Post by Novi Pazar on Oct 30, 2008 20:52:25 GMT -5
I'm not sure how accurate it maybe, but l thought it was an interesting read.
A chapter from "THE BALKAN PIEDMONT SERBIA AND THE YUGOSLAV QUESTION", Paris, 1994
THE MACEDONIAN LABYRINTH
The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the view of Belgrade and Cetinje, permanently endangered Serbian interests in the Balkans. In order to prevent the further spreading of Austro-Hungarian influence, Serbia needed a Balkan alliance for joint resistance to the Drang nach Osten. Closer ties between Vienna and Sofia would mean the further encirclement of Serbia and it would mark an introduction to the loss of its independence. Initiatives for the creation of a new Balkan alliance - on the model of the alliance from the time of Prince Michael Obrenovic in 1868 - were launched, several times, by Serbia - in 1909 and 1910, and attempts were made to establish close co-operation with Greece and Romania.
Meanwhile, the situation in Macedonia - where the Slav population's national awareness was still not clearly defined - constantly kept deteriorating. By the time the Patriarchate of Pec was abolished in 1766 most of the population in Vardar Macedonia, according to the testimony of foreign writers who had travelled there, felt themselves to be Serbs or ethnically close to the Serbs. The attempts at defining a separate Macedonian individuality, linked to the local tradition, were supported by Bishop Strossmayer who helped, in Zagreb, the publication of Macedonian epic poetry selected by the Miladinov brothers. By supporting their localism, the Croatian bishop wanted the Slavs in Macedonia, dissatisfied because the Church organization was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and because the services were in the Greek language, to accept, in time, a union with the Roman Catholic church.
Different regions in Slavonic parts of Macedonia spoke different dialects - the western regions a dialect closer to Serbian, and the eastern closer to Bulgarian. The Serbian criteria for determining nationality was the custom of celebrating a slava (the day of the acceptance of Christianity) which foreign and domestic travel writers noticed among the population of northern, central and western Macedonia, while the celebration of the name-day (a custom characteristic of the Bulgarians) was wide-spread in the south-eastern regions (Pirin Macedonia). The dozens of requests for the unification of certain regions with Serbia that were sent to Belgrade during the 19th century also contained the claims that the population of those regions had been Serbian since time immemorial. At the end of the 19th century, from various regions similar petitions were also sent to Sofia. However, the ethnic composition of Macedonia was much more complex: apart from the Slavs who were in a dilemma over whether they belonged to the Bulgarians or the Serbs, there were also many Turks, Islamized Slavs, Tsintsars, Wallachians and Jews.
Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia was simple: it requested the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia within European Turkey, which would then, at an appropriate moment, like Eastern Rumelia in 1885, proclaim its unification with Bulgaria. A powerful weapon in the hands of Bulgarian propaganda was the creation of the Exarchate in 1870, which let Bulgaria handle Church and educational affairs in Macedonia. This was done with the blessing of the Serbian government - it was considered in Belgrade that it was important to introduce a Slavic language instead of Greek in Church services. Among the illiterate population desirous of Slavonic services in the Church and an elementary education, the Exarchate had a great effect. Bulgarian agitators also skilfully eradicated the traces of a Serbian feeling among the Macedonian Slavs - they systematically destroyed old Serbian books and manuscripts, even scratching frescoes with the images of Serbian saints in the numerous monasteries built at the time of Stefan Dusan and his successors in the 14th century. The traditional pilgrimage of Macedonian Slavs to Serbian monasteries in Kosovo completely died out at the end of the 19th century.
Another powerful weapon of Bulgarian propaganda was the IMRO (the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) which, financed by Sofia, conducted a campaign, and sometime was even engaged in armed clashes with the Turkish authorities, for Macedonia's autonomy. The IMRO was divided into several factions and experienced a number of successive divisions. The Ilinden uprising (1903) which ended in disaster, was an attempt at casting off Turkish oppression by revolutionary methods. The IMRO was in essence, a most useful tool for the goals of the government in Sofia.
Until the beginning of the 20th century Serbia passively and resignedly watched Sofia's campaign aimed at Bulgarianizing Macedonia. The dissatisfaction with the government's passiveness stimulated private circles in Belgrade to found, in 1904, the Chetnik movement which, using Macedonian migrant workers in Serbia and its followers in the regions of Skoplje and western Macedonia, opposed the Bulgarian komitadji and created a Serbian nucleus for the struggle for liberation from Turkish domination (region of Porec). The Chetniks were trained in army camps along the border with the Ottoman Empire, but armed units sent to Macedonia failed to diminish the strongly established Bulgarian influence in southern, central and eastern regions. Parallely with this, the reform action of the Great Powers in Macedonia (1903-1908), which was to ensure the equality of the Christians and the Muslims, produced no tangible results. The Young Turk Revolution in June 1908 eventually ended all the efforts at further reforms by the European powers which aimed at preventing severe national and religious clashes in Old Serbia and Macedonia. The Pan-Ottoman policy of the Young Turks provoked during the following years a growth of ethnic and religous tensions, followed by a renewed persecution of Christians in Old Serbia and Macedonia.(65)
The advocates of unification with Serbia were most numerous in the north-western part of Macedonia, in the region between Kumanovo, Skoplje, Tetovo and Veles, where Serbian units operated (the dialect there was closest to the Serbian language), while the pro-Bulgarians controlled parts of eastern Macedonia up to the Vardar river, in areas where the dialectal differences vis-à-vis the Bulgarian language were not great. Between them an Albanian national movement operated, and it was especially strong in the south-western part of Macedonia, around Gostivar, Kicevo and Debar, where most of the Albanians lived. Greece also joined in the resolution of the Macedonian question through the renewal of the organization Philiki Hetaeria which sent its units, the so-called Andartes, to operate mostly in Greek Macedonia. Serbia considered the Dual Monarchy's desire to create a Great Albania that would spread from the Adriatic Sea to the Vardar river as being especially dangerous, because that state would endanger Serbia's independence from the south. The Albanian revolts (1909-1912) which were partly subsidized by Serbia and Montenegro, in order to avoid complete control over the insurgents by Austria-Hungary, proved such fears to be justified.
The enormous literature on the Macedonian question created great confusion, because Serbian, Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek statistics concerning Macedonia's ethnic composition differed considerably. The estimate of Jovan Cvijic, at the time the top authority on Balkan ethnography, caused stormy disapproval among both the Serbs and the Bulgarians. Noticing the multitude of different customs, traditions and the lack of a firmly founded national identity, Cvijic concluded: "the popular masses of the Macedonian Slavs have no determined national feeling or national awareness, either Serbian or Bulgarian, even though they are quite close to both the Serbs and the Bulgarians", and that, essentially, they are "in the national sense, fluctuating masses of people with an ethnic predisposition to become either Serbs or Bulgarians." (66)
A chapter from "THE BALKAN PIEDMONT SERBIA AND THE YUGOSLAV QUESTION", Paris, 1994
THE MACEDONIAN LABYRINTH
The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the view of Belgrade and Cetinje, permanently endangered Serbian interests in the Balkans. In order to prevent the further spreading of Austro-Hungarian influence, Serbia needed a Balkan alliance for joint resistance to the Drang nach Osten. Closer ties between Vienna and Sofia would mean the further encirclement of Serbia and it would mark an introduction to the loss of its independence. Initiatives for the creation of a new Balkan alliance - on the model of the alliance from the time of Prince Michael Obrenovic in 1868 - were launched, several times, by Serbia - in 1909 and 1910, and attempts were made to establish close co-operation with Greece and Romania.
Meanwhile, the situation in Macedonia - where the Slav population's national awareness was still not clearly defined - constantly kept deteriorating. By the time the Patriarchate of Pec was abolished in 1766 most of the population in Vardar Macedonia, according to the testimony of foreign writers who had travelled there, felt themselves to be Serbs or ethnically close to the Serbs. The attempts at defining a separate Macedonian individuality, linked to the local tradition, were supported by Bishop Strossmayer who helped, in Zagreb, the publication of Macedonian epic poetry selected by the Miladinov brothers. By supporting their localism, the Croatian bishop wanted the Slavs in Macedonia, dissatisfied because the Church organization was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and because the services were in the Greek language, to accept, in time, a union with the Roman Catholic church.
Different regions in Slavonic parts of Macedonia spoke different dialects - the western regions a dialect closer to Serbian, and the eastern closer to Bulgarian. The Serbian criteria for determining nationality was the custom of celebrating a slava (the day of the acceptance of Christianity) which foreign and domestic travel writers noticed among the population of northern, central and western Macedonia, while the celebration of the name-day (a custom characteristic of the Bulgarians) was wide-spread in the south-eastern regions (Pirin Macedonia). The dozens of requests for the unification of certain regions with Serbia that were sent to Belgrade during the 19th century also contained the claims that the population of those regions had been Serbian since time immemorial. At the end of the 19th century, from various regions similar petitions were also sent to Sofia. However, the ethnic composition of Macedonia was much more complex: apart from the Slavs who were in a dilemma over whether they belonged to the Bulgarians or the Serbs, there were also many Turks, Islamized Slavs, Tsintsars, Wallachians and Jews.
Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia was simple: it requested the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia within European Turkey, which would then, at an appropriate moment, like Eastern Rumelia in 1885, proclaim its unification with Bulgaria. A powerful weapon in the hands of Bulgarian propaganda was the creation of the Exarchate in 1870, which let Bulgaria handle Church and educational affairs in Macedonia. This was done with the blessing of the Serbian government - it was considered in Belgrade that it was important to introduce a Slavic language instead of Greek in Church services. Among the illiterate population desirous of Slavonic services in the Church and an elementary education, the Exarchate had a great effect. Bulgarian agitators also skilfully eradicated the traces of a Serbian feeling among the Macedonian Slavs - they systematically destroyed old Serbian books and manuscripts, even scratching frescoes with the images of Serbian saints in the numerous monasteries built at the time of Stefan Dusan and his successors in the 14th century. The traditional pilgrimage of Macedonian Slavs to Serbian monasteries in Kosovo completely died out at the end of the 19th century.
Another powerful weapon of Bulgarian propaganda was the IMRO (the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) which, financed by Sofia, conducted a campaign, and sometime was even engaged in armed clashes with the Turkish authorities, for Macedonia's autonomy. The IMRO was divided into several factions and experienced a number of successive divisions. The Ilinden uprising (1903) which ended in disaster, was an attempt at casting off Turkish oppression by revolutionary methods. The IMRO was in essence, a most useful tool for the goals of the government in Sofia.
Until the beginning of the 20th century Serbia passively and resignedly watched Sofia's campaign aimed at Bulgarianizing Macedonia. The dissatisfaction with the government's passiveness stimulated private circles in Belgrade to found, in 1904, the Chetnik movement which, using Macedonian migrant workers in Serbia and its followers in the regions of Skoplje and western Macedonia, opposed the Bulgarian komitadji and created a Serbian nucleus for the struggle for liberation from Turkish domination (region of Porec). The Chetniks were trained in army camps along the border with the Ottoman Empire, but armed units sent to Macedonia failed to diminish the strongly established Bulgarian influence in southern, central and eastern regions. Parallely with this, the reform action of the Great Powers in Macedonia (1903-1908), which was to ensure the equality of the Christians and the Muslims, produced no tangible results. The Young Turk Revolution in June 1908 eventually ended all the efforts at further reforms by the European powers which aimed at preventing severe national and religious clashes in Old Serbia and Macedonia. The Pan-Ottoman policy of the Young Turks provoked during the following years a growth of ethnic and religous tensions, followed by a renewed persecution of Christians in Old Serbia and Macedonia.(65)
The advocates of unification with Serbia were most numerous in the north-western part of Macedonia, in the region between Kumanovo, Skoplje, Tetovo and Veles, where Serbian units operated (the dialect there was closest to the Serbian language), while the pro-Bulgarians controlled parts of eastern Macedonia up to the Vardar river, in areas where the dialectal differences vis-à-vis the Bulgarian language were not great. Between them an Albanian national movement operated, and it was especially strong in the south-western part of Macedonia, around Gostivar, Kicevo and Debar, where most of the Albanians lived. Greece also joined in the resolution of the Macedonian question through the renewal of the organization Philiki Hetaeria which sent its units, the so-called Andartes, to operate mostly in Greek Macedonia. Serbia considered the Dual Monarchy's desire to create a Great Albania that would spread from the Adriatic Sea to the Vardar river as being especially dangerous, because that state would endanger Serbia's independence from the south. The Albanian revolts (1909-1912) which were partly subsidized by Serbia and Montenegro, in order to avoid complete control over the insurgents by Austria-Hungary, proved such fears to be justified.
The enormous literature on the Macedonian question created great confusion, because Serbian, Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek statistics concerning Macedonia's ethnic composition differed considerably. The estimate of Jovan Cvijic, at the time the top authority on Balkan ethnography, caused stormy disapproval among both the Serbs and the Bulgarians. Noticing the multitude of different customs, traditions and the lack of a firmly founded national identity, Cvijic concluded: "the popular masses of the Macedonian Slavs have no determined national feeling or national awareness, either Serbian or Bulgarian, even though they are quite close to both the Serbs and the Bulgarians", and that, essentially, they are "in the national sense, fluctuating masses of people with an ethnic predisposition to become either Serbs or Bulgarians." (66)