Grecomans

[akritas]

“Grecomans” was used by the Bulgarians as a derogatory term to define the Greek Slavophones, i.e. those who remained firm to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to Hellenism.
It is interesting to note that in 1883, despite the growth of the Bulgarian national and ecclessiastical movement, the situation in terms of ecclesiastical affiliation in the northern “border” bishoprics of the contested central zone presented the following picture Bishopric of Ohrid and Prespa, patriarchist families 3030, exarchist 6003; Bishopric of lPelagonia (Monastir), patriarchist 6459, exarchist 4988; Bishopric of Moglena (Florina), patriarchist 2433, exarchist 699.

The majority of these patriarchists were Vlachophone and Slavophone “Grecomans”.

Please keep in your mind the names of the Bishoprics.

Data from
[AYE/”Constantinople Embassy” / 1883, Dokos (Monastir) to Koundouriotis (Con/pole), No. 210, 15/27 Nov. 1883] , [Dillimas and Orientations by Evagellos Kofos]

[PhiliptheUniterchaeronea]

http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/mgsa-l/2002-August/000448.html

"In a dry river bed the village of Baskouri is shaded by a
number of acorn trees. Horses and donkeys are on the threshing
floors. The villagers rush to meet us and ask questions. They
understand Greek with difficulty and speak only Slavic, but
they declare themselves to be Greek and apologize for not
being any more *enlightened*. They call for their kids who
leave their classroom to interpret. The priest and the school
teacher show up too, and their complains are the same as the
ones at Dihem: the insecurity of the mountain ... the Albanian
brigands ... the Exarchate priests."

[From Victor Bernard's "Turkey and Hellenism: Trekking through
Macedonia" (c. 1896), Chapter 4 ("Greek Macedonia"), Part 2
("Florina-Kastoria"), p. 364 (in the Greek translation by
M. Likoudis), published by Trohalia, Athens, 1987]

The above paragraph throws some light into why "Slavophone Greeks"
(often called "Bulgarians" by other Greeks) identify so often with
Greece even when they live abroad, why Tasos/Tasko Boulis/Boulev
got only 300 votes in the recent Greek elections, etc. The book
I quoted from makes for fascinating reading and discussion ...


George Baloglou

[Tsontos]

some more contemporary opinions on the slavophones



This report was prepared in 1885 by the Secretary-General of the Bulgarian Exarchate describing the situation in Macedonia: [the writer of the report interprets Macedonia as the "Macedonia" of the San Stefano Treaty]

It is a sad fact but we must admit that the largest part of
the Bulgarian population of Macedonia does not have a Bulgarian
national conscience... If Europe were to demand today that the
Macedonian people decide on their fate and say to which nationality
they belong, we are certain that the largest part of the
Macedonian people and of Macedonia would slip away from our hands.
If we exclude two or three regions of Northern Macedonia, the
inhabitants of the other regions are ready to declare that they are
Greeks. If the Great Powers were to intervene and demand a
plebiscite to solve the Macedonian problem the Greeks would come out
as winners.

James Baker "Die Turken in Europa", Stuttgart 1878,pp19-20, quoted by Djoko Slijepcevic in "The Macedonian Question: The struggle for Southern Serbia", Chicago, The American Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1958, pp87. According to Baker

I asked some Bulgarian peasants in Macedonia about their na- tionality, and they immediately replied 'Rum' which, indeed, is the name peculiar to the Greek population of Asia Minor. They in- sisted that they were Greeks. 'If this is so', I told them, 'why do you speak Bulgarian at home?' 'Because our forefathers did so', they replied. although we are Greeks'.


Elizabeth Barker ("Macedonia: Its place in Balkan Power Politics", London, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1950,pp19-20) cited in [9]

The Bulgarian occupation authorities in Greek eastern Macedonia has behaved towards the Greek population with brutality singularly inappropriate in supposed liberators. An Inter-Allied Commission in 1919 reported that 94 villages had been entirely demolished, that 30,000 people had died of hunger, blows, and disease during the occupation, that 42,000 had been deported to Bulgaria, and that 16,000 had fled to Greece".

C. Jirecek, in "Geschichte der Serben" republished by Harvard Press

Macedonians were always Greek and all the area south of the line defined by the cities Achris-Skopje-Nissa-Sofia-Aimos-Messimbria was Greek (an assertion also confirmed by other authors such as Thomas Mommsen, Arnold Karnach in the early 17th century).

Hertzberg (in "Geschichte Byzantinissen") (Vol B, Book A, Chapter Gamma, page 184, 1906 ed

in 1862, the population below the line Euxinus Pontus-Aimos-Kustendil-Skopje-Skutari was Greek, in tongue, in customs and working for the Greek interests.



Hertzberg, in "Geschichte Byzantinissen",

In the 14th century Dushan shared his kingdom with his son he kept the greek area south of Skopje and gave his son the northern Serbian areas (this is also confirmed by a Czech historian, Jirecek). All his orders were then written in Greek and not in any idiom like the onenow spoken in the Republic of Skopje. In 1350 when John Katakouzenos was in the city of Verhoia representatives of all big greek cities (Skopje included) visited him and asked for help. Jirecek mentioned in his book that at this time Skopje was a greek city inhabited mainly by Greeks despite being part of the Serbian kingdom for more than a century. Following Dushan's death around 1355 his son's empire began to collapse. Dushan's brother, Symeon, proclaimed himself an emperor and accorded himself the surname of "Palaeologos" in an attempt to gain the favor of the Greek population of his kingdom(empire). He also wrote his orders in Greek (and not in any strange called slavic idioms).

Soon the Greeks gained the control of the garrisons of various greek cities (such as Verhoia, Edessa, and Skopje). Officials in Dushan's empire quickly abandoned these greek cities and moved to Prisreni and later to Krusevach. The greek inhabitants remained in the areas they had been living for many centuries, if not millenia.

Since even in the years of Dushan, when the slavic influence and control in the areas of Macedonia(Greece), western part of Albania, Republic of Skopje and Yugoslavia (Serbia+Kosovo) was at its peak Macedonian Greeks were not "slavisized", how was that possible under the Ottoman rule, when after the defeat of Serbia by the Ottomans circa 1459, the Slavs migrated to the north and the area south of the city of Skopje was inhabited by Greeks only? If the strong presence of Slavs at that time didn't cause the Macedonians to vanish how was that possible to happen before? How come the vanished Macedonians of 7th AD survived as late as 17th AD? and later?

Ioannis Laskaris (librarian of Lorenzo de Medici, end of 15th century)while he was in Thessaloniki collecting manuscripts.

"...In most of the mountainous areas the Turks are afraid to approach, and they only collect the charatsi (tax) that the villagers willingly pay. In some areas the Byzant christians don't want to pay and they sometimes attack the Turks..."

He was also present in a meeting in Thessaloniki in the early 16th century, where other Greeks were describing the night of the town's conquer, and that's why, when he returned to the West, he asked from the Western hegemons to even provide the Greeks with wooden broadswords with the word "eleftheria" (freedom in Greek) printed on them!

More..

During the 16th and 17th century the development of the Middle East trade, the overpopulation of the mountainous villages and the decline of the Othoman empire, caused the reverse movement of the Greek populations. Many villages immigrated to the plains where urban centres were formed: Scopje, Monastiri, Kassandreia, Kavala, Serres, Drama. Those people were workers and traders. Also some Bulgarians and Serbs that did not flee in the 15th century were seasonal workers moved from their lands to work in the estates of the Turks of Macedonia and Thrace.

From the mid 17th century more data is collected from travellers like the Turks Evlia Tselembi and Catzi Kalfa, the French Robert De Dreux and the English Ed. Brown (1674) and John Covel (1667). All of them mark the Greek tradition of the Greek populations of Macedonia.. with very hardly any references of Armenians, Hebrews, Serbs, Bulgarians.

According to Chatzi Kalfa, the villages around Kastoria were inhabited mostly by Turks, while on the mountains lived a population that originated in the mixture of Greek and Serbian population. Also, according to Kalfa, the same kind of people lived in the areas near Achrida. Those were groups of nationally-unconscious people as they were characterized by the Serbian anthropologist:

J. Cvijic in 1907-1918 ("La peninsule balkanique, Geographie humaine", Paris 191 .

Those people came from the mixture of some Slavonic mountainous populations, with numerous Greek and some Bulgarian workers and farmers, who moved to the S.Balkan in the 18th century. The main passages of the Bulgarian villages were the valleys of Strymonas and Nestos, and the mountains' slacks. Those populations gradually acquired a Bulgarian national conscience in the 19th century. In the 19th century the movement of Bulgarians to the South was increased because of:

The Panslav propaganda
The propaganda of the Bulgarian Exarchate
The attempts of the Turks to wear down the dominant Greek demographic character of Macedonia, in order to prevent the unification of Macedonia with Greece.

According to John Covel:

Meanwhile we have an immigration of Greeks to the North, the towns of Eastern Pomylia, Efxinos Pontos, etc. Such Greeks were the Sarakatsanoi. That immigration was even helped by the 1718 Passarowic Agreement that brought the Austrian borders below Belgrade, near to occupied Macedonia. The Russian-Turkish war of 1774 caused a lot of anarchy in Macedonia because of the actions of Albanians and Turks robbers. Many villages were abandoned (Katranitsa, Ostrovo, Gramenikos, Chorovina, Gerakina, Ochtas, etc ), and the villagers settled around Thessaloniki, Serres, Veroia, Edessa and Giannitsa. The Russian-Turkish wars of 1787-1793 caused permenant trouble in Macedonia, where the people started hoping for freedom. The Greek Revolution of 1821 was rapidly spread in Macedonia, but didn't result in its liberation with the rest of Greece in 1827. With the 3/2/1835 agreement, Theodoros Vallianos was appointed as the first Greek Consul, in Thessaloniki.


Also Austria and Russia wanted to gain access to the Aegean Sea through the port of Thessalokini and they would use any method to succeed in it. The statement of the Russian Tsar Nikolaos in 1854, while addressing to the British Ambassador of Petroupolis, Hamilton Seymour is quite characteristic:

New York Tribune, 5/4/1854 and "Eastern Question", London 1897


"A strong Greek kingdom or Greek nation is against the interests of Russia's southern gates"

In 1870 the Bulgaric Exarchate was founded with a Sultan's Decree, and in 1872 the scism of the Bulgaric Exarchate occured. On 21/2/1878 (3/3/187 , Russia obliged the Othoman empire with the signing of the Saint Stefan treaty. Tsar Nikolaos had given his ambassador in Constantinople, Ignatiev, the order:

"Not a span of earth to Greece"

According to Ed Brown:

According to the treaty, the Othoman empire recognized the independence of a Bulgarian state (Hegemony) that lay from Danube river to the Aegean Sea and from the Black Sea to Thessaloniki (without Thessaloniki, Chalkidiki, Kozani, Servia). That treaty gave Russia the access to the Aegean Sea that she was after and satisfied the Bulgarians' nationalism. The Greek populations immediatelly opposed to that treaty. They sent memos protesting to the Great Forces. The Greeks of Scopje sent a memo with 14,000 signatures. Also a spontaneous revolution started in Olympos mountain, but wasn't successful. On 1/7/1878 (13/7/187 the Great Forces interfered and cancelled the Saint Stefan treaty, with the Treaty of Berlin.

On September 1885 Bulgaria annexed the area of Eastern Romelia (NE of Macedonia) with 200,000 Greeks inclusive, violating in that way the Treaty of Berlin.

[Tchakalaroff]

Did you know my fellows what happened to your brave "grecomans" ????
After Greece too Aegean Macedonia (because of the stupidity of the Bulgarian HeadQuarters), the slavophon grcomans were oppresed and forsed not to use their slavic mother language (it is the language that we speak in my country) - and so they realised that they are not greeks..

In the WWII a lot of them went in OHRANA - this is a fact.. and after the end
of the world war II all of the slavic population in Greece (including the grcomans) entered in the lines of ELAS, and fought couragely and bravely...

Yes, we in my country we like ELAS.. ELAS is the only democratic organisation that has ever been created in Geece..

But unfortinately, the British brought thier tanks and planes, and destryed the ELAS (that were armed with gra rifles and some weapon from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria)... Although ELAS (where the macedonian slavs were fighting) wee the masters of Thesaloniki and Athens, the British destroyed them...

Thats what happened to the grecomans, in the civil war of Greace they were 100% on ELAS side, and after the exodus all of them live in my country (I'm not writing Macedonia because the moderators will change the word)..

[Amarantos]

Did you know my fellows what happened to your brave "grecomans" ????
After Greece too Aegean Macedonia (because of the stupidity of the Bulgarian HeadQuarters), the slavophon grcomans were oppresed and forsed not to use their slavic mother language (it is the language that we speak in my country) - and so they realised that they are not greeks.. ???
In the WWII a lot of them went in OHRANA - this is a fact.. and after the end
of the world war II all of the slavic population in Greece (including the grcomans) entered in the lines of ELAS, and fought couragely and bravely...

Yes, we in my country we like ELAS.. ELAS is the only democratic organisation that has ever been created in Geece..
But unfortinately, the British brought thier tanks and planes, and destryed the ELAS (that were armed with gra rifles and some weapon from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria)... Although ELAS (where the macedonian slavs were fighting) wee the masters of Thesaloniki and Athens???, the British destroyed them...

Thats what happened to the grecomans, in the civil war of Greace they were 100% on ELAS side, and after the exodus all of them live in my country (I'm not writing Macedonia because the moderators will change the word)..
and they'll do the right thing.
Tchakalaroff,your approach is superficial.Did you ask yourself before "analysing" modern Greek history if the things your are writing aren't just the fruit of the usual fyromian propaganda you are taught in school?Just like the fact that the inhabitants of fyrom are descendants of Alexander the Great.Anyway thank you for the brief lecture.

[Tsontos]

Did you know my fellows what happened to your brave "grecomans" ????
After Greece too Aegean Macedonia (because of the stupidity of the Bulgarian HeadQuarters), the slavophon grcomans were oppresed and forsed not to use their slavic mother language (it is the language that we speak in my country) - and so they realised that they are not greeks..

In the WWII a lot of them went in OHRANA - this is a fact.. and after the end
of the world war II all of the slavic population in Greece (including the grcomans) entered in the lines of ELAS, and fought couragely and bravely...

Yes, we in my country we like ELAS.. ELAS is the only democratic organisation that has ever been created in Geece..

But unfortinately, the British brought thier tanks and planes, and destryed the ELAS (that were armed with gra rifles and some weapon from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria)... Although ELAS (where the macedonian slavs were fighting) wee the masters of Thesaloniki and Athens, the British destroyed them...

Thats what happened to the grecomans, in the civil war of Greace they were 100% on ELAS side, and after the exodus all of them live in my country (I'm not writing Macedonia because the moderators will change the word)..

No doubt many Grecomans became disenchanted with Greece after the Metaxas era. but to say that everyone, or even the majority supported ELAS is utter crap. as for them joining ohrana hahahahah bullshit

I have many Slavophone freinds who would cut your head off if you told them they arent Greek, just like they did when your Bulgarian ancestors tried to tell them the same thing;)

British brought thier tanks and planes

hahaha yeah the british used planes in the Greek civil war. I think you should see a phsyciatrist. the commitern never realised their dream to take Macedonia from Greece thanks to american tax payers and the blood of the Greek people.


you tsakaloffski, are exactly why I will never call a skopjian a macedonian while im alive. because to do so would be legitimising all the commitern's lies and the pathetic ideology called 'macedonism'. as Sara O'neill put it:

""...It is unthinkable today,after the end of the Cold War,to give historical legitimacy to Tito's and Moscow's efforts to gain access to the Aegean via Greece's mutilation ..."

[Leonatos]

How did it happen that these Greeks spoke a slavic language as their mother language?
Did they have slavic origins ?
The fact that they are Greeks is indisputable and they have proven their Greekness but what about their origins?
Does anybody know?

[Tchakalaroff]

How did it happen that these Greeks spoke a slavic language as their mother language?
Did they have slavic origins ?
The fact that they are Greeks is indisputable and they have proven their Greekness but what about their origins?
Does anybody know?

You know Leontas, the ethnic identity of the Macedonian Slavs was a "rather tradable commodity"...

grecomans thought that they are Greeks, because of the powerfull Greek Patriarchae,...
The Exarchate was very week to convince them that they are not Greeks...

[Leonatos]

You know Leontas, the ethnic identity of the Macedonian Slavs was a "rather tradable commodity"...

grecomans thought that they are Greeks, because of the powerfull Greek Patriarchae,...
The Exarchate was very week to convince them that they are not Greeks...

They were Greeks.They had greek consciousness.This is a fact and they have proven that.
As far as their origins are concerned,you believe that they were not of greek origins.How do you support this statement?
On the contrary there is a theory that these people were initially Greeks who adopted the slavic language during the ottoman times.

[Euklid]

During the Ottoman times, the Balkans became a pot and as usual the ruling power, that being Ankara tried to impose a certain policy to the people, scatter them around so that they dont create parties and organizations.

The Greeks in the Balkans were always very predominant until the Ottoman times, when these people had to be scattered around, not forcibly i admit, but economically driven to the centers.

Some areas were Greek speaking some other were slavic speaking.

So some Slavs learned Greek when they scattered around and some Greeks learnd Slavic.

The same way that Greeks in the Diaspora nowadays know english, or French or German depending on where they reside.

These slavophone Greeks are not to be dismissed by Hellas as Slavs, but embraced for keeping their national concious even when alienated by a foreign language.

And that is why our current Greek dictionary contains some slavic words.

[Tchakalaroff]

On the contrary there is a theory that these people were initially Greeks who adopted the slavic language during the ottoman times.

Greeks never adopted slavic language, because the Slavic Ochrid Arhiepiscopy was banned with a sultan's ferman, and the Greek Patriarchate was given the right to control the churches in Macedonia...

So Greeks didn't learn and adopt slavic culture..
Slavs adopted greek culture..
Grekomans are Slavs that have greek conciossness !!!

[Euklid]

LOL, so only the people who attend church learn foreign languages?

Come on, dont be so funny...

What about the tradesmen?

So, myself that came to england a week ago, to wholesale my stuff and trade my greek products, will not learn English, and if i settle here and breed and my family is raised in England, what will they be?

[Euklid]

The Grekomans are both Slavs that found Hellenism more suitable but also Greeks, that happened to travel within the Ottoman Empire and make their life close to Slavs.

Is it so far-fetched?

[Amarantos]

Greeks never adopted slavic language, because the Slavic Ochrid Arhiepiscopy was banned with a sultan's ferman, and the Greek Patriarchate was given the right to control the churches in Macedonia...

So Greeks didn't learn and adopt slavic culture..
Slavs adopted greek culture..
Grekomans are Slavs that have greek conciossness !!!

You just don't want to understand that the language does not represent criterion by which you can judge the national consciousness of a person.The Grekomans were Greeks that in the frame of the multiethnic Ottoman empire lost their language substituting it with a slavic idiom,from the moment that they were living near the slavic populations.The official language of the empire was that of the Ottomans.Is this a valid reason to consider the Greeks or the Bulgars as Ottomans?The Vlachophone Greeks is an other example of the same type of the Grecomans.Ever heard of names such as Averoff,Zappas,Kolettis and their offer to Hellenism?Admiral Miaoulis was arvanitophone,Kountouriotis the same.All names that identify with Greek history.

Slavs adopted greek culture..
Grekomans are Slavs that have greek conciossness
just like Macedonians adopted Hellenic culture in antiquity,no?As you are taught in school.:nono:


because the Slavic Ochrid Arhiepiscopy was banned with a sultan's ferman, and the Greek Patriarchate was given the right to control the churches in Macedonia...
The Patriarchate controlled the churches,because for the people of Macedonia,not very long after the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, became quite clear what was its role.And how it was connected to the bulgarian national consciousness,something to which they did not identify by no means.That is the reason why in Macedonia until 1900 there were 26 Bishops of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and only 6 of the Exarchate.

[Leonatos]

You just don't want to understand that the language does not represent criterion by which you can judge the national consciousness of a person.The Grekomans were Greeks that in the frame of the multiethnic Ottoman empire lost their language substituting it with a slavic idiom,from the moment that they were living near the slavic populations.The official language of the empire was that of the Ottomans.Is this a valid reason to consider the Greeks or the Bulgars as Ottomans?The Vlachophone Greeks is an other example of the same type of the Grecomans.Ever heard of names such as Averoff,Zappas,Kolettis and their offer to Hellenism?Admiral Miaoulis was arvanitophone,Kountouriotis the same.All names that identify with Greek history.


Amarantos,you speak about national consciousness not origin.
The Grecomans whether slavophone or vlachophone were greeks because they identified themselves as greeks.But concerning their origins is hard to tell whether their ancestors were initally Greek.
According to a post above:
They
understand Greek with difficulty and speak only Slavic, but
they declare themselves to be Greek and apologize for not
being any more *enlightened*

This shows that most of them didn't speak Greek but rather slavic.However they identified themselves as christian Greeks loyal to the patriarch and were eager to fight for the greek cause.
Well in my opinion nobody knows about their origin
My ancestors also lived next to slavophone villages in western Macedonia,Kastoria, and were there for centuries but they didn't stop speaking the Greek language.
The Greeks in Salonica lived next to thousands of Jews but they didn't forget their language one day and started speaking judeo-spannish the other day.

Consiousness has nothing to do with origins and mother language.This is for sure.For example in Asia Minor the islamised Pontians considered themselves turks and fought against the christian Pontians who were also Greeks.They were both pure Greeks in origin but the Muslim Pontians sided with the turks because of the religion.
Even now the Muslim Pontians speak the Greek Pontic dialect along with turkish but they cinsider themselves turks.I had watched a documentary of Papahelas and the Muslim Pontian said explicitly that he is a Turk.I don't know if i am wrong but this is what i have understood.
Anyway,these people were the bravest champions of Hellenism in Macedonia,true heroes that fought for the Patriarchy and the Great Church of Constantinople and for the Greek cause.Long live their memory!
Regards
Nikos

[Tchakalaroff]

My ancestors also lived next to slavophone villages in western Macedonia,Kastoria, and were there for centuries but they didn't stop speaking the Greek language.
The Greeks in Salonica lived next to thousands of Jews but they didn't forget their language one day and started speaking judeo-spannish the other day.

Consiousness has nothing to do with origins and mother language.

Yes, that's also my point Leontas...
I'm not saying that "Gekomans" are not greeks (as a nationality), but as a race, they are not ellens, they are Slavs (the same as the people of my country)..

[akritas]

In the WWII a lot of them went in OHRANA - this is a fact.. and after the end
of the world war II all of the slavic population in Greece (including the grcomans) entered in the lines of ELAS, and fought couragely and bravely...

You forget a lot of thinks as about the Slavic involve in the 40s neigboor.According neutral sourses like Alaxander and Woodhouse the Slavic population(with theirs families) that participate in several autonomistic organizations (Ohrana,SNOF,NOF) estimated in 40000 when the whole population were 100000-120000.
But unfortinately, the British brought thier tanks and planes, and destryed the ELAS (that were armed with gra rifles and some weapon from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria)... Although ELAS (where the macedonian slavs were fighting) wee the masters of Thesaloniki and Athens, the British destroyed them...
According the same sourses the ELAS or EDS was strong only in the Western Macedonia because the East Allies of the Communist(Albanians,Yugoslavians and Bulgarians) supplied them with military gear (German) and of course the biggest help at that time that called as asylum.Is known of course to you that the Communists(and from you nation) came in and out or passing the borders with the permission of your Communist allies in the years 1945-1948.Bulkes camp was one from the major transfer and rest area of the EDS.

Thats what happened to the grecomans, in the civil war of Greace they were 100% on ELAS side, and after the exodus all of them live in my country (I'm not writing Macedonia because the moderators will change the word)..

Can you tell me the number that immigrated or expelled from Greek Macedonia during the 40s?

Grekomans are Slavs that have greek conciossness !!!

How these Grekomans adopted the Greek counsiousnes among the others Slavs(Boulgarians and Slavomacedonians)?
Greeks never adopted slavic language, because the Slavic Ochrid Arhiepiscopy was banned with a sultan's ferman, and the Greek Patriarchate was given the right to control the churches in Macedonia...

Can you show me how more thinks as abou this issue please ?Not here but just open a new thread

[Leonatos]

Yes, that's also my point Leontas...
I'm not saying that "Gekomans" are not greeks (as a nationality), but as a race, they are not ellens, they are Slavs (the same as the people of my country)..

In this post if you were referring to the past you should have used past tenses not present.
if you are referring to the present day,then you are wrong.There are no Grekomans or anything like that now.Grekomans was a term used in the Macedonian straggle and the Balkan wars.We live now in 2006,so the term is a bit outdated.

The slavophone villages are not closed societies now.This was the case as you may
know a century ago but now few people have only vlachophone ancestors or only slavophone ancestors.Everyone has many ancestors,from various parts of Greece.(intermarriage)
Btw,my username is Leonatos,he was an officer of Alexander the Great.

[Tchakalaroff]

Nive to meet you Leontas, my username is Tchakalaroff,
the head of the IMORO in Kastoria..

Don't look at the user names, our discours is more important :)

[Amyntas]

Yes, that's also my point Leontas...
I'm not saying that "Gekomans" are not greeks (as a nationality), but as a race, they are not ellens, they are Slavs (the same as the people of my country)..

I believe that in modern times people should not talk about what "race" someone is. The people in Macedonia back them were a huge mix of ethnicities so i believe in the end it counts what someone feels that he is (national conciossness). I m pretty sure there are alot of slavs that originaly were greek in that sense.

BTW, welcome ;)

[Tchakalaroff]

I believe that in modern times people should not talk about what "race" someone is. The people in Macedonia back them were a huge mix of ethnicities so i believe in the end it counts what someone feels that he is (national conciossness). I m pretty sure there are alot of slavs that originaly were greek in that sense.

BTW, welcome ;)

Thanks for the welcome kardash :)

I also don't think that we must talk about races in the 21st century...
But in this peculiar case, the "race talk" was a neccesery atribute of our debate... Because we talk about history and politology here !!!

[Flipper]

Thanks for the welcome kardash :)

I also don't think that we must talk about races in the 21st century...
But in this peculiar case, the "race talk" was a neccesery atribute of our debate... Because we talk about history and politology here !!!

Welcome from my side too!
It seems a nice and civilized discussion is develop here. :)

[Amyntas]

@tchakalaroff

wtf is kardash?

Good to see people from the opposing side joining us here, a discussion needs both sides to take part ;)

[Flipper]

@tchakalaroff

wtf is kardash?



It means brother

[Tchakalaroff]

It means brother

Yes.. it means brother
i also know you often use "Malaga" when you talk to a close friend

What else do I know in greek,...
Ow yes:
ZITO I ELEFTERIA !!! :clapping:

[Kritikos]

i also know you often use "Malaga" when you talk to a close friend

i would strongly suggest NOT using this word when talking to strangers,trying to be friendly,as it is an offensive one,just a friendly advice:)

but this is off topic.

[akritas]

Grecoman Villages at the 40s

Among the Slavmacedonian villages that involved in that decade at the black period of the modern Greek history, were some of them that resisted in the blackmails of the autonomistic and foreighn influence organizations like Ohrana(1943, Bulgaria) and SNOF or NOF(1943-1949, Yugoslavia mainly and Bulgaria only at the beggining).Of course a lot of villages felt as also felt and other Greek villages in other regions of the mainland at the time of the occupation and civil war.

Known Grecoman villages were the Proti(Kabasnica), Ammohori, Mesohori, Veve (Banica), Melite(Vostarane), Kratero and Kele.

I will stand to the latter ones. Kratero village completed destroyed from the DSE forces(Communist) in March of 1947.Kele, a historical village because in 1913 the known komitadji Tsakalarof killed, with the Proti were the core of the Grekoman resistance against the commitadjis(Bulgarian or Yugoslavian).

Also as I mention in my previous post(without to get any answer) the number of the Slavmacedonian that involved in the several autonomistic moovements estimated in 3000-40000 people in total population of 100000-120000 people.In the last year of the supposing civil war in Macedonia the Slavmacedonians estimated in 14000 when the all DSE were 20000.

[akritas]

Grecomaniac or Grecophile

The above words are terms that used from the ultra-nationalist in order to determine the Greek Slavphones during the Greek Struggle in the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century.These terms came from Bulgarian or Serbian nationlist elements. Today the FYROMacedonian ultra-natiolists diaspora centers REPLACE these odds and using these terms in order to insult these Greeks.

For the sake of the thread let us accept that the old Bulgarians, those who in current Makedonoski theory “considered” themselves Bulgarians and who, in fact, lived in Macedonia, as a minority community, however, as is apparent from the Ottoman statistics for 1905, have erroneously been taken as constituting a segment of the “Macedonian” nation.

As we have said, however, these people were Bulgarians:

they never (at that time) called themselves “Macedonians”; they fought as comitadjis in the ranks of the Bulgarian Committee and later, in 1924, taking advantage of the Kafantaris-Molov agreement on the “voluntary exchange of populations”, they left for Bulgaria. None of them moved to what was then the district of Skopje –which, moreover, was at that time certainly not called “Macedonia”:
it was merely “Vardarska Banovina” (Directorate of the Axios), an administrative district of the then Kingdom of Serbia.

Serbia consequently delivered a protest to the Greek government for having exchanged these people for Greeks living in Bulgaria when, according to Serbia, they were in fact Serbs, (not, of course, “Macedonians”). All the “Bulgarophones”, as they were called at that time, who remained in Greece were old Patriarchists (adherents of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) from the time of the Bulgarian Schism, veterans of the Macedonian Struggle:

“Grecomaniacs” (passionately Greek), in the words of the Bulgarians and their descendants.

The following discussion on the nationality of these Bulgarian speakers, which Michel Paillares reports (op.cit., pp. 50-51) having had with Hilmi Pasha, the Inspector General of the Macedonian vilayets of Monastir and Thessaloniki, is significant:


Paillares:
But these Bulgarophones insist that they are really Greeks?

Hilmi:
They say they are Greeks when no coercion, no constraint, is brought to bear on them.

Paillares:
And what is your opinion, Your Excellency?

Hilmi:
My opinion, and the opinion of my government, is that they are Greeks. We classify our subjects according to which schools and which Church they attend. Being unable to win people by peaceful propaganda, the Comitadjis do not hesitate to make use of the most atrocious methods. They turn to the knife, the revolver, the axe.
....


It is equally significant that much earlier, in 1871, the Russian Goloubinskii (see the relevant note in my dissertation on “The liberation of Thessaloniki”, op.cit., pp. 25-26) had written:

These purported Greeks nourished a more implacable hatred and a more intense scorn for all things Bulgarian or Slavic than did real Greeks.

Just recently my attention was drawn to a passage in the magazine Tachydromos, an extract from a book by Giovanni Amadori-Virgili, a former Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, entitled “La questione Rumeliota (Macedonia, Vecchia Serbia, Albania, Epiro) e la politica italiana”, published in 1908 as number 1 in a series by the Biblioteca Italiana on foreign policy.

The passage in question reads:

Through their partiotic sentiments and their devotion to Greek traditions and Greek culture, the Slav-speaking Greeks of Macedonia express their vigorous determination to be Greeks.

Legally, after the population exchange, the subject was closed, for those who remained were those who did not want to leave Greece, who did not choose to be Bulgarians. Nowhere is there any mention of the term “Macedonians”. If today certain of their descendants have discovered that they are “Macedonians”, that does not alter the situation, because it was to them, or at least to some of them, that the Skopje radio station addressed its March 5, 1990 broadcast, saying that “the most dangerous ones are those same hellenized Macedonians, the traitors, the anti-Macedonians” (here I would merely recall the slogan launched in 1895 by the Bulgarian Committee: “Death to the Grecophiles”).

After all this, then, how many “authentic” indigenous “Macedonians” did Greece have, according to the Skopjians?
And after all that, how is it possible to maintain that there was a single “Macedonian” people, which was dismembered and divided among Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria?

Let us take a closer look at what is currently being advaced on the subject of oppressed “Macedonians”. Skopjians tend to contradict themselves, now proclaiming the existence of 300.000 oppressed “Macedonians” in Greek Macedonia (this was the figure given by Simovski: cf. Peter Hill in the draft for the new Australian encyclopaedia and my communication to the Athens Academy, op.cit., p. 97), now 230.000 (Skopjian radio, 25 September 1991). In a also old statement to “Nova Makedonija” (29 July 1992), Kiro Hatzivasilief declared:

“As to how many of this ethnic group (“Macedonians”) there are living in Greece, unfortunately no one has precise statistic data”. And let us not overlook Mr Sidiropoulos (an ethnic “Macedonian” and member of the nationalist Uranio Toxo), who affirmed on an Australian national television broadcast in 1994 that the number of “Macedonians” in Greece amounted to no fewer than 1.000.000.:laugh:

Of course today the Uranio Toxo nationalist claim other numbers (??) after the slaps in the several Greek elections.Also many of them became again Bulgarians by rejected theirs ancient Macedonian descents.:p

The above post is dedicated to the Greek Makedontsi of the Diaspora