Attempts of Hellenization
Council for Research into South-Eastern Europe
of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Skopje, Macedonia, 1993
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From the beginning of the 19th century, and particularly after the liberation of Greece, the Patriarchate of Constantinople became the principal medium for Greek national propaganda activity in Macedonia. The Patriarch Gregory V, for example, in 1860 and again in 1819 dispatched circular letters to all metropolitan dioceses in Macedonia with the request that they propagate the Greek language and Greek education among Christians. In other words the Patriarchate was building into its program a new, and extremely important, item: Graecization of the non-Greek Christian Peoples.
In accordance with this policy it declared the entire Orthodox population of Macedonia to be Greek, regardless of Ethnic origin. The Patriarchate, however, which was wholly in the service of Greek interests, was not amenable to the use of the vernacular language in either churches or schools, since it feared that if this were realized virtually the whole non-Greek orthodox population would be lost to the Greek nationalist cause. This cause, known as the "great idea", had become the banner of Greek expansionism in the Balkans and was expanded to the Greek assembly in 1844 by the Greek Prime minister Koletis. It envisaged the expansion of the Greek state to Constantinople and into Asia Minor (Nikos Svoronos, Episkopisi tis neoelinikis istorias, II, Athens, 1976, 84).
But the way led through Macedonia, and Macedonia, while having been proclaimed by the Greek ruling circles as "most Greek", was bound to Graecism by the church alone. Now, especially after the establishment of the new Slav Orthodox church (the Bulgarian Exarchate, 1870) a great many Macedonians and Vlachs began to leave the Greek church.
The Universal Patriarchate declared the Exarchate schismatic. An anathema was cast on all believers who left the Greek church and this intimidated the majority of Macedonians. This was the main reason why very many of them remained in the "church of their forefathers". Various societies organized by the central sylloges in Constantinople and in Athens, and with significant funding from the Greek government, intensified their activities on Macedonian soil, opening and supporting various clubs, schools, hostels, and hospitals.
With the assistance of the Greek consuls, the metropolitans were active in Macedonian villages, where they opened many schools, simultaneously spreading the network of the church and corrupting village leaders with the aim of winning their villages over to the Patriarchate. All of this had one single aim: to make "Greeks" of the Macedonians and to have arguments they could place before Europe to prove the "Greek" character of Macedonia and their "right" to it.
The fact that they were unable to achieve schools and various other instruments of propaganda was left for statistics to deal with. A supposed increase in the number of Greek schools, with no foundation in fact, led to the false conclusion that there was a numerical superiority of Greeks in Macedonia. Figures were published which were intended to demonstrate that the Greek element in Macedonia greatly surpassed that of the other Orthodox, etc.
In 1904 the French diplomatic representative in Salonica, M. Stegue, reckoning the Greek statistics to be extremely unreal, wrote among other things that of 130 000 Slav members of the Patriarchate in the Vilayet, "only about 10 000 could be considered to have been Graecised or to have gained for the Greek party".
The question of the language was the most delicate for the Greek side. It could not be concealed nor could it be "explained". The Macedonians were variously styled: "Slavophone Greeks", "Miktogloss Greeks" or "Bulgarophone Greeks". The following explanation was constructed in support of this: the Greek Language in Northern Macedonia had, in the course of time, supposedly suffered many admixtures that a "Helleno-Slavophone dialect" had developed which consisted of Greek, Latin, Slavonic and little Bulgarian (Filipidis Dim, I Makedonia-istorikos, entologikos, stratiotikos, en Athines, 1906, 36-7).
The most striking proof of the failure of the Greek policy of making Greeks of the Macedonians and of the Vlachs was the Ilinden Uprising of 1903. In the very place where a significant number of Macedonians recognized the Greek Patriarch, in the Kostur and Krushevo districts, the uprising was most widespread, most dynamic and achieved the greatest results. The Uprising was therefore declared to be an anti-Greek action by the Greek side.
Once it had been recognized in Athens that Macedonia could not be made Greek through the means of the church and schools, it was decided to supplement the old methods with force of arms. From the autumn of 1904 Greek bands, formed and armed in Greece and led by officers of the Greek army, began systematically to enter Macedonia to put the Greek Government9s program into practice: to compel the Macedonian and Vlach population by means of fierce reprisals, guns and knives to return to the rule of the Greek church and to declare themselves Greeks.
Expulsion of Ethnic Macedonians After 1913
"Following the partition of Macedonia in 1913, Aegean Macedonia was annexed by Greece and since then its indigenous people, the ethnic Macedonians, became the target and often the victim of the oppressive policies of Greek state. Today, after nearly ninety years of assimilation efforts by the Greek governments it seems that measures have proved to be unsuccessful in Hellenizing the region. Currently, the ethnic Macedonians, estimated around 1,000,000 by some sources, still constitute the majority of population in that part of the Greece, Aegean part of Macedonia."
After the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), the First World War (1914-1918) and especially after the Peace Treaties of Lausanne (1923), which gave the Macedonian issue a central place, there began a great ethnic cleansing of Macedonians, who in 1912 had numbered 374,000, from the Aegean part of Macedonia.
The large colonization brought about by the Greeks was followed by a law passed by the Greek government in 1926 on the change of the toponymy of the Aegean part of Macedonia. All villages, towns, rivers and mountains were renamed and given Greek names.Following the political partition of Macedonia in 1913, Greece launched upon an active policy of the denial of the nationality and the assimilation of the Macedonians. The name Macedonian and the Macedonian language were prohibited and the Macedonians were referred to as Bulgarians, Slavophone Greeks or simply "endopes" (natives).
At the same time, all the Macedonians were forced to change their names and surnames, the latter having to end in -is, -os or -poulos.The attacks on the Macedonian language culminated at the time of Ioannis Metaxas (1936). General Metaxas banned the use of Macedonian not only in everyday life in the villages, in the market-place, in ordinary and natural human communications and at funerals, but also within the family circle. Adult Macedonians, regardless of their age, were forced to attend what were known as evening schools and to learn "the melodious Greek language". The violation of the ban on the use of the Macedonian language in the villages, market-places or the closed circle of the family caused great numbers of Macedonians to be convicted and deported to desolate Greek islands.
Greece followed a policy of assimilating the Macedonian minority and Hellenizing the Macedonian region in northern Greece. The government changed place names and personal names from Macedonian to Greek, (Decree No. 332 of 1926) ordered religious services to be performed in Greek, and altered religious icons."
A few examples of changed village names : (click here for complete list)
| Macedonian Name | New Greek Name |
| Armensko | Alonas |
| Banica | Vevi |
| Bouf | Akrita |
| Gabresh | Gavros |
| Kostur | Kastoria |
| Kukush | Kilkis |
| Lerin | Florina |
| Negochani | Niki |
| Oshchima | Trigonon |
| Solun | Thessaloniki |
| Voden | Edessa |
| Zhelevo | Antartikon |
Banica
Lerin
In 1927 the Greek government issued a directive calling for the destruction of all Slavic inscriptions in churches and forbidding church services from being held in a Slavic language. Finally, in 1936 a law was passed ordering that all Slavic personal names, both first and last, be Hellenized (Human Rights Watch/Helsinki 1994b: 6-7). Jovan Filipov, therefore, became Yannis Filippidis, and Lena Stoikov became Eleni Stoikou."
If Macedonia was always Greek, why would the Greek government have to change the Macedonian names of people, towns, and villages to Greek?
The ABECEDAR Case
The Greek government, upon signing the Treaty of Sevres on August 10, 1920, undertook obligations to protect its national minorities. Articles 7,8,and 9 stipulated the free use of the minorities' language, education, religious services, etc.
The Greek government also notified the League of Nations that "measures were being taken towards the opening of schools with instruction in the Slav language in the following school year of 1925/26" and towards granting freedom to practice religion in the Slav language. The primer intended for the Macedonian children in this part of Macedonia, entitled ABECEDAR, was offered as an argument in support of this statement. This primer, prepared by a special government commission and published by the Greek government in Athens in 1925, was written in the Lerin-Bitola vernacular (even though Bitola was not within the Greek borders!) but printed in a specially adapted Latin alphabet (instead of the traditional Cyrillic, which was the official alphabet of Bulgaria and Serbia).
At the last moment before the deadline the Greek government replied by cable saying that "the population of these villages knows neither the Serbian nor the Bulgarian language and speaks nothing but a Slav-Macedonian idiom". Thus the Greek government officially recognized for the first time the separate national entity of the Macedonians within Greece's borders, which is also clearly confirmed by the pure language of the pnmer, ABECEDAR, published in Greece. Following the stormy and violent reaction in the press of the three monarchies the Greek government decided, with relief, not to introduce the primer, which was already published, into Macedonian schools.
Official policy, since the integration into the modern Greek State of the region called Macedonia, has been to deny the existence of the Slav-Macedonians as a distinct people, separate from the Greeks. But lingering just below the bright, hard surface of the discourse of authority is an ill-concealed malaise. In 1925, the country's education ministry prepared a primary school reader in Slav-Macedonian entitled Abecedar for submission to the League of Nations.
The book was to be held up as proof that the Macedonian Slavic tongue was neither Bulgarian nor Serbian, but a distinct language protected and encouraged by the State. On the delegation's return from Geneva, the Abecedar was confiscated and destroyed. Two years later, by government decree, all Slavonic church icons were repainted with Greek names.
Why had it become necessary to eradicate that which did not exist?
St. Atanas Church in Zhelevo, Aegean Macedonia
The original Macedonian inscriptions were wiped out and replaced with Greek writing
ABECEDAR, published in Greece in 1925
The dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-1940) was especially brutal in its treatment of the Slavic speakers of Aegean Macedonia, who by this time had increasingly begun to identify themselves as Macedonians. On December 18, 1936, the Metaxas dictatorship issued a legal act concerning 'Activity Against State Security.' This law punished claims of minority rights. Ont he basis of this act, thousands of Macedonians were arrested, imprisoned, or expelled from Greece. On September 7, 1938, the legal act 2366 was issued. This banned the use of the Macedonian language even in the domestic sphere. General Metaxas severely persecuted those who spoke Macedonian, even in private everyday life in the villages, at funerals, and at home.All Macedonian localities were flooded with posters that read, 'Speak Greek.'
Evening schools were opened in which adult Macedonian were taught Greek. No Macedonian schools of any kind were permitted. Any public manifestation of Macedonian national feeling and its outward expression through language, song or dance was forbidden and severely punished by the Metaxas regime. People who spoke Macedonian were beaten, fined, and imprisoned. Use of the Macedonian language meant harsh reprisals, including a "language tax". For every Macedonian word, you would be fined 30 to 40 drachmas (40 cents U.S.). Almost 5,000 Macedonians were sent to jails and prison camps for violating this prohibition against the use of the Macedonian language. Mass exile of sections of Macedonians and other 'difficult' minorities took place.
Macedonians Prohibited from Speaking their Native Language
During the period 1936-1940 about 5250 Slav-Macedonians were prosecuted for using Macedonian language in public places. Such practices continued well after WWII and are still prevalent in Greece today. The newspaper articles (with the accompanying translations) and the above photograph show how desperate and determined Greece is to eradicate any claim of a "minority".
Greek newspaper Eliniki Phon (8 Aug 1959) published in Florina (Aegean Macedonia) which reads:
"Tomorrow the inhabitants of Atrapos (original Slavic name Krapeshina) will swear before God and the people in an official ceremony that hence forward they will promise not to speak the Slav dialect, which in the hands of the Slav propagandists, has become a weapon pointed at the national consciousness of the Macedonians. The proud people of Atropos will take an oath to speak Greek only, so that in this way they may stress their Greek origin and the Greek consciousness"
Greek newspaper Phoni tis Kastorias (4 Oct 1959) reprints an article from the Salonika newspaper Makedonia which reads:
"During the last two months the inhabitants of some villages in northern Greece (Aegean Macedonia) in official mass ceremonies proclaimed that they will cease to use the Slav dialect and that in future they will only speak Greek. The first ceremony took place in the village of Trebeno, district of Kojani, which has, according to the census of 1952, 692 inhabitants. It was followed by other villages such as Breshcheni, Kostour district, (41 inhabitants), Atropos (Krapeshina), Florina district, (466 inhabitants) and so forth."
1959 - Village of Atrapos, Aegean Macedonia
people forced to swear the following oath:
"I do promise before God, the people, and the official state authorities, that from this day on I shall cease to speak the Slav dialect which gives ground for misunderstandings to the enemies of our country - the Bulgarians - and that I will speak always and everywhere the official language of our fatherland, the Greek language, in which the holy gospel is written."