TATARTCHEFF, Marthe Thibault. Appel des Femmes Macedoniennes aux peuples libres et la conscience internationale. Geneva, Imprimerie Commerciale, 1933. 9″x5.5″, 8pp (though 6 pp of text). (“An Appeal of the Women of Macedonia to Free People of the World and the International Conscience.”) Provenance: Carnegie Institute of Washington, and the Library of Congress, with three stamps for these institutions. VG condition. RARE. WorldCat locates only two copies of this work (University College London and Nanterre) and two copies of the English translation (Harvard and Harvard Law). $250

This is a harrowing tale. The author spent years trying to escape from what is today North Macedonia, trying to return to her native Switzerland. She tells a story of vast repression, destruction, and death. Tatartcheff writes (“After eight years of uninterrupted suffering…”) on the “…misfortune of Macedonia under Serbian domination” and “addressing the present appeal to the free peoples and to the international conscience, so that they come to help, in the name of humanity, as in the name of threatened peace in the Balkans and in Europe, to a population subjected to an incredible regime of physical and moral terror on the part of the government and the Yugoslav dictatorship”.

“The general policy pursued by the Serbian government, now known as Yugoslavia, in Macedonia since, 1912/13 and in the former provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1918/19, can be characterized in two words: serbization by violence moral and physical.”

After describing her own imprisonment and the condition of the country in general, the author makes a final appeal, and raises the possibility of extermination: “These methods constitute a permanent threat to the peace of the Balkans and Europe and they are a real disgrace for our century. Unfortunately, with the growing danger of the collapse of Yugoslavia, these methods are only getting worse and more cruel. In the name of human solidarity and peace, in the name of a population threatened with extermination, I address an ardent appeal to all humanitarian organizations in the world, to all international organizations working for the establishment of peace and to all upright consciences to raise their hearing voices for an end to the incredible terror of Serbian tyranny in Macedonia and Yugoslavia.”

Keywords: North Macedonia, Serbia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece.