CHAPTER ONE - NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION IN GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA

CHAPTER ONE - NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION IN GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY (1900 - 1913)

The population that lived in Greek occupied Macedonia was of varying ethnicities, church affiliations, and varied in numbers. There is extensive and diverse literature on its numbers and ethnicities.

With a desire to justify their territorial claims on Macedonia, these neighbouring Balkan states used historical science as a strong argument to justify their historical and national interests in Macedonia. Many intellectual forces were employed by these Balkan states to prove the Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian character of Macedonia.

The statistics generated to prove the number and national structure of the population in Greek occupied Macedonia, due to the different state interests, were very different and always contradictory. In criticizing the Balkan statistics, André Wurbain concluded that they were “deliberately forged”. (André Wurbain, L'echange greco -bulgare des minorités etnique, Lousanne, 1930, p. 23) But, to get to the truth about the statistics compiled by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, on the national structure of the same population in Macedonia, one must look at their theoretical principles which classify the same person being Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian at the same time. Later on we will review this concept and try to draw a different conclusion, not based on any simple conclusion (Vasil K’nchov or Iovan Tsviich), but based on the same scientific principles used to prove the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian character of Macedonia. We will do this in order to get closer to the real ethnic situation in Greek occupied Macedonia. This is possible and logical and a way of getting closer to the historical reality and historical truth.

1. BULGARIAN STATISTICS ON THE NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION IN GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA

Bulgarian authors, the likes of Vasil K’nchov, D. M. Brankov, Iordan Ivanov and Vladimir Rumenov, certainly had great influence on the scientific world, and their work was often used to prove the Bulgarian character of Macedonia. (V. K’nchov’s work in particular.) Because V. K’nchov and D. M. Brankov’s work on the ethnic composition of Macedonia was regarded as most reliable, we will look at their papers and endeavour to confirm the ethnic makeup of Macedonia, citing or taking their work as commendable evidence.

Vasil K’nchov’s statistics on the ethnic composition in Greek occupied Macedonia are not based on church or language affiliation (in accordance with which church people attended or which language they were taught in Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian), but according to the linguistic affiliation of their family. In other words, K’nchov’s basic element for determining the nationality of a person was by the language spoken at home by the entire family (this principle was applied to all of Macedonia, but for this study we will only look at the part of Macedonia that, after 1913, fell under Greek control). Based on the language spoken at home in Greek occupied Macedonia, K’nchov divided the origin of the people as follows: 358,290 or 49.92%, Bulgarian, 218,742 or 30.48% Greek, 59,720 or 8.32 % Jewish, 34,427 or 4.80% Vlach, 30,726 or 4.29% Roma, 6.875 or 0.95% Albanian and 8,910 or 1.24% others. (Vasil K’nchov, Selected Sorts, Sofia 1970, Volume 2, pp. 440-581). After Macedonia was partitioned by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria in 1913, a large part of the Macedonian population ended up in Bulgaria and Serbia, but that did not seriously affect the composition in Greek occupied Macedonia in which, in addition to the Christians, also lived Muslims (Turks). It would appear that D. M. Brankov and Vladimir Rumenov also reached similar conclusions. According to D. M. Brankov, there were 382,054 Bulgarians, 133,782 Greeks, 26,153 Vlachs, 2,994 Albanians, 9,632 Roma, or a total of 554,615 inhabitants living in Greek occupied Macedonia. (D. M. Brankov published his book “La Macedoine et sa population Chretienne” in 1905 in Paris.) Brankov’s statistics, however, only covered the Christian population living in Macedonia. According to Vladimir Rumenov, after 1913, there were 339,369 Bulgarians, 314,854 Turks, 245,251 Greeks, 68,206 Jews, 44,414 Vlachs, 25,308 Roma, 15,108 Albanians and 8,016 others, living in Greek occupied Macedonia.

As we have shown, unlike the Greeks (who used only church affiliation), the Bulgarian authors have used the language spoken at home as an element for determining the national affiliation of the population in Macedonia. All Macedonians affiliated with either the Exarchate or Patriarchal Church who spoke the so-called “Bulgarian language” (which in fact was the Macedonian language) at home as a family, were counted as Bulgarians. This principle is not only logical but a lot more accurate than church affiliation. The Hungarian people are one ethnicity even though, according to their church affiliation, they belong to the Catholic or Protestant Church. The Bavarian Germans are Catholics and the northern Germans are Protestant but they are all Germans.

The Bulgarian state was very interested in Macedonia. This “great interest” was supported and protected by Bulgarian historiography which prompted many Bulgarian historians to introduce inaccuracies into their assumprions. One of those inaccuracies was that if the language spoken by the Macedonian people was Bulgarian then the population speaking that language was Bulgarian. This is equivalent to saying that if the people in Canada spoke English then the Canadian population was English.

This Bulgarian introduced inaccuracy also implied that the people in Macedonia spoke the Bulgarian language and that the Macedonian language somehow was part of the Bulgarian one. No one denies the fact, and it will be anti-scientific to deny it, that the Macedonian language shares some common elements with the Bulgarian language, but at the same time the Macedonian language has common elements with all the other Slavic languages spoken in the Balkans. This is natural because all these languages are Slavic and have a common Slavic origin. This is why this subject needs to be approached scientifically and not politically. The Ukrainians, for example, share common traits with the Russians but no one regards them as Russians. The Belarusians are also close to both the

Ukranians and Russians, but nobody today denies their independent existence as a different people from the Russians and from the Ukranians. The same holds true for the Slovak people and their language when compared to the Czech people and their language. The Slovak people, like the Macedonian people, have for many years shared a common language, a common past, a common history and many other common features which they nurtured and with which they lived, giving them the moral right to exist as a separate nation. That is why Krste P. Misirkov advocated for the preservation of the Macedonian people’s language, which the Bulgarians call Bulgarian. Yes, there was a Bulgarian language but that particular language was only present in the educational institutions and in the exarchist church; it was never part of Macedonia in everyday life, at home, in the market, at weddings and in common people’s conversations. Krste P. Misirkov was the first Macedonian historian who tried to compile statistics on the ethnic composition of coastal Macedonia based on the Macedonian language, which was actually present in the homes of the Macedonian people. (Blazhe Ristovski, First National Ethnographic Statistics of the Macedonians, Ethnological Review No. 8-9, Belgrade, 1969, pp. 65-70.)

So, on one hand Bulgarian authors use “language”, specifically the language spoken at home, as an identifier of ecthicity and, on the other, they claim that the Macedonian language is Bulgarian and therefore the Macedonian people are part of the Bulgarian people. But from what we said above, what the Bulgarian authors are really saying is that the true ethnic or national character of the Macedonian people has not been revealed, but only their political character. Therefore, given that the Macedonian language is real and exists then we can use the same argument as the Bulgarians to get closer to the historical truth and to provide a more realistic picture of the ethnic character of today’s Greek occupied Macedonia.

Foreign scientists have accepted our view. Leon Lamouš, E. Kurper, M. Irehec, Vejgan and Verkovic, for example, have concluded that the Slavic population was most widespread in Macedonia.