From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: The traveler Rev. Tozer wrote ... [1869] (was: Re: e: Scopjian Flag)
Date: 22 Nov 92 22:49:43 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.bulgaria
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <1992Nov21.052051.15873@rose.com> mike.kozovski@rose.com (mike kozovski) writes:

[deleted]

>           From the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA 1899 Volume XV
>
>    " MACEDONIA,
>     when that name is taken in its widest signification, is the country
>     between Thrace on the east and Illyria on the west, bounded on the S.
>     by Thessaly and the Aegean Sea, and on the N. by the lands which belong
>     to the basin of the Danube.
>
>     The people of this country were not Hellenic, though its rulers
>     ultimately succeeded in claiming that title for themselves, at the
>     time when Alexander I. was admitted as a competitor at the Olympic
>     games. The same thing may be said of the land itself, the appearance
>     of which presents many points of contrast to that of Greece proper.
>     Instead of the delicate, bright, and varied scenery of that country,
>     with its clear atmosphere and sharp outlines, we find in Macedonia
>     broad masses of mountains, extensive sweeps of lowland, and uniformity
>     of colour."
>
>
>     Rev. H.F.Tozer. M.A., author of "Lectures on the Geography of Greece."

Curious enough that in the quoted book nothing more is said on the people
in Macedonia. It's interesting to check all written on the subject. I don't
have in hand this edition of the encyclopaedia, but I have something else 
written by the same author. It might be interesting to know that Rev. Tozer 
toured Macedonia in 1853, 1861 and 1865, and the lively descriptions from his
tours there, is given in his book:

		 "HIGHLANDS OF TURKEY,
including visits to Mounts Ida, Athos, Olympus, and Pelion, to the Mirdite
Albanians, and other remote tribes",
by Rev. Henry Fanshawe Tozer, in 2 vol, London, 1869.

So - in Vol. 1 we can read:

page 176.
...
	"The Bulgarians, who form the largest element in the Christian
population from Salonica to the confines of Albania, are very interesting
people, and are highly spoken of for industry and honesty. They are the most
numerous of all nationalities inhabiting European Turkey, and are estimated
at between five and six millions. There can be no doubt that the original
Bulgarians were of Turanian descent, and near relations, if not actual
descendants, of Attila's Huns; but after their settlement in Bulgaria Proper,
on the Danube, they became so intermingled with the Slavonian inhabitants
of that country that they adopted their language. A large number of them
seem to have emigrated into Western Macedonia before the ninth century,
and there, in all probability, received a further infusion of Slavonic blood.
...

page 179-180

	... Towards the end of the tenth century, while the Byzantine
authorities were occupied with a rebelion at home, their chief, Samuel, a
man of great vigour and ability, proclaimed himself king, and not only
recovered the dominions of his predecessors, but extended his conquests over
Macedonia and Thessaly, and made plundering excursions into Greece and the
Peloponnese. Finding that the plains of Bulgaria were unfavourable to him as
a scene of war, on account of the superior discipline of the Imperial forces,
he transferred his seat of government to Achrida (now Ohrid), on the lake of
the same name, in the mids of the mountains to the west of Monastir; at the
same time he transferred thither the Bulgarian patriarchate, and from
thenceforth that place became his capital, and the focus of their national
associations.
...

page 186
...
	The name of Ochrida, or, as it was formerly called Achrida, is
derived, not as some writers have said, from the Greek 'akpos' {written in
Greek}, as being built on a height, but from the Slavonic 'ahar', "a court",
since it was once the residence of the Bulgarian monarchs. The city is said
to contain some 15,000 inhabitants, the Mahometans and Christians being
about in equal numbers. The Mahometans are mostly Albanian, of the Gheg tribe;
for though the name Turk is often heard throughout Albania, it only means
Mahometan; with the exception of the pashas and a few officials, hardly any
Ottomans are found westwards of this point. The Christians are Bulgarians,
and these too cease with the mountains which bound the lake on the west."


Alas, I don't have the time to quote more from the book and I didn't have 
the time to read it all :-(. But in all chapters, where Rev Tozer describes
his travel in Macedonia, the reader is left with no doubt whatsoever, which
nationality was the most numerous in Macedonia some 130 years ago (as seen
from above). Nice book for reading and highly recommended for those who are
interested in what was/wasn't Macedonia during the 19th century.
 
>    Mike


Regards

Luben