From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.bulgaria
Subject: Re: INDEPENDENT SLAVO-MACEDON
Date: 23 Aug 92 14:39:28 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <3507.3248.uupcb@factory.com> michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos) writes:

> Ofcource it is to the interest of Greece that "M" remains independent
>from Bulgaria. This does not change the fact that the residents of
>Vardar have much in common with their Bulgarian neighbors, and nothing
>in common with the Macedonian people.

Nothing in common, apart that they consider themselves as Macedonians.

> The threat does not come from any numbers of Slavic population in
>(Greek)Macedonia. The threat comes from the notion, advanced many times
>by Bulgaria, that "Macedonia should remain united".

I recall a famous phrase "You must be living in alternative Universe".
And this phrase is TRUE in case you claim that Bulgaria seconds such
notion. For your information, this notion is advanced for the past 47 years
by the ex-YU regime.

>                                                      (ie, by accepting
>the name "Macedonia" for Vardar, the claim that Macedonia is a divided
>region can be made).

Macedonia is a name of a region and there is nothing wrong a region to be
divided. The "Balkans" is also a name of a region and it's divided b/w
different countries.

> In the name of "Unification" Bulgaria violated the Balkan League treaty
>in 1912, starting the bloody Second Balkan War.

Alas - yes. Had that grave mistake not being committed, there would have
been no Macedonian problem nowadays. But ...

> In the name of "Unification" Bulgaria joined the Central Empires in
>WWI, and occupied Vardar.

One can also use the word "Liberation". The population from "Vardar" joined
the Bulgarian, and not the Greek or the Serbian army. Try to explain why.

> In the name of "Unification" Bulgaria joined
>Hitler's Axis during WWII and accupied both Vardar and (Greek)Macedonia
>for more than 3 years.

Absolutely wrong. I've posted the reasons for that yesterday. If you didn't
know them, I suppose you've read my posting from yesterday.

> Do you see a pattern here? Any notion of "Macedonia" still existing as
>a region with it's pre-1912 boundaries must be dismissed. That Macedonia
>was erased from the map in 1913, when the population exchanges took
>place, removing the Greek populations from the north, and the Slavic
>populations from the south.

Yuk. Macedonia has never been erased from the map. It existed and still
exists as a region. As for the population figures, Rizos posted them so you
can consult those data. 

> Reading though messages in this board, I see that certain people still
>believe in the idea of a greater Macedonia, under Bulgarian rule.

I've never read such posting. Could you please quote such people. Even more
- Macedonians are so much alienated from Bulgaria, that they still can't
understand why Bulgarians support them for their independence.

>in the books). People who still talk about liberating "Minority
>Macedonians in Greece".

That's another subject.

> In a recent posting Sasa advanced another such piece of propaganda. She
>spoke of "deportations of Slavic nationals from Greece during the Greek
>civil War". What?

Is Sasa "she" or "he". I'm a bit confused on the matter.

> The only place where slavic populations remained after 1913 was Thrace,
>which was not fully included in the 1913 exchange as it was in Bulgarian
>hands after 1913, and became Greek in the reparations treaty after WWI.

Wrong. I'll repeat the figures posted few days ago:

Posting by:
#From: rsakella@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Rizos Sakellariou)
#Subject: Figures concerning the Slavophones of Greek Macedonia
#Date: 20 Aug 92 21:12:39 GMT

#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.)

If you claim that 77,000 people + ?% (Serbian) of the 91,000 are = 0, then
... 

> During the civil war, the area was almost entirely in Communist hands,
>with the assistance of Bulgaria.

What assistance? If there was any assistance it was a Russian one.
Bulgarian communists were too little to mange with their problems as the
new rules of Bulgaria, and even they needed the help of the Soviet army for
few more years after USSR declared war on Bulgaria - in fact Bulgaria was
under occupation until 1947 (or even 48) until country was "cleaned"
from "some elements".

> After the defeat of Greek Communists became inevitable, and after it
>became obvious that Stalin was determined not to get involved in the
>situation, thousands of Greek communists and Serb nationals were
>evacuated from the region by orders from Sofia.

Sofia ordered evacuations of Serbs from Greece ???????????

> While it can be argued whether or not the Serb nationals fled because
>of the orders from Sofia, or in fear of the advancing greek republican
>army, it is clear that had Bulgaria not gotten involved in the Greek
>civil war, there would have been no such evacuation.

???? Shall I repeat what I said earlier? What involvement are you talking
about? Soviet "comisars" were elsewhere - in Greece as well. But even if
some of them were from Bulgarian origin, they have been very much against
the ... "bulgarian nationalism" ... Yes - the worse anti-Bulgarians were
the Bulgarian communists. It seems that you haven't read anything about
what communism was in those years.

>                                                   Even larger numbers
>of Turkish nationals remained in the same region, and they are still
>there today. Even Mutlu(c) himself has not tried to suggest that Greece
>forced an evacuation of Turkish nationals from the region in 1948 or at
>any other time.

What are you after? A new flame war on the net? Nowadays Bulgarians have
not studied what happened before WWII and after it with the predominant
Bulgarian population in the region you are talking about but a lot of
accounts do exist. And playing with such figure and accounts will bring new
flames on the net, from which no one will gain (hm, maybe "Mutlu(c)" will
gain more references :-((( ). If you wish to believe that Greek government
was perfect and very tolerant towards ethnic minorities during the years
before WWII (and shortly after) - it's up to you. But if you want to start
a new exchange of data for atrocities and killings during years which must
not affect our present understanding and friendship - that's totally
different matter.

Luben

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"There  are two thing infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And
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				Albert Einstein
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