Mihajlo Apostolski, a Slav Macedonian with Bulgarian Nationality

Mihajlo Apostolski, born as Mihail Apostolov, (Bulgarian: Михаил Апостолов, Михаjло Апостолски) (8 November 1901 in Štip, Ottoman Empire (now Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)-7 August 1987 in Dojran, SFR Yugoslavia (now Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) was a Communist general, politician and historian in Yugoslavia. Between World War I and World War II he entered in an Officer's school in Kingdom of Yugoslavia and became a major. During the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April, 1941, he was captured and interned in a POW camp near Milan by German troops. Shortly after his father made a request to the Bulgarian Minister of Defense, where he wrote, his son was "Bulgarian by origin", his parents too, and he himself was wounded, as a volunteer in the Bulgarian Army during the First World War that Apostolov have to be liberated. The request was granted soon.[1][2][3][4]

the requestsent by the father of Mihail Apostolov from Novo Selo ( district of Shtip)to the Minister of War of the Bulgarian Kingdom. He requests that his sonbe liberated from an Italian POW camp and emphasizes the sincere Bulgarianfeelings of the family.[5]

After his liberation, Apostolov changed his name to Mihajlo Apostolski, entered the Macedonian National Liberation Army (led by Communists) and became a partisan leader in the National Liberation War of Macedonia against Axis-allied Bulgaria. After the Second World War Apostolski became one of the military leaders of new SFRY and since 1967 to 1983 he became President of the Macedonian Academy for Science and Art in Yugoslav Macedonia . In 1995 the Military Academy in the new Republic of Macedonia was named "Mihajlo Apostolski".[5]

Mihajlo Apostolski is  a similar  case of the Greek "Akronauplia" when  twenty-seven high-ranking communistic cadres were released by the Gernlans in June 1941 from the Akronauplia prison camp, where they were under detention by the Greek authorities. They owed their release to the intervention of the Bulgarian embassy in Athens. They too declared Bulgarian nationality, although a few like Andrcas Tzimas or Samariniotis who later played a key role in political developments, were not Slav Macedonian. Most of them came from the districts of Kastoria and Florina, and included some of the protagonists in the events to be described below:

Lazaros Adamopoulos or Danios of Oinoi (Kastoria)

Lazaros Zisiadis or Trpovski of Dendrochori (Kastoria),

Zisis Kallimanis of Kalochori (Kastoria),

Theodoros Euthynuadis of Kastoria,

Anastasios Karatzas of Dendrochori,

Zisis Delios or Batzios of Kalochori,

Kyriakos Pylnis of Xynon Neron (Flonna),

Lanipros Moschos of Dendrochori,

L:lnipros Roukas of Ieropig (Kastoria),

Dianlantis Tsistinas or

Dalis of Kastoria, Andreas Tsipas of Agios I'nnteleimon (Florina)

and Lazaros Bozinis of Aposkepos (Kastoria)

More informations fo the "Akronauplia" in the book of John Koliopoulos with the title "Plundered Loyalities". 

Apostolski case is a historical fact that the Slavic population of the FYROM has changed its national identity four times during the 20th century, wavering from Bulgarian to Serbian to Bulgarian to "Macedonian," the insistence of Skopje not to give up its "Macedonian" identity feeds increasingly Athens' suspicions that Skopje's end goal is the eventual claim of all Macedonian territories (Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania). For more than 18 years Skopje has done all possible to maintain its "Macedonian" identity and increasingly forces the issue through speeches or deeds of its governments, blaming Greece for all the ills of the FYROM society, as if it is a spoiled child in a tantrum.

[1]- Dimitre Minchev (Military Publishing House, Sofia, 2002) Bulgarian Camagne Committees in Macedonia - 1941, Shtip, July 23, 1941, Document № 41. 

[2]-Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него Коста Църнушанов, Унив. изд. "Св. Климент Охридски", София, 1992, стр. 179 

[3]-A request from Mite Apostolov Matovski, father of Mihail Apostolski. 

[4]-Bulgarian Central Military Archives (CMA), fund 20, list 4, file 25. 

[5]-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihajlo_Apostoloski

The Bulgarians in Yugoslav Macedonia (WWII)

[From the book “Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia) by Evangelos Kofos, Institute for Balkan Studies, pages 108-110]

On April 17, 1941, Bulgarian troops were permitted to enter South­ern Yugoslavia and take over large regions of Yugoslav Macedonia for "administrative purposes." As was the case with Greek Eastern Macedo­nia and Thrace, the Bulgarians acted on the assumption that the c'New Lands" had been definitely annexed to the Bulgarian Fatherland. Their jurisdiction was extended to the whole of Yugoslav Macedonia except the Upper Vardar above Skopje and the north-western district around Tetovo, Gostivar and Kieevo which were allotted to the Italians.[1]

Contrary to Greek Macedonia, the Bulgarians were received here, on the whole, by a friendly population. Historical ties uniting the Slav popu­lations on both sides of the frontier, and Bulgarian propaganda which had not ceased during the inter-war years, had kept alive the pro-Bulgarian feelings of the inhabitants.

s.

The Slavonic  inhabitants  greets the arrival of the Bulgarian orchestra in Skopje. The sign in the back reads: "United Bulgaria Salutes"

From the first days of the occupation, the Bulgarian Government set out a carefully studied plan which, it was hoped, would induce the inhabit­ants of the region to demand the formal annexation of Yugoslav Mace­donia to Bulgaria.. [2] A major educational program was initiated whereby Bulgarian elementary and secondary schools staffed with teachers from Bulgaria were established in almost all towns and even villages. A Bulga­rian university—The King Boris University—was opened in Skopje. Admin­istratively, the Bulga rians attempted to consolidate their control by re­allocating certain districts to form a new province including parts of Bul­garian Macedonia. The July 1942 Citizenship Law, which in Greek Mace­donia became the pseudo-legal basis for the eviction of thousands of Greeks from their homes, was used here as a pretext to compel many Serbs

 to flee to Serbia. [3]

The Bulgarian authorities made no secret of their cooperation with the Bulgaro-Macedonian nationalists, especially the followers of the I.M.R.O., many of whom had joined special Bulgarian armed units to as­sist in the policing of the region. [4] The task of forming these units was assigned to General Ivan Marinov who accepted in his staff two I.M.R.O. liaison officers named Grupcev and Nastev. [5] At the same time, a Bulgarian nationalist organization named cOpstestvena-Cila," was entrusted with the task of preparing the ground for the eventual, gradual integra­tion into Bulgaria of the districts not included in the Bulgarian zone of occupation. Political committees of this organization were set up in Tetovo, Gostivar, Kicevo, and Debar [6]

However, despite the fact that all the prerequisites for the success of the Bulgarian objectives existed, it became increasingly evident that the native population was daily becoming disillusioned with the Bulgarians. A variety of reasons could be cited for this unexpected development. The most important was, apparently, the fact that the Slav peasants were sur­prised by the misconduct of the Bulgarian soldiers, who, far from acting as liberators, were frequently involved in situations very common in an army entering a foreign country. The Bulgarian authorities tried to correct the situation, but the first bad impressions remained. Then came stern re­prisals by the Bulgarian occupation authorities, sometimes against innocent peasants, for murders of Bulgarian soldiers and officers committed by communist partisans. In April 1942, the communists attempted an uprising in the Monastir-Prilep district which was put down by the Bulgarian Army and Gendarmerie executing twelve local communists. The population reacted with mass demonstrations causing the death of the Bulgarian Gendarmerie commander and 15 gendarmes. In turn, the Bulgarians executed many villagers, men and women. [7]

Rather than project the elements held in common, these developments tended to stress those dividing the inhabitants of Yugoslav Macedonia from the Bulgarians. The strong regionalist spirit revolted against the lordly attitude of the Bulgarian authorities, a fact properly exploited by the communists, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter. The Bulgarians were, thus, engaged in a chain reaction, since reprisals against the partisans drove the native Slavs even farther away from Sofia and into the arms of the communists who were fighting under the slogan for a "Macedonian state" within Yugoslavia.

The last attempt by nationalist Bulgarians to win over Macedonia came when the Germans were preparing to withdraw from the Balkans. Ivan Mihailov, chief of the I.M.R.O. who had maintained friendly relations with the Nazis, attempted to establish an autonomous Macedonian state [8]

But history had outrun him and rendered his plan outdated. Now the initiative had definitely passed to the communists who began to exhibit their lively interest in the potentialities of Macedonian politics.

Notes
[1]- Barker, op. cit., p. 78.
[2]- "Filov's Diary," Otetsestven Front, op. cit.
[3]- Barker, op. cit., p. 79.
[4]- "The trial of the I.M.R.O. followers in Sofia, August, 1946," Glas (Bel­grade), August 19, 1946.
[5]- Secret Report, GFM, A/24317/2/1949.
[6]- Ibid.
[7]- "Monthly Confidential Report of the [Greek] Ministry of Interior," May 1942. In GFM Archives.
[8]- Makedonska Tribuna, (Indianapolis, U.S.A.), organ of Mihailov's (I.M.R.O.) followers in the United States, wrote in February 22, 1951 that in the closing months of the German occupation, Mihailov had many talks with Bulgarian officials in Yugoslav Macedonia. In his talks he tried to convince them of the wrong policy they pursued trying to annex Yugoslav Macedonia to Bulgaria. Mihailov argued that the best course was first to adopt an autonomous status for Macedonia. Bramos, [First Edi­tion], op. cit., p. 136.

COMMUNISM’s PIVOTAL ROLE IN THE “MACEDONIAN” ETHNOGENESIS

by  George C. Papavizas

When I was thirteen years old I asked my grandfather Constantine why he had joined the Greek andartes (freedom fighters) in Macedonia in 1904-1908 during the Macedonian Struggle and fought against the armed Slavic bands (komitadjides, committee men) of the clandestine Bulgarian Komitet " Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" (IMRO) (Vatreshna Makedonska Revolutsionna Organizacija, VMRO in Skopje). Looking at me straight in the eyes for a long time in silence, twirling his long moustache, his sixty-year-old weather-beaten face furrowed in deep pain because of the distortion of historical facts on Macedonia emanating from the Slavic north, he said softly: "To make certain that after the Turks, our Macedonia remains Hellenic and my children and grandchildren enjoy freedom as Hellinomakedones"(Greek Macedonians). He died of pneumonia at sixty, leaving behind a deep feeling of patriotism for all and an indelible, life-long Hellenic Macedonian legacy that has had a major impact on me, his first grandson.

Sixty years later I was at my son´s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Before I sat down, my eight-year-old grandson, Aidan, ran to me and brandished the Scholastic Atlas of the World, published by Miles Kelly Publishing Ltd. in England. He proudly demonstrated his geography skills by naming several countries around the world, leaving his best at the end, the map of Greece. He looked at it for a few seconds, placed his finger on the word "Macedonia," looked at me with his intelligent blue eyes, and said: Here Papou (grandfather); I know where Macedonia is, where you were born." Suddenly, he looked at me again and said disappointed: "But you told me you were born in Macedonia, Greece."

I was not surprised that the word "Macedonia" was not on Hellenic Macedonia, but on Vardarska Banovina (also known as Vardar Province, or South Serbia), a small country beyond Greece´s northern frontier. It was not the first time that my Macedonia, the only one that existed when I was born, was not shown on the map. The publisher did not bother to place the word "Macedonia" on Hellenic Macedonia, which occupies 75% of King Philip´s historic Macedonia. I left by son´s house angry with myself for having become apathetic to my Hellenic Macedonian legacy bequeathed to me by my grandfather, suddenly revived by my grandson. Because I have learned all my life to attribute the written word with more weight than the spoken one (verba volant, scripta manent), I decided there and then to write about a plundered Macedonian legacy; how the international community has been ensnared in clever political-historical inaccuracies on the Macedonian issue, emanated or broadcast from capitals behind the Iron Curtain in the past; from free capitals north of the Greek frontier now; and how Greece´s northern neighbors, have been striving to convince the world to recognize their small break-away republic with a name that belongs to my children´s and grandchildren´s Macedonian legacy.

Why is the name "Macedonia" so important?

Because it carries along important derivatives, far beyond what it says: history, identity, heritage, culture, heroes, customs, traditions, etc. It carries "Ghosts or real historical demons. Perhaps war or peace. Nothing and everything," wrote Leslie H. Gelb in The New York Times June 12, 1992. The name, of course, is Macedonia, the land of Philip, Alexander and Aristotle; the beautiful land with Mount Olympus and the Greek Gods. The rich land east and west of the bustling city of Thessaloniki with the archaeological sites of an age long gone, the Hellenic Macedonian age: Pella, Vergina (Aegae), Dion, Amphipolis, Methone, Pydna, Olynthos, Orestis, Appolonia, Philippi, Potidaea, Stagira (Aristotle´s birthplace), Thessaloniki. Do any of these historical city names sound Slavic to the reader?

Because people around the world, after communism was entrenched in the Balkans, dispute the Hellenism of the ancient Macedonians who lived in these cities; and because the words "Macedonia" and "Macedonians" are both perceived and used nowadays as propulsive forces to create and sustain — with heavy-handedness — a new ethnic model with the name "Macedonia", forcefully embedded within the glorious Macedonian past, it is important that we understand the meaning of the so-called Macedonian Question (and the struggle for Macedonia). What was the Macedonian Question? From 1870 to 1918, it was the problem of who had the historical, cultural, ethnic, and demographic rights to rule Macedonia following the simmering demise of the Ottoman Empire. The problem triggered a political and military struggle under the Turks between Hellenism and Bulgarism, two ideas — and two forces that fought embodied as Greeks and Bulgarians — not as Greeks and "Macedonians". From 1870 to 1943, Bulgarism represented Slavism, not Macedonianism. The Slavic Macedonianism was not known as an independent ethnic concept. It was borne in the early 1940s. Bulgaria lost the struggle because it disregarded Hellenism´s deep roots in Macedonia.

With the onset of communism in the Balkans, the Macedonian Question — and the struggle for Macedonia — took on a different meaning and dangerous new dimensions. At the risk of being considered a polemic anticommunist, I must now lay considerable stress on international communism being greatly responsible for the revival and perpetuation of the Macedonian controversy since the early 1920s. And here is how and why: As early as 1921, the Soviets had inaugurated a policy, conceived by Leon Trotsky and commissar Dimitri Manuilski, to accomplish a Balkan fragmentation. The Sixth Congress of the Balkan Communist Federation under the leadership of the Bulgarian communist Kolarov and the Fifth Congress of Comintern (Communist International), an adjunct of the Soviet foreign policy, held concurrently in Moscow in 1923, voted for the formation of an "Autonomous and Independent Macedonia and Thrace."

The pre-Tito Yugoslav communist leaders, who voted against the Soviet plan, were not ready to embrace the idea of a separate Macedonian nation, insisting that the inhabitants of the Vardar Province "lacked a clearly defined national Macedonian character of their own." Ironically, it was Tito later who used the label "Macedonian" to create the new nationality, contrasting his "Macedonians" with the Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians.

The communist state-controlled "Macedonian" ethnogenesis began in earnest on August 1, 1941 with Comintern, Stalin´s right-hand-instrument, dispatching the following directive to the Bulgarian and Yugoslav communist leaders (from Tsola Dragojceva, 1979): Macedonia must be attached to Yugoslavia for practical reasons and for the sake of expediency. The two parties must take up the stand of the self-determination of the Macedonian people." Ignoring Greece, Comintern decisively shifted the burden and responsibility of how to contact the struggle for Macedonia from Bulgaria to Yugoslavia and ruled for an "Independent Macedonia and Thrace" under Yugoslav hegemony. But it is doubtful that the Yugoslav and Bulgarian communists ever deluded themselves into believing they were fighting on history´s right side.

It was the Comintern directive that signaled the second phase of the Macedonian Question. For the 1940s, it was the competing claims by Greece´s communist neighbors for Hellenic Macedonia. The Bulgarians first, and the Yugoslavs later, have used every means available to them to violate the Treaty of Bucharest (signed in 1913): seditious propaganda, distortion of history, anthropological and historical studies of dubious or prejudiced nature that never considered the existence of millions of Greek Macedonians; and, indirectly, civil war (aiding the Greek communists during the civil war of 1946-1949). Greek Macedonia was ravaged during the civil war, fomented and fueled by communist Albania, communist Bulgaria and especially communist Yugoslavia to which Skopje belonged.

It was not a coincidence that the revival of the Macedonian controversy went hand in hand with communism´s genesis in the Balkans. Any doubts concerning communism´s forceful involvement with the problem would have been dissipated early in the game were it known that Comintern was involved from its early inception with the Macedonian Question.

In spite of overwhelming evidence of international communism´s involvement with the Greek Civil War of 1946-1949, most historians disregard altogether the important connection of the civil war´s destinies with those of Macedonia´s fate. Most of the modern authors who write in English do not even mention the Greek Civil War. They also neglect to mention how the Macedonian controversy was exploited by Soviet-sponsored communism to propel into the world the unhistorical concept that the Slavs, Albanians, and Bulgarians of Tito´s Socialist Republic of Macedonia were the only legitimate "Macedonians." The connection of the two issues did not escape the attention of the historian Evangelos Kofos (1995) who wrote: ". . . . the fate of Macedonia and the course of the [communist] revolution in Greece — would converge, interact, and shape the destinies of both."

My new book, CLAIMING MACEDONIA: The Struggle for the Heritage, Territory and Name of the Historic Hellenic Land, is a debate about the Macedonian history and legacy, and its plundering by the early dynamism and the theoretical base of international communism, with the Soviet Union looming awesome behind the scenes. It is the "antidote to historical illiteracy" (from TIME, July 2006) on Macedonia, especially during the period from the early 1920s to the late 1940s. Specifically, it shows the misconceptions pertaining to the fabricated legacy of Macedonia´s past, as promulgated by international communism; analyzes communism´s pivotal role in fueling the Greek Civil War and the Macedonian controversy; and emphasizes the infrastructure of the Macedonian controversy and the part of Macedonian history that now lies in dead communism´s shadow and in Tito´s defunct socialist imperialism. The critical role played by Yugoslav communism in the struggle for Macedonia, especially during the Greek Civil War, did not escape the attention of Ivo Banak, professor of history at Yale, who wrote in 1992: "only communism could provide the theoretical base and the necessary force to push for a separate "Macedonian nation."

Looking now at this backdrop from a cool historical perspective, we must ask: How did Tito and Yugoslavia manage to create a new ethnicity from a polyglot conglomerate of Slavs, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, gypsies, Turks, and others and convince the world that his methods and reasons for forging a new nationality were internationally sanctionable?

The answer to these questions is simple: Using Stalin´s advice (or directive?) how to form a new nation, Tito created a "Macedonian nation" in three steps and in such a clever way that the world, including Greece next door, did not question the deeds of the World War II hero while the war was going on in Europe: First, Tito converted a part of Vardar Province to People´s Republic of Macedonia within the Yugoslav federation, using the geographic name "Macedonia" as an ethnic name; second, he created an artificial nationality by transforming the Slavs of the new republic to "Macedonians." and third, he gave the people in the new republic a new language by modifying their Bulgarian dialect and calling it "Macedonian;"

In contrast to Alexander´s language which had a Greek alphabet, the language spoken in Skopje did not have an alphabet before 1945. Tito commissioned the linguist Blaze Koneski who modified the Serbian version of the Cyrillic alphabet and called it "Macedonian alphabet." He then cleansed the language of specific Bulgarian glossic elements betraying their Bulgarian origin, replacing them by "Macedonian" neologisms; and fabricated the lexicon of the new language from a mixture of words from the Bulgarian, Serb, Croat, Slovenian and other Slavonic languages. The new artificial mixture is now called "Macedonian language."

With the Germans still in Yugoslavia, the first Anti-Fascist Assembly of National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) at the monastery of Prohor Pcinjsky gave the final thrust to Tito´s grandiose plans for a unified Macedonia under Yugoslavia´s hegemony by proclaiming "Macedonia as a federated state in the Democratic Federation of Yugoslavia" and declaring: 

"You [the "Macedonians"] will succeed to unite all parts of Macedonia that the Balkan imperialists [Bulgarians, Greek, Serbs] occupied in 1913 and 1918." With these words, the Macedonian Question was revived stronger than ever, with the struggle for Macedonia assuming dangerous dimensions for the stability of the Balkans."

Let us now talk briefly about the crude communist manipulations to achieve the conversion. Ethnologically, the new republic was always a fluid country inhabited by several ideologically contentious groups with ties to Albania, Bulgaria, or Serbia. The 1940 official Yugoslav census recognized only two ethnic groups in the Vardar Province, Slavs at 66 percent and Muslims at 31 percent. In 1946, three years after the formation of the People´s Republic of Macedonia, the Slavs magically disappeared from the census that showed 66 percent "Macedonians." Was this remarkable transformation process a massive genetic mutation of the Slavic population or a census falsification?

Giorgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian communist leader, upset with Tito´s manipulations and imperialism, wrote in his diary:

 "Are we talking about a Macedonian nation or a Macedonian population made up of Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs? Does a Macedonian nation exist, and if so, where and how? Can Macedonia exist as a separate state or find freedom and statehood within the South Slav federation, regardless of the ethnic conglomerate of which it is composed" ? 

(Kouzinopoulos 1999, from Dimitrov´s secret Diary, p. 21)

Dimitrov wrote on the same page: 

"Tito´s interest and the interest of the [Skopjan] chauvinists focuses not only on Pirin Macedonia . . . . but also on the Aegean Macedonia, i.e., Greek Macedonia, and the Aegean Sea."

Now, let us return to Stalin. What was his advice (or I should say directive?) on how to create a "Macedonian Nation?" Stalin met with Soviet, Yugoslav and Bulgarian leaders. When Dimitrov expressed additional doubts on the Macedonianism of the Vardar Province´s inhabitants, Stalin rushed to explain to him how state building—even if it is a fabrication—leads to acceptable nation building. His remarks to Dimitrov on nation building were revealing indeed:

Pirin Macedonia must become autonomous within a South Slav Federation.¼ Whether there is a Macedonian nation or not, and whether its population has not yet developed a Macedonian consciousness, makes no difference. Such consciousness did not exist in Byelorussia either when, after the October revolution, we proclaimed it as a Soviet republic.

In spite of Stalin´s admiration for Tito (before the split), the Soviet leader became enraged with the Yugoslav leadership´s irredentist plans. On January 10, 1945, Stalin characterized as ill-advised Tito´s efforts to incorporate into Yugoslavia not only the Greek Macedonia, but also Albania, and slices from Austria and Hungary. "I do not like their [Yugoslav] behavior . . . . they do not understand in Belgrade." (Dimitrov´s Diary, p. 22).

I have now a few serious conceptual questions on the history of the Slavic society lying in the shadow of Tito´s dead imperialism and in Comintern´s manipulations and intrigue. First, what characteristics (historical, cultural, genetic, linguistic, ethnic, or anthropological) do the people of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (now FYROM) possess to be described as "Macedonians by communist first?" Second, if the slavophones in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia were really Macedonians, why did they not assert their Macedonian identity before a communist dictator officially transformed them to "Macedonians?" And third, what are the indigenous Greek-speaking inhabitants of Greek Macedonia whose forebears always lived in Macedonia, and whose Macedonian history, civilization, culture, myths, heroes, language, all go back for countless generations? Or to put it in a different context: Which of the two groups, Hellenes or Slavs in Macedonia, is historically, culturally, linguistically, and ethnically more likely to be identified as Macedonian?

To put the state-controlled "Macedonian" ethnogenesis in proper perspective, we also need to go back to 1870 and trace the origin and sentiments of the FYROM slavophones. They underwent several transformations before their final ethnic conversion to "Macedonians": They were Bulgarians from 1870 to 1913; South Slavs or serbianized Slavs from 1913 till the German army occupied Yugoslavia in 1941; Bulgarians again proudly brandishing Bulgarian flags during the occupation of South Serbia by the fascist Bulgarian army (a Hitler gift to Bulgaria for joining Nazi Germany during World War II); Yugoslav communist partisans during the occupation; and then communist "Macedonians" by 1943 with new roots, history and language;

Upon the passing of Tito´s epoch, centered as it was on the "inherent megalomaniac charisma of a single man," they finally became reformed communist "Macedonians" in FYROM, harboring irredentist aspirations at their neighbors´ expense; hanging maps on school walls depicting Greek Macedonia occupied by Greece, a powerful irredentist stimulus and a violation of the Interim Accord; inculcating in the young´s minds the idea to hate the Greeks; revising their original constitution to include an appeal to the slavophones of Greece to continue their struggle for union with Skopje, an inclusion implying a camouflaged threat against Greece´s territorial integrity; circulating in FYROM and abroad maps depicting "Greater Macedonia" with slices of eastern Albania, southwestern Bulgaria, and northern Greece (equal to 1/4 of the Greek mainland, including Thessaloniki); or demanding on the Internet that Greek Macedonia be returned to its proper owner! The post-1991 situation in FYROM with the school maps and other pronouncements has created dangerous nationalistic ideas in young generations that have been exposed to the education system established by the reformed communist leaders following FYROM´s independence in 1991.

Considering all the facts, including the ethnic transformations, and the aggressive propaganda by Skopje and the Slavic diaspora, history has now reached the absurd and untenable points where a small mountainous enclave calling itself "Republic of Macedonia" may not only demand — by the power of its apprehended name— to be a Macedonia, but the only Macedonia; and its Slavic people may not only demand — by the power granted to them by a dictator — to be some Macedonians, but the only Macedonians.

After all these happenings, the Macedonian Question is no longer seen as a question. It has become a clever and deliberate attempt to absorb slowly, but surely, everything that belongs to a neighbor: a complete sweep of historical and archaeological values and a destruction of the neighbor´s identity and pride.

Calling the inhabitants of FYROM "Macedonians," complying with their unhistorical demands, will automatically deprive three million Hellenic Macedonians, half of whom are indigenous Hellenic Macedonians, of their Macedonian name and identity. This serious argument has nothing to do with the glorious Macedonian kings, the ancient Macedonian Hellenism, the 3,000 years of Macedonian history, or the Hellenistic Era. It has to do with the fact that the FYROM Slavs monopolize a name that people next door are using for ages. It has a lot to do with the Hellenic Macedonian´s identity arbitrarily being transferred to the FYROM Slavs fifteen years ago. It has also to do with the fact that a country (FYROM) that forms a small part of a larger whole country — less than15% of Philip´s historic Macedonia — portrays itself as representing the entire Macedonia. To quote a phrase from the book Macedonia, a Greek Term in Modern Usage (published in 2005 by the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle Foundation), "At a time when regions in Europe are searching for and pushing their distinctive identities to the fore, how can it be possible for the Greek Macedonians to lose theirs?" The Greek people must realize, if they have not done so already, that manipulations in politics, domestic and foreign, weigh heavier than the glorious historical pages of the Macedonian history and the Hellenic Macedonian romantic nationalism.

FYROM´s dogma proclaims now on all levels — political, scientific, educational, diplomatic, media — that the entire geographic area of Macedonia, down to Mount Olympus, constitutes "ethnic Macedonian territory," the homeland of the "Macedonian nation," which was unfairly partitioned in 1913 with the Treaty of Bucharest; and the homeland of the "Macedonian" people who consider the Greeks and Bulgarians as foreigners. Unfortunately, the official Greek side has not cleverly used these arguments to justify the legitimate position why Greece possesses an age-old de facto right on the name "Macedonian" and its derivatives. "Who steals my purse steals trash; but he that filches from me my good name robs of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed."

Why does Skopje insist on maintaining the simple name "Republic of Macedonia," despite the fact it occupies less than 15% of historic Macedonia?

 Why did FYROM reject Matthew Nimetz´s 2005 proposal for the name Republic of Macedonia-Skopje, tentatively accepted by the Greek government as a basis for further negotiations

Nimetz, the U.N. mediator, included the following in his report to the U. N .Council. "... the name "Macedonia" has importance to a long association with the heritage, culture and history of the Hellenic Republic and Hellenic people since antiquity; "Macedonia" is a name commonly used to refer to a region of northern Greece, and that the people of that region, within the Hellenic Republic, customarily are referred to as "Macedonians." . . . Skopje must acknowledge that there is a region in Greece named "Greek Macedonia" [and not "Aegean Macedonia" or Egejska Makedonija)." 

Is it the fact that Nimetz bluntly told the Skopjans of the existence of another, older and larger Macedonia, the Hellenic Macedonia, that forced them to reject his proposed name? 

Or is it because FYROM intends to adhere to a name that does not include restrictive qualifiers which will imply extirpation of Skopje´s dreams for future territorial expansion?

It Greece were to succumb to pressure by friends and foes alike and accept the neighbor with the name "Macedonia," it would automatically condone Skopje´s aspirations, tacitly legitimizing its expansionist dreams, transforming the new state into a future territorial threat to one of Greece´s most precious territories. Granting the name "Macedonia" to Skopje would also imply future rights on the entire geographic Macedonia, thus giving the power to the new state to raise claims on a much wider territory with the name "Macedonia" and all its derivatives. Adoption of the name "Macedonia" by Skopje constitutes another equally serious threat to Greece, a threat to its national identity and cultural heritage. What does that mean? It means that monopolizing the name inadvertently will lead to a Slavic monopoly of everything Macedonian: history, civilization, culture, identity, heroes, customs, symbols, arts, traditions. Failing to preserve the cultural-historical heritage is tantamount for Greece to failing to keep alive what I call in my new book, The power of Hellenic Macedonian ethnic identity, culture, and pride, three tenets (or expression if you will) defining Macedonian Hellenism.

Pushed into a difficult corner in the midst of the international Macedonian controversy, Greece must find it hard to forgive the disappointing stance of its friends and allies, who sanctioned the use of the name "Macedonia" by the small republic. The irony of the U.S. policy is that it assisted Greece to protect its territory in the 1940s, and thwart Tito´s and Stalin´s irredentist aspirations; and then, forgetting the rivers of blood spilled by the Greek people to thwart communism´s advance, turned around and recognized as "Macedonians" the people against whom Greece was fighting with America´s help to preserve its territorial integrity during the Greek Civil War.

Equally paradoxical is the fact that when the political and military pendulum swung in the opposite direction after Greece successfully repulsed Soviet-sponsored communism and prevented it from reaching the Aegean, Greece became the aggressor in the eyes of the West, as if Greece were the guilty party that usurped its neighbor´s name and assumed an identity that belonged to another country; as if Greece were the country that appropriated a foreign emblem to decorate its flag; as if Greece were the country with an irredentist constitution, claiming territories right and left, north and south; as if Greece demanded in its constitution that half of FYROM return to Greece because in the past it belonged to Philip´s and Alexander´s Macedonia.

With these perspectives in mind, the insistence of FYROM Slavs to be called "Macedonians," a name dictatorially established and supported by communism´s brutal force and theoretical base sixty years ago, clashes with the Hellenic Macedonians´ right of always being Macedonians. If FYROM considers itself Macedonia, an audaciously daring step that brings the origin of its Slavic inhabitants close to Philip and Alexander the Great, then the insistence of these contemporary people to be called "Macedonians" clashes head on with the age-old freedom of others to be called "Macedonians." FYROM has the right to survive and prosper, but according to the Academy of Athens, it does not have the right to acquire, by international recognition, an advantage enjoyed by no other state in the world: to use a name which of itself propagandizes territorial aspirations.

The Pan-Macedonian Association of America, Sixty Years of Activity.

The Role of (Tito's) Macedonia*

ONE of Marshal Tito's major innovations was the setting up of "Free Macedonia" as one of the independent states in Federative Yugoslavia. The five other constituent units are Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Two of the six units, namely, Slovenia and Macedonia, are involved in very serious international difficulties. The "Macedonian Problem" is one of the most explosive and dangerous in all Europe, implicating not only the small Balkan states, but the Old World's two major empires. Macedonia is the vortex of a whirlpool of bitter conflicts. If Tito could find a way to resolve them he would deserve the gratitude of mankind. But did he achieve this by creating "Free Macedonia"? Perhaps he accentuated the conflicts. Let us see.

The term Macedonia was in common use even before the time of Alexander the Great, also called Alexander the Macedonian. The region embraced by the term may have changed some during the last two thousand years. In any case, it now includes territories incorporated into or claimed by four states, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. It is inhabited by representatives of those four nations, with some Turks and a few Aroumanians added. The total area is about the size of West Virginia and the population about two million five hundred thousand.

Macedonia passed under Turkish domination more than five hundred years ago and remained a part of the Turkish Empire until 1912, when a military coalition of the small Balkan powers drove the Turks out. During that long period of foreign rule, the various nationalities inhabiting Macedonia became almost inextricably mixed. Greek, Latin, Slav, Turanian, and Albanian lived side by side in the dozen larger towns, while Greek villages lay near Slav villages and Albanian hamlets were found just across the gully or around the mountain from Turkish hamlets. Naturally the claims of the various nationalities egregiously overlapped and ambitious states aggressively backed one or another of the conflicting claims. No similar area has been the center of more irreconcilable, irredentist longings.

The principal modern claimant, or perhaps one should say the most aggressive claimant, was Bulgaria and the Bulgaro-Macedonians. Up until 1912, a majority of the inhabitants of Macedonia were Slavs. The second largest group was Greek. Naturally the Slavs were in conflict with the Greeks. But they were also engaged in a furious internecine Slav fight, because the Bulgars claimed the Slav Macedonians as Bulgarians, while the Serbs claimed them as Serbs. Consequently, there was a fierce, five-cornered struggle among Turks, Albanians, Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians, with Bulgarians often pitted against the field, and with Turkey playing one Christian group off against another. And above these bloody combats were the Great Powers, frequently intervening to restore harmony and each trying to protect its own interest. The Teutons and Russians both wanted to dominate Salonika, Macedonia's chief port, while Great Britain and France were determined to prevent them from doing it.

The rival local claimants maintained conspiratorial organizations for the purpose of realizing their aims by force. These organizations and the Balkan states supporting them provoked revolutions, wars and many acts of terror. For fully fifty years Macedonia has been a scene of violence, a classic stage for political murders, plunder, treachery, and the burning of villages. Helpless, homeless peasant refugees have constantly fled across Macedonia, with mothers car rying babies on their backs and with burning homes lighting midnight skies. In 1903 there was a major revolution and during the following decades frequent raids, assassinations, massacres, and bomb outrages. There were wars about Macedonia in 1912, 1913, 1915, 1924, 1941-1945. Wherever Macedonia appears on the pages of history, the word is written in letters of blood.

And the recent cause of much of the blood was Bulgaria. It was the chief aggressor because it believed Macedonia was inhabited by Bulgarians, whom it must free. "Freeing Macedonia" was the main aim of Bulgaria's foreign policy and was considered the holy duty of almost every Bulgarian patriot. Macedonia was imprinted deeply in Bulgarian hearts, it echoed in Bulgarian songs, and gleamed bright or grim from Bulgarian poetry. At one time or another, almost every modern Bulgarian boy has dreamed of being a Macedonian revolutionist or chetnik. "Freeing Macedonia" has also been almost as vital an element in Bulgaria's internal politics as in its external politics. Many a Bulgarian government has been overthrown because of the Macedonian question.

The strongest, bloodiest, ablest, and most famous--or notorious-Macedonian revolutionary society was a Bulgarian creation called the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization or IMRO, which came to be a symbol of terrorism. Its greatest revolutionary act was the uprising of 1903, beginning on August 2, or "Ilin Den." This was a bold attack on the Turks and was accompanied by many brave deeds. However, in the course of a few weeks it was suppressed with characteristic Turkish cruelty, which left burned villages and nameless graves and sent thousands of Macedonian refugees rushing toward Bulgaria. Nevertheless, in spite of all the suffering, frustration, and defeat, Ilin Day came to be an almost holy date among Bulgaro-Macedonians. They consider the leaders of the uprising, especially Gotse Delcheff, the greatest of the great. He is the Macedonian Patrick Henry, while Ilin Day is the Macedonian Fourth of July--which failed.

And the most significant aspect of these vital but sad events, indelibly imprinted in the hearts and spirits of Bulgaria, is that IMRO, Ilin Day, and Gotse Delcheff were Bulgarian. They are part of Bulgaria's drive toward Salonika and beyond. They are a symbol-the most explosive symbol--of Bulgarian expansion and Bulgarian irredentism. They have been synonymous with Bulgarian antipathy toward Serbs and Greeks.

As a result of the wars and revolutions that took place after 1903, Macedonia was repeatedly divided and when Hitler attacked Greece through Bulgaria in 1941, 50 per cent of the area was in Greece, 40 per cent in Serbia or Yugoslavia, and 10 per cent in Bulgaria. Naturally, these were contiguous areas. By that time, because of purges, massacres, and exchanges of populations, most of the inhabitants of Macedonia in Greece were Greeks; all of the inhabitants of Macedonia in Bulgaria were Bulgarians; and most of those in Yugoslav Macedonia were Slavs or Albanians, with some Turks. Until the middle of the 1930's, most Bulgarians claimed the Slavs in Yugoslav Macedonia as Bulgars and IMRO continued to work for their liberation--not from Turkey now, but from Yugoslavia, or more specifically from Serbia. However, IMRO's terrorist activities gradually dwindled and by 1941, the terrible Macedonian problem had been tentatively settled by cutting the Gordian knot. Bayonets had established the borders. The Serbs were coercively making Serbs of the inhabitants of their Macedonia, and the Greeks had settled Greeks in their Macedonia.

I am not pretending that from the ethnological point of view this was the right solution. I have followed Macedonian developments intently and on the spot for a third of a century and believe that in 1912 most of Bulgaria's ethnological claims were just. Most Macedonians were Slavs, most Slav Macedonians were more nearly Bulgars than Serbs. However, vast changes took place during the three decades after 1912 and the forcible solution of the Macedonian problem by Serb and Greek swords, along with the diplomatic de cisions of the Great Powers, had been accepted, even by the Bulgarian government.

Many Bulgarians had grown tired of fighting all their Balkan neighbors because of Macedonia and were inclined to let bygones be bygones, in spite of the great sadness in their hearts. They still sang and talked of Macedonia and they cried and prayed about it. They felt as the Jewish exiles in Babylon and they reverently watched grand Ilin Day processions which were annually held throughout Bulgaria, but by 1941 most Bulgarians did not want to provoke a war for Macedonia any more than Mexico would provoke a war for southern California. The Macedonian question was more nearly closed than it had been for half a century.

But Hitler opened it up again. When he attacked Yugoslavia and Greece in the spring of 1941, he used the Bulgarian state as a base of operations and the Bulgarian nation as an ally. In payment for this help he gave Bulgaria all of Yugoslav Macedonia and much Greek territory. The Bulgarians immediately occupied the areas, formally annexed them, set up civilian administrations, re-established Bulgarian civilians there, and built roads to connect the "liberated provinces," permanently, with the Bulgarian "motherland." When the Germans were expelled from the Balkans late in 1944 and Bulgaria capitulated, Greece and Yugoslavia received back their lost territories. Consequently Macedonia's boundaries were re-established as they had been at the beginning of 1941. Thus, at the beginning of 1945, Macedonia, which had changed hands many times and been the scene of countless battles, was back about where it was in 1918 and the situation appeared once more to have been stabilized.

But that appearance was deceptive because an extremely dynamic new element had entered the situation. It was the creation of "Free Macedonia," a federal unit in Tito's Federative Yugoslavia. This new creation is a political bomb--time bomb, not atomic one. "Free Macedonia covers 10,230 square miles of territory, which makes it a little larger than Massachusetts. It has about one million inhabit ants, most of whom are Slavs, but beside them is a large Albanian minority. Free Macedonia has a government of its own and claims for itself the attributes of a sovereign state. Its capital, the city of Skoplje, or as the Bulgarians call it, Skopie, is rather pleasantly situated on the Vardar River, about one hundred miles from Sofia and two hundred from Belgrade.

In it is a new radio station which is said to be one of the most powerful in the Balkans. And its function is not merely to serve the peasants in the narrow valleys and on the rather barren mountains of Free Macedonia in Yugoslavia but to serve the whole of Macedonia, including both Greek and Bulgarian areas. Indeed, it is to keep all Balkan Slavs daily and nightly aware of Macedonia, its problems and its aims. A daily paper called New Macedonia appears, a university functions with Macedonian professors, schools flourish with new Macedonian textbooks, a Macedonian army fills the barracks, the Macedonian language is in official use, and a rigid control is exercised over all economic activities. Skoplje or Skopie and the Macedonia of which it is said to be the queen, are undergoing a revival unique in the history of that area. A dream has come true. For decades Macedonians have shouted, "Macedonia for the Macedonians," and now at last the vision is a reality. Macedonians run Macedonia--that is, the part in Yugoslavia.

This is an exhilarating sight! One is thrilled to see dreams come true and is inspired to see a people freed. But even in one's exhilaration, he must not fail to study the situation carefully. Who are the Macedonians that now run Macedonia and whither are they directing it? Among them are old revolutionists. They have revived the spirit of IMRO and are trying to complete the old Ilin Day uprising. They are turning Macedonia toward Salonika. They want an integral Free Macedonia. And in this they are backed by the Yugoslav Communists.

Free Macedonia is doubly revolutionary. Its leaders are rabidly nationalistic and fanatically Communistic. This is a mighty com bination. Macedonia offers an unusual opportunity for the study of social dynamics. Its government is a combination of IMRO, Communism, Bulgarian nationalism, Yugoslav expansiveness, and all-Slav solidarity. Every one of those elements is notoriously explosive. Combined, they constitute a political block-buster ever ready to go off.

Note for a moment the IMRO ingredient in this explosive mixture. The President of Free Macedonia, Dimiter Vlahoff, is the most famous old Macedonian revolutionist alive, and a number of his colleagues have also been active Macedonian conspirators, shooting guns and throwing bombs. They consecrated their lives long ago to the liberation of Macedonia in solemn, mysterious night meetings, before a Bible. They signed their oaths with their blood and went into the hills to kill or be killed. They have repeatedly demanded an "integral Macedonia." They have promised the liberation of all Macedonians. They have stressed the necessity of "freeing Macedonian Salonika, of restoring to Macedonia her God-given seaport." And they have often told eager young Macedonian admirers how they once threw bombs and blew up buildings in Salonika. They and their friends have sent Macedonian revolutionary songs tingling down every glade and reverberating through every mountain cluster.

These men are now attempting to complete that old "sacred task." They have made the chief official day of new Macedonia that glorious old "Ilin Den," which they are now determined to avenge --as the American defeat at Bunker Hill was eventually avenged.

The Macedonian State Printing Office in Skoplje is named "Gotse Delcheff," in honor of the famous revolutionist. An army brigade is named "Sandanski" after another noted member of IMRO.

And Macedonia's Communist banners burn as hot and red as its old revolutionary flags. Vlahoff came to his post of President direct from Moscow. He and the "great George Dimitroff," both Bulgarians, worked side by side in Russia for years and they are working side by side now. Practically every member of the Skoplje government is a crusading Communist, as are most members of local city or district governments in Macedonia.

Nowhere in the Balkan Peninsula is Communism more openly, ardently, and proudly proclaimed. Tito has constantly tried to convince the Western world that his regime is liberal-democratic. Tsola Dragoicheva in Bulgaria tries to convince the Bulgarians that she tolerates non-Communists. But the government of Free Macedonia stoops to no such "pussyfooting." They are as outspoken as their Moscow Comrades. They are Communists and glory in it. They have set up a Communist regime and tell the world to take it or leave it. They want Communist officials, Communist teachers, Communist officers, and Communist editors. They pour out Communist words over the radio and send them streaming from their presses. They follow Russia's line and make no apology for it. They consider themselves a Russian outpost, serving Russia's interests, and feel strong in that role. They tell the world that they're with Russia and Russia with them.

They exult in the reforming fury that moved Lenin and Trotsky. Of course, they're going to turn things upside down. That's why they're there. That's what a revolutionist is for. They have put their hands on practically all the little factories, many of the farms, every promising enterprise, and use them for the glory and aggrandizement of their regime. They confiscate what there is to be confiscated and control whomsoever is left to be controlled. They feel that time is short and there is much to be done to get the Communist conflagration spreading from Skoplje.

Also the Bulgarian fire in Macedonia burns very brightly. The official Macedonian language is essentially Bulgarian, not SerboCroatian. The Macedonian radio speaks largely in Bulgarian, the Macedonian papers print largely in Bulgarian, the new schoolbooks are written in the Bulgaro-Macedonian tongue.

The Macedonian army contains many Bulgaro-Macedonians who long lived in Bulgaria and some Bulgaro-Macedonian officers trained in Bulgaria. As a matter of fact, the Bulgarian government officially gave Free Macedonia a fully equipped Macedonian brigade, sent from Sofia. When in Bulgaria in 1945, I saw Bulgaro-Macedonian refugees from Greece returning to Yugoslavia from Bulgaria, whither they had fled in 1944. They told me they were going to Free Macedonia to help in the fight against Greece.

New Macedonia's attitude toward Greece is that of Sofia in its most nationalistic moods, or of IMRO in its moments of greatest revolutionary fervor. Free Macedonia considers Greece an imperialistic Fascist oppressor, crushing the Slav Macedonians in Greece. The Macedonian government cries to the world of Greek terror, just as Sofia long shrieked of Turkish terror. The Skoplje papers report atrocity stories directed against the Greeks, just as Sofia papers for years seethed with stories of atrocities perpetrated by the "unspeakable Turks."

From Skoplje run underground lines of conspiracy into Greece, just as they used to run from Sofia into Turkey. And into Free Macedonia flee Macedonian refugees from Greece, just as Macedonian refugees used to flee into Bulgaria from Greece. Free Macedonia is a Bulgarian revolutionary station for operations against Greece. And not without importance is the fact that the President of Free Macedonia is from Greek Macedonia. This Communist revolutionist is from the very same town as Bulgaria's last Fascist Minister of the Interior. The Fascist Stanisheff was hanged as a war criminal, but the Communist Vlahoff is carrying out Stanisheff's Bulgarian irredentist policy, with Yugoslavia and Russia behind it.

There also functions in Free Macedonia a semi-autonomous Holy Eastern Orthodox church, which is endeavoring to free Macedonia's ecclesiastical activity from the control of Belgrade. That would make cooperation with Sofia easier and would increase Macedonia's prestige and feeling of independence. Such a Macedonian church would strongly appeal to Macedonia Slavs in Greece. It would be an ideal vehicle for Bulgaro-Macedonian irredentism.

Pan-Slavism, also, intensifies Free Macedonia's expansionist ardor. The Macedonian nation is the world's most enraptured Cinderella. It has emerged from a fearfully long sojourn in Turkish and Balkan kitchens and is now given a place of honor beside marshals and rulers. It has been brought into the all-Slav family amid booming cannon, blaring radios, and thunderous applause. Macedonia and Russia sit side by side. Macedonia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Czechia march hand in hand. Macedonia, the Ukraine, and Slovakia dance together, with newly emancipated Macedonia honored as the belle of the ball.

This all-Slav solidarity is a thrilling experience. It makes a Slav feel even stronger than an American or Britisher. Hard-pressed, long-tortured Macedonia no longer fears any big, bad wolf. The domain of its great comrade and champion extends from Port Arthur and Archangel direct to Skoplje. The Russia, "before which America trembles and England bows low, leads Macedonia by the hand!"

When there's a Pan-Slav Congress in Sofia, Macedonia is there. When the Slavs are all called to Moscow, Macedonia is there. Why, the Slavs from Moscow, Warsaw, Prague, Sofia, Zagreb, and Bratislava gather in Skoplje as Macedonia's guests! In all-Slav choruses you hear Macedonia's voice, in all-Slav orchestras you detect Macedonia's violin--even bass drum. Macedonia has no fear from poor little orphan Greece. Free Macedonia feels its soldiers are the vanguards of a stupendous Slav host, directing the sharp point of a gigantic Slav spear.

Naturally, Tito and the Yugoslav government are not indifferent to all this. They realize the dynamic force of Macedonia, its value as an imperial channel and as an instrument for South Slav aggrandizement. Tito joins with Bulgaria in nurturing and strengthening Macedonia's independence and irredentism. In Yugoslav periodicals and papers, Free Macedonia is presented as part of integral Macedonia including Greek territory. And when, because of provocative Bulgaro-Macedonian activity in Greece, the Greeks get rough with Slav Macedonian agents, Tito issues vehement anti-Greek threats over all his senders.

In view of that, the question as to whether Tito Free Macedonia will bring harmony to the Balkans is self-answering. It is already causing constant friction. It may eventually exacerbate Serbo-Bulgarian animosity. It hangs as a Damocles sword over Greece. It is a Soviet dagger directed at an artery of the British Empire. It could be a Croatian instrument in the Croat-Serbian fight. It is a charge of dynamite with many fuses in a very delicately balanced world.

In an ordered Balkans or a Balkans moving toward stability, a Free Macedonia might be an ideal solution of an old and bitter problem. But in the extremely unstable Balkans of the present time, it is an element of disruption.

R. H. Markham, Tito's Imperial Communism (Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1947), 220-230.

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* The word Tito's is my adding in order to understand for what kind of Macedonia we speak and the most important to see the period that written the specific article.

FYROM in WWII

The historian Minchev give an intresting(Bulgarian perception) thesis as about the situation before Bulgarian fashists entered in FYROM in WII...

"The population in Macedonia was unprecedentedly torn in bigger and smaller groups. For that various linguistic-groups the Serbi­an rulers had taken good care. But the guilt was not only theirs. There is still animosity between Protogerovists and Mihaiiovists. Serbian national socialistic organizations as Chetnik, the organization of the retired officers, the organization of the pensioners and the Sokol organization existed also until the beginning of .the war. All of them suppressed and dispersed the Bulgarian population with the aim to make them Serbs.

In Macedonia operated propagandists of the Great Powers who wanted to attract the population on their side promising to resolve the Macedonian question.

So the English propaganda was led by Serbian clerks and the army.

The French propaganda was led by the teacher in the French school Dr. Louise D. Voos.

The Italian propaganda for accession to Italy was also well organized with the assistance of the locals.

The Greek propaganda was well developed. The Greeks and their followers were tolerant to the Serbian (Yugoslav) authorities. Serb, Greek and Bulgarian followers of the Greeks worked together for their mutual cause - the English.

The Turkish propaganda led by Akif Alilov was faithful to the Serbian authority and together they planted the Anglophile and the Francophile policy. Even one of the most insignificant groups in Macedonia led by Dr. Simeon Berber worked for the annihilation of the Bulgarian spirit. The Jews group, that enumerated several thousand people affiliated with the ruling Serbs, carried out propaganda in favour of the democratic countries".



All show how complicated was the situation of that time in Macedonia. The political sympathies were intertwined with the national feelings. As a rule the non-Bulgarian elements were for the English-French block and the Bulgarians - for the power of axis. Besides, some of the former revolutionary activists were not far from the thought of solving the Macedonian question through accession of Macedonia or parts of it to Italy. The followers of Ivan Mihaylov fought for the independence of Bulgarian Macedonia. In this situation the Bulgarian population was divided in different groups. It was powerless and without faith. Everybody pulled the rug to himself". And time was crucial. The situation changed dynamically"





One more source is the Hugh Poulton (Who are the macedonians ?, pages 101-102) that speak for the issue...



"There is little doubt that the initial reaction anlong large sections of thepopulation of Vardar Macedonia who had suffered so much under the Serbian repression was to greet the Bulgarian as liberators. While Hitler did not allow the Bulgarians fornlally to annex the parts they now controlled, and the new border between the Italian and Bulgarian controlled portions was not defined, leading to periodic tensions between the two, Bulgaria was given a free hand in the areas which it controlled."






and continues......




"At first Bulgaria pursued policies, especially in education.Which the population welcomed. More than 800 new schools were built and a university was established in Skopje.' However the honeymoon period did not last long as the Bulgarians soon fell into the old Balkan trap of centralization.

The new provinces (Pirin and Vardar)were quickly staffed with officials fiom Bulgaria proper who behaved with typical official arrogance to the local inhabitants.In March 1942 the central government in Sofia took absolute control over the new territories, ushering In the classical Balkan governtmental vices of bureaucracy and corruption which further alienated the population.

Particularly insensitive, in view of the long and close association in the Balkans between religion and nationality, was the influx of Bulgarian Orthodox bishops who displayed the same negative features as the government bureaucrats."