Macedonia; Its Races and Their FutureThis historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ... revolt of a peasantry against a privileged aristocracy, as well as the clash of two competing races. To the Greek Bishops all Macedonians are Greeks because they are by right the tributaries of the Patriarch. True, they are at present in schism, but a schism is an offence against the rational order of the Universe. A Greek can never bring himself to jregard the Bulgarians as a race with the same right and title as his own. They are simply excommunicated schismatics whose contumacy must be reduced by any means available. The patent fact that they are not Greeks and do not even know the Greek language in no way disturbs him. The Bishop of Florina, when he wishes to address a sermon or exhortation to his flock in the Cathedral, is obliged to preach in Turkish. They are all Bulgarians: few of them know Greek, but most have been compelled to pick up a certain knowledge of Turkish. And yet Florina figures in the Greek imagination and in Greek statistics as a Greek town. It belong to "Hellenism"--a Hellenism that expresses itself in the dialect of an Asiatic tyranny. There is yet another development of the Greek theory which deserves a rather more respectful handling. It is politically sound, but the range of its application is not large. I have never heard it in the East: it is due rather to a few cultured Greeks domiciled in Paris, who have come under the influence of Radical Philhellenes of the type of M. Clemenceau. It is an adaptation of Mazzini's idealistic nationalism. Race on this view is a mere invention of pseudo-science, and language is an accident. A man may talk what dialect he pleases and still possess "a Greek heart." The anthropologists may invent what classification they choose for his skull; if " Hellenism" is the v... |
