1

MACEDONIA
1895-1948

At the end of the 19
th
century, Macedonia had been the last remaining Ottoman stronghold of the
disintegrating Empire in the Balkans.
The withdrawal of the declining empire created a huge power vacuum that was exploited by almost
anyone from the Great Powers to the local national movements obsessed with the establishment of
independent and sovereign states.
As each Millet restructured towards the achievement of the national goal of independence, the
Ottoman state was determined to reverse its inevitable decay that would only mean loss of territory
and dismembering of the empire.
At the top of the Empire then had been Sultan Abdul Hamid II, a paranoid and old fashioned
Ottoman ruler, who had been determined to implement reforms to change the tide by ruling with
the Kefiya, his secret police and a network of loyal spies and informers who directed an apparatus of
intimidation, prosecution and brutal crushing of any kind of disobedient dissent.
People were disappearing overnight to be deported and exiled to far corners of the Empire for
subversive activities and plotting Against the State, reversing any hope for progress in the old
regime.
During this time Istanbul had been off reach for revolutionary movement and organization, and most
of the secessionist activities were directed from Salonika, Ottomans second city and regional capital
of Macedonia.
The famous VMRO would be established here at the Bulgarian High School, the Young Turks would
plot a regime overthrow and Mustafa Kemal would be born here and direct most of their activities
from Salonika.
Salonika would become a centre for regime overthrow of the old Abdul Hamid, a centre of all the
Masonic Lodges in the Balkans and all coup dtat efforts would be plotted from here.
At the same time a power play to preserve the fragile balance of power would mean more
involvement of the great Powers in the internal affairs of the region.
Salonika would become a thriving spot of spies and terrorist activities, a city saturated with
conspirators plotting the removal of the old dictatorship.
This intense pressure cooker situation was equally exploited by internal contenders and outsiders.
The most likely organization to inherit rule over the Empire were the Young Turks who were equally
supported and subsidised by many of the separatist movements in a compromise deal of power
share and equality and autonomy that never materialised.
2

Struggling to preserve the fragile balance of power, the old powers referred to a policy of divide and
conquer, in a region inherently cosmopolitan.
After its war of independence, Greece had emerged a victorious new kingdom leading its subjects to
freedom and sovereignty and massacring or expelling all of its non-Greek population.
However, as the end of the Ottomans had become almost inevitable, Greece soon became very
active and included itself in the carving up of the region of Macedonia, claiming historic right to a
land on false pretence of territorial consistency and continuity from Antiquity and Byzantine rule.
Greece was just as well determined to develop a national identity and invigorate its consciousness
by reinventing its historic heritage around Hellensation of its state.
An aggressive campaign of Antiquisation had meant forging and rewriting its national history books
to include Hellenism as the dominant element of identity and national conscience.
Two millennia of rich national history had been marginalised and neglected to deny its own past, its
rich Ottoman and Byzantine heritage abandoned to almost minor episodes of national history.
With exception of Orthodox Christianity, every other aspect of Greek national history had been
surgically removed to claim a direct descent and link between the contemporary Greek and the
pagan polytheists of Classical Greece.
At the same time in a constant power play of intrigue and politics, a German bloodline had been
infiltrated into the Greek Royal family, developing strong dependency and influence.
The benefits of this relationship were supposed to be mutual and both sided, and as Germany
Hellenised and became a lover of all things Greek, in this perpetual relationship the Kingdom of
Greece had become Aryanised and the ideas of a racial superiority had profoundly and deeply
penetrated Greek mainstream politics.
In Bavaria, Munich paid tribute to Antiquity by raising a whole generation of Artists and Architects
deliberately including strong classical influence in their statements and works of art.
A whole stream of Philhellenes dominated the world of art, emphasising and reinforcing a false link
in heritage and direct continuity between Germany and classical Greece.
At the same time a coalition in politics and war time alliances had been forged linking the two
countries even more to bond together.
The new Greek state enforced a relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation
against all non-Greek citizens from the beginning, determined to create a one nation ethnically clean
state that would revolve around Orthodox Christianity and Hellenism.
One of the most multinational regions of Europe was subjected to an identity makeover, where all
traces of anything but Greek would be removed by force in an effort of enormous proportions that
would include expulsion, closure of schools and churches, book burning and complete assimilation.
All minorities would over time be forcefully expelled or eliminated thru genocide or pogroms.
3

The Kingdom of Greece was every bit as fascist as Germany would become in the period between
the two world wars.
Greek nationalism is one of the most intolerant, xenophobic and discriminating and has been well
documented even since Byzantine times.
Any resistance to this superficial national identity model of the eternal Greek, any effort to freedom
of warship or minority autonomy or recognition was crushed, in a period that took several decades.
The subsequent expansion of the Greek State into Aegean Macedonia was nothing more than a
colonial effort in a power struggle to grab as much more land as possible.
In a pure propaganda attempt to discredit anything Ottoman, the Millet system, one of the
milestones of administrational, political and social achievement of the Empire, was genuinely
discredited and overwhelmingly criticised, despite of its own ahead of time vision.
The western media made unsubstantiated attacks on the Ottoman administration, regardless of the
fact that a lot of the institutions worked to a great extent, given that no credible contemporary
alternative was neither introduced nor implemented anywhere else in Western Europe that was a
traditional hub of intolerance, superstition, prejudice and discrimination.
Just because there were other short comings within the empire where second class inferior status
was formally established within all Millets, a lot was genuinely good and the traditional ideology of
Muslim hospitality as well as freedom to religious warship and tolerance towards all confessions was
favourably extended to a solid level.
During this period anti-Semitism was ripe in most of West Europe and fascist and extreme ideas had
proliferated even within the political mainstream, only to flourish and blossom to reach their zenith
few years later.
The partition of the historic region of Macedonia was one of the greatest political blunders of the
beginning of the 20
th
century, and it was done in the utmost imperialist fashion with total disregard
for the genuine inhabitants and natives of the land.
The decision to divide the region was done apparently in due need to preserve the fragile regional
equilibrium and only contributed to overall deterioration of the situation, it never served its purpose
and achieved more damage and turmoil, more loss of lives and suffering than anticipated.
One of the biggest mistakes was that nobody among the Great powers had any interest in human
rights nor they were committed to saving lives.
In essence the best thing possible for a peaceful political solution to the Macedonian question
wouldve been to expand on the positive ideas implemented in the Ottoman past, and to extend
equality and build a cosmopolitan and multinational state on basis of tolerance, mutual trust and
coexistence.
By getting rid of the Ottoman overlords, Macedonia would have been a multinational confederation
of autonomous regions and mini states into one regional entity.
4

Instead, nationalism and fight for regional domination ended up in turmoil and a period of wars.
The Young Turks, showing off their concealed ultranationalist sentiment propagated the new Turkish
nationalism to replace the Ottoman one and became very early on hostile to their Slav as well as all
other constituents.
Unfortunately, the only good and the best ideas from the Ottoman past were quickly replaced with
worst ones alienating and further destabilising the region.
At the Bucharest conference of 1913 year, without even allowing presence of elected
representatives of the regional constituents all over Macedonia, the region was carved up and split
in a totally artificial and imperialist divide and conquer fashion.
The region was once again occupied by the neighbouring forces of the newly emerged nation states
of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, without even consulting the natives.
With this, whole regions of ethnically diverse and multinational social character were integrated into
states that were extremely opposed to the idea of building up on the regional heritage and tradition
and extending the rich cosmopolitan history.
A state sponsored campaign of displacement, expulsion and ethnic cleansing followed, and it was
enforced thru unseen crimes against humanity and abuse of human rights.
Aegean Macedonia, just as well as the reminder of the whole region had traditionally been
multinational for centuries.
The countryside had been dominated by the Bulgarians who had been residing there continuously
since their arrival in the sixth century, providing rich Slav heritage, tradition and culture interwoven
with the customs of the region.
An established community of Vlachs has been there for the same amount of time, arriving along with
the Slavs from the Carpathian mountain region in todays Romania.
Albanians of many confessions, each worshipping in their own tradition have lived in the region for
several millennia, being directly descended of the Illyrian tribes from Antiquity, being an equal part
of the rich cosmopolitan tapestry of people that created the Macedonian social fabric.
Serbs and Montenegrin as well as micro communities of Bektashi Dervishes who are a small Shia sect
offshoot, as well as many other people from the Ottoman and Balkan lands have been scattered thru
the hinterland, all living and working together side by side each contributing to the rich kaleidoscope
of people who make Macedonia a unique melting pot.
Aegean Macedonia was at the time home to Greeks; however, they did not even constitute a
quarter of the population. Some were established among the upper class as bankers and merchants,
and of all other social backgrounds.
And last but not least, since conquering the Balkans, rich Ottoman presence was established very
early on by the settlement of Turks, equally participating to the rich multi-ethnic mix and working
together for the common good.
5

The Sephardic Jews have been a major ethnicity and a dominant community in Salonika since their
arrival in 1492, after their expulsion from Spain, their numbers reaching almost 65.000 before the
first wave of deportation after the Great Fire of 1917.