Then they set about a typical
infandous Ottoman orgy of shredded entrails, gang raped corpses of
young girls and maiming and decapitation. The horrors this time
transcended anything before. In Ohrid, they buried people in pigsty
mud for "not paying taxes". Joined by Turks who escaped the
advancing Russian armies in North Bulgaria and by Bosnian Moslems,
who fled the pincer movement of the forces of Austro-Hungary, they
embarked on the faithful recreation of a Bosch-like hell. Feeble
attempts at resistance (really, self defence) - such as the one
organized by Natanail, the Bishop of Ohrid - ended in the ever
escalating ferocity of the occupiers. A collaboration emerged
between the Church and the less than holy members of society.
Natanail himself provided "Chetis" (guerilla bands) with weapons and
supplies. In October 1878, an uprising took place in Kresna. It was
duly suppressed by the Turks, though with some difficulty. It was
not the first one, having been preceded by the Razlovci uprising in
1876. But it was more well organized and explicit in its goals.
But no one - with the exception of the Turks - was content with the
situation and even they were paranoid and anxious. The flip-flop
policies of the Great Powers turned Macedonia into the focus of
shattered national aspirations grounded in some historical precedent
of at least three nations: the Greeks, the Bulgarians, and the
Serbs.
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