From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: Can we excuse some ignorance? (was Re: (check out this bob))
Date: 5 Sep 92 15:08:41 GMT
Distribution: soc
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <19925.899.10728@dosgate> "mike vanier" <mike.vanier@canrem.com> writes:

>Once again.  The only people who claim that the Macedonian identity was
>created fifty years ago  are the Greeks and the Bulgarians.

Absolutely wrong. Before trying to say something stupid like this next
time, consult the following books, which are neither Greek, nor Bulgarian
(and were all published far earlier than the period we are talking about):

"Macedonia:  it's races and their future",  Brailsford, H. N., 1906,
reprint: Arno Press, New York, 1971.

"The Balkans a history of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Turkey",
Forbes, N., Toynbee, A. J., Mitrany D., Hogarth, D. G., Oxford at the
Clarendon Press, 1915.

"The War in Eastern Europe", Reed, J., New York Charles Scribner's Sons,
1918.

"Macedonia, Bulgaria" vol. IV., Peace Handbooks, (Issued by the Hist.
Section of the British foreign office 1920).

"The people of Turkey: twenty years residence among Bulgarians, Greeks,
Albanians, Turks and Armenians", Counsul's daughter and wife,
(ed. Poole, S. L.), London, 1878.

In case you want to extend your knowledge even more, it will be my
pleasure, to provide you with more titles.

>                                                                They do
>this because they currently occupy large sections of Macedonia.

The region which is called Macedonia is divided amongst 3 different
countries since 1913, hence any one of the countries can be cosidered as
an "occupier" and any other one - as the true sovereign of Macedonia. Are
you curious to see what Sir Winston Churchill writes on the subject?

>                                                     How very unusual it
>is that in the parts of Macedonia that are now occupied  by Bulgaria
>and Greece, the Macedonian population has ceased to exist.

For anyone, who will read (or have read) the books, I've quoted above (and
from ANY other book from before WWI and even WWII) it will be more than
clear that such ETHNIC population didn't exist in the past. Hence - before
"ceasing" to exist, it should have "started" to exists. 

The only unusual thing here is that some people still talk on Macedonia
without obtaining and having elementary knowledge of it's recent history.

>"Bulgarize" the Macedonian population, their total failure to do so must
>indicate to them that you can't change people's ethnic identity in the
>space of a century.

Wrong. The best example for  a successful change of ethnic identiry is the
population of Vardar Macedonia, which according to all sources from before
1920, considered itself as Bulgarian. Your lack of knowledge is obvious and
may be accepted at the moment, but it will be a very bad practice to make
similard statements in the future.

>this in less than fifty years.  The 1956 census of the People's Republic
>of Bulgaria showed that the majority of people in Pirin Macedonia
>(that part of Macedonia now occupied by Bulgaria) considered themselves
>Macedonians and not Bulgarians.

The source of this is the communist policy (implemented in the mid 40ies by
Dimitrov and Tito) on nationalities, which dates from the years after WWI
(BTW, according to the initial Communist plans, the Bulgarian nation should
have been divided on Macedonian, Thracian and Dobrudjan nations). This is
well known and SINCE then one can use such data, acquired by the compulsory
subscription of Bulgarians as Macedonians. Many secret reports (published
after 1989), showed that the majority of the local population didn't want
to accept it's new "ethnic" identity and a that time brutal force was used
- similar to the one used in "converting" the Bulgarian Turks into
Bulgarians during the period 1984-89. And becaus it's clear that you like
statistics, let us examine few more:

  Source: Ottoman Population 1830-1914 Demographic and Social Characteristic,
          by Kemal H. Karpat.

  p.156. Muslim and Non-Muslim Subjects Counted in the Census up to 1895

  Admin. Distr.  Muslims          Greeks          Bulgarians
                F       M        F       M        F       M
  Selanik    216,916 230,948  129,289 147,948  105,064 118,216
  Manastir   108,295 117,239  107,940 119,826   97,459 108,433
  Kosova     140,870 268,862   10,889  18,504  117,459 157,367
              ------------------------------------------------

Total:             1 083 130          534 396          703 998

Maybe we can look at the data of another famous census:

In 1905 Hilmi carried out in the three vilayets in Macedonia the first
census of the population since the Turkish conquest.

Muslims 1,720,007, Greeks 648,962; Bulgars 557,734; Serbs 167,701, Jews and
others 77,386, total 3,176,690. Under Greeks (were included) all the
'Patriarchist', whether of Greek, Slavonic or Rumanian speech !!!

Maybe you can find more similar (and very interesting) data from:

"La Questione Rumeliota e la Politica Italiana", Vol. 1.  Amadori-Virgili G.,
Bitonto, 1907
"Balkanwirren und ihre grunde", General Von Der Golt, 1904.
"La Macedoine et la Puisance"  Gustav Rutier, 1903.
"The Truth of Bulgaria",  Robert Pelletier, 1913.
"Der Machtbereich der Bulgarischen Exarchat in der Turkei",  Richard von
Mach, 1906.
"Die Macedonische Frage", Richard von Mach, Vienna, 1895.
"The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe", Leon Dominiani,
American Geographical Society of New York, 1917.

In case it's not enough for you to draw your conclusions - it's easy to
give you more references.

>  As a Canadian of Macedonian descent, it bothers me that

As a Canadian who has only a remote idea of Macedonia in regard to its
history, national consciousness and ethnicy, please do restrain from
bombarding the net with ridiculous arguments. You live in a free country
and unlike other Macedonians who had never had the chance to find the truth
for themselves, it's unexcusable for you to remain ignorant on this
subject. BTW, if you are so interested in Macedonia, do you receive (or
have you ever seen) the "Makedonska tribuna" newspaper - the oldest
newspaper issued by the Macedonian emigrants in America?


>              Lubi

Luben

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Let us not allow splits and splintering to frighten us. It is, indeed, a
pity, but what can we do, since we are Bulgarians and all suffer from one
common disease"
				Gotse Delchev
--------------------------------------------------------------------------