MACEDONIA PERENNIAL BONE OF CONTENTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-01006A000100110001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 25, 2002
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 19, 1958
• Content Type: IM

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Copy No. 7
GEOGRAPHIC
INTELLIGENCE
MEMORANDUM
CIA/RR-GM-II
19 November 1958
MACEDONIA
PERENNIAL BONE OF CONTENTION
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND REPORTS
This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within
the meaning of the espionage laws, Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the transmission
or revelation of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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MACEDONIA
PERENNIAL BONE OF CONTENTION
The "Macedonian Question" has again arisen as an irritant in Yugoslav-
Bulgarian relations. In a speech on 12 September 1958, Dimitur Ganev, Bulgarian
politburo member and party theoretician, charged the Yugoslav Government with
attempting to denationalize the Macedonian population in Yugoslavia. Accusations
in the Albanian press during September to the effect that Yugoslavia had per-
secuted its Albanian minority indicated that the Bulgarian attack was part of
a wider Bloc anti-Tito campaign. Yugoslavia protested both the Albanian and
the Bulgarian charges. On 5 October 1958, Yugoslavia announced the formation
of a semi-independent Macedonian Orthodox Church within its Macedonian People's
Republic.
Questions of national identity, religious authority, rival territorial
claims, and "Bloc" interests are all involved in the complex Macedonian issue,
which has plagued Balkan relations for many generations. The term Macedonia
as commonly understood refers both to an ill-defined geographic area in the
Balkan Peninsula and to the concept of a nation of Macedonian Slav peoples.
The core area of Macedonia is generally recognized and accepted, but its
outer limits cannot be defined with any degree of accuracy since the area is
neither a homogeneous physical, economic, nor sociological unit with sharply
defined borders*. The boundary shown on the accompanying map incorporates the
core area accepted by most authorities. The area thus bounded is roughly
coincident with the Macedonian People's Republic in Yugoslavia (Vardar Macedonia),
the Blagoev'ad Okrug in Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia), and the Dhiamerisma (region)
of Makedhonia ixi Greece (Aegean Macedonia)**. It consists of rough mountainous
terrain interrupted by a series of fertile basins drained by the extensive Vardar
(Axios), Aliakmon, Struma (Strimon), and Mesta (Nestos) River systems. The
Vardar Valley in conjunction with the Morava Valley to the north forms an almost
continuous north-south corridor through Macedonia connecting Belgrade on the
Danube with the port of Salonika (Thessaloniki) on the Aegean Sea. A lesser
route through Macedonia is the Struma Corridor to the east, which connects the
Aegean littoral in Greece with the Sofia Basin in Bulgaria. Historically the
existence of these corridors has made Macedonia a region of transit between
Central Europe and the eastern Mediterranean and has facilitated its control
from the outside. Apart from the main north-south corridors, a chaotic juxta-
position of mountains and basins has tended to inhibit local communication and
the development of strong local political organization.
In general Macedonia is not richly endowed with natural resources. The
basin areas are generally fertile and support relatively dense agricultural
populations, whereas the mountains are likely to have poor soils, scant
vegetation, and sparse population, mostly engaged in herding. Mineral and fuel
deposits have given rise to small-scale mining operations in various localities,
and lumbering is carried on in the higher mountains, especially in Bulgarian
Macedonia.
Aside from any intrinsic value as "real estate," the geographic position of
Macedonia makes it important to both Yugoslavia and the Soviet Bloc. Yugoslav
Macedonia is potentially an air corridor and, to a lesser degree, a land bridge
between exposed Albania and the rest of the Soviet Bloc. While Yugoslavia
remained a loyal satellite, Bloc interests in the region were protected; with
Tito's expulsion, however, Albania has been left as an isolated exclave. To
Yugoslavia, the Macedonian People's Republic served in the immediate postwar
years as a magnet which Tito hoped would attract both Bulgarian and Greek
Macedonia, thus providing Yugoslavia with an outlet to the Aegean Sea and
greatly enlarging its sphere of influence in the Balkans.
*See__"_Boundaries of Macedonia," Map Research Bulletin, No. 12, December
1949, for a fuller discussion of this question.
**This term is of Slav (probably Yugoslav) origin and concept and was con-
cocted for obvious political purposes to replace the term "Greek Macedonia."
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Although the professed national consciousness of the Macedonian Slavs is
an important aspect of the "Macedonian Question," Macedonia is not a region of
ethnic homogeneity. In addition to the Macedonian Slavs, the other ethnic
groups now found in the region are Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek, Albanian, Turkish,
and Vlach (a Rumanian-speaking seminomadic people). Even groups sharing the
same racial or national background may differ in language or religious affiliation.
The bulk of the population is Eastern Orthodox Christian; but the Turks, many of
the Albanians, and small proportions of other ethnic groups are Moslem.
There is some question as to whether the Macedonian Slavs actually constitute
a separate ethnic group distinct from the Bulgarians and Serbians. They speak a
Slavic dialect transitional between Serbian and Bulgarian. Yugoslavia maintains
that this is a separate language, spoken by about 69 percent of the population
of Yugoslav Macedonia, and that the Macedonian Slavs are, therefore, a separate
ethnic group. Bulgaria considers that the Macedonian Slavs share a common history
and culture with the Bulgarians and that the two peoples speak only slightly
different dialects of a common language. The Macedonian Slavs and Bulgarians
together constitute 80 to 95 percent of the population of Bulgarian Macedonia;
but the ratio of Macedonian Slavs to Bulgarians cannot be ascertained. Greece
does not recognize a Macedonian nationality; but, under the term "Slavophone,"
the Macedonian Slavs of Greece are considered as a linguistic minority variously
estimated at 3.5 to 12 percent of the total population of Greek Macedonia.
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The Macedonian Slavs themselves appear to have had little or no feeling of
national identity prior to the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and World War I. Since
that period, however, having been alternately wooed and oppressed by both Serb
and Bulgar and prodded by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization,
the Macedonian Slavs appear to have gradually developed a national consciousness
and aspirations for political independence.
Bulgarian and Yugoslav rivalry for hegemony in Macedonia has centered
largely around attempts of each to command the allegiance of all the Macedonian
Slavs. These attempts have run the gamut from cultural and religious education
to terrorism and military control. After World War II, Tito's plans envisaged
the incorporation of both Bulgarian and Greek Macedonia into the Macedonian
People's Republic, and the federation of the remainder of Bulgaria with Yugoslavia.
Bulgaria, on the other hand, sought the creation of an autonomous Macedonia state
in which the Bulgarian, Yugoslav, and Greek portions would be combined within a
loose federation of Communist Balkan states. After first approving Tito's plan,
Moscow later reversed itself -- a few months before the Yugoslav-Cominform break
in 1948. The Cominform then seems to have adopted the Bulgarian position on the
Macedonian Question. During the brief rapprochement between Yugoslavia and the
Soviet Bloc (1955-58), the plan to annex Bulgarian Macedonia to Yugoslavia was
reportedly revived, but apparently no concrete steps were taken toward its
realization.
Each of the three governments is attempting to develop its Macedonian
territory economically and culturally in order to strengthen the allegiance of
its population, to defeat any irredentist propaganda of its neighbors, and
(in the case of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia) to increase the attractiveness of
its own irredentist propaganda.
Yugoslavia has expended considerable effort on the development of industry
and improvement of agriculture in the Macedonian People's Republic, which is
one of the least developed regions of the country. Some 65 factories have been
built in the last 10 years, reflecting an effort to utilize local resources and
water power. Among the products of these factories are chrome, bichromate,
ferro-alloys, ornamental metals, carbide, cement, glass, porcelain, veneers,
processed food, and woolen and cotton cloth. A hydroelectric plant is also
under construction in northwestern Macedonia. Even now, however, only about
23 percent of the employed population is engaged in industry -- the second
lowest percentage among the republics of Yugoslavia. Although Macedonia lags
behind the other Yugoslav republics in agricultural yields, it is of importance
in the national economy as the number-one producer of cotton, tobacco, and
poppies. Most of the investment in agriculture has been devoted to irrigation
and drainage projects.
Much attention has also been paid to social and cultural development within
the Macedonian People's Republic. Probably the most important cultural program
undertaken was the official recognition of a Macedonian language and place names
and the concomitant establishment.of schools, libraries, printing houses,
societies, theaters, and radio stations to foster the development of this
official tongue and to combat illiteracy in general. The Yugoslav Government
apparently also made some attempts to extend its official Macedonian language
to the Macedonian Slavs of Bulgarian Macedonia, much to the indignation of
Bulgaria. Recently, in the verbal dispute between the two countries, a
Bulgarian official spokesman alleged that the Macedonian population in Yugoslav
Macedonia is being compelled to give up its mother tongue and accept an
artificially molded, strongly Serbianized language. The Yugoslav program of
granting the Macedonian Slavs a limited amount of political and cultural
autonomy within the larger framework of the Yugoslav state seems to have
fostered a desire on the part of the Macedonians for even more autonomy. Their
recent desire for a completely independent Macedonian Orthodox Church -- although
not fully realized -- was one such manifestation.
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Bulgarian Macedonia, with only 1.6 percent of Bulgaria's gross industrial
production in 1956, is the least developed part of that country. Nevertheless,
it has certain natural assets that give it a measure of economic importance.
The Struma Valley, open to the influences of the warm Mediterranean climate to
the south, is being developed as an area of intensive crop cultivation --
specializing in fruits, vegetables and industrial crops such as peanuts, poppies,
and varieties of tobacco and cotton that cannot be widely grown in other parts
of Bulgaria. Several small irrigation systems and hydroelectric plants utilizing
the ample water resources of the high Pirin and Rila Mountains have been
constructed as part of the regional development program. Both lumbering and
lignite mining have been expanded in recent years. The coniferous forest
reserves are among the largest in Bulgaria.
The Greeks, although not involved in the present dispute, are naturally
sensitive to any raising of the Macedonian Question. Greek Macedonia includes
Salonika, the second largest city and port of Greece, as well as some of the
most important agricultural, mineral, and fuel resources of the country. The
region produces over half of the tobacco crop of Greece, the principal export
commodity of the country. Economic development in the region has progressed
considerably since World War II. Drainage and irrigation work, initiated in
the 1920's, is still being expanded. A hydroelectric station has been built
and the power network extended. Plans are being implemented to develop the
Ptolemais lignite deposit, one of the most important potential sources of
power in Greece. Following the Greek Civil War (19+6-1l9) the government undertook
to rebuild some of the border villages abandoned by their former Slavophone
inhabitants when they fled or were driven northward into Communist countries.
These villages were resettled with ethnic Greeks. Various other rural development
projects aimed at improving life in the border villages were also undertaken.
In part, this program was carried on to counteract developments on the Bulgarian
side of the border. The Bulgarians had supplied their border villages with
electricity and running water, reportedly to impress the neighboring Greeks
with the amenities of life behind the Iron Curtain.
Although the verbal exchange between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria appears to
be merely a propaganda battle, it points up the fact that, in spite of a decade
of quiescence, Macedonia continues to be a potential trouble spot. Even though
the dispute over Macedonia should remain in the status of a "cold war," the
expression of concern -- whether genuine or feigned -- for the interests of
the Macedonian Slavs is an excellent weapon in fighting such a war.
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