Racial Migrations In Macedonia During The Years 1912-1925

[akritas]

PART I

During the period of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, WW I and Minor Asia Disaster 1914-1918 , have witnessed mass-movements of whole populations on a scale which can hardly be paralleled, unless we go back to the period of great racial migrations which coincided with the break-up of the Roman Empire.

These mass-movements were, partly, the result of direct warlike operations, such as the flight of the Moslem population of Eastern Thrace during the advance of the Bulgarian army up to the lines of Chataldja in October 1912, the flight of the Bulgarian population of Central Macedonia before the advancing Greek army in June 1913, and the flight of the Greek population of Western Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace following on the Turkish victory in Anatolia in August 1922.

It is obvious that all these movements which involved the transfers, in either direction, of between 2,300,000 and 2,500,000 Greeks, Bulgarians, and Turks-leaving out of account the Armenians-have had the effect of profoundly modifying the racial geography of the regions in question.
There has been a complete re-shuffling of races in Macedonia, Thrace, and Anatolia. Where before there was great diversity, there is now nearly complete homogeneity. Political problems, which owed their complication to the mixture of mutually antipathetic races, have been simplified.
Thus the Macedonian Question, where the inextricable nlixture of Greeks, Bulgars, Turks, and others had been the cause, up to 1913, of chronic racial warfare to such an extent that the word 'l Macedoine " has found a permanent place in our culinary vocabulary as an appropriate name for " fruit-salad," has practically been solved by the disappearance of its causes. As a result of the re-sifting of populations which has taken place during the mentioned priod (1912-1925), Macedonia north of the Belatista has become purely Slav(Bulgarian-Slavmacedonians), Southern and Western Macedonia (with the exception of some small and dwindling enclaves), predominantly Greek.


From the outbreak of the Balkan War in October 1912 up to the end of 1924, Macedonia has witnessed no less than seventeen migratory movements in either direction. There has been one constant flow of populations between the various territories of the Southern Balkans, and from one side of the Bgean to another.

In the term "migratory movements" are to be included all mass movements due to any cause whatsoever, whether the result of forcible eviction (war-like operations, deportations, etc.), voluntary emigration, or treaties and exchange of populations.

These migrations and only in Greek Macedonia (not in Bulgarian or Yugoslav Macedonia) are set forth below in their chronological order.


1912.
The advance of the armies of the Balkan Allies-the Greeks on Thessaloniki, the Serbs on Uskub and Monastir, the Bulgars on Kavalla and Thessaloniki, resulted in a partial stampede of the Moslem population of the invaded area towards Thessalonica. Of the Moslem population of Greek Macedonia, some 10000 went over to Turkey as the result of this panic.

1913.

• On the outbreak of the second Balkan War between Bulgaria and her former Allies, a very considerable portion of the Bulgarian population in the districts to the north of Salonika followed the retreating Bulgarian Army into Bulgaria. The districts affected were, principally, that of Kilkis and, to a lesser degree, Goumentza, Demirhisar and Seres. The total number of Bulgarians who migrated at this moment was about 15000
• Towards the end of that year the whole Greek population of the Macedonian districts ceded to Bulgaria by the Treaty of Bucharest (qazas of Jum'a-i-Bala, Razlog, Melnik, Nevrokop, Strumitsa) emigrated to Hellenic Macedonia. They numbered about 5000
• A similar movement took place from the Macedonian districts ceded to Serbia (qazas of Monastir, Gevgeli and Doiran). The Greeks from these districts, to the number of about 5000 settled for the most part at Thessaloniki, Florina, and Kilkis.
• At the same time the Greek population of the Caucasus, excited by the news of the Greek victories in Macedonia and by reports of free distribution of land, started to emigrate. Although the movement was discouraged by the Greek Government, which already had its hands full with other refugees, some 5000 * Caucasian Greeks succeeded inbeing admitted into Macedonia.

1913-1914.
AS the result of the action of the Bulgarian Government in Western Thrace, which territory had been ceded to Bulgaria by the Treaty of Bucharest, and the settlement there of Bulgarian emigrants from Macedonia, practically the whole of the Greek population were forced to emigrate. Of these some 40,000 settled in Macedonia, others going to Old Greece.

1914.

• After the conclusion of peace between Turkey and the Balkan States, the Young Turkish Government started a vigorous propaganda among the Moslem inhabitants of the ceded districts, to induce them to emigrate to Turkey. Although Western Macedonia was hardly affected, a considerable portion of the Moslems of Central and Eastern Macedonia, estimated at 100000-115000 left for Turkey and were settled in Eastern Thrace and on the western coast of Anatolia.
• With the object of bringing pressure to bear upon the Greek Government to surrender the Egean Islands which had been occupied by Greece during the first ~ a l k a n War, the Young Turkish Government proceeded to expel, during the summer of this year, a portion of the Greek population of Eastern Thrace and the Asiatic littoral. About 100000 of these refugees (80,000 from Thrace and 20,000 from Anatolia) took refuge in Macedonia, where they were settled by the Greek Government.
• During the European War the Bulgarian Army occupied Eastern Macedonia, and all the Greek inhabitants-to the number of 36,000 were deported to Bulgaria.

1918.
Immediately after the Armistice the survivors of theabove deportation-to the number of 17000only-were brought back and reinstated in their homes.

1918-1919.
The successive occupations of Western Thrace, Eastern Thrace, and Smyrna by the Greek Army were followed by the re-emigration of the Greeks who had been expelled from these countries in 1913-1914. The total number repatriated from Macedonia was about140,000.

1919-1920.
In the course of 1919 the Greek Government decided to remove to Greece the Greeks of South Russia and the Caucasus, many of whom had been reduced to the condition of refugees by the Bolshevik Revolution. Of these, 55,000" were settled in Macedonia.

1919.
After the defeat of General Wrangel by the Bolsheviks at Odessa and in the Crimea, a portiori of the Russian White Army, including large numbers of Russian civiliall refugees, was transported to Greece. Of these about 1000 were settled at Thessaloniki.

1919-1924.
In 1919 a Convention was signed between Greece and Bulgaria to facilitate the reciprocal emigration of the Greek and Bulgarian minorities in the two countries. Under this arrangement 27,000 Bulgarians had quitted Greek Macedonia for Bulgaria up to the end of 1924.

1922-1924.
After the Greek disaster in Asia Minor practically the whole of the Greek population of Western Asia Minor and the Black Sea littoral (Pontus) took refuge in Greece. Also, immediately after the signature of the Mudania Convention by which the Allied Powers agreed to surrender Eastern Thrace and Constantinople to the Kemalists, the greater part of the Greek and Armenian population of Eastern Thrace and a portion of the Greek inhabitants of Constantinople, fearing reprisals by the Turks, removed to Greece. Of these refugees, up to November 1924, about 200000 had been installed in Macedonia and 120000 in Western Thrace.

1923-1924.
In January 1923 was signed the Greco-Turkish Convention for the exchange of populations, which differs from the Greco-Bulgarian Convention in that it makes the emigration of the Greek and Moslem minorities in the two countries compulsory, only the Greeks of Constantinople and the Turks of Western Thrace being exempted from its provisions.
This Convention came into operation in October 1923. By November 1924 the whole of the Moslem population of Macedonia, amounting to 348000persons, with the exception of a few individuals of Albanian origin whom the Greek Government had agreed to exempt from the exchange, had been transferred to Turkey.

1924.
In May of this year the remnant of the Greek population of Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor began to be transferred to Greece, under the provisions of the same Convention.
By December 1924, at which date the exchange was practically completed, 150,000 Greeks (94,000 from Anatolia, 18,000 from Eastern Thrace, and 38,000 from Constantinople) had been transferred to Greece.
Besides the above-mentioned wholesale migrations, a factor which must also not be overlooked is the settlement in Macedonia, immediately after the Balkan Wars, of considerable numbers of Greeks from Old Greece. Taking into account the Government officials, gendarmes, etc., 10000 would not be too high a figure. This does not include the army.


SOME CONSIDERATIONS
In 1913 the population of Greek Macedonia, according to the census taken in that province by the Hellenic Government immediately after the annexation, was 1,194,902. At the census of 1920 it had fallen to 1,120,079, a decrease of 7%.

In order to be able to explain the cause of this decrease and to ascertain how the relative strength of the various racial elements coin posing the population of Macedonia has been affected, one must take into account all the migrations which, during the intervening period between the two censuses, resulted in either an increase or a diminution in the strength of each separate racial unit.

It is also necessary to know what the relative strength of these units was at the beginning of the period, that is, just before the Balkan Wars.
This information is available from various auxiliary sources.

We take, as our starting-point, a statistical table of the population of Macedonia, by races, published by the Greek Government in 1904 and derived from Greek and Turkish official sources."


Greeks . . . . . . . . . . . . ...523,472
Bulgars . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 119,005
Moslems . . . . . . . . . . . . 404,238
Various . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68,902

Total…………………………1115617


The figures in question were published in the Bulletino d'Orient of 1904 and also in the Trnlps of 27 December 1904, and are reproduced in Virgilj, 'La Questione Rumeliota,' pp. 233-4.

The figures include, under the heading of Greeks, the Slavophone Macedonians acknowledging the authority of the CEcumenical Patriarch, and, under the heading of Bulgars, the Slavophone Macedonians acknowledging the authority of the Bulgarian Exarch, as, under the Turkish regime, ecclesiastical allegiance was the test of national sympathy. Koutzo-Vlachs, for the same reason, are classed as Greeks, unless they had officially registered as " Koumans." This classification, based on the principle of national sentiment, does not, of course, pretend to take account of the much.disputed question of the racial origin of the various elements of the population. In the Lausanne Convention for the exchange of populations (1g23), ecclesiastical allegiance was accepted as the determining test of national sympathy.




Sources:
1-A. Pallis,'Racial Migrations in the Balkans during the years 1912-1924'
2-7. Statistics of (a) the Mixed Commission for the exchange of populations between Greeceand Turkey ; and(b) Mixed Commission for Greco-Bulgarian emigration.

[akritas]

I am just finish a great book regarding the census statistics in the Macedonia.

Slavphone moovements (1913-1930), War Statistics, KEMO,Iakovos Michailides,2003

This book have and analyze all the known Greek and Bulgarian sources regarding the census of the Slavphones in Macedonia.
In this book the writer publish for a first time two secret statistics as about the Slavphones populations that done from the Greek authorities in Macedonia and Thrace.

1st Document(Central and West Macedonia)
A.Y.E./1925/B/40,2
Synoptiki Statistiki tou Pluthismou ths Genikhs Dioikiseos Makedonias
Slavphones

• X-Patriarchists....................76.098
• X-Exarchists(schsmatics)......97.636
• Under Immigration................11.228
• Total................................184.962

2nd document(Drama-Kavala)
A.Y.E./1925/B/40,2
Statistiki Pluthismou Ypodioikiseos Zyrnovou
and
Statistiki Pluthismou Ypodioikiseos Dramas, Komotene 19-11-1925

• Ellinophrones.............5.606
• Bulgarophrones..........2.114
• Under Immigration......1.326
• Total.......................9.046

In the analysis we can see that the slavphones(Greeks and Slavs) comprised the 11% of the Total Macedonian population.
The exarchists comprised the 5%.

I think and in my opinion these statistics is the most accurate regarding the composition of the Slavphones.

The writer also comment ironically and the FYROMacedonian statistics (actually they use the Bulgarian sources) and the transformer of the Slavphones into "Macedonians"!!!

[Hellas7]

Akritas I thing I found this online.


Is this part of the book?

http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/do...hailidis98.pdf

[akritas]

Hellas 7 the specific article is a part of the book of the www.macedonian-heritage.gr. The book is more lately (2003) and incorporates new data(like the previous statistics), your mentioned article as also and several past essays of the writer.

[akritas]

"Summary of "the Inhabited Places in Aegean Macedonia"
Volume I by Todor Simovski
Institute for National History, Skopje, Macedonia 1978

".... From totally 2.000.000 inhabitants in Macedonia on the whole before its partition, more from the half of it, in other words, 1.163.477 inhabitants lived in Aegean Macedonia. The national structure of its population, which, as a result of the five century slavery, met with serious ethnic changes on the eve of the Balkan Wars, was the following: Macedonian Christians about 326.000, Macedonian Moslems 41.000,Turks 295.000, Greek Christians 240.000, Greek Moslems 14.000, Christian Vlachs 46.000, Moslem Vlachs 3.500, Albanian Moslems and Christians 9.000, Jews 60.000, Gypsies 30.000, and the rest from other minorities. "

as you see the FYROMacedonian claims just follow the Bulgarian statistics as Iakovos Michailides clearly state in his book. The only that they can do it in every statistic is to change the Bulgarians in Macedonians.

[Hellas7]

One thing I never understand about Simovski and the Skopjan estimates.


They use the same method as the Bulgarians used back then, all Slavic speakers regardless of dialect/nationality/religion = ethnic Bulgarians, or today as the Skopjans claim ethnic "Slavomacedonians". They did/do this ofcourse to boost their numbers.


But my issue is with the numbers themselves. The Skopjans use the same records as the Bulgarians did, except they switch "Bulgarian" for "Macedonian". However, Simovski's numbers are different to that of the one who is usually the basis for the numbers:

Carnegie Endowment for International peace
Report ... to inquire into the causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars

4.3. Greek Macedonia

CHAPTER IV
The War and the Nationalities

3. Greek Macedonia


"The country behind Salonica is inhabited by a yet more mixed population, from the nationalist point of view, than that of Northern Macedonia (see the ethnographic map). Apart from the Hellenic population, which occupies a narrow strip to the south of Macedonia, the Tchataldjic peninsula, and the coasts, which constitutes a more or less important part of the town population, you meet Bulgarians, Turks, Wallachians (Vlachs or Roumanians), Albanians, Jews, Gypsies. At the end of the two wars and the oppressive measures of which we shall speak, the ethnographic map of Southern Macedonia had undergone profound changes. But we have a recent picture of the state of things before the war in the ethnographic map just published by Mr. J. Ivanov, of the University of Sofia—in 1913. [Ethnographic map of Southern Macedonia, representing the ethnic distribution on the eve of the 1912 Balkan war, by J. Ivanov, lecturer at the University of Sofia. Scale 1:200,000. Explanatory notes. Sofia, 1913, p. 8. The author employed the Turkish electoral lists and the Salnames, Greek statistics made in 1913 by Mr. Kalixiopoulos; the unpublished returns of the detailed statistics undertaken by the 1912 Exarchate, and the new Roumanian statistics of A. Rubin & Co. Noe, etc., and "verified all information at his disposal on the spot." The map shows all the towns and villages in proportion to their size, and marks the proportions of the various nationalities in color.] The total numbers belonging to the various nationalities in a territory a little larger than the portion in the same region ceded to the Greeks by the Turks was as follows:

Bulgarians........................................ ................329 371
Turks............................................. .................314 854
Greeks............................................ ................236 755
Wallachians....................................... ................44 414
Albanians......................................... .................15 108
Gypsies........................................... .................25 302
Jews.............................................. ..................68 206
Miscellaneous..................................... .................8 019

Total :................................................. ........1 042 029


The statistics accepted by the Greeks differ considerably from these. To give some idea of the difference, the figures of Mr. Amadou Virgili are reproduced (in brackets) with those of the Messager d'Athenes of February 2/15, 1913, quoted in a recent work by Mr. Charles Bellay, L'irredentisme hellenique (Perrin, 1913), as representative of the Greek point of view:


[See link for statistics]


....Clearly, in the Greek statistics, the Moslem total is swollen by the addition of the pomaks (Bulgarian Moslems), from whom, in the Bulgarian statistics, the Turks are separated. In the Greek figures the "orthodox" Greeks include the patriarchist Bulgarians and Wallachians, whom they call "Bulgarophone Greeks" or "Wallachophones" (Roumanianizers). With these exceptions, the difference is not considerable, when it is remembered that the territory is not quite the same*; and it may be admitted that if language rather than the religion is used to determine nationality, Mr. Ivanov's figures are or were nearer the truth. The polemics of the Servian press put the number of "Slavs" annexed by Greece at 260,000; a figure which the Greek press reduced to 120,000."

In Ivanov's statistics the number is 329,000 for TOTAL speakers, which included the Bulgarian Muslims.

But somehow Simovski says there was 326,000 total Slavic speakers, PLUS 41,000 Muslim. (367,000)


Why such a difference?



* Bulgarian Macedonia was smaller than what Greeks consider Macedonia (and Serbs and Skopjans) but as we know "ethnic macedonia" has different maps. But this Bulgarian census leaves out many Greek speakers in and around Olympus. This would boost Greek speakers by much more.... Just a side note.

You can see Bulgarian ethnographic map here: http://knigite.abv.bg/en/carnegie/Ma...arian_view.jpg

And also Serbian, who create a "Slavic Macedonian" category: http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/963...anview2fz5.jpg

[akritas]

Ivanoff and Kancov were the two major Bulgarian sources reagrding the pro-Balkan wars. The small diffrence in the number in the census statistics is acceptable.

[akritas]

I have read many times from the Skopjan nationalists (komiNAZI, Piperkata e.t.c.) and specially after the presentation of the Alkiviades(Rainbow member ?) in maknews that Greece has recognized a "Macedonian" language in census at the past.

Even kopria Alkiviades avoid to show us the DATE OF THE CENSUS and of course the first part of this census that show the ETHINICITIES (a common Skopjan behavior to hide the truth)I want to make some thinks clear.

• Judging from the available sources , it is reasonable to argue that Greece appeared inclined to respect the linguistic and religious rights of its Slavic-speaking minority, but felt that to identify this minority as Bulgarian, given the bloody clash in the region that had lasted for more than a generation, would have been far too much.
• Greeks, like all other Balkan peoples at that time, always used the term “Macedonianâ€� to denote one's origin from a specific geographical region.Actually ,the Greek views and the related reports were in full agreement with the views of the officials of the League of Nations.
• The nationalities at that time ACCORDING ALL SOURSES doesnt mention 'Macedonian ethinicity' as the skopjan imagine.

Finally not surprisingly, Slav-Macedonists in F.Y.R.O.M. after 1944 followed exactly the same path previously trodden by Greeks and Bulgarians at the past regarding the census. But instead of adding something new to the recipe of the salad, they preferred to warm up the same ingredients: i.e. the early 20th century and inter-war Bulgarian statistics with the exception of course, that "Bulgarians" were mutated overnight into "Macedonians" (Slav Macedonist Simovski Case).

[akritas]

and below you can read the data with better resolution....

[akritas]

Before investigating the factors which caused the migration, it [s necessary to say something about the numbers involved. On the eve of the Balkan Wars, the number of Slav-speaking inhabitants who lived in the regions that constituted Greek Macedonia after the Treaty of Bucharest (10 August 1913) was estimated at around 115,000-120,000 persons according to Greek official figures.

This number, however, which was presented in the works of V. Colocotronis and A. A. Pallis during the inter-war period, included, as has been demonstrated in recent studies by Greek historians, only the pro-Bulgarian Slav Macedonians (boulgarofrones) or former Exarchists—literally, 'those with Bulgarian sentiments', while the former Patriarchists or pro-Greek Slavophones (ellinofrones)—literally, 'those with Greek sentiments' were included in the number of the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia.

The total number of the two Slavophone groups in the part of Greek Macedonia was at least 250,000 before the Balkan Wars and represented 21.7 per cent of the total population of the region at that time.After the Treaty of Bucharest (1913), this number decreased owing to emigration of a segment of Slav-speaking Christians who had committed themselves to Bulgaria during the preceding decade and felt at risk under Greek administration. They were mostly men of military age, who opted to depart for Bulgaria, or Serbia, or for the New World, to avoid persecution by their opponents, as well as to evade military service in the Greek national army.

It is very difficult, however, to estimate the number of Slav Macedonians who emigrated from Macedonia between 1913 to 1922. The available statistics are fragmented and present various discrepancies. In some regions there were no register books at all, for example in the district of Kastoria, the archives of which were burnt in 1913, nor are the dates of departure known. Most Slav Macedonians left the region during the Balkan Wars; others followed the Bulgarian army in its retreat in 1918.

[Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia, Oxford, Elizabeth Kontogiorgi, 2006, pages 202-203]