Chapter 16

[Footnote 48: _The Turks, the Greeks and the Slavons: Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-in-Europe._ London, 1867. The second edition of this book appeared with a preface by Gladstone.]

[Footnote 49: Cf. his _Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe_.]

[Footnote 50: The promulgation was a surprise to him; it was also a defeat, as he had aimed at a direct understanding between Greeks and Bulgars and not at a solution which left the Porte as arbitrator between these two Christian races. However, he would not acknowledge that he had been beaten. "He thought it more intelligent to recognize the _fait accompli_ and not to let his dissatisfaction be visible," says Prince George Troubetzkoi, the distinguished diplomat who explored the archives of the Russian Embassy at Constantinople. In reply to his telegram announcing the promulgation of the firman, Gortchakoff, the Prime Minister, cabled that "an adjustment of this awkward question and one that would not break the links between the Bulgarian community and the OEcumenical Patriarchate would be a great alleviation, whereof the credit would be mostly yours." The Russians repudiated the Exarchate publicly and they are not now, as are the Serbs, in communion with the Bulgars. For example, when the Bulgarian bishops in Macedonia, after the troubles following the first Balkan War, went to Russia in order to state their case, they were taken to a monastery and not allowed to participate in the religious offices.]

[Footnote 51: _Le droit italique de Fiume._ Bologna, 1919.]

[Footnote 52: In _Land and Water_, June 5, 1919.]

IV

THE SHIFTING SANDS OF MACEDONIA

WHAT ARE THE MACEDONIAN SLAVS?--THE RIFT CAUSED BY RELIGION--VERSATILITY OF THESE MACEDONIAN SLAVS--HOW FOREIGNERS HAVE STIRRED UP TROUBLE--AUSTRIAN, RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MANOEUVRES--THE DEPLORABLE MILAN--NIKITA THE COMEDIAN--THE GREAT STROSSMAYER--RELIGIOUS DISPUTES BETWEEN SERBS AND ROUMANIANS--THE BURDEN OF THE OBRENOVI['C]--A HAPPY ADVENT--AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN WRATH--THEIR MONTENEGRIN FRIEND--AUSTRIA GIVES HOSTAGES TO HISTORY--THE DREAMS OF AN OLD REALIST--VERY HIGH POLITICS--THE RIDDLE OF SARAJEVO--THE MISERABLE MACEDONIANS--FEROCITIES OF EDUCATION--THE STORM IS PAST.

A wealthy gentleman of Belgrade, one George Weiffert, who brews admirable beer, is said some years ago to have sworn an oath that if his wished-for ice, that was strangely lacking, should appear by Saint Sava's Day (January 27, New Style) he would adopt this old archbishop as the patron saint of his family. Another Teuton, of Hebraic origin, whom I met at Zaje[vc]a, had placed himself and his house under the protection of the Archangel Michael, whose festival is on November 21. The Roumanians of eastern Serbia seem, all of them, to have assumed this custom which the Serbs call the "slava," and those inhabitants, say of Pirot, who did not consider themselves Serbs at the time of their annexation would gradually fall into line with their neighbours and select a saint, if only because the annual "slava" celebration is a day of tremendous hospitality, when the peasant is glad to squander his savings in the entertainment even of persons unknown to him. And those who are in the habit of attending "slavas" naturally feel that they must have a "slava" of their own. It may also have happened in Macedonia that a traveller has been told by the very adaptable peasants how Saint Nicholas or Saint Alimpija is their house saint, a commitment which the holy one has but lately had thrust upon him. One would therefore do well to look for some other test, and not to follow those people who roundly assert that the man who honours the "slava," and no other man, is a veritable Serb.

WHAT ARE THE MACEDONIAN SLAVS?

If, for example, one wishes to decide whether a given Macedonian Slav is a Serb or a Bulgar--many thousands have been called and have, quite happily, called themselves both--we must use a more scientific method. Some investigators, such as Vateff, have made measurements that are not without value; others, such as Djeri['c] and Shishmanoff, have published good monographs on the Serbian and Bulgarian name. We have had some learned dissertations on the language of Macedonia, as to whether the Slav dialects approach more nearly the Serbian or the Bulgarian literary language. But this question remains unanswered, owing to the imperfect manner in which the grammatical and syntaxical peculiarities of the Macedonian dialects have, as yet, been examined. Some people have argued that as the Bulgarian peculiarity of the postponed article is also found in Macedonia it follows that the province really is Bulgarian. But as the postponed article is found in a wide zone, which extends from the Albanian shores to those of the Black Sea, this argument loses in strength, for how can Roumania be called Bulgarian? Very possibly before the Slavs arrived that zone was inhabited by another people who left this characteristic behind them, though they left no documents. It is a logical hypothesis. And Barbulescu, the Professor of Slav Philology in the University of Jassy, said in 1912 that "the Serbs have just as many reasons for asserting that the Macedonian is a Serbian language as the Bulgars have to deny it." As it was in the Middle Ages, so it is now; the mediæval language used to oscillate between the two, and it is sometimes impossible to tell whether an old Macedonian Slav document is Bulgarian or Serbian.... When we come to the ethnologists we find they have only written books which deal with certain parts of Macedonia. They have confessed that, generally speaking, it is impossible to say whether a man is a Serb, a Bulgar or a Serbo-Bulgar. These Macedonians were for centuries at such a distance from the other Slavs and were so thoroughly neglected that they lost their national consciousness, an attribute which many thousands of them, in the days of the vast, loose empires of Du[vs]an and Simeon, never possessed. Sir Charles Eliot, in his excellent book _Turkey in Europe_ (London, 1900), says that it is not easy to distinguish Serb and Bulgar beyond the boundaries of their respective countries. He divides the Macedonian Slavs into pure Slavs, Slavized Bulgars and pure Slavs influenced by Slavized Bulgars: "all three categories," he says, "have been subjected to a strong and often continuous Greek influence, to say nothing of the Turks and the inconspicuous Vlachs," so that in his opinion it is rash to make sharp divisions among a people who have thus acted and reacted on one another. A large proportion of the Macedonians[53] have no knowledge of the race to which their ancestors belonged; and one is brought to the conclusion that it is much wiser not to use for Macedonia the two words, Serb and Bulgar, but to say that these Slavs became either Exarchists (in which case they were commonly called Bulgars) or Patriarchists (who were called Serbs). Basil Kanchov, a Macedonian, who is the most accurate in giving the numbers of the Slav population of the old provinces of Turkey, divides them not into races but religions. It is, of course, a mistake to think that on the institution of the Exarchate it merely received the allegiance of those Macedonians whose origin was more or less Bulgarian. Thousands of Slavs who were, or believed themselves to be, of Serbian blood passed over to the schism with the sole object of obtaining for their Church a Slav liturgy. There was little reason for them to hesitate, since at that time the names of Serb and Bulgar implied no national differentiation, but were used to designate the brothers of two different provinces. We find then that the Macedonian Slavs, vaguely Serbs and vaguely Bulgars, passed pretty indiscriminately, and of course without the least apprehension of the future, into the Exarchist Church, or else remained under the Greek Patriarch. Exarchists and Patriarchists were found in the same family: thus at Tetovo the priest Missa Martinoff was an Exarchist and president of the Bulgarian community, while his brother Momir Martinovi['c] was a Patriarchist, and president of the Serbian community in the same town. Stavro, a well-known watchmaker at Skoplje, was a Patriarchist, whereas a brother of his, also at Skoplje, was an Exarchist priest. Ivko, a farmer at the village of Poboujie and his eight nearest relatives were Exarchists, his other relatives and all the rest of the village were Patriarchists. Many similar examples could be given.

THE RIFT CAUSED BY RELIGION

One may observe by the sequence of events in one of the Macedonian towns, what was the dire effect of this dividing of the Slavs into two religious bodies. Ghevgeli, a town which before the War had about 6000 inhabitants, will provide a fair illustration. In the middle of the nineteenth century the church service was in Greek and there was no school, but the Slavs were indifferent--and learning was regarded as a rather praiseworthy accomplishment for the priest. Now and then some one would travel to where the Serbian or the Bulgarian language could be heard in church and on his return to Ghevgeli be discontented with the Greek. This feeling was fanned by certain agitators from outside; and ultimately a Slav service was introduced, being celebrated in the same church as the Greek service and by the same priest. As he was unable to read a Slav language, the words were written for him with Greek letters. One should mention, by the way, that no Greeks were to be found at Ghevgeli--only Slavs with a few Turks and five or six Jews. A Slav school was also opened about 1860, with a teacher whose salary was paid by the parents; he used Slav church books and taught arithmetic and folk-songs. The Greek bishop started a school, but with no great success, and although it went on until 1913 it was patronized by fewer and fewer children.

The Slav service in the church became after a time Exarchist; as a sequel to which, to the dissatisfaction of many of the people, it was called "Bulgarian." The objectors had been to Serbia and sympathized with that country, and at Ghevgeli they were supported by about half the population. But the Bulgars were then more favourably viewed by the Turkish authorities.... A Bulgarian school was likewise opened a few years before the Serbian, which began in 1882. By this time the Slavs, largely owing to external pressure, were not content to have two separate schools; they were the keenest rivals, and the proprietor of the Serbian school, Risto Naumovi['c], was killed for no other reason in 1883. His successor, one Be[vc]irovi['c], who is still alive, was threatened that he would be shot within twenty-four hours, but his valiant young son--who was then a pupil at the school--found the komitadji chieftain who had uttered this threat and slew him. So both the schools continued, together with a Turkish, a Greek, a Roumanian and a Catholic school. The Catholic friars were supported by Austria and France; the Roumanian establishment, which was visited by not more than twenty children from the neighbourhood, was maintained by Roumania--the teacher being a native of Bucharest. In fact, there was a good deal of propaganda which between the Serbs and the Bulgars became violent.

What can be said for the Exarchists?... Some years ago the Albanians in the region of Monastir were asking to be inscribed on the books of the American Church, for they thought in that way to obtain the benefits of American citizenship. They made no pretence of having been impressed by other doctrines. A Church was in their eyes a sort of naturalization bureau. And when the Exarchists were rejoicing in their new-found strength and perceiving that this Church of theirs might be a corner-stone of a Great Bulgaria, they were so completely carried away that they bestowed an all-too-scant attention on the methods which they brought to bear. These methods of the enthusiastic Exarchists were altogether deplorable and succeeded in alienating not only the Patriarchist Slavs whom they freely murdered, but even in many cases the very Exarchists, who came to dislike the komitadji bands, whom they were required to shelter and to feed and to assist with a subscription to their funds. "Still more," says a Bulgarian proverb--"still more than if you have a boat on the sea or a Roumanian wife, are you certain to sleep ill if you have a property in Macedonia." As year after year went by and the komitadji men appeared to be doing very little beyond terrorizing the country, those who supported them began to frown. No guerilla leader presented a balance-sheet, and it was generally known that the famous Boris Sarafoff allowed himself, each year, a few months in Paris. This, he said, was due to him after his arduous time in the Macedonian mountains. More and more displeased were the Exarchist peasants--the Macedonian Slav is a very thrifty soul--and in the Great War one had the spectacle of men who called themselves Bulgars and concealed their sons, lest they be taken into the Bulgarian army. "If it pleases the Bulgars," they said, "let them come and liberate us."

VERSATILITY OF THESE MACEDONIAN SLAVS

If the Exarchist leaders had gone about their business with more prudence--but how could one expect political sagacity among a people which had not only been for centuries under the shadow of the Horses' Tails, but which at the time when the Turk appeared was no whit his superior in civilization? Very possibly the Balkan Slavs would in those five hundred years have turned in disgust from Vlad the Impaler and other exponents of Byzantine culture, if it had not been for the Turk, who ignored his raia's potential moral progress and did not think of regulating his natural cruelty. If the Exarchist leaders had been born different, then Macedonia might easily have become--as now, one hopes, it will at last become--a Yugoslav bond of union, instead of an apple of discord. "I used to be a Bulgar and now I am a Serb,"[54] said a man with whom I was walking one day in Monastir, "and so long as I have work," he said, "I shall be perfectly contented." How many Macedonians ought to echo his words! At Resan I stayed at the house of an old gentleman called Lapchevi['c] and in Sofia I had previously met his brother, whose name was Lapchev and who was Minister of War. Until 1868 there was at Resan only a Greek school, so that the elder brother's education left him merely a Macedonian Slav, who could have become with equal facility a Serb or a Bulgar; the younger brother had the advantage of a Bulgarian school, but the disadvantage of having his Slav nationality narrowed down into that of Bulgaria. These two brothers should set an example, renounce the name of Serb and Bulgar, and call themselves simply Yugoslav. At Resan the Serbian authorities are certainly trying to smooth away these wretched divisions. No longer, as in 1890, does the little town support half a dozen schoolmasters who are nothing if not Serb or Bulgarian. Now the Serbs of Resan have retained not only the priests who were in office during the Bulgarian occupation, but the male and female Bulgarian teachers. In the winter of 1869 Ljuben Karaveloff started his paper, the _Svoboda_, which was in opposition to those Bulgars who dreamed of their country being freed by Russia and placed under a Russian protectorate. Karaveloff's hopes were centred on an independent revolutionary movement, and the Bulgars, he urged, could best achieve their political, as distinct from their ecclesiastical, freedom by associating themselves with the other Balkan peoples and especially with the Serbs. "What is required," he said, "of the Balkan Christians is union and union and union."

HOW FOREIGNERS HAVE STIRRED UP TROUBLE

If you stand, soon after daybreak, looking at the white façade of Sofia's enormous, Russian-built cathedral, you will perceive that whether accidentally or by some architectural _tour de force_, the upper part is a majestic face, the face of some old god, benevolent and quite implacable. The Bulgars never would deny that Russia liberated them and showered on them every kind of gift. But woe be it to them if in return they did not forward Russia's purposes. Hundreds of young Bulgars were received in Russia and gratuitously educated; the Church books which the Bulgars used, their ecclesiastical vestments and sacred utensils had usually come to them as gifts from Russia; both before and after the political emancipation Russia's literature was most assiduously studied. And a pious care was taken of the places around Plevna that were memorable for a feat of Russian arms; the people down to this day speak about "The Holy Places." All was well until the death of Alexander II. No, all was not well--for the Russians had, in their design to make the Bulgars their devoted Balkan agents, given them by the Treaty of San Stefano a vast territory which in gratitude they were expected to administer for Russia's greater glory. Yes, it may be said, but Russia was using the best available maps, and these indicated that Macedonia was Bulgarian.... Perhaps we have already shown sufficiently that the Macedonian Slavs are devoid of an innate national sense, but that they have Bulgar or Serb sentiments which are, for the most part, imported, thrust upon them or created by the propagandists. Very rapidly the Macedonian Slavs transform themselves into Serbs or Bulgars; according to circumstances they will or will not be faithful to the nationality which they have chosen. And in their wavering they have thousands of precedents--towards 1400, for example, a Slav chieftain called Bogoja attacked the town of Arta, and in order to gain an easier victory announced, the chroniclers tell us, that he was of Serb, Albanian, Bulgar and Greek descent. One must therefore be a little dubious of maps which ascribe the Macedonian Slavs to any particular nationality. Much more than the rival maps, it was Kiepert's that was used by the Russians and others for determining the Bulgaria of San Stefano. "It is the best map that we know of," said Bismarck, and Kiepert's ethnographical statements were completely adopted by British scientists and diplomats at the time of the Berlin Congress. No doubt a well-equipped foreigner could obtain more exact ethnographical results in Macedonia than equally gifted Serb or Bulgar observers. But not one of the travellers whose observations Kiepert used for his map was acquainted with the Serb or the Bulgar language, nor had any one of them travelled for purposes of research; hence it is not surprising that none of them perceived that the Macedonian Slavs have no sense of nationality and that "Bulgar" is not used there as a national term. In former as well as in recent times the Macedonian Slavs have readily abandoned one name for the other, the temporary predominance of either depending solely on the conquests, political circumstances and various events, internal and external, which give rise to certain sentiments and instincts among this people, easily transforming them into Serb or Bulgar aspirations. It seems clear that Serbia's existence as an independent State for a good many decades before Bulgaria was freed would render the name of Serb more disagreeable to the Turk; it is therefore not astonishing that in Macedonia under the Turks one discarded the Serb name in favour of the Bulgar. Without dwelling upon the more or less valuable remarks which were made by priests and monks and Turkish geographers and French explorers and German doctors from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and from which we can at least deduce that the Slav inhabitants of southern Macedonia were not fanatically constant to the Bulgar name, it would appear that in the nineteenth century the earlier deliverance of Serbia and, above all, the foundation of the Exarchate caused the Bulgar name to become the more popular. The Serbs were looked upon by Turkey as a revolutionary element, while the Bulgars aimed at an independent Slav Church within the limits of the Turkish boundaries. It is unnecessary to add that after Bulgaria's deliverance and her annexation of Eastern Roumelia, and especially after the rebellious movements in Macedonia, which had the moral if not the official encouragement of the Principality, there was less eagerness on the part of the Slavs to let their Turkish masters think that they were Bulgars. But in the period preceding the publication of Kiepert's map the Bulgar name was the more fashionable with Macedonian peasants. And by giving practical effect to this map in the Treaty of San Stefano the Russians did a huge disservice to the Bulgars. In the first place, they aroused in this young people such an exhilaration that the subsequent annulling of the Treaty at the hands of the Great Powers would naturally leave a rankling disappointment. Also the relations between Serbs and Bulgars were not rendered easier by the chief Slav nation coming down so heavily upon the Bulgar side in what necessitated a most delicate and scientific handling. Three Russian ethnographical maps on Macedonia were issued by the Petrograd _Slavyansko Ob[vs]t[vc]estvo_, which worked for Pan-Slavism and assisted Slav students. These maps--one of them is described by Kntchev, the chauvinistic Bulgar, as "giving the Bulgars somewhat more territory than they in reality occupy"--were lamentably superficial. While remaining unnoticed in the rest of Europe they exercised an unfortunate influence on the Balkan educated classes, who believed that, according to tradition, the potent "elder brother" would be anxious to decide righteously the disputes between the small Balkan nations. These maps were, no doubt wrongly, looked upon as the plans of Russian policy, and on this account the Bulgars became still more unapproachable for an understanding or for united work; it appeared to the Macedonian _intelligentsia_, whose hope was to see their country set free, that Bulgaria was the land which fortune and the Russians favoured. Except the foundation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in Macedonia and the creation of Bulgaria at San Stefano, perhaps nothing contributed so much to the estrangement of the Balkan nations as these maps; for it was long before one could be persuaded that this Slav society had produced the maps through ignorance and false information, so that, as Professor Cviji['c] remarks,[55] "the educated classes in Serbia were as culpable for the pernicious effects of these maps as were the Russian authors themselves." And Serbs and Bulgars had good reason to complain of the manner in which Russia treated them.

AUSTRIAN, RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MANOEUVRES