Population of Macedonia and Adjacent Areas

[Carlin]

URL:

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1401/the-celtic-invasion-of-greece/

"Celtic tribes moved into Thrace and Illyria, defeating the local tribes, before advancing even further south. In 280 BCE, a large coalition of around 85,000 Celts headed for Macedon and Greece. This figure included women and children, as these were also tribal groups rather than organized armies.

A Celtic leader named Bolgios was sent with the remaining army to Macedon. In 279 BCE, Bolgios plundered the countryside of Macedon and went up against the army of Ptolemy Keraunos (r. 281-279 BCE), who had only just seized the Macedonian throne. Ptolemy Keraunos was killed in battle, and the Celts placed his head on a spear as a bloody trophy. This began roughly two years of anarchy as the Balkans were without strong central leadership, and the Celts were on the warpath."

URL:

https://www.ancient.eu/image/3687/map-of-celtic-and-germanic-tribes/

This map shows the various Celtic and Germanic tribes around circa 52 BCE (Blue=Celtic, Yellow=Germanic).

[Carlin]

URL - ВАТИКАНСКА ЗБИРКА СО ТАЈНИ ДОКУМЕНТИ ЗА МАКЕДОНЦИТЕ: Епископ Македонски од татковината на Александар, Блаже Миневски:

https://denesen.mk/vatikanska-zbirka-so-tajni-dokumenti-za-makedoncite-episkop-makedonski-od-tatkovinata-na-aleksandar/?fbclid=IwAR3DKnEtq-87BYeaGebG3IyUcQkkVKLM0BIq5EYIRPves7mvIUd-Uk2bRAg

Scholarships for Macedonians ... in 1619

A document dating back to 1624 talks about the renewal of the Illyrian College, which means the Slavonic College of Loreto (as explained to us by B. Minevski), which was founded in 1580. At first, 40 students attended the college at its inception.

In 1593, the same college was moved to Rome, and the number of students was reduced to 12.

In 1619, the Dalmatian bishops asked that Pope Paul V decide that the College should return to Loreto and at the same time allocate places to cadets "Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians who in the future will have no reason to address the Holy See for scholarships".

[Carlin]

1) RENE PICARD, “THE AUTONOMY OF MACEDONIA” (1457)

20th July 1916

URL:

https://thedocumentarynews.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/rene-picard-the-autonomy-of-macedonia/

"The idea of Macedonian autonomy is familiar to all those who are acquainted with Balkan history and politics. If we asked the Christians of Macedonia they would answer that autonomy was the most desirable solution for them.

There is and, in fact, there has always been a Macedonian spirit in Macedonia. Geographically, Macedonia has its own unity. Its borders are the following: to the south – Mt Olympus, the mountains on the north bank of the River.. Bistrica, Lake Prespa and Lake Ohrid; to the west -the Drim from Debar; to the north-west and north -the Sar Mountains, the highlands north of Skopje, the defile of Kumanovo, the mountains that mark the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier of before 1912; to the east -the Rhodope Mountains.

The borderline with Thrace on this side is not clear. The regions of Drama and Kavalla can either be adjoined to Macedonia or separated from it; the plain of Drama is populated mostly by Turks; the town of Kavalla, like all the ports, has a strong Greek colony. To the south, the Chalcidice Peninsula is geographically Macedonian, but ethnographically Greek; the line of lakes separates it by a natural border from the rest of Macedonia.

Within these borders Macedonia has the natural basins of Skopje, Bitola, Veles, Serez, Drama and Salonika with the mountains that separate them and the narrow valleys that unite them. The Christian population in the country side is Slav. It is known to be neither quite Bulgarian, although it is closer to the Bulgarians, nor quite Serbian. The Bulgarians themselves admit that the Macedonians differ from the other Bulgarians: they possess a more lively spirit, are more fond of politics and intrigue, more inclined to eloquence and the arts, also more cunning; in a word, they are a little Hellenized. The Macedonian politicians in Sofia are feared; many Bulgarians of old Bulgaria would be glad to see the Macedonian Bulgarians return to Macedonia. They accuse them of taking everything away from them, their jobs and privileges. ....."


2) RUDOLPH ARCHIBALD REISS ON THE MACEDONIANS (1467)

1918

URL:

https://thedocumentarynews.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/rudolph-archibald-reiss-on-the-macedonians/

"I said that I would rather call your Bulgarophones Macedonians. You call those people
Bulgarophones, owing to their language which is similar to Bulgarian. But, is it Bulgarian,
is it the same language spoken in Sofia? No. Macedonian is just as similar to Serbian as it
is to Bulgarian. I am not a linguist and I would not allow myself a personal judgment, but
disinterested Balkanologists have asserted to me that Macedonian is more similar to
Serbian than Bulgarian. It is possible that there are linguists who assert the opposite. But it
is a fact that the Macedonian language is spoken neither in Sofia nor in Belgrade. It is an
individual Slav language, just as we have the Romansch in Switzerland, spoken in Grisons,
apart from Italian. To my mind, the Macedonian can be called neither Bulgarian nor Serb,
but simply Macedonian."

[Carlin]

May 31, 2019

Vasil Sterjovski in the Albanian parliament talking about Golo Brdo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u80cRLoP-jA

In his address to the Albanian parliament Sterjovski expressed his concern about the situation in the area of Golo Brdo, which is the poorest area in the Republic of Albania with many socio-economic problems.

[Carlin]

According to Gustav Weigand in the Struga kaza there are 12,000 Albanians (among them several hundred Turks), 16,000 Macedonians (which Weigand calls Bulgarians), and 1200 Vlachs.

In the Ohrid kaza, the Macedonians predominate: 25,000 Macedonians, 1500 Albanians, the rest are Vlachs, Turks, Gypsies.

Also in the Resen kaza according to Weigand there are 17,500 Macedonians, 4500 Turks (?), 1500 Albanians, 1000 Vlachs. (Perhaps the number of Turks includes many Albanians.)

[Carlin]

According to Pianka Włodzimierz the origins of the name Labuništa are Greco-Latin from the toponym Albanopolis. The explanation seems pretty fanciful.

URL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labuni%C5%A1ta

Labuništa is a old name dating back to the time of the arrival of Slavic peoples to the Balkans. The origins of the name Labuništa are Greco-Latin from the toponym Albanopolis. Pianka Włodzimierz connects the placename Labuništa with a south-western Balkans settlement of antiquity named Albanopolis, a city marked on an ancient map by Roman geographer Ptolemy. Through metathesis the name Albanopolis entered Slavic where the suffix polis meaning city became išta with dual meanings of either being a patronymic or indicating a place. While the form Alban, a name, underwent metathesis and became Labun in Slavic of which the syllable cluster an became un giving the final form as Labun(išta).

Włodzimierz, Pianka (1970). Toponomastikata na Ohridsko-Prespanskiot bazen. Institut za makedonski jazik "Krste Misirkov". pp. 63–64.

"Приближно на местото каде што се наоѓа Лабуништа на картата од Птоломеј (преиздадена во 1490 год.) е обележена тврдината Albanopolis; на картата од Hassius (1744 год.) е означено: Albanopoli in ruin. (в. Јаранов, Карта - текст). Словенечкиот топоним е само адаптација на грчкиот: вториот член - polis (кој всшност има функција на суфикс) е заменет со словенечкиот суфикс -иште со двојно значење: 1. nomen loci, 2. (<* iti̯o-) patronimicum. Бијкејќи членот Alban- е име, може да се претпостави дека овде си помешале двете функции на овој суфикс: тој означувал 'потомци' на Alban' и 'место каде што се наоѓала тврдината Albanopolis, впрочем тоа е веќе чисто структурална функција. Коренот Лабун- е континуација на Албан- со метатеза и македонската замена на крајно то -ан- во -ун- (спор.: лат. Salona, Albona, слов. Salona, Albona, сх. Solin, Labin, мак. Солин, Лабун- (нашиов случај), макар што се однесуваат на различни објекти (Романски С.: Именета на некои македонски градове, 1. Солунъ, МПр V, кн. 2, с. 78-84). Словенскиов топоним, значи, е многу стар, потекнува од времето на населувањето на Балканот од страна на Словените и континуација на уште постар грчко-латински топоним."

[Carlin]

URL:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=-7nX6hv6k8AC&pg=PA54&dq=Pomaks+Breznica+Pirin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU-se15MriAhUnmuAKHdN5DjoQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Pomaks%20Breznica%20Pirin&f=false

Breznitsa is a village in Gotse Delchev Municipality, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria. It is located 12 kilometers northwest of Gotse Delchev and 61 kilometers southeast of Blagoevgrad in the Pirin mountain.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Is this from Duncan Perry?

The author ignored who were the Greeks of southern Macedonia as far north as Monastir and of the major trading centers in Macedonia. It seems that he ignored it, because he knew about it - as he wrote in the subsequent paragraph "Many Vlachs were quite hellenized and often were indistinguishable from Greeks or otherwise".

It is known who the Totality of native Greeks of Kozani, Siatista, Sisani, Kostur, Klissura, Salonica, etc. are.

This is Perry yes.

[Carlin]

- The city of Salonika housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. It is the only known example of a city of this size in the Jewish diaspora that retained a Jewish majority for centuries.

Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following their expulsion from Spain by Christian rulers under the Alhambra Decree in 1492. This community influenced the Sephardic world both culturally and economically, and the city was nicknamed la madre de Israel (mother of Israel).

- In 1430, the start of Ottoman domination, the Jewish population was still small. The Ottomans used population transfers within the empire following military conquests to achieve goals of border security or repopulation; they called it Sürgün. Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, an example of sürgün was the Ottomans' forcing Jews from the Balkans and Anatolia to relocate there, which they made the new capital of the Empire. At the time, few Jews were left in Salonika; none were recorded in the Ottoman census of 1478.

- Salonika's registers indicate the presence of "Buda Jews" after the conquest of that city by the Turks in 1541. The Jewish population of the city was 20,000 in 1553. Immigration was great enough that by 1519, the Jews represented 56% of the population and by 1613, 68%.

URL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Thessaloniki

[Carlin]

Is this from Duncan Perry?

The author ignored who were the Greeks of southern Macedonia as far north as Monastir and of the major trading centers in Macedonia. It seems that he ignored it, because he knew about it - as he wrote in the subsequent paragraph "Many Vlachs were quite hellenized and often were indistinguishable from Greeks or otherwise".

It is known who the Totality of native Greeks of Kozani, Siatista, Sisani, Kostur, Klissura, Salonica, etc. are.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

[Liberator of Makedonija]

I don't think I got it from you.

Either way I remember reading that section of the book recently. I believe Perry stated the reason so many Vlachs took to the VMRO banner was because they were with the Exarchate. I imagine this is in reference to the Vlachs of the-then Manastır Vilayet, as the ones of the Selânik Vilayet were largely Hellenised.

[Carlin]

Did you get that one from me? Can't remember if I posted the excerpt or not.

I don't think I got it from you.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

1)
3) "The Ilinden-Preobrazhenski Uprising appears to have attracted a large number of recruits to MRO's banner. According to Kral, it was most popular in Monastir Vilayet, with the majority of the people at least tacitly supporting it. In speaking about the Macedonian provinces, Brailsford corroborated this when he reported "there is hardly a village which has not joined the organization" in Monastir.

...Perhaps the most notable event of the rebellion was the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization's victory at Krushevo near Monastir. In those days Krushevo had a population of about 11,000, approximately two-thirds of which was Vlach. There for ten days a small force of MRO guerrillas, most of them Vlachs, held the mountaintop town of Krushevo and established a democratic republic. The Ottoman commander proved unable to take the town and had to be replaced. In the end the rebels were severely outnumbered and defeated but not before they put up a valiant struggle, even attempting to use hollowed-out cherry tree trunks as cannons.

Some 239 battles and skirmishes occurred in the several months of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenski Revolt. The major battles were fought in the Monastir Vilayet, especially round Monastir, Ohrid, Kostur, Lerin, Prespa, Prilep, Debar, and Krushevo as well as in the Strandzha area of Adrianople Vilayet. Provisional governments were established by MRO in Smilevo, Klissura, Krushevo, and Neveska -- the later three of which were Vlach towns and all of which were short-lived. MRO failed to consolidate its gains. In these regions inhabitants seemed to throw their support behind MRO with conviction, some even remaining in the villages despite the certainty that if discovered or caught by the Ottomans would take severe retribution. In mid to late August the soldiers of the sultan, with the strong support of the Greek bishop of Kostur, Karavangelis, mounted a sustained counterattack against the insurgents in the province. Ottoman troop strength was constantly increasing, and the outcome was inevitable."

- The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903 by Duncan M. Perry (University of Michigan, 1988)

Did you get that one from me? Can't remember if I posted the excerpt or not.

[Carlin]

1) "Thus, there is no doubt that the Balkan languages, in our particular case Arumanian and Macedonian [a Slavic language], show a set of common structural features in their grammars, which leads...to the following question:...what was that Balkan language which has exerted the decisive structural influence upon Macedonian (and to a lesser degree upon Bulgarian and...Serbian). My contention is that this was continental Balkan Romance, or more specifically in the case of Macedonian, the primary Arumanian."

- from Zbigniew Golab, The Arumanian Dialect of Krushevo (Skopje, 1984).

2) "The Aromanians--Wallachs or Vlachs--are another people who have always lived about Ochrid. They were the great carriers of all the Balkans, and had a capital city of their own at Moschopolis, in Albania, above Korcha, where a printing press was established...They built roads and villages which show that they are among the most genuinely Roman of the nations which survived the fall of the empire. Perhaps only the Sards equal them. They have been shepherds, muleteers and traders, and became brigands too, but they were also great builders of towns like those on the hilltops of Italy (Oppida) with a feeling for stone excelled only in Dalmatia, where a large Aromanian element, the Morlachs (Sea Vlachs) settled."

- Firmin O'Sullivan, in The Egnatian Way (Pennsylvania, 1972).

3) "The Ilinden-Preobrazhenski Uprising appears to have attracted a large number of recruits to MRO's banner. According to Kral, it was most popular in Monastir Vilayet, with the majority of the people at least tacitly supporting it. In speaking about the Macedonian provinces, Brailsford corroborated this when he reported "there is hardly a village which has not joined the organization" in Monastir.

...Perhaps the most notable event of the rebellion was the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization's victory at Krushevo near Monastir. In those days Krushevo had a population of about 11,000, approximately two-thirds of which was Vlach. There for ten days a small force of MRO guerrillas, most of them Vlachs, held the mountaintop town of Krushevo and established a democratic republic. The Ottoman commander proved unable to take the town and had to be replaced. In the end the rebels were severely outnumbered and defeated but not before they put up a valiant struggle, even attempting to use hollowed-out cherry tree trunks as cannons.

Some 239 battles and skirmishes occurred in the several months of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenski Revolt. The major battles were fought in the Monastir Vilayet, especially round Monastir, Ohrid, Kostur, Lerin, Prespa, Prilep, Debar, and Krushevo as well as in the Strandzha area of Adrianople Vilayet. Provisional governments were established by MRO in Smilevo, Klissura, Krushevo, and Neveska -- the later three of which were Vlach towns and all of which were short-lived. MRO failed to consolidate its gains. In these regions inhabitants seemed to throw their support behind MRO with conviction, some even remaining in the villages despite the certainty that if discovered or caught by the Ottomans would take severe retribution. In mid to late August the soldiers of the sultan, with the strong support of the Greek bishop of Kostur, Karavangelis, mounted a sustained counterattack against the insurgents in the province. Ottoman troop strength was constantly increasing, and the outcome was inevitable."

- The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893-1903 by Duncan M. Perry (University of Michigan, 1988)

4) "In all, the active ranks of the insurgent army in the Monastir province mustered as nearly as I can estimate some five thousand men... The Resna contingent was commanded by a capable chief named Arsof, and the northern bands around Krushevo were under a Vlach named Pitou Goule, who was killed in the second week of the rising.

The first three weeks of the insurrection were a period of almost unchecked triumph. The Turks seemed incapable of thinking out a plan of campaign, and, save in the three towns of Monastir, Ochrida, and Castoria, the insurgents were almost everywhere supreme. They took the three country towns of Krushevo, Klissoura, and Neveska -- all of them Vlach centres perched in the most inaccessible positions upon the mountain-side."

- Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future by H.N. Brailsford (London, 1906)