Political, cultural and linguistic practices used by Greek state to homogenize diverse populations after the Balkan Wars.

1

The Hellenization of people of Southern Macedonia after 1913:

Political, cultural and linguistic practices used by Greek state to homogenize diverse populations after the Balkan Wars.

Alexandros Balatsoukas S3777316

MA in Multilingualism Faculty of Arts University of Groningen

Supervisors:

Dr. Goffe Jensma Dr. Eva Juarros Daussà

Date: 13

August, 2019 15.460 Words

2 Acknowledgements:

First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Goffe Jensma for his constant willingness to provide me with expert advice, constant support, materials, significant feedback and academic guidance. He assisted in the structure and better understanding of the research and was also encouraging me throughout this thesis.

Many times, he assisted me to focus on my aims, by narrowing down my thoughts and specifying the objectives of the thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Eva Juarros Daussà that accepted to become the second reader of my thesis. In addition, I would like to address special thanks to my friend Daniël H.

Thomassen for giving me critical advice, exchanging opinions, providing feedback, keeping me motivated and helping me with my thesis, especially during the last month.

This thesis would be impossible without the constant support, stoic patience, appreciation and bind trust

of my parents and brother, who are living in Greece. Last, but not least, I am grateful to the contribution

of the academic colleague E. Kayo, for providing me with fruitful feedback and exchanging opinions

regarding this topic. Most of all, I would like to thank him, because he was always eager to discuss ideas,

while he never ceased challenging my way and limits of thinking, which ended up to a development of

new ideas.

3

Table of Contents

Abstract ... 4

1. Introduction ... 5

2. Theoretical Background ... 8

2.1. Creation of Small Nations ... 9

2.2. Ethnie and Nation ... 10

2.3. Genocide ... 11

2.4. Language shift, linguistic discrimination and Language Death. ... 11

2.5. Language as a criterion of nation determination. ... 13

2.6. Statement of purpose ... 15

3. Methodology and Approach... 16

4. Linguistic, cultural and ethnic counting of Macedonian populations. ... 17

4.1. description and enumeration of various populations in Macedonia. ... 18

4.1.1. Vlachs in Macedonia ... 18

4.1.2. Gypsies in Macedonia ... 18

4.1.3. Jews in Macedonia ... 18

4.1.4. Albanians in Macedonia ... 19

4.1.5. Macedonians in Macedonia. ... 19

4.2. Description and enumeration of the Bulgarians, Greeks, Ottomans and Serbians in Macedonia .... 19

4.2.1. Ottomans – Turks in Macedonia ... 20

4.2.2. Serbians in Macedonia ... 21

4.2.3. Bulgarians in Macedonia ... 21

4.2.4. Greeks in Macedonia ... 22

5. Cultural, linguistic and political practices used by the Greek state. ... 24

5.1. First attempts of Hellenization. ... 24

5.2. Early linguistic measures of Hellenization of people in Aegean Macedonia. ... 26

5.3. Hellenization process interwar period. ... 29

5.4. Imposed Hellenization during the dictatorship of Metaxas (1936-1941). ... 33

5.5. Hellenization after WWII. ... 34

6. Discussion ... 36

7. Instead of Conclusions ... 38

8. References ... 39

Appendix A ... 44

Glossary: ... 59

4

Abstract

After the Balkan Wars, the region of Macedonia was divided into Pirin’s, Vardar’s and Southern or Aegean Macedonia. The last one was incorporated to the Greek state, however, the populations living there were greatly inhomogeneous, especially linguistically. In addition, the percentages of the ethnicity of the people that were residing in an area, that were classified mainly according to their first language, could affect the sovereignty of a state over it. In order to evade this from happening the Greek state implemented various practices that were reduced to the essence of Hellenization, aiming to increase the percentage of the Greek-speaking population in Southern Macedonia, given the fact that language was considered to be significantly associated to the national identity and consciousness. Thus, the focal point of this study is to learn why the Hellenization took place in the aforementioned territory, the practices that were applied and the results of this policy that was mainly focused on the linguistic conversion of people.

This literary review was based on primary sources of the early 20

century and secondary sources and studies that were conducted later. This thesis aspires to explain the phenomenon of Hellenization through the critical analysis, relation of the nation and national identity with the language and linguistic value of its examples to reveal the reasons behind its implementation.

Keywords: Hellenization, Balkan Wars, Greece, Ottoman Empire, Southern Macedonia, identity,

language, language policy.

5

1. Introduction

Following the French Revolution, Europe, including its ‘backyard’, the Balkans, was transformed on a breeding ground for nationalism. As a result, by the mid-19th century, two nation-states had emerged in the peninsula, Serbia and Greece, following their respective Revolutions in 1815 and 1821

. Following their internal political consolidation, both states, launched by 1844 an irredentist policy, namely Načertanijeand Megali Idea

. Both policies aimed to restore two medieval empires: Serbian elite on the one hand made it its primal policy to restore the mid-14th century short-lived ‘Empire’ of Tsar Dušan while their Greek colleagues saw themselves as heirs of the Byzantine Empire and wanted to restore it

.

As one can easily understand the claims of both states, Greece and Serbia, overlapped on many territories, including the historical region of Macedonia. Later on, following the Russo-Turkish war of 1876-77 and the emergence of Modern Bulgaria the picture become even more complex because another claimant was added to the list

. However, someone cannot ignore another player, the locals because during the last part of the 19th century a Macedonian national identity had emerged which led to a general uprising by August 2, 1903

.

The uprising, which become known as ‘Ilinden’, because it began during Elijah's day, was crushed by the Sublime Porte three months after

. Despite that, Ilinden, constitutes a turning point on the Macedonian Question, the Balkan claimants understood that something had to be done in order to win the ‘mind and hearts’ of the people of Macedonia to their respective cause. Initially the focus was set on winning them over cultural and mainly linguistic means on educational, language and religious lines

.

On this level Bulgarians were having clearly the upper hand given the fact that their education system was more ‘modern’ in line with the more advanced European standards used to teach more practical skills; in addition, given the fact that Bulgarian and Macedonian are mutually intelligible even more than Scandinavian languages, understanding and learning were easier. The same can be said regarding the other component, the religious one, which was an important element in the life of a population. It was constituted mainly by peasants, the scriptures and the liturgy in a familiar tongue, made it more appealing to them

. The conclusion was that Greece was not able to control Macedonia during the early 20

century. Thus, a new more radical approach was adopted, which in the Greek historiography is known as ‘O Makedonikos Agonas’, which in English can be translated as ‘The Macedonian Struggle’. The new policy, practically transformed Macedonia from 1904-1908 into a battleground of different guerrilla groups

. Soon, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Albanian, Romanians and Macedonians began to clash with one ultimate goal, to make the inhabitants to switch allegiance by the use of linguistic or cultural similarities and sometimes by brute force and intimidation. However, the results of the Balkan wars gave the upper hand to Greece

.

1 Snyder & Younger, (2018). p. 142.; Dakin, (1973). P. 57.

2 Lampe, (1996). P. 52.

3 Dragostinova (2016). P. 21.

4 Crawford, (2006). P. 508., Minahan, (2000). P. 439.

5 Daskalov & Tchavdar. (2013). P. 276.; Dragostinova, (2016). P. 32.

6 Lampe, (1996). P. 64.

7 Dragostinova, (2016). P. 32.

8 Roudometof, (2006). P. 41.

9 Marder, (2004). P. 1.

10 Dragostinova, (2016). P. 33

6

During the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 in which the Greek army conquered a large portion of Macedonia, as can be read in the much quoted Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Report,; the investigation team was shocked the orders given to the army were to ‘massacre the young, and spare none but the old people, children and minors”, that could learn and adapt to the new language and culture without much resistance

. The aim of this policy according to the Commission was ‘clearly to spare none but those no longer capable of carrying on the race and those still young enough to lose their nationality

’.

Thus, following the second Balkan War by summer 1913, Greece received the largest portion of Macedonia through the Treaty of Bucharest. Nonetheless though, it amended the Treaty of London, that had concluded the First Balkan War. Greece added in its territory a big part of Macedonia, that included the city of Thessaloniki and a large part of Epirus. The part of Macedonia that was incorporated by Greece is called Aegean or Southern Macedonia

.

Additionally, according to the Treaty of Bucharest, Macedonia was split up in three states (in fact it could be said that Macedonia was split into four pieces, if someone includes a very small portion of the region Macedonia which was included with the borders of the newborn Albanian state by the Treaty of London of 1913). Bulgaria retained Pirin Macedonia, which name is derived from the mountains of the same name;

Serbia obtained Vardar’s Macedonia, whose name derives from the river of the same name and last but least Southern or Aegean Macedonia went to Greece

.

As for Southern Macedonia, the estimations of the populations, proved that there was a mosaic that was containing Muslims and people from the neighboring Balkan states. This fact that was in contrast to the policy of ethnic homogenization of Greece. So, in order to unite people that cannot communicate, due to the use of different languages the term of Hellenization (ekselinismos) was introduced, because the “Slavs were insisting in the Slavic language”. According to Manolis Triadafilidis, in a handbook published in 1916, Hellenization is the act when a Greek “teaches and transmit to these people that are talking another language, my language. I make them able to speak the language that I do, not as something strange or peculiar, as we do with French or German, but in a way that it becomes step by step their maternal, in order to use it in their everyday life

”.

The practices that were implemented followed the general rule of the Hellenization. In order to make Greek the new mother tongue, the Greek policy was focusing initially on the reduction and later on the annihilation of the contact that non-Greek speakers had in other languages. A variety of practices were firstly implemented during the Balkan Wars and a big number of them was being realized until the WWII. Even today a very small number of these practices are valid even today

.

The aim of this study was to find out which were the actual reasons of Hellenization of the non-Greek populations in Aegean Macedonia. While the main question of this study may be considered broad, some sub-questions will be added to frame it and provide us with a clearer and more specific answer to it.

• How many non-Greek people was living in Southern Macedonia in 1913?

• Why did the process of Hellenization focused on changing the first language of the foreign populations?

• Which practices were implemented to achieve Hellenization?

• Which of these practices were effective?

11 Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars. (1914).

P. 148.

12 Idem.

13 Anderson, Hershey, Maloy & Shartle, (1918). P. 439-440.

14 Everett-Heath, J (2000). Print. p. 194.

15 Kostopoulos, (2002).

16 Idem.

7

This study aspires to offer some important insights to the ways that the Greek state tried to homogenize the culturally and linguistically diverse populations of Greek Macedonia. The overall structure of the study takes the form of six chapters. In the second chapter a solid body of literature is covering theories that explain the creation of a nation, the ethnie and the national consciousness. With that in mind, we will later analyze the importance of the language with the identity. Then the ways that a nation tries to restrict a minority within its borders will be shown. This will be extended in a linguistic level, that we will explain the language death and shift. Lastly, the importance of language in the estimation of the people of a nation will be presented. the main theories of the association of language and culture to the national identity will be analyzed

.

A small third chapter will provide us with the tools required to analyze the estimations of populations in the region of Macedonia that are presented in the fourth chapter. Making use of the critical analysis of discourse of Foucault

and the theoretical tools provided from the second chapter, we will analyze the data collected by primary and secondary sources regarding the practices used to Hellenize the populations of Greek Macedonia. The analysis of the results may provide us with some answers to the sub-questions that will bring us closer to the reveal of the reasons that led the Greek state to the Hellenization of the non- Greek people.

Figure 1: Contemporary Ottoman Map of the vilayet of Solun (Salonica).

17 Hroch, (1985).; Rama, (2019).; Leerssen, (2008).; Smith, (1995).; Lemkin, (1944).; Crystal, (2014).; Hansen, (2015).

18 Foucault, Sheridan & Foucault (1972). P. 5-10.

8

Figure 2: Boundaries of the Balkans after the First and the Second Balkan War.

2. Theoretical Background

In this chapter, all the theoretical tools and concepts that are going to be used will be presented and described in order to analyze the data found. The main theories are the national identity construction and how language is used for it by M. Hroch and Gellner, the common feeling of security synthesis that unites the people under this identity, as explained by Rama, and the close relation and important role of

language to the maintenance and transformation of identity by Leerssen. Later the ways of limiting the

different elements will be given with emphasis on linguistic restriction and language death. Lastly, the

importance of the language to the construction of an identity and the territorialization will be analyzed.

9

2.1. Creation of Small Nations

In this section the creation of nations will be presented. There are two kind of nations, the big ones that are independent, and the small that are dependent. All the Balkan states that participated in the Balkan Wars were relatively newborn dependent small nations. In other words, these nations did not form an independent political unit or did not possess an uninterrupted cultural production in their own ethnic language. But how is a nation constructed?

According to Miroslav Hroch, the formation of small nations is divided in three stages. In the first stage, a small group of intellectuals develops an interest in the national past. They conduct linguistical and

historical research of their respective nation without any specific demand. During the second, a new generation of pioneer intellectuals discover their work, continue to study the language, culture and history of an oppressed nationality that is “dissatisfied with the limitation of interest to the antiquities of the land, the language and the culture

”. Their objective is to construct a national idea, by organizing the texts of the previous individuals and divulge it. They create a national consciousness and spread it to a body of people

.

Rama argues that “security synthesis is the essence of the nation and that it constitutes its

consciousness

”. During the third stage, national consciousness is distributed to the masses in order to gain support

. An important standard for the small nations is the speed and effectiveness of the

transmission of the national consciousness. The people that last are struck by the “national consciousness”

are the masses

.

The third phase is concluded when the nationalist agendas ensure the support of the masses

. As Antony Smith claims, nationalists are people that believe that the nation is a natural and ancient element of the world. In the small nations, their obligation is to remind the full of glory common past to people of the same nation, in order to restore the prestige of this brilliant nation. During the third stage the idea of the new generation of intellectuals wins the “mind and hearts of people” and transforms it into a mass movement

. The cultural and linguistic similarity between the members of the same nation allows them to have higher degree of communication. The ties that are created through communication and common rules create an impression of equal opportunities for the members that belong to the same nation

. Generally, nation is described in the Oxford dictionary as “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory

.” Leerssen supports that the three pillars of the nations are its society, culture and race

. Actually, the principal constituent of identification between members of the same nation is the recognition of the shared membership by the members of the nation. The ideology of believing that they share mutual culture, language and attributes with certain people, forming a specific national group that separates them from members of other nations is nationalism

.

19 Hroch, (1985). P. 8-10, 22.

20 Hobsbawm, (1990). P. 11.

21 Rama, (2019). P. 3.

22 Hroch, (1985). P. 22-23.

23 Hobsbawm, (1990). P. 11-12.

24 Hobsbawm, (1990). P.12.

25 Smith, (1994). P. 18-19.

26 Hroch, (1996). P. 79.

27 Stevenson, (2010).

28 Leerssen, (2008). P. 16.

29 Gellner, (1983). P. 7.

10

This common consciousness of “patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts”, sometimes “marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries” is listed as nationalism in the Oxford English Dictionary

. For Leerssen the concept of nationalism is a confusing one. By not having a stable form and covering a wide specter of ideas, it can be rewarding and threatening at the same time. He claims that it is not a simplistic common “sense of national identity”, but he presents it as three assumptions that combined form a political ideology

.

Firstly, the nation is an essential collective mass of people that is different amongst other nations. The faith of the people in the nation that they belong to is stronger than to any other allegiance. Secondly, the state that embodies a nation becomes its representative of the cultural, linguistic and ethnic characteristics that it supports. This way the loyalty by the members of the nation is consolidated to this state. Thirdly, the territorial limits of the state are identified with the territories that people that have the same cultural, linguistic and ethnic characteristics with its nation are living

.

2.2. Ethnie and Nation

The Greek derived term “ethnie” was firstly used and introduced in modern scholarship by Antony Smith as a different interpretation of nation. By its most essential definition, according to Smith it expresses

“named units of population with common ancestry myths and historical memories, elements of shared culture, some link with a historic territory and some measure of solidarity, at least among their elites

”.

According to Dysernick, ethnicity is established amongst members of a nation on a common recognition of a mutual self-image, regardless corporal or cultural resemblances

.

From the early 19

century onwards, many new multicultural and multilingual ethnies, determined politically by their religion, emerged on the Balkans. These ethnies, until the early 19

century were still under the weak Ottoman Empire, claiming their own national states. Based on the political structure that was adopted by each nation, Shinasi Rama argues that the strategies followed by the ethnies to form a state in the Balkans are divided into three categories. The confessional existential entity that was used by Greece and Montenegro is pictured as a variety of ethnies united by a shared religion. Similarly, Bulgarians and Serbs were united by the same religion, with the only difference that they composed a consistent ethnie.

This kind of entity is introduced by Rama as confessional existential entity. Unlike the previous paradigms, the Albanian nation was structured on a unique existential entity, the multiconfessional. It was the only nation in the Balkans that was religiously tolerant and used the ethnicity as a shared link of the ethnie, without making use of the dominant influence of the religion

.

Rama introduces the term “security synthesis” and defines it as the practices that are implemented by a community to defend itself versus a threat to the group. The different cultural, linguistic and national background of the threat serves as a tool of cohesion and unity for the members of the nation. The continuous menace functions as a fundamental link of the national identity. Therefore, by introducing an essential danger of the nation, national coherence is developed via the security synthesis in order to ensure the survival of the nation from the “deadly threat” by any means, even if they are extreme

.

30 Stevenson, (2010).

31 Leerssen, (2008). P. 14.

32 Leerssen, (2008). P. 14-15.

33 Smith, (1995). P. 57.

34Leerssen, (2008) P. 16.

35 Rama, (2019). P. 70.

36 Rama, (2019). P. 3, 19, 45, 48.

11

2.3. Genocide

The dogmatic solution that was implemented during the early 20

century was the “genocide”. Lemkin first used this term in the 1940s to define “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group”. This procedure involves a “coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the liquidation of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” Lemkin adds to his definition that some of the objectives of this action are “the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion

. In the same vein, Porter uses the term genocide to refer to

“the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, by a government or its agents, of a racial, sexual, religious, tribal, ethnic or political minority

”.

Porter and Lemkin argue that the core of genocide is decomposition of the “essential foundations of the life of national groups”; the disintegration of linguistic, racial, cultural and ethnic minorities

. In his analysis, Lemkin emphasizes that genocide is associated with the term “attack the nationhood”. Several practices of achieving it is the downturn of the usage of local institutions, indigenous, local or traditional languages, religions and cultural practices. Other activities that have the same goal can be depopulation, declining fertility, raised economic hardships and moral devaluation

.

To understand better the nature of systematic decomposition of a group, Porter highlights its most used mechanism, which is the use of unfavorable official ideologies and practices by the dominant nation against weaker populations. Actually, these strategies are the implementation of catastrophic ideologies, imposing the terror of them to groups of people. They are followed by the desire not only to sovereign and control a minority community, but to systematically exterminate it, as if it was inferior or an enemy

. Moreover, another dangerous side of this phenomenon is that it is highly attractive to policymakers that hope to find a decisive solution to polyphonic situations. The potential of this practice gives them the opportunity to eliminate the problem unilaterally, extinguishing the diversity between groups

.

Whereas genocide is understood generally as one-sided and dogmatic, it can be also found in the literature in the form of a more flexible approach, as a “continuum”. Specifically, its range begins from a

demographic supervision and restraints of a group (i.e. imposed cultural assimilation, migration by force, unfair behavior, language restriction or even prohibition). A second level could be unfairness and

intolerance (e.g. forced exiles of people, terrorism, punishments and exploitation of the group that uses its own language or preserves its own culture). The last stage of the spectrum could be to cause total

extinction of the cultural and linguistic elements, or even of the entire group

.

2.4. Language shift, linguistic discrimination and Language Death.

In this section, the implementation of practices that lead to language death in individual and collective level will be presented. In addition, the concepts of language shift and its three stages will be analyzed and the way that minority languages are extinguished or replaced by majors, as a result of political causes.

Lastly, the phenomenon of language discrimination that derives from the language shift will be presented.

37 Lemkin, (1944). P. 79.

38 Porter, (1982). P. 12.

39 Lemkin, (1944). P. 79. Porter, (1982). P.8.

40 Lemkin, (1944). P. 79.

41 Porter, (1982).; Johanssohn & Chalk, (1987).

42 Dadrian, (1999).

43 Kinloch & Mohan, (2005), P. 17.

12

The process of the reduction of the linguistic competence in the language of a community that results to the extinction of its native or fluent speakers is defined as language death

. According to Crystal, language death is generally a result of language shift, which can be natural, forced by the ruling class or by the masses, language attrition, when speakers decide to stop speaking a language and linguicide

. Language death affects every language form, such as minority languages or dialects

.

The procedure that an individual speaker loses the ability to use his/her first or native language is named language attrition or language loss. The reason behind this process is in general the isolation from the speakers of their native language and the acquisition of another one. The usage, comprehension and production of the first language is interfered by the second language. Language attrition is happening when the second language gradually plays a more significant and dominant role than the first in the daily life of these bilingual speakers, finally replacing their mother tongue

.

Research has shown that children are more vulnerable to language attrition than older speakers. The younger children are, the more susceptible to the first language

. If children are young enough and are daily exposed to a second language and have little to no exposure to their first language, they could eventually lose it

. Language attrition is limited to the individual, but on the other hand, Crystal defines the systematic attempt to collectively exterminate and replace a minor or minority language by a major forcing cultural assimilation, as a result of political causes as “linguicide”

.

The linguistic genocide, according to Crystal, follows three board stages, in order to totally exterminate a language by replacing it with another aiming to a cultural assimilation. Language shift and language death are used as tools of the language replacement and of cultural assimilation. The first step is to put social, economic and political pressure to people in order to speak the dominant language. The second stage is characterized by bilingual people that have learned the dominant language, but maintain competence in their first. However, the competence in the second language is becoming greater at the expense of the first, which is declining. Crystal supports that the pressures come from the top down and from bottom to the top at the same time during this process

.

The third stage starts when the new generation is proficient in the dominant language, which is a symbol of power and prestige, contrary to their parents’ first language. The new generation often is ashamed to speak its ancestors’ language and becomes less proficient or even unable to use it, since there are less opportunities to use it

.This was a common practice of strong nations that imposed their own culture and language to people that were under their sovereignty and were speaking another language, leading to a gradual loss and intimidation of the native language and language shift to the dominant language

. Jonathan Pool defines linguistic discrimination or linguicism as the unfair and unjustifiable conduct against an individual, due to its use of language

. Skutnabb-Kangas defines linguicism as the “ideologies and structures which are used to legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce unequal division of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language

".

44 Crystal, (2014). P. 1.

45 Crystal, (2014).

46 Crystal, (2014). P. 2-5, 31-33.

47 Schmid & Köpke, (2007).

48 Schmid & Dusseldorp, (2010).

49 Hyltenstam, Bylund, Abrahamsson & Park, (2009).

50 Crystal, (2014). P. 113.

51 Crystal, (2014). P. 101-102.

52 Crystal, (2014). P. 102-104.

53 Van, Dirven et al. (2006). P. 99-101.

54 Pool, (1987).

55 Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, (1989). P. 455.

13

The origin of every form of linguistic discrimination is for Pool more or less the same; the cultural and social superiority of a group that is transmitted via its corresponding language. This leads to a preference of this language over another, mainly a “weaker” first language that is being depreciated and

underestimated. This unequal treatment is not implemented only by the authorities or the speakers of the dominant language, but often by a part of the speakers of the language that is being devaluated

.

2.5. Language as a criterion of nation determination.

The theme analyzed in the previous section was of great importance especially after the second half of the 19

century that language took a pivotal role in the determination of the nation and by extension of the demographical and in cases showed the military strength of them, determining their borders.

Before the 19

century, most of the communities, empires or kingdoms were identifying themselves according to their religion, legal constitutions and historical and cultural heritage. These elements

determined their unique identity. Since the 19

century demographers used various technics to “transform a nationality into a quantifiable substance

”. The object of the quantitative enumeration of the people aimed to the remaking of the map initially of Europe. In 1848, for example, the “Germanness” was defined in the Frankfurt parliament in many possible ways. Some of these were the languages that people were speaking, their festivals, arts, ways of thinking of politics, etc. but all these different concepts did not offer a practical solution

.

Three of these numeric categories remained and were commonly accepted: citizenship, place of birth and language. These criteria were also proposed as an alternative option that viewed nationality in cultural terms as well. Language was almost immediately accepted as a link to nationality, namely a safe criterion for nationality categorization

. As a result, during the 19

century the criterion that defined nationality changed completely. The official national common language began to be considered by the majority of the nations as the most significant factor of identification of a specific nationality. This development meant that each language would be officially spoken to a corresponding nation. This tendency was so strong that movements of greater linguistic examples of aggregation of entire language families appeared, as for example the panslavism in Europe

.

Other problems soon rose, but the most important was regarded to the choice between the languages that a person was speaking. There were dilemmas concerning which language should be taken into account in cases that someone is bilingual, uses another language in the household and a different in the job, or has higher proficiency in his second language etc. This problem emerged from the fact that the respondents were reduced to only one answer when they were asked about the personal data as sex and age, in order to avoid further implications with the categorization of people in censuses. The same applied on language and the answer on this problem was found on the Muttersprache – the mother tongue. Hence, the restricting idea of “mother-tongue” was the concept that limited the widen concept of language in general spoken and determined a vital criterion for national categorization of people in estimations and censuses

.

56 Pool, (1987).

57 Hansen, (2015).

58 Hansen, (2015). P. 19-23.

59 Hansen, (2015). P. 23-26.

60 Leerssen, (2018), P. 59-60.

61 Hansen, (2015). P. 30-37.

14

These incidents gave rise to language centralism, which was implemented to create a homogenized identity; the members-citizens that shared a common identity enjoy the same legal equality, under the condition that they made use of the formal language of the nation. The main reason that the language was on the one hand that the numbers of the censuses of the nation were higher and on the other that the framework of the identity was because the cultural elements and the civic information that represented the nation could be understood by the masses and transmitted to the entire population. In addition, not only did the language transmit synchronically among people and their respective cultural communities, but also spread diachronically cross generations. In order to achieve this objective, only the official language of the nation was propagated via mass school education and religious practices to the members that belonged it

.

However, the local dialects, even nowadays, do not enjoy the recognition of the dominant language. In fact, the official language is used in every official text of the nation and is taught and reproduced in every national institution. On the other hand, a dialect rarely is used as an official mean of communication or even in written form. Dialects are mainly used as tools of oral communication in the location that are being spoken. Most of the times it has no prestige and is reproduced informally. Compared to the writings of the official severe document and literacy, the texts and literacy of a dialect seem often trivial

.

Even though the dialect may have many similarities with the official language, given the fact that they originate from the same ancestor, and sometimes there is no objective criterion to distinguish any fundamental difference between them, but the language used officially by the nation is always classified higher

. Therefore, the official language of the nation became a decisive ingredient of the national identity

.

Further, language was used in the modern era as a proof to outline the limits of the states on the map.

Since language was considered the soul of ethnicity, it was also instrumentalized as a territorial criterion to outline the nations’ limits

. The coincidence of the outlines of the national language area with the political state borders was a dominant policy of the nations’ world. Moreover, language was utilized as a tool of land arrogation. This strategy, which dominated everywhere in Europe during the 19

and 20

century, lead to competing territorial claims at the territories where people that were living there were using more than one different language of dialect. Additionally, in many cases people from different cultural backgrounds were coexisting, fact that was giving the “right” to at least two nations to claim and compete for the same area

.

In order to strengthen the procedure of territorialization via the common language, nations were reasoning that the speakers of the national language shared common descent, history and ethnicity. Nevertheless, this strategy was adopted by a plethora of nations that were claiming the same lands, resulting to another strategy of motivation that took place in the post-Napoleonic world

. In the post war-period there was no clear enemy, so Durkheim claims that the “in group” of the nation necessarily categorizes an “out group”

to redefine its identity. This strategy resulted to the creation of social boundaries, not because of social integration, but because of the social demarcation of the “out group

”.

62 Leerssen, (2018), P.61.

63 Leerssen, (2008). P.260-261.

64 Leerssen, (2008). P. 261-262.

65 Neumann, (1998). P. 7.

66 Leerssen, (2008). P. 262-263.

67 Leerssen, (2018). P. 62.

68 Leerssen, (2008). P. 17.

69 Durkheim, (1964). P. 115-122.

15

Leerssen adds that in order to aggregate its members, the nation characterized individuals or groups that do not follow its “rules” as “others” and presented them as an existential threat to its members.

“Othering” was based on emphasizing and stereotyping the socio-cultural, linguistic and racial divergences between different nations. Language was used as the main weapon of claiming disputed areas, but the segregation and its practices were not limited to linguistic criteria, but to all the other components, such as culture, that construct an identity

.

2.6. Statement of purpose

In this chapter, having described so many theories that this study is based upon, a number of

supplementary questions has emerged that will aid to the better understanding of the research question.

Furthermore, in this section they will be presented in order to frame the sub questions expressed in the first chapter.

• First of all, using which practices Greece achieved Hellenization?

• Since Hellenization is closely related to Greek identity does it try to impose the Greek language?

• Since language was determining the power and boundaries of the nations, did Greece use genocide, language attrition, language death or any other tactics as part of Hellenization in order to increase the number of the Greek speakers?

The answers to these questions will provide useful information to understand under a different perspective the nature of Hellenization and its reasons. Yet from these questions a hypothesis has arisen:

What could possibly happen to the recently conquered Aegean Macedonia, where various multilingual populations where residing, if the Greek state did not implement urgently the process of Hellenization?

70 Leerssen, (2008). P. 17.

16

3. Methodology and Approach

In this small chapter, the methodological tools that will be used to analyze this literature-based thesis will be presented. In this research the data collected will be analyzed by a qualitative analysis. The first tool of analysis will be the critical analysis of discourse, a theory coined by Michel Foucault. This tool focuses on the ways that the relationships of power are developed in a society or community as an expression through the channel of languages and practices

.

In terms of methodology my research covers chronologically from late 19th century to mid-20t

while spatially covers the area of Aegean Macedonia. In addition, in order to achieve my research aim, I intend to draw the three stages of nation creation by Hroch, the shared identity and the concept of ethnie from Smith, to be able to identify the signs of the Greek identity. The main theory of Rama that concerns security synthesis will be combined with the strong bond between language and identity by Leerssen.

This will be used to emphasize the attempts of the Greek state to impose the language and the denial of the masses to change language

.

Then the genocide tactics by Lemkin and Porter will be the reaction by the state to this practice. The cultural assimilation, which is one of the aims of the genocide makes use of the language death via the language shift, according to Crystal and language discrimination afterwards support Pool, in order to maintain this unfair phenomenon. The dominant language gradually replaces the first language of the new generation. The power of the nation is counted according to the number a of the speakers of its official language and this determines its power and territory, according to Hans and Leerssen

.

The data that will be presented are descriptions and estimations of the population of Macedonia from the late 19

century to early 20

. The second type of data are primary texts (laws, correspondence, reports) from the early 20

century and secondary sources in their social contexts (contemporary articles and books). These two tools will be used in order explain in depth the tactics used by the Greek state to Hellenize the non-Greek speaking communities of Aegean Macedonia

.

71 Foucault, Sheridan & Foucault (1972). P. 5-10.

72 Hroch, (1985).; Rama, (2019).; Leerssen, (2008).; Smith, (1995).

73 Porter, (1982).; Lemkin, (1944).; Crystal, (2014).; Pool, (1987).; Hansen, (2015).; Leerssen, (2018).

74 Falzon, O’Leary & Sawicki, (2013). P. 2-6.

17

4. Linguistic, cultural and ethnic counting of Macedonian populations.

In this chapter, estimates of the various populations that lived in Macedonia from the end of the Russo- Turkish War of 1877-1888 will be presented. The estimates start from the end of the Crimean War, which resulted to the independence of Romania, Montenegro and Serbia and the creation of Bulgaria until 1917

. Amongst the people that were living in this area, which belonged to the Ottoman Empire, until the end of the First Balkan War, only Bulgarians, Serbians and Greeks belonged to a state and the Ottomans to the Empire

. These data are included in this dissertation in order to show the variety of the populations of the region of Macedonia and give us a picture of the percentages of its population, which could give claims to a nation to contest parts of the region

.

This fact does not mean that other ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities did not exist in this territory. In fact, the opposite would be more precise, because in many of these estimations Vlachs, Gypsies, Jews, Macedonians, Albanians are frequently noted. Actually, in one of the estimations even more sub-

minorities are referred, such as Circassians, Armenians, Negros, Georgians and Levantines that counted a fraction of the total population of Macedonia

.

In addition, we will focus on the populations of the Ottoman Empire, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. These three states had historical, linguistic and cultural claims to the territories of Macedonia, which belonged until the Balkan Wars to the Ottoman Empire. Firstly, the estimations for the populations and minorities that did not claim any Macedonian territories, but were living there, will be shown. Next, the estimations of the four protagonists of the Macedonian question will be presented and analyzed. We will lastly compare the estimations of the four demographical “opponents” in the Balkans and the European estimations of populations in order to understand their different perspectives

.

Figure 3: The Balkans before the Balkan Wars.

75 Crowe, (1911). P. 931 – 936.

76 Bourchier, (1911). P. 216 -222.

77 Leerssen, (2008). P. 17.

78 Kanchov, (1900). P. 282-290.

79 Clark, (2013).

18

4.1. description and enumeration of various populations in Macedonia.

4.1.1. Vlachs in Macedonia

The Vlachs, or Romans, had maintained their Orthodox Christian religion and were speaking a language originating from Latin with Slavonic and Greek elements. They consisted a minority in Macedonia that were known for being easily influenced and assimilated by the Greek way of life

. During the last quarter of the 19

century, they were easily mistaken for Greeks, given the fact that they adopted Greek culture, ideals and traditions and were able to speak Greek fluently. In many cases they were integrating into the Greek society

. The Vlachs enumerate from 25.101 up to 200.000 in the territory of Macedonia between 1899 and 1913

.

4.1.2. Gypsies in Macedonia

According to Ristelhueber, in the last stage of the Ottoman Gypsies were the smallest minority in Macedonia

. Actually, the range of their population, according to estimations was from 8.911 to 54.557

. Even though they were mainly Muslims in terms of their religion, they did not share the same privileges as the others Muslims under the Turks. The Ottoman law excluded them from integrating in society. In addition, they were considered to be unreliable not only socially, but also militarily, because they had their own languages, traditions and way of life. It was also believed that they could easily convert to Christianity, if they crossed the borders and reach one of the nearby Orthodox nations

. 4.1.3. Jews in Macedonia

Jews were one of the smallest minorities in Macedonia. They were only occupied with activities

concerning the economic factor, establishing their own businesses and companies, gaining later privileges from the Sultan for their services. As a result, they had the right to build synagogues, trade through the Ottoman Empire and purchase their own estates. These conditions encouraged many Jews to move to the commercial and trading center of Macedonia, Saloniki

. Despite having lower numbers than the other populations in Macedonia, these conditions encouraged the Hebrew element to move to the trading center of Macedonia, Saloniki, outshining all the other populations of the town

.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, they were speaking their own language, a “dialect of Spanish with Hebrew characters”, Judaeo-Spanish

, and the majority of them lived in Saloniki, forming a

flourishing community

. Apart from the estimation of the Foreign Office Papers in 1912, that enumerated 100.000 Jews, all the other evaluations of the Hebrew population from 1889 to 1913 range from 52.500 to 75.000, regardless the ethnicity of the commentator

.

80 Bouchier, (1911). P. 220.

81 Eliot, (1965). P. 371.

82 Appendix A, Table 1.

83 Ristelhueber, (1971). P. 174.

84 Appendix A, Table 2.

85 Brailsford, (1906). P. 81.

86 Miller, (1927). P 442.

87 Matkovski, (1982). P. 43-44.

88 Leerssen, (2018). P. 1192.

89 Bouchier, (1911). P. 218.

90 Appendix A, Table 3.

19 4.1.4. Albanians in Macedonia

Albanians were initially Orthodox Christians and Catholics. However, after the Ottoman conquest, during the 16

and 17

century most of them converted to Islam

. Jacques claims that more than two thirds of the Albanian people had converted to the religion of Islam before the Balkan Wars

. The language that were using in their daily life was the Albanian. Nevertheless, the Ottomans trusted the Muslim Albanians and many times encouraged the migration of them as well to strategical points in Western Macedonia, where the population of the Christians was prevailing

.

Additionally, Muslim Albanians that had the support of the Ottomans were the only people that could carry weapons, obtain privileges and establish their own residences in Western European Turkey

. Unlike the other free states of the Balkans, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece that were claiming Macedonia, the Albanian state was nonexistent until its establishment after the First Balkan War in 1912

. By not having a state until the early 20

century, the estimations of the Albanian population in Macedonia have great divergences. The lowest enumeration counts 6.000 Albanians and the highest 600.000

.

4.1.5. Macedonians in Macedonia.

According to Leerssen, Macedonians were Orthodox Slavic populations from the Eastern Balkans that did not belong to Greece or the Ottoman Empire. When the Bulgarian church became autonomous, these people joined it. The Macedonian intelligentsia of the 19

century called the vernacular language of the Macedonians “Macedonian dialect of Bulgarian”. However, after the standardization of the Bulgarian language, this claim had no base. Therefore, in the late 19

and early 20

century there were attempts to standardize the - different from Bulgarian and Serbian – “Macedonian language”. Actually, there were also attempts via the use of press to declare the unique identity of Macedonian ethnicity and language, emphasizing the differences compared to the other Slavic ones

.

Anastasovski supports that according to Gersin and Georgiev

, the population of Macedonians were estimated to be 1.182.036 in 1903 and 2.275.000 in 1913. It is worth mentioning though that these are the only estimations found that have no estimations of Serbs and Bulgarians that are Slavic populations as well. On the other side, most of the estimations examined in this study do not count Macedonians, but Serbs and Bulgarians

.

4.2. Description and enumeration of the Bulgarians, Greeks, Ottomans and Serbians in Macedonia

In this section the estimations that concern Bulgaria, Greece, Ottoman Empire and Serbia are divided in three perspectival levels, their own, European and Balkan estimations. We have the Ottoman and Balkan estimations (Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian) from the European, because they had claims on the lands of Macedonia. The goal of this procedure is to achieve a clearer linguistic, ethnic and cultural image of what Macedonia looked like, before the conquest of Southern Macedonia by Greece as a result of the First Balkan War.

91 Bouchier, (1911). P. 218.

92 Jacques, (1995). P. 215.

93 Brailsford, (1906). P. 90-91.

94 Miller, (1927). P. 445.

95 Giaro, (2007). P. 185.

96 Appendix A, Table 4.

97 Leerssen, (2018). P. 1192.

98 Anastasovski, (2008). P. 167- 169.

99 Appendix A, Table 5.

20

To achieve this, the context of each of these four states will be further analyzed and emphasis will be given on the estimations of their population. In order to do so, three different categories of tables of estimations are presented in each case. The first concerns their own estimations, the second the Balkan and Ottoman estimations and the third the European estimations. These estimations will be presented together in order to achieve a, dare I even say, relative objective range of population.

4.2.1. Ottomans – Turks in Macedonia

The Ottoman people were the majority in European Turkey, which consisted a part of the Ottoman Empire since its capture in the 14

to 15

century until the 20

century. During the 18

and 19

century, Turks from Asia Minor and mainly from other European vilayets were encouraged to migrate

systematically to Macedonia, due to the decline of the percentage Ottoman population and the increase of the numbers of non-Muslim populations in the area

. As subjects of the Ottoman Empire, they were speaking the Ottoman language and they were Muslims.

It is also important to clarify that the Ottoman investigators had the tendency to classify people

collectively according to religious criteria. Therefore, they divided the population mainly, in two different big groups; the Muslims and the Christians. The majority of the Muslims were mainly Ottomans and most of the Albanians. The rest of the Muslims were people that had converted to Islam and the counted Christians could had been Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Serbians, Vlachs and people that chose to change their religion

. According to the official censuses of 1882, 1895 and 1906 of Ottoman investigators, the religious distribution is clear. The numbers of the Turkish people in Macedonia fluctuated between 1.083.130 to 1.145.849

.

In 1904, Hilmi Pasa, a special investigator, made an analytical estimation of the populations in

Macedonia, presenting the results by religion. He counted 1.508.507 Muslims in total. In his estimation Orthodox Greeks and Bulgarians, Vlachs, Serbs and Jews were also taken into consideration according to religious and linguistic criteria

. One year later, Asr Gazetesi made an innovation for the Ottoman data.

He categorized the non-Muslims subjects of the Ottoman Empire according to their ethnic names and presented their numbers in each Vilayet of Macedonia. He claims that the 52% of the population, 1.500.507 were Muslims. This estimation could also include Muslims from the other ethnic groups

. On the other hand, other European estimations present lower numbers of Turks. The highest ones from Weigand in 1898 and von der Goltz in 1904 belong to Germans that included all the Muslims together.

Their estimations are 695.000 and 730.000 respectively. The other European estimations that enumerated only the Turkish population fluctuate between 400.000 and 646.000 between 1881 and 1913, almost half, or even less sometimes, of the estimations of the official Ottoman censuses and estimations. Only the Croatian Verkovitch estimated that the Turkish populations was 240.267 in Macedonia

.

It is also important to show the estimations of commentators that belonged to Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, states that were claiming the Macedonian territories. All the Balkan from 1878 to 1912 fluctuate between 231.400 and 634.017. However, two Bulgarian estimations, realized in 1905 calculating the Muslims and not the Turks of Macedonia were closer to the Ottoman censuses than the rest of the

European estimations. More specifically, Brancoff counted 840.433 Muslims and Ivanov, whose statistics were based on Hilmi’s Pasha’s statistics, 1.508.507

.

100 Apostolski, et al. (1979). P. 81-82, Villari, (1905). P. 134.

101 Anastasovski, (2008). P. 115.

102 Appendix A, Table 5-6.

103 Bayur, (1940), P. 207-209.

104 Appendix A, Table 7-8.

105 Appendix A, Table 9.

106 Şaşmaz, (1995). P. 140.; Appendix A, Table 10.

21 4.2.2. Serbians in Macedonia

The Slavs after crossing the Danube, migrated to the Balkans during the early Middle Ages. As a result, the Slavic languages spoken in the Balkans had a great similarity. Serbian and Bulgarian are Slavonic languages that belong to the same family

. Nevertheless, Serbia established its claims on Macedonia, due to the very short-lived medieval Serbian Empire and the linguistic and cultural similarities that their nation had with a great part of people that was living at this area

. Serbia desired during the late 19

century to reach the Adriatic Sea. Failing to ensure a port at there, Serbia started to look for an exit at the Aegean Sea, by making a rhetoric to incorporate Macedonia to the South

.

However, according to Kovaks, this decision that was at the expense of the Bulgarian interests for Macedonia, given the fact that both of these countries were claiming the same territories

. According to Petrovitch, Serbian scholars claimed that the majority of the people that were living in Macedonian were Serbs, because often they had similar language, culture, poetry and tradition with the Bulgarians, even if they belonged to different churches. However, after losing a war against Bulgaria at the late 19th century, Serbia understood that the main problem for the realization of its plans with regard to Macedonia was Bulgaria’s military superiority

.

According to the Serbian estimations, Vaselinovitch counted only 600.000 Serbians in 1886, Gopchevitch 2.048.320 in 1889 and Ivanic 680.976 in 1908. As in the case of the estimations of Macedonia, there are no estimations of Macedonians and in two out of three no estimations of Bulgarians as well. On the other hand, observing the estimations of European and Balkan people for the population of Serbs in Macedonia, we see a very different image. Bellay was the only European that found 1.400 Serbians in Macedonia. No Greek estimations and official Ottoman censuses from 1878 until 1904 managed to find Serbians. Only Bulgarian Kanchov on 1900 recorded 700 and Ivanov 99.000 one year later. According to the special inspector Hilmi Pasha there were in 1904 100.717 Serbians. In 1905, Ottoman Gazetesi includes in his census a joint population of Vlachs and Serbs of 199.717. It is a fact that even if all these European and Balkan estimations from 1878 to 1912 are summed, then they will not be able to reach the lowest Serbian estimation of the Serbs living in Macedonia

.

4.2.3. Bulgarians in Macedonia

Just like the Serbians, Bulgarians originate from the Slavonic people that came during the Early Middle ages in Balkans. They based their claims on Macedonia, historically, on their previous Bulgarian empires during the middle Ages and on the linguistic and cultural proximity that they had with the population of Macedonia

. In addition, Bulgaria employed academic personnel to research the identity of people that were living in the region of Macedonia by studying their culture, identity and language, in order to find similarities of the people culturally and linguistically. A great similarity between the language spoken in the region of Macedonia and the Bulgarian language emerged because of all the mainly linguistic research done during the late 19

and early 20

century

. Moreover, Bulgarians classified Macedonian dialects as Bulgarian and not Serbian, backing this way that Macedonians were closer to them

.

107 Bouchier, (1911). P. 218-219.

108 Petrovitch, (1976). P. 495.

109 Stavrianos (1964). P. 125-126.

110 Kovaks, (1942). P. 41.

111 Petrovitch, (1976). P. 433.

112 Appendix A, Table 11-13.

113 Stojan, (1915). P. 209-211; Bouchier, (1911). P. 218-219.

114 Carnegie Commission, (1914). P. 27.

115 Stavrianos, (1964). P. 131.

22

Additionally, after the creation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 and its introduction to Macedonia, a great percentage of the Orthodox Slav people converted to it from the Greek Church, due to the proximity of the Bulgarian language in comparison with the distant Greek. Bulgaria took advantage of this to make the linguistic and culture gap even smaller by promoting the development of the Bulgarian language based on an educational system through the influence of the Exarchate. Bulgarians supported that people that were living in Macedonia were embracing the Bulgarian church, because of the “Bulgarian character of Macedonia”. Bulgarians were convinced that they had the rightful claim thanks to the ethnic and cultural proximity to the Bulgarian ethnic element. Based on the cultural, but most of all linguistic similarity, they were the first to create maps based not this time on religious, as the Ottoman Empire did previously, but on linguistic data, as the touchstone to depict nationality

.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “the independent authorities” agree that the majority of the Slav population in Macedonia is Bulgarian

. Looking closer on the Bulgarian views of the population of Macedonia. Kanchov in 1900 and Brancoff in 1905 have counted almost the same number of Bulgarians, 1.181.336 the first and the second 1.172.136. Branchoff has analyzed ethnically only the Christians and put in a group all the Muslims. On the other hand, Kanchov has done a more descriptive report combining ethnic and religious factors to define the identity of the people

.

The non-Balkan estimations of Macedonia as a whole report that the number of Bulgarians is between 1.121.000 and 1.317.131 from 1881-1917. The enumerations done in some vilayets of Macedonia show also a big number of them. Even though all of these estimations show that Bulgarians are more than a million, not even one of the neighbor states’ estimations are close to it. From 1878 to 1908, the number of Bulgarians fluctuate from zero to 796.479. The higher estimations come the Ottoman Empire, while the lowest from Serbia

.

4.2.4. Greeks in Macedonia

Greek claims were based on the historical ancient rights of Greece on Macedonia, the domination of the Eastern Roman Empire over Macedonia

. These historical claims originate from the “Megali Idea”, an early 19th century concept that promoted the unification of all the Greeks outside the Kingdom of Greece, which included the territories of the Byzantine Empire. Macedonia was one of these territories. This procedure would be realized through the channel of the “superior” Greek culture, language and society

. As stated in Encyclopedia Britannica, Greeks were living mainly in Southern Macedonia, but the

influence of the Christian Church was great amongst Christians in Macedonia. Nevertheless, the process of Hellenization was effective in the urban centers, but almost insignificant in the rural areas

.

The Greek statistical population data from 1878 up to 1904 about Macedonia enumerate many different populations and support that the majority of the people were Greeks. In the same year, 1878, Syligos and Golos support that there were 438.000 and 705.000 Greeks in Macedonia. 21 years later Nicolaidis claims that there were living 656.300 and in 1904 Delyanis 652.795

.

116 Anastasovski, (2008). P. 146–149.

117 Bouchier, (1911). P. 219.

118 Appendix A, Table 14-15.

119 Appendix A, Table 16-17.

120 Anastasovski, (2008). P. 151.

121 Augustinos, (1977). P. 3.

122 Bouchier, (1911). P. 217-220.

123 Appendix A, Table 18.

23

The European estimations in the case of Greece fluctuate a lot. They range from 57.480 up to 642.000 between 1881 and 1917. The most optimistic observations coincide with the Greek ones and range between 473.000 and 652.795 Greeks. Three of them show less than 100.000 Greeks in Macedonia However, the majority of the estimations show a lower number and fluctuate between 190.047 and 322.000 between 1889 and 1917

.

The fascinating fact is that most of the estimations of the Ottoman Empire are really close to the Greek estimations and most of the Balkans’ states estimations are identical to the rest of Europe. It is shown that the Ottoman censuses and enumerations of 1878, 1882, 1895, 1904, 1905 and 1906 estimate between 536.707 and 626.125, numbers within the range of the Greek estimations. All the Bulgarian estimations until the start of the first Balkan War range between 190.047 and 307.000, while one Serbian in 1889 count 210.140 Greeks, numbers that are similar to the majority of the Europeans. However, there are two Serbian estimations, in 1886 and 1908, that do not show any numbers of Greeks in Macedonia

.

Figure 4: The territorial aspirations of Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia.

124 Appendix A, Table 19.

125 Appendix A, Table 20.