VARDASKA
YES, MACEDONIA NO!
FALSIFYING
GREEK HISTORY
Demetrius
Manolakos*, B.A., LL.B.
In
1913, during the Second Balkan War, Serbia captured from Bulgaria the
predominantly Bulgarian-speaking province of Vardaska. This region
remained semi-autonomous within the Yugoslavian federation under the name
Vardaska until August 1944.
On
the 4th of August 1944, right after the departure of Germans from Vardaska,
Tito and Stalin took Vardaska and the Albanian-speaking region of Tetovo
and created the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. In addition, they
declared that the inhabitants of this new Yugoslav Republic were «Macedonians»,
thus forging history in a vulgar way. It is the first appearance of
Macedonia in modern times as an entity other that a geographical region.
Along with this forgery, the communist leader of Bulgaria, Dimitrof,
had to agree to suppress Bulgaria’s claim on Vardaska.
Furthermore, under Stalin’s probing, Tito and Dimitrof began
drawing plans to unite Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in a Balkan Federation.
They also let it be known that when Greek Macedonia would be
“liberated” from the Greeks there would be a third member of the
Federation, Macedonia, encompassing all of geographical Macedonia.
Therefore,
it is clear that the creation of “Macedonia” was a way for the
northern, communist neighbours of Greece to put a claim on Greek
Macedonia, and get an exit to the Aegean Sea. To advance their goal of
splitting Greek Macedonia away from Greece, they offered multifaceted
support to the communist side during the Greek Civil War of 1946-49. The
Greek communists were defeated but the Bulgarians of Vardaska did not
abandon their plans against Greek Macedonia.
When
communism collapsed in the 90’s, they upgraded the Yugoslav Province of
Socialist Republic of Macedonia into the country “Republic of
Macedonia” in 1991. Greece objected very strongly to this name, and the
entity took the provisional name Former Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
They
still claim to be “Macedonians”, descendants of the ancient
Macedonians, speaking “Macedonian”, but their first President
Ghligorov, in his book «Memoirs» admits that they are Bulgarians who
came to the Balkans in the 6th and 7th century A.D. This is about 1000
years after Alexander the Great’ s death, the Greek hero who spread the
Hellenic culture to the then known world, and who belonged to the same
Greek tribe as the Spartans, the Dorians. It is also, centuries after
Apostle Paul visited Greek cities in Macedonia, spoke Greek and wrote his
letters to the people of Thessaloniki and Philippoi in Greek. Apostle Paul
also is mentioning that he met in Thessaloniki and Veria Greek men and
women who were initiated into Christianity. This
reference alone reveals how Bulgarians cheat when they say that they are
Macedonians, the descendants of Alexander the Great, and that there were
no Greeks in ancient Macedonia!
There
is no "Macedonian language". This language was completely
unknown until 1944 and no matter how hard one may try, will find nothing
to prove its existence. It is just an idiom within the self-contained
Bulgarian tongue. The fact that there is not even one text, not one
inscription, in this language before 1944 proves without doubt that this
language has nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians and their
descendants who always spoke Greek. The language used by the
Bulgarian-speaking inhabitants of the Southern Yugoslavia and southwestern
Bulgaria is a Bulgarian language.
After the foundation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, in 1944 Tito
employed an army of philologists and scholars to create a separate written
language. Taking a Bulgarian dialect as starting point and enhancing it
widely from Greek, Serbian, and other neighboring languages, a
"literary language", the so-called "Macedonian
language" was created.
Now
we come to the Canadian involvement into this dispute On
September 19, the day of the swearing in of a new government in Greece,
the Canadian Government announced the recognition of the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.M.) with its self-given name Macedonia.
Greece rejects this name, as it revives the irredentist Bulgarian claims
on the Greek province with the same name. Furthermore, It usurps the
historical Greek name Macedonia and the entire heritage this name holds.
This unfriendly act by the Canadian Government towards Greece and the
community of 400,000 Canadians of Greek origin reverses a pledge of a
previous Conservative Government in the 90’s not to proceed with such
recognition until UN-sponsored talks between F.Y.R.O.M. and Greece to
resolve the name dispute close.
The
obvious question that arises is why Canada would reverse this sensible
position at this particular time.
(*)
President of Canadian Hellenic Congress
