Talk:Demographic history of Macedonia/Archive 5

Against blatant pro-Bulgarian propaganda

 * It's you who's got to use the talk page, Miskin. You have justified none of your edits, your style and English are appalling and the only sections of the article which were not in shambles due to your soft touch were the ones editted by Decius. The only reason why I haven't interfered in the past weeks is because my keyboard was broken. Well, now I am back. VMORO 17:26, September 7, 2005 (UTC)~


 * I've justified most of my edits in the section "Vandalism" and I've long waited for a reply before reverting. User:Birkelmaal (aka VMORO) failed to make a point, so I didn't see a reason to stick to the biased version of yours. Basically the only thing I've done is "neutralise" the article, there's not a single POV in my edits. Please point out your exact arguments here so that we can talk this through and end the edit-war once and for all. So far you've been replying with insults and reverts. Miskin 21:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The one who failed to make a point for long is you, Miskin, and no one else. None of your edits can be justified in any way. A perfect example - the claim that the present-day Greek Macedonia was inhabited mostly by Greeks. Ethnographic research (check Review of the Ethnographic Cartography of Macedonia by Wilkinson) clearly shows that the northern part of present-day Greek Macedonia was a mixture of Slavs (Bulgarians) and Turks down to the line Thessaloniki-Edessa-Kastoria + that there was a preponderence of the Slavs there. The second thing is your almost non-existing style. You behave like a Greek writer of a Greek text book for 9-year-olds. This is an international English-language encyclopaedia and neutral terms should be used. But about your reunification and Slavic and Avar invasions we've talked for a long time. VMORO 16:29, September 8, 2005 (UTC)~


 * All of which is completely understandable: after several centuries of Ottoman rule (my POV term would be "slavery"), the population, especially in rural and mountainous areas, was largely illiterate, most probably multilingual (some Greek, some Bulgarian, some Turkish to get along with the authorities and the tax collectors, etc etc) and most certainly with language skills that were overall poor in the modern sense. Census along religious adherence/observance lines would be the most logical thing for the Ottoman authorities to do if they wanted to somehow classify their subjects for whatever reason.  After all, the Ottoman/Turkish state was late in adopting "Western" methods of administration, and did so to its own destruction: it was a backward, medieval state that time had left behind.
 * Anyways, what's the point of all this? Ottoman Macedonia was a complete and utter hodge-podge.  It took almost ten years of war to sort everything out, boundaries kept shifting, populations were exchanged, some forcefully, some willingly, a vast number of people were killed, soldiers and civilians alike, and in the end a status quo was accepted by all states involved, treaties were signed and everyone settled down to get on with their lives.  That's the important thing.
 * Things could actually have gone worse: look to the whole Francogerman affair. It took 11 whole centuries of bloodshed to deal with the can of worms that was formally opened by the Treaty of Verdun, and for all sane Germans and Frenchmen to accept that the Ruhr is to be German and Alsace and Lorraine are to be French, and that peace and prosperity are more important than anything else.  Chronographos 15:30, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The Ottoman census is the most unbiased one, and as you can see it clearly states that Greeks were by for more numerous in the southern vilaets. I never said that they were more numerous than the Turks (or muslims in total), I said that they were significantly more numerous than the Slavs. I don't even know why you keep doubting this, it just makes you look silly. Miskin 19:48, 8 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The Ottoman census reflects only the religuious adherence of the population and nothing else. Thus all Muslims are written as Turks, all adherents of the Bulgarian Exarchate as Bulgarians and all adherents of the Constantinople Patriarchate as Greeks. Irrespective of mother tongue and of national consciousness and this is known by everyone except you, Miskin. Apart from very few exceptions (like Amadore-Virgile), everyone else has constructed their statistics according to mother tongue and not to religious allegiance. And everyone admitted that the population north of the line I indicated was Slavic with a large Turkish admixture.

Before 1870 when the Bulgarian Exarchate was established, pretty much all Bulgarians were adherents of the Constantinople Patriarchate. Would this mean according to you that there were no Bulgarians before that and that they just landed from outer space in 1870? And don't give me your inane remarks: "you look silly, tralala". You look like a moron, Miskin, and everyone has noticed that here. VMORO 12:23, September 9, 2005 (UTC)~


 * The Ottoman census reflects only the religuious adherence of the population and nothing else

Exactly. So what makes you think that using religion as the primary criterion of nationality is not the closest thing to the truth? Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, but neither you nor me are in position to decide that. This is why in my version all criteria used in the demographies are explained in detail, without deciding which is right and which is wrong, and that my friend is what we call neutrality. You might as well try and take a hint. Nothing from the Turkish cencus proves nor implies that those Greeks were not Greek speaking. The majority of Bulgarian population had never been adherent to the Patriarch of Constantinople. You're confusing yourself with the small Bulgarian or Slavic-speaking population which viewed itself as part of the Roman nation which had lost its mother tongue over time. Therefore despite religion and language, the greater part of the population of Southern Macedonia viewed itself as Greek (or Roman if you prefer). Then if we can't trust any demography, think of the population exchanges. 50,000 Greeks entered Greek Macedonia from Pirin Macedonia, and some 60,000 Bulgarians left for Bulgaria. Then some 500,000 Greeks enter from Turkey and suddenly, we have some 1 million Greeks in Greek Macedonia? Where did the other half million come from? Mars? Oh, I know, it's a Bulgarian "majority" group that the Greek government is still hiding isn't that so? And now think of the ludicrous numbers that you're trying to pass as the truth: 2 million Bulgars in the entire of Macedonia and the assumption of another million in the south. I mean, use your brain for ones and do the maths - have you ever checked what the population of Bulgaria is today? Honestly some people just can't take the truth. And if neither of that convinces you then think of the Greco-Serbian alliance. Would the Serbs have ever agreed with Greece occupying over half of Macedonia for itself unless that land was not primarily Greek? Serbia was significantly stronger than Greece and in the search of Slavic-speaking lands to assimilate. It would have never happened. If you really want to do something to help your country, I would advise you to go over there and offer your people some physical help. I don't think that making nationalist propaganda of the internet is one of their priorities at the moment. Miskin 14:12, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * That's again some claptrap of yours, Miskin. First of all, it wasn't 50,000 Greeks who entered Greece from Pirin Macedonia - there were around 40,000 of them and they came from the Black sea coast - Pomorie, Burgas, Sozopol, Ahtopol etc., from the small Greek enclave south of Yambol and from Plovdiv and Asenovgrad (to make it easier for you, Philipopolis and Stanimaka). There were some Greeks in Melnik in Pirin Macedonia but they all resettled to Greece after the end of the Balkan wars (look at ).


 * Secondly, all Bulgarians - both in northern Bulgaria and in Thrace - were members of the Patriarchate of Constantinople before 1870. If we take your naive explanation, then there were no Bulgarians before 1870, they were all Greeks. Well, I don't think so.


 * The majority of Bulgars had never been directly subjected to the patriarch of Constantinople, you're either making this up or misinterpret the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. What you claim is disproved by the Turkish census which records many Bulgarians. Assuming that the majority was however, it still wouldn't imply that they were Greek unless they declared so. The Ottoman census was based on religion and personal ethnic feeling, and you're not in position to pass your POV on which census you consider more reliable than the other. My neutral version explains everything without taking any sides. Miskin 15:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Thirdly, the proper way to say what you wanna say is "that southern Macedonia (present-day Greek Macedonia) was predominantly influenced by the Greek idea" and that "the majority of the Christian population adhered to the Patriarchate of Constantinople". But that's already said in the article. Southern Macedonia was predominantly Slavic in the north, predominantly Greek in the south, with large pockets of Muslim population both in the north and in the south. This was recognised also by the Greeks - after the Balkan wars, for example by Nikolaides in 1918 according to whom the population north of Seres-Thessaloniki-Edessa-Kastoria was Slavic (Wilkinson).


 * The "Greek idea" bullcrap that you have written is bunch of communist propaganda that people like you have been fed over the years and try to pass it as history. No, there were not 5 Greek people who started a Greek idea and tried to convince 5,000,000 Slavs that they should convert, it's actually a Greek majority that did this. As for Thessaloniki and the other Macedonian towns being predominantly Slavic, damn, that is just laughable and contradictory to all historical events that followed afterwards. The fact that somebody called it a Slavic city doesn't mean jack shit. That would be for the same reasons that many people today would call France an Arab country and London an Indian city, I hope you understand how childish and naive your arguments are. The major cities and the Southern part of Greek Macedonia were predominantly Greek (in language) and the Northern part was predominantly Slavic-speaking, yet the overall population of the region was slightly predominantly Greek by language, and significantly predominantly Greek by religion and personal ethnic feeling. The ultimate proof of this is the Serbian participation on the treaty of Bucharest. Serbia would have never agreed to lose a piece of the Aegean sea if she could have had the slightest chance to assimilate a Slavic majority. This is something that Bulgarian nationalists never take into consideration, the just cry "boo-hoo Serbs preferred to take the side of the Greeks instead of our, this is why we lost Greek Macedonia that we never owned anyway". Both Ottoman and european censuses verify the Greek predominance in Greek Macedonia, whether the criterion is language or religion of personal feeling. Miskin 11:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Fourth of all, no one outside Greece buys the shit about "the Slavophone Greeks who had lost their language over time". They were Slavs who just got assimilated over time. Nothing bad about it. But don't try to bullshit me.


 * I know what Bulgarian nationalists generally believe. They believe that there's a 95% chance for any random Macedonian Greek to be a Bulgarian who is not allowed to speak his language. They believe that Macedonia is rightfully part of the Bulgarian Empire and that it was once inhabited only by Bulgarians. It's obvious that along the lines that's what you believe as well, and it's my duty to protect wikipedia from your brainwashed one-sided views. The fact is that there's 50% for a Greek Macedonian to have Anatolian origin, and another 50% to be a native Macedonian. There's probably some 1% to find a Slavophone who's not allowed to speak his language. I know this because most Macedonian people don't even know that Slavophones existed, and if they heard one speaking they'd think he's an immigrant. The "term" Slavophone is used to describe 3 Slavic-speaking ethnic groups: Bulgarians, Macedonian-Slavs and Slavophone Greeks. These are the facts, and whether you believe them or not it's your POV, I urge you to go now in Greek Macedonia and start your personal research. Miskin 11:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Again wrong calculations on your part - first the Greeks who came from Asia Minor were well above 500,000. Some Greek authors have given as high numbers as 600,000. Secondly, there were 250,000 Greeks in southern Macedonia even before the Balkan wars. 60,000 Greeks fled from Eastern Thrace during the Balkan Wars, the majority of them settled also in Macedonia. That's how we get at least to 900,000. And there is something like natural increase, if you don\t know that.


 * I quote again my sources: Wilkinson's review of the Ethnographic Cartograqphy of Macedonia, which presents ALL maps created for the ethnographic region of Macedonia in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, more than 90 per cent of them portray southern Macedonia as predominantly Slavic (with significant Greek population in the southernmost part). Practically all researchers at that point: Starting with Ami Boue, Lejean, Safarik, Hahn, Kiepert, and continuing towards Weigand, Seton-Wats, Braisford, Mach, etc. at the beginning of the 20th century. Practically all modern researchers - Roudometoff, Banac, Poulton, Rossos. What is funny is that Greek researchers nowadays admit, as well that the population of Southern Macedonia was predominantly Slavic. In Roudometoff, Victor. (2000). The Macedonian Question: Culture, Historiography, Politics, you can find an article by a Greek author (can't remember the name) on the only real ethnic census of the population in the region of Florina of 1912. According to census, some 50% of the population registered as Bulgarians, 30% as Greeks and 20% as others (Turks, Romanians, etc.). According to mother tongue - the majority of the "Greeks" were monolingual Bulgarians, some were monolingual Vlachs, a minority was bilingual (Bulgarian-Greek or (Vlach-Greek) and only 5% of them registered as speaking only Greek.

VMORO 11:24, 16 September 2005 (UTC)~

To register the Slavophone percentage as Bulgarian is biased by definition. This population should be referred to as Slavic or Slavophone, because that's what it was. Part of it recognised itself as Macedonian Slav Orthodox, part as Bulgarian, part as Serbian and part as Greek. To generalise it into Bulgarian because some scholars who did't give a rat's ass wrote so, is against POV policy. I don't disagree that Florina might have had a predominantly Slavophone population. To generalise this for the entire Greek Macedonia and its cities however is retarded. Honestly what do you think that the ethnic composition of Monastiri was? Just curious to see the degree of your brainwash. The 5% of Greeks which you gave doesn't make sense with the 250,000 Greek Macedonians that you mentioned earlier - do the math. Miskin 15:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Provide sources for your edits or don't even think of reverting again. VMORO 17:44, 13 September 2005 (UTC)~

My sources on the demographic date is given within the corresponding section. Miskin 15:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Miskin's bulshit yet again
So, I loaned the book from the library and I want to clarify some things:
 * The author is Greek - Anastasia Karakasidou, it is an article in Roudometoff, Victor. (2000). The Macedonian Question: Culture, Historiography, Politics
 * The data is from the Historical Archive of Macedonia/General Directorate of Macedonia - a Greek government agency which was created after the inclusion of southern Macedonia into Greece in 1913.
 * According to the agency, the population of the Florina region in 1913 was divided between:
 * Bulgarians - 42.1%
 * Turks - 29%
 * Greeks - 27.4%
 * Romanians - 1.5%
 * According to mother tongue, the 'Greeks' were divided in the following way:
 * Bulgarian (monolingual) - 39%
 * bilungual Bulgarian and Greek - 24.8%
 * bilingual Kutsovlah and Greek - 15.%
 * monolingual Kutsovlah - 7.2%
 * bilingual Albanian and Kutsovlah - 6.9%
 * bilingual Greek and Albanian - 6.9%
 * There were NO MONOLINGUAL GREEKS AT ALL
 * Of the Christian population of the region, 70% were monolingual only in Bulgarian


 * In the same book: The Greek prefect of Florina wrote in a letter in 1925 that:
 * The Schismatics obtained and preserve a Bulgarian consciousness. The Patriarchists (on the other hand) live in a psychic world of timidity, but with the hidden longing and everyday wish to shake off the Greek yoke.


 * The article contains enough of other archive material which give a clear idea that the Greeks themselves were extremely suspicious of how Greek the Slavs professing a Greek consciousness really were with a number of them concluding that they don't have a Greek national consciousness.


 * This is a Greek article written by a Greek author using practically only Greek sources. This is not blatant pro-Bulgarian propaganda, this is not even a neutral point of view, this is the opinion of a Greek researcher.


 * According to the same research (using again the Macedonian Greek archive), Patriarchists in the Florina district had a majority of 75% in 1886 against Bulgarian Exarchists, in 1900 the ratio was 50%-50%, by 1913 it was the Exarchists who were in the majority. The same process can be seen in Kastoria (see the website Mapping migration in Kastoria) - in the 1880s the Patriarchists were in the majority, around 1900 the Exarchists had the majority and after the Ilinden uprising and the violence between IMARO and the Greek bands, the Patriarchists again gained the majority. So, if I have to follow your theory that adherence to a church means a national consciousness, we get to the concusion that people in the Kastoria region first were Greeks, then they became Bulgarians and then they became again Greeks. That is so stupid that it deserves no comment.


 * Your claim that "southern Macedonia was inhabited predominantly by Greeks" does not hold. A portion of southern Greece was indeed inhabited by Greeks (below the line Serres-Thessaloniki-Edessa-Kastoria), the northern part of the region, along with the other parts of Macedonia (now called sometimes Vardar and Pirin M.) was, however, inhabited by Slavs. The majority of these Slavs were swayed by the Bulgarian idea, a large minority (in the south) by the Greek idea and a small minority (in the north) by the Serbian idea. The Slavs who were swayed by the Greek idea cannot be called Greeks because they were not such, they were only Hellenophile. They cannot be called Bulgarians, either - if they were Hellenophile. And they cannot be called Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs) as no such thing existed at that time. They can be called Slavs - and that's how the article calls them - if you haven't seen that.


 * A large portion of them eventually got assimilated into Greek society, along with the Vlachs and the small minority of Christian Albanians who lived in Macedonia, but this was only because it was Greece that received southern Macedonia. If it was Serbia, they would be Macedonians now, and if it was Bulgaria, they would be Bulgarians now. I am absolutely sure that some of these people had a "Greek consciousness" before the inclusion of the region into Greece, the vast majority of them, however, did not have it, especially the people living in villages. They probably had no national consciousness at all - confirmed by all Greek sources in the article quoted. According to the Greek government officials themselves, there were fanatical Greeks, there were fanatical Bulgarians and there were those (a majority) who were only interested in keeping their livelihoods and while officialy conforming with Hellenism, did not have any national affiliations at all.


 * Thessaloniki had a predominantly Jewish population + 30,000 Greeks and 30,000 Turks. Serres was again predominantly Greek but only by a slight majority before Turks and Bulgarians. Bitola did not have any Greeks at all, all the Greeks there were Aromanians. Macedonia before the Balkan wars had 80 to 85% peasant population, so the influence of the Macedonian cities on the demography of the region was negligible. And the vast majority of the peasants were Slavs.

'*A section about the Hellenophilism of Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs you continue to erase without giving any explanation at all'' is something openly admitted by Greek scholars, as well. L.S. Stavrianos writes in "The Balkans: 1815-1914" that "The Macedonian Slavs escaped Hellenisation by remaining illiterate through the long period under the Constantinople Patriarchate, thereby preserving their language and customs..." I demand an explanation as to why you keep erasing the section.'''


 * The Bulgarians - in Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia - were subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople between 1396 and 1870 and were counted as "Rum-millet" (Greeks) until the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate. Don't fart crap all over that this wasn't so, yes, it was. If we again follow your reasononing, we get to the conclusion that no Bulgarians existed for 5 centuries and they were Greeks. No, they were Bulgarians and they existed, they were simply adherents of the Patriarchate of Constantinople but that does not make them Greek - and neither does that make Greeks the Slav Patriarchists in southern Macedonia.

I demand that you provide sources if you think of reverting your bullshit again (until now you have NOT substantiated a single edit!). If you don't do that, I'll ask that the article is blocked again. If you are not prepared to discuss something with argumentation and sources, then don't come here again. VMORO 12:55, 16 September 2005 (UTC)~


 * VMORO, I do not know how reliable a historian Karakasidou is, but right off the top of my head I will say that the data you present are not actually that far from the truth. If I wanted to "distill" all I have read about the area, I would say that Greeks were huddled along the coastline and in the cities, whereas Bulgarians dominated the countryside, especially the further north one went.  I mention "Greeks" and "Bulgarians" in the loosest of senses.  One cannot ascribe a modern-style national self-consciousness to these populations, unless they were somewhat educated, and this admittedly was commoner among Greeks who often were wealthier merchants and lived in cities.  Let us remember the actual situation of a Macedonian peasant in the early 20th century and before: almost universal illiteracy, back-breaking manual labor in the fields all day just to secure the food one lived on, an oppressive Ottoman regime, no roads, no transport except on beasts of burden, no free time, no information, no newspapers, no money to spend.  I would be surprised if those peasants actually knew which way Athens, Sofia or Constantinople lay.  This goes a long way to explain your astute Greek-turned-Bulgarian-turned-Greek paradox.  It's not a paradox at all, it's just what happens if one tries to define 19th-century people by 21st-century criteria.
 * Therefore as I have said before, Ottoman Macedonia was a hodge-podge. Enter the Balkan Wars, WW I after that, and then the sequelae of WW I.  The region had finally settled down by around 1925.  Boundaries were agreed on, mainly by military considerations, and populations were transferred to conform with these boundaries.  The understanding was that Muslims and Christians were exchanged mandatorily (with some explicit exceptions) and Christians were exchanged voluntarily.  In other words, borders were fixed and the message to the Christian populations affected was: whoever is on this side of the line is Greek (or Serbian or Bulgarian) and anyone who doesn't like this may pick up their things and move beyond the border.  From now on if you stay somewhere, that's what you are.  It was something akin to the principle of the Peace of Augsburg: Cuius regio, eius religio (i.e. each person had to conform with the religious denomination of his or her local prince).  Of course it was rather easier for a merchant to sell their property and use the money to start a business in their new home, rather than for a dirt-poor peasant to sell his land, for which he might not even have Ottoman documents of ownership, and hope to get some land elsewhere.
 * I don't see the reason why any particular timeline should be drawn as to the legitimacy of this, that or another population distribution. If one regards the huge influx of Anatolian Greeks as an anomaly of sorts, one could counterargue that these Greeks originally found themselves there following the wholesale Hellenization of the Levant after Alexander's conquest and then, as the times demanded, their descendants moved back.  Indeed if any line need be drawn, it is that defined by the treaties signed by the states of the region.
 * The only statement of yours I disagree with is "If it was Serbia, they would be Macedonians now". Actually they would be Serbian but for Tito and the Cold War.  My point is, I am surprised how eager you are to surrender the name "Macedonians" to the citizens of FYROM.  This name belongs to all inhabitants of Macedonia equally, and with the understanding that the Macedonian Greeks are the sole inheritors of the Macedonian patrimony before the 7th century BC.  The FYROM does not exist in vacuo.  If it wants to reach a modus vivendi with its neighbors, it has to listen to what they have to say.  Otherwise it should not be surprised to find its neighbors standing in the way.  That said, I don't think I disagree with you on most other matters.
 * It is rather plain that, following the wars of the 20th century, if any country got the short end of the stick in Macedonia, it was Bulgaria. But this is the price a country pays for aligning itself with the losing side every time (the Central Powers, the Axis and the Soviet Union in succession).  Chronographos 15:06, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think they would have turned out Serbian, Chronographos. 30 years of Serbian rule and Serbification in Vardar Macedonia did not lead to anything - and this despite a strong pro-Serbian party in the north. In Aegean M, the Serbs had only a nominal presence... As for the use of "Macedonians" and "Macedonian Slavs", I don't want to take any part in the Greek-Macedonian conflict, if I have used "Macedonians", it was because of I didn't want to waste time to write out "Macedonian Slavs", that's all... VMORO 19:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Against ludicrous pro-Bulgarian nationalist edits
Although normally I should be pissed off at your persistence, I feel that it's every serious editor's responsibility to have to deal with fanaticism, which in most cases comes from people of the diaspora. Hence I will answer to all your arguments and biased views, for one more time.

*In the same book: The Greek prefect of Florina wrote in a letter in 1925 that:
 * The Schismatics obtained and preserve a Bulgarian consciousness. The Patriarchists (on the other hand) live in a psychic world of timidity, but with the hidden longing and everyday wish to shake off the Greek yoke. 

You're making it too easy for me. All the sources you mentioned above speak of the small city of Florina which is situated in the North of Greek Macedonia. Now this data would have been a small counter-argument to the claim that "there were no Slavs in Greek Macedonia". Unfortunately the claim is that "Greeks were the majority in Greek Macedonia". To point out that there has in fact existed a city of Greek Macedonia where Slavs had been the majority, doesn't change anything. Monastir was a city of Vardar Macedonia that had a predominantly Greek population, I don't see anybody using this as an argument for the entire Vardar region being predominantly Greek. In fact I fell silly making all those logical explanations as if I was talking to a 15 year old boy, but in your absence of logic, I feel obliged to do so. The fact is that Florina is the only city of Greek Macedonia that even today has an official presence of a Macedonia Slav minority. That implies two things:
 * Florina has probably been the only city in Greek Macedonia of such high Slavic population.
 * I am not talking (nor the author) about cities but about districts. VMORO 18:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This Slavic group has always recognised itself as Macedonian Slav and not as Bulgarian that your ludicrous edits imply.
 * Nothing like this is implied in any way. The author (quoting Greek sources from the interwar period) explicitly talks about "fanatical Bulgarians". You interpret things any way you want to, as usual. VMORO 18:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I am not making this too easy for you at all. I quoted also a website which concerns Kostur (Kastoria). And Kostur is even a more ludicrous example as the population there underwent the change from predominantly Patriarchist to predominantly Exarchist and again to predominantly Patriarchist in less than 20 years. After all, Lerin (Florina), Kostur (Kastoria) and Voden (Edessa) were the only districts with Slavic majority in Aegean Macedonia which were not affected by a wide-scale migration to Bulgaria around the Balkan Wars and after WWI.
 * Bitola did not have a predominantly Greek population, at all - there were actually no Greeks there at all. There were Slavs (a majority), the majority of which professed themselves as Bulgarians, there were Hellenised Aromanians and there were Turks. The "Greeks" which you were talking about are nothing else but Vlachs, and as such they are mentioned by practically all authors previously mentioned by me - including by the Greek author of the article according to whom they had emigrated to Florina after the Balkan wars. VMORO 18:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The fact that you have decided to label an entire Slavophone population of Greek and Vardar Macedonia as "Bulgarian", is the definition of the term POV. This population still exists, and although it's not "Macedonian" in the sense that modern generations would like to imply, it has recognised itself to be different from Bulgarian in the last century. It is at least my duty to remove all your nationalist references to "Bulgarian, Bulgarian, Bulgarian" for every Slavic population in the region, and of course your fallacies and "rug-swept" information about the Greek majority of "Aegean Macedonia". Miskin 14:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

''The Slavs who were swayed by the Greek idea cannot be called Greeks because they were not such, they were only Hellenophile. They cannot be called Bulgarians, either - if they were Hellenophile. And they cannot be called Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs) as no such thing existed at that time. They can be called Slavs - and that's how the article calls them - if you haven't seen that.'' Despite what you just claimed, the demographic data you have provided doesn't call them, they're all labeled as "Bulgarians". And this is the POV that I'm talking about. In your little biased head you have taken your decisions about what should everyone be called. Slavophones who recognised themselves as "Macedonian Orthodox" are basically the "Macedonian Slavs" of today. Slavophones who recognised themselves as "Rum" was a Greek minority that had lost its language. That's how things are, despite have you and your family chosen to believe. Hellenophile was a term that was confined mainly for the Franco-British scholars of the early 19th century who supported the Greek was of independence (e.g. Lord Byron). To speak about "Bulgarian Hellenophiles in the 20th century" is just a retarded oxymoron. They were Greeks, whether you like it or not. Why? Because they officially claimed so. This is what the neutral version points out in case you haven't noticed. Miskin 14:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The demographic data calls them "Bulgarians" (it quotes authors who call them nothing else but Bulgarians), the article otherwise uses consistently "Slavs" and not "Bulgarians". You are violating the NPOV of Wikipedia trying to call them "Greeks". And the correct term is "Hellenophile Slavs", not "Bulgarian Hellenophiles". The article I quoted is quite a sufficient proof that these Hellenophile Slavs did not have a Greek self-consciousness. VMORO 18:45, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

A section about the Hellenophilism of Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs you continue to erase without giving any explanation at all'' is something openly admitted by Greek scholars, as well. L.S. Stavrianos writes in "The Balkans: 1815-1914" that "The Macedonian Slavs escaped Hellenisation by remaining illiterate through the long period under the Constantinople Patriarchate, thereby preserving their language and customs..." I demand an explanation as to why you keep erasing the section.'' Your edits on this topic are manipulating real facts in order to imply a false conclusion (which is pretty much the definition of propaganda). It wasn't just random Slavs, Vlachs and Arvanites of Macedonia that chose to convert to Greek Orthodoxy. It was a very specific social level of the Ottoman Empire that was not confined to a region, and was too small to inflinct any changes in ethnic composition. I other words, I think no further comments are necessary. My source for this is Eric Hobsbawm's L'ére des révolutions. In case you've never heard of him, he's generally regarded as the greatest historian of the 20th century. Miskin 14:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * True side of the story: As a result of the power of the Greek patriarch of Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, the Greek language became the defacto means of communication in commerce, and thus a great part of merchants in Rumelia chose to convert to Greek Orthodoxy and become Hellenised.
 * VMORO's version: Most Slavs, Albanians and Vlachs of Macedonia chose to become Hellenised.
 * Sure, Miskin but I agree with what u said (probably because you quote for the first time a source and not your delusional fantasi). This voluntary Hellenification affected the well-to-do urban class (yes, indeed mostly merchants and the emerging bourgeosie) from Albania to Bulgaria. The only reason why this Hellenification did not spread to the peasants in the countryside was that the Patriarchate of Constantinople never bothered to open schools there. That's what the article says. Can I get now an explanation as to why you keep erasing the section??? VMORO 18:57, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Finally I don't see why you so stupidly keep requiring my sources on the claim that Greek Macedonia was predominantly Greek. Great part of it is marked under the demographic data which I have added in the article, and of course the Ottoman census which despite what you claim, is the only source closer to the truth. Miskin 14:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Article has the wrong title
This article, as it stands is not about the demographic history of Macedonia, it need to be retitled "Bulgarian versus Republic of Macedonia views on Macedonia"

I am not going to take a position on that interesting question, but the article is simply a confusing polemic that leaves one to believe no Greeks Turks or Jews have a demographic place in the modern history -- ie this is all about argumetns between two of the five major groups on which those two can only agree on one thing, the marginalization of the other three!


 * example no greek historians are even listed on the source section


 * even in the talk pages here is this quote which is indicative: and thus a great part of merchants in Rumelia chose to convert to Greek Orthodoxy and become Hellenised....meaning they should not be considered "Greek." I cannot figure the assetions other than race basis for ethnicity, which is wrong. People who choose to become Greek are Greek, people who choose to be come Bulgarian are Bulgarian, etc. The proponent of this is saying that there are 30 million Italians in America who are not American because there great great graet grandparents choose to come here out of economic interest?


 * now here is the kicker. look a the section Independent Point of View the entire thing completely ingroes the Greek, Turkish and Jewish populations! outside observers saw no Greeks, Jews or Turks?DaveHM 02:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * DaveHM, I have been long striving to make the point that you successfully spotted and summarized. Have a look at the edit-wars on the history section and the neutralised version I once created for this article in order to remove those chauvinist edits once and for all. Miskin 16:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

How to edit Wikipedia articles
Hi. User:Miskin, you may want to consider reading some Wikipedia guidelines, such as Disambiguation. Your editing of this article removed many links to articles and instead pointed them to a disambiguation page. Please don't do that.

Furthermore, you changed many of the references to the Roman period to Hellenes. That is a confusing change. You also added, throughout the article, indicators of who, in your opinion, are of what ethnic group, what jobs they had (mercenaries), and removed descriptions of Ottoman effects on the area, removed the fact that Bulgaria occupied parts of Greece, etc. You may also need to read Ownership of articles. The previous version of the article still needs work, but in many places had more informative and less confusing content. Jkelly 16:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll fix the links. The content changes I made were crucial in order to neutralise this article. You need to be more specific on the following points: PS: I remember you were once supporting Nazi additions on the article Greeks, so please don't try to give an indication on neutrality. Miskin 17:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * you changed many of the references to the Roman period to Hellenes - That doesn't make any sense.
 * You also added, throughout the article, indicators of who, in your opinion, are of what ethnic group, what jobs they had (mercenaries) - All my edits are based on established sources such as Eric Hobsbawm. Be more specific on what you consider "on my opinion" and I'll quote from souces.
 * removed the fact that Bulgaria occupied parts of Greece, etc - I removed what was overemphasized, misinterpreted or irrelevant to the article. Bulgaria never occupied parts of Greece, The medieval state of Bulgaria occupied parts of the Byzantine Empire and th


 * the Germans occupied Greece in WW2, that's about it. Any other intepretation is a POV. it is incorrect to say the bulgarians did not occupy Greece during world war two. they occupied a large chunk and proportional death rates and deportations by the Bulgarian army of Jews exceed that of German occupied GreeceDaveHM 18:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * User:Miskin, I think you may have me confused with someone else. I have made one edit to the article Greeks (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greeks&diff=30236682&oldid=30236605 this), and one to its talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGreeks&diff=28236273&oldid=28157112 this).  That said, there was a period in which the article on Greek fascism had a lot of weird "Metaxas was a good fascist" material that I reverted back to because it looked like an anon was removing sourced material.  Is that perhaps the incident that you are thinking of?  To return to discussing the article, can you explain to me why you are changing references to Romans to Hellenes, why you removed material about the region being depopulated, why you are calling Thrace "non-Hellenized", why you removed information about Ottoman killings, why you removed the information on Orthodox church changes impacting "the Greek idea", and explain how the Bulgarians "invent"ed ascendency (this is weird phrasing)?  That said, cutting the sentence "Also, the present-day historians from Macedonia claim that there were two IMRO organisations - a macedonian one and a vrhovistic one, which declared as a bulgarian organisation." was a good idea, as it was unsourced.  Your explanation of your change in re: Bulgaria and WWII makes sense to me.  Jkelly 18:36, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, sorry if that's the case (confusing you with someone else), there was someone who was pushing racial theories into that article and his name resembled your own, it has nothing to do with you. I now see what you mean by changing reference from "Romanised" to "Hellenised". If we regard as "Romanisation" the act of spreading the Latin language, and as "Hellenisation" the act of spreading the Greek language, Macedonia (and the entire Eastern part of the Empire) were never Romanised. If we assume the ancient Macedonians as non-Hellenic peoples, then we have to use the word "Hellenisation". The Macedonian culture is assimilated by the Greek and stays like that until present times. Later on in history the Slavic element is added to Macedonia's composition, but it never assimilates the Greek, unlike what this article currently implies by emphasizing Bulgarian history (that hardly connected to the proper Macedonian peninsula anyway). Either way the Eastern part of the Roman Empire (including Macedonia) was never Romanised and only Hellenised, the proof of this is the birth of the Byzantine civilization. Thrace was Hellenised much later than Macedonia and only part of it, I'm not sure where your argument is. I removed information on the "Greek idea" that I consider biased, unsourced and generally one-sided. The present-day historians of Macedonia line was only stating a POV which has no place in wikipedia. Real historians know the real answer to it. Miskin 20:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about calling me a Nazi. And, while we are at it, I should apologize myself for a response to your editing that wasn't a model of WP:COOL.  I remain concerned about a... "fluidity" of historical interpretation in this article.  There are a bunch of references listed at the bottom, but it's mostly impossible to guess what statement is referenced by what.  I'd like to ask about one remaining point that I am unclear on.  Are you contending that the Ottoman killings are unreferenced, or are a Bulgarian POV?  Jkelly 00:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Don't you think there's suspiciously too many references? I've argued with the person who has supposedly written the article and read all those books but he didn't give that impression. He also claimed to have no agenda on the subject and yet a word count on the string "bulgarian" would use up all my system resources. The article is extremely one-sided and for the sake of neutrality it should be largerly revised. Which section of the article are you referring to? It's been awhile since I made this edits and I don't remember them by heart. Miskin 17:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

To VMORO
Please let us finally sit down and discuss this article on a civil and producive manner in order to reach to a mutually respectable solution. Miskin 17:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)