Pride Goes Before a Fall: A Revolutionary Greece Timeline

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cmakk1012

Dementor said:
This is I fear the danger of relying on Wikipedia without checking the sources tit uses. The table was made by combining two sources: Teplov's report and the Ottoman interpretation of his figures, obviously a very dubious way to interpret data, not to mention something that would not be available at the time.


It's possible of course that the Eastern Rumelian census was biased in favor of the Bulgarians, though I haven't seen definite evidence or opinion to confirm this (and as I said, it was the only Bulgarian census that used the nationality definition favored by the Greeks). And if it should be suspected of pro-Bulgarian sympathies just on account of Eastern Rumelia being dominated by Bulgarians, so should the Patriarchate be suspected of pro-Greek sympathies. Your example in shows that at least concerning the later censuses figures the number is at most between that of the figures claimed by the Patriarchate and the Bulgarian census, though closer to the later, when considering the number of Greeks who left Bulgaria between 1906 and 1926: considering that the number of Greeks who left Bulgaria were about 60-70 thousand, the figures of the Patriarchate would leave about 20-30 thousand Greeks unaccounted for.

Of course I agree this was largely irrelevant to Greek attitudes or to British attitudes for that matter, who uses Greek claims as an excuse to create Eastern Rumelia in the first place...
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The most important thing to remember in the interminable debates about ethnic population in Macedonia and Thrace is that Thessaloniki/Solun/Salonica/Selanik/whatever is rightfully Jewish ;)
 

Wolttaire

I was reading online and I read that revolts in 1854 Macedonia , Thessaly, epruis and another revolt 1878 so are you planning to have one big revolt at some point becasse there were many other too it doesn't seem to amke sens that there were none
 

formion

Banned
My two cents in the discussion on Greeks and Bulgarians in Eastern Rumelia.

According to Dragostinova's book "between two motherlands: nationality and emigration among the Greek of Bulgaria, 1900-1949), according to the official bulgarian census of 1900, there were 70,887 "national" Greeks. However, 3,309 Sarakachani, who were a nomadic Greek population were categorized separately. The same was the case for 8,251 Gagauz, Turkish-speaking Christians who recognized the authority of the Patriarchate. The grecomans that attended Patriarchate churches were categorized as Bulgarians. The 100.000 Patriarchate flock is not contested. The afforementioned book is well researched and I don't have reasons to doubt the sources it cites.

Citation:
Theodora Dragostinova. Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900–1949. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press. 2011

I would think that the number of bulgarian-speaking pro-Patriarchates was decreased from 1878 to 1900: It makes sense, since the Exarchate was the dominant church. Dragostinova mentions "various campaigns to expropriate Greek communal buildings, especially churches and monasteries, in the late nineteenth century ". Such actions intensified after 1903. Therefore, I would guess that between 1878 and 1900 a number of "grecomans" shifted to the Exarchate.
 
Earl Marshal

Earl Marshal

Wolttaire said:
I was reading online and I read that revolts in 1854 Macedonia , Thessaly, epruis and another revolt 1878 so are you planning to have one big revolt at some point becasse there were many other too it doesn't seem to amke sens that there were none
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There may be something along those lines coming up shortly. ;)
 

cmakk1012

formion said:
I would think that the number of bulgarian-speaking pro-Patriarchates was decreased from 1878 to 1900: It makes sense, since the Exarchate was the dominant church. Dragostinova mentions "various campaigns to expropriate Greek communal buildings, especially churches and monasteries, in the late nineteenth century ". Such actions intensified after 1903. Therefore, I would guess that between 1878 and 1900 a number of "grecomans" shifted to the Exarchate.
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Avoiding a similar situation ITTL would require Greek control of Eastern Rumelia, which seems implausible without the direct support of a Great Power: the Bulgarians will be well organized in these regions and hostile to Greek incursions on a local level, including in religious matters.

EDIT: Could there be a population exchange between Greece and Bulgaria based on Patriarchate vs Exarchate at some point? That would help issues in Macedonia as well IMO...
 
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Earl Marshal

Earl Marshal

Wolttaire said:
will it be larger or is that giving to much away?
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There will be a few revolts, some of which are going to be bigger than others. When I do get to the big one, you will definitely know.

Wolttaire said:
Has the greek church started to make inroads onto majority greek areas outside of Greece controlled land?
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Not really. There are a few hundred followers of the Church of Greece in the Ottoman Empire, but these are mostly merchants, sailors, or diplomats from the Kingdom of Greece rather than locals. Although the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople finally acknowledged the Autocephaly of the Church of Greece and ended much of its antagonism towards the COG, the Patriarchy still maintains a near unanimous following by the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire.
 

Wolttaire

Earl Marshal said:
Not really. There are a few hundred followers of the Church of Greece in the Ottoman Empire, but these are mostly merchants, sailors, or diplomats from the Kingdom of Greece rather than locals. Although the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople finally acknowledged the Autocephaly of the Church of Greece and ended much of its antagonism towards the COG, the Patriarchy still maintains a near unanimous following by the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire.
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Why? wouldn't they see as way to loosen them from the authority of ottomans
 
Earl Marshal

Earl Marshal

Wolttaire said:
Why? wouldn't they see as way to loosen them from the authority of ottomans
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Despite being a puppet of the Ottoman Sultan, the Ecumenical Patriarch is still the legitimate head of the Orthodox Church in the eyes of most Orthodox Greeks both inside the Ottoman Empire and in the Kingdom of Greece. The Church of Greece in comparison was a largely unpopular institution among the common people initially, as they feared the Greek Government was taking control of the church for its own interests, and to an extent they were. This feeling was worse in OTL, when they had a Papist for a King and a Bavarian dominated Government as opposed to TTL which has a thoroughly Greek Government and an allegedly Orthodox King in Leopold. There is also a point to be made on the Ottomans not really permitting the Church of Greece to expand into the Empire.
 
Earl Marshal

Earl Marshal

I almost forgot, thank you all so much for all your support, all your assistance, and all your interest in this timeline over this past year. When I first started this timeline a year ago, I really wasn't sure what I was doing. This was my first timeline, and really my first major contribution to this forum since joining earlier that year. I didn't really know where I wanted to go with this timeline and to an extent I still don't really know, but throughout it all you have been a great audience who have helped me take this timeline to places I didn't even imagine when I wrote my first draft back in the Summer of 2017. I hope I can continue to write an entertaining and engaging story for everyone in the year ahead.
 

Dementor

Banned
formion said:
My two cents in the discussion on Greeks and Bulgarians in Eastern Rumelia.

According to Dragostinova's book "between two motherlands: nationality and emigration among the Greek of Bulgaria, 1900-1949), according to the official bulgarian census of 1900, there were 70,887 "national" Greeks. However, 3,309 Sarakachani, who were a nomadic Greek population were categorized separately. The same was the case for 8,251 Gagauz, Turkish-speaking Christians who recognized the authority of the Patriarchate. The grecomans that attended Patriarchate churches were categorized as Bulgarians. The 100.000 Patriarchate flock is not contested. The afforementioned book is well researched and I don't have reasons to doubt the sources it cites.
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First, it should be pointed out that for the most part the Sarakatsani and the Gagauz did not participate in the population exchange, so they wouldn't affect the estimates I showed above. Furthermore, when their number was taken into account, according to the book you're quoting, the claim made by the Greek government about the Greeks in Bulgaria and by the Bulgarian census agree almost exactly, so it's more of a case of different definitions of who is Greek. As for the figures by the Patriarchate, they're not disputed in the book, but they're not confirmed either. There is of course also the problem (as with the Gagauz) of counting Bulgarians following the Patriarchate as Greek (though this was in fact done in the census in Eastern Rumelia), considering their general tendency to the Exarchate and switch to a Bulgarian identification, which would be especially strong inside Bulgaria itself. I'm not aware of any significant number of them emigrating to Greece, in any case.

I would think that the number of bulgarian-speaking pro-Patriarchates was decreased from 1878 to 1900: It makes sense, since the Exarchate was the dominant church. Dragostinova mentions "various campaigns to expropriate Greek communal buildings, especially churches and monasteries, in the late nineteenth century ". Such actions intensified after 1903. Therefore, I would guess that between 1878 and 1900 a number of "grecomans" shifted to the Exarchate.
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Switching happened without any official action in Ottoman ruled areas as well. It should not be surprising that people speaking the same languages would be assimilated in the same ethnicity over time.

Of course it should be pointed out that even accepting the highest possible figures, it seems unlikely that they were even 100 thousand Greeks in Eastern Rumelia (the Patriarchate figure is for the whole country), let alone 200 thousand.
 
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