Ethnic status of Macedonia

[slavicwolf]

give me your sourse on the population of aegaen macedonia before ww2 and before the ethnic bulgarians were expelled from there by you greeks with tremendious attrocities.

[Tsontos]

When were the "ethnic bulgarians were expelled from there by you greeks with tremendious attrocities"? If you are talking about WWII, the expulsion of Bulgarians couldnt come close to matching the attrocities of Nazi Germany's ally Bulgaria its their collaborators inside Greek territory. Anyway more Bulgarians left Greek territory in 1919 with the Treaty of Neuville, than after WWII.

As for the sources, we've discussed before on this forum how strange it is that the original sources of their little census table cant be found.

[sam_z]

If you're trying to split up the grecophone and slavophone element in Macedonia, those Ottoman census numbers won't really help. Apart from being unreliable, they're based on whether the person or village are adherent to the Exarchate or the Patriarchate, not on whether they're ethnically Greek or Bulgarian, or speak a Greek or Slavic tongue. Lots of Slavonic villages of more southern regions of Macedonia became, for various reasons, part of the Greek Patriarchate, hence they were counted as Greek in the census despite not speaking or identifying as Greek.

There were significant numbers of (among others, ie. Turk, Vlach, Albanian, Jew) BOTH Greek and Slavonics making up the numbers in 'Aegean Macedonia.' Greeks naturally were found more densely in, but definitely not limited to, the more southern areas of and especially areas around Halkidiki. Greeks were also quite numerous in the larger towns/cities throughout lots of Macedonia. Slavonics were more numerous in rural areas, villages, hence the overwhelming overall majority of Slavonics in the Macedonia region, including the region which became Greek Macedonia.

I hope people realise that, especially in Ottoman times, Macedonia was always a melting pot of co-existing cultures rubbing off on each other - and all Macedonians - Slavonic, Greek or otherwise should be proud of this - despite the attempts of modern, rampant nationalism and politics to standardise and coalesce and monopolise the notion of being 'Macedonian' into one singular identity based on one language, one culture, and one specific set of history.


Some insights from the "Macedonia" entry in the famous 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica that might be of interest:

Macedonia is the principal theatre of the struggle of nationalities in Eastern Europe.

The greater part of Macedonia is inhabited by a Slavonic population, mainly Bulgarian in its characteristics; the coast-line and the southern districts west of the Gulf of Salonica by Greeks, while Turkish, Vlach and Albanian settlements exist sporadically, or in groups, in many parts of the country.

In Salonica, Serres, Kavala, Castoria, and other towns in southern Macedonia the Hellenic element is strong; in the northern towns it is insignificant, except at Melnik, which is almost exclusively Greek. The Greek rural population extends from the Thessalian frontier to Castoria and Verria (Beroea); it occupies the whole Chalcidian peninsula and both banks of the lower Strymon from Serres to the sea, and from Nigrita on the west to Pravishta on the east; there are also numerous Greek villages in the Kavala district.

The purely Greek population of Macedonia may possibly be estimated at a quarter of a million.

With the exception of the southern and western districts already specified, the principal towns, and certain isolated tracts, the whole of Macedonia is inhabited by a race or the races speaking a Slavonic dialect. If 'language is Slavonic' is adopted as a test, the great bulk of the rural population must be described as Slavonic.

The whole Slavonic population of Macedonia may be estimated at about 1,150,000

- Sam.

[slavicwolf]

very true, i must say

[Victor]

Originally Posted by slavicwolf

very true, i must say

IF you really think its true,then you should be incredibly embarrased that you lost so badly.

[Truth Bearer]

I mean really so what happened to the 1,150,000 "alledged" Bulgars in Macedonia Slavicwolf??With those sort of numbers today Macedonia should be all BULGARIAN!!And as Victor said then sadly for you Bulgaria must go down in history as the biggest LOSERS of the Balkans.So lets assume you are the eternal LOSERS where have all these people gone?What's happened to them Slavicwolf??

[slavicwolf]

some of them are in the forum here pretending to be greek, how sad

[Victor]

Originally Posted by slavicwolf

some of them are in the forum here pretending to be greek, how sad

Youre from fyrom.Your serboman brothers would call you sad for pretending to be BUlgarian.

[Mygdonia]

sam- z if that was the case then one wonders how the slavs that were showered with gifts from Russia during the Balkan wars lost to a peoples that were 25% their size?

I think you are deluded, personally.

Fact of the mater is an armed group lost to an unarmed group.. futheermore the armed groups had vast numerical advantage. [according to you]

So either, your figures are bogus because I can not envision 1.5 million people being showered with gifts from Russia being defeated by 250,000 Greeks, or the Slavs are pathetic fighters. What's it going to be?

[Greek-Cowboy]

I wanted to add that my forefathers all had Hellenic names first and last, not bulgarian ones. Language does not complete your puzzel, I already told you about the occupation and the bulgarian influence....

Originally Posted by slavicwolf

some of them are in the forum here pretending to be greek, how sad