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Speaking National: Nationalizing the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Theodora Dragostinova
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Abstract

In this article Theodora Dragostinova examines the interplay between official policies and popular demands in the nationalization of the Greek minority in Bulgaria. She explores why national activists and ordinary people chose to “speak national” in the context of the conflicting national interests and territorial aspirations of Bulgaria and Greece. At the official level, the national discourse and practice showed the co-existence of essentialist and constructionist understandings of nationhood; while the rhetoric of the primordial nation was ubiquitous, politicians realized that certain policies could “improve” the national body. At the popular level, the profuse use of national rhetoric functioned as an “emergency identity,” or a discursive strategy that allowed individuals to claim social legitimacy in emergency situations. Thus, despite the fact that people were forced to adopt clear-cut national allegiances, national side-switching remained a frequent phenomenon.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , Spring 2008 , pp. 154 - 181
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2008

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References

Research for this article was funded by the Kokkalis Program on Southeast and East- Central Europe at Harvard University, the Social Science Research Council (with funds provided by the Andrew W. MelOecumlon Foundation), the American Council of Learned Societies, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Historical Association. Preliminary versions of the text were presented at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Toronto in 2003 and the annual convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in New York City in 2006. I want to thank Bud Barnes, Maureen Healy, Rainer Ohliger, Maria Todorova, and Onur Yildirim for their comments on early drafts and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its financial support. I also wish to express my gratitude to Diane Koenker, Mark Steinberg, and the two anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments greatly improved my argument.

When I refer to localities, I provide both the Bulgarian and Greek names and add the current name in parenthesis at first mention. In some cases, a locality had only a Turkish name until it acquired a Bulgarian name in the interwar period.

1. Inhabitants of the Habsburg empire have long used the term amphibians, as Bryant, Chad explains in “Either German or Czech: Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1946,” Slavic Review 61, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 684-85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The reference to “Water Poles,” “hermaphrodites,” and ‘janissaries” is found on 685. For “also-Germans,“ see King, Jeremy, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948 (Princeton, 2002), 158-59Google Scholar.

2. The Ecumenical Patriarchate estimated about 100,000 Greeks, which probably included all groups under Greek cultural influence, but Greek diplomatic reports confirm the figure of 80,000. See Patriarchat Oecuménique, Memorandums adressés aux représentants des Grandes Puissances á Constantinople et autres documents relatifs aux récents évènements de Bulgarie et de Roumélie Orientate (Constantinople, 1906). Bulgarian census data and references in Greek diplomatic reports are best summarized in Xanthippi Kotzageorgi, ed., OiEllines lis Voulgarias: Ena istoriko tmima tou periphereiakou ellinismou (Thessaloniki, 1999), 121-99 and 216-19.

3. The most comprehensive account on the minority remains Kotzageorgi, OiEllines tis Voulgarias. For the early minority policies of the Bulgarian state, see Nazârska, Zhorzheta, Maltsinstveno-religiozna politika v Itochna Rumeliia, 1879-1885 (Sofia, 1997)Google Scholar; and Nazârska, Zhorzheta, Bdlgarskata danhava i neynite maltsinstva, 1879-1885 (Sofia, 1999).Google Scholar

4. For the struggle over Macedonia, see Perry, Duncan, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movement 1893-1903 (Durham, 1988)Google Scholar; Poulton, Hugh, Who Are the Macedonians? (Bloomington, 1995)Google Scholar; Danforth, Loring M., The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton, 1995)Google Scholar; and Karakasidou, Anastasia, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870-1990 (Chicago, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. For the national struggles in Bulgaria and Greece, see Sugar, Peter F. and Lederer, Ivo J., eds., Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Seattle, 1969)Google Scholar; Sugar, Peter F., ed., Eastern European Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Washington, 1995)Google Scholar; and Charles, and Jelavich, Barbara, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920 (Seattle, 1997)Google Scholar. Karakasidou provides a fascinating anthropological account of people's everyday encounter with nationalization in a village in Greek Macedonia. See Karakasidou, Fields of Wlieat, Hills of Blood. An important study that tackles the political dimensions of ethnic tensions in Greece is George Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922-1936 (Berkeley, 1983). For an analysis of the nationalization of the Muslims in Bulgaria, see Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities of Bulgaria (New York, 1997); and Mary Neuburger, The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca, 2004).

6. For “flexible-minded,” see Gennadius Library Archive (GLA), American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece, Archive of Philipos Dragoumis, 68.1.11 (Confidential Memo of Samaras from 27 February 1945). For “wavering national consciousness,“ see Tsentralen Darzhaven Arhiv (TsDA), Sofia, Bulgaria, f. 370k, op. 6, a.e. 1167, 1. 50 (Bulgarian translation of Greek police directives from 26 April 1941). For “wavering and indefinable” national feelings, see TsDA, f. 176k, op. 5, a.e. 1127,11. 10-21 (Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Vienna from 5 January 1931).

7. For an overview of the new scholarly directions, see Bucur, Maria and Wingfield, Nancy, eds., Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present (West Lafayette, 2001)Google Scholar; Todorova, Maria, ed., Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory (New York, 2004)Google Scholar; and Pieterjudson, and Rozenblit, Marsha, eds., Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe (New York, 2004).Google Scholar

8. Jeremy King employs the term ethnicism to criticize the straight line between ethnicity and nationality in “The Nationalization of East Central Europe: Ethnicism, Ethnicity, and Beyond,” in Bucur and Wingfield, eds., Staging the Past, 112-52. For a critique of the vegetative vocabulary of nationalism, which refers to “ancestral seeds from which genealogies sprout,” see Pamela Ballinger, “'Authentic Hybrids’ in the Balkan Borderlands,“ Current Anthropology 45, no. 1 (February 2004): 43.

9. Some recent studies that have focused on multinationality include King, Budiueisers into Czechs and Germans; Gary Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (West Lafayette, 2006); and Pieterjudson, , Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, Mass., 2006).Google Scholar

10. Brubaker, Rogers, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the NewEurope (New York, 1996), 16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Instead, he claims, “ethnicity, race and nationhood are fundamentally ways of perceiving, interpreting and representing the social world. They are not things in the world but perspectives on the world.” Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), 17. Most recendy, he has examined the dynamics of nationalization at the official and everyday levels in Brubaker, Rogers, Feischmidt, Margit, Fox, Jon, and Grancea, Liana, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town (Princeton, 2006).Google Scholar

12. Kotkin, Stephen, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization (Berkeley, 1995), 198–237 and especially 224-25Google Scholar. In this analysis, “speaking Bolshevik,” i.e., utilizing the vocabulary of official Soviet discourse, allowed individuals to enter a “field of play” that made them members of official society.

13. Yurchak, Alexei, “Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, no. 3 (July 2003): 485-86 and 489-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more detailed explanation, see Yurchak, Alexei, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, 2005).Google Scholar

14. Bourdieu, Pierre and Wacquant, Loic J. D., An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago, 1992), 102 Google Scholar; and Bourdieu, Pierre, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, Eng., 1991).Google Scholar

15. Ronald Grigor Suny points out that this “provisional stabilization” of group identity functions “without closure, without forever naturalizing or essentializing the provisional identities arrived at.” See Ronald Grigor Suny, “Provisional Stabilities: The Politics of Identities in Post-Soviet Eurasia,” International Security 24, no. 3 (Winter 1999/ 2000): 144.

16. Suny, Ronald Grigor, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,“ Journal of Modern History 73, no. 4 (December 2001): 865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 13-16.

18. As Suny explains in the case of Kazakhstan, “the sense that ethnicity was real and deeply rooted coexisted with the anxiety that nationality could be eroded if efforts were not made, particularly by the state, to shore up the bases of national culture.” See Suny, “Constructing Primordialism,” 879.

19. Todorova, Maria, “The Trap of Backwardness: Modernity, Temporality, and the Study of Eastern European Nationalism,” Slavic Review 64, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 143.Google Scholar

20. Notably, these were the organizations later known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which promoted the idea of Macedonian autonomy; the Supreme Committee (also known as the External Organization), which sought direct annexation of the area to Bulgaria; and the Greek National Society (Ethniki Etaireia), which worked for the liberation of all Greeks within the Ottoman empire but increasingly shifted its attention to Macedonia to counterbalance Bulgarian claims. See R.J. Crampton, A Concise History of Bulgaria (Cambridge, Eng., 1997), 129-33; Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 71-75; Marin Pundeff, “Bulgarian Nationalism,“ in Sugar and Lederer, eds., Nationalism in Eastern Europe, 123-24 and 130-31; and Jelavich, Establishment of the Balkan National States, 211.

21. Clogg, Concise History of Greece, 74; and Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood, 81-82. For a detailed explanation of the developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Perry, Politics of Terror.

22. The most notorious massacre occurred in Zagorichane/Zagoritsani (Vasiliada) in Macedonia on 25 March 1905, in which Greek national activists slaughtered some 78 Bulgarian civilians, according to Hristo Silianov, Osvoboditelnite borbi na Makedoniia (Sofia, 1983), 208-9. Bulgarian newspapers, however, provided an exaggerated figure of 200 Bulgarian casualties. See Mirirom 7 April 1905. It is indicative of the dynamics of the national struggles that this massacre of Bulgarian civilians in Macedonia by Greek national activists triggered violence against the Greeks in Bulgaria orchestrated by Bulgarian national activists, including Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia. See Mirfrom 12 and 21 April 1905 as well as the Greek newspapers Akropolis from 15 and 20 April 1905 and Esperini from 18 April 1905. For the role of Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia in the anti-Greek events, see Genadi Genadiev, Bezhantsite vdv Varnensko, 1879-1908 (Varna, 1998).

23. For the Greek opinion on the events, see Patriarchat Oecuménique, Memorandums adressés aux représentants des Grandes Puissances á Constantinople, Mouvemenl antihellénique en Bulgarie et en Roumélie Orientale. Extraits des rapports des autorités consulaires helléniques, Juillet- Aout 1906 (Athens, 1906); and A. R. [Athon Romanos], Persécutions des Grecs en Bulgarie (Athens, 1906). The Bulgarian answer can be found in Polozhenieto na gãrtsite v Bãlgariia: Otgovor na memoara na Tsarigradskiia patriarh ot 14 avgust 1906 do poslanitsite na Velikite darzhavi v Tsarigrad (Sofia, 1906). An interesting socialist interpretation is Pavel Deliradev, Antigrãtskoto dvizhenie: S istoricheski ocherk na bãlgaro-grãtskite otnosheniia (Sofia, 1906).

24. TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 161, 11. 34-35 (Memo of Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Racho Petrov to the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 23 September 1906).

25. For a classic account on nationalization, which confirms Racho Petrov's focus on education, the economy, and military draft, see Weber, Eugene, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford, 1976).Google Scholar

26. TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 161,11. 34-35.

27. For Greek reactions to these policies, see Istoriko Archeio Ypourgeiou Exoterikon (IAYE), Athens, Greece (renamed Ypiresia Diplomatikou kai Istorikou Archeiou, or YDIA, in 2001), 1907, 3.1.1 (Greek translation of a Petition of the Plovdiv Bishop Photios to the Bulgarian prime minister from 13 March 1907); and 3.1.2 (Reports of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 15 March and 10 April 1907). The official Bulgarian perspective is evident in Polozhenielo na gãrtsite v Bãlgariia.

28. TsDA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1012, 11. 333-34 (Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 31 January 1907).

29. TsDA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1011,1. 37 (Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Vienna from 2 February 1907).

30. TsDA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1010,1. 177 (Article “The Greek Colony in Bulgaria” in Neue Freie Presse, translated in a Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Berlin from 19 August 1906).

31. These terms are used by national activists in both countries. The term Bulgarization exists in both languages: pobãlgariavane in Bulgarian and ekvoulgarismos in Greek. To refer to Greek nationalization attempts, however, I use both Grecization and Hellenization, depending on the source. In Bulgarian, national activists employed the term pog&rchvane (Grecization), while elinizirane (Hellenization) is used solely in scholarly texts referring to ancient Greece (Elada). Similarly, there is a difference between gãrlsi (contemporary Greeks) and elini (ancient Greeks, or Hellenes). In Greek, the word Ellines describes both groups, demonstrating the continuity between ancient and modern Greek history; accordingly, Greek national activists employed the term exellinismos (Hellenization). Because my work focuses on Bulgarian attitudes toward the Greek population, my preference is for “Grecization,” a term that reflects the perspective of the Bulgarian national cause.

32. Although the Balkan Christian states were victorious over the Ottoman empire in the First Balkan War, the Second Balkan War ended with Bulgaria's collapse in the face of the combined attack by all the Balkan states, including the Ottoman empire. See Jelavich, Establishment of the Balkan National States, 207-21. After the wars, Bulgarians escaped the Greek administration around Solun/Thessaloniki in Macedonia and Greeks fled Bulgarian-occupied Western Thrace and the vicinities of Melnik/Meleniko, Ortakioy (Ivaylovgrad), and Ahtopol/Agathoupolis. With the Bucharest Treaty of 28 July 1913, Bulgarians from (now Greek) Aegean Macedonia resettled into (now Bulgarian) Western Thrace, and Greeks from (Bulgarian) Thrace moved to (Greek) Macedonia, initiating a temporary population shift. For population movements during the wars, see Pallis, Alexandras A., “Racial Migrations in the Balkans during the Years 1912-1924,” Geographical Journal 66 (1925): 315-31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pallis, Alexandras A., Statistiki meleti peri ton phyktikon metanastavseon Makedonias kai Thrakis kata tinperiodo 1912-1924 (Athens, 1925)Google Scholar; and Djordjevich, Dimitrije, “Migrations during the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars and World War One,” in Tasich, Nikola and Stoshich, Dushica, eds., Migrations in Balkan History (Belgrade, 1989), 115-29Google Scholar.

33. The religious split between Bulgarians and Greeks occurred in 1870, when the Ottoman government recognized the existence of a separate Bulgarian church, the Exarchate, for those Ottoman subjects who considered themselves Bulgarians and who did not want to remain under the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul (determined after plebiscites in the specific localities). See Pundeff, “Bulgarian Nationalism,” 115-20. After the establishment of the principality of Bulgaria in 1878, the Greeks in Bulgarian territory remained under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate, which was largely Greek-dominated. In Macedonia and Thrace, the religious allegiances of the population became a battleground for Bulgarian and Greek national activists as their governments struggled to claim territories from the disintegrating Ottoman empire. See Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood.

34. This difference is evident in the following exchange from 1914 between the Greek governor of Salonica and the Bulgarian consul general in the city. According to the consul general, “Bulgarians in Macedonia are all those who speak Bulgarian, who have studied in Bulgarian schools and have been baptized in Bulgarian churches during Turkish times, and have always considered themselves to be Bulgarians.” According to Governor Sophoulis, however, “Greek is everybody who recognizes the Patriarchate.” TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 339, 11. 31-33 (Report of the Bulgarian consul general in Solun/Thessaloniki from 23 December 1914).

35. Bulgarian and Greek historians continue to use different terms to describe the minority, a phenomenon that has its origins in the national struggles between the two countries. According to the Bulgarian view, all Bulgarian-speaking individuals in Greek Macedonia are Bulgarians. At the same time, different terms have been used over time in Greece to describe the minority: “Bulgarian-minded” (Voulgarophronoi), “Bulgarianspeaking“ (Voulgarophonoi), “Slavic-speaking” (Slavophonoi), and simply “foreigners” (allogeneis). Greek historians today use the term Slavic-speaking, a deliberately vague choice that denies the population a concrete Bulgarian connection. This article opts for the terms Bulgarians and Bulgarian-speakers because large parts of the population leaned toward the Bulgarian national cause in the 1910s and 1920s, as is evident by the mass emigration to Bulgaria in the early 1920s. If an individual is clearly identified with the Bulgarian national cause, I use “Bulgarian“; if, on the other hand, he/she was simply claimed by Bulgarian national activists, I use “Bulgarian-speaking.“

36. GLA, Archive of Stephanos Dragoumis, 118.1.1 (Report of the General Administration of Macedonia from 7July 1913).

37. Ibid. (Report of the General Administration of Macedonia from 5July 1913).

38. TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 339,1. 24 (Report of the Bulgarian Consulate in Solun/ Thessaloniki from 25 January 1915).

39. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 2, a.e. 1393, 1. 4 (Report of the Bulgarian bishop in Voden/ Edessa from 1 April 1913).

40. Ibid., 1. 5 (Report of the Bulgarian bishop in Voden/Edessa from 3 April 1913). For Greek language policies in Macedonia, see Tasos Kostopoulos, J apagorevmenni glossa: Kratiki katastoli tov slavikon diakkton stin elliniki Makedonia (Athens, 2000).

41. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 2, a.e. 1213,11. 41-46 (Report about the Greek administration in the Solun/Thessaloniki area from 29 November 1912).

42. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 2, a.e. 1397, 11. 173-74 (Report of the Bulgarian bishop in Solun/Thessaloniki from 29 March 1913).

43. Western Thrace was ceded to Bulgaria after the First Balkan War with the London Peace Treaty of 17 May 1913 and remained Bulgarian territory up until the end of World War I.

44. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 3, a.e. 45,1. 7 (Undated Order #1456 of Rozental, chief of the Refugee Settlement Committee in Dedeagatch/Alexandroupolis).

45. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 14,1.72 (Report of the governor of Giumiurdzhina/Komotini from November 1914). A total of 35,851 persons resetded from Bulgaria to Greek Macedonia since the beginning of the Balkan Wars, and most originated from Thrace. See oikonomikon, Ypourgeion, kratous, Dievthynsi ktimaton, Ekthesis peri ton en Makedonia prosphygon (Athens, 1916), 12–20.Google Scholar

46. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 3, a.e. 45, 11. 13-14a (Report of Rozental from 26 November 1914).

47. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 14, 1. 72 (Report of the governor of Giumiurdzhina/ Komotini from November 1914).

48. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 3, a.e. 45, 11. 13-14a (Report of Rozental from 26 November 1914).

49. Dimitrov, Georgi V., Nastaniavanei ozemliavanena bãlgarskite bezhantsi (Blagoevgrad, 1985), 19 Google Scholar; and Trifonov, Stoyko, Trakiia: Administrativna uredba, politicheski i stopanski zhivot, 1912-1915 (Sofia, 1992), 162–247.Google Scholar

50. Bulgarian policies were very similar to the techniques Greece and Turkey implemented to homogenize their lands after the compulsory population exchange between the two countries sanctioned with the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. See Hirschon, Reneé, ed., Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (New York, 2003).Google Scholar

51. Important sources on the Bulgarian-Greek exchange include Memorandum on the Mission andWorkoJ“theMixed Commission (n.p., 1929); André Wurfbain, L'échange Gréco-bulgare des Minorites Ethniques (Lausanne, 1930); Commission Mixte d'emigration Greco-Bulgare, Rapport des membres nommés par le Conseil de la Société des Nations (Lausanne, 1932); and Ladas, Stephen, The Exchange of Minorities: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (New York, 1932).Google Scholar

52. For the Bulgarian and Greek stance, respectively, see Dimitrov, Georgi V., Iliuzii i deystvitelnost: Sporove za prava i imoti na bdlgarite ot Egeyska Makedoniia i Zadarna Trakiia, 1919-1931 (Blagoevgrad, 1996)Google Scholar; and Tunta-Phergadi, Areti, Ellino-voulgarikes meionotites (Thessaloniki,1986).Google Scholar

53. IAYE, 1919, A/5/II, 4 (Undated telegram from Venizelos to Mazarakis). The document is probably from early January 1919 as an answer to Mazarakis's report from 19 December 1918, which asked for instructions.

54. IAYE, 1919, A/5/II, 4 (Report of Mazarakis from 5 February 1919).

55. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 3, a.e. 1382, 1. 78 (The Bulgarian newspaper Bãlgariia from 22 January 1919).

56. IAYE, 1919, A/5/II, 4 (Report of Mazarakis from 24 January 1919).

57. Istoriko Archeio Makedonias, Geniki Diikisi Makedonias (LAM, GDM), Thessaloniki, Greece, file 82 (Report of Mazarakis to die Greek Army Headquarters from 19 December 1918, p. 4).

58. IAYE, 1919, A/5/II, 4 (Proclamation of the Greek Military Mission to the Greeks in Bulgaria from 14 January 1919).

59. TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 383,11. 1-94 (Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 15 May 1920, entitled “The Development of the Political Events in Greece since the Neuilly Treaty,” pp. 53-54).

60. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 4, a.e. 1670,11. 70-82 (Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 3 May 1921, entitled “The Deplorable Situation of Refugees from the Caucasus in Greece,” p. 1).

61. IAYE, 1919, A/5/II, 4 (Proclamation of the Greek Military Mission to the Greeks in Bulgaria from 14 January 1919; Report of Mazarakis from 5 February 1919; Census Instructions of Mazarakis from 4 February 1919); and TsDA, f. 176k, op. 3, a.e. 1382,1. 81 (Memo of the Thracian Military Unit to the Ministry of War from 27 February 1919).

62. IAYE, 1920, 5.5.2 (The governmental representative of Western Thrace from 29 April 1920).

63. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 355,11. 1 and 3 - 4 (Directive of the Anhialo/Anchialos county chief from 11 June 1934 banning public use of foreign languages; Memo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations from 21 June 1934; Directive of the Anhialo/ Anchialos county chief from 21 June 1934 revoking the previous directive); and IAYE, 1934, A/6/1/2 (Correspondence between the Greek Consulate in Burgas, the Greek Embassy in Sofia, and Burgas district authorities from 14, 19, and 25 June and 11 July 1934).

64. Dãrzhaven Arhiv-Burgas (DA-Burgas), Bulgaria, f. 82k, op. 1, a.e. 45, 11. 72-73 (Undated explanation of the police chief of Anhialo/Anchialos).

65. DA-Burgas, f. 82k, op. 1, a.e. 12, 11. 1-2 (Petition of the Pomorie Citizens Committee to the Ministry of Education from June 1939, requesting the opening of a new high school in town).

66. DA-Burgas, f. 151k, op. l.a.e. 1,1.9 (Protocols from the meetings of the Mesemvria City Council in October 1925).

67. Michev, Nikolay and Koledarov, Petar, Rechnik na selishtata i selishtnite imena v Bãlgariia, 1878-1987 (Sofia, 1989), 256.Google Scholar

68. Some of the new street names include Han Krum, Tsar Boris, Kiril and Medoti, Tsar Simeon, Tsar Samuil, Benkovski, Shipka, Botev, Vazov, Iavorov—all Bulgarian historical figures. DA-Burgas, f. 212k, op. 1, a.e. 17,11. 214-15 (Protocols from the meeting of the Anhialo/Anchialos City Council on 7 November 1925); DA-Burgas, f. 212k, op. 1, a.e. 28, 11. 31-32 (Protocols from the meeting of the Anhialo/Anchialos City Council on 17 February 1937); and DA-Burgas, f. 212k, op. 1, a.e. 24, 11. 6b-9 (Protocols of the Anhialo/ Anchialos City Council from 29 September 1934).

69. DA-Burgas, f. 152k, op. 1, a.e. 14, 1. 119 (Protocols from die meedng of the Sozopol City Council in 1934).

70. Michev and Koledarov, Rechnik na selishtata i selishtnite imena v Bãlgariia, 31-32. For earlier Bulgarian attempts to rename the city, see Apostolidis, K. Myrtilos, O Stenimachos (Athens, 1929), 70–1Google Scholar.

71. DA-Burgas, f. 82k, op. 1, a.e. 45, 11. 72-73 (Undated explanation of the police chief in Anhialo/Anchialos).

72. IAYE, 1924, A/5XII, 5 and 8 (Report of the Greek Consulate in Burgas from 29 November 1924 and Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 7 March 1924); TsDA, f. 176k op. 5, a.e. 256, 1. 28 (Memo of the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and DenominaUons from 13July 1925); and IAYE, 1922, 94.4 (Greek translation of the Bulgarian newspaper Rabotnicheski vestnik, “How Shall They Bulgarize?” from 8 April 1922).

73. IAYE, 1934, A/6/1/1 (Report of the Greek vice consul in Burgas from 17 October 1931, regarding an article entitled “Anhialo Past and Present” in Burgaski far from the same date).

74. IAYE, 1939, 13.1 (Report of the Greek vice consul in Burgas from 26 June 1939).

75. “The Progress of Pomorie,” Chernomorski glas, 1 July 1939, 2.

76. The Thracians were the indigenous population in parts of the Balkan Peninsula, and they predate the Greeks in some areas where Greek city-states established colonies after the seventh century BCE. Different Thracian tribes existed and some established powerful kingdoms that had various encounters with the Greeks. The Thracians did not have written records, so their history is the subject of continuous scholarly debate and contestation. Bulgarian historians claim that these indigenous populations in isolated mountainous areas survived the Roman and barbaric incursions of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages and blended with die proto-Bulgarians and Slavs to form the medieval Bulgarian state. For such an interpretation of the history of formerly Greek localities in Bulgaria, see Razboynikov, Anastas, Cherno more: Geografsko opisanie (Knizhka za kursisti i uchiteli) (Plovdiv, 1931)Google Scholar; Batakliev, Ivan, Nashiiat chernomorski briag: Geografski pregled (Varna, 1932)Google Scholar; and Marinov, Aleksi pop, Moreto i nasheto kraybrezhie: Ot Kaliakra do Rezovo (Varna, 1937)Google Scholar.

77. This tendency is especially pronounced in Bulgarian works on these Greek towns, published in tlie interwar period, which as a rule avoid any mention of Greek presence in the area. In addition to the references above, see Traianov, Kosta, Rodnoto more: Ot Kaliakra do Ropotamo (Varna, 1938)Google Scholar; Stoianov, Ivan and Stavrev, Vasil, Varna: Gradat i okolnostite (Varna, 1930)Google Scholar; Dermishkov, N., Perlite na slancheviia grad Varna i okolnostite i (Varna, 1938)Google Scholar; Shishkov, Stoiu, Plovdiv v svoeto blizko i dalechno minalo: Istoriko-etnografski i politicheski pregled (Plovdiv, 1921)Google Scholar; Shishkov, Stoiu, Plovdiv v svoeto minalo i nastoiashte: Istoriko-etnografski i politiko-ekonomicheski pregled (Plovdiv, 1926)Google Scholar; and Batakliev, Ivan, Tatar-Pazardzhik: Istorikogeografski ocherk (Sofia, 1923)Google Scholar.

78. This trend became apparent during the fieldwork I conducted in Greek communities in Bulgaria (the Black Sea coast) during September-October 2001 and in Bulgarian Greek refugee communities in Greece (Greek Macedonia) in May 2002. Even within the same family it was possible to observe siblings whose opinions diverged over their affiliations; for example, in a family from Sozopol in Bulgaria, one sibling was extremely devoted to the Greek cause, while another declared unequivocally that he was Bulgarian, despite his awareness of his Greek origins. The younger members of such families generally show indifference to national passions. For a similar generational difference of perception in another Greek case (the interwar Orthodox refugees from Pontus), see Maria Verged, Apo tin Ponto stin Ellada: Diadikasies diamorphosis mias ethnotopikis tavtotitas (Thessaloniki, 1994).

79. The Bulgarian newspaper Den, 5 August 1906.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid., 28July 1906.

82. Ibid., 20 August 1906.

83. Ibid., 21 August 1906.

84. Ibid., 22 July 1906.

85. Ibid., 30 July and 3 August 1906.

86. TsDA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1010, 1. 13 (Protocol of a meeting in Kazaldzhik from 2 August 1906).

87. For an anthropological use of the concept of performance, see Herzfeld, Michael, The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village (Princeton, 1985)Google Scholar. For a fascinating historical use in the case of the Greek Adriatic islands under British rule, see Thomas Gallant, Experiencing Dominion: Culture, Identity, and Power in the British Mediterranean (Notre Dame, 2002).

88. Radev, Simeon, Ranni Spomeni (Sofia, 1967)Google Scholar, especially the chapter “Borbata s grakomanite” (Struggles with the Greek-maniacs).

89. See, for example, the writings of Paisiy Hilendarski, an early ideologue of the Bulgarian national idea from the 1760s, who blamed Greek educators for depriving the Bulgarians of their own history and castigated those Bulgarians who followed Greek culture. Paisiy Hilendarski, Slavianobalgarska istoriia, ed. Ivan Granitski (Sofia, 2002). For an analysis of this work in English, see Pundeff, “Bulgarian Nationalism,” 98-103.

90. Radev, Ranni Spomeni; and Pundeff, “Bulgarian Nationalism,” 115-20.

91. Miletich, Liubomir, “Vpolurazrusheniia Melnik (Patni belezhki ot 1914godina),“ Makedonski pregled 1, no. 2 (1924): 87.Google Scholar

92. Liubomir Miletich, “Ezikovi i narodopisni materiali,” Makedonski pregled 1, no. 3 (1925): 103. The first part of this article, entitled “Bugari i garkomani,” is the testimony of Dimitar Hristov, an illiterate peasant from Barovitsa in Greek Macedonia, interview, Sofia, 19 March 1919.

93. Radev, Ranni Spomeni.

94. Miletich, “V polurazrusheniia Melnik,“88. For an overview of grdkitmanstvo in Melnik, see Galina Valchinova and Radoslava Ganeva, “Melnik mezhdu ‘Balgarina-orach’ i 'sredizemnomoretsa-lozar': Za traynostta na edna etnokulturna harakteristika,’ Istoricheski pregled2 (1997): 142-59.

95. Stoiu Shishkov, Trakiiapredi i sled evropeyskata voyna (Plovdiv, 1922), 119-20.

96. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 17,1.162 (Report of the Burgas Municipal Office to the Ministry of the Interior from 7 June 1924).

97. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 9, a.e. 1543, 1. 3 (Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 1 April 1921).

98. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 217,11. 69-70 (Ministry of the Interior to ttie Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations from 21 April 1929).

99. For example, thirty Greeks in Stanimaka/Asenovgrad were forced t3 depart in 1929, three years after filing their declarations and liquidating their properties. Ibid., 1 76 (Report of the Bulgarian Representative in the Mixed Commission to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations from 9 July 1929).

100. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 26, a.e. 36; op. 9, a.e. 1543; and op. 12, a.e. 91-93, 112, 114, 345, 227, and 228 (Individual applications for Greek citizenship by members of the Greek minority in Bulgaria who wanted to avoid the labor service, instituted in lieu of the military service that was prohibited by the 1919 Neuilly Peace Treaty).

101. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 91,1. 3 (Report of the Burgas Municipal Office to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations from 6 June 1923). The case concerns two young Greek women from Burgas who tried to avoid labor service by adopting Greek citizenship. See also TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 112,1. 19 (Memo of the Plovdiv Municipal Office from 25 December 1925 about labor service lists).

102. TsDA, f. 370k, op. 6, a.e. 91,11. 3 - 4 (Ministry of the Interior to the district chiefs and police inspectors in Bulgaria from 10 March 1931, regarding the legal status of foreigners in Bulgaria).

103. IAYE, 1935, A / 6 / 2 / 2 (Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 26 July 1935). The document explains'the administrative mess associated with the status of these people.

104. IAYE, 1939, 15.2 (Report of the Greek vice consul in Burgas from 20 September 1939). This information is confirmed in oral history interviews, as is evident in Galia Valchinova, “Grãtskoto naselenie i grãtskata identichnost v Bãlgariia: Kãm istoriiata na edno nesastoialo see maltsinstvo, ,” Istorichesko baãeshte 2 (1998): 157 Google Scholar.

105. IAYE, 1934, A/6/2 (Reports of the Greek vice consul in Plovdiv/Philippoupolis from 26 and 28 January 1934 and 21 January 1935).

106. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 210, 1. 5 (Memo of the Ministry of the Interior to the district chiefs in Bulgaria from 11 September 1926).

107. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 33,1. 138 (Memo of the Greek-Bulgarian Emigration Subcommission in Bulgaria to the Ministry of the Interior from 16 March 1925); TsDA, f. 176k, op. 21, a.e. 2356, 11. 305-8 (List of thirty Greeks who emigrated but returned to Bulgaria and seventy-one Greeks who acquired passports but did not emigrate); and TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 186, 1. 455 (Report of the Burgas district chief to the Ministry of the Interior from 30 June 1926, concerning Greeks in Burgas who had no intention of emigrating).

108. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 33, 11. 139-40a (Memo of the Greek-Bulgarian Emigration Subcommission in Sofia from 17 March 1925). All petitions requesting the withdrawal of a declaration for emigration were filed with the Emigration Subcommission that handled the implementation of the Bulgarian-Greek Convention for Emigration, but some petitioners chose to address their requests to a higher authority, such as King Boris, as evident in this case.

109. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 186, 11. 136-38 (Request of inhabitants from Biala, Hodzha-kioy, and Kuru-kioy from 24 December 1925). The families came from Biala/ Aspros (Biala), Hodzha-kioy (Popovich), and Kuru-kioy (Goritsa).

110. Ibid., 1. 306 (Petition of Ianko Daskalov from Malãk Boialãk from 1 March 1926). The petitioner came from the village Malak Boialak/Mikro Boialiki (Malko Sharkovo) near Kavakli (Topolovgrad).

111. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 185,11. 17-18 (Petition of the brothers Georgi, Kolio, and Hristo Petrovi Dalukovi from Krumovo from 17 May 1926). The village Krumovo was near Iambol.

112. Ibid., 1. 19 (Memo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations to the Bulgarian Representative in the Mixed Commission from 16 June 1926, regarding the petition of the Dalukovi brothers).

113. Ibid., 11. 21-23 (Requests from Todora Dineva, Kana Dimitrova, and Elena Stoianova from Krumovo). The dates of the petitions are unclear but they were filed on 23 June 1926.

114. Ibid.

115. TsDA, f. 176k, op. 8, a.e. 805,1.46 (Request of Nikola Vasilev and RusanaGeorgieva from 15 July 1940). The petitioners were from the village Pashovo near Svilengrad.

116. Ibid.

117. Daphnis, Kostas, Aposlolos Doxiadis: O agonistis kai o anthropos (Athens, 1974), 197n28.Google Scholar

118. The Bulgarian newspaper Kray, 3 October 1909.

119. For the assimilation of the Bulgarian-speakers in Greece, see Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood; and Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakakis, eds., Ourselves and Others: The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912 (Oxford, 1997). Accounts in Greek include Kostopoulos, I apagorevmenni glossa; Vasilis Gounaris, Giakovos Michailidis, and Georgios Agelopoulos, eds., Tavtotites sti Makedonia (Thessaloniki, 1997); and Giakovos Michailidis, Metakiniseis slavophonon plithysmon (1912-1930): O polemos ton statistikon (Athens, 2003). The Bulgarian perspective on the minority is evident in Dimitrov, Georgi V., Maltsinslveno-bezhanskiial vdpros v bdlgaro-grdtskite otnosheniia 1919-1939 (Blagoevgrad, 1982)Google Scholar; and Daskalov, Georgi, Uchastta na bdlgarite v Egeyska Makedoniia, 1936-1946 (Sofia, 1999 Google Scholar). An account on refugees in Bulgaria, including those from Greece, is Theodora Dragostinova, “Competing Priorities, Ambiguous Loyalties: Challenges of Socioeconomic Adaptation and National Inclusion of the Interwar Bulgarian Refugees,” Nationalities Papers 34, no. 5 (November 2006): 549-74. The most comprehensive study on the Greeks in Bulgaria remains Kotzageorgi, OiEllines tis Voulgarias. For minority problems, see Divani, Lena, ed., Ellada kai meionotites: To systima dielhnous proslasias tis Koinonias ton Ethnon (Athens, 1995)Google Scholar.

120. During World War II, when Bulgarian forces occupied parts of northern Greece, some Greek “Slavic-speakers” identified themselves as Bulgarians and cooperated with the Bulgarian administration, which they no doubt did for practical reasons that contradicted the Greek government's stance that there were no Bulgarians in Greece. See Alvanos, Raimondos, “Slavophonoi dopioi kai Pontioi prosphyges: I mnimi kai i empeiria tis dekaetias tou 40 se dyo choria tis periochis Kastorias,” Istorika 33 (2000): 289–318 Google Scholar.

121. In the census from 4 December 1992, some 4,930 identified themselves as Greeks, some 5,144 declared themselves to be Karakachans, while a total of 8,000 noted that Greek was their maternal tongue. See Vãlchinova, Galia, “Gãrtsi,” in Anna, Krãsteva, ed., Obshtnosti i identichnosti v Bãlgariia (Sofia, 1998), 217Google Scholar. For the Karakachans in Bulgaria, who have a lifestyle and dialect similar to those of the Sarakatsani in Greece, see Pimpireva, Zhenia, The Karakachans in Bulgaria (Sofia, 1998)Google Scholar.

122. These observations are based on fieldwork conducted in Greek communities on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast during September and October of 2001.

123. For example, during my fieldtrip in the Varna and Burgas regions of Bulgaria, some respondents expressed frustration that activists of the Greek associations secured scholarships for their children to study in Greece.

124. Interview with a respondent from Biala, 6 November 2001.