The Ethnic and Historical origins of FYROM

[Tsontos]

Further data concerning overall role of the CPY in the ethnic falsifications of Macedonia

"I shall not indulge in a lecture on the ancient identity of the Macedonians and on Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, but the Greeks were historically correct in the campaign that they launched in the early days of the dispute...
"Nor shall I engage in a lecture on the falsification of the history of Slavo-Macedonia since 1944, although that, too, has much hard factual content. I simply remind the House that Tito's renaming of Vardar Banovina as the Republic of Macedonia in 1944 was a political statement. More than that, it was a territorial claim. It laid claim to territory in Greece and in Bulgaria. Notably, the objective was the warm water port of Salonika on the Aegean."

[Mr. Edward O'Hara of the British Parliament]



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"For three weeks the Partisan National Liberation Committee had been busy creating, on paper, the new Yugoslavia. Twice Tito had flown to Moscow, conferred with Stalin and the Peoples' Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vlacheslav M. Molotov... The new power at once began to expand. Yugoslav Macedonians insisted that Yugoslavia's new Macedonian district should include not only Bulgarian Macedonia but Greek Macedonia."

TIME Magazine - December 4, 1944



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"Though once the heart of the empire of Alexander the Great, (Macedonia) has been for centuries a geographical expression rather than a political entity, and is today inhabited by an inextricable medley of people, among whom the Serbs, now Yugoslavs, are certainly the least numerous. But a "Federal Macedonia" has been projected as an integral part of Tito's plan for a federated Balkans...taking Greek Macedonia for an outlet to the Aegean Sea through Salonica."

THE NEW YORK TIMES - July 10, 1946



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U.S STATE DEPARTMENT
Foreign Relations Vol. VIII
Washington D.C. Circular Airgram
(868.014/26 Dec. 1944)

The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Officers*

The following is for your information and general guidance, but not for any positive action at this time.

The Department has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state. "This Government considers talk of Macedonian "nation", Macedonian "Fatherland", or Macedonia "national consiousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece".

The approved policy of this Government is to oppose any revival of the Macedonian issue as related to Greece. The Greek section of Macedonia is largery inhabited by Greeks, and the Greek people are almost unanimously opposed to the creation of a Macodonian state. Allegations of serious Greek participation in any such agitation can be assumed to be false. This Government would regard as responsible any Government or group of Governments tolerating or encouraging menacing or aggressive acts of "Macedonian Forces" against Greece.

The Department would appreciate any information pertiment to this subject which may come to your attention.

Department of State




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[Tsontos]

Further data concerning the ethnic, historical origins of F.Y.R.O.M and the ethnic make-up of Macedonia

"Although in some areas [of Macedonia] the various groups were all inextricably intermingled, it is pertinent to point out that in other sections a given race decidedly predominated. In the southern districts, for instance, and more particularly along the coast, the Greeks, a city people given to trade, had the upper hand, while to the north of them the Slavs, peasants for the most part working the soil, held sway. These Slavs may properly be considered as a special Macedonian group, but since they were closely related to both Bulgars and Serbs and had, moreover, in the past been usually incorporated in either the Bulgar or Serb state, they inevitably became the object of both Bulgar and Serb aspirations and an apple of discord between these rival nationalities. As an oppressed people on an exceedingly primitive level, the Macedonian Slavs had as late as the congress of Berlin exhibited no perceptible national consciousness of their own. It was therefore impossible to foretell in what direction they would lean when their awakening came; in fact, so indeterminate was the situation that under favorable circumstances they might even develop ther own particular Macedonian consciousness."

[Ferdinand Schevill, "A History of the Balkans", p.432]



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"It should be remembered, to begin with, that there is no Macedonian race, as a distinct type. Macedonians may belong to any of the races of Eastern Europe or Western Asia, as, indeed, they do. A Macedonian Bulgar is just the same as a Bulgar of Bulgaria proper, the old principality, that in October, 1908, at Tirnova, was proclaimed independent of Turkey. He looks the same, talks the same, and very largely, thinks the same way. In short, he is of the same stock. There is no difference, whatsoever, between the two branches of the race, except that the Macedonian Bulgars, as a result of their position under the Turkish government, have less culture and education than their northern brethren."

[Arthur Douglas Howden Smith, "Fighting the Turk in the Balkans: An American's Adventures with the Macedonian Revolutionists", 1908, p. 4-5]



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"It is the national identity of these Slav Macedonians that has been the most violently contested aspect of the whole Macedonian dispute, and is still being contested today. There is no doubt that they are southern Slavs; they have a language, or a group of varying dialects, that is grammatically akin to Bulgarian but phonetically in some respects akin to Serbian.... In regard to their own national feelings, all that can safely be said is that during the last eighty years many more Slav Macedonians seem to have considered themselves Bulgarian, or closely linked to Bulgaria, than have considered themselves Serbian, or closely linked to Serbia (or Yugoslavia). Only the people of the Skoplje region, in the north west, have ever shown much tendency to regard themselves as Serbs. The feeling of being Macedonians, and nothig but Macedonians, seems to be a sentiment of fairly recent growth, and even today is not very deep-rooted."


[Elisabeth Barker, "Macedonia, its place in Balkan power politics",
(originally published in 1950 by the Royal Institute of International Affairs), p.10]



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They population of Skopje, consisting of Arnouts, Jews, Armenians, Vlachs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Servians, amounts to upwards of twelve thousand


"Travels in European Turkey, in 1850: Through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace,..." By Edmund Spencer, page 28, Published 1851



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"However, in the nineteenth century the term Macedonian was used almost exclusively to refer to the geographic region; the Macedonians were usually not considered a nationality separate from the Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, or Albanians. The diplomatic records of the period make no clar mention of a separate Macedonian nation."

[Barbara Jelavich, "History of the Balkans", vol. 2;Cambridge University Press, 1983, p.91]



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As the day was drawing to a close, we descended into the vast plain of Bitola, where we had to ford several unimportant streams rushing onward to the sluggish waters of the karasu,..With the exception of a few Greeks and Zinzars, the congregation consisted of Bulgarians, easily distinguished by their short, thick-set figures, honest open countenances, and the unvarying costume, we before described


"Travels in European Turkey, in 1850: Through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace,..." By Edmund Spencer, page 46, Published 1851



---------------------------------------------



the Byzantine emperor, Vatatzes, was now quick to perceive the high tide in his efforts and decided to sail with the current. He ventured north to take Melnik, and continued northeastward to capture Stenimachus, Tzapaena and other places in the upper valley of the Maritsa, which became the boundary between Bulgaria and the Nicene empire, all without a struggle, "as though he was taking over an inheritance from his father". He pushed on into the far northwest, taking Velbuzd (Kustendil) on the upper strymon; moved south taking skopje and trip in the vardar region; then through Veles, Prilep and Pelagonia in the plains of Monastir; and eastward again to the Vardar where he took Prosek. It was a triumphant progress from beginning to end, but the end was not yet. In less than three months Vatatzes had overrun all Sourthwestern Bulgaria.


The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571 By Kenneth Meyer Setton, page 62



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Si la Bulgarie, après beaucoup d'hésitations et non sans regret, a fait le grand sacrifice d'abandonner Skopje, dont la population est bulgare

Translation: If Bulgaria, after many hesitations and not without regret, did the great sacrifice and give up Skopje, whose population is Bulgarian


Documents diplomatiques français (1871-1914). By France. Commission de publication des documents relatifs aux origines de la guerre de 1914



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"The town of Monastir lies just about half way between Bulgarian and Greek territory. North, the majority of Macedonians are Bulgar, south
the majority are Hellenes"

"Monastir is an ordinary Turkish European town, even to the attempt at a garden where the richer Turks and Bulgars and Greeks come and sit at
little tables and drink beer and listen to a string band composed of girls from Vienna.Everybody is jolly. Murder is so commonplace that it
arouses no shudder. In the night the little bark of a pistol, a shriek, a clatter of feet. "Hello! Somebody killed!" That's all. . . . "

"Pictures from the Balkans", John Fraser



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"As for the alternative plan, which is favoured by some, and greatly disliked by others of the Christian peoples whose interests are concerned that of appointing a Christian European Governor to a State to be arbitrarily mapped out and called Macedonia-it might stave off for a time the partition of the territories that must ultimately take place, but as it would rest on no historical, geographical, or racial basis, it would do little more. For the crux of the whole matter is not Turk versus Christian any longer. The question now is, how much of the Turk's land shall be occupied by Serb, Bulgar, Greek and Albanian respectively" - p103

"When Von Hahn visited Ochrida in I868 he found one Slav school and four Greek, and the people expressed their preference for the Greek party" - p203

"Maria, told me triumphantly that it had consisted of no less than 250 men, who had all escaped. Talk turned on ' chetas.' 'Do you know what they are doing? [Bulgars] ' asked Achilles bitterly. I did not. 'They are killing Greeks,' he said fiercely. ' Killing Greeks! ' said I in amazement. ' Yes,' he replied; 'they are not fighting Turks, but Greeks. They go armed to a village, and they offer the people a petition to sign. It is to ask for a Bulgar priest, and to say they are Bulgars. They do not wish to change their priest, but if they do not sign they will be shot We Greeks have had enough of this. I myself have had to give money to them. Otherwise I should have been shot from behind a wall the first time my business took me outside the town. Now we have sworn an oath we will stand it no longer. We shall organize Greek bands, and for every Greek that is shot we shall kill ten Bulgars.'" - p204

-Edith Durham, 'The Burden of the Balkans' (1905),




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"Thessaloniki was bulwark of the Greeks ever since the third century AD"

Written in a guide to Thessaloniki by German archaeologists and historians for the occupying forces of 1941-45



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"When the Turks and the Bulgarians left, Macedonia remained a purely Greek region"

Henry Morgenthau Serving in Greece between 1925 and 1926 as President of the Committee on Refugees for the Community of Nations; in his book 'I was sent to Athens'




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Some testimonies from The FYROM’s officials:



a. The former President of The FYROM, Kiro Gligorov said: “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century ... we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians" (Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992, p. 35).

b. Also, Mr Gligorov declared: "We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia… Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century" (Toronto Star, March 15, 1992).

c. On 22 January 1999, Ambassador of the FYROM to USA, Ljubica Achevska gave a speech on the present situation in the Balkans. In answering questions at the end of her speech Mrs. Acevshka said: "We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great … Greece is Macedonia’s second largest trading partner, and its number one investor. Instead of opting for war, we have chosen the mediation of the United Nations, with talks on the ambassadorial level under Mr. Vance and Mr. Nemitz." In reply to another question about the ethnic origin of the people of FYROM, Ambassador Achevska stated that "we are Slavs and we speak a Slav language.”

d. On 24 February 1999, in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM'S Ambassador to Canada, admitted, "We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian." He also commented, “There is some confusion about the identity of the people of my country."

e. Moreover, the Foreign Minister of the FYROM, Slobodan Casule, in an interview to Utrinski Vesnik of Skopje on December 29, 2001, said that he mentioned to the Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, Solomon Pasi, that they "belong to the same Slav people.”




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[Tsontos]

Skopjian revisionist falsifications - Rejected by the World's academia


This part of the thread will track the history of Skopjian revisionism as well as examining the flaws in the historical revisionism itself, relating to the following periods: Modern, Medival and Ancient. Historical revisionism is defined as the re-interpretation historical events and distortion of historical truth to further a vested interest. The first origins of the revisionism will be examined, leading up to the Yugoslav communist take over and the intensification of such revisionism which occured as a result.

The reaction of the world's academia to Skopjian (and Yugoslav) Macedonist revisionism will also be covered in this article. For instance in 1969, the "History of the Macedonian nation" was published by Yugoslav state authors. Encountering much international dissaproval, the book gave any reference in the world's archives to Macedonia and to historical figures and historical events connected in any way with Macedonia over the millennia, was manipulated and forcibly given a "ethnic Macedonian (Slavic) identity".

The letter of French Byzantist historian Rene Guerden to the Yugoslav state authors of the book, from 1969, can be seen as an example of the world academia reaction when the revisionism was first put to the world:




Dear Sir,

The magazine HISTORIA has just provided me with the very beautiful book that you so kindly sent me. I have first of all admired the presentation and then was struck by its contents.

Your thesis is brilliant. The Macedonians are and have always been Greeks, and the creation of a "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" with Skopje as capital is only a sad farce. I will not miss, when the opportunity arises, to pass this on.

In thanking you for having so kindly sent me your book, which has interested me even more, having myself written many works on Byzantium, I beg you to believe, dear Sir, by best feelings.





The history of Skopjian revisionist falsifications



Skopjian historical revisionism has its very first origins together with the first emergence of Macedonism in the mid 19th century. Those Slav Macedonists, the very first to advocate the idea of an independent/ autonomous 'Macedonian' state and a 'Macedonian' consciousness and language seperate of the Bulgarian consciousness dominant amongst the Slavic population of Vardar and Macedonia. Historical revisionism on the part of the Macedonists, first began to construct their ideology by appealing to the Slavonic peasant folk with these such claims:




-Saint Cyril and Methodius were claimed to have been 'Macedonian' monks who civillised other Slavs including Bulgarians. This can be seen as a concerted political promotion of seperatism from the dominant Bulgarian consciousness of the Slavs of the region.


-For the same ideological purpose as above they claimed that the Macedonian Slavs were pure Slavs while the Bulgarians were Tatars as well as Slavs:

"Certain Macedonists distinguish themselves from Bulgarians for other reasons as well, mainly that they are pure Slavs and that the Bulgarian are Tartars" [Makedonja newspaper, January 18, 1871]


-The Macedonists also began to write about Alexander the Great, as an important historical figure of Macedonia, however also implying an ethnic 'Slavic Macedonian' identity for Alexander in their writings:


The unsigned author of the editorial of the journal A vt onomna Makedoni 1903, states:


“When they say to us that we should protect the oppressed Macedonians, we should gladly do so. We are here delighted to recall that Alexander the Great, that tsar of the universe, bore witness to the virtues of the Slavic tribe when he said that the Slavs had heroic hearts and hence deserved to bear the great name Slavs, that is slavni [glorious]. Before his death this man who has endowed us so greatly said that he cursed anyone who would ever speak ill of the Slavs. In recognition of their military abilities he bequeathed to them all the lands from the Adriatic to the ocean of eternal ice. Besides, he besought his heavenly patrons to protect them from ill fortune and always aid the twelve princes, descendants of his twelve friends. Now, if the Macedonians are in a situation to stop their extermination with their own hands and improve their destiny, then the Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins and other Slavs are bound to help their brothers in blood and faith, those who are born of ‘majka doina’ [nursing mother] (Macedonia), from where, too, the most famous principles and luminaries have originated.”




For much of the time before in the latter 19th century and ealry 20th, the Macedonists continued to construct their ideology using historical fabrications as the basis of constructing a seperate and distinct 'Macedonian identity'. They did this mainly by promoting the idea of a independent 'Macedonian' history and identity, entirely seperate of the existing Bulgarian ethnos amongst the majority of the Vardar and Macedonian Slavs.







1944 - The Yugoslav Communist Party's contribution to revisionism


By the end of German occupation the communist partisans, under the leadership of Josip Tito, emerged as the most powerful force in Yugoslavia. One of the first actions of Tito was to declare the old Yugoslav province of Vardaska Banovina the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, adopting and exploiting the Macedonist ideology as had been the resolution of the Balkan Communist parties to do so for some time. The concoction of a 'Macedonian' government in Skopje, subordinate to Belgrade turned the Macedonist plight on its head. The CPY (Communist Party of Yugoslavia) set up various committees whose task was to codify a 'Macedonian' identity for the socialist republic and Yugoslav state historians were set about the task of continuing the revisionism of the early Macedonists, and indeed, taking the revisionist contruction of a Macedonian identity to new hights. (more on the CPY's creation of the socialist republic)




Yugoslav publication; 'HISTORY' on 'Macedonian' history




In 1969, the "History of the Macedonian nation" was published by Yugoslav state authors. The book was distributed by the state to the world's academia, meaning the full scale revisionism was exposed to the world for the first time. Encountering much international dissaproval (See Guerdan's letter above), the book gave any reference in the world's archives to Macedonia and to historical figures and historical events connected in any way with Macedonia over the millennia, was manipulated and forcibly given a "ethnic Macedonian" (Slavic) identity. The book dealth with ancient, medival and modern history; for each period making a number of unarguable claims, claims appropriating the parts of history belonging to all the actual ethnicities of the region, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians etc. Such would be expected in a book attempting to cater for historical figures, events all linked to a Slavic "Macedonian" ethnicity over thousands of years.



Specific examples of revisionism will be analysed and disected following this post...

[Tsontos]

Tsar Samuil

As mentioned earlier in 1969 the Yugoslav book 'ISTORIJA' was published. The book forcibly gave any historical event/person "Macedonian" (Slavic) identity. Because of this not only did they seek to appropriate the history of Ancient and medival Greek history of Macedonia but also medival Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians. Here we will focus on the medival Bulgarian king, Tsar Samuil, who was one of many figures in the history of the region who the Yugoslavs chose to claim in Istorija as 'Macedonian'.

Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria (c. 958 - October 6, 1014), also sometimes referred as Samuel or Samoil, ascended the Bulgarian thrown in 997. general, Samuil won some victories over the Byzantines by taking advantage of the stretched Byzantine armies of Emperor Basil II, who were fighting simultaneous campaigns in the East against the Arabs. In 986, Samuil drove Basil II's army from the field at Trayanovi Vrata and incorporated much Byzantine territory in his empire including all of Macedonia, Vardar, extending all the way into central Greece. In 996 Basil defeated Samuel on the Spercheios River and reconquered Greece and in 1002 he overran Macedonia. Samuel recovered, however, reconquered Macedonia, and sacked Adrianople (1003). In 1007 Basil subdued Macedonia again and after years of indecisive conflict annihilated the Bulgarian army at Belasitsa (1014). It was the decisive defeat of Samuil at Belasitsa which earnt Basil the name 'Boulgaroktonos' or 'Basil the Bulgar Slayer' and ended Samuil's short lived empire.

Ironically even Samuil, whose very name was synonymous with the word 'Bulgarian', the 'historians' of Yugoslavia and of modern F.Y.R.O.M as well claim that Samuil was a 'Macedonian' king and even claim that the state of Samuil was the first "Macedonian" state.




Primary and secondary sources concerning the Bulgarian ethnicity of Samuil and his 11th century state:


Boulgaroktonos


As was mentioned prior, Because of his crushing victory over Samuil, Basil II was given the title, Basil the Bulgar slayer. If it was true that Samuel was a "Macedonian king" then the Byzantinian emperor would not be named as Bulgarocton (=killer of the Bulgarians) but as Macedonocton! The Byzantines themselves, as anyone else did, regarded Samuel and his state as Bulgarian, and that is the reason why they named the new Thema they founded in his state's lands as 'Boulgaria'.


This medival Byzantine fresco, depicting the defeat of Samuil in 1014, shows the word 'Boulgaroi' ('Bulgarians') over the heads of Tsar Samuil and his army:






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Bitola inscription


The Bitola inscription is an inscription made by order of Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Vladislav in 1015 or 1016 in connection with the fortification of the Bitola fortress. The inscription was found in 1956 in Bitola, F.Y.R.O.M and is stored at the Bitola Historical Museum:





Text of the inscription (translation from Old Bulgarian):

"In year 6253 (1015) since the creation of the world, this fortress, built and made by Ivan, Tsar of Bulgaria, was renewed with the help and the prayers of Our Most Holy Lady and through the intercession of her twelve supreme apostles. The fortress was built as a haven and for the salvation of the lives of the Bulgarians. The work on the fortress of Bitola commenced on the twentieth day of October and ended on the… This Tsar was Bulgarian by birth, grandson of the pious Nikola and Ripsimia, son of Aaron, who was brother of Samuil, Tsar of Bulgaria, the two who routed the Greek army of Emperor Basil at Stipone where gold was taken… and this… Tsar was defeated by Emperor Basil in 6522 (1014) since the creation of the world in Klyutch (the Battle of Kleidion) and died at the end of the summer."



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1911 edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica:

"The power of Bulgaria was restored by the Tsar Samuel, in whom Basil found a worthy foe. The emperors first efforts against him were unsuccessful (98I),and the war was not resumed till 996, Samuel in the meantime extending his rule along the Adriatic coast and imposing his lordship on Servia. Eastern Bulgaria was finally recovered in boo; but the war continued with varying successes till 1014, when the Bulgarian army suffered an overwhelming defeat."

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/B/BA/BASIL_II_.htm



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The Encyclopedia of world history, 2001

"Samuel of Bulgaria 976–1014. Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria. He built up another great Bulgarian Empire, with its capital at Ochrid, extending from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and from the Danube to Central Greece. In 981 he defeated Basil near Sofia"...


"The great Bulgarian campaigns of Basil II. The great Bulgarian campaigns. In 996 Basil defeated Samuel on the Spercheios River and reconquered Greece. In 1002 he overran Macedonia. Samuel recovered, however, reconquered Macedonia, and sacked Adrianople (1003). In 1007 Basil subdued Macedonia again and after years of indecisive conflict annihilated the Bulgarian army at Belasitsa (1014). He sent several thousand blinded soldiers back to Samuel, who died of the shock. The Bulgarians finally submitted (1018), but were left an autocephalous church at Ochrid. Many of the Bulgarian noble families settled in Constantinople and merged with the Greek and Armenian aristocracy"...



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Encarta, History of Bulgaria

"The Russians were compelled to withdraw from Bulgaria in 972, and the eastern part of the country was annexed to the Byzantine Empire. Samuel, the son of a Bulgarian provincial governor, became ruler of western Bulgaria in 976. Samuel’s armies were annihilated in 1014 by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, who incorporated the short-lived state into his empire in 1018"...



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The Columbia Encyclopedia 2001 edition

"Basil II. c.958–1025, Byzantine emperor (976–1025), surnamed Bulgaroktonos [Bulgar slayer]".



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Brittanica Concise Encyclopedia

"Basil II. Known as Basil Bulgaroctonus (Greek for “Slayer of the Bulgars”) became one of the strongest Byzantine emperors, winning territory in the Balkans, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Georgia. He was noted for his victory (1014) in the war with Bulgaria, which ended with his blinding all the soldiers in the defeated Bulgarian army."



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[Tsontos]

Other miscellaneous examples of Historical revisionism by Yugoslav and Skopjian "historians":




-In 1986 Skopje deceived the Vatican by gaining permission to hold, at the Vatican, an exhibition of "Macedonian" icons -which were in fact Greek Byzantine icons. Later a Vatican spokesman stated that they had been "tricked by Skopje"

-In June 1989 Skopje deceived the Russians by putting on an exhibition in Moscow of fourth to sixth century "Macedonian" terracottas. The inscriptions were all in Greek.

[pankration]

Nothing shoots down revisionist theories faster than primary, contemporary sources. I commend the writers on this site that have spent a lot of time finding these documents. The Skopjeans refuse to accept their OWN historians', politicians and others' opinions. They refute their ancestors. This is desperation at its most obvious.

[Lord]

Bravo...
katapliktiko Post..kai ena megalo Thanks gia to mazema ton stoixeion...
Tha boitheisi poly ston polemo...entos Net...

[Tsontos]

Contemporary foreign evaluation of the Slavonic idiom and the other languages spoken in Macedonia



American 1910 Census of languages spoken in the U.S:




Note that:

*that the instructions in bold at the bottom indicate to the census enumerators that the language of each American citizen is to be classified on the basis of language spoken, be it Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Albanian, Turkish, Vlach etc, rather than classifying them geographically as 'Macedonian'.

*It is seen from through that despite efforts of the Macedonists to have the Bulgarian dialect recognised as "Makedonski", no foreign records describe such a language in their list of the various languages spoken in the Balkans:



Department of Commerce and Labour
Bureau of the Census
Washington
Thirteenth Census of the United States

April 15, 1910

p.32 - Instructions to census Enumerators:

Study these instructions carefully before beginning work and carry this book with you during your work. Washington: Government Printing Office: 1910


ABILITY TO SPEAK ENGLISH

133. Column 17. Whether able to speak English; or, if not, give language spoken.—This question applies to all person 10 years of age and over. If such a person is able to speak English, write English. If he is not able to speak English—and in such cases only—write the names of the language which he does speak, as French, German, Italian. If he speaks more than one language, but does not speak English, write the name of that language which is his native language or mother tongue. For persons under 10 years of age, leave the column blank.

134. The following is a list of principal foreign languages spoken in the United States. Avoid giving other names when one in this list can be applied to the language spoken. With the exception of certain languages of eastern Russian, the list gives a name for ever European language in the proper sense of the word.
Albanian
Armenian
Basque
Bohemian
Briton
Bulgarian
Chinese
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
Flemish
French
German
Greek
Gypsy
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Lappish
Lettish
Little Russian
Lithuanian
Magyar
Moravian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Rhaeto-Romanish
Roumanian
Russian
Ruthenian
Scotch
Servian or Croatian (Including Russian, Dalmatian, Herzegovinian, and Montenegrin)
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Syrian
Turkish
Welsh
Wendish
Yiddish

135. Do not write "Austrian," but write German, Bohemian, Ruthenian, Roumanian, Slovenian, Slovak, or such other term as correctly defines the language spoken.

136. Do not write "Slavic" or "Slavonian," but write Slovak, Slovenian, Russian, etc., as the case may be.

137. Do not write "Macedonian," but write Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek, Servian, or Roumanian, as the case may be.

138. Do not write "Czech," but write Bohemian, Moravian,or Slovak, as the case may be.

139. Write Magyar instead of "Hungarian."

140. Write Croatian instead of "Hervat."

141. Write Little Russian instead of "Ukrainian."

142. Write Ruthenian instead of "Rosniak" or "Russine."

143. Write Roumanian instead of "Moldavian," "Wallachian," "Tsintsar," or "Kutzo-Vlach."

[Alexandros]

Again in better quality:

Ethnograhical Map 1880s - by E. G. Ravenstein F.R.G.S. - Published by: New York, D. Appleton & Co

Click to enlarge!

Online-Source:
http://www.banatul.com/info/maps.shtml



From the German ''Der Grosse-Herder-Atlas''

Click to enlarge!



Popolazione dell'Impero ottomano , 1911

''... * Vilayets of Edirne, Selanik, Manastir, Kosova, Iskodra an Yanyna ...''
Click to enlarge!

Online-Source:
http://www.univ.trieste.it/~storia/corsi/Dogo/dogo.htm



Greek-spoeken Areas 1910 - After W.R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas, 7th ed., with modifications

Click to enlarge!

[Otto]

Originally Posted by Alexandros

Greek-spoeken Areas 1910 - After W.R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas, 7th ed., with modifications

Click to enlarge!

EXCELLENT!