CHAPTER SIX - MACEDONIANS AFTER THE GREEK CIVIL WAR (1949-1989)

CHAPTER SIX - MACEDONIANS AFTER THE GREEK CIVIL WAR (1949-1989)

After DAG was defeated, the name “Macedonia” and the Macedonian language were once again banned and any expression of Macedonian national consciousness through language, song, drama, etc., was strictly prohibited. The words “Macedonia” and “Macedonian”, once again, became “dirty words”. On top of that the Greek regime forced the Macedonian people to take an oath that they would never again speak the Macedonian language. This is how the oath went: “I vow before the Lord, the people and the official state authorities, that from today on, I will never speak the Slavic dialect, which is just a misunderstanding, and that I will always and everywhere speak the Greek and official language of my homeland in which is written the sacred Gospel of our Christ…” This oath was forced on the Macedonian people, to be taken in public, all throughout the Macedonian villages, after 1949. (“Vecher”, January 19, 1987.)

These new circumstances seriously influenced the historical destiny of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia and contributed to a new historical phenomenon. If, in the period between 1913 and 1950, the Macedonian people were able to exist and, to some extent, express some Macedonian national solidarity, after 1950, due to the unprecedented terror the Greek regime perpetrated against them, the Macedonian national solidarity began to gradually decline. The economic factor also played a major role in that direction since the Greek state refused to make investments in this region. In the period from 1951 to 1957, Greece’s national income grew by 6% per year, but its income per capita remained very low ($200). Gradually, however, the national per capita income grew and created a relative economic well-being which eventually seriously affected the political awareness of the Macedonian people. Mixed marriages between Macedonians and Greeks became more frequent and more prevalent causing serious ethnic cracks within the Macedonian people.

The new political conditions also greatly influenced the historical destiny of the Macedonian language. If, in the period from 1913 to 1950, the Macedonian language was the primary and native

language of the Macedonian people, after 1950, it gradually began to lose that status and became a secondary language of the Macedonian people.

At the same time, the Greek language began to change its historical status. From being a secondary or foreign language for the Macedonian population, it began to become the primary or family language for part of the Macedonian population. The Macedonian people who were heavily influenced by learning Greek at a younger age later had difficulties pronouncing Macedonian words. They began to sound like the colonists and settlers who were attempting to speak Macedonian in the 1920s and 1930s. Thus the Macedonian language, according to the status of the most used languages, went through three stages of evolution from 1913 to 1989. It went through the first stage from 1913 to 1924. It went through its second stage from 1924 to 1950 and entered the third and last stage after 1950, with the “almost” historical disappearance of the Macedonian language when it began to lose its status as a family language for the Macedonian population. In order to speed up this process, i.e. to fully “Hellenize the Macedonian population”, the Greek state opened free nurseries and kindergartens in almost all Macedonian villages. This was done to separate Macedonian children in their earliest years from their families in order to fulfill two objectives: 1) stop the children from learning Macedonian, particularly from their grandparents, and 2) teach them the Greek language as soon as possible.

With the infiltration of the Greek language into the Macedonian home, and with the presence of Greek national, political and psychological logic in the Macedonian mind, the process of assimilating the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia was well under way. This was successfully achieved by the Greek authorities through unprecedented persistence and through the use of Medieval Greek terror against the Macedonian population. Greek authorities refused to recognize anything that was Macedonian, including the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language, because if they did it would directly question the Greek territorial integrity.

Later on when the socialists came to power in Greece, nothing really changed in relation to the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language. The old and usual Greek state political tactics taken towards the non-recognition of the Macedonian nation, adopted a long time ago, were continued. The only thing that did change, for the worse, was the attitude of the Greek nationalists who took one more step backwards and that was to deny the existence of the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language outside of Greece. The Greek authorities began to more actively and more persistently deny the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language everywhere in the world. Greek students studying at the University “Kiril and Metodi” in Skopje had to withdraw from their studies because of a Greek law enacted in 1982 denying the existence of, among other things, the Macedonian language in which they were taught.

Continuing its Greek historical tradition, i.e. creating “one state with one nation”, while attempting to implement a policy of “national reconciliation”, the socialist government in Greece decided to allow some of its exiled citizens, who fled Greece during the Greek Civil War, to return. Included among those Greek citizens, in addition to fighters and civilians, were the 28,000 children who were evacuated in order to be saved from Greek bombs and from the ravages of war. Unfortunately this so-called “national reconciliation” policy had a catch; only those who were “born Greeks” or “Greeks by birth” were allowed to return. So all the Macedonians, children, civilians and fighters, who left Greece and fled to Eastern European countries, to save themselves, while the communists were fighting in the Greek Civil War in Greece, were not allowed to return. Because, according to this arbitrary Greek definition, they were not “Greeks by birth”. In other words, even innocent Macedonians were prevented from returning to their native places. They were robbed of their rights to their Greek citizenship, simply because the Greek state decided that they were not “Greeks by birth”. As a result, they were not only permanently exiled but also lost the legitimate property rights to their ancestral homes and lands. A law on “regulating property rights for political refugees...” was adopted in 1985. The CPG supported this “national reconciliation” policy and this Party, yet again, “evolved” with regards to the Macedonian National Question even though it had previously accepted a policy

of “a nation without a state”. The CPG flip-flopped many times over the Macedonian National Question: “no nation and no state” from 1918 to 1924, “a state without a nation” from 1924 to 1931, “a nation without a state” from 1931 to 1949, “a nation with a state” from January 1949 to October 1949, and finally “no nation and no state” for the Macedonian nation. In other words the CPG played many games with the Macedonian National Question and, in the end, declared Macedonians do not exist.

This did not go well with the Macedonian people and they began to abandon the CPG and orient themselves towards the moderate left (Socialists) and moderate right parties, avoiding the extreme left and the far right. The CPG’s latest political orientation, with respect to the Macedonian National Question, was welcome news for almost all Greek political parties. One exception was the supporters and followers of Pantelis Puliopoulos, former leader of the so-called “minority” group which surfaced in the ranks of the CPG in the period between the two world wars. This small left oriented political party recognized the existence of the Macedonian nation and believed that the Macedonian people living in Greece were not only good workers, but they also paid taxes and had participated in wars to keep Greece safe. They believed the Macedonian people should enjoy equal national rights as Macedonians. Also, through their authority for Social change, have raised their voices against the national oppression of the Macedonian nation and have demanded the unconditional return of all political exiles from Greece. (“Nova Makedonija”, 8, XI 1983.)

The processes of assimilating the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia by force were actively and passively resisted. The passive resistance was expressed mainly through the more frequent use of the Macedonian language and Macedonian songs… because they were Macedonian. There was also active political resistance against these processes. A movement for human and national rights for the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia was formed in Solun in 1984. At about the same time the organization “Central Organizational Committee for Macedonian Human Rights”, also based in Solun, was also formed. With the Manifesto for Macedonian Human Rights, the “Central

Organizational Committee for Macedonian Human Rights” demanded the following from the Greek authorities:

“1. Recognition of fundamental human and national rights and full freedom for the Macedonian people living within today’s Greek borders.

2. Allow the Macedonian people to establish their own educational system in their Macedonian mother tongue. Allow them to freely organize and use cultural institutions, such as schools, church services, access to radio and television programs, news services, as well as the ability to publish books and newspapers in the Macedonian language.

3. Draft and pass a law in the Greek Parliament, which will allow the Macedonian people to freely return to their native places from outside Greece’s borders, so that they can take an active part in the economic, cultural and educational life of this country...

4. We request from the Greek parliament and from the government to draft and pass a special law that will proclaim that the Macedonian people in Greece have indisputable rights and the right to exercise them without pressure, threats and intimidation, and that they should freely use their own native-Macedonian language, practice their Macedonian traditions, customs and culture, through words, books, newspapers, dances, songs...” (Manifesto for Macedonian Human Rights, Solun, 1984.)

The entire Macedonian nation is in support of the struggle for recognizing the Macedonian people’s human and national rights in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania. The existence of a Macedonian nation is not denied in Albania, but Albanian regimes have used subtle methods to assimilate the Macedonian minority living there. Solidarity rallies for the Macedonian people in Greek occupied and Bulgarian occupied Macedonia were held in Skopje, Bitola and other parts of the Republic of Macedonia in 1988 and 1989. A worldwide gathering of exiled children from Greek occupied Macedonia was held in Skopje from June 30 to July 3, 1988. More than 3,000 former refugee children from Canada, Australia, USA, Greek occupied Macedonia, and Eastern European countries

participated in the gathering. The meeting participants unanimously supported the right to freedom and human and national rights for all nations regardless of their size and cultural development.

“The right to be free and to be affiliated to a nation, the right to have your own national identity, the right to speak your mother tongue, the right to be educated in your mother tongue...” All these are fundamental human rights that are recognized by the international community. Every participant at the child refugee gathering believed that “every person, regardless of which creed, sex, race, or nation they belong to, has the right to life, freedom and happiness, and any kind of national oppression is an insult to their very human dignity”. (Stojan Kiselinovski, from a paper he wrote on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the refugee children exodus from Greek occupied Macedonia.)

These Macedonian national aspirations were strongly supported by the exiled former Macedonian child refugees who now live abroad and have their own international organizations in the respective countries were they live including in Canada, Australia and the United States, and have raised their voices to protect the name “Macedonia”, “Macedonian identity” and “Macedonian national dignity”. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, the “Macedonian National Committee” from Toronto, Canada, submitted a “Declaration on Human Rights and Freedoms” for the Macedonians living in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, to the United Nations demanding that:

“1. Greece and Bulgaria are obligated by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights to recognize the Macedonian people living in their respective countries and to stop denying their human rights, which include freedom of expression and affirmation outside of their countries (in Canada, Australia, USA, etc.) These two countries are obliged by the provisions of the Helsinki Accord to recognize the status of national minorities, including the Macedonians, and to respect the rights to equality before the law which affords them the right to enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms and protects and promotes their legitimate interests...

2. Greece, Bulgaria and Albania are urged to allow the Macedonian people in their respective territories to develop human, cultural, spiritual and other ties with the Macedonian people in the Republic of Macedonia and multicultural democratic societies such as Canada and Australia, as well as with the Macedonian people in the United States of America and other countries in the world.

3. Greece and Bulgaria are obliged to allow the Macedonian people in their respective countries to education themselves in their Macedonian mother tongue. They should be granted the right to open schools and cultural institutions. They should be free to form their own organizations and associations. They should have the right to publish Macedonian language books and newspapers and to participate in radio and television programs. They should also have the right to freely use their mother tongue in the courts and church rites.

4. Greece needs to abolish all legal provisions that prohibit the Macedonian people exiled during the Greek Civil War from returning to their place of birth. All exiled Macedonians and their descendants, regardless if they are “Greek by birth” or not, should be allowed to return to their place of origin. Those who have been exiled should also be allowed to visit their father’s hearths, to light a candle at the graves of their ancestors and relatives as well as to reclaim their own properties, if they wish to do so.

5. Together with the restoration of their Macedonian national identity in Greece, it is also necessary for the Greek state to restore the changed personal and geographical names in Macedonia to the original form.

6. Greece, Bulgaria and Albania must reconcile their attitude towards the Macedonian people within the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Helsinki Accord and all other international norms.” (Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms for the Macedonian people in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania.)

Greece and Bulgaria, by international norms, are obligated to recognize the Macedonian nation living in Greece and Bulgaria,

with full national, cultural and linguistic rights. By doing so, these two Balkan countries will undoubtedly affirm their historical, political and moral values.