Yasoo Elia,
Let me first congratulate you on a well thought out, well written letter and above all your professional tone. I am open to intellectual conversations but many postings in discussion forums resort to swearing and name calling and as a rule I avoid them.
I read your email in the March issue of the Macedonian Digest (edition #27) and felt compelled to write. You see I too am a product of the Greek education system and subjected to the Megali Idea of the philhelene Aromanian Rigas Fereos. I can fully understand your feelings of being 100% Greek but I have a question about your feelings of being 100% Macedonian. When did that start? When the YpourgioVorios Ellados (Ministry of Northern Greece) was renamed to Ypourgio Makedonias kai Thrakis (Ministry for Macedonia and Thrace) or when the Thessaloniki airport of Mikra was renamed to Makedonia or when the Pale de Sport of Thessaloniki was renamed the Alexandriou Melethro in the late ’80s and ’90s or does it go back to 1926-28 when a special Greek government commission changed the original names of every town and village in Macedonia as well as the names and surnames of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the New Territories (that’s what the Greeks called Macedonia then)? I am not being facetious here but making the point that for 70 years the official Greek government policy was full assimilation of the population of the new territories and did not allow for acceptance or showing pride in being “Macedonian”. In fact the opposite was true every effort was made to wipe out anything distinctively Macedonian. Are you familiar of the inhumane policies of the Metaxas government towards the Macedonians and minorities? Courts on trumped up charges, monetary fines (on the people that had barely enough to feed themselves) and forcing Castor oil (retsinolado) in their mouths for the crime of speaking the language of their mother, grandmother and ancestors. Whole villages were made to take an oath not to speak this “foreign language”.
Only Greek speaking teachers were assigned to schools in Macedonian villages. They had no patience for kids who had been brought up speaking their mother tongue at home. If you slipped and a Macedonian word came out of your mouth, the punishment was immediate and (for a child) severe. A few slaps to the face was the immediate punishment and depending on the mood of the teacher it would be followed by a few whacks to the open palm with a stick. I am speaking from personal experience here. At that time I did not understand, when I tried asking my father and grandfather I was told to not talk about it, that I will understand when I was older. You see they were afraid if they told me the truth that I may say something to another kid who would then report me to the teacher and then the whole family would be in trouble. You see, the teacher’s job was not only to teach but to also be the eyes and ears of the government.
I can also tell you the story of my neighbour, who was walking back to his home in the village after a hard day’s labour in the fields. Only a few steps from his door step he crosses paths with the village policeman (astynomos) who ordered him to report to the village school at 9:00pm that evening. When he questioned why he was told he just doubled his punishment. His crime for which he was whipped till he was unconscious that evening was that the policeman heard someone singing in the distance a song in Macedonian, it was not him but that is who the Policeman saw first. Examples like this were not limited to one person or one village. In the 1950’s the village school was a school by day and a jail and punishment ward by night.
Despite all that the Macedonians had to endure, to this day, there are people in Greece that know they are something other than Greek. But, I would have to agree with you that today the majority of the inhabitants of that part of Macedonia have a Greek conscience, but that in a lot of cases was forced upon them through coercion, intimidation and physical beatings. Let freedom ring and then we will see how long that consciousness lasts.
It is very convenient for you to say, you travel to the area and there are only 5-10 villages and 2000 – 3000 people. However, I alone, have been to more than 10 villages and have heard with my own ears, that there are a lot more people, but the fear is pervasive. Many of the parents and grandparents that endured the beatings and the humiliations are still alive, and their memories painfully etched into their minds have made a conscious choice to spare their children and grandchildren what they endured. However, if and when there is genuine freedom in Greece , you will be surprised at some of the people that would declare themselves as Macedonians. So I can confidently tell you that you are way off on the number of villages where Macedonian is spoken. In the Florina (Lerin) area, if we exclude the two Albanian villages (Arvanitika Horia – Drosopigi, Flambouro), one Aromanian (Vlahiko horio- Pisoderi) and a couple of pure Pontian (prosfigika horia – Neos Kavkasos and Agios Bartholomeos), there are Macedonian speakers in every village. But in the atmosphere created by the super nationalists, people are careful about what they say or who they speak to. Unless you are a speaker of the language you will not understand. In the late 1980’s sitting with a couple of friends in a restaurant in Thessaloniki we made some comments in Macedonian so we would not be understood by customers in the neighbouring tables. To our surprise the waiter came up and spoke to us in fluent Macedonian. He told us he was from a village from the Serres area. That was the first I had ever heard that there were speakers of my mother language in the Serres area. He told us at that time that he also knew of a few villages in the areas of Drama and Kavala where it was still spoken. Even today you can also find villages around Kastoria (Kostour), Ptolemaida (Kaliari), Edessa (Voden), Kilkis (Koukoush), Yannitsa (Enidje-Vardar)etc. where the language is still spoken.
In my days in University when I told a fellow from Naousa (Negoush)- whom I had just met- where I was from, he immediately greeted me in Macedonian, but then proceeded to apologize for not knowing it very well. His grandparents were fluent, his father spoke it but his mother did not, so he only learned a few words.
I do not dispute the fact that your father and grandfather felt 100% Greek, but that is not the case with everyone. First of all, the population of Thessaloniki before the Balkan wars had a mixed population but the majority were Jews. There were Greeks too, but they were outnumbered by Turks and “Slavs”. My grandfather told me that when he served in the Greek army in 1922, on his way to Asia Minor (on that ill fated expedition to fulfill Fereos’ Megali Idea), he remembered stopovers in Thessaloniki and Kavala and in both places the language in the marketplace was Macedonian. In more recent times in 1991, on a beach in Halkidiki, a lady with whom we were conversing in Greek overheard my conversation with my parents. She immediately asked what language we were speaking when I told her “Macedonian –our mother tongue” she proceeded to tell us that both her and her husband were from Thessaloniki . They were both Macedonian but had lost the language although she said that her husband still knows some words.
I know your counter argument would be that these few examples do not mean anything and prove nothing, but to me they say a lot about the resilience of the Macedonian people, the instinct of adaptation to survive and it does in part support the notion of a fluid national conscious that can be suppressed in the interest of economic or political circumstances. I have been to a wedding where songs in the Arvanitiki or Vlach languages were freely sung but Macedonian songs were not allowed for fear of losing a lowly postman’s position held (within ELTA) by a family member.
May I refer to you the book by Tasos Kostopoulos (a Greek) “I Apagorevmeni Glossa” for more background on the above.
You state ” Macedonia has a population of more than 3 million people, and we all are proud to be Greeks and proud to be Macedonians. We do not feel occupied by the Greeks or suppressed by them because WE ARE GREEKS”. How many were brought to Macedonia after the 1922-24 population exchange with Turkey ? And how many had the Greekness beat into them? And of course we can count all Vlachs (Vlahi), Christian Albanians (Arvanites), and Gypsies as 100% Greeks.
I know you, along with most every other Greek, mimimize the number but there are many people in Greece today who despite all the measures of assimilation and the pressure to conform, do not feel Greek. They are not agents of Skopje as the government likes to refer to them, they are Macedonian, even if they do not feel Greek. Being Greek is not a prerequisite to being Macedonian. And if you would like to call yourself Macedonian, you are free to, but if I would like to call myself Macedonian that is my right. As far as we can go back, my family has been in Macedonia and did not speak Greek, but are no less Macedonian than you. The principal of self determination is enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Above all, I do not have to call myself Greek in order to call myself Macedonian.
Nowhere in history can one find reference to Greek rule over Macedonia until 1912. But I know you will tell me that Alexander was Greek, which according to 19th century historians may have been true. However, there is enough doubt raised that today there is no unanimity among historians on this fact. You do not have to go any further than ancient Hellenes themselves, who did not consider Alexander and the Macedonians Greek. Even if one accepts that the Macedonians of Alexander’s time were Greek, there is over 2000 years of history since then, that has transformed the landscape. Despite Greek claims to the contrary, there has not been a continuous Greek presence in Macedonia . Had that been the case, the population census for Macedonia of 1920 would have been made public and there would have been no need for a special law to change the names in Macedonia . I know it is contrary to Greek thinking, but the Byzantine Empire was not a Greek Empire. Only in the last 200 years of its existence was the Byzantine Royal court in the hands of Greeks, but that does not make the multi ethnic Byzantine Empire a Greek Empire nor does it automatically prove any link to the Ancient Greeks.
The Greek argument that the Macedonians today cannot be called Macedonians because they are not related to the ancient Macedonians does not hold any water. Do you hear anyone in the world claiming that the Arabs of today’s Egypt cannot call themselves Egyptians because they are not descendants of king Tut or the Arabs of present day Syria cannot be called Syrians because they have no relations to the Assyrians of antiquity.
Regarding the issue with the name, Greece has wasted a lot of political capital not to mention money, which would have been better used in other problems such as the Cyprus problem. Consider that in 1893 William Gladstone wrote ” …why not a Macedonia for the Macedonians as well as a Serbia for the Serbians and Bulgaria for the Bulgarians…” which Macedonians was he referring to?
Since you are a Thessalonikeos surely you have visited the Museum of the Greek Struggle in Macedonia . Did you read in Pavlos Melas’ letters to his wife that he was learning some “Makedonika (Macedonian)” because the women generally did not know Greek. It is important to note that he did not write Bulgarian nor Serbian nor Slavic.
Do you know about the book “Za Makedonskite Raboti (On Macedonian Matters)” published in 1903? Its author was from the town of Postol (now called Nea Pella) it is generally regarded as the first book to advocate an independent Macedonia , and this was at the turn of the century, way before Communism or Tito came into the picture.
The first census conducted by Greece in the newly acquired territories ( Macedonia and Thrace ) was conducted in 1920. Why are the results still not made public? Is it because Greece does not want the world to know that there weren’t that many Greeks there? The same census for Thessaly was made public and what is interesting is that it listed some Serbian and Bulgarian speakers living in Thessaly but even more interesting is the fact that there were also speakers of the Macedonian language listed separately from Greeks, Bulgarians or Serbians.
In 1925 after pressure from the League of Nations , the ABECEDAR was published in Athens so the minority children of Macedonia could be taught in their native tongue. What is important to recall here is that while Bulgaria and Serbia were arguing that it should be in the Bulgarian and Serbian Language respectively, Greece was arguing that these people spoke Macedonian, not Bulgarian nor Serbian.
These are some examples that show the weak position Greece finds itself in the name issue.
Your suggestion of Slavomacedonia would be fine if we are listing Slavorussia, Slavopolonia, Slavochehia, Slavoserbia, Slavoslovenia, Slavocroatia, Slavobulgaria etc, but since no other country uses that prefix it is unacceptable to the Macedonians. And, besides it may not be too long before the whole notion of a so called “Slav invasion” is fully repudiated as a fabrication of 19th century Western European historians. The American professor of Romanian descent Florin Curtin in his landmark 2001 study poked holes in the theory of a Slav invasion in the Balkans. His thesis is that they were always there.
I agree with your view that we have a lot in common especially after you read “I Steni Filetiki Syggeneia Ton Simerinon Ellinon, Voulgaron, Kai Ethnika Makedonon (2002) By, Dr. Georgios Nakratzas (also a Thessalonikeos) “. Nationalists on all sides may deny it but in the Balkans there is no pure blooded nation. Today’s Greeks have Albanian, Slavic and who knows what other blood in them including Latin and Turkish.
I think we should focus on those things that bind us rather than on what divides us. It is unfortunate that the Greek government has painted itself into a corner without much wiggle room to maneuver itself out of this tight spot of its own making. The ultranationalism of the Arvaniti Samaras and Karatzaferis (who with such a name surely cannot claim descent from Pericles) seem to shape Greek foreign policy. What does Greece have to show for following this line over the past 17 years? Isolation from the important players in the world, a stalemate on the other even more important national issues such as the reunification of Cyprus and the dispute with Turkey over the Aegean . The name Upper Macedonia which Greece is now pleading for was offered back then and, according to then Portuguese Foreign Minister Piniero, Gligorov would have accepted.
So if today there is agreement and this name is accepted and Dora and Karamanli present it as thriamvos or conquest of Greek foreign policy it will really showcase that Greece really wasted 17 years and a lot of money to achieve something that was right in its lap 17 years ago. On the other hand the use of the veto will solve nothing, it will only serve to stroke the egos of the ultranationalists at home and highlight Greece ‘s failure in the international scene. There are 120 countries that have recognized Macedonia under its constitutional name and the veto will not change that. Why doesn’t anyone in Greece talk about the consequences of the veto? Under the 1995 interim accord Greece agreed not to prevent Macedonia from joining any international organizations (including NATO and EU) under its temporary name, and Macedonia agreed to work within the auspices of the UN mediator to solve the name dispute. Yes the veto would prevent Macedonia from entering NATO for now, but it will also free up Macedonia from its obligation to work with the mediator and will be free to reopen the name issue at the UN General Assembly. How is Greece going to prevent a vote at the General Assembly where the member countries of the UN who have recognized the country as the Republic of Macedonia in their bilateral relations choose to vote to also accept the name for membership in the United Nations? Keep in mind that Macedonia was accepted into the UN name under the temporary name FYROM and many of those countries would like to see this case closed.
Why is it that the nationalist views of a few Macedonians from the Republic get so much attention in Greece but the treatment of the Macedonian minority in Greece is totally ignored? I bet that there are many more Greeks that still believe that Istanbul ( Constantinople ) “pali me chronia me kerous pali dikiamas thane –with years and time, once again she shall be ours”. What about the map of Rigas Fereos’ Megali Idea? I know of at least one school where that map still exists.
I would like to close by paraphrasing a sentence from your letter, and say “let us think of the past in order to shape our future by not repeating the mistakes of the past”
Floriniotis – Makedonas-Makedonets
Makedonin 