What follows is an excerpt from a letter sent by N. Foundoùlis, Greek consul at Sérres, to K. Paparrigòpulos, in the 19th of July 1884. The letter is published in: Spyros Karàvas, «Μakàrioi oi katékhondes tin gìn». Gaioktitikoì skhediasmoì pros apallotrìosin syneidìseon sti Makedonìa, 1880-1909 [«Blessed are those who possess the earth [or: «the land»]. Real estate planning in view of alienating consciousness in Macedonia, 1880-1909], Athens, Vivliorama, 2010, p. 124-5. English translation: Akis Gavriilidis.

It produces to me a horrendous impression and sadness, when on the one hand these people, being boorish peasants until yesterday and before that, and seen as pariahs by our people, now call themselves “Bulgarians” and boldly point with their finger to the Bulgarian hegemony, and, on the other hand, the majority of the inhabitants of our own Greek villages do show to a certain extent love for the Greek letters, but unfortunately are far from calling themselves Greeks in full awareness, as the Bulgarians do, and when one asks them who they are, or of which nationality or origin, in this question they answer “we are Christians”. The name “Greek”, or even “Romios”, Συνέχεια →