Chapter five – The secret flame of our ancestors

Chapter five – The secret flame of our ancestors

1. Commander Bai Kolio; a tall man with broad shoulders and a wide chest, but with a sensitive and gentle personality, was walking tall and dignified not like an ordinary man. He looked tough with his weathered and wounded face. He was wounded by an Andart bullet which left a scar and a permanent, seemingly ironic smile on his face. He exuded a strange but attractive firmness and was a lover of the Kostur – Kureshtan nature. He is a very capable leader who knows how to thrill his fighters with only a few words and to make them proud of fighting alongside him. He only lives for them and they know that. He has dedicated the last years of his life and his health to be a Kostur freedom fighter. He is dedicated and fights bravely for the Macedonian cause and is historically bound to Macedonia’s fate. He lives only for Macedonia’s freedom.

After graduating from the Kostur Gymnasium, Bai Kolio, being praised by Lazar Pop Traikov, Director of the Gymnasium, embarked on the idea of freeing Macedonia, so he became a revolutionary, a freedom fighter and a romantic idealist, a lover of revolutionary ideas which captivated him until his death. For years since the Greeks occupied Macedonia he waged a fierce struggle to unite his scattered Kostur fighters.

Bai Kolio once said: “Courage is that which does not allow patience and injustices, which raises the voice and in the face of it reveals the truth of power.” And those who stood before Bai Kolio were Andarts, ELAS fighters… all ornamented with modern arms and ammunition and paid to fight by our conquerors and occupiers who have no humanity towards our bare-handed Macedonian people.

And what have historians written about the heroic endeavour of these Ilinden descendants? Nothing!

Speaking about the rich village Chetirok in Kostur Region, Krapov said: “During the Ottoman occupation the village Chetirok had a population of 360 Macedonians and 440 Turks. After the Turks left, in their place, the Greek state brought about 550 colonists and settlers from Pond and Asia Minor and settled them there.

One day, I think it was January 11, 1944, over night, military units from the ELAS 9th Division, under the command of Colonel Vassilios Ganakas (Himaros) who commanded through Pind Military Headquarters and Major Aristotelis Houtouras (Arianos) who commanded the Vicho Region ELAS units, attacked the village Chetirok, which then was considered to be the nucleus of the Macedonian freedom fighters.

Even at the entrance to the village, we greeted them with stiff resistance. Guns were blazing and machine guns were firing endlessly with crossfire from a local company, which totaled no more than 150 armed freedom fighters from the village Chetirok and from the surrounding villages, led by Commanders Pando Makriev, President of the Kostur Macedonian Committee, Kostandin Popantonov, Mihail Novachev and the young and brave commanders Vasil Delev, Kosta Kachaunov, Nikola Poprosharov, Naum Shopov, Lazo Zhabov, Sotir Mavrov and other brave and decisive freedom fighters who were willing to defend their property and the freedom of Macedonia in the face of a large number of ELAS fighters.

We were all energized by the heroism of our commander Nikola Dobroliski (Bai Kolio) and his successor Trpo Georgiev. Trpo Georgiev was born in 1883 in the village Chetirok and was a member of the IMRO. Also included on the Board were Krsto Krstevsk, Risto Krashov Aliov, Vangel Buzov, Done Poprasharov and Paskal Paskalichin.

After Nikola Dobrolitski’s death it was Kuzo Dimitrov’s turn to take his place but Kuzo recommended Trpo Georgiev for the job, so Georgiev became Commander of the Kostur – Kostenaria Region.

With their heroic and decisive attack, the freedom fighters quickly repelled the numerically superior ELAS units and, at one point, pushed them back so hard that they withdrew to Gramos Mountain in panic.

Two Macedonian freedom fighters were killed, five wounded and fifteen villagers were captured in this uneven battle.

Commander Arianos on the ELAS side became increasingly furious with each passing day. Then some time later he decided to attack again, this time with a much larger ELAS force but not before organizing some parts of the population to burn down houses en masse.

After defeating the Macedonian freedom fighting company which then left the village, the ELAS fighters killed 1 person and wounded 14 others. From the great hatred and anger they had against the Macedonian population, the ELAS fighters burned the houses of many of those brave men who fought to protect the lives and property of their people.

During the course of the battle many Macedonian freedom fighters from the neighbouring villages Tikveni, Izglibe, Dobrolishta, Maniak and Kostur came to the rescue and again pushed the ELAS units to retreat back to the mountains. In the fierce fire fight, defending his neighbours, young Petre, son of the legendary Commander Bai Kolio, was killed. It was said that when news of this reached the bloodthirsty Greek fighters of ELAS, they celebrated and called for the enslavement and death of every freedom fighter in Macedonia. These bloodthirsty Greeks and a few Macedonians among them showed their loyalty to Greece when they swore that: ‘If we are ordered by the Party we will do it! (Kill every Macedonian freedom fighter)’.

The older Macedonians used to say: ‘After Macedonia was divided, three kinds of patriotism emerged among the Macedonians. We all bowed our heads and replaced Ottoman slavery with a Greek one, but because the Greeks were Christians we thought they would treat us better than the Turks...’ I recall asking my grandparents: ‘Why did you accept Greek slavery?’ and they answered me by saying: ‘This is our homeland from time immemorial, this too will pass and the Greeks will leave just like the Turks did!’

One thing about all this is clear, drastic measures were taken against the descendants of those who fought in the Ilinden Uprising. The freedom fighters in the Ilinden days fought for Macedonia’s liberation from Ottoman slavery and now in the 1940’s their descendants were fighting against Greek slavery.

The Communists were asking themselves: ‘What can we do next?’ Are these ‘little reasons’ enough cause to anger the Macedonians? But then and there we, the Macedonians on the communist side, did nothing to oppose the communists. Instead of standing up to them, we propagated the idea that ELAS and the communists could and should be trusted...

Gradually more and more escalating attacks were carried out against prominent Macedonian families, looking to rob and degrade them, calling them ‘Ilinden dogs’ and other degrading and abusive words. Eventually these Macedonians found themselves in a dilemma; bow down to the CPG and EAM or fight back to protect themselves and their rights.

We Macedonians are characterized as having deep local patriotism. Our family and village were entities which we jealously guarded to preserve. This self-confidence and local loyalty are variables of our natural historic consequence. We carry a deep innate sense, namely loyalty in the spirit of Macedonia.

This Macedonian patriotism was put into action on March 5th, 1943 in Kostur Region when an Assembly of 48 members, representatives of the various villages, was convened and decided to form the “Macedonian Committee” for Kostur Region whose aim was to defend the 54 to 60 villages in that region. They were allowed to arm themselves because they needed protection from the Greeks. Everything else that has been said about them is a lie.

* * *

One morning Bai Kolio put on his usual freedom fighting robe made of a thick dark fabric adorned to look like an old oak trunk in autumn. The robe was specially made for him by his tailor Numo Shiklev. He put on his hat and strapped his decorated belt around his waist and then hung his silver handled sword on it. He looked proud and smelled of gunpowder as he looked into the distance, remembering decades of tears dropping on the steep slopes of the Kostur villages and drop by drop rolling down into the clear waters

of the river Bistritsa and continuing on their way to somewhere in Koreshtata.

Sitting on top of his white horse, the proud commander glanced over the city Kostur. A tear of happiness rolled down his cheek as if wanting to say to the world: ‘This is our time… my time. Scar after scar, I am still here…, now I am king of Kostur!?’

But instead he smiled and said: ‘Oh, my Kostur, I have lived long enough to have walked over you and have left my footprints on you… Here we are! This is Macedonia. We Macedonians are the rightful owners of our own lands and every Greek needs to know that!’

He felt happy but also full of grief. Chills ran down his spine. He ordered his horse to move forward, in front of his freedom fighters standing all around him. Being the oldest among them and their leader, he addressed them by saying: ‘We are the sons of Kostur and we will defend it to the death. If any of my fighters wants to abandon it, I will be the one that will break their spine...’

Again the people of Kostur were worried that the winds of war would bring the worst in humanity and, forgetting their differences, they were prepared to defend their dignity. By now these patriotic Macedonians were tired of trying to prove to everyone that they were an ethnic group in the territory of Kostur, with a unique language and culture… and now with the first Macedonian guerrilla army.

In the words of Commander Paskal Dobrolitski: ‘We the Macedonian Commanders must lead this Macedonian army if we want to avoid damnation. This army will fight to the last man, to the last drop of blood. It will pursue the black gangs and military forces that have spilled our blood, sown fear and terror in our lands and will destroy them. The aim of these black gangs is to drive our people out, to banish the Macedonian people from their homeland so that they can take their wealth and possess their lands… We want to let the world know what we are fighting for…’

In the afternoon of the same day, Bai Kolio and his freedom fighters arrived in the spacious meadow located between the villages Bobishta and Olishta where they set up camp and rested. Other freedom fighting bands set up camp at the Sveti Vrach – Olitski monastery.

A great battle broke out when suddenly a large ELAS force made its appearance from several directions and began to shout: ‘Surrender! We will kill you all, you Fascists! You are fighting for Fascism!’

‘If we are Fascists then which side are you on?’ yelled Bai Kolio. Nusha Krienkova, a woman on the ELAS side, adjusted the red headscarf around her neck and sharply replied: ‘We are Communists! We are the glorious army of ELAS!’

I would not have known about Bai Kolio’s unusual story had it not been for Nusha Krienkova who, on September 13th at ten o’clock at night, with her ELAS unit captured him alive. She was told not to kill him with a bullet but to push him off the rocky cliff into the D’mbeni cavern, alive in front of the ELAS force and in the presence of the captured Macedonian freedom fighters. This method of execution was ordered by the Greeks and, according to them, was a befitting death for those who were heroic enough to want to be commanders and want to hold on to Kostur.

The Greeks were familiar with the Commander from the battles that they had fought against him. He had the largest military freedom fighting unit in Kostur, which for years had been under his command.

When Bai Kolio led the battles, his opponents noticed that his fighters showed admirable courage, the same kind of courage characteristic of the battle in defense of the village Shestevarsko, Kolio’s place of birth. Bai Kolio was always first to enter the battle, even under heavy fire, inspiring his fighters to do the same.

‘That’s how Bai Kolio was…’ his fighters used to say, ‘He was fearless. He stood there like a tree, immobile, as if growing from the ground!’

Bai Kolio always used to say: ‘Macedonia’s fate is our historical obligation; it is not to be left to strangers!’

He also used to say: ‘I want us to be like our Ilinden predecessors, like the Chakalarovs, the Kliashevs, the Pop – Traikovs… I want us all to be together, to survive so that we can see Macedonia free!’

* * *

At that moment the trumpet sounded and the ELAS fighters shouldered their rifles and left. They walked single file along the treacherous path through the deep gorge of Mount Mali-Madi. We walked along with them, ELAS fighters, villagers and Macedonian freedom fighters. They had their daggers on us and were escorting us to the Duloto (8), a deep dark pit located in D’mbeni. No one spoke for a long time. Then one of the freedom fighters whispered: ‘Maybe they are taking us to toss us into the D’mbeni pit…’ When we arrived they made us sit at its terrifying dark edge. The entrance to the vertical pit was dark looking like the gaping mouth of a hungry, giant crocodile… We climbed up to its edge in silence.

‘Even if I saw it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it!’ said Bai Kolio, but the dead silence that followed and hovered amongst us was an indication that our frightening end was near.

Bai Kolio walked in front of me without saying a word, he was a warrior, trained to attack and defend, and I and the column of captured freedom fighters followed in silence.

When we got closer to the pit, I heard laughing, sinister sounding laughs. I looked around and saw distortion, rage and contempt in the faces of the ELAS fighters all around us.

The horrifying ELAS games that were about to be played then were initiated by Commander Baskakis and his subordinate commanders of the most nationalist Greek units in the force, which included PAO (9) members the likes of Bouloukas, Papoulias, Papas, Kapaprukas, Sotiriadis, Kolaras, Periklis and Lefteris who were worse than the Nazis who tormented the Jews.

A tall man with a fleshy face, bushy eyebrows, eyes half-closed, hair uncut and braided ran to the front of the pit. His aggression was unusual, martyr-like. He was shaking all over with his chest pounding and his head feeling like it was in a vice. They say that the executioner looks like that when preparing to take his first victim. Before torturing his victim, they say the executioner has a smile on his face and slimy saliva drips out of his mouth.

Mito, with his small penetrating eyes and thick white hair, full of fear and trembling, was the next person to stand up. At the same time the top commander Baskakis, smelling of frankincense combined with the smell of sweat and blood, also stood up and jumped to his feet like a knight in shining armour with his dagger out. His ELAS fighters called him ‘knight of the wolf pack’. He was cheered on by his group of bloodthirsty thugs as he stabbed his victims in the neck and watched them keel over and fall in front of his shiny boots.

The skilled killers toyed with their victims by slicing them a few times with their sharp knives before stabbing them hard in the heart, stomach, or back. They learned this skill from knight Baskakis and that’s how they got the nickname ‘wolf pack’.

From where we the prisoners sat, around the mouth of the pit, all we could hear was Baskakis’s voice, the stabbing sounds of the wolf pack stabbing its victims and the loud screams that traveled way beyond the far side of Kostur.

Keeping us alive to this point was like a pre-ritual ceremony before a sacrifice, and exactly after that a knife was thrust into the heart of every convicted Macedonian freedom fighter.

His two-edged dagger glistened in Baskakis’s hand as he, one by one, offered his victims to the dark pit.

First he plunged his dagger into the Macedonian freedom fighter’s neck and when the fighter fell to his knees he tossed his dying body into the pit. He did this several times. Now happy and smiling, Baskalis approached Commander Bai Kolio. He aimed his dagger at

him and looked at him with a sick look on his face, as if wanting to play with him first.

I thought to myself, if he asked me so say something about the fighting spirit of the Macedonian freedom fighters, what would I say? I decided that I had plenty to say about that, but if he asked me about the ELAS fighters I would tell him how many I had shot at, I would even tell him what my grandfather had done to the Andartes during the Ilinden (1903) days when they came to Kostur. I would tell him exactly what my grandfather said: ‘What the f**k are you doing here robbing and killing Macedonians?’

‘This is more horrifying than the gladiatorial games,’ I whisper into Pando Koreshtanski’s ear who, at the time, was holding my hand tight so that I would not scream. We all watched intensely as Baskakis pointed his bloody dagger at Commander Bai Kolio’s neck and said:

‘We the ELAS fighters have a military code by which we do not kill commanders in this way. It would be my honour to address Commander Bai Kolio and ask him to show great courage by voluntarily jumping into this black hole and if he does we will forgive everything...

Everyone went silent.

Bai Kolio stood up and walked over to the edge of the pit. From there he could hear the wailing voices of his dying fighters from deep down in the black hole.

Staring down the pit’s shaft, the wise commander said to himself: ‘Each life has its own value but the most valuable life is the one which is given in defense of our homeland Macedonia...’

The fearless commander, after assuming his position, raised his hand and addressed Baskakis with the words:

‘Before I die, here before everyone, I want to kiss the hand of his highness Mr. Baskakis, Commander of the ELAS forces, and

congratulate him on his victory, and then, by my free will, before everyone’s eyes, I will jump and take my own life...’

Immediately Baskakis jumped to his feet and went to Commander Bai Kolio to receive his congratulations. All the fighters who were sitting down stood up and applauded by shouting: ‘Long live ELAS, long live Commander Baskakis, long live the ELAS fighters.’ I heard one fighter say: ‘Finally the rebel commander has enough courage to repent and apologize to us…’

A moment later Baskakis, looking dignified, took his place beside Bai Kolio so that he could kiss his hand. The old Commander, with lightning speed, grabbed Baskakis and took him down the shaft of the dark pit with him. Baskakis’s loud cry in horror: ‘Dear mother’ deafened us all. Mixed with Baskakis’s crying we also heard Commander Bai Kolio’s baritone voice yelling: ‘For Macedonia!’

All of us… we could not believe what we had seen. I could not contain my joy and excitement… I was shaking like a leaf in the wind…’ concluded Krapov, who suddenly stopped talking and went into deep thought as if wanting to re-visit the moment.

I too had to take a moment to process what Krapov had just told me.

Then, suddenly without warning, Krapov resumed telling his story. He said: “We all stood there petrified, like our blood had suddenly frozen in our veins… from fear and horror. Feeling sad, Filip Paskalevski looked away and bowed his head down. He shed a few tears for the Commander but also felt satisfaction by the stunt he had pulled. He wanted to say: ‘We need to follow the Commander’s lead because, even before his death, he had told us how to die for Macedonia…’

I looked at Filip with a nostalgic look. We smiled at each other and that smile said a lot...

Then I felt horrible! I had just witnessed a great human being die. Suddenly I felt as if the entire country… all of Macedonia was drenched in blood… caused by inhumanity. My grandfather used to

say: ‘It would be great to die like a man…’ And that’s how Bai Kolio died...

Bai Kolio used to say: ‘Think before you commit to something because if you don’t believe in it, it is treason!’

After Bai Kolio jumped and took Baskakis with him, in revenge Baskakis’s henchmen took young Vasil (Tsile) Shilegov, Kolio’s adjutant (warrant officer) to the mouth of the pit. Vasil was a young man and had no hatred in his heart. He was also an only child. They pushed him down the shaft and the only thing we heard from him was: ‘For mother Macedonia!’

God! My God, we all kept staring at the black hole. I was afraid. Fear overcame me… I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I said to Pando Glavinov: ‘It looks like we all will end up in there.’ He looked at me with a sad look and then looked at Filip.

That evening the ELAS fighters were wild and confused and told the story about the D’mbeni pit over and over again.

And that is how Bai Kolio died. And that is how Tsile Schilegov died,” concluded Krapov, fading out.

Then suddenly he said: “I only knew him for a short time but I will never forget him…” Then, after a short pause, Krapov said: “My grandfather used to say: ‘You can understand the character of a person when they become your boss… your superior officer. I had that honour when I served in his unit, and I was happy to have had the privilege to serve under the command of a man who fought for Macedonia.”

Then Krapov said to me: “Fate was cruel to many Macedonian revolutionaries… especially to Bai Kolio… but then he died a hero. He was a mature and wise man, in full control of his faculties. He was also like that with his leadership abilities.

Bai Kolio used to say: ‘The Greeks, as invaders and occupiers, talked a lot about us, especially about the Macedonian freedom fighting rebels, saying that we were illiterate. Yes, but still our

ignorance was closer to the truth than the prejudices of the Macedonian Grkomani (Grekophils) and now the modern ELAS communists’.

Our people who declared themselves communists, together with the Greeks, wanted to destroy the Macedonian freedom fighters, unfortunately, as is the case with us Macedonians, the truth ruined their ideals.”

Krsto Krapov then looked me in the eyes and said: “I want to tell you something about obedience and about the resistance. This is why Bai Kolio was right. But I want you to understand, a fact which you and I witnessed and experienced, that none of these Macedonian communists who were part of ELAS then remained with our people. These communists fled to Tito, where they were manipulated the most. It is interesting to know that those Macedonians who were in ELAS in 1944, together with the Greek communists Himaros and Arionos, destroyed the Macedonian freedom fighters, but during the Greek Civil War the same people led the Macedonians, but now with the help of organizations created by Tito, again with our people.

These ideological activists of ours blindly followed the authority of their leaders who pushed them to swell up their forces with Macedonians so that they could bleed them for someone else’s interests. We, the ordinary people, were abused to no end, and not only became victims but in the end, the biggest losers in this tragic war. We were left with nothing. Now we think about it every day and live with the hope that someday my son will hug me, the same son that Queen Frederica took away from me.

One thing is clear. We never lost our obedience. They bled us to death and we still remained loyal to them. We allowed precisely the same commanders who destroyed our Macedonian freedom fighters in Kostur to lead us again during the Greek Civil War. No wonder we lost everything… Some things forever…

In fact this is what happened to us Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia: ‘For as long as we, the Macedonian freedom fighters, fought to free and preserve the Macedonian home, property and

family and remain in our fatherland, the Macedonians in ELAS, the internationalists, together with their Greek partners, fought hard to liquidate us as soon as possible.’

Exactly during that period of time, we as a people demonstrated our Macedonian slave mentality.

We, the freedom fighters, did not accept our slavery as our fate and did not kneel before any of the occupiers; we wanted to preserve our existence; our own existence. And what happened to us Macedonians? If anyone raised their head before the Greeks and wanted to defend themselves, say from PAO or from ELAS, they were destroyed. And in the end they destroyed us all anyway!

It was a time when the ideology practiced in the Balkans ruled the world.

And after they did that, the Macedonian communists of ELAS left their homeland and, in their history about all this, they portrayed their deeds as positive and labeled us, the true Macedonian freedom fighters, fascists...

All this reminds me of the verses our poet Petre M. Andreevski wrote: ‘They were brothers and first cousins, beautiful sisters, aunts and uncles, who struggled for the same homeland, which they then divided when relations cooled. Then when they had a fight they decided to wear foreign hats. And then one day when they went looking for those hats, they found they had none’… concluded Krapov, becoming silent.

By now I had learned to recognize the signs of when Krapov was upset but this time he was visibly trembling. Thinking of our past upset him a lot… He took a deep breath of fresh air and continued with his story.

He said: “We Macedonians don’t know how to protect our historic and cultural valuables from our place of origin...

Let me be the first to openly say that we Macedonians are a strange sort. Consciously or unconsciously, all this time in this Balkan fog,

we have ignored our own history. For generations we have kept silent about the crimes committed against our people. For generations we endured genocides in silence. We have basically allowed the Greeks to make Macedonia theirs; a Macedonia without Macedonians and have said and done nothing to stop them!

Only we, the Macedonian freedom fighters, remained loyal to our cause and because of that, those of us who survived were sent to the dry Greek island prisons. There we lost our moral compass and values but still refused to join ELAS (the collectivist fictional matrix, sold to us by the cleverness of Tempo and Siantos). Then, at the time when ideology ruled, Tempo told us that he and the top CPG leadership had agreed to have Macedonian units in ELAS; a Macedonian army.

With this kind of immature thinking, we insulted everyone in our history including our Ilinden revolutionaries. We even offended our history. All the lies we lived through and experienced were channeled through this ideology which eventually led to the start of the Greek Civil War (1945 - 1949). What the CPY and CPG could not achieve with pure lies they achieved with more inventive measures… ideological deception. We must recognize what was done to us and hold onto the spirit of Ilinden ... What happened to us Macedonians during the Greek Civil War was pure fraud… the lie of the century… And this is how it must be portrayed in our history… as betrayal…

This… this is what has happened to us… Macedonian ELAS Communists versus Macedonian freedom fighters… another national embarrassment, but don’t believe it will be the last. The Greeks will not rest and will always look for devious methods to eradicate us, to eradicate our name, to expel and exile us from our ancestral homes, and by doing so they will make their possession of Macedonia easier and forever.

We remained and still remain silent for what? For the slaughtering, the persecution and the annihilation of the Macedonian family?! For the destruction of the Macedonian nation?! For being uprooted from our ancestral homes? Why are we still silent?!

OH, MY FRIEND, ALL THESE MEMORIES GIVE ME PAIN!” concluded old man Krsto Krapov.