PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

This is a book about people in conflict. It focuses on the multi-layered multi-generational conflicts affecting the people of a small Balkan town. They are conflicts rooted in religious, ethnic, economic and language differences that affected generations of people in the Balkans. The battles have been not just military but were also competitions for the hearts, minds and souls of the people of Banitsa. I hope thatitleadsthe readerto a betterunderstanding ofthe complexities ofourhistory.Ihope thatthisisofparticularinterestto the large number of people who can trace their roots to Macedonia and to Banitsa in particular. Although the 2018 population of the village was only 590, there are thousands like me in the diaspora that can trace their origins to that small remote village.

Banitsa, or Vevi as it now referred to officially, has a tumultuous history so out of keeping with the peaceful, family-oriented up-bringing that many of us had as second-generation Canadians. Family times with our older relatives were often times of great story telling. As someone who spent many hours listening to these stories, I could appreciate the difficult and extremely challenging events that ultimately led to my parents and most of their close relations emigrating from Greek Macedonia. We heard so many stories but it was hard to put them all in order and in context.

I came across Katinovski’s book on Banitsa in the main library in Skopje and I was impressed with his organization and detail. The author Atanas Katinovski, or Tane Katin as he was probably known in the village, was first and foremost a Macedonian nationalist and secondly a communist. Understandably there will be biases in the book that reflect that but his stories are usually in keeping with what I have heard and where the facts may be in dispute, I have attempted to point that out. This book is his personal accounting of the events. However, the footnotes have been added by me and are not part of the original manuscript.

At some point in the late nineteenth century there must have been a plebiscite (with much more than a simple majority) in Banitsa for the citizens to decide whether or not to keep the Greek Church, and as the author points out, the Patriarchate was not present in the village in the late1800’s. Alas there was no option for allowing two churches in the village.There wascompetition throughoutMacedonia forthe heartsand souls of the natives with the competitors being the Greek Patriarchate, the Bulgarian Exarchate and even the Serbian Orthodox Church. It was difficult to say that the Church leaders were on a mission just to save souls. Churches were tied to nationalism and were often the instruments to gain influence, power, and territory.

Of course, history is written by the victors. Macedonian activists and nationalists, and the communists of Greece were by no stretch of the imagination winners. However, this story is important to help understand the complex and convoluted history of the village and its residents, and to appreciate more fully the horrendous pressures on the people of Banitsa that challenged their native language, freedoms, and well-being.

The book will take the reader from a time of national awakening in the late nineteenth century to the hard losses of the early twentieth century, the arrival of a Greek regime during the Balkan Wars to replace the Ottoman Turks, the tough times of the 20s and 30s, the war against the fascists in the early 40s and ultimately the fratricidal Civil War in the late 40s. As difficult as the earlier conflicts were, there was nothing as destructive as the Civil War. Quite literally families could be and were divided, often ending up on opposite sides. At times participation on side or the other was voluntary but often it was compelled. The partisans had no prison camps, unlike the Greek government. Justice was meted out quite cruelly by both sides however. If you refused gun-point conscription by the partisans you could be shot. If you refused conscription by the Greek army, you had to flee or be sent to prison camp or have your family punished or have your property destroyed or seized.

Unlike what the author says about grand broad-based support for the partisans in the Greek Civil War, many villagers were simply trying to keep their heads low and avoid taking sides. They were simply interested in survival and keeping their stock and land to help survive.

One wonders how the national psyche was affected when whatever one said and how one said it could attract trouble.

Macedonians were in a no-win situation much of the time. If you proclaimed your Macedonian heritage loudly and allied yourself with the communists you were viewed as a worthless by the authorities. If you fought in the Greek army, you were still seen as suspect and inferior to “real Greeks”. In my opinion the tragic events in the Balkans had a lasting influence on the way my parentsand othersconducted their lives. Looking at many individuals from the previous generation I wonder if many of them exhibited continuing symptoms of stress to various degrees.

Macedonians have been struggling for recognition of their linguistic and cultural rights forever, it seems. This book details the efforts of previous generations to assert their own agenda and win recognition. (Coincidentally we are at a time where there may be a rapprochement in 2018 between the governments of Greece and the Republic of North Macedonia.)

As I was growing up in Toronto, there were many opportunities afforded by name days, weddings, engagements, baptisms, village society dances, picnics, etc. for extended families to come together, maintain their bonds and support each other in this new country.

A book on the history of Banitsa from a woman’s perspective has yet to be written. The women were often left in the village while the men were in the army or fighting with partisans. My grandmother, whose father was the Vojvoda (leader of a group of revolutionaries) Dzole Gjergev, recalled as a child having incriminating documents being hidden from the Turkish army under her dress. My aunt recalls the fright of artillery shells damaging the house they were in. Heavy

debris had fallen on my young uncle’s bed barely missing him. My mother recalled being fraught with worry when the villagers heard of the summary executions of political prisoners on the island of Makronisos where my father was first held and stationed in the Greek army in the 40’s. She feared he might have been killed.

Since the days of the Ottoman Turks, men have been leaving the village to seek their fortune. After the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, my great-grandfather left to find work on the railroad in West Virginia. He stayed there several years, sending money back to support his family. He brought his son over to work as a water boy on the railroad. Later on, after serving in the Greek army in the Greco-Turkish War my grandfather went back to the USA to find work to support his wife and family of four. (He never made it back after that second trip to Ohio.) Women, wives, and children were left to deal with absent sons, husbands, and fathers for long stretches whether they were pechalbars (fortuneseekers or migrant workers) or fightingas irregulars or soldiers, or in political prisons, or dead because of the many armed conflicts.

As the book notes, there have been mass migrations of Macedonians out of Greek Macedonia. With the population shifts of the last 100 years the presence of the Macedonian language in northern Greece has diminished. With the systematic suppression of language and religious freedom in northern Greece it seems that many of the remaining villagers have been assimilated for the most part. Even Christian names seem different from the older generations in which names like Luba, Dezhda, Grozda, Vanka, Slava, and Velika seemed common.

Fewer and fewer people remaining in Banitsa can speak the language of their grandparents. When the Macedonian language and culture were not being suppressed, they were left to wither away from neglect.

There is a good argument to be made that the Macedonians ending up in Greece after the Balkan Wars of over 100 years ago were treated as colonials. Language, culture, and identity were all suppressed.

Unlike, say people of colour, it has been easier for Macedonians to assimilate or be assimilated into the more powerful and wealthier culture of the Greek nation. The playbook of colonialism involves suppressing the native or local language, calling it a “dialect”, refusing to acknowledge the name of the language, bringing in your own religious people and suppressing the local religion, and holding one’s own language, culture and people as superior and a shining example to all. If that is not enough, then ease their way out of the country one way or another.

But should one not have the freedom to play whatever music one wishes? Can one explain why all the names on tombstones must be written in a language other than one’s mother tongue? Why is there a monopoly on the type of churches one can support and attend? Should not merit be the thing by which you are judged and not your native language? Should there not be a rule of law applying equally to all citizens in a country?

Human rights belong to everyone. Whether we are part of a minority or majority should not alter our respect for all rights of expression. We all have the right to self-identify. Identity issues were often the subject of dinner table discussions with my relatives. Many of my relatives would identify as Macedonian and many would call themselves Greeks (even if they spoke Macedonian in their own homes). The conversations were almost always civil and surprisingly sometimes humorous. The nice thing about Canada is that you can call yourself whatever you want. The other nice thing about Canada is that it made it easier for everyone to put aside past issues and get along with all the people who had also emigrated from the village.

When I was young, some relatives feared that being too vocal a Macedonian could affect any Greek pension or property rights you had or could impact negatively on the wellbeing of your relatives and their businesses in Greece. My parents acted as if it was a given that a small number of our relatives in Canada would report on anyone’s political views to the Greek consulate. At some village dances and weddings things could become testy if someone asked the band for a song and

dance glorifying the Macedonian struggle. The immigrants in Toronto from the village had three social clubs, a Banitza Benevolent group formed 100 years ago, a Vevi Society and a third one called Club 75 which tried to be non-political. It can be hard to be non-political though, if just calling yourself a Macedonian is seen as political.

Hundreds of Macedonians who fought as communists and died in the Greek Civil War are buried in unmarked graves in a field near Florina. Those men and their surviving comrades often had their properties seized and their families expelled from their native villages. Their houses were often razed to the ground by the authorities so they would not have a home to return to. Will there ever be a Truth and Reconciliation movement in Greece to clarify and address the misdeeds done by all sides since 1900?

There is always hope for reconciliation between peoples. For example, Dzole Gjergev reconciled with the Turks at the time of the Young Turk movement. He stopped being a revolutionary and instead was hired by the Ottomans as a policeman in Lerin. He was given the nickname of “Atesh Pasha” or Fire Lord by the Turks.

As I write this prologue, there is a new chapter being written in Balkan history now that the newly designated Republic of North Macedonia and Greece have enacted the Prespa Agreement of 2018. Although the Agreement was signed over the objections of significant opposition numbers on both sides of the border, it should pave the way for normalization of relations between the two populations and hopefully lead to more integration into Western Europe. Everybody deserves better economies paired with transparent systems of governance and justice.

I asked my father once why he did not join the partisans during the Civil War. He replied that he, like so many others, felt the leftist movement was doomed. Although they were able to recruit many people early in the course ofthe war,towardstheend, thepartisans were known to recruit villagers at the point of a gun. In fact, there is a remarkable story involving a relative. A young woman named Vangelia

was recruited forcibly by the guerrillas only to end up in a squad facing a Greek army unit in which her husband, also from the village, had been conscripted. She convinced a Greek friend in the squad to desert the partisans by putting a white cloth on their rifles and showing themselves to nearby government troops. This in itself was a risky move as it may have been taken as a trick by the soldiers. Although her father was fighting for the partisans in the Civil War, her new husband was in the Greek army.

This book will also describe a Captain Deligianis of the Greek garrison in Banitsa in the Civil War. He drove off a number of inhabitants he felt to be connected to the partisans. In the case of Vangelia, engaged to be married at that time when her mother and siblings were forced out, Deligianis said if she married her fiancé and let him officiate, then he would allow her to remain. Apparently, he personally performed theirwedding ceremony aswellasthe ceremonies for several other couples in the same circumstance.

The history of the village was not affected by the “Detsa Begaltsi”, the child refugees gathered and taken by the communists to Yugoslavia and thence to various communist countries in Eastern Europe. That piece of Balkan history seems to have bypassed the village totally as the village was controlled by the Greek government for much of the Civil War.

It is very easy for Macedonians to assimilate into the new culture of Canada. It is good however to be mindful of the positive legacy our parents and grandparents have left us. Care should be taken to recognize that often the attitudes of our parents may be taken up by the second generation without recognizing that history is fluid; it changes with time. For example, my parents’ version of Macedonian was frozen in time. With the exception of taking on some English words (or Greek words in the village) it has essentially not changed in generations, while the literary Macedonian language of the Republic continues to evolve in Europe. By the same token, our support for “all things Macedonian” needs to be flexible enough to understand that we are now citizens of diaspora countries and that Macedonia will continue to change even

without us. Our political attitudes to the Balkans should not be frozen in time. As Gladstone said in the nineteenth century, “Macedonia for the Macedonians”. It can now be taken to mean that the current citizens of Macedonia be allowed to create their own future, taking into account their need to deal with their own minority issues and their own relationships with their local neighbouring countries.

Throughout my professional career and in my private life I have come across many Macedonians of my parents’ generation who seemed chronically ill at ease and I wonder if some were having post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of living through the mess of the 30s and 40s. War and strife can take its toll in multiple ways that outlast the actual physical conflict. That is such a broad topic and I can only draw brief attention to it. Certainly, my parents knew how to keep secrets. In retrospect I can understand that because if you were too open about your views in Banitsa it could get you beaten or killed.

Although Macedonian history can be dark, the real story of Banitsa is not complete without pointing out what a generous people they are, how they loved their celebrations, their music, their connectedness and what remarkable resilience they had to survive the immense trials of history and flourish in faraway places where they could raise and educate their children, trust their neighbours, and all now have the ability to express themselves freely in any manner they choose.

This translation is dedicated to the memory of Blage and Vassa Mallin. Banitsa in the Maelstrom of the Wars