Hellenic Macedonia Since Liberation:General Observations and Principal Phases

Hellenic Macedonia Since Liberation: General Observations and Principal Phases Ioannis K. Hassiotis

Questions of Methodology and Interpretation The contemporary period ofMacedonian history has already completed eighty years of Hellenic administration. Nonetheless, this important chapter in modem Greek history has not yet received the historiographical attention which it deserves. l To begin with, the bibliography is clearly and dishearteningly deficient in terms both of quantity and quality, and this is especially true of the literature referring solely to the more recent periods. As a result, the basic points of reference continue to be the special volumes devoted to Macedonia and published on the occasion of the various anniversaries of its liberation. However, these works inevitably suffer from the shortcomings of all circumstantial publications, and, furthermore, they focus their interest primarily on one of the most important (and easiest) of the thematic targets: the city of Thessaloniki. 2 It is indicative of the situation that contemporary Maced~ia has only recently begun to appear on the agenda of specialist conferences,3,and even then this has occurred in such a way as to ensure that the primacy ofthe ancient and, to a lesser extent, of the Byzantine period -goes unchallenged.

This historiographical narrowness of approach can be attributed to material and technical factors, many of which have had an equally counterproductive effect on research into almost all the post-war history ofGreece. 4 Yet in the case of Macedonia, over and above the methodological rigidity which has been a general characteristic of the study of recent periods in Greek history, a number of additional negative factors, most of them ideological in nature,'have been at work. For example, the national phobias justifiably provoked by the misadventures which befell Macedonia during the Second World War and the Civil War which followed it, continued to flare up again and again throughout the postCivil War period. Until the early 1970s, these phobias had the effect of discouraging the historians who would have liked to study unhindered the historical phenomena and situations ofcontemporary Macedonia. On the other hand, access to the appropriate sources was not always possible, or their use was precluded by the general fifty-year rule on the release of documents, which, of course, had a prohibitive effect on the study of the post-war period. s Researchers often found themselves confronted in provincial areas by a lack of properly-organized archive collections which they needed to attain

a satisfactory degree ofdocumentation for issues oflocal history. One welcome exception in this respect is the material in the Historical Archive of Macedonia (and particularly in the Archive of the Government-General of Macedonia). Some of the local Macedonian archives, now re-organised, were also helpful. Yet the material which has survived even in these archives is fragmentary, and thus insufficient for a full investigation of post-war Macedonian history. Now, however, the prospects for such archives - and especially for the Historical Archive of Macedonia - are rather more encouraging, particularly in view of the introduction of some system into the collections and gradual classification of the various documents issued by the civil service departments ofMacedonia. 6 The previous state ofaffairs compelled researchers to seek out their materials in the achives of other countries: primarily of the United Kingdom for the period up to the 1960s and ofthe United States for more recent events.?

Apart from these technical issues, the study ofcertain crucial phases in contemporary Macedonian history also presents problems of academic validity. Challenges are most frequently directed against the texts of those wellknown or less familiar figures who were involved in whatever way in the crucial events of the period and who, in a wish to explain themselves, published their reminiscences, diaries or memoirs. Naturally enough, works which refer to the controversial 'Macedonian' policies of specific political parties during the inter-war period have attracted the greatest suspicion - particularly when the policies involved are those of the Communist Party of Greece. Criticism is also aimed at those works which attempt to study and interpret the period of triple occupation (by Italy, Germany and Bulgaria), the resistance movement and the Civil War. 8 Nonetheless, quite a number of these works are welcome contributions, especially when they contain source material or eye-witness reports. 9 It can thus be said that, despite the adverse conditions, the contemporary period of Macedonian history has at last begun to attract the attention of seriousminded and professional research workers, who have already enhanced the bibliography with original research work. It would be unfair to suppress the fact that some of these interesting contributions are included in this volume of Modern and Contemporary Macedonia.

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The surrellder ofthe city of Thessalolliki as depicted by popular art.

The period which has elapsed since the Balkan Wars will, reasonably enough, strike the reader as exceptionally brief by comparison with the five long centuries of Ottoman rule over' Greater Macedonia'. As a result, one would not expect contemporary Macedonian history to fall into phases as deeply or as sharply marked off from one another as those of the Ottoman period. Sure enough, Greek Macedonia has shared the fate ofthe rest of Greece in its evolution since liberation, without perceptible deviations and with common historical 'areas of inertia'. Yet during those eight decades Greek Macedonia has experienced a number of changes - perceptible ones - some of which, thanks to their long-term impact on the more general historical advance of Hellenism in Macedonia, could be seen as equally important, to say the least, as the vicissitudes of the Ottoman era. These changes, which might also be termed historical dividing-lines, certainly had an effect on Greece as a whole, yet their influence on the history of Macedonia in particular was both more immediate and more profound.

Bearing this in mind, we could thus discern the following phases - in the conventional sense, as always - in contemporary Greek Macedonian history: a first phase, beginning with the Balkan Wars and ending with

the aftermath ofthe First World War (1919-23); a second covering the period up to the Second World War; a third, lasting from Greece's involvement in the Second World War to the end of the Civil War (1940-49), and a fourth which began in the 1950s. This last period still continues.

However, the realignments which are taking place rapidly today in the southern Balkans in general and, above all, the new political and inter-state relations which are being formed as a result of these changes and (inevitably) within the framework of the European Community may well be the introduction to a new phase in the history not only ofMacedonia but ofthe Greek world as a whole.

The First Phase The liberation of Macedonia was carried out at a speed which even the most optimistic ofthe victors could scarcely have been prepared for: between 5/18 October 1912, when the first Greek troops crossed the demarcation line in northern Thessaly, and 26 October/8 November, when the Turkish commander of Thessaloniki signed the surrender of the city to the Greeks, almost all of Western and Central Macedonia had been overrun. In December of the same year, negotiations on a peace treaty began in London between the four victorious

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Konstantinos Raktiv(l1l, first Govemor-General (If Macedonia.

countries (Greece, BlIl~aria, Serbia and Montenegro) and the Sublime Porte. I The second, and equally short, Second Balkan War followed, judging the fate of the remaining territories of Macedonia. The signing of the Treaty of Bucharest on 28 July/l 0 August 1913, which rang down the curtain on what had been a bloody military confronation, was an event ofgreat significance for the historical development of all the peoples of South-eastern Europe. I [ For the Greeks, the treaty confirmed Greek sovereignty in Eastern Macedonia, pushing the Greek-Bulgarian frontier to its natural easternmost limit, the Nestos estuary. [2 On the conclusion of the Balkan Wars, then, the total geographical area of Macedonia was divided up amongst its three main contenders: Greece, which received 51.57% of Macedonian territory (more or less corresponding to the area historically occupied by ancient Macedon), Serbia, which was given 38.32%, and Bulgaria, which eventually took 10.11 %. It was left for the near future to show how lasting 路and effective that settlement would be.

However, the touchstone for the viability and stability of the new territorial regime lay in the ability of three individual states to incorporate their new acquisitions in Macedonia.

The administrative incorporation of Macedonia into the Greek state took place in a manner which, as the subsequent course of history in the area has proved, has stood the test of time - successive and grave mishaps notwithstanding. Yet the process of incorporation was far from an easy business, at least in the beginning.

Despite the preliminary work which had been done during the closing decades of Ottoman rule, the administrative integration of Macedonia with the main body of Greece did not follow the model previously applied in Thessaly (1881-82), still less of that of the

Ionian Islands (1864). In Macedonia, the process was not one of annexation or union, but of conquest - and of a conquest which at least until the Treaty of Bucharest was challenged and undermined by a variety of exogenous factors: Bulgaria, to begin with, and also Austria- Hungary. Bulgaria, after its humiliating military defeat of 1913, embarked on a fresh revanchist endeavour just before and after the outbreak ?f the ?re~t War; Austria-Hungary continued to create difficultIes III the full implementation of Greek sovereign rights until its ultimate collapse and dissolution in 1918.

Despite these difficulties, the extent and nature ofthe administrative changes brought about in Greek Macedonia meant that integration of the 'New Lands' into the rest of Greece took place in a relatively short space of time. Without doubt, this was a remarkable accomplishment, the foundations for which were laid during the terms of service as Governors-General of Macedonia of a number of outstanding statesmen: Konstantinos Raktivan, Stephanos Dragoumis, Emmanouil Repoulis and Themistoklis Sophoulis. 13 The administrative reforms implemented by the Greek administration in Macedonia during the first and crucial years of 1912-15 not only opened up the way to economic and social development, but also ensured that the area was suitably prepared for the tribulations which were to follow.

Greek sovereignty over Macedonia was not to be taken for granted - despite the widespread belief to the contrary - even after the signing ofthe Bucharest Pe~~e Treaty. This became plain in the course of the first CrISIS to break out in South-eastern Europe after the Balkan Wars: that is, during the First World War. During the secret negotiations which both the Central Powers and the Entente conducted with the governments of the area (and especially with the Bulgarians and the Turks), Macedonia in general, whether Serbian or Greek, was . th' used as an inducement to gam elr support. 14 When the 'National Schism' broke out in Greece and the Western allies began to interfere constantly in Greek affairs, Greek sovereignty in Macedonia was still more seriously endangered. After the Greek surrender to the Bulgarians of the fort of Rupel, on 28 May 1916, the situation seemed to be entirely out of Greek control; systematic persecution of the Greek popul~ti?n o~Eas.t颅 ern Macedonia began, and the Greek admll1lstratlOn m Thessaloniki had in effect been replaced by the commanders of the British and French forces who fonned what was known as the Macedonian Front (1916-18). In parallel, the French civil and military authoritie~ gave their blessing to an extensive propaganda campaign on the part ofa variety offoreign personalities and organisations (of a religious and educational nature) whose purpose was either to coerce Greece into entering the War or to weaken the Greek presence in sensitive areas of Central and Western Macedonia. [5 Indeed, it would

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Elelltherios Vellizelos talkillg to the Commallder-ill-Chiefofthe Greekforces 011 the Macedolliall frollt durillg WWI, Gelleral Pa1lagiotis Daglis.

appear that the date of the National Defence putsch of 30 August 1916, which saved Greek Macedonia, was brought forward because Eleutherios Venizelos was

afraid that the Serbs were preparing to appoint their own Prefect for the Thessaloniki area, with French support, or even that they were moving to make the city

Elelltherios Ve1lizelos with members ofhis ProJ'isio1lal Governmellt ill Thessalolliki (1916-1917).

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provisional capital of Serbia. 16 Greek entry into the War on the Allied side had other consequences for Greek Macedonia, in the longer tenn.

The defeat ofthe Central Powers and their Bulgarian ally put an abrupt end to the latter's aggressiveness towards its neighbours, given that the Treaty of Neuilly (1919) obliged Bulgaria to withdraw from all the territories it had occupied during the course of the war. The treaty also compelled Bulgaria to relinquish to the Greeks all its rights and titles in Thrace, and by a special convention provided for an exchange of populations between Greece and Bulgaria. This, however, was to be done on a voluntary basis, with the populations moving in accordance with their national consciousnessY This exchange supplemented the first Greek-Bulgarian and Greek-Turkish movements of population, which had taken place de/acto during the Balkan Wars and also by agreement once hostilities had ceased. 18

The Inter-War Period Macedonia, however, was fated to experience other demographic fluctuations, 19 the most extensive ofwhich - not just for this period but for the entire modem history of Greece - was, of course, that which came about as a result of the compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey.2o This measure almost entirely removed the Muslim part of the Macedonian population which had stayed on after the Balkan Wars and which, at the time of liberation, amounted to 39.4% of the population as opposed to the Greek share of42.6%.21 On the other hand, it led to the establishment en masse of some 600,000 Greek refugees from Eastern Thrace, Asia Minor, Pontus, the Caucusus and southern Russia.

It is estimated that the population of Macedonia increased by 30% between 1920 and 1928, and this must be attributed primarily to the settlement of refugees. In addition to altering the quantitative magnitudes, the arrival of the Greek refugees in Greek Macedonia also had a number of other significant effects: inter alia, it at last gave the area a degree of ethnological homogeneity unprecedented by Balkan standards, with the Greeks amounting to 88.8% of the population by 1926.22 This development did much to eliminate the challenges to the political map of Macedonia, depriving Greece's northern neighbours of one of the basic arguments in the 'irredentist' claims they had put forward from time to time. As subsequent years proved, the outstanding issues left over - for special reasons - from that painful severing of the Gordian knot of nationalities in the other Balkan countries and in Turkey were the sources of the crises currently troubling this part of the world.

Over and above its national and political significance, the establishment of the refugees in Macedonia also had serious economic and social consequences. 23 To begin with, the overwhelming majority of

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the new-comers (the figure is put at 90% ofthe total rural refugee population ofGreece) settled in the Macedonian countryside. This speeded up the process ofcompulsory purchase oflarge estates and monastery lands. Compulsory purchase and land refonn in general had begun in Macedonia in a revolutionary manner in 1917 (at the time of the Venizelos provisional government in Thessaloniki) and in 1919, but it was not until the following decade that it was completed by legislative action. Over that period, almost all large estates in Greece were broken up, and share-cropping as a manner ofcultivation was abolished. In this way, the amount of fannland available multiplied, and the number and strength of small and medium-sized fanners grew, thus increasing agricultural production. The experience which the refugees brought with them introduced new and profitable crops into Macedonia, such as tobacco (established by the Greeks of Pontus) silk (by the Greeks of Eastern Thrace), and contibuted to the developement ofhandicrafts and craft industry (by the Greeks ofIonia), etc.

These changes took place to a greater extent in Macedonia - where 3/4 of the 800,000 hectares alotted to refugee settlement by 1927 were located - than anywhere else. It proved possible to distribute farmland to hundreds ofthousands offamilies. However, it should be borne in mind that the compulsory purchase system functioned neither easily nor quickly. The landless fanners (whether refugees or not) had to claim the land awarded to them by the state by means oftough, lengthy and costly litigation against the social groups affected by the measure or even against the administrative barriers set up by the bureaucratic rigidity of the civil service. Nonetheless, the agrarian policy implemented in the Greek countryside -and particularly in Macedoniaduring the 1920s and the early 1930s was a true peaceful revolution, one which was more radical than the land refonns of many Eastern European countries (with the exception of Soviet Russia). At all events, the agrarian question which had begun to emerge in Epirus and Thessaly in the late 19th and early 20th century soon ran its historical course without spreading to Macedonia. As a result, Greece never had to deal with the grave social problems which caused such upheaval in other countries of Eastern and South-eastern Europe ~uch as Romania and Bulgaria) during the same period. 4 The breaking up of the large estates also altered the structure of Greek agricultural production, which not only increased dramatically but also gradually integrated itself into the more general mechanisms of economic life. This development was greatly assisted by drainage, flood protection and irrigation projects (the most important of which were carried out in the plains of Thessaloniki, Serres and Drama, and involved Lakes Yannitsa and Kerkini), and also by the more extensive use of fertilizers and new varieties of wheat, the regular sub-

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Thessalolliki received ill proportioll the largest Illllllber ofrefugees followillg the Asia MilloI' disaster.

sidies paid on certain crops, and other factors. The way to the self-sufficiency in cereals of Greece as a whole, a dream for so many centuries, was now open, and conditions were ripe for new forms of relationship between farming, commerce and industry.

The foundations of the industrialization of Macedonia and ofGreece in general were laid during the inter-war period. A number offactors contributed to this: the protectionist tariff policy of the Greek governments (and especially of the four productive years of rule by Venizelos between 1928 and 1932), reductions in the cost of agricultural produce, and an increase in the number of working hands (caused by the influx of refugees). This latter factor inevitably led to an increased supply of labour and caused labour costs to fall to very low levels.

The task of refugee settlement - especially in the cities - lay beyond the economic and organisational capacity of the Greek state. Foreign loans helped overcome these difficulties, but this tactic had an adverse effect on the public finances, and by 1932 the Greek foreign debt exceeded the country's per capita income.

Despite the frenzy of building, it proved impossible to house all the refugees during the inter-war period, or even in the years which followed. The situation in Thessaloniki was particularly acute in this respect; apart from the vast influx of refugees (more than 160,000 of them

..

in the first few months after the Asia Minor disaster), the city had already been facing a chronic housing problem caused by the great fire of 1917. In the major industrial centres of Central and above all Eastern Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Kavala, Drama and Serres) the housing crisis had a multiplicity of adverse consequences: it caused a continuous rise in property prices, it channelled the Greek economy into unproductive entrepreneurial activities to which it would adhere for many decades, and although it expanded building activity it also contributed to the irreversible distortion of the urban fabric of the Macedonian cities. 25 The housing crisis also resulted in extensive bitonvilles in the refugee slums, which developed into reserves ofcheap labour and also sources ofsocial discontent.

The excessive rise in the supply oflabour which, as we have already seen, caused a drop in wages and led to the development of industry (which, in effect, was taking its first steps in Greece at this time), 26 also exacerbated social inequality. The situation was still worse in the early 1930s as a result of the Great Depression27 and the social problems which had now become general; these factors, in conjunction with the October Revolution, seemed to be threatening to dislocate the social fabric of all Europe.

The crisis also had grave political consequences.

Unemployment and inequality, especially among the

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impoverished refugees, favoured the rise of the Left.

While social peace was tending to be restored in the countryside, the situation took quite a different course in the urban centres: there, the growing urban proletariat, aware of its rights in society as a whole, began to put forward dynamic claims for better living and working conditions, for a reduction in indirect taxation and, above all, for the proper implementation and expansion oflabour legislation. The Greek governments responded to the repeated strike action in a contradictory and often spasmodic manner. Indeed, the bloody clashes of May 1936, during a tobacco workers' demonstration in Thessaloniki, gave Metaxas the pretext he needed for installing the 4th of August dictatorship, with the approval of King George II. Thus it was with open wounds that Macedonia embarked upon a fresh and equally critical period that began with the outbreak ofthe Second World War.

The Dramatic Decade of the Forties The position of Macedonia in the events of the troubled decade of the 1940s differed considerably from that of the rest of Greece. Right from the start, Macedonia found itselfat the centre ofimportant events, as a result primarily of its geopolitical and strategic interest. Eastern Macedonia was the basic axis of the country's preparations to defend itself, in view of the ever-present concern in the minds ofGreek political and military leaders over Bulgarian ambitions. 28 Thessaloniki was also seen - particularly by the French General Staff - as the spring-board for a new Macedonian Front similar to that which had been opened during the First World War. 29 And when the Italian forces collapsed in Epirus and Albania, Macedonia found itself once more in the forefront of the strategic options first of the Greeks and British, who were organizing their defence against the descending German columns, and then of the German General Staff itself.

Sure enough, as soon as the German attack had been launched and Greece was safely in the hands of the Germans, Thessaloniki became the centre ofthe German military presence in the Balkans and the most important junction on the lines ofcommunication between the Axis forces in South-eastern Europe and those of North Africa.

The very first days of the German occupation demonstrated that Macedonia and northern Greece in general were destined to experience one of the darkest periods in their modem history, with persecution, movements of population, executions and the draining of the area's economic resources. The people of Macedonia and Western Thrace - and in particular of Thessaloniki and the other urban centres - also watched in horror as the Nazi occupation authorities revealed the full extent of their inhumanity by annihilating the Jews of Greece.

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It is estimated that between the beginning ofthe German occupation and the summer of 1943 some 49,000 Jews were taken from Thessaloniki to the death camps, from which only a couple of thousand survivors returned. To the victims among the Greek Jewish population ofnorthern Greece one must also add the five thousand or so who were deported from Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace by the Bulgarian occupation authorities, and a few thousand more who were taken from other parts of the Macedonian hinterland. 30 Wartime had other unpleasant aspects which were unique to Macedonia and Eastern Thrace: above all, the fact that the area was under triple occupation, with a German zone in 'the centre, the Italians in Western Macedonia and the Bulgarians in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. Among all three occupation authorities, the Bulgarian was the most asphyxiating and perilous. The Bulgarians not only abolished the Greek police and administrative services (by way of contrast to the German and Italian zones, where the Greek occupation government continued to be represented) but also went ahead with compulsory movements of population, explusions, imprisonment, executions and a variety of other measures designed to terrorize the population.

Their ultimate aim was to weaken the Greek presence and gradually 'bulgarize' Thrace and Eastern Macedonia. 3l After the summer of 1943, when Bulgaria extracted the consent of the Germans to an expansion of its zone of control to Central and Western Macedonia, . were tne . d there, too.-32 t he same tactIcs

Tire dramatic eve1lts ofMay 1936 ill Tlressal01liki: tire motlrer ofautomobile driver Tousis over tire dead body ofher S01l. .

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Thessaloniki Jews in Liberty Square, shortly before their departure for the death camps. They were subjected to physical and II/oral abuse ill/mediately after being rounded up by the Germans.

This state of affairs - as it initially manifested itself in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace - provoked a reaction on the part of the occupation government in Athens and, more importantly, among the political, intellectual and religious leaders ofthe Macedonians, but to no particular avail. The lawful representations of the traditional leaders were of less significance than the underground resistance movement which gradually developed in the Bulgarian-occupied areas. The guerrilla action did not, of course, produce positive military results; indeed it provoked bloody reprisals on the part of the Bulgarians (especially after the Drama rising) and intensified their policy of violently altering the ethnological composition of the population in occupied Macedonia. 33 Nonetheless, the immediacy of the threat to Greece represented by the policy of the occupying powers, together with the more general problem of freeing the country ofNazi and Fascist occupation, led to the growth in geographical and political terms both of the military 路action of the resistance organisations and of their political appeal, and, at least during 1943, increased their effectiveness. 34 In September 1943, the strongly-worded protests of the Rallis occupation government over the terror acts of the Bulgarians in Central and Western Macedonia, and, above all, the massive popular reaction caused the Germans to consign the Bulgarians to a secondary role and take over the control ofthe suffering areas themselves. 35 However, growing popular reaction should not be

seen in isolation from the significant role played by the social factor, and, consequently, by the leading position gradually acquired within the resistance movement as a whole by the left-wing organisations, and especially by the National Liberation Front (EAM). But while in the rest of Greece the resistance struggle focused on two main objectives - liberation and the post-war reform of society, politics and the system of government - in northern Greece it was necessary for a third objective to be stated right from the start: the national and territorial protection of Macedonia and Thrace from the threat of a loss of Greek identity and dismemberment. 36 This factor had a decisive effect on the attitude of public opinion to all the resistance organisations (YBE, PAO and EAM/ELAS). As a result, the almost complete monopoly which the forces of ELAS (and their main political party behind them, the Communist Party of Greece) had managed to secure, for a variety of reasons, in the resistance movement of Greece as a whole was naturally challenged in Macedonia because of the questionable 'Macedonian' policy which the Communist Party had adopted before the War. From 1924 to 1934, the KKE had aligned itself with the position of the Comintem on the creation of a unified Macedonia and Thrace, while after 1935 it had reverted to slogans in favour of the equal status of the ethnic minorities of Macedonia. This attitude, which had also undennined the unity of the party and the credibility of its leaders,

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was certainly exploited to the utmost by rival political and guerrilla groups, and the KKE never managed to rid . If 0 f"Its mter-war I egacy.-17 ltse The dilemmas for the leadership of EAMIELAS grew still greater during the critical year 1943, firstly when the resistance movement was forced to deal with the terrorist activities of the pro-Bulgarian paramilitary bands in Central and, above all, Western Macedonia (and especially ofthe nightmarish Ohrana organisation), and, latterly, when EAM/ELAS was invited by Tito (through his special emissary Svetovar VukmanovicTempo) to become part of a joint Balkan resistance headquarters. To begin With, EAM reacted negatively to the Yugoslav 'invitation'. On the one hand, the cooperation proposed was tantamount to placing the EAMIELAS organisations in the general area of Macedonia under Yugoslav command. On the other, it would lead to the overt intervention of Yugoslav partisans in purely domestic Greek affairs. In both cases, the ultimate aim of the Yugoslavs seemed to be the usurpation of the Slav-speaking Greek population.

Nonetheless, EAM was eventually compelled to accept co-operation, at least, with Yugoslav and Albanian guerrilla groups in the border areas. But this agreement proved to be fatal, for as early as late 1943 it paved the way for the formation of a particular Slav-Macedonian organisation, SNOF. EAM hastened to break up SNOF early in 1944, but the events which ensued - especially after the declaration founding the Federative People's Republic of 'Macedonia' (2 August 1944) led it inevitably into a vicious circle of co-operation and simultaneous covert rivalry with the Yugoslavs and their autonomist collaborators. 18 This development had an impact on the fate of Macedonia during the following five years. During the Civil War, of course, the whole of Greece suffered, as much in the south as in the north. But once again it was Macedonia which enjoyed the unenviable privilege of being the principal battlefield in the bloody conflict between the 'Democratic Army' and the government forces, especially during the dramatic final act of the Greek national tragedy (1946-1949).39 For that reason, the price which Macedonia paid in human lives and material destmction was also heavier than that of other parts ofGreece. 40 The fact that the Civil War focused on Macedonia affected the attitude of the Greek population as a whole towards the 'Democratic Army' and the KKE. The conflict between the two sides did not simply take the form of an ideological confrontation between 'bourgeois democracy' and 'Bolshevism': it was also 'patriotic defence against the enemies ofthe nation'. For that reason, although the KKE was aware of the gravity of the accusations levelled at it by the government camp during the propaganda war between the two sides it was ' effectively unable to react. 41 Even the measures of suppression which were adopted during that relentless war

JOANNIS K. HASSIOTIS

(such as the notorious Resolution C) were designed on the criterion of the threat to the northern provinces. In brief, the 'Democratic Army' and the KKE were regarded as jointly responsible not only for the secessionist activity developing along the country's northern borders but also for the aggressive designs of Greece's northern neighbours on Macedonia. 42 Given this inheritance, it is easy to see why the traumatic post-Civil War situation lasted longer in Macedonia than elsewhere. Some of the consequences of the War lingered into the early 1970s, if not even down to the present day.

The Contemporflry Era in Perspechive The destmctive vicissitudes of Macedonian history during the previous decade made reconstmction essential, first and foremost, in ever! sphere, whether economic, social and ideologicaL 4 But reconstmction had to take place on the basis of the new situation which war, occupation and civil war had brought about. 44 As it turned out, for some decades after the end of the Civil War much of the rural population which had gathered voluntarily or under pressure in the large urban centres (and particularly in Thessaloniki) as 'rebel-stricken' was unwilling to return to the villages. As a result of this distorted urbanization, the late 1940s and early 1950s saw a sharp rise in the building ofmakeshift and generally tasteless apartment blocks (in most cases on a quid pro quo system), a drop in agricultural production and a shift towards emigration. 45 The pre-war industrial infrastructure which as we have seen had begun to be created after the First World War was amost completely destroyed. However, the Greek governments centred their efforts on the already hypertrophic Athens and Piraeus area, which for quite some time had a constraining effect on the prospects for industrial production in Macedonia. However, the early 1960s saw a true economic lift-offin northern Greece, bringing per capita income in Macedonia up to the national average. The industrial production ofMacedonia over the same period was equally impressive, and it caused at least some areas - around Thessaloniki, Kozani and Kavala - to grow into exemplary industrial zones.

Throughout the period after liberation, the urban centres of Macedonia, and Thessaloniki in particular, had contributed much to the renewal of political life in Greece. This could probably be attributed to the generally innovative nature of the cultural performance of Macedonia, as reflected in its intellectual and literary production, and also, on some occasions, to its achievements in science and the arts. These activities, and the variety of factors which influenced them, were connected with the more general position occupied by Macedonia in the history of the wider area, both under the Turks and in the period after liberation. 46 However, they were also influenced by the unique role which, for

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The port of Thessalolliki, a crucialfactor ill the developmellt ofGreek trade with Celltral alld Westem Europe.

historical and geographical reasons, Macedonia and Thessaloniki played in linking the Greek world with the Balkans and Western Europe. This was a reciprocal process: the growth of Macedonia in all areas (cultural and, above all, economic) was dependent on peaceful and productive relations between Greece and her northern neighbours.

However, the restoration of such relations presupposed that the traumas ofthe 1940s could be overcome, and once again most of these were connected with Macedonia. At all events, a beginning was made with the rift between Tito and Stalin in 1948, a development which caused Yugoslavia - taking its geopolitical position into consideration - to revive its pre-war co-operation with Greece. 47 In 1951 land communications with

Yugoslavia were re-opened, which helped restore the commercial links with Central and Western Europe so essential for the economic development of Macedonia.

Another step in this direction was taken with the reorganization in 1953 of the Free Zone regime in the port ofThessaloniki. At about the same time, the thaw which followed -the death of Stalin in 1953 saw the beginning ofthe gradual normalization ofrelations between Greece and Bulgaria. After the 1970s, the rapprochement between Athens and Sofia was strengthened by a further factor: the pressure which Turkey exerted (as it continues to do today) on Greece and on Bulgaria (which has a large Muslim minority). An improvement in relations between Greece and Albania began to become perceptible after the restoration first ofcommercial links

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(1970) and subsequently of diplomatic contacts (1971 ).48 It was in this atmosphere ofrapprochement that the first Balkan conference on co-operation in fanning, transport, trade, energy and the environment was held in Athens in 1976. The conference emphasized the important mediating role which Greece and, in particular, Macedonia - with its privileged position - could once more play in South-eastern Europe. 49 Despite this encouraging convergence, Greece's relations with her Balkan neighbours have not ceased to be overshadowed by the contradictions which history has left unresolved or by the new political expediencies contained in the Pandora's box which the dissolution of Yugoslavia50 has opened - in other words, by matters always affecting northern Greece and to Macedonia in particular. Some of the problems which have emerged along Greece's northern borders are connected with a range of factors which are no longer susceptible to control. In my view, there are three dangerous, uncontrolled and 'internal' destabilising factors in the area: Albanian irridentism (starting in Kosovo and moving south), the future status of the Skopje republic, and the centrifugal tendency in the Muslim population of the Balkans, living in a zone which stretches from Greek Thrace and southern Bulgaria to Albania and BosniaHerzegovina.

At first sight, Albanian irridentism seems to affect only relations between Tirana and Belgrade. Nonetheless, its repercussions can be expected to pose serious dilemmas for Greece, since the Greek minority in North Epirus and the problems caused for Macedonia by the independence of the Skopje republic will become involved in the Albanian-Serbian dispute. The state of Skopje, with its motley and fluid ethnological and ideological composition, is already riven with secessionist trends which originate in the large and growing Albanian Muslim minority (amounting, at the most conservative official estimates, to at least 28% ofthe population). However, this autonomist movement is organically and inextricably linked with the Albanian irridentists of neighbouring Kosovo - that is, the part of Yugoslavia which was the starting-point for the internal ethnic conflict that is today tearing the country apart. 51 This development produced reactions similar to those of the Serbs among the Slav majority of the Skopje region, whether they call themselves' Macedonians' or not. The reaction of the powerful nationalist 'Democratic Party for the Unity of the Macedonians' (VMRO-DPNM) was particularly fierce. This party is the direct political descendant of the autonomist Bulgarian movement by the same name -VMRO- which existed early in the 20th century, which is why, as far back as its founding charter (17 June 1990), it set as its goal the same target which its ideological ancestors had attempted to achieve. Its aim is the unification, by whatever means, of the 'unredeemed Macedonian people' allegedly living, in

IOANNIS K. HASSIOTIS

'slavery', in the neighbouring states of Greece, Serbia, Albania and Bulgaria. The case of Bulgaria is of particular interest: it was the first country (along with Turkey) to recognize the independence of the Republic of Skopje with the clear purpose of 'protecting' its 'brethren' in the lilliputian republic. On the one hand, then, the absolute Albanian majority in Kosovo is co-ordinating itself with the Albanian minority just next door in Skopje, while on the other Bulgaria's ill-concealed impatience to make fresh overtures to the Bulgarianspeaking pseudo-Macedonian population in the artificial state of Skopje, as it had done during both the First and Second World Wars, is apparent once more.

The other important and incalculable factor in the area is that of Turkey's interference in the domestic affairs ofthe Balkan countries - a factor which is making its presence felt to an ever increasing extent. Ankara has already displayed the dynamic nature ofits policy in the variety of initiatives it has developed over matters concerning Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Skopje and - more recently - Bosnia-Herzegovina. Such developments are far from good omens: Albanian irredentism and the 'Macedonian-Bulgarian' rapprochement, if they bear fruit, could lead to the interpolation between Serbia and Greece, and directly about the sensitive arc of the borders of Greek Macedonia, of a greater Albania and an enlarged Bulgaria. This would clearly have serious consequences for Greece, and would affect the country's northern provinces in particular. 52 Whatever course events may take, the combined effect of these external and internal factors in the area in question deprives Greece of the luxury of enjoying the peace of mind of her partners in Western Europe. Membership of the European Community, of NATO and, more recently, of the Western European Union is litle comfort when Greece feels powerful and multiplying vibrations along the sensitive arc ofher borders from the Adriatic to the Evros river and the islands of the Eastern Aegean. This is particularly true in view of the fact that the advantages which Greece was supposed to enjoy by virtue of her membership of these collective European bodies have so far proved incapable of guaranteeing her the peace she needs in the East for rapid economic growth and the consequent acceleration of the process oflong her overdue incorporation into Europe.

After these unexpectedly profound and far-reach changes in the area around Greece, what could be the prospects for Greece's relations with her neighbours or, rather, what are the prospects for relations amongst all the peoples of South-eastern Europe? What will be the position of Macedonia in the network of those relations? In view of the extent to which the predictions of international relations experts, sociologists and various political analysts have been disproved by the avalanche of change in Eastern and South-eastern Europe, it is difficult for anyone to risk an answer to questions ofsuch

HELLENIC MACEDONIA SINCE LIBERATION

19

Thessalo1liki, past......a1ld prese1lt.

importance. At all events, the prospects for Greece and for Macedonia more specifically, whatever they may be, are bound up with the relations between the northern neighbours of Greece and her partners in Europe. In the medium term, the orientation of the heirs to Yugoslavia in the direction of accession to the Community tends to encourage centrifugal tendencies among them, perhaps also generating more regional ethnic friction. But in the long term this orientation will tend to alleviate the acute nature which such conflict has assumed in the past.

Similarly, membership of a world in which people, goods and ideologies move freely from one place to another will inevitably cause artificial 'national' and state formations (such as that of Skopje), which were not the outcome of centuries of historical growth but were fabricated out of the specific post-war political circumstances, to sink back into obscurity. Thus, any form of ethnic 'survival', in multi-cultural Europe will be possible on condition that: a) it relies on a lengthy and, more importantly, constantly renewed historical tradition, and b) it is organically and dynamically interwoven with the economic, social and cultural development of the European family as a whole. This challenge is not addressed only to Greece's northern neighbours: it also concerns the Greek nation, and in particular that part of it which lives in Macedonia.

•

I,

r

IOANNIS K. HASSIOTIS

20

I. K. HASSTOl1S GREEK MACEDONIA SINCE LIBERATION NOTES

I. By way of contrast, of course, with the period of Turkish rule, for which (down to the 1830s, at least) we have the reliable handbook by A.E. Vakalopoulos (History ofMacedonia 1354-1830, Thessaloniki 1973, in Greek). Only a small part of the valuable collective work Macedonia: 4000 Years of Greek Histmy and Civilization (ed. M. Sakellariou, Athens 1990) is devoted to Macedonian history since liberation.

2. For a description, see the sample bibliography at the end of this volume.

3. What was in effect the first interdisciplinary seminar of this kind was held in early November 1985 by the Municipality of Thessaloniki. The proceedings were published a year later uder the title Thessaloniki Since 1912, Thessaloniki 1986 (in Greek).

4. For the first decade after the War, see H. Fleischer and S. Bowman, Greece in the 1940s. A Bibliographical Companion, Hanover & London 1981, which contains a considerable number of entries on Macedonia.

5. This principle applies at least to the Historical Archives ofthe Greek Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the most systematic and - for that reasonthe most important centre for the documentation of modem Greek political history today. .

6. Brief descriptions were published in the periodical Mnimon, no. 13 (1991): Amalia Pappa-Karapidaki, 'The Historical Archive of Macedonia. Contents', 310-327; E. Machairidou, 'The Archives of the Prefecture ofXanthi', 309; Triantaphyllia Kourtoumi, 'The Archives of the Government-General of Northern Greece', 342-345; Dimitris Kastanidis, 'The Archives of the Bank of the East. 1. Thessaloniki Branch. II. Monastir Agency', 327-330; Kaiti Papadopoulou-Giorgos Kalantzis, 'The Archives of the Autonomous Provisioning Service of Macedonia', 330- 334; Kaiti PapadopoulouGiorgos Kalantzis, 'The Archives of the Provisioning Service of Macedonia (1945-1948)', 334-342 (all in Greek). See also Kostas Kampouridis, 'The Permanent Local History Archive of Kozani and the Ottoman Archive Material', Yearbook ofthe General Archives of State, Library of the General Archives of State, no. 19, Athens 1991, 73-76 (in Greek).

7. See, for example, B. Kondis, British and American Policy and the Problem ofGreece, 1945-1949, Thessaloniki 1986 (in Greek), which

HELLENIC MACEDONIA SINCE LIBERATION

contains separate chapters on Macedonia. Cf. the archival documentation provided by the various chapters in this volume referring to the post-war period of Macedonian political history.

8. The doubts cast on historical works by irresponsible and nonacademic critics who, in the name of objectivity, in fact aim to serve their own purposes (usually of a blatantly party politicalnature) are, of course, in a different category. The most typical example of this category is to be found in the mishaps which befell the collective historical work Thessaloniki, 2300 Years (Municipality of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 1985): after first being pilloried in public as 'not objective' by the opponents of the municipal authorities then in power (who had been responsible for the book) during a period of local elections, it was hidden away in a warehouse by its critics when they came to power. Presumably it will have to wait until there is another change in local authorities before it can be 'rehabilitated' and put back in circulation.

9. In this respect, the following works are of interest: the early and controversial work by Anathasios I. Chrysochoos, The Occupation in Macedonia, 6 vols., Thessaloniki 1949-1952 (in Greek), and, from the opposing side, Thanasis Hatzis, The Victorious Revolution that \Vas Lost, 1941-1945,3 vols., Athens 1977-1979, Thanasis Mitsopoulos, In the Mountains ofMacedonia: the 30th Regiment ofELAS, Athens) 1980, and the Memoirs of Markos Vapheiadis, 4 vols., Athens 19841992 (all in Greek). Cf. the equally polemical text by Achilleus A. Kyrou, The Conspiracy Against Macedonia, 1940-1949, Athens 1950 (in Greek). For the significance and credibility of the volumes of memoirs concerning Macedonia during the crucial period of the Occupation and the Resistance movement, see the level-headed observations of Evangelos Kofos in 'The Balkan Dimension of the Macedonian Question during the Occupation and the Resistance', Proceedings of the International Historical Conference on Greece, 1936-1944, Athens 1989, pp. 418-471; bibliography in pp. 451-463 (in Greek).

10. When the defeated Ottoman representatives signed the Treaty of London in May of the following year, they accepted the finality of their loss of almost all their Balkan territories, with the exception of Eastern Thrace, which they re-occupied during the Second Balkan

..

21

War that followed. On the other hand, the Porte exploited the opportunity represented by the breakdown in the London negotiations caused by the hostilities between the countries which had until recently been allies to deny Greece her sovereign rights over the islands of the Eastern Aegean, which had already been occupied by the Greek fleet. This outstanding dispute plunged the two countries into a naval anns race which would inevitably have led to renewed military conflict if the outbreak of the First World War had not supervened.

Cf. in this respect B. Kondis, 'The Problem of the Aegean Islands on the Eve of World War I and Great Britain', Greece and Great Britain during World War I, Thessaloniki 1985, pp. 49-63.

II. For the importance ofthis treaty, see the proceedings of the special symposium held on 16-18 November 1988 by the Institute for Balkan Studies, published as The Treaty ofBucharest and Greece; 75 Years from the Liberation ofMacedonia, Thessaloniki 1990 (in Greek).

12. For the corresponding settlement of the borders between Greece and Serbia, agreed between the two countries before the outbreak of the Second World War, see Georgia loannidou-Bitsiadou, 'The Greek-Serbian Rapprochement and the Settlement of the Greek-Serbian Borders', in The Treaty ofBucharest, pp. 71-98.

13. See A. Tachos, The Contribution ofthe Greek Administration to the Regeneration ofthe New Lands. Personalities above Institutions, Thessaloniki 1979 (in Greek).

14. S.T. Lascaris, Diplomatic HistOlY ofContemporary Europe (J 9141939), Thessaloniki 1954, pp. 22-29, 39-45 (in Greek).

15. Useful information about this propaganda and about the equally dangerous Serbian activities, especialy in Western Macedonia, is to be found in the (as yet unpublished) post-graduate dissertation by Konstantina Zachopoulou-Apostolidi, French Policy and Foreign Propaganda in Macedonia (J914-1918), Thessaloniki 1990, pp. 2242,45-61,63-81 (in Greek).

16. For the fears among the leaders of the putsch, see P.V. Petridis, Foreign Dependency and National Policy (J910-1918), Thessaloniki 1981, pp. 340ff (in Greek).

17. Numerical data about the exchanges will be found in S. Ladas, The Exchange o/Minorities, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, New York 1932, pp. 122-123. For the consequences, see Dimitri Pentzopoulos,

d

IOANNIS K. HASSIOTIS

22

,"

lhrrrraA.orl,,,, :

Souvenir de 5alonlque (Greee)

The Balkan Exchange ofMinorities and its Impact upon Greece, Paris 1962, pp. 60-61, 125ff. Cf. also A. Tounta-Fergadi, Greek-Bulgarian Minorities: the Politis-Ka/fov Protocol, 1924-1925, Thessaloniki 1986 (in Greek), pp. 35, 38-39.

18. S. Ladas, op. cit., pp. 14-17. Cf. Yannis G. Mourelos, 'The 1914 Persecutions and the First Attempt at an Exchange of Minorities between Greece and Turkey', Balkan Studies 26/2 (1985), 389-413, and, by the same author, 'Population Realignments after the Balkan Wars: the First Attempt at an Exchange of Populations between Greece and Turkey', The Treaty of Bucharest, pp. 175-190, and Tounta-Fergadi, op. cit., pp. 26-28.

19. A total of seventeen waves of migration to and from Asia Minor have been counted between 1912 and 1923: Tounta-Fergadi, op. cit., p. 27, note 22.

20. For this event, which was of decisive importance for Macedonia and for Greece as a whole, see Pentzopoulos, op. cit., pp. 51-60, 61ff.

21. Ibid., pp. 132-136; see also the ethnological tables between pp.

136 and 137.

22. According to the official statistics of the League of Nations: Pentzopoulos, op. cit., p. 134. Ct: E. Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia, Thessaloniki 1964,p. 83.

23. Estimates for the whole country are provided by Pentzopoulos, op. cit., pp. 143-167, 199-212.

24. Cf. G.D. Jackson, 'Peasant Political Movements in Eastern Europe', in Rural Protest: Peasant Movements and Social Change, H.E. Landsberger (ed.), 1974, pp. 259-315.

25. For the urban planning development of Thessaloniki, see. V. Hastaoglou - A. Karadimou-Gerolympou, 'Thessaloniki 1890-1940: From the Contradictions ofCosmopolitanism to the Uniformity of the Modem Greek City', in Thessaloniki Since j912, pp. 449-474. Cf. the doctoral thesis of A. Karadimou-Gerolympou, The Redesigning and Reconstruction of Thessaloniki after the Fire of 1917, Thessaloniki 1985 (in Greek).

26. For the role of the refugees in this development, see Margarita Ditsa, 'Refugees and Industrialisation' in Eleutherios Venizelos.

Society, Economy and Politics in his Age, T. Veremis and G.Goulimis (eds.), Athens 1989, pp. 27-70 (in Greek).

.

27. K. Kostis, 'The Greek Economy in the Years of Crisis, 19~')足 1932', in Eleutherios Venizelos, pp. 191-226, and Mark Mazow~r, 'Greece and the Economic Crisis of 1931', ibid., pp. 229-275.

28.1. S. Koliopoulos, Greece and the British Connection, 1935-1941, Oxford 1977, pp. 120ff.

29. For these strategic concepts, see Yannis Mourelos, Fictions et realites: La France, la Grixe et la strategie des operations peripheriques dans Ie sud-est europeen (1939-1940), Thessaloniki 1990.

30. M. Molho, In Memoriam: Dedicated to the Memory ofthe Jewish Victims ofNazism in Greece, Thessaloniki 1976, pp. 50-128, 129-134, 238-240,349- 351 (in Greek), and H.-J. Hoppe, 'Germany, Bulgaria, Greece: Relations between the Three Countries and the Policy of Bulgaria in Occupied Macedonia', in Greece 1936-1944, pp. 411-415.

31. For a first approach to the problems involved, see Hagen Fleischer, The Crown and the Swastika. Greece of the Occupation and the Resistance, 1941-1944, vol. 1 (so far the only volume published), Athens (undated), pp. 90-106 (in Greek), and Hoppe, op. cit., pp.

401-417 (principally pp. 406-411).

32. See the briefpresentation ofthe research work by St. Troebst, 'The Activities of the Ochrana in the Prefectures of Kastoria, Florina and Pella, 1943-1944', in Greece 1936-1944, pp. 258-261. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia and Western Thrace has not been systematically investigated by Greek historians. One can, of course, extract a wealth of information from the numerous works of polemics or self-justification published in the first years after the War - though care must be taken with them. Such books include Chrysochoos, op. cit., vol. 4, part A, the reminiscences of A. Fosteridis, National Resistance against the Bulgarian Occupation, 1941-1945, Thessaloniki 1959, or even the outrageous work by E.T. Grigoriadou, The Bulgarian Bloodbath in Western Macedonia, 19411944, Athens 1947 (all in Greek). Cf. the points made in note 9, above.

33. Fleischer, op. cit., pp. 95-97, 100-101. Cf. Chrysochoos, op. cit., vol. 4/A, pp. 13ff.

34. For the more effective and co-ordinated reactions of the representatives ofthe Occupation government, various resistance organisations and political groups in late 1943, see S. Grigoriadis, BriefHistory

HELLENIC MACEDONIA SINCE LIBERATION

ofthe National Resistance, 1941-1945, Athens 1983, pp. 252-254 (in Greek). Cf. also Kofos, 'The Balkan Dimension', op. cit., p. 422.

35. Ibid., pp. 422-424.

36. Ibid., p. 419.

37. Ibid.., pp. 420 and 452-453, note 12.

38. On these questions, see Kofos, Nationalism and Communism, pp.

121ff, and 'The Balkan Dimension', op. cit., pp. 434-444.

39. Kofos, Nationalism and Communism, op. cit., pp. I64ff.

40. In general, the three years ofcivil war in Greece cost more human lives than the Greek-Italian and Greek-German wars put together; Kofos,op. cit., pp. 185-186.

41. Kofos, op. cit., pp. 22-23, which contains the relevant quotations.

42. N. Alivizatos, 'The State of Emergency' in Greece in the 1940s, Athens 1984, pp. 397ff(in Greek).

43. For the factors which influenced the ideological shift in Greek society after the Civil War, see Constantine Tsoukalas, 'The Ideological Impact of the Civil War' in Greece in the 1940s, pp. 561-594.

44. Quite a number of proposals for the reorientation of the Greek economy were made before the end of the Civil War, but none ofthem was ever implemented; see, for example, X. Zolotas, Economic Reconstruction and National Survival, Athens 1948 (in Greek).

45. Between 1960 and 1976, Federal Germany alone received 623,320 'guest-workers' from Greece, most of them from northern Greece.

During the 1960s there was a rapid increase in the annual volume of emigration (once more with the rural areas of Macedonia as its main geographical source). This demographic haemorrhage oustripped the natural increase in the Greek population, over the years 1963-1965 at least. For the numbers and the host countries of the Greek emigrants, see I.K. Hassiotis, 'Continuity and Change in the Modern Greek Diaspora', Journal ofModern Hellenism, 6 (1989), 9-24.

46. For these factors, which were perceptible above all in the history of Thessaloniki, see Tolis Kazantzis, The Prose-Writing of Thessaloniki, 1912-1983, Thessaloniki 1991, pp. 14-18,33-36 (in Greek).

Cf. also I.K. Hassiotis, 'Landmarks and Principal Features of the History of Thessaloniki', Nea Estia 118 no. 1403 (Christmas 1985), 142-145 (in Greek).

47. The restoration ofGreek-Yugoslav relations was speeded up under the pressure ofthe British and American governments and led in 1954,

23

with the partic'ipation ofTurkey, to the Tripartite Balkan Pact. For the first attempts at a rapprochement, see I. Stefanidis, 'United States, Great Britain and the Greek-Yugoslav Rapprochement, 1949-1950', Balkan Studies, 27/2 (1986), 315-343. Although this tripartite military and political alliance lapsed within only a year (as a result of the successive Greek-Turkish crises after 1955), bilateral co-operation between Greece and Yugoslavia continued down to the present. Until recently, the friction on the level of diplomatic relations was slight, and was caused by what appeared at the time to be the harmless provocations of Skopje.

48. Nonetheless, Greek-Albanian relations did not effectively begin to improve until August 1987, when Greece unilaterally declared the end of the peculiar state of war which had existed between the two countries since 1940.

49. For the economic relations between Greece and the Eastern-bloc countries in the post-war and contemporary periods, see specialized studies such as those of Sotiris Vaiden (e.g. Greece and the Eastern Countries, 1950- 1967. Economic Relations and Politics, Athens 1991, in Greek) and T. Tsiovaridou, 'Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and Socialist Integration. The Case of Balkan Countries', Balkan Studies 27/2 (1986), 353-367.

50. It is still too early to evaluate this major crisis. For some initial eye-witness conclusions, see L. Hatziprodromidis, Yugoslavia: The Nationalist Outburst, Athens 1991. A more searching analysis is undertaken in the collective work The Balkans at the Crossroads of Developments (ed. C. Giallouridis and S. Aleiphantis), Athens 1988 (in Greek), and, from a different perspective, by Tasos Filaniotis-Hadzianastasiou,.The Balkan Volcano. The Balkans after the Cold War, Athens 1992 (all in Greek).

51. For a detailed analysis of the economic and social problem of Kosovo as it is articulated with the other republics of former Yugoslavia, see M. Roux, 'Le trois crises de la Yougoslavia', Herodote, no.

48/1 (1988), 107-126. On the current minority problems in the area more generally, see K. Manolopoulou-Varvitsioti, Contemporary Minority Problems in the Balkans, Athens 1985 (in Greek).

52. In this respect, see I.K. Hassiotis, 'La Grecia e i suoi antagonisti', Euros, year 2, no. 1/2, Palermo, Jan-Feb 1992,73-74 (in Spanish in p.p. 150-153).