Voivodship of Macedonia

The Voivodship of Macedonia (also known as Despotate of Macedonia) was an autonomous statelet under Italian control in West Macedonia between August and September 1943. Some historians consider it as the successor state of the Principality of Pindus due to the fact that the Voivodship comprised of territories previously controled or at least claimed by Pindean Prince Alchiviad Diamandi di Samarina, and many ethnic Aromanian supporters of the Principality of Pindus were involved in the affairs of the Voivodship of Macedonia as well. Nevertheless, the Voivodship pursued a clearly Slavic Macedonian agenda, while recognizing the rights of other autochtonous communities and thus attracting some support from Aromanians, Arvanites and Turks. The Voivodship also provided shelter for Jewish refugees. On the other hand the state adopted certain anti-Greek policies.

The roots of the state traces back to the Principality of Pindus, craeted in 1941 as fatherland of ethnic Aromanians in the Italian-occupied Greece. In 1942 a faction of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) offered the throne of Macedonia to Pindean ruler Alchiviad, but there is no evidence as to whether he accepted it. After Diamandi's failure to control the region, in late 1942, the Italian occupation authorities, which previously had supported mostly Aromanian and Albanian groups, changed their attitude towards the Slavic Macedonian population. According to a source from the old pre-communist Bulgarian National Security Service, this change was due to the decisive intervention of the leader of VMRO Ivan Mihailov through Ante Pavelić in Rome in early 1943. Then the title of Voivode was offered to the Cseszneky family, probably in recognition for their role in supplying the Italian Army with cereals and supported by the fact that the Barons Cseszneky de Milvány had held Latin fiefs in the region in the Middle Age. Gyula Cseszneky was a Hungarian-Croatian aristocrat [1] in Italian service, who only nominally reigned as Voivode Julius^[1] between August-September in 1943, but never actually assumed power, although some local autonomist Macedonian Uhrana leaders governed in his name. Whatever authority the Voivodship exercised, it practically ceased to exist after the Italian capitulation in September 1943, when the area was taken over by the Germans. In September 1944 the above mentioned Ivan Mihailov was offered by the Germans to head a future semi-independent Macedonian state which would have included the territory of the Voivodship, but he declined favouring the occupation of Vardar Macedonia by Bulgaria.

Sources

Arseniou Lazaros: Η Θεσσαλία στην Αντίσταση
Andreanu, José - Los secretos de los Balcanes
Toso, Fiorenzo - Frammenti d'Europa
Zambounis, Michael - Kings and Princes of Greece, Athens 2001
Papakonstantinou Michael: - Το Χρονικό της μεγάλης νύχτας (The chronicle of big night)
Divani, Lena: - Το θνησιγενές πριγκιπάτο της Πίνδου. Γιατί δεν ανταποκρίθηκαν οι Κουτσόβλαχοι της Ελλάδας, στην Ιταλο-ρουμανική προπαγάνδα.
Thornberry, Patrick und Miranda Bruce-Mitford: - World Directory of Minorities. St. James Press 1990, page 131.
Koliopoulos, Giannēs S. (aka John S. Koliopoulos): - Plundered Loyalties: Axis Occupation and Civil Strife in Greek West Macedonia. C. Hurst & Co, 1990. page 86 ff.
Poulto, Hugh: - Who Are the Macedonians? C. Hurst & Co, 1995. page 111. (partly available online: [2])
After the War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation, and State in Greece By Mark Mazower (partly available online: [3])
Kalimniou, Dean: - Alkiviadis Diamandi di Samarina (in Neos Kosmos English Edition, Melbourne, 2006)
Michelle Rallo: Regni-meteora” nell’Europa Orientale durante le guerre mondiali (“Storia del Novecento”, anno V, n. 89, settembre 2008)

External links

References

^ Regnal Chronologies: Northern Greece

[1] Regnal Chronologies: Northern Greece

[1]