Medieval

2. Macedonia: terms and controversy
2.1. A brief historical account

Ancient writers had a scanty and confused knowledge of the country (Herodotus, VII 113 and 173) at least up to the classical period (Thucydides II, 99), and more importantly, the definition of the boundaries depended on the political significance that they attached to the words Macedon and Macedonian. The Makednoi (Macedonians) were speaking a Greek regional dialect consisting of Dorian and Aeolo-Arcadian elements and thus as a tribe belonged to the same ethno-linguistic group as the Dorians. The Macedonians, like the peoples beyond the Pindos Ranges, remained outside the vigorous development of their relatives of the city states of central and southern Greece until the end of the eighth century BC. During the seventh century Macedonians moved eastwards towards Pieria, Eordea and Almopia, crossed the Axios River and settled in Chalkidiki deposing the Pelasgian and other proto- Hellenic tribes. In the course of the sixth century they ceased their isolation. King Perdiccas of the Temenid dynasty established Vergina as his new capital, begriming an era of cultural development. Macedonia progressively became the main factor in the political affairs of the southern states of Greece and, particularly during the era of Philip, influenced the destiny of the Greeks. It was, however, during the time of Alexander the Great that Greek civilization and culture was disseminated to the eastern known world via his short-lived empire and established the unity of Macedonians with the rest of the Greeks.

Following Alexander’s death, his Empire was divided into state-units administered and ruled by the Epigonoi who were Macedonian kings. In 168 BC the Romans entered the scene after their victorious battle of Pydna. Makedhonia ceased to exist as an independent state and its territories were divided into four semi-autonomous regions. With the exception of some enclaves of spoken Latin, Macedonia maintained its Greek identity almost unchanged until the seventh century AD, when various Slavonic races began to invade and settle in Macedonia. Macedonia was then a province of the Byzantine Empire and the Emperors of the “Greek Empire” allowed the Slavs to establish small Slavic settlements, the “Sclavineae”. The Slavs attempted unsuccessfully to take Thessaloniki from the Greeks during the seventh century; however, though defeated they lived there peacefully thereafter, while a great number of them were even Hellenized. During the same period certain Finno-Tartar tribes invaded the area which is now Bulgaria. Their king Samuel attempted to dislodge Byzantine rule and extended his rule over Bulgaria to Macedonia. The Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated and overthrew Bulgarian rule from Macedonia and the rest of Greece.

In the fourteenth century, Stefan Dusan extended the Serbian empire to Macedonia. Serbian rule did not decisively affect the ethnological composition of Macedonia, other than creating some additional Slav enclaves. After all, during the Byzantine period Macedonia had lost its national and geographical meaning which it had had during the Classical and Hellenistic era, by incorporating modern Albania and the entire eat of Thrace. During the fifteen century the Ottoman conquest of Macedonia caused major changes in its demographical composition. The Christian population moved away from the plains and whole villages were rebuilt in the mountains to avoid persecution, while the intellectuals escaped to Italy and western Europeans countries, thus re-enforcing the Enlightenment movement as teachers of the classical Greek inscriptions and literature. Turkish colonists were brought in central Macedonia, while there were widespread movements in the Balkans. Numerous Greek immigrants from Macedonia, especially artisans and tradesmen, moved northwards into Serbia, Austro-Hungary and Romania forming large and prosperous Greek communities. By contrast the Bulgars and the Slavs moved southwards in search of work, revitalising the remnants of the old Slav colonies of the Middle Ages in some parts of Macedonia or forming new settlements of their own. This population movement gave the upper hand in the northern zone of Macedonia (what today is FYROM) and to a lesser extent in the central area of Macedonia (the region alongside the modern Greco-FYROM borders) to the Slav element and the Bulgaro-slavic dialects.

During the eighteenth century the Great Porte (central government) allowed the Greek Ecumenical Patriarchate to gain complete control and ecclesiastical supremacy equal to that which they enjoyed during the Byzantine period and began a process of Hellenization of the Slavs of the upper zone of Macedonia. Two Slav Episcopacies were cancelled and their Bishops expelled, some Bulgarophile clergymen were replaced; Greek replaced the Old Slavonic rites in the upper zone of Macedonia, while the Greek language was introduced to all schools. After the eighteenth century the Greek element flourished and completely dominated the area with the support of the Greek clergy and the affluence of its returning immigrants. The Christian masses of Macedonia adopted Greek cultural influences and gradually acquired a consciousness of their Greek identity. Many Slavonic speaking Christians sent their children to the Greek schools and fought alongside the other Greeks against the Ottoman Empire and later, throughout the nineteenth century, in all risings in Macedonia for the unification of Macedonia with the free Greek State.

In the nineteenth century Greeks predominated in the south and the large towns of central Macedonia and included the bulk of the literary population, the artisan and commercial families. Greek was considered to be the official language and culture of the Christian population. Albanians predominated in the western part of the region and even today constitute more than one-third of the overall population of FYROM, whereas Bulgars were demographically strong in the north and central parts of eastern Macedonia.

The identity of the Slavophone population of the northern and central zones of Macedonia became then the centre of the dispute between the competing national ideologies. The Greeks argued that they were genuine Greeks who had been assimilated linguistically by the Slavs, like the Karamanlides, Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turks. The Bulgars stated that they were true Bulgars, the Serbs declared them to be south Serbs, some claimed that they were an amalgamation of Bulgarian and Serbian settlers, true Macedoslavs, who must form a separate ethnicity.

An attempt by Russia to incorporate Macedonia into an independent Great Bulgaria (1877-1878) failed because of the disagreement of the Great Powers, who insisted that it should constitute part of the Ottoman Empire. This triggered a violent and bitter struggle amongst Greeks, Bulgarian and Albanian guerrilla forces who entered the region staging rebellions of their own. The issue was finally settled amongst the competing nations following the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) giving to Bulgaria it s undisputedly Bulgarian regions, while Serbia gained most of the northern Macedonia and the disputed districts around Monastiti (Bitola) and Lake Ochrid and Greece won the clearly Greek areas of south Macedonia and the disputed territory of the central zone including the districts of Florina, Kastoria and Almopia. A program designed to abolish Bulgarian influence from Macedoslav population was undertaken by Serbia and Greece in the years that followed (1913-1940) with certain extremist policies designed by both countries. Greek policies under the dictatorial regime of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-1940) were particularly vigorous, to the extent of oppression against the Slavophone population of Macedonia and the Greek Turkish-speaking refugees from Asia Minor. Persons who spoke the Slavonic dialects in public were persecuted and their families were compelled to adopt Greek names. The same policy and practices were followed in Yugoslav Macedonia (1944-1993), when the Greek population in major urban centres, including Bitola and Istip, were forced to convert their Greek names in the Slavic manner and to adopt the Ochrid Slavonic dialect as a “Macedonian” language at home.

Hellenism in Macedonia survived the construction and manipulative forces of a variety of competing national ideologies which were introduced into the region and splashed over the pre-existing Hellenic layer. Only the active Hellenism displayed by the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate and the belated interest of the then Greek Government supported the political aspirations of both Greek and Slavonic speaking Macedonians to re-unite with the Greek State.

2.2 Macedonia: its context and terminology

The term “Makedhonia” [Macedonia], which derived from the ethnic name of a well-attested Greek tribe, the Makedhones (Macedonians), is used by the researchers and academics associated with the AIMS in its geographical context. It is the land which, before the accession of Philip II, stretched from Mount Olympus and the Kanvounia Mountains in the south, along almost the same border which separates modern Greece from former Yugoslavia as fas as Lake Kerkini and Mounts Vertiskos and Kerdyllia in the north and down to the Aegean Sea. Gradually, Pelagonia, Chalkidiki and the regions up to the River Nestos were acquired. Upper Paeania, except for Dardania on the Axios basin where ancient Scupi (modern Skopje) lay, was annexed to the Macedonian state only more recently by its Antigonid Dynasty.

The term Macedonia was redefined by the Romans to broadly describe the geographic province which comprised classical Macedonia, parts of Illyria, all of Epirus and until 27 BC, the rest of Greece. (Please place another map here) Throughout the Byzantine era, the concept of Makedhonia encompassed Thrace and bore little relationship to ancient Macedonia. During the Ottoman rule, Macedonia was divided into Sanjaks and the term Macedonia fell into disuse. Towards the end of the 19th century the term was resurrected to describe part of the Ottoman Empire which the Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins and Greeks reclaimed after the Balkan Wars (1912-1913).

3. Macedonian Hellenic Identities in Australia

Since the inception of the Alexander the Great Club in Perth (1932), approximately 210 Greek Macedonian associations, brotherhoods and clubs operated in Australia. These organisations reached maturity, interneting and eventual decline, over a period of 75 years via an evolution which was developed in three stages, depending on the role and the objectives of their existence. During the first stage (1932-1947), initially emerged as social clubs providing social shelter, recreational and employment opportunities for their segregated members in their own native environment. During the pre-WWII era, in allignment with other Greek regional associations, Greek Macedonian organisations maintained exclusively an isolating intra-community role, with limited inter-ethnic activities and restricted scope of community interneting.

With the influx of Greek migration (1952-1975), immigrants, mainly from Western and Central Macedonia, comprised the largest Greek regional group of Australian settlers (35%). The settlement of 75,000 young migrants, mainly unskilled labourers and agrarians from the region, triggered a prolifaration of Macedonian associations in major Australian capital cities. They brought with them the traumatic experiences of a war-torn Greece, the civil war discourse and a feeling of redundancy within their home-country. They also settled with high aspirations about their future and a determination for success and social maturity. During the second stage of their evolution (1947-2007), Greek Macedonian organisations modified their constitutions re-identifying their objectives and restructuring their goals. These organisations maintained their traditions and reached maturity sustaining political activity, community organisation and vocal advocacy of the Macedonian cause. The erupted inter-ethnic strife among Greek Macedonians and Macedoslavs (the latter appearing initially (1929-1946) as Bulgarians and/or Bulgarophile Macedonians and from 1946 as “Macedonians”) in Australia, compelled the Greeks to redefine the role of their regional associations, accommodating objectives related to the political process. Influencing the foreign policy of Australia on “Greek national issues”, propagating the Greek legacies and historic heritage of Macedonia to the broader Australian society and enlightening the politicians on the cultural and historical rights of the geographic region of Macedonia became the new focal points of their establishment and existence.

Yet, the host society that received them became increasingly puzzled by the seeming never-ending squabbles between the two competing and conflicting communities. Concern among officials increased noticeably after 1945, as a result of the “macedonization” process, which was systematically applied by the Yugoslavian political leadership and the arrival of hundreds of thousand migrants from Yugoslavia (after 1962), including tens of thousands of Macedonian Greeks sponsored by pre-war compatriots and after 1952 by the DEME. The bickering continued and involved Church, ethnic media and a host of clubs and associations; occasionally it became quite violent and was always carried on with great passion and gesticulation.

The Macedonian issue in the Hellenic Diaspora has unfolded on the perspectives of terms, rather than of ethnicities. The very existence of the Macedoslav ethnicity and the Macedoslav language(s) are not denied by Greek Macedonian organisations. As indeed apparent are the politicisation of ethnicity and the attempt of the Macedoslav communities in the Diaspora, to use every discourse to construct and celebrate their identity as “Macedonian”, appropriating for their own exclusive use the terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonian”. The strife has also emerged from the fact that Macedoslav communities in their campaign to validate their own ethnic group as primordial and genuine, they treat other ethnic groups living in Macedonia simply as non Macedonians.

Greek Macedonian organisations challenged the tendency of the Macedoslav communities to monopolize a historically attested Greek term, that of Macedonian and a geographic toponym, that of Macedonia, which was common to all ethnicities that lived in this particular region. Their perception is contrary to the notion that ethnic groups are categories of ascriptions and identifications by the actors themselves (Barth, 1969:10ff), while their ethnic identity is built and formed over time by historical process as well as by inheritance to the land and the region.

Since their inception in the inter-war period, Greek Macedonian organisations in English-speaking countries underwent an ideological and structural evolution. During their first stage (1922-1945), and with the absence of the bulk of Yugoslav migrants, they had the shape of a social club or a kafeneion, an indiscriminate meeting place for the Balkans, chiefly Greek, Bulgarian and Albanian settlers for recreational and social activities. During the early years of this period (1928 onwards), competing legacies for Macedonia among conservative right-wing Greek and Bulgarian migrants led to separate clubs and created tensions which were duly recorded in the reports of the Australian secret service agencies. The inter-community strife led to the establishment of the pro-Bulgarian Macedonian Patriotic Organisation (MPO) in North America (1922) and Australia (1936) by conservative and royalist Bulgarophiles. The Bulgarian-oriented organisations and their newspapers, including the Macedonian Tribune, were, however, short –lived. By 1939, leftist Bulgarophiles emerged in Australia with Cyril Angelcoff and Ilo Malkoff as their leaders establishing the Bulgarian-oriented Edinstvo.

The second stage (1946-1956) has been the interim period for the competing national legacies of Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in the Diaspora. It coincides with the awakening of nationalism and the beginning of a systematic process of the “Macedonian” ethnogenesis in the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Macedonia (YSRM), away from the pre-WWII Bulgarian affiliations and tendencies in the Diaspora. It also corresponds with the weakening of the Bulgarian sway in Diasporic communities and the eradication of the Bulgarian influence, including the influence of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. This stage also created frustration and agitation within the Greek communities in the Diaspora over the nomenclatures of Macedonia and Macedonian as a result of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), and the policy of the Greek Communist Party (GCP) and the Commitern, favouring an independent and greater “Macedonia” in the Balkans. Severe Greek intra-community clashes led to segregation and, often, violence between the allying consortium of pro-Bulgarian Slav-speaking Greek nationals and the newly arriving left-wing migrants from Greece, in one hand and the most pre-WWII conservative settlers, their organisations and the Greek Orthodox Church on the other. In addition, by 1946, the leftist pro-WWII Bulgarophiles emerged as “Macedonians”, identifying with the Macedonian Australian People’s League (MAPLA) leading to quarrels with the existing Macedonian Greek organisations and the Greek communities in the Diaspora.

The third stage (1957-1989) was a period of migration influx for Macedonians, both Greek and Macedoslav and represents the main stage of a vigorous campaign by Yugoslavia to export the “Macedonian” ethnogenesis to their Slavophone communities in the Diaspora, prior to its final demise. Many of those newly settling migrants, chiefly in Australia and Canada, were members or allies of the Greek Democratic Army, who had fled Greece following their defeat in the hands of the Greek National Army (1949). During the beginning of the 1960’s the Government of Yugoslavia allowed the emigration of thousand of Yugoslavs in the English-speaking countries, establishing concurrently in YSRM agencies with the aim to disseminate the “macedonization” process and to convince the host countries about the existence of a separate ethnic identity in the Balkans. On the other hand, Greek administrations in Athens continued to assess the Macedonian issue in the Diaspora as a “non-existent” and demonstrated a reserved indifference (see below), arguing that the falsification of the history of Macedonia by the Macedoslavs and Yugoslavia will not earn momentum within the knowledgeable international community. By contrast, Greek Macedonian organisations and judicious individuals in the Diaspora insisted, in vain, that the Greek state’s apathy for many decades, prior to 1970s, towards the unopposed Macedoslav propaganda was against the long-term national interests of Hellenism.

During this period and contrary to the portrayed social image of their organisations, Macedoslav clubs and community organisations were the centers for the genesis and the dissemination of “Macedonian” nationalism. It was only in 1966 when the Center for the Greek Macedonians Abroad was established, which in turn led to the establishment of the Pan-Macedonian Organisations in Australia (1971). During this period, YSRM’s persistent nationalist ideology to metamorphose and transmute all ethnic groups residing in the entire geographic region of Macedonia (greater Macedonia), as “Makedonci”, both at home as well as in Diaspora, was met by successive Greek governments with constraint indifference, resting on the assumption that the historical roots of the rival claims were too week to be accepted by the international community. The dominant nationalist legacies exported to and/or created in the English-speaking Diaspora caused enormous agitation and aggression amongst Greek, Bulgarian and Macedoslav communities. The competing communities, utilizing an environment of tolerance in Canada and Australia, commenced an unrelenting campaign to win the host communities and their children over their conceptions. The Macedoslavs campaigned to obtain local and international recognition for their existence as a new ethnicity, but also for its major constituent components, namely its historic origins, heritage and name of Macedonia, adopting “an aggressive mentality” The Bulgarian communities argued strongly that the “Makedonci” were simply Bulgarians who usurped the Bulgarian heritage and language. Greek community groups in Diaspora maintained the view that they had exclusive historic rights to the territory and the name of Macedonia, developing a regional Macedonian identity among Greek Macedonians. After, 1968, with the arrival of massive influx of migrants from Yugoslavia and Greece in Australia and Canada, the rival claims were intensified involving the legal courts of these countries, the human right commissions and fierce debates in their parliaments.

The fourth stage (1990-2007) incorporates the emergence of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as an independent and sovereign state in the Balkans (1991), amid the reactions of successive Greek governments and their agencies. Following the disintegration of Yugoslavia (1990) and the eventual national independence of its comprising States, FYROM instigated an uncompromised campaign for its ethno-cultural and political recognition by the world community utilizing the term “Republic of Macedonia” as her constitutional name. Its leaders also campaigned for the recognition of the emblems of ancient Macedonian royal families together with the history of the Ancient Macedonians as their own ancestral symbols and history. This provoked the universal reaction of the Hellenes in the Diaspora, and reshaped the role and mission of Greek Macedonian organisations. According to their leaders, Greece faced the irredentist challenges of the newly independent state of former Yugoslavia unprepared, with spasmodic reactions, and with a variety of ideological differences among the political parties in Greece, accompanied by a number of political and diplomatic mistakes.

During the post 1991 period, a large number of Greek Macedonian leaders in the Diaspora continued to diverge from the official Greek foreign policy on the Macedonian issue refusing to accept any of the composite or hyphenated names suggested by the partners of the EU. Their disagreement with the Greek official policy increased progressively, especially after 1992 shaping dissenting attitudes and emotions inter alia as a result of a number of socio-cultural and anthropological pressures (see below).

They were also critical of the way that the internationalization of the “macedonization process” was handled by the Greek authorities and the political parties in Greece. Furthermore, certain highly-ranked Greek politicians and dignitaries visiting the Hellenic Diaspora communities, were often reprimanding Greek-Macedonian leaders and academics for their initiatives to demonstrate the existence of an aggressive propaganda on the part of the Macedoslavs. Over the years, persistent calls from expatriated Greek Macedonian leaders insisting upon the need to undertake a systematic national campaign to counterbalance the adverse and agitating influence that the hard liners of Skopje were exerting in the Anglophone countries were also ignored. Successive Greek governments failed to form a national policy on the Macedonian issue, involving a non-partisan approach, partially as a result of political expediency, but also as a result of the role that the Macedonian issue has played during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) and continued to play in the contemporary political life of Greece.