Post by ivo on Jan 6, 2010 15:14:41 GMT -5
Yet another source that shows that there was nothing Serbian in Macedonia. This source even directly states that the Serbian claim doesn't count, just like any Romanian claim wouldn't count.
Pictures from the Balkans
Fraser, John Foster (Popular ed., London, New York: Cassell and company, 1912)
First published 1906
Pictures from the Balkans
Fraser, John Foster (Popular ed., London, New York: Cassell and company, 1912)
First published 1906
IT has been pointed out that there is no distinct race that can be called Macedonian. Roughly the population is about 2,000,000. A third of these are Turks. Of the remaining two-thirds Sofia will tell you the tremendous majority are Bulgars; Athens assures you the preponderance is with the Greeks, whilst both Belgrade and Bukharest have a claim for Servians and Roumanians. – p. 174
Servians and Roumanians do not count, and one is not far wrong in saying Bulgars and Greeks are about equally divided. In the thousands of villages which dot the country, some Bulgar, some Greek, some Turkish, some mixed, the different races and people of different religions live amicably until politics are brought along to stir ambitions and jealousies, Bulgars and Greeks against each other and the Turks against both. – p. 174
Macedonia is a hotbed of intrigue. The cry of protest which comes to us against Ottoman maladministration and the appeal for an extension of our Christian sympathy to Christians in the Balkans is too often an exploitation of discontent for political advantage. Many of the massacres of poor Christian peasants in Macedonia by the Turks have been the consequence of assassinations by Bulgarian Komitajis, who stirred up reprisals in the hope that they would be vile and that Europe would intervene. Nothing more cold-blooded is recorded in history than the manner in which sections of Bulgarians - however much they may have stayed their hands during the last two years - pressed the revolutionary cause on the attention of the world. – p. 177
In the beginning the Committees had high aims. Turkey had shamelessly neglected her obligations under the Treaty of Berlin. There was petty persecution; Bulgarian Christians crossed from Macedonia into Bulgaria proper and told their tales of woe. – p. 179
Then followed raids by armed bands of Bulgarians into Turkey. In time associations were formed in Bulgaria and secret committees in Macedonia to aid the Bulgarian cause. In time came a congress and the formation of the "High Committee," having for its object the securing of political autonomy for Macedonia, and pledged, in order to secure it, to take any action "which may be dictated by circumstances." – p. 179
Still, no opportunity is lost of showing that Mace-donia is a Greek land. To prove numerical superiority over the hated Bulgarians, all Macedonians who do not belong to the "schismatic" Bulgarian Church are counted as belonging to the Orthodox Greek Church. That the Bulgarians should have broken away from the Greek Church was perfectly natural, because the Patriarchate, instead of being above race, tried to Hellenise the Balkan peninsula – pp. 180-181
It was a Bulgarian village, and, as I learnt afterwards, a somewhat risky spot to halt at. As an additional precaution I discovered that of the four men who accompanied me only one was a Turk, one was an Albanian, whilst the other two were Bulgarians in Turkish employ.
The han was nothing but a mud hovel, filled with smoke, and I had no relish to spend the night there. I sent two of the Bulgarians into the village to make some arrangement with a peasant to let me pay for the use of a room. It was then the Turkish soldier came to me, and, through my dragoman, urged that I should avoid staying at a Bulgarian house, for the risk was too great: he and his Albanian mate would be powerless if an attempt were made to capture me for ransom purposes. I had got so weary of such stories that I paid no heed. The Bulgarians, however, came back with the news that no Bulgarian would take me in, nor supply me with food, because as I was accompanied by troops they would fall under the suspicion of the "bands." – p. 285
The han was nothing but a mud hovel, filled with smoke, and I had no relish to spend the night there. I sent two of the Bulgarians into the village to make some arrangement with a peasant to let me pay for the use of a room. It was then the Turkish soldier came to me, and, through my dragoman, urged that I should avoid staying at a Bulgarian house, for the risk was too great: he and his Albanian mate would be powerless if an attempt were made to capture me for ransom purposes. I had got so weary of such stories that I paid no heed. The Bulgarians, however, came back with the news that no Bulgarian would take me in, nor supply me with food, because as I was accompanied by troops they would fall under the suspicion of the "bands." – p. 285