Many settlements in Macedonia region in Northern Greece had Greek and non-Greek forms. Most of those names were in use during the multinational environment of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the forms were identifiably of Greek origin, others of Slavic, yet others of Turkish or more obscure origins. Following the First World War and the Graeco-Turkish War which followed, an exchange of population took place between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. (Treaty of Neuilly, between Greece and Bulgaria and Treaty of Lausanne, between Greece and Turkey) The villages of the exchanged populations (Bulgarians and Muslims) in Greece were resettled with Greeks from Asia Minor and local Macedonian Greeks.
Since the Greek state became ethnic[1] the Greek government renamed many places with revived ancient names, local Greek-language names, or translations of the non-Greek names.:[2][3] The multi ethnic names were officially removed and the former multiethnic composition of the region was almost denied.[4][5] A lot of historical Greek names from Asia Minor were also introduced in the region mainly by the resettled refugees. Many Demotic Greek names were also replaced by a Katharevousa Greek form, usually different only morphologically.
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time; however, it came to be defined as the modern geographical region by the mid 19th century. Today the region is considered to include parts of six Balkan countries: larger parts in Greece, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria, and smaller parts in Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo. It covers approximately 67,000 square kilometres (25,869 sq mi) and has a population of 4.76 million.
Aegean Macedonia is a term describing the modern Greek region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. It is currently mainly used in the Republic of North Macedonia, including in the irredentist context of a United Macedonia. The term is also used in Bulgaria as the more common synonym for Greek Macedonia, without the connotations it has in the Republic of North Macedonia. The term has no circulation in Greece, since Aegean usually refers to the Greek islands or to strictly Greek coastal areas with direct access to the Aegean Sea. Although Greek Macedonia does indeed have its coastline along the northern Aegean, the province is more than anything else dominated by its high mountain ranges and broad, grassy plains, rather than by its coastline.
Exaplatanos is a village and a former municipality in the Pella regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Almopia, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 422.907 km2. Population 7,243 (2011). In 1912 the village numbered 1,315 residents exclusively Pomak Muslims.
Konstantia is a village in the Exaplatanos municipal unit of the Pella regional unit of Macedonia, Greece. It lies on the road to Foustani at an altitude of 180 meters.
Ohrana were armed collaborationist detachments organized by the former Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) structures, composed of Bulgarians in Nazi-occupied Greek Macedonia during World War II and led by officers of the Bulgarian Army. Bulgaria was interested in acquiring Thessalonica and Western Macedonia, under Italian and German occupation and hoped to sway the allegiance of the 80,000 Slavs who lived there at the time. The appearance of Greek partisans in those areas persuaded the Axis to allow the formation of these collaborationst detachments. However, during late 1944, when the Axis appeared to be losing the war, many Slavophone Nazi collaborators, Ohrana members and VMRO regiment volunteers fled to the opposite camp by joining the newly founded communist SNOF. The organization managed to recruit initially 1,000 up to 3,000 armed men from the Slavophone community that lived in the western part of Greek Macedonia.
Plevroma is a village in the Pella regional unit of Macedonia, Greece. It is part of the community Petraia within the municipality of Skydra. According to the 2011 census, it has a population of 261.
Karydia is a village in the municipality of Edessa, Pella regional unit, northern Greece. It is situated 9 km northwest of Edessa. At the church in the locality Kosteno there is an annual festival on 21 May, the day of Saint Helena.
Oreino is a former village, now in ruins, in Kavala regional unit, Greece. During the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the early 1920s, the population, primarily Turks with some Slavs, were forced to leave their homes and the village was not repopulated. There is a large stone wall that still lyes there after a war that occurred in 1500 ad and that village had started that war
Zarkadia is a village and a community in the municipal unit of Chrysoupoli in the Kavala regional unit, Greece. The community consists of the villages Zarkadia and Ekali.). Zakardia and Ekali had a population of 598 and 73 respectively at the 2011 census.
Kalamon or Kalamonas, until the 1920s known as Bosinos is a village in Kalampaki municipality, Drama regional unit, Greece. At the 2011 census, the population of the village was 597.
Kyrgia is a village and a community in the municipality of Doxato, Drama regional unit, northern Greece. The community consists of the following villages:
Trikomo, before 1927 known as Zalovo (Ζάλοβο), is a settlement and a community in the municipal unit Theodoros Ziakas, in Grevena regional unit, Greece. The 2011 census gives its population as 128. The community has an area of 16.853 km2.
Slavic speakers are a linguistic minority population in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, who are mostly concentrated in certain parts of the peripheries of West and Central Macedonia, adjacent to the territory of the state of North Macedonia. The language called "Slavic" in the context of Greece is generally called "Macedonian" or "Macedonian Slavic" otherwise. Some members have formed their own emigrant communities in neighbouring countries, as well as further abroad.
The Greek state has systematically replaced geographical and topographic names of non-Greek origin with Greek names as part of a policy and ideology of Hellenization. The main objective of the initiative has been to assimilate or hide geographical or topographical names that were deemed foreign and divisive against Greek unity or considered to be "bad Greek". The names that were considered foreign were usually of Albanian, Slavic, and Turkish origin. Most of the name changes occurred in the Arvanite settlements in central Greece and, after the Balkan Wars, in the ethnically heterogeneous northern Greece. Place names of Greek origin were also renamed after names in Classical Greece.
References
↑ Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Forced Settlement of Refugees, Oxford University Press, 2006, “The influx of Greek refugees coupled, with the departure of Muslims and pro-Bulgarian Slav Macedonians, produced a radical ethnological impact: whereas Macedonia was 42 per cent Greek in 1912, it was 89 per cent in 1926.”
↑ Todor Hristov Simovski, The Inhabited Places of the Aegean Macedonia (Skopje 1998), ISBN9989-9819-4-9, pp. XXXVIII-XLII.
↑ Bintliff, "The Ethnoarchaeology of a 'Passive' Ethnicity", in K.S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis, The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, Lexington Books, 2003, p. 138 “This denial of the multiethnic composition of the rural landscape has been helped by state-imposed systematic place-name changes throughout this century, many as late as the 1960s, through which a wonderful scatter of traditional Greek, Slav, Albanian, and sometimes Italian village names has been suppressed—wherever conceivable—in favor of the name of any ancient Greek toponym remotely connected to the neighborhood.
↑ Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Forced Settlement of Refugees, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 292-4. “The policy of Hellenizing toponyms was fundamental to the more comprehensive process of establishing a collective ethnic consciousness and a sense of national identity rooted deeply in the profundity of time and history.”
↑ The Slavic is in the Bulgarian alphabet; various Romanization schema would render "ch" as "č", "sh" as "š", "zh" as "ž", "kh" as "h", "dzh" as "j", "gj" as "g", "kj" as "k", and "ts" as "c".
↑ All citations are to Todor Hristov Simovski, The Inhabited Places of the Aegean Macedonia (Skopje 1998), ISBN9989-9819-4-9
↑ "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2009-03-18. Retrieved 2009-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).(in Greek) Data from the 2001 census, at the National Statistical Service of Greece (ΕΣΥΕ), www.statistics.gr
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