What was the Ilinden ?

[achilles]

Originally Posted by Tchakalaroff

Thanks Orphic for greeting me
Nice being here in your beautifull forum..

You know, I read a lot of history books, and I'm familiar with a lot of facts..
For example I know that we are not related with the ancient macedonians..
We are Slavs that came feom Russia in the 6th centiry and took this land from you.... on this I agree with you...

Good to see a balanced and realistic view of the Macedonian history by a Skopjan. So i suppose you do agree that appropriating Greece's history is, at least, unspeakable and outreageous. I am wondering how many of your compatriots share the same views with you. My personnal info suggests that most of you guys live the hallucination of being direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians. Could you confirm this?

So, since we do not debate the undisputable Hellenic character of the Macedonian history, perhaps you could elaborate on the pretext based on which your country is eligible to be named "Macedonia".

It wasn't important to him if he works for the VMORO, or for Karavangelis...
The important thing for him was the control of his village Rulia.. Nothing else..

Captain Kottas was a Slavophone Macedon Hellene, as many of his contemporary Macedonians. His struggle is at least as important for Greece and Macedonia, as the struggle of other Macedon heroes.

I see neither a point nor substantiation in your post regarding Cpt. Kottas.

Have a good one...

[Orphic_Hymn]

You know, I read a lot of history books, and I'm familiar with a lot of facts..
For example I know that we are not related with the ancient macedonians..
We are Slavs that came feom Russia in the 6th centiry and took this land from you.... on this I agree with you...

Well the region from which the Slavs originated is debatable, but I'm OK with Russia..
But on your second statement you've obviously misunderstood.
There is no claim on lands from our behalf, we aren't even interested in an inch of the lands that compose the country called FYROM. Our strife is make it clear that the term Makedonia and everything this term embodies, meaning ancient history and culture, is Hellinic.

As for the rest, true he was a quite interesting figure, but I've noticed that there is no percise account of the 'betrayal' to the Ottomans which leaves a whole lot of room for various theories to emerge.
One of these theories is promoted by the highly dubious 'ios' leaflet, which has even went as far as to suggest that his friend and co-fighter 'Pavlos Kurou' was the one that turned him over to the Ottomans due to a growing fear that he would again change sides, something that would be devastating for the Hellinic cause..
Then again, as I said.. these are but mere theories.

[Christov]

What was Ilinden? It was a logical continuation of the Balkan liberation movements during the XIX century – Greece, Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria. One of its’ highpoint – the Krushevo Republic, was the same as the Weimar Republic, the Great French revolution 1789 and so many other attempts for establishing a new form of governing, based on the ancient democratic principles (Hellenic, by the way). Let us not forget, the year of the uprising – 1903, East and South Thrace as well as the complete Macedonia were still part of the Ottoman Empire. It was badly organized, attempt for freedom.

[Tsontos]

Originally Posted by christov

What was Ilinden? It was a logical continuation of the Balkan liberation movements during the XIX century – Greece, Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria. One of its’ highpoint – the Krushevo Republic, was the same as the Weimar Republic, the Great French revolution 1789 and so many other attempts for establishing a new form of governing, based on the ancient democratic principles (Hellenic, by the way). Let us not forget, the year of the uprising – 1903, East and South Thrace as well as the complete Macedonia were still part of the Ottoman Empire. It was badly organized, attempt for freedom.

i think you missed the point of this thread. we are talking about its ethnicity

[Christov]

I understood the topic “What was Ilinden” literally. Apart from being a day, dedicated to St. Elias according to the orthodox tradition, in 1903 was the day of anti-ottoman uprising. As far as I know the Ilinden uprising was the biggest one on the Balkans, according to:
- territories involved
- number of active participants
- casualties and victims.

Of course I red all threads carefully. In the second one there is a link posted:
http://www.hri.org/Martis/contents/doc21.html. What I can see is small and unreadable pictures of text pages. Maybe my eyes are not strong anymore, but if there is a possibility for me to read them, any help will be appreciated!

There is a translation of the “Krushevo Manifest” posted by Spartan there. I asked in another forum for a scanned photo-copy, just to see whether this translation is accurate or not. If you want I will post it here, as soon as I get it. About the ethnicity of Ilinden uprising – very logically all of those times presented ethnicities participated. Akritas wrote that there was only one Greek actively involved - it is not true. Even I (being non historian) know at least 10 Greek names just from my family stories. Can we possibly imagine something different from the Ilinden uprising, considering its large scale? From Albania till Constantinople? Old people say “if there is a big fire in your neighbors’ house, yours’ will burn as well”. It is true there were killings between the Patriarchists and Exarchists among the Slavonic population - I know you are acquainted with the term “Grekoman”. But that concerns much larger period than the Ilinden uprising. What I do agree with Spartan is that the term “Macedonian” has no ethnical meaning.

For Ptolemy who writes:

Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek, 224-25. Note that Zorba uses the Bulgarian term for guerilla fighter, comitandji (alternate spelling).

Should I remind you that a committee is a basic unity that belongs to a bigger organizational structure? Haven’t you ever heard of “initiative committee”, “political committee”, “Olympic Committee”? Its obvious that Kazantzakis in his marvelous piece “Zorba the Greek” used the correct word Comitadjia (singular, “the one who belongs to a committee”) and Comitadjii (plural) much better, than you translate it as “guerilla fighter” as “alternative spelling”. Even more, when your own spelling is wrong.

In my first response I mentioned XIX century – it explains a lot. Let us not forget that only 5 years later was the Republican revolution of the so called “Young Turks”. And there were not only Turks, involved in it. It is very obvious - the Ottoman Empire was about to expire. Gentlemen, do not miss the spirit of time! As we say in Bulgarian “if you look only at the trees, you‘ll miss the forest”.

[Tchakalaroff]

I think you will find this article interesting gentelmen..
It is from th 'New York Times", 1903



It says:

MACEDONIA'S HEROIC STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM;
System of Operation Addopted by the Revolutionary Bands;
Turkish Soldiers Fear Them and Avoid Engagements - Women Fighters as Brave as the Men

[Christov]

It is completely unreadable! Larger photo, please!

[Tchakalaroff]

Originally Posted by christov

It is completely unreadable! Larger photo, please!

Hello Christov..
Kindly look at the upper west corner of the article...
You will were we fighting for..
Macedonia's heroic fight for freedom

[Christov]

What shall I look there? I tried to save it on my comp, but it's still unreadable. Maybe New York Times has an online archive.

[Amyntas]

Yeah would be nice to be able to read that article. Its content may be pretty interesting.