedonians, it continued to enjoy considerable support throughout most of the 1920s.[22]

                            Widespread opposition to foreign rule is also demonstrated by the results of the first post-war elections held in Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the freest to be held during the inter-war years.

                            Significant support in all three parts of Macedonia went to the newly formed communist parties, which also rejected the status quo and declared themselves champions of Macedonia and the Macedonians.[23] As Erskine reported from Sofia: "The program of the Communists, therefore, at the instigation of Moscow, was modified to a form of cooperation with the Macedonian revolutionaries - - - to stir up trouble generally - - - and to pave the way for a revolution by creating disorder."[24] Commenting on the election in Yugoslavia, the British minister at Sofia, R. Peel, stressed that although Serbian troops had resorted to the worst excesses in order to terrorize the inhabitants into voting for government lists, "...a large proportion of communist deputies were returned from Macedonia."[25] Clearly, the communist vote was, in effect, a Macedonian protest against foreign rule.[26] This cooperation between communists and Macedonians, dating from the end of World War I, intensified in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Balkan communist parties, after long and heated debates, officially recognized Macedonia as a distinct Slav nation with its own language, history and territory. The Comintern followed suit in 1934 and thus supplied the first formal international recognition of Macedonian nationalism.[27]

                            Both rightist and leftist activities-the renewal of terrorism by IMRO, led by I. Mihailov, and the association of Macedonian nationalism with international communism-led to a revival of the Macedonian question as the central issue dividing the Balkan states and hence as the major cause of instability in southeastern Europe. These activities not only represented rejections of the territorial and political terms agreed to at the Paris Peace Conference, but also were serious challenges to Great Britain, one of the architects of the treaty and its main defender throughout the inter-war years.

                            For some time following World War I, London refused to consider the unrest in Macedonia and, hence, the revival of the Macedonian question. A lengthy memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," prepared by the Central Department of the Foreign Office in 1925, maintained that "While amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs - - - do not care to what nationality they belong."[28] DJ. Footman, the vice consul at Skopje, echoed a similar sentiment when he wrote, "I believe that 80 percent of the population merely desire a firm, just and enlightened Administration, and regard Nationalism as of minor importance." [29] If there was a problem, the explanation for it could be found in Bulgaria: London blamed Sofia not only for tolerating, but for encouraging and sponsoring an organized Macedonian movement, revolutionary organizations and armed bands on its own territory.[30] A more sophisticated explanation for the unrest could be based on a combination of social, economic and especially administrative causes: reports from the Balkans pointed to the economic backwardness of Macedonia and to the exacerbation of its economic woes by the partition, which had destroyed traditional trade routes and markets. They further stressed the lack of government reforms and constructive policies to alleviate the prevailing condition: communications remained as primitive or non-existent as they had been before the Great War, and towns such as Bitola, Skopje and Ohrid were in a state of general decline. The peasantry appeared to be slightly better off, but "this was less the result of agrarian reform or of the government colonization policy than of the energy and initiative shown by the peasantry, who have, in many cases, bought land either individually or in corporations, from Turks or Albanians who have emigrated to Anatolia."[31] "Such discontent as exists springs from genuine economic distress," wrote O.C. Harvey of the Foreign Office after a visit to Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia in April 1926: "Although the peasants are said to be doing well, the towns are dying from lack of trade. And wherever else the Serb is spending his money, he does not seem to be spending it in Macedonia. Yet this country is perhaps really the biggest problem for the Serbs." [32] Or, as R.A. Gallop, third secretary in the legation in Belgrade, put it: "What discontent there is comes from economic causes and the Government must seek palliatives. This of course will take time and cost money, but to my mind the key to the Macedonian question is now this: a prosperous Macedonia will be a contented one." [33]

                            But most reports to London singled out the administration as the root cause for discontent in Macedonia. The new rulers had forced on the Macedonians their own, that is foreign, administrative and legal codes ''without regard to local conditions or requirements." Their manner of administration was considered even worse:[34] it was described as invariably harsh, brutal, arbitrary and totally corrupt. As Colonel Corfe wrote: "One of the Macedonian's chief grievances is against the Greek Gendarmerie and during our tour we saw many examples of the arrogant and unsatisfactory methods of the Gendarmerie, who comandeer from the peasants whatever food they want...One visits few villages where some of the inhabitants are not in Greek prisons, without trial..."[35] DJ. Footman described the Serbian officials in Vardar Macedonia as poorly qualified, underpaid, arbitrary and corrupt. "Officials depend for their promotions and appointment on the service they can render their political party... ," he wrote. "It is therefore only natural for them to make what they can while they are in office. I regard this as the factor which will most militate against improvement in administration."[36] And, after a twelve-day motor tour in the same part of Macedonia, Major W.H. Oxley, the military attaché at Belgrade, reported: To start with they [the Prefects] have practically unlimited power over the local inhabitants and ... I gathered that they must exercise a pretty firm control. Further, we were informed that on the whole they were corrupt and were liable to use their power either to blackmail their flock or to accept bribes from over the frontiers, in order to allow terrorists to pass through their areas...[37]

                            The Central Department of the Foreign Office admitted all this and more. Its lengthy review of 1930 of the Macedonian question stated: At present Jugoslavia lacks the material out of which to create an efficient and honest civil service. This want is especially felt in the new and "foreign" provinces such as Serb-Macedonia. To make matters worse, the Jugoslav Government,... are compelled to pursue a policy of forcible assimilation, and, in order to "Serbise" the Slavs of Serb-Macedonia, must necessarily tend to disregard those grievances of the local inhabitants which spring from the violation of their local rights and customs.[38]

                            Although this authoritative statement of the Foreign Office acknowledged the existence and the seriousness of the Macedonian problem, the underlying assumption was that, once the economic and administrative causes for grievance were allayed, it would be finally resolved. But while the Foreign Office endeavored to avoid dealing with the national dimension and implications of the problem until as late as 1930, by the mid-1920s its position was already being questioned and challenged by Foreign Office officials in the Balkans, and was becoming untenable. It was difficult to reconcile the use of three different terms-Slavophone Greeks, Old Serbians and Bulgarians-when referring to a people who called themselves Makedonci and spoke Macedonian or dialects of it.[39] The British could maintain their position only as long as relations between Athens and Belgrade remained friendly; and a crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations in the mid-1920s provoked a heated debate over the national identity of the Macedonians -Although unwillingly, the Foreign Office was also drawn into this debate and was forced to consider: "Who are the Macedonian Slavs?"

                            Ironically, the crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations was sparked by the conclusion of the abortive Greek-Bulgarian Minorities Protocol of 1924, which "connoted the recognition on the part of Greece that the Slavophone inhabitants of Greek Macedonia were of Bulgarian race."[40] This infuriated the Serbs and the Belgrade government broke off its alliance with Greece on 7 November 1924; [41] it also launched a press and a diplomatic campaign that Greece protect the rights of what it called the "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia.[42] The Yugoslav government clamored for a special agreement with Greece similar to the abortive protocol between Bulgaria and Greece. "The object of this move is quite patent," wrote C.H. Bateman of the Foreign Office. "All that the Serbs want is that the Greeks should recognize a Serbian minority in Greek Macedonia in the same way as they recognized a Bulgarian minority in l924."[43] In the end, even though Greece did not sign such an agreement with Yugoslavia, relations between these two countries returned to normal; but the debate concerning the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs that this crisis had instigated in the Foreign Office continued well into the 1930s.

                            The debate was not entirely new or confined to Britain. The national identity of the Macedonians had sparked continuous and heated controversies before the Balkan Wars and the First World War. However, the debate assumed far greater relevance and urgency after the peace settlement because all democratic governments had embraced the principle of national self-determination. This principle was supposedly the basis for the entire settlement in east central Europe; and it supposedly bound all overnments of the "New Europe" to respect the national rights of those national minorities who for one reason or another could not exercise their right to national self-determination. Hence, to a certain extent the fate of the peace settlement in this part of Europe hinged on this principle and it was thus of particular interest to Great Britain, perhaps its chief architect and defender.

                            Even before the Greek-Serbian dispute London had received reports that the causes for the revival of the Macedonian problem were not solely economic or administrative, but rather that they were primarily ethnic or national. While noting in its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, that "the province known as Macedonia has, of course, no integral existence," the Chancery of the British Legation at Sofia had emphasized that as an entity it still existed "in the aspirations of men of Macedonian birth or origin scattered under the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria." It also had added that Macedonia has "clearly defined geographical boundaries."[44] Colonel Corfe had written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing to say in their presence:

                            But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling us 'damned Bulgars"' ... To my question "What do you want? An autonomous Macedonia or a Macedonia under Bulgaria?" the answer was generally the same: "We want good administration. We are Macedonians, not Greeks or Bulgars...We want to be left in peace."[45]

                            The Greek-Serbian crisis, however, forced the Foreign Office to concentrate its attention, as never before, on the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs and, indeed, on the question: who are the Macedonians? On 30 June 1925, DJ. Footman, the British vice consul at Skopje, the administrative center of Vardar Macedonia, addressed this issue in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He wrote that "the majority of the inhabitants of Southern Serbia are Orthodox Christian Macedonians, ethnologically slightly nearer to the Bulgar than to the Serb.." He acknowledged that the Macedonians were better disposed toward Bulgaria than Serbia because, as he had pointed out: the Macedonians were "ethnologically" more akin to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs; because Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia in the time of the Turks, largely carried on through the schools, was widespread and effective; and because Macedonians at the time perceived Bulgarian culture and prestige to be higher than those of its neighbors. Moreover, large numbers of Macedonians educated in Bulgarian schools had sought refuge in Bulgaria before and especially after the partitions of 1913. "There is therefore now a large Macedonian element in Bulgaria," continued Footman, "represented in all Government Departments and occupying high positions in the army and in the civil service...." He characterized this element as "Serbophobe, [it] mostly desires the incorporation of Macedonia in Bulgaria, and generally supports the Makedonska Revolucionara [sic] Organizacija [the IMRO]." However, he also pointed to the existence of the tendency to seek an independent Macedonia with Salonica as its capital. "This movement also had adherents among the Macedonian colony in Bulgaria. It is supported by the parties of the Left in Bulgaria, and, at least theoretically, by large numbers of Macedonians."[46]

                            The Central Department of the Foreign Office went even further in clarifying the separate identity of the Macedonians. In a confidential survey and analysis of the entire Macedonian problem it identified the Macedonians not as Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, but rather as Macedonian Slavs, and, on the basis of "a fairly reliable estimate made in 1912," singled them out as by far the largest single ethnic group in Macedonia.[47] It acknowledged, as did Footman, that these Slavs spoke a language "understood by both Serbs and Bulgars, but slightly more akin to the Bulgarian tongue than to the Serbian"; and that after the 1870 establishment of the Exarchate, Bulgarian propaganda made greater inroads in Macedonia than the Serbian or Greek. However, it stressed that "While it is probable that the majority of these Slavs are, or were, pro-Bulgar, it is incorrect to refer to them as other than Macedo-Slavs. To this extent both the Serb claim that they are Southern Serbs and the Bulgarian claim that they are Bulgarians are unjustified."[48]

                            By declaring that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Bulgarians nor Serbs, the survey acknowledged implicitly that they were different from both and hence that they constituted a separate south Slav element. However, it did not go so far as to recognize them explicitly as a distinct nationality or nation. It sought to explain this omission by maintaining, without convincing evidence, that "while amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs... do not care to what nationality they belong."[49] The real reason for the omission, however, lay elsewhere. In view of the prevailing acceptance of the principle of national self-determination, the recognition of the Slav Macedonians as a distinct nationality would have legitimized the Macedonian claims for autonomy or at least for national minority rights. This would have connoted the tearing up or at least the revision of the peace treaties and of the frontiers, neither of which was acceptable to Britain's clients, Greece and Yugoslavia, or indeed, to Great Britain itself. "In all the circumstances the present partition of Macedonia is probably as good a practical arrangement as can be devised," declared the Central Department, "and there is no real reason or consideration of political expediency which could be quoted to necessitate a rearrangement of the present frontiers."[50]

                            Indeed, the Foreign Office was contemplating a different and, as it turned out, an illusory solution to the Macedonian problem. It accepted as valid the official Greek determination of the low number of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia and assumed that with time they would be assimilated.[51] It also assumed that with time the Yugoslav hold on Vardar Macedonia would become more secure, that this would be followed "as a natural consequence" by the "rounding up of Macedonian agents," and that the Macedonian organization operating from Bulgaria would "suffer correspondingly through the lack of funds and general support forthcoming from that district...." And, as organized Macedonian activity declined, the prospect of more cordiality between Bulgaria and the Serb-Slovene-Croat kingdom will become brighter, and pro tonto, the idea of Serb-Bulgar Slav confederacy will become more feasible. The formation of such a Slav State in the Balkans will settle the Macedonian question once and for all. Other considerations arising out of the formation of such a confederacy must be reserved for the future. [52]

                            A few months later, on 3 March 1926; C.H. Bateman, a second secretary in the Foreign Office, issued the official position in a separate "Memorandum on 'Serbian Minorities' in Greek Macedonia."

                            In this strong statement he reiterated the main points of the Central Department's memorandum of 26 November 1925: "Most authorities are agreed that by all ethnological and language tests the Macedonian Slav is more akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." Again, without substantiation, he declared that the deciding factor in the national allegiance of the Macedonian Slavs "is the national consciousness of the individual who changes his allegiance according to circumstances... His national allegiance is largely a matter of the propaganda which is exercised upon him...,"[53] in effect, under the influence of propaganda, Bulgarian, Greek or Serbian, the Macedonian Slav would become a loyal Bulgarian, Greek or Serb. Bateman therefore sided with the Greeks in the Greek-Serbian dispute: "Taking the broadest interpretation of the Macedonian Slavs, one thing is certain, namely, that the Serbs have only the flimsiest of rights to intervene at all on their behalf. The Greeks are correct in contesting this right and contending that it is a matter that touches the internal administration of Greece."[54] If, as it appears, Bateman's aim was to put an end to the Foreign Office debate concerning the Macedonian national question, he failed. Although the Greek-Serbian dispute came to nothing, this debate intensified. R.A. Gallop, third secretary of the Legation at Belgrade, spent a week in April 1926 in Vardar Macedonia; his report after the tour is most revealing:

                            The most striking thing to one familiar with North Serbia [Serbia proper], who has been accustomed to hear Macedonia described as Southern Serbia and its inhabitants as Serbs, was the complete difference of atmosphere which was noticeable almost as soon as we had crossed the pre-1913 frontier some miles south of Vranje. One felt as though one had entered a foreign country. Officials and officers from North Serbia seemed to feel this too, and I noticed especially in the cafes and hotels of Skopje that they formed groups by themselves and mixed little with the Macedo-Slavs. Those of the latter that I met were equally insistent on calling themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians.... There seemed to be no love lost for the Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their friends...[55]

                            Moreover, in his response to Bateman's memorandum, Gallop defined more clearly than ever before the central issue in the Greek-Serbian dispute. He reminded Bateman that the Serbian claim is founded not on the contention that among the Slavs of Greek Macedonia there are some that can be picked as Serbs, but on the contention that the population is of exactly the same stock on both sides of the border. The Serbs see that to admit that the Macedonians in Greece are Bulgars weakens their case that the Macedonians in South Serbia are Serbs. While he agreed with Bateman "that the Macedonian Slavs used, before the days of propaganda, to call themselves 'Christians' rather than Serbs or Bulgars," Gallop did not agree "that the Macedonian Slavs are nearer akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." In any case, he questioned the impartiality of so-called "authorities" and emphasized the actual reality that "nowadays" the Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves "Makedonci." [56]

                            Oliver C. Harvey of the Foreign Office, who visited both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, reinforced Gallop's views. Indeed, in his "Notes" on the fact-finding mission he left no doubt about the existence of a distinct Macedonian consciousness and identity. In connection with Vardar Macedonia he reported that "The Slavophone population of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say they are 'Macedonians,' and they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identify themselves with the Bulgars, although the latter seem undoubtedly to be regarded as nearer relatives than the Serbs."[57] As far as Aegean Macedonia was concerned, Harvey noted that in its eastern and central part "the Slavophone population had 'voluntarily' emigrated and their place had been taken by 500,000 Greek refugees" from Asia Minor. "'Voluntary' emigration," he observed, "is a euphemism; incoming Greeks were planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate." Such upheaval did not take place in its western part and large numbers of Slavophones remained there, in the area around and south of Florina (Lerin). "These of course constitute the much advertised "Serb minority," he continued. "But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they speak Macedonian, and call themselves Macedonians and sentimentally look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."[58]

                            Through this internal debate, the Foreign Office appeared to have reached a virtual consensus that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Serbs, nor Bulgarians nor Greeks, a de facto acknowledgment that they comprised a separate southern Slav national group. But they were not given official recognition as a distinct nationality or nation; as I have already shown, the Foreign Office hoped to see the Macedonian problem disappear by their eventual assimilation into the three nations that ruled over them. In the meantime, during the second half of the 1920s and until its dissolution in 1934, the IMRO intensified its activities in Bulgaria and armed incursions into Vardar Macedonia, thereby reminding London of the Macedonian national question.

                            Unlike in Greece and Yugoslavia, in Bulgaria the various aspects of the Macedonian problem were generally argued freely and publicly. This was only partly due to the traditional Bulgarian paternalism toward the Macedonians; it also reflected the strength and influence of the organized Macedonian movement in the Pirin region, in Sofia and in other major urban centers. Consequently, British diplomats there were more deeply and broadly versed in all the intricacies of the Macedonian problem than their counterparts in Athens and Belgrade, and they were more apt to search for alternative solutions.

                            ` Early in 1928 Charles ES. Dodd, the charge d'affaires at Sofia, assured the Foreign Office that the IMRO "would at once desist from its sinister activities" "if the Jugoslav Government would grant educational and religious autonomy to Macedonia." To DJ. Footman, whose reaction from Skopje had been sought by the Foreign Office, this read "like pious hope" rather than "a practical proposition." He did not reject the idea in principle; indeed, he even used the terms "nationality" and "national minority" when referring to the Macedonians, and argued that if such autonomy had been introduced immediately after the war "the results would no doubt have been beneficial." Now, however, "it would not suffice to wipe out the bitterness felt against the Serbs"; it would no longer satisfy the entire Macedonian movement. Instead, he warned, Macedonian activists would interpret it "as a confession of failure and a sign of weakness on the part of Serbs, to be exploited to the utmost possible extent." He considered (and the future proved him right) that "the best chance for real progress in Macedonia" was "the removal of the Serb predominance in the Jugoslav state."[59] The Foreign Office dismissed Dodd's suggestion and showed little appreciation of Footman's pessimistic, but rather sensitive and measured analysis of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia. "It is quite clear, however," wrote Orme Sargent, a counselor and a future assistant under secretary of state, "that it would be impossible to expect the Jugoslav Government to adopt measures which would recognize the population of Southern Serbia as a political minority." Inasmuch as he had convinced himself that the discontent in Macedonia was "due to economic and administrative conditions rather than psychological or racial issues," he endorsed instead a proposal made by H.W. Kennard, the minister at Belgrade, to grant financial loans to Yugoslavia to improve internal conditions "in Southern Serbia and thus help to lessen the present sullen discontent of the population." Most important, such expenditure, Sargent concluded, would not have the appearance of being extorted from the Jugoslav Government at the point of the Macedonian bayonet, nor would it commit the Jugoslavs in any way to a recognition of the claim of a separate Macedonian nationality. Reforms on these lines could therefore be carried out at any time without loss of face by the Jugoslav Government. [60]

                            Obviously Sargent was concerned with the sensitivities and interests of the Yugoslav government and not with the demands of the Macedonians and consciously sought to minimize "the psychological and racial issues" as the basis of Macedonian discontent. This did not go unnoticed at the British Legation at Sofia: in a rather blunt and less than diplomatic manner, R.A.C. Sperling, the new minister at Sofia, accused the "Powers," meaning, of course, primarily his own government and that of France, of always unfairly taking the side of Yugoslavia against Bulgaria and the Macedonians. Or as he put it, "Jugoslavia continues flagrantly to violate the provisions of the Minorities Treaty of 1919. The Powers as well as the League of Nations accept any quibble advanced by the Jugoslav Government as a pretext for not raising the question of the Macedonian minority."[61]

                            The exchange of views provoked by Sperling's "outburst," as O. Sargent called it, is most revealing about the Foreign Office's thinking on the Macedonian national question. Howard Kennard, Sperling's counterpart at Belgrade, was so taken aback by it that he did not wish to comment on it officially. In a letter to 0. Sargent, however, he expressed his "private regrets that Sperling cannot understand that it is not a question of taking sides one way or the other, but of assisting in preserving the peace in the Balkans, which is, after all, our only political raison d'etre here."[62] C.H. Bateman accused Sperling of holding general views "that are not only erroneous but certainly dangerous ...His Majesty's Government has long since decided that what are nebulously called Macedonian aspirations are impossible of realization, and that to give way to Macedonian agitation would be the best way to create upheaval in the Balkans." [63] Sargent felt that Sperling's "outburst" ought not to go unnoticed; but instead of an official reprimand he proposed to send him a private letter.[64] This was approved by R.G. Vansittart, private secretary to the Prime Minister and assistant under secretary of state in the Foreign Office, who added that "the next time this sort of thing happens, he [Sperling] should have it officially."[65] Sargent's lengthy private letter was polite, but direct. He pointed out that Serbia was the signatory "of one minorities treaty," that signed at St. Germain on 20 September 1919. "In your dispatch you make mention of a Macedonian minority. But what is this minority?" he asked. "You will find no mention of it in the Jugoslav Minorities Treaty... He also reiterated the well known view of the Foreign Office that the grievances which "the population of Southern Serbia complain of are common to all and are due to the general low level of administrative ability among the local officials and not to the intentional ill treatment of any particular race, sect or language." Finally, he rejected Sperling's suggestion that some satisfaction of the "Macedonian national aspirations" might lead to a solution of the Macedonian problem. "What are we to understand by such aspirations?" asked Sargent. "If Macedonian autonomy is what is aimed at it can be said at once that it is impossible of realisation." To aim at it would be to play into the hands of Italy and other revisionist elements, and Britain was determined "to stick strenuously to the peace terms."[66]

                            Sperling was not deterred by the hostile reaction of his superiors. He responded to Sargent with a lengthy letter of his own in which he reduced the Macedonian problem to its bare essentials by asking bluntly two questions: "a, Is there such a thing as a Macedonian minority?" and "b, If there is, is it ill treated by the Serbs?" He then went on to answer them. "Sounds superfluous," he wrote, "but you ask 'What is the Macedonian minority?' I can hardly believe you want me to quote all the authorities from the year one to show you that there is such a thing as a Macedonian." He referred him specifically to the earlier reports by Gallop, Harvey and Footman, and stressed that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia called themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonians. With regard to the second question, Sperling argued that it made no difference to the Macedonians "whether these things were due, as you say, to the general low level of Serbian administrative ability or to the intentional ill treatment of a particular race. ... The fact remains that their charges stand..."[67]

                            London was not prepared to listen and, indeed, wished to put an end to the expression of views that seemed to run counter to the main tenets of Britain's policies in southeastern Europe. C.H. Bateman suggested to Sargent that "a short reply would be sufficient to point to the confusion of thought which appears to exist at our legation at Sofia on this Macedonian question."[68] Otherwise, his comments, which were drafted by Sargent into a letter to Sperling, reveal a characteristic British slighting of nationalism and national movements among the so-called "small" and "young" peoples in eastern Europe. He argued that just because the Slavs of Macedonia called themselves Macedonians, "there was no reason why We or you should consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory... which has not for a thousand years been an autonomous entity in any sense..."[69] However, he could not come up with another, more acceptable name for them, except perhaps "Macedo-Slavs," which was in effect the same thing.[70]

                            Such intervention and argumeilts do not seem to have been sufficient to silence the legation at Sofia. At any rate, R.A.C. Sperling left Sofia shortly after,[71] and his successor-, Sidney P.P. Waterlow, held views on the Macedonian problem that were, if anything, even more revisionist. He expressed them most cogently in a long, thoughtful and courteous letter to R.G. Vansittart,[72] who had in the meantime become permanent under secretary of state for foreign affairs. He did not believe, as the Foreign Office did, that the Macedonian problem would simply disappear when the militant revolutionaries had been destroyed in Bulgaria and when Yugoslavia had provided the Macedonians with good administration and a civilized minority regime. Unlike Nevile Henderson, Kennard's successor as minister at Belgrade, he could not see how any amount of good administration, even if it would improve the atmosphere and facilitate the suppression of the IMRO, could be an ultimate solution. He argued that only genuine home rule-freedom to manage local affairs, churches, schools, etc.-could do that, but even here he had doubts. In any case, he seemed convinced that Belgrade was not capable of giving its Macedonian subjects anything like real local autonomy or, at least, not so long as the Macedonians considered themselves Macedonian.

                            It is this that dictates the present policy of intense Serbification. But it is this that makes it impossible to introduce a genuine minority regime until there is no minority to give the regime to, and it is just this that Bulgaria, with her Macedonian exiles (the most stubborn and intelligent people in the Balkans) and her indigenous Macedonian population, can never wholeheartedly accept ...[73]

                            Thus, even if the revolutionaries were destroyed and Serbian Macedonia was ruled with "kindly wisdom," the Macedonian question would most likely remain unresolved, an apple of discord, a stumbling block to stability in the Balkans, etc. In Waterlow's search for a solution "that might bring real peace at long last," he seriously considered the idea, which seemed entirely logical to him but at the same time not altogether practical from the perspective of British foreign policy, of an autonomous united Macedonia. "I do not share the view of the department that Macedonia never having been a geographical or racial entity, the idea [an autonomous united Macedonia] is inherently absurd;" he wrote, "that is an exaggeration, inherited, I fancy, from the predominance of Serb views at the Peace Conference." He believed that, united and independent, the Macedonians "might play the part which God seems to have assigned to them in the Balkans, but which man has thwarted-that, namely, of acting as a link between their Serb and Bulgar brothers, instead of being a permanent cause of division." [74] He did not really expect a positive reaction to this idea from the Foreign Office; yet, as he concluded, "one's mind keeps flying back in this direction, as one goes over the problem day after day, only to find Alps upon Alps of hopelessness arise."[75] But when John Balfour at the Foreign Office read Waterlow's report, he did not consider this a logical idea and maintained that Britain "must continue to concentrate [on the peace treaties] in the forlorn hope that they will pierce a Simplon Tunnel through the Alps of despair."[76]

                            On the basis of this lengthy debate, which involved those in the Foreign Office and service most concerned with the Macedonian question, the Central Department drafted a new, updated memorandum on the Macedonian question in 1929.[77] Parts of the first version were revised shortly thereafter as a result of last minute critical comments and objections voiced by Waterlow.

                            The final draft of this lengthy and valuable document, dated 2 July 1930, presented the official British interpretation of the history of the Macedonian question since the 1860s, as well as an analysis of the contemporary political problem.[78] It acknowledged once again that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia, the Macedo-Slavs or Macedonians, were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, and thus implicitly recognized their separate and distinct identity. It also admitted the existence in Yugoslav Macedonia of "a uniquely dangerous minority problem, which is aggravated by the fact that the Macedonians are the most stubborn and hard-headed people in the Balkans." [79] It was therefore deeply concerned that the League of Nations could be dragged into the Macedonian problem, first of all, because it was a threat to international peace and, secondly and more importantly, because the Yugoslav minorities treaty, concluded at St. Germain in 1919, applied "to all territories acquired by Serbia as a result of the Balkan wars, and the enforcement of which is entrusted to the League Council."[80] Great Britain, however, could not allow the consideration of the Macedonian question in Yugoslavia by the League of Nations, the body that was specifically delegated to deal with and arbitrate national problems, conflicts and grievances, for it would "inevitably involve the airing of the whole Macedonian problem at Geneva and its discussion could hardly fail to precipitate a crisis which the League Council might find it very difficult to control."[81] London feared that League of Nations consideration of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia would amount to a de facto recognition of the Macedonian nationality. This would in turn legitimize to a certain extent the Macedonian demands for a united and independent Macedonia, thus challenging the existing status quo in the Balkans. The Memorandum made this quite clear: "Indeed, once the existence of a Macedonian nationality is even allowed to be presumed there is a danger that the entire Peace Settlement will be jeopardized by the calling into question, not merely of the frontiers between Jugoslavia and Bulgaria, but also of those between Jugoslavia and Greece and between Jugoslavia and Albania" [82] It strongly recommended that "this Balkan cancer" be treated "not by drastic surgical excision (e.g. plebiscite resulting in a change of frontiers....)" but rather "by the use of the healing properties of time and by the use of radium treatment of persuasive diplomacy, which while basing itself on the territorial status quo, shall endeavor gradually to eradicate the open sore that has for so long poisoned the relations of the Balkan states."[83]

                            The analysis and the recommendations of this memorandum remained the official British position on the Macedonian question virtually until the outbreak of World War II.

                            The Foreign Office interpreted the subsequent "degeneration" of the IMRO of Ivan Mihailov and, after the military coup in Sofia in 1934, the decline and cessation of its terrorist activities, as signs of the gradual eradication of "this Balkan cancer." In actual fact, this view represented a serious misreading, indeed, a rather crude misunderstanding of the transformation of Macedonian nationalism at the time. The IMRO, which had been divided between a right and a left wing from its very inception, finally split in 1924-1925. The left formed its own separate organization, the IMRO (United) and joined the Balkan Communist Federation and the Comintern. Unlike the right, it had a clearly defined social, economic and particularly national program; unlike the terrorist campaign of the right, it enhanced the cause of both nationalism and communism in Macedonia through underground work. By the early 1930s it had attracted a large following and was challenging Mihailov's IMRO for leadership. Waterlow informed the Foreign Office of the split and the growing strength of the left in his report on the proceedings of the Tenth Congress of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, the legal organization of Mihailov's IMRO, held in Sofia on 24-27january 1932.

                            The opposite view [the left], which has lately grown within the movement, which was suppressed at the congress, but which was clearly set out in the communist press, is that Mihailoff has forsaken the ideal of the Macedonian movement, that he does not fight for the liberation of Macedonia and that he has become the tool of the Fascist regime in Bulgaria, which uses the Macedonian organization for the sole purpose of maintaining its dictatorship ...

                            The Macedonian movement should again become national and independent, it should throw off the tutelage of the Bulgarian Government, which supports it only for its own ends, and it should fight for a genuinely independent Macedonia as part of a Balkan Federation under Soviet protection.[84]

                            The growth of the left undermined the support of the IMRO of Mihailov and forced the latter, for reasons of self-preservation, to free itself from the tutelage of the Bulgarian government and to identify itself with a Macedonian national program clearly calling for "the unification of Macedonian territories held by Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria, into an independent political entity within its natural geographical frontiers."[85] But it is safe to assume that this reorientation of the IMRO contributed to its suppression in 1934: by the second half of the 1930s most Bulgarians had become convinced "that the Macedonians have been more trouble in Bulgaria than they were worth and merely gave the country a bad name abroad without helping the national [Bulgarian] cause...."[86]

                            IMRO's suppression, in turn, helped to enhance the role of the Macedonian left, whose nationalist activities had previously been hampered by the IMRO and whose many activists had fallen victims of the mihailovist terror. As Bentinck, the new minister at Sofia, pointed out:

                            Since the coup d'etat last year, however, the Macedonian communists became much more active, especially in Sofia and Bulgarian Macedonia. I am told the intention was to detach the three portions of Macedonia belonging to Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and to unite them into a Soviet Republic - - - At the same time the communist parties in Bulgaria, Jugoslavia and Greece were ordered by Moscow to support the Macedonian communists...[87]

                            Thus, contrary to the hopes and expectations of the Foreign Office, neither the dissolution of the terrorist IMRO nor "the healing properties of time" resolved the Macedonian problem or caused it to disappear. Macedonian nationalism was forced underground and into the embrace of international communism, where it continued to grow. As Simeon Radev, a prominent Bulgarophile Macedonian and a well known retired Bulgarian diplomat, pointed out to Waterlow, "no solution of the [Macedonian] problem could be expected by the mere aflux of time. There was no prospect whatever of the population acquiescing in the policy of Serbianisation pursued by Belgrade...." He also emphasized "that the Macedonian sense of nationality was not a sense of Bulgarian nationality. It took the shape, especially with the younger generation, of an aspiration for autonomy." [88] On a private visit to Istanbul in September 1933, E. Venizelos, the great Greek statesman, expressed similar sentiments to Sir George Clerk, the British ambassador: Venizelos had always counselled that the Jugoslav Government should make a serious effort to content the Slav Macedonian minority... M. Venizelos maintained that these people, of which Greece has a small share...., are not pure Bulgarians, but something between Bulgarian and Serbian, and he had, he said, always been ready to give them Slav Macedonian schools and other reasonable privileges.[89]

                            Furthermore, as Radev had also argued, a driving force behind the Macedonian movement at this time was the fundamental belief that anything, however improbable, might occur in a world of flux. And central to this belief was "a desire for a union of all Macedonians in an autonomous state..." [90] As the outbreak of the Second World War approached the growing challenges to the status quo in Europe intensified this belief and desire in the second half of the 1930s.[91] In addition to the USSR or, rather, the communist movement, which already enjoyed widespread support among the Macedonians, by the end of the decade both Germany and Italy actively advocated schemes for "the liberation of Macedonia" with which "they are trying to attract Macedonians ..."[92]

                            While the Foreign Office either minimized or was ignorant of the strength of Macedonian nationalism on the left, it was not ready to overlook the spread of German and Italian influence in the area. And it was this more than anything else, that brought about a renewed British interest in the Macedonians and the beginning of a British reappraisal of the Macedonian national problem. After the fall of France in summer 1940, G.W. Rendel, the minister at Sofia, warned of the increased Soviet, German and Italian activities in Macedonia and concluded that "Presumably' however the Macedonians would accept any 'autonomous' Macedonian state which a great power succeeds in establishing."[93] He analyzed the aims of the Macedonians in greater detail in a private letter to P.B.B. Nichols of the Foreign Office written ten days later:

                            My impression is that there is now a fairly large section of the Macedonians who look to Russia for their salvation. ... I think the pro -Russian groups probably hope for the eventual creation of an autonomous Macedonian Soviet Republic as one of a chain of South Slav Soviet states running from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and to the German and Italian frontiers. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of Macedonians who are short sighted enough to be ready to intrigue with Germany and Italy...The Macedonians are notoriously difficult, and have many of the characteristics of the Irish, and my impression is that they are happiest in opposition to any existing regime...[94]

                            Early in 1941 the vice consul at Skopje provided the Foreign Office with an even more extensive and perceptive analysis of the current state of the Macedonian problem. He claimed that the vast majority of the Macedonians belonged to the national movement; indeed, he estimated "that 90 percent of all Slav Macedonians were autonomists in one sense or another...." Because the movement was wrapped in secrecy, however, it was extremely difficult to gauge the relative strength of its various currents, except that it could be assumed that IMRO had lost ground since it was banned in Bulgaria and its leaders exiled. While the vice consul acknowledged the close relationship between communism and "autonomism" or nationalism in Macedonia, he downplayed the frequently expressed contention that the communists used the Macedonian movement for their own ends.

                            Instead, he argued that since virtually every Macedonian was an autonomist, it was almost certain "that the Communists and autonomists are the same people..."; and, in any case, that Macedonian communists were not doctrinaire and were "regarded by other Balkan communists as weaker brethren...." "My own opinion," wrote Thomas, "is that they are autonomists in the first place and Communists only in the second."[95] He concluded his lengthy report by stressing what by then should have been obvious: the Macedonian problem was "a real one" and "an acute one" and that it "has in no way been artificially created by interested propaganda." He considered change unavoidable and felt that it was "in the interest of Jugoslavia to satisfy the aspirations of Macedonia."

                            He was equally convinced, however, that it was highly improbable, "in view of the instinctive dislike of the Serbs engendered by twenty years of Serbian rule, that anything short of autonomy would be acceptable.'' [96]

                            Rendel's and Thomas's appraisals of the Macedonian situation were not radically different from many produced by their predecessors stationed in the Balkans. However, with the world once more at war, the Foreign Office now accorded them more serious consideration and appeared, although grudgingly, to accept them. It seemed to accept the fact that Britain's hitherto refusal to officially recognize the existence of a Macedonian nationality, a policy that it had shaped and defended for over twenty years, might no longer prove tenable and most likely would not survive the war. In a highly revealing, indeed almost prophetic, comment on Thomas's report, Reginald J. Bowker of the Foreign Office conceded this when he wrote: "To the layman the only possible solution of the Macedonian problem would seem to be in giving the Macedonians some sort of autonomy within Jugoslavia. Possibly after the war the Jugoslavs may be willing to consider this. But such a measure would, no doubt, incur the risk of whetting the appetite of the Macedonians for complete independence."[97]

                            The lack of official recognition or legitimacy internationally and in the three Balkan states obviously had hindered the normal and natural development of Macedonian identity. However, it could not destroy it. Macedonianism in its various manifestations-particularism, patriotism, nationalism-was too deeply entrenched among the Macedonian people and among the small, but vibrant and dynamic intelligentsia, especially on the political left. During World War II, which began for the Balkans in late 1940 and early 1941, Macedonians in all three parts of their divided land joined resistance movements in large numbers and fought for national unification and liberation.[98] They did not achieve national unification; however, the Macedonians in Vardar or Yugoslav Macedonia won not only national recognition but also legal equality with the other nations of the new, communistled, federal Yugoslavia.

                            Notes

                            1. For a discussion of the significance of international recognition or legitimacy in the development of Balkan nationalisms, see especially John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 103-11, 115-16 and 373; and Alan Warwick Palmer, The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe since the Congress of Vienna (London: Macmillan, 1970), 28-29.

                            2. See especially Blaze Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija (Skopje: Misla, 1983), 1: 75-86, 163-87, 263-80. Ristovski is the leading authority on Macedonian national thought and development. His two volumes contain previously published studies on the subject. See also the following works published recently in the west: Fikret Adanir, Die Makedonische Frage. Ihre Entstchung und Entwicklung bis 1908 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979); Marco Dogo, Lingua e Nazionalita' in Macedonia: Vicende e pensieri di profeti disarmati, 1902-1903 (Milan: Jaca Book, 1985); Jutta de Jong, Die nationale Kern des makedonisehen Problems: Ansatze und Grundlagen einer makedonischen Nationalbeweguag (1890-1903) (Frankfurt: Lang, 1982); Andrew Rossos, "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verderv. eds.. Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.

                            3. The literature on the struggles in Macedonia is vast but rather uneven and polemical in nature. A good documentary survey in English of the activities of the neighboring Balkan states in Macedonia is to be found in George P. Gooch and Harold Temperley. eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914 (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1926-1938), 5: 100-23. Among the more useful works in western languages are Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988); Henry N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (1906, reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1980); Elizabeth Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (1950, reprint, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980); Jacques Ancel, La Macedoine (Paris, 1930); Gustav Weigand, Ethnographie von Makedonien (Leipzig, 1924). For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Jovan M. Jovanovic. Juzna Srbija od kraja XVIII veka do oslobodjenja (Belgrade. 1941) (Serbian); G. Bazhdarov, Makedonskjat vapros vchera i dnes, (Sofia, 1925) (Bulgarian); Georgios Modes, 0 makedonikos agon kai i neoteri makedoniki istoria (Salonica: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon. 1967) (Greek). Macedonan historians have turned their attention to this problem more recently. See Kliment Dzambazovski, Kulturno-opstestvenite vrski na Makedoncite so Srbija vo tekot na XIX vek (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija (Ini), 1960); Risto Poplazarov, Grckata politka sprema Makedonija vo vtorata polovina na XIX i pocetokot na XX vek (Skopje: Ini, 1973); Slavko Dimevski, Makedonskoto nacionalno osloboditelno dvizenie i egzarhijata (1893-1912) (Skopje: Kultura, 1963); Krste Bitoski, Makedonija i Knezevstvo Bugarija (1893-1903) (Skopje: Ini, 1977). On the partition of Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy. 1908-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981); Petar Stojanov, Makedonija vo vremeto na balkanskite i prvata svetska vojna (1912-1918) (Skopje: Ini, 1969).

                            4. Blaze Ristovski, Portreti i procesi od makedonskata literaturna i nacionalna istorija (Skopje: Kultura, 1990), 3: 34.

                            5. Ristovski, op cit. and 2: 24-72; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."

                            6. The Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian claims were extensively publicized. For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Tihomir R. Georgevich, Macedonia (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1918) (Serbian); Iordan Ivanov, La question macedoine (Paris, 1920) (Bulgarian); Cleanthes Nicolaides, La Macedoine (Berlin, 1899) (Greek). See also the works cited in note 3.

                            7. See (London) Public Record Office, FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 3-4. (All Foreign Office documents cited hereafter are found in the Public Record Office). See also Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, Velika Britania i makedonskoto prasnje na pariskata mirovna konferencija vo 19l9godina (Skopje: Arhiv na Makedonija, 1973); Ivan Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje. Makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje megju dvete svetski vojni (1919-1930) (Skopje: Kultura, 1977), 1: chap. 1. Katardziev provides the most comprehensive, valuable and interesting treatment of the Macedonian national question in the 1920s.

                            8. FO371/14316, A. Henderson (Belgrade) to N. Henderson, 9 May 1930, Enclosure 2, "Memorandum by Vice-Consul Blakeney."

                            9. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941. On developments in Vardar Macedonia during the interwar years, see also Katardziev, op.cit., 1: 23-85; Institut za nacionalna istorija, Istorija na makedonskiot narod (Skopje, 1969), 3: part 11; Aleksandar Apostolov, Kolonizacijata na Makedonija vo stara Jugoslavija (Skopje: Kultura, 1966), and "Specificnata polozba na makedonskiot narod vo kralstvoto Jugoslavija," Glasnik (Skopje) 16, no.1(1972): 39-62.

                            10. FO 371/8566, Bentinck (Athens) to Curzon, 20 August 1923, Enclosure, Colonel A.C. Corfe, "Notes on a Tour Made by the Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration in Western and Central Macedonia," 5. By "Bulgars," Lambros meant Macedonians.

                            11. On the situation of the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British Officer's Report, 1944," The Slavonic and East European Review (London) 69, no.2 (April 1991): 282-88. See also Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 85-106; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 13; Stojan Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija vo Egeiska Makedonija (1913-1940) (Skopje: Ini, 1981); Lazo Mojsov, Okolu prasanjeto na makedonskoto nacionalno malcinstovo vo Grcija (Skopje: Ini, 1954), 207-87; Giorgi Abadziev, et al., Egejska Makedonija vo nasata nacionalna istorija (Skopje, 1951).

                            12. Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 293-94. Captain P.H. Evans' "Report on the Free Macedonia Movement in Area Florina 1944" is given verbatim, 291-309.

                            13. FO371/12856, Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928

                            14. FO371/8568, 22. A few years later, O. Sargent, a counselor in the Foreign Office, complained that "the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation... defies openly the Bulgarian Government and practically administers and governs part of the Bulgarian territory" (FO371/12856, Sargent [London] to Sperling, 1 October 1928).

                            15. On Pirin Macedonia as well as the Macedonians in Bulgaria, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 107-19; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 12; Dimitar Mitrev, Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Nasa Kniga 1970), 126-202.

                            16. See Stefan Troebst, Mussolini, Makedonien und die Machte, 1922-1930: Die "Innere Makeodnische Revolutionare Organisation" in der Sudosteuropapolitik der faschistischen Italien (Cologne: Bohlau, 1987); and Barker, Macedonia, chap. 2; Leften S. Stavrianos, Balkan Federation: A History of the Movement Toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times (1944, reprint, Hamden: Archon Books, 1964), chaps. 8 and 9.

                            17. FO371/8568, p.22.

                            18. FO371/7375, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 25 January 1922. Harold Nicolson commented: "There is less disparity between the Irish and Macedonian temperament than might be supposed" (Minute, 1 February 1922).

                            19. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 2, chap. 1.

                            20. Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija, chap. 4.

                            21. Katardziev, op.cit.; Dino Kiosev, Istoria na makedonskoto natsionalno revoliutsionerno dvizhenie (Sofia: Otechestven front 1954) 493-99

                            22. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1:171-83 and part 2, chap. 2; Kiosev, ibid., 512- 28. On the activities of the IMRO in all three parts of Macedonia, see also the memoirs of its leader after 1924: Ivan Mikhailov, Spomeni, 4 vols. (Selci, Louvain, Indianapolis, 1952, 1965, 1967, 1973).

                            23. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 375-76; Istorija na makedonshiot narod, 3: 20-23, 176-78; Evangelos Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia (Salonica: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1964), 69; Dimitrios G. Kousoulas, Revolution and Defeat: The Story of the Communist Party of Greece (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 65.

                            24. FO371/7377, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 20 March 1922.

                            25. FO371/6197, Peel (Sofia) to Curzon, 10 February 1921.

                            26. See FO371/8568.

                            27. On communism and Macedonian nationalism, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 3, chaps. 1-4, 2: part 5, and ed., Predavnicite na makedonskoto delo (Skopje: Kultura, 1983), 5-56; Stojan Kiselinovski, KPG i makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje, 1918-1940 (Skopje: Misla, 1985), chaps. 2-4; Kiril Miljovski, Makedonskoto prasanje vo nacionalnata programa na KPJ (1919-1937) (Skopje: Kultura, 1962), 24-140; Dimitar Mitrev, BKP i Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Kultura, 1960), 42-59; Kofos, op.cit., chap. 4; Darinka Pacemska, Vnatresnata makedonska revolucionerna organizacija (Obedineta) (Skopje: "Studentski zbor," 1985). I have dealt with the subject in "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verdery, eds., Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.

                            28. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 4.

                            29. FO371/10793, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 6July 1925, Enclosure, Footman (Skopje) to Kennard, 30 June 1925, 5. John David Footman was a fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford (1953-1963) and author of several books on modern Russian history.

                            30. See especially ibid., 14 and FO371/8568, 3 and FO371/10667, 6.

                            31. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926; Enclosure R.A. Gallon. "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926, 4.

                            32. F0371111245, O. Ch. Harvey, "Notes on a Visit to Jugoslavia and Greece," April 1926, 6 May 1926, 3.

                            33. FO371/11405, 5.

                            34. FO371/10793, 6.

                            35. FO371/8566, 3.

                            36. FO371/10793, 6.

                            37. FO371/14316, N. Henderson (Belgrade) to A. Henderson, 13 May 1930, En-closures.

                            38. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930, 12.

                            39. See FO371/11337, Kennard (Belgrade) to H. Smith, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop "Notes," 23 April 1926.

                            40. FO371/11337, C.H. Bateman, "Memorandum on "Serbian Minorities in Greek Macedonia," 3 March 1926, 2.

                            41. Ibid.

                            42. See FO371/10793 and FO371/11337.

                            43. FO371/11337.

                            44. See FO371/8568.

                            45. FO371/8566.

                            46. FO371/10793. Footman dismissed the Serbian claims to a "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia and pointed to two other factors as the real causes of the Greek- -Serbian dispute: "a) Politically, the Serb displeasure at Slav inhabitants of Greek Macedonia being recognized as Bulgars; and b) Economically, the loss suffered by Serbian Macedonia and the Kingdom as a whole by being separated by a frontier from Salonica" (6).

                            47. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925. It gave the following figures: Macedonian Slavs 1,150,000; Turks 400,000; Greeks 300,000; Vlachs 200,000; Albanians 120,000;Jews 100,000; Gypsies 10,000 (2).

                            48. Ibid., 4.

                            49. Ibid.

                            50. Ibid.

                            51. Ibid., 1, 4; See also Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 284-85, 290, 293-94.

                            52. Ibid., 7.

                            53. FO371/11337,1

                            54. Ibid., 4.

                            55. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop, "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926,1.

                            56. "I should like to know the names of any authorities who are impartial," wrote Gallop. "Certainly none of the Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, British or German ever are!" (FO371/11337, Enclosure, 23 April 1926).

                            57. FO371/11245, 2.

                            58. Ibid., p.3.

                            59. Footman argued that "such local autonomy would have greater chance of success were it to be introduced by some future government in which Croats and Slovenes held the preponderating position. There is throughout Macedonia a sullen bitterness against the Serbs..." (FO371/12856, Footman [Skopje] to Kennard, 4 February 1928 in Kennard [Belgrade] to Chamberlain, 18 February 1928).

                            60. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928, Minute, 24 February 1928; see also Sargent (London) to Kennard, 20 February 1928.

                            61. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Cushendun, 13 September 1928.

                            62. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 20 September 1928.

                            63. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 20 September 1928.

                            64. Ibid., 0. Sargent, Minute, 28 September 1928.

                            65. Ibid., R.G. Vansittart, Minute, 29 September 1928. Robert Gilbert Vansittart was knighted in 1929 and created a baron in 1941

                            66. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 10 October 1928

                            67. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Sargent, 10 October 1928.

                            68. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928.

                            69. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 22 October 1928

                            70. "The fact was of course that the framers of the Minorities Treaty hesitated to mention them under any specific name," wrote Bateman. "The most they could be called is Macedo-Slavs" (ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928).

                            71. Great Britain, Foreign Office, The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book for 1935 (London, 1935), 416.

                            72. FO371/14316, Waterlow (Sofia) to Vansittart, 21 May 1930.

                            73. Ibid., 7.

                            74. Ibid., 8-9.

                            75. Ibid., 9.

                            76. Ibid., J. Balfour, Minute, 2 June 1930.

                            77. FO371/13573, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 6 December 1929, 9 pp.

                            78. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930,16 pp.

                            79. Ibid., 9.

                            80. Ibid., 14.

                            81. Ibid., 15.

                            82. Ibid.

                            83. Ibid., 16.

                            84. FO371/57473, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 5 February 1932. According to the assistant to the Bishop of Nevrokop, one of the major centers of Pirin Macedonia, "The Revolutionary Organization itself was split by a growing Communist current, ... aiming at the liberation of Macedonia by the bolshevisation of the Balkans, while the local population was in its turn divided, about half being for the organization and half against, and the hostile half being largely Communist in feeling (FO371/15896, Waterlow [Sofia] to Simon, 22 June 1932; see also FO371/19486, Bentinck [Sofia] to Hoare, 16 September 1935 and 26 September 1935). On the left of the Macedonian movement see also the works cited in note 27.

                            85. FO371/16650, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 27 February 1933.

                            86. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940.

                            87. FO371/19486. Bentinck (Sofia) to Hoare, 26 September 1935.

                            88. FO371/16651, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 21 July 1933.

                            89. FO371/16775, Clerk (Constaninople) to Simon, ^ October 1933.

                            90. FO371/16651

                            91. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism on the left in the 1930s, see Biblioteka "Makedonsko zname," no.1, Ideite i zadachite na Makedonskoto progresivno dvizenje v Bulgaria (Sofia, 1933); Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i Makedonskata Nacija, 2: 481-560; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."

                            92. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)to F.O., 15 August 1940.

                            93. Ibid.

                            94. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940. George L. Clutton of the Foreign Office described the Macedonians as "discontented peasants who are anti-Jugoslav, anti-Greek, anti-Bulgarian, anti-German, and anti everything except possibly anti-Russian" (FO371/24880, Campbell [Belgrade] to F.O., 4 September 1940, G.L. Clutton, Minute, 10 September 1940).

                            95. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941, Enclosure, "Report on the General Situation in Southern Serbia by Mr. Thomas, British Vice-Consul at Skoplje."

                            96. Ibid..

                            97. Ibid., Reginald J. Bowker, Minute, l6 January 1941.

                            98. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism during the Second World War, see the informative and illuminating discussions by Kiril Miljovski, "Motivite na revolucijata 1941-1944 godina vo Makedonija," Istorija (Skopje) 10, no.1 (1974): 19ff; and by Cvetko Uzunovski, "Vostanieto vo 1941 vo Makedonija," Istorija, 10, no.2 (1974): 103 if.
                            "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                            GOTSE DELCEV

                            Comment

                            • George S.
                              Senior Member
                              • Aug 2009
                              • 10116

                              The British Foreign Office
                              and Macedonian National Identity - 1918-1941

                              by Andrew Rossos

                              Slavic Review, vol. 53, number 2, Summer 1994

                              click here for a printer-friendly version

                              The study of the Macedonian identity has given rise to far greater controversies and debates than that of most, if not all, other nationilisms in eastern Europe. This has been only in part due to the hazy past of the Slavic speaking population of Macedonia and to the lack of a continuous and separate state tradition, a trait they had in common with other "small" and "young," or so-called "non-historic," peoples in the area. Controversy has been due above all to the fact that, although it began in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Macedonian nationalism did not enjoy international acceptance or legitimacy until the Second World War, much later than was the case with other similar national movements in eastern Europe.[1] Recent research has shown that Macedonian nationalism developed, generally speaking, similarly to that of neighboring Balkan peoples, and, in most respects, of other "small" and "young" peoples of eastern, as well as some of western, Europe.

                              But Macedonian nationalism was belated, grew slowly and, at times, manifested confusing tendencies and orientations that were, for the most part, consequences of its protracted illegitimate status.[2]

                              For a half century Macedonian nationalism existed illegally. It was recognized neither by the theocratic Ottoman state nor by the two established Orthodox churches in the empire: the Patriarchist (Greek) and, after its establishment in 1870, the Exarchist (Bulgarian). Moreover neighboring Balkan nationalists-Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian-who had already achieved independence with the aid of one or more of the Great Powers, chose to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian identity; indeed they claimed Macedonia and the Macedonians as their own. They fought for Macedonia with propaganda and force, against each other and the nascent Macedonian nationalists. A prolonged struggle culminated in 1913 with the forceful partition of Macedonia after the Second Balkan or Inter-Allied War between Bulgaria, on one side, and allied Greece and Serbia, on the other.[3] Each of these three states consolidated their control over their respective parts of Macedonia, and throughout the inter-war years inaugurated and implemented policies intended to destroy any manifestations of Macedonian nationalism, patriotism or particularism- Consequently, until World War II, unlike the other nationalisms in the Balkans or in eastern Europe more generally, Macedonian nationalism developed with-out the aid of legal political, church, educational or cultural institutions. Macedonian movements not only lacked any legal infrastructure, they also were without the international sympathy, cultural aid and, most importantly, benefits of open and direct diplomatic and military support accorded other Balkan nationalisms.[4] Indeed, for an entire century Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire before 1913 but in actual fact, both before and after that date, against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the Great Powers.[5]

                              The denial of a Macedonian identity by the neighboring Balkan states, and their irreconcilably contradictory claims, motives, justifications and rationalizations, are mirrored by the largely polemical and tendentious Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian literature on the Macedonian question.[6] But the attitudes of the individual Great Powers and the thinking, motivations and internal foreign policy establishments have not yet been studied. In this article I will focus on the British Foreign Office and its attitude toward the Macedonian question during the inter-war years. The British Foreign Office provides a case study because Great Britain played a leading role in the area after the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano; during the inter-war years respect for national self-determination and for the rights of national minorities was, at least in theory and in official policy, the accepted and prevailing norm.

                              For the Macedonians the inter-war period was conditioned by the Balkan wars and the partition of their land. The peace conferences and treaties which ended the Great War, represented for many "small" and "young" nations of eastern Europe the realization of dreams of self-determination. But with some minor territorial modifications at the expense of Bulgaria, these treaties confirmed the partition of Macedonia agreed upon in the Treaty of Bucharest. For the victorious allies, especially Great Britain and France, this meant putting the Macedonian problem finally to rest. It also meant that the allies could satisfy two of their clients which were pillars of the new order in south-eastern Europe: the Kingdom of Greece and the former Kingdom of Serbia, now the dominant component in the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia. Even though their territorial acquisitions in Macedonia did not necessarily satisfy their max-imal aspirations, official Athens and Belgrade also pretended that Macedonia and the Macedonian problem had ceased to exist. Belgrade proclaimed Vardar Macedonia to be Old Serbia and the Macedonians Old Serbians; for Athens, Aegean Macedonia became simply northern Greece and the Slavic speaking Macedonians were considered Greeks or, at best, "Slavophone" Greeks. Although Bulgaria had enjoyed the greatest influence among the Macedonians, because of its defeat in the Inter-Allied and the Great Wars, it was accorded the smallest part, Pirin Macedonia, or the Petrich district, as it became known during the inter-war years. Unlike official Athens and Belgrade, the ruling elite in Sofia did not consider the settlement permanent; but without sympathy among the victorious Great Powers and threatened by revolutionary turmoil at home, they had to accept the settlement for the time being. In any event, the Macedonian question was not a priority for the Agrarian government of A. Stamboliski.[7] Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria all sought to destroy all signs of Macedonianism through forced deportation, so-called voluntary exchanges of populations and internal transfers of the Macedonian populations. They also implemented policies of colonization, social and economic discrimination, and forced denationalization and assimilation based on total control of the edu-cational systems and of cultural and intellectual life as a whole.

                              These policies were particularly pursued with great determination in Yugoslavia and Greece. Though he approved of these policies, C. L. Blakeney, British Vice-Consul at Belgrade, wrote in1930:

                              It is very well for the outsider to say that the only way the Serb could achieve this [control of Vardar Macedonia] was by terrorism and the free and general use of the big stick. This may be true, as a matter of fact one could say that it is true ...On the other hand, however, it must be admitted that the Serb had no other choice ... He had not only to deal with the brigands but also with a population who regarded him as an invader and unwelcome foreigner and from whom he had and could expect no assistance.[8]

                              Ten years later, on the eve of Yugoslavia's collapse during the Second World War, it was obvious that the Serbian policies in Macedonia had failed. R.I. Campbell, British minister at Belgrade, now denounced them to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary:

                              Since the occupation by Serbia in 1913 of the Macedonian districts, the Government has carried out in this area, with greater or lesser severity, a policy of suppression and assimilation. In the years following the Great War land was taken away from the inhabitants and given to Serbian colonists. Macedonians were compelled to change their names and the Government did little or nothing to assist the economic development of the country...[9]

                              Athens was even more extreme than Belgrade: under the guise of "voluntary" emigration they sought to expel the entire Macedonian population. Colonel A.C. Corfe, chairman of the League of Nations Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration, reported in 1923: "In the course of conversation, Mr. Lambros [Governor General of Macedonia], actually said that the present was a good opportunity to get rid of the Bulgars [sic] who remained in this area and who had always been a source of trouble for Greece." [10] This could be achieved at least superficially: Athens made a concerted effort to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme and tragic dimensions during the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the privacy of the home to a people who knew Greek scarcely or not at all, and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but their own. [11] In 1944 Captain P.H. Evans, an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spent eight months in western Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) and station commander, condemned the Greek policies in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He described the attitude "even of educated GREEKS towards the SLAV minority" as "usually stupid, uninformed and brutal to a degree that makes one despair of any understanding ever being created between the two people." However, he also left no doubt that the Greek government's policies had failed:

                              It is predominantly a SLAV region not a GREEK one. The language of the home, and usually also of the fields, the village Street, and the market is MACEDONIAN, a SLAV language... The place names as given on the map are GREEK...; but the names which are mostly used - - - are - - - all Slav names. The GREEK ones are merely a bit of varnish put on by Metaxas... GREEK is regarded as almost a foreign language and the GREEKS are distrusted as something alien, even if not, in the full sense of the word, as foreigners. The obvious fact, almost too obvious to be stated, that the region is SLAV by nature and not GREEK cannot be overemphasized.[12]

                              Revisionist Bulgaria, where major trends in Macedonian nationalism were well entrenched in Pirin Macedonia and among the large Macedonian emigration to its capital, assumed a more ambiguous position. Sofia continued its traditional attitude towards all Macedonians, acting as their patron but claiming them to be Bulgarians. To a certain extent it left the Macedonians to do what they wanted; unlike Athens and Belgrade, it tolerated, or felt compelled to tolerate, the free use of the name "Macedonia" and an active Macedonian political and cultural life.[13] In its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, the British Legation at Sofia referred to the Pirin region as "the autonomous kingdom of Macedonia" and stressed that "Bulgarian sovereignty over the district - - - is purely nominal and, such as it is, is resented by the irredentist Macedonian element no less strongly than is that of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Government over the adjacent area within their frontier." [14] Indeed, it could be argued that, after the overthrow of the Stamboliski regime in June 1921, Sofia not only encouraged Macedonian discontent in all three countries but also sought to take advantage of it to further its own revisionist aims.[15] Bulgaria's revisionism split the ranks of the partitioning powers and was of great significance for the future of Macedonian nationalism. For no matter how much Greece and Yugoslavia, and their patrons among the Great Powers, especially Great Britain, pretended officially that the Macedonian question had been resolved, Bulgarian policies helped to keep it alive. [16]

                              More importantly still, the Macedonians, both in the large emigration in Bulgaria and at home, rejected the partition of their land and the settlement based upon it. As the British Legation at Sofia warned: "the Governments of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, if not that of Greece, are faced with practically an identical problem in the pacification and control of a district overlapping both the frontiers inhabited by a population hostile to both Governments for different reasons and determined on strengthening the hands of the opposition parties in each country."[17] Disturbing to London were calls for open resistance to foreign rule. Early in 1922 W.A.F. Erskine, the minister in Sofia, drew Lord Curzon's attention to an anonymous article in the newspaper Makedonija, purportedly from a Macedonian professor at the University of Sofia, which exhorted the Macedonians to follow the example of the Irish, who after a bitter struggle lasting through centuries, have succeeded in gaining their autonomy. "Their country is today free. Ours, too, will be free if we remain faithful to our own traditions of struggle and if we take as our example the lives of people, who, like the Irish, have "never despaired of the force of right." [18]

                              To be sure, organized Macedonian activity in Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, which had declined after the bloody suppression of the Ilinden uprising of 1903 and the repeated partitions of 1912-1918, came to a virtual standstill immediately after World War I. Virtually the entire Exarchist educated elite, most Macedonian activists from Aegean Macedonia and large numbers from Vardar Macedonia had been forced to emigrate and now sought refuge in Bulgaria.[19] Furthermore, the remaining Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia, overwhelmingly rural and lacking an educated elite, found itself after the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) a minority in its own land as a result of the Greek government's settlement there of large numbers of Greek and other Christian refugees from Asia Minor.[20] The situation among the Macedonians in Bulgaria was only slightly more encouraging: while there were large concentrations of Exarchist educated Macedonians and Macedonian activists both in the Pirin region and in Sofia, there were deep divisions within each group. Demoralization had set in and a long process of regrouping ensued among the Macedonians there.[21]

                              Nonetheless, opposition to foreign rule existed in all three parts of Macedonia from its imposition and systematic anti-Macedonian policies only intensified it. That this discontent was considerable was clearly evident in the support given to the terrorist activities of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in the 1920s. A popular revolutionary movement in the early twentieth century, by the mid-1920s IMRO had emerged as a terrorist organization. It virtually ruled Pirin Macedonia and was a state within the state of Bulgaria, pursuing its own self-saving ends by relying on Bulgarian reaction and Italian fascism, and allowing itself to be used by both. However, officially and very conspicuously-it promulgated the aims and the slogans of the older movement: "united autonomous or independent Macedonia" and "Macedonia for the Macedonians." IMRO conducted repeated, so-called "Komitaji," armed raids and incursions into Vardar and, to a lesser extent, into Aegean Macedonia until the military coup in Sofia of May 1934 when the new regime liquidated the organization. More than anything else, it succeeded in maintaining the Macedonian question on the international scene and, as champion of Macedonia and the Macedonians, it continued to enjoy considerable support throughout most of the 1920s.[22]

                              Widespread opposition to foreign rule is also demonstrated by the results of the first post-war elections held in Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the freest to be held during the inter-war years.

                              Significant support in all three parts of Macedonia went to the newly formed communist parties, which also rejected the status quo and declared themselves champions of Macedonia and the Macedonians.[23] As Erskine reported from Sofia: "The program of the Communists, therefore, at the instigation of Moscow, was modified to a form of cooperation with the Macedonian revolutionaries - - - to stir up trouble generally - - - and to pave the way for a revolution by creating disorder."[24] Commenting on the election in Yugoslavia, the British minister at Sofia, R. Peel, stressed that although Serbian troops had resorted to the worst excesses in order to terrorize the inhabitants into voting for government lists, "...a large proportion of communist deputies were returned from Macedonia."[25] Clearly, the communist vote was, in effect, a Macedonian protest against foreign rule.[26] This cooperation between communists and Macedonians, dating from the end of World War I, intensified in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Balkan communist parties, after long and heated debates, officially recognized Macedonia as a distinct Slav nation with its own language, history and territory. The Comintern followed suit in 1934 and thus supplied the first formal international recognition of Macedonian nationalism.[27]

                              Both rightist and leftist activities-the renewal of terrorism by IMRO, led by I. Mihailov, and the association of Macedonian nationalism with international communism-led to a revival of the Macedonian question as the central issue dividing the Balkan states and hence as the major cause of instability in southeastern Europe. These activities not only represented rejections of the territorial and political terms agreed to at the Paris Peace Conference, but also were serious challenges to Great Britain, one of the architects of the treaty and its main defender throughout the inter-war years.

                              For some time following World War I, London refused to consider the unrest in Macedonia and, hence, the revival of the Macedonian question. A lengthy memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," prepared by the Central Department of the Foreign Office in 1925, maintained that "While amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs - - - do not care to what nationality they belong."[28] DJ. Footman, the vice consul at Skopje, echoed a similar sentiment when he wrote, "I believe that 80 percent of the population merely desire a firm, just and enlightened Administration, and regard Nationalism as of minor importance." [29] If there was a problem, the explanation for it could be found in Bulgaria: London blamed Sofia not only for tolerating, but for encouraging and sponsoring an organized Macedonian movement, revolutionary organizations and armed bands on its own territory.[30] A more sophisticated explanation for the unrest could be based on a combination of social, economic and especially administrative causes: reports from the Balkans pointed to the economic backwardness of Macedonia and to the exacerbation of its economic woes by the partition, which had destroyed traditional trade routes and markets. They further stressed the lack of government reforms and constructive policies to alleviate the prevailing condition: communications remained as primitive or non-existent as they had been before the Great War, and towns such as Bitola, Skopje and Ohrid were in a state of general decline. The peasantry appeared to be slightly better off, but "this was less the result of agrarian reform or of the government colonization policy than of the energy and initiative shown by the peasantry, who have, in many cases, bought land either individually or in corporations, from Turks or Albanians who have emigrated to Anatolia."[31] "Such discontent as exists springs from genuine economic distress," wrote O.C. Harvey of the Foreign Office after a visit to Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia in April 1926: "Although the peasants are said to be doing well, the towns are dying from lack of trade. And wherever else the Serb is spending his money, he does not seem to be spending it in Macedonia. Yet this country is perhaps really the biggest problem for the Serbs." [32] Or, as R.A. Gallop, third secretary in the legation in Belgrade, put it: "What discontent there is comes from economic causes and the Government must seek palliatives. This of course will take time and cost money, but to my mind the key to the Macedonian question is now this: a prosperous Macedonia will be a contented one." [33]

                              But most reports to London singled out the administration as the root cause for discontent in Macedonia. The new rulers had forced on the Macedonians their own, that is foreign, administrative and legal codes ''without regard to local conditions or requirements." Their manner of administration was considered even worse:[34] it was described as invariably harsh, brutal, arbitrary and totally corrupt. As Colonel Corfe wrote: "One of the Macedonian's chief grievances is against the Greek Gendarmerie and during our tour we saw many examples of the arrogant and unsatisfactory methods of the Gendarmerie, who comandeer from the peasants whatever food they want...One visits few villages where some of the inhabitants are not in Greek prisons, without trial..."[35] DJ. Footman described the Serbian officials in Vardar Macedonia as poorly qualified, underpaid, arbitrary and corrupt. "Officials depend for their promotions and appointment on the service they can render their political party... ," he wrote. "It is therefore only natural for them to make what they can while they are in office. I regard this as the factor which will most militate against improvement in administration."[36] And, after a twelve-day motor tour in the same part of Macedonia, Major W.H. Oxley, the military attaché at Belgrade, reported: To start with they [the Prefects] have practically unlimited power over the local inhabitants and ... I gathered that they must exercise a pretty firm control. Further, we were informed that on the whole they were corrupt and were liable to use their power either to blackmail their flock or to accept bribes from over the frontiers, in order to allow terrorists to pass through their areas...[37]

                              The Central Department of the Foreign Office admitted all this and more. Its lengthy review of 1930 of the Macedonian question stated: At present Jugoslavia lacks the material out of which to create an efficient and honest civil service. This want is especially felt in the new and "foreign" provinces such as Serb-Macedonia. To make matters worse, the Jugoslav Government,... are compelled to pursue a policy of forcible assimilation, and, in order to "Serbise" the Slavs of Serb-Macedonia, must necessarily tend to disregard those grievances of the local inhabitants which spring from the violation of their local rights and customs.[38]

                              Although this authoritative statement of the Foreign Office acknowledged the existence and the seriousness of the Macedonian problem, the underlying assumption was that, once the economic and administrative causes for grievance were allayed, it would be finally resolved. But while the Foreign Office endeavored to avoid dealing with the national dimension and implications of the problem until as late as 1930, by the mid-1920s its position was already being questioned and challenged by Foreign Office officials in the Balkans, and was becoming untenable. It was difficult to reconcile the use of three different terms-Slavophone Greeks, Old Serbians and Bulgarians-when referring to a people who called themselves Makedonci and spoke Macedonian or dialects of it.[39] The British could maintain their position only as long as relations between Athens and Belgrade remained friendly; and a crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations in the mid-1920s provoked a heated debate over the national identity of the Macedonians -Although unwillingly, the Foreign Office was also drawn into this debate and was forced to consider: "Who are the Macedonian Slavs?"

                              Ironically, the crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations was sparked by the conclusion of the abortive Greek-Bulgarian Minorities Protocol of 1924, which "connoted the recognition on the part of Greece that the Slavophone inhabitants of Greek Macedonia were of Bulgarian race."[40] This infuriated the Serbs and the Belgrade government broke off its alliance with Greece on 7 November 1924; [41] it also launched a press and a diplomatic campaign that Greece protect the rights of what it called the "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia.[42] The Yugoslav government clamored for a special agreement with Greece similar to the abortive protocol between Bulgaria and Greece. "The object of this move is quite patent," wrote C.H. Bateman of the Foreign Office. "All that the Serbs want is that the Greeks should recognize a Serbian minority in Greek Macedonia in the same way as they recognized a Bulgarian minority in l924."[43] In the end, even though Greece did not sign such an agreement with Yugoslavia, relations between these two countries returned to normal; but the debate concerning the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs that this crisis had instigated in the Foreign Office continued well into the 1930s.

                              The debate was not entirely new or confined to Britain. The national identity of the Macedonians had sparked continuous and heated controversies before the Balkan Wars and the First World War. However, the debate assumed far greater relevance and urgency after the peace settlement because all democratic governments had embraced the principle of national self-determination. This principle was supposedly the basis for the entire settlement in east central Europe; and it supposedly bound all overnments of the "New Europe" to respect the national rights of those national minorities who for one reason or another could not exercise their right to national self-determination. Hence, to a certain extent the fate of the peace settlement in this part of Europe hinged on this principle and it was thus of particular interest to Great Britain, perhaps its chief architect and defender.

                              Even before the Greek-Serbian dispute London had received reports that the causes for the revival of the Macedonian problem were not solely economic or administrative, but rather that they were primarily ethnic or national. While noting in its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, that "the province known as Macedonia has, of course, no integral existence," the Chancery of the British Legation at Sofia had emphasized that as an entity it still existed "in the aspirations of men of Macedonian birth or origin scattered under the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria." It also had added that Macedonia has "clearly defined geographical boundaries."[44] Colonel Corfe had written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing to say in their presence:

                              But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling us 'damned Bulgars"' ... To my question "What do you want? An autonomous Macedonia or a Macedonia under Bulgaria?" the answer was generally the same: "We want good administration. We are Macedonians, not Greeks or Bulgars...We want to be left in peace."[45]

                              The Greek-Serbian crisis, however, forced the Foreign Office to concentrate its attention, as never before, on the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs and, indeed, on the question: who are the Macedonians? On 30 June 1925, DJ. Footman, the British vice consul at Skopje, the administrative center of Vardar Macedonia, addressed this issue in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He wrote that "the majority of the inhabitants of Southern Serbia are Orthodox Christian Macedonians, ethnologically slightly nearer to the Bulgar than to the Serb.." He acknowledged that the Macedonians were better disposed toward Bulgaria than Serbia because, as he had pointed out: the Macedonians were "ethnologically" more akin to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs; because Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia in the time of the Turks, largely carried on through the schools, was widespread and effective; and because Macedonians at the time perceived Bulgarian culture and prestige to be higher than those of its neighbors. Moreover, large numbers of Macedonians educated in Bulgarian schools had sought refuge in Bulgaria before and especially after the partitions of 1913. "There is therefore now a large Macedonian element in Bulgaria," continued Footman, "represented in all Government Departments and occupying high positions in the army and in the civil service...." He characterized this element as "Serbophobe, [it] mostly desires the incorporation of Macedonia in Bulgaria, and generally supports the Makedonska Revolucionara [sic] Organizacija [the IMRO]." However, he also pointed to the existence of the tendency to seek an independent Macedonia with Salonica as its capital. "This movement also had adherents among the Macedonian colony in Bulgaria. It is supported by the parties of the Left in Bulgaria, and, at least theoretically, by large numbers of Macedonians."[46]

                              The Central Department of the Foreign Office went even further in clarifying the separate identity of the Macedonians. In a confidential survey and analysis of the entire Macedonian problem it identified the Macedonians not as Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, but rather as Macedonian Slavs, and, on the basis of "a fairly reliable estimate made in 1912," singled them out as by far the largest single ethnic group in Macedonia.[47] It acknowledged, as did Footman, that these Slavs spoke a language "understood by both Serbs and Bulgars, but slightly more akin to the Bulgarian tongue than to the Serbian"; and that after the 1870 establishment of the Exarchate, Bulgarian propaganda made greater inroads in Macedonia than the Serbian or Greek. However, it stressed that "While it is probable that the majority of these Slavs are, or were, pro-Bulgar, it is incorrect to refer to them as other than Macedo-Slavs. To this extent both the Serb claim that they are Southern Serbs and the Bulgarian claim that they are Bulgarians are unjustified."[48]

                              By declaring that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Bulgarians nor Serbs, the survey acknowledged implicitly that they were different from both and hence that they constituted a separate south Slav element. However, it did not go so far as to recognize them explicitly as a distinct nationality or nation. It sought to explain this omission by maintaining, without convincing evidence, that "while amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs... do not care to what nationality they belong."[49] The real reason for the omission, however, lay elsewhere. In view of the prevailing acceptance of the principle of national self-determination, the recognition of the Slav Macedonians as a distinct nationality would have legitimized the Macedonian claims for autonomy or at least for national minority rights. This would have connoted the tearing up or at least the revision of the peace treaties and of the frontiers, neither of which was acceptable to Britain's clients, Greece and Yugoslavia, or indeed, to Great Britain itself. "In all the circumstances the present partition of Macedonia is probably as good a practical arrangement as can be devised," declared the Central Department, "and there is no real reason or consideration of political expediency which could be quoted to necessitate a rearrangement of the present frontiers."[50]

                              Indeed, the Foreign Office was contemplating a different and, as it turned out, an illusory solution to the Macedonian problem. It accepted as valid the official Greek determination of the low number of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia and assumed that with time they would be assimilated.[51] It also assumed that with time the Yugoslav hold on Vardar Macedonia would become more secure, that this would be followed "as a natural consequence" by the "rounding up of Macedonian agents," and that the Macedonian organization operating from Bulgaria would "suffer correspondingly through the lack of funds and general support forthcoming from that district...." And, as organized Macedonian activity declined, the prospect of more cordiality between Bulgaria and the Serb-Slovene-Croat kingdom will become brighter, and pro tonto, the idea of Serb-Bulgar Slav confederacy will become more feasible. The formation of such a Slav State in the Balkans will settle the Macedonian question once and for all. Other considerations arising out of the formation of such a confederacy must be reserved for the future. [52]

                              A few months later, on 3 March 1926; C.H. Bateman, a second secretary in the Foreign Office, issued the official position in a separate "Memorandum on 'Serbian Minorities' in Greek Macedonia."

                              In this strong statement he reiterated the main points of the Central Department's memorandum of 26 November 1925: "Most authorities are agreed that by all ethnological and language tests the Macedonian Slav is more akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." Again, without substantiation, he declared that the deciding factor in the national allegiance of the Macedonian Slavs "is the national consciousness of the individual who changes his allegiance according to circumstances... His national allegiance is largely a matter of the propaganda which is exercised upon him...,"[53] in effect, under the influence of propaganda, Bulgarian, Greek or Serbian, the Macedonian Slav would become a loyal Bulgarian, Greek or Serb. Bateman therefore sided with the Greeks in the Greek-Serbian dispute: "Taking the broadest interpretation of the Macedonian Slavs, one thing is certain, namely, that the Serbs have only the flimsiest of rights to intervene at all on their behalf. The Greeks are correct in contesting this right and contending that it is a matter that touches the internal administration of Greece."[54] If, as it appears, Bateman's aim was to put an end to the Foreign Office debate concerning the Macedonian national question, he failed. Although the Greek-Serbian dispute came to nothing, this debate intensified. R.A. Gallop, third secretary of the Legation at Belgrade, spent a week in April 1926 in Vardar Macedonia; his report after the tour is most revealing:

                              The most striking thing to one familiar with North Serbia [Serbia proper], who has been accustomed to hear Macedonia described as Southern Serbia and its inhabitants as Serbs, was the complete difference of atmosphere which was noticeable almost as soon as we had crossed the pre-1913 frontier some miles south of Vranje. One felt as though one had entered a foreign country. Officials and officers from North Serbia seemed to feel this too, and I noticed especially in the cafes and hotels of Skopje that they formed groups by themselves and mixed little with the Macedo-Slavs. Those of the latter that I met were equally insistent on calling themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians.... There seemed to be no love lost for the Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their friends...[55]

                              Moreover, in his response to Bateman's memorandum, Gallop defined more clearly than ever before the central issue in the Greek-Serbian dispute. He reminded Bateman that the Serbian claim is founded not on the contention that among the Slavs of Greek Macedonia there are some that can be picked as Serbs, but on the contention that the population is of exactly the same stock on both sides of the border. The Serbs see that to admit that the Macedonians in Greece are Bulgars weakens their case that the Macedonians in South Serbia are Serbs. While he agreed with Bateman "that the Macedonian Slavs used, before the days of propaganda, to call themselves 'Christians' rather than Serbs or Bulgars," Gallop did not agree "that the Macedonian Slavs are nearer akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." In any case, he questioned the impartiality of so-called "authorities" and emphasized the actual reality that "nowadays" the Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves "Makedonci." [56]

                              Oliver C. Harvey of the Foreign Office, who visited both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, reinforced Gallop's views. Indeed, in his "Notes" on the fact-finding mission he left no doubt about the existence of a distinct Macedonian consciousness and identity. In connection with Vardar Macedonia he reported that "The Slavophone population of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say they are 'Macedonians,' and they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identify themselves with the Bulgars, although the latter seem undoubtedly to be regarded as nearer relatives than the Serbs."[57] As far as Aegean Macedonia was concerned, Harvey noted that in its eastern and central part "the Slavophone population had 'voluntarily' emigrated and their place had been taken by 500,000 Greek refugees" from Asia Minor. "'Voluntary' emigration," he observed, "is a euphemism; incoming Greeks were planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate." Such upheaval did not take place in its western part and large numbers of Slavophones remained there, in the area around and south of Florina (Lerin). "These of course constitute the much advertised "Serb minority," he continued. "But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they speak Macedonian, and call themselves Macedonians and sentimentally look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."[58]

                              Through this internal debate, the Foreign Office appeared to have reached a virtual consensus that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Serbs, nor Bulgarians nor Greeks, a de facto acknowledgment that they comprised a separate southern Slav national group. But they were not given official recognition as a distinct nationality or nation; as I have already shown, the Foreign Office hoped to see the Macedonian problem disappear by their eventual assimilation into the three nations that ruled over them. In the meantime, during the second half of the 1920s and until its dissolution in 1934, the IMRO intensified its activities in Bulgaria and armed incursions into Vardar Macedonia, thereby reminding London of the Macedonian national question.

                              Unlike in Greece and Yugoslavia, in Bulgaria the various aspects of the Macedonian problem were generally argued freely and publicly. This was only partly due to the traditional Bulgarian paternalism toward the Macedonians; it also reflected the strength and influence of the organized Macedonian movement in the Pirin region, in Sofia and in other major urban centers. Consequently, British diplomats there were more deeply and broadly versed in all the intricacies of the Macedonian problem than their counterparts in Athens and Belgrade, and they were more apt to search for alternative solutions.

                              ` Early in 1928 Charles ES. Dodd, the charge d'affaires at Sofia, assured the Foreign Office that the IMRO "would at once desist from its sinister activities" "if the Jugoslav Government would grant educational and religious autonomy to Macedonia." To DJ. Footman, whose reaction from Skopje had been sought by the Foreign Office, this read "like pious hope" rather than "a practical proposition." He did not reject the idea in principle; indeed, he even used the terms "nationality" and "national minority" when referring to the Macedonians, and argued that if such autonomy had been introduced immediately after the war "the results would no doubt have been beneficial." Now, however, "it would not suffice to wipe out the bitterness felt against the Serbs"; it would no longer satisfy the entire Macedonian movement. Instead, he warned, Macedonian activists would interpret it "as a confession of failure and a sign of weakness on the part of Serbs, to be exploited to the utmost possible extent." He considered (and the future proved him right) that "the best chance for real progress in Macedonia" was "the removal of the Serb predominance in the Jugoslav state."[59] The Foreign Office dismissed Dodd's suggestion and showed little appreciation of Footman's pessimistic, but rather sensitive and measured analysis of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia. "It is quite clear, however," wrote Orme Sargent, a counselor and a future assistant under secretary of state, "that it would be impossible to expect the Jugoslav Government to adopt measures which would recognize the population of Southern Serbia as a political minority." Inasmuch as he had convinced himself that the discontent in Macedonia was "due to economic and administrative conditions rather than psychological or racial issues," he endorsed instead a proposal made by H.W. Kennard, the minister at Belgrade, to grant financial loans to Yugoslavia to improve internal conditions "in Southern Serbia and thus help to lessen the present sullen discontent of the population." Most important, such expenditure, Sargent concluded, would not have the appearance of being extorted from the Jugoslav Government at the point of the Macedonian bayonet, nor would it commit the Jugoslavs in any way to a recognition of the claim of a separate Macedonian nationality. Reforms on these lines could therefore be carried out at any time without loss of face by the Jugoslav Government. [60]

                              Obviously Sargent was concerned with the sensitivities and interests of the Yugoslav government and not with the demands of the Macedonians and consciously sought to minimize "the psychological and racial issues" as the basis of Macedonian discontent. This did not go unnoticed at the British Legation at Sofia: in a rather blunt and less than diplomatic manner, R.A.C. Sperling, the new minister at Sofia, accused the "Powers," meaning, of course, primarily his own government and that of France, of always unfairly taking the side of Yugoslavia against Bulgaria and the Macedonians. Or as he put it, "Jugoslavia continues flagrantly to violate the provisions of the Minorities Treaty of 1919. The Powers as well as the League of Nations accept any quibble advanced by the Jugoslav Government as a pretext for not raising the question of the Macedonian minority."[61]

                              The exchange of views provoked by Sperling's "outburst," as O. Sargent called it, is most revealing about the Foreign Office's thinking on the Macedonian national question. Howard Kennard, Sperling's counterpart at Belgrade, was so taken aback by it that he did not wish to comment on it officially. In a letter to 0. Sargent, however, he expressed his "private regrets that Sperling cannot understand that it is not a question of taking sides one way or the other, but of assisting in preserving the peace in the Balkans, which is, after all, our only political raison d'etre here."[62] C.H. Bateman accused Sperling of holding general views "that are not only erroneous but certainly dangerous ...His Majesty's Government has long since decided that what are nebulously called Macedonian aspirations are impossible of realization, and that to give way to Macedonian agitation would be the best way to create upheaval in the Balkans." [63] Sargent felt that Sperling's "outburst" ought not to go unnoticed; but instead of an official reprimand he proposed to send him a private letter.[64] This was approved by R.G. Vansittart, private secretary to the Prime Minister and assistant under secretary of state in the Foreign Office, who added that "the next time this sort of thing happens, he [Sperling] should have it officially."[65] Sargent's lengthy private letter was polite, but direct. He pointed out that Serbia was the signatory "of one minorities treaty," that signed at St. Germain on 20 September 1919. "In your dispatch you make mention of a Macedonian minority. But what is this minority?" he asked. "You will find no mention of it in the Jugoslav Minorities Treaty... He also reiterated the well known view of the Foreign Office that the grievances which "the population of Southern Serbia complain of are common to all and are due to the general low level of administrative ability among the local officials and not to the intentional ill treatment of any particular race, sect or language." Finally, he rejected Sperling's suggestion that some satisfaction of the "Macedonian national aspirations" might lead to a solution of the Macedonian problem. "What are we to understand by such aspirations?" asked Sargent. "If Macedonian autonomy is what is aimed at it can be said at once that it is impossible of realisation." To aim at it would be to play into the hands of Italy and other revisionist elements, and Britain was determined "to stick strenuously to the peace terms."[66]

                              Sperling was not deterred by the hostile reaction of his superiors. He responded to Sargent with a lengthy letter of his own in which he reduced the Macedonian problem to its bare essentials by asking bluntly two questions: "a, Is there such a thing as a Macedonian minority?" and "b, If there is, is it ill treated by the Serbs?" He then went on to answer them. "Sounds superfluous," he wrote, "but you ask 'What is the Macedonian minority?' I can hardly believe you want me to quote all the authorities from the year one to show you that there is such a thing as a Macedonian." He referred him specifically to the earlier reports by Gallop, Harvey and Footman, and stressed that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia called themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonians. With regard to the second question, Sperling argued that it made no difference to the Macedonians "whether these things were due, as you say, to the general low level of Serbian administrative ability or to the intentional ill treatment of a particular race. ... The fact remains that their charges stand..."[67]

                              London was not prepared to listen and, indeed, wished to put an end to the expression of views that seemed to run counter to the main tenets of Britain's policies in southeastern Europe. C.H. Bateman suggested to Sargent that "a short reply would be sufficient to point to the confusion of thought which appears to exist at our legation at Sofia on this Macedonian question."[68] Otherwise, his comments, which were drafted by Sargent into a letter to Sperling, reveal a characteristic British slighting of nationalism and national movements among the so-called "small" and "young" peoples in eastern Europe. He argued that just because the Slavs of Macedonia called themselves Macedonians, "there was no reason why We or you should consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory... which has not for a thousand years been an autonomous entity in any sense..."[69] However, he could not come up with another, more acceptable name for them, except perhaps "Macedo-Slavs," which was in effect the same thing.[70]

                              Such intervention and argumeilts do not seem to have been sufficient to silence the legation at Sofia. At any rate, R.A.C. Sperling left Sofia shortly after,[71] and his successor-, Sidney P.P. Waterlow, held views on the Macedonian problem that were, if anything, even more revisionist. He expressed them most cogently in a long, thoughtful and courteous letter to R.G. Vansittart,[72] who had in the meantime become permanent under secretary of state for foreign affairs. He did not believe, as the Foreign Office did, that the Macedonian problem would simply disappear when the militant revolutionaries had been destroyed in Bulgaria and when Yugoslavia had provided the Macedonians with good administration and a civilized minority regime. Unlike Nevile Henderson, Kennard's successor as minister at Belgrade, he could not see how any amount of good administration, even if it would improve the atmosphere and facilitate the suppression of the IMRO, could be an ultimate solution. He argued that only genuine home rule-freedom to manage local affairs, churches, schools, etc.-could do that, but even here he had doubts. In any case, he seemed convinced that Belgrade was not capable of giving its Macedonian subjects anything like real local autonomy or, at least, not so long as the Macedonians considered themselves Macedonian.

                              It is this that dictates the present policy of intense Serbification. But it is this that makes it impossible to introduce a genuine minority regime until there is no minority to give the regime to, and it is just this that Bulgaria, with her Macedonian exiles (the most stubborn and intelligent people in the Balkans) and her indigenous Macedonian population, can never wholeheartedly accept ...[73]

                              Thus, even if the revolutionaries were destroyed and Serbian Macedonia was ruled with "kindly wisdom," the Macedonian question would most likely remain unresolved, an apple of discord, a stumbling block to stability in the Balkans, etc. In Waterlow's search for a solution "that might bring real peace at long last," he seriously considered the idea, which seemed entirely logical to him but at the same time not altogether practical from the perspective of British foreign policy, of an autonomous united Macedonia. "I do not share the view of the department that Macedonia never having been a geographical or racial entity, the idea [an autonomous united Macedonia] is inherently absurd;" he wrote, "that is an exaggeration, inherited, I fancy, from the predominance of Serb views at the Peace Conference." He believed that, united and independent, the Macedonians "might play the part which God seems to have assigned to them in the Balkans, but which man has thwarted-that, namely, of acting as a link between their Serb and Bulgar brothers, instead of being a permanent cause of division." [74] He did not really expect a positive reaction to this idea from the Foreign Office; yet, as he concluded, "one's mind keeps flying back in this direction, as one goes over the problem day after day, only to find Alps upon Alps of hopelessness arise."[75] But when John Balfour at the Foreign Office read Waterlow's report, he did not consider this a logical idea and maintained that Britain "must continue to concentrate [on the peace treaties] in the forlorn hope that they will pierce a Simplon Tunnel through the Alps of despair."[76]

                              On the basis of this lengthy debate, which involved those in the Foreign Office and service most concerned with the Macedonian question, the Central Department drafted a new, updated memorandum on the Macedonian question in 1929.[77] Parts of the first version were revised shortly thereafter as a result of last minute critical comments and objections voiced by Waterlow.

                              The final draft of this lengthy and valuable document, dated 2 July 1930, presented the official British interpretation of the history of the Macedonian question since the 1860s, as well as an analysis of the contemporary political problem.[78] It acknowledged once again that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia, the Macedo-Slavs or Macedonians, were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, and thus implicitly recognized their separate and distinct identity. It also admitted the existence in Yugoslav Macedonia of "a uniquely dangerous minority problem, which is aggravated by the fact that the Macedonians are the most stubborn and hard-headed people in the Balkans." [79] It was therefore deeply concerned that the League of Nations could be dragged into the Macedonian problem, first of all, because it was a threat to international peace and, secondly and more importantly, because the Yugoslav minorities treaty, concluded at St. Germain in 1919, applied "to all territories acquired by Serbia as a result of the Balkan wars, and the enforcement of which is entrusted to the League Council."[80] Great Britain, however, could not allow the consideration of the Macedonian question in Yugoslavia by the League of Nations, the body that was specifically delegated to deal with and arbitrate national problems, conflicts and grievances, for it would "inevitably involve the airing of the whole Macedonian problem at Geneva and its discussion could hardly fail to precipitate a crisis which the League Council might find it very difficult to control."[81] London feared that League of Nations consideration of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia would amount to a de facto recognition of the Macedonian nationality. This would in turn legitimize to a certain extent the Macedonian demands for a united and independent Macedonia, thus challenging the existing status quo in the Balkans. The Memorandum made this quite clear: "Indeed, once the existence of a Macedonian nationality is even allowed to be presumed there is a danger that the entire Peace Settlement will be jeopardized by the calling into question, not merely of the frontiers between Jugoslavia and Bulgaria, but also of those between Jugoslavia and Greece and between Jugoslavia and Albania" [82] It strongly recommended that "this Balkan cancer" be treated "not by drastic surgical excision (e.g. plebiscite resulting in a change of frontiers....)" but rather "by the use of the healing properties of time and by the use of radium treatment of persuasive diplomacy, which while basing itself on the territorial status quo, shall endeavor gradually to eradicate the open sore that has for so long poisoned the relations of the Balkan states."[83]

                              The analysis and the recommendations of this memorandum remained the official British position on the Macedonian question virtually until the outbreak of World War II.

                              The Foreign Office interpreted the subsequent "degeneration" of the IMRO of Ivan Mihailov and, after the military coup in Sofia in 1934, the decline and cessation of its terrorist activities, as signs of the gradual eradication of "this Balkan cancer." In actual fact, this view represented a serious misreading, indeed, a rather crude misunderstanding of the transformation of Macedonian nationalism at the time. The IMRO, which had been divided between a right and a left wing from its very inception, finally split in 1924-1925. The left formed its own separate organization, the IMRO (United) and joined the Balkan Communist Federation and the Comintern. Unlike the right, it had a clearly defined social, economic and particularly national program; unlike the terrorist campaign of the right, it enhanced the cause of both nationalism and communism in Macedonia through underground work. By the early 1930s it had attracted a large following and was challenging Mihailov's IMRO for leadership. Waterlow informed the Foreign Office of the split and the growing strength of the left in his report on the proceedings of the Tenth Congress of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, the legal organization of Mihailov's IMRO, held in Sofia on 24-27january 1932.

                              The opposite view [the left], which has lately grown within the movement, which was suppressed at the congress, but which was clearly set out in the communist press, is that Mihailoff has forsaken the ideal of the Macedonian movement, that he does not fight for the liberation of Macedonia and that he has become the tool of the Fascist regime in Bulgaria, which uses the Macedonian organization for the sole purpose of maintaining its dictatorship ...

                              The Macedonian movement should again become national and independent, it should throw off the tutelage of the Bulgarian Government, which supports it only for its own ends, and it should fight for a genuinely independent Macedonia as part of a Balkan Federation under Soviet protection.[84]

                              The growth of the left undermined the support of the IMRO of Mihailov and forced the latter, for reasons of self-preservation, to free itself from the tutelage of the Bulgarian government and to identify itself with a Macedonian national program clearly calling for "the unification of Macedonian territories held by Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria, into an independent political entity within its natural geographical frontiers."[85] But it is safe to assume that this reorientation of the IMRO contributed to its suppression in 1934: by the second half of the 1930s most Bulgarians had become convinced "that the Macedonians have been more trouble in Bulgaria than they were worth and merely gave the country a bad name abroad without helping the national [Bulgarian] cause...."[86]

                              IMRO's suppression, in turn, helped to enhance the role of the Macedonian left, whose nationalist activities had previously been hampered by the IMRO and whose many activists had fallen victims of the mihailovist terror. As Bentinck, the new minister at Sofia, pointed out:

                              Since the coup d'etat last year, however, the Macedonian communists became much more active, especially in Sofia and Bulgarian Macedonia. I am told the intention was to detach the three portions of Macedonia belonging to Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and to unite them into a Soviet Republic - - - At the same time the communist parties in Bulgaria, Jugoslavia and Greece were ordered by Moscow to support the Macedonian communists...[87]

                              Thus, contrary to the hopes and expectations of the Foreign Office, neither the dissolution of the terrorist IMRO nor "the healing properties of time" resolved the Macedonian problem or caused it to disappear. Macedonian nationalism was forced underground and into the embrace of international communism, where it continued to grow. As Simeon Radev, a prominent Bulgarophile Macedonian and a well known retired Bulgarian diplomat, pointed out to Waterlow, "no solution of the [Macedonian] problem could be expected by the mere aflux of time. There was no prospect whatever of the population acquiescing in the policy of Serbianisation pursued by Belgrade...." He also emphasized "that the Macedonian sense of nationality was not a sense of Bulgarian nationality. It took the shape, especially with the younger generation, of an aspiration for autonomy." [88] On a private visit to Istanbul in September 1933, E. Venizelos, the great Greek statesman, expressed similar sentiments to Sir George Clerk, the British ambassador: Venizelos had always counselled that the Jugoslav Government should make a serious effort to content the Slav Macedonian minority... M. Venizelos maintained that these people, of which Greece has a small share...., are not pure Bulgarians, but something between Bulgarian and Serbian, and he had, he said, always been ready to give them Slav Macedonian schools and other reasonable privileges.[89]

                              Furthermore, as Radev had also argued, a driving force behind the Macedonian movement at this time was the fundamental belief that anything, however improbable, might occur in a world of flux. And central to this belief was "a desire for a union of all Macedonians in an autonomous state..." [90] As the outbreak of the Second World War approached the growing challenges to the status quo in Europe intensified this belief and desire in the second half of the 1930s.[91] In addition to the USSR or, rather, the communist movement, which already enjoyed widespread support among the Macedonians, by the end of the decade both Germany and Italy actively advocated schemes for "the liberation of Macedonia" with which "they are trying to attract Macedonians ..."[92]

                              While the Foreign Office either minimized or was ignorant of the strength of Macedonian nationalism on the left, it was not ready to overlook the spread of German and Italian influence in the area. And it was this more than anything else, that brought about a renewed British interest in the Macedonians and the beginning of a British reappraisal of the Macedonian national problem. After the fall of France in summer 1940, G.W. Rendel, the minister at Sofia, warned of the increased Soviet, German and Italian activities in Macedonia and concluded that "Presumably' however the Macedonians would accept any 'autonomous' Macedonian state which a great power succeeds in establishing."[93] He analyzed the aims of the Macedonians in greater detail in a private letter to P.B.B. Nichols of the Foreign Office written ten days later:

                              My impression is that there is now a fairly large section of the Macedonians who look to Russia for their salvation. ... I think the pro -Russian groups probably hope for the eventual creation of an autonomous Macedonian Soviet Republic as one of a chain of South Slav Soviet states running from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and to the German and Italian frontiers. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of Macedonians who are short sighted enough to be ready to intrigue with Germany and Italy...The Macedonians are notoriously difficult, and have many of the characteristics of the Irish, and my impression is that they are happiest in opposition to any existing regime...[94]

                              Early in 1941 the vice consul at Skopje provided the Foreign Office with an even more extensive and perceptive analysis of the current state of the Macedonian problem. He claimed that the vast majority of the Macedonians belonged to the national movement; indeed, he estimated "that 90 percent of all Slav Macedonians were autonomists in one sense or another...." Because the movement was wrapped in secrecy, however, it was extremely difficult to gauge the relative strength of its various currents, except that it could be assumed that IMRO had lost ground since it was banned in Bulgaria and its leaders exiled. While the vice consul acknowledged the close relationship between communism and "autonomism" or nationalism in Macedonia, he downplayed the frequently expressed contention that the communists used the Macedonian movement for their own ends.

                              Instead, he argued that since virtually every Macedonian was an autonomist, it was almost certain "that the Communists and autonomists are the same people..."; and, in any case, that Macedonian communists were not doctrinaire and were "regarded by other Balkan communists as weaker brethren...." "My own opinion," wrote Thomas, "is that they are autonomists in the first place and Communists only in the second."[95] He concluded his lengthy report by stressing what by then should have been obvious: the Macedonian problem was "a real one" and "an acute one" and that it "has in no way been artificially created by interested propaganda." He considered change unavoidable and felt that it was "in the interest of Jugoslavia to satisfy the aspirations of Macedonia."

                              He was equally convinced, however, that it was highly improbable, "in view of the instinctive dislike of the Serbs engendered by twenty years of Serbian rule, that anything short of autonomy would be acceptable.'' [96]

                              Rendel's and Thomas's appraisals of the Macedonian situation were not radically different from many produced by their predecessors stationed in the Balkans. However, with the world once more at war, the Foreign Office now accorded them more serious consideration and appeared, although grudgingly, to accept them. It seemed to accept the fact that Britain's hitherto refusal to officially recognize the existence of a Macedonian nationality, a policy that it had shaped and defended for over twenty years, might no longer prove tenable and most likely would not survive the war. In a highly revealing, indeed almost prophetic, comment on Thomas's report, Reginald J. Bowker of the Foreign Office conceded this when he wrote: "To the layman the only possible solution of the Macedonian problem would seem to be in giving the Macedonians some sort of autonomy within Jugoslavia. Possibly after the war the Jugoslavs may be willing to consider this. But such a measure would, no doubt, incur the risk of whetting the appetite of the Macedonians for complete independence."[97]

                              The lack of official recognition or legitimacy internationally and in the three Balkan states obviously had hindered the normal and natural development of Macedonian identity. However, it could not destroy it. Macedonianism in its various manifestations-particularism, patriotism, nationalism-was too deeply entrenched among the Macedonian people and among the small, but vibrant and dynamic intelligentsia, especially on the political left. During World War II, which began for the Balkans in late 1940 and early 1941, Macedonians in all three parts of their divided land joined resistance movements in large numbers and fought for national unification and liberation.[98] They did not achieve national unification; however, the Macedonians in Vardar or Yugoslav Macedonia won not only national recognition but also legal equality with the other nations of the new, communistled, federal Yugoslavia.

                              Notes

                              1. For a discussion of the significance of international recognition or legitimacy in the development of Balkan nationalisms, see especially John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 103-11, 115-16 and 373; and Alan Warwick Palmer, The Lands Between: A History of East-Central Europe since the Congress of Vienna (London: Macmillan, 1970), 28-29.

                              2. See especially Blaze Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija (Skopje: Misla, 1983), 1: 75-86, 163-87, 263-80. Ristovski is the leading authority on Macedonian national thought and development. His two volumes contain previously published studies on the subject. See also the following works published recently in the west: Fikret Adanir, Die Makedonische Frage. Ihre Entstchung und Entwicklung bis 1908 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979); Marco Dogo, Lingua e Nazionalita' in Macedonia: Vicende e pensieri di profeti disarmati, 1902-1903 (Milan: Jaca Book, 1985); Jutta de Jong, Die nationale Kern des makedonisehen Problems: Ansatze und Grundlagen einer makedonischen Nationalbeweguag (1890-1903) (Frankfurt: Lang, 1982); Andrew Rossos, "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verderv. eds.. Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.

                              3. The literature on the struggles in Macedonia is vast but rather uneven and polemical in nature. A good documentary survey in English of the activities of the neighboring Balkan states in Macedonia is to be found in George P. Gooch and Harold Temperley. eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914 (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1926-1938), 5: 100-23. Among the more useful works in western languages are Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988); Henry N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (1906, reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1980); Elizabeth Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (1950, reprint, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980); Jacques Ancel, La Macedoine (Paris, 1930); Gustav Weigand, Ethnographie von Makedonien (Leipzig, 1924). For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Jovan M. Jovanovic. Juzna Srbija od kraja XVIII veka do oslobodjenja (Belgrade. 1941) (Serbian); G. Bazhdarov, Makedonskjat vapros vchera i dnes, (Sofia, 1925) (Bulgarian); Georgios Modes, 0 makedonikos agon kai i neoteri makedoniki istoria (Salonica: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon. 1967) (Greek). Macedonan historians have turned their attention to this problem more recently. See Kliment Dzambazovski, Kulturno-opstestvenite vrski na Makedoncite so Srbija vo tekot na XIX vek (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija (Ini), 1960); Risto Poplazarov, Grckata politka sprema Makedonija vo vtorata polovina na XIX i pocetokot na XX vek (Skopje: Ini, 1973); Slavko Dimevski, Makedonskoto nacionalno osloboditelno dvizenie i egzarhijata (1893-1912) (Skopje: Kultura, 1963); Krste Bitoski, Makedonija i Knezevstvo Bugarija (1893-1903) (Skopje: Ini, 1977). On the partition of Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy. 1908-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981); Petar Stojanov, Makedonija vo vremeto na balkanskite i prvata svetska vojna (1912-1918) (Skopje: Ini, 1969).

                              4. Blaze Ristovski, Portreti i procesi od makedonskata literaturna i nacionalna istorija (Skopje: Kultura, 1990), 3: 34.

                              5. Ristovski, op cit. and 2: 24-72; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."

                              6. The Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian claims were extensively publicized. For a representative sampling of the divergent points of view, see Tihomir R. Georgevich, Macedonia (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1918) (Serbian); Iordan Ivanov, La question macedoine (Paris, 1920) (Bulgarian); Cleanthes Nicolaides, La Macedoine (Berlin, 1899) (Greek). See also the works cited in note 3.

                              7. See (London) Public Record Office, FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 3-4. (All Foreign Office documents cited hereafter are found in the Public Record Office). See also Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, Velika Britania i makedonskoto prasnje na pariskata mirovna konferencija vo 19l9godina (Skopje: Arhiv na Makedonija, 1973); Ivan Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje. Makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje megju dvete svetski vojni (1919-1930) (Skopje: Kultura, 1977), 1: chap. 1. Katardziev provides the most comprehensive, valuable and interesting treatment of the Macedonian national question in the 1920s.

                              8. FO371/14316, A. Henderson (Belgrade) to N. Henderson, 9 May 1930, Enclosure 2, "Memorandum by Vice-Consul Blakeney."

                              9. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941. On developments in Vardar Macedonia during the interwar years, see also Katardziev, op.cit., 1: 23-85; Institut za nacionalna istorija, Istorija na makedonskiot narod (Skopje, 1969), 3: part 11; Aleksandar Apostolov, Kolonizacijata na Makedonija vo stara Jugoslavija (Skopje: Kultura, 1966), and "Specificnata polozba na makedonskiot narod vo kralstvoto Jugoslavija," Glasnik (Skopje) 16, no.1(1972): 39-62.

                              10. FO 371/8566, Bentinck (Athens) to Curzon, 20 August 1923, Enclosure, Colonel A.C. Corfe, "Notes on a Tour Made by the Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration in Western and Central Macedonia," 5. By "Bulgars," Lambros meant Macedonians.

                              11. On the situation of the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia, see Andrew Rossos, The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British Officer's Report, 1944," The Slavonic and East European Review (London) 69, no.2 (April 1991): 282-88. See also Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 85-106; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 13; Stojan Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija vo Egeiska Makedonija (1913-1940) (Skopje: Ini, 1981); Lazo Mojsov, Okolu prasanjeto na makedonskoto nacionalno malcinstovo vo Grcija (Skopje: Ini, 1954), 207-87; Giorgi Abadziev, et al., Egejska Makedonija vo nasata nacionalna istorija (Skopje, 1951).

                              12. Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 293-94. Captain P.H. Evans' "Report on the Free Macedonia Movement in Area Florina 1944" is given verbatim, 291-309.

                              13. FO371/12856, Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928

                              14. FO371/8568, 22. A few years later, O. Sargent, a counselor in the Foreign Office, complained that "the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation... defies openly the Bulgarian Government and practically administers and governs part of the Bulgarian territory" (FO371/12856, Sargent [London] to Sperling, 1 October 1928).

                              15. On Pirin Macedonia as well as the Macedonians in Bulgaria, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 107-19; Istorija na makedonskiot narod, 3: part 12; Dimitar Mitrev, Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Nasa Kniga 1970), 126-202.

                              16. See Stefan Troebst, Mussolini, Makedonien und die Machte, 1922-1930: Die "Innere Makeodnische Revolutionare Organisation" in der Sudosteuropapolitik der faschistischen Italien (Cologne: Bohlau, 1987); and Barker, Macedonia, chap. 2; Leften S. Stavrianos, Balkan Federation: A History of the Movement Toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times (1944, reprint, Hamden: Archon Books, 1964), chaps. 8 and 9.

                              17. FO371/8568, p.22.

                              18. FO371/7375, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 25 January 1922. Harold Nicolson commented: "There is less disparity between the Irish and Macedonian temperament than might be supposed" (Minute, 1 February 1922).

                              19. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 2, chap. 1.

                              20. Kiselinovski, Grckata kolonizacija, chap. 4.

                              21. Katardziev, op.cit.; Dino Kiosev, Istoria na makedonskoto natsionalno revoliutsionerno dvizhenie (Sofia: Otechestven front 1954) 493-99

                              22. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1:171-83 and part 2, chap. 2; Kiosev, ibid., 512- 28. On the activities of the IMRO in all three parts of Macedonia, see also the memoirs of its leader after 1924: Ivan Mikhailov, Spomeni, 4 vols. (Selci, Louvain, Indianapolis, 1952, 1965, 1967, 1973).

                              23. Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: 375-76; Istorija na makedonshiot narod, 3: 20-23, 176-78; Evangelos Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia (Salonica: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1964), 69; Dimitrios G. Kousoulas, Revolution and Defeat: The Story of the Communist Party of Greece (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 65.

                              24. FO371/7377, Erskine (Sofia) to Curzon, 20 March 1922.

                              25. FO371/6197, Peel (Sofia) to Curzon, 10 February 1921.

                              26. See FO371/8568.

                              27. On communism and Macedonian nationalism, see Katardziev, Vreme na zreenje, 1: part 3, chaps. 1-4, 2: part 5, and ed., Predavnicite na makedonskoto delo (Skopje: Kultura, 1983), 5-56; Stojan Kiselinovski, KPG i makedonskoto nacionalno prasanje, 1918-1940 (Skopje: Misla, 1985), chaps. 2-4; Kiril Miljovski, Makedonskoto prasanje vo nacionalnata programa na KPJ (1919-1937) (Skopje: Kultura, 1962), 24-140; Dimitar Mitrev, BKP i Pirinska Makedonija (Skopje: Kultura, 1960), 42-59; Kofos, op.cit., chap. 4; Darinka Pacemska, Vnatresnata makedonska revolucionerna organizacija (Obedineta) (Skopje: "Studentski zbor," 1985). I have dealt with the subject in "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left" to be published in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verdery, eds., Nationa1 Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe.

                              28. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925, 4.

                              29. FO371/10793, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 6July 1925, Enclosure, Footman (Skopje) to Kennard, 30 June 1925, 5. John David Footman was a fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford (1953-1963) and author of several books on modern Russian history.

                              30. See especially ibid., 14 and FO371/8568, 3 and FO371/10667, 6.

                              31. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926; Enclosure R.A. Gallon. "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926, 4.

                              32. F0371111245, O. Ch. Harvey, "Notes on a Visit to Jugoslavia and Greece," April 1926, 6 May 1926, 3.

                              33. FO371/11405, 5.

                              34. FO371/10793, 6.

                              35. FO371/8566, 3.

                              36. FO371/10793, 6.

                              37. FO371/14316, N. Henderson (Belgrade) to A. Henderson, 13 May 1930, En-closures.

                              38. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930, 12.

                              39. See FO371/11337, Kennard (Belgrade) to H. Smith, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop "Notes," 23 April 1926.

                              40. FO371/11337, C.H. Bateman, "Memorandum on "Serbian Minorities in Greek Macedonia," 3 March 1926, 2.

                              41. Ibid.

                              42. See FO371/10793 and FO371/11337.

                              43. FO371/11337.

                              44. See FO371/8568.

                              45. FO371/8566.

                              46. FO371/10793. Footman dismissed the Serbian claims to a "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia and pointed to two other factors as the real causes of the Greek- -Serbian dispute: "a) Politically, the Serb displeasure at Slav inhabitants of Greek Macedonia being recognized as Bulgars; and b) Economically, the loss suffered by Serbian Macedonia and the Kingdom as a whole by being separated by a frontier from Salonica" (6).

                              47. FO371/10667, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 26 November 1925. It gave the following figures: Macedonian Slavs 1,150,000; Turks 400,000; Greeks 300,000; Vlachs 200,000; Albanians 120,000;Jews 100,000; Gypsies 10,000 (2).

                              48. Ibid., 4.

                              49. Ibid.

                              50. Ibid.

                              51. Ibid., 1, 4; See also Rossos, "Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia," 284-85, 290, 293-94.

                              52. Ibid., 7.

                              53. FO371/11337,1

                              54. Ibid., 4.

                              55. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade) to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop, "Conditions in Macedonia," 19 April 1926,1.

                              56. "I should like to know the names of any authorities who are impartial," wrote Gallop. "Certainly none of the Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, British or German ever are!" (FO371/11337, Enclosure, 23 April 1926).

                              57. FO371/11245, 2.

                              58. Ibid., p.3.

                              59. Footman argued that "such local autonomy would have greater chance of success were it to be introduced by some future government in which Croats and Slovenes held the preponderating position. There is throughout Macedonia a sullen bitterness against the Serbs..." (FO371/12856, Footman [Skopje] to Kennard, 4 February 1928 in Kennard [Belgrade] to Chamberlain, 18 February 1928).

                              60. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 16 February 1928, Minute, 24 February 1928; see also Sargent (London) to Kennard, 20 February 1928.

                              61. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Cushendun, 13 September 1928.

                              62. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade) to Sargent, 20 September 1928.

                              63. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 20 September 1928.

                              64. Ibid., 0. Sargent, Minute, 28 September 1928.

                              65. Ibid., R.G. Vansittart, Minute, 29 September 1928. Robert Gilbert Vansittart was knighted in 1929 and created a baron in 1941

                              66. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 10 October 1928

                              67. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to Sargent, 10 October 1928.

                              68. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928.

                              69. Ibid., Sargent (London) to Sperling, 22 October 1928

                              70. "The fact was of course that the framers of the Minorities Treaty hesitated to mention them under any specific name," wrote Bateman. "The most they could be called is Macedo-Slavs" (ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928).

                              71. Great Britain, Foreign Office, The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book for 1935 (London, 1935), 416.

                              72. FO371/14316, Waterlow (Sofia) to Vansittart, 21 May 1930.

                              73. Ibid., 7.

                              74. Ibid., 8-9.

                              75. Ibid., 9.

                              76. Ibid., J. Balfour, Minute, 2 June 1930.

                              77. FO371/13573, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," 6 December 1929, 9 pp.

                              78. FO371/14317, Central Department, Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930,16 pp.

                              79. Ibid., 9.

                              80. Ibid., 14.

                              81. Ibid., 15.

                              82. Ibid.

                              83. Ibid., 16.

                              84. FO371/57473, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 5 February 1932. According to the assistant to the Bishop of Nevrokop, one of the major centers of Pirin Macedonia, "The Revolutionary Organization itself was split by a growing Communist current, ... aiming at the liberation of Macedonia by the bolshevisation of the Balkans, while the local population was in its turn divided, about half being for the organization and half against, and the hostile half being largely Communist in feeling (FO371/15896, Waterlow [Sofia] to Simon, 22 June 1932; see also FO371/19486, Bentinck [Sofia] to Hoare, 16 September 1935 and 26 September 1935). On the left of the Macedonian movement see also the works cited in note 27.

                              85. FO371/16650, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 27 February 1933.

                              86. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940.

                              87. FO371/19486. Bentinck (Sofia) to Hoare, 26 September 1935.

                              88. FO371/16651, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 21 July 1933.

                              89. FO371/16775, Clerk (Constaninople) to Simon, ^ October 1933.

                              90. FO371/16651

                              91. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism on the left in the 1930s, see Biblioteka "Makedonsko zname," no.1, Ideite i zadachite na Makedonskoto progresivno dvizenje v Bulgaria (Sofia, 1933); Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i Makedonskata Nacija, 2: 481-560; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left."

                              92. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)to F.O., 15 August 1940.

                              93. Ibid.

                              94. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia) to Nichols, 25 August 1940. George L. Clutton of the Foreign Office described the Macedonians as "discontented peasants who are anti-Jugoslav, anti-Greek, anti-Bulgarian, anti-German, and anti everything except possibly anti-Russian" (FO371/24880, Campbell [Belgrade] to F.O., 4 September 1940, G.L. Clutton, Minute, 10 September 1940).

                              95. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January 1941, Enclosure, "Report on the General Situation in Southern Serbia by Mr. Thomas, British Vice-Consul at Skoplje."

                              96. Ibid..

                              97. Ibid., Reginald J. Bowker, Minute, l6 January 1941.

                              98. On the aims of Macedonian nationalism during the Second World War, see the informative and illuminating discussions by Kiril Miljovski, "Motivite na revolucijata 1941-1944 godina vo Makedonija," Istorija (Skopje) 10, no.1 (1974): 19ff; and by Cvetko Uzunovski, "Vostanieto vo 1941 vo Makedonija," Istorija, 10, no.2 (1974): 103 if.
                              "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                              GOTSE DELCEV

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                              • George S.
                                Senior Member
                                • Aug 2009
                                • 10116

                                Ancient Macedonian Words Found in the Modern Macedonian Language

                                Interview with Professor Tome Boshevski

                                Courtesy, Liljana Ristova
                                Editor, Canadian Macedonian News

                                (Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

                                Did the Slavs come to the Balkans from behind the Carpathians or did they cross the Carpathians fleeing north to avoid the Roman invasions? This is a problem that can be easily and logically remedied.

                                After five Macedonian-Roman wars fought in the second century BC with Philip V and his son Perseus, a large number of Macedonians including most of the elite and ruling class, fled Macedonia and headed north away from the conflict. Fearing a slaughter from the Roman armies descending on Macedonia from the south, from Peloponnesus, they fled the Balkans and resettled north as far as Siberia. No people leave their homes voluntarily on masse unless they are coerced. This massive evacuation was certainly coerced by the violent Roman invasion which accounted for about half of Macedonia's population leaving Macedonia. The other half still remained and lived on Macedonian territory.

                                We cannot accept the notion that the Macedonian-Roman wars "cleansed out" the entire Ancient Macedonian population as much as we cannot accept the notion that the Ancient Macedonians who fled the conflict disappeared altogether. There are well documented historic facts that prove that Ancient Macedonians not only survived the Roman invasion but many who fled north in fact, over time, returned to their ancestral lands in the Balkans.

                                Professor Boshevski, you and your colleague Professor Aristotel Tentov, a while ago, made a sensational discovery of great importance to the Macedonian people and to world history. You were able to successfully decipher the center text on the Rosetta Stone, which for over two hundred years, no one was able to decipher. Even though you are not a linguist by profession you are obviously very much interested in the subject. What compelled you to take on such a great task?

                                Professor Boshevski: With regards to the decipherment, we were not the first to attempt the center text translation. There were other translations made before us but we were not content with their results. I worked for forty years in the field of nuclear energy and I am no stranger to the types of methods necessary to solve complex problems. I investigated other's attempts at the translation but their analysis fell short of meeting our expectations.

                                The idea that drove us to the assumption that this indeed may be the writing of the Ancient Macedonians is that we refused to believe the notion of mainstream science that the Ancient Macedonians were illiterate and had no writing system or language of their own. To us it was illogical to assume that two-thousand years ago a people capable of creating an empire with all the elements of a complex civilization could not read and write in their own language! It would be impossible for such people to build grand libraries like never before and populate them with such great knowledge if they were not able to read and write.

                                It is illogical to assume that if we have no knowledge of something that it doesn't exist! Many things from that period for various reasons are still not known and have not been identified. The center text on the Rosetta Stone is a good example where something discovered over two hundred years ago is still an enigma to this very day for many scientists, including the world authorities on ancient languages.

                                Having said that however, it is well accepted that the center text on the Rosetta Stone is a distinct language with distinct writing. Since it was found in Egypt it is assumed to be an Egyptian language and because it appeared to be rare, it was assumed to be an official Egyptian language. Regarding the language's use, the academic world seems to be divided with some believing it is an Egyptian demotic or a peoples' language yet others believing it is an official Egyptian language.

                                If this language was indeed an Egyptian official language then it must have been used by the then Egyptian rulers and the Pharaoh himself to write his decrees. Interestingly, the Egyptian rulers of the time were the Ptolemaic dynasty which lasted for about three hundred years. It is well known, especially in the academic world, that the Ptolemaic dynasty was a Macedonian dynasty that originated inside the Balkans or more precisely inside Macedonia in a town today called "Ptolemaida". The name of the dynasty comes from Ptolemy Soter, the first Ptolemy. Ptolemy Soter was one of Alexander the Greats' generals. He inherited Egypt, a part of Alexander's empire, after Alexander's death. Ptolemy Soter's family name comes from his town of origin located about fifty kilometers south of present day Bitola, Republic of Macedonia.

                                The language Ptolemy Soter spoke was the language of the Pelagonian plain. The Pelagonian plain is located in the triangle between Lerin, Voden and Bitola. So it is not unusual to assume that some words or linguistic elements from Ptolemy Soter's time, survived the two-thousand years and may be present in the Macedonian language of today. If our assumption was correct that Ptolemy Soter's descendents ordered the center text to be inscribed in the Ancient Macedonian language which he brought with him from the Pelagonian plain, then we should be able to find clues of it in the modern Macedonian language or at least in the Macedonian dialectal language of the Pelagonian plain. If indeed this was the language of the Ancient Macedonians than its roots are not Egyptian but Balkan. Ptolemais, from Ptolemy Soter to Cleopatra VII the last Macedonian ruler of Egypt may have used this language for as long as they ruled Egypt. These were our first assumptions.

                                It is understandable that as in science or in mathematics, the first step to solving a complex problem is to devise a sound theory and then look for evidence to support it. Our theory was based on the above premises which we believed were sound, logical and would lead us to the right solution.

                                We cannot say that the problem was not complex. It was quite the opposite. Besides being faced with deciphering the meaning of each symbol, we also had to identify sounds and figure out how they would fit into constructing a language. It was a puzzle with many undefined elements but luckily we found that today's science does have knowledge of this kind of writing which exists in the larger territory of Europe. Almost all ancient European writing comes from the Pelasgians, the Etruscans, the old Dannans and other ancient northern people who had syllabic writing similar to that identified on the Rosetta Stone. Our latest findings have indicated that the Canadian Eskimos too had a writing system with markings which in large part are similar to the ones on the Rosetta Stone. This kind of information is widely available even in encyclopedias. All you have to do is look up any title or literature with references to the writing of the Canadian Eskimos and other American indigenous people or to the writing of the ancient European people.

                                There is no need to dispute the syllabic nature of this writing system. It has been in official use for long periods of time in Europe before the Roman period and before the arrival of the Latin script on the European continent.

                                On account that you have established that the writing is syllabic, what is the most appropriate name to call it?

                                Professor Boshevski: We have not given it any particular name; we call it by its characteristics "syllabic writing" or "the center text on the Rosetta Stone". This is a script of a very old civilization spanning the territory of Europe and Asia Minor which at some point in time was brought to the North American continent and was widely used by many nations. The Ptolemais used a downscaled sophisticated version of it with a reduced number of symbols. This way its keepers would have had an easier time remembering its rules and keeping track of them.

                                Our job was to unravel this language's mystery which meant that we needed to identify its grammatical rules. After some investigation and by using today's Macedonian language as reference, a certain number of grammatical rules began to surface such as the formation of the superlative adjective with the prefix "na" (on, upon, to, up to, at, against) or its plural "nai". More about this can be found in our publication "Po Tragite na pismoto i jaziko na antichkite Makedontsi" (Tracing the Ancient Macedonian Writing and Language). Interestingly we found the term "na" in use three times.

                                This discovery gave us some confidence that we were on the right track and that this may be the language of the Ancient Macedonians. This may indeed be the syllabic writing of the Ancient Macedonian language whose roots place it in the center of the Balkans on the Pelagonian plain. If so then this would be a script of European origins, older than the Roman civilization and from an aspect of writing, preceding the Glagolic and Cyrillic scripts of Kiril and Metodi which by the way, also originated in the same region.

                                According to one of our most recognized cultural activists, Chernorizets Hrabar who by the way also was one of our motivators for starting this project, the people of the Balkans, before the brother saints Kiril and Methodi gave us our current writing, wrote in "cherti i retski" (lines and incisions). Interestingly we also found this term in the Pharaoh's decree. The actual term was "nareitsi" which by just looking closely is similar to the term "narestsi" and "cherti" and "retski".

                                Russian literature describes the "cherti i retski" (lines and incisions) as a form of pre-Slav writing but does not tell of its time or how widely it was used. However in view of our discovery we know for certain that the inscription on the Rosetta Stone was made in 196 BC. From this we can conclude that this type of writing existed before the second century BC.

                                Professor Boshevski, you made reference to this language as being older than the Roman civilization as in "pre-Roman". But we know that before Rome there was Macedonia, a state with all the components of a civilization which lasted a long time. Why has no one used the term "Macedonian Civilization"?

                                Professor Boshevski: This is a question for which I have no logical answer. Our contemporary educators tell us that there are verifiable Egyptian and Persian civilizations. It is well known that the Macedonian Empire followed the Persian Empire just like the Roman Empire followed the Macedonian Empire. We also know that the Persian Empire to a large degree existed within the Egyptian Civilization. So if we line them up we have the Egyptian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman Empires which in part or in whole, ruled the European continent for long periods of historic time.

                                It is sad that our contemporary educators have shown little or no respect for the Macedonian Civilization. This is another reason which motivated us to pursue this project.

                                All prior and subsequent empires carried the ethnic name of the people who initiated them, however, only the Macedonian Empire is called "Alexander the Greats' Empire". Doesn't this negate the Macedonian identity?

                                Professor Boshevski: I can't say I fully agree with all of this. No one can challenge the name of the Ancient Macedonians like they question their ethnic identity. The name by itself "Ancient Macedonians" no one dares to dispute. When we began to solve this problem, we thought that we would provide a great contribution to science and build a database of knowledge with which one can learn to read the texts written by the Ancient Macedonians and find out for themselves who these people were, how they spoke and naturally use this knowledge to write Macedonia's history. Thinking along those lines, our initial aim was to identify the actual writing with which the text was written, to become familiar with its meaning and then create a methodology for reading and writing in that language.

                                As most people know by now, there are three different texts written on the Rosetta Stone; the top text is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the bottom text is written in the language of the Dannans, a writing closely resembling that of today's Greek alphabet, and the center text, which was deemed by some scholars to be the "Demotic" or "peoples" language of the Egyptians. I just want to mention here that the name "Dannans" was what the Ancient Macedonians called the people who understood the bottom language on the Rosetta Stone.

                                We know in essence this is syllabic writing, which some analysts referred to as "a writing with which the laws were written". In today's terms that means it was the "official writing" of the authorities who at the time were the Ptolemaic dynasty. In other words, the Ancient Macedonians.

                                As it is in nuclear physics where the construction of matter consists of protons and neutrons where protons are the carriers of individual characteristics of each chemical element, and neutrons serve as their binds, so is the construction of a language where we have the consonants and vowels. Consonants are the carriers of the contents of the word, and vowels serve as their binds constructing the flow of pronunciation. In some of our trials we deciphered ordered letters with only consonants and assumed the vowels. We were successful in deciphering 26 different symbols which turned out to be consonants. Then by rotating each consonant 90 degrees on its plane, we were able to connect it with 4 vowels. And then by mirroring it we were able to connect it with 4 more vowels for a total of 8. For example let's say an asymmetrical symbol represents the consonant "r". In its vertical position it may assume the vowel "a" for "ra". By rotating it clockwise 90 degrees it assumes another vowel say "o" for "ro", Rotating it again 90 degrees clockwise it assumes a their vowel say "i" for "ri". Rotating it one more time by 90 degrees will assume a fourth vowel, say "u" for "ru". Above these four rotations we can now mirror each image of the rotated consonant and assume four more vowels.

                                By using this technique we were able to define a method for writing where a single symbol by being rotated and mirrored on its plane could assume up to 8 vowels thus creating up to 8 syllables.

                                Of the 26 symbols we identified as consonants, 13 are asymmetrical, with the dominant position being on the vertical line. Symmetrical symbols can be rotated but cannot be mirrored thus giving us only 4 vowels. Once we developed the above method, we were ready to start wiring for sounds.

                                We were hoping to have connected all the consonants in the Cyrillic alphabet, which to this day have been used in the Balkans and wider. We have defined the most characteristic consonants in the Macedonian language, including "?", "?", "?" and others but not "?". We have identified some letters from the Cyrillic alphabet, which are in use today by the Macedonian language, like the symbol "??" (sht) which is predominant in Macedonian dialects, especially in those of the Ohrid region. "??" is also found in other Slavic languages such as the Slovenian, Bulgarian and others.

                                In today's Slovenian literary language for example, there are 8 consonants from which 5 are found in the Macedonian literary language and the other 3 are present, to a large degree, in the dialects (such as the "Mijachkian", "Rechanskian" and others) of the Macedonian language.

                                In other words, I can say that we created a syllabic alphabet consisting of 26 consonants and 8 vowels and ordered it in a regular fashion of writing and then we were ready to turn our attention to reading parts of the text.

                                I also want to mention that this text was written in a contiguous line from right to left with no spaces between words, no capital letters and no start or end marks to signify beginning or end of sentences. In order for us to identify words we had to identify re-occurring groups of symbols. We were hoping to identify about a couple of hundred of these, enough to be able to adequately test their meaning against today's Macedonian language.

                                I am happy to say that we identified more than enough and when we wired them for sound we were able to reconstruct 160 words. The meaning of most of which has been preserved in our contemporary Macedonian dialects.

                                We were always of the opinion that we did not need much to reconstruct the language of the Ancient Macedonians.

                                Were you successful in uncovering the entire meaning of the text?

                                Professor Boshevski: As you know the uncovering of the meaning of the text was done some time ago as a result of our decipherment but I must tell you it does not have the identical message as the other two texts. There are assumptions out there that all three texts have the same meaning but here we are talking about a Pharaoh's decree. If you consider the Pharaoh was Macedonian he could not have possibly given the same message to the rulers, the Macedonians, as he gave to the ruled, the Egyptians. Among the Egyptians were the Dannans who were also ruled by the Macedonians. The message for the Egyptians written in hieroglyphs and the message for the Dannans written in what we call "Greek" today were written for the people the Pharaoh ruled. The center text was directed to the rulers that is why the messages are different. Had we assumed the texts to be identical or similar, we would have not been able to appropriately translate the center text. The pharaoh had addressed his compatriots, the Ancient Macedonians, in a different manner than he had addressed the Egyptians he ruled. We could see that the order of the sentences like the order of the words within the sentences were not the same. The order of the address to the king was not the same either. For example, after the designation of the pharaoh, in the Dannan text there is a last name, whereas in the center (Macedonian) text there was one more epitaph and after that was a name. The dynasty or family name was at the end. It would have been very risky and we would have made fundamental errors had we assumed the meaning in the texts to be same.

                                What was most interesting is that we found an expression in the Pharaoh's text which has a similar meaning in Macedonian today. For example when the Pharaoh ordered the text to be scribed on the stone he used the expression "da se naveze" meaning "to embroider". Interestingly this expression is still in use in some parts of Macedonia today to refer to "well written" letters.

                                Can you mention some words you found on the stone that are similar to today's Macedonian language?

                                Professor Boshevski: The three upright dashes, or vertical lines as we call them, refer to "God". We recognized this designation because we had seen it before in a Russian publication called "Slavianska Pismenost" (Slavian Literacy). Here Russian scientist Grinevich talks about the existence of old writing found in Russia, the Ukraine and Poland and in this writing he eludes that the three vertical lines are a reference to "God". We found over one-hundred occurrences of this in our text so we were pretty convinced we were on the right track. We also found evidence in a Vincha stone artifact from 7,000 BC where the three vertical dashes were prominent and possibly meant "God".

                                All in all we had three different sources from three different regions which was sufficient evidence to lead us to believe that we were on the right track. Not being one-hundred percent certain though, since the Vincha writing and the Russian texts were not proven, we set out to find our proof on the Egyptian text. There we found an adjective written with the symbols which we identified to mean "Bozhen" (devine). Similarly in front of Alexander the Great's name we found "Bozhenstveniot" (devine). By then we were convinced we were on the right track.

                                I just want to add that this writing which we found in Egypt, and no doubt was brought there by the Macedonians, we believe has its beginnings in the Balkans. It lasted a long time until it was replaced by Kiril and Metody's Cyrillic script. In the words of Chernorizets Hrabar this was the language in which "the Slavs wrote and foretold".

                                I believe this writing system began to decline first as a result of Roman intervention and later as a result of the interference of the Catholic Church. Roman authorities forbade use of this writing fearing that the Macedonian State may rise again. Romans used every opportunity to make sure that the name of its preceding empire was never mentioned. That's why Rome divided Macedonia into four pieces and that's why it forbade communication and travel between those four pieces. The Romans even forbade marriages between Macedonians separated by their artificially imposed borders. Along with forbidding the writing, the Romans also destroyed artifacts written in this language.

                                In this Ancient Macedonian text there are many words which are used in today's Macedonian language. Is the ancient Macedonian language a precursor to our modern Macedonian language?

                                Professor Boshevski: We believe that the Ancient Macedonian language is a precursor not only to most modern Balkan languages but also to all of today's Slavic languages. We believe, and time will prove this, that all these languages have descended from the Ancient Macedonian language. Let's say that the Ancient Macedonian language is a proto-Slav language.

                                Until now we were led to believe that the Slavic speaking populations arrived in the Balkans around the seventh century AD speaking a "Slavic language". With your discovery we now have a basis to establish a new idea, the idea that the so-called "Slavic languages" have their roots in the ancient Macedonian language. Are we now faced with a great contradiction?

                                Professor Boshevski: It appears that we have come to the same conclusion. In the beginning of the interview I said that we wanted to identify the writing on this stone and if possible reconstruct its language which we naturally assumed would be the language of the Ancient Macedonians. We wanted to know what the Ancient Macedonians themselves had to say, in their own writing, in their own language, not to learn about them from other sources. Based on our discovery, on the evidence we found, we have to come to our own conclusions even if they don't agree with mainstream science. We must apply the facts as we see them even if we need to push aside the mistakes of history with regards to certain migrations of people, origins of people and origins of languages.

                                Here is a text left by the ancients which is satisfactorily long and rich, which gave us the opportunity to reconstruct and bring to light an alphabet and the rules for reading and writing and to reconstruct what was thought to be a lost language.

                                All discoveries up to now tell us that this is the text of the Ptolemais who ruled Egypt for about 300 years. We know the Ptolemaic dynasty was Macedonian. We know their origins are from the Balkans, more precisely, from the Pelagonian valley.

                                The next step for us is to have these facts acknowledged by world science. We need our world contemporaries to verify our work and what we have found and then to appropriately revise science as required.

                                There are remarks made by some who believe it's impossible to have two thousand year old words survive in a language when speaking about our current Macedonian language. In other words they say two thousand years is far too long for Ancient Macedonian words to have survived in the modern Macedonian language. If that were so then I pose this question to them: "How can some words, such as those from the third text on the Rosetta Stone, survive two thousand years and be present in today's modern Greek language?" Why is no one disputing that fact and better yet why are they not making remarks about it? Why does it bother people that in today's Macedonian language there are words the Ancient Macedonians spoke?

                                No one can now deny or destroy the writing on the Rosetta Stone. Once our methodology is verified and proven, then no one will be able to contest it.

                                With regards to your discovery what kind of reaction did you get from the Macedonian intellectuals and from corresponding world institutions?

                                Professor Boshevski: Up no now there has been no significant reaction. The publication we printed was well accepted and is receiving attention in creating interest locally as well as in some European circles. We sent an electronic version to various world centers, including the Institute of Eastern Languages in Chicago, to Oxford, to London and to Germany. We can't expect immediate reactions; it takes time to interpret our results before people can truly understand our discovery. What we found will shake the foundations of our contemporary understanding. Everything up to now that has been written about the Ancient Macedonians can't easily change. A great deal has been invested in the creation of our current understanding and now we appear with our findings out of nowhere telling everyone they were wrong. A lot of time will pass before people are comfortable with the idea, before it sinks in and before we see any reactions. In the meantime we will stand by our convictions and be at everyone's disposal to conduct dialog and eventually solve this problem.

                                This article appeared in the newspaper "Canadian-Macedonian News" in Toronto in January 2007
                                "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                                GOTSE DELCEV

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