Bloody Christmas (1945)

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The Bloody Christmas (Bulgarian: Кървава Коледа, Karvava Koleda) or the Bloody Bozhik (Кървав Божик, Karvav Bozhik) was a campaign in which several hundreds of people with Bulgarian self-identification were killed as collaborators by the Yugoslav communist authorities in the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia between January 7–9, 1945.[1] Thousands of others who retained their pro-Bulgarian sympathies suffered severe repression as a result.[2]

After the end of the Second World War, manifested Bulgarians in the so-called "new lands" in Vardar Macedonia, briefly annexed to Bulgaria during the war, were persecuted with the heavy charges of "great-Bulgarian chauvinism". This chapter of the Macedonia's history was a taboo subject for conversation until the late 1980s, and as a result, decades of official silence created a reaction in the form of numerous data manipulations for nationalist, communist propaganda purposes.[3] The Macedonian national consciousness was only in germination until 1945, but at the end of the WWII it was ripe for development and a political decision to do it was taken.[4] To wipe out the bulgarophile sentiments of parts of the local population, the Yugoslav Communists started a remarcable process of nation-building.[5] This events are belittled even today in the Republic of Macedonia and their victims are counted at only 200 people, but Ethnic Macedonians.[6]

From the start of the new SR Macedonia, accusations surfaced that new authorities were involved in retribution against people who did not support the formation of the new Ethnic Macedonian identity.[7] The numbers of dead "traitors" and "collaborators" due to organized killings of Bulgarians during the Bloody Christmas and afterwards, however is unclear, but some sources put the number of the victims to 1,200.[8] The idea was to weaken the Bulgarian intelligentsia in Macedonia, to eradicate the Bulgarian self-consciousness of parts of the population and to speed-up the process of Macedonisation.[9] During the terror of January 1945, on the road between the lake Ohrid and lake Prespa, on the hills of the Galichica Mountain near the village of Teševo and other villages, more Bulgarians were executed.[10] Most of the bodies were disposed of in the Prespa lake. Nearly all inhabited places in Vardar Macedonia provided victims for the campaign.[11] In several cities in Vardar Macedonia which were set up people's courts, issuing death sentences over citizens charged of "great-Bulgarian chauvinism". Only in Skopje in 1945, 18 trials were held with 226 defendants, 22 of whom were sentenced to death. In Stip in the same period seven Bulgarians were sentenced to death, in Prilep - ten, in Veles - ten, in Bitola - nine etc. According to Bulgarian sources only in the period 1945-1947 over 4,700 Bulgarians were massacred or gone missing.[12] As a result of the purge, thousands were deported, displaced, persecuted or sent to concentration camps of the Former Yugoslavia.[13]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810855658, p. 287.
  2. ↑ Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1850655340, p. 118.
  3. ↑ Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Chris Kostov , Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 84.
  4. ↑ Thinking About Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates About the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, Sabrina P. Ramet, Cambridge University Press, 2005 ISBN 0521616905, p. 281.
  5. ↑ Essence of political manipulation: emotion, institutions, & Greek foreign policy, Nikolaos Zahariadis, Peter Lang, 2005, ISBN 0820479039, p. 85.
  6. ↑ Весник Народна волjа, Февруари 2009, Крвавото „Коледе“ распали антимакедонски оган во Бугариjа.
  7. ↑ Djokić, Dejan (2003). Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea, 1918-1992. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. pp. 122. ISBN 1-85065-663-0.
  8. ↑ Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans, John Phillips, I.B.Tauris, 2004, ISBN 186064841X, p. 40.
  9. ↑ Мичев, Д. Македонският въпрос и българо-югославските отношения 1944-1949 г. Университетско издателство "Свети Климент Охридски", София, 1994 г. стр. 80-82.
  10. ↑ Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него Коста Църнушанов, Университетско издателство "Свети Климент Охридски", София, 1992 г.; глава. 25. и гл. 26.
  11. ↑ Angelov, Veselin. Macedonian Bloody Christmas, Galik Publishing House, Sofia 2003, ISBN 9548008777, pp. 179-201.
  12. ↑ Новата национално-освободителна борба във Вардарска Македония 1944-1991 г. Димитър Гоцев, Македонски научен институт, София, 1998 г. гл. 3.
  13. ↑ State Identities and the Homogenisation of Peoples, Heather Rae, Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 052179708X, p. 227.

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