Although the VISHENTSI (VISSINIOTES) form the majority of the Macedonian Community in Adelaide, only three people were active in it since 1947. Then suddenly in 1980 it was decided that we should celebrate our village festival "SVETI ATANAS." At one of the committee meetings, I was asked to write "a few words" about our village for the speaker to introduce it to the public at the forthcoming social. At about the same time, the TV series "ROOTS" was being shown in Adelaide, and Kunta Kinte reminded me of the resistance of our people to the oppressors; so I volunteered to write the whole history of our village as far as I was able.

Occasionally, I had to "step outside" our village and include a bit of Macedonian history as well. This is understandable. All the information in this discourse is either personal observations or was heard from older people at gatherings, such as, when we slept "under the stars" at GOLINATA, LAZOVITE, KOZIAK, ELSE, etc.; at the "cheese-making factory" (BACHILOTO) where I served for two seasons as "PARA-BACH" under DAMYAN (NOCHO) MELIOV and also at name-day gatherings.

The two main events in the history of our village, that of the Ilinden Uprising and the attack of the Greek Andartes, has been related to me by my father almost at every anniversary for 30 years! He was 15 years old at the time and actually walked through the smouldering ruins of the village. When he described it, you could almost see him feel the heat! He used to say, "To walk through your burning village, it is an experience you never forget."

May I add that my father was also the sole photographer in the village, and some of the photos in this book are his. Almost every event in the village was recorded by him, and we had a great collection of photos. However, during the Greek Civil War, government forces plundered our house; and after amusing themselves, they burned the lot.

As far as it is known, no written record of any history of our village ever existed, so I could claim being the first to write one, but for one thing: About the same time as it was decided to write a history, MITETO PRUSTENAROV, who lives In Skopie, unknown to us, also decided to write a history of our village. After several exchanges of correspondence, he agreed to send the material to us so that we could merge the two into one book.

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Naturally, our versions overlapped in most places, with slight variations in only a few places, so that there was no need to repeat them, with a few exceptions. His account also con-tained a few historical inaccuracies, which I mention In the English translation of his work. He claims that he gathered the Information from the following persons: PANDO PETROV (ISHKIROV) when he visited Australia in 1979, VASILKA OGNENOVA, KOLE PRUSTE-NAROV, KOSTA and MILKA KALKOV, STOYANETO and VASELINKA MARKOV (SHKLIPOV), and TSANA MELIOVA (MALKOVA), and, of course, his personal observations and experiences, although he does not state so.

Our work is not meant to be of literary value as we are not writers, but we only tried to preserve the memory of our village, which is on the verge of extinction. We also hope to arouse an interest in the new generation to work for a peaceful solution of the Macedonian Question; for, after all, ever since Its creation at the Berlin Congress in 1878 by the intrigues of the Great Powers, it brought untold suffering, bloodshed, and hatred among the people of the Balkan Peninsula.

A. J. Leikas, 1980 (ATANAS YANEV LEIKOV)

As explained in the preface to Chapter I, the idea was to merge the two versions of our village history. That is what we decided at a meeting here in Adelaide. However, some VISHENTSI, without consultation, arranged it so that MITETO's book was published in Skopie in 1986. However, because the majority cannot read the Cyrillic script, George A. Lebamoff of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A., asked a man in Perth, Western Australia, and me to translate it into English. We did this in 1989. In the meantime, my manuscripts were "shelved" for 10 years! Finally, I retrieved them, added more material, and handed them over to my present publisher, to whom I am extremely grateful, for now the memory of our beautiful village will be preserved.

A. J. Leikas (ATANAS YANEV LEIKOV)
Adelaide, Australia January 9, 1991

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