Front Matter - Part 01

Prespa in Flames and Smoke

By Kosta Mundushev (Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

Prespa in Flames and Smoke

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March 28, 2017

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In place of a preface

The book “Prespa in flames and smoke” is the work of many years of effort and a wish to write something that, in a way, would be a monographic display of a portion of Prespa, otherwise known as Lower Prespa, and now most of it being part of Greece. Kosta Mundushev, author of this book, was born in this part of Prespa, in the village Rabi. His great love for his homeland is what gave him the energy to write this short history of Lower Prespa and to highlight its natural, geographic and ethnic lines as an integral part of the Prespa Valley.

In addition to his love for his homeland, Kosta Mundushev has carried and is carrying with him a desire to say something about the difficult history in this part of Prespa, about the struggles and suffering of the Macedonian people in this region during the many centuries of occupation and oppression and with their desire for freedom unfulfilled. He wants to say something about the many bitter, imposed disappointments and suffering that each individual has experienced with their hopes and dreams being shattered…

Kosta Mundushev has written about one part of Prespa, the south part, the occupied part of partitioned Prespa. But Prespa is larger and must not be seen as simply partitioned. The reader should know that only part of Prespa’s history is presented here. However, we have made some effort to also provide the reader with, a small part, of all of Prespa’s history, its legends and its reality.

The Prespa valley is divided into two parts; Gorna Prespa and Dolna Prespa. Today Gorna Prespa, a small part of Dolna Prespa and most of Lake Prespa belong to the municipality of Resen and are part of the Republic of Macedonia. Dolna Prespa and the lower part of Lake Prespa, as well as Lake Mala Prespa are occupied components, occupied by Greece and Albania. This tragic situation resulted from the invasion, occupation and division of Macedonia executed after the Balkan Wars and again after the First World War.

From the east, north and west Prespa is surrounded by the Prespa mountain ranges called Baba, with Pelister as it peak, Bigla ,with Tsrni and Golovrv as its peaks, and ending at Mount Galichitsa. The

Southern part of Prespa starts at Lake Prespa, also called Lake Golema Prepa, and covers Lake Mala Prespa.

The part of Prespa encompassed by Resen, along with the plain around the villages Tsarev Dvor, Drmeni and Bela Tsrkva, is the most fertile part of this valley.

People from Prespa, especially from Resen, were among the first pechalbari (migrant workers) known to venture outside of their own town to seek employment. During the 19th and early 20th century many even drifted out overseas as far as America and Australia to seek migrant work. Some sought work closer in places like Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey (Istanbul), France and other places in Europe.

The Western Macedonian road corridor intersects with the Southern Macedonian and Epirus road corridors in Resen near an area called Makazi. These routes were widely used by caravans before the Balkan Wars. Now these roadways, covered with asphalt, stretching beautifully along the lake connect the tourist areas and the villages Asamati, Pretor and Krani on the east side, and Sirhan, Oteshevo, Tsarina and Steni, on the west side.

We also have remnants of the ancient Via Egnatia corridor, built during Roman times, still running through the Prespa valley.

It is said that part of the Brsiak tribe settled in Prespa during the seventh century AD.

During the Ottoman occupation Turkish people were brought to Resen to settle the fertile countryside south of it. During the 18th century, Ottoman feudal lords of Albanian descent began bringing Albanian colonists from elsewhere and settled them in Resen Region.

Resen, as an urban settlement, began to accelerate and grew at the beginning of the 19th century.

The town Prespa was well known during King Samoil’s time. It was located near Prespa Lake and served as the capital for the medieval

Macedonian state. In the 10th and 11th century, during Samoil, Gavril Radomir and Iovan Vladislav’s reign, the first capital of the first medieval Macedonian state was Prespa. The town Prespa was also the seat of the highest ecclesiastical religious leader in Samoil’s Kingdom, the Archbishop of the autocephalous Macedonian church, whose headquarters was later moved to Ohrid.

The tombstone belonging to Samoil’s parents, one of the oldest monuments dating back to 993 AD containing inscriptions in the Macedonian (Cyrillic) language, was found in Dolna Prespa. Prespa has many other such rich medieval cultural and historic monuments. There is also the church built in 1191 AD located near the village Kurbinovo, as well as the Slivnitsa monastery.

Prespa belongs in the part of Macedonia where resistance against Ottoman oppression and feudal exploitation began earlier than in other parts of Macedonia. Dr. Hristo Tatarchev from Resen was among the founders and President of TMORO (Secret Macedonian Liberation Revolutionary Organization). Resen, led by Voivoda (rebel leader) Slaveiko Arsov, was among the most prepared regions to take part in the Ilinden Uprising. There were both major and minor battles taking place in Prespa between the rebels and the Ottoman army. When the uprising was suppressed the Bashibuzuks (Muslim armed civilians) and Ottoman army took cruel revenge against the Macedonian population which included mass massacres. Many of the villages were also burned down and people were left homeless. The main preoccupation of the population in the now tattered Prespa, between the two world wars, was agriculture and livestock. Some people, however, continued to seek their fortunes as pechalbari (migrant workers). Seeds of a labour movement first began to appear in Gorna Prespa, especially in 1920, when the majority of the people in the villages voted overwhelmingly for communist candidates. Many people from Prespa Region, at the call of the CPY (Communist Party of Yugoslavia), also volunteered to go and fight in the Spanish Civil War in the struggle against Franco’s fascist regime.

Communist party organizations began to appear in Prespa around 1936 and especially after 1938. Among the most deserving people

for spreading progressive ideas was the poet and student Mite Bogoevski.

Prespa suffered further fragmentations during the Nazi occupation. The part of Prespa located north of the town Resen was placed under Bulgarian fascist occupation while sections to the south of Resen were placed under Italian fascist occupation, who then connected this part of Prespa to so-called Greater Albania where the Albanian fascists aided the Italian occupiers.

The communists in Prespa, as early as 1941, became organized and began preparations to drive out the fascists. The first partisan groups were formed in Prespa in 1942. On July 6, 1942 the Bitola-Prespa detachment “Dame Gruev” was formed. Also parallel with that bodies of a people’s government were formed.

On August 2, 1943 the famous “Prespa Council” was formed in the village Oteshevo, which was attended by members of the CPM Central Committee and the NOV and POM Headquarters, whose decisions had enormous importance for increasing the partisan movement in Macedonia.

A large number of people from Prespa joined the units fighting in the National Liberation War in Macedonia. Resen and Prespa were freed from the occupiers on September 11, 1944.

Serving in the NOV partisan units in the upper part of Prespa were 1902 fighters from Prespa alone, from whom 29 were memorialized in the “Partisan Memorial - 1941”. The poet Mite Bogoevski, who was involved in the Prespa Uprising, is a national hero. In their struggle to free their homeland, 128 people from Prespa sacrificed their lives. The following people from Prespa will remain in Macedonia’s history as prominent partisan leaders and commanders; Naume Veslievski-Ofcharot, Mite Trpovski-Voivodata, Tsvetko Uzunovski-Abas and many others.

In the past 44 years, after being freed from the occupiers, the people from Resen Region experienced unprecedented historic progress in all spheres of social, economic and cultural life. The stormy progress, especially in the last twenty years or so, had greatly

changed Prespa’s character. When the old pechalbari (migrant workers) returned home after some years of absence, they simply could not recognize their homeland from the progress it had undergone. They were filled with tears of joy and had nothing more to say than warm words of praise for what they found.

In contrast to the Resen side of Prespa, the southern part of Prespa remained torn up and still occupied by foreign rulers, now under Greece and Albania. The Macedonian people from this part of Prespa, along with the other parts of Greek occupied Macedonia, took a very active role in the Anti-Fascist War. According to historian and journalist Dr. Risto Kiriazovski, “more than 25,000 Macedonians fought in the ranks of ELAS and its reserves, and more than 14,000 Macedonian fighters fought in the ranks of DAG, and about 6,000 more in its auxiliary services, representing more than a third of the total combat forces in DAG. Also, from about the 58,000 casualties received during the Greek Civil War, about 25,000 were Macedonians. If we consider the ratio of the total Macedonian and Greek populations, we can easily see that the Macedonian contribution in this common Greek-Macedonian struggle was staggering. A large part of that population was from Dolna Prespa, now located in Greek occupied Macedonia. Unfortunately, in spite of all the great sacrifices made by the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia, they still failed in their aspirations for national and social liberation.

Kosta Mundushev’s book, by describing Dolna Prespa’s experience, in a way, has highlighted the entire Macedonian people’s struggle, aspirations and suffering in Greek occupied Macedonia.

We wish the author well and congratulate him for his contribution to the history of the whole of Prespa and for making it available through this book to all the readers and to all the people of Prespa, wherever they may live.

The author and the publisher of this book would like to say that this book, by no means fully covers the history of Dolna Prespa. And this is why the author has chosen to entitle his work “Prespa in flames and smoke”. This means that this story is mostly a view of his own experience and that of his generation, but not everything.

There is a lot more to Prespa’s history and to Macedonia in general than what has been said here. Let that be well understood.

The Publisher and the Editorial Board, through the words written here, would like to take the opportunity to express their gratitude to all those who helped shape this book. Included among them are the Republican Community for Scientific Research in Skopje, the Republican Community of Culture, Tabak Macedonia – Skopje, and the business organizations of Resen municipality.

Giorgi Tankovski and Traiko Ognenovski

Mala Prespa: division, WW I and displacement

Prespa after Macedonia’s partition

The First Balkan War and Macedonia’s Division

The First Balkan War was about to expire. The Serbian army was in Bitola, the Greek army was just entering Lerin. Then, on October 27, 1912, Serbian cannon shells began to fall on Giavato, a major transfer point for the fleeing Ottoman army withdrawing from Bitola to Albania.

The road from Nakolets to R’bi was teeming with fleeing Ottoman soldiers, as was the sandy road going around the two lakes and heading for Perovo Kula and Albania. As the Giatovo transition road became occupied by Serbian troops, the Ottomans were forced to retreat through the Braichino-German crossing. A battle broke out in Mocherta, near German, between the fleeing Ottomans and the Serbian invaders. Two Serbian soldiers were killed and buried on site. Their graves were preserved. One of them was named Stefan Dobrovoletsot (the volunteer).

As the Ottoman army retreated from Bitola and Resen it left behind destruction and desolation, and victimized the Prespa civilian population. The Ottoman soldiers gathered all the cattle and sheep and everything else they could carry from the villages and violently took them away. They exercised robbery and violence at every opportunity.

On October 19, 1912 the Serbian army took all of Prespa up to the Kaludieritsa hill at Preval at the entrance of Prespa, above the villages Orovnik, Rudari and P’pli. Several days later the Greek army arrived at the same line. And with this, the Macedonian people’s fate was sealed. To this day the region remains under alien rule.

On October 28, 1912 a Greek army regiment invaded Lerin. The next day the Serbian army also invaded Lerin.

The three Balkan countries, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, drove the Ottomans out of Macedonia and divided it into three parts and later into four, with Albania taking a small piece. In the early months of

the First Balkan War, Mala Prespa was under Serbian control with Preval as the provisional border between Greece and Serbia.

The six-hundred-year-old Ottoman occupation of the Balkans left many shadows of wrong doing and many victims. Prespa was no exception. The Ottoman Muslims forcibly abducted young Christian women and seized properties from the indigenous Macedonian population. After the Ottoman army left, what little of the Muslim population that remained in Prespa was mostly Albanian. The remaining Muslims became frightened and thought that the Macedonian people would take revenge but that did not happen because taking revenge was not in the nature of the Macedonian people.

In the fall of 1913 the Greek-Serbian border was moved to Markova Noga. The Serbian army withdrew from eighteen villages and they fell under Greek administration. After that the Greek army occupied this part of Prespa and Prespa itself was partitioned into two parts. One part was taken by Serbia and the other part, with 32 villages, was taken by Greece. Later in 1923, 14 villages located on the southwest part of Prespa, held by Serbia since 1912, were given to Albania. Included among the Prespa villages given to Albania were Globochani with 320 residents, Gorna Goritsa with 136 residents, Dolna Goritsa with 210 residents, Tuminets, Tserie, Stenie, and Shulin with 70 residents, Pustets with 463 residents, Leska with 103 residents, Zrnosko with 100 residents, Konsko, Rakitsko, Zagradets and Shuets. These were villages that belonged to the Lerin Region composition.

After Prespa was partitioned and annexed by Greece, Serbia and Albania, borders were erected and Prespa was broken into three pieces. The part of Prespa annexed by Greece broke ties with all the villages annexed by Serbia. In other words, German now occupied by Greece, a village which, since Ottoman times, was the administration centre for the region broke contact with the villages Slivnitsa Arvati, Kranie, Shtrbovo Braichino Liuboino, Nakolets and Dolno Dupeni, as well as some other Mala Prespa villages which were now occupied by Serbia. Families were permanently divided as a result of these imposed borders.

The people of Prespa from the eighteen villages, that were annexed by Greece, suffered in isolation being cut off from their families until the big catastrophe in 1949, when the entire Macedonian population in Greek occupied Prespa was forced to leave its homeland en masse. The daily pressure and terror tactics the Greeks exerted on the Macedonian people in Mala Prespa, since 1912, continued to the day they left and continues to this day for those who chose to stay.

The Greeks, now conquerors of part of Macedonia, stopped their advance at Markova Noga where they placed their solid border with a 2 kilometre wide population free zone. No one was allowed to enter the 2 kilometre wide border zone. The Greek ruling circles knew that the population in their newly-conquered Macedonian territory was Macedonian. They also knew that the same Macedonian people lived on the other side of the border; that is why the border had to be solid so that no one could cross it. This, of course, would make it easier for the Greeks to assimilate the Macedonian people in its occupied territory. And as soon as the Greeks consolidated their power over the Macedonian territory, they began their planned assimilation. Also as soon as the Greeks shut the borders tight, they began to expel all Macedonians who they were unable to assimilate. Those Macedonians who refused to be assimilated into the Greek fold were expelled to Bulgaria and Serbia. As part of the assimilating tactics, liturgy in the Macedonian language in the churches was banned and replaced with Greek. Any Macedonian priest who refused to conduct liturgy in the Greek language was expelled and replaced with a Greek priest. The expelled priests were exiled from their homeland. Teachers were also sent to the villages to teach the Greek language. All the icons in the churches and monasteries, which had Macedonian inscriptions written on them, were either replaced with icons with Greek inscriptions or were defaced and painted over with Greek letters. All painted murals on walls that had Macedonian writing were scratched or painted over. Macedonian inscriptions on grave markers were also defaced or removed and the markers destroyed.

World War I

Prespa became a battleground during World War I, which lasted from 1914 to 1919, during which time the opposing armies were testing their strength. A large front opened up in Prespa when the Bulgarian and German armies reached the current Greek-Serbian border in Markova Noga and occupied the positions from Goritsa Hill, Sveti Ilia and Slivie over the villages R’bi and German, to Mount Baltan. Here they dug trenches and made a strong defensive line. The allied armies, composed of Frenchmen, Serbians, Russians, and Greeks, came to Prespa later and took positions at Pechkoets and Leskata Hills over the villages Medovo, R’bi and German. These three villages were located between the two fronts and were fired upon by both sides as battles raged on. When the Bulgarian and German armies arrived, the Greek border guard retreated from Mala Prespa. In fact, the entire Greek administration including the Greek teachers and priests retreated from Prespa and fled south to Greece. The Macedonian language once again became the liturgy of choice in Prespa. The moment the Bulgarian army arrived in Prespa, Bulgarian soldiers began to forcibly confiscate sheep, goats and large parts of cattle herds.

According to testimonies from some of the oldest residents in R’bi, Tsar Samoil’s tombstone was buried inside the wall at the entrance of the “Sveti Iovan Prespanski” monastery. For centuries the tombstone plate was kept in the church altar in the “Prechista” (Purity/Virgin) Church in R’bi. With the restoration of the monastery, in 1870, villagers from R’bi took the tombstone and inserted it as part of the monastery’s wall. Tsar Samoil was a true legend for the people of Prespa. Then on Sveti Iovan’s day, the people of Prespa gathered at the monastery and, while celebrating Sveti Iovan’s day, also paid homage to their true legend. Unfortunately soldiers from the Bulgarian army stationed on the same hill discovered the tombstone plate and took it. They also took other relics from Samoil’s time, including those kept in the “Sveti German” church in the village German, and in the “Prechista” church in R’bi. They loaded the stone relics onto a truck and transported them to Bulgaria.

Because it was an important holiday, many people from the Prespa villages attended the Sveti Ail (St. Achilles) celebration held in the Sveti Ail Church right on the island. The 1917 celebration was no exception except that across the lake the French and Serbian armies had their artillery batteries set up on Graishta Hill. When the French and Serbian soldiers saw crowds gathering at the Sveti Ail church, they decided to use them as “target practice” and fired their cannons for almost half an hour until the church collapsed. Many houses on the island were also hit and destroyed and many of the people celebrating were left dead and wounded. Later this crime was justified by alleging that Bulgarian soldiers had landed on the island and that the French and Serbian artilleries were targeting the Bulgarians. But the Bulgarians could not have landed on the island because the bridge and the passage at Perovo were held by the French and Serbian armies. The people of Prespa viewed this murderous act as intentional.

On many occasions the allied armies forcibly took men from the Prespa villages and put them to work transporting military equipment and food to their military camps. Some men were held for several months. A group of men was taken and forced to work crushing stones for road construction. This group worked together with a number of disarmed Russian soldiers. The best fields in Prespa Valley were confiscated and planted with vegetables to feed the armies. The French army even had troops from their colonies, mainly from Africa. Among them were also those who misbehaved and deliberately attacked people, especially women. These degenerates often tried to force themselves onto the women and rape them. The population of Prespa was forced to bear and endure all this while the allied armies were preparing to attack the Bulgarian and German armies. The Headquarters that operated this front made a decision to evacuate the villages German, R’bi and Medovo and overnight moved the villagers to the villages Zhelevo and Oshchima on the other side of Prespa, where they remained for more than two months. In the meantime, after several attacks, the allies finally succeeded in driving out the enemy from these positions and moved the front to the hills above Krania and Mount Pelister. When the people who were evacuated returned back to their villages, they found their homes looted. There was a regiment of Russian troops headquartered in R’bi that was also fighting at this front. But after

the October Revolution in Russia, in October 1917, these soldiers were disarmed and detained as prisoners. They were forced to do hard labour building roads in the Prespa hills and mountains leading to the fronts.

Many soldiers from both sides were killed in Prespa. The war also brought great poverty to the people of Prespa as well as many diseases. When the war ended it left behind an epidemic of the Spanish flu, which killed part of the population. While the epidemic lasted, an average of 2 to 3 people from each village died every day. When the war ended the old borders that divided Prespa before the war were again erected with some modifications. Serbia lost 18 villages in this part of Prespa. They were given to Greece. How these people faired under Greek rule after that, only time will tell.

With its division in 1913, Prespa lost one master, the Ottomans, and acquired two new masters, the Greeks and Serbians. But then in 1924 it acquired a third master, the Albanians. The people of Prespa who had lived together for many centuries, and together shared their misery under very difficult conditions which the Ottomans forced on them such as slavery, Islam, confiscation of properties, and so on. However, the Macedonian Christians persisted. Many of them became victims of aggression but fought back to preserve their faith, their culture and their nation. Now, on top of all those things, the Greeks tried to rob them of their entire Macedonian identity by forcing them to become Greeks. When the Greeks came to Mala Prespa they banned the Macedonian language from the churches and forced the Greek language on the people, even in liturgy. After that the Greeks brought Greek teachers to the Macedonian villages to teach the people Greek. The Greeks introduced a “military draft” and collected all the younger men up to age 25 and sent them to the army to learn to speak Greek. The Greeks even lay barbed along the newly installed Greek-Serbian border that separated the newly acquired villages. It took over a year before relations between the two sides improved and the people in Prespa were allowed to visit their families. For over a year family members from the one side of the fence, with clenched hearts and tears in their eyes, stared at family members on the other side, not wanting to be separated. The Greeks introduced schools for children over the age of three, with special classes for learning the Greek language. The Greeks took

strong measures against those parents whose children did not attend school regularly or did not wear the carefully chosen Greek school uniforms recommended by the Greek administration.

The Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) and exchange of populations

Delighted with the success in winning Macedonian territory, the Greek ruling circles could not wait to expand their state with ambitions at extending it towards Asia Minor by declaring war on Turkey. With their declaration of war the Greeks began a general mobilization, especially in their newly acquired Macedonian territories. About 40 soldiers from Mala Prespa alone were mobilized and sent to fight in Asia Minor with many never returning. There were also many wounded and maimed, made victims by Greek chauvinistic aspirations for a Greater Greece.

This war was a frightful and ghastly experience for many of the Mala Prespa soldiers who survived it. During their withdrawal from Turkey, when they were loaded onto Greek ships along with their military equipment to leave the Turkish coast, many who were left behind were slaughtered by the Turkish army. And how were these Macedonian fighters, who participated in the Greek war and in other subsequent Greek national liberation struggles, rewarded? We will see in subsequent chapters in this book.

When the war was over Greece and Turkey agreed to exchange populations. Greece attacked Turkey to allegedly “save” the Greek population living in Asia Minor and that was why these population exchanges were mandatory. But instead of exchanging Turks for Greeks, the two sides ended up exchanging Muslims for Christians since Greeks never existed in Turkey. While Turkey accepted the Macedonian Muslims that Greece wanted to get rid of, Greece had to accept the Christian Turks for whom it attacked Turkey to save. In their mandatory population exchanges Greece received one and a half million colonists and settlers, of whom more than 600,000 it settled in Greek occupied Macedonia. Later those Macedonians the Greeks could not easily assimilate were evicted to Serbia and Bulgaria. Identified as candidates for eviction in Mala Prespa were Nikola Kazako, Mitre Baliov and Gligor Baliov, but the Greeks

failed to evict them. This was not like in other parts of Macedonia where, due to the great terror the Greeks perpetrated against the Macedonian people, many fled. The Muslims, mostly Albanian families, living in Prespa who refused to leave in the past at any cost were forced to leave under this agreement. Their properties and houses were given to the Asia Minor colonists and settlers. Many of the Asia Minor colonists and settlers were settled in Mala Prespa in the various villages. They were settled in the villages Vineni, P’pli, German, Shaovtsi and R’bi. The settlers, outside of speaking Turkish, also spoke a language that was distorted and incomprehensible to the Greeks.

Forced assimilation imposed on the Macedonians

The Turkish Christian settlers from Asia Minor soon became known as “Prosfigi” to the Macedonian people. The Greeks referred to the settlers as “guardians of the dangers from the north” and give them unlimited rights. They were even allowed to carry weapons which they proudly carried to the fields where they worked. The Macedonian residents of Prespa were not surprised because they had become accustomed and for years had watched the Turks carry rifles and daggers on their bodies. They used their weapons to threaten the Macedonian people, to take the water rights from them when watering the fields, to grab Macedonian girls working in the field or walking on the road, to kill people they did not like, and so on. As much as they could tolerate, the Macedonian people could not always tolerate every abuse perpetrated against them. In 1892 when Alia, a Muslim, tried to grab Stefana Bakushova, a Christian from the village R’bi, her brothers Petre and Mitre killed him and return their sister to their home after which they fled to Anatolia. They hid there for years. Mitre died and Petre married a Meshtanka woman and in 1924, as a Christian, used the agreement between Greece and Turkey and, with his two sons Risto and Stefan, returned to his village R’bi.

During and after the Greco-Turkish war, life in Mala Prespa was very difficult because most of the men who did the heavy work at home were taken to the front, and there were very few capable hands left to till the soil. After the war was over most of the men went to work abroad to various countries, while mostly women remained in

the villages to look after the households as well as doing the heavy labour required in the fields.

When the Greeks came to Macedonia and Mala Prespa they appointed Greek people to government service positions. The Prespa peasants were never given the chance to manage their own affairs. All the “conquerors” who came to Macedonia and Prespa forced the Macedonian people to do the heavy labour jobs because all they cared about was their own profiteering.

During this period the Greek government had not yet banned the Macedonian language and Macedonians spoke Macedonian at home and still sang Macedonian songs, including revolutionary songs about the Ilinden Uprising. But if one needed any work done in the Greek institutions they needed to speak Greek.

In 1926, by special law issued by the Greek government, all Macedonian people’s names as well as village, town, city, river, lake and mountain names were changed from Macedonian to Greek.

Here are some of the names changed from Macedonian to Greek

Macedonia

Sekula Stoiche Kote Velian

Greek

Sterios Ianis Kostas Paskalis

Macedonian

Vakushov Bechkov Popovski Petkov

Greek

Vakitsidis Vecikopoulos Papadopoulos Paraskevopoulos

Macedonian names of villages renamed into Greek

Macedonia Greek Macedonian Greek

German Agios Germanos R’bi Medovo Milionas Strkovo Rudari Kalitea P’pli Orovnik Karies Besfina Bukovik Oksii Lok Drenovo Kranies Trnava Grazhdeno Vrondero Orovo

Lemos Plati Lefkona Sfika Mikrolimni Angatoto Piksos

DR’bitishta Nivitsi

Daseri Vineni Psarades Ail

Pili Agios Ahileos

Residents in

Ail Besfina Bukoik Vineni Grazhdeno German Drenovo DR’bitishta Lok Medovo Nivitsi Orovnik Orovo P’pli R’bi Rudari Strkovo Trnaa Total

1913 1920 1940

92 64 100 431 348 324 151 131 141 - - 207 437 380 507 1,621 1,542 2,170 124 115 150 50 34 75 203 202 316 130 151 209 674 589 770 222 244 162 463 373 489 490 492 422 477 555 738 266 337 379 170 215 268 87 65 84 5988 6837 7517

Many things changed at a grass roots level in Mala Prespa. The names of the people, the names of the villages, the names of churches and monasteries, as well as the names of mountains and rivers… They were all given Greek names. The Greek language and every other subject was taught in Greek in the schools. The language of liturgy in the churches was also Greek. Separate classes were created for children ages 3 to 6 so they could learn the Greek language. They were very closely monitored so that they would learn the Greek language at a young age. Schools and classes for the young children were opened in all the Mala Prespa villages, even in those villages where the number of students was quite small, even with less than 10 students. In contrast, there were villages in the south part of Greece, in Greece proper, where they had a greater number of students but had no teachers for them.

The students in all the Greek schools in Greek occupied Macedonia were not allowed to speak Macedonian and their teachers were responsible to make sure of that. The students were even forbidden to speak Macedonian with their parents. In 1925, however, as obligated by the August 10, 1920 Sevres Agreement, a special committee in Athens prepared a Macedonian language primer printed in the Latin alphabet. This was intended for the Macedonian children, in Greek occupied Macedonia, to learn Macedonian. The primer, entitled “Abecedar”, was published in Athens but was never introduced into the schools for which it was intended.

In the elementary school in R’bi, which I personally attended in the years 1924 to 1930, our teachers would not allow us to speak Macedonian, not even at home with our parents. They thought that if the children spoke Greek at home the parents too would learn Greek. Our village R’bi was divided into two neighbourhoods, upper and lower, which were divided by the German River and by a water ditch located about one hundred metres from the river. The ditch had a small bridge over it which was the only crossing point to the lower R’bi neighbourhood and the school. The border for the students from the upper neighbourhood, beyond which they could speak Macedonian, was the little bridge over the ditch. As soon as they crossed the little bridge, returning from school, they felt safe to speak Macedonian. Between the little bridge over the ditch and the big bridge over the German River there were military barracks. One day, while returning from school, we began speaking Macedonian as soon as we crossed the little bridge. Then I heard one of the officers ordering us to stop. When we did he scolded us and reported us to our teacher. All of us who were in that group were beaten. After that we moved our border for speaking Macedonian to beyond the barracks.

In 1936, with the Metaxas dictatorship coming to power, the Macedonian language was outright banned. Anyone caught speaking Macedonian was severely punished. But, in spite of the ban and the heavy penalties imposed, the Macedonian people in Mala Prespa continued to speak Macedonian in secret.

The villages German, R’bi, P’pli, Lok and Orovo were first to be hit by Greek assimilation practices because these villages harboured

Greek public order services. German, the administrative centre for all of Dolna Prespa from Ottoman times, now became the administrative centre for Mala Prespa. German was one of the bigger villages in Prespa Region with 2,170 inhabitants and besides being the local Greek ministry for public order it also housed the border military district, the court for Mala Prespa, the Directorate of Forestry and other Greek administrative services. Due to the large number of public and administrative services and Greeks, the Macedonian residents in this village were subjected to all sorts of harassments.

The government officials sent to this region from the southern part of Greece were advised that the population living here was not Greek. They were told that the people living here were without a “culture” and were capable of “eating a person alive”. They were told that these people were illiterate and semi-literate at best. They were told that these people had never seen any part of the outside world and did not know if anyone else outside of their world existed. They were told that these people were incapable of holding a job in public office or in the government. They were also told that these people would believe everything they were told. And finally they were told that they were sent here to “manage the population”.

From 1926 to 1930, a person named Dzhulavis was appointed judge in the German District Court. Dzhulavis came to Mala Prespa armed to the teeth and never left his home in German or walked the streets alone. He was always accompanied by police, had a rifle and was always ready to shoot. He kept his rifle hanging by the door in his room where he lived.

Mala Prespa - Rapid economic development and stiff resistance against assimilation

From 1926 to 1930 Mala Prespa experienced growth especially in the construction of new houses. The large number of pechalbari (migrant workers) who, after the Greco-Turkish War, traveled abroad to seek employment began to send back large sums of money as well as bring back their earning when they returned to their homes. Most of this money was invested in building new homes, which in time changed the face of their communities. With this

money people were also able to purchase meat, cheese, beans and wheat products, foods that were in high demand because Greece, due to its passive approach, was experiencing shortages. In addition to the increase in income and production, Mala Prespa also experienced population growth.

Following in the old Macedonian tradition, the money brought back from pechalba was also invested in posh weddings, celebrations and fairs that sometimes lasted several days. On May 12th, during the “Germavden” (German day) celebration, the number of weddings held on that one day numbered as high as 25. As many as 8 weddings were held in Nivitsi during the “Bogoroditsa” (Virgin Mary) celebration. A large celebration was put on during “Iovanden” in Goritsa in R’bi at the “Sveti Iovan Prespanski” monastery, which lasted for several days. Similar celebrations were held in other villages because every village had its own patron saint and celebrated its own day. The people from Mala Prespa gathered together and attended each other’s celebrations in massive numbers. They sang, danced and rejoiced. Macedonians songs were sung and played by the local bands and Macedonian dances were put on during all of these joyful holiday celebrations.

The few government officials who were sent to Mala Prespa to “manage the population” very quickly adapted to the Macedonian people and to their customs. Some even sang Macedonian songs together with the Macedonians. The Asia Minor Turkish Christian colonists and settlers did not participate in these Macedonian events mainly because their customs were completely different, not only from the Macedonian but also from the Greek customs. They had their own distinct customs and always stayed away. After living for several years among the Macedonian people in Mala Prespa, German judge Dzhilavis became closely acquainted with the Macedonian culture and, one day, as he was looking at the amount, varieties and quality of food resting on the tables at a wedding, spread his arms wide open and said: “God, what is this, is this the horrible nation that we should be afraid of and defend ourselves from with guns?” Later he was heard saying: “The way things are going today, in place of us making Greeks out of these Macedonians, they are making Macedonians out of us. We now speak their language, we are accepting their customs and we sing

their songs with them.” He then handed his rifle to Stefan Chetelev from German, who was a hunter and told him: “Take it and kill bears with it, I have no use for it, I have no one to defend myself from, these people are not killers…”

The people who left their homes and went to seek their fortunes around the world never lost their love for their people, traditions and for their homeland, even after several years of absence. In fact their love for their people and homeland became even stronger and many organized themselves in Macedonian organizations and freely expressed their resentment against the conquerors of their country. When they returned back home, many had gained the knowledge and experience they needed to resist the new conqueror’s gendarmes, government officials and managers, as well as the Asia Minor colonists, who suppressed the local Macedonian population.

A communist Vlach named Kiriakopoulos from the village Psoderi, Lerin Region, was elected MP for the German District in Mala Prespa during the 1926 parliamentary elections in Greece. Ten village children from Mala Prespa were sent to study in the secondary schools in Lerin and other places. They had progressive tendencies with a strong desire to learn more about the Macedonian people and were active in the progressive movement. Included among them was my own brother Vancho Mundushev who attended the school for teachers in Lerin and who was arrested and imprisoned for being a communist. After he finished his schooling he was not able to get a job as a teacher and was forced to work in agriculture. The same thing happened to Kire Grezhlov from German, who completed his education in agriculture. All of the captives were severely tortured. Vancho died in 1937 during Metaxas’s dictatorship.

In 1930 a large school was built in the village German, part of which was envisioned to become a secondary school (gymnasium). Unfortunately the Greek government “managers” in Lerin, having experience with the Macedonian youths who studied there, thought it would be a mistake to allow such a high school to function in Mala Prespa, even though it had all the means and qualifications. So the school in German was left to function as a primary school only.

Declaring a dictatorship in Greece

On August 4, 1936 Ioannis Metaxas, a man of fascist upbringing, declared Greece a dictatorship. With his arrival to power the Macedonian situation in Greek occupied Macedonia took a turn from bad to worse. The new Metaxas government installed its own people in Lerin and Mala Prespa. These people were cruel and brutally harassed and persecuted those people with Macedonian feelings and those who hesitated to obey them. There were many cases where Macedonians were imprisoned, or given salted herring to eat and no water to drink, or castor oil to drink, just because they were caught speaking Macedonian.

In 1937 the Metaxas government banned the Macedonian language and made it illegal to speak. In October 1937 Ioannis Tsaksiras, president of the Lerin and Kostur Districts, confidant of the then government, and a personal friend of Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas, made every effort and used every method of torture possible to assimilate the Macedonian population into the Greek fold. He was infamous for his misdeeds and for issuing orders to teach the Macedonian people the Greek language by force. He started evening schools in Mala Prespa and forced all men and women over the age of 25 to attend classes. This whole situation was bizarre and difficult to understand but I will do my best to explain it.

Every evening after the regular classes were over, a small bell was used to summon the adults to attend evening classes. Adult men and women, with notebooks under their arms, walked to the school. The women, mothers of two or three very young children, some suckling babies, had to leave their children home crying because they had not seen their mothers all day. These same women, who worked all day in the fields and who cooked a meal for their families in the evening, were now expected to drop everything, leave their crying children behind and run to school to learn Greek. Sometimes the mothers took their crying children with them… as far as the school yard… where the gendarmes snatched them from their arms, threatened to beat the women and yelled profanities at them for bringing their children with them. The older children who ran after their mothers were beaten back by the gendarmes and chased home. It was even