From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria
Subject: Re: The BALCANS - new books...
Date: 5 Oct 92 08:56:35 GMT
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <1992Oct4.225840.6581@newssrv.edvz.univie.ac.at> A7571DAC@vm.univie.ac.at (TIETZE) writes:
>
>             A BRANDNEW VERY INTERESTING BOOK ABOUTH
>                          "THE BALCANS"

I've discovered that there are a lot brand old books on the Balkans and
Bulgaria. It's amazingly interesting to see what is written there. Alas, I
have limited time to browse through them and even can't read them all, but
they are just amazing. I'll try to post something very interesting for the
Bulgarians by John Reed (yes - the same one who wrote "10 dni koito
rastursiha sveta") in one of his book describing WWI.


>                     THE "MACEDONIA PROBLEM"

Oh, no - another modern writer. It's so clear that the 'Macedonian problem'
has several completely different periods: Until 1860-1870; until 1914-1918;
until WWII, until 1956 (or sort of) and what is nowadays. However, I'm sure
there will be more development on the issue in the near future.

>V poslednata si kniga toy se spira i na "MAKEDONSKIYA VqPROS" i go
>sravnyava s belgiyskiya mezhduetnicheski konflikt na flamandcite i
>valoncite. V nego sa zameseni estestveno sqshto i stranite-
>sqsedki: XOLANDIYA, FRANCIYA i GERMANIYA.

I don't know this problem, but I can assure you, and prove it with tons of
references that before 1860-1870, even the Serbs acknowledged that south of
their kingdom live Bulgarians. I'll try to write one day why, how and what
exactly happened later. And it's proved beyond any doubt that there was no
Macedonian naional consciousness before WWI (and even until WWI in all
non-Serbian influenced writings). Bulgarians don't know that Levski and
Botev wanted to liberate Bulgarians from Bulgaria, Thrace and MACEDONIA and
this was hidden from us for years !!!

>  Spored edin ot negovite izvodi Bqlgariya bi tryabvalo da priznae
>                                   _i_ nacialnostta na Makedoniya.

That's very interesting. When Macedonian president comes to BUlgaria, he is
not called 'Skopian', but Macedonian - so I can't understand what this
'non-recognition' means. And one more thing - what about the Bulgarians in
Macedonia - until recently they were sent to jail for proclaiming
themselves Bulgarians. If this stops, it's interesting to see how many of
the people in Macedonia will proclaim themselves Bulgarians again. After
all Bratia Miladinovi, Gligor Purlichev, Raiko Zhinzifov, Kouzman
Shapkarev, Goce Delchev, Yane Sandanski, Dame Gruev, Christo Tatarchev,
thought of themselves as Bulgarians are were proud of that. Why don't
anybody thinks that Macedonians nowaday MUST recognize that (they will - no
way to avoid this in the future). I think when this recognition appears, no
pretentions will exist at all.

>
>                           THE "POMACS"
>
>      Avtorqt e na mnenie, che "pomacite" bili predimno moslemi ot
>    bqlgari, turci ili gqrci: faktqt, che te govoreli na Bqlgarski
>       nyamalo osobeno znachenie, tqy kato v tyaxnoto samosqznanie
>       islyamqt igrael nay-centralnata rolya.

All old books talk that the pomaks are only Bulgarians. Even more - it
turned out that many of the contemporary Greeks are Hellenized Bulgarians.
But it's true that the Pomaks have lost their symphaty towards the
Bulgarian 'case'. But I can assure you that it is well described how after
the liberation of Bulgaria and during the Balkan wars they thought of
themselves as Bulgarians and only the idiotic ethnic policy of some stupid
officials (just like 1984-89) alienated them from Bulgaria. And at that
time the Islam did not play the primary role in their consciousness.

> Kato primer toy dava
>       mezhduetnicheskiya problem v bivsha Yugoslaviya: xqrvatite,
>    sqrbite i moslemite se razlichavali pomezhdu si predimno chrez
>         veroizpovedanieto si (vqpreki vzaimno izpolzvaniya ezik).

But in ex-YU, both Croats and Bosnians regarded themselves (and were
described in all books from the past as 'different') as different
than the Serbs.

>Knigata e izlyazla (veroyatno) na "Belgiyski" (= Xolandski ili

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the book. Sorry to express my
opinions which differ and please don't think that I want to cast a shadow
on that book, but it's 1992 today and let us not try to make up
what history was in the past - let us examine and talk about sources and
opinons from those times. Today we can learn for the period 1800-1913 from
the books from those time and I can assure you that there are a lot of
them. Any investigation for the past and history of the Balkans must not
start with what exist and can be seen today. The Balkans existed and were
well described in the past and any real investigaion must start from there ...


>                                                             B^agu
>


Best regards

Luben