From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.greek
Subject: 19th century Bulgarian and Greek dominance in the region of Macedonia (Was Re: STOP ...)
Date: 21 Aug 92 09:56:14 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <rsakella.714342758@p4.cs.man.ac.uk> rsakella@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Rizos Sakellariou) writes:
[deleted]
>Of course the word Macedonian was in use not only before 100 years, but
>even before 2000 years and more to describe an  **inhabitant**  of this
>region. 

What I meant was that during the last century, because of the predominant
(if you insist I'll post data from various authors showing that the
dominant Christian ethnic group in the region was the Bulgarian one, and
then - the Greek but I think it's irrelevant to argue about a margin of
10%) Bulgarian population there, many saying "Macedonian", (OK, not for all
countries ...) meant Bulgarian Macedonian.

>                                                      for administrative
>purposes, the name of Macedonia was first used to describe an extended 
>region; today, this region forms part of Greece (51%), ex-Yugoslavia(38%)
>and Bulgaria(11%). According to this new definition, before the Balcan
>wars, Macedonia was inhabited mainly by Greeks, Turks, Serbs and
>Bulgarians.

As I just said - according to most of the sources, and so many of them have
been posted on the net, the non-Muslim population (because the Muslims -
Turks + Bulgarian Muslims [Pomaks] were the largest group) had mainly
Bulgarians, then Greek, and much less Serbians. Probably you missed some
past discussions but even so, it's clear that the population there was very
much mixed - there was no clear domination by one ethnic group.

>Thus, there was a Greek Macedonian, a Turk Macedonian and so on, and of
>course was **not** being used to decribe only Bulgarians from the region
>of Macedonia!!

Some travelers and authors (non-Bulgarians) describe it like this (i.e.
"Macedonian" = "Bulgarian"). And I didn't say ONLY !!! However, in all
Bulgarian books from before 1878 (and later, but I've deliberately chosen
that year !!!), the term "Macedonian" is used as describing a Bulgarian
from Macedonia. Hardly those authors can be accused in propaganda or
biasing as Bulgaria didn't (i.e. didn't have borders to be expanded or
shrinked) exit as a state before 1878!!! But I suppose that in Greek books
and sources, "Macedonian" meant Greek Macedonian - I don't know - never
read a Greek book from before 1878.

>However, the Greek allegation that "Macedonians have always been Greek"
>has another origin; it is the answer to Skopjans' attempt to rewrite
>history claiming that they are descendants of Alexander the Great(!!!).

Fighting a fallacy with another one is an arguable way to fight for the
truth.

>Skopjans' attempt to falsify history is not a recent idea; it has
>origins that go back to the days after the 2nd WW (possibly earlier)

For the sake of that same "truth", I have to say that I've read that there
was a short lived artificial attempt (for political purposes again) by an
Ottoman ruler to distinguish "Macedonians" from others, during the mid 19th
century. However, in ALL Ottoman sources when mentioning nationalities (and
not regional groups) there is no Macedonian nationality. And it's easy to
play unfair with such matters as the term "Macedonian" has been extensively
used but NEVER as describing an ethnic or national group of people. The
real falsification started after WWI, by the Serbian government, in Vardar
Macedonia which was called "South Serbia" at that time. Failing to convince
the local people that they were Serbs, they adopted the tactic (which in
fact worked) to alienate the Bulgarian Macedonians from their Bulgarian
roots, and in Serbian schools (after closing the Bulgarian schools !!!) it
was taught that the local people were not Bulgarians but Macedonians (more
acceptable that they were not Bulgarians but Serbs). So - it's 3
generations from now which have been taught this fallacy.

Bulgaria was the looser during the war (WWI) and had no word in the human
right abuses in Yugoslavia over the Bulgarian Macedonians. The Bulgarian
Government lead by Stamboliiski (because it had to hav stability and keep
good relations with Yugoslavia, which was backed by the Great powers),
didn't raise it's voice in defence of these Bulgarians.

The Macedonians were not happy from this and the physical murderers of
Stamboliiski in 1923 were Macedonians. Another great abuse with the
Bulgarian Macedonians in Vardar Macedonia was the change of many sirnames
which sounded "much Bulgarian". The education was heavily pro-Serbian and
very much anti-Bulgarian, because of which the nowadays Macedonians think
in worse terms of ... Bulgarians. Fortunately their folk songs (collected
in the book "Bulgarian folk songs" by Miladinovi brothers) are still
Bulgarian ones. Also "their" poets (as showned recently) - like Purlichev
were ... ardent Bulgarian nationalists.

>and it was condemned by Bulgarians as well :
>The Bulgarian P.Gevgeliev wrote in the magazine "Free Bulgaria" in 1949:

Actually, Bulgarian communists lead by Dimitrov (i.e. after 1944) played
the worse role in alienating the Macedonian Bulgarians from their ethnic
roots and their consciousness, declaring them ... not Bulgarians. Many
reports and documents show how the Macedonian population had ...
difficulties studying ... the newly founded Macedonian language. It's a sad
and unbelievable story but it's true. 

> However, there is 
>a very interesting event quoted by a German traveller in his book 
>(unfortunately I don't remember the book but certainly it is an edition
>of the mid-19th century). Asking some Bulgarian peasants in Macedonia 
>for their nationality, they replied that they were Greeks. Asking again
>why they speak Bulgarian, they told him that they had been 
>forced to speak it...

Many similar stories with the opposite "sign" have been described by other
travelers when describing Macedonia during the 19th century. I think that
it was George, who quoted an American writer, describing quite well those
events. The truth seems to be, that during the struggle for dominance
between Bulgarians and Greek (those being the largest non-Muslim ethnic
groups) in the region of Aegean Macedonia, and between Bulgarians and Serbs
in Northern Macedonia, such events were very common. The primary
struggle between the Bulgarians and the Greek was on religious ground -
is a village going to be with the Patriarchy (?sp) - i.e. with the Greek,
or with the Exarchy - i.e. with the Bulgarians. And after the church, and
the school in a village become a Bulgarian or a Greek dominated, the
"opposite" population had no other choice but to follow the "imposed"
belief and language and to be educated in a Bulgarian or Greek way. 

>--rizos

Best regards

Luben

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"Let us not allow splits and splintering to frighten us. It is, indeed, a
pity, but what can we do, since we are Bulgarians and all suffer from one
common disease"
				Gotse Delchev
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia