V - DEPORTATION AND EMIGRATION OF MACEDONIANS FROM AEGEAN (GREEK OCCUPIED) MAC

V - DEPORTATION AND EMIGRATION OF MACEDONIANS FROM AEGEAN (GREEK OCCUPIED) MACEDONIA BEFORE AND DURING THE GREEK CIVIL WAR (1945-1949)

The process of enforced renaming of settlements, toponyms and microtoponyms, accompanied by denationalization and assimilation, was temporarily interrupted because of the Second World War and ensuing events. It is worth mentioning that, in the Graeco-Italian War declared by Mussolini on 28 October 1940, Macedonians showed exceptional heroism, fighting in the front lines. They fought so bravely in the conviction that the fight against the fascist aggressor was a common international debt and a contribution against the mutual enemy of all peoples, and, consequently, of the Macedonian people as well.

In the April War of 1941 Greece, and Macedonia within its framework, became prey for German militarism. This time Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia became a coin for the ransoming of others’ consciences and interests, in the first place of Bulgarian revanchisme and Italian fascism.

The only way out and the only requirement for fulfilling the centuries-old ideals of freedom for the Macedonians and for all the peoples of Greece enthralled by German, Italian and Bulgarian fascism was armed struggle, and they did not show the slightest hesitation in taking this route, full of sacrifice and deprivation, a route they had familiarised themselves with throughout the centuries.

Because of Macedonia’s division and historical circumstances, the battle which all Macedonians were to face was to be waged by the Macedonians from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia, together with the Greek people, convinced that, either during the war or later, in a new anti-fascist Greece, their national rights would be recognised.

However, in practice, even during the Great Anti-fascist War, in which Macedonians participated in large numbers, they were becoming increasingly aware that the anti-fascist forces in Greece had no intention of recognising the rights of Macedonians. On the contrary, everything was done to quell the aspirations and demands made on the part of the Macedonians.

In that respect, of course, those Greek forces fighting under the aegis of the occupier went furthest. In the course of the war the occupiers’ armed units crusaded in Macedonian villages and districts, plundering, burning, terrorising and slaughtering Macedonians. These armed units, such as those of Kircidakis, Kolaras, Pulos, Papadopulos, Kisa Badžak, Andon Čauš and others, leaders of the collaborationist P.A.O., attacked Macedonian villages with particular pleasure, villages which in the past had proved to be more revolutionary or tenacious in their resistance.

As a result of numerous historical circumstances, the anti-fascist forces in Greece laid down their arms. Their destiny was sealed by the Varkiza Agreement of 12 February 1945. Immediately after the Varkiza Agreement and the laying down of arms on the part of the anti-fascist forces of Greece, the situation in the country deteriorated to an extreme extent. Macedonians were again facing an exceptionally difficult situation. Almost immediately after the Varkiza Agreement, intimidation, pressure and terror were applied upon them. Slaughter, the raping of women and girls, plunder, the burning of houses, internment, imprisonment, violence and deportation were everyday occurrences.

It is sufficient to cast a glance at the documentation issued by the Archive of Macedonia in its publication Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia in the National Liberation War, (54) at the Yugoslav and international press of the time, at the rich documentation assembled by the Public Opinion Commission of the UNO, as well as other documentation, to understand even to a certain degree the situation which confronted Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia immediately after the Second World War.

The wave of refugees grew from day to day. It was becoming clear that the Greek monarcho-fascistic state was determined, at whatever cost and without paying heed to international protests, to get rid of its Macedonians.

By way of illustration we will mention only a few, and those not necessarily the most typical, actions.

On 20 February 1945 Greek armed bands attacked the Macedonian village Volak, in the Drama district, where they killed seven villagers, burned 40 houses, looted the village and drove 350 villagers across the frontier. The same day a similar armed band attacked the village of Cuculigovo, in the Serres district, where they arrested 15 villagers, plundered the village and drove 33 families across the frontier. From 12 February to 12 April the bands of Andon Čauš killed 29 Macedonian villagers, imprisoned 3,100 Macedonians, looted a dozen Macedonian villages and drove several hundred Macedonians across the frontier. (55)

In the district of Kostur (Kastoria) Macedonian villages were attacked daily by local armed bands whose most frequently-employed methods were maltreatment, force and theft. Thus on 26 April 1945 the village Kumaničevo was attacked, 60 houses were plundered and, among other things, 1,000 sheep and 110 head of cattle were carried off. On 29 April the village Gališta was attacked, as had been the village Aposkep on 27 April. In the same month the village Zagoričani was plundered and 40 villagers sent to prison; 2,000 sheep and 500 head of cattle were carried off from the village Meniak and 22 villagers imprisoned. In the village Cetirok 160 houses were plundered and 150 men and three women imprisoned, one woman was killed and 2,500 sheep and 600 head of cattle were carried off. Massive arrests, thefts, violence and individual killings were performed in the month of April 1945 in virtually all the Macedonian villages in the Kostur (Kastoria) district, during which the villages that suffered most were those of Izglibe, Tiolišta, Ličišta, B’mboki, Gosno, Staričani, Ludovo, Rupišta, Semasi, Markoveni, Pesiak, Krčišta, Gorno Papratsko, Grače, Županišta, Smrdeš, Gabreš and D’mbeni. (56)

The situation in the Lerin (Florina), Voden (Edessa), Meglen, Enidže-Vardar, Kaliar and Kukuš (Kilkis) districts was similar. By the end of June 1945 in the Kostur (Kastoria) district alone some 800 villagers had been imprisoned. In the Kukuš (Kilkis) district some 110 villagers were killed, more than 400 imprisoned and 2,500 driven out, of whom 1,000 left for Yugoslavia. For the same

reasons, more than 2,000 people left from the districts of Kostur (Kastoria) and Lerin (Florina) left for Yugoslavia. In the month of July alone 117 men and women were killed. The number of Macedonians imprisoned in the Lerin (Florina) district was twice as large as that in the Kostur (Kastoria) district. (57)

In addition to this sort of terror improvised courts were introduced in which Macedonians were sentenced either to death or to life imprisonment with the aim of terrorising them even more and forcing them to flee across the frontier. In Solun on 25 April 1945 six Macedonians were sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment. In the month of July in Kostur (Kastoria) 109 Macedonians were sentenced either to death or to heavy terms of imprisonment. On 18 July the Greek authorities exerted heavy pressure on the Macedonians from the village Teklievo, in the Solun surroundings, to abandon the village and to flee to Yugoslavia. On 12 August eight Macedonians from the Voden (Edessa) district were sentenced to death and were executed in Solun, and on 17 November nine young people who had hidden in the woods from fear that they would be taken were killed above the village Varovica, in Gumendže district. Over all in the course of 1945 terror continued with unrelenting intensity, while the pressure on Macedonians to abandon their homes and to flee to Yugoslavia was ever-increasing. The number of victims was continually on the increase. (58)

This exceptionally difficult situation became the occasion for numerous protests and interventions at an international level. Even the American Panslavonic Committee sent telegrams to Truman, Stalin and Churchill in July 1945 demanding that measures be taken and a halt be put to the terror exercised against Macedonians by the official Greek authorities. Likewise the president of the Macedonian Association in the USA sent a letter of protest to the Greek ambassador to the USA with similar contents. (59) And yet all of this did not help to improve the situation of Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia; on the contrary, this deteriorated even more.

In fact, as early as December 1944, in the offices of the Greek right-wing party, which had not yet won complete power in Greece, detailed plans for the liquidation, deportation or enforced exile of

120,000 Macedonians from their native country were elaborated. The reason for this criminal activity was the existence of a sovereign Macedonian state within the framework of the then Federal Yugoslavia and the fact that Macedonians from the Aegean (Greek occupied) part of Macedonia had taken the side of the anti-fascist forces, fighting in the front lines against the invader and fascism.

After the Varkiza Agreement and the laying down of arms by E.L.A.S., Greece’s right wing had its hands free to clash fiercely with the Macedonians.

The terror exercised upon Macedonans and upon democratic Greek citizens was the main reason for the outbreak of the Civil War in Greece.

The Greek Civil War lasted for more than three and a half years, i.e. from the early spring of 1946 to the autumn of 1949. It ended with the defeat of the democratic forces in Greece. The consequences of this war were enormous. Dozens of Macedonian villages were completely destroyed while many of them ended up sparsely populated. Tens of thousands of emigrants headed not only for the liberated part of Macedonia, which was already constituted as a sovereign Macedonian state within the framework of the Yugoslav Federation, but for all the other East European countries. Greek government troops, while persecuting D.A.G forces, the main core of which consisted of Macedonians, had an assignment to raze Macedonian villages to their very foundations in order to intimidate the population and force it into exile. For this reason, a number of Macedonian villages were completely abandoned by their Macedonian inhabitiants.

In the course of the anti-fascist war and the Civil War in Greece, in addition to contributing 20,000 victims, thousands of prisoners and dozens of villages that were completely destroyed, 60,000 Macedonians were compelled to abandon their homes and cross the border under most unfavourable conditions.

With the end of the Second World War and the Greek Civil War another phase of enforced emigration of Macedonians from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia ended. This time even those

Macedonian parts that had been somewhat spared in the previous large-scale emigratory movements, such as the areas of Kostur (Kastoria), Lerin (Florina), Voden (Edessa) and, to a certain degree, the Kailari area, were deeply affected.

The plan drawn up for reducing the number of Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia by 120,000 was, to a certain extent, fulfilled as early as December 1944.

It can be clearly seen from the above-stated that the Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia, in the course of the anti-fascist war, and particularly during the Greek Civil War (1946-49), underwent their greatest reduction which was almost equal to their reduction during the entire period of time from 1912 to 1940.

The question can be justifiably asked: How many Macedonians remained in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia after all this reduction immediately after the Civil War in Greece?

This question is not difficult to answer having the knowledge that, on the eve of the Graeco-Italian War of October 1940, the number of Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia was between 300,000 and 320,000. Therefore it can be claimed that in 1951, with the fifth successive Greek official data on Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia, and taking into consideration the decrease in the number of Macedonians by 80,000 in the period from 1941 to 1949 and the increase in population during this period, which was understandably smaller due to the circumstances of war as compared to the previous peace-time period, more than 250,000 Macedonians continued to live in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia. This conclusion can also be arrived at by an analysis of the ethnic composition of each separate settlement in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia giving the numerical situation of the population in 1951.

VI - EMIGRATION FROM AEGEAN (GREEK OCCUPIED) MACEDONIA TO OVERSEAS COUNTRIES AFTER THE GREEK CIVIL WAR AND THE FURTHER ENFORCED RENAMING OF SETTLEMENTS

The migratory movements and their repercussions at the expense of the ethnic composition of Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia which occurred during the period 1912-1949 as a consequence of historical events and the discriminatory policy of the Greek authorities have already been presented and dealt with briefly.

In spite of the great decrease in the number of Macedonians in this relatively short period of four decades, the presence of 250,000 Macedonians in their native place further continued to “concern” the Greek authorities.

It is known that everywhere in the world, because of their originality, nationalities can and should be a bridge linking neighbouring peoples and countries, providing mutual communication and cooperation in all walks of life and mutual relations, but, unfortunately, this did not become the case in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia.

The discriminatory and assimilatory measures of the Greek state continued. In this case, after the Greek Civil War an efficient, although not a new, measure was applied to the Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia - emigration to overseas countries. This phenomenon, however, also present in the period before the Second World War, mainly applied to political emigrants and did not scatter the Macedonians much, although to a certain extent it did absorb the labour surplus in places with a higher natural population increase.

After the Greek Civil War the emigration of Macedonians to overseas countries was accelerated as a result of the continuing discriminatiory policy of the Greek authorities towards the Macedonians who, justifiably, had feelings of uncertainty.

The Greek authorities used all possible means to stimulate this emigration which this time was primarily directed towards Australia and Canada, and, to a lesser extent, towards the USA.

The emigration process after the Civil War in Greece can be divided into three periods: first, from 1950-51; second, from 1962-71; and third, from 1972 to the present day.

During the first period, from 1950 to 1961, although significant, the emigration was lower as compared to the second phase. At this time the greatest emigration was from Kostur (Kastoria) and Lerin (Florina), although other Macedonian districts were also perceptibly affected. For the first time in the history of overseas emigration entire settlements and regions were included, which had been unheard-of in the past.

During this period, according to the same figures, the greatest amount of emigration was from Lerin (Florina) where, out of 69,391 inhabitants, as there had been in 1951, in 1961 their number was reduced to 2,035. In fact, the number of emigrants was larger since this figure does not include the natural population increase and because of the fact that in this area there was a partial colonising of abandoned Macedonian villages after the Civil War.

In the area of Kostur (Kastoria), although the number of inhabitants in 1961 as compared to that of 1951 had increased by 1,180, the number of Macedonian emigrants was still very high, which may be conjectured by taking into account the decrease in the number of inhabitants of Macedonian villages as compared to that of the previous censuses.

The second phase of this emigration covers the period from 1962 to 1971. During this period of time the emigration process was much greater. The increased emigration from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia to countries overseas is to be seen not only in the annuals of the Greek Statistical Office but also in the significantly reduced number of inhabitants in the Macedonian villages, despite the natural increase, which can best be seen from the census of the population of Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia taken in 1971.

The third phase of emigration to countries overseas covers the period since 1971 and is consistently on-going up to the present time with a gradually decreasing intensity.

It has been estimated that, since the beginning of the Greek Civil War, i.e. from the end of the Second World War to the present time, approximately 40,000 Macedonians have emigrated to these countries from Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia, which, in fact, has completely fulfilled the plan drawn up by the rulers in Athens: “120,000 Macedonians to be removed beyond the state borders of Greece.”

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Simultaneously with the policy of “voluntary” emigration of Macedonians to countries overseas and the accelerated and perfidious methods of assimilation, which started at birth, continued through kindergarten and pre-school education and has accompanied Macedonians throughout their whole life, Greece continued with its renaming of inhabited places, toponyms and microtoponyms.

On the basis of the already familiar acts, regulations and instructions, and on the basis of new ones such as Act No. 697 of 4 December 1945, immediately after the Greek Civil War this renaming resumed in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia as well as in the other parts of Greece, including the Morea (the Peloponnese) where many settlements with typically Slavonic names which had been overlooked in the past were now renamed.

During the period between 1950 and 1970 alone, 135 new settlements in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia were renamed, among which were many Macedonian villages that during the Second World War and the Greek Civil War had been razed to their foundations but, strangely enough, had not been renamed during 1940.

Thus, the ornate Macedonian village Bapčor in the Kostur (Kastoria) area, completely ruined by the Greek monarchist and fascist ally, was renamed Pimenikon (Ποιµενικόν) in 1955 although there was

no trace of it left. In the same area new names were acquired by the ruined Macedonian villages of Chuka- Arhangelos (Αρχάγγελος), Slivnitsa- Trilofon (Τρίλοφον) and the villages Vitsista -Nike (Νίκη) Tsurilovo -Agios Nikolaos (Άγιος Νικόλαος). The large Macedonian village Buf in the Lerin (Florina) area, for some reason overlooked earlier, was renamed Akritas (Ακρίτας). The village Lehovo in the same district was renamed Iroikon (Ηρωϊκόν), but the local inhabitants, Christian Albanians, complained loudly and succeeded in regaining the old name for their village.

It is estimated that from 1919, when the enforced renaming of inhabited places in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia started, to 1970, the Greek authorities renamed in total 1,666 cities, towns or villages and by now this number exceeds 1,700 inhabited places. This figure does not include those inhabited places whose renaming has not been published in the administrative Gazette which is our sole source for the numbers quoted and the dynamics of renaming according to years and areas, nor does it include the numerous Macedonian settlements known by the names of saints which official Greece simply translated from Macedonian into Greek, thereby imposing new names.

The number of renamed settlements in the rest of Greece in the post-war period is equally high. Only a glance at the administrative Gazettes of the time would be enough to ascertain this. For example, the administrative Gazette No. 287 of 10 October 1955 contains an order by means of which 212 settlements were to be renamed, most of them in the Morea, Attica, Etikoboeotia and other areas of that part of Greece.

This order contains a myriad of interesting Slavonic settlement names, now replaced by typically Greek names. Here are some examples referring primarily to the Morea (the Peloponnese): Arahova has been renamed Pili, another Arahova - Eksohi, Bistritsa - Agii Anargiri, Bičova - Levki, Bukovina - Agia Trias, Aragozena -Alsos, Valkuvina - Ampelos, Varibob - Daphni, Varsova - Agia Eirini, Godena - Peristerion, Gurnitsa - Agia Sophia, Dobrena -Korimi, Zupena -Agii Anargiri, Kopanitsa - Krionerion, another Kopanitsa - Karie, Krali - Agios Nikolaos, Kukovitsa - Koriphi, Lukavitsa - Kampos, Nubrevitsa - Eleohorion, Marvintsi - Drosaton,

Prostovitsa - Drosia, Prostova - Levkon, Poliana - Krionerion, Topolia - Kastron, Topolova - Agia Paraskevi, Hlebotsa - Asopia, etc. There are hundreds of such and similar names, let alone the other toponyms and microtoponyms which point to the fact that Slavonic toponomy has been highly present and that it is impossible to erase and to rename it completely. Some of the towns in this part of Greece have retained their Slavonic roots, their names being only trimmed with Greek overtones, as, for example, Tropolitsa in the Morea which was renamed Tripolis and Karditsa, Volos, Velestino and Tsaritsani in Thessaly, Konitsa, Metsovo and Igumenitsa in Epirus and many others. This is an indication that, despite all the efforts to erase all Macedonian and all Slavonic traces in the other parts of Greece, it has been virtually impossible, especially in the case of toponyms and microtoponyms. However, it must be admitted that the Greek authorities have done a great deal towards this end. The only thing that it is impossible for them to do is to change their own blood and genes mixed with much Slavonic blood and many Slavonic genes. This, however, is another issue.

An attempt has been made to give a brief survey of migratory movements and their repercussions on the ethnic composition of Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia since 1912.

According to their scope and consequences, they can be listed among the greatest changes of this kind in Europe in the present century.

Despite all the above-stated reduction undergone by the Macedonians of Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia in the last eight decades, mostly from political motives, the fact that their presence is still relatively marked and that in the areas of Voden (Edessa), Lerin (Florina) and Kostur (Kastoria) they are still a majority even today is surprising.

The continuing presence of over 220,000 Macedonians in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia confirms indisputably the fact that it is not an easy matter to uproot a people from where it has lived throughout centuries despite all the measures of violence, denationalization and assimilation utilised.

This also points to the fact that it is in the interest of every country to have and to implement a policy of respect for the national minorities that live within it and to acknowledge their particularity by means of all possibilities for developing their national traditions and cultures freely.

This is in the interests of Greece itself, since in practice and throughout history it has been demonstrated that the suppression of freedom and of the national traditions of national and ethnic minorities does not in any way lead towards cooperation or the coming together of peoples.