Figure 1.--Here we see a portrai of two brothers in Bulgarian occupied Macedonia during World War II (January 1942). At the time it still seem that the NAZIs had virtually won the war. The domensions of the German losses in the East were not yet understood. The older boy's cap suggest that he belonged to the Bulgarian nationalist youth group--Brannik. There is writing on the back of this postcard format portrait. It loks like the boy wrote it. We think it may be written in Serbo-Croatian. Perhaps readers can translate for us. Click on the image to see the insription on the back.

What is now modern Macedonia was final area of the largely Christian Balkans to be liberated from the Ottoman Turks just before World War I. The Balkan Wars (1912-13) was ended by the Treaty of Bucharest. Macedonia was partioned by the Kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. The area allocated to Serbia became known as Vardar Macedonia and became part of Yugoslavia with the unification of the southern Slavs. Within Yugoslavia it became part of Vardar Banovina. Opposition to Serbian dominated Yugoslavia was not as strong in Macedonia as in Croatia, but there were two groups promoting autonmy or independence on the political extreme. The primary right-wing fation was the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) which gained strength after the rise of Fascism, especially the NAZIs in Germany. The IMRO was led by Ivan Mihailov. They desired to form a pro-Bulgarian Macedonian state under German and Italian protection. There was a leftist faction within the wing IMRO. Because of the Fascist drift of the IMO, they merged with the Communists prior to World War II. Their objective was create an independent Soviet Macedonia as part of a Balkan Federation. The German Blitzkrieg invasion campaign and collapse of the Yugoslav Army stunned most Yugoslavs ((April 1941). The Germans partitioned Yugoslavia among their selves, KItaly and Bilgaria as well a recognizing a NAZI allied Croatian state. The Germans assigned most of Vardar Macedonia to the Bulgarians, except for wesern Macedonia. A strip along the Albanian border was assigned to Italian-controlled Albania. The Royalist Chetniks with their largely Serbian base had very limited support in Macedonia. The primary resistance group was the Macedonian Partisans of the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia (PLAM) which became associated with Tito's Yugoslav Partisan movement. All Yugoalavs were stunned by the overwealming German victory. Thus they did not begin to form resistanc groups for several months. This bgan after the German invasion of the Soviet Union as it became apparent that the Germans would not easily overwealm the Soviet Rd Army. The PLAM began their political and military resistance campaign (October 11, 1941). its operations were at first very limited as most Macedonians at first believed that resistance was futile. Bulgarin brutality and German defeats in the East and West brought more recruits to the movement. The PLAM gradully became more than va nusince to the Bulgarians. The turning point was the Italin suurendr to the Allies (September 1943). The Germans did not have the cpability to replace the Italian occupation forces or support the Bulgarian forces in Vardar Macedonia. The resistance struggle became known as the National Liberation War of Macedonia (Народноослободителна Борба на Македонија / Narodnoosloboditelna Borba na Makedonija).

Created: 6:30 PM 5/4/2015
Last updated: 6:30 PM 5/4/2015