Northern Macedonia

 

      The descent of the Slavs during the Byzantine period made Slavic linguistically the Dinaric populations of the former Yugoslavia-but not, however, the Mediterranean population of Hellas. The differentiation of the populations who spoke Slavic and those who remained Hellenic-speaking was not, of course, absolute. Somewhere in between a narrow transitory zone was created, that is, the zone of the so-called “Slavo-Macedonians”. And it was natural that this language differentiation was not absolute, since it occurred without any state intervention or state education, that is, during a multinational period within the framework of the Byzantine Empire. Despite some exceptions, as Keramopoulos mentions, “Byzantium neither thought nor desired the Hellenization of the Slavs; on the contrary, the same religion was the cause for the Slavization of many Hellenes or Hellenic communities which were located between the Slavic populations of Thrace and Macedonia”.

   There, in the transitional zone, a mixed linguistic dialect was created, a mixture of Hellenic, Slavic, Vlachic and Turkish words. The percentage of each language in this mixed dialect differs in each area. As Sinopoulos notes, “in Hellenic Macedonia, the Hellenic words are in excess, in the northern areas, the Slavic words and in the areas of Almopia-Giannitsa, where a Turkish population had settled, Turkish words. The Slavic words are rather of a Bulgarian structure. Martis explains that “the most important cause of the shaping      of this Slavic dialect occurred during the Byzantine period, when a number of Bulgarian prisoners were brought to work in the great fields of the Byzantine landowners. During the Turkish occupation which followed, many poor Slavs, because of a lack of essential borders in the Hellenic peninsula, moved to the northern parts of the Hellenic area in search of work. The communication problem was solved by the use of Hellenic, Bulgarian, Turkish, Albanian and Vlachic words. That was a common means of communication for all of them. The Hellenic population was obliged to use that idiom to communicate of course, but also to escape the hatred of the Turks and the mass kidnapping of Hellenic children”. However, as Tsioulka’s research has revealed, the roots of thousands of the words of this linguistic dialect are Hellenic and also Homeric.

   In the last few years a problem arose in the area with the creation of a Macedonian state, first within the confederate Yugoslavian state which has as its official language this mixed dialect and later with the declaration of the autonomous State of “Macedonia”, which plans to include within its borders Hellenic Macedonia and the Bulgarian area of Pirin. For these reasons we must clear the issue from an ethnological point of view.

   Macedonia is the area of the Hellenic peninsula to the north of Olympus and to the west of the mountains of Aemos. But where are the borders of Macedonia to the north? There are no geographical borders in the north, but only ethnological borders, Macedonia is the area that is inhabited by Hellenes – Hellenes in bread and in consciousness.

   There was never a distinct “Macedonian” nation and it is not possible to create one now, States are born out of historical circumstances, and they can die. Nations, however, do not die. Nations are diachronically entities that cannot be artificially created. A Macedonian nation never existed. There was, however, a Macedonian state in antiquity, but the main characteristic of that Macedonian state was its tendency to unite all Hellenes and for this reason, it was even more Hellenic than the other Hellenic states. The Macedonians felt so strongly the Hellenic spirit they managed to unite then all Hellenes.

   The Hellenic character of the ancient Macedonians is revealed even in prehistory through myth. According to the Hellenic mythology, Macedon was the son of Pandora and thus he was the grandchild of Deucalion, the first man of the Pelasgia. Paion, who was a mythical King of Macedonia, was considered the son of Endymion, the Dorian king of Elis. These myths symbolically rendered the relationship of the Pelasgians, Dorians and Macedonians, a relationship that Herodotus detects and Aeschylus praises.

   The Macedonians formed the last Hellenic breed which encountered the Dinarics’ movement to the south and was the rearguard of Hellenism confronting that strong Dinaric pressure. Even Guenther testifies to this: “the Macedonians could be considered the Hellenic breed which remained back during the moving process from the Danube. Given recent historical research, this is now a certainty”. Furthermore, Professor Ap. Daskalakis writes that “it is absolutely certain that if the Macedonians had not guarded against barbarian invasions south of Olympus, then Hellenism would not have remained for so many centuries undisturbed and able to lay the foundations of freedom and reach those magnificent creations of thought and art”. This is exactly what the historian Polybius also stressed.

   Of course, the geographical distances then and the natural obstacles made close communication among the south Hellenes, Macedonians and Thracians difficult and the result was that some linguistic differences appeared as well as differences in consciousness. Such differences existed, as it is known, even among the other areas of south Hellas. However, in all of Hellas, myth always preserved the memory of common descent and kinship as well as the common Hellenic language-which was a witness of this national relation. Therefore, when the historical circumstances matured, Hellenism was unified by the Macedonian King Phillipos and Alexander the Great. Strabo asserts epigrammatically that “Macedonia is Hellas as well”.

   The common morals and customs of the Macedonians and south Hellenes were so recently revealed by the findings at Vergina, where the burial methods proved purely Hellenic, and particularly characterized by an archaic conservativeness of a Homeric type. Moreover, the golden burial masks of the graves of Sindos and Trembeniste reveal a direct Mycenaean influence. Hoffmann considered the Macedonians “an Achaean breed”, an opinion that Kallergis also shares who compared the linguistic idiomorphies of the Macedonians and Achaeans. After the Mycenaean script Linear B was deciphered, it was revealed that were words, which some time ago were considered Macedonian idioms. Moreover, the recent discovery of the table of Dispilio (Kastoria), written in Linear Script A in -5250, proves that Hellenic was also the language of Pelasgic Macedonia.

   Despite its singularity, the language spoken in Macedonia was a Hellenic dialect and possibly was closer to the archaic Pelasgic. According to the Roman historian Livius Titus, the Macedonians spoke indeed the same language with the other Hellenes. According to the -5th century historian Hellanikos, both the Macedonians and the Thessalians spoke an Aeolian dialect. The votive stele of the Vergina graves mention seventy-five names of Macedonian citizens-all Hellenic. Andronikos notes that “at the end of the 5th century B.C, the Macedonians who lived in the first capital of the Macedonian kingdom, that is, in the cradle of the Macedonian state, had Hellenic names. This testimony absolutely proves the view of historians who support that the Macedonians constituted a Hellenic breed, as all the other breeds that lived in the Hellenic area”. Perhaps there were in the Macedonian dialect some Illyrian words, but “the Macedonians were Hellenes not Illyrians”, as Abel points out. The German linguist Kretschmer stresses that Macedonian was a Hellenic dialect which differed from the others “as the Teutonic differs from the Germanic” and adds that “the Macedonian language remained static at a stage which the Hellenic had abandoned some time ago. It is then certain that the Macedonians were closely related to the Hellenes and if they had emigrated to the south, then they would become as Hellenic as the Dorians, the Thessalians and the Boeotians.

   I mentioned some elements concerning the Hellenic character of ancient Macedonia because they may not well known. It is, however, superfluous to deal with the Hellenic consciousness of the modern Macedonians. Throughout the course of medieval history, Macedonia followed the fate of the rest of Hellas, as well as within the frame of the Hellenic Byzantine Empire, with Christianity as in the modern times under the Turkish occupation and the national regeneration. Macedonia and Hellenism are two inseparable concepts.

   But the creation of that mixed linguistic dialect in northern Macedonia cannot be the cause for the creation of a new nation. For the creation of a nation a common descent and consciousness of the population are demanded, which are differentiated from the descent and consciousness of other people. Language as a factor might influence the consciousness of a population, but it does not constitute by itself a cause for the establishment of a nation. Moreover, a mixed linguistic dialect, which is actually an occasional linguistic dialect, which is actually an occasional linguistic mixture, cannot even form a factor affecting the consciousness of a population. Thus, in the case of northern Macedonia, we must trace elsewhere the reasons for the declaration about “a Macedonian ethnicity”.

   As far as descent is concerned, there is no racial singularity in Macedonia. Macedonia always belonged to the Mediterranean race. The differentiation of the Macedonians from their northern neighbors, the Dinarics, was always clear. There is a minimal intermixture with the Dinarics in the whole of Hellas, but this intermixture is not greater in Macedonia-as it is in Epirus. For instance, the head index B/L, which in Serbia and Montenegro exceeds 85.6 (hyperbrachycephaly), in Hellenic Macedonia is only 83, while occipital flatness, which is a catholic Dinaric feature, in Macedonia is found to a degree of 9%. Anthropologist N. Xirotiris writes that “there is not any mixture of Easterneuropids in northern Hellas and whatever is written concerning that is inaccurate or inadequate.

   An issue was created about the triangle of western Macedonia, about which Poulianos had noted that “in Hellas the lightest colors appear in the Hellenic speaking groups of western Macedonia and to a degree in northern Thessaly and in the Vlach and Slav-speaking groups of Macedonia. Generally, the color testifies to the existence of intermixture in these groups”. Light-coloredness by itself cannot be considered as evidence of intermixture with a foreign breed. Moreover, I have already mentioned that the North Mediterranean breed which moved to the south (Slavic descent) had retained some old Mediterranean characteristics (dolichocephaly, leptoprosopy), and was more light-colored, but anthropometrically speaking, it was clearly a Mediterranean breed. This was certified recently by the unique medieval Slavic cemetery that was found in Hellas (on an islet of Prespes); the skulls found there had a small zygomatic breadth and a relatively small skull height. Poulianos considered these skulls Mediterranean. Thus, in this geographical triangle of western Macedonia, beyond the relative lightcoloredness, greater leptoprosopy and narrower skull is noted elements which exclude Baltic or Dinaric intermarriage and speak for intermarriage with the northern branch of the Mediterranean race. There is the same picture in the mountainous area of Taygetus. This, however, is not called an “admixture”, since it does not concern a mixture with foreign breed. The Protoslavs were Mediterranean. Thus, it would be impossible to have an admixture either in Macedonia or in any other place of Hellas.

   Concerning the Slavomacedonians, that is, the Hellenes who speak the mixed dialect, Poulianos writes that they are not racially differentiated from the Hellenes, On the contrary, “the average Slavic-speaking type of Hellenic Macedonia differs significantly from the anthropological types that Soviet scientists discerned in other Slavic people”, that is, the Baltic and the eastern European. Thus, there is not in Macedonia, or in any part of Macedonia, such an anthropological singularity that can justify a claim for “Macedonian ethnicity”, as the Skopjeans allege.

   Is there, however, such a cause in the part that Yugoslavia possessed? The anthropologist Gavrilovich concluded that the residents there “share some similarities; they are differentiated from the neighboring populations of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in that they have a larger degree of Mediterranean characteristics”. For example, while in the Dinaric epicenter (Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina) the head index is about 86, in the part of Macedonia it wavers from 81 to 83.5. In eye color the Macedonians of Skopje differ in that they have a lesser degree of light-colored iris than all the other populations of the former Yugoslavia a fact that proves a complete lack of Slavism. The German anthropologist Schade and the Bulgarian M. Popov reached the same conclusion, that is, the Macedonians of Skopje are basically of Mediterranean origin with a Dinaric admixture.

   But here a serious point should be stressed. The so-called “Macedonia” in Yugoslavia forms a broad area, almost double the size of the real northern Macedonia in which Macedonians reside. The whole area of Skopje-Koumanovo, in the historical past was not a part of Hellenic Macedonia and of course, its residents are not only Mediterraneans. In the recent past thousands of Albanians infiltrated there and now make up more than half of the population there. They form 30% of the total population of the former Yugoslavian Macedonia. Therefore, any anthropological research on Yugoslavian “Macedonia” includes by necessity and real Dinarics who falsify the results.

   On the contrary, the residents of the area of Monastir-Gevgeli-Stromnitsa, that is, the real Northern Macedonia, are to a large degree Mediterraneans, that is, people of Hellenic origin. This Northern Macedonia, the so called “Pelagonia”, also extends to the east within Bulgaria itself. Today it is so called “Macedonia of Pirin” (the area of Petritsion, Tzoumagia, Neurokopi), up to the Rhodope Mountains. The Macedonian Pelagonia has the same derivation as the Pelasgi (that is, the land of the ancestors). In Pelagonia there were great Hellenic cities, such as Idomeni, Heraclea, Stovi, etc.

   Let us proceed now to the basic element of ethnicity, which is consciousness. First let me remind the reader that when the Ottoman ruled Macedonia, they had divided it into three “viyalets”, Thessalonike, Monastir and Skopje. The viyalet of Thessaloniki today belongs in part to Hellas, while the areas of Stromnitsa and Neurokopi are occupied respectively by the States of Skopje and Bulgaria. The viyalet of Monastir is occupied almost entirely by the state of Skopje with the exception of Florina. The great Macedonian War took place, however, in the entire area of these two viyalets.

   According to the last Ottoman statics of 1904, the “Vilayet of Monastir” was inhabited by 261,000 Hellenes, 178,000 Bulgarians and by some minorities. By the name “Bulgarians” the Turks meant those who spoke the mixed dialect (the Slavo-Macedonian). In 1903, there were 27,000 students who were studying at the Hellenic schools of that vilayet and only 8,000 students in Bulgarian schools. Gradually, though, with the intensifying of the Macedonian war, the difference increased even more. Monastir itself had a teacher-training college like Thessaloniki. These towns of Thessaloniki and Monastir were the great bastions of the Macedonian War (1904-1908). In Monastir they did not speak the “slavomacedonian” dialect at all, only the Hellenic and a little bit the Vlach dialect. In 1913, in Monastir 1,696 students were studying at Hellenic schools, 1,200 in Stromnitsa and 557 in Croussovo. All of the Vlach speaking had a heightened Hellenic consciousness, the same as today.

   The Macedonian War should be perceived it in its entirety, not only as an armed conflict, but as a national war. The Macedonian warriors on the one hand confronted those murderous Sofia agents, the Komitadjis, protecting the Hellenic-speaking people of the area; on the other hand, however, they wanted to take by their side those speaking the mixed dialect. After so many centuries of slavery, the populations of that area and especially those who spoke the mixed dialect had a confused national consciousness.

   The nineteenth century, which swept Europe with nationalistic movements, found the so-called “Slavomacedonians” experiencing internal unrest and national insecurity. They believed that the dialect they spoke could not classify them under any Nation and for this reason they remained nationally disoriented. Thus, the Bulgarian agents attempted to win them over.

   The main purpose of the Macedonian War was to certify to those speaking the mixed dialect that they were of a Hellenic descent and that the language does not form a dominant element of nationality. The Macedonian War was successful. Not only did distinguished members of the “Slavomacedonians’ become protagonists of the Macedonian War, like Kotas, Gelev, Gogolakis, Kirou, Nikotsaras and others, but also entire villages embraced Hellenism. Since then the Bulgarians have called these populations “Graecomani” (Hellenic-breed), and have hated them more than they hated the Hellenic-speaking ones. The Macedonian War was successful, in so far as the population who spoke the mixed dialect finally became Hellenized in consciousness. It is also known that guerilla warfare cannot succeed without the solidarity of the population. The Macedonian War succeeded because the entire population, Hellenic speaking or not, supported it.

   The strange thing about the Balkan war that followed is that Hellas was obliged to become allies with Serbia and Bulgaria to liberate absolutely Hellenic land from the Turks. The result was that these three countries divided this Hellenic land among themselves. Thus, Serbia took northern Macedonia (with Monastir, Gevgeli and Stromnitsa). Each allied country occupied the land that its army gained.

   The land that Bulgaria occupied was regained by Hellenic forces in the Second Balkan War and WW I. But Monastir and northern Macedonia remained Serbian. Thus, from the total Macedonian land, 20% remained Yugoslavian, 13% Bulgarian and only 67% remained under Hellenic sovereignty. It is sad to think that the luck of Monastir was decided by the two days that the Hellenic army delayed in reaching there. It is also sad because Serbia was not interested in Monastir, turning her attention to her exodus to Adriatica. But Hellas, facing the danger of losing Thessaloniki to the marching Bulgarian army, turned her attention to Thessaloniki, sending only a battalion to the unprotected Monastir. Thus, almost by chance, northern Macedonia was lost. And when the great powers insisted on the creation of Albania, excluding Serbia again from Adriatica, Serbia was obliged to insist on the domination of northern Macedonia in order to win something from the war. Hellas, facing then the Second Balkan war with Bulgaria, did not want to risk her good relations with Serbia and Monastir was sacrificed.

   The initial idea of “Macedonian ethnicity” was born in the secret service of Sofia around 1890. It had preceded Sofia’s successful attempt with Eastern Romilia, another absolutely Hellenic area which had at first, in 1878, become autonomous and then later on was absorbed easily by Bulgaria. Bulgaria thought to attempt something similar with Macedonia, making the latter at first autonomous and then absorbing her later. Thus, the Bulgarians began to spread propaganda about the existence of Macedonian ethnicity, even though later on this propaganda collapsed under the pressure of the Hellenic reaction and Bulgarian maximalist.

   The success of the Macedonian War is due to the isolation of the Bulgarized and “Macedonianized” people. The great mass of Hellenic-speaking and non-Hellenic-speaking population of Macedonia supported the fighters of Pavlos Melas and his descendants. The mutiny of 1903 of those “Macedonianized”, that is, the so-called mutiny of Iliden, failed because it was not supported by the population of the area. Later on, after the national mission of the fighters of Pavlos Melas, the populations of Northern Macedonia, having acquired now a Hellenic consciousness, expected their liberation from Ottoman occupation and their annexation to the free Hellas. This annexation, however, because of some unfortunate historic events, was not realized in 1912.

   The worse thing is that Hellas since then has forgotten the Hellenism of Northern Macedonia and has pushed it indirectly toward Slavism. To the people of Northern Macedonia, the feeling remained that Hellas simply used them in the Macedonian war to annex Thessaloniki. The people of Northern Macedonia knowing, that they were not Serbs or Bulgarians, were obliged to believe in a Macedonian ethnicity. What else was left for them to do?

   Bulgaria never denied her aspirations to annex Northern Macedonia, either directly or indirectly, through the stage of “Macedonianism”. It is characteristic that in 1912, Bulgaria proposed to Venizelos Macedonia’s autonomy and in 1941, she attacked Hellas in order to “protect the Macedonian brothers”, as she declared. Furthermore, governing the area of Skopje in 1941-42 the Bulgarians had the opportunity to impress upon the people the “Macedonian” idea and also to consolidate pro-Bulgarian sentiments. Thus, it seems that in the future the problem of Northern Macedonia will not be a Hellas-Skopje problem, but a Hellas-Bulgarian one. Serbia never tried seriously in the past to make the area Serbian. Serbia never cared mush about Northern Macedonia. Only during the Communist period did she eagerly accept and promote the idea of an autonomous Macedonia in order to destabilize Hellas. But in 1991 it was Serbia who proposed to Hellas the partition of the Skopjean state between them, a proposition that Hellas paradoxically denied.

   After 1922, Hellas with her wings cut ceased to have territorial claims. She deserted not only Ionia, but also Eastern Romilia, Northern Epirus and Northern Macedonia. Hellas forgot the Hellenic or non Hellenic-speaking Hellenes who lived beyond its present borders. Those speaking the mixed dialect within or outside the borders recognized them either as a ‘Bulgarian minority’ (protocol of Kalvov-Politis, 1924), or a “Serbian minority” (Pangalos 1926). The residents of Northern Macedonia recognized them as “Slavs” and as Martis notes» the residents [of Northern Macedonia] had no relationship with the Macedonians, since they were Slavs”!

   Hellas’s self-isolation after 1922-if not an avoidance of the problems of the Hellenic areas which in bondage-forced many Hellenic-speaking people from the Monastir area to immigrate to liberated Hellas; however, it formed many Slav-speaking to deny their Hellenic identity. With the exchange of populations by the treaty of Neuilly, only 10,000 Hellenes consented to abandon their ancestral land. Thousands of Slav-speaking Hellenes, with no country in their consciousness, manned the communist guerilla army of 1946-49. But why and how did all these people end up with no country and anti-Hellene? Why did they believe in the supposed “Macedonian ethnicity”? Was it communism that caused them to deny their country, or was it the lack of a nation which made them communists? Had not something similar happened to the Ionia refugees, when the indifference of the Hellenic state to their enormous problems forced most of them to turn to communism?

   Hellas is to great degree responsible for the situation that befell the Slav-speaking people. For someone to speak the mixed dialect was a sin-as a token of Slavism. Those who spoke it, mainly the residents of Northern Macedonia who earlier on believed that they were really Hellene Macedonians, felt alienated and isolated from their own country. There was no psychological outlet for them, only the belief in an artificial Macedonian ethnicity, an idea that connects them if not with their nation at least with their land!

   This is the essence of the problem. Hellas is responsible for the situation that developed there because she is not interested in that Hellenic area and its residents. She turned her back on them and forgot them completely. And they remained without a national orientation. What were they? A people without a national descent? They had to be something. And thus they accepted the myth of the “Macedonian Nation”. The need for ethnicity is the strongest need in peoples’ life. By accepting “Macedonianism” and not Bulgarism, they revealed that they still had hope in Hellas! Kyriakidis writes that “the Hellenic spirit and the Hellenic Byzantine civilization can still be found in the land which the Hellenes tamed and civilized; moreover of the residents today who do not speak the Hellenic language and do not have a national consciousness” .

   Because of Hellas’s obtuseness, indeed a new Macedonian ethnicity will crystallize in the state of Skopje. Hellas did not have the change to avert the creation of a “Bulgarian consciousness” during the 19th century; but today, it must avert this fabricated “Macedonian» ethnicity even by intervention-not to conquer, but to liberate.

   From an ethnological point of view, the Macedonian problem is not a matter of “Macedonian ethnicity”, as the Skopjeans support, but on the contrary, concerns the re-Hellenization of Northern Macedonia.

   The projection of Macedonian ethnicity by the Skopjean “nomenclature” is an insolent act. Moustairas points out that “here we don’t have simply a pogrom against an ethnological group, a pogrom that one would react to, here we have under the guise of the scientific mantle a denationalization of people and the presence of a new ethnicity, which not only demands acceptance and existence, but also with much insolence puts territorial claims to areas outside of Yugoslavia. Giokas stresses that “one cannot imagine a greater and insolent misinterpretation of history. There is no doubt that most of the lands that this state possesses were Macedonian and thus Hellenic from the beginning of the world. But since, however, these “Macedonians» accept that they reside in a part of ancient Paionia, Pelagonia, Lyngistis and Dasartia, they must learn that the ancient residents of those areas were Hellenes and always fought hard against any barbarian for the freedom and security of the Hellenes. Therefore, if they consider themselves Macedonians, they must, as Macedonians, learn the Hellenic history of their ancestors”. But how could the residents of Northern Macedonia express their Hellenicity, when Hellas itself denies their Hellenicity? Livas emphasizes that the residents of Northern Macedonia “are pure Hellene-Macedonians” and he goes on to point out that “it is not an exaggeration if we say that those who spoke or still speak the Macedonian dialect-and this is true to great degree in the north up to the springs of the Axios and Strimon Rivers and beyond-were undoubtedly Hellenes, and we say this with much more certainty than we could for any other modern Hellene”.

   Hellas’ strategy for the Macedonian problem should not only focus on the name of the newly established state, but should avert the stabilization of the consciousness of a Macedonian ethnicity. Hellas should not allow the creation there of an autonomous state. The name “Macedonia» that our neighbors  want in the state of Skopje, may bother the official Hellenic state because it reminds Hellas that she has not done her duty to a historically Hellenic area. This name, however, instead of working against the interests of Hellas, would boomerang against those who inspired it. Hellas should declare the Hellenicity of the lands and the populations of Northern Macedonia and demand the latter’s annexation.