Macedonia and Bulgaria — Best Neighbors Across the Wall [FYROM is the Cancer — Veto is the Answer]
By: Martin Anastasovski
Tags: Macedonia, Bulgaria, European Union

Bulgaria’s permanent representative to the EU Dimitar Tzantchev had deliberated with the European Council of Ministers why his government is vetoing ascension talks between North Macedonia and the European Union.

There are three issues that the ambassador presented as crucial to his country’s decision: the criteria for “Good-Neighborly Relations” between the two countries; the use of the name North Macedonia; and naming of the Macedonian Language.

Mr. Tzantchev has stated that the use of the term ‘Macedonian language’ is “unacceptable” because the Macedonian language is based on one of the dialects of the Bulgarian language and because this invention has been one of the “primary instruments in the converting of Bulgarians in Vardar Macedonia into Macedonians.”

The folly of this proclamation, which is official policy of Bulgarian governments since the early 1900s, lies in that this may be the only example in the world where a large group of people with a distinct set of linguistic and cultural characteristics, has had its collective memory wiped off by way of a simple renaming of that group’s language by an adversarial political entity.

Mr. Tzantchev may be ignorant of the fact that his statements may be an insult to the intelligence of his colleagues of the Council of European Ministers or he is utterly convinced that the participants are dozing off on a deliberation regarding a strategic decision on the part of the European Union to include (North) Macedonia in the Union.

The problem with the statement above is that there is no logical basis for it to be true. I can’t imagine it possible that a nation of more than one million people on the European continent could have been contained in a hermetically-sealed echo-chamber of propaganda from 1945 and onwards, in an age with limited technological advances comparable to those at our disposal today, and in a region where villages didn’t have electricity until the 1070s — let alone radios and television by which one can be on the receiving end of the alleged propaganda that had wiped-clean their Bulgarian consciousness.

Collective memory and national origins go a long way. Members of the Acadian lineage still celebrate their French and French-Canadian roots to this day in the US state of Louisiana, two centuries since they were deported and/or voluntarily left Canada and New England. Surely enough they had been steeped in Americana ever since, yet the Acadian population of the US today knows very well their lineage, even though cross-cultural mixing occurs unabated. And this is but one example

Another example that resounds more loudly against Mr. Tzantchev government’s policy is that to this day there is a Macedonian minority in Greece, a country whose regimes have been violently suppressing and denationalizing the members of this ethno-linguistic group since the early 1900's.

Some Macedonians in Greece have had an eye gouged out for having been denounced for whispering in their native language in their own homes. Countless people were given castor oil to an assemblage of village folk, for having committed the sin of talking in the “Bulgar language” as the Greek gendarmes referred to it in the pejorative, for the purpose of dishonoring the sentiment of those who had to be subdued and rinsed out of their collective identity. Involuntary public defecation did not fully eradicate a Macedonian consciousness from the people of northern Greece and neither did the public education system.

A Macedonian from Albania registers with the Australian authority as a “Macedonian”

Now, isn’t it bizarre that Bulgaria is blocking a near-unanimous decision of the European Union based on such a feeble argument claiming that Bulgarians had turned their country’s coat overnight in order to be completely converted into this new Macedonia identity in a matter of 50 years? If this is the best argument that Mr. Tzantchev can provide on behalf of Mr. Borisov’s government and Mrs. Zaharieva’s foreign policy, then the intelligence of the European Council of Ministers has definitely taken an insult. Here is another reason why.

These Macedonians that still exist in Greece couldn’t have been ensnared in this Yugoslav propaganda machine so as to be converted into that from their initial Bulgarian identity. Their Bulgarian collective memory would have had them loyal to the Bulgarian cause and they would have joined this country’s army in droves during World War 2 — which has not been the case. The Macedonians of Greece aligned with the Greek partisans because they were promised recognition, hoping the torture and humility is finally going to stop.

Another argument that goes against the claims that the Macedonian language is part of the Bulgarian group of dialects and should not be recognized by the EU as its own language is the existence of a similar dialect in southern Serbia.

There, the population that lives between Nish and the border with Macedonia speaks a language that is close enough to the northern Macedonian dialects (Kumanovo, Kratovo, Palanka and even the two original dialects of Skopje — blakjiski and crnogorski), so as to pass as Macedonian, regardless of the standardizing influence of the Serbian education system.

Yet, this dialect is fully recognized as part of the Serbian language and Bulgaria has shown no issue regading it and I highly doubt that Mr. Tzanchev is going to extend a veto to Serbia for not recognizing their southern dialects as Bulgarian.

My arguments that oppose the logic of the Bulgarian policy regading the Macedonian nation and its language can go on because the arguments are simply directed at preventing the inevitable — the coming to terms with the fact that a Macedonian nation will continue to exist despite the delayed beginning of negotiations with the EU. Even if Macedonia does not join the EU, a the existence of a Macedonian nation is going to be a haunting pestilence in the decades to come for a country that does not want to come to terms with its past or its present.

An image that was circulating on social media in 2013

What Bulgaria should do is adopt a more liberal, scientific understanding of their neighbors instead of the crude and political disregard of inevitable differences, let alone of International Law which stipulates any nation the right to self-determination. Bulgaria should be like Austria. It should recognize the existence of a Macedonian nation, as by the will that’s been exhibited by that nation since the 1870s and whose existence as such has been annotated side-by-side to other nations, including Bulgarians, in the travel logs of Europeans since the 1600s.

I say Bulgaria should be like Austria because that country recognizes the existence of a German minority! Now, isn’t German the official language of the Austrians — another argument by which Bulgaria likes to wrench Macedonia’s future from under its feet. Well, despite the humongous Germany to the north, Austria has about 200,000 Germans or German nationals, of whatever origin they may be, living there.

Speaking of good-neighborly relations, Bulgaria has to play its part. Touting the event of having recognized an independent Macedonian state first in the list of nations is just not good enough. Touting that Bulgaria is the “biggest” supporter to Macedonia’s EU integration is an argument that can sail only in Bulgarian media. Speaking of which, Macedonia has been the subject of countless jabs and smear campaigns on Bulgarian TV for more than two decades. The antics of the various showmen and their rhetoric have been appalling, yet pleasant to the Bulgarian viewership. This is another story that can go in the face of Bulgaria’s self-righteous yet delusional claim of being a good neighbor to Macedonia.

Baked ‘good’ sold in Bulgaria, conveniently called ‘Macedonian girl’

Good neighbors in the European sense talk and listen to one another and they meet in the middle. Good neighbors in the Balkanian spirit wish the other’s goat dead while bidding a good morning to you. I want to have a European neighbor in Bulgaria and I don’t think that this government coalition between the pro-European GERB and the far-right, anti EU nationalists represents the true spirit and sentiment of the Bulgarian people. Not with this insecure, intransigent posturing. After all, Macedonians are neighbors and cousins of the Bulgarians, as well as of the Serbs and the Greeks and the Albanians.

Come to think of it, the people of Macedonia have relatives in all neighboring countries. As of yet, and for the most part, relationships between Macedonians from around the world and their relatives in Bulgaria and Greece are timid and sparse, but not thoroughly abandoned, as I may attest based on the experiences of friends and family.

The Gorani and Rekani (some call this people the Torbeshi) of Macedonia have their relatives in Kosovo and Albania. The Albanians of Macedonia have theirs in Albania and Kosovo and so do there the Macedonians and the Vlach and the Romani people of Macedonia. It is a beautiful thing indeed so why should it be unraveled and undone instead of rekindled and celebrated? Why should anyone delimit Macedonia from the potential that is evident for this part of the Balkans which ought to come from Macedonia becoming part of the EU —not one can lose out of such a natural possibility.