From: michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos) 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.greek
Subject: INDEPENDENT SLAVO-MACEDON
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:30:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York City, NY - 212-274-1243v.32bis
Reply-To: michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos) 


Quoting Stavros.
>Now, do you really want to see Slavo-Macedonia uniting with Bulgaria?
>Wouldn't this be more uncomfortable for Greece than an independent
>Slavo-Macedonia?

 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.

 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". (ie, by accepting
the name "Macedonia" for Vardar, the claim that Macedonia is a divided
region can be made).
 In the name of "Unification" Bulgaria violated the Balkan League treaty
in 1912, starting the bloody Second Balkan War.
 In the name of "Unification" Bulgaria joined the Central Empires in
WWI, and occupied Vardar.
 In the name of "Unification" Bulgaria joined
Hitler's Axis during WWII and accupied both Vardar and (Greek)Macedonia
for more than 3 years.

 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.

 Reading though messages in this board, I see that certain people still
believe in the idea of a greater Macedonia, under Bulgarian rule. People
who claim that the 1913 population exchange never took place (look it up
in the books). People who still talk about liberating "Minority
Macedonians in Greece".

 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?

 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.

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

 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.

 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. 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.

 In any case, it is absurd for the Skopjian/Bulgarian side to make
claims on Greek soil based on the existence of Slavic nationals in the
(Greek)Macedonian region prior to 1913, when similar numbers of Greeks
lived north of the border prior to 1913,(till they were evacuated in
the same population exchange), yet Greece makes no claims to any of
those territories.

Michael.