From: buis@buengc.bu.edu (Lou Buis)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: CONFUSIONS ABOUT MACEDONIA (was: Bulgarian-Greek relations/minorities)
Date: 28 Aug 92 10:55:40 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Organization: Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Originator: buis@buengc.bu.edu

In article <9223918.24219@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> miscord@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au 
(Michael Scordilis) writes:

>>LB> remember were in the range of 60 - 80 000 Macedonian Bulgarians who
>>LB> remained in Greece after WWI.
>
>>   95% of those were in Thrace, which was Bulgarian from 1913-1917, and was
>
>No.  These people were in western Macedonia.  The aborted Karlov-Politis
>protocol was about these people.  In fact, Greece had agreed to baptise those
>80,000 slavophones as a Bulgarian minority, but withdrew under the strong 
>objections  of Yugoslavia which was since that time (1920's) involved in 
>trying to assimilate the Bulgarians of Vardar.


(1)	Correct. 
	The liberation movement in the period before 1912 in Turkey was 
	united and called IMORO (BMOPO) where the third "O" stands for 
	Odrin (Edirne, Adrianople) - (Internal Macedono-Odrin Revolutionary 
	Organization).

	The idea behind this united movement was not because Macedonians
	live around Ordrin (Adrianople) in Thrace, but it was created to 
	help the fight for the freedom of ALL the unliberated Bulgarians 
	in Turkey.
	
	Odrin, Thrace and Macedonia region were populated by Bulgarians
	at the time, and that was the idea behind the joined organization. 



(2)	By supporting the Yugoslav idea of renaming the Macedonian Bulgarians
	into Slavs, and later Macedonians, Greece was DOING EXACTLY THE
	SAME thing for which she is acusing now Tito.

	Hence, Greece has no right to complain about Macedonian nation and
	the language, since she (Greece) helped immensely in that by 
	supporting the Serbian and Yugoslav view since 1912. 

	Acctualy, Greece (as any other country) was supporting their own 
	interest, which at the time (as judged by the Greek Government) was 
	not to have united Bulgaria on the North, but rather a common border 
	with Serbia. If the price for that was changing the consciusness of 
	several milion people by making them first Serbian, and then 
	Macedonian, it was fine for Greece, as long it was under control.

	Greek hypocrisy was even worse by accepting the Government of 
	the Republic of Macedonia all the time while it was part of
	Yugoslavia and essentialy controled by the Government in Belgrade.

	Once Republic of Macedonia become independent of Belgrade, it started 
	to represent a problem to the Greek government.

	For a long time Greek students were even studying at the Universities
	in the Republic of Macedonia. That stoped arround 10 years ago, when 
	the Greek goverment realized that doctors and engineers comming back to
	Greece after graduating at Skopie became "bilingual". Hence the 
	Greek Government decided that the Macedonian language doesn't exist nor
	anything with that name, forcing the students to move to the 
	universities in the Republic of Serbia.

	When are the Greeks going to realize that THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED
	TO THE MACEDONIAN CONFUSION IMMENSELY ? It's not just Tito,
	or King Alexander and the Serbian policy, but the Greek 
	"slavo-macedonian" aswell.


>In fact Thessaloniki has NEVER been occupied or dominated by Slavs. Not in 
>WW1, not in WW2, not in the middle ages.  


WRONG! 

Check your history before you claim. It happened 80 years ago,
in the first Balkan War. Bulgarians were occupaing Salonika together with
the Greeks. They arrived a day later than the Greeks in the town itself, 
but they had 10 battalions with cavalry and guns in several quarters in 
Salonika. And so began the curious dual occupation of Salonika and its
environs which provoked many quarrels and outbreaks, and continued until 
the following July, when the Secon Balkan war and the Treaty of Bucharest
passed Salonika into the posession of the Greeks. 

During the Bulgaro-Greek street fights in Salonika, the main battles were 
around Bulevard Hamidie (the broad street running inland from the White
Tower (Beyaz Kule)). One of the places where the Bulgarian army put a 
resistance was the church St. Sophia. The Greek machine guns were positioned 
above the church, and the main fighting from below was done by the Cretan 
gandarmerie.


>It is ironic that the Skopians want
>to consider Thessaloniki as the capital of a future united Macedonia, a city 
>always foreign to them. Samuil, Simeon, Stefan Dusan, etc, never conquered 
>the city. 


The idea of free and independent Macedonia is older than the Socialist 
Republic of Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. When nowdays are made claims 
like this they, of course, sound rediculous. 

But, independent Macedonia at the end of the last century and at the begining 
of this one, was imagined as a country of mixed population, like Switzerland, 
not as an exclusively Slavic state, as you think. In a state like that, 
Salonika would have been the capital, being the largest city, and the main 
port of Macedonia. 

The local government of Salonika, at the time, would have probably been 
Jewish or Turkish, and definitely not Slavic, considering the population.

This old idea, of course, becomes rediculous nowdays when put in the framework
of a whole united Macedonia under the dominance of one Macedonian nation and
the government of Skopje.

The original idea behind this is very well explained in Ivan Mihailoff's book 
"Macedonia: The Switzerland of the Balkans" that I recently posted (published
in the U.S. some fifty years ago). 

If you have time and interest, you can find more about the origines and the
evolution of the idea of Independent Macedonia. 


	Regards,

		Lou