From history-of-macedonia.com Around the same time as the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Turks in Macedonia, the Turks were signing a peace treaty (Treaty of San Stefano; March 3, 1878) with Russia after the Ottoman Empire lost the Russo-Turkish War. The Treaty of San Stefano forced Turkey to give all of Macedonia to Bulgaria and create ‘Great Bulgaria’. This allowed Russia to have a ’slav’ satellite in the Balkans where her influence could extend down to the Aegean Sea. This Russian attempt was later cancelled by the European Powers (The British Empire and France) and the treaty was never allowed to take effect. Instead the Treaty of Berlin was signed and no Great Bulgaria was created.Ethnicity in the Balkans was defined by church affiliation. Russia and Bulgaria had created the Bulgarian Exarchate Church for political reasons on February 28, 1870. It split from the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. Anyone pledging allegiance to the Exarchy was Bulgarian and anyone pledging allegiance to the Patriarchate was Greek. Thousands of people living in Macedonia never wanted anything with the Exarchate and said they were Greek EVEN IF THEY SPOKE BULGARIAN and its dialects. They were considered peculiar to the Bulgarians who did not understand this. They were called discriminatorily ‘Grecomans’ by the Bulgarians. Today’s Skopjeans call these Greeks ‘Grkomans’. WHY? Because the Skopjeans were really BULGARIANS once even if they don’t want to admit it now.
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