From: rsakella@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Rizos Sakellariou)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.bulgaria
Subject: Re: STOP BULLYING AND INTIMIDATING MACEDONIAN PEOPLE
Date: 20 Aug 92 20:32:38 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia

lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov) writes:
>That's another subject Sasa. In all Bulgarian books (and non-Bulgarian
>ones I've read recently on the subject on Macedonia as this was a "tabu"
>for Bulgarians for many years as the idiotic actions of Dimitrov would have
>been exposed) from 70 - 100 years ago, the word "Macedonian" is widely used
>and I can assure you and all the Greek netters, that it's not used as
>synonym of Greeks but as describing Bulgarians from the region of
>Macedonia. Because of that I can't agree with the definition that
>"Macedonians are and have always been Greek". 100 years ago there was no
>Tito and no communist propaganda and "Macedonian" has been widely used (BUT
>AS DESCRIBING BULGARIANS FROM THE REGION OF MACEDONIA !!!).
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. 
The definition of the region during ancient times almost coinsides with
present-day Greek Macedonia. Ancient Macedonians were Greeks; this is
undisputed. During the 19th century, possibly earlier, 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.
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!!
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(!!!).
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) 
and it was condemned by Bulgarians as well :
The Bulgarian P.Gevgeliev wrote in the magazine "Free Bulgaria" in 1949:
    "...It is true that we have given up the teaching of Macedonian history,
     a  high-falutin term for the ravings of a handful of maniacs in Skopje
     who are so far gone in their nationalistic dementia and mental
     aberration as to claim that the present Macedonian people are
     descendants of Alexander the Great. These 'historians' seem to
     overlook the fact that the Slav tribes came to this territory
     fully a thousand years after the death of Alexander the Macedon..."


>Open ANY book before from before WWI and even most from before WWII and you
>will be much surprised what nationality and ethnic conscience Macedonian
>considered themselves.
The answer to this has already been given. Some of them were Greeks, some
of them were Bulgarians, some of them were Turks... 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...

Nevertheless, it is true that,
>Matters have changed and we must live with realities at present.


>Luben
--rizos
Xref: sparky soc.culture.yugoslavia:7971 soc.culture.greek:7543 soc.culture.europe:7326 eunet.politics:1056