3. GREEK STATISTICS ON THE NATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION IN GREEK OCCUP

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

While examining the Greek statistics on the national structure of the population in Greek occupied Macedonia, we can see that, contrary to the Bulgarian and Serbian claims, the Greek claim is that the “Greek element” is the largest element present in Macedonia. This was “confirmed” by the statistics produced by the Greek Silogos in the works of S. Kireakides, V. Kolokotronis and other Greek authors. According to statistics published in 1878 by the Greek Silogos, out of the 1,330,000 inhabitants living in Macedonia, 349,000 were Turks, 338,000 Bulgarians, 438,000 Greeks, 70,000 Vlachs and the rest were classified as others. According to Stilipon Kiriakides, 373,227 Greeks and 207,317 Bulgarians lived in the Solun vilayet alone. According to the same author, 262,283 Greeks and 178,410 Bulgarians lived in the Bitola vilayet. According to V. Kolokotronis 423,490 Greeks and 135,110 Bulgarians lived in Macedonia.

According to Greek statistics published a number of times and in a number of publications, a Greek element has been shown to be different and always in favour of the Greek nation. The Bulgarian use of language as an element of the population’s national determination was rejected by Greek scientists. The Greeks used secondary factors such as externally manifested national feelings as the basic element when determining the nationality of the people in Macedonia and to come up with their numbers. They believed that national feelings could be expressed through any language be it learned in a linguistic institution or through their native mother tongue.

We accept that a national sense can be created and developed on the basis of national origin, which is externally formally expressed and manifested through a suitable mother tongue when attending school or when visiting one’s own church. But was the existence of, for example, Greek schools and a Greek church in Macedonia a confirmation that the Macedonians were Greeks or had expressed some kind of Greek external national consciousness?

In this, Greece has exploited Byzantine historical traditions to their fullest. While the Balkans were occupied by the Ottoman Empire, Christian education and the Christian Orthodox Church were administered by the Phanariots, a Christian educated middle class in service of the Ottoman Empire located in the Phanar district of Tsari Grad (Istanbul). The Phanariots, after the Greek state was created, became synonymous with Greeks. The Phanariots were in charge of all Christian education and Orthodox Churches, not only in Macedonia but in all of the Balkans. After the Macedonian church was abolished during the 18th century, the Macedonian population had no choice but to attend liturgy in this so-called Greek Church. But this was done without expressing any Greek national

consciousness. In fact, Greece as a state did not exist before the 19th century, so how could it be that Macedonians were affiliated with an entity that did not even exist? Therefore, without exception, Greek historians counted all those who were affiliated with Greek education and with the so-called “Greek Church” as Greeks and this is how they came up with their numbers and how they declared themselves to be a majority in Greek occupied Macedonia. If we accepted the principle of language spoken at home to determine the population’s national origin, then the Greek element in Greek occupied Macedonia falls in the minority… in an insignificant minority. Greek scientists, however, refuse to support this principle because it diminishes the Greek cause and Greek aspirations towards Macedonia. Statistics based on Greek school and Greek Church affiliation, however, gave Greek scholars the opportunity they needed to increase the “Greek population in Macedonia” by including non-Greeks, like Macedonians, Vlachs, etc., in their demographics of Macedonia.

Bringing Greek education and opening Greek schools and churches in Greek occupied Macedonia cannot be used as a scientific argument to determine national origin. Any statistical results developed under this assumption are far from historical reality and deeply deform statistics based on the so-called “externally manifested national feelings”. Therefore we cannot accept church and school affiliation as a scientific principle to determine national origin, especially in the Balkans.

If we were to examine the French or German situation in Alsace and Lorraine in Western Europe, we will discover that teaching seems to be evidence of appropriate national French or German affiliation and a reflection of French or German externally manifested national feelings. The real manifestation of feeling in Alsace and Lorraine, however, is a reflection of the people’s national German or French origin. In Macedonia, on the other hand, education not only does not reflect national affiliation but rather it does not even reflect an externally manifested national feeling. In Macedonia the so-called “education manifestation” is fabricated and forced on people by the Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian regimes through their schools and churches. Many Macedonian people have shown to manifest their Macedonian feeling as soon as the left these foreign schools. They

have manifested their Macedonian feeling through their mother tongue in interaction with other Macedonians and by taking part in their own Macedonian folk and ecclesiastical customs. That is because Macedonian historical consciousness has always existed and still exists to this day, which has nothing to do with the so-called school and church affiliated consciousness which the Greeks, for years, have tried to impose. According to Iovan Tsviich, a consciousness introduced through education is an “imposed consciousness created by propaganda”. (Iovan Tsviich, op. cit., p. 13.)

Similarly, a Macedonian visiting a Greek church is not proof that this Macedonian has Greek church affiliation as an outward expression of Greek national origin or Greek national consciousness. Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians visiting their own churches in Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, is a real and natural reflection of Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian national feeling. But in Macedonia, a person visiting a Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian church or attending one of their schools is not a real reflection of that Macedonian person’s national consciousness. This kind of church consciousness was not a formal expression of the Macedonian people’s consciousness, but rather an attempt to impose a desire and to influence the Macedonian people’s consciousness and, over time, impose a foreign national feeling on the Macedonian people. The Macedonian people, for example, had no choice but to visit a Greek church (the Patriarchate church) because, until later, that was the only Christian church in existence in Macedonia. And they did this in order to save themselves from being turned into Muslims. After 1870, however, when the Bulgarian church (Exarchate) was introduced in Macedonia, they began to visit it in order to save themselves from the Greeks. After that the Macedonian people, without success, strove to introduce their own church in order to save themselves from the Bulgarians.

The Macedonian people, all throughout history, strove to acquire their own state, church and schools, which again confirms their authentic Macedonian national consciousness as well as their Macedonian national feeling. On June 23, 1958, the Macedonian people finally succeeded in renewing the Ohrid Archbishopric which allowed them to again freely express their church

consciousness and to remove the two century-old great historic injustice perpetrated against them.

Even since they developed ambitions to possess Macedonian lands, the Greeks have professed that Macedonia and the Macedonian people are of Greek character and to prove this they theorized that the entire population in Macedonia, especially the one in Greek occupied Macedonia, regardless of whether it spoke Macedonian, Vlach, etc., was all Greek because those people who spoke the Slavic language were Greeks who had “lost their mother tongue”. However, these allegations have no scientific basis. According to Hariton Korizis, “The (Macedonian) dialect was poor and simple and that is why the Greeks started using it to communicate among themselves instead of using the more difficult rich Greek language.” (Hariton Korizis, Makedonia ghi eliniki, Athina, 1950, p. 68.) Because of this “the Greeks in Macedonia don’t always speak Greek and speak in this easier Macedonian dialect… because it’s easier.” (A. Pantutidis, Istoriki ke ehnologiki meleti tu Valkaniki zitimatos, p. 20, s. a., s. 1.)

There are examples in history where languages have disappeared over time. One such example is the Irish language. After many years of occupation by the English, the Irish gradually lost their language and accepted English as their mother tongue. A similar phenomenon took place during the period of symbiosis between the Dacians and the Romans, resulting in the formation of today’s Romanian people and the Romanian language. In parallel with the formation of the new people and their new language, this assimilation resulted in the disappearance of the less culturally developed people and language. The more affluent a people are, having a more developed material and spiritual side, the more they impose their mark on lesser developed people. This is a natural development which could be greatly resisted or not resisted at all, but it is inevitable. The people in Greek occupied Macedonia were no exception. So, if the so-called “Greek people” forgot their “Greek language” in the past and adopted the Slavic (Macedonian) language, as these Greeks claim, then it means that the Slavic language was much more robust, more developed and superior to the Greek one.

In their attempt to prove the Bulgarian, Serbian or Greek character of Macedonia, the Bulgarian authors (removing their claims that the Macedonian language is Bulgarian) came closest to the historical truth with their more authentic statistics. The following table is based on the real language spoken in the home by the family, in Greek occupied Macedonia, on the eve of the Balkan wars:

Ethnicity

Macedonians Turks Greeks Jews Vlachs Roma Albanians (Tosks) Others

Total

Number %

370,371 35.20 274,052 26.05 236,755 22.50 68,206 6.49 44,414 4.22 25,302 2.40 15,108 1.43 18,019 1.71

1,052,227 100

The above table represents the national structure of the population in Greek occupied Macedonia. Also included in the Macedonian population are the Macedonian Muslims who, according to their origin and the language they spoke, belong to the Macedonian nation. In the period from 1878 to 1913 the Macedonian population had sustained many losses due to the many conflicts taking place.

Following the 1912, 1913 Balkan Wars, the Greek state began to actively implement a policy to alter the ethnic composition of the population in Greek occupied Macedonia. It strove to remove the traditional ethnic Macedonian reality and replace it with a new fabricated Greek reality.