THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE DONOR ATANAS BLIZNAKOV IN THE MONOGRAPHS OF SLAVE KATIN
Going abroad to earn a living and leaving one’s native homeland was mainly for economic reasons. But in certain periods, especially when there were uprisings in Macedonia, wars, etc., it had a political nature as well. The emigration of Macedonians to countries overseas for work was a continuation of going abroad for work, which was extensive in the 19th century.
The population in mountainous areas lived under difficult conditions; the land was not fertile enough to provide food, the birthrate was high, taxes were increasing, while plundering gangs multiplied and many types of handicrafts became extinct. Therefore people opted to work abroad.
After the Ilinden Uprising, a huge number of D’mbeni citizens started to look for work abroad; most of them in America. Those who had already gone there would ask their friends from D’mbeni to join them in America. More than 200 people from D’mbeni were already working in the city of Madison in 1906.
As a result of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and the Bucharest Treaty of August 10, 1913, Macedonia was divided among the three Balkan states: Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria; inflicting a great historical injustice on the Macedonian people.
Due to the worsening economic and political situation at that time, Macedonians began to leave their native country and went to the United States as migrant workers in increasing numbers.
After the partition of Macedonia, the village D’mbeni came under Greek rule, which became much worse, proving to be very cruel towards the Macedonian population, eradicating everything that was Macedonian, even the inscriptions on graves and icons in churches, in the most ruthless possible way.
All young and active men in D’mbeni were arrested and severely tortured by the Greek police, aided by the Greek army. First they beat them with a thick wet rope that caused great pain. Their screams and yelps could be heard even outside the village. Then sharp, thin wooden splinters were inserted under their fingernails, iron spikes were put between their fingers and finally they were tightened with a rope.
Others were subjected to other cruel torture, inflicted with the intention of killing their patriotic spirit and forcing most of them to leave their native hearth, their village, their Macedonia. Many of the young boys arrested were rotting in prisons.
After their release most of those arrested and tortured immediately left the village and sought their fortune abroad. Most of them immigrated to America, some to Bulgaria and the rest to other countries. A great many of them never returned to their village.
The Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922 brought new evil to the Macedonian population in the Greek occupied part of Macedonia.So many men were mobilized, as were many young Macedonians from the village D’mbeni, to fight in Asia Minor’s front to satisfy the nationalistic aspirations of Greece.Many of them left their bones in Asia Minor.
At that time Greece mobilized the young, even those aged 19. During the Greek-Turkish War the government adopted a law whereby children under 16 and older ones couldn’t get passports to leave the country. The intention of the Greek state was to mobilize them as troops, at a later date, to wage war against Turkey.
To be continued
By SLAVE KATIN
