Chapter XV

Chapter XV

The meeting of the new newspaper editorial board ended three hours before the end of the third day after Christmas, in 1892. Seven Macedonian emigrants decided what the final version of the first issue would be like. Kliment Karagjulev from Ohrid, a highschool student, was one of them. The article Kliment had researched for the past two or three years was finally going to be published as an introduction to the newspaper. It was going to be seen and read by many people. Kliment felt exhausted, not from physical fatigue but from mental fatigue from searching, taking notes and from insomnia. He spontaneously raised his hands and rubbed his eyes, forehead and hair with his palms. Leaning with his elbows on the table, relaxed and lost in thought, he stared at the opposite side of the room between the floor and the beginning of the wall.

Kliment’s article was prefaced with Baron Konstantin Belio’s “Appeal to my Macedonian compatriots”. Young people who admired Kliment and respected his perseverance and hard work were eager to read it. Some years before the newspaper was published, thirty-three students at the Solun Men’s Exarchate Highschool started a revolt. They then took the revolt to the Belgrade Highschool, and from there they brought it back here. Some of those students that revolted then were now teachers. Among them were Damian Gruev and Dimitar Mirchev. All of them became the soul of important events. Having no Macedonian schools, being unable to teach in their own Macedonian language in their enslaved Macedonia, they drifted around being targets for foreign interests. They were also targeted because they had rebelled when they were students. They witnessed evil appetites grow, not only for them, but also for the Macedonian people and for Macedonia. In November 1890, they founded the “Young Macedonian Literary Society”. That word “literary” was a mask for their first goal - struggle for the Macedonian people’s freedom. They

drafted a Rulebook, a Constitution and collected articles and subscriptions for a newspaper.

And, finally here it was. A Macedonian newspaper prefaced with Belio’s appeal to his Macedonian compatriots. Even though Belio had died over half a century ago the words he wrote then were still valid to this day; and beyond. This was because what Belio said wasn’t achieved in the past and was still valid in the present and would be in the future. But, hopefully, the article would remind people of what was important and to have faith in themselves and in their abilities. You’re not lost if you have strong faith, even in the midst of desolation and darkness. Faith might be born through thought, but it’s fed and defended with the heart; and a thought that is bound to the heart is stronger than anything. Kliment Karagjulev tied himself to this part like Belio had some time ago, and what he learned about him, plunged him into the distance, but closer to his world. From what he read, or more precisely from what he learned from Baron Belio, something not well-known, something strongly expressed, was to have pure and sublime feelings for his country and people. This was at a time when even larger nations were not aware of themselves. This was made possible in the high world of Vienna, where Belio devoted himself entirely to his people. And how did Kliment Karagjulev find out about Belio and his deeds?

Well, many students at the Solun Highschool, including Kliment Karagjulev, were inspired by the lectures given by their teacher Grigor Prlichev, a native of Ohrid. Prlichev instilled much knowledge in his students which made him different from other teachers. He spoke and wrote in several languages, and with that he left his mark on the world. His high forehead spoke of a great mind, and his blurred eyes of knowledge and devotion to books. His dry face with a silver beard and a thick moustache left the impression of a sage or venerable father, of whom Ohrid had many. Prlichev taught at the Solun Gymnasium until the Exarchate found out that he had much influence over the Macedonian students. The Exarchate also found out that Prlichev was involved in the student rebellion. So, not to make him a martyr by liquidating him, the Exarchate quietly retired him. In August 1849, when Grigor Prlichev was a student, he applied for a scholarship to Baron Konstantin Belio’s fund. Here is what he told Kliment:

“I made the request for nothing! In place of the fund being for Macedonians, it was turned into a fund for foreigners. About a decade after the man died, the cunning ones took it away from him and from us.”

“He was a smart man and a banker, but did he take precautionary measures to protect the fund?”

“Yes he did, but they did too…! When a fort is attacked the attackers look for weak spots. If there are none outside, they look for them inside.”

“Are you saying the fund was taken over through treason?”

“During the first years, sometime before and sometime after his death, everything was spelled out in his Will; the scholarship was for Macedonians only. But without patronage, when the will was translated, the ‘Philhellene’ Ludwig in Munich replaced the word ‘Macedonians’ with the word ‘Hellenes’…”

Unlike in Istanbul where Christian children were forcibly grabbed and turned into Muslims and janissaries, those in Munich became ‘Hellenes’ voluntarily. Did the scholarship administrators decide the fate of generations?”

“All I can tell you is that my request was rejected by Minister Paikos, a former administrator from the Macedonian Paikov family! You see, the Greek language was the only language that was valued at the time. I was caught up in that Greek-ness too. But in March 1860, when I was awarded first prize for the ‘Serdar’ in Athens, they gave me a silver wreath instead of a gold wreath, and not in public. I noticed that. Later, before they gave me my award, they had found out that I wasn’t Greek.”

“Both Paikov and the others weren’t Greek either, but as you can see they accepted them!”

“You see, the Greeks had a goal in mind. The goal was to use Macedonians to take away the fund from those it was intended for.

Like I said earlier, if you can’t penetrate a fort from the outside you have to find a way to penetrate it from the inside. This wasn’t the only time this had happened to us. The fate of our chair in our Church of Ohrid was also decided this way. You are from Ohrid so you must have heard of the song ‘1762’ sung by the old people. That song was about the fall of our Macedonian Church. I wrote it down and used it in my lectures, so that our future generations wouldn’t forget what happened. That church fortress was taken over by the Greeks with the help of four Macedonian furriers working in Istanbul. They were paid by the Fanar to do this. After they returned to Ohrid, they secretly buried fake money in Archbishop Arsenija’s yard. They then complained to the Ottoman authorities that fake money had been used to purchase goods in their shops. They even told the authorities where to look for the fake money under the guise that someone had seen where it came from. After the authorities found the fake money suspicions began to grow around the archbishop. The four furriers then carried out the next deceit ordered by the cunning Fanar. This time they were asked to create conditions to destabilize the local people. No authority is immune from the people’s will, especially foreign or vassal governments! At that time Selim Pasha was governor of the city. He wasn’t popular with the people so the cunning ones concocted a petition written in Turkish with all kinds of accusations, including Selim wanting to take Istanbul for himself. They then asked the people to sign the petition. Everyone in Ohrid signed the petition unaware that the complaint was not against Selim but against Arsenija. After that, authorities from Istanbul came to Ohrid and abolished our church. Ironically they did it at the request of the people from Ohrid who had signed the petition. And thus in 1767 our Macedonian centuries-old ecclesiastical authority ended. This is what happened. Our people did this to themselves… In suicide there is no murderer, and no one will be looking for a murderer... You also need to know this: When Arsenija found out about the evil the four had committed against our church, he cursed them in front of a large weeping crowd. And soon enough all four died. First they fell into decline and then, one by one, malice beat them down until no one was left. Cobwebs filled their rooms, dark moss grew on their roofs and weeds, grass and shrubs grew all around their houses. Their homes became mute. Ominous dogs and screeching owls paralyzed the silence in the night by barking and hooting. The curse left no peace in those

houses. They remained empty because no one wanted them, not the Macedonians and not the Ottomans, not even for free. This is how those who betrayed the people’s religious fortress ended up. And now we have Macedonians handing over the fund to foreigners, our new fortress for our education and for young people like you. And if we ever build another fortress, it too will be destroyed with more betrayals from our apostates.”

This is what Grigor Prlichev, his teacher, told Kliment Karagjulev. After that he translated some of the baron’s correspondence. Kliment’s compatriots, who studied abroad in Europe, translated more newspaper articles written about the count. But what impressed Kliment the most was the “Appeal” the count had written just before he died. And here it was written in the first issue of the new newspaper.

* * *

The first issue of the new newspaper was published on February 18, 1892. In no time at all a large circulation was raised among the Macedonian immigrants. Following the cover page with the headlines was the preface, which read as follows:

“… ‘Worthless is he who has a better friend than his own homeland…,’ Sophocles.

Vienna, 1838

Appeal to my Macedonian compatriots

It is indeed honourable, the feeling of loving your homeland. This is inevitable for every noble person and necessary for all those who have preserved the elements of honour and who want to live eternally in the words of their descendants, instead of dying altogether the moment they breathe out the atmospheric air, like the animals, and thus become erased from the list of the living, to become forever a burden of the soil. How bright is this truth indeed, yet it isn’t fulfilled by all and therefore it doesn’t impact the feelings in all of us.

We, the rich, because of all that which we have earned in our endeavours, occupying our thoughts with our personal material wealth, we are only striving to multiply our wishes rolling in an eternal illusion and pride, where the endless fantasy had once separated us from moderation wants to delude us in useless and fantastic fortunes, which we have never been able to successfully discover, so we stay behind without being able to taste the moral and constant pleasure of having aided those who are close to us and to our homeland.

In the final minutes of our lives, terrified by our consciousness, we are dying very saddened and our homeland, our sweet mother homeland, is not going to wear black for our death, nor will we be sent off by the prayers of our brothers; our homeland removes us as the progeny that was unfit for its love; we are cast out as foreigners and degenerates with the words: be rid of me, degenerate! And our descendants will judge our ambivalence with the plain words: ‘He was useless while he was alive and stands for judgment in his death too.’ Sad voice! Sad voice! The homeland denounces its children, its brothers, its prayers and the relatives and all capable of speech will give up on uttering any praise…

Baron Konstantin Belio – The Macedonian”

“Fifty four years have passed since the late Baron Kostandin Belio – the Macedonian sent the appeal from Vienna addressed to “My Macedonian compatriots”, in which he spilled his entire soul, heart and thoughts. It is indeed sad that his patriotic advice grounded on eternal principles of truth wasn’t been heard by those who were meant to hear it. Written in the Greek language, only the Greeks could make use of it. But, no one should blame the late Baron for this. In his time our homeland was covered in thick darkness, our people’s language was suffocated and the Greek language was taught in our schools and churches.

Our compatriot reminded us of one of the most sacred duties. And it’s true. What is nobler than to serve your homeland? What is more deserving than to work for your national good on which your personal happiness depends? People are unhappy outside of their homeland because they will remain foreigners even if they are

clothed in gold. People alone without a homeland, without their own people, are nothing… The words of our compatriot are proof of that. Even though he was loaded with treasures and tributes that earned him honours and a barony in the throne of Austria, it was still insufficient for our compatriot who felt unfulfilled; he was missing something else… But, even above that insufficiency, he didn’t yell like Solomon: ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!’ He yelled ‘Homeland people!’

That person needed his homeland and his people, and they too needed him; and now our homeland needs us all. All it takes is one look to see how desperately our homeland needs us. Thanks to the latest political events on the peninsula, and Macedonia’s geographical position, all possible foreign elements have gathered there, which delight in their blows to our plans, interests and future, freely and feverishly reinforcing their rivalry that already existed in our country. Only with strong resistance on our part can we be saved from their predatory attacks. But in today’s world, we can do no more; forces are needed, and ours are shattered and crushed. We need to unite and to unite our forces into one general powerful force - a people’s force, if we want to save the future of our homeland. That should be a constant aspiration of every concerned Macedonian, wherever he or she may be. The young Macedonian literary society has that goal in mind. It is obvious that what is proposed is ambitious, and it’s true that ambition surpasses the forces that are now available to our Organization. But at the same time, the Organization believes that it will not be isolated from its patriots for long. To achieve that goal, the Organization has issued Loza.”

This is how the magazine’s foreword ended. Unfortunately this article and others that followed in the coming months infuriated the Bulgarian authorities enough to issue orders to fiercely arrest, torture and kill these Macedonians. The press also hit them hard with repressive measures. Kliment’s brother, Aleksandar Karadjulev, who was editor of “Makedonski Glas” for years, struggling for freedom for the Macedonian people, called the Macedonians to arms with his article “Listen patriots”. He was thrown into a dungeon, tortured and eventually hanged. Many

Macedonians were turned into martyrs in vain just like Aleksandar Karadjulev.

Theodosius Gologanov, the Metropolitan of Skopje, on the other hand, set out to renew the Ohrid Archbishopric. Within a week he received two hundred letters and was visited by several consuls. In June 1891, Gologanov wrote a letter to Archimandrite Dionysius, a compatriot from Strumitsa. This is what he said:

“Our Holy Exarchate, and the Blessed Exarch Joseph, is doing everything possible to convince the poor Macedonian people that he and the exarchate are on their side and that they care for them and their future. They say they want to bring them out of ignorance and from national darkness and to create saintly Bulgarians out of them. My dear brother in Christ let me say that the Holy Exarchate with its churches and schools in Macedonia is doing a miserable disservice to the Macedonian people. The exarchate is erasing everything Macedonian and turning it into Bulgarian. It is taking away our birthright including our Macedonian origin and Macedonian language and turning it into Bulgarian, so that the Bulgarian government can expand its influence and business opportunities into our country which is foreign to them. And what would you call this, dear brother, if not a new slavery - more terrible than the Ottomans... I’ll be honest with you my dear brother in Christ, we Macedonians didn’t have as much trouble with the Ottomans as we do with the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians, who, like vultures circling over a carcass, have set out to plunder our tormented country which has already suffered so much. And I hope you will understand me as I tell you all this; I am going to renew the Ohrid Archbishopric and there is no turning back.”

But when Gologanov was also attacked by the Russian Church for trying to bring back the Ohrid Archbishopric, he turned to Pope Leo XIII. He contacted Augusto Bonetti, head of the Lazarist Mission in Constantinople, who on December 4, 1891 sent a letter of conditions to Rome informing the pope that the Ohrid Archbishopric wanted to enter into a Union with Rome. He also wrote Rome what the Austrian consul had told him that the governments in Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia were against Gologanov; and so were the two churches - the Exarchate and the Patriarchate.

“I believe Your Headship that our esteemed friend, the Honorable Consul, is familiar with the conditions of my expressed desire to ask that I and my entire flock in Macedonia be protected by His Holiness the Pope, for the restoration of our Ohrid Archbishopric, which was illegally abolished nearly 120 years ago. My people want to get rid of the spiritual authority of the Bulgarian Exarchate and the Patriarchate in Constantinople over us, and to have our own church,” said Gologanov to Bonetti at the time.

“Forgive me my Beatitude but His Holiness will decide that.”

“Of course, but first let me repeat the conditions for our Union with the Roman Catholic Church,” said Gologanov and began to read from a piece of paper. “The clergy at all levels that will be involved in the renewal of the Ohrid Archbishopric must be Macedonians and appointed by me. The borders of the Archdiocese must coincide with the borders of Macedonia. The Catholic missionaries in Macedonia must not interfere in the established order of the Archdiocese. Worship rituals, clothing and other similar matters must also not change.”

“I don’t see what the Archbishopric’s obligations will be to His Holiness the Pope? What will happen to the Uniat Episcopate in Macedonia, to our educational and charitable institutions, as well as to other similar issues?!”

“Yes, my friend Bonetti, I didn’t say anything about that. You are more qualified to spell out your interests, just like I spelled out ours, so that we can enter into a proper agreement,” said Gologanov and then wrote something more for the Pope as an attachment.

Bonetti realized that Theodosius was approaching the issue with all his heart and suggested to Cardinal Ramponi to speed things up because any delay might be fatal to Gologanov. It was also important to keep an eye on the forces that were attacking him. Bonetti emphasized that Gologanov was well supported by his flock. On February 24, 1892, Cardinal Ramponi replied as follows:

“Due to the complexity of the issue, the Cardinal Collegium has decided to further study more thoroughly Gologanov’s request to unite the Macedonian flock with us. Until then, we advise that you don’t meet with Gologanov and leave things alone.”

Until now, the Exarchate was careful with how it treated Gologanov because he had the support of his flock in the negotiations with the pope, but when the Exarchate was convinced that Rome wasn’t going to get involved, it attacked Gologanov and his followers. The Exarchate fired Gologanov in March and removed him from his flock. It also dismissed his followers and attacked Cardinal Ramponi placing him on “ad acta”.

In the meantime a fiercer enlightenment battle began in Kostur Region, in Baron Belio’s homeland, which turned into a new hotbed for the Macedonian struggle. On August 20, 1892, the Serbian consul in Bitola wrote the following to his minister:

“There has been an intellectual movement among local teachers recently in the city Kostur which seeks to reject Greek and Bulgarian propaganda, and to introduce the Macedonian dialect as a language of instruction in schools.”

The consul proposed that Serbian propaganda make use of the opportunity and as the folk saying went, “when two quarrel - the third makes use of the opening”. In one of his future letters, dated September 1, 1892, the consul wrote the following:

“The commission responsible for preparing the literary Macedonian language, which would be taught in the school in the city Kostur, has extensive material on the Macedonian grammar and Macedonian vocabulary...”

This set off alarm bells in the Bulgarian Exarchate and Principality. They acted quickly with the authorities in Kostur and Skopje to stifle these aspirations; and in Sofia with the Macedonian emigration. The Greek kingdom, with help from the Ottoman authorities and its agencies, also attacked southern Macedonia and these movements. Then, as the year passed, another Macedonian Organization, called “Vardar”, appeared in Belgrade. But as the

attacks became fiercer on the neighbouring propaganda, so did the resistance. At the end of October 1893, a secret Macedonian revolutionary organization was created in Solun. Nothing was the same after that. Events began to take a different direction. People began to prepare for an insurgency and an armed uprising. Thoughts and deeds spread far and wide; freedom for Macedonia and for the Macedonian people.

But for all that, and plenty before that – and followed afterwards. With everything else that happened to the Belio family, to the first at the beginning of the century, and to their descendants at the end of the century.... an old tradition still remained true:

“There is the providence of God, which watches over the earth and over all human destinies. It lowers its eyelids approximately every one hundred years; but only to rest for a moment and to give to all people from that century a place in accordance with their merits and deeds.”