PART OF THE BOOK “SELECTED PAPERS FOR MACEDONIA” BY SLAVÉ KATIN
To write about the past and present of Aegean Macedonia, a part of the divided Macedonia is responsible task, but also very pleased. It is for reasons often said that Macedonia is the most beautiful country in the Balkans and Aegean part of Macedonia is the core of this Macedonian beauty. It is not accidental, because in that area was once the headquarters of the Macedonian state of Philip and Alexander and of a great number of known and unknown heroes. That is why their descendants shine the horizons of the Macedonian emigrant galaxy with charisma as it may have only the stars of the Macedonian sky.
The Mother Nature donated Aegean Macedonia with a wealth of beauty and attractiveness. At the same time, its history has left invaluable traces of important events. Therefore, Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia wherever they are in the homeland or outside of divided Macedonia, rejoice proudly in all that and keep such a treasure for future generations.
Aegean Macedonia is a country whose name ever since the classical period has denoted a small province located in the immediate vicinity of Pella – the capital of the Classical Macedonian Empire. At the time Macedonia covered the territory between the currently drained Pazar Lake and the lower course of the Vardar River. With the expansion of the boundaries of the Macedonian Empire, however, the area designated by the name of Macedonia gradually grew. Within it, the Macedonians from that period distinguished Upper and Lower Macedonia, primarily according to its geographic properties. Nonetheless, such distinction had political, cultural, military, and administrative significance.
Otherwise, Macedonia as a geographic region covers the central part of the Balkan Peninsula, an area enclosed to the north with the Mountains Sara, Skopska Crna Gora, Kozjak, Osogovo and Rila, and to the south with the Bistrica River and the coast of the Aegean Sea, ending at the mouth of the Mesta River. Bigla and the watersheds of Mounts Korab, Jablanica, Gramos and Pindus surround Macedonia on the west, and on the east the Mesta River and the western parts of Mount Rhodope. Within these boundaries Macedonia covered an area of 67,741.2 square kilometers.
On the other hand, Lower Macedonia, unlike Upper Macedonia, mostly consisted of lowlands. On the south it was surrounded by the waters of the Aegean Sea, on the south-west by the waters of Thermay Bay and the Perian Mountains, on the west by the mountains Vermion, Voras and Pajko, on the north by the Balkan massifs, and on the east by the hilly division between the Vardar valleys and Struma Rivers. Vardar divided Lower Macedonia into Eastern and Western; the western part of Lower Macedonia both physically and geographically was characterized by the central plain formed by the alluvia of the rivers Vardar, Bistrica, Ludias and Galikos. That fertile land (with an area of approximately 1,500 square kilometers) on the south was enclosed by the waters of Thermay Bay, on the southwest by the mountains of Peria, on the west by Mount Vermion, on the north by Mount Pajko, and on the east by the Vardar River.
Today Aegean Macedonia covers a large part of Lower Macedonia. From the total area of Macedonia, the Aegean part spreads over 34,153 square kilometers, half of entire Macedonia. The Vardar and Pirin Macedonia were to the north, i.e. the current boundaries of Greece to the north, Albania and Epirus to the west, divided by the mountains Ivan and Pindus. The southern border line reached Thessaly, divided by mounts Kamvunia, Pieria and Olympus. It was washed by the Aegean Sea and the Mesta River from the east.
The Aegean Macedonia relief is characterized by mountains that divide the country into numerous small and large lowlands and valleys with a large number of rivers and lakes. According to the current Greek administration, Aegean Macedonia is divided into the following districts: Kostur, Kozhani, Lerin, Voden, Kukus, Solun, Ser, Drama, Kavala, and Halkidiki.
Christianity was the dominating religion within this area ever since the IV century which is evident from the archaeological findings and the numerous Christian churches, Episcopal cathedrals, basilicas, baptisteries and other sacral buildings of monumental dimensions. They all show that Christianity was deeply rooted and well organized in Macedonia from the beginning to the present period.
Prior to the arrival of the Turks in the XIV century, Macedonia used to be a country in revival, with fascinating arts, affluent medieval literature, symbol of civilization. The Ottomans, however, regressed the development, and the long-lasting struggle for survival commenced. So, in the light of the Ottoman plunders, long-lasting propagation of islamisation, cruel feudal system, various military campaigns, the difficulties and sufferings caused by them will leave deep and painstaking mark on the spiritual landscape of Macedonia, making it a vestibule where the West meets the East.
The Balkan Wars will designate the liberation of Macedonia from Turkish subjugation, but they will also mark its tragic severance between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia, later also Albania, consequently followed by even coarser conditions and discrimination of the Macedonian people. The greatest disaster of the XX century – the Second World War – will bring about the Second llinden and the ASNOM Decisions which will contribute to the accomplishment of the century-long aim – the establishment of the Macedonian State. Namely, through active participation in the antifascist struggle during the Second World War, the Macedonians attained their freedom, but only on the part of their territory – Vardar Macedonia, which will be constituted as the Peoples’ Republic of Macedonia, thereupon the Socialistic Republic of Macedonia, and since 1991 the Republic of Macedonia.
Finally, at the turn of the second millenium the Third llinden happened. The Republic of Macedonia become an independent and sovereign country that continued to build its independent democratic development. The national composition of the population in the Aegean Macedonia was subject to major ethnic changes, in particular after the Balkan Wars and the division of Macedonia. Macedonians under the Greek rule were, and still are, subjected to assimilation torture and forced to immigrate, with the sole aim of altering the ethnic composition of Macedonia. However, Macedonians existed, exist and will continue to exist since it is not easy to uproot a nation that has survived for centuries in spite of all measures of violence and assimilation.
Macedonians were given many national names to influence their awareness in a negative manner. They were called: Slavs, atheists, Christians, Macedonian Slavs, Macedoslavs, Slavo-Macedonians, Bulgarians, Bulgarian Slavs, Macedonian Bulgarians, Serbs, South-Serbs, Greeks, Macedonian Greeks, Greek inclined Slavs, Bulgarophones, Slavophones etc. However, regardless of how they were called, they were and still are Macedonians. All of the names they were called can and should be disregarded since they are only a bunch of names for the same notion that denotes a single, tormented, divided nation with tragic fate, a nation that could be found all over the world.
The characteristics and traditions of the Macedonian nation, both by language and ethnic background, are unfamiliar to Greece. Therefore, the Greek bourgeoisie from the very beginning of its extended rule over Aegean Macedonia built a policy of physical extermination of Macedonian people focused towards alteration of their ethnic composition to its own benefit. That was the fundamental policy, in particular since the substantial support previously invested in the Patriarchate and the schools in Macedonia did not render the required results.
The Greek bourgeoisie, in its attempt to wipe out any marking that would suggest Macedonian attributes of Aegean Macedonia, in November 1926 adopted a law on replacement of the Macedonian geographical names with Greek names for villages, towns, mountains, fields, rivers, etc. That law was published in the Official Journal of the Greek Government “Efimeristis kivemiseos”, No. 332 dated 21 November 1926, and in No. 346 of the same Journal new Greek names were published.
National and political slavery reigns there even today and the Greek nationalists and chauvinists are still making great efforts to depersonalize Macedonian national spirit and to destroy and bury deep the rich historical and cultural past of the Macedonian people from Aegean Macedonia.
To be continued
BY DUSHAN RISTEVSKI-MAKEDON
