From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the Macedonia issue
Date: 25 Jan 93 10:51:11 GMT
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <1993Jan23.184425.1@vax1.bham.ac.uk> ivrissimtzis@vax1.bham.ac.uk writes:
>Some points on the Macedonian question:
>
>1. Macedonia major geographically designates an area that includes the northern
>province of Greece (Aegean Macedonia), most of FYR of Macedonia (Bardar
>Macedonia) and part of southwestern Bulgaria (Macedonia of Pirin). This area
>prior to WWI and the population exchanges in the 1920s was the homeland of
>groups of various ethnic origin, predominantly Turks, Slavs (Bulgars and
>Serbs), Greeks and Vlachs. 

Better say before the Balkan wars in 1912 when there were more than 100 000
refugees from Greek Macedonia to Bulgaria.


>However, the ethnic identity, consciousness and attitude of those groups that
>coexisted prior and during Othoman rule hardly could be determined and
>categorized. Language and, possibly, religious beliefs might serve as criteria
>in an attempt to classify ethnic origin and cultural trends during that period,
>but with serious precautions for their reliability. Major groups were bilingual
>and associating religious preferences to nationalities could lead to
>contradictions: Slavs could be either Patriarchists and Exarchists, or even
>Catholics and Musulmans, many of the Vlachs converted to exarchists, etc.

You mean Bulgarians and not Slav !!! Older Greek documents speak about
Bulgarians. Only when Serbians placed their claims (absolutely artificial
and politically motivated) on the Slavs in Macedonia after 1881-89, there
were years to pass, when Greeks changed the term "Bulgarophones" with
"Slavophones".

>The Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek propaganda flourished in manipulating the
>Hilmi Passa census in 1905 (perhaps the only credible document on Macedonia
>population,

??? There have been a number of documents on Macedonia population, the most
credible of which was by A Boue - a famous French explorer, who presented
his work on the people and ethnic character of Turkey-in-Europe in 1840 !!!
Hilmi Pasha as you said was 1905, and before him there were numerous
statistics by non-Balkan scholars !!!

> which nevertheless referred to religious rather than ethnic groups)

THat is true.

>and other statistics for their own political ends.

So - one must find out who, when and how started exploring his political
ends.

> The research by J. Larmeroux
>[Le politique exterieure...; 1918]

Rather late research. At this moment, most of the historians, researchers,
etc were biased and many of them were politically motivated because of the
war. 

> in an attempt to understand the ethnic
>breakdown and the national identity of the Macedonian population showed that
>the statistics are of little objective when attempting to answer the question
>of the number of each ethnic group in Macedonia before WWI.

There are certain facts, which no one can dispute and has ever disputed.
The problem is that some propaganda machines tend to "forget" those
undisputed facts.

>In any case, the term "Slavomacedonians" has been used by respectable
>historians to define Slavs that inhabited Macedonia major over the last
>centuries.

That is simply not true. The term Macedono-Slav was introduced by the
SERBIAN scholar Cvijic ONLY IN 1906 !!!! Nobody before that has used that
term when describing the ethnography of Macedonia (i.e. there is no ethnic
map on the world before the on of Cvijic, which has Slavo-Macedonians). One
of the undisputed facts on the Macedonian problem.

>2. An attempt for political autonomy and independence of Macedonia appeared at
>the end of 19th century with a predominantly Slavic (Bulgarian) movement: 
>Interior Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

Which according to all Western documents and diplomats from that time was
an ethnic Bulgarian organization.

> Although many peasants
>initially embraced the movement, before and during the Ilinden uprising in
>1903, it degenerated its scope into terrorist activities

Many regard Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian etc. and other movements as terrorist
such. No need to portray Ilinden as terrorist movement. Furthermore, terror
was spread by ALL - Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, Vlach movements in
Macedonia.

> and soon fell  under
>the seige of Bulgarian supremists nationalism and served Bulgaria's interests
>before the Balkan Wars.

IMRO was abolished for some period before the Balkan Wars as the idea for
Macedonia within the Ottoman Empire (the Young Turk movement) was quite
popular for some time.

> Thus, "Macedonia" and "Macedonians" were used among
>Slavs and rooted in their minds well before Comintern and Tito, with a
>geographic rather than an ethnic meaning.

That's true. Also, after Serbia got hold of Vardar MAcedonia, it was
fobidden to have Bulgarians there, so those who were not shot for that and
didn't accept being called Serbs, were called 'Macedonians' - i.e. this is
well described being an euphemism, to conceal the existence of Bulgarians
there. THe policy worked after 3 generations ...

>3. Tito's policy in Balkans is still a matter of dispute. It is hard to
>believe, nevertheless, that the use of the name "Macedonia" for the southmost
>Republic of former Yugoslavia could support expansionist policies (if any) over
>Greek territory, especially against the status quo of the post war era.

True for nowadays, but also true that Tito's designs on Greek Macedonia
were not a fiction ...


>4. The policy of Greece pertinent to the recognition of the Skopjan State
>wrongly focuses on the name issue. Since the name Macedonia has been used to
>define a geographical region shared by several nationalities over the past
>centuries (and still does), then a compromise (eg. Northern Macedonia or Bardar
>Macedonia, etc.) with the Skopjan State was feasible and should have been
>reached.

That seems reasonable.

> Arguments from both sides on whom's ancestor is Alexander the Great
>and any reference on ancient Macedonian history at the onset of 21st century
>are at least absurd and, of course, have no effect in convincing any
>intelligent human being. 

Absolutely true.

>5. The Constitution of the Skopjan state poses indeed some problems that have
>to be discussed. Extremist political movements within it (VMRO) and other

VMRO is not an extremist movement. It is only anti-Serbian, so the Serbian
propaganda and the pro-Serbian Macedonian government is presenting VMRO is
extremist. Even more - the VMRO in Vardar Macedonia has almost nothing in
common with the original VMRO of Vanche Mihailov - the only true VMRO after
WWI.

>state from ancient history. I am sure they have their own respectable history
>and symbols to choose from.

That is irelevant. You can't force somebody else choosing his history and
symbols. And once Macedonia is independent, they will wake up from the Tito
history books as the truth there is so little, but 'documents' and books do
not exists in Vardar Macedonia only... There is no chance the people of
Vardar Macedonia not to find out the myths from Tito's legacy !!!

>Leonidas Ivrisimtzis
>Univ. of Birmingham

Luben
Xref: sparky soc.culture.greek:12370 alt.news.macedonia:50