Front Matter - Part 04

At that time Kote of Rula was a simple hood; a crook and a bully who liked to intimidate women and children and to rob people at gunpoint. Some called him a Haiduke. But he was no Haiduke, he was a lazy simpleton and an idiot who would do anything for money, including murder his own friends.

Some of the IMRO leaders sought to recruit him to become a revolutionary but I guess fighting for a cause was not his thing… there was no profit in it… no gold coins. So he chose to work against the Macedonian cause and against his own people. And look at him now! He is a Greek hero with a statue to boot! I don’t want to talk about him any more… He disgusts me and does not deserve the attention he is getting.

Let us get back to our story.

Earlier I mentioned the word Haiduk. What is a Haiduk? The Haiduks were the first revolutionaries in Macedonia. In the eyes of the Ottoman authorities they were criminals but they fought to survive. Yes, it is true they were criminals who fled to the mountains to escape persecution. They lived off the land and from whatever they could steal. They tended to rob rich travelers, especially Ottoman merchants. For their safety they gathered in groups, armed themselves and fought against the authorities. They were constantly pursued by the law but they learned how to fight, run and survive. They were seasoned fighters and survivours and made excellent revolutionaries. They were not all criminals, some

were decent people who were falsely accused of crimes they did not commit but had no choice but to flee and pursue this kind of life in order to avoid jail time or the noose.

When the Macedonians were preparing for the uprising the Haiduks were the best contributors. They wanted the Ottomans out more than anyone. They trained the young revolutionaries how to fight and how to survive. There were women among the Haiduks. Some even achieved legendary status. The legendary Rumena was one of them. She had her own Cheta (fighting unit) and so were Kostadinka and Srebra Apostolova. Srebra was from Lerin Region, where I come from.

So, getting back to the paid assassins. There were three or four groups operating in the Lerin and Kostur Regions. These groups were managed by Karavangelis, the Greek Bishop of Kostur.

Let me tell you a bit more about Germanos Karavangelis. Well, I best let Brailsford tell you about him because he had the pleasure of meeting the Bishop. Here is what H. N. Brailsford had to say on pages 209 and 210 of his book “Macedonia: Its races and their Future”:

[The Archbishop’s was a character that repelled, yet fascinated. One was never at an end of the surprises which it offered. I remember well our first meeting. We began our conversation in Greek, but in a few minutes we had discovered that we had been at a German university together, and the man I had taken for a Byzantine assumed the guise of a Berliner. Education is rare among the Greek Bishops, and I had never yet met a man among them who spoke a Western tongue. His Beatitude seemed a modern of the moderns. Could this be the fanatic who persecuted Bulgarian (Macedonian) peasants to force them into his Church? Could this be the raging partisan who massed his people to drive the schismatic Bulgarian Bishop from the town? In five minutes he had professed himself a philosopher. In ten minutes he had avowed himself a freethinker. And he had views on psychology. He had read his Lotze, and soon we were criticizing the ethics of Wundt. But there, above my head, on the wall, in a conspicuous place, hung the photograph of a ghastly head, severed at the neck, with a bullet through the jaw,

dripping blood. And then I remembered the tale. That head had belonged to a Bulgarian (Macedonian) chief (this was Lazo Poptraikov’s head). A band of bravoes in the Archbishop’s pay had murdered him as he lay wounded in hiding. And the tale went on to tell how the murderers carried the bleeding trophy to the Palace, and how the Archbishop had had it photographed and paid its price in fifty pieces of gold. And there, over my head, hung the photograph. Somehow we stopped talking moral philosophy…]

And there you have it. Brailsford, I believe, was a journalist in Macedonia during Karavangelis’s time… or maybe he was an English spy, I don’t know, he joked about it often enough. But I do have a problem with him calling the Macedonian people Bulgarian. I have seen this many times with many authors and not just Brailsford. He talks about Vlachs and about Albanians but not about Macedonians.

Was it a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Macedonians existed and still exist in Greek occupied Macedonia? I would say yes but it was not the authors that did the covering up, it was their editors and publishers. How do I know this? A friend of mine, a triple PhD, wanted to write a book about us Macedonians and tell our story the way he knew it, the way he learned it from his people. In a very sad voice the 80 year-old professor said to me, “I want to leave something for our future generations before I die, something real and not the garbage they peddle nowadays, but they won’t let me. Every time I write something, my editors tell me I can’t say that and change it… they are watering my book down. The university will not publish it unless I do what they tell me. I can’t tell my own story as a Macedonian but they have no problem with me if I call myself a Greek! I can write whatever I want to if I say I was Greek in the book but I am tired of pretending…” Yes, I am convinced its not just Greece and Bulgaria who don’t want Macedonia to exist, there are others out there too… very powerful people… who stand behind Greece and Bulgaria.

Now that we are on the subject of conspiracies, another thing that bothers me is the term “fruit salad” which the French invented for Macedonia. They call Macedonia “fruit salad” because they apparently can’t figure out the ethnicities that live there. Such a

complicated task for the French to figure out who is who in Macedonia! Why is that?

Because apparently the Macedonian people themselves “don’t know who they are”! Then tell me, how did A. Den Doolaard, a Dutchmen, know exactly who they are and apparently no one else does?

Yes Doolaard was a real person; there is a statue of him in Ohrid, near the lakeshore. I saw it myself and I also read stories about him.

The difference between Doolaard and the other travelers and authors, is that Doolaard went to Macedonia by himself, unannounced and without guards. Looking like a man down on his luck, he mingled with the Macedonian people in their restaurants, cafés, taverns and homes. When the people got used to him and realized he was not there to cause then harm, they opened up to him and told him all sorts of things including who they are and what they want.

But when the other travelers visited Macedonia, they got permission from the Ottomans and were escorted by “guards” especially provided for them, for their protection, especially chosen by the Ottoman authorities. Need I say more?

Anyone who lived in similar circumstances, like those poor Macedonians who were tormented on a daily basis, will tell you that if you want to live you don’t open your mouth and tell a stranger something that will come back and kill you.

So when the foreign travelers asked Macedonians “What they were” most Macedonians said “well, we are Christians, we are poor and uneducated people and we don’t know what we are…” And there you have it. Now there are books written about this… that paint us as ignorant animals… and thanks to the French we are fruit salad.

What do you think would have happened to the Macedonians had they said: “We are Macedonians and we want our freedom…we want to drive the Ottomans out and create our own Macedonian

state…”? Do you think they would have seen the sun rise the next day?

These travelers must have been complete idiots and didn’t know what they were doing or they did that on purpose, out of callous. I don’t know what else to tell you.

But the things they wrote in their books not only severely damaged the Macedonian cause internationally but gave our enemies a license to do whatever they wanted in Macedonia… because we did not exist… or were too stupid to know who we are. Thank you France!

It turns my stomach to think that this could actually happen and that foreigners could be that callous. It is unbelievable the uncaring path the world has taken towards us Macedonians. Do you ever wonder why that is? Why there are Greeks, Albanians, Serbians and Bulgarians and no Macedonians in Macedonia?

Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria did not do this to on their own; someone put them up to it.

Let me say this again. It is well-known that the Balkans had been borderless since Philip II’s time. Then in the 19th century, exactly after the European Powers were exercising their might they decoded to destroy the ailing Ottoman Empire.

Change does not come on its own… People bring change. The Ottoman Empire crumbled under the will of the Great Powers and partitioned into many pieces under the will of the Western Great Powers. Why?

Was it because they did not want a large Orthodox Christian country that rivaled their own countries on the European continent?

On top of that, why change it, why not leave it the way it was -multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious, just like the people wanted it?!

Yes, the people of the Balkans, including the people living in Greece, wanted to replace their Muslim government with a Christian

one. That’s what they fought for, not to create something alien like “Hellenism” which they had never heard of before until it was imposed on them by the Great Powers.

Those proud Greeks of today who think they are “descendents of the ancient Greeks” should take a good look at what their great, great grandfathers fought for. They fought to create their own Christian country. They fought and died opposing “Hellenism”.

In the end, the Christian people who knew exactly who they were and what they wanted were silenced. They were told to accept their new identities and be happy because this was progress and better for them.

Over time many people did accept their new and fake identities and with time these reformers won. Unfortunately these fake identities also polarized the people and made them despise each other.

This was good for the Great Powers because these new states were not only loyal to them but would remain small and never re-combine and become great and take back what was once theirs.

The Greeks were created in the image of the ancient Greeks, a race of people who disappeared after they were defeated by the Macedonians in Cheronnea on August 2nd, 338 BC.

And wasn’t it the Greek philosopher Lycurgus who said, “With the death of Cheronnea was buried the freedom of Greece?”

Then we have the Serbians created in the image of the Sorbs who came to that region from somewhere where Germany is today. How about Bulgaria, was it not created in the image of the Bulgar Turkic Tatars who came to the Balkans from behind the Volva River as elite fighters and settled in today’s northern Bulgaria?

The Albanians too are supposedly foreigners in the Balkans because they too came from somewhere in Asia, today’s Azerbaijan, from behind an ancient country called Albania.

And let us not forget the Macedonians, the people who created one of the greatest empires the world had seen… An Empire that bridged East and West… Well… today they “don’t exist!” That’s what we are being told… That’s what the Great Power proxy Greece is saying.

But ironically they do exist and are exposing all dastardly deeds. According to our modern history, sponsored by the Great Powers, every country in the Balkans, it seems, has foreign origins. So was the Balkans empty, desolate when these people arrived here? Did they find anyone? And why is it so important to countries like France, Britain and Germany for Macedonians to not exist?

Important questions don’t you think?

At this point I need to mention something about the Macedonian language. I need to mention that the Macedonian language has existed for thousands of years. It existed even before the Old Church Slavonic language was codified by Kiril and Metodi in the 9th century AD.

The Macedonian language is also the mother of all written Slavic languages because there were no written Slavic languages before it.

The need to pass the word of God to the Christian followers in the language they understood created the need for a written language that was understood by the same followers. In the case of the Slavic speaking people, Macedonian was the first written language to serve that purpose.

There were too many scriptures for the priests to commit to memory and relay to the people, so a way had to be found for them to read these scriptures in the language the people understood.

The solution to that problem was the creation of the Glagolic and later the Cyrillic script initiated by the Macedonian brothers Kiril and Metodi from Solun and later modified and advanced by Kliment and Naum of Ohrid.

The Macedonian language was understood not only by the Macedonians but also by other Slavic speakers in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The written language that Kiril, Metodi, Kliment and Naum created became known to the West as “Old Church Slavonic”.

Instead of calling it “Old Macedonian”, the name it deserves, the West decided to call it “Old Church Slavonic”.

The Macedonian arch-bishopric of Ohrid, which was then recognized by the Eastern Roman emperor as equal in rank to that of Tsari Grad (Istanbul), became the ecclesiastic centre from which the Cyrillic script, or better described as “Old Macedonian”, and the Eastern Orthodox Faith were spread throughout Serbia, Bulgaria and as far north as Old Russia.

Old Church Slavonic or Old Macedonian eventually became the sacred language of a large section of the Slav speaking people and the third international language of Europe. Ever since then the Macedonian language has functioned without serious challenge as the principal literary, liturgical and colloquial language of Macedonia. And therefore the Macedonian standard language is a direct descendant of the Old Church Slavonic which in fact is Old Macedonian.

Unlike the so-called Greek language, especially the Katharevousa which was resurrected after being dead for over two thousand years, the Macedonian language has continuity for more than a millennium.

According to Dimitria Chupovski, a Macedonian patriot and author, the Macedonian language that formed the basis for Old Church Slavonic has not ceased to exist for more than 1,000 years and resounds in all Slavic places of worship. Slav literature is based on Old Church Slavonic which in turn is based on the Macedonian language, not merely for the development of a written language and Christianity but also for art, architecture and literature. We must acknowledge and must never forget that Macedonia became a renowned centre of Slavo-Byzantine culture and its chief city, Ohrid, became the metropolis of Slavonic Christianity. The literary

wealth that accumulated, including some original creations, was to nourish Slavic religious and intellectual life throughout the middle ages. (Chupovski, “Macedonia and the Macedonians”)

The first Westerner on record to mention Old Church Slavonic as simply “Macedonian” was the German humanist Hieronomus Megisser in his works of 1603. According to Megisser a psalm was translated into 21 languages. One of those languages was marked “Macedonian”. Again, according to Western sources, only a few texts approximating the spoken Macedonian language are known before 1790. However, one important historical record is a small dictionary of the Kostur dialect with a folk song in it dating from the sixteenth century. (Stojan Ristevski, Sozdavanjeto na sovremeniot Makedonski Literaturen Jazik (Skopje, Studenki zbor, 1988), p. 96.)

But very soon after the first written Slavic language appeared, Macedonia fell under the control of foreign empires which used foreign official languages and more or less squashed the creative spirit of the Macedonian people and the written form of their language. This, of course, continued until Greece occupied 51% of Macedonia in 1912 and outright banned the Macedonian language altogether.

Now the Greeks claim Macedonians do not exist and if Macedonians do not exist then the Macedonian language does not exist either. But how can that be true with all the evidence surrounding us?

Well, the answer to that problem, as I mentioned earlier, came in a neat little package. First they said Macedonians don’t exist and now they say the Macedonians are not really Macedonians but Slavs who came to the Balkans in the 6th century AD from behind the Carpathian Mountains.

Yet again another newcomer arriving in the Balkans from somewhere else! No explanation given as to what happened to the original Macedonians? Did they all die off from old age?

Even if the Macedonians of today came from behind the Carpathians around 600 AD, haven’t they been long enough on Macedonian lands to qualify to be called Macedonians?

And behold, even though there were no borders to stop the Slavs from going into Greece, they all, to the last one, remained in Macedonia… and killed off all of the indigenous Macedonians… to the last one… But never entered Greece! Why? Because they encountered some sort of invisible border?

This is all nonsense designed to keep us running around in circles and to keep the Greeks in and us Macedonians out. The fact of the matter is that the Great Powers wanted to break up the Ottoman Empire into smaller and more manageable pieces and to make sure these pieces never combine again so they gave each piece a unique character and made it feel like a foreigner on its own lands and loyal only to its benefactor.

Macedonia was sacrificed to accomplish two things. One, making sure it would never rise again and two each fledgling country (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania) that received Macedonian lands remain loyal to their benefactors because what they gave yesterday they could easily take away today. The Great Powers who made those countries could easily un-make them if they chose to.

Well, we are getting off topic here so let us get back to Karavangelis and the aftermath of the failed Macedonian 1903 Ilinden Uprising.

When the Uprising ended Macedonia was in shambles. Most of the revolutionary leaders were killed and basically there was very little left with which to oppose Karavangelis and his ilk from what he himself called “civilizing the dregs of society” and turning them into “Hellenic” aliens.

INTERVIEWER – Has anyone written a book about Karavangelis’s crimes?

RISTO – Yes they have. Even Greeks have written about him. The consuls came and documented the carnage. It was also documented