Maria Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou

THE "MACEDONIAN QUESTION"

MARIA NYSTAZOPOULOU-PELEKIDOU

THE"MACEDONIAN QUESTION"

A HISTORICAL REVIEW

TRANSLATED BY ILIAS KYZIRAKOS

IONIAN UNIVERSITYCORFU

© Association Internationale d'Etudes du Sud-Est Europeen,Comite Grec, Kaplanon 9,10680 Athenes, Gn~ceISBN 960-7260-01-5 (Ionian University)

Published by the Ionian UniversityMegaron Kapodistria, GR-491 00 CorfuDeligiorgi 55-59, GR-10437 Athens

PREFACE

This work, which was first published in 1988, in Greek, by theGreek Committee for Southeast European Studies, had two aims;firstly to promulgate a broader awareness of the Macedonian Ques­tion and secondly to help confront the intensifying propaganda ofSkopje, using scientifica11y based facts. At the conclusion of the workit was then noted that "there was an urgent need to examine a11 mat­ters relating to the Macedonian Question minutely and in detail, usingobjective scientific criteria, in order to restore the historical truth. "

Since then, radical developments have made a second edition,updated and supplemented with current facts, essential. This secondedition is published alongside English, French and German transla­tions by the Ionian University.

I would like to thank the fo11owing for their contributions to thispublication: Professor E11y Yiotopoulou-Sicilianou and ProfessorLinos Benakis, President and Vice Presidentof the Ionian University,Mr. Elias Kizirakos, Hans Schlumm and A.-G. Alexakis, members ofthe Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpretingof the Ionian University, who translated this work into English Ger­man and French respectively. I would also like to thank Mrs. Mar­garet Swanberg for her assistance and Mr. Ioannis Diamantopoulos,who drew the maps.

Athens, June 1992 Maria Nystazopoulou-PelekidouProfessor at the University of Jannina

Member of the Administrative Committeeof the Ionian University

5

The "Macedonian Question" is a major and many-faceted issuepresenting· manifold political, national and historical problems. Inrecent decades it has been rekindled and nowadays has acquired per­ilous dimensions. This problem, however, is not only a concern of ourtimes: it dates back to the 19th c., right after the Greek War of Inde­pendence of 1821.

This issue was initially raise~ by the Bulgarians; mainly by thoseBulgarians of the diaspora who, in attempting to achieve nationalrehabilitation, made territorial claims on Macedonia. These Bulgariannationalistic feelings were considerably reinforced by the establish­ment of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1870)', and in particular by theTreaty of San Stefano (March 1878), according to which northern andcentral Macedonia was annexed to Bulgaria. Of course, the Treaty ofBerlin (JunelJuly 1878) reinstated Ottoman domination in theregion2

, but the temporary ceding of Macedonian areas to the Bulgar-

1. The institutional firman included a controversial stipulation; that in thefuture, other provinces of the vilayets of Monastir and Thessaloniki could also beplaced under the jurisdiction of the Exarchate, if all the inhabitants or at least two­thirds requested it. This clause, as a matter of course, later caused much frictionbetween Greeks and Bulgarians, as well as armed interventions by the Bulgarians,because the clause became an instrument of political propaganda: For the establish­ment of the Bulgarian Exarchate and its repercussions, see Maria Nystazopoulou­Pelekidou: Ot BaAxavlIcoi J1aof. 'AnD njv roVpK1Krj KaniKT1JCf1J arrjv &(}V1Krj anoKa­

niCfTaCf1J, l4o~-190~ al.2 (= The Balkan Peoples. From the Turkish Conquest to theNational Emancipation, 14th-19th c.) (Thessaloniki, 1991), pp. 213-222.

2. Re the Treaty of San Stefano, the Treaty of Berlin and their repercussions, seeamong others M. Laskaris, To 'AvarolllKov ZfJT1JJ.la, 1800-1923 (= The Eastern.Question, 1800-1923) (Thessaloniki, 1948), pp. 291-300. Maria Nystazopoulou­Pelekidou, The Balkan Peoples, op. cit., pp. 262-272.

7

ians encouraged these claims, while the establishment of the BulgarianPrincipality (1878) and the annexation of Eastern Rume1ia to Bulgaria(1885) created new centres of propaganda. By the end of the centurythese had led to the formation of the Internal Macedonian Revolu­tionary Organization (IMRO, 1893) and the Central Committee(1985) which adopted systems of violence and armed interventionoften tolerated by the Ottoman authorities.

Serbia's claims to a free passage to the Aegean sea and itsattempts to win over the Slav-speaking population of NW Macedoniaby infiltrating the Church and Education, as well as Roumanianclaims on the Vlach-speaking Greeks, date back to the end of the 19thc., while the claims of the Albanians at the end of the 19th c. includedthe vi1ayets of Monastir and Thessa10niki in their autonomist pro­gramme3

• It must be noted however that these situations never sup­ported the existence of a separate Macedonian nationality. The crisisdeepened at the beginning of the 20th c. and led to the MacedonianStruggle (1904-1908) and to the two Balkan Wars (1912-13) whichresulted in the liberation of Macedonia from the Turkish yoke and therecognition of the predominance of Hellenism in the area through theannexation of the largest part of Macedonia to Greece. Bulgarianaspirations were pursued in other forms both during the inter-warperiod and after World War II. Then a new, radically revised Yugo­slavian policy was formulated with an intergrated programme aimedat putting forward the existence of a separate Macedonian Nation.Today, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the problem has becomemore acute since the once autonomous Republic of Skopje nowdemands to be recognized by the international community as an inde­pendent state with the spurious name of Macedonia.

The present study cannot fully examine all the issues that havebeen mentioned. However, there is a comprehensive bib1iographt in

3. Ibid., p. 287.4. I note selectively: N. Vlachos, To MaIC£bovlICov w; ({Jam; mv 'AvamllzICov

ZrynjJlam;, 1878-1908 (= The Macedonian Question as a Phase of the Eastern Ques­tion, 1878-1908) (Athens, 1953). L. S. Stavrianos, Balkan Federation. A H{storyofthe Movement toward Balkan Unity in Modern Time (Hamden-Connecticut, 1964),and mainly ch. 6 "Macedonia versus Balkan Unity, 1878-1902", pp. 123-151, with the

8

-

spite of the fact that there has not yet been a systematic and objectiveexploitation of all the records and other sources. This study is anattempt to be as informative as possible and to provide an enlighten­ing historical review of the problem as it appears from World War IIuntil today5.

I. An expose of the question and the position of Skopje

After the end of World War I, in 1918, the Yugoslav peopleswere united into a'single state named "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats andSlovenes" -and in 1931 this name was changed to "Kingdom of Yugo­slavia." It should be noted that the creation of thjs state, which hadno ethnic homogeneity, and its later support was mainly the work ofFrance and French foreign policy: France, by supporting the estab­lishment of a powerful allied state that would uphold its policy in this

bibliography. D. Djordjevic, Revolutions nationales des peuples Balkaniques, 1803­1914 (Belgrade, 1965); in particular for Macedonia, see pp. 105-109, 146-150, 166-175,194 et sq. D. Dakin, The Greek Struggle in Macedonia, 1897-1913 (Thessaloniki,1966). K. Vacalopoulos, '0 {36pE:lOr; 'EAATJVlaJ-lOr; Kara riJv JT:pWIJ-lTJ rpaaTJ rou

MaKE:/iovllcou 'Arwva, 1878-1894 (= Northern Hellenism During the Early Phase ofthe Macedonian Struggle, 1878-1894) (Thessaloniki, 1983). Idem, NE:wrE:PTJ 'Iaropia

rfjr; MaKE:Ooviar;, 1830-1912 (= Modern History of Macedonia, 1830-1912) (Thessalo­niki, 1986). N. Martis, 'H JT:AaarorparpTJaTJ rfjr; 'Iaropiar; rfjr; MaKE:Ooviar;' (= TheFalsification of the History of Macedonia) (Athens, 1983) and, below, the notes 93and 94. See also the related publications of the Society for Macedonian Studies, thepublications of the Institute of Balkan Studies, and the articles in the journals Make­donika [= MUKEoovtK<l] and Balkan Studies. The related Bulgarian and Yugoslavbibliography is most extensive: Specifically see the presentations, book reviews andtranslations in the bibliographical publications of the Institute of Balkan Studies andin the journal Balkan Studies.

5. The official position of Yugoslav "Macedonia" is expounded in the publica­tions of the "Institute of National History" of Skopje and especially in the three­volume work Istorija na Makedonskijot Narod (= History of the Macedonian Nation)(Skopje, 1969). For a detailed survey on this subject, see Ev. Kofos, 'H MaKE:Oovia

ariJv rlOVrKoaAa{3IKiJ 'IaroplOrparpia (= Macedonia in the Yugoslav Historio­graphy), Publication of the Society for Macedonian Studies, No 24 (Thessaloniki,1974) from wich I drew useful elements. See also Ev. Kofos, '0 MaKE:OOVIKOr;

'Arwvar; ariJ rlOVrKoaAa{3IKiJ 'IaroplOrparpia (= The Macedonian Struggle in theYugoslav Historiography) (Thessaloniki, 1987).

9

sensitive area, initially intended to create a barrier against the expan­sion of Austria and later to ward off German influence andpenetration6

•

At the end of World War II, whithin the framework of the reor­ganization of the state of Yugoslavia into a Federal People's Republic,six people's republics were established (Jan. 31, 1946), renamed latersocialist republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mon­tenegro, Serbia and Macedonia?

In actual fact this division caused substantial damage to Serbia:while Slovenia and Croatia retained their unity, Serbia was dividedinto three socialist republics and in this way was considerably dimin­ished8

• It is most probable that this was Croatia's response to theleading position which Serbia had held in the past9

, especially duringthe inter-war period 1o

- a position based both on historical traditionand on the struggles of the Serbian people.

6. See M. Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou, 'E(}VlIClanKa cpalVOj1E:va Kai xmpzanKsq

Taaelq aTa BaJ.xavza. Ta z'aroplKa aina (= Nationalistic Phenomena and SeparatistTendencies in the Balkans. The Historical Reasons), Publications of the Greek Com­mittee for Southeastern European Studies (Athens, 1991), p. 28.

7. See generally E. Hosch, The Balkans. A Short History from Greek Times tothe Present Day (English translation, London, 1972), pp. 171 and 174. M. de Vos,Histoire de la Yugoslavie 2

, "Que sais-je?" No 675 (Paris, 1965), p. III et sq; for therenaming, see p. 126.

8. Apart from ·the autonomous republics which were detached from Serbia,inside the limits of the Republic of Serbia the autonomous province of Vojvodina andthe autonomous region of Kossyphopedion (Kossovo) - Metohija were created. Sincethen Serbia has owned an area of .88,361 square kilometres, i.e. 34,5% of the totalarea of Yugoslavia, while in the inter-war period it exceeded 60%. Cf. also M. de Vos,Histoire de la Yougoslavie2

, p. 112.9. After the Serbian Revolution (1804-1830) and the establishment of the Serbian

autonomous principality (1834), Serbia sought to playa leading role among theYugoslav Peoples as well as throughout the Balkans. This policy was expressed in theNacertanije, "The Plan", that Ilija Garasanin worked out in 1844 and which consti­tuted the guideline for Serbian foreign policy during the entire 19th century. Cf. M.Laskaris, The Eastern Question, op. cit., p. 200. M. Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou, TheBalkan Peoples, op. cit., p. 199 sq. Cf. also D. Djordjevic, Revolutions nationales, op.cit. p. 73.

10. About the Serbian hegemonistic policy after World War I, see M. de Vos,Histoire de la Yougoslavie2

, p. 97 sq.

10

s

With the establishment of the autonomous republic of Macedo­nia, which covers 10.5% of the total area of Yugoslavia and has apopulation of 2,000,000 today, the Yugoslav government had twoobjectives: a) The reinforcement of Southern Yugoslavia, to succeedin effectively removing any Bulgarian influence or aspiration for thisregion - because undoubtedly the Bulgarian presence in that areawas quite strong and pro-Bulgarian tendencies were powerfuP'. b) Themaking of Macedonia as a whole - that is, not only the Yugoslavpart of it - a connecting link in establishing a Federation of (heBalkan peoples. The latter had also been the aim of the Bulgariansduring the inter-war period. It is important to note that Hristo Tatar­chev, President of the Central Committee of the Internal MacedonianRevolutionary Organization (IMRO), writes in his memoirs (Sophia,1928): "We thought that later an autonomous Macedonia should beable to be joined more easily to Bulgaria, or, if this was unrealizable,it should be able to become the uniting link in a federation of BalkanPeoples"'2. After World War II, Stalin tried to create a Federation ofBalkan States and, by including Greece among them, to secure accessto the Aegean Sea - a Federation over which the Soviet Union wouldhave had complete control. Since Macedonia was the bone of conten­tion and the cause of friction between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, hetried (through the Stalin-Tito-Dimitrov plan) to use Macedonia as aconnecting link by detaching it from both countries which claimed it.But after the split between Tito and the Soviet Union (1948), theYugoslav leader adopted the plan of Stalin for his own benefit, remov­ing Bulgaria of course.

Yugoslav "Macedonia", 'formed in 1946, consisted of the area

11. See Ev. Kofos, Macedonia in the Yugoslav Historiography, pp. 6-7 with thenotes.

12. Macedonia. Documents and Material (Sophia, 1978), pp. 661-662. Cf. Ev.Kofos, The Macedonian Struggle, op. cit., pp. 22-23. It should be noted that neitherChr. Tatarchev nor earlier the Communist Congress of 1924 mention a "MacedonianNation": see M. Papaconstantinou, 'H MaTce80via Jl~ra rov MaKe8ovl1co 'Armva(= Macedonia after the Macedonian Struggle) (Athens, 1992), p. 35.

11

previously called "Southern Serbia" or "Vardarska Banovina"l3.Since 1946 the Yugoslavs call it "Vardar Macedonia" (VardarskaMakedonia), referring to Greek Macedonia as "Aegean Macedonia"(Egeiska Makedonia) and to the small Bulgarian part as "Pirin Mace­donia" (Pirinska Makedonia).

They wanted to give a separate political and national existence tothis newly-established socialist republic. As we know, the main char­a~teristics of a nation are unity of country (with the meaning of com­mon fatlrerland) and of political organisation, language, religion andheritage, which are joined by a common past, common ambitions forthe future and most importantly by a common consciousness - char­acteristics which alone are not enough or indeed necessary but whichin combination create the separate identity of a nation. They tried togive these characteristics to the new "republic of Macedonia", Theywanted, in other words, to fabricate a nation. The means that theyused were the following l4

:

1. Separate state organization: All the local state organizationswhich wer.e created, with Skopje as the centre, within the frameworkof the federal government of Yugoslavia, were called "Macedonian":"Macedonian government", "Macedonian Parliament", etc. Thus thisterm acquired a new political and state dimension, which in the courseof time became established.

2. Separate language: The Yugoslav Constitution recognized alocal dialect as the official language; it was called "Macedonian" andwas considered equal to the Serbo-Croatian and the Slovenian lan­guages l4a

• This "Macedonian" dialect, which until then had only been

13. The name Vardarska Banovina is a result of the reorganization of 1931. Atthat time the old names and administrative divisions were abolished and simulta­neously with its renaming as Kingdom of Yugoslavia the state was organized intonine banovinas, which took their names from the river which passed throught them.In this way the new Constitution attempted to eradicate localism and the old divisionsinto ethnic groups and at the same time to obliterate the interior boundaries: Cf. M.de Vos, Histoire de la Yugoslavie 2

, p. 100.14. See Ev. Koros, Macedonia in the Yugoslav Historiography, p. 8.14a. See N. Andriotis, The Federative Republik of Skopje and its languag~

(Thessaloniki, 1966).

12

considered a dialect of the Bulgarian language, "was purged" of lin­guistic elements which might create disputes in the future, became theofficial language of the region, and has been taught in schools eversince. Thus the children started using it and became accustomed to it,whichever language or dialect they used at home. In this way the newpostwar generation of the region acquired a new linguistic instrumentwhich was imposed "from above", by state will and for politicalreasons.

3. Independent Church: Despite the fact that communist ideol­ogy does not accept religion, religious sentiment was deeply rooted inthe inhabitants of the region and the Church was closely related totheir historical traditions. It is for this reason that the "Autocepha­lous Macedonian Church" was founded in 1964, after communistparty intervention, with Ochrid as its seat, despite the strong reactionsof the Serbian Patriarchate. This emancipation was.a blatant violationof the canon law of the Orthodox Church and was effected in order toreinforce the autonomy of "Macedonia" vis-a-vis Serbia - an au­tonomy which was expressed by the slogan "One State, one Church,one Nation"15.

4. Separate nationality: In order that their political existencecould be consolidated and their general political aims strengthened, itwas essential that the population of the region became conscious ofMacedonia as a separate nation. For this reason they attempted tocreate and propagate a "Macedonian" national consciousnessamongst the inhabitants of Southern Yugoslavia. In this endeavour itwas essential to project a separate historical past, t~ "fabricate" a"Macedonian" history. Historians were mobilized and an "Instituteof National History" was founded in Skopje. It was instantly staffedby many scholars who started conducting extensive research in li­braries and archives, gathering a huge amount of materiaP6 and pub-

15. See H. Papastathis, "L'autocephalie de I'Eglise de la Macedoine Yougo­slave", Balkan Studies 8 (1967), pp. 151-154.

16. In 1976 Ev. Kofos, Macedonia in the Yugoslav Historiography(p. 13 et sq.),had already observed: "Within a few years in Skopje they collected hundreds of thou­sands of microtapes from state, private and ecclesiastic archives which referred, inwhatever way, to Macedonia. Without stinting themselves materially, they al~o pho-

13

lishing books, reviews and journals l7 at an impressive rate. By meansof their studies and publications they attempted to reconstruct andre-interpret historical data in order to fulfil their objectives.

Their first aim was to cut off every link between the so-called"Macedonians" and the Bulgarians, as well as the Serbs, and to con­vince the people that they belonged to a separate Slavic nation, the"Macedonian" one. Therefore the history of the region, as well as thelanguage, had to be "purged" of all Bulgarian and Serbian elements.All the Bulgarian and Serbian historical data connected to that region- historical events, people, activities and intellectual work - wererenam'ed "Macedonian"l8, so that they could be incorporated into thenew "Macedonian" history which was then being written, or, if theydid not fit into the new historical framework and guidelines, they weredenounced as hostile19•

The second aim was to eliminate Greek character of Macedoniaand Macedonian history; and this would be achieved by minimizingthe Greek presence in this region and misinterpreting or falsifyingtheir role, specifically the cultural and intellectual contribution of Hel­lenism, the orthodox Greek clergy and Greek schools.

The third aim was to search for, fabricate and project the histori­cal development of the so-called "Macedonian people", so as to prove

tographed thousands of pages of old editions, books, pamphlets and newspapers". Inthis way they created huge Archives relating to Macedonia, although, of course, thismaterial should not be able in any way to support the existence of a separate Mace­donian nation.

17. For the first publications, see Ev. Kofos, Macedonia in the Yugoslav Histo­riography, p. 9 and notes 1-2. From these publications the most basic is the Istorijana Makedonskijot Narod which I have already mentioned (see above, note 5). Asecond voluminous edition of this work is being prepared since the first one is consi­dered out-of-date.

18. The examples are many; Characteristically, I mention the work of thebrothers Constantin and Dimitri Miladinov, Biilgarski Narodni Pesni [= BulgarianPopular Songs], which was published in Zagreb in 1861 and was widely disseminated;it was republished recently in Skopje, but with its original title changed into Make­donski Narodni Pesni[= Macedonian Popular Songs].

19. Ev. .Kofos, The Macedonian Struggle in the Yugoslav Historiography, p. 4and note 7.

14

the separate national identity of the "Macedonians", as well as theircohesion and continuity from ancient times until today. It should benoted that this attempt was the reverse of normal methods: that is,they studied modern history first and turned to the study of Antiquitylater2o •

The fourth aim was to create a Great Idea2' , which would bringawareness to the masses. So the historians of Skopje started declaringthat Macedonia, as a whole, was a Slavic country both in its historicaltradition and its ethnic composition. For this reason, it had to beunited and form a unified state. After World War II, only the Yugo­slavian part was re-established nationally within the framework of theYugoslav Federation. The other two parts, Aegean Macedonia andPirin Macedonia would have to be restored, i.e. to be united withYugoslav Macedonia22

•

At this point there was a deliberate distortion not only of histori­cal events but also of contemporary numerical data and statistics re­ferring to the composition of the population of Greek Macedonia23

•

The historical contrivance which the historians of Skopje fabri­cated and put forward is roughly as follows:

As the appearance and settlement of Slavs in the region tookplace during the Middle Ages, the Slavs of Skopje could not presentancient parchments confirming their presence in this area. On theother hand, the history of Ancient Macedonia and the work of Alex­ander the Great presented a major obstacle to their propaganda,because both were universally known and had made a great impres-

20. Idem, Macedonia in the Yogoslav Historiography, p. 11.21. For the term, see ibid., p. 11.22. Ibid., pp. 11-12.23. See E. Zografski, Egeiska Makedonia (Skopje, 1951), p. 50: So that the

Greek character of Greek Macedonia could be disputed, they fabricated a census forthe year 1941, in which it is stated that at that time the following ethnic groups livedin Greek Macedonia: 258,000 "Macedonians", 250,000 Greeks, 210,000 Karamanlids(that is, populations coming from Asia Minor by virtue of the exchange of popula­tions), 80,000 Armenians, 74,000 Lazes and others. In these statistics the populationof Thessaloniki, Chalkidiki and of the prefecture of Kozani is not included, becauseit would then have been more difficult to falsify the numbers (Cf. Ev. Kofos, Mace­donia in the Yugoslav Historiography, p. 12).

15

sion24• It was essential for them to cast doubt on the greek character

of Ancient Macedonia. So, they declared that the Ancient Macedo­nians were not Greeks but an Illyrian tribe. Their kings were notGreeks but merely "Philhellenes". The ruling class was hellenized inthe course of time, but the people remained "Macedonian", that is,Illyrian, not Greek. Alexander was not a Greek, he did not dissemi­nate Greek culture, but "the name of Macedonia". During the periodof his successor~, the hellenization of the region started gradually,especially in the upper classes, because many Greeks had been slavesand mercenary soldiers25

•

In the Middle Ages the Slavs settled in Macedonia where, accord­ing to Skopje, they exterminated a large number of the indigenouspopulation and assimilated the rest. Thus, within a few years Mace­donia became Slavic. Because these indigenous populations were Illy­rian and not Greek, the Slavs who settled in Macedonia were unitedwith that non-Greek element and thus acquired ancient roots, irre­spective of any Greek presence. In this way, Skopje claims for itselfnot only the history but also the achievements of the civilization con­nected to this region.

At the same time, the historians of Skopje minimised the Bulgar­ian presence claiming that the expansion of the First Bulgarian stateinto Macedonian territory was temporary and superficial; thus thisBulgarian expansion could not have bulgarized the "Macedonians"who remained a separate slavic tribe. A characteristic case is the oneof Samuel who, by means of revolution, succeeded in setting up anindependent state with, initially, its centre as the inaccessible region ofNW Macedonia; he was declared "Tsar of the Bulgars" (977-1014)and turned out to be a dangerous adversary of Byzantium and its

24. See VI. Wilcken, Alexandre Ie Grand (Paris, 1952), p. 15: "Alexander theGreat belongs to the small minority of men who initiated a new era in world History.Perhaps, he may be the only one who sealed the world with the stamp of his personalwill, and with such strength that the progress of mankind remained under his influ­ence for many centuries".

25. Cf. Istorija na Makedonskijot Narod, vol. I, ch. 20, especially p. 45. (Cf. thebook review by P. Charanis, Balkan Studies 13, 1972; pp. 166-168). Cf. Ev. Kofos,Macedonia in the Yugoslav Historiography, pp. 15-16.

16

emperor Basil II Bulgaroctonus ("Bulgar Slayer"). According to thehistorians of Skopje, Samuel's state was "Macedonian",since theSlav-Macedonians were the dominant national element, and notrelated to the Bulgarians. They also assert that Samuel, the son of aByzantine official, was a "Macedonian" since he was the leader of a"Macedonian" state26

• Nevertheless, as the Bulgarians rightly note,Basil II was given the epithet Bulgaroctonus ("Bulgar Slayer") andnot Macedonoctonus ("Macedonian Slayer")27.

The historians of Skopje also claim that Constantine-Cyril andMethodius, the two Apostles of the Slavs, were "Macedonians" andtherefore Slavs since they were born in Thessaloniki, where at the time"the indigenous population was Slavic and everybody spoke a purelySlavic language"28. For this reason the two brothers based theiralphabet on the "Slavo-Macedonian" or "proto-Macedonian" lan­guage. Consequently, modern Yugoslav-Macedonians are direct des­cendants of these "Proto-Macedonians" who disseminated thealphabet and culture throughout the Slavic world29 . It should be notedthat the terms "Slav-Macedonians" and "Proto-Macedonians" are aninvention of Skopje and are not attested to in any sources of thattime, nor have they been suggested by other writers.

As for the works of art, architecture and painting which werecreated in this region, they are presented as works of a separate"Macedonian" arCo, in spite of the fact that their style is distinctlyByzantine. This "Macedonian" art should not be confused with theso-called "Macedonian School", which they also misrepresented andappropriated.

26. See Istorija na Makedonskijot Narod, vol. I, p. 117.27. See Makedonskijat Viipros (Sophia, November 1968), Greek translation pub­

lished by the Institute of Balkan Studies, p. 9.28. See P. Miljkovic-Pepek, "L'architecture chretienne chez les Slaves Macedo­

niens a partir d'avant la moitie du IXe siecle jusqu'a la fin du XIIIe siecle", The 17thInternational Byzantine Congress. Major Papers (Washington D.C., August 3-8,1986) (New York 1986), p. 483.

29. D. Vlahov, Makedonija. Momenti od Istorijata na Makedonskijot Narod[= Macedonia. Moments from the History of the Macedonian People] (Skopje, 1950),pp. 11-12 (Greek translation published by the Institute of Balkan Studies). '

30. Cf. P. Miljkovic-Pepek, "L'architecture chretienne", op. cit., pp. 483-496.

17

They claim that at the time of the Turkish domination, the histor­ical memory of the "Slav-Macedonians" was wiped out, along withtheir national conscience; this was due to political and social reasonsand particularly Ottoman empire policy - which classified its sub­jects on the basis of religion and not national origins - and alsobecause of the privileges of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the assi­milative power of the Greek clergy. Since most privileges, were in thehands of the Greeks, many "Slav-Macedonians" felt constrained topresent themselves as Greeks. During the period of the struggle forindependence and national rehabilitation, the "Slav-Macedonians"fought alongside the Greeks. Furthermore, they do not hesitate toclaim for themselves famous heroes such as Markos Botsaris, whomthey present as "Macedonian" changing his name to Marko Botsvarotof Prilep31! !

According to the historians of Skopje the national awakening ofthe "Macedonian people" started in the first decades of the 19th c.and culminated at the end of the century in the establishment of theInternal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in 1893(which in reality was a bulgarian organisation) and in the armedstruggle at the beginning of the 20th c. At that time the Slav­Macedonians were engaged in fights "on several fronts", not onlyagainst the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and their respective neighbour­ing states which wanted to integrate the Slav-Macedonia,ns into theirdominions, but also against the Ottoman empire and its social system.This struggle was aimed at the creation of an independent Macedo­nian state, but was unsuccessful then. Only in 1944 was a part ofMacedonia liberated, becoming an autonomous republic within theframework of the Yugoslav Federation32

•

This outlines the scheme which the historians of Skopje put for­ward. I have considered it essential to highlight it so that the distor­tion of History, the falsification and the fabrication of historical datashould become obvious.

31. D. Vlahav, Macedomja..., ap. cit., p. 10. Cf. Ev. Kafas, Macedonia..., ap.cit., pp. 20-21.

32. See in detail Ev. Kafas, The Macedonian Struggle, p. 9 sq. and pp. 15-16.

18

II. The evidence of the sources and the findings ofhistorical research

Before I attempt to demonstrate which is the historical realitybased on the evidence of the sources, I would like to emphasize thatthe position of Skopje is based on two extremely serious methodologi­cal errors.

The first one concerns the terms Macedonia and Macedonians,which the historians of Skopje use in a national sense, even thoughthese terms are strictly geographical, just like the term Epirot or Pelo­ponnesian33

• In the works published in Skopje and mainly in the "His­tory of the Macedonian Nation" they skilfully use the term Slav­Macedonians and sometimes simply Macedonians, to create confusionand finally have the terms Macedonia-Macedonians accepted as de­noting a separate nation. However, as we have already mentioned,these terms have never acquired any national meaning either in thepast or in recent years. In the sources, travellers' descriptions, diplo­matic documents, censuses of the Ottoman empire34 etc., the term

33. It should be noted that during the Byzantine era these terms also had anadministrative meaning. In the early Byzantine era the province of Macedonia, whoseseat was Thesssaloniki, belonged to the prefecture (praefectura) of Illyricum andextended nearly to the geographical limits of "major" Macedonia: See Angeliki Kon­stantakopoulou, 7aroplloj r£wyparpia rije; MaK£ooviae; (4oe;-6oe; al.) (= HistoricalGeography ofMacedonia; 4th-6th c.) (Ioannina, 1984), pp. 19-26, with the older bib­liography. In the Mid-Byzantine era, with the change of the administrative organiza­tion and the generalization of the administration by themata, the Thema ofMacedo­nia, which is attested t6 for the first time in 802, was established and extendedeastwards of the Nestos river into a large section of Thrace, i.e. it was not identifiedwith the geographical boundaries of Macedonia. A little later the Thema of Thessalo­niki was established, which extended to Central and West Macedonia, and the themaof Strymon in Eastern Macedonia.

34. See the edition by Hr. Andonov-Po1ianski, Britanski Dokumenti za Istorijatana Makedonskijot Narod [= British Documents regarding the History of the Macedo­nian People], 1. 1797-l839(Skopje, 1968), in which, despite the efforts to misinterpretnames and events, the objective student should not be able to find even the slightestindication of the existence of the "Macedonian People" in these documents of Britishconsuls, agents or travellers. Only Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Albaniansare mentioned, as well as Macedonia as a geographical unity. Cf. the book review byA. Angelopoulos, Balkan Studies 9 (1968), pp. 559-561. For the consuls' reports of

19

Macedonian always denoted the inhabitants of Macedonia - primar­ily the Greek inhabitants - because the Bulgarian inhabitants ofMacedonia were usually called "Bulgaro-Macedonians", that is Bul­garians of Macedonia, so that they could be distinguished from theBulgarians of Bulgaria and of the Bulgarian Principality. Besides, thefact that the terms Bulgaro-Macedonians and Slavo-Macedonians areused, while "Helleno-Macedonians" isn't, presupposes and at thesame time proves that Macedonia is Greek, because the term intrinsi­cally conveys the Greek origin of the inhabitants of this region.

The second methodological error refers to the extension in placeand time of a specific and locally limited national group. That is,starting with Yugoslav "Macedonia", the population of which is con­sidered Slavic in its majority, the historians of Skopje extend thisgiven ethnic composition throughout all Macedonia and its centuriesof history, as if it were a stable unchanging element, unaffected by theextremely important historical events which took place in this sensi­tive area of the Balkan Peninsula.

Attention must also be drawn to the fact that during certain peri­ods of History (the Hellenistic Age, Turkish domination etc.) the his­torians of Skopje are compelled to accept, up to a point, the helleni­zation of the region - hellenization which of course presupposes theexistence of a powerful Greek element -, and during the subsequentperiod this Hellenic or hellenized population seems to disappear or bereduced to a minimum and the non-Greek "Macedonians" predomi­nate anew.

It should also be noted that the geographical and historicalboundaries of Macedonia do not coincide with the boundaries ofMacedonia as the historians of Skopje define it. Macedonia, the"Major Macedonia" - as Prof. Ap. Vacalopoulos calls it - extendsbeyond the borders of present day Greek Macedonia:

Southward: to the Chasia Mountains, the Kambounia Moun­tains, Mount Olympus and the Aegean Sea,

the 19th C., see Ev. Kofos, Macedonia, op. cit., p. 6 note 1. See also the Turkishcensus of 1906, where only muslims (Turks and Albanians), Bulgars and Greeks arementioned: St. Yerasimos, "Balkans: frontieres d'aujourd' hui, d'hier et de demain?",Herodote 63/85 F (1991), p. 89.

20

Westward: to the Pindus Mountains,Eastward: to the Nestos River, andNorthward: to Ochrid-Strumnitsa-Melenikon35

•

Needless to say, in the long history of the region, the administra­tive boundaries were not always the same, or immovable: theyexpanded or contracted, according to the historical data of everyperiod. However, it should be noted that northward Macedonia neverwent beyond the line of Ochrid, Babuna mountains36

, Strumnitsa­Nevrokop (see map N° 1). Therefore, the modern Socialist Republic of«Macedonia» includes only a small part of Macedonia: the region ofSkopje did not belong to Macedonia but to the old Serbia, as the Serbhistorical geographer J. Cvijif37 observed at the beginning of the cen­tury (1907). The use of the geographical term "Macedonia" for themore northern regions is thus contrary to historical reality. Thesegeographical boundaries show that about 70% of Macedonia is todaypart of Greece and only a small part is located in Southern Yugosla­via and in SW Bulgaria38

•

35. See Ap. Vacalopoulos, History of Macedonia, 1354-1839 (Thessaloniki,1969), p. 1.

36. Babuna mountain is the ancient Messapion.37. J. Cvijic, Remarques sur l'ethnographie de 1a Macedoine2 (Paris, 1907), p. 6

note 1.38. In some strange way, the false information that, during the division of

Macedonia in 1913, Greece took 51.57% of the total Macedonian territory, Yugosla­via 38.32% and Bulgaria 10.11%, in other words that 48.33% in total of Macedonia isnow situated in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, goes on being repeated unchecked. How­ever, these percentages are not correct because they correspond to the area of GreekMacedonia (34,603 km 2

), the total area of the current Republic of Skopje (25,713km2

) and Macedonia of Pirin (6,789 km2). They refer therefore to the state which was

formed after the end of World War II, overlooking the fact that the Republic ofSkopje, besides being a more recent creation, also contains Serbian territory: In factonly the southern part, that is, much less than half the total area is geographically andhistorically part of Macedonia (see Map 2). It should be noted that, in 1913, territoryof the Ottoman Empire was returned to the three Balkan States induding areas intheir northern parts which were not Macedonian (see Map 3). Therefore the percen­tage of Macedonia which was returned to Greece is, in reality, much greater.

21

tvtv

.Skopj~

YUGO\SLAVIA BULGARIA

1. Th~ geographicOlI bounderies of Macedo,niiil

SERBIA

~,

I \J '-

/ \...--/ \

./ \...... --_...... \\ \

" \ \ ,../\ .......~. K 0550 V0" r· ..... /

...... \ -METOHIJA "" i\ \ (

/ \.. .....'1;(\", / ') ~\ / ,..... ./ '1;(

/ )' ....." .......- . ,....\ /"...1-..... ' 'y v

\ i/''/-'\,,/ \ .:::;,'") '0 \q,

j.,.../ SKOPJE "-( "-.~

(' i(.J \

""-If "")) . Ii~..' :-'

2. Tha rC'Public 01 SkoojC' and the northC'stgC'ographical bounderiC's of MacC'donia

23

o ",JANNINA/ GREECE

3. The vila ets of the ottoman Em ire

S E" A

·-·-bounderies of Balkan States(1g12l.----new boun!Jeries after.the treaty of !3ucarest(1913):,,:,:,"::',:,:,,::,,:':' 9 e 0 9 rap hie a I b 0 u n d erie s 0 f Mac e don rOil

24

After pointing out these basic factors I shall attempt to present,very briefly, the evidence of the sources and the findings of historicalresearch.

1. Antiquity

The Ancient Macedonians were undoubtedly a Greek tribe; eithera north:-western tribe related to the Dorians and Epirots, or an Aeolicone related to the Aeolians of Thessaly (before the north-western tribeof the Thessalians settled there), -as scholars tend to accept today.Nowadays it is not seriously doubted that they were Greeks39

,

although some opposing views have been expressed by certain modernhistorians and linguists because the evidence of ancient writers has notbeen interpreted correctly and the relatively limited linguistic materialpreserved has not been evaluated correctly'lO.

The Ancient Macedonians initially settled in NW Macedonia.Later they expanded into the fertile valley of the Haliakmon river,where, after having driven back or subjugated the Illyrian and Thra­cian tribes, they established the Macedonian state. During this timethe regions of NW Macedonia remained independent hegemonies.Later on, the kingdom of Macedonia expanded up to the Strymonriver. Their relative isolation for centuries, in the country that bearstheir name, greatly contributed to their developing autonomous unity,

39. Cf. VI. Wilcken, Alexandre Ie Grand, op. cit., p. 33: "It seems more andmore certain that the Macedonians were a Greek tribe related to the Dorians. How­ever, as they stayed high up in the distant north, they could not participate in theprogress of civilization of the Greek peoples that migrated southward...". Also Her­man Bengtson, Griechische Geschichte4

, Miinchen 1969, p. 305, points out that "themajority of the new generation of historians but with the notable exception of JuliusKaerst (Geschichte des Hellenismus, 1/3, 1927, p. 154 sq.) agree, and rightly so, thatthe Macedonians were Greeks". See also K.J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte/ IV/I,pp. 1-9.

40. For the Ancient Macedonians there is a most extensive bibliography. I con­fine myself to referring to the recent work of N.G.L. Hammond, The MacedonianState: Origins, Institutions and History (Oxford, 1989). See also Macedonia, 4000Years ofGreek History and Civilization (published by "Ekdotike Athenon") (Athens,1991) and mainly pp. 46-63 which include the chapter "The Nationality of Macedo­nians" by M. Sakellariou.

25

both social and political, without being greatly influenced by otherGreeks and, therefore, without the cultural development of the south­ern regions41 .

Ancient sources affirm that the ancient Macedonians wereGreeks, and the linguistic conclusions, which are based on the studyof the Macedonian dialect, also attest to this.

Among the ancient historians, Herodotus is the first who refersto the Macedonians whom he considers, without any hesitation,Greeks: «"EAA:rlvas O£ ElVUt 'touwus wUs ano IIEpOiKKEffi yEyovo'tas,Ka'ta nEp atHOt Aiyoucn, au'tos 'tE Othffi 'tuYXavffi £mO"'taI1EVOs Kat oilKai. EV Wlcn om0"8Ev AOy01cn anooEi~ffi ...» [= But that the descend­ants of Perdiccas are, in fact, Greeks (as they themselves say), Ihappen to know; and I will, moreover, prove that they are Greeks inthe latter part of my history]. (V, 22,1). The same historian presentsthe king of the Macedonians Alexander I (ca. 495-450/440 B.c.), adominant figure of Macedonian history during the 5th c. B.C., sayingat the time of the Persian wars: «au'tos 'tE yap "EAA1]V yivo; &ipirdJpxaiov, Kat an' £Acu8iplls oEOOUAffil1EVllV OUK UV £8iAOl111 opav'tilv 'EAAaoa» [= I am myself a Greek of ancient stock, and I wouldnot with my good will see Greece enslaved rather than free]. (IX,45,1-2)42. Succeeding generations called Alexander I, and only himamong all the kings of Macedonia, "Philhellene", and they did so fora specific reason: he effectively assisted the "Greek" alliance ofCorinth against the Persian43.

41. H. Bengtson, Griechische Geschichte, op. cit., p. 305, observes that generallythe Macedonians were considered culturally inferior. Cf. also UI. Wi1cken, AlexandreIe Grand, op. cit., p. 33.

42. See also Herodotus, I, 56, 2-3 and V, 20-22. (English translation by DavidGrene, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago-London 1987).

43. See commentary on Thucidides I, 57; commentary on Demosthenes, Olyn­thiac III, 130; Dion Chrysostom II, 33; Harpocration, in entry Alexander, Anecd.Graeca, 375, 20 Bekker. All the ·sources that mention the epithet "Philhellene" aresubsequent and we cannot be certain that they derive from sources contemporary toAlexander I. The argument, however, that the epithet "Philhellene" confirms thatAlexander I was not a Greek is not at all convincing and is contradicted by Alexan­der's own words, as they have been handed down to us by his contemporary Herodo­tus (see the above quotation IX, 45, 1-2).

26

Thucydides44, and later Arrian45, Polybius46

, Titus Livius47 andothers also confirm, directly or indirectly, that the Macedonians wereGreeks. In ancient times, the nationality of the Macedonians wasnever an issue, precisely because they were Greeks. The historians ofSkopje have greatly exploited the fact that Demosthenes calls Philip a"barbarian", and regard this as proof of his non-Greek origin. How­ever, the word "barbarian" meant at that time not only the foreigner,i.e. the person who spoke a different language, but also the personwho was uncivilized48

• The Athenian Demosthenes considered the

44. Thucidides, II, 99, 3-6, who obviously uses Herodotus as a source, states thatthe kings of the Macedonians are Temenids from Argos, which means that he agreesthat Macedonians were Greeks.

45. Cf. the well-known passage of Arrian, I, 16, 11, where it is stated that after

the battle of Granicus, Alexander offered as a votive offering of thanks to PallasAthena 300 Persian panoplies with the very eloquent inscription: 'AAE~uvopoC;

<I>tAlltltOU KUt Ot "EAAllVEC; ltAT]V AUKEOUqlOVlffiV, altO Tmv ~UP~UPffiV Tmv TT]V, Acrluv KUTOtK01JV't"ffiV [= Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks, except the Lace­

daemonians, from the barbarian inhabitants in Asia], a characteristic inscriptionwhich attests that both Alexander and the Macedonians soldiers were Greeks, because

the Macedonians were certainly included among the Greeks. Cf. also Arrian, I, 16, 10.46. Polybius, XXVIII, 8, 9, preserves the following valuable information: in the

deputation that Perseus, King of Macedonia, sent to the King of Illyria, in order to

form an alliance with him against the Romans, a deputy of Illyrian descent also par­

ticipated: Ota TO TT]V OtUAEKWV dOEVat TT]V 'IAAuplou [= because he knew the Illyrian

language], which means that the Macedonians did not know the Illyrian language,

since in their conversations with the Illyrians they were compelled to use interpreters.See also IX, 37,7: ltpOC; ,AxuwuC; KUt MUKEOOVUC; OILO({J1JAOVr; KUt TOV T01JTffiV TJyE­

JlOVU <I>lAt1tltOV [= To the Achaeans and the Macedonians belonging to the same race,and to Philip, their leader]. Cf. also IV, 9 and VII 9,3.

47. Titus Livius, 31, 39, considers the Macedonians to speak the same languageas the Aetolians and the Acarnanians.

48. See Demosthenes, Against Meidias, 150. Cf. also all those that Thucidides

characteristically mentions, I, 5-6, for the barbarian customs that the Greeks had in

earlier times, and especially I, 6, 1: «...KUt ~UVl1ell TT]V olunuv JlEe' 01l:AffiVe1l:0tl1­

cruvw [Ot "EAAllVEC;] rocr1l:EP Ot ~uP~UPOt, crllJlElOV 0' ecrTt TUOTU Tfic; 'EAAUOOC; EnOthffi VEJlOJlEVU Tmv 1I:OTE KUt ec; 1I:uvmc; 0JlOlffiV OtatTllJlUTffiV» [= ...and this way ofliving, to always be armed, was a custom to them, just as it is a custom to the barbar­ians today. So the fact that in these areas of Greece they live in this way even today, is

proof that once all the Greeks lived in the same way] and I, 6, 6: <mOAAa 0' i'iv KUt

27

king of Macedonia to be culturally inferior. Moreover, we should notforget the fanaticism and Attic nationalism of the orator who wasfighting against Philip in the belief that Philip would subjugate therest of Greece, as well as his own city-state; Demosthenes believedthat as a consequence Athens would not be able to playa leading rolein the new political scheme which the Macedonians would impose,since this scheme would be quite foreign to the then prevailing view ofthe city-state49

•

Certain doubts have been expressed about the Greek character ofthe Ancient Macedonians' language, mainly because, up to now, notexts or even complete phrases written in the Macedonian dialect havebeen found. Today, however, after the comparative study of allknown linguistic material, linguists, as well as historians, accept theGreek character of the Macedonian dialectSo • The following elementsprove that Macedonian is a dialect of the Greek language:

The name of the Macedonians itself is Greek: the word j1aK&8vos[makednosJ is already attested to in Homer (Odyssey, T] 106: olu '"CE

<jl1JAAU Ilunbvii<; uiyEipotO) [= like fluttering leaves of a tall poplartree] and means "high, tall and slender". That is, this ethnic name is

ana 'tts anobEi~EU; 1:0 naAatOV 'EnTjVtKoV 0llot01:pOna 1:<P vuv ~ap~aptK<p btamO­

IlEVOV» [= and in many other ways one would be able to prove that the Greeks in theold times lived in the same way as the barbarians of today].

49. Cf. 1. Kalleris, Les Anciens Macedoniens. Etude linguistique et historique,vol. I (Athens, 1954), p. 15.

50. About the language of the Ancient Macedonians and the related theories, seeN. Andriotis, 'H YAO)(:Jaa mi ij &AAT/VlICorT/m rwv 'ApXaiwv MaKs80vwv [= Thelanguage and the Greek Character of the Ancient Macedonians] (Thessaloniki, 1952).Ap. Daskalakis, '0 'EUT/VlaW'X; rijr; 'Apxaiar; MaKs8oviar;. Kamywyr, mi.yAwaaa rwv MaKs80vwv [= The Hellenism of Ancient Macedonia. Descent and Lan­guage of the Macedonians] (Athens, 1960) (= L 'Hellenisme de l'Ancienne Macedoine)(Thessaloniki, 1965). 1. Kalleris, Les Anciens Macedoniens. Etude linguistique et his~

torique, vols I-II (Athens, 1954-1975). Ant. Thavoris, 7a'fOpia rfjr; 'EAAT/V1Kfjr;Tpacpijr; [= The History of Greek Writing] (Ioannina, 1983), pp. 31-48, with the bibli­ography. Cf. P. Kretchmer, Einleitug in die Geschichte der Griechischen SpraFhe(Gottingen, 1896), p. 283 et sq. and p. 415, who expressed the view that the Macedo­nians· were a mixture of Greek and Illyrian populations, a view that is not accepted byH. Bengtson, op. cit., p. 305. See also recently 'H yAwaaa rfjr; MU/cs8oviar; (= Thelanguage of Macedonia), collective work ed. by G. Babiniotis (Athens, 1992).

28

one of those which denote the physical characteristics of a people.Also the proper names of the Ancient Macedonians51 , the names ofgods, months, etc., as well as most place-names are Greek, in Mace­donian dialect, and bear no resemblance to Thracean-Illyrian names.If the Macedonians started being hellenized in the 5th c. B.C., as thehistorians of Skopje claim, how can it be explained that they retainedproper names, as well as the names of the months and place-names inMacedonian dialect which are undisputedly Greek? How did theMacedonians of the 5th and 4th c. B.c. acquire these Greek dialectalnames, which do not belong to the Attic dialect, if they did not inheritthem via a tradition which had always been·Greek?52

The same observations apply to lexical material. Relatively fewwords of the Maeedonian dialect have been preserved: about 153 andthey are recorded by Athenaeus and in the Lexicon of Hesychios, whodrew them mainly from the work of the Macedonian lexicographerAmerias53. It should be noted that ancient lexicographers did notrecord all the words of a language or dialect, but only those thatpresented a certain peculiarity or difficulty in comprehension. For thisreason foreign words and idioms are recorded, and thus the propor­tion of foreign words is not representative of the total vocabulary ofthe Macedonian dialect. Many of the words which have been trea­sured as Macedonian occur in all Greek dialects, but in the Macedo­nian dialect they had a specific meaning and they were recorded bythe ancient lexicographers, for example the word vJra(jJrwnj~ (adju­tant). These words that were handed down as Macedonian' do notbear any resemblance to the Thracian-Illyrian language. The Macedo­nian linguistic material (proper names, place-names and commonnouns) testifies to the Greek character of the Macedonian dialect: Theetymology of the words is Greek; the features and vowel changes arecommon in Greek; so are the inflections and endings. As for the fewwords which are recorded as Macedonian in the Lexicon of Hesychiosand which are not considered by some to be Greek, it is most likely

51. The inscriptions found in Macedonia increased considerably the number andvariety of Macedonia proper names.

52. Cf. Ant. Thavoris, The History ofGreek Writing, pp. 44-45.53. Ibid., pp. 35-36.

29

that they are loan-words, a phenomenon that is observed in all lan­guages, and one which does not put their origin in doubt54

•

The historians of Skopje use the quotation of Plutarch that Alex­ander av£~6a J.1a1C&bOVwri KaAwv LOUe; t)'n:acr1ttmuc; [= called out inMacedonian speech a summons to his corps of guards] (Plutarch'sAlexander, 51,4), as proof that the language which the Macedoniansoldiers spoke was not Greek. But here the word J.1a1C&bOvlO"ri meansthe local dialect, as the respective terms oroplml, anlKlG1:1, lroVlO"11etc. 55 attest, and not a separate non-Greek language. In fact, Alex­ander and the Macedonians disseminated the Greek languagetroughtout the world they conquered; Alexander gave an order thatthe inscriptions which were in a foreign language were to be explainedin Greek, so that they would be comprehensible to his troops (Tllv oEE1ttypaq>l1v avayvoue; EKEAEUcr£V EAAT]VlKOt:e; uITOxapu~m YPullllacrtv[= After reading the inscription, he ordered it to be repeated below inGreek letters]: Plutarch's Alexander, 69,2) and he also ordered thatthe troop of Persians "should learn the Greek language and be trainedto use Macedonian weapons" (EKEAEU£ ypuIllla1u 1£ EAAT]VlKU llav8u­V£lV Kat llaK£OOVlKOt:C; nITAOle; EV1pEq>£cr8m: Plutarch's Alexander,47,6)55a.

The fact that no written documents in Macedonian dialect havebeen preserved does not prove their non-Greek origin, as the histo­rians of Skopje claim. Indeed, no dialectal inscriptions or even aphrase of a dialectal Macedonian text have been found-. All theinscriptions found in Macedonia date from after the 5th c. B.C., when

54. Cf. ibid., p. 37 et sq.55. Cf. the characteristic quotation of Theocritus, Idyl1s, 15, 92, where the

Syracusian women, of Corinthian descent, say: «...Kop{v6wl ElIlE~ avro6Ev... IIdo­1fovvaazari A.aA.EUIlE~. /Jmpia&l v ()' E~W1"l "tOt~ flroptEWcrt» [= We are Corinthianwomen by extraction. What we talk's PeJoponnesian. I suppose Dorians may speakDoric, mayn't they? (English translation by J. M. Edmonds, The Greek BucolicPoets, ed. Loeb., pp. 188-189). Cf. Ant. Thavoris, The History of Greek Writing, pp.34-35.

55a. English translation in the Loeb Classical Library ed. by E. Capps-T.E.Page-W.H.O. Rome, London 1919.

30

the Macedonians used, at least in public life, the Attic dialect56. How­ever, in other regions of Greece, undisputedly Greek, no preservedwritten documents of the 7th or even of the 6th c. B.C. have beenfound either. The cultural phenomenon of Athens cannot be regardedas a means of comparison with other regions, especially in order todraw conclusions concerning the national origin of their inhabitants.

It must be noted that the recent excavations at Vergina, in addi­tion to other very important finds regarding the history of Macedonia,have brought to light, a series of inscribed grave stelai which can bedated with certainty to the second half of the 4th and the beginning ofthe 3rd c. B.C. These inscriptions as we know from the description ofProf. M. Andronikos present a very significant collection of commonMacedonian names, male and female, numbering 75. All these namesare Greek, such as 'AAK£La~, "AAKt'..lO~, ~puKaAo~, 2£voKP<iLll~,

TI£uK6Aao~, TIt£picov - except for one ('Af.l<i80KO~) which is Thra­cian - and many of them are characteristically Macedonian andunknown in Attica, attesting to their Macedonian origin. These namesrefute the theory that only the ruling class had become hellenized,because they do not belong to the royal family, or to the nobility, orto the ruling class: they are the names of ordinary citizens and manyof them date back to the beginning of the 4th and the end of the 5th c.B.C. Therefore, as Prof. M. Andronikos points out, we have "epigra­phic evidence... that at the end of the 5th c. B.C., the Macedonianswho lived in the first capital of the Macedonian kingdom [in Aeges]. ..had Greek names"57.

56. The introduction of the Attic dialect into wider use, beginning perhaps fromofficial documents and the royal court, must be the result of an age-old process,which was completed in the time of Philip, and not the decision of a reformer King ofMacedonia; it should be placed in the more general context of the prevalence,throughout the Greek world, of the Attic dialect, which evolved in the Hellenistickoine [= common dialect]. Consequently, that which happened, and the extent towhich it happened in Macedonia, i.e. the substitution of the Macedonian dialect bythe Attic dialect, is not a phenomenon particularly Macedonian: throughout Greece,at a quicker or slower pace, the Attic koine replaced the local dialects.

57. See M. Andronikos, Vergina. The Royal Tombs and the Ancient City(Athens, 1991), pp. 83-84. It should also be noticed that the finds, which the recent

31

Consequently, both the evidence of the sources and the study ofthe linguistic material, lead to the conclusion that the Ancient Maced­onians were a Greek tribe. The theory that it was a non-Greek popu­lation, whose ruling class became hellenized, has no basis in fact. Thepeople of Macedonia spoke Greek, a local Greek dialect and thus itwas easy for them to adopt the Attic dialect. Even after the Romanconquest, the Greek language was still spoken in the region, despiteforeign domination and the strong presence of Latin-speaking soldiersand other representatives of Rome. It is of primary importance thatthe inscriptions of Roman and early Byzantine times, which werefound in Macedonia, are in Greek - except, of course, for the regionswhere there were Roman colonies, for example at Philippi58

-, whilethe inscriptions which were found in the more northern regions are inLatin. The Greek language was deeply rooted since it was the lan­guage of the Macedonian people, not only of the ruling class and theauthorities.

2. Middle Ages

The 6th-7th c. A.D. were crucial for this regIon; at this time theSlavs. settled in the Balkan Peninsula changing the national physiog­nomy of its northern part which became gradually detached from theByzantine empire. However, in the more southern regions the Slavswere not able to alter the ethnological composition of the Greekregions, despite the permanent settlement of Slav groups in Greekterritory. In fact, in the late 6th and early 7th c. A.D., some Slavicgroups moved towards the southern areas and settled in the Greekterritories, where they formed Slavic enclaves - named "Sklavinies"by Byzantine sources - especially in west Macedonia and Thessaly.Being cultivators and cattle breeders, they settled mainly on mountain

excavations of Prof. D. Pantermalis at Dion as well as the excavations at Pella andelsewhere, have brought to light, significantly promote our knowledge of the historyof ancient Macedonia.

58. See, for example, D. Samsaris, '0 &~5AA1]vlaJlIjs rfjs 0pa/(1]s /(ara rijv

&AA1]vlnj /(G!' pWj.lafn! dpxalOr1]Ta [= The Hellenization of Thrace during the Greekand Roman Antiquity] (Thessaloniki, 1980), mainly p. 311.

32

slopes, less often in the plains and very rarely near the sea, as can beascertained from toponymic materiaP9.

But these Slavs did not settle in vacant areas, as has been con­tended; they came across an indigenous Greek population, who, dueto attacks and upheavals, had gathered mainly in city centres. Slavsettlers soon came into contact, with that Greek element, much supe­rior culturally and politically, developed relations with them and werestrongly influenced by them6o

•

Prudent and realistic policies by Byzantine emperors also con­tributed decisively to the integration of Slav settlers into the Byzantinesystem, thereby assimilating and hellenising them. To this end, theyused various means depending on the circumstances; military, whe­never they had to put down a revolt or reinstate imperial authority orput under their control a rebellious Slavic group. Or frequently peace­ful: administrative and ecclesiastic, demographic and economic. Sourcesmention military expeditions by Byzantine emperors against the Slavsin the Greek area, which started from the mid-7th c. Initially, theseexpeditions were carried out in Northern Greece and resulted in thegradual reestablishment of Byzantine authority.

Military operations, though, were not the only means of subju­gating the new settlers. A basic policy of the Byzantine administrationwas a demographic measure, the forcible transfer of populations. By

59. For slavic toponyms, see the basic work by M. Vasmer, Die Slaven in Grie­chenland, Berlin 1941, pp. 176-229 (about Macedonia). For remarks and reservationsmade on this work, see G. Georgakas, Byz. Zeitschrift 41 (1941), pp. 351-381 and 42(1942), pp. 76-90. Also, the very important work of D.A. Zakythinos, Ot D ..rifJOI tv

'BAAriOI. I:vpfJoAai eft; rTjv 'Iuropiav TOO MEUalOJVIKOU 'BAATJVIUPOU, (= The Slavsin Greece. Contributions to the History of the Medieval Hellenism), Athens, J945, .mainly pp. 67-86. See, also, recently: Fr. Brunet, "Sur l'hellenisation des toponymesslaves en Macedoine byzantine", Travaux et Memoires 9 (1985), pp. 235-265. From astatistical search, I attempted, based on M. Vasmer's register, it appears in all Greecethere are 2123 Slavic macrotoponyms (i.e. toponyms that represent inhabited places)and of these, 730 are found in Macedonia; the number is indeed very small in a totalof many thousands of greek toponyms.

60. See, e.g. Saint Demetrius' Miracles for the second half of the 7th c.: P.Lemerle, Les plus anCiens recueils des Miracles de Saint Demetrius. I. Le Texte (Paris,1979), p. 214, 11.11-13, II. Le Commentaire(Paris, 1981), p. 135 et sq.

33

transferring Slavic populations to Asia Minor, the Byzantine empireachieved two things: on one hand the Slavic element in the Hellenicarea was arithmetically weakened, and on the other hand assimilationwas facilitated, since Slavs who were transferred to Asia Minor foundthemselves amidst a flourishing and numerous Greek population. Butthis demographic measure was even applied vice-versa, that is, Greekpopulations from Asia Minor were transplanted into Slavic popula­tions (<<btl. 1:ae; LKAU~llviue;») in order to reinforce the Greek elementin these areas. Thus we learn, for example, that emperor Nicephorus(802-811) established in the northern Greek area populations which hetransferred from all administrative district (<<EK 1tuvn)e; 8EJlUWe;») ofAsia Minor61

•

Furthermore a new administrative organization of 8iJLara (the­mata, i.e. administrative districts with a general at the head) that wasgenerally put into practice during this critical period, reinforced impe­rial rule and made control of Slavic groups more effective; Between680 and 685 the "thema of Thrace" (<<0pUKqlOV 8EIlU») was estab­lished and in 695 for the first time the "thema of Greece" (<<0EJlU, EAAU80e;») is mentioned. In the 9th c. reorganization was furtherreinforced by a division into smaller administrative units - a generaltendency of the era: the "thema of Macedonia" (<<0EJlU MUKE80viue;»)with Andrinople as capital (mentioned for the first time in 802); the"thema of Strymon" (<<0EJlU L1:pUJlOVoe;») and the "thema of Thessa­loniki" (<<0EJlU 0EcrcruAoviKlle;») were established at that time.

We find out, therefore, that the Byzantine state followed a realis­tic and consistent policy in order to cope with the problem of Slavsettlers, a policy that led to the control and integration of Slavic racesby the empire. In this way the Byzantine state contributed decisivelyto their assimilation by the indigenous population and to theirHellenization.

The almost total lack of remnants of Slavic civilization (burial

61. See Maria Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou, "Les Slaves dans l'Empire Byzantin",The 17th International Byzantine Congress. Major Papers (Washington D.C., August3-8, 1986), New York 1986, pp. 345-367, with the bibliography and the quotation ofthe sources; for the policy of Byzantium, see p. 355.

34

customs, dwellings, techniques and types of ceramics)62 testifies to thisassimilation, which of course, could never have been achieved withoutthe presence of an indigenous Greek ·population.

In the work of assimilation an essential role was also played bythe Church, which had, by then, been reorganized and administra­tively reinforced in order that Slav settlers could be integrated into it.Thus, by the end of 7th c. at the VIth Synod (680/681) and at theSynod in Dome (BV TpouAAQ)) (692) five dioceses are mentioned inMacedonia: those of Thessaloniki, Philippi, Amphipolis, Edessa andStobi. The number is significant, especially when compared to otherareas of the empire, and it must be stressed that the seats of thesedioceses are found at vital points in the area. Thus, the establishmentof Amphipolis's diocese at the mouth of the Strymon was apparentlyaimed at reinforcing the Byzantine presence towards Strymonite Slavsand the reestablishment of Stobi's diocese in NW Macedonia, at sup­porting - in cooperation with the diocese of Edessa - the policy of

62. The main characteristics of the material culture of the Slavs during the firstperiod of their settlement in the Balkan Peninsula are: a) the burning of the dead, b)hand-made ceramics with certain shapes and decorations, and c) half-undergroundhut for dwelling. However, except for two rare exceptions (15 urns containing theashes of the dead in Olympia and some vases in Argos), no indisputably Slavic objectshave been found on Greek soil. No traces of the typically Slav dwelling have beenfound either -only a mention in the Miracles of Saint Demetrius, see P. Lemefle, Lesplus anciens recueils des Miracles de Saint Demetrius, vol. I, p. 220 11. 26 and 29 andp. 229 1. 13. For the archeological finds in general, see VI. Popovic, "Les temoinsarcheologiques des invasions avaroslaves dans l'Illyricum byzantin", M61anges d'Ar­cheologie et d'Histoire de J'Ecole Fram;aise de Rome 87 (1975), pp. 445-504 and espe­cially p. 457. For the Slavic dwelling, see Vi. Popovic, "Note sur l'habitat paleoslave",in P. Lemerle, Miracles, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 235-241. Cf. Maria Nystazopoulou­Pelekidou, O{ BaAxavlI<:oi )..aoi Kanl mut; Mtaovt; XPOVOVt; [= The Balkan Peoplesduring the Middle Ages] (Ioannina, 1986), pp. 34-36 and 81 sq. with the bibliography.For attributing to Slavs certain ceramic shells found in Argos and their chronology to585, see: P. Aupert, "Ceramique Slave it Argos (585 ap.J.C.) "Etudes Argiennes(BCH Suppl. 6) (Paris., 1980), pp. 372-394 and P.A. Yannopoulos, "La penetrationslave en Argolide", In the same, pp. 323-371. See, also, critique and reservations by F.Malingoudis, I:)..afJOl arT] M£aalOJvlKr'j B)"A-aoa. (= Slavs in Medieval Greece), Thes­saloniki 1988, pp. 16 sq.

35

Byzantium towards Slavs Drogoubites and maybe even at achievingtheir eventual Christianisation63

•

The Christianising of Slavs in Hellenic territory took place grad­ually in different localities even before the official Christianising ofthe Slavic world outside the Byzantine Empire by Cyril andMethodius.

Regarding the work of Constantin-Cyril and Methodius, the twoThessalonian brothers, the whole argument of Skopje does not standup to the slightest scrutiny. There is such an extensive bibliography64

about the two Apostles of the Slavs, their work and their ethnicorigin, that any repetition is superfluous. However I must emph;:tsizethat the two brothers were pre-eminent representatives of the Byzan­tine spirit, of the Greek and Christian civilization which had beenreborn after the Iconoclastic period65

• They had an extraordinaryGreek education and were polyglots. Undoubtedly, they expressedByzantine policy and they were fully conscious that they wereGreeks66

• They had undertaken other missions to the Arabs and the

63. See M. Pelekidou, Les Slaves dans l'Empire byzantin, op. cit., pp. 356-357.64. See the Cyril-Methodius bibliography of only 25 years (1940-1965), which

was compiled by Henriette Ozanne, Kvpi),J..cp Kai MeBoOicp Topor; 'Eoprzor; £lei TfjXZALOOTfj Kaz' 6KaTOuTfj hrypibz [= Cyril and Methodius, Volume in Celebration ofthe one thousand and one hundredth Anniversary], vol. II (Thessaloniki, 1968), pp.322-346.

65. For this first renaissance in Byzantium, see the basic work of P. Lemerle, LePremier Humanisme Byzantin (Paris, 1971), especially chapters V-VII.

66. Constantine-Cyril appears in the Slavic texts to be conscious of belonging toByzantine society and of his Greek descent: in his dialogue with the Mohammedanshe points out that «E~ T]/lrov 1tpofjA90v 1tucrat at E1tt<J1:fj/lat» [= all the sciences orig­inqted from us] and of course he means the Byzantine and Greek culture. During theKhazar Mission, when the Kagan of the Khazars asked him what present he wanted

from him, Constantine answered: «t<..o~ /lOt ocrou~ "EnT]va~ aiX/laA.O:)'rou~ EXEt~

Ev'taii9a. Ou'tOt a~i.I~ou<Jt Ot' E/lE 1tEptcrcrO'tEPOV OtoUOT]1tO'tE ompom> [= Give me asmany Greek captives as you have here. For me they are worth,more than any otherpresent]: see «Blo~ Kmvcr'tuv'tivou», EAA. EKO. '1m. 'Avacr'tacrlou, 'E7ClcrT. 'E7CeT.eEiOAOr. IxoAfjr; IIave7C. eWuaAov[K1]r; 12 (1968) [= "Constantine's Life", Greekedition by I. Anastasiou, Scientific Year-book of the Faculty of Theology at the Uni­versity of Thessaloniki 12 (1968)], pp. 126 and 138.

36

Khazars too apart from that to the Slavic world. Nowadays, evenforeign scientists of Slavic descent consider them_to be Greek67

•

As for the language, on which the Slavic alphabet was based andin which the two brothers preached Christianity, it could certainly notbe a "Macedonian" dialect, that is a Slavic dialect of Macedonia. It isnoteworthy that the Bulgarians maintain that the two apostles taughtthe new religion in Bulgarian68

• Apart from the fact that at that timeSlavic "daughter" languages had not yet evolved far enough to formthe basis for a new written language69

, the basic fact that Cyril andMethodius worked in distant Moravia should be stressed. Experiencedmissionaries as they were, they could not have used a dialect foreignto the Moravians, but a language comprehensible to the people ofMoravia otherwise they would not have been so well received, madesoon an impact or had the success that they had in: their work: theytaught the new religion in the Old Slavic mother language, which atthat time was common among all the Slavs, and for this reason their

67. The nationality of the Apostles of the Slavs has been treated thoroughly witha quotation from the sources by Prof. Ant.-Aem. Tahiaos, «' H E8vtKo-tTJC; KupiAAOUKal' Md}ooiov Kara ra~ aAaf31Ka~ (aroplKa~ 1f1]ra~ Kai J1aprvpia~», KvpiUrp Kat'Me()ooirp T6J1o~ •E6prLO~ [= "The nationality of Cyril and Methodius according tothe Slavic historical sources and evidences", Cyril and Methodius, Festive Volume],vol. II, pp. 83-132. See also D.A. Zakythinos, «Krovcr'tuVLlvoC; 0 <I>tAOcrOq>OC; KUt 1']OtUIlOPq>rocrtC; 'twv crAU~tKWV yArocrcrWV», IIpaKTlKa rfj~ 'AKao1]J1ia~ 'A()1]vmv 45,1970 [= "Constantine the Philosopher and the Formation of the Slavic languages",Proceedings of the Academy of Athens 45 (1970)], pp. 59-77. Cf. I. Karayannopoulos,«To icr'tOptKOV 1tAuicrtOv 'tOj) EPYOU 'tWV U1tOcr'tOAroV 'tWV }2M~rov», KvpiUrp Kat'Me()ooirp T6J1o~ 'E6pTlo~ [= "The Historical Framework of the Work of the Apos­tles of the Slavs", Cyril and Methodius, Festive Volume], vol. I, pp. 139-151.

68. See my remarks on the report of the Bulgarian historians Vasilka Tiipkova­Zaimova and Simeon Damjanov, "Les territoires bulgares-foyer des civilisationsantiques et nouvelles", Actes du XVe Congres International des Sciences Historiques,Bucarest 1980, Bucarest 1982, vol. IV/I, pp. 109-110.

69. As the Slavist A. Vaillant observes in his Manuel du vieux-slave, I. Gram­maire (Paris, 1948), pp. 11 and 13, Old Slavic was the common language of all theSlavs until the 9th-10th c. After the "fragmentation and the expansion of the Slavicworld, the local dialects had already begun to form in 7th-8th c., however the OldSlavic mother-language continued to be used and comprehensible to all the Slavs~ Theseparate Slavic languages were formed very late, only in the 11th century.

37

work spread very rapidly throughout the Slavic world. The first trans­lations of the Holy Scriptures and of legal texts etc. from Greek intothe Slavic language were made in this Old Slavic mother language andnot in "Macedonian" or another dialect.

To sum up, we observe that during the Middle Ages Slavs settledin Macedonia, as well as in other Greek regions, but they did not alterthe ethnic physiognomy of the region. The "Tactics" of Leon VI theWise, in the beginning of the 10th c., report characteristically: "Mylate father and emperor Basil had persuaded the Slavic tribes tochange their ancient customs, and hellenised them, and subjectedthem following the roman system, liberated them from their leaders,honoured them by the baptism and trained them to fight against peo­ples at war with the Romans (= the Byzantines)"?o. As Paul Lemerlewrites, "Byzantium christianized, civilized and assimilated these Slavs,making them Greeks. And this is one of the most impressive victoriesof the Greek genius"?!.

It should also be noted that at the time when the Medieval Ser­bian State was flourishing (mid-13th - mid-14th c.) and especially atthe time of Stefan Dusan (1331-1354), the Serbs expanded their domi­nation into Macedonia and in particular into Northern Greek terri­tory. However, no source mentions that the conquered populationwas Slavic: the Serbian expansion is mentioned in contemporary sources,as a conquest of Greek regions. The Serbian domination was charac­terized as "illegal and tyrannical" and considered· to be an aliendomination72

•

It is also remarkable that a few years later, during the first siegeof Thessaloniki by the Turks (1383-1387), King Manuel Palaeologus,in his speech "Admonition to the people of Thessaloniki", urges theinhabitants to fight to death, for this is what their historical traditiondecrees: «on 'P(O~aiot Ecr~EV, on 'Ii <I>tAimtou Kat 'AAE~av8pou 'Ii~~v

70. Patrologia Graeca, vol. 107, col. 969.71. P. Lemerle, "La Chronique improprement dite de Monemvasie: Ie commen­

taire historique et Iegendaire", Revue des Etudes Byzantines 21 (1963), p. 49. Cf. M.Pelekidou, Les Slaves dans l'Empire Byzantin, op. cit., pp. 359-361.

72. See Ap. Vacalopoulos, History of Macedonia, p. 11 sq., with thebibliography.

38

h

Um:lPXEl rru1:pic;» [because we are Roman (= Byzantine, Greek) andour country is the one of Philip and Alexander]. This means that he,as well as the inhabitants, were conscious of the historical continuityof Hellenism and of their Greek origin which had its roots in ancienttimes73

•

3. Turkish Domination

The historians of Skopje commit a grave historical error, as Ihave already noted, when they present the ethnic composition and thedemographic situation of Macedonia as being static and unchanging.This becomes even more evident at the time of the Turkish domina­tion, which lasted almost 500 years, during which major reclassifica­tions and population74 movements took place. I will refer to them verybriefly.

Immediately after the conquest of Macedonia, towards the end ofthe 14th c. A.D., Turkish groups, mainly great landowners, farmersand stock-breeders, settled in Macedonia, where they were attractedby the fertile plains7s •

At the same time, however, we observe a flight of Greek inhabit­ants from Macedonia, in two directions. The first wave movedtowards the Greek regions which were still free or under ~rankish

domination, towards Italy and generally to the West. Among them,were many eponymous Macedonian scholars, such as TheodorosGazis, Andronikos Kallistos, and others, who worked towards thedissemination of Greek literature76

• A second wave headed for themountainous and secluded parts of the interior, where, far from the

73. See B. Laourdas, '0 «LUJl~OuA€UnKOe; npoe; 'toue; 0ecrouAOVtKEie;» 'tOUMuvouT]A KOJlvTlvOU [= Manuel Komnenos' speech "Admonition to the people ofThessaloniki"), Macedonika 3 (1953-55), p. 297, 21-22; Cf. also p. 291, 1.

74. See fully documented Ap. Vacalopoulos, History of Macedonia; for themovements of populations and the composition of every town, village and district, seeespecially chapters IV, V and VII.

75. Ibid., pp. 7 and 49 sq. The descendants of these Turkish populationsreturned to Turkey by virtue of the exchange of the populations in 1923.

76. Ibid., p. 99 sq.

39

control of the conqueror, they would be able to survive. This secondwave was larger and more important; thus it caused real uprooting ofChristian populations. That is why, according to Ottoman documents,the Muslim population outnumbers the Christian in many towns dur­ing the first centuries of the Turkish domination. These Greek fugi­tives inhabited certain villages in Western Macedonia and Chalkidike,where large wooded areas, far from arterial roads, offered a naturalrefuge. This flight to the interior of the country was of enormousethnic importance, because it prevented migration, ensured the purityof the Greek people and favoured the growth of the Greek populationduring the first and most difficult centuries of slavery. Certain of thevillages, which were inhabited at that time, such as Siatista, Naousaand Kozani, succeeded in developing into important centres77 •.

However, from the end of the 16th c. a reverse movement started- a phenomenon which appeared in other regions of Greece as well,for example in Epirus78

- and which lasted throughout the 17th c.Thus, we have a migration of Greek populations from their remotehavens towards several old or new centres of trade79

• This migrationwas parallel to the development of trade, the decline of the Ottomanempire and the general development of Hellenism.

In the 17th c. the general economic and cultural prosperitybrought about a second migration of Greeks, this time northwards.Many Macedonians settled in Serbia, Bulgaria and in the DanubianPrincipalities, as well as in Austria and Hungary, where they formedpowerful and flourishing Greek communities and greatly contributedto the development of commerce and the bourgeois class. Especiallyin the Balkans, the Greeks formed an "inter-Balkan bourgeoisclass"80, which contributed not only to the economic development of

77. Ibid., p. 100.78. Cf. M. Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou, 'H "HJr£IPO; ara xpovza Tfj; TOVpKO­

Kparia; Kai ii tevlKT] dvayivv1]a1] [= Epirus during the Turkish domination and thenational revival] (Ioannina, 1982), p. II.

79. Cf. Ap. Vacalopoulos, op. cit., p. 139 sq.80. N. Svoronos, 'EmaKoJr1]a1] Tij; NW&AA1]V1Kij; 'Iaropia; [= A Survey of

Modern Greek History] (Athens, 1976), pp. 58-59.

40

these areas, but also to the dissemination of Greekculture8I• Due to

these mouvements the role of the Macedonians of the diaspora wassignificant: Almost one and a half million Greeks from Macedoniaemigrated to the northern Balkan peninsula and to Central Europe.This number alone is sufficient to refute the assertion of Skopje thatthe population of Macedonia was not Greek. In their new countrythese emigrant Macedonians became upholders of Greek cultural heri­tage; simultaneously, through their own economic development, theycontributed substantially to the progress of their homeland fromwhich they had never been cut of[82.

While many Greeks headed northwards in search of better livingconditions, Slavs of the Balkans, mainly Bulgarians, went in theopposite direction southwards. The natural routes of this migrationwere the valley of the Strymon and Nestos rivers and the narrowpasses through the mountains. These Slavs were initially seasonalworkers, craftsmen and farmers, who were attracted by the potentialfor economic development and the comparatively better living condi­tions in the Greek regions, where they finally settled83

• This stream ofSlavs increased in the 19th c., after the Greek War ofIndependence of1821, because the Ottoman empire, in its effort to prevent Macedoniaand the other still enslaved Greek regions from uniting with the freeGreek State, favoured and, in some cases, incited the settlement ofSlav populations, so as to alter the ethnic composition, that is, theGreek character of Macedonia. These Slavs were, as we have alreadymentioned, mainly Bulgarians who were gradually mixed with thesmall number of Serbs84

• According to the Serbian historical geo­grapher J. CvijiCS5

, this mixture created an "amorphous mass" whichretained few traces of Serbian traditions and generally lacked a

81. For the economic and intellectual activities of the Greeks and especially ofthe Macedonians of the diaspora, see Ap. Vacalopoulos, History of Macedonia, pp.349-394.

82. Ibid.83. Ibid., p. 145 sq.84. Ibid., p. 245.85. J. Cvijic, La peninsu1e ba1kanique. Geographie humaine (Paris, 1918), p.

313. Idem, Remarques sur 1'ethnographie de 1a MacMoine, p. 5 sq.

41

national consciousness: J. Cvijic states this at a time of intensenationalism (1907, 1918). However, this "amorphous mass" hadbegun acquiring Bulgarian consciousness by the end of the Turkishdomination. For this reason, when the population exchanges tookplace, they declared that they were Bulgarians and preferred to beunited with the defeated Bulgaria and not with the then victorious anddeveloping Yugoslavia86. It is noteworthy that according to the Treatyof Neuilly (November 14/27, 1919) 92,000 Bulgarians emigrated fromGreece (Mac~donia and Thrace) to Bulgaria (in addition to somethousands who left Macedonia during the period 1912-1918), while50,000 Greeks came from Bulgaria to Greece87.

From the above, it becomes obvious that during the Turkishdomination great mobility and demographic realignment took place.The demographic situation and the national composition of everytown, village or region was not stable and immutable during this longperiod of slavery. The example of Monastir (Bitola) is characteristic;up to the mid-17th c. this town was inhabited by Bulgarians. How­ever, during the 18th c., and especially after the destruction ofMoschopolis (1769), many Greeks took refuge there. This influx ofGreek populations, mainly from the area of Florina, continued untilmuch later and as the Bulgarian population gradually declined theethnic composition of the town was radically altered. Monastirbecame a Greek centre, whose brilliance spread to the surroundingtowns and villages, where there were Greek communities (as in Mega­rovo, Tirnovo, Kroussovo and elsewhere)88.

86. Cf. Ap. Vacalopoulos, History ofMacedonia, p. 7.87. See St. Nestor, "Greek Macedonia and the Convention of Neuilly", Balkan

Studies 3 (1962), pp. 169-184; St. Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities. Bulgaria,Greece and Turkey, New York 1932. Cf. also Sp. Loukatos, «IIoAt"tEto'YpalptKli @Ecr­

craAovtK"'~, VOllOU Kat nOA..,'.;, cr"tu JlEcra Tfj~ 8EKaE"tta~ "tOU 1910», IIpaK"ttKu LUJlnO­crtOU 'H eeCJCJaAov{KT! }.le1"a 1"6 1912 [= "The Demography of Thessaloniki, the pre­fecture and city, in the middle of the decade 1900-1910", Proceedings of theSymposium, Thessa10niki after 1912] (Thessaloniki, 1986), especially pp. IIl-1l2 andnote 22, with significant data illustrating the strength of the Greek population of thatarea in 1916, i.e. before the exchange of the populations.

88. See Ap. Vacalopoulos, History ofMacedonia, pp. 444-453; cf. also p. 642.

42

Apart from the Greeks and the Turks who inhabited Macedonia,of course there were also Slav or Slav-speaking populations, Vlachs,that is Vlach-speaking Greeks, and Jews. These Slavic populationsspoke a dialect which resulted from the mixture of Slav settlers indifferent areas and had many elements in common with the two Slaviclanguages Serbian and Bulgarian, Bulgarian being the most prevalent.It should also be noted, however, that many of these Slav-speakinginhabitants undoubtedly had a Greek consciousness; they fought forthe freedom of Greece and participated with the Greeks in the Mac­edonian struggle89

•

The existence of other ethnic elements is also natural in a remotearea such as Macedonia at a time when there were neither ethnic bor­ders, nor ethnic clashes. On the contrary, their common resistanceagainst the conqueror as well as their common religion and faith unitedGreeks and Slavs. Thus, despite the existence of other ethnic groupsthe Greek population was the dominant element in Macedonia and aseparate Macedonian (Slav) nationality never existed90

• Such anationality is beyond historical reality. This is confirmed by the fol­lowing facts: I) Travellers who visited Macedonia during the Turkishdomination referred to the inhabitants as Greeks, Jews, Bulgarians orSerbs and never as a separate nation, Macedonian91

• 2) The wholeculture and artistic production of the area was purely Greek andgreatly influenced SE Europe during the years of the Turkish domina­tion. The brilliance of this civilization would not have been possible,of course, without the existence of a powerful Greek element, whichupheld this intellectual tradition. The power and activities of theChurch alone - which were undoubtedly great - would not havebeen sufficient to explain this brilliance, unless they had been sup-

89. See the list of the Slav-speaking Macedonian, who participated in theMacedonian Struggle: M. Papaconstantinou, Macedonia after the Macedonian Strug­gle, op. cit., p. 71 sq.

90. It is noteworthy that, when contemporary historians attempt to rewrite the·History of the "Macedonians" as a separate nationality, they feel constrained to referto events from Bulgarian or Serbian History that are only geographically related toMacedonia: see, for example, M. de Vos, Histoire de la Yougoslavie, p. 67.

91. See above, note 34.

43

ported by a powerful and large Greek population. 3) The role and theactivities of the Macedonians of the diaspora are indisputable evi­dence of their Greek origin. The communities, which they formed inthe Balkans and in Eastern and Central Europe, were centres ofGreek culture. Since that time the presence and activities of theGreeks have been preserved in the place-names of Austria and Hun­gary up to the present day. 4) The historical folksong, a product ofspontaneous popular creativity, also confirms that the Macedonianland was Greek and its inhabitants Greeks92

• 5) The argument by thehistorians of Skopje that, for various historical reasons, the Slav"Macedonians" lost their ethnic consciousness as well as their histori­cal memory during the Turkish domination, cannot be seriouslyupheld: Peoples do not lose their historical memory. Under the samecircumstances, the Serbs retained both their historical memory andtheir ethnic consciousness, because they constituted a separatenationality with historical traditions and a historical past. For thesame reasons, the Bulgarians, despite their intellectual silence in thefirst centuries of slavery and the total lack of Bulgarian schools, didnot lose their national identity.

Moreover, the Macedonians, in their struggle for freedon, foughthard and made great sacrifices so as to be united with the free GreekState93

• At no time did they want to be united with a Slav state, i.e.Serbia, which had also won its freedom after a hard struggle. Thevarious claims which were expressed by the revolutionary Committeesat the end of the 19th c., were propagated by foreign centres and didnot express the will of the majority of the inhabitants of Macedonia.

In addition, during the Macedonian Struggle (1904-1908) the par­ticipation of the indigenous population was widespread; not onlyteachers, clergy and intellectual leaders generally, but also merchants,

92. Cr., for example, Ap. Vacalopoulos, History of Macedonia, pp. 103, 257,296,474, 596 et aI., with the bibliography.

93. Cr. Ev. Kofos, <H' E7ravaamau; rfj; Mma:8ovia; Kara r6 1878 [= TheRevolution of Macedonia in 1978] (Thessa1oniki, 1969). St. Papadopoulos, Or' 87ra­Vaaraalil; rou 1854 Kai 1878 an] MaTCli80via [= The Revolutions of 1854 and 1878 inMacedonia], publications of the Society for Macedonian Studies, No 22 (Thessa1o­niki, 1970).

44

craftsmen and farmers contributed substantially and supported thearmed fight. The struggle of the Greek armed· forces would have beenimpossible without this participation by the people94

•

To sum up, we see that although Slavic populations settled onGreek territory during the Middle Ages and the period of Turkishoccupation they were not able to break the historical continuity ofHellenism. The early Slavs who settled in Greece, mainly during the7th century, were finally assimilated by the indigenous population andmost of them were hellenised. And during the period of Turkishoccupation. (mainly the 17th century) the Greeks remained the pre­dominant national and cultural element despite the settlement ofSerbs and mostly Bulgarians on Macedonian land. Moreover it mustbe emphasized that during the same period the Greeks created signifi­cant colonies in neighbouring Balkan countries. As already stated,this mixing of national elements in the Balkans was due to the lack ofnational borders during the Turkish occupation.

However, apart from the historical dimension of the problem andindisputable historical evidence of Hellenism in this area, it is essentialin order to confront the propaganda of Skopje properly, to take intoaccount the current national composition of both Greek Macedoniaand the Republic of Skopje. Such an examination totally confirms theGreek position as to the Greek status of Macedonia, because what­ever mixing of national elements existed until World War I this wasreduced to a minimum by the exchange of populations.

In fact, with this exchange of populations (the withdrawal ofBulgarians and the return of Greeks from Bulgaria under the Treaty

~4. See the bibliography mentioned above note 4. See also <0 MaI(s8oV1ICO~

'Aymva~. LUWfoalO, 28 'OICr.-2 NosJ.l. 1984 [= The Macedonian Struggle. Symposi­um]. Publications of the Institute for Balkan Studies, No 211- Museum of the Mace­donian Struggle, (Thessalonih 1987). K. Vacalopoulos, <0 MaICs8ovllCO~ 'Aymva~,

1904-1908. <H lV01fA1] rpaa1] [= The Macedonian Struggle, 1904~1908. The armedPhase], (Thessalonih 1987). See also M. Papakonstantinou, <HMaICs8ov{a J.lsra rov

MaICs8ovlICO 'Aymva [= Macedonia after the Macedonian Struggle], (Athens 1992),pp. 91-93, where a rich bibliography. K. Vacalopoulos, '[arapia raiJ BOPSIOU

<EAA 1]vlaJ.l0iJ. MaICs80via (= History of the Northern Hellenism. Macedonia), Thes­saloniki 1991.

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1

of Neuilly 1919, the withdrawa~ of Turks and the settlement of morethan 600,000 Greeks from Asia Minor under the Treaty of Lausanne1923) the Greek element in Macedonia was significantly strengthenedwhile at the same time the foreign national element was decisivelyreduced. The great predominance of Hellenism over a greatly reducedSlavic population can be ascertained from statistics published by theLeague of Nations in 1926. Greeks numbered 1,341,000 (88.8%), Bul­garians 77,000 (5.1%), various other nationalities (mainly Jews)91,000 (6.0%) and Turks 2,000 (0.1%)95. As foreign specialistresearchers96 also confirm, Greece - and of course Macedonia too ­has today the greatest national homogeneity in the Balkans. In con­trast, in the Republic of Skopje there is no national homogeneity.More than 600,000 Albanians (who, indeed, have recently founded an"autonomous democracy" with the name "Illyrida"), 150,000 Turksand 100,000 Gypsies, as well as Greeks and Greek-Vlachs and, ofcourse, Bulgarians and Serbs live there, even though the regime hastried, directly or indirectly, to compel nationals particularly of Greek,Serb or Bulgarian origin to declare themselves "Macedonian" and notto refer to their real national origin if they want troublefree lives andcareers for themselves and their children. Of course, a very small per­centage of Serbs, Bulgarians and even Greeks appears in their cen­suses to make their falsification of this statistical data appear genuine.

It is therefore clear that the appropriation of the name Macedo­nia by Skopje, on which they have based all their propaganda andeven their national existence, does not even correspond to their ownfalse national identity since their artificially created state does not

95. The League of Nations also provides figures from an earlier Turkish census,dating from before the Turks departure. This census raises the percentage of Greeksto 42.6%, of Muslims (Turks mainly and Albanians) to 39.4% and of Slavs (Serbs andBulgarians) to 9.9%; see League ofNations: Greek Refugee Settlement, Annex, Ge­neva 1926. It must be noted that this census does not only refer to the greek Macedoniaof today, but also to Southern Yugoslavia, since it contains the vilayet of Monastir,and to districts of today's Bulgaria, viz. to more northern areas, where the Slavicelement was proportionately higher.

96. See A. Blanc, Geographie des Balkans, "Que sais - jeT' No 1154 (Paris,1965), pp. 44 and 48.

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have any national homogeneity. This appropriation of the name goesagainst e:very principle of justice and conceals other expediencieswhich directly insult Hellenism as shows the unchanging nature oftheir continuous propaganda97

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97. From recent declarations and comments made by officials in Skopje whichcontain clear expansionist aims and messages of "enslaved brothers" I confine myselfto noting only the case of the extreme nationalist party, VMRO (Internal MacedonianRevolutionary Organisation) which very characteristically bears the same name as theknown Bulgarian organisation of the end of the 19th century. In the Manifesto of thisparty, which came first party in the Parliamentary elections of November, 1990, it isstated that its aim is "the intellectual, political and economic union of the dividedMacedonian people and state within the framework of the future union of the Bal­kans and a United Europe", and that "elements of the Macedonian nation which liveunder occupational rule in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania do not form an ethnicminority but just occupied and enslaved parts of the Macedonian Nation". I also notethat the appropriation of Greek history continues since they even use on their flag theemblem of ancient Macedonian kIngs, the sun of Vergina...

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