Macedonian Question-Evans: The Origin of Macedonian Question

"One of the most comic results of this competitive ethnography was a map published some years ago under Athenian auspices and circulated in this country. According to this Macedonia was, for practical purposes, divided into two elements - the Greek and the 'Bulgarophone Greeks' - as if some Celtic enthusiast should divide Britain between the Welsh and the 'Anglophone Welsh!' Macedonia, indeed, is full of artificial distinctions, the true lines of ethnic demarcation being continually crossed by classifications founded on religious adherence (for the time being) to the Greek Patriarchate or to the

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Bulgarian Exarchate. A Bulgar village may, for political purposes, be bribed or coerced into accepting allegiance to orthodox Greek ecclesiastical superiors. Its inhabitants are then complacently described by those who effected their spiritual transfer (which 'spiritually' means nothing) as the Hope of Hellas. But these artificial annexations do not go very far. The language of the villagers remains Bulgars, and the deep underlying instinct of race are only held in temporary suspense. The friends of Greece can only regret that she should be misled by such artificial pretensions; that she should grasp the shadow and lose the substance which might have been found in an understanding, on a reasonable basis of give and take, with her Slavonic neighbors. The late M. Tricoupi to my personal knowledge, saw things much more clearly. He was well aware that, except a narrow fringe to the south and some sporadic centers of no great magnitude in the interior of the province, the Greek element had no real hold on Macedonia. His chief anxiety, for which he had solid grounds came, indeed, from that direction, but not from the Bulgarian quarter. That cool political observer would certainly have refrained from qualifying, as did the present Greek premier, an exceptionally industrious and peaceful population who, for fifteen centuries, have been tillers of the Macedonian soil, and only now owing to indescribable oppression have been goaded into revolt, as 'Bulgarian wolves', apparently recent intruders into a Greek fold! The brigands of Pindus and Olympus have been rarely recruited from the Bulgar element. I myself was once dogged for nearly ten days by a brigand band along the Pindus border, but they were not Bulgars."

" The fact is that even in this country - largely owing to interested efforts to disguise the true situation the great preponderance of the Bulgar element in Macedonia is only imperfectly realized. I can only say, as my personal experience after exploring almost the whole interior of the province, that outside the fringe already referred to, and some small urban centers, practically the whole mass of the population is Slavonic, speaking characteristically Bulgarian dialects. The Bulgarian shibboleths, such as the placing of the article after the word, extend even to the Uscub region, sometimes claimed by the Serbs, whose real speech only begins north of the Shar range. Where, as in certain small towns as Kastoria, the Greek element was in a majority, it was far outweighed by the populous Bulgar villages around. This great preponderance of the Bulgar element is a fundamental factor in the present situation, which has been much obscured by statistics drawn from Greek sources. It is liable to be very imperfectly realized by foreigners and even by Consuls whose experience with Macedonia has been mainly confined to towns like Salonica or Monastir."

The Macedonian Question

Inhabitants of Macedonia are Bulgar, but Greek claim is a dream -unrealistic-according to the archeologist and the Balkan expert - Sir Arthur J. Evans.

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Cyril and Methodius - European Saint Patron