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GREECE FORCED BULGARIAN-MACEDONIANS

TO RENOUNCE NATIVE LANGUAGE FOREVER

VILLAGE OF ATRAPOS (KRAPESHINA) AEGEAN MACEDONIA - 1959

"I do promise before God, the people, and the official state authorities, that from this day on I shall cease to speak the Slav dialect which gives ground for misunderstandings to the enemies of our country - the Bulgarians - and that I will speak always and everywhere the official language of our fatherland, the Greek language, in which the holy gospel is written."

the oath During the period 1936-1940 about 5250 Bulgarian-Macedonian were prosecuted for using Bulgarian language in public places. Such practices continued well after WWII and are still prevalent in Greece today. The newspaper articles (with the accompanying translations) and the photograph show how desperate and determined Greece is to eradicate any evidence of its Bulgarian-Macedonian population.


newspaper#1  

 

 

ELINIKI PHON       8 AUGUST 1959

publishes article in the Florina (Aegean Macedonia) region which reads

"Tomorrow the inhabitants of Atrapos (original Bulgarian name Krapeshina) will swear before God and the people in an official ceremony that hence forward they will promise not to speak the Slav dialect, which in the hands of the Slav propagandists, has become a weapon pointed at the national consciousness of the Macedonians. The proud people of Atrapos will take an oath to speak Greek only, so that in this way they may stress their Greek origin and the Greek consciousness"

newspaper#2 

 

PHONI TIS KASTORIAS    4 OCTOBER 1959

reprints article from the Salonika based newspaper Makedonia

"During the last two months the inhabitants of some villages in northern Greece (Macedonia) in official mass ceremonies proclaimed that they will cease to use the Slav dialect and that in future they will only speak Greek. The first ceremony took place in the village of Trebeno, district of Kojani, which has, according to the census of 1952, 692 inhabitants. It was followed by other villages such as Breshcheni, Kostour district, (41 inhabitants), Atrapos (Krapeshina), Florina district, (466 inhabitants) and so forth."