Written for Anthro390R, 4/21/1999.
Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood : Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990, by Anastasia N. Karakasidou
In the years between the first and the second World Wars, nation-building was a process of Hellenization, of creating an affiliation with and loyalty toward Greece through cultural homogenization. Social relations in rural Greek Macedonia were restructured through several developments. The most important new factor in defining identity in that era was the mass relocation of refugees.
The new nation-state of Greece was fighting a war against Turkey in the early 1920s for possession of Constantinople and the surrounding area in a bid to gain more land for itself (a nation-building process in itself, that is, accumulation). The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 settled the conflict and delineated the terms under which each nation would “repatriate” the peoples belonging to their ethnic categories back into their nation. Greeks living in Turkey for hundreds of years were uprooted from their homes and shipped back to the countries of their ancestors’ origin, categorized mainly on the basis of religion. And so thousands of Muslims were shipped to Turkey, and Orthodox Christians were shipped to Greece. These Greek refugees were settled for the most part in rural areas of Greek Macedonia, especially Karakasidou's focus village of Assiros (or Guvezna, depending on the time period).
This was an important factor in Hellenizing Greek Macedonia. The resettlement of refugees in the area strengthened its ties to the Greek government, augmented later by the redistribution of land. The refugees identified with the nation of the Hellenes based on their religion and ancestry, but the locals of Greek Macedonia regarded them as outsiders when they first arrived. The refugees then became vocal about their Greekness to justify their presence in Greek Macedonia, cohering as a group based on shared experiences. They adapted to the Greek culture to survive. Today the story of these same refugees who were considered outsiders upon their arrival is used as a “tool with which to decry the persecution of Greeks in general” (p. 147). The relocation of these peoples (Greek Muslims of Turkish extract and Turkish Christians of Greek extract) imposed upon them a national-based category which had only just been invented. Before that time, group membership was based on class, family, village, and the like. Nationalism had never before been a category. In Assiros, the refugees had established their own towns not far from Assiros due to the lack of acceptance from the locals, but still proclaimed themselves essentially Greek. The locals considered themselves to be more Greek, and so a sense of nationalism was created in the town.
The veneration of heroes, local martyrs and veterans, and patron saints, in ceremonies, rituals, holidays, and village traditions in Greek Macedonia also contributes to Greek national consciousness in Guvezna/Assiros. The villagers celebrate national holidays through patriotic activities such as wearing the “traditional” costumes of the Greek Independence fighters of 1821, wearing the colors of the national flag, and parading the Greek flag down the streets and into the aghora (market, the center of village life). Mandatory military drafting has also augmented a sense of national identity in the region. Basic training indoctrinates the men into Greek nationalism in a “classic rite of passage” (p. 199) in which the soldiers pass through a liminal stage into a new status as good soldiers and good citizens.
“Religion and education provided an institutional context for the promulgation of enlightenment ideologies of national identity.” (p. 108) Greek schools and the Orthodox Church occupied the same niche in the propaganda campaign for Greek nationalism. The Greek Orthodox Church had held sway for hundred of years over the region=s Christians, and with the schism of the Bulgarian Exarchate from the Greek Patriarchate, religion became another divisive category of Us versus Them. The Orthodox Church was a “mechanism of homogenization and assimilation,” and became “reborn as a national consciousness” (p. 82-83). Orthodoxy was now an institution of solidarity, both for the locals and the refugees, through which groups from diverse backgrounds asserted their Hellenism. The Patriarchate put forth the ideology that the Church had preserved the “Greek national identity” during hundreds of years of Ottoman rule.
The establishment of Greek schools was another important factor in Hellenizing the area. Education was given in Greek and only Greek, and other languages were forbidden in the schoolroom. The development of a local literate, Greek-speaking class fostered a “historical prejudice” (p. 88) against the illiterate (according to Greek propaganda) Slavic-speakers in the area. School became for the Slavic-speakers a “forum of conversion and transformation.” (p. 137) Students began as a member of a Slavic minority, but graduated as Greeks. They were indoctrinated into Hellenism through the dominance of Greek language and culture. The literate, Christian Greek class controlled the politics, economy, and religion of the village. This upper class became known as the tsorbadjidhes.
The tsorbadjidhes were the Greek-speaking Christian notables of Guvezna/Assiros whose interests leaned towards the Greek state, which had a strong developing economy that they learned to exploit. The patron/client relations between the tsorbadjidhes as the community leaders and the lesser peasantry aided in the dominance of Greek national ideology. They were the community leaders, local politicians, store owners, landlords, and employers. The tsorbadjidhes represented the major national political party organizations in rural Greek Macedonia. In order to get along with them, residents of Guvezna/Assiros who were considered “Bulgarian” aligned themselves with the Greek nation-state. A laboring, poor villager of Assiros, to make ends meet, had to have a patron to sponsor him. The patron was almost invariably a member of the tsorbadjis. To gain his favor, one supported his political party, stressed one's ties to Greek ancestry, and became a Greek. They created a reputation for the town as a stronghold of conservative Greek politics and culture. The tsorbadjidhes came to personify Greek culture and authority in Guvezna/Assiros. They “brokered a restratification of local society and the development of a common national identity among local inhabitants.” (p. 173) Their patronage roles played a major role in creating a new class structure in Assiros.
Under the Metaxas dictatorship of the 1930s, cultural and ethnic assimilation and homogenization within the Hellenes became more and more pressured. A sense of Greek national identity had “taken root in the consciousness of local residents” (p. 198), even those who had formerly been opposed to Greek nation-building activities in the area. Speaking any language other than Greek was outlawed, and fines were levied against those who did. Husbands forbade their wives and children to speak any Slavic language even in their homes. The name of the town was changed from Guvezna to Assiros to assert their Greekness. Families in addition to other towns in the region also changed their names to eradicate reminders of Ottoman, Slavic, or any non-Greek culture in Greek Macedonia. A campaign against communism and “anti-Greek” supporters was waged, on a local level by the tsorbadjis authorities. People were punished basically for not being Greek enough, which served as an example for any who might have been a supporter of communism, and enforced Hellenic solidarity. The tsorbadjidhes also, in their role as patrons and sponsors, perpetuated the Greek tradition by sponsoring baptisms and thereby choosing Greek names for children of more mixed ethnic ancestry. The Assiriote tsorbadjidhes, then, quite literally “sponsored the local citizenry's rite of passage to Greek nationhood in Macedonia.” (p. 189)
After World War II, the efforts of the United Nations to rebuild were exploited again by the tsorbadjis elite, who, as the local authorites, were given the rights to distribute the aid they were sent. They used their position to further their economic interests, buying tractors and other mechanized farming equipment. This helped them to more firmly establish a monopoly over the local economy, and put many local smallholders out of business until industrialization gave them factory jobs and the like in the 1970s and 1980s. The tsorbadjidhes frequently used force to achieve their ends and extend their patronage and influence in the local arena. Similar to the mafia in Sicily, their “manifest willingness. . . to employ violence, terror, or extortion in pursuit of their goals and defense of their interest was an important aspect of their dominance, both political and economic.” (p. 209)
It was through the tsorbadjis class dominance that the past issues of ethnicity, religion, and nationalism, took a back seat in relevance to class divisions. Once everyone in the village professed themselves Greeks, class stratification became the most important divisive category. The dual-class structure of Assiriote society became more and more polarized as the tsorbadjidhes exploited their positions as local authorities for their own self-aggrandizement and economical gain. This more immediate division of poor versus wealthy and the struggle for material survival became more important to the villagers of Guvezna/Assiros after the Balkan Wars, and especially after World War II than past divisions of race and nation. “It was thus in the arena of the local township that the ideology of the nation of the Hellenes and the politics of the Greek state were played out.” (p. 189)