KING CONSTANTINE’S TELEGRAM - Part 01

KING CONSTANTINE’S TELEGRAM

July 12, 1913.

The general commanding the Sixth Division informs me that Bulgarian soldiers under the command of a captain of gendarmes gathered in the yard of the school house at Demir-Hissar over one hundred notables of the town, the archbishop and two priests, and massacred them all. The headquarters staff ordered the exhumation of the bodies, with the result that the crime has been established. Further, Bulgarian soldiers violated young girls and massacred those who resisted them. Protest in my name to the representatives of the powers and to the whole civilized world against these abominations, and declare that to my great regret I shall find myself obliged to proceed to reprisals, in order to inspire their authors with a salutary fear, and to cause them to reflect before committing similar atrocities. The Bulgarians have surpassed all the horrors perpetrated by their barbarous hordes in the past, thus proving that they have not the right to be classed among civilized peoples.

(Signed) CONSTANTINE, King. (Page 300)

The accounts you are about to read are of those who either witnessed or themselves experienced the Greek atrocities at Kukush.

EVIDENCE OF FATHER JOSEPH RADANOV, of Kukush.

On July 2 he could distinctly see from Kukush that the surrounding villages were on fire, Salamanli among others. Fields of corn and stacks’ of reaped corn had been set on fire even behind the Greek positions. The Greeks moreover had fired upon the reapers who had gone to work in the early morning in their fields. The refugees from the neighbouring villages began to arrive upon the heights called Kara-Bunar about a mile away, and were there bombarded by artillery.

Next day (July 3) the battle approached the town, but the Bulgarians retained their position. About midday the Greeks began to bombard Kukush, but when I left no house had taken fire. (Page 300)

FATHER JEAN CHIKITCHEV.

I took refuge after midday on July 3 with Father Michel and meant to stay with him. I saw the shells falling upon the sisters’ orphanage. I saw the hospital struck by a shell. There were at this time no Bulgarian troops in the town, although they were in their positions in front of it. The town was unfortified. The bombardment seemed to be systematic. It could not be explained as a mistake incidental to the finding of the range. Quite forty shells fell not far from the orphanage and three or possibly four houses were set on fire. At this point I left the town and fled with the refugees. Next night it looked as if the whole plain were burning.

NOTE.-Both the above witnesses were priests of the Catholic Uniate Church. (Page 300)

MR. C. [the name may not be published] a Catholic resident in the village of Todoraki near Kukush, states than on July 6 the Greek commandant of Kukush arrived accompanied by thirty infantrymen

and eighty armed Turks. He was bound and left exposed to the full sun without food or water from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. His house was pillaged, and 200 francs taken with all his personal property. On being released he learnt from the villagers that they had lost in all £T300 during the pillage. Two men were beaten and twelve were bound and sent down to prison in Salonica. The women were not maltreated. (Page 301)

PETER SHAPOV, of Zarovo near Langaza, a shepherd.

He was taking his sheep and goats on the road to Demir-Hissar when Greek cavalry overtook the refugees on the edge of the town and began to slash out with their sabres to left and right. They took 600 goats belonging to himself and his two brothers. One of his brothers was wounded by a cavalryman and died afterwards at the Bulgarian frontier. The Bulgarian army was quite half an hour’s walk away. There were no Bulgarian troops near them. (Page 301)

MATE, Wife of Petro of Bogoroditsa, near Langaza.

I saw the Greek cavalrymen when they entered our village. I fled and in my haste was obliged to leave a baby of eighteen months behind in the village in order to flee with this one which I have with me, a child of three. I saw our village in flames. I want my child. (Page 301)

ELISAVA, Wife of Georghi of Zarovo, near Langaza.

We all fled when the shells began to fall in our village and got safely to Demir-Hissar. Then I heard people saying the Greek cavalry are coming. There was a panic; children fell on the ground and horsemen rode over them. I lost my children, save one whom I was able to carry. My husband had two others with him. I do not know what has become of him, and have not seen him since that day. (Page 301)

INTERVIEWER – But those who committed atrocities were not all Greek, there were Bulgarians also, right?

RISTO – Yes, the Bulgarians and Serbians also committed similar atrocities. You will have to read the report because it’s unbelievable what was done to our people. Here is a confession letter to give you a sample of what was done:

RHODOPE, 11th July, 1913.

This war has been very painful. We have burnt all the villages abandoned by the Bulgarians. They burn the Greek villages and we the Bulgarian. They massacre, we massacre and against all those of that dishonest nation, who fell into our hands, the Mannlicher rifle has done its work. Of the 1,200 prisoners we took at Nigrita, only forty-one remain in the prisons, and everywhere we have been, we have not left a single root of this race.

I embrace you tenderly, also your brother and your wife, SPILIOTOPOULOS PHILIPPOS.

INTERVIEWER – And how did you find out about this?

RISTO – The report would have been a big deal if it was not for World War I. Just as the Report was published war broke out… again. When World War I was over the report had already been shelved and nothing was done to right the wrongs committed against the Macedonian people by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. As I said earlier, I found out about the report when it was re-printed in 1993.

Someone mentioned to me that such a report existed and when I started looking for it I found information about it on the internet. I just can’t forget the gruesome acts committed against civilians by armies which are expected to protect civilians… You can go nuts thinking about it…

INTERVIEWER – Did the Greeks ignore this?

RISTO – The Greeks were against the Commission investigating the situation but had no choice about it. It was a Commission authorized by the international community. All sides (Greeks, Serbians and

Bulgarians) did not want the Commission to investigate and insisted that nothing terrible had happened.

INTERVIEWER – So, if the Serbians and Bulgarians did the same things. Why then did you not mention the other atrocities in your articles? Why just the Greek atrocities?

RISTO – My study of this subject was limited to the Greeks. Today we Macedonians have big problems with Greece which is not only refusing to recognize us as a Macedonian identity, but is still trying to extinguish us. Besides that I don’t want to open too many fronts. Today we have no beef with Serbia. Unless this becomes an international issue then we will bring it out. But to take on both the Bulgarians and the Greeks at the same time…? I find it a bit ambitious. I know where I stand with the Greeks, I am from there. Also, I have to tell you that the Bulgarians are vicious and you don’t know where you stand with them. This is why IMRO had problems with them in the past.

INTERVIEWER – Who?

RISTO –IMRO… the Macedonian revolutionaries who fought…

INTERVIEWER – Oh yes, IMRO.

RISTO – It was easy to recognize a Greek because the Greeks refused to speak Macedonian. So right away you knew you were dealing with a Greek. The Bulgarians on the other hand pretended to be your friends and stabbed you in the back. The Bulgarians were the first people to say hurrah for Macedonia but refused to recognize the Macedonian identity and the Macedonian language, insisting that they were Bulgarian.

INTERVIEWER – Yes but explain to me how close are the languages and why they are so close?

RISTO – It’s very simple. After the Bulgarian nation state was created in 1878, and after the San Stefano Treaty, the Bulgarians became infatuated with Macedonia and desperately wanted to possess it by any means possible. So they did everything in their

power to convince the Macedonian people that they too were Bulgarians and belonged with Bulgaria.

But let me refresh you memory. Modern Bulgaria was built on the premise that its people were Bulgarians and descendents of the Turkic Tatars who came to the Balkans from behind the Volga River, who, by the way, spoke a Turkic language incomprehensible to the Macedonians.

So how was that supposed to convince the Macedonians that they and the Bulgarians were the same people? In order to convince the Macedonians that they were Bulgarians, the Bulgarian state chose a Slavic dialect (and not the Turkic language) as the Bulgarian people’s standard language.

This was a Southern Slavic dialect that was close to the dialects spoken in Macedonia. The Macedonian language is an old language and has many dialects, as many as 25 distinct dialects. The Bulgarians chose one of the indigenous Slavic dialects found spoken on their territory and made it their standard Bulgarian state language… and began to call it Bulgarian.

They purposely did that because they had aims on Macedonia and on convincing the Macedonian people that they too were Bulgarians. They still do this to this day. They wanted to prove to their own people, to the Macedonian people and to the world that the Bulgarians and the Macedonians were one and the same people, “two countries - one people”. They still say that to this day.

The Bulgarians chose a Slavic dialect that was spoken in Thrace. The people of Thrace spoke a Slavic dialect which is very close to the Macedonian dialects. But like the Greeks, the Bulgarians not only took a Slavic dialect and made it Bulgarian, but by doing so began to encroach on the Macedonian heritage.

Now the Bulgarians claim that the Macedonians speak a Bulgarian dialect and therefore the Macedonian language is Bulgarian.

If that were true then the Macedonians must have acquired this so-called Bulgarian dialect after the Bulgar Turkic Tatars arrived in Bulgaria, right?

So what language did the Macedonian people speak before the Bulgars arrived in the Balkans? And why is the Bulgarian language a “Slavic” language and not a Turkic Tatar language.

Even our fake history today tells us that the so-called “Slavs” of Macedonia came to the Balkans before the Bulgars arrived. So what is the real story here?

I would say that the Bulgarians speak a dialect of the Macedonian language and not the other way around. I would also say that the vast majority of the people in Bulgaria were indigenous to Bulgaria and spoke a Slavic language, probably very much influenced by the Macedonian language. And if I may say, the Turkic Tatars became assimilated and melted into the great Slavic pot and disappeared a long time ago.

So, in my opinion, the Bulgarian identity, originating from the Turkic Tatars, is just as fake as the Greek identity. And without being prejudiced to the Asian people, the Turkic Tatars were Asians with slanted eyes. How many slanted eyed Asians do you see in Bulgaria today? If you are lucky you will see very few in the northern parts of Bulgaria.

It is well-known that the Macedonians had great influence on the entire Eastern European continent from the Mediterranean in the south to Siberia in the north.

One summer day when Professor Angelina Markus from Skopje, Macedonia, was visiting Toronto, I went to visit her. There were rumours that Angelina, during her retirement party on the day of her retirement as a professor, apologized to her students and said to them that she was sorry for “lying” to them all these years… for teaching them false history…

When we got talking I asked Angelina if that was true… if she had apologized...? She laughed and said yes. So I asked her what lies did

she tell. She told me a lot of things… At the time I thought this woman was crazy... But as it turned out I was the one who was ignorant… She was just ahead of my time.

The one thing that is of interest to us here, that is memorable to me, was the questions she asked me: “Tell me,” she said, “why is it that people in Eastern Europe, from the Mediterranean Sea to Siberia, have common names, common toponyms and a common language…?

Do you think that all this happened by accident?

Also tell me,” she said, “why were all these Slavic speaking people as far north as Siberia asking for priests and teachers from Macedonia during the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries AD, when Christianity was making its way up north?

You know that the first University in Europe was built in Ohrid, in Macedonia, which educated thousands of priests who were then dispatched all throughout Eastern Europe to bring Christianity and the word of God to the Slavic speakers?” she said.

She would not tell me why but said this to me: “Ask yourself this! Why did the English settlers in the American and Australian continents ask England to send them teachers…? When you figure that out you will have your answer…” she said and laughed.

“Was it because England was their origin and they spoke English?” I asked. She touched her nose and smiled.

Of course almost all English colonists in America and Australia, a long time ago before communities were established, were uneducated and once they began to establish themselves they needed educated teachers for their schools and priests for their churches. And where else were they able to find English speaking educated people except in England? It makes sense.

Unfortunately even this is disputed by the Bulgarians. It would be obvious to anyone that the original teachers, the brothers Kiril and Metodi, being from Solun, were Macedonians. The invention of the

Glagolic and Cyrillic alphabets have been credited to these two individuals and to Kliment and Naum of Ohrid.

Unfortunately, what makes this story a tragic comedy is that both the Greeks and the Bulgarians have laid claim to the Solun brothers. The Greeks say they were Greek… The Bulgarians say they were Bulgarian. How sad and desperate is that?

So here, on one hand, we have a newly created country called “Greece” that never existed before, not even as an empire, laying claim to the Koine language as well as to the entire so-called “Ancient Greek” and Ancient Macedonian heritage and, on the other hand, we have another newly created country called “Bulgaria”, with its basis in a Turkic Tatar Empire, laying claim to Old Church Slavonic, a purely Macedonian language, and the entire medieval and modern Macedonia heritage.

And where are the Macedonians in all this? Apparently they don’t exist!

Ask any Greek today and they will tell you that they can read ancient Greek. Yes, that is true but so what?

A Greek will tell you they can read ancient Greek because it is part of his or her heritage and because of that they not only feel that they are connected to the ancient Greeks but are their descendents.

Well I am telling you right now that I can speak read and write English but does that connect me to England and make me a descendent from the Ancient English?

Even when you point this out to a Greek, they still have difficulties comprehending… forgetting the fact that “Greek” is not their mother tongue and that they learned it in school.

Well Bulgarians are doing the same thing. They have learned a Thracian language, which is understandable and which is very close to the Macedonian language but that does not make them Bulgarian, Thracian, or Macedonian?

No. They are what they are. I have no problem with that except that they are denying our existence and robbing us of our heritage.

INTERVIEWER – Which is the Thracian language.

RISTO – As far as I know, the people in the part of Thrace that is now under Bulgaria spoke a Slavic language. I don’t know what to call it other than what it is, a dialect of the South Slavic language.

Now the Serbians…well they are a different story. Did you know that even after two hundred years of being a country, there are still Serbians out there who speak Slavic dialects? Some I can understand, even though I am from the southern part of Macedonia… but I don’t understand much of the Serbian literary language.

The Serbian literary language is totally different from any of the dialects I understand.

How was the Serbian language created?

Well, I don’t know. Now let us go even further north… up to Russia. There is no way on God’s earth that all the Russian people are ethnically one people because they speak one language. There must be dozens of different ethnicities in Russia, including the indigenous Inuit. Yet today they all speak Russian, a Slavic language. Why?

Because Russia decided to adopt a Slavic language for all its people. Why? Because of Macedonian influence. Because the Macedonians introduced the Russians to Orthodox Christianity in the Macedonian language, in Old Church Slavonic or Old Macedonian.

The Macedonian people greatly influenced Russia during its transition to Christianity. Russia converted to Christianity not too long ago, maybe about 1000 years ago? The Russians used Old Church Slavonic, the Old Macedonia language, in their liturgy. Macedonian priests brought Christianity to Russia and with it the Macedonian language. I learned this from Angelina, the crazy lady. But that’s not the whole story.

The Old Russians were a Slavic speaking people. Old Russia was the region today called the Ukraine. When I asked a Ukrainian naval officer, learning English here at Base Borden, what the etymology of the word “Ukraina” was, he did not know but was quick to say that the Ukraine was the “centre of the world”.

Then when I asked him again and this time I said “U” and “Kraina”, he said “at”, “the end”. He recognized the “u” meant “at” and “kraina” or “krai” meant “end”.

Yes, at the end of the world; that’s what the Ancient Macedonians called that part of the world which today we call Ukraine. And you know what? That’s where the Ancient Macedonians sent their “prisoners”… at the end of their world.

The English sent their prisoners to “Australia” and the Ancient Macedonians sent their prisoners to the “Ukraine”.

The officer laughed when I told him that. Is this true? Angelina seems to think so! How else do you explain the similarities in the people’s names, in the place names, in the language… between Macedonia and the Ukraine?

I rhymed off words and sentences spoken in my Oshchimian dialect and asked a number of Ukrainian officers to tell me if they understood anything. The consensus was that they understood about 50% of the words, including the word “salo”, which meant “melted pork fat”. How is that even possible? They have never studied Macedonian and never heard of the Lerin and Kostur dialects!

Maybe Angelina the crazy lady is not so crazy? I just want to say that I call her “crazy” because of her “crazy” revolutionary ideas but I have a lot of respect for Professor Angelina Markus. Her husband was a Russian diplomat with access to a lot of confidential documents and all kinks of resources which were available to her and she knew a lot of things that you and I don’t know.

Our fake modern history today tells us that the Slavs came to the Balkans from the north, from behind the Carpathian Mountains.

Common sense, however, questions that. First, there is no way that a poor, unprepared people could have made the trek from behind the Carpathian Mountains in Romania all the way down the Balkans, penetrate the Byzantine Empire, populate every corner and every village in Macedonia and, in such a short time, completely replace the indigenous people in this region, replace the language in every little spot in Macedonia, settle in villages in the mountains and develop a civilization strong enough to influence Eastern Europe… in what, 3 to 4 hundred years? Sounds a bit far fetched to me.

If Angelina is right, the Macedonian people are indigenous to Macedonia and always spoke an indigenous language that has its origins in the pre-historic Scythian language. But again, we are getting off topic here and we will leave this story for another time.

My point is that the Macedonian people not only existed but contributed immensely to Christianizing and civilizing Eastern Europe. The Macedonian language, the Old Church Slavonic language, was used in an international capacity in Christianizing Eastern Europe. The Macedonian people need to know that. We can’t just continue to believe the lies people tell us that we don’t exist.

That was also Professor Markus’s point. It is time for us to start thinking for ourselves!

Speaking about Romania? Did you know that the liturgy in the Romanian church was performed in Old Church Slavonic? In the Old Macedonian language?

INTERVIEWER – Aren’t the Romanians Catholic?

RISTO – I am not sure how many are Catholics. But before the various Patriarchies in the Ottoman Empire, including the Macedonian Ohrid Bishopric, were closed down and replaced with the Istanbul Patriarchy, Old Church Slavonic was the language of liturgy in Romania. Romania became a protectorate of the West much later. In the 19th century, right after Russia began to interfere in its internal affairs. Before that Romania was predominantly Orthodox Christian.

INTERVIEWER – So, getting back on topic, let us go back to after Macedonia was partitioned in 1913, what happened then?

RISTO – When the Greeks consolidated their power in Macedonia they told the Macedonian people that this is Greece now and that they were now Greeks, and if they didn’t agree with it they could pick up what they could carry and leave immediately. Many did just that, particularly those who were affiliated with the Bulgarian church; they just picked up their things and left.

As I mentioned earlier, the Muslims were all kicked out and so were the Macedonians who insisted on being Macedonian and not Greeks, Serbians, or Bulgarians. Those who insisted too much found themselves with a noose around their necks hanging from a tree.

Sometime later Greece exchanged populations with Bulgaria and got rid of more Macedonians who were refusing to become Greeks and imported all kinds of non-Greek people from Bulgaria and from the Caucasus’s who claimed to be Greeks.

Greece had no problem accepting anyone who agreed to be “Hellenized” and accept the Greek definition of being Greek. And what was this definition you ask? Just look up the old Greek constitution from the 1820’s and you will find out.

It said anyone who was an Orthodox Christian could be a Greek provided they agreed with the Greek philosophy (to be given a Greek name and baptized in the Greek Church and not to work against the Greek cause) and was willing to learn to speak Greek.

People from Armenia and even Russia have claimed to be Greeks. All they had to do to prove this was say that their great grandmother was Greek and have a couple of witnesses sign their claim and they became instant Greeks. That about sums it up...

But allow me the opportunity here to emphasize that by “Greek” I don’t mean “Greek citizen”, I mean “Greek nationality”. I don’t know if the same rules apply today but in the past one could not simply be a Greek citizen and belong to an ethnic minority in

Greece. Greece claims no minorities live in Greece, only the 2% Muslim minority, but that is a religious minority and not an ethnic one. These Muslims are considered to be of “Greek” nationality.

We are getting off topic again.

Like I said earlier, after Macedonia was invaded, occupied and partitioned World War I started and everything in Macedonia was left in limbo until the war ended. Right after that the Greeks got it into their heads that they could expand Greece by taking more territory from Turkey.

In the early 1920’s Greece decided to act on the “Megali Idea” (Greater Greece) by attacking Turkey in an attempt to grab more lands from it, just like it had in 1912 when it acquired Macedonian lands.

Again Greece did this under the guise of “liberating” ancient Greek lands in Asia Minor. Unfortunately this time its attempt failed miserably and ended in disaster. Many Macedonians were also killed. Being under Greek control, many Macedonians were drafted into the Greek army and sent to fight. When the war was over the Greek state refused to compensate the wives and children of the Macedonian soldiers who were killed in the war.

I remember, as a child, listening to old men in my village, sitting on the porch telling tales of bygone wars when, as young soldiers, they chased the Turks to Ankara yelling “two Turks to a bayonet”. They also told stories of how it took them sixty days to gain sixty miles and how they lost them in one day of retreat.

I didn’t understand what they were talking about then but it was about the Greek exploits in Asia Minor. After building up a large military presence in Asia Minor, a major offensive was launched in March 1921, and by the end of the summer the Greek armies reached the Sakarya River about forty miles from Ankara.

By early autumn the Greeks were pushed back beyond the halfway point between Smyrna and Ankara, reaching an uneasy military stalemate. Realizing that they couldn’t possibly win militarily or

politically, the Greeks turned to the Paris Conference of March 1922 looking for a compromise. The compromise called for the withdrawal of the Greek armies and placing the Christian population under the protection of the League of Nations. Sensing a victory, Mustafa Kemal of Turkey insisted on an unconditional evacuation of the Greek forces, a demand unacceptable to the Greeks. Still counting on British kindness, in July 1922 the Greeks unsuccessfully attempted to get permission from their allies to enter Tsari Grad (Istanbul).

Turkey launched a full-scale offensive on August 26, 1922 (a dark day for Greece and her Megali Idea) near Afyonkarahisar and forced the Greeks into a hasty retreat back to Smyrna. On September 8 the Greek army was evacuated and the next day the Turkish army invaded Smyrna. The worst came on the evening of the 9th when outbreaks of killing and looting began, followed by a massacre of the Christian population in which 30,000 Christians, mostly Armenians, perished. As a result of the violence 250,000 people fled to the waterfront to escape the catastrophic disaster.

The Asia Minor campaign was over along with the “Megali Idea” of a Greater Greece. Worse yet, as a result of this catastrophic Greek fiasco, over one million Turkish Christians were displaced, most of them into Macedonia. Their settlement affected the demography of the Macedonian landscape as well as the morale of the Macedonian population.

An entire generation of young Macedonian men, who were drafted into the Greek military, were sent to the Asia Minor campaigns and many lost their lives. The Greek authorities never acknowledged their service and no compensation was ever paid to the families of those “breadwinners” who lost their lives. The reason for the omission, according to the Greek authorities, “they were Bulgarian”.

It is, I am told, noble to die for your country. Would it not be “nobler” to die for someone else’s country? How did the Greeks repay those, noble enough to die for Greece? They let their widows and children live in poverty. This is how Greece treated its noblest citizens!

By the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923, the Greco-Turkish war came to an end. Greece and Turkey signed a population exchange agreement using “religion as the basic criterion for nationality”. (Page 120, Richard Clogg, A Short History of Modern Greece.)

During the 1920’s, in its population exchanges with Turkey, Greece imported one million Christian Turks, about one fifth of its entire population, from Asia Minor and settled most of them in Macedonia. These people too became Greeks by force.

The real flaw in the Greek State’s genealogical claim to the ancients is that, after eighty years of living on Macedonian soil, it convinced the Asian newcomers that they were the rightful owners of the Macedonian lands and heritage because they were told that they were the real direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians and not the indigenous Macedonian population they replaced.

Let me say this to the modern Greeks who beat their patriotic chests and believe in the purity of Greece: “Your Greek State is not above deception and lies; it even lies to you, its own people… It lies to convince the world that Greeks and Greeks alone are the rightful heirs of Macedonia’s lands and heritage. And remember: This is all done at the expense of the real Macedonians who lived on those lands for hundreds of generations. This does not make you patriots… This makes you thieves…”

Before 1913 and before the Greco-Turkish war, the Macedonian people were a majority in Macedonia with minorities such as Albanians, Vlachs, Christian Turks and others. After Greece occupied Macedonian territories it cleansed itself of non-Greeks; it assimilated everyone it could, evicted those who did not agree with its principles, and jailed and murdered all those who caused trouble.

But those who remained in Macedonia were still Macedonians and still a majority in Greek occupied Macedonia, that is until Greece deposited 600,000 Turkish Christian settlers and colonists acquired during the population exchange with Turkey by the Treaty of Lausanne. And, like I said earlier, Greece published demographic statistics claiming that the population in Greece was 98% pure Greek and 2% Muslim Greek.

Another point I want to make here is that Greece recognized a 2% Muslim population on its territory. Doesn’t that strike you as odd, that Greece, who evicted every Muslim from Macedonia, would now recognize a Muslim minority in Thrace? Why?

I believe Greece did this in order to preserve the Patriarchate in Istanbul and the Christian people living around it. Greece made an agreement with Turkey to preserve the Muslims in Thrace if Turkey spared the Christian population in Istanbul. Greece had high hopes that, in time, this population would grow, expand and become a majority in Istanbul. But it is disappointing for Greece that the future did not turn out in its favour. While the Muslim population in Thrace is growing, in spite of all obstacles, the Christian population in Istanbul is shrinking.

Did you know that Greece does not allow the Muslims in Thrace to purchase new homes, properties and not even tractors? And as Muslims leave to visit Turkey, they are not allowed to return. Yes, this is going on in Greece today. I saw this in a Greek television documentary as well as heard it from Greek human rights activists.

So, after all that was done to them, there are still Macedonians living in Greek occupied Macedonia. This became very clear during World War II.

But before we get to World War II, I want to mention that right after the Greco-Turkish war, many things in the world had changed. Macedonia was divided and IMRO had problems operating in three different countries with different agendas that did not recognize the Macedonian identity. Communism was on the rise and with Russia turning socialist, a new influence was on the rise. Being unable to reconcile their differences IMRO split. You can say it split ideologically. Countries and people alike were ideologically turning towards communism and fascism and the world was being polarized.

The Macedonian people were caught in the middle of all this and did their best to survive. The socialists recognized the Macedonian dilemma and, to win the Macedonian people to their side, offered

them both sympathy and recognition. The Fascist faction in Greece, especially after Metaxas came to power, of course did not like that at all and began to further oppress the Macedonian people.

INTERVIEWER – So, Metaxas was a fascist wasn’t he?

RISTO – He was a Fascist.

INTERVIEWER – Ideologically a fascist?

RISTO – Yes. Metaxas would have joined Germany in a heartbeat. That’s how fascist he was but you have to understand that Greece is a British protectorate and you can understand why he couldn’t join the German side.

Anyway, the point I want to make here is that Metaxas and his Fascist supporters were extremely anti-Macedonian and wanted everything that was Macedonian erased, including the Macedonian language that the Macedonian people spoke both publicly and in private. This was the only language the majority of the Macedonian people spoke at that time.

While there were some prospects for basic human rights for the Macedonian people in the Greek State in the early 1920’s, those prospects died as Greece tightened its grip on Macedonia by implementing more racist assimilation policies. If that was not enough, on December 18, 1936 the Greek Government issued a legal act concerning, “Activities Against State Security”. By this act thousands of Macedonians were arrested, imprisoned and expelled from their homeland.

Among other things, Metaxas, on September 7, 1938, by legal act 2366, outlawed the Macedonian language and prohibited people from speaking it by imposing heavy fines and imprisonment.

In 1938 Australian author Bert Birtles in his book “Exiles in the Aegean” wrote, “In the name of ‘Hellenization’ these people (Macedonians) are being persecuted continually and arrested for the most fantastic reasons. Metaxas’s way of inculcating the proper nationalist spirit among them has been to change all the native

place-names into Greek and to forbid use of the native language. For displaying the slightest resistance to the edict - for this too is a danger to the security of the State - peasants and villagers have been exiled without trial.” (Page 112, John Shea, Macedonia and Greece The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation)

We often joke about this because it is so bizarre, but people were also fined for giving commands to their animals or calling out to their pets in their native language.

Another place to stalk unsuspecting victims was at their home. Greek policemen often stood outside people’s windows just to hear what language they were speaking and fined the entire family if they were caught speaking Macedonian.

“The Metaxas regime, haunted by the specter of Slavism and communism, initiated a policy of accelerated assimilation. Applied by incompetent and short-sighted civil servants, it antagonized even Slavophones of the Greek faction. To peasants of Bulgarian [ethnic Macedonian] orientation it served as proof that the Greek state could not offer them a national shelter. In 1941, the occupation of Greece by the Germans and the entrance of Bulgarian troops in eastern Macedonia and Thrace offered the opportunity for accumulated bitterness to reach maturity.” (Kofos. “Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia”. Page 255) I don’t agree with Kofos on many things but I do agree with him on this point.

After the realization set in that people would be fined and even physically punished and force-fed castor oil for repeat offences, fear and suspicion began to set in, forcing people to keep silent. It was best to look down or to look the other way when passing your neighbours on the street because you never knew who might be listening. Keeping silent was preferable than speaking to someone you had known all your life in that despicable foreign Greek language which you so much despised.

“In the past, Macedonian life and events were preserved in the folksongs, thus enabling an articulation of feelings and grief as well as cultural self-expression. When the Macedonian language was proscribed in Northern Greece, the folksongs ceased.” (Kita

Sapurma & Pandora Petrovska. “Children of the Bird Goddess”. Pollitecon Publications. 1997. Page 163)

INTERVIEWER – Metaxas was the one who started the assimilation-ist policy, right?

RISTO – You might think so but this assimilation-ist policy was started a long time ago and became evident around 1875 when it became clear that Macedonia would not be allowed to become a nation state and would be divided among the other Balkan nations. Metaxas tightened and accelerated the assimilation process before the communists could do damage to his Fascist Greece.

But what was really scary was not how Metaxas was going to “assimilate” the Macedonian people but how he went about “renewing” Greece.

Metaphorically speaking, in order to build a new building on the foundations of an old building you must first tear down the old building. To get rid of the undesirables inside Greece, which included the communists and the minorities, Metaxas began a hate campaign vilifying everything he did not like. He then used the Greek people to tear them down. First he vilified the communists and then he vilified the Slavs and every other ethnic group he did not like. He convinced a lot of his followers that the real Greeks were superior, more intelligent and God’s gift to Greece… just like Hitler did with the German people. The rest of the people, he said, were not only useless, but a danger to Greece and had to be purged.

This created a lot of hatred and xenophobia in the Greek people, which apparently has survived to this day.

Let me tell you that the Fascists inside Greece were never defeated or removed from power; they are alive and well, even today. Just have a look at how Greece is behaving, especially towards the Macedonian people in exile, who Greece exiled after the Greek Civil War. Take a good look how Greece is behaving towards the Republic of Macedonia; that should tell you what kind of country it is.

Unfortunately, as we found out in retrospect, the communists were no better. The Macedonian people never knew where they stood with the Greek communists. First they recognized the Macedonians as an identity but as “Slavo-Macedonians”, then they refused to recognize their rights unless the Macedonians did what they were told to do and won the war against the Fascists.

The communists did take the lead in Greece when Greece was under Fascist and Nazi occupation and, with a lot of help from the Macedonians, won the war and Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Fascist Bulgaria were driven out of Greek occupied Macedonia.

After all that, you would figure the Macedonian people would be rewarded with at least recognition and some basic human rights? But no, the Macedonian people were again entangled in another foreign war, the so called Greek Civil War, which almost exterminated them from their ancestral homes and lands. This was a very tricky war but I want to say a few things about the Macedonian people and what happened to them during World War II, before we get into the Greek Civil War.

The Macedonian involvement in World War II was not about “Communist ideologies” or about alliances or obligations to the Great Powers. It was simply the next stage in the long struggle for “liberation from oppression” and to fulfill a longing for freedom, re-unification and self-rule. The Macedonian contribution in fighting against Fascism is not only under-emphasized but also misinterpreted by historians.

I will once again say that the Macedonian people, during the Second World War, rose on the democratic side and fought against fascism for the liberation of the states in which they lived. The Macedonian people, like other people in the Balkans, fought to liberate their homeland and thus earn their place in the world. This cannot be ignored and must be recognized and recorded in the annals of history.

Word of a Macedonian Partisan movement in Greek occupied Macedonia spread like wildfire. People came out on the streets to freely speak their native Macedonian language, to sing songs and

write Macedonian plays and poetry. The Partisans even set up Macedonian schools and taught children patriotic songs, poems and Macedonian history, using local Macedonian dialects. The younger generations, for the first time, saw written words in their beloved, sacred Macedonian language. The newfound freedom brought happiness to the lives of the oppressed Macedonian people who welcomed the Partisans into their villages as “our own boys and girls”. The newfound confidence and strength projected by the Macedonians terrified the Greeks, especially the gendarmes and the collaborators. For a while they were no longer a threat.

The Germans and Italians did not care one way or another about Macedonian affairs as long as there was no trouble for them. Macedonian interest in Partisan activities continued to climb, bringing new recruits and volunteers to the cause. Youth organizations were created with young men and women recruited to be the eyes and ears of the community and to help defend the villages. Many young volunteers of military age were recruited and trained to perform policing and civic duties in the newly formed organizations.

But once the war (WWII) was over the Macedonian people were betrayed again. In their zeal to divide the world into spheres of influence, Stalin and Churchill decided to put Greece under British influence even though Greece, at the time, was in communist hands.

After this deal was made Britain asked Greece to disarm the partisans and get rid of the Macedonians. It’s not hard to believe that Churchill would want Greece out of communist hands, but it is hard to believe that he would want the Macedonians out of Greek occupied Macedonia, right?

Ideologically I would say at the time the Greeks were 80% pro-communist. The groups that established the resistance movements were all communist organized and so were the armed units of ELAS (the Greek resistance army), among which were Macedonian fighters.

INTERVIEWER – Inspired by the Soviet Union….?

RISTO – Well perhaps… As I mentioned earlier, the Macedonian people were fighting to free themselves… still believing that if they helped the Greeks liberate themselves they would throw a crumb or two towards them, at least recognize them as Macedonians. It was foolish and dangerous but when they saw wolves in sheep’s clothing they mistook them for sheep. But the Greeks were no sheep…

INTERVIEWER – So they expected recognition because of communist philosophy…believing that everyone had the right to self-determination?

RISTO – Yes. When issues came to a head about the “Macedonian question” the communists and so-called progressive Greeks did say that “the Macedonians are a minority in Greece and they will achieve equal rights as one of the peoples in democratic Greece”.

However, there was also the Atlantic Decree which offered self-determination to anyone who fought against Fascism on the side of the Allies and the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia fought against the Fascists on the side of the Allies. ELAS was part of the Allied force in Cairo. The British had established a centre of Greek activity in Cairo where a Greek army, navy and air force operated under British command. Much of the ELAS force was Macedonian.