Οι ανθελληνικοί διωγμοί στην Ανατολική Ρωμυλία κατά το έτος 1906 στα πλαίσια της βουλγαρικής κρατικής πολιτικής

Abstract

In this brief study, the writer uses mainly archival material to document the
view that the persecution of the Greeks in 1906 was not merely IMRO'S (the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation's) reaction to the successes of the
Greek guerrilla bands in Macedonia, but an organised policy by the Bulgarian
government. Since the Cretan Question was working out favourably for the Greeks
in 1906, the Petrov government wanted to offset this against a favourable settlement
of the Macedonian Question for Bulgaria. It therefore presented the anti-Greek
movement as an outburst of hatred on the part of the Bulgarian people provoked by the Greeks' “crimes” in Macedonia, in an effort to arouse the sympathy of the Great
Powers, who might then be prevailed upon to satisfy the Bulgarian demands (the
autonomy of Macedonia). The writer also mentions the impact of the anti-Greek
movement in Greece and the attitude of the Great Powers, the Oecumenical
Patriarchate, and the Ottoman government. Because of the crisis in Bulgarian-
Turkish relations in 1906, the Sublime Porte's reaction in Sofia to the seizing of the
Greek churches and schools was deliberately subdued, in order to avoid exacerbating
relations and avert a Bulgaro-Turkish war.
Although the persecution of the Greeks did not bring about the results Bulgaria
had hoped for as far as the Macedonian Question was concerned, the seizure of the
Greek churches and schools facilitated the Bulgarians' efforts to Bulgarianise the
Greeks and precipitated a wave of emigration to Greece.