THE MACEDONIAN QUESTIONOXFORD HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHSEditorsi. ;. w. ivaxs ;. uaiiis;. ioniirsoxi. siivici i. a. siacxn. waio-iiixixs ;. warrsThe MacedonianQuestionBritain and the Southern Balkans19391949DIMITRIS LIVANIOS11Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox: ooiOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship,and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith ofces inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Pressin the UK and in certain other countriesPublished in the United Statesby Oxford University Press Inc., New York Dimitris Livanios 2008The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published 2008All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriatereprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproductionoutside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or coverand you must impose the same condition on any acquirerBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataData availableLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataData availableTypeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, IndiaPrinted in Great Britainon acid-free paper byBiddles Ltd., Kings Lynn, NorfolkISBN 97801992376851 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 , oAcknowledgementsThis study, a revised version of my doctoral dissertation, owes muchto the support of a number of scholars. First, I should like to thankProfessor Richard Clogg, my supervisor. I am particularly indebted tohim for the invaluable guidance he has offered me, and his insightfulcomments. I amalso extremely grateful to the Grand Old Man of Greekanthropology, Dr John Campbell. Not only did he read a substantialpart of my work with a sharp eye, but he was also an important sourceof support during my stay in Oxford. Dr Richard Kerr Kindersley andProfessor Thanos Veremis read drafts of my thesis, and offered valuablesuggestions. Professor Stefan Troebst also deserves my thanks for hisconstructive criticism of a nal draft of this work.The publication of a thesis normally offers the author the pleasantduty to record a number of intellectual debts that have been accumulatedover many years. I should like to express, however inadequately, mygratitude to Professor John Koliopoulos, who has guided me duringmy studies at Aristotle University of Salonica, and rst introducedme to things Macedonian. I am indebted to him for his unfailingencouragement. Dr Evangelos Kofos generously gave me the benet ofhis scholarly expertise and kindness. Professor Basil Gounaris, a long-standing friend and mentor, deserves my thanks for our Macedonianconversations over the years. I would also like to thank Professor BasilKondis for his advice on Foreign Ofce material. A special word ofthanks is also due to Dr Dimitris Portolos, Ms Katerina Haritatou, andMr Giannis Petsopoulos for their discreet, but decisive, support. Mystay in Oxford was made possible by the generosity of Mr and Ms Fitch.Without their nancial support I could not have pursued my studies.I owe to them heartfelt thanks for the unique opportunity they haveoffered me.Anna, a scholar of Italian humanism, was forced to live with theMacedonian revolutionaries for far too long. Her good nature andsteady nerve allowed her to react to their raids in our daily life withAcknowledgements viigood cheer. I shall always be grateful to her for her support. Regrettably,this book came too late to be placed in the hands of the person whomost deserved to see it published. My gratitude to my mother is beyondwords, and this work is dedicated to her.D. L.This page intentionally left blank ContentsNote on Transliteration xiAbbreviations xiiiPART I. WEAVING THE NESSUS SHIRT, 1870 19391. Introduction 3Macedonian Illusions 3The Balkan Nessus Shirt: The Politics of the MacedonianQuestion, 18701939 15The Discreet Charm of Nationalism: Communism and theMacedonian Question, 18941935 302. Tampering with the Sleeping Dogs: Britain andMacedonia 18781935 42From San Stefano to the Great War, 18781918 42Inuence for Moderation: Britain and Macedonia in theInterwar Period 52PART II. WARTIME, 1939 19453. Chronicle of Failures Foretold: Britain andBulgarYugoslav Relations, 19391943 81The Improbable Rapprochement, 19391941 81Acres of Paper: BulgarYugoslav Relations in BritishWartime Planning, 19411943 1024. The Difcult Withdrawal: Britain and the Bulgarian Armyin Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia, SeptemberDecember1944 115The Setting, 1944 115The Bulgarian Army in Yugoslav Macedonia, 19411944 118Sinister Designs: SeptemberDecember 1944 127Percentages Observed: Greek Macedonia,SeptemberOctober 1944 136x Contents5. Ghost Resurrected: BulgarYugoslav Negotiations forFederation, and the British Response, 19441945 142Ambitions and Realities: Titos Balkan Policy, 19421944 144Slav Unity at Work, September 1944February 1945 152British Attitudes towards BulgarYugoslav Union,April December 1944 159British Intervention, December 1944March 1945 166PART III. FROM WAR TO COLD WAR, 1945 19496. Between Centralism and Separatism: The Emergence of theYugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 19441948 177Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Others 177The Making of the Peoples Republic of Macedonia,19441948 184An Ideology that ts the Time: The Function of MacedonianNational Ideology in Yugoslav Macedonia, 19441948 1987. Britain and the Macedonian Question, 19451949 209Years of Reassessment: Britain and the Balkans, 19441948 209Britain and the Macedonian Question, 19451948 215Full Circle: The 1948 Split and its Aftermath 2348. A Loveless, but Necessary, Entanglement 243Bibliography 251Index 263Note on TransliterationTransliteration from Balkan languages has presented scholars withmuch trouble, not least because consistency and accuracy has to betempered with an attempt to avoid unwarranted pedantry. I list belowthe transliteration schemes that are used in this book, but I have silentlyoverlooked them whenever there are forms (including phonetic orhistorical) that have been established in English publications. So thereis Mihailov, instead of Mihaylov, King Alexander of Yugoslaviahas remained so, but Protogerovs rst name became Alexand ur. ForGreek, I have rendered the as i, and therefore resistance has beenrendered as antistasi and not antistase. For Serbo-Croat, I have usedits own version of the Latin alphabet (the Latinica). Given that manyauthors writing in English have also used the Latinica for the renderingof Macedonian names, I have followed this practice, and consequentlyKolishevski has become Kolisevski and the Antifascist Assembly (ofthe National Liberation of MacedoniaASNOM) has been renderedas Antifasisti cko Sobranie, and not as Antifashistichko.TRANSLITERATION SCHEMESa) Bulgarian b) GreekAa - aBb - vCv - gDg (hard) - dEd - eFe - zGzh - iHz - thIi - iJy - kKk - lLl - mMm - nxii Note on TransliterationNn - xOo o - oPp - pQr - rRs - sSt - tTu - yUf - fVh - chWts - psXch - oYshZsht , af, ef or av, ev0 u - b if initial, mb if not1iu - d if initial, nd if not2ya g if initial, ng if notououAbbreviationsASNOM Antifasisticko Sobranie na NarodnotoOsloboduvanje Na Makedonija/AntifascistAssembly of National Liberation of MacedoniaAVNOJ Antifasisticko Vece Narodnog OslobodenjaJugolsavije/Antifascist Council of NationalLiberation of YugoslaviaBANU Bulgarian Agrarian National UnionBCF Balkan Communist FederationBCP Bulgarian Communist PartyBHQ Balkan HeadquartersBLO British Liaison OfcerBMORK B ulgarski Makedono-Odrinski RevoliutsionniKomiteti/Bulgarian Macedo-AdrianopolitanRevolutionary CommitteesCC Central Committee (of Communist parties)CD Central Department (of the Foreign Ofce)Cominform Communist Information Bureau (alsoInformbureau), 194756Comintern Communist ( Third) International, 191943CPA Communist Party of AlbaniaCPM Communist Party of MacedoniaCPY Communist Party of YugoslaviaDAG Democratic Army of GreeceEAM Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo/NationalLiberation Front (Greece)EDES Ethnikos Dimokratikos EllinikosSyndesmos/National Republican Greek LeagueELAS Ellinikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos/GreekPeoples Liberation Armyxiv AbbreviationsIMRO See VMROIMRO(United)See VMRO (obedinena)JGHQ Joint General Headquarters (Greece)KKE Kommounistiko Komma Elladas/Communist Partyof GreeceMRO Macedonian Revolutionary OrganizationNOF Naroden Osvododitelen Front/National LiberationFrontOF Otechestven Front/Fatherland Front (Bulgaria)OSS Ofce of Strategic Services (USA)OZNA Odeljenje za Zastitu Naroda/Department for theDefence of the People (Yugoslavia)PRM Peoples Republic of MacedoniaSEKE Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma Elladas/SocialistLabour Party of GreeceSNOF Slavomakedonski Naroden OsvoboditelenFront/Slav-Macedonian National LiberationFrontSOE Special Operations Executive (Britain)SRPJ (k) Socijalisticka Radnicka Partija Jugoslavije(komunista)/Socialist Workers Party of Yugoslavia(communist)TMORO Tayna Makedono-Odrinska RevoliutsionnaOrganizatsiya/Secret Macedo-AdrianopolitanRevolutionary OrganizationUNRRA United Nations Relief and RehabilitationAdministrationUNSCOB United Nations Special Commission on theBalkansAbbreviations xvVMRO V utreshna Makedonska RevoliutsionnaOrganizatsiya/Internal Macedonian RevolutionaryOrganizationVMRO(Obedinena)V utreshna Makedonska RevoliutsionnaOrganizatsiya (Obedinena)/Internal MacedonianRevolutionary Organization (United)This page intentionally left blank PART IWEAVING THE NESSUS SHIRT,18701939This page intentionally left blank 1IntroductionMACEDONIAN ILLUSIONSLe mot Macdoine fait illusion. Thus, Jacques Ancel in 1930. Fewstudents of the Macedonian Question would be prepared to contestthe ability of Macedonia, as a word or an entity, to provide ampleopportunity for diehard illusions. There is hardly an aspect of thisproblem that can be taken for granted without provoking intensedebate, while the enormous amount of printed material devoted to itwas undertaken to defend conicting national causes, rather than to serveClio. The uncertainties appear even in the very name Macedonia, sinceit has never had the same geographical and national connotations forevery ruler or contender concerned. Although it is widely accepted that,as a territorial designation from the late nineteenth century onwards,the term Macedonia refers to the region contained within the threeOttoman vilayets of Salonica, Monastir, and Kosovo, the Ottomansgenerally avoided that name, using instead the term Rumeli (the land ofthe Romans).` On the other hand the Bulgarians frequently excludedfrom Macedonia the area south of the Greater Bulgaria created bythe Treaty of San Stefano in 1878,` some Greek scholars argued thatthe vilayet of Kosovo should not be considered Macedonian territory,while the Serbs often considered the northern part of that vilayet as anintegral part of Serbia and denounced any geographical enlargement of Jacques Ancel, Peuples et nations des Balkans: Gographie politique (Paris, 1930), 74.` For most scholars, the geographical boundaries of Macedonia are the Sar mountainsto the north, the lakes of Ochrid and Prespa to the west, the Pindus range, MountOlympos and the Aegean Sea to the south, and, to the east, the Rila and Rhodopemountains and the river Nestos. Douglas Dakin, The Greek Struggle in Macedonia,18971913 (Salonica, 1966), 3.` Richard von Mach, The Bulgarian Exarchate: Its History and the Extent of its Authorityin Turkey (London and Neuchtel, 1907), 43. See V. Colokotronis, La Macdoine et lHellnisme: tude historique et ethnologique(Paris, 1919), 607.4 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939Macedonia as a Bulgarian machination. Unsurprisingly, the nationalafliations of the population of that unfortunate land have provoked amuch more heated debate than the designation of its borders, an issueplagued by mutually exclusive national rivalries, invented historicallegacies, and local as well as international politics.First, it should be stressed that the maps and statistics producedby various Balkan quarters in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies were at best prejudiced and unbalanced and at worst con-stituted little more than a paper war, since their principal objectivewas to inuence foreign powers, legitimize territorial claims, and vin-dicate state policies. In the eyes of contemporary European observers,Ottoman statistics were equally unreliable: in some cases their registersincludedor made a serious effort to count only males, they referredto the vague notion of the household, while the divide and rule policywhich the Porte followed in the early twentieth century has also tobe taken into consideration. However, the most signicant elementcontained in their statistics, namely the classication of the populationaccording to religious afliation, and not on a linguistic or ethnicbasis, merits some analysis, for this feature reects an Ottoman realitywhich points to the limited analytical value of national or ethniccategories in Balkan history prior to the rise of nationalism in theregion.The priority of religion in the shaping of Ottoman society led tothe emergence of the millet system, a classication of the subjugatedpopulations according to religion, which cut across social, regional,ethnic, and linguistic barriers. Originally, the millet system covered theJews, the Orthodox Christians, and the Armenians (the peoples of thebook), but in the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuriesthe millets multiplied chiey through the fragmentation of the empiresOrthodox Christian community. By the end of the nineteenth centurythe Ottomans had recognized no less than twelve millets, while a Vlach T. R. Georgevi c, Macedonia (London, 1918), 26. For an interesting aspect of this paper warfare, the function of ethnological maps,see a rich collection in H. R. Wilkinson, Maps and Politics: A Review of the EthnographicCartography of Macedonia (Liverpool, 1951). For the shortcomings of the Ottoman statistics see Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causesand Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Washington DC, 1914), 28. Regarding the Ottomanpolitical aims and their relation to the statistics see the letter of Hilmi Pasha, inspectorgeneral for the Macedonian vilayets in 1904, concerning the census of that year inBulgarian Academy of Sciences, Macedonia: Documents and Materials (Soa, 1978), 491.Introduction 5millet was established in the early twentieth century. The Orthodoxmillet was called Millet-i Rum (i.e. the Roman Millet) and was placedunder the spiritual, and to some extent temporal, leadership of thePatriarch of Constantinople, which was its millet bashi (head of themillet).The Orthodox millet was Greek in outlook: the Patriarch and manyof the bishops were Greeks (or thoroughly Hellenized) and Greek waswidely, although not exclusively, used for church services. In Mace-donia, however, under this supranational cover there were Albanian-,Greek-, Vlach-, and Slav- speakers, the last claimed by all three prin-cipal contenders for the entire area: Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks.Any attempt to calculate the numbers of these groups is fraughtwith difculty, but a descent to the statisticians den is inevitable.At the beginning of the twentieth century, within the Macedonian See Anthony O Mahony, The Christian Communities of Jerusalem and the HolyLand: A Historical and Political Survey, in id. (ed.), The Christian Communities ofJerusalem and the Holy Land: Studies in History, Religion and Politics (Cardiff, 2003),78, for a catalogue of the Ottoman millet communities at the end of the 19th cent. Forthe Vlach millet, established in 1905, see H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and theirFuture (London 1906), 1889. For the origins and evolution of the millet system seeKemal Karpat, An Inquiry into the Social Foundation of Nationalism in the Ottoman State:From Social Estates to Classes, from Millets to Nations (Princeton, 1973); Bernard Lewisand Benjamin Braude (eds.), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioningof a Plural Society, i. The Central Lands (New York, 1982). For the Orthodox millet and its functions see Richard Clogg, The Greek Milletin the Ottoman Empire, in Lewis and Braude (eds.), Christians, i. 185207; ParaskevasKonortas, From Taife to Millet: Ottoman Terms for the Ottoman Greek OrthodoxCommunity, in Dimitri Gondicas and Charles Issawi (eds.), Ottoman Greeks in the Ageof Nationalism: Politics, Economy and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1999),16980; id., Othomanikes Theoriseis gia to Oikoumeniko Patriarcheio: Veratia gia tousProkathemenous tis Megalis Ekklisias, dekatos edvomos arches eikostou aiona [OttomanViews of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: Berats for the Leaders of the Great Church, fromthe Seventeenth to the Beginnings of the Twentieth Century] (Athens, 1998). For statistical accounts see Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report ofthe International Commission, 28, 30. More details in the chart at the end of G. M. Terry,The Origins and Development of the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement, withParticular Reference to TMORO from its Conception in 1893 to the Ilinden Uprisingof 1903, (unpublished M.Phil. thesis, Nottingham, 1974). For Bulgarian ethnographicestimates see Iordan Ivanoff, Les Bulgares devant Le Congrs de la Paix, Documentshistoriques, ethnographiques et diplomatiques (2nd edn., Berne, 1919), 294304, butmainly Vasil K unchov, Makedoniya: Etnograya I Statistika (Soa, 1900). K unchovswork, a laboriously researched account, is undoubtedly the best of its kind. For the Greekpoint of view, Colokotronis, La Macdoine, 60319. See also the maps in Wilkinson,Maps. For comparative estimates based on Balkan, Ottoman, and European accounts seeVemund Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia, 18701913 (Boulder,Colo., 2003), 624. It should be stressed that the discrepancies noted in the statisticswere due not only to the criteria, linguistic or religious, used for classication, but6 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939vilayets the Muslims constituted roughly a third of the population. Thisgroup was composed mainly of Turks, approximately 400,000 in 1912,and Albanians, about 120,000, while the whole Macedonian popu-lation at that time was about 2,280,000. Apart from these groups,the Macedonian Muslims included a number of Bulgarian-speakingPomaks, who were concentrated mainly in Thrace, the Greek-speakingValaades in south-western Macedonia, a small number of Gypsies, andthe Salonica Dnme ( Jews who had converted to Islam).` It should benoted that the Ottomans made a concerted effort to inate the numbersof Muslims in the Macedonian vilayets by administrative manipulation.Thus, the addition of the overwhelmingly Albanian sanjaks of Elbasanand Prizren in the vilayets of Monastir and Kosovo respectively produceda Muslim majority in these units.`The numerically predominant group in the region was the Slav-speakers, approximately half of the Macedonian population, and espe-cially strong in the rural areas. The Greek-speaking population wasconned largely in towns and large villages; they could be found mostlyin the southern parts of the region, especially along the Aegean coastline,and they were predominant in the Chalkidiki peninsula. The Vlachs,mainly transhumant shepherds speaking a Latin-based language, formedscattered enclaves mainly in southern and south-western Macedonia;they were fairly numerous in the Pindus range, in mountain villages andin cities as, for instance, in Monastir. There was also a small numberof Christian Albanians. However, if the focus is shifted from languageto religious afliation the picture changes dramatically. From 1870also to the fact that different accounts employed different geographical delimitations ofMacedonia. These gures and terminology are drawn from contemporary British sources.FO 371/10667, C15185/2332/7, memorandum on The Macedonian Question andKomitaji Activity by the CD of the FO dated 26/11/1925. This memorandum isdiscussed in Miranda Paximadopoulou-Stavrinou, To Foreign Ofce kai to Makedonikoto 1925 [The Foreign Ofce and the Macedonian [Question] in 1925], ValkanikaSymmeikta, 10 (1998), 22542. The Ottoman census of 1904 gave a Muslim populationof more than 1,500,000, which appears to be an exaggerated estimate. Ivanoff, LesBulgares, 298.` For the Dnme see Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims andJews, 14301950 (London, 2004), 6579. For the Gypsies and the Jews of Macedoniasee also Brailsford, Macedonia, 815.` Richard von Mach, Bulgarian Exarchate, 43. The British account mentioned in n. 11 gives a number of about 300,000 Greek-and 200,000 Vlach-speakers in the three vilayets, compared to 1,150,000 Slavs around1912. The number of the Vlachs is exaggerated, probably reecting a pro-Greek bias, orGreek sources.Introduction 7onward, when the Bulgarians were granted ecclesiastical autonomy andestablished the Exarchate, the Greeks considered only the Exarchistsas Bulgarians, and viewed the Patriarchists, who remained loyal to theEcumenical Patriarchate, as Greeks. According to the Ottoman censusof 1904 there were in Macedonia 648,962 Patriarchists and 557,734Exarchists. Evidently, the criteria used to dene the various groupsvaried wildly. For Bulgarian scholars and publicists, what mattered wasnot religious afliation, as the Slavs were split between the Exarch andthe Patriarch, but language, and consequently Bulgarian statistics arebased on exclusively linguistic criteria, thus allowing for a depressionof the number of both Greeks and Serbs. The exact opposite methodwas employed by Greek sources, which make no reference to languageand focus instead on religious afliation and what they call commerciallanguage of the population. Following this classication, the numberof Greeks rises conveniently.Clearly, the main issue at stake in Ottoman Macedonia was theloyalties and perceived national orientation of the Slav-speakingpopulation, and this calls for some examination of the reasons thatprompted the Slav-speakers to opt for the Exarch or the Patriarch after1870. To begin with, a major distinction should be made betweenthe vast majority of peasantsas were most of the Slavsand thesmall but extremely vocal minority of Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbianschoolteachers, priests, and government ofcials of the Balkan countriesin Macedonia. This element was clearly nationalist in orientationand its main aim had been the awakening of the sleeping beauty ofGreek, Bulgarian, and Serbian nationalism. Given that theirs was the The establishment of the autonomous Bulgarian Church, a major turning point inMacedonian politics, will be treated in greater detail below. Colokotronis, La Macdoine, 606. As was frequently the case with the statistics, thereare two sources which provide gures for the statistics of 1904. One is the Turkish paperof Salonica ASR (no. 994) and the other is the Austrian paper Politische Korrespondenz(18/3/1904). The discrepancies in the numbers given are quite noticeable, with the latterbeing more favourable to the Greeks. In both cases the Patriarchists outnumber theExarchists but in the version given in ASR it appears also that a classication rested onlanguage, which gives 896,496 Bulgarians, including both Exarchists and Patriarchists;307,000 Patriarchist Greeks; 99,000 Vlachs; and 100,717 Serbs. For this version seeIvanoff, Les Bulgares, 298. See Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry, 913, 16283, for Greek and Bulgarian statisticalaccounts. Fostering the nationalist spirit in Macedonia and the Balkans in general througheducation produced astonishing side effects. According to British sources, in 1912 therewas less illiteracy in Bulgaria than in Italy. FO 371/10667, C15185, memorandum ofthe CD of the FO dated 26/11/1925.8 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939role of ying the nationalist ag, the subsequent analysis will focus onthe peasants, who found themselves caught in a much more confusingsituation.It is now widely accepted that nationalism in the modern sense of theword is not inborn. As Ernest Gellner eloquently put it, nations, likestates, are a contingency, and not a universal necessity. It is unlikelythat such a contingency existed in the Macedonian vilayets prior tothe establishment of the Bulgarian Church in 1870. It should benoticed that the key element for the understanding of the OrthodoxGreek millet is the word Orthodox rather than Greek. This frequentlymissed aspect can be applied to a certain extent even to the Greekclergy, and was painfully discovered by Greek nationalists, who pointedout, not without resentment, that Prelates of the church are notGreeks, they are Christians.` Inevitably, the Patriarchate drew muchmore re from other quarters: Bulgarian, but also European, accountshave repeatedly accused the post-Byzantine patriarchs of acting asagents of denationalization and Hellenization of the Balkan Slavs,citing particularly the abolition of the two medieval Slavonic sees, thePatriarchate of Pe c and the Archbishopric of Ochrid, in 1766 and1767 respectively. The suppression of these churches brought Serbs andBulgarians under the direct ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarchateand led to an increase in the number of Greek bishops, and to widespreaduse of Greek in church services. There is evidence to suggest, however,that patriarchal motives had little to do with the imposition of Greekrule over the Slavs, and much more with a concerted effort to stem theadvances of Catholicism in those areas. Apart from the fact that by thenboth sees were already administered largely by Greek prelates, they facedgrave nancial problems. The local synods petitioned the Patriarchto revoke their autocephaly, a request to which the Great Churchresponded, in an attempt to safeguard not Hellenism, but Orthodoxy.`The absence of the ethnic factor can also be conrmed by develop-ments occurring at about the same time in distant Ottoman Syria: after a Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 1988), 6.` This statement carries additional weigh since it was made by Ion Dragoumis, anactive participant in Macedonian affairs. He was vice-consul in Monastir from 1902 to1904 and formed an extensive organization to counteract the activities of the BulgarianComitadjis. His statement is quoted from Thanos Veremis, From the National Stateto Stateless Nation, 18211910, in id. and Martin Blinkhorn (eds.), Modern Greece:Nationalism and Nationality (Athens, 1990), 21.` Paschalis Kitromilides, Balkan Mentality: History, Legend, Imagination, Nationsand Nationalism, 2/2 (1996), 182.Introduction 9large segment of the Arab Orthodox ock of the Patriarchate of Antiochbecame Uniate, including the Arab patriarch Cyril Al-Tanas himself,the Ecumenical Patriarchate intervened directly in 1725 and startedappointing to Antioch only Greek clerics. In the 1760s, at the timeof the suppression of the Slavonic sees in the Balkans, the Patriarchateof Constantinople appointed in Antioch a Greek, dismissing an Arabcandidate lest some one of the Arabs come in and extinguish thebright ame of Orthodoxy.`` Clearly Arab candidates were suspect, butonly because they could endanger Orthodoxy by passing to Catholicismand to the Uniate Church. It was largely a defensive concern, namelythe protection of the Orthodox ock and perceptions of an imminentCatholic onslaught, that led Constantinople to tighten its grip over boththe Arabs of Antioch and the Slavs of the Balkans at the end of theeighteenth century.Turning from the clergy to their Balkan Slav ock, the prevalenceof religion is equally pronounced. In early twentieth century, someSlav-speaking children from a village near Ochrid who had been askedto identify their ancestors, responded that they werent Turks, theywere Christians.`` Another fairly typical answer could be Greek. AFrench traveller in the late nineteenth century was told by a Slav inthe town of Resna that our fathers were Greeks and none mentionedthe Bulgarians.` A literary translation of the word Greek used abovemight well be Christian, for these two terms were inseparably linked,given that most Macedonian Slavs remained deeply immersed in thepre-modern religious identity of the Orthodox millet, and had availableto them education mostly in Greek.` It quickly became apparent tothe apostles of nationalism in Macedonia that the peasants could simplynot understand the word nation in the way their national leadersdid. The use of the word Bulgarian is another illuminating example,`` Robert M. Haddad, Syrian Christians in Muslim Society: An Interpretation (Prince-ton, 1970), 63, quotation on p. 66.`` It is worth quoting this often-cited short dialogue in full. Who built this place[a medieval fortress]? I asked them. The answer was signicant: The free men. Andwho were they? Our grandfathers. Yes, but were they Serbs or Bulgarians or Greeks orTurks? They werent Turks, they were Christians. Brailsford, Macedonia, 99.` Victor Brard, La Turquie et l Hellnisme contemporain (Paris, 1897), 125.` Before the establishment of the Exarchate, Greek education in Macedonia, despiteits many problems, was virtually unchallenged. After 1870, however, the Bulgariansmade a determined effort and at the turn of the century they had 843 schools with31,719 pupils, while the Greeks had 1,000 schools with 70,000 pupils. Dakin, GreekStruggle, 20; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the InternationalCommission, 27.10 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939as it had in many cases social rather than ethnic connotations. It wasused to denote the hard-working peasant, the poor and the illiterate,irrespective of language, something that Serbian and Greek accountswere all too happy to acknowledge for their own reasons.` The uidityof ethnic terms in the Balkans was not, of course, a novelty, as the wordServ-alvanito-vulgaro-vlachos (Serb-Albanian-Bulgaro-Vlach), used bya Greek chronicle of the fteenth century, clearly suggests.`The establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate signalled a period oferce antagonismin Macedonia, which is mainly seen as a manifestationof national consciousness of the Bulgarians in Macedonia.` Althoughthe growth of Bulgarian nationalism since 1870, supported by a rapidlyexpanding educational network, was considerable, adherence to theBulgarian national cause was far from being the only or, in many casesthe most important, consideration for abandoning the Patriarch andopting for the Exarch. A closer examination reveals a far more complexsituation. What is not open to doubt is a tendency of many Slavs to havechurch services in their language. The Exarchate was not the rst toconsider and nally to exploit this need. What Orthodox sources referto as the Uniate propaganda, but also Catholicism, owed much of itsmodest success in Macedonia to the use of Slavonic.` This wish, alongwith a determination to break with oppressive bishops, prompted alarge segment of the Slav-speakers into the fold of the Exarchate.` Suchmotives were by no means conned to the Slavs. In the early twentieth` Cf. e.g., Jovan Cviji c, Remarques sur lethnographie de la Macdoine (Paris, 1907),22. Cviji c, however, was not an impartial observer. Cf. p. 13.` Cited in Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics(Ithaca, NY and London 1988), rep. 328.` For a general discussion of the relationship between nationalism and religion seeGeorge Arnakis, The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism, inC. and B. Jelavich (eds.), The Balkans in Transition: Essays on the Development of BalkanLife and Politics since the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1963), 11544,esp. 13340.` An inscription in a Catholic church in Macedonia commemorated the date ofconversion as follows: On March 1858 we recovered our national tongue. Cited inThomas Meininger, Ignatiev and the Establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate 18641872:A Study in Personal Diplomacy (Madison, 1970), 22.` According to a native of Veles, the citizens of Veles did not begin to take aninterest in the church struggle until 1860. It is possible that even then they might nothave joined in the church struggle but for the fact that at that time the Suffragan-Bishopof Veles was Greek. Antim by name made himself so unpopular in Veles and inthe eparchy of Veles-Debar, that the agents of the Bulgarian propaganda won over thewhole of Veles to the church struggle for the Bulgarian Exarchate. Georgevitch, Macedo-nia, 235.Introduction 11century, some Vlachs from Monastir petitioned the Patriarchate touse Roumanian in their church. The Patriarchate refused, and thisled many Vlachs to join the Exarchate which proved to be willing toaccommodate their request.`By the end of the nineteenth century Bulgarian guerrilla bands, someof them local and connected with the Macedonian Revolutionary Orga-nization, but others including men from the Bulgarian principality,roamed the Macedonian vilayets of Monastir and Salonica and ter-rorized the peasants in order to send petitions to the Ottomans forpermission to join the Exarchate.`` Thus, merciless terror became adecisive factor in shaping the alleged national preferences of the peas-ants and provided the Exarchate with a commanding stronghold inmany Macedonian areas.`` In 1904 the Greek consul reported fromSalonica that only a few [Slav-speakers] dare to remain Greeks.` TheGreeks, defeated in the Graeco-Turkish war of 1897 and preoccupiedwith the Cretan issue, had other foreign policy priorities, and werelatecomers in practising the politics of terror. Their rst systematicattempt to form bands and send them to Macedonia was made in1904 and ended with the outbreak of the Young Turk revolution in1908.`Generally speaking, during the period under consideration (18701908) most of the Macedonian villages were mixed, i.e. contained anExarchist and a Patriarchist faction, although in most cases both fac-tions spoke Bulgarian dialects, with schoolteachers, priests, or chieftainsas their local leaders. The rest of the population was rather passive andindifferent. Surrounded as they were by an extremely hostile environ-ment, the main concern of the peasants was to safeguard their life and` See the letter of the British Consul General Biliotti to the British charg daffairesWhitehead, Salonica, 26 Jan. 1903, reprod. in Basil Gounaris et al. (eds.), The Events of1903 in Macedonia as Presented in European Diplomatic Correspondence (Salonica, 1993),2930.`` According to Article 10 of the Firman of 1870, which established the Exarchate, itwas stated that a locality has the right to join the Bulgarian Church, if two-thirds of thepopulation approved it. The Firman can be found in Brard, La Turquie, 1847, Article10 at 1867. For the MRO see below.`` For the activities of the Bulgarian Comitadjis (Committee men) see Dakin, GreekStruggle, 4470.` Archeion Ypourgiou Exoterikon (Archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs),AYE 1904/Proxeneion Thessalonikis, Nikolaos Eugeniadis to the foreign minister AthosRomanos, 28/2/1904, Protocol Number 107.` For the Greek Makedonikos Agonas (Macedonian Struggle) see Dakin, GreekStruggle. For the Bulgarian bands in Macedonia see Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry, 1248.12 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939their modest property by keeping this game of terror out of their villages.This was a demanding task, not least because both Greek and Bulgarianbands included brigands, whose attraction to plunder and cattle-stealingwas rarely tempered by national or other considerations.` Naturally,when a Greek or a Bulgarian chieftain entered a village and asked Whatare you, Greeks or Bulgarians?` he was provided with the answer hewanted to hear rather than a manifestation of national feelings. As aconsequence a village could shift its allegiance overnight, and very oftenthe peasants decided to accommodate both Exarchist and Patriarchistbands to prevent reprisals. Many of these Comitadjis (Committeemen) who tried hard from 1893 to 1908 to transfer the loyalties of theSlav-speakers to the Exarchate can hardly be classied as nationalists ofany particular cause. They were armed irregulars who became involvedin that struggle for a variety of reasons, and not least because they sawin the Bulgarian organization the only way to shake off the Ottomanyoke. Given that the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was therst to offer this option it won over the most daring and revolutionaryelements in Macedonia, a reality their Greek adversaries regreted bit-terly. Thus, many of those who manned the Bulgarian bands had beenrecruited primarily as Christians to ght against the Turks, and notas Bulgarians. The relatively low presence of nationalism was furtherhighlighted by the fact that some Exarchist Comitadjis later joined theGreek bands and ended up as fervent Patriarchists, when pecuniarymotives prompted them to do so, an attraction that also brought to theGreek cause the services of many Macedonian brigands.`Furthermore, socio-political dimensions of ethnicity have also tobe taken into consideration. In some cases the scheme Exarchists vs` For a lucid analysis of the brigands role in the Greek struggle for Macedonia seeJohn S. Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause: Brigandage and Irredentism in Modern Greece18211912 (Oxford, 1987). For an account of the Greek guerrilla warfare in 19048in Macedonia see Dimitris Livanios, Conquering the Souls: Nationalism and GreekGuerrilla Warfare in Ottoman Macedonia, 19041908, Byzantine and Modern GreekStudies, 23 (1999), 195221.` Numerous examples illustrating this situation can be found in the memoirs ofthe various Greeks chieftains. See Vassilis Stavropoulos (Korakas), Apomnimonevmata[Memoirs], in O Makedonikos Agonas: Apomnimonevmata [The Struggle for Macedonia:Memoirs] (Salonica, 1984), 383465; K. I. Mazarakis-Ainian (Akritas), Anamniseis[Reminiscences], ibid. 249.` See Dakin, Greek Struggle, 11932. According to a Greek source involved inthat struggle Bulgarian chiefs joined the Greek organization believing that the Greekswould pay for their services. See D. Kakavos, Apomnimonevmata [Memoirs] (Salonica,1972), 88.Introduction 13Patriarchists was nothing more than a cover for deeper social cleavages.`In the Karadjova region, for instance, in central Macedonia, there wereisolated fanatically Patriarchist villages encircled by fairly numerousExarchist ones. However, the fact that the inhabitants of the formervillages were not indigenous but relatively newcomers in the area,suggests that since the indigenous element was Exarchist the hostilitybetween them and the newly arrived peasants made it almost imperativefor the latter to opt for the Patriarch. Local politics reveal another aspectof this question, as bitter political struggles among the notables of avillage or a town could lead the rival factions to use the local Greek andBulgarian organizations for their own political ends, and in order topay off oldpolitical or personal scores. According to a protagonist ofthe Greek armed struggle, the Bulgarian movement in Macedonia arosefrom hatred among the village councils. The opposition sided withthe Bulgarians and proselytized the illiterate peasants. Although thisis clearly a sweeping generalization, and comes from an anti-Bulgariansource, it nevertheless does reect a reality, which is very often neglected.In other cases the contravention of traditional moral values committedby a Patriarchist or an Exarchist notable might well have promptedthe conservative peasants to transfer their loyalty. In 1905 a prominentPatriarchist prokritos (notable) in the village of Goumenissa in the vilayetof Salonica, delayed his wedding due to nancial difculties. This issueprovoked the opposition of the whole village and forced the GreekConsul General of Salonica, Lambros Koromilas, to ask the Ministryfor Foreign Affairs to allocate funding for the wedding. The fact thatthis would restore the credibility of the Greek party in the villageclearly indicates the importance of these factors in the rural areas ofMacedonia.All in all, the effort of extracting a clear-cut national conscious-ness out of the Macedonian Slav-speaking peasantry proved a difculttask. Their loyalties remained attached mostly to their land, family,and religious afliation and to some extent their language. Although` See Basil Gounaris, Social Cleavages and National Awakening in OttomanMacedonia, East European Quarterly, 29/4 (1995), 40926. Mazarakis, Anamniseis, 203. Mazarakis, an ofcer of the Greek army, had athorough knowledge of the situation in Macedonia in the early 20th cent. He hadworked in the Greek Consulate in Salonica in 1904 and had travelled extensively inMacedonia. He also become in 1905 a guerrilla leader. See Dakin, Greek Struggle, 2326.I am grateful to Basil Gounaris for bringing to my attention the case of Karadjova. AYE 1905/Proxeneion Thessalonikis, A.A.K./B, Koromilas to the Ministry forForeign Affairs, 30/9/1905, No. 665.14 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939none of these features, if taken separately, could articulate a clearlydened national identity, the Balkan nationalists tried to do so,with varying degrees of success. Thus the Greeks capitalized on thereligious factor and the Bulgarians on the linguistic one. Both move-ments, however, were based on the assumption that nations tooare products of the primordial ties of race, ancestry, religion, lan-guage and territory.` In Macedonia, as elsewhere,` this was not thecase. National consciousness had to be constructedand often tobe imposedby others than the people concerned. As for the peas-ants themselves, they seemed to evade the whole issue and stressedinstead what contemporary observers derided as opportunism, deter-mined by more real and less imagined considerations: the mainproblem is not to be under the Turk. Our fathers were Greeksand none mentioned the Bulgarians. By becoming Bulgarians we havewon, the Turk respects us and Europe supports us. If we have to beSerbs, it is not a problem, but for the time being it is better to beBulgarians.There was one term, however, absent from the above list: theMacedonians. That was not surprising, for most Slavs who did notchoose to call themselves Bulgarians would have opted for Greekor Christian instead. The use of the term Macedonians, of course,was not unknown, either to the Slavs or to the wider world, althoughfew would use it in a national, as opposed to a regional, sense todenote a Slavic group distinct from Serbs and Bulgarians, and theinuence of those who did was not signicant. The most celebratedcase of Macedonianism at the turn of the century was that of KrstePetkov Misirkov, who published in 1903 a book On Macedonian Mattersdefending the existence of a Macedonian nation and calling for the useof a Macedonian language. The book was published in Soa, but itdid not reach its intended audience, as Bulgarian police conscated anddestroyed all copies. Misirkov himself did not prove to be an ardentsupporter of his own claims, as he expressed strong pro-Bulgarian views` A. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1985), 452.` See e.g. the slow and difcult process of transforming peasants into Frenchmen,described by Eugene Weber, From Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of RuralFrance 18701914 (Stanford, 1976). Nous autres, pourvu que nous ne soyons plus sous le Turc, il nous soucie bien deSerbie ou de Bulgarie! Nos pres etaint Hellnes, et personne ne parlait alors de Bulgares.En devenant Bulgares, nous avons gagn que le Turc nous respecte et lEurope nous soutient.Sil faut tre Serbes rien nempchera, mais pour lheure Bulgares vaut mieux. Brard, LaTurquie, 125.Introduction 15shortly afterwards, and continued to oscillate between Bulgarian andMacedonian nationalism.Misirkov and the small circle of intellectuals who professed a Mace-donian consciousness, however inconsistently, were not the only sourceof Macedonianism. Serbian politicians and scholars, such as StojanNovakovi c, for instance, also acknowledged at about the same timethe existence of a separate Macedonian group, but they did so in anattempt to deny those Slavs to Bulgarian nationalism, thus safeguardingthe historic rights of Serbia in the region. The most important casein point was the respected Serbian geographer Jovan Cviji c, in whoseethnological maps the Macedo-Slavs gured prominently. They didnot have a concrete national consciousness, he argued, and could beassimilated by both Serbs and Bulgarians. He did not fail to add, how-ever, that they preserved some traces of historical Serbian traditions.The Macedo-Slavs featured in many other maps of the Balkans, includ-ing pro-Greek ones, but mostly with the same aim: to erect as manybarriers as possible between them and the Bulgarians, whose claim onthe loyalty of the Macedonian population was considered by both Serbsand Greeks as the most menacing.THE BALKAN NESSUS SHIRT : THE POLITICSOF THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION, 1870 1939From a political point of view the Macedonian Question was an integralpart of the Eastern Question, which in the Balkan context consisted His book was published in an English trans. in Skopje in 1974. On Misirkov andhis career see Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry, 1201; for his pro-Bulgarian views see KyrilDrezov, Macedonian Identity: An Overview of the Major Claims, in James Pettifer(ed.), The New Macedonian Question (London, 1999), 58; for a pro-Macedonian accountsee Andrew Rossos, Macedonianism and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left, in IvoBanac and Katherine Verdery (eds.), National Character and National Ideology in InterwarEastern Europe (New Haven, 1995), 2278. Jovan Cviji c, The Geographical Distribution of the Balkan Peoples, GeographicalReview, 5/5 (1918), 34561, at 358; id., Remarques. On Cviji c and Serbian geographyin the context of the Macedonian Question see Banac, The National Question, 30728.On Serbian attempts to use Macedonianism against the Bulgarians see EvangelosKofos, National Heritage and National Identity in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-CenturyMacedonia, in Veremis and Blinkhorn (eds.), Modern Greece, 113; Bulgarian Academyof Sciences, Macedonia: Documents and Materials (Soa, 1978), 407. See Wilkinson, Maps, 14653, and the maps on g. 84. The Nessus shirt, a quite telling characterization, was proposed by the Britishambassador to Soa Sidney Waterlow. FO 371/14135, C2490/82/7, 27/3/1930.16 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939chiey of the management of the gradual Ottoman withdrawal fromthepeninsula by the Great Powers according to their competing strategicinterests. Against that background, the struggle of the Bulgarian bishopsin the nineteenth century to create a Bulgarian Church independent ofthe Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople marked the emergence of theMacedonian Question in modern times.In their struggle against the Patriarchate the Bulgarians found inCount Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev, the most senior panslav in theRussian foreign ministry, a powerful ally. Although the Russiansremained initially rather distant observers of the GreekBulgarian con-troversy, Ignatiev came as Russias envoy to Constantinople in 1864with a twofold aim: to help the Bulgarians without breaking withthe Greeks and thus to consolidate Russian inuence in the area.His delicate task, however, was rendered impossible, for neither theBulgarians nor the Patriarchate were prepared to nd any commonground: extreme nationalists eventually dominated the Bulgarian sideand rejected proposals for reconciliation coming from the Patriar-chate, despite the fact that some of these had met with Ignatievsopen approval. On the other hand it became apparent that thePatriarch would not favour any extension of Bulgarian ecclesiasticaljurisdiction south of the Balkan mountains. When the negotiationsreached a deadlock in 1868, Ignatiev decided to choose Slavdom ratherthan Christendom and pressed for an independent Bulgarian Church.In many respects, that was a defeat for Ignatiev, for the ensuingGreekBulgarian schism demonstrated that Russian policy failed toguide the struggle for a Bulgarian church along the channels theydesired.`The Ottomans intervened in 1870, and established the BulgarianExarchate, provoking the reaction of the Patriarchate, which excommu-nicated the Bulgarian bishops in 1872, and accused themof introducingthe concept of phyletism (that is, nationalism) in the Orthodox Michael Boro Petrovich, The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 18561870 (NewYork and London 1956), 25869; Ignatiev [b]rilliantly aided by his seductivewife, himself combining great physical energy, unabashed self-condence, ingratiat-ing charm, jocular brusqueness, and unappeased talent for intrigue could feel thathe was deservedly styled le vice-Sultan . B. H. Sumner, Ignatyev at Constantinople,18641874, Slavonic and East European Review, IV32 (1933), 571. Meininger, Ignatiev, 28. Evangelos Kofos, O Ellinismos stin Periodo 18691881 [Hellenism during thePeriod 18691881] (Athens, 1981), 21.` B. H. Sumner, Russia and the Balkans 18701880 (Oxford, 1937), 113.Introduction 17Church.` Moreover, it will be remembered that the rman of 1870stipulated that a village could opt for the Exarch, provided that two-thirds of the population desired to do so, a provision set to generatemuch friction between the two sides.Although the establishment of the Exarchate was widely viewed asa victory for the Bulgarian national cause in Macedonia, the greatesthour of the emerging Bulgarian nationalism was yet to come. TheRusso-Turkish war of 18778a consequence of the Eastern Cri-sis (18758)and the subsequent Treaty of San Stefano created theTselokupna B ulgariya (Undivided, or complete, Bulgaria), which includ-ed most of the Macedonian provinces but not the port of Salonica.These developments provoked intense fears of Russian domination ofthe Balkans in the European capitals, an anti-Slav delirium in Greece,and profound dismay in Serbia. But the Russian victory was as spec-tacular as it was short-lived. A European congress, held in Berlin afew months later, eradicated the Bulgarian gains in Macedonia andretained Ottoman sovereignty over the region. The powers connedthe newly born Bulgarian principality between the Danube and theBalkan mountains. Eastern Rumelia, an autonomous province underOttoman suzerainty, was established to the south of the new state.As the prospects for shaking off the Ottoman yoke seemed tobe bleak in 1878, secret Bulgaro-Macedonian druzhestvi (societies)began to be formed mainly by chieftains and intellectuals devoted toSan Stefanos Greater Bulgaria. This led to some violent incidentscommitted by isolated guerrilla bands. The Bulgarian premier StefanStambolov (188794), however, opted for peaceful penetration andmore bishops for the Exarchate rather than armed raids, and sought todissolve the most active of those societies. Nevertheless the seeds ofrevolutionary activity had been already sown.In Salonica, in November 1893, four teachers, a bookseller, and aphysician founded the most famous Macedonian organization. Its exact` Paschalis Kitromilides, Imagined Communities and the Origins of the NationalQuestion in the Balkans, repr. in id., Enlightenment, Nationalism and Orthodoxy:Studies in the Culture and Political Thought of South-Eastern Europe (Aldershot 1994),study xiii. For the Congress of Berlin see Sumner, Russia, 50153. W. N. Medlicott, TheCongress of Berlin and After, 18781880 (London, 1938). For British policy see RichardMillman, Britain and the Eastern Question, 18751878 (Oxford, 1979). For the early revolutionary activity in Macedonia (187893) and the attitudeof Stambolov see Duncan Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian LiberationMovement, 18931903 (Durham, NC 1988), 35.18 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939name is disputed. Initially it was called Macedonian RevolutionaryOrganization (MRO), but in 1896 it assumed the title B ulgarskiMakedono-Odrinski Revoliutsionni Komiteti (Bulgarian MacedoAdria-nopolitan Revolutionary CommitteesBMORK) and membershipwas open to any Bulgarian who desired to serve the cause, namelyliberation from the Turkish yoke and the political autonomy of Mace-donia. The much-praised autonomist solution must not be taken atface value; autonomy meant preservation of the territorial integrity ofMacedonia which could eventually lead to incorporation of the regioninto Bulgaria. A convenient precedent had been already established bythe annexation of Eastern Rumelia to Bulgaria in 1885. Besides, anyproposal for direct annexation of Macedonia would have met with therefusal of the Great Powers. According to Christo Tatarchev this was thereason which forced them to put forward the idea of autonomy insteadof annexation. Shortly after its formation BMORK started settingup a clandestine network, which included guerrilla bandsmanned bythe Comitadjisto prepare the ground for an armed rebellion.The Bulgaro-Macedonian revolutionary movement was not unan-imous in supporting autonomy. In Soa, in January 1895, anotherorganization was formed called Makedonski Komitet (MacedonianCommittee), which became in December the V urhoven (Supreme)Makedonski Komitet. The V urhovisti (Supremists), as they were usuallycalled, very soon established close links with the Bulgarian governmentand army, and favoured outright annexation of Macedonia. Not surpris-ingly, the Supreme Committee was at loggerheads with BMORK andthe efforts of the former to subjugate the latter led not only to mutualdistrust but also to armed clashes between the rival Comitadji bands.This antagonism along with the conviction that autonomy wasthe only sensible and viable solution to the Macedonian Ques-tion prompted BMORK to manifest more openly its autonomistorientation. In 1902 the adjective Bulgarian was erased and the See the 1896 statutes in Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Macedonia, 419. Thefounders were Damyan (Dame) Grouev, Petar Poparsov, Anton Dimitrov and Chris-to Batandzhiev (teachers), Ivan Hadzhinikolov (bookseller), and Christo Tatarchev(physician). Nadine Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 18931908 from West-ern Sources (Boulder, Colo., 1998), 36. See also Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry, 97. Banac,National Question, 314. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Macedonia, 622. Cf. Fikret Adanir, The Macedo-nians in the Ottoman Empire, 18781912, in Andreas Kappeler, Fikret Adanir, andAlan ODay (eds.), The Formation of National Elites (New York, 1992), 171. Dakin, Greek Struggle, 4751; Perry, Politics of Terror, 4352.Introduction 19organization was renamed Tayna Makedono-Odrinska RevoliutsionnaOrganizatsiya (Secret Macedo-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organi-zationTMORO) A few years later, however, it obtained its nalname, under which it became legendary to some, notorious to others,but famous to all: V utreshna Makedonska Revoliutsionna Organizatsiya(Internal Macedonian Revolutionary OrganizationIMRO.) Despitethe fact that those changes were accompanied by an effort to widen theappeal of the organization among the non-Slavs, its inuence on theGreeks and the Vlachs remained insignicant.In the early twentieth century IMRO had established a commandingstronghold in the Macedonian provinces. According to a popular saying,the day was to the Turk the night to the Comitadji. In 1903, however,it was dealt a severe blow. Following an abortive rising in the Dzhumayaand Razlog areas, organized by the Supremists Yankov and Tsontsev inthe autumn of 1902, some IMRO leaders began to think of a large-scalerebellion in Macedonia. Urged by fears that the Ottomans mightuncover the clandestine organization, they decided after much waveringat a congress held in the village of Smilevo in April 1903 to launchan uprising. During the congress Boris Sarafov, a former Supremist,swore the Bulgarian army would help them. Thus the uprising,ill-prepared and ill-timed, broke out in August, on St Elijahs day(Ilinden in Slavonic) and was conned mainly in western Macedonia.By the beginning of September the Ilinden Revolt had been crushedby the Turks with ferocity.` In the 1940s it became one of the mostpotent foundation myths of Macedonian nationalism which consideredthe uprising, as it still does, as the most signicant manifestation ofMacedonian national consciousness.`Despite the suppression of the revolt, ries did not fall silent.From 1904 to 1908, as has already been noted, Greek and Bulgarianbands engaged in an unconventional guerrilla struggle to commandthe hotly disputed loyalties of a population largely indifferent to thesirens of nationalism. Gradually the Greek bands, organized by the local FO 371/14317, C5316, FO memorandum, dated 1/6/1930. Richard Crampton, Bulgaria 18781918: A History (New York and Boulder,Colo., 1983), 283. Joseph Swire, Bulgarian Conspiracy (London, 1939), 99.` For the revolt see Nadine Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 11830;Dakin, Greek Struggle, 98106.` For the signicance of Ilinden in modern Macedonian nationalismsee Keith Brown,The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation (Princeton,2003).20 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939Greek consuls and mainly by the Consul General in Salonica, LambrosKoromilas, managed to check the Bulgarian terrorist activity, often byequally ruthless means. The Young Turk revolution in 1908 raised greatexpectations that the rule of law could have a chance in the OttomanEmpire. The Greek and Bulgarian bands displayed a surprising readinessto lay down their arms and in some cases manifestations of fraternizationtook place. Initially the omens were favourable. Elections were held, inwhich both rivals participated, and the new parliament was opened onDecember 1908. That interval proved to be very short. After an abortiveconservative coup against the revolution in mid-1909, the Young Turksstarted to resemble the old ones, in the eyes of their Christian subjects.The Balkan actors of the Macedonian drama, keen to advance theirnationalist agendas, perceived the new policy of Ottomanism as anattempt at Turkication, and euphoria was replaced by frustration.Once the failure of the Young Turks to provide Macedonia with asensible administration became apparent, the various contenders beganto consider more radical solutions. They had many reasons for doingso. The annexation of Bosnia by the Dual Monarchy in 1908 hadput the Serbs in an awkward position, and obliged them to look forcompensation to the south. A slice of Macedonia, not to mentionan outlet to the Aegean Sea, could meet some of their needs forsecurity and economic growth. Serbian educational propaganda hadpenetrated Macedonia since the 1860s but its progress has been modestand uncertain. In 1886 the St Sava society was formed to make astand for the interests of Serbia in Macedonia, but it was dissolvedin 1891, although Serbian efforts to spread their national ideologyin the province continued. In general, the Serbian claim was basedon historical grounds, as the Serbian Empire, which reached its peakunder Stefan Dusan (the Mighty), had ruled over Macedonia in thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries; on the existence in some parts ofMacedonia of the traditional Serbian custom of the Slava; and onlinguistic grounds.Bulgaria was also increasingly concerned about the future of Mace-donia, and became much more so when the situation in that area For the impact of the Young Turks on Macedonia, see Dakin, Greek Struggle,378408. Perry, Politics, 16. For accounts defending Serbian claims see Pavle Popovi c, Serbian Macedonia: AHistorical Survey (London, 1916); T. R. Georgevi c, Macedonia (London and New York,1918).Introduction 21deteriorated as a result of the Young Turks policies. The dream of aGreater Bulgaria could not be easily abandoned. The Bulgarian premierIvan Geshov (191113) epitomized the prevailing trend in Bulgarianpolitics, when he stated that after the union of Eastern Rumelia withBulgaria, the latter had no other ideal except to restore her San Stefanofrontiers, or to obtain for Macedonia and Thrace an autonomousgovernment. The Greeks were similarly ill-disposed towards theOttomans. The troubles caused by the Cretan Question, the humilia-tion of Greece in 1897, as well as some economic disputes, were solidreasons for such a development.The Italo-Turkish war of 1911 over Tripoli gave considerable impetusto the feeling, already existing in the Balkans, that the time to settle withthe Turks once and for all had come. Meanwhile Greece, Bulgaria,and Serbia began to learn, not without difculty, that only Balkan unityoffered some guarantee of Ottoman expulsion from the region. OnMarch 1912 the SerbBulgarian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance wassigned. Russia, or at least its ministers inthe Balkans, pouredconsiderableenergy into that process and eventually succeeded in persuading Soaand Belgrade to combine their strength. At that time, agreement wasalso reached regarding the partition of Macedonia. The territory to theeast of the river Struma (Strymonas) and the Rhodope mountains wasto be ceded to Bulgaria, while Serbia should receive the area to the northand west of Sar mountains. The ultimate decision on the fate of theremaining Macedonian territory was left to the Russian tsar. At aboutthe same time negotiations between Greece and Bulgaria were underway, and a Treaty of Defensive Alliance was concluded on May 1912.No mention, however, was made of Macedonia.`The tiny kingdom of Montenegro, also part of the Balkan League,declared war against the Ottomans on October 1912 despite thePowers call for moderation, and very soon Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria Ivan Gueshoff, The Balkan League (London, 1915), 12. The Greek economy was dealt a blow by the Turkish decision not to link up theGreek railway systemwiththat of Macedonia. FO371/14317, C5316, FOmemorandum,dated 1/7/1930. Further details in Basil Gounaris, Greco-Turkish Railway Connection:Illusions and Bargains in the Late Nineteenth Century Balkans, Balkan Studies, 30/2(1989), 31132. For the Italo-Turkish war (191112) see M. Anderson, The Eastern Question17741923: A Study in International Relations (New York, 1978), 28791. For the role played by Nekludov and Hartwig, Russian ministers in Soa andBelgrade respectively, see Gueshoff, Balkan League, 334; Dakin, Greek Struggle, 4301. The text is given by Gueshoff, Balkan League, 11417. ` Ibid. 1279.22 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939followed suit. Within two months the allied forces had won an easyvictory and the Turks were forced to sign a truce in December. Bythe Treaty of London (May 1913) Turkey lost all of her Europeanterritory and ceded Crete to Greece. Balkan unity, however, provedto be fragile. Serbia desired, and had already occupied, a much largerslice of the Macedonian pie than it had initially agreed with Bulgaria;Greece had occupied Salonica hours before a Bulgarian detachment,and Romania demanded a part of the Bulgarian province of Dobrudjaif it was to remain neutral. As a consequence, considerable nervousnesswas evident in Soa: the Bulgarians had fought bravely, and pushedthe Ottomans towards Constantinople, but their territorial gains wereconsidered totally unsatisfactory. By the summer of 1913 the prospectsfor a peaceful settlement among the allies had been diminished. OnJune 1913 Bulgaria crossed the Rubicon. She attacked both Greece andSerbia without a declaration of war. The results were disastrous. Greeksand Serbs advanced rapidly; the Romanians seized the opportunity toenter the struggle and advanced towards Soa, while the Ottomansrecaptured Adrianople. Bulgaria had no choice but to surrender. TheTreaty of Bucharest (August 1913) gave Greece the lions share ofMacedoniamore than a half of the region; Serbia acquired thecentral-western part of it, which included Skopje and Ochrid; whileBulgaria had to content herself with only 10 per cent of the Macedonianterritory. The severe setback that Bulgaria suffered gave rise to strongrevisionist attitudes, which inuenced her foreign policy for years tocome.` The Bulgarian premier Vasil Radoslavov (191318) describedaccurately the state of feeling prevailing at that time in his country whenhe admitted that a sense of revenge was predominant.The Great War was, as far as Macedonia was concerned, the realizationof Bulgarian revenge; or so it seemed. Both camps tried in 1915 to winit over and both had been eager to offer large parts of Macedonia as alure. The Central Powers made the most tempting offer and, given thatin the summer they took the upper hand in the war, the Bulgarians tooktheir side. Serbian Macedonia and parts of eastern Greek Macedoniawere the gains. That success did not last long. In the Treaty of Neuilly(November 1919) Serbia not only regained her part of Macedonia but` For the diplomatic background of the Balkan wars see E. C. Helmreich, TheDiplomacy of the Balkan Wars (Cambridge, Mass., 1938). Also Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, Report of the Commission, 3869; Dakin, Greek Struggle, 44671. Crampton, Bulgaria, 425. Ibid. 4412. Anderson, Eastern Question, 3279.Introduction 23also achieved a strategic adjustment of its frontiers by obtaining theBulgarian districts of Strumitsa, Tsaribrod, and Bosilegrad. Bulgaria wasalso deprived of an outlet to the Aegean Sea by ceding western Thraceto an Allied force. In 1920 it was transferred to Greece.In light of the above it is hardly surprising that the MacedonianQuestion continued in the 1920s to be the main cause of bitternessbetween Bulgaria and her neighbours. The newly born Kingdom ofSerbs, Croats, and Slovenes was the most vulnerable. Burdenedby deeply rooted national, religious, historical, linguistic, and socio-economic differences, Yugoslavia could hardly afford the problemscaused by the perpetuation of the Macedonian issue. Nonetheless, herdomestic policy in the Yugoslav part of Macedonia, which was ofciallystyled Southern Serbia, was an utter failure. As has been already noted,Serbian inuence on the Macedonian Slavs had never been particularlystrong. Thus a forceful policy of Serbianization was launched, Serbiancolonists were encouraged to settle in Macedonia, and an educationalcampaign was initiated, for children should learn that I am a true Serblike my father and my mother. Their fathers and mothers, however,had been lost to the Yugoslav state. According to Bulgarian accounts thishappened because the population was overwhelmingly Bulgarian andstrongly resisted the Yugoslav denationalization process. But suchviews tend to neglect some important dimensions of the problem.Although the strength of Bulgarian nationalismamong the populationshould not be underestimated, especially in the eastern part of the regionalong the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, the majority of the Slav peasantsappeared to be rather indifferent to questions of nationality. Accordingto British observers, what denitely alienated them from Serbian rulewas mainly the extremely low standard of administration, the attitudeof the incompetent and short-sighted civil servants who applied the Ibid. 3589. In 1929 in line with King Alexanders effort to unify his country the state wasrenamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( Jug meaning south). For the sake of simplicity,however, the term Yugoslavia will be used here from 1919 onwards. Kostadin Paleshutski, Makedonskiyat V upros v Burzhoazna Iugoslaviya, 19181941[The Macedonian Question in Bourgeois Yugoslavia] (Soa, 1983), 49. In 1929Southern Serbia was renamed Vardarska Banovina. A typical example is Paleshutskis work cited above. See also B ulgarska Akademiyana Naukite [Bulgarian Academy of Sciences], Makedonskiyat V upros: Istoriko-PoliticheskaSpravka [The Macedonian Question: Historical and Political Information] (Soa, 1968). It should be added that Southern Serbia included not only the Yugoslav part ofMacedonia but also the predominantly Albanian districts of Kosovo and Metohija.24 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939Serbianization policy, and, last but not least, the economic crisis whichthe peasants suffered, particularly after the reduction in the prices ofimportant local products subjected to state monopoly. Apart fromanti-Serbianism, the prevailing mood called for stability, not upheaval,for years of ghting and insecurity had clearly taken a heavy toll amongthe peasantry. In 1920, a Macedonian peasant had this to say to theBulgarian minister in Belgrade, Kosta Todorov: for Gods sake, dontliberate us any more. We have been liberated of everything we possessed.If anyone begins liberating us again, we shall be the rst to take uparms against him.` Developments in the area after 1945, as shall beseen, were to demonstrate that such assessments had much basis infact, and conrm the view that the Bulgarophile tendencies of thepopulation during the interwar years were due more to brutal Serbianrule than to Bulgarian national sentiments. Be that as it may, theMacedonian policy of the Yugoslav governments did not create trueSerbs but a permanent state of unrest throughout the interwar period.Paradoxically, it was Tito, and not a traditional Serbian politician, whowould undertake the thankless task of mending the troubled relationsbetween Belgrade and Skopje caused by the interwar Serbian failure inMacedonia. If the Slavs refused to offer their loyalty to their state, thefairly numerous Albanians of the area did not even bother to tackle thequestion. According to the British vice-consul in Skopje, the peasants inthe Albanian-inhabited areas thought of Macedonia as a foreign countryas might be Denmark or Spain and the centres of political action areTirana and Constantinople rather than Soa or Belgrade.`As far as Greek Macedonia is concerned, the exchange of populationsbetween Bulgaria and Greece (voluntary, 1919 onwards) and betweenTurkey and Greece (compulsory, 1923 onwards), provided for by theTreaties of Neuilly and Lausanne respectively, dramatically altered theethnographic picture of that area. More than 600,000 Greek refugees FO 371/12092, C9610, report on Southern Serbia in 1927, by the British vice-consul in Skopje, D. J. Footman, dated 23/11/1927. For the conditions in YugoslavMacedonia see Stephen Palmer and Robert King, Yugoslav Communism and the Macedo-nian Question (Hamden, Conn., 1971), 12. Banac, National Question, 320.` Kosta Todoroff, The Macedonian Organization Yesterday and Today, ForeignAffairs, 6/3 (1928), 481.` FO371/12092, C16431, report by the British vice-consul inSkopje, D. J. Footman,dated 19/12/1927. On these exchanges see Stephen Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities: Bulgaria, Greeceand Turkey (New York, 1932); Dimitri Pentzopoulos, The Balkan Exchange of Minoritiesand the Impact upon Greece (Paris, 1968).Introduction 25were settled in Macedonia, mainly in its eastern part, while over 50,000Slavs left Greece. Before 1923, the Greeks were a minority in their ownnorthern province, but after the coming of the refugees the Hellenizationof Greek Macedonia became reality. According to the Greek census of1928, there were about 80,000 Slav-speakers in northern Greece, whichis undoubtedly a gross underestimate, for Greek archival sources give amuch higher number: about 200,000. According to the same sources,however, the majority were just peasants, while the Bulgarians, thatis those who displayed a Bulgarian national consciousness, were about80,000. Despite the Slav exodus fromGreek Macedonia, a by-productof population exchanges, fear, and oppression on the part of the Greekstate, solid Slav enclaves remained in the Greek province, and particularlyin the districts of Florina, and Kastoria, in Greek west Macedonia.Ofcially they were just locals, Slavophones, or SlavophoneGreeks, who had lost their mother tongue, but had retained theirancestral religion. For contemporary Greek observers, many factionscould be found among them, according to manifestations of what theyperceived to be a Greek or Bulgarian national consciousness. But formany of them a reasonable economic position and freedom to speaktheir language would go a long way in making their life tolerable, astheir loyalties were conned to their village and family rather than tonations. Even those who referred to themselves as Macedonians inthe 1940s, probably under the inuence of Macedonian agitation ofpro-Titoist guerrillas, valued their peace more than anything else: withdisarming honesty, an elderly Slav told an English liaison ofcer in 1944that we have had so many different masters that now, whoever comesalong, we say (placing his hands together and smiling pleasantly andmaking a little bow) kalos orisate [welcome]. Another Slav did notfail to stress that all he wanted was to know that what I work for, whatI sweat for, will at the end be mine. The Greek state, however, often George Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies inGreece 19221936 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), 274. For estimates of the number of Slav-Macedonians in Greek Macedonia see PhillipCarabott, Aspects of Hellenisation of Greek Macedonia, ca. 1912ca.1959, :Cambridge Papers in Modern Greek, 13 (2005), 305. For the districts of Kastoria andFlorina, see John S. Koliopoulos, Plundered Loyalties: World War II and Civil War inGreek West Macedonia (London, 1999), 389. FO 371/43649, report by Captain P. H. Evans entitled Report on the freeMacedonia movement in area Florina 1944, dated 1/12/1944. The report has beenpublished by Andrew Rossos: The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A BritishOfcers Report, 1944, Slavonic and East European Review, 69/2 (1991), 282309.26 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939applied a quite naive reductionism, conditioned by the state of Greeknationalism at the time, which demanded the overlapping of nationalsentiment with the spoken language. Thus, the use of the Bulgarianlanguage was equated with Bulgarianism.Especially during the dictatorship of Ioannes Metaxas (August1936January 1941) a policy of vigorous assimilation was initiated,an authoritarian Greek version of similar processes which occurred atthat time in many other Eastern European states. The use of Bulgarianwas prohibited and police persecution reached its peak. In the 1920s,the inux of refugees had created another salient cleavage in Macedonia,as the dichotomy between the Slavs and the Greeks became part ofa much wider antagonism between the indigenous element and therefugees over the possession of land. As a result, economic and linguis-tic grievances, coupled with indiscriminate persecution by overzealousgendarmes, forced a large number of Slav-speakers to lose any respectfor the Greek state. Not unlike the Yugoslav case, the Greeks did nothave long to wait before facing the consequences of their interwarconduct. During the Second World War, most of these Slav-speakersopted (initially) for the Bulgarian Lion, only to end up (after 1943)wearing the Yugoslav Red Star.Bulgaria had other problems to deal with in the interwar years. Peas-ant unrest and internal collapse caused by the national catastrophe of1918 brought into ofce Alexand ur Stamboliiski, leader of the BulgarianAgrarian National Union (BANU). The Agrarian premier divergedsharply fromhis predecessors in both foreign and domestic policies, bold-ly stated in the Bulgarian S ubranie (Assembly) that he was neither Bulgar-ian nor Serbian but South Slav, and tried to reach a modus vivendi withthe Yugoslavs. Stamboliiskis policy provoked the wrath of a revivedIMRO, which intensied its raids into Yugoslav territory in a desperateeffort to keep the Macedonian Question open.` IMRO was led at thattime by Todor Alexandrov, greatly admired by the Bulgar-Macedonians,who affectionately called him Stario (Old Man); he favoured autonomyfor the area, but, had this solution been rendered impossible, Macedonia Carabott, Aspects, 4752. On this issue see Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic, 249. On Stamboliiskis Agrarian regime see John D. Bell, Peasants in Power: AlexanderStamboliski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union 18991923 (Princeton, 1977). For an account of Stamboliiskis foreign policy see Bell, Peasants, 184207.` A list of raids made by IMRO into Yugoslav Macedonia is given by A. Reis, TheComitadji Question in Southern Serbia (London, 1927).Introduction 27could have been placed under the protection of a Great Power, perhapsBritain. Alexandrov himself was given the chance to bring that solu-tionand himself to the attention of international opinion by givingan interview to the London Times on 1 January 1924.`The Nis Convention between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, signed in May1923, was the last strawfor IMRO. The convention provided strict fron-tier control to prevent bands from entering Yugoslav territory. A monthlater Stamboliiski was overthrown by a coup in which IMRO played anactive part. IMROs men, gifted practitioners of the art of sensationalkilling, assassinated him, after staging a macabre theatre: they cut off hisears and nose, ridiculed him, forced him to dig his own grave, and didnot neglect to cut off the hand that signed the Nis Convention.From 1924 onwards IMRO established a state-within-a-state in thesouth-western part of Bulgaria, around the districts of Kiustendil andPetrich. Its control over the district was complete and indisputable.IMRO had its own police, controlled the local representatives to theS ubranie, and issued stamps featuring the founding fathers and chiefs ofthe organization, notably the legendary IMRO leader Gotse Delchev.Even the personal life of the peasants was closely watched. A singleman could only walk out twice in the company of an unmarried girl.If he continued doing so, a letter from IMRO, asking for marriage orseparation, would certainly prompt him to revise his tactics. Apartfrom being the guardian of peasant values, however, the organizationalso catered for less moral pursuits: it secured a solid nancial basis byimposing taxes upon the population, and engaged in drug trafcking.After the assassination of Alexandrov in 1924, however, internal strifebroke out betweenthe pro-left Federalists who wanted the movement tobe linked with the Comintern, and the right wing of the organization.` The article gave a rather favourable picture of Alexandrov of Macedonia. Idyllicscenery was also present. In winter he lives in some humble peasant cottage; in summerhe sleeps in the open air. FO 371; C195, 4/1/1924. Swire, Bulgarian Conspiracy, 168. For a vivid (and sympathetic) account of IMROs rule over Petrich see StoyanChristowe, Heroes and Assassins (London, 1935). According to British sources, in 1933 alone, IMRO derived a revenue of 2,500,000leva from trafc in raw opium. This number is given by Sir Nevile Henderson, Britishminister to Yugoslavia. PRO FO 371/19489, R520, 19/1/1935. This incident will be treated in greater detail below. Leaders of the former faction were Dimitar Vlahov, Todor Panitsa, Pet ur Chaulev,and Philip Atanasov. Their rivals were Alexand ur Protogerov and Ivan Mihailov.See Elisabeth Barker, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (London, 1950),3943.28 Weaving the Nessus Shirt, 18701939At that time, Ivan (Vancho) Mihailov was the champion of thelatter. A man of conicting qualities, and impatient with the Federalists,Mihailov launched a spectacular campaign of assassinations. MenchaKarnicheva, a Vlach woman from Krusevo, made her mark in thisgame of terror by assassinating in cold blood her former lover TodorPanitsa, a leading Federalist, at the Vienna opera. She later marriedMihailov. This algebra of death continued until 1928, and countedmany prominent Macedonians of every description. That year, however,after nishing with the left, Mihailov turned against the other seniorIMRO gure: the ageing General Alexand ur Protogerov. The respectedgeneral was assassinated in July 1928, leaving Mihailov the sole leaderof the organization. From that month, and until the organizationssuppression in 1934, Protogerovists and Mihailovists killed each otherin the streets of Petrich and Soa, in a fratricidal struggle that markedthe decline of the organization.During the 1920s and 1930s IMRO established connections withalmost every single anti-Yugoslav quarter. It was funded by Italy,developed ties with the Croatian Ustasa led by Ante Paveli c, and trainedits gunmen in Hungarian camps. The interwar Bulgarian governmentsadopted a passive attitude towards IMRO with varying degrees oftolerance, although its raids in Yugoslavia were a constant cause ofinternational embarrassment. The governments of Alexand ur Tsankovand Andrei Liapchev (19236 and 192631 respectively) had beenparticularly close to the Macedonians. Their protg was GeneralV ulkov, minister of war in both cabinets. At that time the IMROpaper Svoboda ili Sm urt (Freedom or Death) was often published at theprinting press of the Geographical Institute of the Ministry of War.The end of the 1920s, however, brought some encouraging prospectsof a normalization in BulgarYugoslav relations. King Alexanderassumed dictatorial power in 1929 in a rather desperate and ulti-mately unsuccessful effort to shape up the process of unication of theYugoslav lands after a decade of erce Serb-Croat rivalry which culmi-nated in 1928 when the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party StjepanRadi c was shot in the Yugoslav Skupstina (Parliament) by a Montenegrindeputy. The Yugoslav kingwith the constant encouragement of theBritishcame to realize that only a rapprochement with Bulgaria and A wealth of information about these cruelties can be found in two accounts: Swire,Bulgarian Conspiracy and Cristowe, Heroes. FO 371/14315, C2298, Henderson to FO 18/3/1930.Introduction 29the subsequent curtailment of IMROs activity could provide him withvaluable time in order to keep his divided house in order. Following hisinitiatives a mixed commission met at Pirot on 25 February 1929 todeal with frontier incidents and in early 1930 an agreement was reachedon frontier control. But this semblance of reconciliation was dealt asevere blow by bomb outrages committed by IMRO and the spectre ofmutual mistrust rose again.During the 1930s major developments in Balkan politics occurredwhich placed BulgarYugoslav relations in a different perspective. ThreeBalkan statesGreece, Yugoslavia, and Romaniaalong with Turkeymoved towards the formation of a collective security systemin the region,which aimed to safeguard the preservation of the status quo against themenace of revisionism. After four Balkan conferences, held in Athens(1930), Constantinople (1931), Bucharest (1932), and Salonica (1933),the Balkan Pact was nally concluded in 1934. Although from the verybeginning the signatories made strenuous efforts to include Bulgaria inthe pact, the latters refusal to repudiate her revisionismno matterhow utopian or theoretical this revisionism had becomerenderedthis prospect impossible.The much-celebrated Balkan Entente quickly started to falter inthe face of Balkan realities, for it became apparent that collectivesecurity was to succumb rapidly to individual and conicting objectives.Different priorities therefore drove a wedge between the members ofthe alliance. A rapprochement with Bulgaria had always ranked highin the Yugoslav foreign policy agenda. IMROs liquidation in 1934, bythe government of Kimon Georgiev,` provided King Alexander witha new opportunity. In September the Yugoslav king visited Soa, wherehe was warmly received. The tragedy which followed a month later,when he was assassinated in Marseilles, failed to end the normalizationof BulgarYugoslav relations, despite the fact that it was committedby an IMRO gunman. That process was also facilitated by a majortransformation which occurred in Yugoslavias foreign policy after 1934. For the Balkan Pact see: Robert Kerner and Harr