Albert Sonnichen and Macedonia

[Komitadji]

Albert Soniksen is an american journalist and adventurist who came in 1906 in Macedonia and joined the IMORO Komitadjis in the struggle for Ianitsa (Edessa).

When he went home, he wrote a book called "Confesion of a Macedonian bandit"

http://www.narrativepress.com/images/books/2371ConfessionsMacedonianBandit-Face.jpg

I have just read the book. I recommend it to everyone.

In the book he talks a lot about Kapetan Kostas Akritas, Voivoda Apostol and the Makedontsi.

P.S.
In his book, there is and ilustration. According to the ilustration (authentic) today's Republika MAkedonia (you call it fyrom) is a part of Macedonia:

http://promacedonia.org/gall/sonnichsen/macedonia.jpg

[akritas]

From you summary i Just underline the mistakes of this book.


Gianitsa and Edessa were and are diffrent cities
As I have told you in an diffrent thread , there was not any Greek with the name Kostas Akritas.Capetan Akritas was the Konstantinos Mazarakis-Ainian.
Your map just show the places that happened the Greek Struggle, and as I know Skopje region at that time belong in Kosovo vilayet and not in Monastirion or Salonica!!!!I am curious, can you tell Komitadji what is the maening of the IMORO ?

[Komitadji]

From you summary i Just underline the mistakes of this book.

There are no mistakes on the book...

Gianitsa and Edessa were and are diffrent cities

This is not the book's explanation, but mine (I sayd The lake Ianitsa (slavic name) which is near Edessa) !!!

As I have told you in an diffrent thread , there was not any Greek with the name Kostas Akritas.Capetan Akritas was the Konstantinos Mazarakis-Ainian.

It is true that his name is Konstantin (we call Kostas short) and that his nickname is Akritas

Your map just show the places that happened the Greek Struggle

Another proof that the book is authentic

P.S.
Some information on the book:
Confessions of a Macedonian Bandit - The Narrative Press (http://www.narrativepress.com/profile.php?book_id=1-58976-237-1)

[akritas]

We dont know if your book is authentic because in order to see the objectivity we must read it first.

What about my question? What is the meaning of the IMARO ? did the writer mention the meaning ?

[Spartan]

Komitadji,

Maps change and so did the Region of Macedonia over the last 2500 years. But one thing is certain Skopje and 85% of FYROM never coincided with the Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia. The Ancient Macedonian homeland lays entirely within Greek territory around Pieria and Olympus. It was through EXPANSION that other parts became part of Macedonia. So the only part of FYROM that lays within the boundaries of the Ancient Kingdom is around Ohrid!

Now the Region also changed during the Romans and Byzantine periods also as well as during the Ottoman years. I can show you maps of the Region throughout history and you will see what I am talking about.

So Skopje may have been added to the Region at a much later time(within the past 500 years) what does that prove?

And as for Macedonian, what did that mean in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

[Komitadji]

Komitadji,
But one thing is certain Skopje and 85% of FYROM never coincided with the Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2790/makedoniakg4.jpg

Think again.
This is a greek map, and according to it 80% of Republika makedonia was antient Macedonia..

And not to mention PIRIN MACEDONIA, and my hometown...

[akritas]

After four posts as I see avoid to answer me in the question what is the meaning of the IMORO ? i realize that is difficul answer but history is touph

The IMORO was created on 23 October 1893 in Salonica by the Bulgaro-Macedonians Dr. Hristo Tatarchev, Dame Gruev, Andon Dimitrov, Ivan Hadjinikolov, Petar pop Arsov and Hristo Batandjiev.

Its meaning

Internal Macedono-Odrinian Organization

So can you tell me why your heroes created a Organization that had as aim except the liberation of the Macedonia(as youm learned by your education system) also and the Odrin (Thrace) ?

and I want answers please before I lock the thread.

Thank you:)

[Ptolemy]

Ah yes... Albert Sonnichsen!!! The same person who wrote the following:

"The general estimate is that between forty and fifty United thousand Bulgars (from Bulgaria and Macedonia) have come to this country, including those in Canada. Their principal centre was here in Granite City, an outlying suburb of St. Louis, but during the last year the majority of the 10,000 who were here have migrated westward. At present there are less than a thousand here. About 10,000 are now working on the railroad lines in Montana, the two Dakotas, Iowa and Minnesota. The belief is they will return here in autumn, but my own impression is, there will never again be 10,000 of them in Granite City.
" Other important centres are Seattle, Butte, Montana, Chicago, Indianapolis and Steelton, Pennsylvania; but they are too shifting a people to make estimates of their numbers in those centres of any value.
"I hope you are not making any racial distinctions between Bulgars and Macedonians. I believe the Bulgars who have come from Macedonia are registered on Ellis Island as Macedonians, which is bound to be confusing and inaccurate, for Macedonians may include Greeks, Vlachs, and even Turks. The distinction between the Bulgars from Bulgaria and those from Macedonia is PURELY political. Many of those who are registered as Greeks are so in church affiliation only, being Slavic by race and tongue.
"The majority (I should say about 80 per cent) of the Bulgars in this country are from Macedonia, and nearly all are from one small districtin Monastir vilayet; Kostur, or Castoria.

Their reasons for coming are fundamentally economic, but the immediate causes are the revolution of 1904, when half the people in Monastir were rendered homeless by the burning of their villages, and the continued persecution of the Greek Church since then, which closed Greece to them as a market for their labor. Not five per cent of the Bulgars in this country came before four years ago.

"Our Slavic Fellow Citizens" By Emily Greene Balch pp 274-275

Thanks for pointing out his name Komi. You made me search about him in the library and at least now we all know Stefov's wet dreams about "macedonians" in Ellis ishland as exactly that...wet dreams!!!

[Amyntas]

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2790/makedoniakg4.jpg

Think again.
This is a greek map, and according to it 80% of Republika makedonia was antient Macedonia..

And not to mention PIRIN MACEDONIA, and my hometown...

this is not ancient macedonia but the geographic region that today is called "macedonia"

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2090/xartisarxellas10pj.jpg

On this map (from the University of Munich) you can see the borders of ancient greece.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9817/grkmapln3.jpg

same borders on this map

I also found those maps on wikipedia

1. Ancient Macedonia
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/LocationMacedonia-MAC-1-z.png

2. Roman Province called "Macedonia"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/LocationMacedonia-ROMAN-z.png

[Spartan]

Thanks Giourkas! You saved me the trouble of going through my map collection!:clapping:


One thing I must add is that map of Ancient Macedonia added by Giourkas was only after early expansion and not the ORIGINAL homeland of the Ancients.

Komitadji,

Yes we can admit that TODAY Skopje is part of the Region, but it is always important to understand what the map is representing and when it was produced before using it as evidence.

From what I remember Skopje was only added to the Region during the Ottoman years, not before.

[Komitadji]

Listen dude, I'm trying to use humour to add levity to the situation.

I admire that Filip :laugh:

Thanks

[Komitadji]

Yes we can admit that TODAY Skopje is part of the Region, but it is always important to understand what the map is representing and when it was produced before using it as evidence.

From what I remember Skopje was only added to the Region during the Ottoman years, not before.

Yes, but 500 years are ENOUGH to create an strong regional identity in my people - which afterwards started to evolve into a national one..

[Spartan]

Why was this thread closed? I know I am not a mod in here, but if someone is to lock a thread at least post why it was locked. There was nothing wrong happening in there??

Anyways just curious because I believe that Maps are very important.

[akritas]

Why was this thread closed? I know I am not a mod in here, but if someone is to lock a thread at least post why it was locked. There was nothing wrong happening in there??

Anyways just curious because I believe that Maps are very important.
Its open again
I hope the members do not trolling the thread by avoiding previous posts and open new issues.

And Spartan below is the Douglas Dakin map that consern the Macedonian Struggle

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/5272/dakingreekmacedonianstrvf6.jpg



And from the http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr (http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr) a Map of the area of the marshes of Yanitsa, the arena of operations of vital importance to the course of the Macedonian Struggle, 1905-1908.

http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/HellenicMacedonia/media/original/d43a.jpg

[Tsontos]

Yes, but 500 years are ENOUGH to create an strong regional identity in my people - which afterwards started to evolve into a national one..

What 500 years? Referring to Macedonia is such a new way (from modern Serb/FYROM border, to Olympus, to Pirin) was a Russian idea, to help Bulgaria gain as much land as possible in the 19th century..so it didnt coincide with the Turkish conquests. Its little more than 150 years old. is that ENOUGH to give "your people an identity"?

Ottoman period

The Ottomans, in their struggle to capture Constantinople, included many Slavs in their army who after the fall of the Empire had settled in places on the Greek mainland. Although they were of the same race these populations never felt a common national feeling and most of them were absorbed by the Greek nation. The Slavs of the Ottoman Macedonia were members of the Orthodox millet according to the Ottoman administration system that recognized religious and not national identities. The Slavs were equalized politically with the Bulgarians, Serbians or Greeks.


[edit] Emergence of a Macedonian region

Map of the region contested by Serbia and Bulgaria and subject to the arbitration of the Russian TsarAfter the revival of Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian statehood in the 19th century, The Ottoman lands in Europe that became identified as Macedonia, were contested by all three governments, leading to the creation in the 1890s and 1900s of rival armed groups who divided their efforts between fighting the Turks and one another.

The most important of these was the Bulgarian-sponsored Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee (BMARC, SMARO from 1902) (an alternative version says that it consisted of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO, TMORO from 1902)), under Gotse Delchev who in 1903 rebelled in the so-called Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, fighting for an autonomous or independent Macedonian state (before 1902 only Bulgarians could join, but afterwards, it invited any Macedonian or Odrinian, irrespective of nationality, to join together), and the Greek efforts from 1904 until 1908 (Greek Struggle for Macedonia). Diplomatic intervention by the European powers led to plans for an autonomous Macedonia under Ottoman rule.

It is often claimed that macédoine, the fruit or vegetable salad, was named after the area's very mixed population, however it seems more likely that it was inspired by the diversity of Alexander the Great's domains, as the term dates to France in the 18th century, when Macedonia's ethnic composition was not widely known.[2]

Macedonia (region) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_%28region%29)


The ethnogenesis of the 'makedonsti' occured in the 1860s and did not "evolve" it was a product of Serb propaganda to seperate the Slavs of Macedonia from Buglarian consciousness and blood.

Also that Greek map you gave does not refer to ancient Macedonia. It has been discussed time and time again and any historian, even borza would admit FYROM contains less than 10% of Ancient Macedon within its borders, the part which the Serb army reached before the greeks could

[Komitadji]

The ethnogenesis of the 'makedonsti' occured in the 1860s and did not "evolve" it was a product of Serb propaganda to seperate the Slavs of Macedonia from Buglarian consciousness and blood.

Vulgi, are you aware that by saying this. By giving this kind of statements, you are doing a FREE FAVOUR to the Bulgarian cause. yes, you ARE WORKING FOR THE BULGARIAN cause by saying and repeating this.

You are helping the people that ocuupied your country twise and commited crimes against humanity on your people..

[Tsontos]

Vulgi, are you aware that by saying this. By giving this kind of statements, you are doing a FREE FAVOUR to the Bulgarian cause. yes, you ARE WORKING FOR THE BULGARIAN cause by saying and repeating this.

You are helping the people that ocuupied your country twise and commited crimes against humanity on your people..

Unlike you I do my best (Im not perfect) not to selectively choose which "cause" i should favour when I read historical sources. I laugh when you read Brailsford and come away thinking your dreams of a Macedonian Slav ethnicity have been confirmed when for the whole report Brailsford talks only of Greeks and Bulgarians never mentioning Macedonia or Macedonians in an ethnic sense. You say history is a hobby of yours? you are a plague on history in actuality and you will be as long as you keep reading sources, throwing out volumes and volumes and keeping only what suits you. At least unlike othre Skopjians you admit you have no connection to Ancient Macedonians, but you cant serioulsy think with some of the opinions who show on this thread that you are being honest with yourself.

I know the history between Greeks and Bulgarians. The Slavs of FYROM are ethnic Bulgarians whether I or you or anyone else likes it or not.

[Komitadji]

I laugh when you read Brailsford and come away thinking your dreams of a Macedonian Slav ethnicity have been confirmed when for the whole report Brailsford talks only of Greeks and Bulgarians never mentioning Macedonia or Macedonians in an ethnic sense.

Yes, but Brailsford says that the regional identity of the Macedonin Slavs, is SO STRONG, that one thay it may evolve into a national identity - which practicaly happened.

[Tsontos]

?? are you serious


Brailsford wrote Macedonia, its races and their future in 1906. 3 years after Ilinden which you claim was carried out by makedonsti! Show me where he predicts a Macedonian ethnicity "may evolve into a national identity"

Show me where he says this!?! The only thing you ever actually quoted from Brailsford was the song of the Bulgarians about their beloved Macedonia. So what? Every race had a song about how mcuh they love macedonia. I have songs about how much I love crete. Brailsford never even entertains the thought of Macedonia/ Macedonians being an ethnic term. You are saying what you want to beleive again!

[Komitadji]

Show me where he says this!?!

Whell, here you are..

1. The Committee, or some sections of it, even contemplates (1905) the policy of imposing the Macedonian Slav dialect in place of literary Bulgarian as the language of all the Exarchist schools in Macedonia. Grammars are said to have been printed for this purpose. This seems to me to prove the sincerity of the local autonomist patriotism.......

their dream is that Macedonia should be certainly a Slav, but not definitely a Bulgarian......

The Slavs of European Turkey have even yet no highly-developed consciousness of race, and what little they possess is of recent growth. Their passion is not for their race but for their country. They are a people of the soil fixed in their immemorial villages, with a limited range of sentiments which play piously around their mountains, their rivers andtheir ancient churches. A nation of peasants which starts with these conservative qualities will readily develop a genuine local patriotism. And this indeed has happened despite adverse circumstances. Their ballads of revolt, in which the word "Macedonia" recurs in every chorus, prove that they have already a fatherland. If the other races of Macedonia had started with the same spiritual equipment a joint movement of revolt would have been feasible, and from this cooperation a genuine Macedonian Commonwealth would have evolved quite naturally.

[Hellas7]

Brailsford? How can you be quoting Brailsford as any kind of pro-Slavomacedonian identity? Have you actually read the book? :laugh:


A Macedonian to Brailsford is a Bulgarian-Macedonian. They are Macedonians and their fatherland Macedonia because that is where they live, however the people themselves are Bulgarians (as he states). He uses the term Bulgarian and Slav interchangably. And this time period is the beginning of a Slavomacedonian consiousness, due to the situation of the time. It certainly didn't exist before that.


Vulgi, are you aware that by saying this. By giving this kind of statements, you are doing a FREE FAVOUR to the Bulgarian cause. yes, you ARE WORKING FOR THE BULGARIAN cause by saying and repeating this.



Bulgarian cause? What Bulgarian cause exactly?


What is wrong with stating history the way it actually was, is that so foriegn to you guys?


Look who were the first to produce maps with the "Macedonian Slavs"? They did everything in their power to de-Bulgarify the population, which in turn created this whole mess. If it wasn't for the Serbs in the early 1900's you probably wouldn't exist as you do today.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Macedonia_-_Point_of_View_of_the_Serbs.jpg




You are helping the people that ocuupied your country twise and commited crimes against humanity on your people..


Yes, bad things happened in the past. But you know what? We are over it. It was a long time ago. The Bulgarians did many bad things to us, we did many bad things to them. It was a bad period and war itself is bad. But today, we have no animosity with the Bulgarian people. Infact I would say they are our best friends of all our neighbors. I have never once gotton into a fight with a Bulgarian...


All of this stuff was over and burried long ago. It is YOU guys, who have brought it ALL up again. You have brought the statistics back, you have brought the ethnic cleansings back, you have brought back all of the early 20th century propaganda back.

You brought the whole issue that was done with almost 100 years ago back, and all you did was change the word Bulgarian for Macedonian. You people are stuck in the mindset of 100 years ago. We are debating the same stuff our grandfathers were debating. It is almost sad when you think about it....

[Tsontos]

Whell, here you are..

Autonomist patriotism is what it says. brailsford himself was a staunch supporter of autonomy. He speaks about autonomous aspirations, something which was very topical at the time which refers to a multi-ethnic Macedonia. Something supported by Russia and this book written in 1906 still never suggests such an ethnicity exists or that it could ever evolve into one, only a structural Macedonian state embracing all ethnicities!

[Komitadji]

Autonomist patriotism is what it says.

1. The Committee, or some sections of it, even contemplates (1905) the policy of imposing the Macedonian Slav dialect in place of literary Bulgarian as the language of all the Exarchist schools in Macedonia. Grammars are said to have been printed for this purpose. This seems to me to prove the sincerity of the local autonomist patriotism.......

A separate language is an atribute of a separate bnationality

their dream is that Macedonia should be certainly a Slav, but not definitely a Bulgarian......

And what abpout his ???

[Christov]

Every official language differs from the dialects, spoken at home. Nobody would expect that the people will use the Church's old language in their everyday life.

[Komitadji]

Every official language differs from the dialects, spoken at home.

Еврика Христо !!!

Evrika Hristo !!! :clapping:


Nobody would expect that the people will use the Church's old language in their everyday life.

Кой казва че, те са искали въвеждане на черковно-славянски език ??????
Те са дали предложение да се въведе език основан на местния македонски славянски говор - което на практика се случи по-късно.

---

Who sayd that they wanted church slavic language.
They proposed the introduction of a language based on local Macedonian slavic speech.

[Tsontos]

Here is brailsfords chapter on autonomy, hosted on a Bulgarian site. It speaks about the committee's plan to simultaneously support autonomy as the serbs did but with a much different purpose, to bring about autonomy for Macedonia as the first step to Bulgarian annexation

H. Brailsford - Macedonia, its races and their future - 5.5 (http://knigite.abv.bg/en/hb/hb_5_5.html)


their dream is that Macedonia should be certainly a Slav, but not definitely a Bulgarian......

:lol: why did you cut off the sentence like that? here is the passage in full. stop selectively choosing what you wish to beleive komi. BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF. THIS IS YOUR PERSONAL HONOUR. DONT CHEAPEN HISTORY

Indeed, I believe that so far as the Bulgarians, whether in Macedonia or in Bulgaria, speculate about the remote future at all, their dream is that Macedonia should be certainly a Slav, but not definitely a Bulgarian, country, and that it should eventually form the central state in a Balkan federation which might unite all the Southern Slavs.


Once again it speaks about autonomy and not an ethnic sense! Now let me remind you that this is written in 1906. The first Macedonists who talked about macedonia and macedonians in an ethnic sense seperate from bulgarians date back to the 1860s. Brailsford does not even mention these macedonists in his whole report. this shows what little influence they had and what kind of a tiny minority they were.

Whatever way you look at it komi, at the start of the 1800s you were either a Greek or Bulgarian!

[Tsontos]

Еврика Христо !!!

Evrika Hristo !!! :clapping:




Кой казва че, те са искали въвеждане на черковно-славянски език ??????
Те са дали предложение да се въведе език основан на местния македонски славянски говор - което на практика се случи по-късно.

---

Who sayd that they wanted church slavic language.
They proposed the introduction of a language based on local Macedonian slavic speech.

Christov is saying they wanted to deformalise the language for common consumption. You cant use any kind of literary language for common consumption

[Hellas7]

A separate language is an atribute of a separate bnationality




"the policy of imposing the Macedonian Slav dialect in place of literary Bulgarian"


A dialect is still the same language, just it's own regional form of it. It is NOT a seperate language.


If thats the case, Americans speak American, English speak English and Australians speak Australian. :rolleyes:



their dream is that Macedonia should be certainly a Slav, but not definitely a Bulgarian......


Why is it you guys chop up quotes, and present them so cheaply? Why do you have to do this so many times?


And whats the difference between Slav and Bulgarian? Are not Bulgarians also Slavic and speak a Slavic langauge?? :wacko:




5. Ideal of a neutral Autonomy

"In its original idea I am ready to believe that the Macedonian Committee had no exclusive racial ambition. Its leaders were Bulgarians by race and language, but their programme has never been the annexation of Macedonia to Bulgaria, and I see no reason to doubt their sincerity when they say that their aim was to create a free neutral State under the suzerainty of the Sultan, in which all the races of their distracted country might meet on a footing of equality, and conduct their common affairs without regard to national ambitions. They were not at first on the best of terms with the hierarchy of the Bulgarian Church, nor did they entirely trust the Bulgaria across the border. The Slavs of European Turkey have even yet no highly-developed consciousness of race, and what little they possess is of recent growth."


Is this not EXACTLY what we are saying?

[Tsontos]

Chopping up a quote is all a Maceodnist can do

[Christov]

Еврика Христо !!!

Evrika Hristo !!! :clapping:




Кой казва че, те са искали въвеждане на черковно-славянски език ??????
Те са дали предложение да се въведе език основан на местния македонски славянски говор - което на практика се случи по-късно.

---

Who sayd that they wanted church slavic language.
They proposed the introduction of a language based on local Macedonian slavic speech.This is a complete nonsense! In XIXth century going to school was not self-understanding. For the Bulgarian population in Macedonia was a dream to send their children to the Bulgarian Gymnasium in Thessaloniki. Should I remember you that not every family was that fortunate to afford the expenses?

Now tell me about the modern “Macedonian language” after the so called “reform”: Have you ever seen the Miladinov’s poem “Melancholy for south” in the center of Struga? You can find it even in internet. How crippled it looks with those cuneiform nicks? Is it the language the author wrote it, is it the way he wanted to be?

[Tsontos]

H.R Wilkinson - Macedonia, Maps and Politics, 1950:




THE ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF THE MACEDO-SLAVS

"The idea that Macedonia might have a future independent of the Bulgarians had already arisen as far back as 1876, when schemes for a "Macedonian Province" had been promoted at the conference of Constantinople, but the idea had not been associated then with any differences between Macedonian Slavs and Bulgarians. AT THAT TIME THE BULGARIAN CHARACTER OF THE SLAVS OF MACEDONIA WENT UNCHALLENGED. IT WAS NOT UNTIL AFTER 1885, WHEN STRAINED RELATIONS BETWEEN BULGARIA AND SERBIA DEVELOPED, THAT THE SERBIAN CLAIMS IN MACEDONIA GAVE RISE TO THE SPECULATION THAT THE SLAVS IN MACEDONIA MIGHT BE DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF BULGARIA. In 1887, P.D Draganov tentatively put forward this idea in Les Nouvelles Slaves (1887-8) N.S. Zaryanko, the Russian cartographer, by omitting to colour the Slavs of Macedonia in the second edition of his ethnographic map of the Balkans(1890), likewise implied that those Slavs might be either Serbs or Bulgarians. A powerful factor in promoting the separist tendencies had been the very interest which the Balkan nations had evinced in Macedonia.

The Bulgarians themselves were partly responsible for supporting IMRO and the idea of an independent Macedonia, because they believed that such a province would ultimately become part of Bulgaria,precisely in the same manner as Eastern Roumelia had become a part of Bulgaria....Unfortunately for the Bulgarians, CVIJIC [Serbian], SEIZED UPON THE IDEA OF THE "MACEDONIANS" AND GAVE TO WHAT HAD ORIGINALLY BEEN A POLITICAL TAG, AN ETHNIC SIGNIFICANCE."

[akritas]

Albert Sonnichen in "Our Slavic Citizens", 1910,pages 274-275

The general estimate is that between forty and fifty thousands Bulgars (from Bulgaria and Macedonia) have come to this country, including those in Canada.


I hope you are not making any racial ditrinctions between Bulgars and Macedonians. I believe the Bulgars who have come from Macedonia and registered on Ellis Island as Macedonians, which is bound to be confusing and inaccurate, for Macedonians may include Greeks, Vlachs, and even Turks. The distinction between the Bulgars from Bulgarian and those from Macedonia is purely political.



The majority (I should say about 80 per cent) of the Bulgars in this country (USA) are from Macedonia; and nearly all are from one small district in Monastir vilayet;Kostur or Castoria.