Macedonia 1831:Where were the <Makedontsite>?

[kostas68]

If we ask a Scopian why the ethnic<Macedonians> aren't nowhere mentioned in all the Ottoman censuses,during 19 and 20 century,he will answer that at this time the Ottomans distinguished the ethnic groups only by their religion:The patriarchists were mentioned only as Greeks,either they were Greeks Hellenophones or slavophones or Vlachs,the exarchists were mentioned as Bulgarians,either real Bulgarians or <Macedonians> and the Moslems as Turks,either they were Turks or Albanians or Gypsies.And therefor,say the Scopians,there aren't mentioned in the censuses neither Albanians,nor <Macedonians>,Vlachs,Gypsies,e.t.c.
But there was a French named Cousinery who was consul at Thessaloniki untill 1793.This year he lost his place due to the French revolution but after the restoration of monarchy in 1814,he was sent again to Thessaloniki by king Louis the XVIII.Cousinery travelled in many regions of Macedonia and he wrote his observations in his book<Voyage dans la Macedoine,contenant des recherches sur l'Histoire,la Geographie et les antiquites de ce pays>,published in Paris,1831.I found in the URL below a part of his work,which is incorporated in the book <Foreign quarterly review>,which was published in 1834 by the Harvard University of USA and the original was scanned on 19 March,2007,as you can find if you search in this website.
It's very interesting that Cousinery mentions in Macedonia Greeks,Bulgarians,Turks,Jews,Vlachs,Albanians,even the Pomaks in the mountains of Rodopi and the <Gypsies or Tsiganis who dare to penetrate into the mountains of the Pomaks and provide them with iron and tin implements>.Where were the <Makedontsite>?Where were they hidden?All the nations are mentioned except the <Makedontsite>.And notice that Cousinery wasn't a traveller who came for 2-3 weeks in Macedonia,he was for many years consul at Thessaloniki,so he had a very good knowledge about the Macedonian matters,the populations and the nations of Macedonia e.t.c.
You can find all these in the URL below,pages 445-450.
http://books.google.gr/books?id=k4EA...l=el#PPA445,M1
Or you can see the pics of the scaned pages here :










I must remark that there were many foreign travellers who visited Macedonia during the past centuries and wrote books about their travels.One of them was another French,Pierre Bellon(1517-1564).I found his book scaned in this URL:
http://gallica2.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k53619s.image.f2
The chapter about Greece starts in page 33,but i don't speak French and the scan resolution isn't good,so i couldn't read nothing.Can anyone who speaks French take a look and help,if it's possible?

[Andrew]

Bravo Kosta !!!!

I was always interested about the 19th century Macedonia !!
I saw Greeks , Bulgarians , Albanians ,Vlachs , Pomaks , Gypsies ...but not "Makedonskis" .

[kostas68]

If we ask the Scopians to comment this,they will consider it < Greek propaganda>.Imagine an University with global recognition like Harvard promoting <Greek propaganda>!

[TirAlb]

I posted this some time ago,the autor speaks about disputed territories,between Albanians,Greeks and Bulgarians in 19 century.

http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...-bulgaria.html

[Andrew]

In the following quotes the term Macedonia corresponds to the geographical territory of the 19th century european Othoman Empire , including parts of todays : Greece , FYROM , Bulgaria and Albania. A useful disambiguation is between the Modern Geographical Macedonia (M.G.M) and the Ancient Historical Macedonian kingdom (A.H.M , home of the ancient northwestern greek tribe of the Macedonians (Μακεδόνες)).
1)Greece's northern province , called Makedonia (Μακεδονία) corresponds to the 57% of M.G.M and to the 88% of the A.H.M .
2) FYROM corresponds to 38% of M.G.M and includes only 11% of A.H.M .
3) Bulgaria and Albania have both smaller shares in both M.G.M and A.H.M .

1822 , Karadjich :

In 1822 the Serbian folklorist and linguist, Vuk Stefanovich Karadjich (1787-1864), published the first work containing grammatical facts about the Bulgarian language. Interestingly Karadjich's analysis of the Bulgarian language was based on the Macedonian dialects.

1831 , Cousinery :

Voyage dans la Macedoine, contenant des Recherches sur I'Histoire, la Geographic, et les Antiquites de ce Pays. Par M. E. M. Cousinery, ancien Consul-General a Salonique, Membre de I'Institut, &e. 2 vol. 4to. Paris. 1831

“He was consul-general of France at Saloniki
previous to the revolution of 1793, which cost him his place, and France
most of her factories in the Levant. Afier the restoration of 1814,
M. Cousinery was sent again to Saloniki by Louis XVIII., when he revisited
the scenes of his former researches.”

Macedonia is inhabited by many races. The Greeks and ,the Bulgarians are the most numerous. [...] The country east of Saloniki, the province of Chalcidice especially, is entirely inhabited by Greeks, while in the districts to the west of that city, in the plains watered by the Axius, the country population is wholly Bulgarian ; again, in the woods and mountains beyond those plains, the Greeks re-appear. In the towns, Greeks and Bulgarians are now mixed together, and more amalgamated by dress, language, and religion, yet they seldom intermarry or associate in common. In the country they live altogether separate, and each race retains its own language and dress.

Note that the Author mentions a constellation of nations inhabiting in Macedonia (Greeks , Bulgarians , Albanians , Serbs , Turks , Vlachs , Pomakes , Gipsies , Jewish) , BUT doesn't mention a "macedonian" nation.

1860 , Verkovich :

In 1860, the Serbian Academic Society published Bosnian Croat, Stefan Verkovich's first volume of "Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarian" awarding him the Serbian "Uceno Druzestvo" (Scholar's Society), in his preface Verkovich said:

"I call these songs Bulgarian and not Slavic, because if someone today should ask the Macedonian Slav "what are you?" he would be immediately be told: "I am Bulgarian" and would call his language 'Bulgarian'."

1880s , "Macedonism" and Serbian de-bulgarization of Macedonian Slavs:

What Novakovich had produced was a blueprint for "de-Bulgarization" of the Macedonian Slavs by their "Macedonianization", if direct "Serbianization" could not be readily effected. The intent is explicitly confirmed by Novakovich's well known (and quoted) dispatch to the Serbian Minister of Education in 1888:

"Since the Bulgarian idea, as it is well known to all, is deeply rooted in Macedonia, I think it is almost impossible to shake it completely by opposing it merely with the Serbian idea. This idea, we fear, would be incapable, as opposition pure and simple, of suppressing the Bulgarian idea. That is why the Serbian idea will need an ally that could stand in direct opposition to the Bulgarianism and would contain in itself the elements which could attract the people and their feelings and thus sever them from Bulgarianism. This ally I see in the Macedonism or to a certain extent in our nursing the Macedonian dialect and Macedonian separatism."

1888 , The first reaction of the Macedonian Slavs to "Macedonism" :

A letter to Prof. Marin Drinov of May 25, 1888 Kuzman Shapkarev writes:

"But even stranger is the name Macedonians, which was imposed on us only 10 to 15 years ago by outsiders, and not as something by our own intellectuals... Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name , reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: "Bugari", although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians. You can find more about this in the introduction to the booklets I am sending you. They call their own Macedono-Bulgarian dialect the "Bugarski language", while the rest of the Bulgarian dialects they refer to as the "Shopski language".

1890s , Bulgaria also promotes "Macedonism" :

H.R Wilkinson, A review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia, 1950

Numerous secret societies began to flourish after 1890. 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 what had originally been a political tag, an ethnic significance."

Century turn , Goce Delchev , FYROM's national heroe :

In some of his correspondence (all of his letters and papers are written without exception in literary Bulgarian language) he described himself as an ethnic Bulgarian. In some documents, created by him, he defined Slav population in Macedonia as Bulgarian, for example in a circular letter written in March 1901 :
A letter written by Goce Delchev to Nikola Maleshevski where Goce states:
".....we are all Bulgarians.."

„Отцѣпленията и разцѣпленията никакъ да не ни плашатъ. Действително жалко е, но що можемъ да правимъ, когато си сме българи и всички страдаме отъ една обща болѣсть! Ако тая болѣсть не сѫществуваше въ нашитѣ прадѣди, отъ които е наследство и въ насъ нѣмаше да попаднатъ подъ грозния скиптъръ на турскитѣ султани...“

"The separations and divisions in no way should make us afraid. Truthfully it is pitiful, but what we can do, when we are Bulgarians and we all suffer from a same general malady. If that malady did not existed into our great-grandfathers, from which it is an inheritance also into us they would not fell under the ghastly scepter of the Turkish Sultans"

Conclusions :

The todays inhabitans of FYROM originate from a 19th century bulk population, predominantly of Slavic (Bulgarian predominantly and Serbian secondly) and secondly of non-Slavic (Albanians , Vlachs etc.) stock that had been the "apple of the discord" between Serbia and Bulgaria . Both of them used in different times the idea of "macedonism" to promote the proper intentions and to block the other one's intentions. The result was a certain national disorientation and the common denominator was "macedonism". The last was later used and repromoted by Tito in the 1940s as expression of expansionistic intentions against Greece's northern province named also Macedonia. Follows a US State Department document , where the US condemns (then) the idea of autonomus "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" nation.

[kostas68]

Originally Posted by Andrew

The eternal hypocrites Americans.What has change since 1944 and now their policy is absolutely opposite?All those who believe that a state decides about its forreign policy due to emotionalism must think of this.Weren't we their allies?And what did we gain?Even the Dodekannes,they were ready to offer them to Turkey and they corrected their <error> 30 years later,offering Cyprus to the Turks.If we were allies with Germany,what worst could be happen to us?

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by kostas68

The eternal hypocrites Americans.What has change since 1944 and now their policy is absolutely opposite?All those who believe that a state decides about its forreign policy due to emotionalism must think of this.Weren't we their allies?And what did we gain?Even the Dodekannes,they were ready to offer them to Turkey and they corrected their <error> 30 years later,offering Cyprus to the Turks.If we were allies with Germany,what worst could be happen to us?

Then they were fighting communism ...
Now they wanna pass oil piplines fron FYROM ...

In any way ..USA don't really give a damn about how Skops wanna call themselves and Skops haven't realize it yet !!