CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST WAS DRAFTED - Part 03

robbed and many villages were burned and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. The following links provide more information on the Greek atrocities committed against the Macedonian civilian population in 1913. http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov64.html http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov67.html http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov72.html http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov76.html http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov80.html Unfortunately none of the people who committed these crimes have been punished and no justice for the Macedonian people has ever been served. After the end of the 1st World War and after Greece established itself in Macedonia, it began a policy of renaming people and places. All peoples’ surnames and given names were changed as well as the names of cities, villages, lakes, rivers, mountains, etc. Macedonian personal names were replaced with Greek sounding ones and registered in peoples’ personal identification cards. Even though Greece established Greek schools in Macedonia, most of the adult population did not speak Greek and were forced to take night classes to learn the Greek language. Then when the dictator Metaxas took power in Greece, the Macedonian language was banned by law and anyone speaking Macedonian was given a hefty fine. Repeat offenders were jailed, beaten and even forced to drink castor oil. Plain clothes policemen roamed the streets and market places and hid in people’s yards listening under windows. These policemen were paid a commission for each person they fined so there was plenty of incentive for them to be vigilant. In order to eradicate everything Macedonian, the Greek government also initiated policies to erase all Macedonian writing in churches, church icons, tombstones, signs and writing in public buildings. All books, bibles and remnants from the Exarchate church or from previous periods were collected and burned, regardless of their value. Then in the 1950’s entire Macedonian villages were forced to take an oath in public that they would never speak their Macedonian mother tongue and to pledge loyalty to Greece and to the Greek King. To ensure that everything Macedonian was forgotten and to expedite the assimilation process of Hellenizing the Macedonians, the Greek state encouraged its administrators to take Macedonian wives and make sure the children were brought up as Greeks. But when that too was not succeeding the Greek state introduced day-care centers and

kindergartens for very young children to ensure the Macedonian children learned the Greek language and not the Macedonian. Greece says there are no Macedonians in Greece but fails to explain why there were so many day-care centers and kindergartens for Macedonian children. In the last decade or so there has been an increase in the number of kindergartens and day-care centers opened for pre-school children in cities and villages where Macedonians live in larger numbers. For example in the city Kalamata in the Peloponnesus there are only two day-care centers for 60,000 residents. In Athens there are only ten where as in Lerin (Florina), Voden (Edesa), Kostur (Kastoria) and other places in “Northern Greece” there are 48 day-care centers and new ones are constantly being opened. The reason for having so many pre-schools is because many three year old Macedonian children do not speak the Greek language and that is because at home they speak mainly Macedonian. The idea for sending these very young children to school at such an early age is a well concocted plan by the Greek government which always looks for ways to assimilate the Macedonians. By separating the children from their families at a very young age, the Greek government hopes that they will never have the chance to learn the Macedonian language which is a constant reminder that they are not Greeks. Members of the Macedonian communities in Greece say that the nationalistic politics of Greece are deeply entrenched in the Greek educational system. Greeks do not recognize the existence of minorities and will not allow minorities to speak or to be educated in their own language even though, according to all European conventions, they have a right to do so. Besides the assimilatory policies carried out through education and various other incentives in Greece there is also a dark side to this assimilation; the use of terror. Macedonians have always been discouraged from speaking their Macedonian language and for feeling Macedonian. Tactics used to discourage Macedonians from expressing their ethnic Macedonian sentiments included fines, imprisonment, beatings, torture and even death. Children have often been given the strap, made to drink castor oil and scolded in public for uttering Macedonian words or for wearing Macedonian clothing. The Greek state has made it abundantly clear that there is no room for Macedonians in “Northern Greece”, the native homeland of the Macedonian people. By calling that part of Macedonia, annexed by Greece in 1913, “Greek occupied Macedonia” we as Macedonians are expressing our sentiments of exactly how we feel as citizens of Greece. Being prohibited by Greece from expressing our Macedonian sentiments in our own homeland is equivalent to being occupied and it

is only fitting that we refer to our homeland as “Greek occupied Macedonia”. Besides forcing people to become “Greeks” against their will, there is the downside to being “Greek” and that is people are cut off from their past. Being “Greek” means that one can no longer be Macedonian, speak the Macedonian language, enjoy the Macedonian culture or have a history prior to becoming a “Greek”. This means that any Macedonian who accepts to be “Greek” must also accept to “forget their past”. Being given a “new Greek name” means loss of continuity with ones own past and having to accept a fabricated past. Greek history in Macedonia begins with the invasion and occupation of Macedonia. All those Macedonians who accepted to become Greeks voluntarily had to also accept that their history began the moment their names were changed and any Greek history prior to that had to be fabricated. Similarly, all villages whose names were changed by the Greek administration have no history associated with their new name and their history too had to be fabricated. “The concept of a ‘Hellenic’ state as elaborated in Western Europe presupposes that this was to be the heir to the ancient Greek (Hellenic) world. Thus, as Greek intellectuals soon realized the phoenix myth proved too weak to support a national ideology. For ‘Hellenism’ as a cultural discourse corresponded to the ‘revival’ of ancient Greece, which resulted in the inevitable rejection of all the in-between periods. The forgotten periods were now treated as ‘empty pages’ to be filled in. The silence was attributed to the religious prejudices of the Catholic West against Orthodox Byzantium an argument which in turn nurtured the Orthodox anti-Western trends. There was an obvious need for a narrative to replace the one coming from abroad. It was time for ‘real’ Greek history to be written”. (“Discourse of Collective identity in Central and South-East Europe (1779-1945)”, Edited by Balaz Trencsenyi and Michael Kopesec, page 73). “The common Greek language in the last quarter of the twentieth century was neither a restored version of the tongue of the popular heroes of the Greek revolution, nor the demotic of the Diaspora intellectuals. It was passed through the filter of the Katharevousa, just as national ideology passed through the filter of the ‘Hellenization’ process. In the Greek language through the sixteen to the eighteenth centuries the word ‘Hellenic’ meant the language of ancient Greece. In Greek today, the word ‘Hellenic’ means modern Greece and one needs to add the adjective ‘ancient’ to refer to the language of the classical era. In the academic programs in the English speaking world, though, ‘Greek’ refers to the Classical-language programs. During the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries, modern Greece was ‘Hellenized’ and ‘Hellenism’ acquired a modern Greek version.” (“Hellenisms Culture, Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity” edited by Katerina Zacharia, page 229) “The tourist who travels today in Greece recognizes in the regions visited the names of places encountered in ancient Greek literature, mythology and history. But the visitor does not know that this map of ancient Greece has been constantly redesigned over the last 170 years, that is, since the beginning of the Greek state.” (“Hellenisms Culture, Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity” edited by Katerina Zacharia, page 230) “The modification of the place names began just after the constitution of the Greek state in the early 1830’s, and went hand in hand with the reorganization of the administration of the country and its divisions into prefectures, municipalities and parishes. The people attempting the renaming of spaces were conscious of the ideological importance of this action. The renaming of space was not achieved in a single attempt but was a long process that went on for decades. It took place each time a new region was integrated into the Greek state. This was the integration of Thessaly (1881), of Macedonia (1913), and of Thrace (1920). Every time they carried out a reform of the local administration – until as recently as 1998; when many municipalities and communities were reunited with the so-called Kapodistrian plan ‘new’ Greek classical names, previously unknown to the local inhabitants, made their appearance. Which were the toponyms that had to disappear? According to the Greek authorities, they were the toponyms that were ‘foreign or did not sound good’, in other words those that were in ‘bad Greek’.” (“Hellenisms Culture, Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity” edited by Katerina Zacharia, pages 230 and 231) “The middle of the nineteenth century was the stage of a conflict between the Greek intelligentsia and Fallmerayer, who maintained that, in the middle ages, Greece was inhabited by Slavs and Albanian peoples. As a consequence, Greek intellectuals were prompt to erase all the Slavic and Albanian names which could support the rival arguments. In 1909 the government-appointed commission on toponyms reported that one village in three in Greece (that is, 30% of the total) should have its name changed (of the 5,096 Greek villages 1,500 were considered as ‘speaking a barbaric language’).” (“Hellenisms Culture, Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity” edited by Katerina Zacharia, pages 231 and 232)

“After the Balkan wars (1912-1913), new reasons were added to the previous ones: Names ought be changed so as not to ‘give rise to damaging ethnological implications to the Greek nation, of a sort which could be used against us by our enemies’. The new enemy was the revisionism of the northern borders acquired after the Balkan wars, through the use of minority issues.” (“Hellenisms Culture, Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity” edited by Katerina Zacharia, page 232)

Essay 26 - Greeks by Birth? What’s that all about?

Law No. 1540 enacted in 1985 by the Greek government, states that only "Greeks by birth" can claim the right to have their property back, which was illegally taken from them after the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) ended. This not only constitutes discrimination against Macedonians but the regulations in this Law are also contrary to both the Greek Constitution, which upholds respect for persons, and to international engagements. Since coming to power in 1981 the Pan-Greek Socialist Movement (PASOK), in accordance with its manifesto and pre-election promises, began to solve the problem of repatriating its political refugees exiled since the Greek Civil War. This process was approved by both the democratic and progressive forces in Greece. However the jubilation of the repatriation was short lived. The Greek government made it conditional by law that only "Greeks by birth" may return which meant that a great number of ex Greek citizens and nationals have been deprived of the right to return. Only those acceptable to the Greek State who were also prepared to declare themselves “Greeks” were allowed to return. What kind of democracy is this? Law No. 1540 states that only "Greeks by birth" can claim the right to have their property returned, while those who do not declare themselves as "Greeks by birth" lose the right to their property. Is history repeating itself? This law is reminiscent of the dark period when massive numbers of people, after being declared "Greeks by birth ", were uprooted from their ancestral lands, exchanged and re-settled, many ending up in Greek occupied Macedonia. This occurred during the Balkan Wars (1912/1913) and during and after the First World War. But lessons had been learned and after the Second World War nations were created based on the needs of the people and not by oppression, assimilation and genocide. A new spirit was born; the spirit of mutual respect and cooperation not only between people but also between nations. How then are we to judge what the Greek State did half a century later? How should we view a law especially designed to discriminate against a people? How far does such a regulation agree with the Constitution of the Republic of Greece, which was passed on July 11, 1975 (one year after the fall of the military junta), where in article 2 paragraph 1 it says “respect and protection of human dignity are the primary obligation of the Greek state!” And continues: “Greece, in accordance with the universal rights accepted by international law, strives to strengthen peace and justice, as well as the development of friendly relations among nations and countries.” To what extent does the regulation for

the return of political refugees and their rights to their property agree with this Constitution? And what is the purpose of these acts passed by the Greek government? Law No. 1540 consists of the following main characteristics: 1. Regulations brought in during the Greek Civil War, on which basis the property of political refugees was confiscated, are abolished; 2. Properties will be returned only to those persons who came back to stay and live in Greece; 3. Proprietors can seek the return of their property if it has not been awarded to another person. If so, then proprietors have the right to receive property in other parts of Greece (except Attica) on condition they farm the land; 4. Applicants can be awarded financial damages; 5. The law does not deal with the return of ownership of property to those refugees who continue to live outside of Greece, nor does it deal with the question of their heirs who live outside the borders of Greece.

Excluding the Macedonians

With the formula "Greeks by birth", law No. 1540 discriminates against Greek political refugees of Macedonian descent. Greek refugees of Macedonian descent in practice are deprived of the right to return to Greece, which automatically deprives them of the right to have their own property returned to them. This law is not only an act of economic discrimination, but also a deliberate Greek government policy to “permanently” solve the Macedonian question. This however is in direct contravention of the United Nations General Declaration of Human Rights, especially with Article 13, which states: (1) "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, as well as to return to their own country". With this law the right of Macedonian political refugees to return to their own country is removed. Moreover, Article 17 of the Declaration states: (2) "No one can be deprived of their own property against their will". According to Articles 13 and 17, as stated above, the Greek Civil War refugees of Macedonian descent, including the 28,000 child refugees, became refugees in the chaos of the Greek Civil War. Therefore the Greek government has no right to deprive them of their own property by an unconstitutional law, which is also contrary to international law. Law No. 1540 would only be just and humane if it did not discriminate (1) against non-Greeks who are Greek citizens and (2) gave the right of ownership of property to (a) all refugees regardless

of their ethnicity and (b) regardless of where they live. Any limitation is a violation of both property rights and human rights. This law it would appear was enacted to take revenge on those who participated on the losing side of the Greek Civil War for crimes never proved in a court of law. The two laws (confiscation of property and deprivation of citizenship) enacted by the PASOK government are another means of demeaning the Macedonian people living in Greece and justifying the continuation of the denationalization policies perpetrated by the Greek state on its citizens. This law not only affects ethnic Macedonians from Greece living in European countries, but also those inhabiting countries overseas. The law clearly states that all those who are not "Greeks by birth" are excluded from the right to property, as well as their children who escaped from Greece after January 1, 1945 and their descendants born after the Civil War. In this way the Greek state is attempting to permanently deprive the Macedonian people of the right to their own property. This is contrary to the universal rights accepted by international law, the Declaration of the United Nations on human rights, and the Final Act of Helsinki, signed by Greece, which actually refers to these rights in its own Constitution. In light of this, the law issue here is both against the regulations of the Greek Constitution and international laws and the Declaration of the United Nations, which Greece is obliged to respect in order to prove that it is a practicing democratic country. Therefore it would be wise and opportune for Greece to annul this law as unconstitutional, as was done with the law for confiscation of properties in 1953. The same property is involved in both cases. In connection with the question of property the Yugoslav side expressed its attitude in 1953 in the following way: "In light of this situation the Yugoslav government can not be expected to be deaf to the request for help and support of the Greek refugees from Aegean Macedonia who now live in Yugoslavia. It is only right that we bring up the question of protection of their legitimate property and the possibility for their return to their homes in Greece."

Obligation according to Greece’s constitution

The question of “returning to Greece” and “awarding of property” to the political refugees is an internal question for the Republic of Greece. However the question of law regulating the “right of return to their birth place” and “the right to their own property”, which excludes Macedonians only because they do not wish to change their national identity, goes beyond the limits of Greek internal policy, even more so

since Greece, as was mentioned above, is obliged to respect human rights in the spirit of generally accepted international acts, signed by Greece. Thus Macedonians, no matter where they live, have the right to seek the return of their own property in Greek occupied Macedonia and should do so. Without a change in the present Greek discriminatory and assimilatory policy, it is certain that Greece "in accordance with the universal rights accepted by International law", to quote the Greek Constitution, will not be able "to strengthen peace and justice, as well as development of friendly relations among nations and countries". Greece's own Constitution holds it to this. Since the Republic of Greece is constitutionally obliged to act in accordance with international law, the Greek government has an obligation to its own people and to the international public, as well as to the United Nations, to respect its own Constitution. The universality to which the Greek Constitution aspires includes among other things, respect of the rights of minorities. NOTE: It is interesting to note that the only demographic statistics that Greece officially holds true are those from 1928 in which Greece declared that its population consists of 98% Greeks and 2% Muslim Greeks which begs the question “who is Greek by birth and who isn’t?” Is an Asia Minor Christian Turk born in Asia Minor and settled on Greek held Macedonia after the 1920’s a “Greek by birth”? Of course they are! What about an indigenous Macedonian born in Greek occupied Macedonia after Greece’s annexation of Macedonia in 1913? Is that “a Greek by birth”? Of course not! Because if he or she were “Greek by birth” then Greece would not need Law No. 1540 to discriminate against them! (Pages 6 and 7, Macedonian Magazine # 395, March 1986)

Essay 27 - Fifty authors can’t still all be wrong!

There are some staunch Modern Greeks out there that still don’t get it! Being told that you are a “Greek” or pretending to be a Greek does not really make you a Greek, at least not the kind of Greek you think you are! I have shown in previous essays over and over again that “anyone” can become a Greek by accepting the “Greek indoctrination” and that is to learn to speak the Greek language, feel Greek and “pretend” to be a descendent of the so-called “Ancient Greeks”. You can learn to speak Greek and feel Greek as much as you want but you can’t “pretend” to be something you are not! People should not “pretend” to be something they are not if they want to be taken seriously! Acting like you are the descendents of the so-called “Ancient Greeks”, speaking their language and feeling like them does not make you the descendants of the Ancient Greeks! It would be to your advantage to not only learn “the truth” about yourselves but to either embrace it or accept to reject it. Modern Greeks south of Mount Olympus are the descendents of the Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs that immigrated to Greece during the 7th, 11th to the 14th centuries AD and all other people that subsequently settled in that region ever since. Modern Greeks in Greek occupied Macedonia are assimilated and Hellenized Macedonians, Albanians, Vlachs and Christian colonists and settlers imported from Asia Minor and the Caucasus. The ancient Greeks that you think of and speak of so fondly died off even before Rome conquered Achaea (Greece proper) about two centuries before Christ. When the Romans walked into Athens they found a population made up mostly of slaves. These slaves became the new citizens of Achaea after they were freed by Rome. Unfortunately they too perished over time and that is precisely why Byzantine Emperors and later Ottoman Sultans had to repopulate Achaea first with Slav immigrants and later with Albanian and Vlach immigrants. Therefore the true ancestors of the Modern Greeks are the Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs and all others that landed in Greece since the disappearance of the so-called ancient Greeks. Here is evidence from fifty different authors that prove my point that Modern Greeks today are NOT the descendents of the “Ancient Greeks” and are the descendents of the Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs. 1. “The [Greek] claim to southern Albania rests entirely on the assumption that the majority of the population is Greek. The Greeks are stated to number 120,000 and Albanians 80,000. But who are the ‘Greeks’? At least five sixths of them, if not more are Christian Albanians of the Orthodox faith, Albanians in sentiment and language,

who because they acknowledge the Patriarch of Constantinople are declared to be Greek in point of ‘national consciousness’.” (“The Nineteenth Century and After XIX-XX a Monthly Review”, founded by James Knowles, Vol. LXXXVI, July-December 1919, page 645.) 2. “Did the Greeks constitute a race apart from the Albanians the Slavs and the Vlachs? Yes and no. High school students were told that the ‘other races’, i.e. the Slavs the Albanians and the Vlachs ‘having been Hellenized with the years in terms of mores and customs, are now being assimilated into the Greeks’.” (“Greece in the 20th Century”, Editors Theodore A. Couloumbis, Theodore Kariots, Fotini Bellou, page 24.) 3. “The Turkish village which formally clustered around the base of the Acropolis [old Athens] has not disappeared: it forms a whole quarter of the town. An immense majority of the population in this quarter is composed of Albanians.” (“Greece and the Greeks of the Present Day”, by Edmund About, page 160.) 4. “Through the end of the revolution in 1830, Greeks, including most of the nineteenth-century nationalists, seemed to have had a vague but firm sense of continuity from ancient to modern Greece, though this was not articulated in racial terms but on the basis of a common language, history and consciousness. In effect at this time, whoever called themselves a Greek was a Greek. It is because of this that many Greek-speaking Albanians, Slavs, Rumanians and Vlachs were easily assimilated and indeed became important players in Greek patriotism at the time.” (“The Empty Cradle of Democracy”, by Alexandra Halkias, page 59.) 5. “The first Greek who had a plan for insurrection and for a liberated Greece was Rhigas of Valestino. Rhigas was the author of poems, revolutionary proclamations and a constitution… In this document he spoke of a sovereign people of the proposed state as including ‘without distinction of religion and language – Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Armenians, Turks and every other race’. It seems that in their minds the distinction between ‘Greek’ and ‘Orthodox’ was still blurred.” (“Appleton’s Annual Cyclopedia and register of important events 1901”, Third Series Volume VI, page 113.) 6. “There cannot be an Athenian alive today who can trace a direct line of descent from classical times to the present day without leaving Athens. Because of numerous and protracted foreign occupations, true Athenians were a relatively small minority even in the Age of Pericles. In a later period, the city was suffering from severe depopulation and was re-stocked with Albanians. At the time of Greek independence in

1834, Athens was a miserable village with a population of only 6,000.” (“Insight Guides Athens Greece Series”, page 42.) 7. “It is one of a group made famous in the Greek revolution of 1821 by the bravery of its Albanian settlers, in defense of a country which they had never adopted for their own till this moment of danger came. They brought to it moreover, the hoarded wealth of many years. Albanian captains, Albanian ships and Albanian gold became the strength of the Greek and the dread of the Turk. The successful close of the revolution found them as firmly allied with the Greek nationality as they have been previously alien to it, and there are now no names more honoured and beloved in Athens, no families more influential in its polite circles, than those of the Albanian leaders in the war of 1821, the Tombazis, the Miaulis the Condouriottis.” (“The Atlantic Monthly: A magazine of literature, science, art and politics Vol. XLIX, January 1882, page 31.) 8. “Among the numerous islands of the Egian, arise several barren rocks, some of which are however gifted by nature with small and commodious heavens. Of this number are Hydra, Spezzia and Ipsara, the first two close to the Eastern shore of the Peloponnesus, and the latter not far from Scio, on the Asiatic coast. Tyranny and Want had driven some families, whose origin, like that of nearly all the peasants, who inhabited proper Greece, was Albanian, to take refuge on these desolate crags, where they built villages and sought a precarious existence by fishing.” (“The Greek Revolution; in origin and progress”, by Edward Blaquiere Esq., page 21.) 9. “In reality however, just before the Greek war of independence, most Greeks still referred to themselves as ‘Romans. Vlachavas, the priest rebel leader who rose against the Ottomans, declared, ‘A Romneos I was born a Romneos I will die.” (“Bloodlines from the Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism”, by Vamik Volkan, page 121.. 10. “Constantinople and all continental Greece were for centuries ruled and occupied by the Romans, and during many subsequent centuries invaded and colonized by Slavs. The Crusades and the Latin conquest brought a large influx of western Europeans, commonly called Franks, and, in later times, extensive Albanian settlements were made in Greek districts. Clearly, the modern Greek must be of very mixed blood.” (“Turkey in Europe” by Sir Charles Elliot, page 267.) 11. “But it has been argued that since the modern day Greeks are not the descendents of the ancient Greeks: ‘The Star of Vergina is not a Greek symbol, except in the sense that it happens to have been found in the territory of the present-day Greek state…’.” (“Experimenting with

Democracy Regime change in the Balkans”, edited by Geoffrey Pridham and Tom Gallagher, page 271.) 12. “Contemporary historians state the Emperor Basilius also was a Sclavonian; many cities bearing Sclavonian appellations still exist in Greece, as, for instance, Platza, Stratza, Lutzana,…” (“The Foreign Quarterly Review Vol. XXVI”, published in October M. DCCC. XL., 1841, page 73.) 13. “By the fourteenth century Orthodox Christian Arvanites had made their way into the Greek thema of the Byzantine Empire, which largely comprised the land that now constitutes Greece. They first came to Attica as early as 1383…They did not complete their immigration until 1759, when Sultan Murat III offered them land in Athens…Thus the Arvanites were already inhabiting Athens when the city became the capital of Greece in 1834.” (“Fragments of Death Fables of Identity An Athenian Anthropography” by Nani Panourgia, page 27.) 14. “I have already said, and I will repeat it, that not one-fifth of the present population can with justice be called Greeks. The remainder are Slavonians, Albanians and Turks, with a slight infusion of Venetian blood.” (“Travels in Greece and Russia”, by Bayard Tailor, 1872, page 262.) 15. “It should be stressed, however, that the Greeks as an ethnic community during this period [1840’s] included many Grecophone or Hellenized Vlachs, Serbs or Orthodox Albanians.” (“Greece and the Balkans Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters since the Enlightenment”, edited by Dimitris Tziovas, page6.) 16. “All Greek soldiers are required to be able to read and write, and if a conscript on joining has not acquired those rudiments of education, he is put to school. Not withstanding, the educational efforts of the government, as many as 30 percent proven fifteen years or so ago to be completely illiterate, while not more than 25 per cent had advanced beyond the ‘three R’s’. This may be partly accounted for by the fact that these conscripts included both Albanians from the settlements in Attica and other parts of the Kingdom and pastoral Koutso-Vlachs, all of whom habitually speak their own dialects and learn Greek only as a foreign tongue.” (“Greece of the Hellenes”, by Lucy M. J. Garnett, 1914, pages 33 and 34.) 17. “I could speak Turkish, and the Macedonian dialect, besides my own Greek tongue, and as a curious boy in the holidays I had been here and there, wishing to know more of the world round me and the people who lived in other villages than mine. Being neither Turkish nor Greek, we called them Bulgarian, but their language is not Bulgarian, but the Macedonian dialect, and I found

lovable people among them, honest, hospitable and kind.” (“When I was a Boy in Greece” by George Demetrios, pages 131 and 132.) 18. “The migration of the Albanians is the best attested and in many ways the most instructive of migrations into Greece…. We had difficulty staying because they were rather suspicious of us, but we stayed with a man who talked Greek as his main language, although he talked to his wife in Albanian… The ancestors of these people probably came to the Epidaurus in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but they were still talking Albanian as their mother tongue in 1930…. Albanian was the language they talked among themselves, but they could also talk Greek. This was their second language although they lived in Greece…. The one in Epirus which was still Albanian in its customs and its language had probably been there since about 1400… A group of 10,000 Albanians with their families and their flocks appeared there, and asked if they could be admitted to the Peloponnesus. They were accepted by Theodore, who was the principle ruler of the Peloponnesus…” (“Greece Old and New”, by Nicholas Hammond, edited by Tom Winnifrith and Penelope Murray, Pages 39 to 44.) 19. “…so, in the Middle Ages, these Albanian mountaineers have brought both war like spirit, bright costume, and beauty of person, to refresh the Hellenic race. There are still, even in Attica, districts where Albanian is the common language; there are Albanian names famous in Greek annals, especially in the great war of independence (1821-1831) and even among the sailors of Hydra, so famed for their commercial enterprise and their deeds of war, the chief families were Albanian in origin.” (“Greek Pictures drawn with pen and pencil” by J. P. Mahaffy, M.A. D.D., 1890, pages 20 and 21.) 20. “Groups of men in stately Albanian costume, with their grand walk and graceful air, stalk up and down with eastern impassibility, price an article, call for a ‘fotia’ (brazier of coals for lighting cigarettes) , at the cafés, or converse in the strange patois of Greece about the last conclusion of the ‘vouli’ or house of delegates.” (“Greek Vignettes a sail in the Greek Seas, Summer of 1877”, by James Albert Herrison, page 148.) 21. “In the 1770’s a fiery Orthodox preacher, the monk Kosmas of Aetolia, tried to stem the tide of mass conversions to Islam in the Northern Greek lands by founding Greek schools in a score of villages in Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia, where the language had long been abandoned for Albanian, Vlach or Slav, and obliged peasants to speak

only Greek.” (“Greece the Modern Sequel from 1821 to the Present”, by John S. Koliopoulos and Thanos M. Veremis, page 159.) 22. “…following the alleged discovery of Slavic buildings by the German excavator at Olympia. The claims were answered by Paparrigopoulos himself, by reinstating his 1843 position that there was indeed a Slavic presence in the Peloponnesus in the Middle Ages, but that the Greeks need not worry because the Slavs were culturally absorbed…” (“The Nation and its Ruins”, by Yannis Hamilakis, page 115.) 23. “In 1358 the Albanians overran Epirus, Acarnania and Anatolia and established two principalities under their leaders… Naupactas fell into their control in 1378… Other Albanians and Vlachs invaded the Catalan principality of Boeotia and Attica, and a great many Albanians settled there as peasant-farmers in 1368 and later…. The penetration of the Greek mainland which we have described occurred during the hundred or more years after 1325.” (“Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas”, by Nicholas G. L. Hammond, page 59.) 24. “When arriving by airplane at Athens, one lands at the new airport at Spata. Spata is a town situated in the Messogia region that bears and Arvanite name that means ‘axe’ or ‘sword’ (in Greek ‘spaps’, spaya from which derives the Albanian Spata). The term ‘Arvanite’ is the medieval equivalent of ‘Albanian’. It is retained today for the descendants of the Albanian tribes that migrated to the Greek lands during the period covering two centuries, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth.” (“Hellenism Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity”, edited by Katerina Zacharia, page 230.) 25. “With them it would be a resurrection, accomplished, no doubt, after vast pains and many troubles, the more so since the Greeks are a composite people among whom the descendents of the veritable Greeks of old are in great minority. The majority are of Albanian and Suliot blood, races which even the Romans found untamable.” (“In Greek Waters: a story of the Grecian War of Independence (1821-1827), by G. A. Henty, 1893, page 40.) 26. “Where are we to look for the descendents of the Greeks of old? Travelers tell us that, as late as the sixteenth century, Athens was but a castle with a small village; and that Sparta, divided by two tribes of the Slavi, the Ezeriti and the Milingi, had not only lost her ancient name, but it was impossible to recognize the site in which she had stood of old.” (“History of the Island of Corfu” by Henry Jervis-White Jervis ESQ., page 250.)

27. “General interest was first aroused by a controversy as to the racial derivation of modern Greeks. The war of Independence had won the sympathy of Europe; and it was a rude shock both to Greece and to her champions when Fallmerayer announced that her inhabitants were virtually Slavs. The race of the Hellenes he declared in his ‘History of the Morea’ was routed out, and Athens was unoccupied from the sixth to the tenth century. Only its literature and a few ruins survived to tell that the Greek people had ever existed. What the Slavs had began the Albanians completed.” (“History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century”, by G. P. Gooch, 1918, page 491.) 28. “There were few Muslims here; the inhabitants largely of Albanian stock, were only imperfectly assimilated into the Greek nation…” (“Politics in Modern Greece”, by Keith R. Legg, page 48.) “The term ‘Greek’ differentiates the language spoken by inhabitants of modern Greece from the languages of the surrounding countries; but there is disagreement on what the Greek language was, is, or should be. At the time of independence, the range of local dialects was significant; substantial portions of the population spoke Albanian.” (“Politics in Modern Greece”, by Keith R. Legg, page 86.) 29. “…followed by violence, recourse was had to arms, and the two elder brothers united against Vely, the offspring of a slave; who being forced to expatriate himself, embraced the perilous profession of those Albanian knights errant, more commonly known by the appellation of kleftes or brigands.” (“The Life of Ali Pasha of Jannina, 1823, page 26.) 30. “There is the case of Karamanlides, a predominantly Turkish-speaking Christian Orthodox people, who were forced to go to Greece although they did not necessarily identify ‘ethnically’ with the Greeks. At the time of the exchange they numbered as many as 400,000.” (“Mediating the Nation News, Audiences and the Politics of Identity”, Mirca Madianou, page 31.) 31, “Morea…as Fallmerayer traces it back to the Slavic word ‘more’, the sea which nearly encircles the Morea. The Morea forms the most southern part of the Kingdom of Greece and is divided into the monarchies of Argolis, Corinth, Lakonis, Messenia, Archadia, Achaea and Elis. Overrun by the Goths and Vandals, it became prey, in the second half of the 8th c. to bands of Slavic invaders who found it wasted by war and pestilence.” (“International Cyclopedia a Compendium of Human Knowledge”, American Editor-in-Chief Richard Gleason Green, 1890, page 204.) 32. “This point is made in almost all publications on Albanian nationalism (e.g. Skendi 1967 and 1980). In the nineteenth century, the

Greek historian Constantinos Paparrigopoulos considered the Albanians a ‘race’ that could be acculturated into Hellenism. His viewpoint was greatly influenced by the considerable Albanian contribution to the Greek war of independence (1821-1828).” (“Nationalism Globalization and Orthodoxy” by Victor Roudometof, page 156.) 33. “Rhigas of Valentino….author of poems, revolutionary proclamations and a constitution… In this document he spoke of a sovereign people of the proposed state as including ‘without distinction of religion and language – Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Armenians, Turks and every other race’.” (“Nations and States”, by Hugh Seton-Watson, page 113.) 34. “As of 2002 more than 98,000 foreign pupils were enrolled in Greek schools, accounting for almost 9 percent of the overall school population. As regards nationality, 72 percent are from Albania. Clearly, Albanians are not unknown to Greeks and the new relationships emerging from the contemporary migratory context can be seen as superimposing themselves into a pre-existing trans-Balkan context.” (“The New Albanian Migration”, edited by Russell King, Nicola Mai and Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, page 155.) 35 “Next to them in this respect are the modern Greeks, who, for the most part, are of Sclavonian origin, and, where they are not purely Sclavonian, are a cross-breed in which Sclavonian enters very largely.” (“The Phrenological Journal and Magazine of Moral Science for the year 1843”, Vol. XIV, page 246.) 36. “The modern Greeks are largely of Slavic origin. They are not the descendents of the ancient Greeks. That noble race, greatly mixed with barbarian blood during the middle ages, was almost completely destroyed in the course of the frequent uprisings against Turkish rule. Slavic immigrants gradually repopulated the country.” (“The Popular Science Monthly”, edited by J. McKeen Cattell”, Volume LXXV, July to December 1909, page 591.) 37. “There was little interest as to the nationality of the rayahs while Turkish rule was strong. They were nearly all Christians of the Byzantine type, those in Europe at least, and were hence regarded as one people, for oriental theocracy cannot conceive of nationality apart from religion. They themselves knew the differences in their origins and in such traditions as they had: some were Slavs, some Vlachs and some Albanians…” (“Political Science Quarterly” edited by the faculty of science of Columbia University, Volume twenty-third, 1908, page 307.) 38. “Since the Christian era, as we have said, a successive downpour of foreigners from the north into Greece has ensued. In the