The language of the Macedonians is intermediate between Serbian and Bulgarian. Its affinity with the latter, however, is sufficiently pronounced to have led generally to merging. Travelers in the land of the Macedonian Slavs soon learn that a knowledge of Bulgarian will obviate difficulties due to ignorance of the country’s vernaculars. Serbian, however, is not as readily intelligible to the natives. This relation has favored the Bulgarian side whenever controversy arose and compilers of linguistic or ethnographic maps have generally abstained from differentiating the Macedonian from the Bulgarian area.[195] The impossibility for Bulgarians to regard the terms of the treaty of Bucarest as final is, therefore, obvious. Extension of the Rumanian boundary to the Turtukai-Black Sea line was also an encroachment on soil where Bulgarian was the predominant language.[196]
The area of Bulgarian speech awarded to Greece by the treaty of Bucarest in 1913 attains the Albanian boundary near Lakes Prespa and Kastoria. The upper valley of the Bistritza river crosses a region peopled by Macedonians. The former Turkish caza of Kastoria contained a majority of Bulgarian-speaking inhabitants. The domain of Greek speech begins south of Lapsista and extends eastward halfway between Kailar and Kochana. Greek predominance is maintained around Karaferia. The environs of Salonica contain a slight excess of Greek inhabitants over Bulgarians, but the Greek element is not as closely attached to the land as the Bulgarian. The line of lakes on the north of the Chalcydic peninsula forms the boundary between Greeks and Bulgarians, the latter element extending north of these inland waters to the present Bulgarian frontier.
The loss of Macedonia was bitterly resented by Bulgarians, not only on account of the racial ties which bind them to Macedonians, but also because their country’s economic development is hampered by the want of the harbors which constitute the natural sea outlets for the rearlands under Bulgarian rule. The industrial and commercial development of southwestern Bulgaria is handicapped at present by the necessity of shipping the products of the region over a devious stretch of railroad through Sofia-Philippopoli-Dedeagatch. The alternative via Serbia or Greece is equally costly. The population of a considerable portion of the country is, therefore, unable to compete with rival producers of the two neighboring countries.
In the first half of 1913 negotiations between the Greek and Bulgarian governments were in progress for the division of lands conquered from the Turks. At that time the Greek government was willing to recognize Bulgarian sovereignty over the cazas of Kavalla, Drama, Pravista, Serres, Demir-Hissar and Kukush. This was done on Mr. Venizelos’ understanding that these districts were sparsely inhabited by Greeks,[197] and that Kavalla was the natural seaport of the districts of Strumnitza, Melnik, Jumaya, Nevrokop and Razlog.
Many of the districts thus offered to Bulgaria were peopled mainly by Turks. According to Turkish statistics the caza of Kara-Shaban does not contain a single Christian village. Its population consists almost entirely of Turks numbering about 15,000. The caza of Kavalla, having a population of 30,000, is likewise largely Turkish. The Greek element is reckoned at about 4,000, while some 3,500 Pomaks or Bulgarian Mohammedans are scattered in many villages.
Of the 50,000 inhabitants of the caza of Drama fully one-half were Turks, the number of Greeks hardly attained 4,000, while the Bulgarian element consisted of 20,000 inhabitants divided into equal numbers of Exarchists and Pomaks. In the caza of Serres, the Bulgarians number approximately 40,000, while the Greek population comprises 27,000.[198] The caza of Demir-Hissar contains 33,000 Bulgarians out of a population of 50,250. The Greeks number about 250. In Kukush there are no Greeks at all. The population of this caza consists mainly of 20,000 Turks out of a total of 23,000 inhabitants. It should be remembered that the Turks emigrated en masse from this district after the treaty of Bucarest and that, barring forcible expulsion by the Greeks, the population of all this section of southeastern Macedonia is now overwhelmingly Bulgarian.
Prior to Philip’s time, Macedonia was a little-known mountainous province constantly overrun by Thracians and Illyrians. Soon after the overthrow of the Macedonian Empire by the Romans in 168 B.C. the region took its place among Roman provinces and eventually formed part of the Byzantine Empire. Rapacious Goths under Alaric brought havoc to the land after its fortunes were bound to that of the dominant eastern state. The Slavs made their appearance during the reign of Justinian. Their colonies had attained importance while Heraclius was on the throne. In the tenth century, Macedonia became part of the great Bulgarian kingdom, but gravitated later towards Byzantium, though not without having been the scene of disastrous struggles between Byzantine hosts and their barbarian foes. Turks and Tatars first overran the country in this period and even founded colonies. The two invasions from the east, of the Slavs and of the Turks, must have wrought profound changes in the Macedonian populations. A short period of Serbian rule was undergone in the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth, Macedonia became an integral portion of the Ottoman dominions and preserved this political status until its rescue during the Balkan wars of 1912-1913.
Ethnically Macedonians and Bulgarians consist of mixed European and Asiatic elements. The oldest layer in the population is Thracian. This local stock peopled the land at the time of the Roman conquest and was strongly Romanized during the subsequent centuries. Slavs overran the country in the sixth century. The Bulgarians made their appearance in the seventh. Turks, or rather Mongol and Tatar hordes, began their invasions in the eighth. These Asiatics were nomads. They made excellent soldiers but poor settlers. Their settlements, which were made at strategic points, can be recognized today by their commanding sites.
It is hard to determine how much of the Slav or of the Tatar exists in the average Bulgarian of our day. The history of the land during the second half of the first Christian millennium is a record of constant invasions from the east. The invaders appear at first to have been Slavs from the southern steppes of western Russia. As time goes on, however, Bulgaria is seen to absorb wanderers proceeding from more and more distant districts in the southern belts of the steppeland which forms the continuation of Europe into Asia. Slavic culture and speech preserved by the Bulgarians seem but the veil that hides their strong Asiatic affinity.