The 1919 Convention for Emigration of Minorities between Bulgaria and Greece was an important prototype for minority handling and population exchange in Eastern Europe after World War I. Based on research in Bulgarian and Greek archives, this article offers a comparative analysis of the conflicting pursuits of the two countries and the multiple opinions of various groups affected by displacement. Despite the optimism of the League of Nations that the Convention would solve ethnic conflict by bolstering individual rights, people's unwillingness to prioritize nationality undermined the execution of voluntary exchange. Instead, emigration occurred as an “actual exchange,” and refugees fled their birthplaces under harsh circumstances. Yet individuals inventively navigated their nationality and often defied the priorities of the nation-states to further their personal strategies. Because of the failure of this first international experiment of voluntary exchange in Eastern Europe, future proponents of population management adopted the principle of compulsory exchange.
Memorandum on the Mission and Work of the Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration (n.p., 1929), 2.
2.
André Wurfbain, L'échance Gréco-bulgare des minorités ethniques (Lausanne, Switzerland: Payot & cie, 1930); Commission Mixte d'émigration Gréco-Bulgare, Rapport des members nommés par le Conseil de la Société des Nations (Lausanne, Switzerland: Imp. Réunies, 1932), 42, 60-61, 64-66; Stephen Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities. Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (New York: Macmillan, 1932), 49-74, 123; G. P. Genov, Nioyskiiat dogovor i Bâlgariia (Sofia, Bulgaria: Hr. G. Danov, 1935); Sava Penkov, Bâlgaro-grâtski maltsinstveni problemi sled Pârvata Svetovna voyna (Sofia, Bulgaria: 1946).
3.
About 30,000 Bulgarians never filed declarations hoping to return to their places of birth in Greece, and 10,000 Greeks and Bulgarians filed declarations that were rejected as incomplete or late. Commission Mixte d'émigration Gréco-Bulgare, Rapport des members, 42, 60-61. There were also emigrants who did not have estates to liquidate and others who sold their property before emigrating, but their number is difficult to estimate. The figures of 140,000 Bulgarians and 12,000 Greeks who chose to remain minorities are approximations from Bulgarian and Greek censuses. The Bulgarian census from 1934 estimated 9,601 Greeks in Bulgaria, but some 2,000 could be added to include the Karakachans and Gagaouz who often had Greek sympathies. The Greek census of 1928 counted 82,000 Bulgarian-speakers, yet in 1933 the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed to the number 140,000. See Istoriko Archeio Ypourgeiou Exoterikon (IAYE), Athens, Greece (renamed Ypiresia Diplomatikou kai Istorikou Archeiou in 2001), 1933, A/6/Ia. Memo of the First Political Section regarding the Bulgarian-Greek Question from 20 April 1933, 6.
4.
Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 18-23; Penkov, Bâlgaro-grâtski maltsinstveni problemi, 451.
5.
Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 27-31; Penkov, Bâlgaro-grâtski maltsinstveni problemi, 451-52. Venizelos's idea of a population exchange between Bulgaria and Greece originated in 1915 when he proposed ceding Thrace to Bulgaria to secure Bulgarian support for the Greek effort to acquire Ottoman Asia Minor. See Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 29.
6.
Ibid., 29-41.
7.
Memorandum on the Mission and Work of the Mixed Commission, 2, 4.
8.
The term ethnic unmixing has been extremely useful in conceptualizing the breakdown of empires after World War I. See the influential work of Rogers Brubaker, "The Aftermath of Empire and the Unmixing of Peoples," In Karen Barkey and Mark von Hagen, eds., After Empire. Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building: The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires ( Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), 155-80.
9.
For forced population movements in Europe, see Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001 ).
10.
For the role of minorities in the new states, see C. A. Macartney, National States and National Minorities (London: Oxford University Press, 1934). For German revisionism as it related to minorities, see Anthony Komjathy and Rebecca Stockwell, eds., German Minorities and the Third Reich. Ethnic Germans of East Central Europe between the Wars (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980); Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1993). For the role of refugees in revisionist Hungary, see István I. Mócsy, The Effects of World War One. The Uprooted: Hungarian Refugees and their Impact on Hungary's Domestic Politics, 1918-1921 (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1983). For the national question in Transylvania, which reminds the Greek-Bulgarian controversy over Macedonia and Thrace, see Sándor Bíró, The Nationalities Problem in Transylvania, 1867-1940: A Social History of the Romanian Minority under Hungarian Rule, 1867-1918 and of the Hungarian Minority under Romanian Rule, 1918-1940 (Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs, 1992).
11.
These issues include Greek compensations for the Bulgarian refugees from Greece, the Bulgarian reparations payable to Greece, the remunerations for communal property left in the other country, and the trade balance between Bulgaria and Greece. See Georgi V. Dimitrov, Iliuzii i deystvitelnost. Sporove za prava i imoti na bâlgarite ot Egeyska Makedoniia i Zadarna Trakiia, 1919-1931 (Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria: 1996).
12.
For a general outline of Bulgarian and Greek history, see Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992); and R. J. Crampton, Bulgaria (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
13.
For a theoretical outline that uses multiple examples from Eastern Europe, see Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). For Greek Macedonia, see Anastasia Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870-1990 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870-1990 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). For a parallel in East-Central Europe, see Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008).
14.
Georgi V. Dimitrov , Maltsinstveno-bezhanskiiat vâpros v bâlgaro-grâtskite otnosheniia 1919-1939 (Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria: 1982).
15.
Georgi Daskalov, Dramskoto vâstanie 1941 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Universitetsko izdatelstvo "Sv. Kliment Ohridski," 1992); Georgi Daskalov, Bâlgarite v Egeyska Makedoniia. Mit i Realnost (Sofia, Bulgaria: Makedonski Nauchen Institut, 1996); Georgi Daskalov, Uchastta na bâlgarite v Egeyska Makedoniia, 1936-1946 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Makedonski Nauchen Institut, 1999).
16.
The most comprehensive account on refugees in interwar Bulgaria is Georgi V. Dimitrov, Nastaniavane i ozemliavane na bâlgarskite bezhantsi (Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria: 1985).
17.
Galia Vâlchinova, "Grâtskoto naselenie i grâtskata identichnost v Bâlgariia: Kâm istoriiata na edno nesâstoialo se maltsinstvo," Istorichesko bâdeshte 2 (1998): 147-64; Galia Vâlchinova, "Gârtsi," In Anna Krâsteva, ed., Obshtnosti i identichnosti v Bâlgariia (Sofia, Bulgaria: Petexton, 1998), 207-20.
18.
Areti Tounta-Phergadi, Ellino-voulgarikes meionotites. Protokollo Politi-Kalfov, 1924-1925 (Thessaloniki, Greece: IMHA, 1986); Lena Divani, ed., Ellada kai meionotites. To systima diethnous prostasias tis Koinonias ton Ethnon (Athens, Greece: Nepheli, 1995); Xanthippi Kotzageorgi, ed., Oi Ellines tis Voulgarias. Ena istoriko tmima tou periphereiakou ellinismou (Thessaloniki, Greece: IMHA, 1999).
19.
Vasilis Gounaris, Giakovos Michailidis, and Georgios Agelopoulos, eds., Tavtotites sti Makedonia (Thessaloniki, Greece: Papazisi, 1997); Tasos Kostopoulos, I apagorevmenni glossa. Kratiki katastoli tov slavikon dialekton stin elliniki Makedonia (Athens, Greece: Mavri lista, 2000); Giakovos Michailidis, Metakiniseis slavophonon plithysmon (1912-1930). O polemos ton statistikon (Athens, Greece: Kritiki, 2003). In Bulgaria, all Greek Bulgarian-speakers are considered Bulgarians, supported by the fact that most of the minority population that emigrated as a result of the interwar exchange settled in Bulgaria. For a typical Bulgarian interpretation, see Daskalov, Bâlgarite v Egeyska Makedoniia. To further complicate matters, Macedonian scholars claim that the minority population in western Macedonia possessed Macedonian identity. This controversy is beyond the scope of this article, but the Macedonian question remains one of the most heated debates in Balkan history. Two recent books that shed light on the competing historical claims and current debates are Victor Roudometof, Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict. Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question (London: Praeger, 2002); and Keith Brown, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
20.
For similar concerns in the examination of the Macedonian question, see Duncan Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movement 1893-1903 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), xi-xiii. For an analysis of the interpretative divide in the Polish-Ukrainian case, see Timothy Snyder, "`To Resolve the Ukrainian problem Once and for All': The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1945-1947," Journal of Cold War Studies 1:2 (Spring 1999): 86-120.
21.
For archives in the Greek context, see Penelope C. Papailias, Genres of Recollection: Archival Poetics and Modern Greece (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
22.
Dimitris Pentzopoulos, The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and its Impact upon Greece (Paris: Mouton, 1962), 60-61; Christa Meindersma, "Population Exchanges: International Law and State Practice-Part 1," International Journal of Refugee Law 9:3 (1997): 336n2; Onur Yildirim, Diplomacy and Displacement: Reconsidering the Turco-Greek Exchange of Populations, 1922-1934 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 41, 57.
23.
Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities; Pentzopoulos, The Balkan Exchange of Minorities; Yildirim, Diplomacy and Displacement; Harry Psomiades, The Eastern Question: The Last Phase. A Study on Greek-Turkish Diplomacy (Thessaloniki, Greece: IMHA, 1968); Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees, 1922-1930 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006).
24.
Renée Hirschon, Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1989); Maria Vergeti, Apo tin Ponto stin Ellada. Diadikasies diamorphosis mias ethnotopikis tavtotitas (Thessaloniki, Greece: Ad. Kyriakidi, 1994); Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakakis, eds., Ourselves and Others. The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity Since 1912 (Oxford, UK: Berg, 1997); Nikos Marantzidis, Giasasin Millet/Zito to ethnos. Prosphugia, katohi kai emphilios. Ethnotiki tavtotita kai politiki symperiphora stous Tourkophonous ellinoorthodoxous tou Dutikou Pontou (Irakleio, Greece: Panepistimiakes ekdoseis Kritis, 2001); Renée Hirschon, ed., Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (New York: Berghahn, 2003).
25.
See in particular Mackridge and Yannakakis, Ourselves and Others; Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood; Gounaris, Michailidis, and Agelopoulos, Tavtotites sti Makedonia.
26.
For the struggle for integration of both Orthodox refugees in Greece and Muslim refugees in Turkey, see the contributions in Hirschon, Crossing the Aegean; as well as Bruce Clark, Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey (London: Granta, 2007). Other critical studies of the exchange include Evtichia Voutira, "Population Transfers and Resettlement Policies in Inter-war Europe: The Case of Asia Minor Refugees in Macedonia from an International and National Perspective," In Mackridge and Yannakakis, Ourselves and Others, 111-31; Peter Loizos, "Ottoman Half-Selves: Long-Term Perspectives on Particular Forced Migrations," Journal of Refugee Studies 12:3 (1999): 237-63; Dimitra Giannuli, "Greeks or `Strangers at Home': The Experience of Ottoman Greek Refugees during their Exodus to Greece, 1922-1923," Journal of Modern Greek Studies 13:2 (1995): 271-87; George Kritikos, "State Policy and Urban Employment of Refugees: The Greek Case (1923-1930)," European Review of History 7:2 (2000): 189-206.
27.
Eugene Kulicher, Europe on the Move. War and Population Changes, 1917-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948); Malcolm Proudhood, European Refugees, 1939-52: A Study in Forced Population Movement (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1956); Joseph Schechtman, European Population Transfers, 1939-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946); Joseph Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe, 1945-1955 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962); Theodor Schieder, The Expulsion of the German Population from Czechoslovakia (Bonn, Germany: Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, 1960); Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak, eds., Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
28.
See in particular Mark Kramer, "Introduction" and Philipp Ther, "A Century of Forced Migration: The Origins and Consequences of "Ethnic Cleansing," In Ther and Siljak, eds., Redrawing Nations, 1-41 and 43-72. Other studies include Snyder, "`To Resolve the Ukrainian problem Once and for All'"; Eagle Glassheim, "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945," Central European History 33:4 (November 2000): 463-86; Bradley Abrams, "Morality, Wisdom and Revision: The Czech Opposition of the 1970s and the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans," East European Politics and Societies 9:2 (1995): 234-55.
29.
Ther and Siljak, Redrawing Nations.
30.
Philipp Ther , "The Integration of Expellees in Germany and Poland after World War Two: A Historical Reassessment," Slavic Review55:4 (Winter 1996): 779-805.
31.
One refreshing exception is Benjamin Frommer, "Expulsion or Integration: Unmixing Interethnic Marriage in Postwar Czechoslovakia," East European Politics and Societies14:2 (2000): 381-410.
32.
Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood; Zahra, Kidnapped Souls; Jeremy King, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002); Gary Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2006); Pieter Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Theodora Dragostinova, "Speaking National: Nationalizing the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1939," Slavic Review 67:1 (Spring 2008): 154-81.
33.
For the ambiguous identities of the refugees, see Renée Hirschon, Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe; and Clark, Twice a Stranger. For the nationalization of the "Slavic-speakers," see Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood; and Kostopoulos, I apagorevmenni glossa.
34.
John O. Iatrides, ed., Greece in the 1940s: A Nation in Crisis (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1981); Mark Mazower, ed., After the War was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation, and State in Greece, 1943-1960 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press , 2000); Richard Clogg, Greece 1940-1949: Occupation, Resistance, Civil War: A Documentary History ( New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 ); Raimondos Alvanos, "Slavophonoi dopioi kai Pontioi prosphyges. I mnimi kai i empeiria tis dekaetias tou 40 se dyo choria tis periochis Kastorias ," Istorika33 ( 2000): 289-318.
35.
For discussion of Nazi policies in occupied Czechoslovakia, see Chad Bryant, "Either German or Czech: Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1946," Slavic Review 61:4 (Winter 2002): 683-706; as well as Bryant, Prague in Black.
36.
Frommer, " Expulsion or Integration," examines the problem that interethnic marriages posed to authorities. Also see Benjamin Frommer, National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
37.
The Mixed Commission that was constituted in November 1920 included two representatives of the Council of the League of Nations, one Bulgarian, and one Greek member who supervised all decisions linked to emigration. During its most active period in 1927, the commission's staff reached 380 employees who operated in twenty-one regional centers, subcommittees, or expert groups in Greece and Bulgaria. By the end of its work on 31 December 1931, the commission examined some 69,000 dossiers. Commission Mixte d'émigration Gréco-Bulgare, Rapport des members, 64-66.
Tsentralen Dârzhaven Archiv (TsDA), Sofia, Bulgaria, f. 176k, op. 4, a.e. 1670, ll. 70-82. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 3 May 1921; IAYE, 1920, 5.5.1. Memo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 17 February 1920.
40.
IAYE 1919, A/5/II, 4. Undated Telegram of Venizelos concerning the Greeks in Bulgaria.
41.
IAYE 1919, A/5/II, 4-5. Reports of the Greek Military Mission in Bulgaria from 1918 and 1919; TsDA, f. 176k, op. 4, a.e. 1670, ll. 70-82. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 3 May 1921.
42.
TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 438, ll. 18 and 24. Reports of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 9 and 13 August 1924; IAYE 1921, 12.6. Reports of the Greek Delegate in the Mixed Commission from 29 June and 12 August 1921.
43.
Commission Mixte d'émigration Gréco-Bulgare, Rapport des members, 42.
44.
IAYE 1920, 5.5.1-2. Reports of the Greek Military Mission in Bulgaria from 1918 and 1919.
45.
IAYE 1923, 31.3. Memo of the General Directorate of Solun/Thessaloniki from 8 June 1923; TsDA, f. 176k, op. 4, a.e. 2885, ll. 261-63. Report of the Bulgarian Delegate in the Mixed Commission from 26 June 1924.
46.
Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 105.
47.
For the internment of Bulgarians, see Iaye, 1923, 12.1. Report of the General Administration of Thrace from 24 September 1923; Macartney, National States and National Minorities, 440. For Bulgarian eyewitness accounts see Nedelcho Chalâkov, Edna stranitsa ot grâtskiia varvarizâm v XX vek nad bâlgarite v Zapadna Trakiia ( Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Moderna pechatnitsa, 1924); Dimitâr Dodenov, Zhivotât i imenata na nekoi bâlgaski plennitsi v grâtskite ostrovi (Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Gutenberg, 1926).
48.
IAYE 1923, 31.2. Commission Mixte, Fiche documentaire relative au délai pour prévaloir de la Convention d'émigration en Macédoine et Thrace, 5 December 1923.
49.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 35, l. 185. Telegram of the Ministry of the Interior from 16 July 1924.
50.
IAYE 1923, 21.4.1. Report of the Greek Representative in the Mixed Commission from 19 September 1923.
51.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 4, a.e.2370, ll. 162 and 233. Telegrams of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 5 and 28 November 1924.
52.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 35, ll. 165-66. Memo of the Ministry of the Interior from 7 March 1925; IAYE, 1925, G/65aa. Liste comprenent les principaux crimes, persécutions et divers méfaits vommis par le Bulgares contre l'élement grec en Bulgarie durant les années 1924-1925.
53.
Tunta-Phergadi, Ellino-voulgarikes meionotites; Dimitrov, Maltsinstveno-bezhanskiiat vâpros; Iakovos Michailidis, "Minority Rights and Educational Problems in Greek Interwar Macedonia: The Case of the Primer `Abecedar,'" Journal of Modern Greek Studies14:2 (1996): 329-43.
54.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 12, a.e. 35, l. 165. Memo of the Ministry of the Interior from 17 March 1925.
55.
IAYE 1924, A/5XII, 5. Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 10 August 1924.
56.
IAYE 1923, 31.2. Memo of Representative de Roover from 8 September 1923.
57.
For its characterization as an "actual exchange," see Hilda Clark, "Greece and Bulgaria. The Exchange of Populations," The Friend, 1 July 1927.
58.
This paragraph is based on Theodora Dragostinova, "Competing Priorities, Ambiguous Loyalties: Challenges of Socioeconomic Adaptation and National Inclusion of the Interwar Bulgarian Refugees," Nationalities Papers34:5 (November 2006): 549-74. A comprehensive history of Bulgarian refugees is Dimitrov, Nastaniavane i ozemliavane na bâlgarskite bezhantsi .
59.
TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 390. Correspondence between the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1922-1923 regarding Western Thrace; IAYE 1923, 21.4.1. Report of the Greek Representative in the Mixed Commission from 10 March 1923.
60.
Nezavisima Makedoniia, 4 July 1924.
61.
Trakiia, 16 and 9 November 1924.
62.
IAYE 1923, 21.4.2. Report of the General Directorate of Thrace from 20 November 1923.
63.
IAYE 1922, 106.4.1. Letter of Representative Corfe from 26 April 1921.
64.
IAYE 1921, 12.6. Report of the Greek Representative in the Mixed Commission from 29 June 1921.
65.
IAYE 1923, 21.4.1. Report of the Greek Representative in the Mixed Commission from 19 September 1923.
66.
IAYE 1922, 106.4.1. Letter of Representative Corfe from 26 April 1921.
67.
Clark, "Greece and Bulgaria."
68.
TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 783, l. 314. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 14 November 1932.
69.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 4, a.e. 1674, l. 11. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 23 February 1922; IAYE 1922, 16.5. Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 24 February 1922.
70.
TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 534, ll. 1-32. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 14 October 1926, including a list of renamed localities.
71.
This author noticed a gradual shift in the terminology while researching Greek archives for the period 1901-1944. While in the early twentieth century Greek reports talked about "Bulgarians" and "Bulgarian-speakers," by the 1930s correspondence referred to the "Bulgarian question" but called the minority "Slavic-speakers." See, for example, IAYE, 1933, A/6/Ia. Memo of the First Political Section regarding the Bulgarian-Greek question from 20 April 1933.
72.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 5, a.e. 712, l. 38. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 24 November 1928.
73.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 5, a.e. 1127, ll. 10-21. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Vienna from 5 January 1931.
74.
IAYE 1920, 5.5.1. Petition of the Commission of All Unredeemed Greeks from 20 January 1920; IAYE 1920, 53.2. Petition of Greek citizens from Varna from 18 November 1920.
75.
IAYE, 1922, 106.2. Petitions of the Thracian Association "Unredeemed Ortakeuy," Thracian Union "Unredeemed Agathoupolis," and representatives of Vassiliko to the Mixed Commission from 4 March 1922.
76.
IAYE 1920, 53.2. Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 21 November 1920.
77.
TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 383, ll. 1-94. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 15 May 1920.
78.
TsDA, f. 322k, op. 1, a.e. 380, ll. 1-18. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 6 November 1920; IAYE 1920, 5.5.2. Memo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 24 April 1920.
79.
IAYE 1920, 5.5.2. Memo of the Governmental Representative in Western Thrace from 29 April 1920.
80.
Apostolos Doxiadis , "Ai televtaiai imerai tis ellinikis Stenimachou ," In Kosmas M. Apostolidis, O Stenimachos (Athens, Greece: Typois Pyrsou, 1929), 79.
81.
The report of the Refugee Settlement Commission (RSC) from September 1926 included the Greeks from Bulgaria, but sources testify to the different treatment of the refugees from the Ottoman Empire and the emigrants from Bulgaria. See Doxiadis, " Ai televtaiai imerai tis ellinikis Stenimachou," 79-80. The RSC report is found in League of Nations, The Refugee Settlement in Greece (Athens, Greece: Trochalia, 1997).
82.
IAYE 1922, 94.4. Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 1 September 1922.
83.
IAYE 1924, A/5XII, 5. Report of the Greek Consulate in Burgas from 29 November 1924.
84.
The 1926 census counted 12,782 Greeks based on language and 10,861 Greeks based on nationality, which confirms the mimicry among the Greeks. See Obshti rezultati ot prebroiavaneto na naselenieto v kniazhestvo Bâlgariia ot 31 dekemvri 1926 godina (Sofia, Bulgaria: Dârzhavna pechatnitsa, 1927). The best summary of Bulgarian statistics pertaining to the Greek minority is Kotzageorgi, Oi Ellines tis Voulgarias, 216-29.
85.
These descriptions belong to the chief of the Greek Military Mission in Bulgaria after World War I, Colonel Konstantinos Mazarakis-Ainian. See IAYE 1919, A/5/II, 4. Report of the Greek Military Mission from 5 February 1919.
86.
Mazarakis included these two groups in his report concerning the Greek population of Bulgaria. See IAYE 1919, A/5/II, 4. Report of the Greek Military Mission from 5 February 1919. For the Gagaouz and Karakachans in Bulgaria, see Zhivka Stamenova, "Gagauzi" and Zhenia Pimpireva, "Karakachani," In Krâsteva, Obshtnosti i identichnosti v Bâlgariia, 190-206 and 243-59; Ivan Gradeshliev, Gagauzite (Dobrich, Bulgaria: 1993); Zhenia Pimpireva, The Karakachans in Bulgaria (Sofia, Bulgaria: IMIR, 1998). In Greece, this group is called Sarakatsani. See J. K. Campbell, Honour, Family and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1964).
87.
IAYE 1924, A/5XII, 8. Report of the Greek Embassy in Sofia from 7 March 1924; TsDA, f. 176k op. 5, a.e. 256, l. 28. Memo of the Ministry of Interior from 13 July 1925.
88.
IAYE 1920, 5.5.1. Letter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 17 February 1920.
89.
In 1870, the Ottoman government recognized an independent Bulgarian national church, the Exarchate, which challenged the authority of the Greek-dominated Patriarchate in Istanbul. In 1872, the Patriarchate declared schism with the Exarchate. In the Ottoman provinces of Macedonia and Thrace, many who identified as Bulgarians chose the jurisdiction of the Exarchate while those with Greek loyalties remained under the Patriarchate. For the role of religion in the national struggles of Bulgarians and Greeks, see Vemund Aarbakke, Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia, 1870-1913 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 2003).
90.
IAYE 1920, 5.5.1. Letter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 17 February 1920.
91.
Some Bulgarian historical narratives from the interwar period include Ivan Altânov, Mezhdusâiuznicheska Trakiia (Sofia, Bulgaria: Sâiuz na bâlgarskite ucheni, pisateli i hudozhnitsi, 1921); Stoiu Shishkov, Trakiia predi i sled evropeyskata voyna (Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Izdatelstvo "Hr. G. Danov," 1922); Ivan Ormandzhiev, Trakiyskiiat vâpros kato kumir na bâlgarskata dârzhava (Sofia, Bulgaria: Trakiyski vârhoven izpâlnitelen komitet, 1929); Anastas Razboynikov, Obezbâlgariavaneto na Zapadna Trakiia, 1919-1924 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Trakiyski nauchen institut, 1940). The most famous histories of the Bulgarian Greeks are Apostolidis, O Stenimachos; K. Myrtilos Apostolidis, I tis Philippoupoleos istoria apo ton archaiotaton mechri ton kath'imas chronon (Athens, Greece: Ekdosis tis Enoseos ton Apantachou ex Anatolikis Romylias Ellinon, 1959); Drakos Mavrommatis, I Anchialos mes'apo tis phloges (Athens, Greece: 1930); Konstantinos Papaioannidou, Istoria tis en Ponto Apollonias-Sozopoleos. Apo tis idryseos tis mechri simeron (Thessaloniki, Greece: Efemerida ton Valkanion, 1933); Emmanouil Papadopoulos, "Ta dikaia tou en voreio Thraki Ellinismou," Archeion Thrakikou Laographikou kai Glossikou Thysavrou 9 (1942-1943): 75-156; Polydoros Papachristodoulou, I katastrophi tou Voreiothrakikou ellinismou 1878-1914 (Athens, Greece: Etairia Thrakikon Meleton, 1945); Adamandios Diamandopoulos, I Anchialos (Athens, Greece: 1954); Margaritis Konstantinidis, I Apolonia par' Evxinou (Sozopolin nyn). Apo ton chronon tis apikiseos avtis mechri ton 1913-14 (Athens, Greece: 1957).
92.
Mavrommatis, Anchialos mes'apo tis phloges, 7.
93.
For detailed analysis of historical narratives, see Theodora Dragostinova, "Between Two Motherlands: Struggles for Nationhood among the Greeks in Bulgaria, 1906-1949 " (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 2005), 248-60.
94.
Memorandum on the Mission and Work of the Mixed Commission, 7.
95.
Papadopoulos, "Ta dikaia tou en voreio Thraki Ellinismou," 76.
96.
See refugee publications such as the Bulgarian newspapers Trakiia, Makedoniia, and Nezavisima Makedoniia and the Greek journals Archeion Thrakis and Archeion Thrakikou Laographikou kai Glossikou Thisavrou.
97.
For the regional breakdown of refugee settlements in Greece, see M. Maravelakis and A. Vakalopoulos, Oi prosphygikes engatastaseis stin periochi Thessalonikis (Thessaloniki, Greece: Vanias, 1993). For Bulgaria, K. Hitelov, ed., Selskostopanskoto nastaniavane na bezhantsite (Sofia, Bulgaria: Glavna direktsia za nastaniavane na bezhantsite, 1932). The refugees often established new neighborhoods and villages that carried the names of their places of origin, such as Nea Varna, Nea Agathoupolis, or Anchialos Makedonias in Greece and Makedontsi and Trakiets in Bulgaria. See Maravelakis and Vakalopoulos, Oi prosphygikes engatastaseis stin periochi Thessalonikis; Nikolay Michev and Petâr Koledarov, Rechnik na selishtata i selishtnite imena v Bâlgariia, 1878-1987 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Nauka i izkustvo, 1989).
98.
Trakiia, 26 June 1924.
99.
For the difference between the local Bulgarians and the Bulgarian refugees, see D. K. Vogazlis, "Boulgaroi kai Ellines. Sigkritiki meleti," Archeion Thrakikou Laographikou kai Glossikou Thisavrou 17 (1952): 101-46.
100.
IAYE 1930, A/6/I. Report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Michalakopoulos from 29 September 1930.
101.
This tendency is also evident in the ethnographic narratives published by elites. See Mavrommatis, I Anchialos mes'apo tis phloges; Papaioannidou, Istoria tis en Ponto Apollonias-Sozopoleos; Papachristodoulou, I katastrophi tou Voreiothrakikou ellinismou 1878-1914; Diamandopoulos, I Anchialos; Konstantinidis, I Apolonia par'Evxinou (Sozopolin nyn); Apostolidis, O Stenimachos; Vogazlis, "Boulgaroi kai Ellines"; D. K. Vogazlis, "Ithi, ethima kai prolipseis ton Ellinon Voreiothrakon os kai ton synoikon tous Voulragon," Archeion Thrakikou Laographikou kai Glossikou Thysavrou 21 (1956): 177-234.
102.
IAYE 1923, 21.4.1. Memo of the Directorate of Kozani from 21 April 1923.
103.
IAYE 1922, 106.2. Report of the General Directorate of Thrace from 29 July 1922.
104.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 9, a.e. 1543, l. 3. Report of the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens from 1 April 1921.
105.
See the extensive correspondence regarding various irregularities and petitions related to the Convention in IAYE 1927, 4.1.2; TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e. 185 and 186. For analysis of the national rhetoric of petitions, see Dragostinova, "Speaking National," 176-79.
106.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 22, a.e 217, ll. 69-70. Memo of the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations from 21 April 1929.
107.
See the extensive correspondence regarding citizenship issues in TsDA, f. 176k, op.26, a.e. 36; TsDA, f. 176k, op. 9. a.e. 1543; TsDA, f. 176k, op. 7, a.e. 1202, 1203, and 1204.
108.
For the Bulgarian-Greek deportations in the late 1930s, see the extensive correspondence in IAYE 1939, 20 and 1939, 15.1-2.
109.
TsDA, f. 176k, op. 32, a.e. 97, ll. 45, 78-79. Memos of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Denominations from 25 and 27 May 1940.
110.
Vâlchinova, "Gârtsi," 212.
111.
Gennadius Library Archive, American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece, Archive of Philipos Dragoumis, 68.1, 11. Confidential Memo of Samaras from 27 February 1945.
112.
Memorandum on the Mission and Work of the Mixed Commission, 3, 10.
113.
Memorandum on the Mission and Work of the Mixed Commission, 11. Comitadjilik was defined as being "members of revolutionary committees or bands." See n. (x).
114.
Memorandum on the Mission and Work of the Mixed Commission, 7.
115.
Clark, "Greece and Bulgaria."
116.
Ladas, for example, considers the remaining minority to be a deficiency of the Convention, which is explained with his pro-Greek perspective. See Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 40-41. For a critique of this position, see Macartney, National States and National Minorities, 441. Today, Greek concerns over the minority are connected to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The Macedonians acquired the status of a separate nation within Yugoslavia after World War II when the People's Republic of Macedonia was proclaimed and the Macedonian language codified. Ever since the Republic of Macedonia's declaration of independence in 1991, Greece has contested the new country's use of the name Macedonia because, according to the Greek view, it implied territorial aspirations toward the northern Greek province with the same name. See Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). In 2008, Greece vetoed the Republic of Macedonia's NATO membership because of this unresolved problem.
117.
See the text of the convention in Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 739-43.
118.
Macartney, National States and National Minorities, 437.
119.
Macartney did not agree with the idea of minority exchange, and his overall conclusion was that "the genuine voluntary and reciprocal emigration which the Convention was designed to effect never occurred at all, except on a minute scale." Ibid., 441, 449.
120.
The idea of compulsory exchange originated in the Greek leader Elevtherios Venizelos, who, given the totality of the Greek exodus from the Ottoman Empire in 1922, wanted to guarantee the resettlement of the Greek Muslims. After the end of the negotiations, with the outcry of public opinion, all sides in the negotiations denied their support for this principle. See Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 340-42; Meindersma, "Population Exchanges," 338-42; Yildirim, Diplomacy and Displacement, 45-59.
121.
Definitions of minorities also changed. If the Neuilly Convention discussed the exchange of "racial, religious and linguistic minorities," Lausanne opted for an exchange based on religion, targeting "Turkish citizens of the Greek-orthodox religion established in Turkish territory and Greek citizens of the Muslim religion established in Greek territory." See Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities, 41, 345, as well as the texts of the conventions in the appendix, 739-43, 787-94.
