I uploaded on wikisource two important documents issued by the Provisional Government of Macedonia in 1880 and 1881:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_fr ... onica_1880

and,

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Manifes ... nia_-_1881

Very interesting documents:

I'm also inlining the full text of the documents:

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MACEDONIA - "UNlTY"<ref>The National Assembly of Macedonia was held from 21st May to 2nd June 1880 in the presence of 32 delegates from all the regions of Macedonia, with the participation of Macedonians, Wallachians and Albanians. The Provisional Government of Macedonia - "Unity" was established on that occasion, and an appeal to the Great Powers about the rightful demands of the Macedonian people - the liberation of Macedonia - was sent on behalf of the Government. The appeal was supplemented by the Protocol Decision of the
Macedonian National Assembly.</ref>

21st May 1880

The Provisional Government of Macedonia

No. 3 the
Gremen teke
21st May 1880

General Consul of all Russia
To His Excellency,
N. Uljanov, Salonika

Your Excellency,

We send You this protocol decision of the National Assembly of Macedonia on behalf of the Provisional Government of Macedonia, begging You to send it to H. R. H. the Emperor of all Russia, Alexander ll. We hope that the Russian Government will support the righteous demands of the Macedonian people and will help them to obtain equitable
treatment similar to that of the other Balkan peoples.

The Provisional Government of Macedonia,
President,
Vasil Simon

Members:
1. Anastas Dimitrovic
2. Ali Efendi (Albanian)

Enclosure:

PROTOCOL DECISION

The National Assembly of the Macedonian people, composed of provisional representatives of the people from various regions, was convened in Grernen teke, dealt with the general political situation within the country and examined all that would be necessary for the attainment of the national aim in Macedonia. On this occasion, the painful history of this country was taken into consideration, for centuries suffering from the violent acts of the authorities and from the pillage and savagery of the Circassians who had long ago settled in certain areas; the following elements were also taken into consideration:

- owing to her geographical location in the centre of Turkey in Europe, Macedonia has always been the victim of insurrections and pillage by the Turkish irregular soldiery, the Circassians and Ghegas;

- Macedonia, more than any other country, for political reasons has been ethnically divided into Slavs, Greeks, Albanians, Wallachians and Turks, while the occupiers have striven to dismember it, by which the national existence of the Macedonians has been undermined, relegating them always to misery;

- Macedonia was left as an orphan at the international congresses of the Great Powers;

- owing to the recent changes in European Turkey, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, under the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, were granted full independence, Bulgaria, East Rumelia and Crete acquired their civil rights, and Epirus and Thessaly are looking forward to their union with Greece, while only Macedonia, which had a civilization of her own in ancient times, producing Aristotle and Alexander the Great, is deprived of any assistance;

- none of the decisions of the peace treaties has been implemented concerning the civil rights of the Macedonian population; Article 15 of the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano provided for full autonomy of the majority of Macedonia, and Article 23. of the Treaty of Berlin granted her organic regulations similar to the Crete Regulations of 1868; yet, two years have elapsed so far without anything being done.

ln accordance with all of this, the Assembly of the Macedonian representatives unanimously decided:

1. First to inform the Sublime Porte through the chief governor (the Vali) of Macedonia about the rightful demands of the Macedonian people for the immediate implementation of Article 23. of the Treaty of Berlin.

2. To hand over this decision to the consular representatives of the Great Powers that signed the Treaty of Berlin with the request that they intercede with the Sublime Porte in favour of the implementation of Article 23. of the Treaty of Berlin. Should the Sublime Porte take no action, the Provisional Government of Macedonia will call the Macedonian people to take up arms with the slogan - Macedonia to Macedonia, for the restoration ot Ancient Macedonia.

For the Provisional Government of Macedonia.,
President: Vasil Simon
Secretary: signature illegible
Chief Commander of the Military Forces of Macedonia: Kramontov

Archiva Ministerul Afacerilor Straine (Bucuresti) Fondut Constantinopol. Consulat Salonic.
31. VII/12. VIII, 1880, pp. 28-33.


and:


A MANIFESTO OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MACEDONlA<ref>The Manifesto, proclaimed on 23rd March 1881, was one of the most significant acts of the Provisional Government of Macedonia. It was sent to all diplomatic representatives. The Manifesto was found in the documentation of the Central State Archives of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction in Moscow (Section Count Ignatiev, No 730, Description No 1, ed. hr. 79).</ref>

23rd March 1881

Macedonians,

Our dear homeland of Macedonia was once one of the most glorious countries. The Macedonian people, too, laying the first foundations of the art of war, with their victorious phalanxes and Aristotle's enlightemnent, civilized humanity and Asia. Yet our homeland so glorious in the past is today on the threshold of her obliteration owing to our errors and neglect of our origin. Foreign and suspicious nations would like to conquer our country and destroy our nationality, which, glowing with such brightness, shall never be erased. She has become like a widow so dreadfully deserted by her sons. She does not fly her
flag any more as the victorious Macedonian army did in their triumph. Today she is only a geographical notion. As if there was an attempt to cover her triumphant nature with the blanket of oblivion. Her grave has been dug by the conspirators who, cruising through our land have injected devastating poisons into her. These conspirators are the gravediggers of our great and glorious homeland; they are also the conspirators who want to disniember her and enable the incursion of the winning troops of Austria-Hungary. By passing from one yoke to another, the regeneration of Macedonia would be impossible and our
nationality would be wiped out. This moment is crucial for Macedonia; it is a matter of her death or life.

True Macedonians, faithful children to your fatherland!

Will you allow your dear country to be destroyed? Look how she suffocating in slavery and from the wounds the surrounding nations have inflicted on her! Look at her and see the heavy chains imposed upon her by the Sultan! Finding yourselves in such a helpless position and seeing her all in tears, our dear Macedonia, our dear homeland, is calling upon you; you who are my faithful children, you who are my descendants of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, you in whose veins Macedonian blood flows, do not let me die, but help me! What a sad sight it would be for you, true Maceclonians, if you became witnesses of my funeral. No, no, here are my dreadful bleeding wounds, here are my heavy chains: break them, heal my wounds, do everything possible that on the banner which I shall raise the words "Allied and united Macedonia" may be written! Having succeeded in this courageously, banish out of this land these murderers who carry the flag of discord in their hands and inculcate slaughterous ideas, dividing you, my children, into innumerable nationalities, and then, having gathered under the banner of Macedonia as your only national distinction, raise high that glorious banner and prepare it so that you can unanimously write on it:

Long live the Macedonian people, long live Macedonia!

There is the voice of our homeland, there is freedom - that previous heritage of the peoples. To declare these words is to earn the applause of free-minded people it is to call upon the noble hearts to hurry up and come to fight, to help you to acquire that sacred freedom which has escaped you for so many centuries.

Macedonians, remember your origins and do not renounce them!

Kustendil, 11th/23rd March 1881
True to the original
Dospat 18th/30th April 1881.

President,
Vasil Chomo<ref>We also find the name of Vasil Como as Vasil Simon.</ref>

Secretary,
Nikola Trajkov

Central State Archives of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction in Moscow (Section Count Ignatiev, No 730, Description No 1, ed. hr. 79), Ljuben Lape, Odbrani tekstovi za istorijata na makedonskiot narod II del Skopje 1976 str. 256-258.

Were the Circassians and Ghegas to become the albanians we see today?

Here is another version of the Manifesto of the temporary government of Macedonia, taken from this book "Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770-1945)" edited by Balázs Trencsényi, Michal Kopeček, page 484-485.

It is already posted here... http://maknews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3716





Nice find Filip M, good to see that there are several sources to theese documents!

Here is what Article 23 of The Treaty of Berlin, 1878 states:

Taken from here http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1878berlin.html

The Macedonian people wanted AUTONOMY in accordance with Article 23.

Thank you Jordan. I have several more documens to scan and post from that period (1880-1900). Some of them are stunning.

In Crete there were 85% Greeks (may be a bit more) and 15% Turks.

In Macedonia (the whole region), Turks around 35%, Greeks around 15%, Macedonians and Bulgarians TOGETHER around 40%, and the rest Vlachs, Jews, Roma and Albanians.

Comparison is far from being fair : The nationalities of Macedonia, fighting one another for centuries, could not form a viable State. The rest is wishful thinking.

Syggros, do not mess with things you do not understand. You see the Muslim Macedonians were also regarded as Turks, so they are also a part of the 35% Turks, Patriarchist Macedonians and bilinguage Macedonians were included in the 15% Greeks...... you see here is were you neo-Greeks mess up. The Macedonians were a lot more than what you think, the numbers you present are in one way or another emphaizing a nationalistic view of the Macedonian question.

Please do Filip M, scans would be great.

If they were more than I think, then WHY thye are just 64% in their own country, RoM ???????????

Jordan, the numbers I presented can be found in any book, GLENNY, JELAVITCH, RISTELHUEBER etc.

It is only you Diaspora Macs that hold super-nationalistic views.

I will quote Allen Upward and what he has written in his book "The East End Of Europe" from 1908 on page 54.


So who is right, the person on the ground in Macedonia 1907-1908 or your scholars? I do not deny what they say but they might have a somewhat biased view on history.

Yes, bcs they didnt read any books by strangers bout it - but witnessed it first-hand and were the ppl in question about whom those books were written.

IF you see a green snake and afterwards you read in some book by an author who never even been to the place of green snakes that it is actually red - what would you believe?The book or your own eyes?

Because they were escaping troughout the 20th from your napalms the bulgarian slaughters and burnings,the serbian massacress and the albanian rapings and murders....If All Macos that exists in the world today live in Rom - their number would be 5 million at least, maybe significantly more....I told you there is a documentation of two million legal tapii of lands/houses/stores/whatevers in the Turks ottoman files - and thats ONLY from Aegean. But, that doesnt mean that there were 2 million makos there bcs obviosly one person can posses several things - a house,a land,a this,a that...for wich will have one tapija 4 each one...

And this is ABSOLUTELY valid and true - the Turks opened the doors for us and offered us the documents - the docs are waiting only for a brave leader to take them from tr and use them legally to return the properties to the rightfull owners...or at least squeaze serious cash from Greece as repatrition...

at least 70% Macedonian in ROM, Albanians realistically make up 17-24%.

The above fact ia always mentioned by any scholar writing about Macedonia of that time, those I mentioned included. It was a French consul in Thessaloniki, if I remember well, who arrogantly said:
"With some thousand francs, I could turn half people here into Frenchmen".

Over-exaggerations. Upward was right, but in a small scale. The same says Brailsford, whome I have quoted once, who visited Bitola (then Monastir) area and found people who simply knew they were Christians, and could remember nothing of their past. Now some remember their Greek ancient glory, some remember Tsar Aleksandar .............

But please see:
You are about 1.4 mil in RoM now. Plus 50 th in Aegean, plus 50 th in Pirin, plus 100 th in Canada and Australia, totals 1.6 mil.
[ Numbers on Aegean and Pirin given more that real ].

Greek Aegean is 2.4 mil, RoM is 2.1 mil, Pirin is 0.5 mil (the latter I am not sure), totals 5.0 mil.

So you are 32% of the WHOLE region of Macedonia now, Diaspora included.

Why on earth you had been more in 1912 ?

The above number fits well in my estimations on 1912.

What is your NUMBER, not just protests ?

I took the number from CIA fact finder. Anyhow, 6% is 120 thousand people. See my post above. The difference is very small, even if you were right, that I doubt.

What the #%^ DOES the number of Macedonian in the Free Macedonia today, got to do with your deeply nationalist vomit about statistics in Greek occupied Macedonia? Your quoting a colonial discourse, Andreas, you don't even realise it - the new Greeks like yourself have always had the upper hand in terms of bullshit. You'll never be a ethnic Macedonian, so leave them alone.

Andrea, seeing as you always make claims about my nationality in Macedonia, let us put the church-national affiliations aside and concentrate on the language of the bulk Macedonian population.

How much % of Macedonia do you think was Slavic-speaking in the 19th century and how much was Greek-speaking? Show some evidence to back your claim too, CONTEMPORARY evidence that is, I know you had some difficulty with this word last time, I will explain it to you briefly, Contemporary means a testimony or account of an incident from a person alive within that same era, not from some fat pontian sipping on a frappe 500 years after the fact.

LANGUAGE being the factor here, not a church affiliation(Greek Patriarch / Bulgar Exarchate) or a class level distinction(City Greek / Peasant Bulgar).

LANGUAGE; are you able to stick to just that and present me a normal answer?

S_o_M,

On statistics about Macedonia please see
MACEDONIAN HISTORY -> Andreas your help
I have placed there -2- posts with detailed information. By contemporary sources, writing at that time.

But we have gone astray. Mr. Filip M posted some papers that are no surprise to me :
I had written time ago that, as far as I Have learned, the first moves showing an emerging Maceconian nationality began in mid 19th century. Voskopoulos of VINOHZITO in his website puts this beginning a bit later, at the end of 19th century.
Mr. Filip M proved that I was correct (better, that all material I had consulted points to the same view that he presents now).

I had pointed out that comparing Macedonia (the WHOLE one) to Crete was not right : Crete was clearly 85% Greek nad had numerous times revolted against the Turks. Macedonia had a diverse population ("La Salade Macedoine") and had been quiet for centuries.

From this point the conversation went astray. If you want to discuss population breakdown of Macedonia in 1912, please go to the thread indicated above.

AS why are you still here?? Is this some Greek thing where you stay even if you are not welcome? Go away.

Andrea, the thread was about documents, then it veered off into population stats, so just answer the question, who do you think dominated in 19th century Macedonia, Slavic or Greek speakers?