From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Recognition of Macedonia
Date: 23 Aug 92 13:40:10 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.bulgaria
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <BtEqsx.5Hn@news.cso.uiuc.edu> ptg2351@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Panos Tamamidis ) writes:
>vassil@cs.wisc.edu (Vassil Peytchev) writes:
>
>>In article <3507.3248.uupcb@factory.com>, michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos) writes:
>>|> 
>>|>  The threat does not come from any numbers of Slavic population in
>>|> (Greek)Macedonia. The threat comes from the notion, advanced many times
>>|> by Bulgaria, that "Macedonia should remain united". (ie, by accepting
>>|> the name "Macedonia" for Vardar, the claim that Macedonia is a divided
>>|> region can be made).
>
>>I have never heard a Bulgarian stating that Macedonia should remain united.
>
> Such claims were made in the past (50+ years).

Ha, to hear that from a Greek netter. This is 100% ex-Yugoslav propaganda.
Even more - for those who don't know, Todor Jivkov made a special speech in
Blagoevgrad during the late 70-ies stating explicitly that Bulgaria has no
such aspirations. And if there was a time of the modern history of Bulgaria
when ABSOLUTELY no "aspirations" were made on Macedonia, this was during
the past 47 years.

>>|>  During the civil war, the area was almost entirely in Communist hands,
>>|> with the assistance of Bulgaria.
>
>>I don't think so. So far all Greek netters agreed, that it was Tito who 
>>supported the Greek Communists.
>
> Not quite correct.  Bulgaria helped Greek communists in Eastern Macedonia
> and Thrace.  

The picture is a bit more complicated, as the communists from Greece and
Bulgaria changed their stand on some matters as Tito split with Stalin.
But the essence of the matter is that this HELP was not on a nationalistic
basis but on an ideological. Amongst the Bulgarians, the worst role with
anti-Bulgarian propaganda played ... the Bulgarian communists. As you
remember from other postings, during that early years in their power over
Bulgaria, the Bulgarian communists (lead by - Dimitrov) supported Tito in
changing the national consciousness of the Bulgarian Macedonians.

> I haven't heard of any Bulgarian claims on Greek soil lately.

There were none - neither on Greek, nor on Vardar Macedonian, neither
lately, nor earlier.

>                                                            The relations
> between Greece and Bulgaria would have been better, if Bulgaria had handled
> more appropriately the recognition of Skopjia.

Look, Bulgarians feel those people as ethnic brothers and the issue is very
touchy. As for the subject, if the recognition should have been
immediately, there was a lot of controversy (for the timing, not for the
act itself !!!). I posted some data (yesterday) from a recent poll in
Bulgaria.

>  Yet, the current goverment
> of Bulgaria, acts "strangely".  There is unwillingness from the Bulgarian
> side to improve its relations with Greece.

I don't know where you got this impressions from. There is nothing wrong if
a government acts in a bad or strange way and I'm stunned that almost all
netter feel obliged to defend any action by their government. It's
childish. Why one government should be all the time "right" on every issue?
So - I'm not going here to stand for the Bulgarian government, or to claim
how perfect it is (according to many political observers, it's very weak
and is not expected to have a long "life") but claiming that "Bulgaria\n
side" doesnt' want "to improve its relations with Greece" is 100%
ignorance. On the contrary. In all statements I've read issued by the BG
government, it has been always claimed that it is willing and will continue
with it's good relations with Greece. Even many such statements have been
made for the sake of assuring Greece that BG has least intentions to spoil
the good relations with Greece, whatever the Greek position on Macedonia
is. But Bulgarians are eager to see Macedonians free and to normalize it's
relations with the people, with which Bulgarians have so much in common.

>                                         All these, while some two-three
> years ago, some people were talking about a new era in Greek-Bulgarian
> relations. 

It will be a pity if the relations are spoiled because of this.

> Personally, I never really understood the logic behind the recognition of
> "Macedonia" by Boulgaria.

What if Macedonia was populated with people who 40 - 70 years ago
considered themselves Greek? Would Greece recognize them? Would you be able
to understand such situation?

>  Officially, Boulgaria does not recognize the 
> existence of a so called Macedonian nation.

There is no such thing as recognition or not of a nation. There are
borders between countries which are recognized. National consciousness is
in people's mind and every government must leave the people to feel in the
way they do. And everybody has the right to feel whatever he wants. There
was time when many Bulgarians felt Greek. There was a time when Turks felt
Bulgarians or Greek. If Macedonians feel Macedonians, what means that
"Boulgaria does not recognize the Macedonian nation"? It is out of the
scope of a political government to recognize or not human thinking, isn't
it? And furthermore, how can you not admit something which exists. And I
think that Bulgarians admit that there is a national consciousness in
Macedonia which is Macedonian and not Bulgarian (or Greek). If the borders
of Macedonia are recognized, it's a problem of the Macedonians to call
themselves the way they like. The tricky bit here is, that the ex-YU
propaganda because of it's territorial ambitions has been declaring the
existence of a special type of Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and Greece.
However, the sooner more people go and visit Pirin Macedonia in Bulgaria,
the earlier they will realize that there is no such minority (and they may
start thinking on other matters as well ...). And I think that in Greece,
the Macedonian Bulgarians have already lost their national consciousness
and have kept the Bulgarian language only and probably some songs and
traditions.

>                                              So, what do they think the
> nationality of the "macedonians" is?

See above.

>                                           And why do they think that its
> recognition is "the only possible solution for peace in this area" (as the
> primeminister of Boulgaria said) ?.  Could please someone explain this
> to me?

Strange question. If you don't recognize a country which exists and has
it's working parliament, presidency and fixed borders, how can you have
stability in the region? If you don't recognize it, it means that you have
ambitions/aspirations towards this country. Of course I'm not the Prime
Minister to explain the words in the most correct way but ... But I care
little about it. Macedonia must be free and live with it's own freedom.
More dominance from Belgrade will bring only more instability in the
region. The worst thing will be Serbian irregulars to start ethnic
cleansing in Macedonia. It may mean a new Balkan war ... Can't see how
Greek don't realize that. Most Greek say that Tito and YU created these
artificial things but all want Macedonia to stay within YU and de facto
support Miloshevich. More than strange position. And if somebody think
seriously that the Macedonians will change their consciousness whatever
proof whoever presents, I find it absolutely childish. At the same time,
it's as much childish to try and convince the world that Macedonian nation
existed before WWII (or at least before WWI). I've just borrowed another
book of the list of "proof" about that (the list was posted some days ago)
- "The Balkan Peninsula and the Near East" - by Ferdinand Schevill issued
in 1922 and it only confirms that there was no Macedonian nation and
Macedonian self-consciousness as different from Bulgarian or Serbian or
Greek before WWI. The author presents a rather different point of view,
from other historians and has left unexplained some things, but that's
history - many historians, many points of view. When I have time, I'll post
paragraphs from the book, where the author talks about the region called
Macedonia.


>---> Panos Tamamidis


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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