From: vassil@cs.wisc.edu (Vassil Peytchev)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.europe
Subject: Re: Macedonian recognition (was Re: The Aboriginal Government ...)
Keywords: Macedonia, Bulgaria, WWI, WWII
Date: 23 Aug 92 20:57:07 GMT
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept

In article <5860@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>, lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov) writes:
|> 
|> I've noticed that many netters think that after the population exchanges,
|> no Bulgarian Macedonians remained in Aegean Macedonia. However, that's not
|> true. Unfortunately I can't find references at present, but the numbers I
|> remember were in the range of 60 - 80 000 Macedonian Bulgarians who
|> remained in Greece after WWI.
|> 

Here is some Greek data on the subject:

Article: 13957 of soc.culture.greek
From: rsakella@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Rizos Sakellariou)

>Many recent articles have put questions on the number of Slavophones
>in Greek Macedonia. It might be useful to give some figures for the
>ethnological composition of Greek Macedonia during the last 80 years.
>Statistics prior to 1912 are based on different administrative
>regions which don't coincide with today's Greek Macedonia.>
>
>Ethnological composition of Greek Macedonia in 1912 (numbers quoted by
>the League of Nations in 1926; see next reference)
>     Greeks         513,000   42.6 
>     Turks          475,000   39.4
>     Bulgarians     119,000    9.9
>     Miscellaneous   98,000    8.1 (Serbs,Jews,Armenians,Vlachs,etc.)
>
>As a result of the wars and the obligatory exchange of populations
>between Greece and Turkey, in 1926 these numbers were :
>[Source:League of Nations, 'Greek Refugee Settlement',Geneva 1926]
>     Greeks        1,341,000   88.8 
>     Bulgarians       77,000    5.1
>     Moslems           2,000    0.1
>     Miscellaneous    91,000    6.0 (Serbs,Jews,Armenians,Vlachs,etc.)>
>
>The official Greek census of 1928 confirmed the numbers of the League
>of Nations indicating that there were 81,984 Slavophones, mainly in 
>Western Macedonia. Since then, Greece has been considered as one of 
>the most homogeneous countries in Eastern Europe.
>
>The official Greek census of 1951 reported that the number of Slavophones
>in Greek Macedonia had been reduced to 42,000. The main reason for
>that decrease was the defeat of the communist army during the Greek Civil 
>War 1946-49. It seems that 20-30% of the communist army was composed of 
>Slavophones who, together with other Greek communists, fled Greece in 1949.
>Because most of the Slavophones that remained in Greece had resisted the
>communists and had collaborated with the Greek National Army,
>the Greek authorities considered them as having a Greek conscience
>and only their language differentiated them from the rest of the
>inhabitants of Macedonia. Thus, the cencus of 1961 didn't give any numbers
>for them, a practice that has been continued thereafter.
>
>Today, it is difficult to find out the exact number of Slavophones in Greece. 
>Since 1951, they were peacefully integrated into the Greek society; most of
>them are bilingual but, above all, it appears that they never stopped to
>consider themselves as Greeks.
>
>
>--rizos
>

It is most probable that during these counts people were *strongly* encouraged
to declare themselves Greek, so the actual number of Bulgarians might have been
higher.

Best regards,

Vassil
---
vassil@cs.wisc.edu