Introduction - Part 01

Introduction

After Greece’s occupation by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, the Comunist Party of Greece (CPG) was the first organization to successfully organize a resistance movement against the occupiers. The Macedonian people joined this movement because historically the CPG, at least in theory, supported the idea of equality and human rights for the Macedonian people. But as it turned out, this support was only a ploy to get the Macedonian population involved in the struggle. “It (CPG) was the only political party in Greece to recognize the Macedonian national identity and to have a public policy on the Macedonian national question. Against considerable opposition, the Third Extraordinary Congress of the KKE (CPG), meeting from November 26 to December 3, 1924, endorsed the Comintern line: support for a united Macedonian state in a future Balkan communist federation. This position was in basic accord with the demands of Macedonian activists and patriots, but it was extremely unpopular among the Greeks. The inauguration of the Popular Front line by the Comintern gave the Greek Communist Party the opportunity to replace it. Its Sixth Congress, in December 1935, adopted a new policy supporting equality for all national minorities in Greece, including the Macedonian; this remained its official stand until early l949.” (Andrew Rossos) Macedonia was invaded, occupied and partitioned into three parts in 1913 and a small part was later given to Albania. To avoid confusion as to which part of Macedonia we are referring, in the subsequent chapters we will use the following: - To the part of Macedonia annexed by Greece, commonly known as “Aegean Macedonia”, we will refer to as “Greek occupied Macedonia”. - To the part of Macedonia annexed by Serbia, commonly known as “Vardar Macedonia” we will refer to as the “Republic of Macedonia”. - To the part of Macedonia annexed by Bulgaria, commonly known as “Pirin Macedonia, we will refer to as “Bulgarian occupied Macedonia”. - To the part of Macedonia that was annexed by Albania, commonly known as “Mala Prespa” we will refer to as “Albanian occupied Macedonia”. - The word “Macedonia” used on its own will mean the entire geographic, historic ethnic region of Macedonia. Also, to avoid confusion between the various National Liberation Fronts that sprung up during the occupation years in the states that occupied Macedonian territories, we will refer to as follows: - To what is commonly known as the EAM (Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo) in Greek we will refer to by its English equivalent the “Greek National Liberation Front” or GNLF. - To what is commonly known as NOF (Naroden Osloboditelen Front) in Macedonian we will refer to by its English equivalent the “Macedonian National Liberation Front (Greece)”, or MNLF(G) or simply as MNLF. This was the Macedonian organization in Greece formed by the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia. - To what is commonly known as NOF (Naroden Osloboditelen Front) in Macedonian we will refer to as the “Macedonian National Liberation Front (Yugoslavia)” or MNLF(Y). This was the Macedonian organization in Yugoslavia formed by the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia. During the German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia, the CPG-GNLF had an armed organization or military wing called ELAS (Ellinikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos). This organization will be referred to as the “National Liberation Army of Greece” (NLAG). During the Greek Civil War the CPG formed a different armed organization known as the DSE (Dimokratikos Stratos tis Elladas). This organization will be referred to as the “Democratic Army of Greece” (DAG). As this write-up is intended for a wide audience, we chose to use acronyms based on the English name equivalents for easier understanding. Since the Macedonian people are of one ethnic group and recognize themselves as one ethnic Macedonian identity regardless of where they live, the term “Macedonians” will refer to all Macedonian people worldwide. References like “Macedonians in Greece” or “Macedonians in Canada” will mean “ethnic Macedonians living in Greece” or “ethnic Macedonians living in Canada”.

It is also important to emphasize at this point that the Macedonians living in Canada, Australia, the USA and other places outside of Macedonia are Macedonian migrants who over the years immigrated to those places, whereas the Macedonian people living in Macedonia are indigenous to Macedonia and have lived in Macedonia for many millennia. The Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian people, who now live in Macedonia, are colonists who immigrated to Macedonia or were placed there by their respective states over the years, mostly after Macedonia’s occupation in 1912. We decided to use “Greek occupied Macedonia” and “Bulgarian occupied Macedonia” to refer to those regions in order to bring attention to the plight of the Macedonian people living there. Even though Macedonians are indigenous to Macedonia and feel they are its original landowners and caretakers, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania by act of war occupied, partitioned and annexed Macedonia for themselves in 1912, 1913. Besides losing their lands, these Macedonians, especially those living in Greece and Bulgaria, since then have been economically and culturally oppressed. They have been stripped of the right to call themselves Macedonian, practice their Macedonian culture and speak their Macedonian language. Since 1912 many have also been evicted from their homes, stripped from their lands, forcibly assimilated into foreign nations, tortured, jailed, murdered and denied their ethnic identity, language and culture simply because they are Macedonian. It is also evident that Macedonians have been denied economic opportunities like well paid jobs, positions of authority in government, positions in educational institutions, high positions in the military, etc. The reasons for this are obvious. By denying the Macedonians their ethnic identity Greece and Bulgaria can claim that Macedonians don’t exist and if Macedonians don’t exist there will be no claims laid to the lands they acquired illegally by war. Above that, both Bulgaria and Greece have adopted parts of the Macedonian heritage and thus have claimed parts of Macedonia’s history as their own. To acknowledge the existence of a Macedonian identity would then mean admission of cultural theft. Therefore from a Macedonian point of view to call those regions of Macedonia “occupied” is more than justifiable. Yet, in spite of all this, the Macedonian people in Greece fought against Fascism and Nazism in World War II in order to help preserve Greece. They did this because they wanted to live in peace as equals to the Greeks, a concept the Greek mind cannot accept to this day. Be it in World War II or in the Greek Civil War, the Macedonian people, proportionally speaking, bore the brunt of the wars. The heaviest battles during the Greek Civil War including the decisive ones, took part in Western Greek occupied Macedonia in the area bordering Yugoslavia and Albania. Greek occupied Macedonia served as a base for the political and military operations of the “democratic movement” and as the headquarters of both the CPG and its military wing the DAG. Greek occupied Macedonia was also of strategic importance to the CPG because its allies Yugoslavia, Albania and Soviet Russia were located to the north and access to them could only be gained through the cooperation of the Macedonian people in Greece. “As one participant and close observer put it: ‘[They] were turned into military workshops for the DSE (DAG), where everyone, young and old, male and female, served the needs of the DSE (DAG).’” (Andrew Rossos) Besides civilian cooperation, a proportionally large number of fighters had also joined the ranks of the left. “Reliable statistics do not exist, but Macedonians seem to have constituted only around a twentieth of the total population of about seven million. Their estimated representation in the DSE (DAG) ranged from more than a quarter in April 1947 to more than two-thirds in mid-1949. Risto Kirjazovski maintains that they numbered 5,250 out of 20,000 in April 1947; and Lieutenant Colonel Pando Vajnas claimed that in January 1948 there were about 11,000 Macedonian partisans in the DSE (DAG).

According to C. M. Woodhouse, ‘they numbered 11,000 out of 25,000 in 1948, but 14,000 out of less than 20,000 by mid-1949.’” (Andrew Rossos) Even though there was a proportionally large Macedonian contribution to both World War II and to the Greek Civil War there is very little to none attributed to the Macedonian people and to their sacrifices. Besides addressing the Macedonian contribution, in the chapters that follow, we will also address the violence and scare tactics the Greek State employed to counter the Macedonian struggle and the atrocities it committed in the process. In doing research for this book we encountered the term “Slavo-Macedonians” used by authors, mostly by Greeks, to refer to ethnic Macedonians. The use of this term implies that there is more than one “variety” of Macedonian but outside of “Slavo-Macedonians” no “other type” of Macedonian was identified. So for the purpose of this write-up, as mentioned earlier, the term “Macedonians” will be used to refer to the ethnic Macedonians no matter where they live. Further, we consider the term “Slavo-Macedonian” to be derogatory to the Macedonian people who self-identify as “Macedonians”. The term “Slavo-Macedonians” is intentionally employed by Greek authors to isolate and segregate Macedonians making them feel inferior, like foreigners on their own ancestral lands. The development of the modern Macedonian nation is no different than the development of any other modern nation but we don’t see the same authors use terms like “Slavo-Greek”, “Slavo-Bulgarian”, “Slavo-Serbian”, “Slavo-Albanian”, etc., to refer to other ethnicities even though elements of what make up the modern Macedonian nation are present in the Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian and Albanian nations. Therefore we justifiably feel that the use of the term “Slavo-Macedonians” is intentional and unnecessary and we recommend that it not be used in any context to refer to ethnic Macedonians.

Macedonia’s Annexation by Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria

When we speak of the Balkan Wars of 1912, 1913 we often speak of the invasion, occupation and partition of Macedonia with intent of liberating the region from the Ottoman occupier but we seldom speak of the aftermath; the subjugation and oppression of the Macedonian people. Some may call it liberation but what took place after the Balkan wars the Macedonian people would call genocide and cultural obliteration. The only thing Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria liberated during the Balkan Wars were Macedonian lands which they quickly occupied and annexed for themselves. While the world was congratulating Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria for their good deeds of kicking the sick man (Ottomans) out of Macedonia, the Macedonian people were facing new horrors never before experienced. After almost six centuries of Ottoman occupation the Macedonian people, instead of being liberated like their neighbours had promised, were now about to face new and more lethal ordeals more damaging than ever before. After they failed to free themselves in 1903, the Macedonian people welcomed the Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian armies as saviours when they invaded and attacked the Ottomans. The entire Macedonian population, including the armed rebels who fought in the 1903 uprising joined the frenzied fight to get rid of the Ottomans. The vast majority of Macedonians believed their neighbours’ propaganda when they were told the armies were here to liberate them. Why shouldn’t they have believed them? After all, they were all Christian brothers who had suffered immensely under Ottoman rule. The Macedonians were more than willing to lend a helping hand when Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria were being liberated. Now it was Macedonia’s turn and it was only fair that their neighbours return the favour. “Brothers:-your sufferings and your pains have touched the heart of your kindred. Moved by the sacred duty of fraternal compassion, they come to your aid to free you from the Turkish yoke. In return for their sacrifice they desire nothing but to reestablish peace and order in the land of our birth. Come to meet these brave knights of freedom therefore with triumphal crowns. Cover the way before their feet with flowers and glory. And be magnanimous to those who yesterday were your masters. As true Christians, give them not evil for evil. Long live liberty! Long live the brave army of liberation!" (George F. Kennan. "The Other Balkan Wars" A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 1993. Page 50). Unfortunately there were very few people who saw the dangers of this invasion and their voices were drowned out in the chorus of the frenzy. Many leading Macedonians, including Krste Misirkov, warned against such false hopes, but most Macedonians, fed up with their intolerable living conditions could not see the danger. Mesmerized by slick propaganda, they were more than ready to welcome their liberators. “The notion that our Christian brothers are here to occupy us and turn us into Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians is so ridiculous that it is downright funny. If a horse can be turned into a donkey; or if a sheep can be turned into a goat then we will believe that a Macedonian can be turned into a Greek, a Serbian, or a Bulgarian” were the attitudes of the Macedonian masses as the foreign armies marched into Macedonia unabated. Then as the so called “war of liberation” ended and the Ottomans were driven out, and the three wolves turned on each other for a bigger share of the carcass, it became apparent to most that what seemed ridiculous less that a year before was now turning into a living nightmare. The Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians, it seems, had their own way of determining who was a friend and who was a foe after Macedonians were butchered for their alleged sympathies with the “other side” or because they were affiliated with the wrong Christian Orthodox Church.

“Praying to the same God by different tongues can change a man’s identity as much as words alone can change one’s own blood into someone else’s.” Well spoken words of wisdom but unfortunately rational thinking and common sense was not the motto of the invaders whose armies were poisoned to see Greeks, Serbians, or Bulgarians in the Macedonians and to massacre everything on sight that was alien to them. The Greek soldiers in the territories of Macedonia which they occupied saw everyone who could not speak Greek or who was not affiliated with the Greek Patriarchic Christian Orthodox Church as the enemy, be it man, woman, or child of any age. “The Servian soldier, like the Greek, was firmly persuaded that in Macedonia he would find compatriots, men who could speak his language and address him with jivio or zito. He found men speaking a language different from his, who cried hourrah! He misunderstood or did not understand at all. The theory he had learned from youth of the existence of a Servian Macedonia and a Greek Macedonia naturally suffered; but his patriotic conviction that Macedonia must become Greek or Servian, if not so already, remained unaffected. Doubtless Macedonia had been what he wanted it to become in those times of Douchan the Strong or the Byzantine Emperors. It was only agitators and propagandist Bulgarians who instilled into the population the idea of being Bulgarian. The agitators must be driven out of the country, and it would again become what it had always been, Servian or Greek. Accordingly they acted on this basis. Who were these agitators who had made the people forget the Greek and Servian tongues? First, they were the priests; then the schoolmasters; lastly the revolutionary elements who, under the ancient regime, had formed an 'organization'; heads of bands and their members, peasants who had supplied them with money or food, -in a word the whole of the male population.” (George F. Kennan. "The Other Balkan Wars" A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 1993. Page 50-51) In other words, to a Greek, Bulgarian or Serbian soldier, if a person was not of their kind as he had been taught about back home, then this person was the enemy and in Macedonia, the entire Macedonian population was the enemy. No sooner had the invading armies consolidated their hold on Macedonia, than they arrested and punished all Macedonians regarded as leaders and venerated as heroes by the population, while the dregs, the very men who caused much suffering, were raised to greatness. Progressive disintegration of social and national life in Macedonia began with the entry of the occupying Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian armies and has not ceased to this day (in Greece and Bulgaria). As attested by the 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry Commission and the lost mailbag of letters captured from the Greek soldiers from the nineteenth regiment of the Greek seventh division fighting in Macedonia, all three States, Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia committed atrocities against the Macedonian people during the 1912 and 1913 Balkan wars. However, for the purpose of this write-up, the focus of investigation will be on the Greeks about whom more detailed information can be found in the six part series at the following link: http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html When war broke out in the Balkans in 1912 and 1913, the Carnegie Endowment dispatched a commission on a fact finding mission. The mission consisted of seven prominent members from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Among them was the distinguished journalist Henry N. Brailsford, author of the book "Macedonia its Races and their Future". The commission was dispatched from Paris on August 2nd, 1913 shortly before the end of the second Balkan war and returned to Paris nearly eight weeks later, on September 28th. In spite of opposition from the Greek government, the commission arrived in time to witness much of the war's aftermath and record most accounts while they were still fresh in people's minds.

The results drawn from this investigation were printed in Washington DC in 1914 under the title “Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Cause and the Conduct of the Balkan Wars”. Unfortunately because of the flare-up of World War I, no action was taken and the report itself ended up being shelved. Still in the midst of excitement, the first Balkan war was accepted by European opinion as a war of Liberation. In the European mind, its conclusion meant the downfall of the Ottoman regime in Europe and the end of all oppression. Unfortunately, European understanding of the Macedonian situation was far from reality as one tyrant was being replaced by three. While the Ottoman regime tolerated the various religions, languages and traditions of all races in their Empire, the new tyrants did not. As soon as they consolidated their hold on Macedonia, they began to act on its population. First came the evictions and the first ones to be thrown out were the Muslim Macedonians. Even though they spoke the Macedonian language and insisted that they were Macedonians, not Turks, their captors relentlessly cast them out. For no reason other than being Muslim, they were evicted from their homes and forced out from their ancestral lands. After the Turkish authorities vacated Macedonia, all that was left were civilians. No Turk dared remain behind knowing what awaited him. So the Turkish villages that the Carnegie report was referring to were in fact Macedonian villages inhabited by Muslim Macedonians. When they were finished with the Turks, the Greek soldiers turned on the Macedonian civilian population and uncontrollably, with the blessing of the Greek State and the Greek King himself, pillaged, tortured, raped and murdered defenseless people. Atrocities committed against the civilian population in Macedonia, including the burning of villages, were simply cold acts of genocide perpetrated to eradicate the Macedonian population in order to make room for Greek colonization. The Carnegie Relief Commission reported that in Macedonia alone 160 villages were razed leaving 16,000 homeless. Several thousand civilians had been murdered and over 100,000 were forced to emigrate as refugees. (Michael A. Radin. “IMRO and the Macedonian Question”. Skopje: Kultura, 1993. Page 149). Macedonian families known to attend the Exarchate Church were ordered by force to "take with them what they could carry and get out". "This is Greece now and there is no place for Bulgarians here." Those who remained were forced to swear loyalty to the Greek State. Anyone refusing to take the loyalty oath was either executed, as an example of what would happen to those disloyal, or evicted from the country. To explain the mass evacuations, Greek officials claimed that the inhabitants of Macedonia left by choice or became Greek by choice. The truth is no one was given any choice at all. The triple occupation worsened living conditions in Macedonia but the fighting spirit of the Macedonian people continued to live underground and abroad. Three generations of fighting for liberty, freedom and an independent Macedonia came to a close. The Ilinden generation and the

Macedonian Revolutionary Organization were defeated, not by the Ottomans or Muslim oppression but by Christian cruelty and deception. Soon after the occupation, underground societies sprang up everywhere urging the Macedonian people to refuse their new fate and oppose the partition. Accordingly, many Macedonians did so by refusing to obey the new officialdom and by not participating in the new institutions. This, however, did not stop the military regimes occupying Macedonia from exposing the population to systematic denationalization and violent assimilation. Macedonians again saw hope after the Great War that maybe while a new world order was being created, the Great Powers would see to it to reverse the dreaded 1913 Treaty of Bucharest that divided their country, but those hopes too were dashed in 1919 at the Versailles conference when the Great Powers ratified the Treaty of Bucharest, making Macedonia’s division permanent. The end of the Great War brought peace to the world but not to the subjugated Macedonian population which, as was done in 1878 when Macedonia was given back to the Ottomans, was again done in 1919 when Macedonia and its people were given back to their tormentors the Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians. One good thing for the Macedonians that came out of Versailles was Article 51, the League of Nations' code to "protect national minorities". Article 51 of the Treaty of Versailles espouses equality of civil rights, education, language and religion for all national minorities. Unfortunately, article 51 was never implemented by the Balkan States or enforced by the League of Nations which Greece and Bulgaria, to this day, violate and ignore. Why is this? Because to this day, Greece and Bulgaria claim that "the Macedonian identity" does not exist and has never existed. Greece was immensely rewarded for its participation in the Great War. At the conclusion of the Treaty, Greece got back what it had previously annexed and, additionally, received a large portion of Epirus, western Thrace, Crete and the Aegean Islands. It is important to mention here that when Albania's affirmation for independence was signed, at the London Conference in February 1920, more of Macedonia's territory was partitioned. A narrow strip of land running through Lake Ohrid and southward along Macedonia's western boundary was awarded to Albania. Soon after arriving victorious in Greece, the Greek Prime Minister Venizelos, in a speech in Solun, announced his plans for the creation of a "Greater Greece", the so called “Megali Idea” which was to bring together all the so called "Greek peoples" under a single Greater Greek State.

From a Majority to a Minority

With the stroke of a pen, in 1919 at the Treaty of Versailles (Paris), England and France sealed Macedonia's fate by ratifying the principles of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and officially endorsed Macedonia’s partition. This gave Greece the signal to pursue forced expulsion and denationalization of Macedonians and to begin a mass colonization by transplanting "potential Greeks" into the occupied territories of Macedonia. The Neuilly Treaty signed between Bulgaria and the Allied powers allowed for forced exchanges of populations. Greece as a partner of the victorious allies was able to impose on defeated Bulgaria a condition in the Treaty allowing for an exchange of populations between the two states. Greece took the opportunity to unload Macedonians in a seemingly legal manner. Subsequently 66,180 Macedonians largely from Eastern Greek occupied Macedonia but also from the districts of Kukush, Enidzhe Vardar and Solun were forced to leave for Bulgaria but were not permitted to settle among the Macedonians in Bulgarian occupied Macedonia. Bulgaria on the other hand, sent 22,800 so called “Greeks” which the Greek government settled in Greek occupied Macedonia. After returning from France, one of Venizelos's objectives was to promote the "Megaly Idea" of a Greater Greece where all so called “historic Greeks” could be united. His first step was to convince the world that the Christians living in Asia Minor were actually Greek and needed Greece’s protection. Under the protection of allied warships, on May 15, 1919, Greek troops began their landing in Smyrna. But instead of staying put and protect the Christians as per prior agreements, they began to occupy western Asia Minor. Then in March 1921 the Greek government ordered a full-scale offensive against the Turks. “Once again Greece had failed to learn the lesson that in large matters she was impotent without the support of the great powers or at least of one of them, and even Britain was lukewarm to this Anatolian venture.” (Kenneth Young. “The Greek Passion”. London: J.M. Dent & Sons LTD. 1969. Page 193) Unable to continue the offensive without great power assistance, by early autumn the Greeks were pushed back beyond the halfway point between Smyrna and Ankara, reaching an uneasy military stalemate with the Turks. Realizing that they couldn't possibly win militarily or politically, the Greeks turned to the Paris Conference of March 1922 looking for a compromise. The compromise called for the withdrawal of the Greek armies and for placing the Christian population under the protection of the League of Nations. Sensing a victory, Turkey insisted on an unconditional evacuation of the Greek forces, a demand unacceptable to the Greeks. Still counting on British help, in July 1922 the Greeks unsuccessfully attempted to get permission from their allies to enter Constantinople. Turkey launched a full-scale offensive on August 26, 1922 and forced the Greeks into a hasty retreat back to Smyrna. On September 8 the Greek army was evacuated and the next day the Turkish army invaded Smyrna. On the evening of the 9th outbreaks of killing and looting began, followed by a massacre of the Christian population in which 30,000 Christians, mostly Armenians, perished. As a result of the violence 250,000 people fled to the waterfront to escape the catastrophic disaster. The Asia Minor campaign was over along with the "Megali Idea" of a Greater Greece. Worse yet, as a result of this catastrophic Greek fiasco, over one million Turkish Christians were displaced, most of them into Macedonia. Their settlement affected the demography of the Macedonian landscape as well as the morale of the Macedonian population. By the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923, the Greco-Turkish war came to an end. Greece and Turkey signed a population exchange agreement using "religion as the basic criterion for nationality." (Richard Clogg. “A Short History of Modern Greece”. Page 120) The November 1925 issue of National Geographic Magazine best illustrates the magnitude of the human wave, the audacity of the Greek and Turkish authorities and the total disregard for human life.

"History's Greatest Trek, Tragedy Stalks the Near East as Greece and Turkey Exchange Two Million of their People. ...1922 began in what may fairly be called history's greatest, most spectacular trek-the compulsory intermigration of two million Christians and Muslims across the Aegean Sea." " ...the initial episodes of the exchange drama were enacted to the accompaniment of the boom of cannon and the rattle of machine gun and with the settings pointed by the flames of the Smyrna holocaust." (Melville Chater, National Geographic, November 1925. Page 533) "Stroke of the Pen Exiles 3,000,000 People. It is safe to say that history does not contain a more extraordinary document. Never before in the world's long pageant of folk-wanderings have 2,000,000 people-and certainly no less than 3,000,000 if the retroactive clause is possible of complete application-been exiled and re-adopted by the stroke of the pen" (National Geographic, November 1925. Page 569) "Even if regarded as a voluntary trek instead of a compulsory exchange, the movement would be without parallel in the history of emigration." "One might just add that history has never produced a document more difficult of execution. It was to lessen these difficulties that exchangeability was based in religion and not race. Due to five centuries of Turkish domination in Greece, the complexities in determining an individual's racial status are often such as would make a census taker weep." (National Geographic, November 1925. Page 570)