Macedonians in Greece

Clickable map of the names of Macedonian cities and villages changed by the Greeks.

We have made an attempt to give only one short survey of the process of migration movements and repercussions on the exchanges of the ethnic structure in Aegean Macedonia for the period of 1912-1971. They according to their propositions and consequences belong to the most important of this kind in Europe during this period.

“According to the official Greek terminology,” the author says, the local Slav language is called a “Slav language idiom.” The majority local population, on the other hand, speaking this language, says: “Our language is the Macedonian language.”

Greece manifested territorial aspirations towards Macedonia soon after it became an independent state. Various societies, such as the Association for the Promotion of Greek Literacy and, later, the armed gangs operating in Macedonia and fighting the so-called Macedonian war, had a sole purpose of converting the Macedonian population into Greek.

For the local Macedonians from the region of Florina in northern Greece this process, which had its beginnings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is still continuing in the 1990s both in northern Greece as well as in diaspora communities in Canada and Australia. Inhabitants of the same villages, members of the same families, who have adopted different national identities, continue to argue about whether they are Greeks or Macedonians. They continue to argue about what nationality they really are.

Today we are confronted by the irrational white-heat of a Greek-Macedonian dispute which has assumed such dimensions that it has rendered rational communication an impossibility not merely on the diplomatic level but also on the economic, cultural and political levels.

The violations of the basic human rights of the Macedonian minority members in Greece still continues. There does not seem to be much room for hope that the Greek government would act in accordance with her obligations and responsibilities under the international agreements and law.

Human Rights Watch concluded after visiting Aegean Macedonia that the large Macedonian minority in Greece is under daily oppression.

After the war ended in 1949, the terror, exiles, tortures and frightening of Macedonians continued. The people continued to look for salvation in foreign countries. All Macedonians’ houses were spied 24 hours a day, as they were not allowed to speak their mother tongue.