Nikola Minov

This article explores the reasons for the success of coffee and coffeehouses in Ottoman Macedonia. Coffee was first introduced in Ottoman Macedonia in the second half of the 16th century, while the first registered attempt to open a coffeehouse was in 1581. Initially, coffee was the drink of the élite and it was consumed mostly in coffeehouses in the largest Macedonian cities, such as Salonica and Bitola. By the end of the 19th century coffee invaded the rural regions as well, replacing the traditional grape syrup. Apart from the history of coffee and coffeehouses in Ottoman Macedonia, this article deals with subjects such as: the atmosphere in coffeehouses; the consumption of coffee by different ethnic and religious groups in Macedonia; the relation between coffee and keif; and the introduction of western-style cafés.

In this paper, we analyze the role of three different propaganda tools in the shaping of national identity in the last decades of Ottoman rule in Macedonia: the textbooks used in primary and secondary education, the establishment of national high schools, and the influence of medics. The historiographies of our neighboring states write extensively on foreign propaganda in Ottoman Macedonia, though usually they selectively observe only the propaganda of their strategic opponents, never
admitting to their own. The actions financed by their own states in this region are always described as ‘humanist’ and merely protective of ‘their own nation’ living in the region. However, after conducting a comparative analysis of three sponsored tools used by four Balkan states, we came to the conclusion that the Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Romanian presence in Ottoman Macedonia, despite their conflicting interests, followed the same modus operandi of classical propaganda.

The article summarizes the known data about the localization and numerical distribution of various Vlach groups in Macedonia in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Each Vlach group's (Moscopolitan; Grammoustian; Farsherot and Moglenite Vlachs) migrations are analyzed separately, following them from their starting points from which they ventured forth and dispersed all over Ottoman Macedonia at the end of the 18 th century, all the way to their dwellings in late 20 th century in North Macedonia. In the second part of the article we review the thorough, yet unofficial statistics of Gustav Weigand and Vasil Kanchov about the number of Vlachs in Ottoman Macedonia, as well as the number and territorial distribution of the Vlachs in Macedonia, as shown in the 1921 census in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Yugoslav census from 1931, the six censuses conduct

In this paper we present and analyze articles from over 100 newspapers worldwide , reporting on the death of the most prominent leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Gotse Delchev-in a skirmish with the Ottoman forces near the village of Banitsa. The presented articles were originally published in May and June 1903 in Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Germany, the Russian Empire, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Four different newspapers in four different countries, tell four different versions of the same event: On the 12 th of August 1903, the Turkish troops and the bashi-bazouks fell upon the ethnically diverse town of Kruševo in Ottoman Macedonia. In four days, hundreds of houses and shops were burned, while more than a hundred non-combatants, many of whom women and children, were murdered in the streets. The news of the atrocities hit the front pages of the leading newspapers in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania. While they all sent the same message of compassion for the victims and expressed strong disapproval of the Ottoman conduct in Kruševo, they could not agree about one issue: What was the ethnicity of the murdered civilians?

The paper deals with the formation and the activities of the so-called Romanian armed bands in Ottoman Macedonia, during the later stages of the Macedonian Struggle. These bands were consisted of pro-Romanian Vlachs from Macedonia and their main assignment was to fight the Greek bands of andartes and to protect the pro-Romanian communities. The paper analyses the key factors behind the decision to send “Romanian” armed bands in Macedonia, as well as the role of the Romanian state and the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in the creation, funding and disbandment of these bands.

The text offers a comparative analysis of the role and the objectives of four high schools in Ottoman Macedonia: the Serbian Boys’ Gymnasium in Skopje; the Greek Boys’ Gymnasium in Bitola; the Romanian Boys’ Lyceum in Bitola; and the Bulgarian Boys’ Gymnasium in Thessaloniki.
The final conclusion – that all these educational institutions, despite
their conflicting interests, followed the same modus operandi – is based on the answers of the following questions: Who financed these high schools? What was the internal structure of each of the four schools (curriculum; language of instruction; major subjects; schoolbooks)? What kind of qualifications did the students acquire after graduation? What was the role of the boarding schools? What was the ethnic origin and social class of the students, as well as the origin and the personal background of the teaching staff and the school directors?

The lack of professional medical staff was vigorously felt in 19th century Ottoman Macedonia. Aside from the Turkish military medics in the local garrisons, only a negligible number of Christian doctors could be found in Macedonian cities. Finding a doctor in the countryside was another rare occurrence. These circumstances placed the doctors in the highest levels of the social pyramid. The foreign diplomats and clerics were aware of the perspectives which would open up if they succeeded in their attempts to provide patronage over the medical staff in Ottoman Macedonia. Therefore, in the last decade of the 19th century, the Ministries of foreign affairs of the Balkan states spared no resources to finance their own medical phalanx in Macedonia. The first victim in this struggle for followers was the Macedonian Christian population, which, in order to satisfy its basic human and medical needs, was forced to make compromises with itself and its national consciousness.

Here we are taking a look into the manners in which the Bulgarian propaganda and the propaganda of the other Balkan countries used the medics in order to exercise their conquering plans in Macedonia. Thereby, we will use comparative analysis to test the thesis of the Bulgarian historiography, according to which the Greek, Serbian
and Romanian doctors in Ottoman Macedonia were propagandists, while the activities of the Bulgarian medics were “purely humanitarian, and aimed at healing the Bulgarian population”.

This study examines the “Aromanian question” during the protracted negotiations between Greece and the Ottoman Empire for the new border in Thessaly (1878-1881), as well as the behavior of certain Aromanian groups during the Greco-Turkish war (1897). The medieval “Great Wallachia”, or Thessaly Wallachia, was the historical foundation on which some Aromanian circles based their claims for an autonomous Aromanian state in the Balkans. The vague call of the Congress of Berlin (1878) for a border rectification between Greece and the Ottoman Empire immediately prompted a strong reaction from the above mentioned circles. Faced with the possibility to lose Thessaly to Greece, Apostol Margarit and his collaborators started a series of diplomatic and field activities to prove the Aromanian, or at least the non-Greek character of the region. All their attempts proved futile. In 1881 most of Thessaly was transferred to Greece, so the “Aromanian question” was destined to play a peripheral role within the “Macedonian question”.