Who are the Macedonians? Their struggles to survive as a nation By Risto Stefov Who are the Macedonians? Their struggles to survive as a nation Published by: Risto Stefov Publications [email protected] Toronto, Canada All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief and documented quotations in a review. Copyright 2018 by Risto Stefov e-book edition *** October 19, 2018 *** 2 Table of contents Introduction........................................................................................4 Who are the Macedonians – A Macedonian perspective.................10 In the beginning ...............................................................................11 Macedonia’s rise to power ...............................................................13 Rise of Christianity ..........................................................................21 Period of Decline .............................................................................30 Revival of the Macedonian language and culture............................40 The Bogomil movement...................................................................50 Revival of the Macedonian State .....................................................51 Ottoman occupation of Macedonia ..................................................58 Dawn of the 19th Century and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire..............................................................................................70 Life in Macedonia during the 19th century.......................................82 Forging new identities in the Balkans to replace the Macedonians.99 The Macedonian people’s bid for independence and for creating a Macedonian state............................................................................123 Why the 1903 Macedonian Ilinden Uprising failed.......................131 Divided Macedonia and the atrocities committed against the Macedonian people ........................................................................143 The great deceit - the Greek Civil War ..........................................174 Civil War in Greece – An outsider’s perspective ..........................215 Post Greek Civil War life in Greek occupied Macedonia..............219 In search of the Modern Greek ......................................................228 Revival of the Macedonian state and nation ..................................266 The Macedonians in the Diaspora..................................................300 Conclusion .....................................................................................302 3 Introduction This is not a story about battles fought and strategies applied but rather a story about the human factor and about the Macedonian people’s struggles for equality and human rights. It is a story that will reveal, perhaps for the first time to some English speakers, how the Macedonian people were treated and are still being treated by the European monarchies and by the Great Powers and their proxies Ever since the European monarchies and European Great Powers decided there was not going to be a Macedonian state in the Balkans, the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian States and to a lesser extent the Albanian State have systematically used every means possible, including waging propaganda campaigns, to negate the existence of the Macedonian nation. They have done this not because Macedonians do not exist but purely to usurp Macedonian territories and the rich Macedonian heritage awarded to them by the European monarchies and Great Powers. Until recently there were no organized, strong Macedonian voices outside of the Republic of Macedonia, to speak for the Macedonian people and their rights as citizens of this world, so Macedonia’s adversaries, the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians and more recently the Albanians, spoke for them. The time has now come when Macedonians are taking matters into their own hands, especially those living in the Diaspora, and challenging old beliefs and the illegitimacy of those who have been speaking for them. Only Macedonians are the rightful heirs of the Macedonian heritage and the composers of Macedonia’s history. Unfortunately there has been much resistance to this not only from Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania, the occupiers of Macedonian territories, but also from their western patrons who refuse to allow the Macedonian people to take their rightful place in the world. The Macedonians are not Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians or Albanians. Neither can they simultaneously be Greeks, Bulgarians, 4 Serbians and Albanians as their adversaries claim. The Macedonians are simply Macedonians and nothing else. The Greeks claim that “Macedonia is Greek” and has been “Greek” for four thousand years. Contrary to ancient and modern evidence, they continue to insist that the ancient Macedonians were Greek. Again contrary to evidence and without proof, the modern Greeks claim that they are the direct descendants of the ancient Greeks and as such are the rightful heirs of the ancient Macedonian heritage. Furthermore, and without a shred of evidence, they claim that “all” the ancient Macedonians were killed off during the so-called “Slav invasions” of the fifth and sixth centuries AD and there is no one left but the Greeks to claim the ancient Macedonian heritage. The Greeks, again without any evidence, claim that the modern Macedonians are “Slavs” who invaded Macedonia during the fifth and sixth centuries AD and have nothing in common with the ancient Macedonians and therefore have no rights to the Macedonian heritage. These however are lies and myths. This book will challenge these Greek claims, especially the claim that “Macedonia is Greek”, and prove them to be illegitimate. It will also take a step further and prove that the European monarchies and European Great Powers that artificially created Greece and the Greek identity were behind Greece’s attempts to usurp everything that is Macedonian and rob the Macedonian people of their heritage. It is well-known that a “Greek State” never existed before 1829. The ancient City States where the Greek state is located today were conquered by Philip II, King of Macedonia, in 338 BC. Before that the City States existed as independent entities consisting of monarchies and republics each with their own government and borders; they were never united into a single nation. In other words, there never was a Greek state or a Greek ethnicity before Greece was created for the first time by the European monarchies in 1829. I would also like to add that Philip II was a Macedonian King and it was he and his Macedonians who conquered the ancient City States. Therefore it is only logical and fair that the City States belong to the Macedonians and not to the artificially created modern Greeks. 5 The Great Powers created the Modern Greek Kingdom for the first time in 1829 in an attempt to partition the Ottoman Empire and prevent the formation of a single Slavic State in the Balkans. In other words, the Great Powers divided up the Ottoman occupied territories to prevent the Macedonian people from reclaiming Philip II’s Macedonia, which extended from the Adriatic Sea in the west to the Black Sea in the east and from the Mediterranean Sea in the south to the Danube River in the north. Macedonia and the Macedonian people are the key to unlocking the “mystery of the dreaded Slavs” and their connection to the ancients and, of course, the Great Powers don’t want that revealed. Outside of that, the Great Powers, Britain and France in particular, wanted modern Greece to be a western satellite, a vassal state, a proxy to protect their interests in the Mediterranean. England wanted Greece under its influence so that it could block Russian access to the Mediterranean Sea without having its own costly military presence in the region. As for the claims of purity of the Modern Greek nation there is ample evidence, both historical and scientific, that contradicts these Modern Greek claims. For example there is no modern pure Greek race that directly descended from the ancient City States. Today’s modern Greeks, like other nations in the Balkans, are made up of mixed people, mainly Macedonians, Turks, Albanians, Roma, Vlachs, etc. A Modern Greek person is only Greek by education or by assimilation and has no roots beyond 1829. The Modern Greek not only has a mythical past but sadly has abandoned and forsaken his or her own real roots and heritage. There are many examples of how the Greek State achieved nationhood at the expense of other nations and people. For example, when Greece occupied Macedonian territories for the first time in 1912 there were no Greeks living in Macedonia. Yet a few years later the Greek State produced statistics that showed that the vast majority of the Macedonian population in Greek occupied Macedonia was Greek. The Greek State achieved this by shamelessly assimilating the Macedonian population through force. It eliminated all Macedonian 6 personal names and toponyms and replaced them with Greek ones. It then banned the Macedonian language and forced the Macedonian people to speak Greek. This created the illusion that everything in Macedonia was Greek. In other words, the Greek state put a Greek veneer over Greek occupied Macedonia and the Macedonian people and told the world that everything