From "Bulgaria and Her People"
By Prof. Will S. Monroe
Published September 1914 by "The Page Company" of the Colonial Press, Boston USA
The majority of the inhabitants of Macedonia are Bulgarians. Greeks largely inhabit the southern coast, and there are Turks, Vlakhs, Albanians, and Serbians in various parts of the province. The population of Macedonia is about two million and a quarter. Of this number about eight hundred thousand profess the Mohammedan religion, seventy five thousand the Hebrew, three thousand six hundred the Roman Catholic, two thousand the Protestant, and the remainder the Orthodox religion. Some of the Orthodox are affiliated with the Bulgarian national church and some with the Greek branch.
The story of the partition of Macedonia after the Balkan wars has been recounted in previous chapters in this work. It remains to note the manner in which heirs of Turkey treated their inheritance. Through the machinations of the Greeks and the Serbians, the portion of Macedonia that fell to Bulgaria was very small. Greece got the lion's share, although a considerable portion became the possession of Serbia.
The conditions of eastern Macedonia (now New Greece) as they were last June before the second Balkan war, and as they are to-day, are carefully treated in a recent article by Mr. H. M. Wallis published in the Quarterly Review for April, 1914.1 Mr. Wallis spent six months in the Balkans in the winter of 1912-1913, distributing relief on behalf of the Society of Friends of England to the victims of the first Balkan war. He has recently made a study of the region devastated by the Greeks during the second Balkan war. He expresses the conviction that Macedonia is one of the most beautiful and fruitful parts of Europe. It is the seat of one of the most ancient civilizations but little known today.
For five centuries it was vilely governed by the Turks. Since 1887 it has been the cockpit of rival sectaries, patriarchist Greeks and Bulgarian exarcists. It was traversed by the Turkish army in the first Balkan war, but it suffered surprisingly little. It was ruled by the Bulgars for six months (to June, 1913). The conquerors paid for what they took ; discipline was rigid ; no looting was allowed. There was some local friction, due to fanatical Greek ecclesiastics. The skirmishes at Pangaion and Nigrita were the consequences of Greek troops intruding upon districts under Bulgarian administration.
The rural population was solidly Bulgarian in the northern half of the territory and largely so to within a few miles of the Egean sea. There were considerable Turkish districts and smaller settlements of Kutzo-Vlakhs and gypsies.
But the mass of the population from the Rhodope mountains to the sea were Bulgarians, speaking the Bulgarian language and worshipping according to the rites of the Bulgarian exarchist church. The people were consciously and ardently attached to their brothers in the kingdom of Bulgaria. They were courteous, industrious, and virile. They lived for the most part upon their own properties and produced wine, silk, cotton, tobacco, leather, and foodstuffs. Despite much discouragement from their former Turkish masters, they had educated themselves. The schoolhouse was a conspicuous object in a majority of the villages, and in all the towns the school-teacher was the leading man. Such was the condition of the Bulgarians in eastern Macedonia in June, 1913.
After five centuries of Turkish rule the Bulgars of Macedonia still retained their language, customs, and nationality. The brutal methods of denationalization employed by the Greeks and Serbians merit the severe condemnation of all civilized nations. Serbia, for example, has suppressed all Bulgarian books and newspapers ; closed the schools and the churches ; driven away the priests and the teachers, and forced the inhabitants to change their names, substituting the Serbian itch for the Bulgarian off. A Bulgarian in Serbian Macedonia who wants any legal document cannot obtain it unless he writes his name with the Serbian ending.
If he attempts to defend his Bulgarian nationality the police deal with him on some trumped-up charges, and he is sent to prison. Sixteen hundred teachers have been expelled from Serbian Macedonia ; and hundreds of priests, not only the priests of the Bulgarian national church but also those of the Catholic and Protestant churches have been driven into exile.
By Prof. Will S. Monroe
Published September 1914 by "The Page Company" of the Colonial Press, Boston USA
The majority of the inhabitants of Macedonia are Bulgarians. Greeks largely inhabit the southern coast, and there are Turks, Vlakhs, Albanians, and Serbians in various parts of the province. The population of Macedonia is about two million and a quarter. Of this number about eight hundred thousand profess the Mohammedan religion, seventy five thousand the Hebrew, three thousand six hundred the Roman Catholic, two thousand the Protestant, and the remainder the Orthodox religion. Some of the Orthodox are affiliated with the Bulgarian national church and some with the Greek branch.
The story of the partition of Macedonia after the Balkan wars has been recounted in previous chapters in this work. It remains to note the manner in which heirs of Turkey treated their inheritance. Through the machinations of the Greeks and the Serbians, the portion of Macedonia that fell to Bulgaria was very small. Greece got the lion's share, although a considerable portion became the possession of Serbia.
The conditions of eastern Macedonia (now New Greece) as they were last June before the second Balkan war, and as they are to-day, are carefully treated in a recent article by Mr. H. M. Wallis published in the Quarterly Review for April, 1914.1 Mr. Wallis spent six months in the Balkans in the winter of 1912-1913, distributing relief on behalf of the Society of Friends of England to the victims of the first Balkan war. He has recently made a study of the region devastated by the Greeks during the second Balkan war. He expresses the conviction that Macedonia is one of the most beautiful and fruitful parts of Europe. It is the seat of one of the most ancient civilizations but little known today.
For five centuries it was vilely governed by the Turks. Since 1887 it has been the cockpit of rival sectaries, patriarchist Greeks and Bulgarian exarcists. It was traversed by the Turkish army in the first Balkan war, but it suffered surprisingly little. It was ruled by the Bulgars for six months (to June, 1913). The conquerors paid for what they took ; discipline was rigid ; no looting was allowed. There was some local friction, due to fanatical Greek ecclesiastics. The skirmishes at Pangaion and Nigrita were the consequences of Greek troops intruding upon districts under Bulgarian administration.
The rural population was solidly Bulgarian in the northern half of the territory and largely so to within a few miles of the Egean sea. There were considerable Turkish districts and smaller settlements of Kutzo-Vlakhs and gypsies.
But the mass of the population from the Rhodope mountains to the sea were Bulgarians, speaking the Bulgarian language and worshipping according to the rites of the Bulgarian exarchist church. The people were consciously and ardently attached to their brothers in the kingdom of Bulgaria. They were courteous, industrious, and virile. They lived for the most part upon their own properties and produced wine, silk, cotton, tobacco, leather, and foodstuffs. Despite much discouragement from their former Turkish masters, they had educated themselves. The schoolhouse was a conspicuous object in a majority of the villages, and in all the towns the school-teacher was the leading man. Such was the condition of the Bulgarians in eastern Macedonia in June, 1913.
"Where are these Macedonian Bulgars today?"
"Whey have disappeared".
Mr. Wallis says:
"Whey have disappeared".
" So far as human agency can effect it, they have been obliterated. By shot, shell, and bayonet, by torture and fire, by proscription, imprisonment, and forcible exile, the whole non-Greek element has been destroyed or chased out. Nor have destruction and proscription stopped at Bulgarians. Eoman Catholics and Protestants, and a mixed multitude of Turks, Kutzo-Vlakhs, and Jews have been impartially maltreated, robbed, and expelled at the point of the bayonet".
After five centuries of Turkish rule the Bulgars of Macedonia still retained their language, customs, and nationality. The brutal methods of denationalization employed by the Greeks and Serbians merit the severe condemnation of all civilized nations. Serbia, for example, has suppressed all Bulgarian books and newspapers ; closed the schools and the churches ; driven away the priests and the teachers, and forced the inhabitants to change their names, substituting the Serbian itch for the Bulgarian off. A Bulgarian in Serbian Macedonia who wants any legal document cannot obtain it unless he writes his name with the Serbian ending.
If he attempts to defend his Bulgarian nationality the police deal with him on some trumped-up charges, and he is sent to prison. Sixteen hundred teachers have been expelled from Serbian Macedonia ; and hundreds of priests, not only the priests of the Bulgarian national church but also those of the Catholic and Protestant churches have been driven into exile.
The original book cover as printed in 1914 in USA.
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