Odyssey of the Sarakatsani in the FYROM

The greatest number of the Sarakatsani living in the FYROM abandoned their territories systematically during the '50s and '60s because of the modus operandi and pressure exercised by the local authorities there.

For the record, the first wave of Sarakatsani settled in the prefectures of Serres and Rodopi during the occupation because there were no borders at the time.

The second wave of Sarakatsani arrived during the '50s.This consisted of a few families that settled in Gonimo (Serres) and in Halastra.

The main bulk of Saratsani, though, arrived during the '60s.These people settled in the municipality of Eleftherio-New Kordelio.
The life these people used to lead in Skopje was a nomadic one, until 1948. Then the Titoic regime applied the kolkhoz system. The first measure taken was to seize the sheep of those families that owned a herd of over 400 and leave them with only 20.
The fact that the Sarakatsanoi declared the number of sheep in the name of the suffragan when they rented grazing grounds made the seizure easier.

Later on that limit was eliminated and the seizure expanded even to those Sarakatsani who had escaped confiscations up until then.
Then, because the destruction of their herds by the kolkhoz system had rendered their nomadic lifestyle incapable of supporting them, the Sarakatsanoi settled down in cities and villages, living together with the locals.They were forced to become townsmen -unsuccessfully.

Nevertheless they continued marrying with their own cultural group (endogamy) and preserved their language, customs and traditions.

The Sarakatsani were aggrieved having their herds seized and indignant with their compulsory urbanisation, so as time went by the idea of returning to Greece began to grow in their minds.

Up until 1958 mass emigration from Yugoslavia was forbidden. When people were finally allowed to emigrate in large numbers from Yugoslavia, the Sarakatsani crossed the borders with their few belongings.

A significant event of high national importance was the arrest of Evaggelos Mariolas (son of Athanasios Mariolas), a young high school student,for spying in favour of Greece in 1948. This was used as a pretext for further discrimination against Sarakatsani.

Several Sarakatsani were imprisoned and their families were exiled to Kotsiani (Kocani), far away from the greek-yugoslavian borders.The letter K (control) was printed on their ID cards in order to ease tracking, and monitoring them.

Another important fact in the odyssey to note is that a group of the Sarakatsanoi of Skopje who returned to Greece in 1944 migrated to Brazil along with the massive waves of emigrants that were leaving Greece at the time.

After an exhausting voyage, approximately 20 families settled on an island opposite Rio de Janeiro. There they were supposed to occupy themselves with the breeding of cattle,as they had declared themselves as stockmen.

However, they had no regard for breeding cattle after so many centuries of breeding sheep on the high mountains so, after six months, they returned to Greece.

This was the odyssey of the greek Sarakatsanoi of the FYROM. It must be noted that during the period of 1960-1967 almost 3.500 Sarakatsani that lived in areas of the FYROM settled down in Eleftherio -New Kordelio.

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From web site: Union Sarakatsani of Eleftherio - New Kordelio

Sarakatsani from wikipedia. The free encyklopedia