The northern part of historical Macedonia is another enslaved homeland forgotten by the Greeks, where even until 1993 a significant number of Greeks lived with the admission of the state of Skopje itself.
The Greeks inhabit the area known historically as Pelagonia and Upper Macedonia since ancient times [1]. Historian Nicholas Hammond writes: «Pelagones in the region of Prilep, the Lyncestae in the region of Florina, the Orestae in the region of Kastoria, and the Elimeotae in the region of Kozani. These tribes were all Epirotic tribes and they spoke the Greek language but with a different dialect, the Northwest Greek dialect, as we know now from the local questions which were put to the god of Dodona» [2].
Despite the raids and settlements of foreign tribes and races in the Middle Ages (mainly Slavs), the presence of Greeks in the Northern Macedonian region was more than significant during the Ottoman Period. The most important and famous center of Hellenism was Monastiri, also known as Bitola, which was inhabited by Greek-speaking Greeks and Greek Vlachs. This is what the French traveller Michel Pallaires observes in 1905: «Undoubtedly, the Greeks hold the scepter of Monastir [...] Of the 23 doctors in the city, 20 are Greek. All European consulates recognize that the Greek community... is the strongest and most prosperous» [3]. Pallaires also notes: «In Monastiri, the Romanian center of action, all Koutsovlachs are Greeks to the core, with Greek traditions and ideals. They send more than two thousand children to Hellenic schools, enriching them with their contributions. They are at the head of the hardest and most relentless fight against Bulgaria and Romania. They set up a secret committee that is the terror of committee-men. Neither the metropolitan nor the Greek consul can moderate their raging patriotism» [3]. After Greeks, Slavs were the second largest ethnic group [4]. The situation was the same in the wider homonymous administrative district or Vilayet of Monastir. Christian Greeks formed the majority, numbering about 286.001 in 1906 [5] and 350.000 in 1911 [6].
The Greek influence in the region was preserved and promoted mainly by Aromanian Greeks who according to Krste Bitoski "they were fanatical Grecophiles, gradually came to constitute the Bishopric of Pelagonia's principal allies in its struggle for the advancement of Greece's Great Idea. By the middle of the 19th century the churches and the schools in the city of Monastir were all in Greek hands" [7]. Greeks were also found around Lake Ohrid, where already in 1670, Evliya Çelebi recorded that all the inhabitants of the city of Ohrid spoke Slavic and Greek, while Struga's populace was "mainly Bulgarian and Greek infidels" [8]. Constantin Jirecek, Czech professor of History and Minister of Education of the Bulgarian state during the second half of the 19th century, confesses that "Ohrid was from the 12th century a bastion of Hellenism in Macedonia" [9], while the German Hermann Wendel calls it "the citadel of Hellenism" [10]. Another important Greek city was Strumica (Stromnitsa in Greek), inhabited by 13.726 Christian Greeks and 2.965 Slavs in the 19th century [11]. Except for the urban centers, the Greeks also formed the majority in some villages of North Macedonia. The village of Meleniko (today's Melnik) primarily consisted of Greeks, but also of Bulgarians, Turks and Romani [12]. We also find interesting information in the folklore of Skopje, specifically in the book "ILINDEN 1903", published in Skopje in 1970, by the Institute of National History of Skopje that includes a Slavic Macedonian folk song about the Aromanian village Kruševo in Pelagonia which is characterised as "small Greece" ("Крушово - грчка мала") [13]. Aromanian Greeks also inhabited Gevgelija, a town now situated in the Greek-Skopjan border. According to the statistics of the French geographer Alexandre Synvet, the town had a total Christian population of 290 families (1.740 people) in 1878, consisting of 35 Bulgarian Christian ones and 255 Greek Christian families, while it had 4 Greek schools [14].
Unfortunately, the Greeks of North Macedonia will not be lucky enough to be freed during the Balkan wars, since Pelagonia will fall into the hands of the Serbs in 1912 and this region along with Vardar "Macedonia" will be named South Serbia (Južna Srbija) or "Old Serbia" (Stara Srbija). We do not have much information about the Greeks of what had become "Southern Serbia". The only detailed information is given by the Serbian historian Jovan Hadži-Vasiljević in his book "prosvetne i političke prilike u Južnim Srpskim oblastima u XIX v." (="Educational and political conditions in the South Serbian regions in the 19th century") published in 1928. Hadži-Vasiljević mentions various regions in South Serbia that had Greek influence, but he highlights Bitola and Ohrid, describing them as centers of Hellenism and Greek education [15]. Georgios Modis, a Greek Vlach from Bitola, having read Hadži-Vasiljević's book writes his memoirs in 1947: «Ohrid! Štip! Pristina! Veles! Niš! In these areas it is confessed by Serbs themselves that an exceptional Hellenism flourished» [16].
Until 1993 it was known that the Greeks of Pelagonia form a significant number, according to Skopjans themselves. The president of the newly created republic of "Macedonia" Kiro Gligorov had admitted the existence of 100,000 Greeks in his state, during an interview published by "Český Deník". K. Gligorov stated: «The Greeks say that there are 250,000 Greeks here, while according to the statistics, there are only 100,000» [17]. Really, the State of Skopje that accuses Greece of oppressing a "Macedonian" minority, why don't they first explain to us what happened to these hundreds of thousands of Greeks in their state?
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Sources/References:
[1] John Boardman and N. G. L.
Hammond, The Cambridge Ancient
History Volume 3, Part 3: The Expansion
of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth
Centuries BC, p. 284
[2] N. G. L. Hammond, Collected Studies:
Further Studies on Various Topics, p. 158
[3] Michel Paillares, L' imbroglio
Macedonien, p. 493
[4] Population de la Macédoine -
Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911, p. 217
[5] Kemal Karpat (1985), Ottoman
Population, 1830-1914, Demographic and
Social Characteristics, The University of
Wisconsin Press, p. 168-169
[6] Ottoman Census of 1911, link:
https://web.archive.org/web
/20060527053759/http://www.univ
.trieste.it/~storia/corsi/Dogo/tabelle
/popolaz-ottomana1911.jpg
[7] Dejnosta na Pelagoniskata Mitropolija
1878-1912, Skopje 1968, pp. 35-43
[8] Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname - A
Journey around Lake Ohrid, 1670
[9] C. Jirecek: Geschichte der Bulgaren, p.
211
[10] H. Wendel: Der Kampf der Sudslaven
um Freiheit und Einheit, Frankfurt 1825, p.
35
[11] Kemal Karpat, Ottoman Population,
1830-1914, Demographic and Social
Characteristics, p. 134-135
[12] Maria Couroucli, Tchavdar Marinov,
Balkan Heritages: Negotiating History
and Culture, Volume 1 of British School at
Athens - Modern Greek and Byzantine
Studies, p. 83
[13] Mihailo Apostolski, Ilinden 1903,
Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija,
1970, p.599
[14] Synvet, A., Les Grecs de l'Empire
ottoman: Etude statistique et
ethnographique, Constantinople ("L
Orient illustre") 1878, p. 50
[15] Jovan Hadži-Vasiljević, Prosvetne i
političke prilike u Južnim Srpskim
oblastima u XIX v., 1928, p. 124,127
[16] George Modis, On Macedonia, p.51
[17] Kiro Gligorov, "Ethnically pure states
is an anachronism" Český Deník, June 10,
1993, Prague, interview with Teodor
Marjanović and Stanislav Drahný