Macedonians in Bulgaria

**Macedonians in Bulgaria** also known as **Pirin Macedonians** () are a minority group of in the country of Bulgaria, who live in the Blagoevgrad province. According to Bulgaria's last census in 2021, there are 1,143 Macedonians.

### During Principality of Bulgaria

After the creation of the Principality of Bulgaria in 1878, many Macedonians immigrated to the new state, who created the Macedonian emigration community in Bulgaria. According to the League of Nations, the total number of Macedonian emigrants in Bulgaria for the period from 1878 to the mid-1920s was more than 300,000. It is the largest Macedonian emigration in the world, with enormous intellectual potential and a great cultural heritage. As a result the Macedonian elite grew extremely powerful and were in every corner of Bulgaria.

In the village of Kresna, in Pirin Macedonia on October 17, 1878, the Macedonian Uprising of the Macedonian people against the Ottoman government took place. The main leaders of the uprising were the Macedonian revolutionary Dimitar Pop-Georgiev Berovski and Duke Stojan Karastoilov. In the Constitution of the Macedonian Insurgent Committee from 1878 it is written:

The uprising was planned to be a general Macedonian uprising and for this purpose, companies were formed in Tetovo, Veles, Skopje, Lerin, Kosturia and other regions in Macedonia. The uprising also aimed, after the liberation of Macedonia, to implement Article 23 of the Berlin Peace Treaty, which provided for autonomy for Macedonia, but also for additional reforms within the Turkish Empire.

### During and after the balkan wars and WW1

After the end of the Balkan wars, Macedonians in Bulgaria in Pirin, together with the Strumica region, became part of the Kingdom of Bulgaria. Within the framework of the Paris Peace Conference after the end of the First World War, with the Nej Peace Treaty of 1919, Bulgaria cedes Strumica to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, whereby the Pirin part of Macedonia receives the borders in which it is defined until today. In the period after the Balkans and between the two world wars, based on the population exchange agreements between Bulgaria and Greece, a significant number of Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia immigrated to these parts.

in this period IMRO(A) of Todor Aleksandrov, and later Vančo Mihailov, use Pirin Macedonia as a base and shelter from where they often rush into Vardar Macedonia, carrying out armed attacks on the Serbian (Yugoslav) gendarmerie (army), as well as on the settlements with Serbian settlers - colonists. The activity and organization of the IMRO of Todor Alexandrov and Vančo Mihailov will be so great that they will establish their own independent authority in Pirin Macedonia, for which the official Bulgarian authorities will have to intervene under the order of the Bulgarian emperor to remove it.

### During WW2

During the Second World War, Pirin Macedonia, as part of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, will first raise its voice for liberation and unification with the rest of Macedonia. On the territory of Pirin Macedonia already in 1941, partisan detachments were formed under the leadership of the Macedonian communist from this region Nikola Parapunov, and it was in Pirin Macedonia that the first armed struggle against the Bulgarian fascist army and in general the first armed battle against the fascist army of The Balkans.

On July 1, 1941, a small partisan detachment under the leadership of the Macedonian Ivan Kozarev attacked the Bulgarian fascist police near Razlog, which will officially begin the armed struggle of the Macedonian and other Balkan nations against the fascist occupiers. During the Second World War, Pirin Macedonia and the entire Macedonian people will lose one of the greatest Macedonian national actors and poets from this region, Nikola Vapcarov, who will be shot by the Bulgarian fascists in Sofia in 1942.

In Pirin Macedonia in August 1943, the first activities of the Macedonian People's Federal Organization will be observed, which will act more actively during the period of national affirmation and freedom of the Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia, from 1944 to 1948 during the rule of Georgi Dimitrov.

### Macedonians under Communist Bulgaria

Georgi Dimitrov, the leader of the Patriotic Front and the first president of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria, who on his mother's side had Macedonian origins from the vicinity of Razlog, is the only Bulgarian statesman who not only recognized the existence of the Macedonian people as a separate Slavic nation, the Macedonian language as a separate Slavic language, Macedonian history and the Republic of Macedonia (then the People's Republic of Macedonia) as a national state of the Macedonians, but also advocated for the complete unification of Macedonia within the Balkan Federation.

Georgi Dimitrov in his 1934 letter to MNS from Detroit says:

Georgi Dimitrov will later confirm his views by formulating the following three points:

1. Recognition of the Macedonian nation as a separate Slavic nation in the Balkans and the Republic of Macedonia as a national state of the Macedonians.
1. Recognition of the national rights of the Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia under the administration of the Patriotic Front Bulgarian state.
1. Creation of a friendly atmosphere between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria and readiness for the creation of a South Slavic federation in which Bulgaria would enter as a separate unit with the mandatory unification of Vardar and Pirin Macedonia, which would be the seventh federal unit in the said federation.

Based on the 1946 census, 70% of the population in Pirin Macedonia declared themselves Macedonians. It was also a kind of referendum, so in the schools in Pirin Macedonia, teaching in the Macedonian mother tongue began, Macedonian bookstores were opened, and in Blagoevgrad (known by the native older Macedonians as Gorna Džumaja) the Macedonian National Theater began to work, and a directive was given to draft a legal project according to that the cultural autonomy of the Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia should be transformed into a territorial one.

However, with the resolution of the Infoburo (the cooling of relations between the SFRY and Bulgaria), the death of Georgi Dimitrov and the coming to power of Todor Zhivkov, all this is prohibited, canceled and stopped due to the nationalistic xenophobic views of Zhivkov. Around the time the Bulgarian authority began stripping away the rights of Macedonians in Bulgaria, the Macedonian newspaper "Macedonian Flag" (_Makedonsko Zname_) called into action that all Macedonians should act up and start revolting to safe their identity in the Bulgarian state, they wrote in a article titled _"We Must Escape from the Magic Circle"_ and said:

## Infobox (ethnic group)

- **group**: Macedonians in Bulgaria

Македонци во Бугарија

Makedonci vo Bugarija
- **flag caption**: The star of Kutleš, used by Macedonians, Macedonian nationalist groups in Bulgaria.
- **population**: 1,143
- **languages**: Macedonian language, Macedonian
- **religions**: Christianity <small>(mostly Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox)</small> and Torbesh, Islam
- **related groups**: Macedonians, Aegean Macedonians