Front Matter - Part 02

After the Macedonian League established its General Headquarters it began sending out communiqués. On June 23rd, 1880 it sent a letter with a copy of the Macedonian Constitution to the six Great Power ministries of the European Commission requesting their approval. Expecting no reply, the General Headquarters then went ahead and created a Manifesto calling on all the Macedonian people to organize a united national uprising. Among the signatories of the Manifesto were Iljo Maleshevski, Vasil Dijamandiev and eight other leaders.

Among other things the Manifesto said: Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin was the last hope for our freedom and that hope is now lost. It

is time for us to rise and settle the century-old account with our oppressor. We call on you to unite under the Macedonian flag and fight for liberty and independence. Only united we will be able to reclaim our precious fatherland for ourselves and gain absolute autonomy.

The Manifesto also warned the Macedonian people to watch out for opportunists who claimed to be fighting for the Macedonian cause while they were supporting alien interests.

The Manifesto ended with the slogans “Liberty or Death!” and “Long Live Liberated Macedonia!”

Even though the Manifesto was distributed far and wide, and the call for an uprising was loud and clear, the people could not muster the will because the Ottoman government had learned its lesson in the past and was prepared for such an event.] (Risto Stefov, “Macedonian struggle for Independence”)

As you can see from the above Manifesto, the Macedonian people in the 1880’s knew exactly who they were and what they wanted, even before they had a country. But, it seems, the European Great Powers did not want them to have a country of their own and this is how it has been for them since then until 1944 when the People’s Republic of Macedonia was established.

The Macedonian people in the early 1800’s had high hopes that after Serbia and Greece were freed from the Ottomans, the Greek and Serbian people would help the Macedonia people to also free themselves. Many Macedonians took part in both the Serbian and Greek uprisings in hopes that the Greeks and Serbians would do the same for them when their turn came. Macedonians even participated in the Russian-Ottoman war of 1875 in an attempt to drive the Ottomans out of Bulgaria and Macedonia but in the end the Western European Great Powers intervened and while Bulgaria was given autonomy and eventually independence, Macedonia was handed back to the Ottomans and later was allowed to be partitioned by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Right after Bulgaria was given autonomy the Macedonian people came to the realization that “no one” was going to help them, so they took matters into their own hands and began to prepare for a massive uprising of their own.

The first step they took is to form a national revolutionary organization.

On October 23rd, 1893 in Solun two high school teachers, Damian Gruev and Anton Dimitrov, together with Petar Pop Arsov, a former editor of the newspaper Loza and Hristo Tatarchev, a doctor, got together in bookshop owner Ivan Nikolov’s house for an informal meeting to discuss the plight of the Macedonian people and what to do about it.

As word got around a committee was formed, more Macedonians got involved and a second (formal) meeting was held on February 9th, 1894 which resulted in the formation of a revolutionary organization known as the Vnatrezhna (Internal) Makedonska (Macedonian) Revolutsionerna (Revolutionary) Organizatsia (Organization), VMRO (IMRO).

To rally the masses the charismatic Gotse Delchev, a man of vision matched by only a few, dubbed as the father of the Macedonian Revolution and the soul of the movement, was chosen to lead the revolution.

By 1896 IMRO was able to exert influence to a point where it acted like a state within a state, taking over administrative positions from the Ottomans, leading boycotts against Ottoman institutions and offering isolated villages protection from Greek and Bulgarian sponsored brigands.

In time IMRO operatives were able to penetrate Ottoman economic, educational and even judicial functions.

IMRO demonstrated great leadership by its ability to organize Macedonia into seven revolutionary districts (Solun, Serres, Strumitsa, Shtip, Skopje, Bitola and Endrene {Dardanelles}). It also demonstrated its weaknesses. Having allied itself with the poor

village peasants, because no Great Power was prepared to help the Macedonian people, and striving to refrain from obligations and debts, IMRO found itself strapped for finances.

The lack of funds to purchase sufficient arms brought home the realization that this “uprising” was going to be a long one.

Delchev knew what was at stake but tragically the Ottomans killed him on May 4th, 1903 before he had a chance to put his plans into action. In Delchev’s absence Gruev took charge of the organization and preparations for the uprising began.

In due time plans were made, a military strategy prepared, weapons, medical supplies and food-stuffs were requisitioned and stock piled. Cheti (fighting units) were organized and training drills were performed.

On July 26th, 1903, by a dispatch to the Great Powers via the British vice-consul in Bitola, the General Staff formally announced the uprising. Then on July 28th, 1903 IMRO dispatched mounted couriers to all the sub-districts with the message “let the uprising begin”.

On the same day the Macedonian Revolutionary General Staff informed the Ottoman Director of Railways to warn travelers to choose a different mode of transportation in order to avoid being hurt.

Following Damjan Gruev’s orders from Smilevo, the village Cheti combined forces to form the following: the Smilevo and Giavato Region Cheta (650), the Krushovo Region Cheta (400), the Kichevo Region Cheta (350), the Bitola Region Cheta (250), the Ohrid Region Cheta (880), the Resna Region Cheta (450), the Demir-Hisar Region Cheta (420), the Prespa Region Cheta (300), the Kostur Region Cheta (700) and the Lerin Region Cheta (450).

The Cheti, under the command of capable leaders such as Damian Gruev, Vasil Chakalarov, Petar Pop Arsov, Pitu Guli and others, faired well and enjoyed considerable success in the few weeks before the Ottoman militia began to amass. The local villagers also

joined the movement giving moral support to the fighters. Even men from others regions that had not yet risen left their homes and came to fight. All in all the Macedonian people possessed the will to fight but lacked the rifles and ammunition with which to do it.

As battles raged on throughout western Macedonia, the Cheti put down most of the local Turkish garrisons. They destroyed bridges, railway lines and communications centers, captured most chifliks (Ottoman estates) and briefly liberated some regions such as Kichevo, Demir-Hisar, Kostur, Lerin, Klisoura and Neveska.

The cities of Kostur and Lerin themselves were not liberated. The most successful and highly celebrated of all battles was the storming of the town Krushevo. Nikola Karev led the Cheti in the attack and defeated the local Ottoman garrison with ease. The Macedonians quickly took over the most strategic points like the Post Office, Town Hall and local Police Station and declared Krushevo liberated.

True to their democratic commitments, the leaders of the liberating force constituted the Krushevo assembly which appointed a committee of sixty members, twenty from each of the community’s Macedonian, Vlach and Albanian populations. The Krushevo Manifesto was drafted which basically recognized each ethnicity as an equal partner in the struggle and declared Krushevo a multiethnic community.

The committee in turn elected an executive body of six delegates, two from each community, which operated as a provisional government. The government in turn established a financial, judiciary and police force.

[“At Krushevo, under the rays of temporary liberty, fraternity and equality, national hatreds were dispelled and peace and concord reigned. For eleven whole days Krushevo lived as a little independent state, and although in miniature, clothed with flesh and blood that idea which spurred Macedonians to fight, against tyranny up to the Ilinden rising.”] (Page 193, Vasil Bogov, Macedonian Revelation, Historical Documents Rock and Shatter Modern Political Ideology)

The “Krushevo Republic” unfortunately, only lasted two weeks but it was a glorious Republic that will forever remind the Macedonian people of their eternal struggle for independence and thirst for freedom. The liberation of Krushevo imprinted on the new Macedonian generations the legacy of a timeless and irreversible march towards self-determination.

The initial success of the rebellion was a surprise to the Ottomans especially since the Ottoman forces were numerically superior to those of the rebels. The Cheti, however, demonstrated their abilities in battle and more than matched the numbers with will. The Ottomans, unfortunately, were determined to put down the rebellion and amassed additional forces, deploying a total of 167,000 infantry, 3,700 cavalry and 440 pieces of artillery (all cannons).

Krushevo alone was surrounded by 20,000 Ottoman troops with 18 cannons against an encircled force of no more than 1,200 rebel fighters. The battle to retake Krushevo began on August 12th with the Macedonians crying out “Sloboda eli Smrt” (liberty or death) against the onslaught of Ottoman cannon fire. Pitu Guli and his men fought gallantly. They provided stiff opposition to the Ottoman advance but were no match for General Baktiar Pasha. Baktiar was a skilled war veteran who overwhelmed the Cheti by attacking the entire region simultaneously. The region was surrounded by soldiers, encircled by cannon fire and every Macedonian stronghold within was attacked simultaneously, cutting off all reinforcements and outside support.

Once Krushevo fell, one by one other IMRO strongholds began to yield, winding down the ten-week-old rebellion. In Krushevo, Baktiar Pasha allowed his troops to kill, pillage and rape for three days. The town was permanently devastated with 117 civilians murdered, 150 women raped and 159 houses burned down.

In the Ilinden aftermath, according to Michael Radin, in total 4,694 civilians were murdered, 3,122 women raped, 12,440 houses burned, 201 villages razed, 75,835 people left homeless and about 30,000 people left the country for good, becoming permanent refugees. (Page 105, “IMRO and the Macedonian Question”)

Besides the atrocities committed against the civilian population in Macedonia, the most significant impact of the uprising was the loss of so many great IMRO leaders.

During 1903, Krste Misirkov from Pella (Postol), one of the most outstanding names in the history of Macedonian culture and the founder of the modern Macedonian literary language and orthography, published his “On Macedonian Matters”, in which he projected the principles for standardization of the Macedonian literary language.

In 1908 Macedonia’s hopes for a better future were again raised with the start of the Young Turk revolution. The Young Turk movement, led by the Young Turk Committee, aimed to reform the last remnants of the Ottoman Empire by making social and political reforms in Macedonia. Many Macedonians, including Iane Sandanski supported the Young Turk ideals. The Macedonian revolutionary organization, through Iane Sandanski and the newly formed national federal party, actively took part in the Young Turk movement with aims at achieving autonomy for Macedonia.

Unfortunately that movement too ended in disaster which paved the way for Macedonia’s partition by its neighbours.

Regarding implementing reforms in the Ottoman Empire. There was a lot of pressure from the outside world, especially from Russia, to bring about religious reforms inside the Ottoman Empire. Russia took it upon itself to be the protector of all the Orthodox Christians, being Orthodox Christian itself. So the Russians pressured the Ottoman Empire to provide religious freedoms to the Orthodox people in the Balkans.

Before the Young Turk Uprising, being a Muslim empire, the Ottoman Empire did not allow political unions, or organizations, or any organized ethnic groups to exist within its boundaries. This was in accordance with Muslim law. The only authoritative entity the Ottoman authorities recognized was religion. As far as the Ottoman’s were concerned the Koran contained everything they needed, including the laws by which their subjects lived. If you were an Ottoman citizen and a Muslim then you had to abide by the laws

of Islam but if you were a non-believer, including a Christian, then you had to abide by the rules of your religion.

The large number of Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire created a need for governing them, but it had to be outside of Islam, so the Ottoman’s allowed the re-establishment of the old Patriarchy, which had existed for centuries, and was the official ruler of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

The patriarchy was re-established in Istanbul, or the city of kings as it was often called in Macedonia. It is important at this point to mention that the capital of Christianity was Constantinople, I am not sure if that city was always called Constantinople (since Constantine first built it) but the Macedonians, as far as I know, have always called it “Tsari Grad” (City of Kings). If we remember our history, the same Constantine was the first Eastern Roman Emperor to recognize Christianity and make it the official religion of his Eastern Roman Empire, also referred to as the Byzantine Empire. So, the birthplace or capital of Christianity is Tsari Grad (Constantinople later renamed to Istanbul by the Ottomans), and not Rome as we are led to believe these days.

INTERVIEWER – Yes, yes I knew that… tell us more about the role of the church in Macedonia...

RISTO – After it was decided to re-establish the Patriarchy in Constantinople, the birthplace and capital of Orthodox Christianity, the Ottoman authorities decided to allow the Orthodox Christians to govern themselves through a Patriarch, to be appointed by the Ottoman Sultan. However, the only way that the Sultan would agree to a Patriarchy was if the Patriarchy was subordinate to the Sultan. In other words, Orthodox Christianity would be subordinate to Islam. And so the Patriarchy, in order to exist, had to agree to all conditions imposed on it by the Sultan, even if they contradicted Christian values.

On top of that, the appointment of the Patriarch was not based on merit or on election by the bishops. The Patriarchy was auctioned off by the Sultan and sold to the highest bidder. Anyone could be a Patriarch if they had enough money and wanted to bid. In other

words, any person who was able to afford it could purchase the patriarchy. The Patriarchy was treated like a commodity in the marketplace… to be bought and sold.

The bishoprics too were handled the same way. Anyone able to purchase a bishopric could become its bishop. This was done right down to the level of the priest. After all the purchases were made, Christianity was treated like a business where perishes could be farmed. From the outside the Christian Orthodox Church looked and functioned like the Byzantine Church. It even employed the so-called “Greek language” in its liturgies. I say “the so-called Greek language” because this was the language of the Byzantine Church, a form of the ancient Macedonian Koine language. Another form of the Koine language was also adopted by the Greek state as the language of the Greek people, sometime in the early 1830’s, after Greece became a state for the first time.

This is what I wrote, one time, about the Greek language:

[There is much to say about the so-called “Greek language” about its inception some 3,000 years ago and about its evolution to what is supposedly spoken in Greece today. But is the language spoken in Greece today a “Greek language”, whatever that may mean, or a mix of various languages?

There are a couple of reasons why I am bringing this up at this time. One is to remind the Greeks that although they call their language “Greek”, implying that it is the language of the so-called “ancient Greeks”, it is not. The second reason is that two can play this game. Greeks tell me that there is no such thing as a Macedonian language and what I call Macedonian is no more than a mix of “Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian with some other foreign words added to it here and there”. While these same Greeks claim that there is no such thing as a “Macedonian language”, they boast that they speak the language of the ancient Greeks.

Well let’s put this theory to a test shall we?

First and foremost, the language that modern Greeks speak today is not their mother tongue. When Modern Greece became a country for

the first time in 1829, the majority of the so-called first Greeks spoke Arvanitika (Albanian), Vlahika (Vlach), Turkika (Turkish), Slavika (Slav), etc. The so-called “Greek language” they speak today they had to learn in school.

So once again, the so-called “Greek language” that Modern Greeks speak today was a language they learned in school. Now in contrast to the Greek language, the Macedonian language, call it what you like, is a natural language that Macedonians learned from their mothers.

Macedonian is a banned language in Greece so the Macedonians could not have learned it in school, the only place they could have learned it is from their mothers and relatives. Ever since Greece illegally acquired Macedonian territories in 1913, Macedonians had no access to Serbia, Bulgaria or Albania, so how could Macedonian contain some Serbian some Bulgarian and some Albanian?

Now if we go far back in time you will discover that the Macedonian people spoke the Macedonian language even before there was a Serbia, Bulgaria or Albania. The Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian literary languages were not established until these states became “nation states” in the 19th century.

If the Modern Greek language is the same language as the ancients spoke then why did the modern Greeks need to “purify” it, a process which eventually failed?

Modern Greek is not at all the same as the so-called “ancient Greek” which the Athenians spoke some 2,500 years ago. In fact Modern Greek is yet another “Balkan language” full of colloquialisms and foreign words which the Greek state borrowed from the Byzantine Church and from other foreign languages, including Turkish. Most Modern Greeks today don’t know this and know even less about the history of their own language. That is why they claim ‘it is all Greek”.

Here are some examples of ancient Greek, Modern Greek, (English) words;

Ipos, alogo (horse) Hygor, nero (water) Onos, gaiduri (donkey) Oikos, spiti (house) Odos, dromos (road) Ihthis, psari (fish) Oinos, krasi (wine) Ofthalmos, mati (eye) Ega, Gida (goat) Erifi, Katsiki (kid, baby goat) Ois, provaton (sheep) Yshoiros, gourouni (pig) Kyon, skylos (dog) Mys, pondiki (mouse) Ornitha, kota (hen) Oon, avgo (egg) Artos, psomi (bread) Ris, miti (nose) Naus, plion (ship)

By just this small sample of examples it should be obvious to everyone that “ancient Greek” and “Modern Greek” are not only NOT the same language but they are not even similar! That is precisely the reason why Greek authorities tried to “purify” their language! And yes there are “ancient words” in the Modern Greek language such as “odos” for example but they only exist because of the language purification initiatives Greek purists undertook since 1776 which were finally abandoned in 1974 by the Greek government.

Another reason for bringing up the inconsistencies in the so-called “Greek language” is because I was asked to do it by one of my readers who wanted to see more evidence of what I am talking about, but not from Macedonian sources because it might be dismissed as “Skopjan propaganda” by our Greek adversaries. So without further ado here is evidence on the formation of the Greek language as composed by non-Macedonian authors;

1. “The beginning of the modern Greek language controversy can be precisely dated to 1776, when Voulgaris, in the preface of his logic,

argued that in order to study philosophy it was necessary to know ancient Greek adding that the ‘worthless little books that profess to vulgar language should be hissed off the stage’. By ‘vulgar language’ he meant any variety of modern Greek as opposed to the ancient language.” (“Language and National Identity in Greece 1766 - 1976”, by Peter Mackridge, page 83)

Now who was this Voulgaris character? Here is what Peter Mackridge has to say: “Kitromilides describes Voulgaris as the ‘Patriarch of the Greek enlightenment’ and the first recognized leader of the enlightenment in south-east Europe. Voulgaris studied at Padua and went on to teach for twenty years in Yannina, Kozani, the Athronite Academy and Constantinople.” (“Language and National Identity in Greece 1766 - 1976”, by Peter Mackridge, page 84)

“Voulgaris introduced himself to the Russian empress in 1771 by referring to himself as ‘Slaviano-Bulgarian’ by origin, Greek by birth, Russian by inclination. It is clear that his aim was to ingratiate himself with the empress by asserting that he too, like the majority of her subjects, was of Slav origin; it is not certain how seriously he took this himself, but his surname does imply Bulgarian origin.

The above was quoted from an unpublished manuscript by Batalden (1982: 22), who points out the irony that Catherine was not Russian but German by birth. I am grateful to Elka Bakalova for informing me that ‘Slaviano-Bulgarian’ refers to the Slav Bulgarians as distinct from the Turkic proto-Bulgars.” (“Language and National Identity in Greece 1766 - 1976”, by Peter Mackridge, page 85)

2. “Folk culture, for Koraes, was less a source of proof that the people actively yearned to recover their ancient virtues than evidence of their potential (and need) for extensive reeducation. His own experience, in which a series of lucky chances made it possible for him to acquire some learning at an early age (Clogg 1976: 121-124), may well have influenced his thinking here: the Hellenic virtues could be acquired, given only native diligence and aptitude. That one had to turn to Western Europe in this endeavor was simply a matter of historical circumstance, of the fact that Europe had been the repository of Greek learning during the centuries of Ottoman

rule – a time when the Greeks themselves had acquired a shamefully Turkish patina which now had to be scraped away.

Koraes is today remembered most of all for his leading role in the development of katharevousa, the neo-Classical (or purified) form of the modern Greek language which, somewhat ironically in the light of his revolutionary principles, has become closely associated with the political Right and the foreign interests which it represents (Sotiropoulos 1977).

Katharevousa was always something of a cultural appeal to the West for recognition, an attempt to demonstrate that the ordinary Greeks of today could speak a tongue which was undeniably their own yet no less clearly Hellenic. Such purism naturally demanded that all words of obviously Turkish origin be eliminated. A recent commentator's description of this deorientalization of the language as “beneficial” (Babiniotis 1979: 4) shows how successful Koraes was in establishing a moral standard by which all subsequent linguistic developments could be evaluated. Ideological criteria of culture, if they are to be judged successful, must in some measure become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The development of katharevousa was part of Koraes’ wider, educative view of Hellenic regeneration. Culture, rather than physical descent, still seems to have been the main component of Greekness in his day. Educated people throughout the Balkans called themselves Hellenes; in the Romanian princess Dora d’Istria, we shall later meet one of the latest and most flamboyant embodiments of this conceit. It seems, moreover, that language was sometimes thought virtually sufficient to make people forget that they had ever been anything but Greek – in 1802, there appeared a quadrilingual dictionary published by the priest Daniel of Moskhopolis, exhorting “all who now do speak an alien tongue rejoice, prepare to make you Greek” (quoted in Clogg 1973: 20). This attitude was to change significantly later on, after the establishment of the new Greek State, when greater emphasis came to be laid on an essentially retroactive claim to descent from the ancient Greeks.” (“Ours Once More Folklore, Ideology, and the making of Modern Greece”, by Michael Herzfeld, pages 17 and 18)

3. “Wealthy Greeks, who for the most part had acquired their fortunes abroad, shared to the full the local patriotism so characteristic of the Greeks. This prompted them to provide the funds for schools, libraries and scholarships in their local communities. There was also a more practical motive, for the development of a Greek commercial empire created an increasing demand for numerate and literate Greeks with knowledge of foreign languages.

Schools of a kind had existed throughout the period of Ottoman rule, although with rare exceptions, such as the Patriarchal Academy in Constantinople, they had concentrated on imparting a basic knowledge of reading and writing to their pupils. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, a number of more advanced academies were either founded or revived. Besides the Princely Academies of Jassy and Bucharest, important schools were founded on the island of Chios, in Smyrna (The Evangelical School, 1733, and Philological Gymnasium, 1808) and Ayvalik. In these more advanced schools there was a heavy emphasis on the Greek classics, together with an attempt to inculcate the rudiments of mathematics and the natural sciences. Many of the teachers had studied at the universities of Western Europe, particularly in Italy, and many of their graduates were also to study abroad, thanks to the subventions of the merchants.

Books in Greek for a Greek readership had been printed, in substantial quantities, mainly in Venice, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, however, the production of books for a Greek audience increased dramatically. During the first twenty-five years of the century just over a hundred such books were printed. During the last twenty-five years well over 700 were published, while some 1300 titles were published during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. They were generally small editions, though they did sometimes run to several thousand copies. A more significant indicator of the intellectual climate in Greece, perhaps, than this dramatic increase in the numbers of such books published was the change in their content.

Whereas at the beginning of the eighteenth century these books were overwhelmingly religious in character, by the years before 1821

their content had become increasingly secular. Numerous translations were published of the works of Western scientists and philosophers, including Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Beccaria and Rousseau. Some Greeks such as Evgenios Voulgaris themselves published learned philosophical treatises, making use of works of philosophers such as Kant. But in essence the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment' was derivative rather than original, its protagonists seeking above all to make the achievements of Western philosophers and scientists known to their fellow countrymen. The works of the Western Enlightenment also began to circulate in the Greek lands in their original languages, often remarkably soon after publication. The most significant aspect of this increasing secularization of Greek culture was the rediscovery by the Greeks of a sense of their own past, a realization that they were the heirs to a glorious heritage that was universally admired by the educated classes of western Europe. During earlier centuries there had been a limited awareness of the ancient world but the nascent Greek intelligentsia embraced the study of Greece's classical past with an intensity approaching fervour during the fifty years or so before the outbreak of the Greek revolt. New emphasis was given in the schools and academies to the study of ancient Greek, new editions of the classics were published and Greeks saw in the wars between the Greeks and the Persians analogies with their present situation. Some Greeks began to baptize their children with the names of ancient worthies rather than the saints of the Orthodox Church. This rediscovery of the past engendered in the Greek intelligentsia a new self-confidence, aptly epitomized by Benjamin of Lesvos' claim in 1820 'that neither the Greeks of old nor the Greeks of today are subject to the laws of nature'.

An unfortunate outcome of this obsession with Greece's classical heritage was the increasingly bitter dispute that developed over the Greek language. Some argued that if the Greeks were truly to become worthy of their great heritage then they should reverse the natural development of the language and restore it to its pristine Attic purity, purging it of its Turkish, Slav and Italian accretions. Others argued that the spoken or demotic language should be made the basis of the written language. Still others advocated an intermediate position, arguing for the 'purification' of the demotic without going to the extremes of the archaizers. The 'language

question' was by no means resolved at the time and has continued to bedevil Greece's cultural development right up until modern times. It must be emphasized that the intellectual ferment that characterized the Greek world in the seventy years or so before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence was largely confined to a small, predominantly Western-educated intelligentsia, many, perhaps most, members of which actually lived outside the Ottoman Empire. It largely passed over the heads of the great mass of the Greek people, who were mostly illiterate and who remained steeped in a thought world that was essentially Byzantine. The prophecies, folk songs, tales of Alexander the Great and popular romances such as the Erotokritos remained the staples of popular culture. The obsession with Greece's classical past was not widely shared. When someone compared the prowess of a klephtic leader to that of Achilles, the former asked 'Who is this Achilles? Did the musket of Achilles kill many?' Moreover the intellectual revival was for the most part resolutely opposed by the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church, which regarded the new emphasis on philosophy, the natural sciences and the culture of the ancient world as likely to lead to moral degeneration and indifference in matters divine.

To counter what it regarded as the flood of atheistic and seditious literature circulating among the Greek populations of the empire a printing press was set up in Constantinople by the patriarchate in 1798, where uplifting and improving books were published under strict censorship. If the mass of the Greek population was largely indifferent to its enthusiasms, and the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church actively opposed to them, nonetheless the new intelligentsia did serve a useful function in articulating the aspirations of the Greek national movement.” (“A Short History of Modern Greece”, by Richard Clogg, Second Edition, pages 36 to 39)

4. “Greece has been characterized until recently by a fundamental diglossia between the spoken language everyday (the demotic) and a constructed language (katharevousa), which pretended to harken back to the classical idiom but was actually closer to Byzantine Greek, and which was inaugurated as the official language of the state in the 1830s and remained legally so until 1974. (“Dream Nation”, by Stathis Gourgouris, page 89)]

But, despite all attempts by the purists to “purify” their artificially imposed Greek language, in the end their attempts failed and today we still have a language that contains words from the past, from an entirely alien era, and Turkish and other foreign words picked up along the way. So like their modern “fake” Greek identity it is only fair and deserving that the Greeks have a “fake” and bastardized language to be proud of and to call their own.

Greece does not hesitate to call the Macedonian language “non existent” and a mix of Serbian and Bulgarian but have they ever looked at their own language? I don’t think so, because if they did then they would be less critical of other peoples’ languages.

The Koine language was not the Mother language of the Greek people. It was taught to the Greek people in school. Koine is an ancient language that was widely used in the Balkans and in the Levant as the language of trade and commerce. It was also used by the Byzantine Church.

After the Patriarchy was sold to the highest bidder, Orthodox Christianity became a business in the Ottoman Empire. Some time after the Patriarchy was installed, at its insistence, the Macedonian Church, the Archbishopric in Ohrid to be more exact, was closed down. In other words, at the insistence of the Patriarch in Constantinople, in 1767 the Ottoman Sultan abolished the Macedonian Church by decree. After that Koine speaking bishops and priests invaded the Macedonian churches. They preached in the Koine language which the common people could not understand. On top of that all the money that was collected was sent to Constantinople and the Patriarchate decided how it was to be spent. It was like another form of tax.

INTERVIEWER – So two taxes were collected, one by the church and another by the Ottomans?

RISTO – The church imposed a form of tax on the people, that’s right. Ottoman tax was one thing and a debt to the church was another.

If you defaulted on your debts because you did not have money to pay for church services, real or imagined, then the Church possessed your property. Every village had what we call “Vakovska stoka” (church property). These properties were obtained either voluntarily, left to the church after death, or possessed for defaulting on debts.

Many people lost their properties because they could not read or understand the terms of their agreements with the church. People who did not have enough land of their own to support their families tended to rent land, on a seasonal basis, from the church and if they defaulted on the rent they tended to lose even more of their land.

A lot of the Slav speakers (Macedonians), as they were called, blamed their problems and their unfair treatment on misunderstandings with the Patriarch Church which they believed were done on purpose. The Patriarch church definitely benefited from their losses… which was obvious to them.

And what did this church do for them or for the Macedonian people in general?

Basically nothing! On top of that it preached to them in a language they could not understand.

This unfair treatment of the Macedonian peasant at the hands of the Patriarch church, which the Ottoman authorities allowed to go on, gave Russia reason to intervene in the Balkans, on behalf of the Orthodox Christians, of course. One good thing that came out of all this was Russian insistence that the Slavic language be used in the church services of the Christian Slav speakers.

To make a long story short, this is how the Exarchist Church came into existence. In 1875 the Slavic speaking Exarchist Church was created and installed inside the Ottoman Empire. The only difference between the Patriarchist and the Exarchist churches, outside of its administrators, was the language of prayer. The Patriarchists used the Koine, or “Greek” as westerners like to call it, while the Exarchists used the Slavonic language.

And as Greece earlier claimed the Patriarchist Church and Koine language as its own, after it became a state, Bulgaria too claimed the Slavonic language and Exarchist Church as its own, after Bulgaria became a nation state in 1878.

After that the Exarchist Church was synonymous with the Bulgarian Church. This left the Macedonians without a church of their own and the faithful had no choice but to attend liturgy in foreign churches.

Later came the competing interests and Serbia decided to join the fray. From what was going on inside Macedonia and the fact that foreign churches were allowed to establish themselves inside Ottoman Macedonia, without objections from the Ottoman authorities and with the blessing of the Great Powers, it became evident that Macedonia would not only not be given a chance to become an independent state but there were obvious signs that Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria had aims at annexing Macedonia for themselves… and with Great Power approval… it seems.

Remember, Muslim law prohibited political organizations from being established inside their domain…the only thing they would allow was church groups to function. So after Greece claimed the Patriarchate churches inside Macedonia, unofficially of course because they still belonged and to this day they still belong to the Constantinople Patriarchate, Bulgaria and Serbia, and to a small extent Romania, began to establish their own churches inside Macedonia.

INTERVIEWER – For ulterior motives?

RISTO – Yes, for ulterior motives. On the surface and from the outside it looked like these churches were providing a religious service to the people. But one has to ask “Why was this service provided in foreign languages through foreign churches?” Were the Macedonians not capable of providing these services on their own?

It was obvious that these foreign powers had ulterior motives. But what? There were educated Macedonians who had seen this before

and who believed that the churches were there to assimilate the Macedonian people, turn them into Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians.

This, of course, was dismissed by most, especially by the villagers who made comments like, “I am going to be a Greek as much as a horse can be a donkey” and “You can’t turn a sheep into a goat no matter how hard you try”. Yes, the foreign churches were there to do exactly that, assimilate the Macedonian people but to what end?

Most Macedonians dismissed these assimilation attempts as nonsense. The three competing powers in Ottoman Macedonia, however, needed to prove to their benefactors, the Great Powers that either Greeks, or Serbians, or Bulgarians lived in Macedonia and were in need of liberation from Ottoman treachery in order to justify the annexation of Macedonian territory and call it liberation.

The annexation had to be nice and legal. The Greeks were already established in Macedonia through the Patriarchate church in Constantinople, which was managed by a different body and not by the Greek Church in Athens. But both of these churches were pursuing the same interests and to the outsider it seemed like they were one church, the so-called “Greek Orthodox Church”.

The aim of these competing powers (Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia) was to annex as much of the Macedonian territories as possible and they had to do it along national dividing lines in order to make it acceptable, legal and lasting. But first they had to prove that this was “liberation”, meaning that they were “liberating” Macedonian territories because allegedly their own people lived there.

Unfortunately there were no Greeks, Serbians, or Bulgarians living in Macedonia which was a big problem for them. And this is why they had to “create” them through assimilation. Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria needed to demonstrate to the world that these territories were theirs because Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians lived on them… and not Macedonians.

The Macedonians, and true owners of Macedonia, therefore had to be removed from the equation completely. I don’t know if there was a formal agreement made between the three states but at some point

in time they decided to formally deny the existence of Macedonians altogether.

The Macedonian people in Macedonia were told by these outsiders that they could not be Macedonians if they did not have a Macedonian church of their own.

Faced with the prospect of having no church of their own, the Macedonian people made an attempt to establish a Macedonian church in 1891 but without success. On the recommendation of the Patriarch, the Sultan would not grant the Macedonians their wish to have their own church.

[December 4, 1891

Theodosius, Metropolitan of Skopje, to Pope Leo XIII I, the undersigned Metropolitan of Skopje, Theodosius, by God's Mercy head of Skopje eparchy, am submitting this request both in my name and in the name of the whole Orthodox flock of Macedonia, in which we are begging His Holiness to accept us under the wing of the Roman Catholic Church...Our desire springs from the historical right of the Orthodox Macedonian people to be freed from the jurisdiction of foreign Churches - the Bulgarian Exarchate and the Constantinople Patriarchate - ....The borders of the Archbishopric should conform to the present borders of Macedonia... Archivio della S. Congregazione de Propaganda Fide - Roma: Indice della Potenza - Marzo 1892-93, Somm.XV, f.132-141.]

It would appear that entry for the Macedonia people into nationhood allegedly depended on having their own Macedonian church… and since they did not have a Macedonian church then they could not be Macedonians...

So, having no church of their own, the Macedonian believers in Christ had no choice but to attend the foreign churches for their prayer.

The so called Greek Church was already in Macedonia and operated through the Constantinople Patriarchist church. The Bulgarian church entered Macedonia sometime around 1878 but in a short time

was able to attract more Macedonians than the Greek church. This was because liturgy in the Bulgarian church was conducted in the Bulgarian language, which was familiar to the Macedonian parishioner.

Even those who attended the Greek Church very quickly converted to the Bulgarian church… and later to the Serbian church. The churches were all identical; they were all Christian Orthodox, the only difference was the language of liturgy.

New churches were constantly being built by order of the Patriarch or Exarch. The Macedonian people, at this point, had no idea that their affiliation with a certain church would define their nationality. And those who knew did not believe it.

Now looking back at this, all three competing powers had people in Macedonia producing demographic statistics, almost on a daily basis, of how many ethnic Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians lived in Macedonia based on church affiliation.

Yes, all these demographic statistics were based on religion and not on nationality or ethnicity. None of the statistic showed Macedonians living in Macedonia. And no one questioned them, not even the Great Powers who were willing to accept the idea that Macedonians didn’t exist.

Why was this? Because no Macedonians existed or because the Macedonians did not fit into their future plans?

This whole thing was neatly packaged. Because the Ottoman authorities recognized religion as the only political authority inside their empire, everything had to be done along religions lines.

But outside of the Ottoman Empire, especially in the West, the dividing line between people was not religion but nationality. So a connection was made which tied church affiliation to nationality.

This, it seems, solved all problems both for the competing powers and for the Great Powers.