Macedonia History

  Not only that the then two leaders of Turkey and Greece had spoken about the Macedonians, the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos said he wanted to grant the Macedonians "schools and minority rights"! The Macedonian-Australian journalist Sasa Uzunov discovered a spectacular document in the National Archives of Australia. Quite a few secret reports from the British Foreign Office at the time are kept there; these have now been declassified and made available to the public. Such a secret report of September 30, 1933 shows that the Greek Prime Minister Venizelos knew exactly who the Macedonians were - neither Serbs nor Bulgarians. Even more, Venizelos gave an approximate number of ethnic Macedonians in Northern Greece who were then still living in Northern Greece. The number he estimated was "around 60,000". One should note, however, that the number seems small at first glance, but is due to the population exchange from 1923. The kingdom of Greece had occupied...

By Risto Stefov April 4, 2010 War and the suffering in Macedonia did not end after the failed 1903 Ilinden Macedonian National Uprising. Shortly after the Uprising was suppressed Macedonia became the apple of discord between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria and to some extent Romania.  Unable to free itself from the Ottoman yoke, Macedonia became ripe for the plucking and whoever was able to muster enough strength and resources to drive out the Ottomans would have it in their possession. At that time Macedonia’s neighbours knew they could not possess Macedonia without the cooperation of the Macedonian people, so first they tried their luck at “convincing” the Macedonians that they were not “really” Macedonians but “Greeks”, on account of them being Orthodox Christians. Or they were “Serbians” on account of them supposedly speaking an “Old Serbian” language. Or “Bulgarians” because they supposedly spoke a dialect of the “Bulgarian” language and of course “Romanians” because...

“ The main results of his deliberate and temperate study on the spot issue in  two conclusions: (1) that, ethnically, the Macedonian Slavs are Macedonians, and not either Servian or Bulgarian Slavs ; (2) that they have no strong or ancient sense of identity with any other Slav nationalities ...” The Geographical Journal VOL. XXVIII – July to December 1906

The terrible Turk is far and away the most interesting figure in Macedonia to our eyes. Here, at any rate, the leopard seems to have changed his spots, or else he really is the Serb converted to Islam, which the Serbians claisms him to be. He is picturesque and peaceable, he works hard in his fields, and in a large number of cases speaks "Macedonski," which the Serbs call Serbian and the Bulgars Bulgarian, and know no Turkish, and very little Greek. With the Serbs in Macedonia by Walshe, Douglas, 1920 - Archive.org LINK