PREFACE

PREFACE

Historical determinism (the doctrine that everything, especially one’s choice of action, is determined by a sequence of causes independent of one’s will) affects negatively or positively the historical destiny of nations. European historical determinism in the Balkans has seriously influenced the Macedonian people’s historical destiny.

In the history of the Macedonian people the “historic” period ended with the signing of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and the “prehistoric” period began. The negative Greek historical determinism severely harmed the Macedonian people’s historical destiny in Greek occupied Macedonia. With Greece’s appearance on the historical terrain of Greek occupied Macedonia, the Greek political historical determinism, with its exclusive Greek nationalism, put in question the Macedonian people’s biological existence.

The Greek political factor began its genocidal policy against the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia with a Greek desire to create “one state with one nation”. The subject of this paper is in fact about the outcome of that desire which resulted in expulsions, oppression and assimilation of the Macedonian population, colonization of Macedonian lands with non-Macedonians (Greek and non-Greek), resistance against the affirmation of Macedonian national and cultural values, political mistreatment of the “Macedonian National Question” especially by the Communist Party of Greece (CPG), and other forms of mistreatment the Greek state applied against the Macedonian people living inside Greece.

We should emphasize at this point that we ran into objective difficulties while researching our material for the book “Greek occupied Macedonia (1913-1989)”. The archives of the neighbouring countries which undoubtedly hold precious historical information (especially the Greek ones), and which would have allowed us access to comprehensive, purposeful and objective information on this issue, were inaccessible to us.

In the absence of archival information from the neighbouring countries, more attention was paid to published archival sources, especially the Macedonian archives, and other relevant historical literature.

We strived, within the existing possibilities, to objectify the historical past of the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia, a people who, like no one else, suffered as much in peace as they did in wars...

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