The "macedonians" in today`s republic of Macedonia

http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3335 #post3335

Chieftain

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 15:38

In the term "migratory movements" are to be included all mass movements due to any cause whatsoever, whether the result of forcible eviction (war-like operations, deportations, etc.), voluntary emigration, or treaties and exchange of populations.

These migrations and only in Greek Macedonia (not in Bulgarian or Yugoslav Macedonia) are set forth below in their chronological order.

1912.

The advance of the armies of the Balkan Allies-the Greeks on Thessaloniki, the Serbs on Uskub and Monastir, the Bulgars on Kavalla and Thessaloniki, resulted in a partial stampede of the Moslem population of the invaded area towards Thessalonica. Of the Moslem population of Greek Macedonia, some 10000 went over to Turkey as the result of this panic.

1913.

On the outbreak of the second Balkan War between Bulgaria and her former Allies, a very considerable portion of the Bulgarian population in the districts to the north of Salonika followed the retreating Bulgarian Army into Bulgaria. The districts affected were, principally, that of Kilkis and, to a lesser degree, Goumentza, Demirhisar and Seres. The total number of Bulgarians who migrated at this moment was about 15000
Towards the end of that year the whole Greek population of the Macedonian districts ceded to Bulgaria by the Treaty of Bucharest (qazas of Jum'a-i-Bala, Razlog, Melnik, Nevrokop, Strumitsa) emigrated to Hellenic Macedonia. They numbered about 5000
A similar movement took place from the Macedonian districts ceded to Serbia (qazas of Monastir, Gevgeli and Doiran). The Greeks from these districts, to the number of about 5000 settled for the most part at Thessaloniki, Florina, and Kilkis.
At the same time the Greek population of the Caucasus, excited by the news of the Greek victories in Macedonia and by reports of free distribution of land, started to emigrate. Although the movement was discouraged by the Greek Government, which already had its hands full with other refugees, some 5000 * Caucasian Greeks succeeded inbeing admitted into Macedonia.

1913-1914.

AS the result of the action of the Bulgarian Government in Western Thrace, which territory had been ceded to Bulgaria by the Treaty of Bucharest, and the settlement there of Bulgarian emigrants from Macedonia, practically the whole of the Greek population were forced to emigrate. Of these some 40,000 settled in Macedonia, others going to Old Greece.

1914.

After the conclusion of peace between Turkey and the Balkan States, the Young Turkish Government started a vigorous propaganda among the Moslem inhabitants of the ceded districts, to induce them to emigrate to Turkey. Although Western Macedonia was hardly affected, a considerable portion of the Moslems of Central and Eastern Macedonia, estimated at 100000-115000 left for Turkey and were settled in Eastern Thrace and on the western coast of Anatolia.
With the object of bringing pressure to bear upon the Greek Government to surrender the Egean Islands which had been occupied by Greece during the first ~ a l k a n War, the Young Turkish Government proceeded to expel, during the summer of this year, a portion of the Greek population of Eastern Thrace and the Asiatic littoral. About 100000 of these refugees (80,000 from Thrace and 20,000 from Anatolia) took refuge in Macedonia, where they were settled by the Greek Government.
During the European War the Bulgarian Army occupied Eastern Macedonia, and all the Greek inhabitants-to the number of 36,000 were deported to Bulgaria.

1918.

Immediately after the Armistice the survivors of theabove deportation-to the number of 17000 only-were brought back and reinstated in their homes.

1918-1919.

The successive occupations of Western Thrace, Eastern Thrace, and Smyrna by the Greek Army were followed by the re-emigration of the Greeks who had been expelled from these countries in 1913-1914. The total number repatriated from Macedonia was about 140,000.

1919-1920.

In the course of 1919 the Greek Government decided to remove to Greece the Greeks of South Russia and the Caucasus, many of whom had been reduced to the condition of refugees by the Bolshevik Revolution. Of these, 55,000" were settled in Macedonia.

1919.

After the defeat of General Wrangel by the Bolsheviks at Odessa and in the Crimea, a portiori of the Russian White Army, including large numbers of Russian civiliall refugees, was transported to Greece. Of these about 1000 were settled at Thessaloniki.

1919-1924.

In 1919 a Convention was signed between Greece and Bulgaria to facilitate the reciprocal emigration of the Greek and Bulgarian minorities in the two countries. Under this arrangement 27,000 Bulgarians had quitted Greek Macedonia for Bulgaria up to the end of 1924.

1922-1924.

After the Greek disaster in Asia Minor practically the whole of the Greek population of Western Asia Minor and the Black Sea littoral (Pontus) took refuge in Greece. Also, immediately after the signature of the Mudania Convention by which the Allied Powers agreed to surrender Eastern Thrace and Constantinople to the Kemalists, the greater part of the Greek and Armenian population of Eastern Thrace and a portion of the Greek inhabitants of Constantinople, fearing reprisals by the Turks, removed to Greece. Of these refugees, up to November 1924, about 200000 had been installed in Macedonia and 120000 in Western Thrace.

1923-1924.

In January 1923 was signed the Greco-Turkish Convention for the exchange of populations, which differs from the Greco-Bulgarian Convention in that it makes the emigration of the Greek and Moslem minorities in the two countries compulsory, only the Greeks of Constantinople and the Turks of Western Thrace being exempted from its provisions.

This Convention came into operation in October 1923. By November 1924 the whole of the Moslem population of Macedonia, amounting to 348000 persons, with the exception of a few individuals of Albanian origin whom the Greek Government had agreed to exempt from the exchange, had been transferred to Turkey.

1924.

In May of this year the remnant of the Greek population of Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor began to be transferred to Greece, under the provisions of the same Convention.

By December 1924, at which date the exchange was practically completed, 150,000 Greeks (94,000 from Anatolia, 18,000 from Eastern Thrace, and 38,000 from Constantinople) had been transferred to Greece.

Besides the above-mentioned wholesale migrations, a factor which must also not be overlooked is the settlement in Macedonia, immediately after the Balkan Wars, of considerable numbers of Greeks from Old Greece. Taking into account the Government officials, gendarmes, etc., 10000 would not be too high a figure. This does not include the army.

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Digenis

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 15:55

The source of the previous map of southern macedonia was not offered...
This is a map of Greek Macedonia,
showing the population in 1912 (right column) and 1926 (left column).
It is a map of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS .
I dont think there is a more reliable source than the "UN" of the time....
:

I really apologise about the quality of the picture,(i had no time to fix it)
Blue -Greeks
Red-Muslims (Turks and others)
Green-Bulgarians
Brown-Others (Jews,Alb,others)

Digenis

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 16:09

But this is not the topic of the thread...
People like Bg_Turk =the turkish foreign office of propaganda, search every possible thread for attacking Greece .

I won't deal with him ,i ll just plz everyone to ignore such attemps.

For the topic,
These people traditionally considered themselves as Bulgarians,until the beggining of the 20th century.
National propaganda and goverments were changing them names from time to time ,according to the political situation,
but their language and customs reaveal their Slavic identity-i would say they are a branch of Bulgarian nation.

Of course in the last century,and especially after 1945 a new nation was borned ...and formed gradually
(this proccess has not ended yet)

As a new nation,these people need a "national fairy tail" . (as for every new-nation)
The story of Alexander is more appealing than ancient Dardans or Paeonians.
Being descendants of brave Macedonians seems much more glorious ,than being descendant of slavic shepherds and provincial Bulgar hillbillies of the Medieval times !

Edited by Digenis

akritas

Chieftain

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 16:13

Digenis the map and my statistics of my article have the same primary sourse

Edited by akritas

bg_turk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Macedoni a

Sultan

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 17:15

Originally posted by xristar

Bg_turk, your statistcs are not a proof.

"My" statistics? It is not my statistics, it is some statistics that I came accross in wikipedia, and I believe it is properly referenced and independent enough.

I realize now I gave the wrong link as a source for it, sorry for that, here is the correct link:

On the same page there is also information by Encyclopedia Britanica, according to its 1911 edition:

Bulgarians: ca. 1,150,000, whereof, 1,000,000 Orthodox and 150,000 Muslims (the so-called Pomaks)
Turks: ca. 500,000 (Muslims)
Greeks: ca. 250,000, whereof ca. 240,000 Orthodox and 14,000 Muslims
Albanians: ca. 120,000, whereof 10,000 Orthodox and 110,000 Muslims
Vlachs: ca. 90,000 Orthodox and 3,000 Muslims
Jews: ca. 75,000
Roma: ca. 50,000, whereof 35,000 Orthodox and 15,000 Muslims

In total 1,300,000 Christians (almost exclusively Orthodox), 800,000 Muslims, 75,000 Jews, a total population of ca. 2,200,000 for the whole of Macedonia.

http://www.journalof911studies.com

bg_turk

http://www.jstor.org/view/00376779/di000559/00p0006e/0

Sultan

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 17:30

An interesting review by Andre Rossos:

On p.373 we read:

"Colonel A.C. Corfe, chairman of the League of Nations Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration, reported in 1923: "In the Conversation, Mr Lambros [Governor General of Macedonia], actually said tat the present was a good opportunity to get rid of the Bulgars [sic] who remained in this area and had always been a source of trouble for Greece." This could be achieved at leas superficially: Athens made a concerted effort to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme and tragic dimensions durin the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the privacy of the home to a people who ken Greek scarcely or not at all, and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but their own."

On the same page Captain Evans, an agend of Special Operations Executive, who spent eight months in western Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer and station commander, condemnde Greek policies:

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

Edited by bg_turk

http://www.journalof911studies.com

akritas

Chieftain

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Posted: 14-Mar-2006 at 18:11

As about Captain Evans a quote from the book of Spyridon Sfetas (View of the Macedonian Issue in 20th cent) in the chapter "Autonomistics Moovements of the Slavphones in 1944) pages 154-155

Captain P. H. Evans, liaison officer in Western Macedonia from March to December 1944, mentions no private transactions with Goce, merely that they met once(53). By his own admission, Evans knew nothing about the Macedonian Question. He never doubted the existence of a SlavoMacedonian patriotic sentiment,which, however, he regarded as more in the nature of a localistic feeling. What particularly struck the young officer was the fluidity of the Slavophones� national consciousness, which was determined chiefly by motives of self-interest(54). Evans' final conclusion was that the Slavophones could easily remain in the Greek state, since it ensured them better living conditions and permitted them to speak their local dialect, as also that no objective preconditions existed for a �free Macedonia�(55)

53. A. Rossos, �The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British Officer's Report, 1944�, TheSlavonic and East European Review, 69 (1991), No. 2, 304.

54. �It is this perfect duplicity of the Macedonians which makes them difficult to know. It is hard torind out what they are thinking.... I have often been struck by this ambivalence or more-thanambivalence ofthe Slavs in Greece, their willingness to go in this direction or that according to the vagaries of propagandaand the altering pressure of circumstances. They are a set of muddleheaded peasants who perhaps hardlyknow from one month to the next what they really want�, op.cit., pp. 297-8.

55. �If Greece can give the Macedonians what they want_freedom of language and a somewhat betterlife_they want to remain Greek citizens... There can be no independent Macedonia. Even if one regards it,as I do, as right, in the abstract, that there should be, one has to concede that practically it is undesirable�,op.cit., pp. 298, 308.

And is known that the Slavmacedonians (SNOF) took the Communist part during the Greek Civil in order to occupy from Greece the Macedonia and then to unite all the Communist countries under the Balkan Federation

Edited by akritas

Leonidas