Post by ivo on Jan 3, 2010 14:06:17 GMT -5
Brailsford is a source that Novi often quotes indirectly in his out of context propaganda quotes. Notice that this speaks of a Bulgarian movement in Macedonia as a local initiative of the Macedonians. On the other hand, the Serb and the Greek initiatives in Macedonia are noted as ‘artificial, government sponsored agitations’ that aimed at annexing the region to their own countries rather than caring for the wellbeing of the Macedonian people.
Do also notice, that at certain times the Bulgarian Bishops of the Bulgarian Exarchate encouraged whole villages to pledge allegiance to the Greek Patriarchate, and not the Bulgarian Exarchate. The reason for this was so that the Macedonian people could avoid further persecution from the Greeks.
It should also be noted that the term Macedonian is used interchangeably as the term Bulgarian; ie. as synonyms, one discussing Bulgarians from the region of Macedonia and the other discussing Bulgarians from the Principality of Bulgaria.
MACEDONIA: ITS RACES AND THEIR FUTURE
.
by H. N. Brailsford (Methuen & Co., London, 1906)
Do also notice, that at certain times the Bulgarian Bishops of the Bulgarian Exarchate encouraged whole villages to pledge allegiance to the Greek Patriarchate, and not the Bulgarian Exarchate. The reason for this was so that the Macedonian people could avoid further persecution from the Greeks.
It should also be noted that the term Macedonian is used interchangeably as the term Bulgarian; ie. as synonyms, one discussing Bulgarians from the region of Macedonia and the other discussing Bulgarians from the Principality of Bulgaria.
MACEDONIA: ITS RACES AND THEIR FUTURE
.
by H. N. Brailsford (Methuen & Co., London, 1906)
He moves among the consulates whose business is the creation by "propaganda" of artificial nationalities. It may escape him that the real Macedonia is the rural Macedonia, a land of village communities, where we may ride for weeks without encountering so much as a hamlet whose native language is other than Bulgarian or Albanian. – p. 87
It is difficult to obtain statistics, and the country-folk will not generalise on the subject, but they will tell you that such an Albanian village settlement was made some eighty years ago, or that a village which used to own its own land, and was inhabited only by Bulgarians, came under the yoke of an Albanian chief a matter of fifty years back. – p. 90
Servia did not exercise an influence so compelling, and the Servian cause in Macedonia proper is in consequence a negligible and artificial movement. It exists only in so far as it pays its way, and in so far as the Turks encourage it as a counterpoise to the menacing Bulgarian agitation. The very fact that the Turks smile upon it is a proof that it is innocuous and doomed to futility. As things are to-day the Servian consuls are about as likely to win the Macedonians for Servia as the American missionaries are to convert them to Protestantism. – p. 103
In the first place, it is only recently that Servia has taken much interest in Macedonia. Up till the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Servia's ambitions were directed rather to these genuinely Servian lands than to Macedonia. Even after the Treaty of Berlin it was long before she realised that the northern and western part of her natural heritage was irreparably lost. – p. 104
When, in addition to these advantages, the Bulgarophil Macedonians started their marvellously-organised revolutionary committee in 1893, the Servian cause received its death-blow. By way of emphasising her antagonism to Bulgaria, official Servia now adopted an openly Turcophil policy, and nothing could be more fatal to the prospects of any Christian race in Turkey. – p. 105
Finally, there is this great difference between the rival propagandas, that while the Bulgarians are working for the autonomy of Macedonia, the Servians and the Greeks aim only at its annexation to their own country. – p. 105
The result is that their activities seem to be for the profit of their own land, whereas the Bulgarians are undoubtedly creating a spirit of local Macedonian patriotism. The Servian movement is a purely official agitation, guided and financed in Belgrade; whereas, despite the sympathy of Sofia, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee is a genuine Macedonian organisation. – p. 105
It played about their ears unheeded, like a song of doom, sung by the land itself. And here at length was the real rhythm of the Bulgarian heart. Henceforward the lies and the silences mattered little. One could overhear this inarticulate people talking to itself. I was amid a race that was organising itself for freedom. It leads a double life, caring little for the ugly, unimportant present in which it suffers, intrigues and compromises, postponing its greater qualities for the future it has resolved to conquer. The insurgent movement is in reality a genuine Macedonian movement, prepared by Macedonians, led by Macedonians, and assisted by the passionate sympathy of the vast majority of the Slav population. There is hardly a village that has not joined the organisation. In the larger towns, like Monastir, there are few individual Bulgarians who are not active and willing members. – p. 113
The Treaty of San Stefano, which closed the Russo-Turkish war, brought a momentary and elusive hope of liberty to Macedonia. If we could but dismiss the habits of thought of twenty years, see the map of the Balkans without the artificial lines which diplomacy has traced upon it, and think away the political suggestions conveyed in such purely geographical terms as "Bulgaria" and "Macedonia," there is no reason in history or in the nature of things, why these two regions should have been subjected to such different fates. In both, the population is predominantly Slavonic, and in both there is a minority of Turks and Greeks. Both took up arms to co-operate with the liberating Russian invader. Both had revolted from the Greek form of Orthodoxy and freely joined the Bulgarian Exarchist Church. When the Berlin Congress, influenced by the dread which England entertained of creating a great Bulgaria that might have been a powerful ally of Russia, ordained that Bulgaria should be freed, while Macedonia should return to Turkish rule, a reckless despair seized the abandoned population which had just seen its liberties won by blood and ratified by treaty. Their first instinct was one of protest. Two districts of the Struma valley rose in arms, seized the passes, and for some days defied the Turkish troops. At Ochrida a more ambitious conspiracy was revealed to the authorities before it had ripened. Repressions followed, but Europe had given its decision; and for more than a decade the Slavs of Macedonia endured their fate with what sullen patience they could command, cherishing the hope that Russia might some day enforce in earnest the generous programme of San Stefano. It was a period of much suffering, in which progress was slow and painful. The Greeks were active and hostile, persecuting any teacher who dared to propagate the Bulgarian language, and opposing the extension of the "schismatic" Bulgarian Church with the familiar weapons of bribery and denunciation. – p. 115
It was in 1893 that a group of influential Macedonian Bulgarians, who held these views, met together in a certain house in Resna, and founded the "Internal Organisation." Two of these men are still the leaders of the movement — Damian Groueff, a teacher in Salonica who abandoned an assured career and a comfortable income to become an outlaw and a conspirator, and Christo Tatarcheff, formerly a doctor in Salonica, whose polished manners and knowledge of the world have made him the diplomat of the Committee, delegated to direct its activities in Sofia. It is characteristic of the Bulgarian character that the Committee laid its plans not for an immediate insurrection, which must have failed, but for a long period of organisation and preparation. The aspiration for liberty existed. – p. 115
The Bulgars are not a speculative race. I have never met even among their leaders the type of thinker and theorist whom one encounters so often among Russian exiles — perhaps they are hardly as yet at that level of culture. But in a practical and quite clear-sighted way they did become a real people's party. Their decisions are taken by general conferences, which contrive in some mysterious way to meet once or twice a year in the very heart of Macedonia. Their leaders are elected, from the president of the whole organisation down to the chiefs of each village band. – pp. 116-117
While the Committee was a secret society within the borders of Macedonia, in free Bulgaria it established itself openly as a political organisation. There is in Bulgaria an immense population of Macedonian origin which has taken root in the principality. It numbers perhaps as many as two hundred thousand persons, and it forms half the population of Sofia. – p. 118
But the fact that their bands are often equipped in Bulgaria, and sometimes led by Macedonians long resident in Bulgaria, in no way robs the Committee of its local character. The Greek and Servian movements in Macedonia are, on the other hand, the creation of the Greek and Servian Governments, and they are directed, with very little disguise, from the Greek and Servian consulates. The unique feature of the Bulgarian Committee is that it is a democratic organisation, whose policy and programme are dictated by Macedonian opinion. – p. 121
The more one learned to know of the Bulgarians of Macedonia, the more one came to respect their patriotism and courage. These are no flamboyant or picturesque virtues; they have grown up in a soil of serfdom among a reserved and unimaginative race. They are consistent with compromise and with prudence. There is something almost furtive in their manifestations. And yet when the Bulgarian seems most an opportunist and a time-server, he still cherishes his faith in the future of his people, and still works for its realisation. He has no great past to boast of, no glorious present to give him courage. He does not flaunt his nationality like the Greek, or claim an imagined superiority. He will risk no needless persecution for the pure joy of calling himself by the name of his ancestors. I knew one energetic organiser of revolt who posed before the authorities as a Greek, made a pilgrimage to Athens to give colour to his professions, and returned with lithographs of the Hellenic Royal Family with which he decorated his walls. Villages will shift their allegiance from the Greek to the Bulgarian Church twice or thrice in a year — "one must watch how the wind blows," to quote their saying — but under every disguise they remain obstinately Bulgarian at heart. I have even heard a Bulgarian Bishop explaining that he had advised certain villages to transfer themselves to the Greek (Patriarchist) Church in order to distract the suspicions of the authorities. – p. 167
And yet these men, when the occasion came to throw their lives away for any definite purpose, were capable of an utterly reckless heroism. The Committee never found a difficulty in obtaining volunteers for such work as mining, bridge-wrecking, or bomb-throwing, which involved almost certain death. Education among the Bulgarians, so far from weakening the primitive tribal instinct of self-sacrifice, seems only to intensify it, instead of softening it with humanitarian scruples. In estimating their courage it is not enough to measure their military achievements. The real proof of courage is that they rose at all — these peasants accustomed to cringe before the meanest Turk, schooled to endure insults and floggings without a prospect of revenge, with no tradition of revolt to inspire them, no military knowledge, no soldierly past to give them confidence. The measure of their courage is the risk they ran. There is short shrift for the wounded on a Turkish battlefield, and few exiles return from banishment. – p. 168
All through the winter that followed the insurrection, Damian Groueff, the President of the Supreme Macedonian Committee, the real chief of the movement, and the organiser of the campaign, hibernated in a village not many miles from Monastir. The secret must have been the common property of thousands, and not one of them seems to have thought of selling it. In the spring M. Groueff actually entered Monastir itself, lodged in a Bulgarian house, and moved freely about in streets that swarm with soldiers, police, and spies. His presence was generally known to the Bulgarians of the place; but, despite the fact that a price had been placed on his head, not a man among them was found to prefer riches to loyalty. Nor was this an isolated occurrence. The insurgent chiefs constantly venture not only into Monastir but even into Salonica, yet no single instance of treason has ever been known to occur. When one compares this uniform immunity from treason with the history of Irish conspiracies, from the days of Wolfe Tone to the Phoenix Park murders, one is forced to admit that somewhere beneath the awkward reserve of the Bulgarian character there lies a fund of loyalty and steadfast faith more reliable than any picturesque or feudal chivalry. – p. 169
Lastly, if the recklessness with which the Committee destroys life and risks it seems shocking, let us remember that life has no worth or price in Macedonia. We in Europe talk of life as though it had an absolute value. In fact its value is relative to the degree of security which a given society affords. It would be interesting to inquire what premium an English insurance company would ask upon the life of the average Macedonian villager.
The Bulgarians of Macedonia are to be judged not by the standard of morality and civilisation which in fact they have attained, but by their courage and their determination in striving for better things. The history of their ten years' struggle is their title to our sympathy. – p. 170
The Bulgarians of Macedonia are to be judged not by the standard of morality and civilisation which in fact they have attained, but by their courage and their determination in striving for better things. The history of their ten years' struggle is their title to our sympathy. – p. 170