ÉMIGRÉS

Such a process of ethnogenesis, or 'mutation' as the Greek observer Evangelos Kofos named it, required careful treatment of the large Macedonian émigré communities, especially in Canada and Australia. Because such groups have often become émigrés to escape repression in the first place, they often exhibit a fiercer nationalism than their compatriots who did not leave. In the Macedonian case this is particularly evident among those who have remained in Greece in contrast to those who left. <Also in FYROM: See below>

The authorities of SR Macedonia turned to the émigré question in particular in the 1960s when the lax policies of the Tito regime on freedom of movement led to large numbers of Yugoslav citizens travelling abroad. These new waves of arrivals in Canada and Australia came up against pre-war immigrants with a more pro-Bulgarian consciousness.

To cope with this and help to spread the new consciousness, a well-financed central agency for emigrants named 'Matica' was set up in Skopje to coordinate relevant activities.

Again, the Church was the key institution: priests as well as teachers were sent to administer classes and help teach the new language. In cities with a sizeable Macedonian population, the Yugoslav consuls were usually nominees of the Skopje government.

This policy in its way was very successful. However, along with those who rejected the new ethnogenenesis, there were also those the intensity of whose Macedonian nationalism disturbed the authorities in Skopje.

The unease of the those authorities, manifested in the never-ending polemics against Bulgaria and the treatment of Albanian nationalism, also resulted in a harsh attitude towards émigré groups deemed hostile to the republic.

An example of this was the thirteen-year prison sentence imposed by the Skopje district court in 1979 on Dragan Bogdanovski, then a Macedonian émigré and later mentor of VMRO-DPMNE, for leading an organisation calling for a united independent Macedonian state that would incorporate not only the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia but also the Macedonian territories in Greece and Bulgaria -ironically a similar aim to that of Gotse Delchev, who is lionised by the authorities.

A further development in the diaspora, especially in Australia, was the formation of a different concept of the Macedonian nation which instead of claiming descent from Slav tribes in the sixth and seventh centuries AD who were distinct from tribes that coalesced into Bulgarians, as the Communist Skopje authorities did, rather claimed descent from the subjects of Philip of Macedon whom they regarded as non-Greek. <To access the entries on ancient Macedonia click on: location, history,language, religion & culture>

Such a view was perhaps bound to lead to a collision with competing Greek claims over the inhabitants at that time.

However, these groups had considerable influence later as can be seen in the current use by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia of symbols of that era for official purposes -notably incorporation of the Star of Vergina on its flag.

Also by joining in the nationalist pastime of ransacking history and backdating modern concepts (which the authorities in Skopje were themselves already doing), they further complicate the already problematic mix of ethnic and civic components of the Macedonian nation.

H.Poulton,

Who are the Macedonians? (1994), pp.120,121