2. SERBIAN STATISTICS ON THE NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION IN GREEK OCC

2. SERBIAN STATISTICS ON THE NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION IN GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA

Statistics compiled on the population in Greek occupied Macedonia by Serbian historians are different in terms of size and structure when compared to the Bulgarian and Greek statistics. Serbian statistics show a much larger population and a large Serbian identity as well as various arguments used to prove the Serbian character of Macedonia. Ivan Ivanich, M. Veselinovich, S. Gopchevich and B. Miloievich have labeled the majority of the population in Macedonia as Serbian. According to Ivan Ivanich, 400,568 Serbians of the Patriarchate affiliation, 265,408 Serbians of the Exarchate affiliation, 400,000 Muslims, 60,000 Jews, 190,639 Orthodox non-Slavs, 15,000 Serbian Catholics, etc., lived in Macedonia. B. Miloevich labeled the majority of the population living in today’s Greek occupied Macedonia as Serbian. There is no need to speak of a scientific methodology used by these authors, because there wasn’t one. According to Iovan Tsviich, the work done by Ivanich and Veselinovich was misleading, unscientific and messy. (Iovan Tsviich, Promatranie o Etnografii Makedonskih Slovena, Belgrade, 1906, p. 62.)

Most credit for supporting the Serbian cause in Macedonia should certainly be given to Iovan Tsviich who did not make any small, simple, or obvious mistakes, did not produce pro Serbian statistics similar to the likes of Ivanich and Gopcevich, who created natural suspicion among the scientific world. Hardly anyone accepted Ivanich’s thesis, who knew very little about the workings of the Macedonian language, when he declared the Macedonian language was Serbian. Even though both languages are Slavic, they are so distant that Macedonians could hardly understand Serbian. The Macedonian people began to study the Serbian language in school and gradually began to learn it after Macedonia’s invasion, occupation and partition in 1913 when one third of historic Macedonia fell under Serbian control. Because of this, Iovan Tsviich recommended that “the Macedonian Question be examined under a completely new basis”. (Iovan Tsviich, cit. part, p. 9.) Tsviich’s new revelation is in fact the theory of mass flotation. “The Macedonian layers,” he wrote, “don’t have a certain national consciousness, don’t have their own historical past, and don’t have their own literary language…” (Iovan Tsviich, cit. part, p. 9.)

It is true that the Macedonian people did not have their own literary language but why that was, was not explained in Tsiviich’s work. When the Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek literary languages were created there were no external interferences. It was not because the Macedonians did not want to have a literary language, despite the difficult historical circumstances, many times they made attempts to create such a language. Kirste P. Misirkov, mentioned earlier for example, made such an attempt but was scientifically and politically anathematized by Macedonia’s neighbours. Our Balkan neighbours found it necessary to keep the Macedonian language at dialectal level and wait for an opportunity to manipulate the Macedonian peripheral dialects in their favour. Even Tsiviich himself used this opportunity. But Tsiviich was a scientist who did not lack scientific logic and knew very well that, under normal historical conditions, a Macedonian literary language could certainly be created from the various Macedonian dialects. It is true that a literary language can confirm the existence of a nation but at the same time lack of a literary language cannot deny the existence of a nation or people.

The Serbian conclusion that the Macedonian people had no national awareness was not a scientific conclusion. The national sense of a people in a certain state is based on their national origin and cultural development over the years. The Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian people developed strong national feelings for their states but such conditions were not allowed in Macedonia. This was because the Macedonian people faced much external resistance every time they attempted to form their own Macedonian state. The Macedonian people had a long history and, had they been allowed to act freely, would have quickly and easily formed a Macedonian consciousness and strong national feelings. Unfortunately the Macedonian people were pulled apart by strong foreign propaganda which, despite the effort put behind it, did not deliver the desired results. Not many Macedonians developed a permanent non-Macedonian feeling. This confirms that, even without a state, a Macedonian nation existed and it had a Macedonian historical consciousness and feeling. Unfortunately it was not allowed to exist among the neighbouring Balkan nations due to the existence of their own statehood. The

Macedonian national consciousness is a historic reality, it existed in many everyday manifestations in the Serbian kingdom which may have influenced I. Tsiviich, who was a scientist with a natural intellectual gift, to see and intimately establish that there was a Macedonian historical and ethnic reality.

From what we saw we can conclude that pre-war Serbian scientists did not use scientific principles to establish the so-called “Serbian character” of Macedonia, especially in Greek occupied Macedonia. For example, Sima Tomich, a Serbian lawmaker in Macedonia, in his report to the Serbian government wrote: “There is nothing in the Serbian literature that seriously mentions anything about Macedonia.” Nevertheless, Serbian scientists, and others, particularly those who supported the theory of mass flotation, which marked some success in the scientific world (Vilari Luigi, Edmont Bushie and others), thought that the Macedonian people had neither a national life nor a national consciousness. This shows us that there were great weaknesses in their assumptions. Namely, foreign scientists learned about Macedonia mainly through intermediaries, be it Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian authors. The only foreign historians who were objective were those who visited Macedonia. These historians concluded that the Slavic element is in the majority in Macedonia and these people are not Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian, but simply Macedonian. This was confirmed by Karl Hron at the end of the IX century. Hron had a good knowledge of both the Bulgarian and Serbian languages. (Karl Hron, Nationality of the Macedonian Slavs, Skopje, 1966. (Hristo Andonov-Polanski).)