The British Foreign Office and Macedonian National Identity, 1918-1941

The British Foreign Office and Macedonian National Identity, 1918-1941 by Andrew Rossos, Slavic Review, vol. 53, number 2, Summer 1994

EXCERPTS

Consequently, until World War II, unlike the other nationalisms in the Balkans or in eastern Europe more generally, Macedonian nationalism developed with-out the aid of legal political, church, educational or cultural institutions. Macedonian movements not only lacked any legal infrastructure, they also were without the international sympathy, cultural aid and, most importantly, benefits of open and direct diplomatic and military support accorded other Balkan nationalisms. Indeed, for an entire century Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire before 1913 but in actual fact, both before and after that date, against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the Great Powers.For the victorious allies, especially Great Britain and France, this meant putting the Macedonian problem finally to rest. It also meant that the allies could satisfy two of their clients which were pillars of the new order in south-eastern Europe: the Kingdom of Greece and the former Kingdom of SerbiaGreece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria all sought to destroy all signs of Macedonianism through forced deportation, so-called voluntary exchanges of populations and internal transfers of the Macedonian populations. They also implemented policies of colonization, social and economic discrimination, and forced denationalization and assimilation based on total control of the edu-cational systems and of cultural and intellectual life as a whole.These policies were particularly pursued with great determination in Yugoslavia and Greece. Though he approved of these policies, C. L. Blakeney, British Vice-Consul at Belgrade, wrote in 1930:It is very well for the outsider to say that the only way the Serb could achieve this [control of Vardar Macedonia] was by terrorism and the free and general use of the big stick. This may be true, as a matter of fact one could say that it is true ...On the other hand, however, it must be admitted that the Serb had no other choice ... He had not only to deal with the brigands but also with a population who regarded him as an invader and unwelcome foreigner and from whom he had and could expect no assistanceTen years later, on the eve of Yugoslavia's collapse during the Second World War, it was obvious that the Serbian policies in Macedonia had failed. R.I. Campbell, British minister at Belgrade, now denounced them to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary: Since the occupation by Serbia in 1913 of the Macedonian districts, the Government has carried out in this area, with greater or lesser severity, a policy of suppression and assimilation. In the years following the Great War land was taken away from the inhabitants and given to Serbian colonists. Macedonians were compelled to change their names and the Government did little or nothing to assist the economic development of the countryAthens made a concerted effort to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme and tragic dimensions during the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the privacy of the home to a people who knew Greek scarcely or not at all, and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but their own.In 1944 Captain P.H. Evans, an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spent eight months in western Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) and station commander, condemned the Greek policies in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He described the attitude "even of educated GREEKS towards the SLAV minority" as "usually stupid, uninformed and brutal to a degree that makes one despair of any understanding ever being created between the two people." However, he also left no doubt that the Greek government's policies had failed: It is predominantly a SLAV region not a GREEK one. The language of the home, and usually also of the fields, the village Street, and the market is MACEDONIAN, a SLAV language... The place names as given on the map are GREEK...; but the names which are mostly used - - - are - - - all Slav names. The GREEK ones are merely a bit of varnish put on by Metaxas... GREEK is regarded as almost a foreign language and the GREEKS are distrusted as something alien, even if not, in the full sense of the word, as foreigners. The obvious fact, almost too obvious to be stated, that the region is SLAV by nature and not GREEK cannot be overemphasizedSofia continued its traditional attitude towards all Macedonians, acting as their patron but claiming them to be Bulgarians. To a certain extent it left the Macedonians to do what they wanted; unlike Athens and Belgrade, it tolerated, or felt compelled to tolerate, the free use of the name "Macedonia" and an active Macedonian political and cultural life In its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, the British Legation at Sofia referred to the Pirin region as "the autonomous kingdom of Macedonia" and stressed that "Bulgarian sovereignty over the district - - - is purely nominal and, such as it is, is resented by the irredentist Macedonian element no less strongly than is that of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Government over the adjacent area within their frontier."More importantly still, the Macedonians, both in the large emigration in Bulgaria and at home, rejected the partition of their land and the settlement based upon it. As the British Legation at Sofia warned: "the Governments of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, if not that of Greece, are faced with practically an identical problem in the pacification and control of a district overlapping both the frontiers inhabited by a pop-ulation hostile to both Governments for different reasons and determined on strengthening the hands of the opposition parties in each country."Disturbing to London were calls for open resistance to foreign rule. Early in 1922 W.A.F. Erskine, the minister in Sofia, drew Lord Curzon's attention to an anonymous article in the newspaper Makedonija, purportedly from a Macedonian professor at the University of Sofia, which exhorted the Macedonians to follow the example of the Irish, who after a bitter struggle lasting through centuries, have succeeded in gaining their autonomy. "Their country is today free. Ours, too, will be free if we remain faithful to our own traditions of struggle and if we take as our example the lives of people, who, like the Irish, have "never despaired of the force of right."To be sure, organized Macedonian activity in Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, which had declined after the bloody suppression of the Ilinden uprising of 1903 and the repeated partitions of 1912-1918, came to a virtual standstill immediately after World War I. Virtually the entire Exarchist educated elite, most Macedonian activists from Aegean Macedonia and large numbers from Vardar Macedonia had been forced to emigrate and now sought refuge in Bulgaria Furthermore, the remaining Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia, overwhelmingly rural and lacking an educated elite, found itself after the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) a minority in its own land as a result of the Greek government's settlement there of large numbers of Greek and other Christian refugees from Asia Minor by the mid-1920s IMRO had emerged as a terrorist organization. It virtually ruled Pirin Macedonia and was a state within the state of Bulgaria, pursuing its own self-saving ends by relying on Bulgarian reaction and Italian fascism, and allowing itself to be used by both. However, officially and very conspicuously-it promulgated the aims and the slogans of the older movement: "united autonomous or independent Macedonia" and "Macedonia for the Macedonians." IMRO conducted repeated, so-called "Komitaji," armed raids and incursions into Vardar and, to a lesser extent, into Aegean Macedonia until the military coup in Sofia of May 1934 when the new regime liquidated the organization. More than anything else, it succeeded in maintaining the Macedonian question on the international scene and, as champion of Macedonia and the Macedonians, it continued to enjoy considerable support throughout most of the 1920sAs Erskine reported from Sofia: "The program of the Communists, therefore, at the instigation of Moscow, was modified to a form of cooperation with the Macedonian revolutionaries - - - to stir up trouble generally - - - and to pave the way for a revolution by creating disorder." Commenting on the election in Yugoslavia, the British minister at Sofia, R. Peel, stressed that although Serbian troops had resorted to the worst excesses in order to terrorize the inhabitants into voting for government lists, "…a large proportion of communist deputies were returned from Macedonia." Clearly, the communist vote was, in effect, a Macedonian protest against foreign rule. This cooperation between communists and Macedonians, dating from the end of World War I, intensified in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Balkan communist parties, after long and heated debates, officially recognized Macedonia as a distinct Slav nation with its own language, history and territory. The Comintern followed suit in 1934 and thus supplied the first formal international recognition of Macedonian nationalism.For some time following World War I, London refused to consider the unrest in Macedonia and, hence, the revival of the Macedonian question. A lengthy memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity," prepared by the Central Department of the Foreign Office in 1925, maintained that "While amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs - - - do not care to what nationality they belong." DJ. Footman, the vice consul at Skopje, echoed a similar sentiment when he wrote, "I believe that 80 percent of the population merely desire a firm, just and enlightened Administration, and regard Nationalism as of minor importance." If there was a problem, the explanation for it could be found in Bulgaria: London blamed Sofia not only for tolerating, but for encouraging and sponsoring an organized Macedonian movement, revolutionary organizations and armed bands on its own territory.O.C. Harvey of the Foreign Office after a visit to Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia in April 1926: "Although the peasants are said to be doing well, the towns are dying from lack of trade. And wherever else the Serb is spending his money, he does not seem to be spending it in Macedonia. Yet this country is perhaps really the biggest problem for the Serbs."Or, as R.A. Gallop, third secretary in the legation in Belgrade, put it: "What discontent there is comes from economic causes and the Government must seek palliatives. This of course will take time and cost money, but to my mind the key to the Macedonian question is now this: a prosperous Macedonia will be a contented one."But most reports to London singled out the administration as the root cause for discontent in Macedonia. The new rulers had forced on the Macedonians their own, that is foreign, administrative and legal codes ''without regard to local conditions or requirements." Their manner of administration was considered even worse: it was described as invariably harsh, brutal, arbitrary and totally corrupt. As Colonel Corfe wrote: "One of the Macedonian's chief grievances is against the Greek Gendarmerie and during our tour we saw many examples of the arrogant and unsatisfactory methods of the Gendarmerie, who comandeer from the peasants whatever food they want…One visits few villages where some of the inhabitants are not in Greek prisons, without trial…"DJ. Footman described the Serbian officials in Vardar Macedonia as poorly qualified, underpaid, arbitrary and corrupt. "Although this authoritative statement of the Foreign Office acknowledged the existence and the seriousness of the Macedonian problem, the underlying assumption was that, once the economic and administrative causes for grievance were allayed, it would be finally resolved. But while the Foreign Office endeavored to avoid dealing with the national dimension and implications of the problem until as late as 1930, by the mid-1920s its position was already being questioned and challenged by Foreign Office officials in the Balkans, and was becoming untenable. It was difficult to reconcile the use of three different terms-Slavophone Greeks, Old Serbians and Bulgarians-when referring to a people who called themselves Makedonci and spoke Macedonian or dialects of it.The British could maintain their position only as long as relations between Athens and Belgrade remained friendly; and a crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations in the mid-1920s provoked a heated debate over the national identity of the Macedonians -Although unwillingly, the Foreign Office was also drawn into this debate and was forced to consider: "Who are the Macedonian Slavs?" Ironically, the crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations was sparked by the conclusion of the abortive Greek-Bulgarian Minorities Protocol of 1924, which "connoted the recognition on the part of Greece that the Slavophone inhabitants of Greek Macedonia were of Bulgarian race." This infuriated the Serbs and the Belgrade government broke off its alliance with Greece on 7 November 1924; it also launched a press and a diplomatic campaign that Greece protect the rights of what it called the "Serbian minority" in Aegean MacedoniaColonel Corfe had written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing to say in their presence:But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling us 'damned Bulgars"' … To my question "What do you want? an autonomous Macedonia or a Macedonia under Bulgaria?" the answer was generally the same: "We want good administration. We are Macedonians, not Greeks or Bulgars…We want to be left in peace."The Greek-Serbian crisis, however, forced the Foreign Office to concentrate its attention, as never before, on the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs and, indeed, on the question: who are the Macedonians? On 30 June 1925, DJ. Footman, the British vice consul at Skopje, the administrative center of Vardar Macedonia, addressed this issue in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office. He wrote that "the majority of the inhabitants of Southern Serbia are Orthodox Christian Macedonians, ethnologically slightly nearer to the Bulgar than to the Serb.." He acknowledged that the Macedonians were better disposed toward Bulgaria than Serbia because, as he had pointed out: the Macedonians were "ethnologically" more akin to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs; because Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia in the time of the Turks, largely carried on through the schools, was widespread and effective; and because Macedonians at the time perceived Bulgarian culture and prestige to be higher than those of its neighbors. Moreover, large numbers of Macedonians educated in Bulgarian schools had sought refuge in Bulgaria before and especially after the partitions of 1913.The Central Department of the Foreign Office went even further in clarifying the separate identity of the Macedonians. In a confidential survey and analysis of the entire Macedonian problem it identified the Macedonians not as Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, but rather as Macedonian Slavs, and, on the basis of "a fairly reliable estimate made in 1912," singled them out as by far the largest single ethnic group in Macedonia. It acknowledged, as did Footman, that these Slavs spoke a language "understood by both Serbs and Bulgars, but slightly more akin to the Bulgarian tongue than to the Serbian"; and that after the 1870 establishment of the Exarchate, Bulgarian propaganda made greater inroads in Macedonia than the Serbian or Greek. However, it stressed that "While it is probable that the majority of these Slavs are, or were, pro-Bulgar, it is incorrect to refer to them as other than Macedo-Slavs. To this extent both the Serb claim that they are Southern Serbs and the Bulgarian claim that they are Bulgarians are unjustified." that "while amongst the Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs … do not care to what nationality they belong."In view of the prevailing acceptance of the principle of national self-determination, the recognition of the Slav Macedonians as a distinct nationality would have legitimized the Macedonian claims for autonomy or at least for national minority rights. This would have connoted the tearing up or at least the revision of the peace treaties and of the frontiers, neither of which was acceptable to Britain's clients, Greece and Yugoslavia, or indeed, to Great Britain itself. "In all the circumstances the present partition of Macedonia is probably as good a practical arrangement as can be devised," declared the Central Department, "and there is no real reason or consideration of political expediency which could be quoted to necessitate a rearrangement of the present frontiers."Indeed, the Foreign Office was contemplating a different and, as it turned out, an illusory solution to the Macedonian problem. It accepted as valid the official Greek determination of the low number of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia and assumed that with time they would be assimilated. It also assumed that with time the Yugoslav hold on Vardar Macedonia would become more secure, that this would be followed "as a natural consequence" by the "rounding up of Macedonian agents," and that the Macedonian organization operating from Bulgaria would "suffer correspondingly through the lack of funds and general support forthcoming from that district...." And, as organized Macedonian activity declined.R.A. Gallop, third secretary of the Legation at Belgrade, spent a week in April 1926 in Vardar Macedonia; his report after the tour is most revealing:The most striking thing to one familiar with North Serbia [Serbia proper], who has been accustomed to hear Macedonia described as Southern Serbia and its inhabitants as Serbs, was the complete difference of atmosphere which was noticeable almost as soon as we had crossed the pre-1913 frontier some miles south of Vranje. One felt as though one had entered a foreign country. Officials and officers from North Serbia seemed to feel this too, and I noticed especially in the cafes and hotels of Skopje that they formed groups by themselves and mixed little with the Macedo-Slavs. Those of the latter that I met were equally insistent on calling themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians.... There seemed to be no love lost for the Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their friends..Gallop defined more clearly than ever before the central issue in the Greek-Serbian dispute. He reminded Bateman that the Serbian claim is founded not on the contention that among the Slavs of Greek Macedonia there are some that can be picked as Serbs, but on the contention that the population is of exactly the same stock on both sides of the border. The Serbs see that to admit that the Macedonians in Greece are Bulgars weakens their case that the Macedonians in South Serbia are Serbs. While he agreed with Bateman "that the Macedonian Slavs used, before the days of propaganda, to call themselves 'Christians' rather than Serbs or Bulgars," Gallop did not agree "that the Macedonian Slavs are nearer akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb." In any case, he questioned the impartiality of so-called "authorities" and emphasized the actual reality that "nowadays" the Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves "Makedonci."Oliver C. Harvey of the Foreign Office, who visited both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, reinforced Gallop's views. Indeed, in his "Notes" on the fact-finding mission he left no doubt about the existence of a distinct Macedonian consciousness and identity. In connection with Vardar Macedonia he reported that "The Slavophone population of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say they are 'Macedonians,' and they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identify themselves with the Bulgars, although the latter seem undoubtedly to be regarded as nearer relatives than the Serbs." As far as Aegean Macedonia was concerned, Harvey noted that in its eastern and central part "the Slavophone population had 'voluntarily' emigrated and their place had been taken by 500,000 Greek refugees" from Asia Minor. "'Voluntary' emigration," he observed, "is a euphemism; incoming Greeks were planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate." Such upheaval did not take place in its western part and large numbers of Slavophones remained there, in the area around and south of Florina (Lerin). "These of course constitute the much advertised "Serb minority," he continued. "But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they speak Macedonian, and call themselves Macedonians and sentimentally look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."Through this internal debate, the Foreign Office appeared to have reached a virtual consensus that the Macedonian Slavs were neither Serbs, nor Bulgarians nor Greeks, a de facto acknowledgment that they comprised a separate southern Slav national group. But they were not given official recognition as a distinct nationality or nation; as I have already shown, the Foreign Office hoped to see the Macedonian problem disappear by their eventual assimilation into the three nations that ruled over them.. "It is quite clear, however," wrote Orme Sargent, a counselor and a future assistant under secretary of state, "that it would be impossible to expect the Jugoslav Government to adopt measures which would recognize the population of Southern Serbia as a political minority."R.A.C. Sperling, the new minister at Sofia, accused the "Powers," meaning, of course, primarily his own government and that of France, of always unfairly taking the side of Yugoslavia against Bulgaria and the Macedonians. Or as he put it, "Jugoslavia continues flagrantly to violate the provisions of the Minorities Treaty of 1919. The Powers as well as the League of Nations accept any quibble advanced by the Jugoslav Government as a pretext for not raising the question of the Macedonian minority."The exchange of views provoked by Sperling's "outburst," as O. Sargent called it, is most revealing about the Foreign Office's thinking on the Macedonian national question. Howard Kennard, Sperling's counterpart at Belgrade, was so taken aback by it that he did not wish to comment on it officially. In a letter to 0. Sargent, however, he expressed his "private regrets that Sperling cannot understand that it is not a question of taking sides one way or the other, but of assisting in preserving the peace in the Balkans, which is, after all, our only political raison d'etre here."Finally, he rejected Sperling's suggestion that some satisfaction of the "Macedonian national aspirations" might lead to a solution of the Macedonian problem. "What are we to understand by such aspirations?" asked Sargent. "If Macedonian autonomy is what is aimed at it can be said at once that it is impossible of realisation." To aim at it would be to play into the hands of Italy and other revisionist elements, and Britain was determined "to stick strenuously to the peace terms."Sperling was not deterred by the hostile reaction of his superiors. He responded to Sargent with a lengthy letter of his own in which he reduced the Macedonian problem to its bare essentials by asking bluntly two questions: "a, Is there such a thing as a Macedonian minority?" and "b, If there is, is it ill treated by the Serbs?" He then went on to answer them. "Sounds superfluous," he wrote, "but you ask 'What is the Macedonian minority?' I can hardly believe you want me to quote all the authorities from the year one to show you that there is such a thing as a Macedonian." He referred him specifically to the earlier reports by Gallop, Harvey and Footman, and stressed that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia called themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonians. With regard to the second question, Sperling argued that it made no difference to theMacedonians "whether these things were due, as you say, to the general low level of Serbian administrative ability or to the intentional ill treatment of a particular race. … The fact remains that their charges stand…"Thus, even if the revolutionaries were destroyed and Serbian Macedonia was ruled with "kindly wisdom," the Macedonian question would most likely remain unresolved, an apple of discord, a stumbling block to stability in the Balkans, etc. In Waterlow's search for a solution "that might bring real peace at long last," he seriously considered the idea, which seemed entirely logical to him but at the same time not altogether practical from the perspective of British foreign policy, of an autonomous united Macedonia. "I do not share the view of the department that Macedonia never having been a geographical or racial entity, the idea [an autonomous united Macedonia] is inherently absurd;" he wrote, "that is an exaggeration, inherited, I fancy, from the predominance of Serb views at the Peace Conference." He believed that, united and independent, the Macedonians "might play the part which God seems to have assigned to them in the Balkans, but which man has thwarted-that, namely, of acting as a link between their Serb and Bulgar brothers, instead of being a permanent cause of division."The Central Department drafted a new, updated memorandum on the Macedonian question in 1929. Parts of the first version were revised shortly thereafter as a result of last minute critical comments and objections voiced by Waterlow. The final draft of this lengthy and valuable document, dated 2 July 1930, presented the official British interpretation of the history of the Macedonian question since the 1860s, as well as an analysis of the contemporary political problem. It acknowledged once again that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia, the Macedo-Slavs or Macedonians, were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, and thus implicitly recognized their separate and distinct identity. It also admitted the existence in Yugoslav Macedonia of "a uniquely dangerous minority problem, which is aggravated by the fact that the Macedonians are the most stubborn and hard-headed people in the Balkans."London feared that League of Nations consideration of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia would amount to a de facto recognition of the Macedonian nationality. This would in turn legitimize to a certain extent the Macedonian demands for a united and independent Macedonia, thus challenging the existing status quo in the Balkans. The Memorandum made this quite clear: "Indeed, once the existence of a Macedonian nationality is even allowed to be presumed there is a danger that the entire Peace Settlement will be jeopardized by the calling into question, not merely of the frontiers between Jugoslavia and Bulgaria, but also of those between Jugoslavia and Greece and between Jugoslavia and Albania"The IMRO, which had been divided between a right and a left wing from its very inception, finally split in 1924-1925. The left formed its own separate organization, the IMRO (United) and joined the Balkan Communist Federation and the Comintern. Unlike the right, it had a clearly defined social, economic and particularly national program; unlike the terrorist campaign of the right, it enhanced the cause of both nationalism and communism in Macedonia through underground work. By the early 1930s it had attracted a large following and was challenging Mihailov's IMRO for leadership. Waterlow informed the Foreign Office of the split and the growing strength of the left in his report on the proceedings of the Tenth Congress of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, the legal organization of Mihailov's IMRO, held in Sofia on 24-27january 1932.The growth of the left undermined the support of the IMRO of Mihailov and forced the latter, for reasons of self-preservation, to free itself from the tutelage of the Bulgarian government and to identify itself with a Macedonian national program clearly calling for "the unification of Macedonian territories held by Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria, into an independent political entity within its natural geographical frontiers."On a private visit to Istanbul in September 1933, E. Venizelos, the great Greek statesman, expressed similar sentiments to Sir George Clerk, the British ambassador: Venizelos had always counseled that the Jugoslav Government should make a serious effort to content the Slav Macedonian minority... M. Venizelos maintained that these people, of which Greece has a small share...., are not pure Bulgarians, but something between Bulgarian and Serbian, and he had, he said, always been ready to give them Slav Macedonian schools and other reasonable privileges.In addition to the USSR or, rather, the communist movement, which already enjoyed widespread support among the Macedonians, by the end of the decade both Germany and Italy actively advocated schemes for "the liberation of Macedonia" with which "they are trying to attract Macedonians …"While the Foreign Office either minimized or was ignorant of the strength of Macedonian nationalism on the left, it was not ready to overlook the spread of German and Italian influence in the area. And it was this more than anything else, that brought about a renewed British interest in the Macedonians and the beginning of a British reappraisal of the Macedonian national problem. After the fall of France in summer 1940, G.W. Rendel, the minister at Sofia, warned of the increased Soviet, German and Italian activities in Macedonia and concluded that "Presumably' however the Macedonians would accept any 'autonomous' Macedonian state which a great power succeeds in establishing."My impression is that there is now a fairly large section of the Macedonians who look to Russia for their salvation. … I think the pro -Russian groups probably hope for the eventual creation of an autonomous Macedonian Soviet Republic as one of a chain of South Slav Soviet states running from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and to the German and Italian frontiers. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of Macedonians who are short sighted enough to be ready to intrigue with Germany and Italy…The Macedonians are notoriously difficult, and have many of the characteristics of the Irish, and my impression is that they are happiest in opposition to any existing regime..Early in 1941 the vice consul at Skopje provided the Foreign Office with an even more extensive and perceptive analysis of the current state of the Macedonian problem. He claimed that the vast majority of the Macedonians belonged to the national movement; indeed, he estimated "that 90 percent of all Slav Macedonians were autonomists in one sense or another...." Because the movement was wrapped in secrecy, however, it was extremely difficult to gauge the relative strength."My own opinion," wrote Thomas, "is that they are autonomists in the first place and Communists only in the second." In a highly revealing, indeed almost prophetic, comment on Thomas's report, Reginald J. Bowker of the Foreign Office conceded this when he wrote: "To the layman the only possible solution of the Macedonian problem would seem to be in giving the Macedonians some sort of autonomy within Jugoslavia. Possibly after the war the Jugoslavs may be willing to consider this. But such a measure would, no doubt, incur the risk of whetting the appetite of the Macedonians for complete independence."The lack of official recognition or legitimacy internationally and in the three Balkan states obviously had hindered the normal and natural development of Macedonian identity. However, it could not destroy it. Macedonianism in its various manifestations-particularism, patriotism, nationalism-was too deeply entrenched among the Macedonian people and among the small, but vibrant and dynamic intelligentsia, especially on the political left. During World War II, which began for the Balkans in late 1940 and early 1941, Macedonians in all three parts of their divided land joined resistance movements in large numbers and fought for national unification and liberation. They did not achieve national unification; however, the Macedonians in Vardar or Yugoslav Macedonia won not only national recognition but also legal equality with the other nations of the new, communistled, federal Yugoslavia.