To Live and Die in Manastir: A Closer Look at Inter-Communal Violence in Ottoman Macedonia

This paper intends to present a snapshot of a bloody conflict often overlooked by scholars of the modern Middle East. The central province of Manastir, which comprised the heart of Ottoman Macedonia, was a territory racked by vicious intercommunal fighting between various ethno-religious factions between the years 1903 and 1909. Over the course of these five years, gangs of trained paramilitaries, backed by both foreign interests and at times staffed by local recruits, attempted to force a uniform vision of a religiously monolithic, ethnically uniform space at the expense of the highly diverse population. Rather than focus upon the diplomatic wrangling too often associated with the so-called “Macedonian Question,” this paper presents a concise, on-the-ground survey of the methods and goals of the different competing factions that defined this bloody period of Macedonian history. The paper reassesses the pathology of paramilitary activity in Ottoman Manastir by taking into greater account the local conditions of certain key towns, villages or counties contested by the insurgents during this period of internal strife.