This Land We Do Not Give a history of Macedonian resistance to foreign occupation Michael Seraphinoff Chris Stefou This Land We Do Not Give a history of Macedonian resistance to foreign occupation Copyright 2008, Michael Seraphinoff and Chris Stefou No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews or articles. For information, contact publisher. For information on the book please contact: website: www.MacedonianLit.com For orders in Canada please contact: website: www.oshchima.com Published by: Nettle Hollow with the assistance of Aardvark Global Print copy ISBN 978-1-4276-2529-8 cover art: bronze monument at Mechkin Kamen (cover design: Susan C. Prescott and Michael Seraphinoff) portions of this book first appeared inHistory of the Macedonian People from Ancient Times to the Present and Oschima- The Story of a Small Village in Western Macedonia. ...For the world was good and the ways of invaders evil, incomprehensible and absurd. ... Men, animals, all nature’s flesh was never severed from his soul which flowed like the rapid rush of streams and rendered a useless wonder the holy men’s talk of sin and salvation. But the sporadic intrusions of flashing knives broke the charm of his paradise. from “Icon 1: The Macedonian Peasant,” Fragments of a History, Jim Thomev Preface For most people the name Macedonia immediately brings to mind the ancient world conquerors led by their daring and charismatic young warrior-king Alexander, who is the subject of so much legend and lore. However, for Europeans Macedonia is known in modern times as the “apple of discord” among southeastern European nations. By the late 19th century the Ottoman Turkish Empire had lost nearly all of its European colonies. The bulk of what remained was the Ottoman province that was the ancient land of Macedonia. The people of Macedonia at that time were predominantly of a single ethnic group defined by their language, which is a distinct set of Slavic dialects, and their Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, both of which are clearly documented in church manuscripts dating as far back as the 9th century on the Balkan peninsula. Thus, the Macedonians were in a position to self-organize to resist the foreign rule. However, that resistance was tragically manipulated by their recently liberated neighbors in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. They saw the future liberation of Macedonia more as an opportunity to expand their own nation-states’ borders at the expense of that neighbor than an opportunity to help free one more oppressed Balkan people, despite the fact that all three of those states had achieved their own independence only with aid from outside. That outside aid had come primarily from the Great Powers of Europe, the Germans, the British, the French and the Russians. The Macedonians, however, while they had the sympathy of most of the people of Europe, were unable to gain the support of any of the governments of Europe for their liberation, because those governments shifted positions and alliances in endless pursuit of further power and influence. Thus, Macedonia has a history not unlike that of other “troubled” regions of Europe, such as the regions of Spain and France inhabited by the Basques or the former island colony of the British Empire, Ireland, where the negative consequences of colonialism are still a fact of life. As we know, the victors enjoy the various spoils of war, and one of these is the opportunity to have their version of the history of the war broadly and boldly disseminated. So it has been for over a hundred and fifty years that Macedonian history has been primarily written and disseminated by those Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian victors in the Balkan wars of liberation of the 19th and 20th centuries. Only in one small part of Macedonia that fell to socialist Yugoslavia after World War Two were the Macedonian people able to begin to tell their own story in their own words, although even there certain political considerations led to censorship. In the pages that follow you will hear the authentic voices of the people of Macedonia, voices that to this day have been drowned out by the stronger voices of those Balkan neighbors with territorial claims on the land of their Macedonian neighbors. To add to the depth of this tragedy, too many Macedonians in past times and up to the present day have lent their own voices to this anti-Macedonian chorus as the recipients of various “gifts”. Those neighbors have at times offered opportunities for social advancement for assimilation into the neighboring linguistic, ethnic, political or religious communities, and, as often, they have meted out punishment to those who refused to cooperate. Centuries ago in the Ottoman Empire one gift took the form of a “torba” or sack of grain during hard times for any Macedonian Christian willing to enter the mosque and receive the Moslem faith. Today it includes such things as new freedom to travel, which the Bulgarian government is offering any Macedonian from the Republic of Macedonia willing to accept Bulgarian citizenship. While it is possible to understand and even sympathize at times with desperate people who have accepted such offerings, it is the great sacrifice of those who suffered terrible humiliations, hardships, torture, imprisonment, banishment, wounds both physical and mental and even death in order to resist the theft of their land, the denial of their language, their culture or their religion that is the subject of the pages that follow. Few people in the world have endured the trials of war imposed upon the Macedonian people. They resisted the foreign Ottoman Turkish occupation for nearly five hundred years. They fought in large numbers in the Karposh Uprising in 1689. Then, in more modern times they fought and suffered in major struggles for freedom beginning in 1822 in the Negush Uprising, in 1876 in the Razlovtsi Uprising, and in 1878 in the Kresna Uprising. Macedonians rose up again in 1903 in the well-organized and widespread Ilinden Uprising. After the failure of the 1903 revolt many joined regional armies in the Balkan War of 1912 that finally ended Ottoman Turkish rule over Macedonia. Too many were also drawn into the tragic second Balkan War over division of Macedonia among the neighboring Balkan states in 1913, followed by the First World War from 1914 to 1918. In the Second World War Macedonian Partisans helped defeat the fascist occupiers of Yugoslavia and earned the right to form the first autonomous Macedonian Republic within socialist Yugoslavia in 1945. Macedonian anti-fascist Partisans in Greece would later also fight in the Greek Civil War from 1947 through 1949. Most recently Macedonians were caught up in the wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia beginning in 1991, leading finally to open warfare in Macedonia in the year 2001. The stories that you will read in the following pages record Macedonian resistance to foreign occupation over this entire period. This record is one answer to those who might otherwise dismiss the entire existence of the Macedonian people with something like: “What the heck is a Macedonian?” Table of Contents Introduction 9 Chapter One- Ottoman Rule in Macedonia and Early Resistance 14 Chapter Two- Macedonia and the Ottoman Empire in the 18th 32 Century 39 Chapter Three- Macedonia from 1800-1878 55 Chapter Four- Macedonia from 1878-1903 Chapter Five- Macedonian Rebellions Against Turkish Rule from 1876-1881 64 Chapter Six- Events Leading Up to the Ilinden Uprising of 1903 69 Chapter Seven- The Ilinden Uprising 84 Chapter Eight- The Legacy of Ilinden 105 Chapter Nine- The Young Turk Revolt and the Balkan Wars of 1912- 113 1913 Chapter Ten- Macedonia During World War One and Its Aftermath, 1913-1939 135 Chapter Eleven- Macedonia During World War Two and Its Aftermath, 156 1939-1949 Chapter Twelve- The Plight of the Macedonian Refugee Children 194 Chapter Thirteen- Macedonia 1949-2000 214 Chapter Fourteen- Macedonian Wedding in a Time of Blood, the Conflict in 2001 240 Conclusions 254 Sources 266 Map 269 This Land We Do Not Give Introduction Macedonia endured attack after fierce attack from Rome during the four Roman Macedonian wars. Rome didn’t cease until Macedonia was reduced to rubble and even that didn’t satisfy them. Macedonia was partitioned into four parts, rendering her incapable of defense. Macedonia was the last state in Europe to fall to the Romans and for her courage and tenacity she paid a heavy price. Roman cruelty and brutality turned Macedonia into a slave state and her people into slaves and “gladiator fodder” for Roman amusement. Life became so harsh that mothers no longer wanted to bear children. No wonder Macedonia was the first European nation to embrace the teaching of the peace loving Christ. C. Stefou Macedonia is one of the oldest recorded names among European states. Its territory encompasses the northern part of present-day Greece, the southern part of former Yugoslavia (the Macedonian Republic), the southwestern region of Bulgaria and a small portion of southeastern Albania. The ancient kingdom of Macedonia can be traced back to the eighth century B.C. That kingdom reached its height of glory under King Philip who conquered Greece, and his son Alexander, who conquered much of the ancient world in the 4th century B.C. Today, there are those who, for political purposes, would deny the present-day Macedonian people any relation to the ancient Macedonians. A number of invasions, migrations and conquests occurred there over the centuries, further altering the ethnic cultural make-up of the region.