Macedonia and the Macedonian People - Blaže Ristovski

Blaze Ristovski

MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE Translated by Filip For the Publisher Metodie

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Table of Contents I MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS •

The Macedonian People and Macedonian National Consciousness 3

1. The emergence and development of the Macedonian people 6 2. When did Macedonia come under Bulgarian rule and for how long did that rule last? 11

3. Some basic components of the culture of the Macedonian Slavs 16 (a) When were the Macedonian Slavs converted to Christianity? 17 (b) When did Slavonic literacy develop in Macedonia? 20

(c) What political and strategic moments dictated this Byzantine mission and what were relations with Bulgaria like? 25 (d) What was the language of Cyril and Methodius: Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian? 26

4. The name of the Macedonian people 31 (a) Why did the Macedonian name appear as late as the 19th century? 38 (b) Why was it the Macedonian name that was accepted? 40

5. The national revival of the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians and conditions for the development of Macedonian national consciousness 44 •

The Reasons for the Return of Clement of Ohrid from the Bulgarian Capital to Macedonia 54

•

The Tradition of Cyril and Methodius in Macedonian Cultural and National Development in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and the First Half of the Twentieth Century 71

•

Traditional Contacts and Relations between Macedonia and Russia 86

•

Alexander of Macedon in the Historical Consciousness of the Macedonians in the 19th and 20th Centuries 101

II THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE AND CULTURE •

The Macedonian National Development in the Typological Relations of Revival among the Neighbouring Peoples 119

•

The Emergence of Macedonian National Thought and the Formation of a National Programme (up to 1878) 124

•

The Development and Affirmation of Macedonian National Thought from Kresna to Ilinden (1878-1903) 156

•

The National Programme of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg 193

•

The Affirmation of the National Identity of Macedonia and the Securing of its Territorial Integrity (1912-1913) 215

•

Macedonian State-National Concepts and Programmes up to the End of the First World War 235

•

The Position of the Macedonians towards the Establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes 297

•

The Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian Nation and the Macedonian Language (1934) 307

•

The National Liberation Programmes of the Macedonian Movement in Progressive Émigré Circles (1934-1941) 327

•

Macedonian Cultural and National Thought and Action in the Period between the Two World Wars 336

Index of Personal Names 349 Index of Geographical Names 369

About This Book Academician Georgi Stardelov

Blaze Ristovski has built and developed a distinctive methodological approach in his interpretation of the history of the Macedonian people. This approach incorporates an essential component adopted from positivism: the scholarly method and the struggle for truth in facts and in dealing with facts. From what the Germans called Geistesgeschichte (the History of the Spirit) it has taken the interpretation of

historical facts as a spiritual substratum, as a dynamic human fundamental. Accordingly, this Macedonian historical thinker analyses and follows the history of the Macedonian people as a history of Macedonian culture. Blaze Ristovski believes that the entire spiritual opus of the Macedonians is the foundation and firm support for their historical survival. This approach in his book Macedonia and the Macedonian People is not an arbitrary invention, but a consequence of the tragic destiny of the Macedonian people through history, who were driven and sometimes dominated by alien histories.

For a long time, up to the Antifascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM, 1944), with no state institutions of their own, the Macedonians had found shelter in their own culture, developing first as a people and later forming a nation.

Forced to create its own national culture without its own nation-state, the culture of the Macedonian people was characterized by several specific features. It was undoubtedly the result of its creative genius, but was also used as a means in its struggle for freedom. The model of this type of culture is best expressed by Fichte and his famous idea of Kultur zur Freiheit (Culture for freedom). It is this fate of the Macedonian culture that contributed to the fact that, in the case of Macedonia, national culture grew as a key element of what we can call a Macedonian ideology. For this reason, the protagonists of the struggle for the development of national consciousness and popular unity in Macedonian history were not so much its political strategists but primarily its cultural figures: poets, writers, linguists and collectors of folklore — in a word, the Macedonian intelligentsia.

In this situation, bearing in mind the ethnic relatedness among the South Slavs, the closeness between their languages, their shared faith, geographical links, etc., Ristovski is aware that the history of the Macedonian people cannot be explained and interpreted without the examination of South-Slav culture, where similar or even identical

cultural initiatives and aspirations developed during the long historical process.

Consequently, he most often applies the comparative historical method in the analysis of these initiatives and aspirations. He compares and studies precisely those endeavours which have given Macedonian culture an indigenous trait and an indigenous national individuality. Hence his book is basically concentrated on revealing and presenting what I would call the history of Macedonian history in its Balkan and South-Slav context.

Thus the principal aim of Academician Ristovski in this work is his endeavour to interpret and study Macedonian history in its quintessence, always bearing in mind that the quintessence of the history of the Macedonian people is its culture and spiritual continuity. Politics, for instance, is dominated by discontinuity. In politics everything is ephemeral and occurs on a day-to-day basis, making it changeable and transient. States and their political orders change following the logic of some inexorable rhythm: they appear and then disappear from the historical scene, followed by new ones that trace the same path. These are followed by even newer ones, and so on. Policies and states do not intermingle with each other. On the contrary, they are opposed to and destroy each other.

The spiritual continuity of a people can be followed only in its culture, where it develops uninterrupted. For this reason, it is only there that a people can show its united and indivisible personality.

Ristovski starts precisely from this irrefutable fact and carries out the idea of his book by following the history of the Macedonian people in an undeviating and uninterrupted spiritual continuity — the result of the millennium-long survival of the Macedonians in their highly exposed position in the Balkans, where the fury of the destruction of great achievements raged. This book is indeed a detailed survey of the Macedonian spiritual and historical experience over the centuries. It is a profound crosssection and a comprehensive study of those fundamental Macedonian periods in which

and through which the being of the culture of the Macedonian Slavs crystallized, over the centuries, as a Macedonian-Slavonic-Byzantine culture: from the process of their conversion to Christianity and the creation of Slavonic literacy, through Macedonian national and cultural development during the Macedonian Revival of the 19th century, when the Macedonians strengthened their consciousness through their own creativity, through the cultural ideas of the `Lozars' and the national programme of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society, and through Macedonian national thought and culture in the period between the two world wars.

Ristovski's book Macedonia and the Macedonian People is built upon a coherent concept in the establishment of the spiritual and historical continuity through which the individuality of the Macedonian people and its culture was formed. This can best be seen by the structure of the book itself. Namely, he completes his study of the Macedonian national and cultural thought with the start of the Second World War, as he designates the ASNOM years — the most significant period in the history of the Macedonian people — as an organic continuation of the long struggle of this people for national liberation. It was a period in which the Macedonians finally succeeded in establishing a Macedonian state, though only in a part of the historical, ethnic and cultural territory of Macedonia.

The originality of this book, among the other important books by Ristovski devoted to this field, lies precisely in the ambition of its author to subject what is considered `most disputed' in Balkan historiography concerning the representation and presentation of Macedonia to historiographic and culturographic analysis. Ristovski studies Macedonian culture and language and the development of the Macedonian people as an individual entity within the Slavonic and Balkan context, all of which have been organically linked with the great spiritual achievements of the great and unrepeatable — even in terms of world history — Macedonian 9th century. This was a time when a new

Slavonic civilization and culture was born in Macedonia, spreading throughout the Slavonic world. The second part of the book deals with the building and strengthening of historical and cultural consciousness among Macedonians in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

This most recent book of Ristovski's comes at a time when it can often be heard in some circles that Macedonia, the Macedonian people and Macedonian culture is, to put it mildly, a phenomenon that was created from nothing in the mid-20th century, as if by some arbitrary act: someone came up with the idea — for which there is no support in history — of creating a Macedonian people, a Macedonian language and Macedonian culture, and he created them. Ristovski replies to this ominous sound of trumpets, blown by seraphic Balkan trumpeters, with rare intellectual calm. He puts forward his concept — which requires exceptional knowledge in the field of Balkan studies, and where this erudite Macedonian writer and historian is certainly on his own territory — of the indestructible continuity of the Macedonian idea, of its organic genesis and emergence and spiritual growth in a continued, millennium-long Macedonian nocturne, and of the spiritual survival of the Macedonians in time and space. His basic theoretical position can be summed up in the following way: Macedonia in its present form would never have existed had it not been an inseparable part of history, had its long struggle had no continuity of its own in that gigantic epic that it created in history, in search of itself and of its own spiritual and cultural identity.

When touching upon the question of continuity in the emergence and historical evolution of the Macedonian people and its culture, we are undoubtedly delving into the realm of the spirit and the world of ideas. For this purpose, it is these — this spiritual substance and this cultural dimension of the Macedonian historical continuity — that Academician Ristovski analyses. As a history of the history of Macedonia, his book

explores the achievements of the Macedonian creative spirit. For this reason, it does not concentrate on battlefields. It does not deal with the long-lasting struggles, old and new, such as the eye-gouging battle of Mount Belasica, nor does it deal with harsh bloody slaughters such as those near the rivers Vardar, Crna and Bregalnica. It does not describe the death masks of the heroes or traitors, nor is it obsessed with the bitter destiny of the many commanders and comitadjis, outlaws and vassals. No, there is nothing of that kind in this history of Macedonian history. On the contrary, there is something encyclopaedic in it, a profound knowledge, something which can be seen only in the rare historiographic books that evaluate and re-evaluate historical facts not merely from the viewpoint of the positivist approach and what is known as the `school of facts', but also and essentially from the viewpoint of the soul of the people, from the point of view of the spiritual, popular sense of the Macedonian which has been deeply interwoven within this people and has glimmered in them throughout the centuries. Journeying through the various cultures and periods that have roared under the mysterious Macedonian sky, this book explores the spiritual imprint, forgetting no endeavour and no name which has been made part of it. It recalls and historically reflects those major Macedonian ideas and their protagonists that have intertwined with each other over the centuries, building the original and indigenous Macedonian historical fresco-painting.

Ristovski's book Macedonia and the Macedonian People may also be regarded as a kind of cultural archaeology which, describing the Macedonian cultural past as a basic argumentum ad hominem, frees it from all alien deposits and colours. On most of its pages, if not all of them, it maintains, with a moderate, objectivist approach, a dialogue with hundreds and hundreds of books from the Balkan plethora of historiographies, some of them relevant, but most written in favour of the victors and filled with an inexplicable hatred towards and scorn of everything Macedonian. There are

only rare examples written in favour of the defeated Macedonians, the people who had to express their defeats in folk song or tale, in legend or story, or in an unfinished testament.

I believe that the principal value of this book of Ristevski's is the fact that, in contrast to an earlier period in Macedonian historiography, it hides nothing, nor does it try to exclude or change what historical sources give as the ethnic or national attributes of the Macedonians. Amidst the insane Balkan historical jumble it is indeed an impartial and objective book, or it aims to be so as far as is possible in this region. It aims to pit facts against facts, and not wishful historical thinking, which has become a recognizable trait of a large number of incompetent Balkan historical fanatics. I am referring to no one in particular, and to no one side. I am referring to all of them, to all those who still remain prisoners of their national ideologies.

I MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS

The Macedonian People and Macedonian National Consciousness

The development of nearly all European peoples and nations has been accompanied by numerous and various historical and political difficulties and upheavals.

Even in the case of some of the most highly developed modern nations of the European and other continents, history has dictated situations which are not too different from those of the Macedonian people: tribes and ethnicities have become mixed, languages and names have been borrowed, territories and state boundaries have been altered, faiths and cultures have intertwined with each other‌ Let us take the example of France and the French. The ancient Gaul covered the territory of what is today northern Italy, France, part of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, and was populated by Gauls, a Roman name designating Celtic tribes. In the 1st century BC Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and it remained within the borders of the Roman Empire up to the end of the 5th century AD. This was a period during which a complex process of assimilation of the Gauls and Romans took place and when Vulgar Latin became the spoken language of the population. It was from this basis that later, influenced by the vernacular of some Germanic tribes, modern French developed. The present-day name of the French derives from the state of the Franks, a group of western Germanic tribes who lived around the River Rhine in what is today Germany and who, towards the late 5th century, conquered almost the whole of ancient Gaul and, by the end of the 8th century, most of Central and Western Europe. With the 843 Treaty of Verdun, however, the powerful and vast state of Charlemagne (Charles the Great, 768-814), composed of various peoples, split into three individual states: France, Germany and Italy. Following the 9th century the French gradually evolved as an ethnicity that constituted itself as the French nation in the late 18th century.

We can hence conclude that the modern French are the descendants of a Celtic tribe (that mingled with other tribes and peoples), speaking a Romance language and using a Germanic name. Can present-day Germans claim that the French were or are, perhaps, still Germans? Can the Italians, as the heirs of the old Roman Empire, assert that the French are Italians? And can anyone today refute the history and culture of the Belgians, Dutch and other former Gauls? Can anyone consider 3

the people of the Netherlands as being German because they, too, still call their language Duutsch (akin to Deutsch)?

Is there not a similar situation with the Russians who have taken the name of the present-day Ukrainians, and these, in their struggle for national affirmation in the 19th century, had to take the regional geographical designation as a national name in order to be constituted as a separate Slavic nation?

Did not the Turan-Mongol tribes of the ‘proto-Bulgarian’ khans conquer the territories of ‘the seven Slav tribes’ between Mount Stara Planina and the Danube, and create a single state with a Bulgarian name and a Slavonic language? Was not the Bulgarian people formed of the Turan-Mongol Bulgars and Lower Danube Slavs mixed with Vlachs, Thracians, etc., which in the 19th century constituted themselves as a separate Slavic nation?

On the other hand, the present-day Serbian nation draws its origins from mediaeval Serbia, even though this feudal Serbian state (not bearing even the Serbian name in the beginning) was conceived mainly on the territory of modern Montenegro and Kosovo. Even at the peak of its power it did not include the whole territory of present-day ‘Central Serbia’, whereas the modern capital of the Serbian nation, Belgrade, was to become ‘Serbian’ as late as the 15th century, and even then for only 23 years (1404-1427). In certain periods feudal Serbia controlled the territories of present-day Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, part of Greece and even parts of Bulgaria and Bosnia, but can anyone today dispute the Serbian character of modern Serbia or of Belgrade?

Is not the development of the Greek nation highly illustrative? In various periods (after the age of ‘Hellenism’ and the conquest of the Greek poleis by Philip II, the King of the Macedonians), the borders of ‘Greece’ (in particular, later, those of the Byzantine Empire) encompassed almost all the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, and even some outside it. The Greek language and the Greek alphabet from various phases of their development were used in all these territories, and the Greek name was also in use. But even though they have used a number of names in their history (as a result of their mediaeval state-constitutional traditions), the Greeks bore for a long time the Roman name Romaioi which was also used in our regions in the form of Rum-millet until the expulsion of the Turks in 1912, and the ethnonym ‘Hellene’ was long used by the Greeks themselves as denoting a pagan (‘non-Christian’). Can we now claim that the countries of the Balkans and the Middle East are populated by Greeks and that they should be annexed to the Greek state only because they were once part of the Byzantine Empire, because there are today remains of the ‘Greek’ culture or because up to the 19th century most of these territories were under the domination of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople, or because a large number of Greeks or at least Graecophiles lived in the major centres? Was it not the case that a Greek uprising was started in 1821 4

first in Wallachia and Moldavia, in what is today Romania? Or perhaps the modern Romanians are of Greek descent?

Hence, is it possible from a scholarly point of view, and can we still manipulate from a political point of view with the terms ‘Greek lands’, ‘Bulgarian lands’ or ‘Serbian lands’ as regards the territories which were once parts of mediaeval states bearing the present-day Greek, Bulgarian or Serbian names? These same territories in different periods used to have different masters and bear different names, and therefore Macedonia, for instance, cannot be a ‘Greek’, ‘Bulgarian’, ‘Serbian’ and ‘Turkish’ land at the same time. The feudal state paid no attention to the ethnic character of its subjects, but was only concerned with the greater wealth of the appropriate areas and with the expansion of its territory, on which its power and security depended.

Hence the only reliable and fair approach is to study the history of different peoples and cultures which were part of different states at different periods, and not to identify those peoples with the former feudal states whose borders often changed and were usually short-lived. Accordingly, we can speak of the history of the Greek, or the Bulgarian, or the Serbian people during their development over the centuries independently of whether these peoples sometimes found themselves within the state borders of other rulers. Following the same historical logic, we can speak of the historical development of the Macedonian people who very often had different rulers, but who developed an identity of their own, resulting in the birth of a more recent social and historical category, the nation.

The paths of this long process have not always been traced, but its result is already known to us.

After the downfall of ancient Macedonia and the partition of the Roman Empire, towards the early 7th century, the Slavs had already inhabited Macedonia, penetrating deeply into the borders of present-day Greece and Albania. They mingled with the natives from this part of the Byzantine Empire and gradually (owing to their geographical, economic, cultural, linguistic and even political individuality) started constituting themselves as a separate people with a Slavonic language and Macedonian-Slavic-Byzantine culture. The frequent changing of political masters and the long subjugation under Shariah Turkey did not create conditions for the establishment of a definite ethnic name for this people which could later be used as a designation for the nation. As a result, the completion of the process of development of this people seems to coincide with the early stages of the process of formation of the nation in Macedonia. The long duration and erratic character of the former process resulted in a highly complicated and long process of national consolidation among the Macedonians. Closely connected with this is also the relatively late development of the idea of the independent political constitution of the Macedonian people. As far as the Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians 5

were concerned, their national development followed a more or less straight line, inheriting the names and the past of the corresponding mediaeval states and defining immediately the goals of political liberation and state-constitutional individualization. Among the Macedonians, however, these questions arose somewhat later, in different circumstances, in the absence of state-constitutional traditions under their own name, and even without a consistent ethnic name of their own, in circumstances of a complex mixture of ethnic, religious and social affiliations inherited from the mediaeval period and specific circumstances of development under Ottoman domination. At the time when the neighbouring peoples were fighting for or had already secured their political liberation, the Macedonians remained in the central part of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, without opportunities for true revival and without defined national ideals or concrete tasks, and became the target of various conflicting aspirations on the part of their neighbours in the period of their national romanticism. Hence the first questions to be raised in the 19th century by the more awakened Macedonians were: who are we, what are we, and where are we? It was first necessary to define the geographical and ethnographic borders vis-à-vis those of their neighbours. An ethnic ‘birth’ was necessary first; and only then could they raise the question of political liberation.

1. The emergence and development of the Macedonian people With no ambitions to cover all the aspects of this problem — bearing in mind that there are still no generally accepted theoretical models in scholarship concerning the constitution of a people as a social and historical category — we shall concentrate on certain questions which seem more important to us and which have without doubt aroused great interest. This is even more important in view of the fact that some of these questions have already been analysed by certain historians from neighbouring nations, utterly ignoring the ethnic and cultural identity of the Macedonians. We shall pay particular attention to the period from the 7th to the 11th centuries, the time when certain significant processes relevant to the formation of the modern Macedonian people were completed or initiated.

Just like any other people, the Macedonian people was formed neither from a single tribe nor from a single ethnic entity in the broader sense of this term: during the centuries of development, it encompassed different ethnic groups that had lost their individuality, while leaving significant traces not only in history and archaeology, but also in the living spiritual and material culture of Macedonia. To believe that we are ‘pure’ Slavs means to follow the road of blind racism. True, it is very 6

likely that the large majority of the present-day Macedonian people are descendants of the Slavs, most of whom are assumed to have reached this part of the Balkan Peninsula from the 5th to the early 7th century, but (in spite of all pogroms) they certainly did not find this region utterly uninhabited. By absorbing parts of the peoples living there (ancient Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, etc.), the Slavs also absorbed their culture, and in that amalgamation a people was gradually formed with perhaps predominantly Slavic ethnic elements, speaking a Slavonic language and with a Slavic-Byzantine culture.

Why, when and how has this people differentiated itself from the neighbouring Slav peoples?

An increasing number of Bulgarian scholars have been putting forward the thesis that the territory bordered by the Morava, the Danube, the Black Sea, Constantinople, the Aegean Sea, Central Greece and Albania up to the Šar Mountains was populated by a certain ‘Bulgarian group’ of Slav tribes,1 whose basic (and only!) characteristic was the language, and its “most characteristic feature” was the article!2 In his study entitled ‘The Bulgarian Nationality and the Work of Clement of Ohrid’ Prof. Dimit’r Angelov writes that all these Slav tribes, “regardless of some dialectal features, had a common language, and therefore they belong to one and the same group — the Bulgarian — in contrast to the tribes of the Serbo-Croatian group, which in the 7th century settled in the north-western regions of the Balkan Peninsula (parts of present-day Yugoslavia)”.3 Precisely because of the character of these Slavs, the entire period from the 7th to the 9th centuries was characterized “by a constant and increasingly strongly outlined tendency — namely the aspiration of the Bulgarian rulers gradually to include all the Slav tribes of the Bulgarian group within the territory of their own state”.4 Whether these and similar theories and assumptions have a serious basis can be seen from the following historical facts.

Firstly, even if we allow the retroactive meaning of a certain term which appeared considerably later, it is not true that there was a tribal unity of the Slavs that settled in this vast area (except if referring to the general unity of all Slavs).

Before their arrival in the Balkans, the Slav tribes of the Slavini (Sclavini) and 1

Di mi t ï r Angel ov, ,,Bï l gar skat a nar odnost i del ot o na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, Kl i ment Ohr i dski 916-1966. S bor ni k ot st at i i po sl uÌaà 1050 godi ni ot smï r t t a mu, BAN, S of i ò, 1966, 7. These views are also expressed in other papers by this author. We should mention his article ,,P o vï pr osa za nasel eni et o v Makedoni ò pr ez sr ednovekovnat a epoha (œ áá-Hᜠv.)“ in the journal I skust vo, Háá, 4-5, S of i ò, 1962, and they are expounded in greater detail in his book, published later, ,,Obr azuvane na bï l gar skat a nar odnost “ (S of i ò, 1971), covering the period to the 11th century.

2 Di mi t ï r Angel ov, ,,Bï l gar skat a nar odnost …“, 12.

3 Ibid., 8.

4 Ibid., 7.

7

Antians (Antes) lived separately. According to Emperor Mauricius (6th century), they had “the same way of life and the same customs”,5 and yet they were distinct Slav tribes and during their settlement they inhabited different territories in the Balkans. Whereas the Slavini settled Macedonia and parts of present-day Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, the Antians settled mainly the territory of present-day Bulgaria. Even if we assume that the Slavinian (Sclavinian) and Antian tribes were of the very same stock, even if we neglect their subsequent historical fate in the Balkans, we shall have to admit that this ‘Bulgarian group’ must have involved the people living in a large part of what is today Serbia! In addition, it has to be underlined that the Bulgarian Slavs between the Danube and Mount Stara Planina mingled chiefly with the indigenous Thracians, Dacians, etc., and later with the newly-arrived Bulgars (a Turan-Mongol tribe that gave its name and state organization to the subsequently formed Bulgarian people).

Secondly, in the formation of peoples it is not the ethnic composition of the population which is primary, but the population’s historical development. The history of many European and non-European peoples can prove this. Likewise, this part of the Balkans saw the development of the Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian peoples.

Known facts on the Slav tribes in Bulgaria are more than scarce. Even though Bulgarian scholars speak of some tribal union which later concluded an alliance with the newly-arrived Bulgars, serious historical sources from that period do not confirm such assumptions. It is known with certainty that by 681 the Bulgars had already established a state organization controlling the Slavs from the Timok to the Black Sea and from the Danube to Stara Planina, which was recognized by the Byzantine Empire. It is also known, however, that as early as the late 6th century and the first half of the 7th century, on the territory between the rivers Volga and Dnieper there was an established tribal union of Turan-Mongol tribes calling themselves Bulgars, but that in 650 this state of Khan Kubrat broke down under the pressure of the Khazars, as a result of which Kubrat’s son Asparuh moved to the Balkans with a part of his people and there established his new state comprising (primarily) people of Slavic stock.6 5

P r of . Al eksandï r K. Bur mov i Doc. P et ï r Hr . P et r ov, Hr i st omat i ò po i st or i ò na Bï l gar i ò, á. Ot naà-st ar i vr emena do sr edat a na Hœ ááá vek, S of i ò, 1964, 67.

6

The view of the Russian historian, Academician Nikolay Derzhavin, seems a rather interesting one; it is presented in the ‘abridged shorthand minutes’ of the lecture he delivered at the 6th Plenum of the Pan-Slavic Committee in Moscow, on October 16 and 17, 1943. It deals with a number of questions which concern and elucidate our subject. Derzhavin pays special attention to the Antians, their movement to the south of the Balkans and their relations with the Proto-Bulgarians, but he also expresses his views on the composition of Asparuh’s company in moving to what is today Bulgaria, which may be relevant for further research (,,I st or i Ìeski e osnovì dr uÔ bì r usskogo i bol gar skogo nar odov“, S l avòne, º 11, Moskva, 1943, 30-31).

8

It must be noted, however, that this was not the only Bulgarian state at that time. Another Bulgarian tribe (the Kotrags) crossed the Don and arrived at the Volga where, together with the local tribes, they established another Bulgarian state which existed up to the 13th century, when it was destroyed by the Tartars.

The fourth Bulgarian state (if we consider Kubrat’s Bulgaria as the first one!) was founded by Kubrat’s eldest son, Batbayan, in the territory lying between the River Kuban and the Sea of Azov. Even though it was soon subjugated by the Khazars, its remains could be found for several centuries after that.

Trying to prove not only that the Bulgarian Slavs mingled with the Turan-Mongol tribe, but that Bulgars came also to Macedonia, leaving there their own blood and their own name and culture, Bulgarian historians very often underline the significance of a certain company of Asparuh’s brother Kuber, who came to the Bitola and Salonika regions and remained there. Yet there are still no reliable sources supporting this. It is true, Bulgars are mentioned in connection with the attacks against Salonika in the 7th century, but only as one of the many allies of the Macedonian Slav tribes, such as the Avars or Kumans, most of which moved back. Even if we suppose that they remained in Macedonia, owing to their insignificant number they could not have changed the general ethnic character of the Macedonian people. There were also Bulgars across the Danube, even in some parts of Croatia, and it would really be difficult to put forward similar claims concerning the Bulgarian character of the people or territories there.

While the Bulgarian state of Asparuh and his heirs constantly expanded and grew stronger, gradually forming one people of the various ethnic elements of its population, as early as the beginning of the 7th century, i.e. before the foundation of the Bulgarian state, the Slavs in Macedonia had already established a tribal union and acted quite independently in the wars against the Byzantine Empire in the siege of Salonika. This tribal union, named Slavinia (Sclavinia), existed for about six decades and marked the beginning of the formation of the Macedonian people. But the military power of the Byzantine Empire, putting Macedonia under its control, prolonged the process of this formation, although individual Slav tribes continued their half-independent development.

It is important to note at this point that while the various ethnic groups in Bulgaria melted together under the name ‘Bulgars’, and that they are referred to in the sources only under that name, in Macedonia they blended using the name Slavini (Sclavini) or Slavs, and the older ethnic groups are not mentioned. The life and development in two states with different levels and characters of culture gradually differentiated the Macedonians from the Bulgarians. This situation continued for more than two and a half centuries, a period sufficient to bring about the formation of two ethnic individualities, which had absolutely no material or spiritual contacts during that period.

9

Thirdly, there were no aspirations — and there could not be any — on the part of the Bulgarian khans and princes towards the unification of “all Slav tribes of the Bulgarian group”, because for a long time those heading the Bulgarian state were non-Slav leaders who simply could not nourish aspirations for a Slavic-centred policy. Furthermore, it is well known from history that Bulgarian expansion took place to the north and the east rather than the south-west. It is interesting that the first territories to be conquered were those of present-day Romania, Serbia and parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and only later the territory of Macedonia, whose conquest lasted for nearly a century. How can these “aspirations” of the Bulgarian khans and princes be linked with the “Bulgarian Slavic group” only within the boundaries of “Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia” when it is a well-known fact that in the 9th and 10th centuries Bulgaria included the territories of Romania, parts of Ukraine and Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia (without Salonika) and parts of Bosnia and Croatia? These lands were not populated solely

by Slavs, and they certainly cannot be included in the “Bulgarian group”. Moreover, strong resistance is mentioned in the sources on the part of the Slavs against Bulgarian conquests; there were fierce conflicts, for instance, between Krum or Omurtag and the subjugated Slavs. Military alliances were also concluded between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire and the Franks against the Slavs, and bloody military campaigns were fought by the Bulgarian leaders against the Slavs in Paeonia, Moravia, Thrace and Macedonia.

Fourthly, and no less importantly, the language of the Slavs of that “Bulgarian group” was not particularly different from the language of the other Slavs at that time, nor can we speak of some article form in those centuries, as this was the result of the subsequent development of the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages in the Balkan environment. To confirm this it is sufficient to mention that the language of the Macedonian Slavs from the Salonika region, which Cyril and Methodius took as the literary standard in the 9th century, was also fully understandable to the Greater-Moravian Slavs, and that the language or the written records, at least up to the 11th century, showed no article forms in either Macedonia or Bulgaria or Thrace. Attention must also be paid to the fact that the article form has never appeared (and will probably never appear) in the language of the Serbian Slavs who, however, were incorporated into the Bulgarian state much earlier and remained a part of it longer than Macedonia.

If one has to seek any differences between the Bulgarian and Macedonian peoples as early as that period, one should pay attention not only to the ethnic composition, but above all to the historical development as well as the individuality and character of the cultures of these lands. The independent life in two different environments (one pagan, the other Christian) created two different cultures: a Slavic-Bulgarian pagan culture in Bulgaria and a Macedonian-Slavic-Byzan10

tine Christian culture in Macedonia. This is so in spite of the fact that even today the Macedonian language is the closest to Bulgarian, in the same way that Slovenian is the closest to Croatian, Slovak to Czech and Ukrainian or Belorussian to Russian.

2. When did Macedonia come under Bulgarian rule and for how long did that rule last?

The first incursions of Bulgarians into Macedonia were recorded around 789 when a Bulgarian detachment entered the area around the River Struma, but had to withdraw immediately. In 805 Khan Krum annexed the lands of Banat, Transylvania and the region west of the River Timok together with Belgrade. In 809 he destroyed Sofia, and somewhat later he conquered it, but the whole of Macedonia continued to remain outside the Bulgarian borders. In 807 some Bulgarian detachments again penetrated into the Struma region, but were unable to remain there.

There are also highly unreliable sources from which some assume that during the time of Khan Pressian (836-852) the khagan Izbul conquered the Western Rhodopes and the region between the rivers Struma and Mesta, and that in this period “the whole of Central Macedonia together with a part of Southern Albania” was conquered, as (allegedly) confirmed by a special accord towards the mid-9th century.7 Bulgarian scholars assume that, as there are no data relating to the conquest of Macedonia, this automatically means that the Macedonian Slavs were “voluntarily” annexed to Bulgaria. But known instances of resistance and rebellions against the Bulgarian conquerors confirm that the Macedonian Slavs were far from pleased with the new conquerors. What can be accepted with certainty is the fact that in 864, following the peace accord with the Byzantine Empire, Prince Boris (852-889) received a part of Macedonia as a reward for accepting Christianity from the Constantinopolitan Church.

Thus the struggle for the conquest of Macedonia by Bulgaria continued for nearly a century, but Bulgaria’s full control of the land lasted less than half a century. Following the attack of the Russian Prince Svyatoslav against Bulgaria in 968 and after the occupation of the whole of Danube Bulgaria in the following year, during the next few years battles were fought between the Russians and Byzantines, after which the Bulgarian state collapsed and was included within the Byzantine Empire.

In 969 there was an organized insurrection in Macedonia headed by the four sons of Prince Nicholas, which finally led to the establishment of the vast Empire 7

I st or i ò na Bï l gar i ò, á, S of i ò, 1954, 93.

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of Tsar Samuel (Samoil), whose centre and capital was Prespa and Ohrid. This first state of the Macedonian Slavs succeeded in expanding its territory over a large part of the Balkans, but kept it only up to 1018.

This marked the beginning of a new, two-century-long subjugation under the Byzantine Empire, disturbed by powerful insurrections and short-lived autonomies of some Macedonian feudal lords. Among the most significant in this period were the uprisings of Petar Deljan (1040) and ÏorÒi Vojteh (1072) and the autonomous regional administrations of Dobromir Hrs (1185-1202) in the Strumica region and of Aleksij Slav (1207-1230) in the Melnik region. The Crusades incorporated Macedonia for a brief period into what was known as ‘the Latin Empire’, and the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan succeeded in occupying parts of it. Yet this Bulgarian reign of Macedonia, too, lasted for no more than two or three years, as following Kaloyan’s death (1207) Macedonia once again fell under Byzantine rule.

Of particular significance is the emergence of new independent feudal lords in Macedonia, among whom the most important was Strez (1207-1214) in central Macedonia. His rule saw a continuation of its statehood in some way, but after his death the Epirote despot Theodorus Comnenus took control of Macedonia. In 1230 the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II once again incorporated Macedonia into Bulgaria, but this reign, too, lasted for only 11 years; after his death (1241) Byzantine rule continued.

In 1282 the Serbian King Milutin began the struggle for Serbian control of Macedonia and this process was completed by Tsar Dušan in 1345. During the reign of the latter, for a certain period Macedonia even became the centre of the Serbian state, the seat of the Tsar and the Patriarch. It is important to note that Dušan retained the autonomy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, even though he somewhat decreased its competencies. In addition, the regional feudal lords in Macedonia under Dušan enjoyed a special status and were granted a great degree of autonomy. As a result, following Dušan’s death (1355), the Dejanovci and MrnjaÌevci families established fully independent feudal rule. Around 1365 Volkašin proclaimed himself “the King of the Serbs and the Romaioi” and ruled independently until the year 1371, when in the battle near the River Marica, fighting against the Turks, he was killed together with his brother, the despot Jovan Ugleša. Volkašin’s son, known as King Mark (Marko), had to acknowledge Turkish rule after 1390, whereas Konstantin Dejan recognized the supreme authority of the Turks earlier and became a Turkish vassal, continuing, as it were, the semi-independence of that part of Macedonia. It was only after the battle near Rovine (1395), in which both of them were killed, that the Turks were able to establish full control not only of Macedonia, but almost of the whole of the Balkans. The long period which ensued (lasting up to 1912) was the darkest subjugation of the 12

Macedonian people, when Macedonia experienced stagnation and decline, although it was also a period of popular resistance expressed through mass insurrections.

Bearing in mind all these facts, we can draw the following conclusions: (1) The Slavic character of the main ethnic group is of considerable importance for the history of the Macedonian people, but we cannot and should not overlook the significance of the ancient Macedonians, who gave this people its territory, name, culture and blood. If the history of the Turan-Mongol Bulgars is considered as an inseparable part of the history of the modern Bulgarian people, why should not the Macedonians respect the past, glory and culture of their own land, their own name and part of their own blood? For, as Dimitar V. Makedonski said in 1871, “the earth did not gape open to swallow” those ancient Macedonians;8 they melted into the mass of the people.

(2) The people of Macedonia, in the course of some 13 centuries (after the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans), mostly lived together in the same state, sharing the same economy and culture; Macedonia was nearly always incorporated as a whole into the different territories of neighbouring states and sustained common influences, which undoubtedly contributed to the formation of this people’s individuality.

(3) Under the feudal system, at least as far as the Balkan region is concerned, most of the states were not states of peoples but of territories; hence the borders of the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, Serbia, and even Turkey, comprised different peoples which later secured a completely independent popular and national development.

(4) During its history from the beginning of the 7th century up to 1912, the Macedonian people invariably came under the control of four principal powers: for more than four and a half centuries it was under Byzantine rule (7th-9th, 11th-13th); slightly more than a century under the Bulgarians (9th-10th, 13th); nearly a century under the Serbs (13th-14th), and five centuries under the Turks (14th-20th). Even if we exclude these five centuries when Macedonia was under Turkish domination, as were the neighbouring peoples, if we take only the period from the 7th to the 14th century, it follows that (during these eight centuries) Macedonia was under Bulgarian rule for no more than 110 years. Bearing in mind that other Balkan Slavic and non-Slavic peoples also came within the Bulgarian borders, that there were no means of mass communication, that the Macedonians had no contacts with the Bulgarians beyond Mount Stara Planina, and that the foreign military-administrative authorities could not exert any stronger influence on the broad masses of the Macedonian population — it can be safely assumed 8

D.V. Makedonski à, ,,P o makedonskì àt ï và pr osï “, Makedoníò, œ , 7, C ar egr adï , 16.áá.1871.

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that it was impossible that only the populations of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia formed a single people, without those of the other regions of the state which came for even longer within the boundaries of Bulgaria. For example, the Romanians (they chose this name as late as 1862, following the unification of Wallachia and Moldavia, which became the national name of the unified Roman people!) were under Bulgarian rule uninterruptedly from the 7th to the 10th centuries, and even later they remained under the strong influence of the Bulgarian state. The Albanians, too, were under the authority of the Bulgarians at least as long as the Macedonians. But if these peoples were not ‘Slavic’, then why did the Serbs, Montenegrins and part of the Bosnians and Croats not become and remain Bulgarians?

(5) In the course of their history, the modern Macedonians formed their own state-political organizations more than once, but these were either not fully developed or remained restricted to smaller territories and were not recognized by others, or bore foreign names, as a result of which contemporary historians included them within pages dealing with other peoples. As early as the 7th century the Macedonian Slavs founded a state organization of their own which was of no lower level that the state organization of the tribal unions of the Serbs and Croats in the 9th and 10th centuries. The constant struggle and insurrections against the Byzantine Empire united the Macedonian Slavs as a community and resulted in that popular unity finding its expression in the first state established by the Slavs in Macedonia headed by Samuel, which, just like any other feudal state, later expanded its borders over a large part of the Balkans. That this state was basically a state of the Macedonian Slavs is confirmed by the historical fact that following its collapse (1018), Basil II made Macedonia a separate theme (thema), giving it the name which was probably used by both the state and its church.

In spite of the complications with the designation, it was in the state of Samuel that the Macedonian people began its affirmation as a people: it formed a statepolitical whole; it introduced an official standard literary Slavonic language with Ohrid as its cultural and literary centre; it created an autonomous church organization with the elevation of the Bishopric of Ohrid to the rank of patriarchate; it also grew as a single economic entity and its towns experienced great progress, developing the Slavic consciousness of its people, although under a dual appellation: under the popular name ‘Slavs’ and the state name ‘Bulgars’. The development of Macedonia in the following two centuries as a Byzantine administrative territory whose inhabitants were designated as ‘Bulgars’ increasingly replaced the popular name which was retained only in the language of traditional literature and in the vernacular of the neighbouring Albanians, resulting in the widespread use of the appellation ‘Bulgars’, which in the meantime disappeared in the Danube Region theme (or at least it is not mentioned in the surviving written sources from 14

these centuries). The fall of Macedonia under Serbian rule brought about further obfuscation of the popular name. The result of the long Ottoman subjugation and the specific political, social and religious position of the Macedonian people (when the usual terms of address were ‘raya’, ‘kaurin’ (non-Moslem), ‘Christian’, etc.) was a process of obliteration of the ethnic designation, which took place very slowly and was not completed, as in the 19th century it was superseded by a new process in the nation’s formation, which in turn created new problems as a result of the aforementioned historical development of the Macedonian people.

(6) It is also important to mention that the Balkan ‘Slavic’ Orthodox peoples constituted themselves and managed to survive the mediaeval period and right up to the 19th century thanks, to a considerable degree, to the church organizations of their own which guided their spiritual and educational life, regulated the judicial and family relations and united the people under the symbol of their own name.

The Archbishopric of Ohrid as an autonomous church organization in Macedonia for eight whole centuries, although retaining the Bulgarian name in its title, maintained a sense of the popular and territorial unity of Macedonia.

There is no doubt that, for instance, the Serbian people was able to fully constitute itself and survive only after the establishment of its own church. It was only thanks to the expansion of the jurisdiction of this church to the territories of Šumadija, Belgrade and Vojvodina that the Serbian people — and, subsequently, the Serbian nation — was able to form its state within the present-day borders.

The same refers to Bulgaria, which as early as the second half of the 9th century gained its own church organization, losing it in the 10th century to restore it in the 13th century, and losing it once again in the next century after the country’s conquest by the Turks. But precisely because of the emergence in the mediaeval period of two autonomous churches bearing the Bulgarian name amidst the Slavic world in the Balkans (whose existence was interrupted in the 14th and 18th centuries), during the age of national revival, in the 19th century, a struggle began for the appropriation of the mediaeval past “under its own name”, resulting in the well-known conflicts and complications which have lingered to this day. How great the significance of the church was in this period can be seen by the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, whose eparchies were also taken as the basis for drawing the ethnographic borders of the Bulgarian people, creating political aspirations which have remained alive up to the present day.

If three peoples and three nations (Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians) developed from the core of the ‘Russian’ Church, if two peoples and two nations (Serbs and Montenegrins) emerged in their historical development from the ‘Serbian’ Church, why should not two peoples and two modern nations (Bulgarians and Macedonians) develop from the population under the jurisdiction of the 15

Ohrid and Trnovo (Turnovo) Churches in the mediaeval period when the entire historical evolution dictated precisely such development?

3. Some basic components of the culture of the Macedonian Slavs Krste P. Misirkov was the first to pose the question of the independent Macedonian culture as early as 1903, but 20 years later, in 1923, when Macedonia’s subjugators used all methods and means for genocide and denationalization9 of the Macedonian people, Misirkov once again felt responsible to declare before the whole world: There used to be and there still is an independent Macedonian culture, and it has been the strongest weapon in helping the Macedonians to preserve their present-day cultural matrix and survive all the reversals in the history of their fatherland: not Byzantium nor Bulgaria nor Serbia, nor Turkey, could make changes in the character of the Macedonians of such a nature as to destroy their individuality and estrange them from their Slavic forefathers.10

And since these claims were refuted by both Sofia and Belgrade, Krste Misirkov offered a more elaborate answer to the question “Is there indeed a Macedonian national culture and Macedonian national history?” He wrote: Fortunately enough, we can give an affirmative answer: yes, there is a Macedonian culture and Macedonian national history, distinct from those of the Serbs and Bulgarians, even though they have so far not been the object of extensive and impartial study: the Serbs and Bulgarians have one-sidedly and with a strong bias chosen from Macedonian culture what glorifies their own national name, ignoring questions of capital importance only because they do not concern them or contradict the national aspirations of the choosers and their compatriots.

Unfortunately, the independent study of Macedonian history is only beginning now, [carried out] by those same Macedonians who towards the end of the past century started disbelieving Belgrade and Sofia scholars, who had almost unanimously declared that during the Middle Ages the Slavs were a disorganized people, without national [sic!] consciousness, who were saved from Greek assimilation only thanks to the establishment of the state of the Turan Bulgars, and later of the state of the Nemanja dynasty…

We, Macedonians, believe this to be an erroneous idea as a result of which the Bulgarians and Serbs have wrongly understood not only the history of the Macedo9

The terms denationalization and denationalize are used throughout this book with the meaning of ‘obliterating the national (i.e. ethnic) character of a people with the purpose of assimilation’ (translator’s note).

10 K. Mi si r kovï , ,,Makedonska kul t ur a“, P i r i nï , á, 2, S of i ò, 21.H.1923, 2.

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nians and Macedonia in the Middle Ages, but also the very history of the Serbs and Bulgarians.

Offering an answer to the question of the significance of Macedonian national culture and Macedonian national history, Misirkov concluded: The sum total of the centuries-long efforts towards cultural growth and national self-preservation of the Macedonians, starting 400-500 years prior to the emergence of the Serbian state of the Nemanja dynasty and continuing during its rise and decline, together with the similar efforts on our part to win church and political freedom in the 19th century, constitutes our Macedonian national culture, our Macedonian history.11

With justified reason Misirkov concentrates on those “saints” and heroes, Macedonians “by birth and deeds”, such as Cyril and Methodius, Clement and Naum, Tsar Samuel, Strez, King Volkašin and King Mark, as well as on the Archbishopric of Ohrid, on “the pleiad of Macedonian writers in the Middle Ages and in the 19th century” and on the pleiad of legendary heroes killed in the struggle for freedom in the past 30 years. Accepting this basic idea of Misirkov’s, we believe that the formation of the Macedonian people cannot be understood if we do not consider some of the basic components of Macedonian culture since the mediaeval period which has been either usurped or obscured up to the present day.

(a) When were the Macedonian Slavs converted to Christianity?

The question of the Christianization of the Macedonian Slavs12 is undoubtedly one of the most important where Macedonian culture is concerned. The first and rarely categorical answer to this question can be found as early as the end of the 9th or beginning of the 10th century, in the oration of Ëernorizec Hrabar, and the first analysis of this problem among the Macedonians was made a millennium later by Krste P. Misirkov in his book Za makedonckite raboti (On Macedonian Matters, 1903). As these documents are used in the analysis of other components of culture, we shall here quote them in greater detail. Ëernorizec Hrabar writes: In the past, however, the heathen Slavs had yet no books, but read and told fortunes using lines and notches. And when they received Christianity they had to write Slavonic words with Roman and Greek letters, without a standard. But how could you write dobro, bogï or Ô i vot ï or yõ l $ or c rï kvÅ or Ìl ovõ kï or š i rot a or / edrot ì or ô nost Å or " d‡ or | zì kï or " dŇ and other words similar to them? And thus it continued for many years…

11

K. Mi si r kovï , ,,Makedonska kul t ur a“, Mi r ï , HHH, 7155, S of i ò, 19.ᜠ.1924, 1.

12

For more details see: D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, Mi sl a, S kopje, 1983, 88-116.

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Then man-loving God… had mercy on the Slav people and sent Saint Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, a righteous and true man, who created 38 letters for them, some after the example of Greek letters, and others after Slavonic speech.13

If Ëernorizec Hrabar (St Naum?), as an authority and contemporary, appears as a witness to the emergence of Macedonian literacy and culture, and simultaneously as the author of its first periodization, Krste Misirkov is its first theoretician, understanding and expounding the laws of this process. Writing about the alphabet and orthography of a new literary standard, he also deals with that initial process when a foreign script may be used for writing in one’s own language, saying: But if his own language contains sounds which are not present in the language from which the alphabet is borrowed, the borrower of the foreign alphabet will make certain modifications and amendments to it to mark the differences in the sounds between the two languages. This borrowed and reconstructed alphabet is handed down from generation to generation and is thus changed and adapted to the features of the borrowers’ language. So, gradually and imperceptibly the alphabets of less cultured peoples are made in the contact with more cultured ones. But this gradual process is justified only if two neighbouring peoples are in politically unequal circumstances, namely if one of them, i.e. the more cultured one, rules, and the other one, the less cultured one, is subjugated, or at least deprived of full political freedom… Thus Christianity and literacy took root among us, the Macedonians, earlier than among any other Slav people. They spread over the centuries, moving gradually in an upward direction. Hence history says nothing about the conversion of our people to Christianity. But literacy always comes along with Christianity. By hushing up our adoption of Christianity, the process of the formation of our literacy is also hushed up.

Accordingly, our spiritual revival and the enlightenment in this land, and even the development of our literacy, owing to the geographical and historical circumstances, took a different course in the first millennium AD from that of the other Orthodox Slavs. In this land the process was gradual and imperceptible, while among the others it was swift and comparatively clearly defined.14

These two extensive and very important quotations may successfully lead us to the clarification of the puzzles of that distant age when some process crucial to the development of Macedonian literacy and culture and also to the Macedonian people in general was completed. They illustrate what the process was and how it was carried out, but not when it took place. For instance, they do not mention when the Macedonian Slavs were converted to Christianity.

There is no doubt in Misirkov’s assumption that the adoption of Christianity in Macedonia took place slowly, silently and continually, because the people were subjugated and lived within the frontiers of stronger and culturally more developed 13

I vanï DuàÌevï , I zï st ar at a bï l gar ska kni Ô ni na, á, S of i ò, 1940, 65-66.

14

K.P . Mi si r kovï , Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903, 142-143.

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rulers. This process, however, could have started sometime in the 6th or 7th century and been completed by the 9th century at the latest. It was certainly aided by the fact that the native Macedonian Christian population in this part of the Balkans continued to develop unhampered in the Slavic environment and in the Byzantine state, thus exerting influence on the Slavs as well. On the other hand, the constant wars and uprisings and the disobedient heathen Slavs made the Byzantine administrators use the strongest means at the time for neutralizing and attracting them: Christianity. That Christianity in Macedonia developed uninterruptedly since the missionary activity of St Paul is also confirmed, in addition to the archaeological finds and the Bible, by some historical sources.

Whereas Christianity was fiercely persecuted in pagan Bulgaria, in the Byzantine province of the Macedonian Slavs there was not only a numerous Byzantine Christian administration, but Christian education was spread among the Slav masses, as a result of which the tribes increasingly melted into each other and mingled with the indigenous Macedonian population; instead of the former tribal princes, regional administrators were instituted. This, in turn, created the preconditions for the establishment of a single ethnic mass which gradually built its individuality as a people.

These conclusions are also supported by the fact that the Slavonic educator Methodius himself was for ten whole years, up to the year 850, the administrative head of the Bregalnica region, while his brother Constantine at the same time, in the same region, still converted Slavs to Christianity; he had created “Slavonic letters” for them and wrote “books in the Slavonic language”.15 And that the Christian faith was widespread or perhaps the conversion to Christianity in Macedonia was already completed (although the hagiographies of Clement say that there were still heathens) is indirectly confirmed by the following two arguments. Following the Church Council of Constantinople in 870, when the Bulgarian Church was recognized and Joseph, a Greek, was appointed Archbishop, eight dioceses were recognized or created, of which only two were in original Bulgaria — to the far north, in Silistra (Durostorum) and Ovech (Provadija) — while all the other six remained in Byzantine territories and were gradually (chiefly in the 9th century) annexed to Bulgaria: Philippopolis (Plovdiv), which lay within the theme Macedonia and developed within the sphere of Byzantine culture with continuous Christian life; Sredec (Sofia), which came within Bulgaria’s borders as late as 809; present-day Serbia — Belgrade and Morava (somewhere around the mouth of the River Morava), which were conquered by 15

Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,Ki r i l i Met odi à i r azvi t i et o na bï l gar skat a kul t ur a“, Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost 863-1963. S bor ni k v Ìest na Ki r i l i Met odi à, BAN, S of i ò, 1963, 27.

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the Bulgarian state in the early 9th century (but before the capturing of Sofia), while two dioceses were recognized on the territory of the newly-conquered Macedonia: Ohrid, and the Bregalnica region. It is also known that at the ‘False Council’ of Patriarch Photius in 879 one of those taking part was Bishop Theoctistus of Tiberiopolis, whose seat is believed to have been in Strumica. These data confirm that preconditions had been created earlier for a widespread spiritual activity in the territory of Macedonia, as illustrated by the facts in the charters of Basil II of 1019, 1020 and 1025, written immediately after the destruction of the state of the Macedonian Slavs, and testifying to the much more developed spiritual life in Macedonia as compared with Bulgaria. These documents point to the existence of the following dioceses in the Devol komitat: Ohrid, Kostur, Glavinica, Meglen and Bitola, while the komitat covering the region between the rivers Vardar and Mesta involved the dioceses of Strumica, Morozdvizd, VelbuÔd and Sredec, whose south-western gravitation was beyond any doubt at the time.

Accordingly, even on the basis of these few facts we can conclude that the conversion to Christianity in Macedonia was completed by the 9th century, a process which took place gradually and without shocks, before Macedonia found itself within the borders of Bulgaria, while the conversion of the Bulgarian people to Christianity was carried out only after 865, using force and bloody reprisals, events which were reflected in written records and documents concerning the relations between Byzantium, Bulgaria and Rome. On the other hand, this is an illustration of the character of the culture in these two regions: while a pagan Bulgarian-Slavic culture with Thracian elements was created in Bulgaria, a Christian Macedonian-Slavic-Byzantine culture (with elements of all the native peoples and ethnic groups) developed in Macedonia, which undoubtedly, as testified to by Ëernorizec Hrabar (and confirmed by Misirkov), gave rise to the development of literacy.

(b) When did Slavonic literacy develop in Macedonia?

Literacy appeared largely as a result of Macedonia’s conversion to Christianity.16 Hrabar recorded this fact, and it is also mentioned by Misirkov. There are no concrete data as to the time when this took place, although we can fully accept the periodization of Ëernorizec Hrabar: by the early 10th century literacy in Macedonia had already passed through three stages.

16

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Nekoi pr aš awa okol u pojavat a na hr i st i janst vot o i pi smenost a kaj S l oveni t e vo Makedoni ja“, in: Ki r i l S ol unski . S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , kni ga 2, 23-25 maj 1969, S kopje-Š t i p, MANU, S kopje, 1970, 319-337.

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The first stage was the period when the Slavs were still not converted to Christianity and when they “read and told fortunes using lines and notches”. This was probably the period before they arrived in the Balkans and immediately after their arrival. It is difficult to say how long this stage lasted, because there are shepherds even today in some areas of Macedonia who cut various lines (raboši) on their sticks, using them for taking notes and counting. We believe that Hrabar is right when he says that this “literacy” was used at the time when the Slavs were still heathens, and yet we do not know when exactly their conversion to Christianity started, nor do we know for how long this process lasted.

The second stage involved a considerably higher form of the Slavonic written culture, when foreign scripts — Latin and Greek, as scripts of a more developed culture — were used for writing in the Slavonic language. This process started with the conversion to Christianity, but even though we do not know when it began or for how long it lasted, its conclusion is nevertheless marked by the ‘invention’ of the Slavonic alphabet by Constantine (Cyril) the Slav. The practice of using the script of a more cultured environment for a Slavonic language is not unknown even up to recent times, but it was not only the privilege of the Slavs: for a long time the Greeks themselves wrote using the Phoenician script, the Armenians used the Syrian script, and until the creation of their own alphabet, the Georgians wrote in the Armenian script. The fact that these foreign symbols were used for writing Slavonic texts in the period of conversion to Christianity points to the fact that some church literature in the Slavonic language had already been created, and that conversion to Christianity in Macedonia was carried out in the vernacular language.

This course of development is not impossible. The Byzantines saw their interest in converting the Slavs to Christianity, as this would provide opportunities for holding them in subjection within their empire, particularly at a time when Rome was making efforts to retain and expand its influence in the Balkans, and especially among the Slavs. On the other hand, it is very interesting that in all the hagiographies of Cyril, Methodius, Clement and Naum the dispute concerning the three languages takes place between the Slavonic educators and the Latin clergy, not the Greeks, with the exception of the oration of Ëernorizec Hrabar, which could also be a reflection of the position of the Greek clergy in the Bulgarian state. The Greeks certainly fought to secure domination against the Slav clergy who had already been established, particularly within the Ohrid literary school. In principle, the Constantinopolitan Church was not against the introduction of vernaculars in the preaching of Christianity, even though there was, in certain periods, a tendency for the texts which dealt with the essence of Christianity, texts of strictly dogmatic character (the Gospel, Acts of the Apostles, Symbol of Faith, etc.), to be in Hebrew, Greek or Latin, because, it was believed, there was a danger of inaccurate 21

translation, or incorrect interpretation of the Christian doctrine. In the Byzantine Empire itself, church books were translated into Gothic in the 4th century, in Armenian in the 5th century, and from Armenian into Georgian. As early as the 4th century, however, the Goths were proclaimed heretics. At this point let us mention that the other churches preaching in vernaculars were proclaimed as adherents to various heresies and schisms: the Syrian Chaldean church was Nestorian, the Syrian Jacobite, the Coptic and Armenian churches Monophysitic, and the Gothic church was Arian.17 The position of the Constantinopolitan Church in the 9th century was clearly defined by the famous statesman and patriarch Photius, who in his work On the Franks and Other Latins accused the Latins of adhering to the principle of trilingualism and expressed the view that God could be worshipped in other languages as well, and not only in Hebrew, Greek or Latin.

We can hence conclude that the Macedonian Slavs, after receiving Christianity, were given the basic books in their own language, thus also receiving the Christian culture of the contemporary civilized Graeco-Roman world. That this is close to the truth is confirmed by the excerpts already quoted from the hagiographies and from Hrabar’s oration, to which we can add that part of the letter of the GreaterMoravian Prince Rostislav where, among other things, he writes: For our people who have given up heathendom and received Christianity we do not have such a teacher who will preach the true Christian faith in our own language, so that when other lands see it they may follow us. Therefore, O ruler, send us such a bishop and teacher!18

This quotation points to the possibility that Rostislav already knew that there were Christianized Slavs within the borders of the Byzantine Empire and that they had teachers and priests using the Slavonic vernacular. Is it possible that, as is described in the hagiographies, Cyril and Methodius were able in such a short time (half a year) to create the alphabet, translate and copy the principal church books, and prepare other teachers to go to Moravia, if there had not been an already established written tradition, a fixed terminology and a well-developed style of use of the vernacular? Both the alphabet and language of Cyril and Methodius testify to the existence of a fully established literary language and a perfect script which corresponded to the phonetics of the Slavonic dialect in the Salonika region.

This can by no means be an accidental result of the circumstances of the time.

Accordingly, there is no doubt that Christianity in Macedonia was preached and spread prior to 864 (when the Bulgars started receiving Christianity) and that the Macedonian Slavs had an already well-developed Slavonic written culture.

17

Kuào M. Kuev, Ëer nor i zec Hr abï r , BAN, S of i ò, 1967, 83.

18

Al . Teodor ovï -Bal anï , Ki r i l ï i Met odi à, á, S of i ò, 1920.

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The only question that remains to be answered is: what script did that literature use?

First of all, the old dispute as to what alphabet Constantine (Cyril) created is still very much alive. The majority of scholars, however, believe that it can be safely assumed that it was Glagolitic. But two other very important questions automatically arise here: how did Cyrillic develop and when was Glagolitic created?

From what has been said so far it is obvious that the first alphabet for the Slavs in Macedonia was created long before the mission of Cyril and Methodius to Moravia, that it was built mainly on the basis of the Greek alphabet and that it was probably closest to modern Cyrillic. Ëernorizec Hrabar himself writes that this alphabet was used for Slavonic sounds, but that it could not suitably render Slavonic phonetics, as a result of which Constantine (Cyril) designed an alphabet in accordance with the phonetics of these Slavs. This allows the possibility that Cyrillic, “without a standard” (i.e. without the symbols for the characteristic Slavonic sounds, as quoted by Hrabar) was used in Macedonia even before 862.

At this point we are faced with the question: when did this process start? This is indeed only a single component in the whole process of conversion to Christianity and civilization of the Macedonian Slavs. Many scholars do not consider it a mere fantasy that such Slavonic literacy existed as early as the 7th century.

Relying mainly on the Salonika Legend, the Ascension of Cyril the Philosopher, the Life of the Tiberiopolis Martyrs, a record in the Kastamonia monastery on Mount Athos, two surviving chronicles and other written records, the Bulgarian scholar Jordan Ivanov in 1906 concluded that for a whole 200 years before Cyril and Methodius “there was a man who tried to give an alphabet to the Slavs in Northern Macedonia” and that that man was Cyril of Cappadocia who worked in Syria and Egypt.19 A similar view was put forward somewhat later by his younger colleague Emil Georgiev, who believes that Cyrillic was created earlier than 863, and that its creation was a continuous and gradual process. Georgiev writes: “Even before Cyril, the Slavs used to have books written in Cyrillic, but they were of local significance and did not spread to a wider area, and besides, which is more important, they were not accepted by the official church.”20 In another text on this question, published in 1966, Georgiev states his views even more precisely: Jordan Ivanov allowed the possibility that the alphabet of Cyril of Cappadocia was Glagolitic. Yet it is considered a proven fact that Glagolitic was the work of Constantine-Cyril the Slav. Hence it cannot be excluded that Cyril of Cappadocia may have taken part in the creation of Cyrillic, which was created before Glagolitic 19

ä or danï I vanovï , S õver na Makedoni ò, S of i ò, 1906, 70.

20

Emi l Geor gi ev, S l avònskaò pi sÅmennost Å do Ki r i l l a i Mef odi ò, S of i ò, 1952, 84.

23

and in which the Semitic symbols Š , C and Ë were used; coming from the east, Cyril of Cappadocia could have introduced these symbols into Cyrillic. These same symbols, as they were not Greek and did not provoke the discontent of the Roman Catholic Church, were later introduced by Cyril of Cappadocia into his alphabet — the Glagolitic — adapting them in style and form to the rest of the Glagolitic letters.21

We can thus conclude that the Slavonic language written in Greek script was used in Macedonia; that it was only a cultural, and not literary language, as it was not the language of a specific state or specific church, and that this situation continued “for many years”. The first recognized Slavonic language and the first Slavonic alphabet (for precisely these reasons) reached that degree only when they became the alphabet and the language of the Greater-Moravian state and its church, even though they were built on the basis of the vernacular of southern Macedonian Slavs.

The third stage in the development of literacy and Christianity in Macedonia, as underlined by Hrabar as well, started at the moment when Cyril and Methodius designed the Slavonic alphabet and translated the religious books into the language of the Salonika Slavs, which had already been established as a literary one.

Scholars have long been debating these questions: when, why and what alphabet did they create?

The hagiographies usually state that it was only after Rostislav’s letter to Michael III that work on the preparation of the mission to Greater Moravia started, meaning that the alphabet was created at that time. The same sources give indirect indications that Cyril and Methodius worked even earlier on this task. We have already pointed out that even before the brothers went on their state and diplomatic missions among the Arabs and Khazars, Methodius had been the strategus of the Bregalnica region for ten years, that his brother Constantine came there, converting many Slavs to Christianity, creating an alphabet and writing books for them. It is also mentioned that in 851, almost simultaneously, the two brothers went to a monastery on Olympus (Asia Minor) where they “talked to the books” for nearly ten years. Ëernorizec Hrabar writes that Constantine designed the alphabet in 855, no doubt after many years of work. Even though there are arguments disputing this, if we accept this date, it seems that in the Bregalnica region Constantine spread Christianity and Slavonic literacy using Greek and Roman symbols, i.e. a Cyrillic alphabet “without a system”. Perhaps it is for this reason that this alphabet bears his name up to the present day, if it is not connected with the name of Cyril of Cappadocia.

21

P r of . d-r Emi l Geor gi ev, L i t er at ur a na i zost r eni bor bi v sr ednovekovna Bï l gar i ò, BAN, S of i ò, 1966, 315.

24

The hagiographies also state that in 859/860, when Cyril and Methodius departed on their new mission among the Khazars, their work in the Polychron monastery was continued by their disciples, which is not only a confirmation that the alphabet was already prepared, books were translated and copies made, but also that the brothers had their own disciples who were actually those companions on their journey to Moravia. As a result, Rostislav knew what to ask for and where to ask, and Michael III was able to send people with the necessary qualifications, who would nevertheless know how to protect properly Byzantine state and church interests in Central Europe.

At this point let us answer the question concerning the character of the Salonika brothers’ mission to Moravia.

There is certainly no doubt that, being Byzantine state-political and church dignitaries of the highest rank, Cyril and Methodius did not depart only on a formal church-religious mission; it was a purely state, political and strategic mission, and they remained, until the end of their lives, faithful to the highly complex task they had undertaken. The result of that mission, however, was of invaluable significance for the entire Slavic world and in particular for Slavonic literacy and culture, although later it did have negative repercussions on the Byzantine Empire’s aspirations in the Balkans.

(c) What political and strategic moments dictated this Byzantine mission and what were relations with Bulgaria like?

The moment of sending the mission was determined by purely political and military-strategic factors. By the year 861 the relations between Moravia and the Germans had been strained for a long time and were characterized by permanent wars and tension. Nearly always Bulgaria was the ally of the former state of the Franks, and later of that of the Germans, actually fighting against the Slavs in Moravia. This traditional Germanophile policy of Bulgaria since those early centuries was also the result of the constant military conflicts with Byzantium, at whose expense Bulgaria expanded its territories. In 862 Louis the German sent his own mission to the Bulgarian Prince Boris to negotiate a war against Slavic Greater Moravia, and perhaps proposing to him the conversion of the Bulgarian state to Christianity through the Roman rites. At the same time, in order to thwart the new war and hamper the Germano-Bulgarian military alliance, knowing of the attitude of the Byzantine Empire towards Bulgaria, the Greater-Moravian Prince Rostislav sent a mission to Constantinople and asked for direct military assistance in political alliance with Byzantium, as well as preachers and teachers in the Slavonic language, to protect Greater Moravia from the subversive actions carried out by 25

the German Roman clergy, who supported the Germano-Bulgarian alliance. The result of all these military, strategic, political and other combinations was the mission of Cyril and Methodius to Greater Moravia in 862/863. To understand better the anti-Bulgarian character of Cyril and Methodius’s mission it is sufficient to mention that in 863 the Bulgarian Prince Boris, together with Louis the German, waged a war against Greater Moravia and against Louis’s disloyal son Carloman, while in early 864 the Byzantine Empire attacked Bulgaria and compelled Boris to break up his alliance with the Germans, and, among other things, to receive Christianity through Constantinople.

(d) What was the language of Cyril and Methodius: Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian?

Slavistics most often designates the language of Cyril and Methodius as ‘Old Slavonic’ or ‘Old Church Slavonic’, but in the works of the majority of Bulgarian scholars and a number of German and other Slavists we can also find the term ‘Old Bulgarian’. More recently we have seen the designation ‘Old Macedonian’ being increasingly used, although it is of a fairly limited character, as even we in Macedonia nearly always use the designation ‘Old Slavonic’. At the beginning of this century, in the works of Krste P. Misirkov (1903 and 1905) and in the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), 1913-1914, we can find the designation ‘Old Macedonian’, but this term was soon suppressed with the suppression of Macedonian scholarly thought.

We do not consider the term ‘Old Slavonic’ to be incorrect, as it, too, originates from the Slavic name borne by the Slavs in Macedonia, but it is likely that the designation ‘Old Macedonian’ will be increasingly used in the future, in contrast to ‘Middle Macedonian’ (15th-18th centuries) and ‘New Macedonian’ (19th-20th centuries).

But is the term ‘Old Bulgarian’ justified?

There is no doubt that the language of all the Slavs in the 9th century was similar and comprehensible to all of them, but it is also beyond any doubt that even then there were individual variants and tribal dialectal differences which have been retained to a large degree up to the present day. Yet to claim that only the Macedonian and Bulgarian Slavs had one and the same language which was already different at the time from the languages of all nearby peoples (in presentday borders), means to lose the sense of reality. It is true that Bulgaria was predominantly populated by the Slavic tribes of the Antians, and Macedonia and a part of Serbia with the Slavini (Sclavini), but it was the historical development of the peoples following their arrival in the Balkans — bearing in mind all the 26

elements examined above — that subsequently determined the development of the language, which adopted a large number of Balkanisms, particularly prevalent among the Macedonians and Bulgarians. The second half of the 9th century already saw the creation of Old Bulgarian literacy and the initial formation of the Old Bulgarian language, but this can by no means refer to the language of Cyril and Methodius, even though this language was indirectly introduced into Bulgaria, exerting a decisive influence on Bulgarian culture. Mutual relations, such as these between Macedonia and Bulgaria, were also to remain unknown and unstudied in the subsequent period.

In a written record from the 7th century (‘The Miracles of St Demetrius’), in connection with an attack of the Avars and an insignificant group of Bulgars as allies of the Macedonian Slavs in the siege of the city of Salonika, a counsellor to the Bulgarian Kuber is mentioned as speaking Greek and the languages of the Romans, Slavs and Bulgars.22 This indirect and highly unreliable piece of information is today used for assuming that the language of the ‘Proto-Bulgarians’ was “fairly spread” in both north-eastern Bulgaria and southern Macedonia as early as the 7th century, neglecting the fact that even here a strict ethnic differentiation is made between the Bulgars and the Slavs (i.e. Macedonian Slavs) and that it was quite possible that the counsellor spoke all these language, as a man can speak several languages, but is it possible to assume that the people in Macedonia could have learnt or needed to learn or even master the language of the ‘Proto-Bulgarians’ during the brief and insignificant visit of Kuber’s company to the territory of Macedonia?

On the other hand, with what right can the Slavs from the Salonika region be called ‘Bulgars’ or ‘Bulgarian Slavs’ bearing in mind that they had never come into longer contact with the Bulgars and that they constituted an inseparable part of the people of the Macedonian Slavs which subsequently formed the Macedonian nation?

Accordingly, in the third period of the development of Macedonian written culture, the Slavonic script, the Slavonic language and Slavonic translations and original literature were created on the basis of the Macedonian language and were carried to Greater Moravia and later brought back. Although it is very likely that Cyril’s script was Glagolitic, designed perhaps specially for the needs of the Moravian Slavs, but on the basis of the Old Macedonian vernacular from the Salonika region (as the Cyrillic script already used might have been too reminiscent of the Greek alphabet, creating political difficulties in the implementation of the mission in the realm of Roman influence), this does not imply that the older Cyrillic literacy did not continue to develop in Macedonia; it was later adopted 22

Gr ï cki i zvor i za bï l gar skat a i st or i ò, ááá, S of i ò, 1960, 111-157.

27

(with small modifications) as the standard state script of the Bulgarian court in Preslav.

The time in which Ëernorizec Hrabar lived, which is not mentioned in his periodization, and the period up to the 14th century, constitutes the fourth stage of the development of written culture in Macedonia, when Cyril and Methodius’s disciples Clement and Naum established the Ohrid Literary School, which, to quote BlaÔe Koneski, “stands out by its clearly outlined physiognomy”,23 with characteristics of the Glagolitic traditions of Cyril and Methodius which can be found in Macedonia as late as the 14th century. It is important to mention that following 886 an exceptionally rich cultural, educational and spiritual life developed in Macedonia, which undoubtedly had many common elements and intertwinement with the Bulgarian centre at Pliska and later in Preslav and Trnovo.

At the same time, however, it built numerous independent traditions, which certainly contributed to the formation of the Macedonian people and Macedonian culture: the establishment, in Macedonia, of what is considered the first Slavonic university; the first Slavonic bishop in the entire Bulgarian state (and probably the only one in the Slavic world at the time); the construction of a large number of churches and monasteries, and a whole complex of related subjects, among which the development of the arts and architecture deserves particular mention.

From what has been established so far concerning this early period, we know that Clement’s Literary School in Ohrid used exclusively the Glagolitic script as an alphabet designed by Cyril and Methodius, although it is very likely that Clement added several new symbols for certain sounds; he used their translations and preserved and developed their language — in contrast to the Preslav Literary School, which developed on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet and made modifications in the language in accordance with the characteristics of the Bulgarian vernaculars of the time, also carrying out modifications of the translations and church books or making new translations. It is also important to mention that Clement, less than a year after his arrival in the Bulgarian capital, left it and came to Macedonia, as did Naum a few years later. Even though the sources — which are, however, of a considerably later date — offer explanations of these facts (exploited extensively by Bulgarian scholars), it seems that this question will preoccupy serious researchers of these problems for a long time to come.

There is practically no doubt that both Clement and Naum were from Macedonia. The following facts confirm this assumption.

It is known that in the 11th to 13th centuries Macedonia was a Byzantine administrative region (theme) which bore the name ‘Bulgaria’. The surviving 23

Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, L i t er at ur en zbor , ááá, 1, S kopje, 1956, 17-18.

28

sources do not confirm whether the terms ‘Bulgar’ or ‘Bulgarian’ were used to refer to north-eastern Bulgaria, but underline that these designations were quite normal in this period for the inhabitants of Macedonia. And as the names Bulgaria and Moesia were identified with each other, a new distinction was beginning to be made between these two territories: ‘Upper Bulgaria’ and ‘Lower Bulgaria’, i.e.

‘Upper Moesia’ and ‘Lower Moesia’. This is reflected in the various hagiographies from that period of Byzantine domination in Macedonia, where we can come across the following interesting details.

The Shorter [version of the] Life of Clement written by the Archbishop of Ohrid Demetrius Homatian in the first decades of the 13th century says that Clement “devotedly studied the Holy Scriptures, translated, with the help of God, into the local Bulgarian dialect of Cyril, a true godly-wise and apostolic father, and he was from the beginning, together with Methodius, the eminent teacher of piety and Orthodox faith of the Moesian people”.24 As in Clement’s time the church was still not divided into the Catholic Church (Rome) and the Orthodox Church (Constantinople), these commentaries are obviously made by Homatian in the 13th century.

That the terms ‘Moesi’ and ‘Moesian’ was not a synonym for the general designations ‘Slavs’ and ‘Slavic’ is also shown by other references. For example, Homatian continues by writing that Clement since “his young age” had already “become the driving force of the leaders and a leader of the entire Moesian people in piety”.25 “This great father of ours and the beacon of Bulgaria,” says the hagiography, “was by birth from the European Moesians, usually known among the people as Bulgars”.26 The Second Life of Naum asserts that “Naum originated from Moesia”,27 while the other hagiography points out that he was “a friend and fellow-sufferer of Clement’s”.28 If we add the assertion of Theophylact of Ohrid (the Archbishop of Ohrid, two centuries after Clement’s death) that Clement knew the life of Methodius “like no one else,… as since his early and young years he has accompanied him”, we can draw the conclusion that both Cyril and Methodius, and Clement and Naum, came from the same land, Moesia, i.e. from the theme subsequently called ‘Bulgaria’, i.e. present-day Macedonia; it was from this same Moesian (i.e. Bulgarian, i.e. Macedonian) people that they came, travelling the same road to Moravia. Perhaps all this, in addition to some of the older political 24

Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò na sv. Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S of i ò, 1961, 127.

Ibid., 128.

26 Ibid., 127.

27 P et ï r Hr . P et r ov, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i negovat a epoha“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski …, S of i ò, 1966, 42. See also: Bï l gar ski st ar i ni i zï Makedoni ò, S ï br ani i obòsneni ot ï pr of . ä or danï I vanovï . Vt or o, dopï l neno i zdani e, BAN, S of i ò, 1931, 312.

28 P et ï r Hr . P et r ov, op. cit., 42; P r of ä or danï I vanovï , op. cit., 360.

25

29

associations concerning the Moravian mission, was one of the reasons for their abandonment of the Bulgarian capital.

The high level, the deep foundations and the broad sway of Christian Slavonic culture in Macedonia can also be seen in the fact that the Slavonic written and literary tradition in Macedonia never ceased to exist, even though this land was occupied by numerous and different conquerors, whereas in the only recently Christianized Bulgaria it died down immediately after the fall of the Bulgarian Empire (11th-12th c.) and was briefly restored during the Second Bulgarian Empire (13th-14th c.). It was directly dependent on the existence of church independence: whereas in Macedonia this tradition existed and developed uninterruptedly up to 1767, in Bulgaria it appeared twice, only to disappear soon.

Let us mention another detail. The famous Council of Simeon in 893 in Preslav29 is believed to have adopted the following four principal decisions: (1) the capital of Bulgaria was moved from Pliska to Preslav; (2) Simeon was proclaimed the Prince of Bulgaria; (3) Slav priests were instituted in place of the former Greek clergy, and (4) Slavonic was introduced as the official state and literary language instead of the former Greek language, and Cyrillic was adopted as the official script after specific symbols for the characteristic Slavonic sounds had been added.

Here we must point to some not insignificant differences which are confirmed by these decisions: whereas in Bulgaria the church was controlled by the Greek clergy who used the Greek language (both in church services and administration up to the year 893), in Macedonia, even before the time of Cyril and Methodius, Slavonic was used in written records, and after the coming of Clement in 886 to the Ohrid region, on the basis of the Slavonic language and the Glagolitic script, a large number of teachers and native priests were educated, firmly taking the church into their own hands. This was particularly reflected somewhat later, after the elevation of the Bishopric of Ohrid to the rank of patriarchate by Samuel, and even after the downfall of his state.

The further development of Macedonian culture was characterized by huge oscillations, but also by an uninterrupted line which was ultimately to lead to its full affirmation. The cultural individuality of Macedonia in the period of the new Byzantine bondage and during the reign of the Serbian state did not lose its character, and developed even further. It became an important part of the overall culture of the Orthodox Balkan Slavs.

29

P et ï r Hr . P et r ov, ,,I st or i Ìeski t e osnovi na Ki r i l omet odi evot o del o“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost 863-1963, S of i ò, 1963, 90; Bl aÔ e Koneski , op. cit.

30

4. The name of the Macedonian people Since we know that we took the Macedonian name as the name of our nation as late as the middle of the 19th century, two questions are of paramount importance: what was the Macedonian people called up to that period, and how come that they took the Macedonian name? Both questions are of crucial significance for the formation of the Macedonian people and the emergence and development of the Macedonian nation.

From the existing historical sources it can be seen that the names of the native peoples in this part of the Balkans were lost after the arrival of the Slavs. The inhabitants of the Bulgarian state accepted the Bulgarian name, and in the written sources we can find them only under that designation, whereas the inhabitants of Macedonia are mentioned under the names Slavini (Sclavini) or Slavs. By the 9th century specific tribal Slavic names were in use in Macedonia, but later, after its division into regional (and not tribal) administrative units, these names disappeared almost completely. It is interesting to note one fact which is often not mentioned, namely that up to the 10th century we find the Slavic name as designating almost exclusively the Macedonian Slavs; the claims that there was some kind of ‘mixing’ of the Slavic and Bulgarian names as both referring to the ‘Bulgarian people’ are absolutely incorrect. Dimit’r Angelov acknowledges that in Bulgaria after 681, “in the course of time, even before their conversion to Christianity, there had been a certain intermingling between the religions of the Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians, an intermingling which could also be seen in the field of material culture”. The author considers that “certain customs, beliefs, cults”, even before the conversion of Bulgaria to Christianity, were “spread not only among the Proto-Bulgarians, but also among the Slavs, and they represented, as it were, o n e c o m m o n spiritual possession of these two ethnic elements”.30 The same also referred to the language. As Greek was used in Bulgaria as the language of the state, and Slavonic prevailed as the language of the people, there are two possibilities: either the Proto-Bulgarians received the language of the Antians as early as the period when they were living as neighbours, before they came to the Balkans, or this took place during the process of intermingling in the Balkan region, where the much more numerous Slavic tribes imposed their own language.

The aforementioned Bulgarian scholar confirms this, writing: “When Slavonic literacy was created and our first literary works appeared, the influence of the 30

Di mi t ï r Angel ov, ,,Bï l gar skat a nar odnost i del ot o na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski 916-1966. S bor ni k ot st at i i po sl uÌaà 1050 godi ni ot smï r t t a mu, BAN, S of i ò, 1966, 10-11.

31

Proto-Bulgarian (Turan) language was quite negligible, and there remained almost no traces of it to influence the language of our writers towards the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century.”31 And because the language of the Thracians and their name in Bulgaria totally disappeared, with the exception of certain toponyms, some conclude that the process of the creation of the Bulgarian people within the borders of the Bulgarian state (perhaps even before its conversion to Christianity) was completed. Motivated solely by their desire to amalgamate the Macedonian and Bulgarian peoples, Bulgarian scholars claim that, for instance, the Byzantine historian Theophanes (8th c.-818) still mentioned “‘Bulgars’ and ‘Slavs’ separately as two components of the Slavo-Bulgarian state in this period”.32 The document Theophanes has left us explicitly states: “This year [i.e. 688, BlaÔe Ristovski] Justinian started a campaign against Slavinia and Bulgaria [i.e. two distinct and different regions, B.R.]. He repelled the Bulgars who intercepted him at that time [moving from Constantinople towards Bulgaria and Macedonia, B.R.], and attacking them as far as Salonika, he captured a great multitude of Slavs”33 (from Macedonia!). Thus Theophanes clearly differentiates between the Bulgars (subjects of the Bulgarian state, recognized by Byzantium, who had already been accepted as the Bulgarian people) and the Slavini (Sclavini) who lived in Macedonia, called Slavinia (Sclavinia) at the time. The same source quotes that “the lord of Bulgaria sent a twelve-thousand-strong army and noblemen to enslave Berzitia [part of Macedonia, B.R.] and make it a part of Bulgaria”, but that the Byzantine emperor found out about this plan and destroyed the Bulgarian troops.

Accordingly, Theophanes is consistent in differentiating between the Bulgars and the Macedonian Slavs.

Bulgarian scholars also claim that the Byzantine sources from the 7th and 8th centuries “often speak of individual Slavic tribes”, quoting the Greek word ethnoi (the plural form) and mentioning the names of the tribes [Brzaci (Brsjaks, Brzaks, Berziti), Rinhini (Rinhins), etc.], but that in the second half of the 9th century, i.e. when Macedonia, too, was incorporated into Bulgaria, “the word ethnos in the singular form appeared more and more often in use, meaning ‘people’ and designating the entire population of Bulgaria”.34 These conclusions, however, are incorrect.

Firstly, individual Slavic tribes are mentioned only when referring to Slavic tribes in Macedonia, as confirmed by the quotation of the names of Brsjaks and 31

Ibid., 11-12.

Ibid., 15.

33 Gr ï cki i zvor i za bï l gar skat a i st or i ò, ááá, 1960, 265.

34 Di mi t ï r Angel ov, op. cit., 14.

32

32

Rinhins. Secondly, at that time these tribes were still not part of the Bulgarian state. Thirdly, and most importantly, the designations ethnoi and ethnos in the Greek sources are used side by side even before the settlement of the Slavs in the Balkans, and continued to be used indiscriminately in the following period: “the Slavic people” (John of Ephesus, 584); “the people of the Slavs” (Theophylact Simokata, early 7th c.), and the designation “Slav people” for the Macedonian Slavs can be found as early as the 7th century in many sources, while, for instance, the Miracles of St Demetrius of Salonika, where the allied attackers of Salonika in 622 are even specifically mentioned (“countless army of all the Slavs, Bulgars and other countless peoples”) speak simultaneously of the whole “Slav people” and of “the tribes of the aforementioned Slavs, namely Strymons and Rinhins, as well as Sagudats”, of “the princes of the Dragovit tribe”, etc. All this unequivocally shows that it is difficult to draw conclusions with full reliability upon mediaeval sources as regards the categories ‘tribe’ and ‘people’, and that the assumptions of Bulgarian scholars suggesting a unity in terms of ethnicity and name of the people in Bulgaria and Macedonia cannot be taken seriously.

From what has been said above we can see that the first name of the Macedonian people was Slavini (Sclavini) or Slavs, this form being retained up to the 11th century,35 independently of the imposition of other, foreign names through administrative means. It is interesting that the Slavic name referring to the Macedonians has been preserved in the neighbouring Albanian language up to the present day.

Although the Macedonian people later received different names, there is no doubt that the Bulgarian name has left the most permanent and significant mark.

For this reason, we shall elaborate this question in greater detail.

As we have already pointed out, the first contacts of the Macedonian Slavs with the Bulgaro-Slavs were made as late as the second half of the 9th century, after the departure of Cyril and Methodius to Moravia, when the multiethnic Bulgarian state incorporated Macedonia. On the other hand, the BraniÌevo and Srem regions, together with present-day Belgrade, came within Bulgaria’s frontiers half a century earlier than Macedonia. So why was the Bulgarian name retained the longest in Macedonia, and not in Belgrade (which is now the centre of the distinct Serbian nation)?

35

This is mentioned by Prof. A. Burmov in the quoted work, Hr i st omat i ò po i st or i ò na Bï l gar i ò, á, 425. Here we must underline that most of the tribal names of the Slavs in Macedonia which can be found chiefly in Byzantine sources were most probably received from the Byzantines, generally according to the place of settlement: the Strymons were given their name according to the River Strymon, the Rinhins according to the River Rinhos, etc. We still do not have reliable information whether they themselves used these names. It is interesting that, of all these, only the names of the Mijaks and Brsjaks have been retained to this day, the etymological origins of which appear not to have such roots.

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Even though all the ethnic entities which were formerly part of the Bulgarian state later changed numerous masters, they nevertheless, in the course of time, established states under their own names, which in turn founded church organizations under their own names, being the basis for their designations when they subsequently developed as nations. Hence the Bulgarian name was retained among these peoples as long as the frontiers of that Bulgarian state and church lasted.

Macedonian history is different in this respect from the history of the other Balkan Orthodox Slavs. It is true that the Macedonian Slavs succeeded in establishing a strong state towards the late 10th and early 11th century, but its founder was crowned with the Bulgarian imperial crown and received the Bulgarian name for his state, as even earlier the Macedonians had been Bulgarian subjects for some time; he elevated the Bishopric of Ohrid to the rank of patriarchate, so that during their existence, both the church and the state bore Bulgarian appellations. This phenomenon was quite usual in the mediaeval period and in all feudal states: for instance, the most powerful European emperors — those of the Byzantines and Franks — proclaimed themselves successors to the Roman crown and proudly called themselves Romans!

Of crucial importance for the strengthening of the Bulgarian name in Macedonia, however, was another factor which we have already mentioned: following the downfall of Samuel’s state, the Byzantine emperor Basil II, in accordance with the usual practice in the empire, divided the newly-conquered territories into themes, and thus Macedonia, as the centre of the destroyed ‘Bulgarian’ state, became a theme bearing the name ‘Bulgaria’. At the same time he gave the name ‘Paristrion’ (the Danube region) to the territory of Bulgaria; the Thracian coast became known as the ‘Strymon’ theme, and the region between Adrianople and Constantinople as the ‘Thrace’ theme. It is of particular significance to mention that as early as 802 the continental part of present-day Thrace, with its centre at modern Plovdiv, can be found as a theme bearing the name ‘Macedonia’.36 In addition, Basil II immediately demoted the Patriarchate of Ohrid to the rank of archbishopric, but left it as an autocephalous church which, nevertheless, until its abolition in the 18th century, retained the Bulgarian appellation in its title. Highly illustrative in this respect is the report concerning the patriarchal thrones and their subordinate dioceses made by Archimandrite Nilus Doxopater by order of the Sicilian King Roger II in 1143. This is what it says with regard to the autocephalous Archbishopric of Ohrid: “The Bulgarian Church is like the Cypriot Church: independent and subordinate to none of the supreme thrones, but autonomously governed and consecrated by its own bishops. In the 36

Di mi t ï r Angel ov, I st or i ò na Vi zant i ò, S of i ò, 1965, 295.

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beginning it was not called Bulgarian, but later, as it came under the control of the Bulgars, it received the Bulgarian name. It also remained independent when it freed itself from the Bulgarian hand and did not join the Constantinopolitan Church.” 37 Somewhat later the Archbishopric of Ohrid was made subordinate only and directly to the Oecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, its former eparchies were curtailed and its jurisdiction was reduced mainly to the territory of Macedonia.

The long Byzantine domination in Macedonia (over two centuries, 11th-13th c.), together with the administrative division and conservatism of church traditions described above, was accompanied by a highly developed economic and, in particular, cultural life of the Macedonian Slavs. It is a period from which a large number of cultural and historical written records — in the Slavonic and Greek languages — have been preserved. In all these documents Macedonia is invariably referred to as the theme Bulgaria, and the former Slavini (Sclavini) are now described under the administrative appellation Bulgars, while the Macedonian language is called Bulgarian. The same applies to the various hagiographies and orations connected with Clement and Naum, and even those with Cyril and Methodius, where the nomenclature is in full accord with the administrative division. This is understandable as the majority of historical texts were written by Greeks.38 Using these appellations as ‘arguments’, Bulgarian scholars stress the “Bulgarian character” of Macedonia and use the designations which were the result of a situation in the 12th and 13th centuries to draw conclusions relating to issues from earlier periods. At the same time they forget that during the same period, when we can find Macedonia referred to under the Bulgarian name, the Bulgarian name is absent in the written records relating to Bulgaria and the Bulgars! It is curious (which has long been and still is the cause of dispute between Bulgarian and Romanian historians) that even the founders of the ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’, the brothers Ivan and Peter Asen (1185-1197), did not use the Bulgarian name. Instead, the sources mention ‘Wallachians’, ‘Moesi’, Scythians, etc.39 As late as the early 13th century, Ivan and Peter Asen’s heir, Kaloyan 37

P ogl edi , ᜠ, 3, S kopje, 1967, 110.

With the exception of Haralampie PolenakoviÎ’s chapter entitled ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski – Ô i vot i dejnost “ (in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S kopje, 1966, 5-68) and Branko Panov’s article ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski “ (I st or i ja, ááá, 1, S kopje, 1967, 32-53), we have yet no detailed account of these hagiographies that are full of contradictory and very interesting data. Written considerably later, mostly by Greeks within and outside Macedonia, they present sufficient reasons calling for a critical survey which will provide important information — both for us and for others.

39 Bor i sl av P r i mov, ,,S ï zdavanet o na Vt or at a bï l gar ska dï r Ô ava i uÌast i et o na vl asi t e“, in: Bï l gar sko-r umï nski vr ï zki i ot noš eni ò pr ez vekovi t e, I zsl edvani ò, á, (Háá-HáH v.), BAN, S of i ò, 1965, 9-53.

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(1197-1207), proclaiming himself “the Emperor of the whole of Bulgaria and Wallachia” and demanding recognition from the Roman Pope, in his letters writes, among other things, that he found in old books that in the past the Bulgars used to have glorious empires and emperors, whose “legitimate” heir he is.40 Yet he succeeded in conquering and controlling a part of Macedonia and Serbia for only two or three years, and this (like the subsequent short-lived incursion of Asen II) could not leave very great imprint on the overall development of Macedonia.

The not so brief rule of Serbian feudal lords in Macedonia could not erase the Bulgarian name as the Archbishopric of Ohrid constantly used it not only in the eparchies of Macedonia, but also in those outside its present-day borders. Hence it is not surprising that, for instance, Evliya Çelebi found Bulgars in the 17th century in Belgrade and other places which were under the jurisdiction of the Ohrid Church. Only after the establishment of the independent Serbian Church were conditions created for the formation of the Serbian people, because the state and the church symbolized the boundaries of an individual people in feudalism, which was later used in the delineation of national borders. Up to the present day we still do not have an objective scholarly work examining the character and mutual relations between the three independent Orthodox Slavic churches in the Balkans, but they undoubtedly developed into churches of the three Slavic Orthodox peoples: the Archbishopric of Ohrid (as the oldest church, with the longest continuity of development) for the Macedonian people, the Patriarchate of PeÚ for the Serbian people, and the Patriarchate of Trnovo for the Bulgarian people. Regardless of the degree of overlapping in their titles and organizational territories, they nevertheless led to the development of three closely related and yet individual cultures.

The complications in these relations arose only after the national delineation of the 19th century, when a people’s designation was considered of prime importance.

The arrival of the Turks led to the suppression of popular names, as the subjugated peoples were classified in accordance with their religion and social position (Christians and raya), but the Bulgarian name was still retained and propagated in the churches and monasteries under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. With the strengthening of Russia (particularly in the 18th and early 19th century) and with the arousal of interest in the Slavic world and in the Old Slavonic language and its original homeland, the Bulgarian name once again started to be used through inertia for Macedonia as well, because 40

Godi š ni kï na S of i àski ò Uni ver si t et ï , I st or i ko-f i l ol ogi Ìeski f akul t et , HHHœ áá, S of i ò, 1942, 21-66.

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the researchers found it in old documents written in the Slavonic and other languages. Therefore it was not surprising that in the Dictionary of Four Languages (1802) of the Moskopole teacher Daniil the Macedonian language appeared under the Bulgarian name and that Hristofor ÓefaroviÌ from Dojran on occasion declared himself to be a Bulgarian, amongst other things. It is in this light that we must understand the statements of some Macedonians before Vuk KaradÔiÚ, in the early 19th century, that they were Bulgarians, as well as the writings of the first literary figures of our more recent history that their language was “Slavo-Bulgarian”. The title of Kiril PejÌinoviÎ’s Ogledalo (Mirror), where he says that the book is written “in the ordinary and non-literary Bulgarian language of lower Moesia” is a good example of this.

Such or similar statements are to be found among all our writers and cultural workers from the first half of the 19th century, and even later. This, however, should not be explained as the result of Bulgarian propaganda, as we can speak of such propaganda only after the late 1850s, in the 1860s and especially in the 1870s, when the process of Bulgarian national revival was more or less completed and when the rise of national romanticism demanded the restoration of the former borders of Simeon’s Bulgaria. Up to this period it can be assumed that the same name was used for two peoples who were no closer than the Czechs and Slovaks, or the Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians, and who during their history had much less in common than the peoples mentioned above. Just as the Slovaks, Slovenes, Belorussians and Ukrainians took their present-day national names only after the process of becoming nationally aware in the 19th century — without any links to the mediaeval period — so too the Macedonian people, in this same 19th century, raised their historical and geographical name to the degree of national name, formally attesting its independent existence.

Thus the Bulgarian name was used continually in Macedonia, but without awareness on the part of the people of any ethnic or cultural unity with the Bulgarians, from whom they were separated both geographically and historically as well as economically and commercially. This does not imply that other names were not used for this purpose during that long period; numerous examples can be given of the use of the Slavonic, Serbian, Greek and, certainly, the Macedonian name for the designation of the people. But it was not until the historical conditions were fully mature that the Macedonian name developed as a national name as well, this time regionally, culturally and historically defined and sufficiently clearly distinguishable from the national names of the neighbouring peoples and territories which had become established earlier.

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(a) Why did the Macedonian name appear as late as the 19th century?

The present-day Macedonian name originates not only from the geographical term Macedonia, but also from the name of an ancient people, Macedonians, because in the acceptance of this name by both foreigners and the Macedonian Slavs, the latter were considered not only successors to the territory of the Macedonian state of Philip II and Alexander the Great, but also descendants of the ancient Macedonians, who were proclaimed the oldest Slavs in the Balkans. Yet all this was a development of the ensuing centuries, largely following the 16h century. This view first appeared and developed mostly outside Macedonia, and was only later accepted by the Macedonian Slavs themselves. Of course, during the settlement of the Slavs they already had their Slavic name and hence it was not by chance that when they established semi-state communities of their own they were called Slavinias. No one ever thought, nor it was possible to think, of a full correspondence between the borders of the Slavic settlers and the former borders of the state of the ancient Macedonians. On the contrary, the Slavs spread all over the area, coming as far as Peloponnesus. In the course of time, the broad but not very well delineated ethnic boundaries gradually narrowed, mainly in favour of the Greeks and later of Albanians. The course of history thus formed an ethnic community which gradually developed into an individual Slavic people and later into the individual Slavic Macedonian nation.

As early as 1903, on the basis of original studies and logical conclusions, Misirkov established that “our first popular name was the name Slav”.41 Our ancestors used this name at least up to the 11th century, even though foreigners used the Bulgarian name for them as early as the 10th century. We should certainly not overlook the fact, and it was not by chance, that St Clement of Ohrid never signed his works as ‘Bulgarian bishop’ (even though he could have done so, as he worked within the frontiers of the then vast Bulgarian state and should have been subordinated to the Archbishop of Bulgaria), but he most often signed them as ‘Slavic bishop’. Later, however, the Slavic name utterly disappeared as an exclusive popular name for the Macedonian Slavs, acquiring a broader, all-Slavonic meaning. This is the reason why we cannot find it as a designation for the people even during the process of the birth and development of the Macedonian nation, especially in view of the fact that it had already been used by the Slovaks and Slovenes.

Misirkov is right when he concludes that “the Greeks also gave us, the Macedonians, the name Bulgars. But this renaming,” continues Misirkov, “was 41

K.P . Mi si r kovï , Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903, 116.

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not the only one. The Serbs, too, renamed us as Serbs.”42 As we have already explained in detail how the Bulgarian borders expanded to include Macedonia and how the Bulgarian name was introduced and became established in a certain period, let us now examine the use of the Serbian name. Once again we can quote Misirkov to illustrate our point: The Serbs were the principal military power opposing the Byzantines. Our ancestors were their allies. The Byzantines called all their opponents Serbs, i.e. both the Serbs and us. Little by little they renamed us from Bulgars into Serbs. The same was also the result of the recognition of Dušan’s sovereignty over Macedonia and of the role of our leading men in his state. We became Serbs to the external world; then we appeared as Serbian subjects and later the name Serb came to designate a Macedonian, not a Greek, Vlach or Arnaut. […]

So, before the arrival of the Turks in our land we were renamed three times: 1.

Slavs, 2. Bulgars, 3. Serbs.43

Under Ottoman rule, as “the Turks did not recognize ethnicities in their state, they called us an ‘infidel’ [kaurin] people and ‘raya’, terms based on our low status before the Turks, on the religious differences between us and themselves and on our social position”.44 But Misirkov notes that “apart from the Turks, after losing our freedom, the Greeks became our ‘educators’ and masters”,45 who, in addition to identifying us with themselves as ‘Christians’, thanks to the state-constitutional and church traditions with ‘Bulgarian’ designations, restored the Bulgarian name for us and formally identified us with the Bulgarians. At that time the inhabitants of Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina were no longer designated as Bulgarians, because in these states the names of other states had already become established, and — which is particularly important - they had long since ceased to come under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, and mainly gravitated around the church of the mediaeval Serbian state, as a result of which Belgrade no longer bore Bulgarian characteristics. In this way we were once again nominally identified with the Bulgarians, although the Macedonians themselves had almost no links with, and not even an idea of, the Bulgarian people or Bulgarian culture. As a result, in the 19th century there was resistance against Bulgarian penetration into Macedonia, when our people called themselves “pure Bulgarians” and used the name Šopi for the Bulgarians, as the Macedonians knew no other peoples living much further than the land of the Šopi. Yet because the Bulgarians 42

Ibid., 117.

Ibid., 120-121.

44 Ibid., 122.

45 Ibid.

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succeeded in proclaiming their historical and national programme earlier, because their revival started earlier and was also completed earlier, our people, refusing to accept the proclaimed ‘unity’ of Macedonia, Thrace, Bulgaria and parts of Serbia, and making a strong distinction between themselves and the Bulgarians, rejected the Bulgarian and accepted the already well-developed Macedonian name.

(b) Why was it the Macedonian name that was accepted?

When the Slavs settled in Macedonia, the Macedonian name was considered rather vague, although many traditions and legends were still alive among the local population. It is also important to mention that there is a written records dating from as early as 802 in which West Thrace is designated as the theme of Macedonia. The Macedonian name became more and more established with Plovdiv as its centre. In addition, starting from 867 and during the following two centuries, the Byzantine Empire was ruled by the Macedonian dynasty whose founder was Emperor Basil I the Macedonian (867-887), born in the vicinity of Adrianople. The naming of Thrace as the theme Macedonia was also not incidental, as the ancient Macedonian state was originally organized along the lower course of the River Marica, and only later, during the time of Philip II, did it incorporate the territory of present-day Macedonia with its seat at Pella.

Bulgarian control and the long-standing Byzantine administrative organization of Macedonia as the theme ‘Bulgaria’ developed side by side with the existence of the theme ‘Macedonia’ in Thrace.

Serbian and Turkish conquests and the fall of the Byzantine Empire created a new situation. The development of humanism and the Renaissance in Western Europe and the cult of the ancient world and classical culture exalted the glory of the ancient state of Philip II and Alexander the Great (of Macedon).

At the same time, particularly with the development of navigation, cartography began to grow rapidly. On the basis of the maps and ‘geography’ of the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy (2nd century) and on the basis of the ‘travelling maps’ which were engraved in the squares of Roman towns in the 3rd and 4th centuries, where the borders of Macedonia were fairly accurately delineated, from the 12th century onwards, copies started to be made, and after the 15th century (when Gutenberg invented the printing press), there began the printing of various maps which spread and disseminated knowledge about the world and history. In 1490 Ptolemy’s maps were redrawn and printed, and, towards the mid-16th century, the founder of modern scientific cartography, Gerhardus Mercator (15121594), made the first more accurate map of Macedonia, printed in Duisburg in 1589 and reprinted separately in Amsterdam in 1628, showing the towns of 40

Salonika, Prilep, Stobi, Skopje, etc. With the progress of scholarship and technology, these maps spread even farther and became a part of the body of material studied in Europe. The name and borders of Macedonia became more and more established in the mind of the civilized world. By the 19th century a large number of such maps had been printed, which had undoubtedly reached Macedonian merchants and literate people maintaining contacts with Western Europe. The contribution of merchants from Dubrovnik, who were among the most numerous in Macedonia, was certainly the greatest.

At the same time various copies and reprinted editions of the mediaeval romance of Alexander the Great spread more and more widely. The ancient glory of the Macedonian state and culture stirred the imagination not only of the Europeans but also of the inhabitants of Macedonia. More and more songs about Alexander the Great began to be sung and more and more legends describing his campaigns were retold. This led to the emergence in this region of what is known as Damaskin literature. Our ‘literate’ people accepted all this. The former geographical borders, now defined with the development of cartography, gradually acquired ethnographic characteristics and a consciousness of the Macedonian origin of the Slavs in Macedonia began to be formed.

We can use the development of Slavic heraldry as a good illustration for and a proof of this extremely significant process. No doubt under the direct influence of the Italian Renaissance and European heraldic literature among the Balkan Catholic Slavs, the idea of the unity of all Balkan Slavs and of resistance against the subjugators — Turkey and Austria — began increasingly to develop. As a result, the first coats of arms of the individual Slavic lands and peoples on the Balkan Peninsula were created.

All this evolved under the wing of what was known as the Illyrian Movement, which was strongest in Dubrovnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, when the term Illyrian was identified with Balkano-Slavic. Of about 70 Macedonian coats of arms discovered so far by Dr Aleksandar Matkovski, the oldest dates from 1595. Up to that time Europe knew only the boundaries of Macedonia, most often considering it as a ‘Greek land’. Yet with the appearance of the coats of arms of South-Slavic peoples, including those of the Macedonian people, the Slavic character of this part of European Turkey was represented for the first time. This completed the picture of the boundaries of Macedonia and the character of its population. Hence Leopold I in 1690 addressed “the Macedonian people”, and the documents of the Russian Imperial Office from the 18th century mention the following: “The Orthodox peoples, the Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Wallachians, want to serve Her Imperial Majesty with blood and arms… In 41

peaceful times that corpus of Serbs, Macedonians and Bulgarians, Orthodox peoples of the same stock as ours…”, etc.46 It is also important to mention that, as Dr Matkovski points out, “the Macedonian coat of arms appeared at the same time, at the same place and was produced by the same people as the Serbian and Bulgarian coats of arms and those of the other South Slavs”.47 The inclusion of the Macedonian coat of arms in the common coat of arms of the South Slav peoples confirmed the separate character, individuality and equality of the Macedonian people with regard to the rest of the South Slav peoples.

All this spread in Macedonia itself, although with difficulty and slowly. Perhaps the statements of Athanasius, the Archbishop of Ohrid, are of particular significance in this respect. The trend gained in strength especially after 1601, when Mavro Orbini from Dubrovnik published his important work Il Regno degli Slavi (The Empire of the Slavs), where the Macedonian coat of arms was printed for the first time; a text on the Macedonian people was printed below. Yet this South Slav ideology experienced its greatest expansion after the publication of the Stemmatographia by Hristofor ÓefaroviÌ from Dojran in 1741; it was prepared on the basis of Orbini’s work, but was printed in the Slavonic language and Cyrillic script. The Macedonian coat of arms is given here side by side with the Serbian, Bulgarian and other South Slavic coats of arms, and below it is said that Macedonia lost “her honour” under the Turks, yet nevertheless she holds it dearly. The Stemmatographia spread throughout Macedonia and had an immeasurable influence on the strengthening of the Macedonian ethnic, historical and national consciousness.

It was not by chance that the Macedonians who took part in the First Serbian Uprising put a lion on their banner with the inscription ‘Macedonia’. Nor is it a coincidence that we find the same symbol on the banner of the 1876 Razlovci Uprising and even on the flags of some detachments in the 1903 Ilinden Uprising.

It is even less coincidental that the portal of the Rila Monastery (1834-1860) includes the Macedonian coat of arms, in addition to the Serbian, Bulgarian and Bosnian ones, as representing four mediaeval states and four independent Orthodox Slavic churches, i.e. four individual and neighbouring Slavic peoples. The significance of this fact is even greater if we bear in mind that the masters who 46

For more details concerning these questions see: Al eksandar Mat kovski , Makedonski ot pol k vo Ukr ai na, Mi sl a, S kopje, 1985. Starting from 1751, the Macedonians were registered as a distinct people vis-à-vis the Orthodox Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians and Greeks, and were entered in the registration form as “i z makedonskoà naci eà” (“of the Macedonian nation”, pp. 177, 184-187, 259).

47 D-r Al eksandar Mat kovski , ,,S t ar i ot makedonski gr b“, N ova Makedoni ja, S kopje, 10.ááá.1968, 9. The same author later published a separate book entitled Gr bovi t e na Makedoni ja (P r i l og kon makedonskat a her al di ka), S kopje, 1970, where he made a detailed analysis of all the Macedonian coats of arms with reproductions in colour, shedding a different light on the entire problem.

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painted the icons and did the woodcarving belonged to the then famous three schools — those of Samokov, Bansko and Debar.

But here too, as in some other cases, there are certain complications. Even though the lion represents a number of lands as a symbol in heraldry (Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, and even the Serbian reigning family of BrankoviÚ), there was a mixing of the characteristic signs between the Bulgarian and Macedonian coats of arms which was a consequence of the old confusion resulting from the use of the Bulgarian name.

Macedonian symbols were increasingly suppressed with the emergence and development of the Bulgarian revival, when Bulgarian champions announced their intention of establishing a greater Bulgarian state within the borders of Simeon’s Empire. Although these developments had more impact within Macedonia than outside its borders, the awakened representatives of our revival emphasized the Macedonian ethnic individuality and the Macedonian name, starting a long and extremely difficult struggle for Macedonian national affirmation.

Accordingly, from the historical facts concerning the development of the Balkan Slavs, given here in the most general manner, we can conclude that the Macedonian people started to be formed as early as the period between the 7th and 10th centuries, but that owing to the concurrence of historical events, this process was not fully completed until the 19th century, when the struggle of the Macedonians for the affirmation of the new social and historical category — the nation — began. The apparent evanescence of the Macedonian people after the 11th century was mainly of a formal character; it was the result of a nominal confusion with the surrounding peoples, which was resolved only after the emergence of the nation. In spite of all historical conquests and border changes, inhabiting this territory, sharing the same historical destiny, living a common geopolitical, economic and cultural life, with distinct characteristics in its language and literacy, the Macedonian people — as a distinct ethnic entity and culture — has built its individuality with proven vitality and self-preservation. This is shown by the ultimate strengthening of the Macedonian national name. There is also the fact that the Macedonians looked for and found a way of expressing their historical evolution which was not too different from the evolution of the other ‘non-historical’ nations in the Slavic world such as the Slovenes, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Belorussians and Lusatians. This does not mean that we should overlook the considerable ethnic and historical closeness between the Macedonian and surrounding Slavic peoples, but this is, however, no greater than the closeness between the Czechs and Slovaks, between the Ukrainians, Belorussians and Russians, or between the Slovenes and Croats.

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5. The national revival of the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians and conditions for the development of Macedonian national consciousness Not only in the past but even today Bulgarian scholars like to claim that “the cradle of Bulgarianism” was in Macedonia and that “the Bulgarian revival” started here.

In order to understand better why this is a wrong assumption and also to understand the Macedonian revival, we shall briefly examine the revival of the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians in connection and interdependence with which the Macedonian revival developed.

A general characteristic of all these neighbouring peoples (which were more or less in the same position as Macedonia was within the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire) was that cultural and national revival among all of them began and developed first in colonies outside Turkish (Ottoman) territory, where the necessary conditions had been created for the unimpeded progress of educational, cultural and spiritual life and the affirmation of national thought. As a result of the central position it occupied in European Turkey, the Macedonian people did not have that advantage. When it tried to establish such colonies in the neighbouring, already liberated, states new historical circumstances had been created there in which aggressive aspirations towards Macedonia were already strong and any expression of Macedonian national thought was most closely followed and nipped in the bud.

The Serbian revival and the Serbian nation appeared and developed not “in the then illiterate Serbia”, as Û. JovanoviÚ says, but in what was then southern Hungary, or present-day Vojvodina, where the Serbs had almost complete cultural, spiritual and political autonomy. The towns there were highly developed both economically and culturally and, in the second half of the 18th century, some of them (Novi Sad, Sombor, Subotica, Timisoara) were proclaimed “free royal towns” with full rights to self-rule.

Even though there was a certain Serbian population in Vojvodina as early as the 13th and 14th centuries, it grew considerably in the 15th century, after the flight of many Orthodox Bosnian and Serbian feudal lords into the Hungarian Kingdom, and in particular with the great migration following the 1690 Austro-Turkish War, when some 60-70 thousand people fled there, most of whom were craftsmen, merchants and priests, headed by the Serbian Patriarch Arsenius III ËarnojeviÚ.

The ensuing Austro-Turkish wars in the period 1699-1739 fixed the Austro-Turkish frontier extending along the rivers Danube and Sava, and passing near the fortifications of Belgrade. The Serbian population in this territory developed in an entirely different way from the Serbian people under the Turks. Even Emperor 44

Leopold I (1690-1691) issued special ‘Privileges’ for the Serbian settlers, according to which they were placed under the protection of the Emperor and enjoyed free confession of faith, church autonomy and the right to elect their own Orthodox metropolitan, who was in fact a political representative of the Serbs in Austria and who, among other things, acted as a judge in civilian lawsuits, punished those found guilty, confirmed the statutes of guilds, appointed Serbian officers, etc.

Greatly contributing to the national and political development of the Serbs in Vojvodina were also the popular-church councils which resolved important issues ranging from the election of a metropolitan, the opening of schools and organization of church administration, to protecting the people from the pressure of the authorities and feudal lords. Following the introduction of Maria Theresa’s reforms, after the establishment of the Illyrian Court Commission (1745) and the Illyrian Court Office (1747), as well as the Regulament (1770) and Declaratorium (1779), political autonomy was considerably restricted, but full rights of the people to autonomy in religion and schooling were retained, which helped the process of national revival and the affirmation of the Serbian nation. The popular uprisings of the Vojvodina Serbs, the actions of Pera Segedinac, etc., greatly contributed to the development of political consciousness and indirectly prepared for the Serbian Uprising of 1804, which led to the establishment of the free Serbian state and ultimately accomplished the process of Serbian cultural, social and economic revival. All this, however, took place outside that part of Serbia which came within the frontiers of Turkey.

Accordingly, the Serbian revival and the Serbian nation were conceived in the 18th century within the borders of Austria (and Hungary). The nation finally became established in the early 19th century in Serbia itself. * * * The evolution of the Greek revival was not essentially different. Greek education was directly controlled by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Phanariotes in the Turkish capital. In addition to Constantinople, there were Greek schools on Mount Athos, in Jannina (Ioánnina) and other towns in the Balkans, where the Balkan ‘upper class’ studied the Greek language and proudly adopted Greek culture. There were also Greek schools supported by the free principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, in Bucharest and Jassy. Many Greek scholars and thinkers earned fame in the world, but neither Constantinople nor Jannina were to become the centre of Greek revival. In Greece, just as in the case of Serbia, the main characteristic of the revival was the introduction of the vernacular as a literary standard instead of the archaic Byzantine Greek standard. In the 1760s, Iosipos 45

Myssiodakas (c. 1730-1800), influenced by the French Encyclopaedists, came out in favour of opening schools instead of churches (Dositej ObradoviÚ later promulgated the same ideology). The most glorified Greek learned man in the 18th century, Eugenios Voulgaris (1716-1806), founded the Mount Athos Academy, which became known throughout the Balkans and grew into a symbol of the struggle for education, although he was soon forced to leave Greece, finding support in Russia. Adamántios Koraïs (1748-1833) takes a special place in the cultural and national revival of the Greeks; at first he looked to France to liberate the Greek people, and later he stood at the head of the popular educational movement which developed chiefly outside Greece — in Vienna, Bucharest and Jassy — and on some Greek islands.

Of crucial significance, however, for the development of the Greek revival and national awakening was the increasingly important role of Russia in the settlement of Balkan questions, as a result of which many Greeks were warmly accepted at the Russian Court as well as at the courts of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The political content of the Megali Idea was based on Catherine the Great’s idea of “the re-institution of the ancient Greek Empire”. The ideas of the French Revolution were most practically reflected in the activity of Rhigas Velestinlis (1757-1798). He wrote his Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Constitution of a Balkan Republic, and prepared a large historical “map of Hellas” which was in fact a map of the whole of the Balkans. Although he propagated liberty, fraternity and equality for all the peoples living in this territory, at the beginning of his Declaration, Velestinlis underlines that under this Balkan Republic he understands “the people, descendants of the Greeks, inhabiting Rumelia, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean islands, Wallachia-Moldavia and all others groaning under the most unbearable tyranny of the most abominable Ottoman despotism”.48 This Megali Idea was also reflected in his ‘Combat March’ which became the ode of the Greek national liberation movement in the early 19th century. All his works mention only Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Vlachs, Armenians and Turks, and there are no Macedonians. This is understandable as the Greeks even then believed that the ancient Macedonians had been Greeks, and hence Macedonia was a Greek land.

48

For more details in connection with Rhigas Velestinlis and his Declaration, his map and his march, see: A. Daskalakis, Les oeuvres de Rhigas Velestinlis, Paris, 1937; N. Botzaris, Visions Balkaniques dans la préparation de la Révolution grecque (1789-1821), Genève-Paris, 1962; G.A. Ar š , ,,K vopr osu ob i deànom vozdeàst vi i Vel i koà F r ancuzskoà r evol ô ci i na bal kanski e nar odì (Nei zvest nì à t ekst konst i t uci i i ,Voennogo gi mna‘ Ri gasa Vel est i nl i sa)“, F r ancuzski à eÔ egodni k, 1963, Moskva, 1964; Ni kol aà Todor ov, F i l i ki et er i ò i bï l gar i t e, BAN, S of i ò, 1965, 108-120.

46

The successful end of the Serbian Uprising (1804) and the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812) created conditions for the easier development of the national liberation movements of the peoples living in European Turkey, whose centres became Romania and Russia, where, among other things, armed units composed of various peoples were created, chiefly under Greek command.

Despite the fact that the Greek ethnic entity was mainly protected and developed through the church, which enjoyed uninterrupted evolution and hence had no problems in the process of development of the Greek nation, Greek national liberation thought was for the first time and most strongly expressed in the anonymous book entitled Lawful Rule, or Thoughts of Freedom, published in Italy in 1806. We should also mention that, as well as other national and liberation movements in the Balkans, the Greek movement was conceived and developed chiefly abroad, and not internally. As in the case of the Macedonians, the main role in the awakening of Greek national liberation thought was played by various societies founded abroad. The first to appear was The Hotel of Those Who Speak Greek, in 1809 in Paris; it was followed by the Greek-Dacian Literary Society founded in 1810/1811 in Bucharest, and 1813 saw the establishment of the Society of Lovers of the Muses, the first to develop such a cultural and educational activity inside Turkey. In addition, this process was aided by the publication of printed mouthpieces: Ermis o Logios appeared in Vienna in 1811, and three years later the daily Greek Telegraph began to be printed in the same city.

The great powers, however, still refused to recognize officially the Greek nation. The following example is highly illustrative. When at the 1814 Berlin Congress the prominent Greek leaders who lived in Russia, Kapodístrias and Ypsilanti, submitted a request for the liberation of Greece, the proposal was not even accepted for discussion, and von Metternich said: “[T]here is no Greek people and the Turkish state does not recognize any nationalities other than the Turkish one.” 49 This was precisely the reason for the foundation, in the same year, in Odessa, of the Philikí Etaireía (Philikê Hetairia) secret revolutionary organization, which successfully organized the Greeks in their colonies in Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and Greece itself; in 1821 it started the Greek Uprising in Wallachia and Moldavia, transferring it to Greece, and in 1827 ultimately succeeded in winning national freedom for its homeland.

Thus the Greek revival, too, developed outside Turkey, and one of the basic characteristics of its ideology was the Megali Idea, according to which the Macedonian people were considered “descendants of the Greeks”. Subsequently this idea was to be fully developed by the liberated state of Greece and used in the struggle against the development of Macedonian national thought.

49

Ni kol aà Todor ov, op. cit., 42.

47

* * * Bulgarian national awakening took place considerably earlier than that of the Macedonians, owing not so much to economic development as to the unique geopolitical circumstances in which Bulgaria found itself in the 18th and 19th centuries. Of prime importance for the national awakening of the Bulgarian people were the Russian aspirations towards the Bosphorus. From the second half of the 18th century onwards, Russian troops crossed the Turkish frontier several times, establishing a Russo-Bulgarian military-administrative authority on the territory of Bulgaria. This was the crucial element instigating popular action whose ultimate aim was the liberation of the land from Ottoman domination. Moreover, after the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Bulgarian territory, hundreds of thousands of the most awakened and ardent Bulgarians crossed the Danube, settling in the border regions and enlarging the existing Bulgarian colonies founded by refugees fleeing from the ravages of the Turkish irregular soldiery. These Bulgarian colonies, which developed in full national and political freedom and among which Bulgarian patriotism was systematically encouraged for use in the imminent battles with Turkey, became the decisive military, moral, political and material force in the future struggle for political liberation and “national unification of the Bulgarian people” within the borders of Simeon’s mediaeval empire. The Bulgarians in Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia and Southern Russia had their own military (as part of the Russian army), their own system of schools and boarding schools, their own churches and monasteries, their own scholarly and literary societies, revolutionary committees and other national bodies that nourished national, political, educational and spiritual activities, generously supported by the Russian government.

Accordingly, the Bulgarian educational, cultural, national and political revival, too, started and developed outside Bulgaria, just as in the case of the Serbs and Greeks: the first books and newspapers in the Bulgarian language were printed abroad, financed mainly by external sources, and it was abroad again that the revolutionary detachments were formed; these were later fully armed and transferred to the territory of Bulgaria, with the purpose of preparing the ground for revolutionary activity. It is interesting to note here that, like the Greek Etaireía committees, in the subsequent years, Vasil Levski’s committees were intended only for the territory of Bulgaria, and not Macedonia!

It should also be noted that the elementary schools and boarding schools later received children sent from both Bulgaria and Macedonia. Over 200 students from Bulgaria, and also from Macedonia, were enrolled from 1854 to 1857 in various Russian schools and faculties through the Board of Odessa Bulgarians in Odessa 48

alone. And how many were enrolled through the mediation of the Slavic Charitable Committee in Moscow from 1858 onwards?

Russian scholars and journalists took part in the awakening of the Bulgarian spirit by placing Macedonia at the centre of the Bulgarian ethnographic element and outlining the borders of the future San Stefano myth.50 In 1829 in Moscow the first printed history of Bulgaria appeared, by Yuri Venelin, in which Macedonia was presented as the largest of the three parts of “Bulgaria”.51 Aprilov and Palauzov were brought up as national activists using Venelin’s numerous books (published by the Russian Academy of Sciences) as a guide, and the most glorious figures of more recent Bulgarian history — Rakovski, Karavelov, Levski, Botev and KaradÔata — grew in the spirit of the same ardent national romanticism. Macedonian intellectuals were also recruited in this environment on an ongoing basis; there they were brought up and instructed in the same spirit, and later became disseminators of conscious Bulgarianism among the masses of the people.

We should also mention the activity of the powerful Bulgarian colony in Constantinople, which managed to exert a considerable influence on the local Macedonian migrant workers, and took ‘Bulgarian matters’ into their own hands, carrying out widespread legal national activity among the ‘Bulgarian’ people in Turkey, particularly with the help of its well-developed journalistic and publishing activity.52 Accordingly, the Bulgarian revival and the Bulgarian nation, too, developed outside the borders of Bulgaria. But this development was considered a continuation of the past designated by the Bulgarian name; the national ideology was built on these foundations and was later consciously and persistently spread among the Bulgarian masses in Turkey. The books, textbooks and periodicals which were printed abroad became the basis for the education in the schools that began to be used in Bulgaria following 1835.

50

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,P r i l og kon makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja, Makedonski ot jazi k vo l i t er at ur na upot r eba i l i t er at ur at a na Makedonci t e na t uÒi jazi ci “, S ovr emenost , Hᜠ, 4, 1964, 404-405.

51 In addition to the two editions of his voluminous work Dr evníe i nì neš níe Bol gar e vï pol i t i Ìeskomï , nar odopi snomï , i st or i Ìeskomï i r el i gíoznomï i hï ot noš eníi kï Rossíònamï (1829 and 1856), Yuri Venelin published many other booklets in Moscow dealing with these problems. Of particular interest among them are the data he quotes in his publication entitled ,,O zar odì š õ novoà bol gar skoà l i t er at ur i ì “, º 1, 1838, where on page 7 the author writes that he managed to collect information that 750,000 Bulgarians lived in Bulgaria, 600,000 in Thrace, 195,000 in various other areas, whereas as many as 1,000,000 Bulgarians lived in Macedonia alone. The degree to which he and the general public were uninformed is best illustrated by his assumptions that Karlovci, Prizren, Koprivštica, Kalofer, the Rila Monastery and other places were part of Macedonia.

52 I st or i ò na bï l gar skat a l i t er at ur a, 2. L i t er at ur a na vï zr aÔ danet o, BAN, S of i ò, 1966, 182-220; D-r ManÅo S t oònov, Bï l gar ska vï zr oÔ denska kni Ô ni na. A nal i t i Ìen r eper t oar na bï l gar ski t e kni gi i per i odi Ìni i zdani ò 1806-1878, á, 1957, áá, 1959.

49

There is no doubt, however, that the various churches which were officially recognized by the Turkish authorities as Bulgarian also played an important part in the development of Bulgarian national consciousness. Thus, for example, as early as 1850 the Sultan recognized the Protestant Bulgarian Church in Constantinople, and 15 years later an individual Bulgarian Uniate Church, headed by Archbishop Josif (Joseph) Sokolski, was also instituted.53 Moreover, there was a pro-Bulgarian catholic mission which developed extensive activities in Bulgaria, but also exerted its influence in Macedonia. Nor should we overlook the protection which was offered to the adherents of the individual churches by the sponsors of religious propaganda, as in this way a millet was provided which guaranteed protection from Turkish violence and Greek self-will. We must also point to an extremely important moment which played a crucial role in the development of this “gathering of the Bulgarian people”: as early as 1847 the foundations were laid in Constantinople of the Bulgarian Church in Phener, instituted by the Bulgarian champions living in Constantinople, who inspired it with the Bulgarian national idea. In spite of some resistance it encountered in Macedonia, the Bulgarian Church gradually became a factor with which the Porte had to reckon, and it spread its influence in Macedonia as well, laying the foundations of the Bulgarian Exarchate which was recognized in 1870 and whose eparchies were considered to delineate, for both the Turkish authorities and foreign observers, the ‘ethnographic borders’ of the ‘Bulgarian people’. Furthermore, in addition to the numerous societies and committees abroad, various national institutions began to be established in Turkey as well, acquiring to a certain degree the character of authorities. Thus, for instance, even before the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Bulgarian Reading Club was founded in Constantinople (1866), which started the publication of its mouthpiece Ëitalište (Reading Club), printing articles by many Macedonian activists as well. The Bulgarian Charitable Society Prosveštenie (Education) was formed soon after (1868); its only task and goal was to direct the ‘Bulgarian cause’ in Macedonia and Thrace. The same role was later assigned to the Macedonian Society (1872), established as a counterpart to the Greek Macedonian associations, i.e. as an institution of the already fully established Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia.54 As in Shariah Turkey faith was a substitute for ethnicity, the Bulgarian Exarchate appeared as the most important implementer of this propaganda; it enjoyed 53

For more details on this matter see: Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja“, Razgl edi , áá, 9, S kopje, 1960, 908-936; áá, 10, 1005-1029; ááá, 1, 72-90 and ááá, 2, 158-189.

54

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja, ááá. Makedoni st i Ìko-separ at i st i Ìkot o dvi Ô ewe od 1873/74 godi na i nat amoš ni ot r azvi t ok na uni jat st vot o do deneska“, Razgl edi , ááá, 1, 1960, 78-79.

50

all the legal rights to administer not only the churches and monasteries in the subordinate eparchies, but also the educational institutions: it appointed and dismissed teachers and opened and closed schools where the instruction was carried out in the Bulgarian language, using the Bulgarian name and the Bulgarian national ideology, as they were actually recognized by the Turkish authorities. In this way, Bulgaria (which was still not liberated) exerted its authority over the spiritual and educational life in Macedonia, especially if we bear in mind that the Exarchate gradually succeeded in taking over the majority of church-school communities, also exerting control over the administrative local authorities and thus acquiring the right to interfere in the Turkish councils, defending the interest of its adherents. Thus Bulgaria’s liberation by the Russian troops did not result in any important changes for Macedonia, except in creating new and efficient methods and means which helped the strengthening of Bulgarian propaganda. Its ‘trade agents’ and the School Department of the Exarchate constituted a real authority which acted almost independently of the Ottoman administrative and political authorities in Macedonia.

If we bear in mind the fact that at that period (up to 1878) only neighbouring Bulgaria and Macedonia remained within the frontiers of Turkey as entirely Orthodox Slavic territories (which, moreover, still had some unresolved historical problems), we can understand the relative success of the Bulgarian national idea in some circles of the Macedonian middle class, which also found economic interest in the advancement of that propaganda. This element alone is sufficient to explain the motives for the expansion of the national propaganda of the rest of Macedonia’s neighbours; it was responsible for the paralysis of any thought of an independent national existence and development of the Macedonian people.

From what has been described above we can see that (even though they stood higher, culturally and economically, than the Serbs and Bulgarians and not much lower than the Greeks) the Macedonians did not have the historical and geopolitical preconditions which had led the revival movements of their neighbours to ultimate national affirmation. Remaining in the central part of the Ottoman Empire, without organized colonies of its own abroad, and even without a single and definite regionally specific name for its people, Macedonia developed in an entirely different way from its neighbours. Theories on the ethnic character of the Macedonians began to be expounded outside Macedonia (without the participation of the Macedonians themselves) as late as the mid-19th century. Until then the Macedonian population was mainly designated as Bulgarian in the Orthodox world, increasingly as Macedonian in the Catholic world, and as far as Turkey was 51

concerned it was described chiefly by its religious and social characteristics such as ‘Christian’, ‘heathen’, ‘Orthodox’, ‘raya’ and very rarely, ‘Slavic’.

As for the expansion of the Bulgarian name in the first half of the 19th century we cannot overlook the three very important arguments put forward by Misirkov in his journal Vardar (1905), which actually brought the Macedonian problem onto the international scene: “(1) the reform of the orthography and literary language among the Serbs; (2) the inquiry into the question of the homeland of the Old Slavonic language — the language of the translations of Ss Cyril and Methodius in connection with the development and study of the Slavic entity; (3) the travels across the Balkan Peninsula up to the last Russo-Turkish War, partly with scientific aims and partly with the aim of analysing the revival of the Slavs, which was ascribed to the activity of the Pan-Slavists, who were the cause of uneasiness for many in Europe.”55 All this encouraged the Bulgarian aspirations to create ‘Bulgarians’ in Macedonia, which met with resistance on the part of the more awakened Macedonians, encouraging the process of the birth and affirmation of Macedonian national consciousness.

The Macedonian national awakening, however, coincided with the initial actions of external religious and national propaganda in Macedonia, which considerably postponed the completion of the process of Macedonian national revival.

What in fact constituted the Macedonian Revival?

The Macedonian Revival, just like the revival of many other peoples, can be divided into two periods: one involving the period of enlightenment and cultural growth, which could be called the cultural revival, beginning in the early 19th century and continuing up to the mid-century, and the second period, which started with the resistance of the Macedonian people against foreign encroachments in Macedonia, with clearly defined Macedonian national characteristics, starting towards the mid-19th century and lasting up to the establishment of the free state of the Macedonians.

We cannot speak of a true national revival until the emergence of a clearly defined ideology using the Macedonian name.

The large number of Macedonian activists up to the 1850s and 1860s, despite all their merits and the use of a ‘pure’ or ‘blended’ Macedonian language in their literature, remain above all cultural revivalists, as they appeared chiefly under 55

D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Var dar “. N auÌno-l i t er at ur no i opš t est veno-pol i t i Ìko spi sani e na K.P . Mi si r kov, I MJ ,,K. Mi si r kov“, P osebni i zdani ja, kn. 4, S kopje, 1966.

Photographically reproduced issue of the journal Var dar , 12.

52

the Bulgarian name and had no clearly defined and affirmed national programme of their own involving a national ideology. What is particularly important is that the revival of the Macedonians was not carried out on the basis of the former Slavic past, i.e. what had been born in the process of the formation of the Macedonian people was not ‘reborn’ (as there was a confusion surrounding its name), but our revival was founded on the past and the glory of ancient Macedonia and the ancient Macedonians, who were proclaimed “the oldest Slavs on the Balkan Peninsula”. For this reason we can find Alexander the Great (Alexander of Macedon) as the symbol of the Macedonian national struggle among all our early national revivalists.56 The impossibility of proving the Slavic character of the ancient Macedonians actually complicated and prolonged the process of Macedonian national affirmation, but this process continued even after historical evidence had been studied, because a regionally specific name had already been chosen, a name which was different from all other surrounding peoples and which could secure national unity and win freedom for its people.

56

Dr agan Taš kovski , RaÒawet o na makedonskat a naci ja, S kopje, 1966, 163-181.

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The Reasons for the Return of Clement of Ohrid from the Bulgarian Capital to Macedonia

On the basis of existing sources and the extensive literature available, we have already tried to summarize some facts57 demonstrating that prior to the Moravian mission and prior to the expansion of the Bulgarian state into this area, in the course of at least two centuries, a Slavic-Macedonian-Byzantine culture gradually developed in the territory of Macedonia — a Christian civilization and culture — which differed considerably from the Proto-Bulgarian-Slavic and chiefly pagan culture created within the domains of Bulgarian khans and princes.

1.

We shall now try to answer the question of why Clement and Naum abandoned the Bulgarian capital and went to the most distant area of the then vast Bulgarian state, to Macedonia?

The studies dealing with this question mainly rely on what is said in the surviving hagiographies of these two Ohrid saints, in particular those of Clement, which are more extensive and detailed. Yet, even we accept that Clement’s hagiographies were written by the Ohrid archbishops Theophylact58 and Homa57

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Nekoi pr aš awa okol u pojavat a na hr i st i janst vot o i pi smenost a kaj S l oveni t e vo Makedoni ja“, in: S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , kn. 2, S kopje, 1970, 319-337; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1983, 15-116.

58

In connection with Archbishop Theophylact of Ohrid and the various views on his authorship of the Longer [version of the] Life of Clement see: Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò na sv. Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S of i ò, 1961, 29-68; Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Dvet e gr ï cki Ô i t i ò na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . S bor ni k ot st at i i po sl uÌaà 1050 godi ni ot smï r t t a mu, S of i ò, 1966, 143-155; I van DuàÌev, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i negovot o del o v nauÌnat a kni Ô ni na. Kr i t i ko-bi bl i ogr af ski pr egl ed“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski …, 416-424; P r of . d-r Emi l Geor gi ev, L i t er at ur a na i zost r eni bor bi v sr ednovekovna Bï l gar i ò, S of i ò, 1966, 32-38; Br anko P anov, Teof i l akt Ohr i dski kako i zvor za sr ednovekovnat a i st or i ja na makedonski ot nar od, S kopje, 1971, 11-45; I. Snegarov, ,,Les sources sur la vie et l’activité de Clément d’Ochrida“, Byzantinobulgarica, I, Sofia, 1962, 79-119; I . S negar ov, ,,F ot okopi e ot ohr i dski ò (moskovski ò) pr epi s na P r ost r anot o Ô i t i e na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski …, 173.

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tian,59 we must bear in mind that this was made (even though perhaps on the basis of Slavic sources) a whole two or three centuries after the death of this Ohrid saint,60 in entirely new and different historical circumstances and relations,61 long after the schism of the Eastern and Western Churches,62 and that it was the work of high Byzantine officials, although they were based in Ohrid.63 In spite of all this, even in this form, we find them only in late copies64 and, inevitably, with new additions and modifications determined by the changing needs and circumstances of the time. And finally, these were literary texts (and not historical documents) intended to serve specific aims and were made in conformity with the well-known canons of the Byzantine church tradition.

Regardless of whether Clement, Naum, Sava and Angelarius (as far as Sava and Laurentius, and even Gorazd, a Moravian, are concerned, we do not know very much) set off for Macedonia on their return from Moravia, as some believe,65 or for Bulgaria, as many have written,66 they arrived almost without clothes in 59

60

61

62

63

64 65

In connection with Archbishop Homatian of Ohrid and his Shorter Life of Clement of Ohrid (The Ohrid Legend) see: I van DuàÌev, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i negovot o del o v nauÌnat a kni Ô ni na …“, 424-428; I van DuàÌev, ,,Kr at kot o Kl i ment ovo Ô i t i e ot Di mi t r i à Homat i an“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski …, 161-164; Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 121-131; Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Dvet e gr ï cki Ô i t i ò …, 155-160; P r of . d-r Emi l Geor gi ev, L i t er at ur a na i zost r eni bor bi …, 38-40.

In addition to Cyril and Methodius, Clement became the third Slavic saint of the Archbishopric (Patriarchate) of Ohrid as early as the 10th-11th centuries (Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva“, P r i l ozi , á, 1-2, MANU, S kopje, 1976, 65); BoÔ i dar Raàkov, ,,Ranni kal endar ni vest i za Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski …, 321-325.

If the author of the Longer Life is Theophylact of Ohrid, it was written either at the end of the 11th century or by 1107-1108 at the latest, when this archbishop died. Homatian could have written the Shorter Life probably between 1216 and 1234. Historical circumstances at the time of Clement ( AD 916) were very different from those at the time of Theophylact, when Macedonia (after Samuel) once again came under the domination of Byzantium, and even more different at the time of Homatian, when the Latins ruled in Constantinople, and the Archbishopric of Ohrid strove towards full autonomy and independence from Constantinople (C vet an Gr ozdanov, ,,Najst ar i t e por t r et i na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . S t udi i , S kopje, 1986, 246).

The final break occurred in 1054, after the discrediting letter from the Ohrid Archbishop Leon and the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Michael Cerularius to Pope Leo IX and the sending of papal legates for the trial of the two signatory prelates (Mar i nï Dr i novï , S ï Ìi neni ò, áá, S of i ò, 1911, 60-61). At the council held in Dalmatia in 1060, church services using Slavonic books written by “some heretic called Methodius” were banned (ibid., 47).

We must also bear in mind that at the time Macedonia was still designated as the theme Bulgaria, and that the two archbishops were Greeks who had Greek interests in mind, although Homatian wrote the text in circumstances of an increasing Latin influence in the Orthodox East. We can also assume that they used older (and probably also Slavonic) sources in writing their hagiographies.

We can date the Longer Life (in 5 copies) as late as the 15th (or, at the earliest, the 14th) and 16th centuries, whereas the earliest copies of the Shorter Life can be found in the 13th and 14th centuries. Ûor Ÿe S p. Radoji Ìi Ú, ,,O Konst ant i nu-Ù i r i l u i Met odi ju i o poÌeci ma sl ovenske pi smenost i “, in: S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , 1, S kopje, 1970, 213.

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Belgrade,67 which at the time formed part of Bulgaria. It is very difficult to believe, taking into consideration the descriptions in the hagiographies, that they could have brought any books and translations from their already well-developed church and educational activity in Moravia and Pannonia, even though this does not mean that such books and copies had not already been brought to these Balkan areas — through Kocel’s Principality,68 through the Roman missionaries in the Slavic regions69 or, finally, through Methodius himself during his visit to Constantinople in 881.70 We must not, however, overlook the fact that these men could have made translations with some Moravianisms even after their arrival in Bulgaria, or Macedonia, in an already canonized church language, which they had used for more than two decades.71 66

67

68

69

70

71

Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i òt a…, 95; Di mi t ï r Angel ov, ,,Bï l gar skat a nar odnost i del ot o na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . S bor ni k ot st at i i …, 19; Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . S bor ni k ot st at i i …, 55; NadeÔ da Dr agova, Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S of i ò, 1966, 68, etc.

Even in Moravia, the hounded disciples “were dragged naked across thorn fields”; they crossed the Moravian-Bulgarian border “with no food and clothing” and arrived in Belgrade, crossing the Danube on “three tree trunks tied with linden bast fibre” (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i òt a…, 91, 95 and 97) and were barely able to carry any manuscripts or books (I van S negar ov, ,,Ëer nor i zec Hr abï r “, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost 863-1963. S bor ni k v Ìest na Ki r i l i Met odi à, BAN, S of i ò, 1963, 318).

This must have been much easier, if we take into consideration not only the closeness between Moravia and Pannonia but also the affiliation of Illyria (Illyricum) to the Roman Church, and in particular considering the fact that “Macedonia has been loyal for a long time to the Apostolic Seat”, “as late as the early 13th century” [Leszek MosziØski, ,,Zywy po jedenastu wiekach. W 1100 rocznice šmierci naucziela i pierwszego arcybiskupa Slowian, wspólpatrona Europy — šwi¤togo Metodego“, Gwiazda Morza, No. 7 (36), GdaØsk, 31.III and 7.IV.1985], although it came within the borders of different (mostly Orthodox) states.

As the Pope probably consecrated the Slavonic books as early as 869, they could be freely transferred by the Roman missionaries not only to the western regions of what, much later, was to become Yugoslavia, but must have reached even Macedonia, which was regarded as being under Roman jurisdiction. We must also not forget the fact that it was the Roman clergy who laid the foundations of the Bulgarian Church at that time (866-870).

During the visit of Archbishop Methodius and his followers to Constantinople (881-882) they must have brought some Slavonic manuscripts with them which were later to become the basic written literature for the circle frequented by the young Simeon. Considering all the circumstances and relations in Europe and the Balkans, it is indeed difficult to suppose that Methodius could have met Prince Boris (V.N. Zlatarski, ,,Vel’ká Morava a Bulharsko v IX ctoroÌi“, in: Riša Vel’komoravská, Praha, 1933, 275-288), but there is no doubt that Constantinople was not delighted with the fact that Methodius was ordained bishop and instituted as archbishop by the Pope, and in particular with the fact that he was given “certain church rights over the Illyrian territories considered to be Byzantine” (Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, ááá. P r ost r ani Ô i t i ò na Ki r i l i Met odi à. P odgot vi l i za e peÌat Bonô S t . Angel ov i Hr i st o Kodov, S of i ò, 1973, 210), a view put forward, for instance,

by František Dvornik (Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IX siècle, Paris, 1926, 271-272).

Glagolitic was preserved in Macedonia up to the 13th century, when the Constantinopolitan Church finally and entirely placed this province under its jurisdiction together with “the Old-Macedonian centre of literacy in Ohrid” (Leszek MosziØski, op. cit., 5.).

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Furthermore, after being brought to the court of the Bulgarian Prince Boris, the newcomers were placed in some kind of isolation. If, thanks to the haloes which they had according to the hagiographies, they could visit the homes of some Bulgarian noblemen only with a special permit from the Prince, it is clear that their freedom of movement was restricted. 72 The hagiographer says that from Moravia they departed for Bulgaria, as they hoped that “Bulgaria would give them peace of mind”.73 Obviously, their hope was unjustified.

The available sources do not say in which capital Boris received the newcomers (Pliska or Preslav), but in all probability it was Pliska. 74 In any case, it was still an unfriendly environment, still inhabited by a large number of Proto-Bulgar noblemen, where the Proto-Bulgarian language was spoken, whereas the Greek language and the Greek alphabet were still in official use in the Bulgarian Church, established a short time earlier, (as well as in the Bulgarian state itself), and even a Greek archbishop stood at the head of that Bulgarian Church.75 RadojiÌiÚ is 72

Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Ó i vot i dejnost “, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S kopje, 1966, 16. Even though the hagiographer tries to present the high esteem they enjoyed at the Bulgarian Court, he nevertheless writes the following (perhaps influenced by an older source): “The Saints, avoiding the multitude of people and at the same time trying to please the prince, decided not to visit the homes of many, with the exception of those whom the pious prince permitted them to visit” (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 99).

73 Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 95.

74 Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Dvet e gr ï cki Ô i t i ò …, 147 (“Pliska was probably still the capital then”); I van Bogdanov, Kl i ment Ohr i dski . I st or i Ìeski oÌer k s nauÌen koment ar , S of i ò, 1966, 103 (“Pliska was the capital of the first Bulgarian state up to the year 893”). Emil Georgiev (,,S ï st oòni e na nauÌnat a pr obl emat i ka okol o l i Ìnost t a i deànost t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Mat er i al i za negovot o Ìest vuvane po sl uÌaà 1050 godi ni ot smï r t t a mu, S of i ò, 1968, 54-55) is categorical in his claim that Boris received the disciples in Preslav (although this is not mentioned anywhere in the hagiographies), because “Pliska has no records of the written culture whose proponents Methodius’s disciples were” and because “the change of a capital is the result of some major event” such as the conversion to Christianity in Bulgaria. But are not the changes of 893 such an event, and could not the brief stay of the disciples in this capital have left traces of these circumstances? As a matter of fact, during Boris’s long vacillation between Rome and Constantinople, the coming of the ‘disciples’ to Bulgaria was an appropriate ‘middle-of-the-road’ solution — neither Greek nor Latin — befitting his relations with both Rome and Byzantium as well as with the Franks (František Dvornik, Byzantské misie u Slovan«, Vyšehrad–Praha, MCMLXX, 251).

75 The first archbishops of the Bulgarian Church were the Greeks Joseph and George (R. Kar ol evï , Ur oci po bï l gar skat a Ìer kovna i st or i ò, C ar i gr adï , 1873, 16). This was perfectly understandable, bearing in mind that the young Simeon was educated in Constantinople, in the Byzantine spirit, even though a “Slavonic School” in the Byzantine capital is mentioned after the arrival of Archbishop Methodius (probably after 882), in which, in addition to Simeon, there were the bishop Constantine and the monk Tudor, while after the release of the Slavic disciples from Moravia and Pannonia (886), their number increased. It is believed that the Preslav Literary School was established following the arrival of Bishop Constantine in Bulgaria (together with some of his disciples); it developed the Cyrillic alphabet, to quote the view of Dvornik (op. cit., 254-257), on the basis of the Greek uncial script. He believes that Cyrillic could have been an acceptable compromise solution as a Slavonic script for Byzantium as well, as Glagolitic, although it “perfectly suited all the characteristics of the spoken Slavonic vernacular… looked very complex and alien to the Bulgarian Slavs” (255). Emil Georgiev (N aÌal o na sl avònskat a pi smenost Å vï Bï l gar i ò, S of i ò, 1942, 30-32), however,

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probably right in his conclusion, making the good point that when Boris accepted Christianity and worked on the organization of the church in Bulgaria, he thought “only of the Proto-Bulgars”,76 and hence not a single one of Boris’s 106 questions to the Pope (in connection with the acceptance of Christianity and the organization of the Bulgarian Church) was related to the Slavs.77 It is quite understandable that in such an environment there was no place for Glagolitic,78 and not even perhaps for the Slavonic language which they spoke.

But is it possible, as suggested by Vondrák,79 Ilyinsky80 and others,81 that the main reason for the departure of Clement, and later of Naum, from the Bulgarian capital could have been the question of the alphabet alone?

The hagiographies say that Clement was sent by Boris to KutmiÌevica to be a teacher (even though he was given a house and rest homes). The region of KutmiÌevica is described as having 10-12 eparchies and comprising almost the whole of Macedonia,82 but nothing is mentioned as to whom Clement was

76 77 78

79 80 81

82

points out that “the source of Cyrillic is not the Greek uncial script of the 9th century, but the Greek uncial script of an earlier date: since the earliest records, the Cyrillic script has clearly borne the characteristics of the Greek uncial script of the 7th century”, even though he allows the possibility that “the Greek uncial script of the 9th century exerted a great influence on the Cyrillic script”, and that this was owing to the increasingly strong translation activity in Greek at the time. Ûor Ÿe S p. Radoji Ìi Ú, op. cit., 213.

Ibid.

This is true regardless of the fact that some traces of Glagolitic have been found at Preslav (Kr .

Mi òt evï , ,,S i meonovat a cï r kva vï P r esl avï i neàni òt ï epi gr af ski mat er i al ï “, Bï l gar ski pr egl edï , 1, S of i ò, 1929, 112; I van Goš ev, S t ar obï l gar ski gl agol i Ìeski i ki r i l ski nadpi ci ot áH i H v., S of i ò, 1963; I van Goš ev, ,,Razvi t i e na negr ï cki t e ki r i l omet odi evski bukveni znaci v t . nar . ki r i l i ca“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 274-286). Thus, even Emil Georgiev (N aÌal o na sl avònskat a pi smenost ï vï Bï l gar i ò, 14-15) admits the force of V. Vondrák’s view that “Clement, as a sign of protest, moved to Macedonia”.

V. Vondrák, ,,Studie z oboru církevné-slovanského písemnictví“, Rozpravy Ëeské akademie ved, 20, Praha, 1903, 124.

G.A. I l Åi nski à, ,,Gde, kogda, kem i s kakoô cel Åô gl agol i ca bì l a zamenena ,ki r i l i ceà‘“, Byzantinoslavica, ááá, 1, 1931, 79-88.

Dvornik (op. cit., 255) also believes that the question of the alphabet was one of the main reasons for Clement’s departure from the Bulgarian capital. He points out that Ëernorizec Hrabar, too, wrote his polemic text in or after 893 and that it was not directed against Greek influence and the Greek opponents of Slavonic literacy, but represented a defence of the Glagolitic script against Simeon and the Cyrillic he had “composed”. Dvornik (257) also writes that the priest Gregory in Preslav made a new translation of some books of the Old Testament which was actually “a revision of Methodius’s translation”, i.e. a “Bulgarization of the Macedonian and Moravian expressions used in the original translation”. Mihail Vojnov (,,P r omònat a v bï l gar o-vi zant i àski t e ot noš eni ò pr i car S i meon“, I zvest i ò na I nst i t ut a za i st or i ò, 18, S of i ò, 1967, 151) also lucidly remarks that for the author of O pismeneh the protection of the Slavs and the Slavic world took first place and that as far as he was concerned “both the Byzantine emperor and the Bulgarian prince were still heads of the states where they, the Slavs, lived”.

Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 100; Geor gi Bal asÌevï , Kl i ment ï , epi skopï sl ovõnski i sl uÔ bat a mu po st ar ï sl ovõnski pr evodï , S of i ò, 1898, HHá-HHáá; Ki r i l o-met odi evska

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subordinated to in terms of organization, and why only to Administrator Dometa (Dobeta),83 as the state administrator. Were there not metropolitanates and metropolitans, or bishoprics and bishops?84 Even when Clement was appointed bishop in 893 by the prince (an act which was indeed canonically impossible), he entirely accepted the Velika Bishopric as late as the year 900, after seven whole years,85 and once again he was subordinated to no one from the appropriate Bulgarian church authorities. During the whole period he was in Macedonia, Clement never and on no account communicated with the legally appointed head of the Bulgarian Church — the Greek archbishop in the capital — but always and only directly with the prince.86 Even when Clement submitted his resignation, he again went directly to the prince (who refused to accept it), and not to the archbishop, as one might expect considering the hierarchy.

Furthermore, while in 893 Simeon introduced the Slavonic language into official use by decree, and Cyrillic (already “composed”) became the state script,87

83 84

85

86

87

enci kl opedi ò v t r i t oma, á, S of i ò, 1985, 58. Pet’r S. Koledarov (,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski , ,pï r vi epi skop na bï l gar ski ezi k‘ na dr agovi t i t e v S ol unsko i na Vel i ki ò v zapadni t e Rodopi “, in: Konst ant i n-Ki r i l F i l osof . Æ bi l een sbor ni k po sl uÌaà 1100-godi š ni nat a ot smï r t t a mu, S of i ò, 1969, 141-167) stretches Clement’s eparchy as far as the West Rhodopes. The hagiographies, however, do not mention whether, or where, there was a metropolitanate, who was the bishop and what Clement’s relations with him were. Indeed, could a ‘teacher’ rule (spiritually) so many eparchies? Or perhaps “the Velika Bishopric was specially created for him”, as Ilyinsky proposes, and as accepted by BlaÔe Koneski (,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 77)?

Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 100; I van Venedi kov, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i Dobet a“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski 916-1966, 307-319.

If Prince Boris built “seven cathedrals” in Bulgaria, this means that there must have been higher clergy.

If there is indeed “dependable evidence for three of Boris’s seven cathedrals: in Ohrid, Devol and Bregalnica”, and it is assumed that the others may have been located at Preslav, Silistra, Belgrade and Skopje (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 110) — meaning that there were possibly only two cathedrals on Bulgarian territory — which of the other five were located on Clement’s territory? On the other hand, does not the exemption of Clement’s disciples “from all the taxes to the state”, as quoted by the hagiographer, support the thesis that they were actually not regarded as coming under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Church?

A. Milev (Ó i t i ò …, 105) translates the procedure concerning this ‘appointment’ as “he proposed him as the bishop of Drembica and Velika”, but also states that pr oba l a ma i* also means ‘appoints’. If Clement accepted the whole of the Velika Bishopric as late as 900 and built himself a monastery in Ohrid, does it mean that he was only a vicar, and not a kyriarchos? And how could he have been “the Bishop of Drembica and Velica” when there had already been a bishop heading this bishopric? Was this not also a reflection of the situation of relations with Rome?

Even though there are certain differences in the hagiographies, it is interesting that neither of the two available hagiographies mentions any contacts with the Bulgarian archbishop or with any other dignitary of the Bulgarian Church.

Perhaps František Dvornik (op. cit., 256) is right in suggesting that in 893 it was still impossible to proclaim and practise the Slavonic liturgy in the churches of Bulgaria as there was still an insufficient number of trained Slavonic clergymen. Dvornik believes that the council in Preslav was convened by Boris, and that the Slavonic liturgy was introduced gradually during the reign of Simeon. There are

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Clement continued to spread Glagolitic in Ohrid and created an enormous written literature for the time with an imposing number of disciples and followers, consecrating readers, priests, deacons and subdeacons, and building a special church centre88 which a century later, under Samuel’s empire, developed into the Archbishopric of Ohrid (with the mediation of Rome) as an individual and independent Slavonic Orthodox Church, which was active in the course of the following several centuries.

Here we must not overlook the fact that at the time, when there were five (or seven) bishoprics in the entire Bulgarian state, only two (or three) of them were located outside Macedonia. In fact, in the centres where ethnic Bulgars lived Christianity was still poorly developed, the church was still inadequately organized — and under Greek control at that — and education was still very limited and was mainly carried out in the Greek language. As a result these two environments were fundamentally polarized, which became even more apparent in the ensuing period.89 Of course, it would be far from the historical truth to look for, or discover, two already established and different peoples or nationalities; these were simply two ethno-cultural entities, still in the process of formation, which became differentiated in the course of subsequent historical development.

It is indeed not essential whether Clement modified Glagolitic by inventing several designs of letters (or added several letters or signs), 90 nor is it essential for our analysis that Samuel was later to accept Cyrillic as the inherited state script, tolerating Glagolitic as the sacral script (as was also the case in Moravia), although the ‘more difficult’ Glagolitic was later, gradually but steadily, fully superseded by Cyrillic. It should be noted, however, that extensive and varied other scholars who assume that Clement took part in this council, but that he left it in indignation, taking his brother Naum to Ohrid with him.

88 L. MosziØski (op. cit., 5) designates it as “the Old Macedonian centre of literacy in Ohrid”, whereas Milivoj PavloviÚ (,,S t r ukt ur a i st i l vi sokog r anga u st ar omakedonskom kwi Ô evnom jezi ku Konst ant i na i Met odi ja S ol unski h“, in: Ki r i l S ol unski , 2, 281-288) calls the language of Cyril and Methodius “Old Macedonian” or “Slavonic-Old-Macedonian translation”.

89 The polarization was based on the antecedent development of these two regions in the Balkans, when the predominantly Christianized Slavs in Macedonia (within its contemporary boundaries) still came within the state frontiers of the Byzantine Empire, and pagan Bulgaria lived as an independent state for the course of nearly two centuries (see: Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Nekoi pr aš awa okol u pojavat a na hr i st i janst vot o i pi smenost a kaj S l oveni t e vo Makedoni ja“, in: S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , kn. 2, S kopje, 1970, 319-332).

90 This is indicated only in the Shorter Life (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 130). For more details concerning this question see: Geor gi Bal asÌevï , op. cit., LVIII-LXVIII; Vasi l ï S l . Ki sel kovï , S l avònski t õ pr osvet i t el i Ki r i l ï i Met odi à, 152-161; P et ï r Hr . P et r ov, ,,I st or i Ìeski t e osnovi na Ki r i l o-met odi evot o doba“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni …, 89; Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Dvet e gr ï cki Ô i t i ò …, 159; Emi l Geor gi ev, S ï st oòni e na nauÌnat a pr obl emat i ka…, 62-63.

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literary and cultural activity developed in Macedonia at the time of Clement — to be found mainly in the churches and monasteries as the main centres.91 It is significant that in the year 893, when Simeon replaced his blinded brother Vladimir92 on the throne, he convened a council and appointed Clement bishop (he did not ordain him to that rank), and sent Naum to Clement (or perhaps Clement took him himself) to carry out his work. The available sources do not clarify Naum’s status in Moravia, Pliska or Ohrid.93 We do not even know (as we do not know in Clement’s case either) when he received the name under which we know him today, and when and what schema he received. The sources are unreliable or even contradict each other.

At this same period Simeon moved the capital from Pliska to Preslav and created a Slavonicized centre that built and affirmed the famous Preslav Literary School as the Bulgarian cultural and literary centre, separate from and independent of the Ohrid Literary School.94 This situation is reflected in the text entitled O pismeneh by Ëernorizec Hrabar, which is considered by some to be the pseudonym of Naum of Ohrid himself,95 but is certainly the expression of the Ohrid Literary 91

92

93

94

95

All Clement’s 3,500 disciples were in Macedonia, and even the churches and monasteries were most numerous in Macedonia (Ki r i l o-met odi evska enci kl opedi ò, á, 292). In connection with the alphabets, precious information can be found in Blaga Aleksova’s work Epi skopi jat a na Br egal ni ca pr v sl ovenski cr koven i kul t ur no-pr osvet en cent ar vo Makedoni ja, P r i l ep, 1989, presenting the newly-discovered graphemes and letters of both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

The hagiographer mentions the death of Vladimir after his four-year reign in Bulgaria (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 104), but he does not mention that he was forcibly deposed by his father and blinded and replaced by his younger brother, Simeon. In fact four important events took place in 893: the capital was moved from Pliska to Preslav, Simeon became the Prince of Bulgaria, the Byzantine clergy began to be replaced by Slav clergymen, and Slavonic became the official language of the state using the Cyrillic alphabet as a compromise solution (P et ï r Hr . P et r ov, op. cit., 9). The capital was moved with the purpose, among other things, of isolating the Proto-Bulgar aristocracy and upholding the new rule after Vladimir’s deposition.

Naum of Ohrid is treated only as presbyter and under the name he also retained as a monk. Ivan Snegarov (,,Ëer nor i zec Hr abï r “, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni …, 309) allows for the possibility that, upon entering the monastic order, he accepted “a new name which, however, did not replace his former name, and hence the hagiographer does not mention it”. Yet if, like Cyril and Clement, Naum too chose celibacy and built himself a monastery, whose abbot he probably also was, we must assume that he had entered the monastic order earlier. Even Clement, as a bishop, could not have lived for ten years among monks without being a monk, and therefore the hypothesis seems acceptable to us that he had entered the monastic order as early as his youth, perhaps on Olympus, together with Methodius (Duš an Gl umac, ,,Neš t o za Ô i vot ot na Naum Ohr i dski “, in: N aum Ohr i dski , Ohr i d, 1985, 21-22).

Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 69-87; Bor òna Vel Ìeva, ,,Gl agol i cat a i š kol at a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski 916-1966, 133-141; Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,S ï st oòni e na nauÌnat a pr obl emat i ka okol o l i Ìnost t a i deànost t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Mat er i al i …, 55-58.

Miloš Weingart, Bulgaœi a Carihrad pœed tísíciletim, Praha, 1915, 9; André Mazon, ,,Le moine Crabre et Cyrille“, in: S bor ni kï vï Ìest Å na Vasi l ï N . Zl at ar ski , S of i ò, 1925, 119-122; Rajko Nahtigal, ,,Nekaj pripomb k pretresu Hrabrovega spisa o azbuki Konstantina Cirila“, SlavistiÌna revija, Ljubljana, 1948, 5-18; Fr. Grivec, Slovanska blagovestnika sv. Ciril in Metod, 863-1963, Celje, 1963, 197; Bl aÔ e Koneski , op. cit., 80; Duš an Gl umac, op. cit., 22-23.

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School and the status the Macedonian eparchies enjoyed within the frontiers of Bulgaria amidst the aggravated misunderstandings and struggle for domination between the Eastern and the Western Church.96

2.

Only those data which have suited, or at least not contradicted, the conceptions of the selectors have been singled out in the various interpretations of the hagiographies and sources. This is best illustrated by the distrust shown concerning some parts of the Shorter Life of Clement.

Theophylact and Homatian certainly did not write their texts without some sources available to them.97 But they used only what suited the understanding and needs of the historical moment. Obviously, during the selection some data were omitted, and others reformulated. Hence interpretation and a search for the truth are possible only in a broader historical context and by using various comparative contemporary materials.

The ordination of the Slavic enlighteners and their disciples by the Pope in Rome in 869 is an important event for our study. Thus, for example, the Life of Cyril says: “And the Pope, having received the Slavonic books, consecrated them and left them in the Church of Saint Mary (the Virgin), which is called the ‘Crib’.

Then the Pope commanded the two bishops, Formosus and Gauderich, to consecrate the Slav disciples. And when they had consecrated them, they immediately held a liturgy in the Church of the Holy Apostle Peter using the Slavonic language…”98 96

The dispute in the Bulgarian state between the ‘Hellenists’ and ‘Slavists’ was largely a dispute between adherents to the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts, which also had regional characteristics. The Roman Church was most probably also involved in the dispute. These ‘disputes’ continued without interruption and, in a way, have persisted up to the present day. For a certain period following the Crusades there were no significant activities of the Roman Church in Macedonia, but after the Council of Trent (1545-1563) it restored its activity and catholic archbishops were regularly appointed in Ohrid and Skopje regardless of the number of believers (Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja, á. Bel eš ki za kat ol i ci zmot i uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja do pol ovi nat a na HáH vek“, Razgl edi , áá/ááá, 9, S kopje, 1960, 908-936; see also: N.I . Mi l evï , Kat ol i š kat a pr opaganda vï Bï l gar i ò pr õzï Hœ áá võkï . I st or i Ìesko i zsl edvane sï pr i l oÔ eni ò, S of i ò, 1914; Jovan Radowi Ú, Ri mska kur i ja i juÔ nosl ovenske zemq e od Hœ á do HáH veka, S ANU, CLV, Beogr ad, 1950).

97 Almost all researchers agree that Theophylact had a hagiography of Clement written by a contemporary of Clement’s at hand, as confirmed in paragraph 58 of the Longer Life (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 102-103). In addition to older sources, Homatian no doubt had access to Theophylact’s Longer Life.

98 Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, ááá, S of i ò, 1973, 140.

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In the Life of Methodius, however, the Pope is still Nicholas I, and thus it says there: “He blessed their teaching, placing the Slavonic books on the altar of the [shrine of the] Holy Apostle Peter and consecrated his beatitude Methodius into a spiritual dignitary… But the Pope… commanded a bishop who was infected with the trilingual disease to ordain three of the Slav disciples priests and two readers.”99 The Longer Life of Clement says: “Then the Pope ordained into the priesthood some of the companions of the holy men, of whom the teachers testified that they had sufficient knowledge in Slavonic letters and were adorned by a pious life, and gave others the offices of deacon or subdeacon. And the Pope personally ordained the great Methodius Moravian Bishop in Pannonia, although he declined resolutely and refused to accept it…”100 Each of the three sources interprets the same event in Rome in a different way.

They only agree on the fact that the disciples, too, were consecrated. Everything else is interpreted differently. But the differences are even more pronounced in the Second Life of Naum: Pope Adrian received the Slavonic teachers and their disciples with great honours, and once “the divine liturgy” was sung, “he gave Constantine the Philosopher the tonsure of monasticism and named him Cyril, and he ordained Methodius Archbishop of Moravia and the whole of Pannonia. After the completion of the liturgy of all the books, translated from Greek into the Bulgarian language, he showed them to all, because the books themselves unfolded and revealed themselves… Hence he also ordained Clement and Naum, together with the others, priests and deacons, and ordered that all the ceremonies be performed, both the evening and morning, written in Bulgarian, within the great shrine of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and indeed all this took place…”101 After all these versions comes the Shorter Life of Clement, written by Homatian, which expressly states: “When the blessed Cyril moved into his better life — thenceforward conferring his apostolic services and the advancement of the talent entrusted (Matthew XXV, 15-30) to Adrian, the Pope at Rome, and Methodius was appointed Archbishop of Moravia and Bulgaria by this same Pope — then Clement, too, was raised to the bishop’s throne when he was appointed by Methodius as the bishop of the whole of Illyria and of the Bulgarian people who ruled the land.”102 99

Ibid., 199. Dvornik (op. cit., 147) concludes that the brothers Cyril and Methodius actually did not depart for Rome but for Constantinople, taking with them “one or more of their disciples as candidates who wanted to be consecrated as bishops”.

100Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 74-75.

101I van DuàÌevï , I zï st ar at a bï l gar ska kni Ô ni na, á. Kni Ô ovni i i st or i Ìeski pamet ni ci ot ï P ï r vot o bï l gar sko car st vo, S of i ò, 1940, 62-63. The use of Bulgarian designations in this hagiography is the result of the concepts of its copier of a later date.

102Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 128. The majority of researchers agree that Constantine had the office of a priest even before the Moravian mission, but there is an interesting piece of information

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The widely accepted view is that the latter source does not reflect the historical truth, because at that time Methodius was still not appointed archbishop, nor was Clement appointed bishop, but that he was “proposed” by Simeon as “the Bishop of Drembica and Velika”.

given by a chronicler from around 1038, where he says that St Procopius knew the Slavonic script invented by “sanctissimo Quirillo episcopo” (Emi l Geor gi ev, Ki r i l i Met odi à osnovopol oÔ ni ci na sl avònski t e l i t er at ur i , S of i ò, 1956, 111). Of special significance is Methodius’s ordination as bishop and his appointment as the Archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia.

Pope John VIII, in his letter to Methodius dated June 14, 879 — in which he invites him to come to Rome to answer the accusations that he taught improperly and used the Slavonic language in liturgy — uses the following words: “To the most worthy Methodius, Archbishop of the Pannonian Church (Peter Ratkoš, Pramene k dejinám Vel’kej Moravy. Druhé opravené a rozširené vydanie, Bratislava, 1968, 174). In his letter to the Greater-Moravian prince Svatopluk (Svätopluk, Svetopolk), bearing the same date, the Pope demands from the prince the sending of “Methodius, your archbishop, instituted and sent to you by our predecessor, i.e. Pope Adrian” (ibid., 175). If we bear in mind that Pope John VIII came to the Apostolic Seat in 872, we must assume that Methodius had become archbishop earlier, but after the death of Pope Nicholas I (November 13, 867). In all probability Methodius was ordained bishop by Pope Adrian towards the end of 869, after which he was sent “as the papal legate among all the Slavic tribes in Moravia, Slovakia and Pannonia” (Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, ááá, 207). This can also be inferred from Chapter VIII of the Life of Methodius, where Pope Adrian II dispatches a special letter to Rostislav, Svatopluk and Kocel, saying that he has decided to send Methodius “ordaining him together with his disciples” (ibid., 200) which is not too different from the letter written by John VIII to the Freising Bishop Anno in the year 873 (ibid., 207). The Italian Legend says that when Cyril and Methodius received the invitation from Pope Nicholas I to go to Rome, they “set off immediately and took with them some of their disciples whom they considered worthy of the bishop’s office” (Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò …, 150). F. Grivec, however, believes that the disciples who were brought to Rome were not deemed worthy of the bishop’s office and were ordained only priests and deacons, but he also allows for the possibility that the brothers took candidates for those ranks (,,Vitae Constantini et Methodii“, Acta Academiae Velehradensis Olomucii, 1941, 38). If such candidates were indeed presented, is not the most acceptable hypothesis that Clement and Naum were among the first, bearing in mind, in particular, that Clement bore the name of the Roman pope whose relics had been brought to Rome on the first visit? So, if Methodius was ordained bishop during his first visit to Rome (869), and was appointed archbishop on his second visit (869 or 870), is it not possible that during his third visit to Rome, Clement was appointed by Methodius “Bishop of the whole of Illyria” and “of the Bulgarian people who ruled the land”? In this respect, the bull of Pope John VIII to Prince Svatopluk, dated June 880, is of considerable significance; there he informs him of the arrival of Archbishop Methodius in Rome and the new confirmation of his privileges as archbishop, as well as of the ordination of Wiching as “the Bishop of the Holy Church of Nitra” (whom Svatopluk had sent), and writes the following: “Et volumus, ut pariter cum ipsius archiepiscopi consensu et providencia et alterum nobis apto tempore utilem presbiterum vel diaconem dirigas, quem similiter in alia ecclesia, in qua episcopalem curam noveris esse necessarium, ordinemus episcopum, ut cum his duobus a nobis ordinatis episcopi prefatus archiepiscopus vester iuxta decretum apostolicum per alia loca, in quibus episcopi honorifice debent et possunt existere, postmodum valeat ordinare” (Peter Ratkoš, op. cit. 432-433). Whether a second candidate was sent to Rome as well, and whether he was also ordained bishop, is still unknown to us. But if such a candidate was sent and perhaps ordained, is it not possible that Methodius could have given Clement this honour and appointed him “Bishop of the whole of Illyria” at the moment of his departure for Constantinople (881)? Is this not possible even if we exclude the possibility of Clement being ordained bishop (of the Slavs in Illyria under the jurisdiction of the Roman Church) at the moment when the Roman envoys Euthymios and Theognostos departed for Constantinople, where they arrived on December 11, 868, and Bulgaria accepted the Greek clergy as late as 870 (František Dvornik, Byzantské misie u Slovan«, 160-161).

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It is extremely difficult, however, to accept that Constantine was admitted to the monastic order103 only shortly before his death in Rome, and that Methodius was ordained priest by the Pope as late as that, especially if we take into consideration Rostislav’s request from Emperor Michael (in the Life of Cyril): “send us such a bishop and teacher…”104 Besides, who ordained these dignitaries: the bishops Formosus and Gauderich, only one of them (Formosus), or Pope Adrian (or even Nicholas) himself? The next question is: how many and who of the disciples were ordained in the year 869 in Rome? And finally, was Methodius ordained bishop only or also appointed Archbishop of Moravia?

The authors of the sources quoted must have asked themselves these and many other questions (if these versions indeed represent the authors’ authentic texts at all). But there is no doubt that the social, military, political, ethnic, religious and historical interests at the moment of writing (or copying) these texts were of crucial significance for the final formulation of the different accounts and testimonies concerning historical events and persons at the time of Clement. Hence the account given in the Shorter Life of Clement regarding the bishop’s office given to Clement by the Pope in Rome, in the light of other relevant facts, seems largely authentic to us. It can also resolve the mystery around Clement’s return to Macedonia.

3.

When was Methodius appointed archbishop by the Pope?105 If we allow the possibility that Methodius was first ordained bishop and later appointed archbishop (which is quite possible and logical), then we can assume that it was Clement who was first ordained to the office of priest. But we do not know his secular name, since he is presented under that name from the beginning.

103Kl

i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, ááá, 159. Dvornik writes (op. cit., 155) that, according to Byzantine practice, the monk, on receiving the solemn schema, had to adopt a new name beginning with the same letter as his Christian name; hence Constantine took the name ‘Cyril’.

104Kl i ment Ohr i dski , op. cit., 136.

105In his letter to Bishop Paul of Ancona, written prior to May 14, 873, Pope John VIII writes, among other things, that the Apostolic Seat had full authority “not only in Italy and other western states, but also on the territory of the whole of Illyria”, and hence “if Alvin and Hermanrich want nonetheless to bring our Methodius to trial, tell them, says the Pope, that ,,Vos sine canonica sententia dampnastis episcopum ab apostolica sede missum, carceri mancipantes et colaphis affligentes et a sacro ministerio separantes et a sede tribus annis pellentes. Apostolicam sedem per ipsum triennium plurimis missis et epistolis proclamantem non estis ad iudicium convenire dignati, quod profecto semper subterfugere curastis…“ (Peter Ratkoš, op. cit., 431). If we subtract the three years of the banishment of Methodius from the bishop’s throne, it appears that he was ordained bishop sometime in the spring of 870, and if we suppose that he had perhaps held that throne for some time, it is possible that Methodius was ordained bishop as early as 869, whereas soon afterwards (on his second visit of Rome) he was appointed archbishop as well.

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Bearing in mind that the brothers from Salonika (together with their disciples, including Clement) brought the relics of the Roman Pope Clement on their first visit to Rome, and that Clement took the exact name of the former Pope,106 we should allow for the possibility that he was ordained, if not at Olympus, at least as early as 869. Once Methodius became the Archbishop of the Moravian Church, he must have had bishops heading the subordinate dioceses of that church. If we take into consideration the account occurring three times in the Longer Life of St Clement of Ohrid that Gorazd and Clement were the speakers on behalf of Methodius’s disciples in the disputes with Wiching’s and Svatopluk’s opponents,107 we must accept that they were Methodius’s bishops: Gorazd as (most probably) a Moravian, and Clement as a man who had accompanied him all his life in the various Byzantine missions108 remaining his faithful companion and fellow combatant to the end. As a matter of fact, there is proof that Clement had the bishop’s office even in Moravia in Du Cange’s list ‘The Archbishops of Bulgaria’, where Clement is (incorrectly) mentioned as one of the archbishops, but as previously appointed “Bishop of Tiberiopolis or Velika”.109 Let us also quote the account written in the Synodicon of Tsar Boril (1211) that Clement was “the bishop of Greater Moravia”.110 Both documents are isolated testimonies of a later date, but they must have been based on certain older sources.

If we have already accepted that Clement was ordained bishop by the Pope in Rome, then we must also pose the question of his eparchy (diocese). What was its territory? Scholars have written a great deal on this question,111 and yet only a few 106As

it is not a coincidence that Constantine/Cyril wrote texts on Clement of Rome, and afterwards (on Methodius’s insistence) he was buried in the Church of St Clement in Rome, and even the cathedral church of Gauderich in Velletra bears that name (František Dvornik, op. cit., 153-157), it is certainly not a coincidence that it was for him that Clement of Ohrid wrote the largest and probably one of the best of his works, entitled Praise for the Holy Clement, Patriarch of Rome (Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, t om pï r vi . Obr abot i l i B.S t . Angel ov, K.M. Kuev, Hr . Kodov, S of i ò, 1970, 301-304), a copy of which was recently discovered in Struga (Mi hajl o Geor gi evski , ,,Napi sano Kl i ment om epi skopom“, Makedoni ja, HHHá, 370, S kopje, 1984, 29). In connection with changing his name see: I van S negar ov, ,,Ëer nor i zec Hr abï r “, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni …, 308-309; Ël .-kor . Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,S ï st oòni e na nauÌnat a pr obl emat i ka okol o l i Ìnost t a i deànost t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Mat er i al i …, 53-54.

107Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò…, 86, 89 and 90.

108Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò…, 107. Emil Georgiev (op. cit., 52-53) concludes that as early as the time of the Khazar Mission, when the relics of the Roman Pope Clement were found, Clement was with the brothers Constantine and Methodius — as their first assistant and interpreter. This is also accepted by Haralampie PolenakoviÎ (Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Ó i vot i dejnost “, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S kopje, 1966, 11).

109P r of . ä or danï I vanovï , Bï l gar ski st ar i ni i zï Makedoni ò. Vt or o dopï l neno i zdani e, S of i ò, 1931, 565.

110M.G. P opr uÔ enko, ,,S i nodi kï car ò Bor i l a“, Bï l gar ski st ar i ni , œ ááá, S of i ò, 1928, 77.

111Of the extensive bibliography see: Tomo Tomoski , ,,P r i l og kon t opogr af i jat a na Kl i ment ovat a epar hi jat a“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . S t udi i , S kopje, 1986, 204-209; Ël .-kor . Emi l Geor gi ev,

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of them have examined the possibility that Clement’s diocese might have come under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Seat.112 According to the conclusions of the Photian Church Council of Constantinople, when the Bulgarian Church was established (879-880), eastern and western Illyria were still under the jurisdiction of Rome, regardless of whether they came under the authority of Byzantium or Bulgaria. As a result, a large part of Macedonia (including Ohrid) came within this territory, within that “one third of the Bulgarian Empire, i.e. from Salonika to Ierikho and Kanina or (and) Thassipiat”, which was later given to Clement to oversee it.113 Thus it is quite possible that Bishop Clement was appointed by Archbishop Methodius “as the Bishop of the whole of Illyria and of the Bulgarian people who ruled the land”, because at that time Macedonia had already come

op. cit., 57-58; I van S negar ov, ,,P o vï pr osa za epar hi òt a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski 916-1966, 291-305; P et ï r Kol edar ov, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski , ,pï r vi epi skop na bï l gar ski ezi k‘ na dr agovi t i t e v S ol unsko i na Vel i ki ò v Zapadni t e Rodopi “, in: Konst ant i n-Ki r i l F i l osof . Æ bi l een sbor ni k…, 141-167.

112In all probability František Dvornik (op. cit., 146-152) is not far from the truth when he supposes that in 866 Cyril and Methodius decided to leave Greater Moravia and go to Constantinople to try to secure, once again through the mediation of Byzantium, a bishop who would be independent of the Frankish church hierarchy in Rostislav’s state. This was the result of the rejection of Rostislav’s proposal for the ordination of a bishop by Pope Nicholas I. Therefore the brothers, together with their disciples, went through Pannonia to Venice and Southern Italy (which was then under the jurisdiction of Constantinople), as they could not travel via the territory of hostile Bulgaria, which at the time inclined towards Louis the German, and he had already sent the Passau bishop Hermanrich with a group of missionaries to the Bulgarian capital. Dvornik believes that in those circumstances Rostislav once again came closer to Constantinople and requested a bishop who would establish an independent church. It was at that moment that Cyril and Methodius “chose from their disciples one or several candidates whom they wanted to propose for ordination as bishops”. In order to prevent that, Pope Nicholas I, as soon as he heard that Rostislav’s missionaries were waiting for a ship to Venice, invited them to Rome (in the winter of 867). Owing to these purely political reasons, they came to Rome at the moment when Pope Nicholas I died, and the new pope, Adrian II, was enthroned at the time when changes were taking place in Constantinople — the death of Emperor Michael III and the fall of Patriarch Photius; in this way Cyril and Methodius’s mission in Rome acquired a quite different, friendly character. Hence it is not surprising that the Pope consecrated the Slavonic books (even though such books were supposed to be read in the churches in Latin), and moreover, he ordained Methodius (after the death of his brother, Cyril) as the Moravian Bishop, and Clement and the rest to other ranks. On his return via Kocel’s Principality, Methodius was summoned back to Rome and appointed Archbishop. As the Life of Cyril says that the Pope ordered the bishops Formosus and Gauderich to consecrate the Slav disciples (and we know that one bishop was enough for the consecration of a priest), we can assume that a bishop was also ordained. On the other hand, that Clement of Ohrid continued to follow the tradition of the Roman Church is confirmed by the fact that, in addition to the Joint Sermon on the Apostles Peter and Paul, he wrote a special Oration in Praise of the Apostle Paul (Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, t om vt or i . Obr abot i l i B.S t . Angel ov, K.M. Kuev, Hr . Kodov, Kl . I vanova, S of i ò, 1977, 416-417), thus respecting the tradition of the Roman Church for a separate celebration of the days of the two apostles.

113P r of . ä or danï I vanovï , op. cit., 565. We should point out that at the Church Council called by Photius there were representatives of the following Bulgarian eparchies existing at the time: Ohrid, Bregalnica, Morava and Provat.

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under the control of the Bulgarian state, and Rome considered it to be under its jurisdiction with regard to ecclesiastical questions.

Is it not thus logical to assume that after his arrival at Pliska, being a Moravian bishop of the Roman Church — in conditions when the church in Bulgaria was held by Greek priests and prelates, when the Greek language and the Greek alphabet were used, and Glagolitic was not accepted at the Bulgarian court — Bishop Clement came back in 886 not only (and probably) to his own people and his own homeland, but also to his own diocese? Is it not possible that Naum, who was perhaps indeed his brother in blood,114 did the same at the moment when Simeon carried out such decisive and significant changes in the state and the church?

Another element supporting this is the fact that after his arrival in Macedonia, Clement never (as might have been expected) requested anything from his superior Bulgarian Archbishop, but always and for every purpose addressed his requests to the Bulgarian Prince.115 Clement recognized the authority of the Bulgarian state, but refused to recognize the authority of the Bulgarian church hierarchy. We find no contacts whatsoever with Greek bishops who were also active in this part of Macedonia.116 The thesis that Clement’s diocese came outside the competencies of the Bulgarian Church is also supported by the views that there were “two fully isolated church territories, even two separate and differentiated church individualities”,117 even though it was still not the time of the final and official schism between the Eastern and Western Churches. Therefore R. LjubinkoviÚ is perhaps right when he concludes: “Whereas the Preslav prelate, together with his Synod, administered the territory of his own church: two thirds of Boris’s state [?], the 114Vj.

Š t ef ani Î, ,,P r vobi t not o sl ovensko pi smo i najst ar at a gl agol ska epi gr af i ka“, in: S l ovenska pi smenost . 1050-godi š ni na na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , Nar oden muzej, Ohr i d, 1966, 13; Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î, op. cit., 9 and 17; I van Venedi kov, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i Dobet a“, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski 916-1966, 309; Ël .-kor . Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,S ï st oòni e na nauÌnat a pr obl emat i ka…“, 55 (“perhaps a spiritual ‘brother’, and perhaps a ‘brother’ in blood”); Ûor Ÿe S p. Radoji Ìi Ú, op. cit., 206.

115The question is still insufficiently explained as to how Clement could have founded a monastery as a ‘teacher’, giving it the same name — St Panteleimon — as Prince Boris’s Monastery in Preslav. For this monastery see: Di mÌe Koco, ,,Kl i ment ovi ot manast i r ,S v. P ant el ejmon‘ i r askopkat a pr i ,I mar et ‘ vo Ohr i d“, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 129-171.

116There were such eparchial centres in Ohrid, Bregalnica, Skopje, Niš, Belgrade, Sredec, etc. (Ki r i l oMet odi evska enci kl opedi ò, á, 291). If, according to František Dvornik (op. cit., 171), it was possible for Agathon to be appointed a Greek archbishop in Serbia (in the town of Morava), within the borders of the Bulgarian state — independent of the Bulgarian Archbishop and subordinated only to the Patriarch of Constantinople — why could not it have been possible for Clement to be a bishop in Macedonia (which was considered to come under the jurisdiction of the Roman Church), independent of the Bulgarian Archbishop, spiritually subordinated directly to the Pope and maintaining contacts only with the Prince as the head of the state in which he was active?

117Radi voje Q ubi nkovi Ú, ,,Ordo episcoporum y Paris gr. 880 i ar hi jer eska pomen-l i st a u S i nodi konu car a Bor i l a“, in: Ki r i l S ol unski , 1, 142, zab. 40.

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ruler, as the symbol of supreme state authority and state unity, also organized the religious and church life on that territory [= one third of Bulgaria] which did not come under the jurisdiction of his primacy.”118 But, LjubinkoviÚ continues, “in order to do that, the ruler must have the appropriate authorization of the interested and competent church institution. It is known that Illyria was a territory under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Seat.” The conclusion is that there must have been open or tacit consent on the part of the Apostolic Seat.119 This is indeed confirmed by the relations between Rome and Constantinople at the time.

Closely connected with our question is the ‘resignation’ Clement submitted to the Bulgarian Prince (and not to the Bulgarian Archbishop). The reasons for this act are completely altered in the hagiography.120 It could be logically assumed that such an act on the part of Clement might reflect his dissatisfaction with the military actions conducted by Simeon in the territory under the jurisdiction of Clement, i.e. Rome,121 but it could also be linked with Clement’s dissatisfaction with the policy of the Bulgarian Prince Vladimir, who tried to negotiate with the German delegates and return Bulgaria to paganism.122 Both events were utterly unacceptable to Bishop Clement. The dethronement and blinding of Vladimir (by his father Boris) and the coming of the young Constantinopolitan student Simeon to the Bulgarian throne created a new situation with new conditions which might also have been acceptable to the Ohrid bishop, especially when Naum, too, abandoned the Bulgarian capital to join Clement in Ohrid.123 118Ibid.

119Ibid.

This was so even though, in the view of Marija PanteliÚ (,,O Kijevskim i Sinajskim listiÚima“, Slovo, 35, Zagreb, 1985, 5), “the territory of Western Illyria (between Dalmatia and Macedonia with its seat at Salonika) was severed from Rome and annexed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople” as early as the middle of the 8th century.

120Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò…, 112-114.

121BlaÔe Koneski (,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 86), relying on I. Pastuhov’s writings (Bï l gar ska i st or i ò, á, S of i ò, 1942, 238-239), believes that the reason for the resignation of the aged Clement was the military actions undertaken by Simeon in the area of Salonika and Dyrrachium, as they “upset both the people and its shepherd” in the eparchy. But in the same place Koneski continues by quoting Emil Georgiev’s view (N aÌal o na sl avònskat a pi smenost Å vï Bï l gar i ò, S of i ò, 1942, 44-45) concerning the alphabet as the main reason for the departure of “Cyril and Methodius’s disciples” for Macedonia.

122In 888-889 Prince Boris ceded his throne to his son Vladimir and retreated to a monastery (‘St Panteleimon’?), but his son began to renounce Christianity, relying above all, in the words of Dvornik (op. cit., 253), on the boyars of Turi origin, “all of whom were still pagans”, and this began to be felt in Clement’s eparchy as well, as a result of which the latter stood on the side of Boris in Vladimir’s deposition and the enthronement of Simeon (893), when his episcopal title was officially recognized and the Velika Bishopric was assigned to him for administration, after which he took his brother Naum with him to Ohrid. (Archbishop Theophylact later used older sources and data very selectively.)

123It is a highly curious fact that neither of the two hagiographies of Clement mention anything of Naum of Ohrid, nor do they connect him in any way with Clement’s activity. It is indeed strange how the hagiographer missed the opportunity of describing Naum’s funeral and Clement’s outstanding partici-

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Thus we can assume that the main reason for Clement’s return (and indeed that of Naum) to Macedonia lies in the ordination of Clement as a bishop by the Pope and the appointment of the Archbishop Methodius as the prelate of the territory which came under the state authority of the Bulgarian Prince, but under the church jurisdiction of the Roman Pope. Only in this way can the alphabet be accepted as an additional reason and the language as the motive for the abandonment of the Bulgarian capital and church seat, and Clement’s (and Naum’s) return to Ohrid.124

pation in it. It is, however, mentioned in both hagiographies of Naum, even though there it is treated in a different way. BlaÔe Koneski (,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva“, P r i l ozi , á, 1-2, MANU, S kopje, 1976, 66) is right in pointing out that Naum’s cult had already been created in the 10th century, and yet there is no dispute around the fact that Naum is missing in the synaxarium of the Assemani Gospel (as are Cyril, Methodius and Clement), that Naum cannot be seen among the frescoes of the 1295 Church of the Holy Mother of God (‘Perivlepta’) in Ohrid, and that, according to Cvetan Grozdanov (,,P or t r et i t e na Kl i ment Ohr i dski i Kl i ment Ri mski “, in: Ki r i l S ol unski , 1, 105), the earliest “known portrait” of Naum is that in the narthex of the Church of St Sophia in Ohrid — dating from as late as the 14th century. If we also bear in mind that the earliest transcription of the Life of Naum dates from the 15th century, we must accept Koneski’s view that the cult of Naum was revived in Ohrid only after the arrival of the Turks, when St Clement’s monastery was turned into a mosque, and St Naum’s monastery came to prominence as a cult site. As a matter of fact, the hagiographies make almost no references to Clement’s activity in Greater Moravia and Pannonia, and deal with his stay in Rome in the most cursory manner; indeed, even what is said is expounded mainly from the aspect of Byzantine state policy and the policy of the Constantinopolitan Church.

124For more details on this subject see: Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Nekoi pr aš awa okol u pojavat a na hr i st i janst vot o i pi smenost a kaj S l oveni t e vo Makedoni ja“, in: Ki r i l S ol unski , 2, 319-337.

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The Tradition of Cyril and Methodius in Macedonian Cultural and National Development in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and the First Half of the Twentieth Century

The national awakening of the Slavic peoples and the development of Slavonic studies as a scholarly discipline and Slavophilism and Pan-Slavism as policies gave a significant impetus to the cult of Cyril and Methodius and their disciples and followers. The revival of this cult was most strongly expressed in the largest Slav state, Russia, free since its victorious war against Napoleon in the early 19th century. The movement of Pan-Slavism developed as a reaction to Pan-Germanism, and the number of its adherents in other Slavic countries and peoples increased. The interest in the study of Old Church Slavonic written records and in the Old Slavonic language led to the study of their history and the homeland of Slavonic literacy. The study of the lives and work of Cyril, Methodius, Clement and Naum posed the question of 9th-century Macedonia before the scholarly world, and this in turn increased the interest in the contemporary circumstances of the Slavs in what was at that time a Turkish province. Various travellers and researchers came to Macedonia, finding (and taking away) a large number of old manuscripts from the early period of Slavonic literacy. The history, culture, art, language and literacy of the Macedonians became the object not only of scholarly study but also of politics. This had a positive effect on the awakening and strengthening of Slavic consciousness among the Macedonian people and stimulated the struggle for emancipation and affirmation. Cyril and Methodius and their disciples became the emblem of that Slavic consciousness, the symbol of the Slavic awakening and its romantic ideas related to the historical cultural heritage of Macedonia.

There is no doubt that the tradition of Cyril and Methodius continued uninterruptedly and was the longest and most developed in the homeland of Cyril and Methodius and Clement and Naum, concentrated in the three leading centres of Salonika, Ohrid and Mount Athos. If Salonika gave birth to Cyril and Methodius, Ohrid was to produce the first Slavic bishop, who developed the first Slavonic university and established the Archbishopric of Ohrid, which, as an autocephalous church, was probably the first to carry out a canonization of the Slavic saints.125 Through the synaxarium of Slavonic manuscripts they started to be used in the 71

service of all the churches under the jurisdiction of this spiritual institution — their full continuity was also maintained by the radiant light of the Mount Athos Slavonic Orthodox monasteries during the centuries of subjugation. The Ohrid Literary School126 with its large number of manuscripts, which were also read and copied in other centres of Macedonia, preserving and spreading the tradition of Cyril and Methodius’s mission, was also well received in places far from the Slavonic Balkans.127 The large number of churches and monasteries in Macedonia with compositions showing the Slavonic Holy Seven Saints (SedmoÌislenici) and other artistic representations,128 in particular the churches and relics of the most prominent disciples and followers of Cyril and Methodius, cherished by the Archbishopric of Ohrid near Lake Ohrid,129 produced and supported strong traditions which became even more invigorated during the period of national revival and in the fierce struggle for cultural and national affirmation.

125Bl

aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva“, P r i l ozi , MANU, Oddel eni e za l i ngvi st i ka i l i t er at ur na nauka, á, 1-2, S kopje, 1976, 63-72; Vasi l S l .

Ki sel kov, ,,Ki r i l omet odi evski òt kul t v Bï l gar i ò“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost 863-1963. S bor ni k v Ìest na Ki r i l i Met odi à, S of i ò, 1963, 339-340. This canonization of the Slavic saints was accepted and supported by the Roman Church (especially after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204), but not by the Patriarchate of Constantinople (op. cit., 342-349).

126Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, L i t er at ur en zbor , áá, 1, S kopje, 1956, 1-19.

127An interesting illustration in this respect is the ensemble of frescoes in Cyril’s Church in Kiev (12th century) composed solely of saints from Macedonia (Cyril and Methodius, Clement of Ohrid, John of Macedonia, Joseph of Salonika, etc.) which used to be called Makedonski à zal for centuries, although now in this part of the church there is a sign reading Bal kanski à zal , and the guide interprets it to the visitors as Bol gar ski à zal . These Kiev frescoes have still not been fully published, just as the entire monument has still not been studied or made accessible to the scholarly public (D-r Kost a Bal abanov, ,,Ki evska Rusi ja i kul t ur ni t e cent r i vo Makedoni ja vo Há-Háá vek. Kul t ot na sl ovenski t e pr osvet i t el i Ki r i l i Met odi j i ni vni t e uÌeni ci “, Gl asni k na UN ES KO, HHHœ , S kopje, Apr i l 1982, 39-40; N.B. S al Åko, Ó i vopi sÅ dr evneà Rusi Há–naÌel a Hááá veka. Mozai ki – f r eski –i konì , Leni ngr ad, 1982, 105-109).

128Di mÌe Koco, ,,Tr i konhal ni cr kvi vo Kl i ment ovot o vr eme“, in: S l ovenska pi smenost .

1050-godi š ni na na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , Nar oden muzej, Ohr i d, 1966, 91-100; C vet an Gr ozdanov, ,,Ohr i dsko yi dno sl i kar st vo od Hᜠvek“, Kul t ur no-i st or i sko nasl edst vo vo S R Makedoni ja, HH, S kopje, 1983, 199-228; C vet an Gr ozdanov, ,,Jovan Vl adi sl av i pr edst ave S edmoÌi sl eni ka u makedonskoj umet nost i Hœ ááá-HáH veka“, Zbor ni k za l i kovne umet nost i , 19, Novi S ad, 1984; C vet an Gr ozdanov, ,,Ó i vopi sot na gr obni ot par akl i s na S vet i Naum Ohr i dski “, in: N aum Ohr i dski , Ohr i d, 1985, 85-97; P et ar Mi q kovi Î-P epek, ,,Nekoi pogl edi vr z ar hi t ekt ur at a na manast i r skat a cr kva S v. Naum kaj Ohr i dskot o Ezer o“, in: N aum Ohr i dski , Ohr i d, 1985, 65-82.

129Di mÌe Koco, ,,Kl i ment ovi ot manast i r ,S v. P ant el ejmon‘ i r askopki t e pr i ,I mar et ‘ vo Ohr i d“, Godi š en zbor ni k na F i l ozof ski ot f akul t et , á, S kopje, 1948, 129-180; Di mÌe Koco, ,,Novi podat oci za i st or i jat a na Kl i ment ovi ot manast i r S v. P ant el ejmon vo Ohr i d“, Godi š en zbor ni k na F i l ozof ski ot f akul t et , HáH, 1967, 245-255; Di mÌe Koco, ,,P r ouÌuvawa i ar heol oš ki i spi t uvawa na cr kvat a na manast i r ot S v. Naum“, Zbor ni k na A r heol oš ki ot muzej, áá, S kopje, 1958, 56-58.

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Of considerable significance were also the hand-written or printed texts and artistic representations in the subsequent centuries. Thus the appearance of, for instance, the Stemmatographia by Hristofor ÓefaroviÌ from Dojran, with its special emphasis on Slavonic history and culture in Macedonia, was not accidental.130 This was also reflected in the various historical manuals such as those by Mavro Orbini, Jovan RajiÚ or Paissius of Chilandar,131 which were certainly available to the literate Macedonians who maintained regular contacts with Mount Athos and could be found as far as Central Europe. Of no lesser importance were the numerous manuscripts kept in Macedonia, which were available not only to church and monastery people but also to others; they included a large number of historical texts, hagiographies, services, laudatory orations and eulogies which dealt with

130I

zobr aÔ eni j or uÔ i j i l i r i Ìeski h — S t emat ogr af i ja. Rezal i u bakr u Hr i st of or Ó ef ar ovi Ú i Toma Mesmer . F ot ot i pska i zdawa, Mat i ca sr pska, Novi S ad, 1961. In addition to the copper engravings depicting the holy Methodius, Archbishop of Moravia; Clement, Archbishop of Ohrid; and Naum, the Miracle Worker from Ohrid, ÓefaroviÌ grouped the following around the Ohrid Church: the holy David, Tsar of Bulgaria; and Theoctistus; Nicodemus the Fragrant (Myroblítis, ‘Myrrh-emanating’), buried in Berat, Albania; Arsenius, the Miracle Worker, the Archbishop of Bulgaria; Theophylact, the Archbishop of Bulgaria; John Vladimir the Fragrant (Myroblítis), buried in Elbasan, etc. It is interesting that ÓefaroviÌ, in accordance with the historical beliefs of the time, links Bulgarian tsars with the Ohrid saints; according to legend, they were connected with Ohrid and Macedonia, and there is not a single representation of a Bulgarian ruler or saint who is not connected with this Macedonian spiritual and political centre. Thus, for instance, according to the ‘information’ in Istorija Slavjanobolgarskaja (Slavo-Bulgarian History) by Paissius (Paisij) of Chilandar, “the Holy King Trivelia, known as the Monk Theoctistus”, lived in AD 703 and was the first “to receive the holy Baptism, and the whole Bulgarian people was converted to Christianity in his kingdom”, but “after a while he abandoned the king’s authority and worldly glory, he built himself a monastery near Ohrid and in this monastery he received the status of a monk… and presented himself to God in that monastery” (P ai si à Hi l endar ski , S l avònobï l gar ska i st or i ò. P odï r edakci ò na P et ï r ï Di nekovï . Vt or o i zdani e, S of i ò, 1942, 107-108). In the same fashion, “the holy Tsar David”, it is said, “relinquished his empire voluntarily to his brother Samuel, went into a monastery and received the status of a monk”, but soon died and “his imperishable relics were taken from there and moved to Ohrid” (ibid., 108). “The holy Tsar John Vladimir, the son of Aaron” is said to have “ruled as a tsar in Ohrid for three years”, but he was killed by his wife and his brother-in-law and “his imperishable relics have hitherto stayed on Elbasan land” (ibid., 108-109). “The Holy Nicodemus the Fragrant” is described as “being on Ohrid land”, where he lived and died. “His relics were later moved to Albanian Berat” where they “still provide great healing” (ibid., 112), etc. Even though the Stemmatographia of the “all-people’s fresco-painter” Hristofor ÓefaroviÌ was published 21 years prior to the completion of the History of Paissius of Chilandar, it is obvious that they used the same sources in drawing their historical conclusions. It is important, however, that ÓefaroviÌ was closely connected throughout his life with his homeland of Macedonia and made a number of engravings for Macedonian churches and for merchants.

(A. Mat kovski , ,,Hr i st of or Ó ef ar ovi Ì“, I st or i ja, œ ááá, 1, S kopje, 1972, 149-150; A. Mat kovski , Gr bovi t e na Makedoni ja (P r i l og kon makedonskat a her al di ka), S kopje, 1970, 124-125).

131The

cult of Cyril and Methodius is also reflected in a number of early printed books (Bonô S t .

Angel ov, ,,Ki r i l i Met odi à v sl avònski t e peÌat ni kni gi ot Hœ -Hœ áá v.“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 358-375).

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the Slavonic Holy Seven Saints and in particular with the life and work of Cyril and Methodius.132 The romantic return to the past, which was also felt in Macedonia, in particular through people who had the opportunity of travelling outside the borders of Turkey, contributed significantly to the strengthening of the cult of the Slavic past and especially of the Slavonic Holy Seven Saints and their followers. In the Macedonian circumstances of the time this involved a return to the Slavic roots, symbolized by the continuity of the Archbishopric of Ohrid and the traditions of its Slavic founders, Clement and Naum.

The significance of folk tradition was substantial in this respect. Its full continuity was made possible primarily through physical monuments — churches, monasteries and, above all, the saints’ relics which were kept near the shores of Lake Ohrid itself.133 They have always kept the spirit of this people awake, and hence the large number of various traditions and legends connected with the lives and work of Clement and Naum and their specific cult, which has survived up to the present day, are not surprising.134 Even though Methodius is largely known as the Archbishop of Moravia through artistic representations, it is through the frescoes, in particular those of Clement and Naum, and also of the other Slavonic Holy Seven Saints, that the memory of the lives and work of the Salonika brothers, Cyril and Methodius, has been kept alive.135 132P

r of . ä or danï I vanovï , Bï l gar ski st ar i ni i zï Makedoni ò. Vt or o dopï l neno i zdani e, S of i ò, 1931; B. Koneski i O. Jaš ar -Nast eva, Makedonski t ekst ovi od 10-20 vek, S kopje, 1966; S t r ani ci od sr ednovekovnat a kni Ô evnost . I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki Ver a Ant i Î i Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î, S kopje, 1978; Kl i ment Ohr i dski , Ó i t i ja, sl ova, pouki . P r edgovor : Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î. I zbor , pr evod i koment ar : Radmi l a Ugr i novaS kal ovska, S kopje, 1974; Donka P et kanova-Tot eva, ,,Ki r i l i Met odi à v nòkoi l egendar ni kni Ô ovni pamet ni ci “, in: Konst ant i n-Ki r i l F i l osof . Æ bi l een sbor ni k po sl uÌaà 1100godi š ni nat a ot smï r t t a mu, S of i ò, 1969, 75-94.

133See note 128.

134C vet ana Romanska, ,,Kl i ment i Naum v nar odni t e pr edani ò“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 377-382; Ver a S t ojÌevska-Ant i Î, Kl i ment i N aum Ohr i dski vo nar odnat a t r adi ci ja, S kopje, 1982; Ver a S t ojÌevska-Ant i Î, ,,Kl i ment ovat a i Naumovat a t r adi ci ja denes“, Kul t ur en Ô i vot , Hœ , 7, S kopje, 1970, 17-20; Mi l ko Mat i Ìet ov, ,,P r i kaznat a za Naumovat a meÌka AT 1910“, Makedonski f ol kl or , œ ááá, 15-16, S kopje, 1975, 129-147; Naum C el akoski , ,,Nar odni pr edani ja za Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, Kul t ur en Ô i vot , Hœ , 1-2, 1974, 21-24; Naum C el akoski , ,,Nar odni pr edani ja za Gr i gor P r l i Ìev i Kl i ment Ohr i dski “, Razvi t ok, Háá, 2, Bi t ol a, 1974, 171-173; Naum C el akoski , ,,P r edani jat a i st ar i t e peÌat i na manast i r ot ,S v. Naum‘“, L i hni d, Ohr i d, 1983, 13-25; Tome S azdov, ,,Nar odni t e pr edani ja za Naum Ohr i dski “, in: N aum Ohr i dski , Ohr i d, 1985, 117-123.

135Asen Vasi l ev, ,,Obr azi na Ki r i l i Met odi à v ÌuÔ dot o i naš et o i zobr azi t el no i skust vo“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 393-488; I r i na A. Vasi l eva, ,,Kï m vï pr osa za obr aza na Konst ant i n-Ki r i l F i l osof “, in: Konst ant i n Ki r i l F i l osof …, 419-424; C vet an Gr ozdanov, P or t r et i na svet i t el i t e od Makedoni ja…, 199-228; C vet an Gr ozdanov, ,,Odnosot meÒu por t r et i t e na Kl i ment Ohr i dski i Kl i ment Ri mski vo Ô i vopi sot od pr vat a pol ovi na na Hᜠvek“, in: Ki r i l S ol unski . S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od

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On the other hand, the struggle for an individual church, which gained in strength particularly after the 1840s,136 turned the eyes of awakened Macedonians towards Ohrid and Salonika. The need was felt for a spiritual and cultural centre of a people which was still not fully aware of its national identity. A particular difficulty was the nominal confusion which was further emphasized by the newly-aroused interest in Slavonic studies, as in the old manuscripts and other surviving material the Slavic scholars most frequently found Bulgarian, and sometimes Serbian designations. This gave the Macedonians the impetus to look for facts confirming their individuality and distinctiveness from the neighbouring peoples, above all from the Bulgarians. Differences were primarily sought and found in ethnic origin, and the Bulgarians were often simply designated as “Tartars and who knows what”,137 whereas the Macedonians were directly linked to the ancient Macedonians who were considered Slavs, an ideology which was also extant outside Macedonia.138 At the same time language was to prove in the most obvious manner the independence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian people. Hence shortly after the first contact with Bulgarian writings, the Bulgarian language was labelled Šopski;139 it was regarded with condescension, while Macedonian was designated as the true legacy of Cyril and Methodius, being the closest to the “Slavonic books” produced by the Salonika brothers.140 cmr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , kni ga 1, 23-25 maj 1969, S kopje-Š t i p, MANU, S kopje, 1970, 99-108; Kost a Bal abanov, ,,S l ovenski t e pr osvet i t el i Ki r i l i Met odi vo del at a na makedonski t e i konopi sci od HáH vek, in: Ki r i l S ol unski . S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , kni ga 1, 43-64; Ni ko P . Tozi , ,,Ki r i l i Met odi j vo t vor bi t e na makedonski t e kopani Ìar i “, in: Ki r i l S ol unski . S i mpozi um 1100-godi š ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , kni ga 1, 245-247.

136Dokument i za bor bat a na makedonski ot nar od za samost ojnost i za naci onal na dr Ô ava, á, S kopje, 1981, 182 and 203-204; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1983, 193-204.

137P .R. S l aveàkovï , ,,Makedonskì àt ï và pr osï “, Makedoníò, œ , 3, C ar egr adï , 18.á.1871, 2.

138At least after the publication of Il Regno degli Slavi (1601) by Mavro Orbini from Dubrovnik the idea of the Slavic origin of the ancient Macedonians became extremely popular among many prominent Slav activists, although it had been widespread in Europe even before. The learned Serbian geographer Jovan DragaševiÚ, before becoming inveigled by Greater-Serbian ideas, at several points in his textbook Geografija za srednje škole (Geography for Secondary Schools, Belgrade, 1871), offers a detailed elaboration of the Slavic origin of the ancient Macedonians, which he considers to be a well-known truth, whose direct descendants are the contemporary Slav inhabitants of Macedonia. This was not only the result of the influence of the ‘Illyrians’ such as GunduliÚ or PribojeviÚ, since similar beliefs were widespread among the people, so the views of Jordan HadÔikonstantinov-DÔinot, ÏorÒija M. Pulevski, Isaija R. MaÔovski and others in 19th-century Macedonia are not incomprehensible.

139K.A.P . Š apkar evï , N ar ï Ìno sv. bl agovõst vovaníe i l i S bor ï ot ï Evangel ski t õ Ìt eníò…, C ar i gr adï , 1869, 3; Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba. Makedonski t e uÌebni ci od 19 vek. Vt or o i zdani e, S kopje, 1959, 57 and 59.

140Ûor Ÿe M. P uq evski , ReÌni k ot t r i jezi ka s. makedonski , ar banski i t ur ski , áá, u Beogr adu, 1875, 42; Makedoníò, áá, 14, 2.ááá.1868; áá, 33, 13.œ áá.1868, 3, etc.

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That is how the myths of the Slavic origin and culture of the Macedonians — as an individual and distinct people in the Slavic world — developed. That is how Macedonian national thought with Macedonian characteristics was conceived and developed in the 1840s; it came to prominence in the 1860s and 1870s, and was highly advocated towards the end of the century and in particular in the early 20th century. Yet Macedonia was to be constituted as a state only after what became known as the ‘National Liberation War’, or the ‘Second Ilinden’, in the Second World War.141 The process of de-mythologization of Philip and Alexander was slow and difficult, while the mythologization of Cyril, Methodius, Clement and Naum continued to develop and became even more established.

There were several reasons for these developments. As the homeland of the Slavonic script, and also of the Slavonic literary language, together with the aura of the establishment of the first Slavonic university and the appointment of the first Slavic bishop in the Balkans, as the land with the largest number of surviving churches and monasteries, manuscripts and other monuments that maintained the traditions of the Slavonic educators, Macedonia became the object of extensive studies — first by foreigners, and later by the Macedonians themselves. It is important to point out that there was practically no Macedonian Revival activist who did not take part in the search, discovery and collection of old Slavonic manuscripts and in the recording of old icons, frescoes and other monuments in our churches and monasteries. All this significantly intensified with the preparations for and the great celebration of the Moravian Mission as well as the anniversaries of the deaths of Cyril and Methodius (1863, 1869 and 1885). In this context we should mention the various foreign ‘travellers’ in Macedonia with “partly scholarly purposes, and partly with the purpose of becoming acquainted with the birth of the Slavic world”, 142 such as Viktor Grigorovich or Aleksandr Gilyferding. Among them the comprehensive activity of Stefan VerkoviÚ was of particular significance.

Thus the 1860s became the cornerstone of the organized cultivation of old traditions.143 The celebration of May 11th as the Day of Cyril and Methodius144 marked the start of the public events which were reflected in the periodicals of the 141D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., á, 119-280.

Mi si r kov, ,,I zni knuvaín’et o i r azbor na bugar ckat a i sr pcka t eor i íi za nar odnost a na mak’edonci t e“, Var dar , á, 1, Odesa, 1.áH.1905, 12 (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Var dar “. N auÌnol i t er at ur no i opš t est veno-pol i t i Ìko spi sani e na K.P . Mi si r kov, I MJ, F ot ot i pno i zdani e, S kopje, 1966).

143Vasi l S l . Ki sel kov, op. cit., 339-345.

144Ibid., 349-357. The Bulgarian press in Constantinople published the requests and proposals for this celebration in 1857. Such events were already organized at that time, but they largely became a May 11th tradition in Macedonia after the 1860s.

142K.

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time.145 Attempts were made at opening churches and schools bearing the names of Cyril and Methodius, as well as the names of Clement and Naum, moves which the Patriarchate of Constantinople strongly opposed.146 The tradition of the cult of Clement and Naum was particularly prominent in Macedonia. This is confirmed, among other things, by the exceptionally large number of these names in the region of Ohrid. The celebration of the name-day of Clement (Kliment) and Naum has always been a celebration of the saints themselves.147 There were massive celebrations which were nourished uninterruptedly for centuries; they further strengthened the popular tradition and also aroused and maintained the people’s awareness of their Slavic past. Although the tradition of Cyril and Methodius had been alive even before, it was considerably strengthened after the start of widespread popular celebrations of Ss Cyril and Methodius Day, making the use of the names of these saints as Christian names even more frequent.

The public word was still another element. Solemn speeches were delivered on the occasion of all public events, accompanied by special programmes dedicated to the saints.148 How strongly these events were felt and how these speeches were 145In

Prilep, for instance, Ss Cyril and Methodius Day was celebrated for the first time on May 11, 1866 (Raàko Ó i nzi f ov, P ubl i ci st i ka, á. S ï st avi l i C vet a UndÔ i eva i DoÌo Lekov, S of i ò, 1964, 256); in Salonika this took place two years later (Makedoníò, áá, 27, 1.œ á.1868); in Bitola it was celebrated as late as 1871 (Makedoníò, œ , 21, 25.œ .1871), etc.

146According to the journal Bï l gar íò (áá, 63, C ar i gr adï , 4.œ .1860, 147), guild members in Bitola wished to open a school and a church bearing the name Cyril and Methodius, but the Patriarchate prelate opposed this as these patrons were not included in the list of saints of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Nevertheless, a marble inscription reading †UÌi l i ë e ,,S v. Ki r . i Met .“ Koš i ë a Ohr i d g. 1861.

Maà 6-i à was to be seen above the entrance door to the school in the Košišta quarter in Ohrid (P r of . ä or danï I vanovï , op. cit., 46). On the seal worked out by the Ohrid goldsmith Hristo Cvetku for this school, however, a print of which was found among Dimitar Miladinov’s documents upon his arrest in Struga on February 16, 1861, there were only the following words: ‡ Ìi l . Bï l gar. Vï ohr. ul i c .

Koš i ë a (Br at ò Mi l adi novi , P r epi ska. I zdi r i l , koment i r al i r edakt i r al N. Tr aàkov, S of i ò, 1964, 172 — a letter by Mitra D. Miladinova to the Robev family of March 2, 1861). That the school in Ohrid did indeed have these saints as patrons is confirmed by the icon by DiÌo Zograf dated February 20, 1863, which he painted in Ohrid, where Cyril and Methodius are portrayed as holding the Slavonic script; between them is Clement (larger in size, with a mitre on his head and a sceptre in his right hand), while the inscription of the fresco-painter mentions the school in Košišta, the Metropolitan Meletius and the citizen Hristo Zlatar (Kost a Bal abanov, op. cit., 46, and the attached reproduction of the icon).

147Although the Patriarchate did not recognize them as saints, as a legacy from the synaxarium of the Archbishopric of Ohrid the people continued the centuries-old tradition and regularly celebrated the days of Clement and Naum in Ohrid.

148A report by “a Salonika citizen, one on behalf of all” (,,S ol unec edi n za vsi Ìki t e“, Makedoníò, áá, 27, 1.œ á.1868, 3) mentions that after the festive celebration of Ss Cyril and Methodius Day in the Church of the Mother of God in Salonika and after “the test has been carried out in a pure MacedonoBulgarian language, our school, newly inaugurated and humble; [and] after the girls clad in white had sung the song about the Sultan, the antiphons to our saints and various folk songs suited to the occasion”, the people enthusiastically prepared a request to the Salonika Metropolitan to be assigned one of the thirteen churches in the city. In addition, from the mid-19th century onwards a number of songs were composed (mainly in Bulgarian) which were widely sung at celebrations in Macedonia as well — in the schools and at church meetings (S t oòn P et r ov, ,,Del ot o na br at òt a Ki r i l i Met odi à i

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received is perhaps best illustrated by Grigor PrliÌev’s speech in the Ss Cyril and Methodius Exarchal Grammar School in Salonika in 1885.149 Of particularly great importance was the role of the press, which swiftly developed inside the borders of Turkey and was widely read in Macedonia as well. Although most of the periodicals were Bulgarian, Macedonian developments and events were also reflected on their pages, especially after the establishment of the Bulgarian state.

There were numerous articles on Cyril and Methodius, and the idea of the Bulgarian character of the work of Cyril and Methodius was becoming more and more established.

Of special significance were the textbooks used in the schools throughout Macedonia, in which a place of honour began to be given to the Salonika brothers and their disciples. The textbooks “in the Macedonian dialect” by Partenija Zografski,150 Dimitar V. Makedonski151 and Kuzman Šapkarev152 also increasingly bï l gar skat a muzi ka“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 490-509). J. Gruev’s song I sl ed t i sòë a godi ni …, which was also sung by our teachers, achieved great popularity (Makedoníò, œ , 31, 3.œ ááá.1871).

149K.G. P ï r l i Ìevï , ,,Kï mï har akt er i st i kat a na Gr .S . P ï r l i Ìevï (po spomeni , svedeni ò i dokument i )“, Makedonski pr egl edï , ᜠ, 2, S of i ò, 1928, 116-118; Geor gi S t . Kandi l ar ovï , Bï l gar ski t õ gi mnazi i i osnovni uÌi l i ë a vï S ol unï , S of i ò, 1930, 32-35; Geor gi S t r ezovï , ,,P ï r vi st ï pki na S ol unskat a gi mnazi ò“, in: S br oni kï S ol unï . I zdani e na vï zpi t at el i t õ i vï zpi t ani ci t õ ot ï sol unski t õ bï l gar ski gi mnazi i , S of i ò, 1934, 289; Ó i t i e na I oana Kr ajni Ìanskoga 1869-1942 god., Oddel eni e za dokument aci ja na I nst i t ut ot za naci onal na i st or i ja vo S kopje, sl . ᜠ, 165, st r . 12-13; Voi sl av I . I l i Î, ,,Ki r i l omet odi evskat a t r adi ci ja vo dve besedi na Gr i gor P r l i Ìev“, in: Ki r i l S ol unski …, á, 113-120; Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Kon pr ouÌuvawet o na sol unski t e godi ni na P r l i Ìev (G. P r l i Ìev vo oÌi t e na P . Dr aganov i J. Kr ajni Ìanec), in: Ó i vot ot i del ot o na Gr i gor P r l i Ìev (S i mpozi um posvet en na Ô i vot ot i del ot o na Gr i gor P r l i Ìev, 10-11 maj 1985 na F i l ol oš ki ot f akul t et vo S kopje), S kopje, 1986, 60-72.

150Partenija Zografski was certainly the best informed Macedonian in Macedonia at that time concerning the question of Cyril and Methodius (H. P ol enakovi Î, ,,Bel eš ki za ki r i l omet odi evskot o pr aš awe kaj Makedonci t e vo HáH vek“, Gl asni k na I N I , œ áá, 1, S kopje, 1963, 170-172). In addition to his famous articles in the Constantinopolitan press and praises in honour of the Slavonic educators, Zografski included some basic information on them in his textbook Kr at ka svòë ena i st or i ò (1857), which was used widely in the Macedonian schools. He was also the first to publish Archbishop Theophylact’s Life of Clement in his native tongue (1858).

151In his work Kr at ka svòë enna i st or íò za uÌi l i ë a-t a po Makedoníà (na makedonsko nar õÌíe), C ar i gr adï , 1867, where he undoubtedly relies on facts from C ar st venni kï i l i I st or íò Bol gar skaò od P . Hi l endar ski , u Budi mu, 1844, Dimitar V. Makedonski writes about the work of Cyril and Methodius (p. 24) and also about the Archbishopric of Ohrid (pp. 27-28).

152Among other things, in the textbook quoted, N ar ï Ìno sv. bl agovõst vovaníe i l i S bor ï ot ï Evangel ski t õ Ìt eníò…, 1869, K.A.P. Šapkarev gives the services for Cyril and Methodius in the months of May (p. 121), in June for St Naum of Ohrid (122), in July for the Slavonic Holy Seven Saints (125) and also for Clement of Ohrid and St Panteleimon (126), repeating the service for St Clement in November (109). Among the large number of writings affirming the history of Cyril and Methodius and their work and of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, in a polemical article of 1870, Kuzman Šapkarev writes that at one time Cyril and Methodius “translated the holy writings and established literacy not in the Moesian or Thracian B. dialect, but in their own, now despised [?] Macedono-Bulgarian dialect, in which they were born and brought up…” (Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba, 65).

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dealt with these subjects, but they were presented mainly according to foreign concepts or under the influence of the historiography available at the time. It was only with the textbooks and other publications by ÏorÒija M. Pulevski153 that a comparatively clear national position was put forward concerning the tradition of Cyril and Methodius, leading to a more systematic building of the historical, cultural and national awareness of the people based on a national ideology under a distinct name.

Important figures in the field of literature (Jordan HadÔikonstantinov-DÔinot,154 Konstantin PetkoviÌ,155 Georgi Dinkata,156 Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov,157 153Ûor Ÿe

M. P uq evski , ReÌni k ot t r i jezi ka…, 40-42. Pulevski deals with these questions in greatest detail in his work (which remained a manuscript) S l avònsko-makÅdonska opš t a i st or i ò… (Rï kopi sen ot del na Nar odnat a bi bl i ot eka ,,Ki r i l i Met odi à“, S of i ò, º 32/1958, l . 1-11).

154H. P ol enakovi Î, op. cit., 162-169; P r i l ozi , MANU, œ ááá, 1-2, 1983.

155Studying in Russia, Konstantin PetkoviÌ had the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with the history of the entire work of Cyril and Methodius, and this was reflected in his varied scholarly, journalistic and literary work. In a letter to Stefan VerkoviÚ, dated November 28/December 10, 1860, after thanking him for the collection of folk songs he had sent him, with a Misirkov-like accuracy he points out to him that “Bulgarian songs and stories can be found in Macedonia, whose language might be even purer around Bitola, Ohrid and Veles” (as the Central-Macedonian dialect) and that “[t]here is no doubt now, after living in Macedonia, that the Bulgarians are the real descendants of those Slavs for whom Ss Cyril and Methodius translated the Holy Scriptures” (Dokument i za bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane ot A r hi va na S t ef an I . Ver kovi Ì 1860-1893. S ï st avi l i i podgot vi l i za peÌat Dar i na Vel eva i n.s. Tr i f on Vï l ov, pod r edakci òt a i s pr edgovor ot Ìl .-kor . Hr i st o A. Hr i st ov, S of i ò, 1969, 19).

156The work of Georgi Dinkata is still unknown to us in its entirety, although we know that he wrote a large number of poems, textbooks (history, geography, etc.) and articles as well as abundant correspondence. He revered in particular the work of Cyril and Methodius, as did his entire prominent family.

This can be seen in the verses he sent to Georgi S. Rakovski (1862), especially in the poem ‘S amovi l a’ (Sprite) (P r of . I v. S nõ gar ovï , S ol unï vï bï l gar skat a duhovna kul t ur a. I st or i Ìeski oÌer kï i dokument i , S of i ò, 1937, 208-215), and in the document entitled ‘P oznaà sebe si ’ (Know Thyself) (Ibid., 215-225). As an advocate of the use of the Macedonian dialect within the basis of the common literary language, Dinkata insisted that his article entitled ,,S võ dõ ni ò na makedonski t õ st r ani “ (Makedoníò, áá, 33, C ar egr adï , 13.œ áá.1868, 3) be printed in “his own Salonika dialect, which if it did not fully preserve the beauty of Cyril’s language, was nevertheless older…”

157Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov had the opportunity of becoming acquainted very early on with the various folk traditions of Clement and Naum and also with numerous written records, frescoes and icons in their region. Viktor I. Grigorovich only strengthened their interest, and their contacts with Mount Athos, and in particular with Partenija Zografski, made it possible for them to become closely acquainted with these subjects. The question of the relics of St Clement of Ohrid was the subject of Dimitar Miladinov’s published correspondence (Br at ò Mi l adi novi , P r epi ska. I zdi r i l , koment i r al i r edakt i r al N. Tr aàkov, S of i ò, 1964, 15), as well as of Grigorovich’s personal writings (OÌer kï put eš est víò po Evr opeàskoà Tur cíà. I zdaníe vt or oe, Moskva, 1877, 98-99). Miladinov’s interest in the old Slavonic manuscripts was aroused “ten years” before the arrival of Grigorovich, when the Russian consul in Greece, I. Paparigopoulos, found in St Naum’s Monastery “all the works of Grigory” (P r epi ska, 43). Dimitar Miladinov was delighted with the introduction of ‘Slavonic’ in the schools and churches of Struga. On November 28, 1859, he wrote: “You should know that the fire was stirred in Ohrid, a strong party was formed that no Prelate can stop in any way. They officiated with six priests wearing vestments and they celebrated on the day of St Clement” (P r epi ska, 99). On December 25 he expressed his gratitude to Ivan Denkoglou on behalf of “the Guardians of the holy

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Rajko Óinzifov158 Grigor PrliÌev,159 ÏorÒija M. Pulevski,160 Marko K. Cepenkov,161 TrajÌo KitanÌev162 and others) contributed significantly to the development and spread of this tradition. family of the Reverend Naum of Ohrid” for the Shroud sent, which,” Dimitar wrote, “reminds us of the devastated precious treasures of the once glorious but now impoverished fatherland. This sacred gift reminds every compatriot of the ancient Slavic brilliance and incites every sensitive soul to go back to his true mother and draw his mother’s sweet milk.” He informed him that “on this November 25th, when the holy memory of St Clement is celebrated, a dazzling and solemn service was held in the Metropolitan Church, and during the conveyance of the immaculate secrets the glorious names of the Slavic benefactors were mentioned, and one of the priests delivered an appropriate eulogy in the Bulgarian language during the service,” but “[i]n order to fulfil better the amiable hopes cherished by the Slavic saints, Clement, Naum, Cyril and Methodius, we appointed a teacher in our revived mother tongue…” (P r epi ska, 105). Miladinov not only had close contacts among prominent figures in the areas of science, politics and publishing (Aleksandr F. Gilyferding, Viktor Grigorovich, Stefan VerkoviÚ, Yakov O. Orel-Oshmyantsev, Aleksandr V. Rachinsky, E. Yuzhakov, Petr I. Sevastyanov, Pavel I. Sevastyanov, Mikhail A. Hitrovo, Aleksand’r Egzarh, etc.), but he also maintained direct contact with all the more important persons in Macedonia at the time and with various institutions and organizations inside the country and abroad, which was of exceptional significance for the enhancement and expansion of his views and actions. On the other hand, Konstantin Miladinov, possessing a profound knowledge of the Slavic heritage in Macedonia, not only fought together with his brother, but also had the opportunity of attending Partenija Zografski’s lectures in the Zograph (Zographou) Monastery, and also of listening to the lectures of the most prominent Russian Slavic scholars of the time and of following numerous publications dealing with the subject of Cyril and Methodius. He was well acquainted with the work of “our educators, Cyril and Methodius”, he examined the old manuscripts in the Zograph Monastery, where he copied three bulls, one of which (on the Archbishopric of Ohrid) he published, remarking that the first “Bulgarian bishop, according to Theophylact’s testimony, was the Reverend Clement in Belica or Dremvica”, and that “His epitaph still stands in the cathedral church in Ohrid” (Konst ant i n Mi l adi nov, I zbor . I zbor i pr edgovor Gane Todor ovski , S kopje, 1980, 60-64).

158Rajko Óinzifov emerged as the most active Macedonian in the Slavic Committee in Moscow, but he had brought the traditions of Cyril and Methodius from Macedonia, in particular after his association with Dimitar Miladinov. His poems, articles and speeches (H. P ol enakovi Î, op. cit., 173-176) were not only well received among the pupils and students from Macedonia in Russia, but also had a significant impact on certain groups of people in Macedonia itself.

159Grigor PrliÌev, having rejected his earlier Hellenistic views, embarked on a serious study of the old Slavonic culture in Macedonia, and it was not only with the popular poem In the Year 1762, but also through his orations on Clement, Cyril and Methodius that he made a tremendous contribution to the affirmation of that past and to the cultural and national awakening of our people, particularly in the struggle for the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. Having rejected his Greek orientation and unable to defeat Bulgarianism, PrliÌev started along a line of ‘Macedonism’, writing a short grammar, with obvious efforts to establish a continuity with the Old Slavonic era of Cyril and Methodius. It was certainly not by chance that PrliÌev gave the name Kiril (Cyril) to his only son.

160Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1974, 98-100 and 254-255.

161Marko Cepenkov also acknowledged his debt to the work of Cyril and Methodius and contributed to its affirmation. In 1896 he published his ode to the Salonika brothers entitled Mojata pesna (Gl asï Makedonski , ááá, 51, S of i ò, 28.œ .1896, 4), and in his not completely known Prilepski letopis (I l .

I v., ,,P r i l epski l õ t opi sci “, in: P r i l epï pr edi 100 godi ni . Vï zpomenat el enï l i st ï po sl uÌaà st o godi ni ot ï osveë avanet o na pr i l epskat a cï r kva ,,S v. Bl agoveë eni e“ – 7.ᜠ.1838–7.ᜠ.1938, S of i ò, 7.ᜠ.1938, 8), among other things, he wrote that in 1885 in Prilep “a garden [was made] specially for Ss Cyril and Methodius in memory of the 1000th anniversary of St Methodius’s death” (Mar ko K. C epenkov, Makedonski nar odni umot vor bi vo deset kni gi , 10. Mat er i jal i – l i t er at ur ni t vor bi . Redakt i r al d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1980, 395).

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In spite of the many difficulties in making their works accessible to people in general, a number of intellectuals managed to come into contact with this literary production, and it exerted its influence. The appearance of certain songs about the Slavic brothers,163 however, and their widespread distribution, in particular through the schools and public performances, was an important element in the process of national awakening.

Finally, the opening of the Exarchal Grammar School in Salonika which took the name of Cyril and Methodius164 played a significant part in this history.165 The birthplace of the brothers increasingly affirmed itself as the future centre of Macedonian culture and the prospective state, and was turning into a centre of events which marked Macedonian history. The nation needed this and created such ideas.

As a result of these cultural and national developments, it was natural for the revolutionary movement in Macedonia, from its very first days, to place the cult of the Salonika brothers as Slavonic and Macedonian educators high on its banner.

Various societies, reading clubs and committees adopted the names of the Salonika brothers and their disciples. As early as 1872 we find the St Clement Reading Club,166 which later (in 1885) became a highly active society with the same patron,167 and in 1894 it notified the public that “the Ohrid Sunday School will be a continuation of the former ‘St Clement’ and ‘Arsenius’ and will be named 162Tr aàÌo Ki

t anÌevï , S ï Ìi neni ò, S of i ò, 1898, 120-122; [ÏorÌe Petrov], ,,P r azdnuvani et o na S v.

Ki r i l ï i Met odi à. Dopi ska ot ï S ol unï “, Bal kanï , á, 23, S of i ò, 1.œ á.1883, 9-10.

163Some hymns, odes and other songs dealing with Cyril and Methodius were made highly popular through the Exarchal churches and schools in Macedonia as well (S t ef an P . Vasi l ev, ,,Ki r i l i Met odi à vï v vï zpevi t e na bï l gar ski t e poet i “, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 383-390; S t oòn P et r ov, ,,Del ot o na br at òt a Ki r i l i Met odi à i bï l gar skat a muzi ka“, in: Hi l òda i st o godi ni sl avònska pi smenost …, 489-514).

164The Ss Cyril and Methodius Boys’ Grammar School in Salonika was opened in 1881 (P r of . I v.

S nõ gar ovï , op. cit., 166 and 184), and the seal put on the 1870 letters from the Salonika Community (written by Venijamin MaÌukovski) shows only the words Bï l gar ska cï r kovna obë i na vï S ol unï , but in the middle of the seal there are engravings of the figures of the Salonika brothers (ibid., 235 and 237). Were not these seals perhaps added later?

165Petar D. Draganov, a teacher in the Salonika Exarchal Grammar School, in 1885/86 held a ‘private’ course entitled ‘The Activity of Cyril and Methodius’ (K.L. S t r ukova, ,,I z æpi st ol òr nogo nasl edi ò P .D. Dr aganova“, S ovet skoe sl avònovedeni e, 4, Moskva, 1970, 44), and after his return to Russia (1887) he started preparing (in the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg) the first complete Vseobë aò Ki r i l l o-Mef odi evskaò bi bl i ogr af i ò in four extensive volumes (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 435-454).

166P r avo, œ áá, 12, C ar i gr adï , 29.œ .1872, 4; œ , 28, 18.áH.1872, 4; S voboda, áá, 52, Bukur eë ï , 10.œ á.1872, 420.

167A. Keckar ovï , ,,P r edt eÌi na r evol ô ci onnat a or gani zaci ò vï Ohr i dsko“, I l ô st r aci ò I l i ndenÅ, œ á, 1, S of i ò, 1934, 10-13; Ohr i d i Ohr i dsko, kni ga vt or a. Od paÒawet o pod osmanl i ska vl ast do kr ajot na P r vat a svet ska vojna, S kopje, 1978, 177-179. The Society opened a Sunday School for Adults bearing the name of the latest Ohrid Archbishop, Arsenius.

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‘St Clement’”.168 There was a number of similar actions in the ‘Lozar’ period, and this cult was also adopted during the Ilinden period; it was not by chance that there were proposals that the Ilinden Uprising start on Ss Cyril and Methodius Day.169 Perhaps the best example of this is the patronage of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg. In his book Za makedonckite raboti (On Macedonian Matters), published in December 1903, Krste Misirkov writes that the Society’s name is ‘St Clement’,170 and Stefan J. Dedov from Ohrid says the following in his journal of November 21, 1904: “On 25th of this month, the St Clement Macedonian Student Society in St Petersburg will celebrate its patron’s holiday.”171 Yet in the ‘Constitution’ of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society, adopted by its members (in Misirkov’s absence) on December 16, 1903, and submitted for confirmation to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society on the 20th of the same month, the last article, 21, expressly states the following: “The Society has the Holy Slav Apostles Cyril and Methodius as its patrons.”172 We find the same in other surviving documents. There were obvious disagreements with regard to the patronage between Misirkov and Dedov on the one hand, and Ëupovski, as the president of the Society (and perhaps other members), on the other. It is interesting that the Slav-Macedonian NationalEducational Society (1912)173 and the Russian-Macedonian Charitable Society (1913)174 bore the name of Ss Cyril and Methodius, and the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), 1913-1914, constantly insisted on “the activity of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius”.175 Even in June 1917, under the text of the Programme of the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee in Petrograd concerning the Balkan Federal Democratic Republic, the head Dimitrija Ëupovski put the signatures of the three institutions: Makedonskij Revoljucionnyj Komitet. Makedonskoe Drugarstvo imeni Kirilla i 168Ar hi

v na Nar odni ot muzej vo Ohr i d, F . Mi t r opol i ja: I zhodòë a kni ga na Ohr i dskot o Nedõ l no uÌi l i ë e ,,S v. Kl i ment ï “, st r . 14; N ovi ni , œ , 19, C ar i gr adï , 25.Há.1894, 4 (the same can be found in the following number).

169Ïor Ìe P et r ov, S pomeni – Kor espondenci ja. Voved, koment ar i r edakci ja pr of . Q uben Lape, S kopje, 1984, 179.

170K.P . Mi si r kovï , Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903, ᜠ, 1, 45, 67 and 68.

171Kur i er ï , á, 14, S of i ò, 21.áH.1904, 4.

172D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1978, 246.

173Ibid., II, 16. We find the same title in the monogram on the emblem of this society (ibid., 17, and also on the colour photograph preceding page 289).

174Ibid., II, 153.

175D. Ëupovskíà, ,,Makedoníò i Makedoncì (Kul Åt ur no-i st or i Ìeskíà obzor ï Makedoni íi )“, Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 1, S .-P et er bur gï , 9.œ .1913, 7-8. All the numbers of the journal present “the first Slav teachers” as the symbol of Macedonian national culture.

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Mefodija. Redakcija ,,Makedonskago Golosa“.176 Throughout the war years, when the fate of the Macedonian people was being decided, the Macedonians firmly insisted on the Salonika brothers and the Ohrid saints and educators in order to show the individuality and continuity of Macedonian culture and history to the world.

This cult, not without romantic ingredients, grew steadily in the period between the two world wars. Nikola K. Majski,177 Milan Ï. Vojnicalija,178 Radoslav Petkovski,179 Hristo Popsimov,180 DimÌe Malenko181 and many other writers also expressed their feelings towards the first Slav teachers in verses written in their mother tongue. The indefatigable Misirkov demonstrated the same position in nearly all of his works. In his series of articles in the Macedonian and Bulgarian press (1923-1925) he pointed out that “the Holy Cyril and Methodius spread the Macedonian word and script among all Slavic peoples”182 and that they “are our prophets, saints, educators and representatives of the Macedonian national spirit, of Macedonian national culture”.183 Yet he did not forget to emphasize that “the Slavs in Macedonia, which laid the foundations of national education and culture among almost all the Slav peoples — both western and eastern Slavs — through the activity of the holy Cyril and Methodius and their Macedonian disciples, have seen nothing good or beneficial for themselves from these Slavs”.184 This tradition was developed and supported in particular by the progressive Macedonian national, cultural and literary activists in the 1930s. The press of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United), and also the Macedonian People’s League of America (in the United States and Canada), copiously used and affirmed the work of Cyril and Methodius and their disciples.185 They 176D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., áá, 262-263; Vol ò nar oda, 43, P et r ogr adï , 18.œ á.1917, 2.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r aÔ uvawa i mat er i jal i , á, S kopje, 1980, 116-117.

178His daughter Pavlina Apostolova, living in Skopje, had a large collection of 48 songs and poems by Milan Ï. Vojnicalija, dedicated by the author to Trajko Kratovaliev on November 21, 1938 (two months before his death), where the first poem, Ot eÌest vo (1927), has the dedication “to Cyril and Methodius”.

179D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944, á, 207-208.

180Ibid., 230-231. Hristo Popsimov’s position on the work of Cyril and Methodius can be seen from his surviving preface to the unpublished collection of poetry entitled L uda kr v (Wild Blood) by Voislav IliÎ, dating from 1935 (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 1982, 230; D-r S t ojan Ri st eski , L i t er at ur ni i spi t uvawa, S kopje, 1983, 85).

181D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944, áá, 97.

182K. Mi si r kovï , ,,Kr al i Mar ko“, I l i ndenÅ, ááá, 12, S of i ò, 25.ááá.1923, 2.

183K. Mi si r kovï –makedonecï , ,,ê e uspeòt l i ?“, Mi r ï , HHH, 7147, S of i ò, 10.ᜠ.1924, 1.

184K. Mi si r kovï , ,,Makedoni ò i pr aÔ ki ò kongr esï “, 20 Æ l i à, á, 9, S of i ò, 8.œ á.1924, 2.

177D-r

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were paid particular attention in the journal Makedonski Vesti (Macedonian News, 1935-1936)186 of Angel Dinev as well as in his prominent book Makedonskite Sloveni (The Macedonian Slavs, 1938).187 This was an important breakthrough in the contemporary awareness of the Macedonian, which led first to the National Liberation War and somewhat later to our free national development. KoÌo Racin,188 Nikola Vapcarov,189 Kosta Veselinov,190 Vasil Ivanovski191 and many others only strengthened this cult into a progressive line of our development, with a vision not too different from that we cherish today. If in 1936 the writer signing himself as “Nik. I-v” called “the Macedonian educators of the new era — DÔinot, Theodosius of Skopje and the ‘Lozars’ — the advocates of making the western [Macedonian] dialect a standard, and others […] worthy followers of the first Macedonian teachers, Ss Cyril and Methodius”,192 there was nothing more natural than that the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Macedonia addressed the Macedonians, in its mouthpiece Iskra (Spark) of January 1941, in the following way: Brothers!

You have your own language, your own culture, your own traditions, songs, etc.

You have a glorious history and past. Cyril and Methodius were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonian Slavs who gave literacy and culture to all the Slavs…193 185It

must be underlined that the tradition of Cyril and Methodius was also cherished among other Macedonian organizations in the United States and Canada. As early as 1907 in Granite City, for instance, a church community and a church bearing the name of Ss Cyril and Methodius were established, and there has been a similar church in Toronto since 1910 (50-godi š enï ô bi l eenï al manahï na Makedono-Bï l gar skat a P r avosl avna C ï r kovna Obë i na ,,S v. S v. Ki r i l i Met odi à“, Tor ont o, Kanada, 1910-1960).

186,,Dõ l ot o na dvamat a S ol unski br at ò, Makedonski vest i , á, 18, S of i ò, 22.œ .1935, 2; ,,P amet ni kï na r avnoapost ol i t õ Ki r i l ï i Met odi à“, MV, á, 38, 30.H.1935, 8; A.D., ,,Zat vï r dòvanet o na Makedonskat a naci onal na kul t ur a“, VM, áá, 44, 19.áá.1936, 5; Angel ï Di nevï , ,,Vel i ki t õ uÌi t el i na makedonski ò nar odï i na vsi Ìki sl avòni “, MV, áá, 55, 27.œ .1936, 4; D.G. Zar ovï , ,,S v. S v. Ki r i l ï i Met odi à“, MV, á, 21, 12.œ á.1935, 11, etc.

187Angel ï Di nevï , Makedonski t õ sl avòni , S of i ò, 1938, 19-24 and 49-61.

188KoÌo Raci n, S t i hovi i pr oza. Ur edi l d-r Al eksandar S pasov, S kopje, 1966, 150.

189Ni kol a ä onkov Vapcar ov, S pomeni , pi sma, dokument i , BAN, S of i ò, 1953, 221.

190Kost a Vesel i novï , Vï zr aÔ danet o na Makedoni ò i I l i ndenskot o vï zst ani e, S of i ò, 1939.

191In addition to other articles (published after 1934), Vasil Ivanovski is the author of the monographic manuscript ,,Makedonski ò vï pr os v mi nal ot o i sega. Makedonskat a naci ò i makedonskot o naci onal no sï znani e“, which he wrote in the Skopje Central Prison in 1943-1944 (Archives of Macedonia, Inv. No. 8773). Among other things, it pays special attention to the Salonika brothers and their disciples and followers. See: Vasi l I vanovski , Zoš t o ni e Makedonci t e sme oddel na naci ja. I zbr ani del a. P r edgovor , i zbor i r edakci ja I van Kat ar xi ev, AM, S kopje, 1995, 101-256.

192Ni k. I -vï , ,,P r oòvl eni e na maked. sï znani e“, Makedonski vest i , áá, 66, 12.œ ááá.1936, 3.

193I l egal ni ot peÌat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni . P odgot vi l d-r I van Kat ar xi ev, t . áá, kn. 2, S kopje, 1983, 207; I skr a, œ áá, 1, [S kopje], Januar [1941], [6].

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Immediately after the Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia, the Ilinden proclamation of the Provincial Committee of the Workers’ Party in Macedonia stated: “Everything which is Macedonian and great in the Macedonian struggle and culture has been appropriated by Bulgarian fascists and presented as Bulgarian: Ss Cyril and Methodius, Goce DelÌev, the Macedonian revolutionary struggle, the Macedonian language (our language was allegedly ‘sweet and melodious Bulgarian’).” 194 This is repeated in the next year’s Ilinden proclamation,195 and a leaflet from that period protests: “They have forbidden us to celebrate Ss Cyril and Methodius as Macedonian and Slavic apostles and teachers.”196 The mouthpiece of the Macedonian Provincial Committee, Bilten (Bulletin), of March-April 1942, proudly writes: “Macedonia has borne two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, who have given the alphabet and written culture to all the Slavs. Every more cultured Macedonian knows that the disciples of these two brothers, headed by Clement, first went to Moravia (Bohemia), which groaned under the German yoke at the time, in order to preach in the Slavonic language.”197 Similar articles appeared in many other periodicals during the National Liberation War. Hence it was natural that Cyril and Methodius’s Day was proclaimed the holiday of education in free Macedonia, and it was no surprise that one of the first decisions of the Agency of People’s Education (of the Presidium of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia) was its decision in favour of “the celebration of St Clement of Ohrid’s Day, on December 8, 1944”.198 He “was one of the greatest disciples of the brothers Cyril and Methodius”, as “this son of Macedonia […] is still today, as he was 1,000 years ago, the protector of our national whole and the patron of our entire national culture”.199 Accordingly, the tradition of Cyril and Methodius is an indigenous tradition in Macedonia which has been constantly built up (by external factors as well) and has firmly evolved into a fundamental element of the process of affirmation of the Macedonian nation, culture and statehood.

194I

zvor i za Osl obodi t el nat a vojna i r evol uci jat a vo Makedoni ja 1941-1945, t . á.

Dokument i na Komuni st i Ìkat a par t i ja na Jugosl avi ja i Komuni st i Ìkat a par t i ja na Makedoni ja 1941-1945, kn. 1, I NI , S kopje, 1968, 31.

195Ibid., 247.

196Ibid., 216.

197I st or i ski ar hi v na Komuni st i Ìkat a par t i ja na Makedoni ja, t . áá. S t at i i od vesni ci t e i spi sani jat a od per i odot na N ar odnoosl obodi t el nat a bor ba vo Makedoni ja 1941-1944, kn. pr va, 1941-1943, S kopje, 1952, 81.

198A S N OM (A nt i f aš i st i Ìko sobr ani e na nar odnot o osl oboduvawe na Makedoni ja).

Dokument i od P r vot o i Vt or ot o zasedani e na A S N OM, t . á, kn. 1, AM, S kopje, 1984, 232-233.

199Ibid., 339-341.

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Traditional Contacts and Relations between Macedonia and Russia

It is indeed difficult to study the roots of mutual relations between the Slavs in Russia and those in Macedonia, as most scholars believe that the Macedonians are a part that was separated from the main Slavic stock living beyond the Carpathian Mountains. Furthermore, the settlement of the Slavs in Macedonia took place over several centuries, ending as late as the 7th century, involving the southernmost regions of the Slavic migration wave, but there are no Slavic written testimonies whatsoever dating from that period. Hence discussion of this subject can start only with the Slavs’ conversion to Christianity and their literacy, which are linked with the mission of the Salonika brothers, Cyril and Methodius, and their disciples and followers.

Regardless of whether Cyril and Methodius, on their famous mission, found some “Russian characters”,200 meaning “Russian” literacy, which they could somehow use in their subsequent activity, it is important that they themselves came to the Russian regions towards the mid-9th century.201 But what has been known to scholarship for certain is the fact that by AD 863 at the latest, at the request of 200Kl

i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, ááá. P r ost r anni Ô i t i ò na Ki r i l i Met odi à.

P odgot vi l i za peÌat Bonô S t . Angel ov i Hr i st o Kodov, S of i ò, 1973, 127 and 150.

201I

.F . Oksi ô k, ,,P er vì e st ol et i ò hr i st i anst va na Rusi i l at i nski à zapad“, Bogosl ovski e t r udì , 28, Moskva, 1987, 194. It is suggested that as early as the second half of the 9th century and the early 10th century there was already a “Russian Metropolitanate” in Kievan Russia, which was listed in the catalogue of Emperor Leo VI as item 61, and in the survey of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus as item 60 in the list of metropolitanates of the Constantinopolitan Patriarch (ibid., 195; M.V. LevÌenko, OÌer k po i st or i i r ussko-vi zant i àski h ot noš eni à, Moskva, 1956, 88).

Even Princess Olga, the widow of Prince Igor, was converted to Christianity in the 950s, and there was already a Christian community in Kiev (I .F . Oksi ô k, op. cit., 195). The 967 Bull of Pope John XIII to Boleslav the Czech decrees, among other things, that the religious service in the Bishopric of Prague “should by no means be carried out in conformity with the rites of the Bulgarian or Russian peoples”, but in Latin (ibid., 196-197). Some even allow the possibility that some of Cyril and Methodius’s disciples might have reached Russia (after their banishment), so it was with their help that Christianity in Kiev took root and stood against the pressure of the pagan reaction. According to Russian chronicles, towards the mid-10th century the Christians in Kiev already had a church of their own, St Elijah the Prophet, where the Christians making the agreement with Byzantium took an oath of faithfully abiding by it, whereas Prince Igor and other delegates took an oath on the hill, where the idol of Perun stood.

The “Russian bishop” Adalbert arrived in Kiev in 961 as the representative of Otto I and Pope John XII, even though he had to leave Russia soon afterwards (ibid., 196-197).

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the Moravian Prince Rostislav, for purely political and strategic reasons, they obeyed the order of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III and, on the basis of the vernacular of the Slavs living around Salonika, created a special alphabet (Glagolitic) which was later adopted as the sacral and state script of the Moravian state and church. The foundations were also laid of general Slav education and culture which developed in the subsequent course of history to a great extent as a result of the establishment of Clement’s and Naum’s Ohrid Literary School in Macedonia, which became the principle literary centre where the largest number and the most important monuments and records of Slavonic literacy and culture have been preserved.202 The return of Clement and Naum to Macedonia, to the diocese which was still nominally under the jurisdiction of the Roman Church, provided a beneficial ground for the cultivation of Glagolitic literacy as a sacral script consecrated by the Pope and as the direct continuation of the traditions of Cyril and Methodius.

Here we must not overlook the reference in Homatian’s Life of Clement that Pope Adrian (in Rome) raised Clement “to the bishop’s throne”, and later appointed Archbishop Methodius “as the bishop of the whole of Illyria and of the Bulgarian people who ruled the land”.203 Only in this way does it become understandable why Clement abandoned the Bulgarian capital almost immediately, in 886, and returned to his diocese, and why as a bishop he maintained contacts only with the Bulgarian state leader and not with the existing Bulgarian Archbishop, the head of the Bulgarian Church. It is in this way that it becomes clear why even after Simeon’s reforms in 893, the Ohrid Literary School continued to use Glagolitic as its sacral script, despite the “composed” Cyrillic in Preslav, which brought about certain differences in linguistic and orthographic norms.204 As far as our subject is concerned, of essential significance was the historical fact that in 972 Bulgaria came under the control of the Byzantine Empire, and the territories of the Bulgarian Patriarchate were once again placed under the direct jurisdiction of the Constantinopolitan Patriarch. Only four years later the uprising of the komitopouloi in Macedonia broke out, and Samuel established his vast empire in the Balkans with its centre around the Ohrid Literary School. In all probability he proclaimed himself the heir to the Bulgarian crown through the mediation of the Roman Church; he adopted Cyrillic as the state script, but showed tolerance towards the sacral Glagolitic written tradition. It is of essential signifi202S l

ovenski r akopi si vo Makedoni ja, á-ᜠ, S kopje, 1971-1988; Vangel i ja Despodova – Li di ja S l aveva, Makedonski sr ednovekovni r akopi si , á, P r i l ep, 1988.

203Al eksandï r Mi l ev, Ó i t i ò na sv. Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S of i ò, 1961, 128.

204Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Ohr i dskat a kni Ô ovna š kol a“, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S kopje, 1966, 69-85; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, S kopje, 1983, 110-115.

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cance that he raised (again with the mediation of the Pope) the Archbishopric of Ohrid to the rank of a patriarchate; being an internationally recognized state, his empire established relations with nearby and more distant countries and peoples.

Of paramount significance was the fact that at the same time when the only Slavic Orthodox state was Samuel’s,205 in Old Russia the Russians were converted to Christianity and received Slavonic literacy (988).206 Hence in 1913 the Russian Slavic scholar M.D. Priselkov207 put forward the thesis about the role of the Ohrid Church in the constitution of the Russian church hierarchy. In the person of the said metropolitan John in the story of the canonization of the first Russian saints Boris and Gleb he sees the Ohrid Patriarch John who (later demoted to archbishop) died in 1037. So BlaÔe Koneski is right when he reminds the reader that Valery Pogorelov wrote that the Old Russian language was more influenced by the Ohrid Literary School than by the school at Preslav.208 These hypotheses have found full justification in the research work of Vladimir Moshin, who has established, on the basis of concrete data from written records, that there were well-developed links between Tsar Samuel and Prince Vladimir I 205We

suppose that Samuel’s state bore the Bulgarian national appellation because it was presented as a successor to the former Bulgarian empire, which was the necessary condition for receiving international state-constitutional recognition (by the Pope). Yet there is an interesting miniature published by Yeger Oskar (Vseobë aò i st or íò vï Ìet ì r ehï t omahï , 5-e i zdaníe, S .-P et er bur gï , 1896, between pp. 144 and 145), taken from the collection Evangel i ski Ìet i va, which belonged to Emperor Henry II (1002-1024), from the time when the only Slavic empire was Samuel’s Empire (existing up to 1018).

This miniature shows, allegorically, four Graces (‘countries/peoples’) offering gifts of gratitude to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, dressed in imperial clothes and with imperial crowns on their heads, with clearly written signatures above their heads: Roma, Gallia, Germania, Sclauinia. This last Grace (Sclavinia) holds a golden globe in her right hand, which is a symbol of the sun and of light, and points with her left hand towards the sky. It is shown as a blonde girl dressed in white, with characteristic Slavic embroidery around her neck and bosom, and there is a dark-cherry (purple?) cape put over her dress — as a sign of imperial greatness. She wears a crown on her head in the form of a battlemented tower which differs from all other crowns in the miniature (P r ot oi er eà Lev Lebedev, Kr eë eni e Rusi 988-1988, Moskva, 1987, 8-10). Can we thus assume that Samuel’s state bore the name Slavinia (Sclavinia)?

206Although there are different views concerning the time of the Russians’ adoption of Christianity, it is believed that Prince Vladimir I himself was baptized in 988 in Chersonesus (Korsun), and that afterwards the whole of the country was gradually converted to Christianity.

207M.D. P r i sel kovï , ,,OÌer ki po cer kovno-pol i t i Ìeskoà i st or íi Kíevskoà Rusi “, Zapi ski I st or i ko-F i l ol ogi Ìeskago f akul Åt et a S P b. uni ver si t et a, S P b., 1913, 23-76. We must note, however, that Priselkov’s opinion (that the Russian Metropolitanate was dependent on the Archbishopric of Ohrid from the very beginning and that it was as late as 1037, after the death of the Ohrid Archbishop John, that the ‘Greek’ Metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was established in Kiev) is bluntly rejected (as being unfounded) by a number of researchers (see: M.V. LevÌenko, op. cit., 373, etc.; A. P oppæ, ,,Russki e mi t r opol i i Konst ant i nopol Åskoà P at r i ar hi i v Há st ol et i i “, Vi zant i àski à vr emenni k, 28-29, Moskva, 1968-1969; Mi t r opol i t Mi nski à i Bel or usski à F i l ar et , ,,Kr eë eni e svòt ogo knòzò Vl adi mi r a i Russkoà zeml i , Bogosl ovski e t r udì , 28, Moskva, 1987, 71, etc.).

208Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva“, P r i l ozi , MANU, á, 1-2, S kopje, 1976, 63.

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at the time of the Russians’ conversion to Christianity and the organization of the Slavonic religious service in the Russian church. Moshin says: “In the widespread network of international relations at the time, of particular significance were the relations with the West over the question of the establishment of an independent Patriarchate of Ohrid, on the one hand, and the relations with the other Slav countries, on the other, especially those with the Russian Prince Vladimir at the time of Russia’s conversion to Christianity and the organization of the church there.” 209 Elsewhere Moshin points out that it was from Macedonia that “Slavonic priests with Slavonic books were sent to the Eastern-Slav brothers in Christ”.210 Relying primarily on the oldest surviving Cyrillic musical document, the Novgorod (Kiprian’s) folios, in the words of Dr Sotir Golaboski,211 Moshin writes: “The Novgorod folios, as a Macedonian text from the end of the 10th century, still carry the tradition of the systematic use of the Greek ecphonetic notation of the time, and in the Russian Ostromir Gospel, from the mid-11th century, Deacon Gregory uses only the signs written within the text as punctuation, with rare instances of the use of diacritical marks after the example of the Macedonian manuscript in red ink.”212 Studying the oldest Russian records and determining their origin, Mikhail N. Speransky had spoken early of their “Bulgarian-Macedonian origin”.213 Moshin, however, goes even further, specifying that “the definitive affirmation of the South-Slavic influence on the Russian church coincides with the time of the conversion of Russia to Christianity and is connected with the diplomatic relations between Prince Vladimir and Samuel of Ohrid”.214 Unfortunately, the relations between Samuel and Vladimir have remained as yet unstudied, as has the entire diplomatic activity of the Ohrid ruler. In connection with our subject, we would like to quote the highly provocative remark of Viktor B. Shklovsky in an interview that “the wife of Vladimir the Great was from Ohrid”.215 The corroboration of this account may shed more light on the relations between Ohrid and Kiev at the time, as this might have been one of the ‘political marriages’ of the Kievan Prince. Thus the act of Christianization and the organi209Vl

adi mi r Moš i n, S pomeni ci za sr ednovekovnat a i ponovat a i st or i ja na Makedoni ja (P r edgovor ), S kopje, 1975, 11.

210Vl adi mi r Moš i n, S l ovenski r akopi si vo Makedoni ja, 1, S kopje, 1971, 7.

211D-r S ot i r Gol aboski , ,,Moš i n za r usko-makedonski t e vr ski za vr eme na pokr st uvawet o na Rusi t e“, Kul t ur en Ô i vot , HHHááá, 1-2, S kopje, 1988, 14-16.

212Vl adi mi r Moš i n, ,,Novgor odski t e l i vÌi wa – ost at ok od car S amoi l ov kodeks – i ni vnat a ekf onet ska not aci ja“, Makedonska muzi ka, 5, S kopje, 1983, 13.

213D-r S ot i r Gol aboski , op. cit., 14.

214Vl adi mi r Moš i n, op. cit., 13.

215Ëedo Cvetkovski, ,,Razgovor sa Viktorem BorisoviÌem Šklovskim“, Oko, Zagreb, 21.XII.1984.

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zation of the Russian church, and especially the introduction of Slavonic literacy among the Russians, become more understandable as both state-diplomatic and cultural-civilizational acts. Yet the sources from this period are neither clear nor accurate. Let us pose the following question: when, how and why was there such a ‘political marriage’?

Nikolay M. Karamzin points out that “even before Vladimir, polygamy was not considered illegal in pagan Russia”,216 and then goes on to write that this did not stop Vladimir from “manifesting a noble devotion towards the pagan gods”, erecting silver statues of the God Perun and offering blood sacrifice— perhaps to appease his conscience and pacify the gods “irritated by his fratricide”. “But,” Karamzin writes, “this piety of Vladimir’s did not prevent him from sinking into sensual pleasures. His first wife was Rogneda, the mother of Izyaslav, Mstislav, Yaroslav, Vsevolod and of two daughters; having killed his brother, he took his pregnant sister-in-law as a hostage, who gave birth to Svyatopolk; by his second legal wife, a Czech or Bohemian, he had his son Vysheslav; by his third — Svyatoslav and Mstislav; by his fourth wife, born in Bulgaria — Boris and Gleb.

In addition, if we are to believe the chronicle, he had 300 hostage wives in Vyshegorod, 300 in present-day Belogorotka (near Kiev) and 200 in the village of Berestovo. Every pretty woman or girl was afraid of his passionate eyes; he scorned the sanctity of marriage ties and innocence. In a word, the chronicler calls him the Second Solomon in love of women.”217 These data, drawn from Nestor’s chronicle Povest vremennyh let218 and his Skazanie o Borise i Glebe219 show that Prince Vladimir indeed had several wives and twelve sons by them; that these wives came from various states and nationalities; that he concluded and broke marriages just as he concluded and broke international accords with various rulers; that his fourth wife was “from Bulgaria”220 and that he had by her his sons Boris and Gleb, who became the first Russian saints in the church history of Russia. Of course, at least from the time of Vladimir’s conversion to Christianity (988) to his death (1015) there was no Bulgarian state or church, but probably it was Samuel’s state that bore that name (even though this question requires more detailed study),221 and in all probability the reference is to that wife of Vladimir’s from Ohrid, to use the words of Shklovsky. When and how did this happen?

216N.M.

Kar amzi n, ,,I st or i ò gosudar st va Rossi àskogo“, Moskva, 2, Moskva, 1988, 120.

121.

218P amòt ni ki l i t er at ur ì dr evneà Rusi Há–naÌal o Háá veka, Moskva, 1978, 94.

219Ibid., 278.

220In the sources: ,,ot bol gar ì ni – Bor i sa i Gl õ ba“ (P ovest Å, 94); ,,ot Å bï l gar ì nõ Bor i sa i Gl õ ba“ (S kazani e, 278).

221See note 205.

217Ibid.,

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There are still no known direct references, but we can draw some conclusions from indirect accounts. According to the Armenian historian of the time, Asohik, Samuel made unsuccessful attempts “at becoming related to Basil”,222 but failing to do this, in August 986 he attacked Byzantium and, in the battle near Ihtiman, Emperor Basil narrowly escaped, saving his head. Samuel’s enlarged state reached the shores of three seas and his contacts with Kievan Russia were now maintained easily. It is highly probable that the political marriage with Vladimir took place at that time. Engaged in difficult internal strife with Bardas Phocas, Basil II demanded help from Vladimir. Vladimir gave him 6,000 soldiers,223 but the Byzantine emperor had to give Princess Anne (Basil’s sister) as a wife to Vladimir, once the latter adopted Christianity. Prince Vladimir fulfilled his promise: he sent his soldiers and in the first months of 988 he was baptized, but the Byzantine emperor failed to abide by the agreement. Then Vladimir surrounded the town of Chersonesus (Korsun) and after a six-month siege captured it and issued an ultimatum to the Byzantine emperor, demanding that he send his sister as Vladimir’s wife.

Under pressure from Samuel’s attacks and unrest in Asia Minor, Basil II fulfilled the agreement, and Vladimir married Anne in Chersonesus.224 Then Vladimir returned the town to Byzantium and went back to Kiev together with his new wife.

Regardless of the fact that the chronology of events is not clear nor sufficiently accurate, it is certain that the conversion to Christianity took place sometime in 988, and with the participation of Constantinople at that. Vladimir Moshin, however, writes that after Vladimir captured Chersonesus, “he sent an envoy to Samuel of Macedonia with a proposal for an alliance and a request for the organization of a Christian church with a Slavonic service. All this was fulfilled by the dispatching of Bishop Leon to Russia, taking the post of Russian Metropolitan, who set off to take up this duty together with many missionaries — priests and deacons — and carrying a large number of Slavonic religious books. The Russian chronicle of the Novgorod prelates of 991 says: ‘The Beatific Vladimir adopted Christianity… and he brought the Metropolitan Leon to Kiev, and Joachim of Korsun to Novgorod’.”225 This was certainly possible, but probably only after Vladimir’s adoption of Christianity. It is not insignificant that Prince Vladimir assumed the name Basil 226 upon his baptism, and that the metropolitans in Kievan Russia were for a long time appointed by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.227 But it is still not sufficiently 222Vseobë

aò i st or íò S t epanosa Tar anskago, A sohi ka po pr ozvaníô , Moskva, 1864, 175. to the sources, this ‘Russian’ unit consisted of Varangians.

224P amòt ni ki l i t er at ur ì dr evneà Rusi Há–naÌal o Háá veka, 124-126.

225Vl adi mi r Moš i n, ,,Novgor odski t e l i vÌi wa…“, 11-12.

226P r ot oi er eà Lev Lebedev, op. cit., 108.

223According

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clear what the relations between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Archbishopric of Ohrid were like in this period. Ioann Belevcev writes that the new “Russian Orthodox Church was subordinated, in terms of administration, to the Constantinopolitan Patriarch, and in terms of organization was one of the metropolitanates of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.228 On the other hand, I.F. Oksiyuk points out that “the wise Prince Vladimir conducted a policy of his own and preferred to remain loyal to his alliance with Byzantium, through unity with the Slavonic Orthodox Archbishopric of Ohrid in Bulgaria”, as the church was still not divided at the time.229 Another view which deserves attention is the highly disputed opinion of M.D. Priselkov, dating from 1913, that the Russian Church “received its hierarchy not from Constantinople or Rome, but from the Patriarchate of Ohrid”.230 In connection with this question, Lev Lebedev observes that “enlightenment in Russia started immediately in the Old Church Slavonic language, and that Byzantium sent to Russia, together with Princess Anne, not Greek, but Bulgarian clergy and religious books in the Old Church Slavonic language”.231 Lebedev also says: “there are even views that the Russian Church was canonically, in principle, subordinated to the Bulgarian Church”, although immediately afterwards he adds that “these views are disputable”. This, however, does not prevent him from pointing out that the newly-arrived priests in Russia could have been called “Greek” or “Tsaritza’s” “because of their canonical affiliation with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and not in terms of their nationality”. In conclusion he writes: “Joachim’s chronicle and some hagiographies of Prince Vladimir say that the newcomer to Chersonesus and administrator of Russia’s conversion to Christianity, the Metropolitan Michael, was a Bulgarian, whereas in the Nikon chronicle he is called a Syrian, and in other sources — a Greek. But probably in the right are those who believe that he was a Bulgarian”.232 The ‘Short survey’ of the History of the Russian Orthodox Church, an official publication of the Patriarchate of Moscow, also confirms the fact that “teachers of the Christian faith who had a good command of the Old Church Slavonic language” were invited by Prince Vladimir “from Korsun and the Balkan lands”, and thus 227The

Russian church was dependent on Constantinople as late as 1448 (P r of essor pr ot oi er eà I oann Bel evcev, ,,Obr azovani e Russkoi à pr avosl avnoà cer kvi “, Bogosl ovski e t r udì , 28, 1987, 84).

228Ibid., 83.

229I .F . Oksi ô k, op. cit., 201.

230Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva“, 63; M.D. P r i sel kovï , op. cit., 109.

231P r ot oi er eà Lev Lebedev, op. cit., 109.

232Ibid., 159.

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“established sound foundations for the development of the Russian Church”.

Furthermore, the following is admitted from the most official instance: “Modern historiographic data allow us to believe that the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Ohrid, the Bulgarian, was accepted under Prince Vladimir.” Here it is not so important that the authors call the Patriarch of Ohrid a ‘Bulgarian’, as this indeed was a part of his title (a historical relic), but it is much more important that there is another confirmation below: “In 1037, under Yaroslav Vladimirovich (the Wise), owing to the vacancy of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, the Russian Church came under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as one of its Metropolitanates.” 233 Thus at the time of Tsar Samuel the diocese of the Archbishopric/Patriarchate of Ohrid included the Russian church (even after the conquest of Macedonia by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II). The demotion of the Patriarchate of Ohrid to the rank of archbishopric, and in particular the vacancy of the Ohrid see, was used to incorporate the Russian church under the direct jurisdiction of the Patriarchate. If we do not know precisely when the jurisdiction of Ohrid over Kiev was extended, it has been firmly established that its jurisdiction was revoked in 1037. This means that the relations between Macedonia and Russia were very strong and comprehensive for about four decades. Vladimir’s marriage with the woman coming from Samuel’s court in Ohrid could only facilitate and encourage these relations.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that Slavonic literacy was brought to Russia through the Archbishopric of Ohrid, because it was impossible to bring it from any other place at that time. The influence must have been strong even later, but it was prominent from the very beginning. Ioann Belevcev writes: “The conversion of Russia to Christianity — it was the day of the birth of the Russian Orthodox Church, for whose establishment all the necessary conditions were fulfilled: a large flock was formed, bishops from Byzantium appeared here headed by the metropolitan, priests came from Bulgaria with religious books in the Slavonic language, churches were built, religious schools were opened.”234 Examining the religious and educational activity of the missionaries and the Novgorod School of Russian literacy, where precisely this ‘adaptation’ of SouthSlavonic manuscripts into the North-Russian variant was carried out, and analysing Speransky’s arguments concerning the two Novgorod copies of the South-Slavonic Psalter (the Evgenii, 11th century, and the Tolstov, 11th or early 12th century), Vladimir Moshin concludes that “palaeographic linguistic and orthographic analysis has undoubtedly established the origin of their example as being the Ohrid-Macedonian literary school. This analysis also confirms the Macedo233Russkaò 234P

P r avosl avnaò C er kovÅ, I zdani e Moskovskoà P at r i ar hi i , Moskva, 1980, 9-10.

r of essor pr ot oi er eà I oann Bel evcev, op. cit., 78.

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nian origin of the Novgorod folios, which are thought to be the remainder of a Macedonian imperial codex from the late 10th century, which in 991 was sent together with Joachim of Korsun to Novgorod and there, towards the mid-11th century, helped the deacon Gregory and his associate in the preparation of the Ostromir Gospel”.235 BlaÔe Koneski quotes other examples illustrating the Macedonian influence on old Russian literacy. He points to Ohrid as the first religious and cultural centre of the southern and eastern Slavs at the time of Clement’s Ohrid Literary School, whose activity became particularly strong during the time of Tsar Samuel, when the Patriarchate of Ohrid was instituted with the help of Rome (it is not incidental that the frescoes in the Church of St Sophia in Ohrid include the portraits of six Roman popes,236 which is a unique case in Slavonic fresco-painting), when, at least according to tradition, there was already the Zograph Monastery on Mount Athos, founded by Samuel, as the first Slavonic monastery in the “Monastic republic”.237 This was undoubtedly the second religious and cultural centre in the Slavic Balkan south, which was also significant because of its relations with Russia and Russian literacy. The Russian skite monastery of Ksilurg (Xylourgos) was built there (sometime after 1016) “which is traditionally connected with Yaroslav the Wise, and even with Prince Vladimir”.238 Considerably later, in 1169, the second Russian monastery, St Panteleimon, was founded on Mount Athos, and it was as late as 1198, after the strengthening of the Serbian state in the Balkans, that the Serbian monastery of Chilandar was founded. This established an entire Slavonic Orthodox community maintaining all kinds of contacts which were not limited only to the areas of religion and culture. After the collapse of Samuel’s state, the reputation 235According

to D-r S ot i r Gol aboski , op. cit., 15; Vl adi mi r Moš i n, ,,Novgor odski l i st i Úi i Ost r omi r ovo jevanŸeq e“, A r heogr af ski pr i l ozi , 5, Beogr ad, 1983, 7-14; Vangel i ja Despodova – Li di ja S l aveva, op. cit., á, 62. There is an interesting view proposed by Cvetan Grozdanov (C vet an Gr ozdanov, ,,Or nament i kat a na r ascvet ani l i sja vo umet nost a na Ohr i d vo Há-Háá vek“, L i hni d, 6, Ohr i d, 1988, 11-20)) that the ornamentation of blossom and leaves could be a relevant element in the determination of monuments and records, but only as a possibility, without specific answers. The absence of such ornamentation is still not a proof that it was not present in Ohrid during Samuel’s rule, especially when we know that Cyrillic was the state script in his state as well, and yet there is no surviving document from that time.

236P et ar Mi q kovi Î-P epek, ,,Mat er i jal i za makedonskat a sr ednovekovna umet nost . F r eski t e vo svet i l i š t et o na cr kvat a S v. S of i ja vo Ohr i d“, in: Zbor ni k na A r heol oš ki ot muzej, S kopje, 1956, 22, t abl i HH-HHá.

237Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,S vet a Gor a i st ar osl ovenski t e r akopi si “, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski i ul ogat a na Ohr i dskat a kni Ô evna š kol a vo r azvi t okot na sl ovenskat a pr osvet a. Mat er i jal i od nauÌen sobi r odr Ô an vo Ohr i d od 25 do 27 sept emvr i 1986 godi na, MANU, S kopje, 1989, 97; Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,O Mar i ji nskom jevanŸeq u“, JuÔ nosl ovenski f i l ol og, Hª áá, Beogr ad, 1986, 68; ä or danï I vanovï , Bï l gar ski st ar i ni i zï Makedoni ò, S of i ò, 1931, 537-546.

238Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,S vet a Gor a i st ar osl ovenski t e r akopi si “, 97; Vl adi mi r Moš i n, ,,Russki e na Af one i r ussko-vi zant i àski e ot noš eni ò v Há-Háá vv.“, Byzantinoslavica, áH, 1947, 57.

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of the Russian monastery of Ksilurg grew substantially as it enjoyed the support (material and political) of the by now powerful Principality of Kiev. 239 This was already a period of reciprocal Russian influence in the Slavic south, although earlier links in the areas of language and orthography continued. A well-known historical situation was gradually created where Glagolitic records were being transliterated into Cyrillic, and, as these were mostly from Macedonia, they exerted a significant influence as basic patterns in the establishment of the Old Church Slavonic standard, which was to become the general Slavonic literary standard in the East Orthodox Slavonic world over the coming centuries.

In several of his works, BlaÔe Koneski points to the presence of monks from Macedonia in the Russian monastery of Ksilurg, and also to the fact that the monks of Mount Athos had closer contacts with the Sinai monastery of St Catherine — starting from the earliest centuries. Koneski quotes the example of the arrival of the Serbian religious figure and educator St Sava at the same time as the Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli was staying in the monastery. Such “monastic itineraries” were still frequent in the subsequent centuries; hence it is no chance that we find Hristofor ÓefaroviÌ from Dojran there in the 18th century, and the first Macedonian printer, in the 19th century, Teodosija Sinaitski, was even the abbot of St Catherine’s Monastery on Sinai (from which he received his surname).240 Accordingly, Sinai was another centre of mutual Slavonic contacts — not only in the spiritual sphere — lying relatively close to Mount Athos, i.e. to the Macedonian cultural region. In the course of time many Russian manuscripts came to the monastery libraries on Mount Athos, which certainly exerted an influence on the writing activity in the Macedonian cultural and literary centres. This closeness between Russia and Mount Athos is also confirmed by the fact that the Monastery of the Annunciation (Blagoveshtensky) near Bialystok was built in the late 15th century for monks coming from Mount Athos.241 There are already serious research works dealing with the Russian influence on South-Slavonic texts from the 12th to 14th century. In Macedonia it is once again BlaÔe Koneski who pays special attention to this question. He points not only to the attractiveness of Mount Athos for Russian monks when the Russian state was still powerful, but also to the large-scale forced emigration of monks and literate Russians following the Tartar invasion in the first half of the 13th century.

There were Russian monks who came not only to the court of Stephen (Stefan) Nemanja and his funeral on Mount Athos, but they were to be found in what was 239Bl

aÔ e Koneski , ,,O Mar i ji nskom jevanŸeq u“, 69. aÔ e Koneski , ,,S vet a Gor a i st ar osl ovenski t e r akopi si “, 99.

241Ibid., 100; G. I l Åi nskíà, ,,ZnaÌeníe Af ona vï i st or íi sl avònskoà pi sÅmennost i “, Ó ur nal ï MN P , Há, S P b., 1908, 14-15.

240Bl

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then Sredec and in eastern Macedonia, in the already well-developed literary and transcription centre in the monastery of Lesnovo. The Kratovo hagiography of St Gabriel (Gavril) of Lesnovo from the Stanislav Prologue (1330), and also a longer text dealing with the life of this saint in a late transcription (1868), even though referring to tradition, speak of migrants from Russia to the monastic environment who “could have also contributed to the spreading of Russian influence on South-Slavonic literacy at a period when there was need to fill the stock of books in South-Slavonic lands”.242 Koneski demonstrates this in a highly illustrative manner by quoting examples drawn from the Macedonian Gospel of Priest John (Pop Jovan) and from the Stanislav Prologue.243 Finally, the specific cult of saints is not without significance for the Slavonic cultural affirmation. There is a vast and representative gallery of Slavonic saints from Macedonia — in the period between the 9th and 18th centuries.244 In this respect, of particular interest is the canonization of the first Russian saints Boris and Gleb. M.D. Priselkov points out very early that Metropolitan John, who is mentioned in the story of the canonization of these first Russian saints, was actually the Ohrid Patriarch (later Archbishop) John (of Debar) who “also came to Russia in the line of duty”.245 All this makes us re-think some aspects of Macedonian-Russian relations in the 10th and 11th centuries.

First of all, it is striking that Prince Vladimir’s sons by his “Bulgarian wife” from Ohrid bore the Christian names Roman (Boris) and David (Gleb),246 and these were names taken directly from Samuel’s family, perhaps on the insistence of the children’s mother. Thus, in the light of this fact, it now becomes more clear why Metropolitan John was present at their canonization after their death, when they were killed by Svyatopolk — the son of Yaropolk and the Greek nun — who was full of hatred towards Vladimir I because he had killed Svyatopolk’s father (his own brother) and taken his pregnant widow as a hostage.247 It would certainly not be insignificant (if supported by additional historical facts) that the first Russian saints were related by blood with Ohrid and Samuel, and spiritually with the Ohrid church as a Slavonic (and already Orthodox) church.

242Bl

aÔ e Koneski , ,,Za r uskot o vl i jani e vr z juÔ nosl ovenski t e t ekst ovi od Hááá-Hᜠvek“, in: Opuscula Polono-Slavica. Munera linguistica Stanislao Urbanczyk dedicata, WrocÂaw, 1979, 176.

243Ibid., 176-177; Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Ruskot o jazi Ìno vl i jani e vr z makedonski t e t ekst ovi od Hááá-Hᜠvek“, in: Ref er at i na makedonski t e sl avi st i za áH meÒunar oden sl avi st i Ìki kongr es vo Ki ev, S kopje, 1983, 25-28.

244C vet an Gr ozdanov, P or t r et i na svet i t el i t e od Makedoni ja od áH-Hœ ááá vek, S kopje, 1983.

245Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva“, 63 — according to M.D. P r i sel kovï , ,,OÌer ki …“, 39-43.

246P amòt ni ki l i t er at ur ì dr evneà Rusi Há–naÌal o Háá veka, 280 and 454.

247Ibid., 88-94.

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Making certain comparisons within the general Christian history may also be relevant for our subject. For instance, St Clement of Ohrid is not only connected with the character of the activity of the Apostle Paul — who spread Christianity in Macedonia — but links may also be traced back to the Apostle Peter — through the activity of his brother, the Apostle Andrew.

It is known that the Macedonian tradition abundantly uses the Apostle Andrew not only in written monuments, but also in sacral places of historical interest. We now know that Naum of Ohrid wrote a service for the Apostle Andrew,248 and we cannot forget that Cyril and Methodius served a liturgy in the Slavonic language in the Church of St Andrew in Rome.249 This is also reflected in the oldest fresco-paintings in Macedonia. For example, in the 13th-century Ohrid Church of the Holy Mother of God Peribleptos (Sv. Bogorodica Perivlepta, Sv. Kliment Novi), on the right side of the altar, the Apostle Peter is depicted as supporting Christ’s Church on his shoulder; beside him is his brother, the Apostle Andrew (opposite the frescoes on the other side of the altar), and there are the figures of the Ohrid Archbishop Constantine Kabásilas (as a counterpart to the Apostle Peter) and of St Clement of Ohrid (as a counterpart to the Apostle Andrew), emphasizing the significance of those who were active in Ohrid, and strengthening the early Christian heritage and tradition in Macedonia.250 That the cult of St Andrew was also alive in Macedonia in the course of the ensuing centuries is shown by the Church of St Andrew (Sv. Andreja) near Matka, erected by Andrejaš — King Mark’s brother — in the 14th century.251 According to tradition, however, the Apostle Andrew spread Christianity not only in Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly and other regions of present-day Greece, where he was crucified, but he also appointed the first bishop of Constantinople, as a result of which his relics were moved to this city in the 4th century.252 Yet it is of particular importance for us that, according to Povest vremennyh let, the Apostle Andrew preached on the shores of the Black Sea, in Sinope (Sinop) and Chersonesus (Korsun), along the Dnieper up to the location of the subsequent Kiev, and “he came to the Slavs, where Novgorod now stands”, in order to arrive in Rome, where he spoke of his achievements, and then returned to Sinope. This account of 248S t ef

an KoÔ uhar ov, ,,P esennot o t vor Ìest vo na st ar obï l gar ski ò kni Ô ovni k Naum Ohr i dski “, L i t er at ur na i st or i ò, 12, S of i ò, 1984, 3-19.

249Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S ï br ani sï Ìi neni ò, ááá, 140.

250Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kul t ot na svet i t el i t e i sl ovenskat a kul t ur na af i r maci ja“, P r i l ozi , MANU, OLLN, H, 2, S kopje, 1985, 7; C vet an Gr ozdanov, P or t r et i na svet i t el i t e od Makedoni ja, 53-54.

251C vet an Gr ozdanov, op. cit., 86-87.

252Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kul t ot na svet i t el i t e…“, 6.

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Nestor’s has been the object of recurrent debates over the past centuries, and special attention was paid to this question at the International Scholarly Church Conference in Kiev held July 21-28, 1986. In his extensive discussion entitled Ustanovlenie hristianstva na Rusi, the Metropolitan of Minsk and Belorussia, Philaret, quoted new information which indicates that the Apostle Andrew did indeed preach on Russian soil, introducing Christianity at the time of its inception.

Of course, it is now very difficult for serious scholars to rely on such arguments, but tradition has nourished certain ideas among the people for centuries, creating cults which have played an important part in history. Therefore it was not mere chance that as early as the 11th century the grandson of Prince Vladimir received the name of the Apostle Andrew as his Christian name, while at the time there were at least three shrines in Russia (in Kiev, Pereyaslav and Novgorod) bearing the name of this apostle.253 Hence these words ascribed to Ivan the Terrible may become more understandable: “We received the Christian faith at the commencement of the Christian church, when Andrew, the brother of the Apostle Peter, came to these regions on his way to Rome; in this manner we in Moscow received the Christian faith at the same time as you did in Italy and since then we have kept it sacrosanct.” 254 Accordingly, it was not only Cyril and Methodius, and Clement and Naum, connecting the Southern Slavs and the Russians by way of their cults. In many respects, Macedonia was the focus of Slavonic literacy and Christian culture, and its more comprehensive and more profound study may open new horizons to scholars in getting to know the ancient history of Slavonic culture and its civilization better.

But while we are still on the ground of Macedonian-Russian contacts at that important period of development, we must also mention the relatively little known Cyril’s Church in Kiev, built and painted in the 1170s with the participation of fresco-painters from Macedonia as well. The ensemble of frescoes in the northern apse, in the words of N.B. Sal’ko, are “closely connected with the South-Slavonic fresco-painting school in the Balkans”.255 In fact, this composition in Cyril’s Church consists solely of “Macedonian saints”, including Cyril and Methodius, Clement of Ohrid, John of Macedonia and Joseph of Salonika.256 The citizens of 253Ibid.,

36. aÔ e Koneski , ,,Kul t ot na svet i t el i t e…“, 8 — according to D.S . Li haÌev, N aci onal Ånoe samosoznani e dr evneà Rusi , M.–L., 1945, 100.

255N.B. S al Åko, Ó i vopi sÅ Dr evneà Rusi Há–naÌal o Hááá veka. Mozai ki – F r eski – I konì , Leni ngr ad, 1982, 105-109. The author underlines: “In the 1170s the church walls were covered by frescoes. A clearer figure of Archangel Michael was depicted in the northern apse, and in the three zones there are the figures of twenty-five Balkan saints” (108-109).

254Bl

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Kiev called this apse Makedonskij zal (Macedonian Hall) for centuries, but when we visited this church in 1983 there was a sign reading Balkanskij zal (Balkan Hall), and the chief guide explained it to us as Bolgarskij zal (Bulgarian Hall).

This is just another example how some realities have been revised over time which now obscure our perspective of the past!

Unfortunately the fresco-paintings in Cyril’s Church have still not been fully studied and presented to the public, and its significance is yet to be assessed in a scholarly manner, particularly from the aspect of Macedonian-Russian and Macedonian-Ukrainian cultural links.

One thing is, however, certain: the Russian and especially the Ukrainian people maintained an extremely clearly defined awareness of Macedonia, and also of the Macedonians, which was reflected in their rich epic folklore — in Ukrainian words which can still be heard accompanied by the bandora.257 Of special significance in this respect was the formation of hussar regiments in Ukraine, which included the Macedonian Regiment in the 18th century, reflected in the toponomastics of a fairly wide belt in Ukraine up to the present day.258 The links of Ohrid and Mount Athos with Kiev, Novgorod, Vladimir, Suzdal, Zagorsk and Moscow were maintained without interruption for centuries. It was not by chance that in 1905, in his journal Vardar, Krste P. Misirkov singled out the role of Slavonic studies in the identification of the Macedonians and the national awakening in Macedonia,259 and the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg, as early as its second session, on December 29, 1902, with a visibly strong enthusiasm in thought and action, passed a protocolar decision to work on the writing of a parallel four-language dictionary, with a view to informing the Russian public not only that Macedonian was an individual Slavonic language, but also that it was even closer to Russian than to Serbian or Bulgarian.260 With these few extracts from the history of Macedonian-Russian links and relations in the early mediaeval period we only wish to point to the significance Macedonia had in the history of the Russian church, of the Russian state and in 256D-r

Kost a Bal abanov, ,,Ki evska Rusi ja i kul t ur ni t e cent r i vo Makedoni ja vo Há i Háá vek.

Kul t ot na sl ovenski t e pr osvet i t el i Ki r i l i Met odi ja i ni vni t e uÌeni ci “, Gl asni k na UN ES KO, HHHœ , Apr i l , 1982, 40.

257The versified speech of the Zaporozhians to the Turkish Sultan of 1679, among other things, mentions makedonski à kol esni k (Vol odomi r Gol obovcÅki , Gomi n, gomi n po díbr aví, Ki ív, 1968, 174).

258Al eksandar Mat kovski , Makedonski ot pol k vo Ukr ai na, S kopje, 1985.

259K. Mi si r kov, ,,I zni knuvaín’et o i r azbor na bugar ckat a i sr pcka t eor i íi za nar odnost a na mak’edonci t e“, Var dar , á, 1, Odesa, 1.áH.1905, 8-16.

260D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1978, 202.

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particular, of Russian literacy and culture. All this resulted in the establishment of a common standard of all Orthodox Slavs, which, with negligible variations, was long cultivated in the churches and monasteries, and not only there. This, in turn, can only help and facilitate the understanding of the role Russia played in the historical evolution and cultural development of Macedonia in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Alexander of Macedon in the Historical Consciousness of the Macedonians in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The essential question of the historical consciousness of the Macedonians has as yet been insufficiently studied from a scholarly point of view.261 Still less has it been studied in terms of the consciousness of Macedonian writers, particularly in the 19th century. Yet in the development of the historical consciousness which was built among the Macedonian people there appeared two tendencies of fundamental importance which ultimately merged into a single idea of the historical past of Macedonia and which moulded Macedonian national consciousness: the ancient Macedonian and the more recent Slavonic tradition. The first was handed down chiefly by oral tradition and was sustained indirectly or by way of external factors, amply drawing on various manuscripts and, later, printed texts dealing with the ancient Macedonian rulers, in particular those dealing with Alexander of Macedon (circulating at certain periods outside the institutions of the church) and mainly covering the period until the arrival of the Slavs. The second (Slavonic) tradition reflected the Slavic period; it spread and was maintained mainly through the churches and monasteries (in written form, but also by oral tradition and folklore), presenting the historical past of the Slavs through outstanding figures and significant events (Cyril and Methodius, Clement and Naum, Samuel and Mark; Ohrid, Prilep, Belasica, Marica, etc.).

Although chronologically of later date, it is interesting that Bulgarian and Serbian mediaeval state traditions in Macedonia were much less common. In fact, it was only as late as the 18th century, chiefly under external influence, via personal contacts and writings, that certain folk-coloured tendencies of Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian folk traditions began to penetrate Macedonia. This was the period of the initiation of modern historiographic thought in these regions: the history of Jovan RajiÚ,262 and even that of Paissius of Chilandar (Paisij Hilendarski),263 were 261Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,F or mi r ovani e i af f i r maci ò i st or i Ìeskoà mì sl i makedoncev v HáH i HH vekah (v kont ekst e bal kanski h ot noš eni à)“, Dokl adì œ -go meÔ dunar odnogo kongr essa po i ssl edovani ô ô govost oÌnoà Evr opì …, S kopÅe, 27-30.

262I . Rai Ìï , I st or íò r aznì hï sl ovenski hï nar odovï nai paÌe Bol gar ï , Har vat ovï i S er bovï …, á-ᜠ, Vï Vi enõ , 1794-1795.

263I st or íò sl avõnobol gar skaò. S obr ana i nar eÔ dena P ai síemï I er omonahomï vï l õt o 1762.

S t ï kmi za peÌat ï po pï r voobr aza ä or . I vanovï , S of i ò, 1914.

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already creating ideas which were to have a significant role in subsequent developments; the stemmatographiae (particularly that of Hristofor ÓefaroviÌ)264 revived powerful symbols, while the swift development of cartography delineated ethnic territories which, together with the Macedonian tradition, gradually outlined the historical, cultural and geographic features of Macedonia.265 The beginning of the 19th century, however, saw Macedonia with the process of building an awareness of its own ethno-cultural physiognomy uncompleted and, moreover, without a single and generally accepted appellation of the people. At the same time, oral folk tradition constantly handed down reminiscences of the Macedonian historical past. The printing of the Slavonic versions of the history of Alexander of Macedon266 further intensified the development of the Macedonian mythology which evolved side by side with the awakening of interest in printed books.

Among the external factors, of particular importance were European scholars who encouraged a strong awareness of ancient Macedonia with a gradual but notable tendency towards ideas of the ‘Slavonic character’ of its population. This was particularly the case with the disciplines of history, geography, ethnography, philology and cartography. Illyrian ideology and Balkan heraldry differentiated the Macedonian coat of arms,267 and the formation of the Macedonian Hussar Regiment in Ukraine clearly set the Macedonians apart as a distinct Slavic ethnicity.268 The struggle against Phanariote supremacy encouraged exploration of the history of the Archbishopric of Ohrid and of the Slavic past. Macedonian aspirations towards writing in their native tongue cleared the way towards the study and 264Hr i

st of or ï Ó ef ar ovi Ìï , S t emat ogr af ía…, Víõ na, 1741. ol janski , ,,Makedoni ja vo kar t i (Od zbi r kat a na Br i t anski ot muzej i of i ci jal ni ot Ar hi v na Vel i ka Br i t ani ja, 1491-1958)“, Gl asni k, áH, 1, I NI , S kopje, 1965, 343-422; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1983, 70-71; I l i ja P et r uš evski , ,,Makedoni ja na kar t i od poznat i kar t ogr af i “, Kul t ur en Ô i vot , HHœ áá, 3, S kopje, 1982, 23-25; I l i ja P et r uš evski , ,,Kar t a na Makedoni ja od 1791 godi na“, Kul t ur en Ô i vot , HHœ ááá, 4-5, S kopje, 1983, 31-33; Makedoni ja na st ar i mapi . P odgot vi l I l i ja P et r uš evski , Det ska r adost – Makedoni ja, S kopje, 1992.

266ást or ía na vel i kíà A l eksandr a makedonca…. P r evede ot ï Gr à cki Kar l ovskíà S l avenoBà l gar skíà uÌi t el Å Hr i st o P . Vasíl íevï P r ot opopovi Ìï ot ï Kar l ovo, Bõ l gr adï , 1844 (reprinted in 1851 and 1867); Ver a Ant i Î, Od sr ednovekovnat a kni Ô evnost , S kopje, 1976, 148-161; Al eksandar Mat kovski , Ot por ot vo Makedoni ja vo vr emet o na t ur skot o vl adeewe, áá, S kopje, 1983, 132-137.

267D-r Al eksandar Mat kovski , Gr bovi t e na Makedoni ja (P r i l og kon makedonskat a her al di ka), S kopje, 1970.

268Al eksandar Mat kovski , Makedonski ot pol k vo Ukr ai na, S kopje, 1985.

265H. Andonov-P

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understanding of Slavonic literacy, literature and culture, which were determined by scholarship to have originated from Macedonia, and the borders within which this language was spoken were gradually defined.269 The social, political and confessional status of the Macedonian people in Shariah Turkey further reinforced the contrast between the oppressed raya and kaurins, on the one hand, and the “true-believing” aghas and beys, on the other.

This in turn aroused interest in the question and history of the Ottoman conquest of Macedonia, and animated the cult of King Mark’s kingdom in oral folklore. It was in the spirit of this mythology (developing not without outside influences) that Philip and Alexander of Macedon were presented as Slavs (also encouraged by the subsequent mystifications by Jovan Gologanov270 and Stefan VerkoviÚ).271 All this merged with the representations of Samuel, Strez, Volkašin and Mark, and was naturally connected with the ajduks and comitadjis, who had already been fighting for freedom.

This process became particularly apparent from the 1840s onwards. It was not by chance that ÏorÒija Makedonski, a teacher from the village of Radibuš, in the Kriva Palanka region, said: “I learnt the Slavonic script from my father, Dimitrija Makedonski [Macedonian], who calls himself so because we are Macedonians, and not Greeks. […] I also took the surname of Makedonski, and not that of my father or grandfather, so that it may be known that we are Slavs from Macedonia.” 272 The priest Dimitrija from the same region spoke in like manner in 1848: “Mr Mihail Makedonski was the one who interceded most in favour of my appointment, because I am a Macedonian by birth and hold the services in Slavonic. Such was the fate of my fatherland Macedonia, to suffer from the Greeks, 269Krste P. Misirkov saw these processes and explained them in his article ,,I

zni knuvaín’et o i r azbor na bugar ckat a i sr pcka t eor i íi za nar odnost a na mak’edonci t e“, Var dar , á, 1, Odesa, 1.áH.1905, 8-16; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Var dar “. N auÌno-l i t er at ur no i opš t est venopol i t i Ìko spi sani e na K.P . Mi si r kov, I MJ, P osebni i zdani ja kn. 4, S kopje, 1996 (photographically reproduced edition).

270Gane Todor ovski , ,,Osmi sl uvawe na mi t ot (Za mi st i f i kaci i t e na nar odni pesni vo Makedoni ja)“, Razgl edi , ááá (ááá), 10, S kopje, 1961, 955-958; Gane Todor ovski , ,,Jovan Gol oganov i ,Veda S l ovena‘“, S ovr emenost , œ áá, 1, S kopje, 1967, 63; Gane Todor ovski , Veda S l ovena, S kopje, 1979.

271I van D. Š i š manov, ,,F r enskat a nauka i ,Veda S l ovena‘. S osoben ogl ed kï m kr i t i kat a na Lui LeÔ e (S t r ani ci i z i st or i òt a na bï l gar skat a f ol kl or i st i ka)“, in: I zbr ani sï Ìi neni ò, áá. P od r edakci òt a na Geor gi Di mov, S of i ò, 1966, 216-269; Mi hai l Ar naudov, Ver kovi Ì i Veda S l ovena. P r i nos kï m i st or i òt a na bï l gar ski ò f ol kl or i na bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane v Makedoni ò s nei zvest ni pi sma, dokl adi i dr ugi dokument i ot 1855 do 1893 g., S bNUN, ª áá, S of i ò, 1968; Dokument i za bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane ot S t ef an I .

Ver kovi Ì 1860-1893. S ï st avi l i i podgot vi l i za peÌat Dar i na Vel eva i n.s. Tr i f on Vï l ov pod r edakci òt a i s pr edgovor ot Ìl .-kor . Hr i st o A. Hr i st ov, S of i ò, 1969.

272Dokument i za bor bat a na makedonski ot nar od za samost ojnost i za naci onal na dr Ô ava, á, S kopje, 1981, 182.

103

and they are giving us no peace even today, although everyone knows that Macedonia was an older state than their kingdom.”273 That “everyone” did indeed know this “truth” is testified to by the Russian Slavic scholar, Viktor Grigorovich, after his travels through Macedonia in 18441845: “In all the areas I have visited I have heard no other names than those of Alexander the G[reat] and King Mark. Both are alive in the memory of the people as fairly generalized characters. The memory of Alexander the G. seems to be more deeply instilled into the people, because those who uttered his name could often not explain his character other than by referring to the instructors (teachers) who have books about this subject.”274 At approximately the same time, in the testimony of Rajko Óinzifov, Dimitar Miladinov had a dispute with a Greek in Kukuš on Macedonian ethnicity. Óinzifov writes: “The Greek remained silent before Miladinov’s arguments; he claimed from the Greek not only the present-day Macedonians but also the ancient ones, with Philip and Alexander; he also brought up Homer, and Demosthenes, and Strabo, before the Greek; he almost, in the eyes of the Greek, made even the present-day Hellenes Slavic…”275 And precisely because of this interest, the first legend to be printed in the collection by the Miladinov brothers is that of Alexander of Macedon.276 The same idea was promulgated by the Ohrid correspondent of Caregradskij vÆstnik (Constantinople Herald) of March 3, 1860), who writes: “This land is Macedonia; if we look at the nature, temper, customs and character of its inhabitants, their demeanour and their physiognomy, we will recognize the very same men who in ancient times formed the phalanxes of Alexander of Macedon.”277 Hence the teacher from Ohrid who was hired in Salonika, in place of the expelled Bulgarian teacher, proudly declared: “I am neither a Bulgarian, nor a Greek or a Vlach; I am purely a Macedonian, as Philip and Alexander of Macedon and Aristotle the philosopher once were.”278 Somewhat later Venijamin MaÌukovski demanded from VerkoviÚ “stories about Bela and songs about Alexander and Philip” (February 16, 1865)279 and had a 273Ibid.,

204. put eš est víò po Evr opeàskoà Tur cíà (sï kar t oô okr est nost eà ohr i dskago i pr espanskago ozer ï ) Vi kt or a Gr i gor ovi Ìa. I zdaníe vt or oe, Moskva, 1877, 139.

275Raàko Ó i nzi f ov, P ubl i ci st i ka, á, S ï st avi l i C vet a UndÔ i eva i DoÌo Lekov, S of i ò, 1964, 53-54.

276Di mi t r i ja i Konst ant i n Mi l adi novci , Zbor ni k na nar odni pesni . P od r edakci ja na Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î i Todor Di mi t r ovski , S kopje, 1983, 502.

277Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba. Makedonski t e uÌebni ci od 19 vek, vt or o i zdani e, S kopje, 1959, 80.

278Ibid., 49-50.

274OÌer kï

104

dispute with the Greek as to whose Macedonia was, on the basis of Alexander’s coins (August 19, 1865).280 The Bulgarian national figure and writer, Petko RaÌev Slavejkov, in his wellknown article ‘The Macedonian Question’ (January 18, 1871), states with authority: “We have heard many a time from Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians, descendants of the ancient Macedonians, and we have always waited to hear some proof, but we have never heard it. Macedonists have never even explained the grounds for their view. They insist on their Macedonian provenance which they can never properly substantiate. […] If the ancient Macedonians lived in this same territory, why should not its present-day inhabitants be of Macedonian blood? They are complete Macedonians, conclude the Macedonists, relieved by their great discovery.”281 Replying to Slavejkov, in an article with a similar title, ‘On the Macedonian Question’ (February 16, 1871), Dimitar V. Makedonski, among other things, writes: “The Macedonians have not disappeared from the face of the earth as some people allow themselves to claim, because, as far as we know, they have never sinned so greatly that the earth may have gaped open and swallowed them.”282 This was an ideology which indeed fascinated Pulevski’s generation and inspired the insurgents of the Macedonian Kresna Uprising (1878-1879); it was not foreign to the Ilinden revolutionaries either, and continued to be popular even in the 20th century. In the circumstances, national romanticism proved highly beneficial for Macedonia. Every layer of society was affected in some way and to a greater or lesser degree.

We shall here quote an illustrative example from the writings of Jovan DragaševiÚ, Serbian Professor of the Military Academy. In 1871, in Belgrade, he published a textbook entitled Geography for Secondary Schools, where he describes in great detail and most specifically the history and ethnic borders of Macedonia, including the ethno-cultural and linguistic characteristics of the Macedonian Slavs. DragaševiÚ underlines that “the Macedonians are the oldest Slavs on this Illyrian peninsula, and perhaps in Europe”,283 and that “even now they have a distinct character and remain in the middle between the Bulgarians and Serbs” as “a separate Slavic group”,284 with a distinct language and history; i za bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane…, 152.

182 281Bl aÔ e Koneski , op. cit., 74-75.

282D.V. Makedonskíà, ,,P o makedonskì à vï pr osï “, Makedoníò, œ , 7, C ar egr adï , 16.áá.1871.

283Dr agaš evi Ú, Geogr af i ja za sr edwe š kol e. P r egl edal a i odobr i l a š kol ska komi si ja, u Beogr adu u Dr Ô avnoj š t ampar i ji , 1871, 127-128.

284Ibid.

279Dokument 280Ibid.,

105

then he gives an elaborate account of the history of Philip and Alexander of Macedon.285 In the beginning of the following year, 1872, in Svetozar MarkoviÚ’s journal Radnik (Worker), a bitter debate began concerning this text dealing with the Macedonians. Professor Svetislav NiketiÚ strongly opposed DragaševiÚ, emphasizing that the prospects of the Serbian idea for expansion to the south were thus being undermined and that what DragaševiÚ had written was not true. DragaševiÚ’s reply is very important for us, because, among other things, he says: “I do not even believe your mistakes if I indeed did not know or do not know whether the Macedonians are a separate Slavic group. But, Sir, I have not sucked this out of my finger, but for each word I have asked people who actually know more than you and me.”286 Who were these people in Belgrade who “knew more” at that time? We believe that it is not far from the truth if we assume that they could be the future ideologists and chief activists of the Kresna Uprising and of the Macedonian League. Special legions were also formed at that time in Belgrade, where the Macedonians had special tasks as part of Serbia’s longer-term plans for the future of the Balkans.

Among those who were active there were Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski, Iljo Markov, ÏorÒija Pulevski, Stojan Vezenkov, Spiro Crne and others who expressed Macedonian aspirations.

It was then, in 1874, that Pulevski prepared his Dictionary of Three Languages, which was published in Belgrade in 1875, where the author very clearly stated that “Our fatherland’s name is Macedonia and we call ourselves Macedonians”,287 and that “the Macedonians, too, are a people and their place is Macedonia”,288 that “Macedonia was praised at the time of Emperor Alexander the Great”,289 and also that “the Macedonian language is most closely related to Church-Slavonic books, and it is Old Church Slavonic”, and that hence we “call ourselves Old Slavs”.290 This was the voice of the Macedonians themselves which DragaševiÚ had to respect. It is not surprising that at that time, in connection with Pulevski’s dictionary, Ivan Aksakov writes: “Mr Pulevski’s dictionary is of great interest in one’s becoming acquainted with the language of the Macedonian population which 285Ibid.,

114.

Kliment DÔambazovski, ,,Srpska socijalistiÌka štampa o makedonskom nacionalnom pitanju poslednjih decenija XIX veka“, in: PoÌeci socijalistiÌke štampe na Balkanu. MeŸunarodni nauÌni skup posveÚen stogodišnjici izlaska ,,Radenika“, Beograd, 1974, 418.

287Ûor Ÿe M. P uq evski , ReÌni k ot t r i jezi ka s. makedonski , ar banski i t ur ski , kwi ga áá, u Beogr adu, 1875, 62.

288Ibid., 49.

289Ibid., 67.

290Ibid., 40 and 42.

286Dr

106

the Serbs so tenaciously make a part of the Serbian people. In general, we should say that, for Slavic scholars, Macedonia is — if we can use that expression — an unknown land which awaits its explorers.”291 Only if we bear in mind this reasoning of Aksakov’s can we understand his address to the Macedonians in Moscow: “Why should you not choose your Macedonian dialect as a literary language, which is richer than Bulgarian and closer to ours? This will bring us closer to each other and link us more strongly.”292 So, in spite of the wave of powerful propaganda, the Macedonians persistently built and affirmed their ideology. ÏorÒija M. Pulevski appeared only as the best-known (to us) advocate of that idea which had a long and strong tradition among the masses of the people. It is no chance that in one of his manuscripts he recorded the traditions that the Mijaks in Macedonia were “the guardsmen of A. of Macedon”, while the Brsjaks, i.e. “Brzaks [according to popular etymology] were the swift army of Alexander of Macedon”.293 In the Mijak region even the celebrations of Ilinden (St Elijah’s Day), Petrovden (St Peter’s Day), etc., were connected with the time of Alexander.294 Hence the words from the opening paragraph of the 1878 Rules/Constitution of the Macedonian Insurgent Committee sound so natural: “We rebelled as advocates of freedom. With the blood we shed all over the Macedonian fields and forests we serve freedom, as did the Macedonian army of Alexander of Macedon, with our slogan ‘Freedom or Death’.”295 We must not neglect the fact that Pulevski was one of the members of the uprising’s General Staff which worked out and adopted this text. And this ideology was particularly reflected in the Protocolar Decision of the Interim Macedonian Government (May 21, 1880)296 and its Manifesto of March 11/23, 1881,297 as well as in the Constitution of Macedonia298 and the Military Instructions of the Macedonian League from 1880.299 291K.[uzman

Š apkar ev], ,,Nar odni põ sni i st ar i ni “, Mar i ca, œ , 378, P l ovdi vï , 16.ᜠ.1882, 2. , ,,,Loza‘…“, S voboda, œ á, 786, S of i ò, 13.ᜠ.1892, 3.

293D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1978, 54 and 57.

294Dr Simon Drakul (D-r S i mon Dr akul , A r hi mandr i t A nat ol i j Zogr af ski , I NI , S kopje, 1988, 55)) writes: “It is said that Alexander of Macedon came to rest himself at Karéa…”.

295P r avi l at a-Ust avot na Makedonski ot vost ani Ìki komi t et vo Kr esnenskot o vost ani e, S kopje, 1980, 203.

296Razgl edi , Hœ (HHá), 1-2 (300-301), 1973, 173-175.

297Dokument i za bor bat a na makedonski ot nar od …, 267-268.

298Makedonskat a l i ga i Ust avot za dr Ô avno ur eduvawe na Makedoni ja od 1880, S kopje, 1985, 237-261.

299Ibid., 262-312.

292D.T. Levovï

107

It was in this insurgent and revolutionary turmoil in Macedonia and among the émigrés that songs were sung about Europe as the “Babylonian whore” and about the fighters as the “glorious descendants of Alexander”.300 But as far the literary form is concerned, the most authentic example of this ideology was contributed by ÏorÒija Pulevski himself, who as early as 1878, in his poem ‘Samovila Makedonska’ (Macedonian Sprite), full of revolutionary pathos, describes the traditions and aspiration of his people: Have you heard, Macedonians, the elders saying: There were no braver men than Macedonians — Three hundred years before Christ Tsar Alexander of Macedon With Macedonians ruled the whole world.

(In a footnote, Pulevski states precisely: “It is shortened for the sake of the verse; this happened 338 years before Christ,” and then continues:) Our King Philip was a Slav, Tsar Alexander — a Slav, Our Slav grandmothers gave birth to them.

Macedonians, remember the Macedonian heroism, and now follow the example of your ancestors!301

We can find the same assertions in the first part of the poetry anthology Makedonska pesnarka (Macedonian Songbook, Sofia, 1879), where the poem ‘Makedoncim uv prilog’ (To the Macedonians) starts in this way: This dear place is the fatherland of Macedonians, it was a kingdom under King Philip, it was the ancient empire of Tsar Alexander, our tsar, a Macedonian, famous throughout the world, Alexander the Great.

He has left our empire on the Balkan Peninsula to all mountain Slavs.302

Reacting against the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, when Macedonia was once again left under Ottoman control, Pulevski declared: Hear us, brothers, European Christians, we’ve had enough of this fate of ours and we, too, want a fatherland for ourselves.

Today our brothers in the Macedonian kingdom complain 300This

song is found in different versions and it is recorded in Bulgaria with a modified text: Ni kol aà Kauf man, Bï l gar ski gr adski pesni , S of i ò, 1968, 201 and 210.

301GÅ. M.P ., S amovi l a Makedonska, peÌat ni ca na B. P r oš ekï vï S of i ò, b.g., Gosudar st vennaò publ i Ìnaò bi bl i ot eka i m. S al t i kova-ê edr i na, S . 29. 8, 103; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski i negovi t e kni š ki ,,S amovi l a Makedonska“ i ,,Makedonska pesnar ka“, Bi bl i ot eka na spi sani et o Makedonski f ol kl or , 1, S kopje, 1973, 42.

302Makedonska

108

pesnar ka ot ï Geor gÅa P ‡ l Åevski , b.v.m., S of ía, 1879, 5-6.

because it is only we who are being left in slavery, so we, too, want a fatherland for ourselves!303

Hence Pulevski addresses his compatriots: O, brothers, Macedonians of the Orthodox faith, let us unite and fight bravely, as our forefathers did under Tsar Alexander, and leave a new memory of our name behind us!

Let us revive our ancient history, and carry out this task now.304 Etc.

In this same spirit, on December 7, 1878, Pulevski wrote from the “Macedonian front” to his old acquaintance and compatriot Kuzman BadÔoviÚ (in Serbia) about the plans for the Macedonian Uprising and, inviting him to join them, said: “With God’s help, this spring we are going against Turkey with all our Slavo-Macedonian sons. We shall either all die or restore the empire of Alexander of Macedon.”305 This ideology, reflecting the historical consciousness of the Macedonians of the time, is expounded in the greatest detail in the extensive Slavjansko-maÎedonska opšta istorija (Slavonic-Macedonian General History) by ÏorÒija M. Pulevski (begun in 1865 in Belgrade and completed in 1892 in Sofia, but remaining a manuscript). There the author deals in great detail with the Slavic origin and language of the Macedonians, and with the history of the “Macedonian tsars”, which comprises one fourth of the whole manuscript.306 In Chapter IV, ‘On the Slavonic language (dialect) and its date’, Pulevski reacts to Jovan RajiÚ’s writing and, among other things, says: He mentions only Russians, Poles, Moravians, Illyrians, Serbs and Bulgarians in his history, but where are the Czechs, Slovaks, Kranjans [Slovenes] and Macedonians?

At least he should not have called his history ‘A History of Diverse Slavonic Peoples’.

And as the Macedonians are indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula and hosts to the Bulgars, Serbs and Greeks, and also to other nationalities, as well as neighbours of the Hellenes, therefore we have called this history a Slavo-Macedonian History, so that we may know when each one of the existing newcomers to the peninsula came.307

One of Pulevski’s close associates, and certainly not the only one, was Isaija Radev MaÔovski, who, on July 18, 1888, delivered in Kiev a patriotic speech based 303Ibid.,

7-8.

8.

305Razgl edi , Hᜠ, 10, 1972, 1131.

306Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1974, 254-255.

307Ibid., 221.

304Ibid.,

109

on the same ideology, and went into great detail about the ideas of the Macedonian past among the Macedonian people, and also among the Albanians.308 Grigor PrliÌev must have had personal contacts with Pulevski, as copies of both Pulevski’s Slognica reÌovska (Reka Wordbook) and Makedonska pesnarka have been found in his library. The learned “second Homer” (in the surviving manuscripts) writes in great detail about questions of ancient Macedonian history as a cultural-historical heritage,309 while in his ‘address’ on Cyril and Methodius delivered in Salonika in 1885 he said the following, among other things: “Our mother Macedonia is now so weak. Having given birth to Alexander the Great, having given birth to Ss Cyril and Methodius, our mother Macedonia has ever since been lying in bed seriously ill and deathbound. Who knows if the mother who has given birth to so great a son will be able to bear another?”310 Another man who was very close to Pulevski was Kuzman Šapkarev, who even reprinted the whole of ‘Samovila Makedonska’ as early as 1882,311 and the aged Marko Cepenkov in a song which he wrote in 1889 said: Think you, my dear children, of the great Tsar Alexander whom we celebrate to this day.312

This historical consciousness was also cultivated by the ‘Lozars’ in the Macedonian movement. In Kosta Šahov’s journal Makedonija a certain G.K., in his extensive (untitled) article, among other things, writes: [N]o doubt, our fatherland — Macedonia — also has a history of its past, where one can see its power, its greatness and also its political subordination under the authority of the then powerful Ottoman Empire. […]

Today, for instance, every Macedonian, when mentioning Alexander of Macedon, says: “We had Tsar Alexander the Great.” With these words he reminds himself of the glorious period and the greatness of the Macedonian state. Alexander of Macedon stands as a national pride before the face of every Macedonian. That national pride today is of intellectual significance in the achievement of the idea of independence. zpomi nani ò na I saàò Radev MaÔ ovski …, S of i ò, 1922, 14-27.

Ki r i l Íami l ov, ,,Gr i gor P r l i Ìev kako kr i t i Ìar na gr Ìkat a i st or i ja“, S ovr emenost , œ , 10-11, 1955, 900-912; D-r Ki r i l Íami l ov, ,,G.S . P r l i Ìev za kul t ur at a na El ada“, S ovr emenost , œ á, 1-2, 1956, 75-96; see PrliÌev collections in the Archives of Macedonia and the Archives of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje; D-r S t ojan Ri st eski , Gr i gor P r l i Ìev.

N ovi st r ani ci , Ohr i d, 1989, 70-93.

310K.G. P ï r l i Ìevï , ,,Kï mï har akt er i st i kat a na Gr .S . P ï r l i Ìevï (po spomeni , svedeni ò i dokument i )“, Makedonski pr egl edï , ᜠ, 2, S of i ò, 1928, 118.

311K.[uzman Š apkar ev], ,,Nar odni põ sni i st ar i ni “, Mar i ca, œ , 377, 13.ᜠ.1882, 5.

312Mar ko C epenkov, Makedonsko nar odno t vor eš t vo vo deset t oma, 10. Mat er i jal i – l i t er at ur ni t vor bi . Redakt i r al D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , I F , S kopje, 1972, 246.

308VÃ

309D-r

110

The great Macedonian state, in the person of Alexander, has done a great service to scholarship…313

At a secret meeting of the Macedonian ‘circle’ around the journal Makedonija, held on June 19, 1889 in the Concordia Hotel in Sofia, where 12 or 13 prominent Macedonian activists of the time were present (Kosta Šahov, Dimitar Makedonski, Georgij A. Georgov, Ivan Šumkov, NoÔarov, the Ivanov brothers, Íuzliev, Mandušev, etc.), while discussing ideas for “organizing broader activity”, they also spoke “about Alexander of Macedon”.314 Therefore, when the Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia was founded (1890) and when the very first number of its mouthpiece Loza (Vine, 1892) stated that the fatherland of the Macedonians is Macedonia and that it was “a separate Slavic state whose past is full of glory, in particular during the time of Philip and Alexander the Great, though it declined under their successors”,315 the reaction of the Bulgarian press was the strongest up to that moment; one newspaper, among other things, wrote that the Macedonians “are gradually preparing Bulgarian public opinion for Macedonia’s separation from Bulgaria and will gradually introduce words from the Ohrid sub-dialect, which is to be the literary language of the future greater Macedonia headed by some of the editors of Loza in the capacity of Philip or Alexander!”316 The 19th century ended with such a historical awareness of the ancient Macedonian state and the ancient Macedonians. Slavdom in Macedonia was believed to extend far back before the new era, and the Macedonians were considered to be the oldest people not only in the Balkans but also in Europe. But even when it became clear that the ancient Macedonians had not been and could not have been Slavs, when the ancient history of Macedonia was already known, as was also the history of the arrival of the Slavs in Macedonia, the phalanxes of Philip and Alexander and the glory of the ancient state and culture continued to play the role of an integrative factor in the Macedonian national development.

Anastas Jankov was not alone when he exclaimed in his 1902 proclamation to the Macedonian people, urging them to rise: Macedonians! Remember the world victor, the world glory of Macedonia — the great Alexander of Macedon; remember the brave Tsar Samuel, the great Macedonian man, the wonderful King Mark, the glory of all the Slavs — that Macedonian blood 313G.K.,

,,Russe, 11 Noemvr i à 1888 g.“, Makedoni ò, á, 4, Russe, 11.Há.1888, 13. i ò, 24.œ á.1889, 3; ááá, 282, 8.œ áá.1889, 4; Makedoni ò, á, 1, Ruse, 20.á.1902,

314S voboda, ááá, 278, S of

3.

315Ezer ski

, ,,Nekol ko bel eÔ ki …“, L oza, á, 1, S of i ò, 1892, 5. á, 786, S of i ò, 13.ᜠ.1892, 3.

316S voboda, œ

111

flowed in their veins; they keep vigil from the heights of heaven and bless the cause we have initiated. Let us prove ourselves to be their worthy descendants.317

Even Krste P. Misirkov, in his memoirs, writes about “the original and true Macedonia” and about “the capital of the ancient Macedonian state of Amyntas II, Philip and Alexander the Great,”318 and shortly before his death, in his article ‘King Mark’, Misirkov summarizes: King Mark is the son and pride of Macedonia and one of the three great conquerors who spread the name of their land far beyond its territories: (1) Alexander of Macedon spread the glory of Macedonia as far as the Central Asian rivers of Amu Darya [Oxus] and Syr Darya [Jaxartes], and also to India and the Indian Ocean; (2) The holy Cyril and Methodius spread the Macedonian word and script among all the Slavic peoples, and (3) King Mark placed under his authority and under that of the Macedonian muse all popular singers and peoples on the Balkan Peninsula, including you, the descendants of his sworn enemies.319 317,,Rad

makedonski h komi t et a“, Br ani k, Hœ ááá, 131, Novi S ad, 26.áH/9.H.1902, 2. Hence during the days of the Ilinden Uprising, the unsigned author of the editorial of the journal A vt onomna Makedoni ò (á, 9, S of i ò, 30.œ ááá.1903, 1) states: “When they say to us that we should protect the oppressed Macedonians, we should gladly do so. We are here delighted to recall that Alexander the Great, that tsar of the universe, bore witness to the virtues of the Slavic tribe when he said that the Slavs had heroic hearts and hence deserved to bear the great name Slavs, that is slavni [glorious]. Before his death this man who has endowed us so greatly said that he cursed anyone who would ever speak ill of the Slavs. In recognition of their military abilities he bequeathed to them all the lands from the Adriatic to the ocean of eternal ice. Besides, he besought his heavenly patrons to protect them from ill fortune and always aid the twelve princes, descendants of his twelve friends. Now, if the Macedonians are in a situation to stop their extermination with their own hands and improve their destiny, then the Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins and other Slavs are bound to help their brothers in blood and faith, those who are born of ‘majka doina’ [nursing mother] (Macedonia), from where, too, the most famous principles and luminaries have originated.”

In his poem ‘Tam!’ (There) (A vt onomna Makedoni ò, á, 13.áH.1903, 4), Petar Zagorov exclaims: There, near Pindus and Šar, near the Struma and Vardar, Where everything is covered with deep wounds, Worthy descendants of the Great Alexander Are bravely fighting the age-old tyrant!

These journals were read with particular attention by the Macedonian people in the days of the Ilinden achievement, and the writings about the former glory and greatness of Macedonia met with a tremendous response. These legends played a positive role in the strengthening of Macedonian national consciousness and in the spread of the struggle for liberation.

318Kr st e

P . Mi si r kov, Odbr ani st r ani ci . P r i r edi l Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1991, 483. In connection with the traditions of Alexander of Macedon in the Aegean part of Macedonia, see: Georgios Spyridakis, ,,Die Volksüberlieferung über Alexander den Grossen in Nordgriecheland (Makedonien und Thrakien)“, Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, IX, 1-2, München, 1973, 187-193, and the literature referred to there. It is not surprising that the Archives of the Skopje Institute of Folklore (m.l . 977 and 1755) have records of traditions connected with Alexander from the Voden region (Tanas Vr aÔ i novski , ,,Za nekoi par al el i vo makedonskat a usna pr oza i pr ozat a na nekoi i st oÌni nar odi za Al eksandar Makedonski — paper read at the congress of the Union of Associations of Folklorists of Yugoslavia, Hvar, 1982).

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And finally, the president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg, Dimitrija Ëupovski, who was also a poet (writing in Macedonian and Russian), held a similar view concerning the question of ancient Macedonia.

He also had the opportunity of meeting his compatriot Pulevski in Sofia, and he kept Pulevski’s Slognica reÌovska in his library with particular devotion.320 On more than one occasion he referred to the glory of Alexander of Macedon. When in 1913-1914 the “Macedonian flag” was worked out (published in the Macedonian and Russian press), there was Alexander the Great’s horse, Bucephalus, standing as the symbol and basic emblem on a red background,321 while Ëupovski himself carried a silver piece with Alexander’s image attached to his watch-chain until the end of his life.322 Even his brother Nace Dimov, in his prominent book on Macedonia (1913), quotes the writing of the British historian Jacob Abbot on the ancient “Macedonians” (Makedonjane) and their “Macedonian language”, “unintelligible to the Greeks” (neponjatnom dlja Grekov),323 etc.

These were the ideas prevalent in Macedonia concerning its history after the partition of its territory and people in 1913. Even the organizers of the National Liberation War, who won the present-day freedom, did not ignore the significance of Alexander as a major figure in the mobilization of the people’s consciousness.

A good example is the letter from Dr Trifun Grekov (Grecow) in Geneva (October 11, 1922) to the head of the Macedonian Federal Party in Sofia, Nikola Jurukov, in which he writes: “I have sent an article to Avtonomna Makedonija on Alexander the Great to be published as a series; I am earnestly appealing for its publication.

It is of paramount importance to link our cause with the ancient history of Macedonia.” 324 And indeed, the journal Avtonomna Makedonija published several articles on these subjects written by him,325 and the Vienna journal Makedonsko S’znanie (Macedonian Consciousness, 1924) published a Brief History of Macedonia (in instalments) by this same Dr Grekov.326 319K.

Mi si r kovï , ,,Kr al i Mar ko“, I l i ndenÅ, ááá, 12, S of i ò, 25.ááá.1923, 2.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad…, á, 57-59 and 94-95.

321Ibid., 289-292 (with a colour facsimile of the flag.

322Ibid., 293-294.

323Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , N ace D. Di mov (1876-1916), MANU, S kopje, 1973, f ot ot i pno i zdani e na kni š kat a na N. Di mov, 65-66 (3-4).

324N. Ki r ov Maàski , V st r oò za Makedoni ò. I st or i Ìeski f akt i , bel eÔ ki i dokument i , á, S of i ò, 1957, 110a – r akops vo AO na I NI , S l . ᜠ192/á.

325D-r T. Gr ekov, ,,Al eksandï r Vel i ki i i deal a na makedonci t e“, A vt onomna Makedoni ò, áá, 76, S of i ò, 23.œ áá.1922, 2-3; D-r T. Gr ekov, ,,Nòkol ko dumi vï r hu makedonski ò pr oi zhod na Ar i st ot el ò“, A vt onomna Makedoni ò, áá, 91, 27.Há.1922, 1-2; Dr T. Grecow, ,,Quelques notes sur l’origine macédonienne d’Aristoté“, Bulletin pour l’independance de la Macédoine, I, 4, Genève, Janvier, 1922, 47.

320D-r

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The Alexandrian tradition was also very much alive among the Macedonian people in the 1930s, in all circles and in all regions. It was not by chance that ‘Komitski’, a Sofia émigré, in a letter to the Macedonian National Committee of December 27, 1932, recalls, among other things, that “once there was a glorious land with a brave people who gave birth to world rulers such as Philip and Alexander of Macedon”.327 In general, these ideas among the Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria were widespread and were often reflected in printed works. For example, Vasil Ivanovski (Bistriški), in his article ‘Why We Macedonians are a Separate Nation’, among other things, writes that “the Greek chauvinists” actually “falsify history proclaiming the tribe of the ancient Macedono-Illyrians, together with the leaders of that tribe — Macedon, Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great — as a constituent part of the ancient Greeks”.328 This was analysed in greater detail by Angel Dinev in his pamphlet Makedonskite Sloveni (The Macedonian Slavs), where he writes that “After the death of Alexander the Great the universal Macedonian state collapsed,”329 and, relying on Dr Grekov’s writings, says: “It is known that Macedonian art, even at the time of Philip of Macedon, surpassed Hellenic art. The triumph of Alexander the Great over the Hellenes was not only the result of fighting and technical power, but also of the power of a civilization which gave rise, in Alexander’s consciousness, to the remarkable idea of organizing a world school, of a single world doctrine and the peaceful unification of mankind into a single whole. These were undoubtedly also the ideas of his teacher, Aristotle, who was not a Hellene, as alleged by some, but a Macedonian from the Chalcidice Peninsula, who lived in Athens as a passer-by, and only at the time when the Macedonophile party was in power. After the death of Alexander the Great and following the collapse of the Macedonian state, the Hellenes appropriated their art, and what could not be falsified was later destroyed by the Byzantines.” 330 The ‘Reply to Professor Nikola VuliÚ’s Article’ (1940) also demands continuity from the ancient state and culture: “The geographical position of Macedonia is not a thing of yesterday, it dates back to the time before Christ, to the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon.”331 326D-r

T. Gr ekov, ,,Kr at ka i st or i ò na Makedoni ò“, Makedonsko sï znani e, á, numbers 2, 6, 7 and 9, Vi ena, 1924, 4.

327Dokument i za bor bat a na makedonski ot nar od…, áá, 272.

328Ëet vï r t i ò kongr es na Makedonski ò N ar oden S ï ô z v A mer i ka. Rezol ô ci i , I zl oÔ eni ò.

I zdani e na Makedonski ò Nar oden S ï ô z, Det r oi t , 1934, 51.

329Angel ï Di nevï , Makedonski t õ sl avòni , S of i ò, 1938, 30-31.

330Ibid., 56.

331D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1983, 130.

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The cult of Alexander was cherished with particular reverence, for instance, in middle-class circles in Prilep. Here is the testimony of DimÌe AdÔimitreski: “We had an old book on Alexander of Macedon. It was locked in a drawer and my grandfather would often take it and read to us about the feats of Alexander of Macedon. That is how we were brought up. We considered him our king and we dreamt of such a kingdom as he had once created.” This ideology was also popular within the MORO organization in Skopje, whose head was AdÔimitreski himself.

One of the members of its leadership, Blagoja Dimitrov, in his recollections of this organization (1932-1934), says: “The main task was to speak Macedonian, to buy books; cells were formed of three members each, and every cell formed its own library (I remember, we also had books on Alexander of Macedon, and we considered all that as ours).”332 Progressive young people in Prilep also believed that they were descended from Alexander of Macedon. But when Borka Taleski delivered a lecture before one of these organized groups in which he shattered the myth of the direct descent from the ancient Macedonians, there was disappointment.333 The same happened in another progressive Prilep group, when in 1939 Dime Bojanovski-Dize, who had just returned from the Lepoglava prison, delivered a similar lecture on the Brdo (a hill in Prilep).334 Prilep was not an exception. Goce Miteski from the Ohrid region tells us that, before the Second World War, “the young intellectuals” from the Debarca region were fascinated by their ancestor Alexander the Great. “No one has ever contradicted me about this,”335 he says. In his poem ‘Robina’ (Slave), written in Ohrid on November 8, 1942, Miteski sings of Alexander and ends his poem with this call (as did Pulevski): Rise, brothers, against the tyrant and revive the glorious Macedonian name.336

In his poem ‘Goce DelÌev’ (written in Ohrid on November 25, 1942), Miteski does not forget to link his legendary hero with the famed Alexander: Alexander presented him with a ring and told him he was now a worthy fighter.337 332Ibid.,

132.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja.

P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 1982, 297.

334Ibid., 305.

335D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r aÔ uvawa i mat er i jal i , áá, S kopje, 1980, 405.

336Ibid., 409.

337Ibid., 413.

333D-r

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Miteski was greatly disappointed when at about the same time an older Ohrid student told him: “We are Slavs, and not direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians… For a whole week after that I was ill,”338 remembers Miteski.

And this was already the time when the National Liberation War was in full swing, when the foundations of the Macedonian state were laid. This tradition, however, is very much alive even today in some circles, and our overseas expatriates still worship the images of Alexander of Macedon in their churches and clubs.

In conclusion, in the historical consciousness of Macedonian writers and national figures of the 19th and even 20th century,339 Alexander of Macedon was a symbol that genuinely and essentially contributed to the Macedonian national integration and helped its affirmation considerably. Even though our modern scholars treat Macedonia’s past with the necessary scholarly objectivity and only register the deposits of national romanticism of the past century, we cannot overlook the fact that ancient Macedonia gave us its name, outlined our borders, bestowed a culture on us and without doubt poured some part of its blood into us.

In the veins of the present-day Macedonian flows not only the blood of the Slavs, but also that of various other peoples and tribes that lived or crossed the Balkans over the centuries — in the same way every other people or nation has been created, and not only in Europe at that.

338Ibid., 339The

405.

tradition of Alexander the Great was not only popular in Macedonia, where physical monuments continue to maintain and encourage the consciousness of its former glory and greatness (A.S . Š of man, I st or i ò ant i Ìnoà Makedoni i . Doæl l i ni st i Ìeskaò Makedoni ò, Ìast ï per vaò, I zdat el Åst vo Kazanskogo uni ver si t et a, 1960, 19), but we can also find it among the Albanians and Vlachs, as well as among the peoples of the Middle East and Asia. With his inclusion in the Koran in particular, legends and traditions dealing with Alexander have spread much more broadly and are widely reflected in literature and folklore (E.A. Kost ô hi n, Al eksandr Makedonski à v l i t er at ur noà i f ol Åkl or noà t r adi ci i , Moskva, 1972).

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II THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE AND CULTURE

The Macedonian National Development in the Typological Relations of Revival among the Neighbouring Peoples

The conditional term revival in the historiography of European peoples has highly varied meanings depending on the general development of specific peoples and distinct manifestations in their development processes. Whereas in Western Europe it was a concept characterized by the development of science, literature and art in the 15th and 16th centuries, in the Balkans, particularly within the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, it was a movement conceived in the 18th and ending in the first half of the 20th century, which reflected the processes of socio-economic, cultural, national and socio-political development: from the awakening of national consciousness to the affirmation of state organization.

Even in the Balkans, however, revival took place in accordance with the specific historical development of the different peoples, both internally and externally.

Despite the existence of identical lines of development which are common to different ethnic communities, in global relations we can divide them into Christian and non-Christian communities, and within the first group, there is the sub-division between Orthodox and other Christian peoples. On the other hand, there are differences in the development between Slavic and non-Slavic Balkan peoples, and owing to the different historical evolution in different state-political and socio-economic circumstances, there are essential differences between the development of Orthodox Slavic peoples under Turkish domination and those, mostly Catholic, peoples who were incorporated in the Hapsburg monarchy.

Confessional affiliation was particularly important in the case of Turkey, owing to the Shariah organization of life in the Empire. This, in turn, posed the question of the organization of church-educational life. Therefore it was very important to have one’s own church institution, which embodied the prerequisites for the start of national and cultural development as such. In this respect, the position of the church towards the process of revival among the Balkan peoples was diametrically opposed to that of the age of the Renaissance in Western Europe.

On the other hand, the state-constitutional traditions under distinct names were of extreme importance in the process of national awakening and affirmation of the Balkan peoples. The difficult, gradual and impeded expansion of the Macedonian 119

national name brought about a prolonged and complicated process in its development as a whole.

As a result, although the process of revival among the Macedonians — as Krste Misirkov wrote as early as 1903 — was similar to those of neighbouring peoples, it nevertheless had many specific features which can be understood only in correlation with the processes of development of these neighbouring nations. And only in this way can it be regarded as a sufficiently autonomous and “natural process” whose outcome, in the contemporary constellation, will not incite discussions aimed at its denial, but only a serious scholarly dialogue based on a study of the routes and characteristics of that development. Hence we shall try to point to some of the characteristic features of the Macedonian national development (in correlation with those of the other neighbouring peoples), so that we can understand the basic reasons for the belated affirmation of the Macedonian nation as a socio-historical category.

There is no doubt that Macedonia’s geopolitical position is of considerable importance in the examination of these questions. Unlike their neighbours, the Macedonians found themselves in the central European part of the vast Ottoman Empire with no opportunities for direct contacts with the previously liberated nations, already constituted as states. This left them without the possibility of an easy transfer of ideas and organized communication with their expatriates. This situation prevented the foundation of colonies for unimpeded action along the borders. For instance, the Greek colonies in Western Europe and particularly those in the territories of Romania and southern Russia, thanks to the well-developed trade and navigation, became important focal points of national unification and consolidation. Moreover, precisely because of their outlying position, bearing in mind the long and jagged coastline of the Mediterranean, and as part of the interests of the great powers, as early as the second half of the 18th century the Russian naval units created a free Greek administration on some of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, which encouraged ideas for the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans. The French conquest of the Ionian Islands and the subsequently established Ionian Republic under the protectorship of the Russian troops made it possible to build a small Greek state with its own administration, constitution, flag and diplomacy, and during the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812 a “Greek land army” was created, which was of comprehensive significance for the future final liberation of Greece.

In the case of Serbia, thanks to the Austrian involvement in the Balkans and the setting up of large colonies near the Austro-Turkish border, with the transfer of church administration to Sremski Karlovci and the spiritual unification of the Orthodox population numbering thousands within the frontiers of the Hapsburg monarchy, a free centre for Serbian national awakening, culture and education was 120

created which prepared the concept and practically helped KaraŸorŸe’s liberation actions in the early 19th century. Thus, Serbian national revival also first developed and affirmed itself outside the borders of Serbia and, thanks to the powers and circumstances on the international scene (more or less independently of economic and social development), led to the ultimate affirmation of the Serbian nation.

Bulgaria, too, situated at the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, was several times occupied by Russian troops in the Russo-Turkish wars in the 18th and 19th centuries; Russo-Bulgarian administration was established and the idea of national freedom gained affirmation. With the withdrawal of Russian troops, large groups of volunteers and nationally-awakened people withdrew as well, inhabiting the border regions of present-day Romania and southern Russia. It was from there that the future liberation committees, detachments and military units were recruited; they later developed into a separate Bulgarian Army, with its own emblems and special tasks. Educational-cultural institutions were established in those large Bulgarian colonies; it was there that the first literary works and publications were created, it was there that the ideology of the Bulgarian national constitution and liberation was built. For purely formal reasons (and special interests) the beginning of the Bulgarian revival is considered to be Paissius’s History (written in 1762, but corrected and published as late as the 19th century). The actual liberation and state constitution of Bulgaria was the result of Russia’s military action of a later date.

Even Albania, as an outlying region of Turkey, having the rich and well-developed Arbresh colonies in Italy and in some other European centres, regardless of the special position of the Albanian Moslem population in Turkey had, until the 1870s (and perhaps even later), the opportunity of developing its national ideology on two fronts: in its colonies outside Turkey, and among the circles of the ruling Albanian class in the Ottoman oligarchy which gradually started distancing itself from the Turks, until a final breakup occurred between Albanian national interests and those of the Empire; the aim was the overthrow of the Sultan’s state and the establishment of an independent Albanian statehood.

Macedonia, however, found itself in different circumstances. It had no colonies outside (close to its borders) and, with the exception of an earlier and limited action

by Piccolomini, the Ottoman domination had never been replaced by a Christian authority, let alone by one created from Macedonia’s own population. Even the Archbishopric of Ohrid, which provided some kind of continuity until 1767, uniting the congregation as a whole, was abolished, and the whole of Macedonia was incorporated within the system of the highly nationalistic Oecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In spite of the relative growth of towns, trade and crafts, the development of the spiritual, educational and cultural life of the people as a whole was limited by several factors.

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In the first place we must take into consideration the fact that the beginning of national awakening saw Macedonia without a widely affirmed ethnic designation, without state-constitutional traditions under its own appellation, regardless of the evident use of the Macedonian name since very early on. Only after the emergence of neighbouring aspirations to acquiring this territory, and only after its people’s acquaintance with the character and traits of neighbouring cultures, did a process of differentiation ensue and the Macedonians develop a stronger sense of their identity. It was then that support was found in the national-romantic ideology of direct descent from the ‘Slavic’ ancient Macedonians of Philip and Alexander, and this name of national unification started to be affirmed more strongly, involving territorial differentiation from its neighbours.

As a phenomenon and process, the Macedonian case was not an exception.

Several other peoples, who had also remained without state-constitutional traditions under their own appellations, such as the Slovenes, Slovaks, Ukrainians and Belorussians, found themselves in similar situations during their national revival.

The case of Macedonia was unique because at the moment of its national awakening the national aspirations of the bourgeoisie of its neighbours — which had already been ethnically-aware or had already established their own nation-states — were strongly manifested and sufficiently organized. Furthermore, Macedonia’s neighbours were either ethnically very close or religiously and culturally identical.

Aspirations for liberation from Ottoman domination were expressed in a series of actions and insurrections even in the period preceding national awakening. On each occasion, the people expected assistance from their neighbours and the interested great powers. A large number of Macedonians also took part in all the liberation movements and uprisings of their neighbours, hoping for their own freedom. This undoubtedly contributed to the growth of political and national liberation awareness among the Macedonian people.

Yet at the moment when Macedonia had free states as neighbours and when the Macedonians tried to establish their own liberation and revival centres on their own territory, they were faced with obstruction and a strong resistance that used all means. None of the neighbouring monarchies found forces or interest to aid the process of Macedonia’s national liberation and constitution.

Macedonian national revival began, as was the case with many other peoples, in the early 19th century: formally with the publication of the first book in modern Macedonian (1814). This process developed steadily but was impaired by frequent disturbances, which was not the result of internal development processes, but mostly the consequence of strong and diverse external interference. It ended as late as the constitution of Macedonian statehood at the First Session of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia in 1944. This was 122

indeed the most delayed national recognition of a Balkan people who had for more than a century fought an armed struggle for its liberation.

The process of Macedonian national revival can be divided into three main periods: I. Cultural-educational and spiritual activities of the Macedonian people (1814-1870), II. Formation and public articulation of the Macedonian national liberation programme (1870-1903), and III. National-political maturation and affirmation of the Macedonian people (1903-1944).

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The Emergence of Macedonian National Thought and the Formation of a National Programme (up to 1878)

The study of Macedonian national development began as late as the end of the 19th century, when the ‘Macedonian question’ emerged in all its sensitive sharpness — on both the internal and international scenes. Krste Misirkov,340 Dimitrija Ëupovski341 and Nace Dimov342 accepted the work of ÏorÒija Pulevski343 and his followers and generation with scholarly ambitions. Angel Dinev,344 340Krste

P. Misirkov, as far as it is known so far, gave his first public address on December 18, 1897, before the Ethnographic Department of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society in St Petersburg. His paper was immediately printed in the mouthpiece of the Society, Ó i vaò st ar i na, VII, 3 and 4, S P b., 482-485. But it was only in his book Za makedoncki t e r abot i (Sofia, 1903) that he largely succeeded in presenting the complex problem of Macedonian national development. Later, in the pages of his journal Var dar (Odessa, 1905), in Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as) (Petrograd, 1913-1914) and later in the Sofia newspapers I l i ndenÅ, 20 ô l i à, P i r i nï and Mi r ï (1922-1925), he developed and elaborated his views on the historical evolution and prospects of the Macedonian people. For more details see: D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og kon pr ouÌuvawet o na r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 137835; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 1983, 197-438; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e Mi si r kov (1874-1926), Bi t ol a, 1986; Kr st e P . Mi si r kov, Odbr ani st r ani ci . P r i r edi l Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Mi sl a, 1991.

341Dimitrija D. Ëupovski gave his earliest public address on this subject at the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg in 1902, but he published his first articles in the pages of the Russian press (Gr aÔ dani nï , S l avòni nï ) and especially in the mouthpiece of the Macedonian colony in Petrograd, Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as) in 1912-1914, and also later in the newspapers N ovaò Ó i znÅ and Vol ò nar oda (1917). For more details see: D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad.

P r i l ozi kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, á-áá, S kopje, 1979.

342Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , N ace D. Di mov (1876-1916), MANU, S kopje, 1973. Nace Dimov’s paper to the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society was read on March 4, 1913, and was published the same year as a separate booklet: N.D. Di movï , á. I st or i Ìeskíà oÌer kï Makedoníi i makedonski hï sl avònï . áá. P r i Ìi nì vozni knoveníò Ìet ni Ìeskago dvi Ô eníò vï Makedoníi . ááá. P ol i t i Ìeskíà obzor ï Makedoníi i makedoncevï , S P b, 1913.

343D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski i negovi t e kni š ki ,,S amovi l a Makedonska“ i ,,Makedonska pesnar ka“, I F , S kopje, 1973; Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . Redakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1974; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja, áá, S kopje, 1982, 9-29; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 302-393; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest , á, S kopje, 1987, 43-59.

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Vasil Ivanovski,345 KoÌo Racin,346 Kosta Veselinov347 and Anton Popov348 developed it as part of the concept of the progressive movement, whereas Macedonian scholarly thought was only able to function normally after the liberation of the Vardar part of Macedonia and its constitution in 1944 as a nation-state within the federal community of the Yugoslav peoples. Even today, however, we cannot say that Macedonian scholars have fully succeeded in studying this very long and convulsive process. They have been handicapped, above all, by the inaccessibility of basic sources and the incomprehensible obstacles placed in the way mostly by neighbouring states, which control not only significant portions of the Macedonian ethnic territory but also of the existing archive materials.

Occupying the territory between the Slavic Serbs and Bulgarians, and the non-Slavic Greeks and Albanians, representing the southernmost fjord of the Slavic sea, on their road to national affirmation, the Macedonians have written a 344Angel

ï Di nevï , Makedonski t õ sl avòni , S of i ò, 1938; Angel ï Di nevï , Et nogr af skat a i deò na makedonski t õ sl avòni , S of i ò, 1944; Angel ï Di nevï , I l i ndenskat a epopeò (r azvoò na maked. osvobodi t el no dvi Ô eni e), á, S of i ò, 1945. Dinev’s periodical Makedonski vest i (1935-1936) is of special significance. See also: D-r Vl adi mi r Kar t ov, A ngel Di nev — Ô i vot i del o, S kopje, 1983.

345[Vasi l I vanovski ], I dei t õ i zadaÌi t õ na makedonskot o pr ogr esi vno dvi Ô eni e vï Bï l gar i ò, Bi bl i ot eka ,,Makedonsko zname“, º 1, S of i ò, 1933; Bi st r i š ki [Vasil Ivanovski’s pseudonym], ,,Zaë o ni e makedonci t e sme ot del na naci ò?“, Tr udova Makedoni ò, á, 6, Det r oi t , Dekemvr i 1934, 4-5; Bi st r i š ki , op. cit., in: Ëet vï r t i ò kongr es na Makedonski ò N ar oden S ï ô z v A mer i ka. Rezol ô ci i , I zl oÔ eni ò, Det r oi t , Mi Ì., 1934, 42-55; Bi st r i š ki , op. cit., in: Makedonski gl as, br . 8-9, Buenos Aàr es, 1936; [V. I vanovski ], Makedonski ò vï pr os v mi nal ot o i sega. Makedonskat a naci ò i makedonskot o naci onal no sï znani e, r akopi s od C ent r al ni ot zat vor vo S kopje (manuscript from the Skopje Central Prison, 1942-1943), Ar hi v na Makedoni ja, S kopje, i nv. br . 8773.

346N.P., ,,Za pravilnije shvatanje naše prošlosti“, Kultura, II, 7, Zagreb, 15.XI.1937, 1; K. Ri st ovi Ú, ,,S eq aÌki pokr et Bogomi l a u sr edwem veku“, N ar odna Ìi t anka i z nauke i kwi Ô evnost i , br . 7, Beogr ad, 1939, 20-24; K. Racin, ,,Razvitak i znaÌaj jedne nove naše knjiÔevnosti, RadniÌki tjednik, I, 23, Zagreb, 25.X.1940, 5-6. See also: KoÌo Raci n, S t i hovi i pr oza. Vt or o i zdani e.

Ur edi l D-r Al eksandar S pasov, S kopje, 1961, 131-255; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n.

I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1983.

347Kost a Vesel i novï , N aci onal no-por obeni nar odi i naci onal ni mal ci nst va (N auÌno-soci ol ogi Ìenï et ô dï ), Naci onal na-nauÌna bi bl i ot eka ,,Kï l bo“ º 1, S of i ò, 1938; Kost a Vesel i novï , Vï zr aÔ danet o na Makedoni ò i I l i ndenskot o vï zst ani e, Naci onal na-nauÌna bi bl i ot eka ,,Kï l bo“ º 2, S of i ò, 1939; Kost a Vesel i novï , Bor ci za nar odna svoboda Hr .

Bot evï , Goce Del Ìevï , L ô benï Kar avel ovï i DÔ uzepe Gar i bal di , Naci onal na-nauÌna bi bl i ot eka ,,Kï l bo“ º 3, S of i ò, 1940. His numerous articles in various Macedonian and Bulgarian newspapers and journals during the decade preceding the War (1931-1941) are of particular importance.

348Ant on P opov, I zbr ani pr oi zvedeni ò. P odbor i pr edgovor Mi hai l S mat r akal ev, S of i ò, 1960; Ant on P opov, ,,P ost oi l i makedonska naci ja“, P i r i nski gl as, áá, 20, S kopje, 20.œ áá.1950, 4; Ant on P opov, ,,Od ,Bur a nad r odi nat a‘ do ,Ëudna e Makedoni ja‘“, S ovr emenost , HHHᜠ, 1-2, S kopje, 1984, 11-36; Ant on P opov, Odbr ani t vor bi . P r i r edi l Gane Todor ovski , S kopje, 1985; Ant on P opov, Odbr ani t vor bi . P r i r edi l Vasi l Toci novski , Mi sl a, 1994.

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history which is also interesting for scholarship and its theories on nations in general. The processes of national integration of the Macedonians developed in the unique circumstances of the Europe of the time, where the Balkans played a central part. Internal and, more importantly, external, factors were relevant for the routes of their development. The geopolitical and geostrategic position of Macedonia, its social and economic development, cultural and educational conditions, confessional and political situation and the character of historical and state-constitutional traditions completed the mosaic of factors in the emergence and development of Macedonian national thought. As a result of all this, national revival349 in Macedonia took place over a period of a century and a half, from its first buds in the late 18th and early 19th century,350 up to the foundation of the modern Macedonian nation-state in 1944. The most significant and most interesting period in the development of this process was undoubtedly the time of cultural, educational, spiritual and political activity of the Macedonian people (1814-1870) and the years when the first national programme was drawn up (1870-1878).

1.

Independently of the degree of social and economic development of the Macedonian people and of the penetration of ‘capitalistic elements’ into this part of the Ottoman Empire,351 and independently of the growth and ethnic structure of Macedonian towns, the process of the constitution of the Macedonian nation started with certain objective historical difficulties which later encumbered its entire development. Hence the completion of the constitution of the socio-historical category people in Macedonia seems to have coincided with the process of the establishment of the nation. The protracted and intermittent character of the first process brought about the complicated and lengthy development of the second.

Whereas, for instance, the process of Greek national development started along a more or less straight line — inheriting the name and the past of the mediaeval state and swiftly advancing the idea of political liberation and state independence (and the same also refers largely to the development of the Serbs and even that of the Bulgarians) — in the case of the Macedonians this idea was advanced with a certain delay, in altered historical circumstances, without state-constitutional 349D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 119-280. appearance of the first printed books in modern Macedonian in 1814 is taken only as the formal date of its commencement, as this process became apparent earlier, in the 18th century (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., á, 155-162 and 188-189).

351D-r DanÌo Zogr af ski , Razvi t okot na kapi t al i st i Ìki t e el ement i vo Makedoni ja za vr eme na t ur skot o vl adeewe, S kopje, 1967.

350The

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traditions under their own name in the Slavic period, without a single widely affirmed ethnic name and with the use of different ethnic, confessional and social appellations inherited from the mediaeval period and during the specific circumstances of Turkish domination.

Similarly to other ‘non-historical’ Slavic peoples, in the first half of the 19th century the Macedonians were faced with the following questions: who are we, what are we and where are we? Their first objectives were to outline their ethnic and geographical borders with regard to their neighbours and, using a distinct designation for themselves as a nation (which already had a long tradition) to define the programme tasks concerning their spiritual differentiation, linguistic unification, national affirmation and political liberation.

2.

Macedonia’s geopolitical position within the Ottoman Empire made any direct contact with the already liberated and state-constituted social and national communities impossible, and greatly limited the transfer of ideas and organized communication with Macedonian expatriates, and hence prevented the organization of their own colonies which would take free and state-supported actions along the borders. As a result, in contrast to Bulgaria, for example, there was never (with the exception of the brief Austrian penetration led by Piccolomini) an infiltration of foreign armies on Macedonian soil and Turkish domination was not even temporarily replaced by any Christian rule. Macedonia was thus not in a position to have nationally-awakened and politically active émigré circles such as, for instance, the Bulgarians had, capable of setting up their own well-developed centres in neighbouring, territorially disinterested states, cherishing national revival ideas and organizing liberation actions.

The spiritual life of the Macedonians from the first half of the 19th century onwards was entirely in the hands of the Hellenized Oecumenical Patriarchate.

Despite its considerable degree of Hellenization, until its abolition in 1767, the Archbishopric of Ohrid was the only institution in Macedonia uniting the Orthodox Macedonian Slavs and providing a better or worse continuity of the people’s development within its diocese. After its abolition, the monasteries and churches remained shattered, constantly aiming to maintain contacts with Mount Athos and with their eyes turned, full of hope, towards Orthodox and Slavic Russia.

The spectacular opposition to the Greek clergy and the resistance of the Macedonian citizens against Greek influence, particularly in the church-school communities, reinforced the ambitions for the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as the church of the already awakened Macedonian ethnicity. This initial 127

period was characterized by an incessant struggle for their own church, their own clergy, schools and teachers, their own language and textbooks, and self-government at community level. In a situation like this it was not too difficult to organize various ‘religious’ missions which, propagating Protestantism, Catholicism and in particular Uniatism,352 began slowly to divide the single people into different ‘faiths’, which, in accordance with Shariah law in Turkey, were automatically designated as ‘nationalities’. With the involvement of the national propaganda machines of its neighbours, the unity of the people in Macedonia was finally crushed, which led to a long and fierce struggle for a language and a church. Thus, in spite of the relative development and growth of towns, trade and the crafts, the still young Macedonian middle class was divided and any normal national development was significantly slowed down.

3.

In the first decades of the 19th century the main ethnic characteristic of the people in Macedonia was their Slavic roots (‘Slavism’). This distinguished them from the Greeks and connected them to the ‘Slavic tribe’ which was often (and not only here) understood as a single people.353 Earlier, the Macedonians emphasized their official ‘Greek’ affiliation before foreign representatives, and now demanded their own name which had been alive in the churches and monasteries, but with the obligatory Slavic marking. Therefore even the titles of the publications by Joakim KrÌovski and Kiril PejÌinoviÎ (in the second decade of the 19th century) and their immediate followers said that the books were written in a “simple”, “Slav-Bulgarian” language.354 Firstly, this meant abandoning the official Old Church Slavonic language, which in Macedonia had a full continuity of use, and introducing the vernacular in writing, and secondly, this was an act of declaring the general aspirations of the time to emphasize their Slavic affiliation.

Yet when, in the 1840s, the Macedonians came into direct contact with Bulgarian books and the Bulgarian language, when they saw the differences between themselves and those who also called themselves Bulgarians, the Macedonians had no alternative but to start a struggle for the affirmation of their own 352Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja“, Razgl edi , áá/ááá, 9, S kopje, 1960, 908-936; áá/ááá, 10, 1960, 1005-1029; ááá/ááá, 1, 1960, 72-90; ááá/ááá, 2, 1960, 158-189.

353V.A. DÅakov, D.F . Mar kov, A.S . Mì l Åni kov, ,,Nekot or ì e uzl ovì e met odol ogi Ìeski e vopr osì i st or i i mi r ovoà sl avi st i ki “, in: I st or i ò, kul Åt ur a, æt nogr af i ò i f ol Åkl or sl avònski h nar odov. œ ááá meÔ dunar odnì à sï ezd sl avi st ov, Zagr eb-Lô bl òna, S ent òbr Å1978 g. Dokl adì sovet skoà del egaci i , Moskva, 1978, 473.

354Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Ki r i l P ejÌi novi Γ, introduction to: Ki r i l P ejÌi novi Î, S obr ani t ekst ovi .

P r i r edi l Bl aÔ e Koneski , S kopje, 1974, 12.

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name, using all their forces. Rejecting the Bulgarian designation and faced with the impossibility of using only the name ‘Slavic’ (as ethnically insufficiently differentiated), they accepted the territorial Macedonian name which had always been widespread among the people, and particularly in Europe.355 When Greek propaganda put forward the theory of the ‘Greek’ origin of the ancient Macedonians, the Macedonians proclaimed these, too, as Slavs, and placed Philip and Alexander on their banner as symbols designating their national consciousness.

The Russian Slavic scholar Viktor Grigorovich, who stayed in Macedonia for a considerable period in 1844/1845, was able to witness this personally, describing it authoritatively and vividly in his writings.356 The strict differentiation between Macedonians and Greeks and the emphasis on the Slavic origin of the former, and also on the glory of Alexander of Macedon, King Mark and Cyril and Methodius, were sufficient to establish clearly the idea of the homeland of the Macedonian people in the Balkans. This is expressed in a highly vivid way in the 1846 ‘records’ by the Kriva Palanka teacher ÏorÒija Makedonski357 and those of the priest Dimitrija from the same region about the events in 1848.358 All this is a clear illustration of the attitude of the emerging middle class towards national interests and of the degree of development of historical consciousness among the awakened circles of the people. It is important, as testified to by Grigorovich and confirmed by the documents quoted, that this ideology was developed by teachers and priests who inspired their students and disciples, but it is also important that their parents and the congregation accepted their teaching.

It is not by accident that Grigorovich stresses the words “everybody knows”, and it is also not by chance that the surname Makedonski was often adopted at that time (and later) as a visible sign of distinction. It is also very important that this ideology was spread by priests, which explains the widespread demands for the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as a Macedonian national church which would automatically give the people rights to their own churches, schools, communities and a separate nüfus (‘population’). These were the basic contours of the 355D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 57-74; D-r Al eksandar Mat kovski , Gr bovi t e na Makedoni ja (P r i l og kon makedonskat a her al di ka), S kopje, 1970, 46-195; BoÔidar Finka, ,,Makedonsko ime u starijoj hrvatskoj kajkavskoj knjiÔevnosti“, Makedonski jazi k, HHHáá-HHHááá, 1981-1982. P osvet eno na akademi k Bl aÔ e Koneski po povod 60godi š ni nat a, S kopje, 1982, 765-767.

356OÌer kï put eš est víò Evr opeàskoà Tur cíà (sï kar t oô okr est nost eà Ohr i dskago i P r espanskago ozer ï ) Vi kt or a Gr i gor ovi Ìa. I zdaníe vt or oe, Moskva, 1877, 139.

357Dokument i za bor bat a na makedonski ot nar od za samost ojnost i za naci onal na dr Ô ava, á, S kopje, 1981, 182.

358Ibid., 204.

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Macedonian national programme, expressed through the concept of the 1840s, which was to be ultimately defined three decades later.

4.

In the first half of the 19th century the not so numerous intelligentsia, clergy and craftsmen were mainly united in a joint front that reflected the common interests of the Macedonian middle class. The inhabitants of Veles, for example, were delighted with the opening of Jordan HadÔikonstantinov-DÔinot’s school in 1837,359 and the teacher Jovan NeškoviÚ testifies that from 1846 onwards Veles began “to wake up from the deep sleep”, that “the divine feeling for enlightenment and study which had been absent in Macedonia for so many centuries, hindered by the Greek clergy” had already been sown. The wealthier citizens sent their children to study in Europe, and also helped less well-off children, which, according to NeškoviÚ, “awakened the feeling of their own ethnicity”. The inhabitants of Veles ignored the demand of the Greek bishop for the “instruction in the Veles school to be carried out in Greek and not in Macedonian”.360 This attitude spread in other towns in Macedonia. It was best expressed by Tode Kusev from Prilep in the Constantinople journal Makedonija in 1867. He writes that the Greeks “have always fought for the Graecization of the Macedonians, destroying the Archbishopric of Ohrid — ‘the Spark of our future’. Yet, however much they have struggled to prevent our advancement, they have not been able to uproot the feeling and prevent the Macedonians from being Macedonians.” Kusev states plainly: Not only in Ohrid, but throughout Macedonia, now everyone has woken up and is demanding their rights. Everyone is striving to open their own schools, to introduce church services in the Old Church Slavonic language, not to leave the schools and people’s matters in the hands of one or two people who have come from other places, who in every possible way try to prevent everything that is popular.

Tradesmen’s ledgers are now everywhere beginning to be kept not in Greek, but in our mother tongue. Both young and old are now rejoicing under the great shadow of our enlightener, Sultan Abdul-Aziz, happy to have become aware of their own nationality.361 359D-r

Ri st o Kant ar xi ev, Makedonskot o pr er odbensko uÌi l i š t e, S kopje, 1965, 50-55. ,,I z Vel esa (U Makedoni ji )“, S r bski dnevni k, br . 44, Novi S ad, 1858 — b.: Br ani sl av Vr aneš evi Ú, ,,VojvoŸanska javnost o š kol st vu Vel esa i Š t i pa u doba pr epor oda makedonskog nar oda“, in: Š kol st vot o, pr osvet at a i kul t ur at a vo Makedoni ja vo vr emet o na pr er odbat a. Mat er i jal i od si mpozi umot odr Ô an vo Ti t ov Vel es i Š t i p od 22 do 24.Háá.1977, MANU, S kopje, 1979, 320.

361Makedoníò, á, 12, C ar egr adï , 18.áá.1867.

360J.N.,

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All this put forward the acute question of textbooks in these popular schools.

The learned Mijak, Anatolija Zografski, tried to satisfy this need as early as 1838 with his textbook NaÌalnoe uÌenie (Primer), printed in the first Macedonian printing shop in Salonika.362 Jordan HadÔikonstantinov-DÔinot joined him with his handbook Tablica pervaja (First Table).363 But the people increasingly demanded the use of pure vernacular in the Macedonian schools. The first more serious achievements in this area were made in 1857-1858 by Partenija Zografski (from GaliÌnik), who was also educated in Russia. He not only re-printed the earlier textbook of his compatriot Anatolija — entitled NaÌalnoe uÌenie za decata (Children’s Primer), with improvements and additions, using a purer vernacular — but also published the first philological analysis of the Macedonian language (made by a Macedonian), outlining the basic problems and pointing to the main directions in the development of the literary standard. No doubt influenced by the Vienna Accord (1850) on the common literary language of the Serbs and Croats,364 Partenija Zografski spoke in favour of a common literary standard for the Macedonians and Bulgarians,365 although he clearly emphasized: “Our language, as is known, can be divided into two main dialects, one of which is spoken in Bulgaria and Thrace, and the other in Macedonia.”366 He wrote a grammar of this literary standard and was the first in Macedonia to point out that the “dialect” of “the south-western parts of Macedonia” should be taken as its basis, which was later accepted by Krste P. Misirkov (1903)367 and codified with our modern literary standard after the liberation (1945).368 Only a decade later Partenija Zografski had several followers who wrote textbooks, including Dimitar V. Makedonski,369 Dimitar H. Uzunov,370 Kuzman A. 362S i

mon Dr akul , ,,Za naš i ot pr v pr er odbenski uÌebni kar “, S ovr emenost , HHHá, 6, S kopje, 1982, 57-71.

363P r of . H. P ol enakovi Î, ,,Nekol ku i st or i sko-kni Ô evni pr i l oga. 3) I zvor ot na Tabl i ca per vaja od Jor dana Haxi Konst ant i nov (Xi not )“, N ov den, ᜠ, 6, S kopje, 1948, 49-50; S i mo Ml adenovski , ,,UÌi t el ot KamÌe Nakov P op-Angel ov i negovat a pr osvet i t el ska dejnost vo s. Vat aš a, Ti kveš ko“, in: Š kol st vot o, pr osvet at a i kul t ur at a vo Makedoni ja…, 453463.

364Bl aÔ e Koneski , Makedonski ot jazi k vo r azvojot na sl ovenski t e l i t er at ur ni jazi ci , S kopje, 1968, 17. For these tendencies see also: Nikša StanÌiÚ, Hrvatska nacionalna ideologija preporodnog pokreta u Dalmaciji (Mihovil PavlinoviÚ i njegov krug do 1869), Zagreb, 1980, 91-119; Špiro KulušiÚ, O etnogenezi Crnogoraca, Titograd, 1980; Savo BrkoviÚ, O postanku i razvoju crnogorske nacije, Titograd, 1974.

365Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba. Makedonski t e uÌebni ci od 19 vek. Vt or o i zdani e, S kopje, 1959, 26-43.

366Bï l gar ski kni Ô i ci , á, 1, C ar i gr adÅ–Gal at a, 1858, 35-40.

367K.P . Mi si r kov, Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903, 132-145.

368Makedonski pr avopi s i zr abot en od Komi si jat a za jazi k i pr avopi s pr i Mi ni st er st vot o za nar odna pr osvet a, S kopje, 1945; Bl aÔ e Koneski , Gr amat i ka na makedonski ot l i t er at ur en jazi k, á, S kopje, 1952, 32-71.

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Šapkarev,371 Venijamin MaÌukovski372 and particularly the notable figure of the self-taught Mijak, ÏorÒija M. Pulevski,373 even though all of them (with the exception of the last) still used the compromise Bulgarian designation for this language.

The Bulgarian teacher Najden JovanoviÌ saw the differences between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages and corroborated them in practice in 1846, making and publishing the first translation from Macedonian into Bulgarian. It is significant that he called the Macedonian language slovenskij (Slavonic), and the Bulgarian slovenobolgarskij (Slavo-Bulgarian),374 although the book itself, Ëudesa presvjatija Bogorodici (The Miracles of the Holy Mother of God) by Joakim KrÌovski, says that it is written “in the Bulgarian language” (na bolgarskij jazik). Vuk KaradÔiÚ noticed these differences as early as 1822,375 but this became apparent to the public only after the boycott of Bulgarian books in Macedonia in the 1860s,376 when it was publicly declared that “the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian language were one thing, and the Macedonians and the Macedonian language another,” 377 when warnings of the following type could be heard: “We are Mace369Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Di mi t ar Vasi l ev Makedonski (1847-1898)“, Razgl edi , á/ááá, 1, 1958, 69-83; Dr agi S t ef ani ja, ,,Okol u akt i vnost a na Di mi t ar Vasi l ev Makedonski vo Makedoni ja (1868-70) i negovi ot jazi k“, L i t er at ur en zbor , Hœ áá, 6, S kopje, 1970, 10-20; Bl aÔ e Koneski , ,,Eden uÌebni k od Di mi t ar Makedonski “, N ova Makedoni ja, Hááá, 4083, 11.H.1957, 8.

370Makedoníò, á, 12, C ar i gr adï , 18.áá.1867, 4; á, 13, 25.áá.1867, 2; á, 50, 11.Há.1867, 3; áá, 8, 20.á.1868; Har al ampi e P ol enakovi Î, ,,K.A. Š apkar ev za svoi t e uÌebni ci “, Godi š en zbor ni k na F i l ozof ski ot f akul t et na Uni ver zi t et ot vo S kopje, Hœ , S kopje, 1963, 320, zab. 4; Kuzman Š apkar ev, Za vï zr aÔ danet o na bï l gar ë i nat a v Makedoni ò. N ei zdadeni zapi ski i pi sma.

P r edgovor P et ï r Di nekov, sï st avi t el st vo i r edakci ò I l i ò Todor ov [i ] Ni kol aà Ó eÌev, S of i ò, 1984, 213; Gr i gor P ï r l i Ìev, I zbr ani pr oi zvedeni ò, S of i ò, 1980, 393.

371Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba, 44-86.

372Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Veni jami n MaÌukovski vo makedonski ot kul t ur no-naci onal en r azvi t ok“, in: Š kol st vot o, pr osvet at a i kul t ur at a vo Makedoni ja…, 569-603.

373See note 343; Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba, 87-97.

374Ivan Dorovsky, ,,K nekterym otázkám balkanského literárního procesu na poÌétku 19. století“, Sbornik praci filozofickí fakulty Brnenskí university, D 23-24, Brno, 1977, 123-126.

375Vukova pr epi ska, á, Beogr ad, 1909, 212. Little was known at the time not only about Macedonia, but also about Bulgaria, referred to solely as “a region lying between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains” (I .S . Dost òn, ,,Naci onal Åno-osvobodi t el Ånoe dvi Ô eni e ô Ô nì h sl avòn i r usskaò obë est vennaò mì sl Å per voà Ìet ver t i HáH v.“, in: I st or i ò, kul Åt ur a, æt nogr af i ò i f ol Åkl or sl avònski h nar odov. œ ááá MeÔ dunar odnì à sï ezd sl avi st ov, Zagr eb–Lô bl òna, S ent òbr Å1978 g. Dokl adì sovet skoà del egaci i , Moskva, 1978, 174).

376Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba, 49-50. This was actually the stage when “a centrifugal national synthesis of the national language, their history, folklore and ethnographic characteristics of national life, etc.” was carried out (S .V. Ni kol Åski à, ,,O nekot or ì h zadaÌah i ssl edovani ò l i t er at ur nar odov C ent r al Ånoà i Æ go-Vost oÌnoà Evr opì v æpohu f or mi r ovani ò naci à“, in: Kompl eksnì e pr obl emì nar odov C ent r al Ånoà i Æ go-Vost oÌnoà Evr opì . I t ogi i per spekt i vì i ssl edovani à, Moskva, 1979, 115).

377Bl aÔ e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba, 71.

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donians, we are not Bulgarians” and “We have barely freed ourselves from the Greeks, should we now become Šopi?!”378 Even the leader of the Bulgarian national revival in Constantinople, Petko RaÌev Slavejkov, in early January 1871 publicly admitted that he had heard this ideology “as early as some ten years ago from some people in Macedonia”, which had now grown into “a thought that many would like to put into effect”. He confirmed that he had “many times” heard from “the Macedonists that they were not Bulgarians but Macedonians, descendants of ancient Macedonia… They are complete Macedonians… they are pure Slavs, and the Bulgarians are Tartars and who knows what”. These “Macedonists” boldly declared before him: “We broke off from the Greeks, should we now fall under others?”379 This means that at this point “scholarly propaganda of national development” in Macedonia had already been completed. It was followed by a “period of national agitation,” 380 which permeated the broad mass of the people and penetrated deeply into their minds. This was a stage of Macedonian national integration, when the historical consciousness of the Macedonians381 was strongly engaged in the articulation of ideas for liberation.

5.

It is noteworthy that all this developed in Macedonia itself, within the boundaries of Turkey, without significant response from the European public. As far as Europe was concerned, Macedonia was still an insufficiently known land inhabited by an even less studied people, which was first automatically linked to the Greeks, and later almost unanimously to the Bulgarians. This is how Macedonia was seen by foreign travellers, and the same views were accepted by the first Slavic scholars, even though none of them (with the exception of Grigorovich) had ever set foot 378Ibid., 67. Of great significance here was the emergence of the strict ethno-cultural opposition we–you.

See also: A.S . Mì l Åni kov, ,,K vopr osu o f or mi r ovani i naci onal Ånogo samosoznani ò v per i od skl adì vani ò naci à v C ent r al Ånoà i Æ go-Vost oÌnoà Evr ope“, in: F or mi r ovani e naci à v C ent r al Ånoà i Æ go-Vost oÌnoà Evr ope, Moskva, 1981, 240-441., and for more details concerning this problem see: A.S . Mì l Åni kov, V.I . F r eàdzon, ,,F or mi r ovani e naci à v C ent r al Ånoà i Æ go-Vost oÌnoà Evr ope v Hœ ááá-HáH vekah“, Vopr osì i st or i i , º 8, Moskva, 1987, 60-78. On the understanding of the name ‘Bulgarian’ in the 1840s see: Revue des Deux Mondes, 2, Paris, 1842, 890-891; Marco Dogo, ,,Risveglio nazionale e questione della lingua nei Balcani: la generazione tormentata dei separatisti macedoni“, Quaderni Giuliani di Storia, 1, Trieste, 1984, 12.

379,,Makedonskíàt ï và pr osï “, Makedoníò, œ , 3, 18.á.1871, 2.

380Miroslav Hroch, ,,Oblikovanje modernih nacija i nacionalni pokret 19. stoljeÚa“, Ëasopis za suvremenu povijest, XI, 1(29), Zagreb, 1979, 27.

381Miroslav Hroch, ,,Úvodem“, Acta Universitatis Carolinae — Philosophica et historica, 5, 1976. Studia Historica, XV: Úloha historického povedomí v 19. století, Praha, 1976, 7-14.

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on Macedonian soil.382 Moreover, Macedonia was treated in the same way by the great powers, which had special interests in the Balkans. This only complicated and greatly encumbered the affirmation of the Macedonian people as a subject in international relations. This in turn contributed to the hampering and complicating of Macedonia’s internal development and facilitated the actions of neighbouring national propaganda machines, which were becoming an increasingly real danger not only for the liberation of the land but also for its integrity and the survival of the people as a whole.

But the public participation of the Macedonians in the press and the clear propagation of their ideas among the people, which even Slavejkov had to admit ultimately in his newspaper (although for ten whole years he had tried to prevent the public dissemination of Macedonian national ideology at all costs), fixed the basic contours of the Macedonian national programme which already had a history of its own and was threatening with its plans for the future. Despite the strong national romanticism of its proponents, it was actually the first public statement of the ‘Macedonian question’. This took place exactly at the time of the foundation of the first Slavic Orthodox church in Turkey, which was given the name Bulgarian Exarchate. This was to draw the boundaries of the ‘Bulgarian nationality’ for the first time in an official manner; this was later accepted by the cartographer Heinrich Kiepert and taken for granted in the text of the preliminary San Stefano peace treaty (1878).

The Macedonians, however, immediately saw the possible consequences and the historical risk to their future development. The resistance was strong: as early as 1873 six large Macedonian eparchies abandoned not only the Oecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, but also the newly-founded Bulgarian Exarchate, and made a serious attempt to find a permanent solution to the Macedonian national question with the help of Protestantism and the Uniate Church. The seriousness of the situation was apparent to Russian politicians and also to the Bulgarian Exarch, who immediately sent Slavejkov personally on a secret mission to Macedonia, to try to undermine the Macedonian movement with his great authority. His reports from Salonika, dated January, February and March 1874, offer a most complete and accurate picture of the character and proportions of what was a genuine national liberation movement, outlining the basic elements of the Macedonian national programme.

382Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Makedonskat a opš t est vena mi sl a vo pr vi ot per i od na naci onal nat a pr er odba (vo kor el aci ja so r azvi t okot na sl avi st i kat a i na opš t est venat a mi sl a kaj sosedni t e sl ovenski nar odi )“, in: Ref er at i na makedonski t e sl avi st i za áH meÒunar oden sl avi st i Ìki kongr es vo Ki ev, S kopje, 1983, 155-159; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 204-210.

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Slavejkov’s mission was important for a number of reasons. He arrived in Salonika on the evening of January 14, 1874, and immediately met with the main actors in the union in order to assess the situation and learn their plans. In his letter sent to Exarch Anthimus (Antim) sometime in January, Slavejkov first describes “in brief the history of everything preceding all this and its consequences today, which are the existing turmoil and movement.”383 This means that the movement was not born unexpectedly and without inner foundations, but that it already had a history of its own. In order to understand all the circumstances mentioned by the Exarch’s envoy, we shall quote a part of this letter.384 It can be seen that even before the question’s solution, after the initial awakening of the population from these lands, owing to the unreasonable preaching of the local narrow and short-sighted patriots, a certain discontentment among the local Bulgarians has been created towards the Bulgarians from the Danube and Ohrid385 vilayets and a certain envy because of their earlier awakening and the visible predominance of their language in literature.

The one-sided, at first glance, solution to the question in favour of the Danube and Thracian Bulgarians alone further encouraged their discontentment, and by ignoring the circumstances which led to this not entirely satisfactory solution to the question, the said discontentment has easily turned into mistrust towards those working on the question and has given birth among local patriots to the disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their own local dialect and what’s more, of their own, individual Macedonian hierarchy — Bulgarian — idea,386 unfortunately reinforced, as far as I could hear, by the excessive zeal of one of our own bishops,387 who in his desire to be useful and make use of this, imperceptibly, and perhaps deliberately, encouraged it even more and allowed the emergence and spread of these disastrous ideas side by side with the awakening of the people in these lands. It is Article 10 of the firman that has somewhat hampered the outbreak of a public disruption and has so far suppressed any disturbances. […] It is clear that it was in a small and secret circle in Constantinople that this broken and now stinking addle egg was initially laid and its nest can be found among that small number of persons who were anxious to promote Father Hariton as a bishop.388 Desperate to see their candidate a bishop through the mediation of the 383C oÌo

Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, ,,P i sma na P et ko RaÌev S l aveàkov po uni òt a v Makedoni ò pr ez 1874 g.“, Vekove, Hœ ááá, 1, S of i ò, 1989, 68.

384Dr Slavko Dimevski’s ‘Dve pi sma na P et ko RaÌev S l avejkov za makedoni zmot ’ (Two Letters by Petko RaÌev Slavejkov on Macedonism) (Razgl edi , XIV, 5, Skopje, 1972, 557-566) are rendered incorrectly and cannot be used for scholarly purposes.

385There was no Ohrid vilayet; this is an error and the reference is clearly to the Adrianople (Odrin) vilayet.

386Judging from the way it is written, it is clear that the word Bulgarian was added later, making this part of the manuscript rather obscure.

387This is a reference to Natanail (Nathaniel) KuÌeviški, Metropolitan of Ohrid.

388The priest Hariton (Chariton) Angelov Karpuzov (from the village of Libjahovo, Nevrokop region; Boris Sarafov’s grandfather) emerged as one of the chief leaders of the population from the whole of eastern Macedonia. As the president of the Nevrokop Exarchal Community (1871-1873), he was

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Exarchate, Father Hariton’s adherents, with his knowledge or perhaps permission — I cannot confirm the latter — started making deals with the discontented in these lands to take another kind of action and demand his appointment by means of a union with the Catholic church; this took place in Constantinople and here, but rather secretly, before Mr389 Nil was sent here.390 The sending of Mr Nil to these lands has put an end to the secret and underground actions of the said partisans, but his senseless denunciation and tactless encouragement have seriously shattered the confidence of the population in the Exarchate and have estranged them from it. In the beginning, too, when he still acted on behalf of the Exarchate, he imprudently greatly undermined its influence, which strengthened even more the rumour spread by Hariton’s adherents concerning the agreement391 and, as he wanted to become the favourite and beloved of the locals, he presented the Exarchate as indifferent and useless for the deliverance of the Macedonian population from the oppression of Graecism; and later he contributed a great deal more to their alienation from it, when he started claiming that the Macedonian Bulgarians have been betrayed by the Exarch and by the other bishops installed for the recovery of their eparchies; and, of course, the mistrustful will easily believe such rumours.

It is probably difficult to follow and know whether Mr Nil, before his departure, had any arrangements with some of our people there and whether he had special instructions concerning the movement to which he had given rise; but it is no secret that his refusal to obey the Exarchate’s command to return was the result of the instructions of some of our Orthodox bishops there,392 and unfortunately even now you can feel similar relations; they speak openly about Father Hariton’s agreement with Mr Nil, and that efforts are being made, they say, in favour of his ordination [and appointment], through the union, to the regions of Seres and Melnik, and for that of Mr Nil to the regions of Salonika, Kukuš-Strumica and Voden.

This is how things stood and have been standing in general up to the present day. The particular course of events concerning particular local matters stands like this for the time being.

Even though you can say that there is no union in Salonika, or that it has been put on the back-burner in case of necessity, I can also state that if such a demand arises because of the enthusiasm of others after Mr Nil’s return, it can be suppressed if one acts wisely, as matters are in the hands of people on whom we can successfully exert our influence, although you will now see almost everyone inclining towards that spirit, even the PaunÌev brothers,393 who were at first against the movement, but proposed by the people as Metropolitan of Nevrokop, but the Bulgarian Exarchate refused to accept him and he lost even his presidential post. Hariton appeared as one of the most decisive advocates of the union as a means for resolving the ‘Macedonian question’.

389The title Mister and its prefix Mr (Gospodin and G.) are often used with the names of church dignitaries in Slavonic ecclesiastical forms of address (translator’s note).

390The Uniate Bishop Nil (Nilus) Izvorov was a Bulgarian, a former Exarchate prelate, who was used by the Macedonian Uniates as a means for the institution of a Macedonian spiritual-national hierarchy.

391This is a reference to the agreement between the Bulgarian Exarchate and Constantinopolitan Patriarchate concerning the eparchies in Macedonia.

392This is a reference to Natanail (Nathaniel) of Ohrid and Dorotej (Dorotheus) of Skopje.

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are now thought to be among the proselytes.394 Only Mr Bubotinov395 is allegedly Orthodox, and I can assure you of this, for no other reason but sheer interest, and because he is excluded and cast out by the other activists and also by the said community. […]

Kukuš comes at the head of the movement, supported quite strongly by the as yet sleeping Dojran, and Strumica with Maleševo and Voden participate there openly.

Following them there limp the Salonika villages and those around Seres, Melnik and Drama. For the time being, anyone looking around might think that he sees nothing but smoke; but this smoke shows the presence of a fire which is starting to burn, because everyone expects the return of Monsignor Nil with fervent impatience, and there is no doubt that the fire will blaze up.

The letters of M[onsignor] Nil are full of hope and they are delivered everywhere through the agents of the union who maintain contacts with the surrounding places.

In his first letter, written after his arrival in Constantinople, he promised to return in 15 days’ time with the Sultan’s decree. In his second letter he said that, as soon as the new Greek Bishop of Salonika, Joachim, departed for Salonika, he, the Monsignor, would be on the same steamship and arrive here. The last letter which has come with today’s mail is even more encouraging. Everything is ready and prepared, he says, and the letters are written and waiting only to be signed; and, they write, they are also asking for money from here for their return; therefore Dimitri Maleševski396 has gone this morning to Kukuš to collect the money and send it to them. The leaders of the movement are thrilled.397

Obviously, Slavejkov was well acquainted with the real situation in Macedonia; he also had original materials from the union’s activists in his hands, and could objectively see both the reasons and the actions, and also assess the consequences for the ‘Bulgarian cause’ in Macedonia. The large scale and the clear platform of the movement left no place for doubt as to the seriousness of the threat to the 393Dimitar and Nikola PaunÌev from Ohrid were prominent activists in Salonika, and the former was also

the president of the Salonika Exarchal Community and belonged to the ‘circle’ of ‘Macedonists’. newly converted.

395Mihail G. Bubotinov (a Bulgarian from Sofia) was the Exarchate representative in Salonika as a teacher; he was also an associate of the Russian Consul General in this city and an outspoken opponent of the Macedonian national movement, and accordingly, of the union.

396Slavejkov’s letters are a confirmation that Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski was one of the main leaders of the ‘third’ Uniate movement in Macedonia. At the time he was in Salonika clandestinely, making the preparations for the Razlovci Uprising. On March 24, 1875, he wrote the following to Stefan VerkoviÚ from Salonika: “I am here, but as our imprisoned men are still not set free, I am compelled to enjoy the general justice in a hidden shelter, i.e. not free. We are not losing hope that things will one day be better for us as well, but now the greatest evil is in Maleševo, which is by no means a result of the Exarchate’s heedlessness and is yet to spread elsewhere.” Due to this situation, he asks VerkoviÚ “to send the letter under a French inscription ‘To his Grace, Mr Bonetti, Apostolic Missionary of the French Church to Salonika’” (Dokument i za bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane ot A r hi vat a na S t ef an I . Ver kovi Ì 1860-1893. S ï st avi l i i podgot vi l i za peÌat Dar i na Vel eva i n.s. Tr i f on Vï l ov pod r edakci òt a i s pr edgovor ot Ìl . kor . Hr i st o A. Hr i st ov, S of i ò, 1969, 558, dok. º 463).

397C oÌo Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, op. cit., 68-70.

394The

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Exarchate’s position, as a result of which Slavejkov continued his letter to Exarch Anthimus as follows: Your Beatitude, After everything that I have seen and learnt, without taking into account unfounded rumours, I can frankly say to you that if M[onsignor] Nil returns here with a firman and remains anywhere in these lands, not only will the Poljanin eparchy accept him, but it will be joined by the Strumica and Voden eparchies and by many of the villages around Salonika, Drama, Seres, etc., and moreover, all other Macedonian eparchies will be shaken. You must bear in mind that the first to break up will be the Veles eparchy, from which certain person even now are taking not a small part in the tumult. That eparchy, dissatisfied with its bishop, on the one hand, and, on the other, the inhabitants of Veles driven by their characteristic craving for power and aspirations to control southern Macedonia in religious affairs, are supporting that movement, which will later have clearly very different consequences from those by which they are now enticed, but the important thing is that they, too, now add fuel to the flames. The agitation to expand the eparchy through the union is an open Chimera; yet the imaginative inhabitants of Veles, as good speculators, which is obvious, do not let that speculative undertaking slip out of their hands, and while working on it, they seem to spread even more the disastrous idea of salvation through the union among the oppressed population.

The renewed persecution on the part of Greek prelates has greatly helped the spread of the Uniate infection. [‌] As they have no Greek population on which they can rely following the splitting off of the Bulgarians, and as they fear more their being joined to the Exarchate, seeing that in this way they will be left without a flock whatsoever, they may be wrong or right in thinking that they will profit more from the Bulgarians joining the union, because they hope that the majority of the population, held back by fear of an alien faith, will not throw themselves into the arms of the union, and that thus, on the one hand, they will have more adherents and followers and, on the other, all restless minds and more active men and patriots, as it were, will go along with the Uniates and, preoccupied with the debates concerning the organization of the new community, will not disturb the rest of their believers that much; and thirdly, and most importantly, they think that in this way the influence of the Exarchate among the population will be paralysed, this being their prime aim, as all their fears are there. Guided by these considerations, they work on the swifter development of this comedy and therefore, while earlier they were indifferent and even rather lenient, and in the case of H[is] Exc[ellency] Midhat Pasha398 more cautious in their actions, they are now pressing the population more, 398The

Young-Turk leader Midhat Pasha was appointed as the Vali of Salonika on November 3, 1873, but he remained in Salonika only until February 11, 1874. During this brief period, he made it clear, with a number of actions, that he was in favour of the equality of the nationalities living in the vilayet, and even supported the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as the Macedonian church. P.P. Karapetrov, a Bulgarian, offers rather curious testimonies in this regard: “Midhat Pasha tried to persuade some of the more eminent Macedonian Bulgarians that they were not Bulgarians but Macedonians; that they were a people distinct from the Bulgarians, as proven by their language (dialect), which was different from Bulgarian, that it would be good if they dissociated from the Bulgarians in the Danube and Adrianople regions (Moesia and Thrace) and that thus they would also have an independent church

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using the influence of their agent among the local authorities, K. Logadi, politike meemuru [political agent]. […]

It seems to me that the advocates of the agreement have been guided by similar considerations to a certain extent; they wrongly believe that the union will not take large proportions and that only a small number of people will become separated under the union, and that the rest will remain with the Greeks, considering this advantageous to their plan to paralyse the influence of the Exarchate in these places, to discourage them and compel them to accept agreement to their measure. The truth, however, is that they are not working in this way to anything but the sheer detriment of Orthodoxy, as there is no doubt that if there is still any hope in the preservation of Orthodoxy, this hope is in the joining of the Exarchate; if this hope is frustrated, may everyone working in this spirit know that the incorporation of the Macedonian Bulgarians within the Roman Church will be an accomplished fact, not only partially but entirely, and that they will aim to resurrect the Archbishopric of Ohrid, with which they now entice the inhabitants of Ohrid, saying that they, too, like the inhabitants of Skopje, have apparently accepted the idea and will wait patiently until their hopes in the Exarchate are resurrected; if an amendment is not made to Article 10 — farewell, Macedonia!399

Slavejkov gives a reasonable assessment of the position of the Greek Patriarchate towards the union and towards the Exarchate, but what is extremely important is his testimony that both Ohrid and Skopje were inclined towards the Uniate idea, hoping that the Archbishopric of Ohrid would only be restored in this way, because it had absolutely no chances of being established as an Orthodox church within Turkey side by side with the existence of the Slavic Orthodox Bulgarian Exarchate. This is still another confirmation of the large proportions the Uniate movement took and the threat it posed in late 1873 and early 1874. By Article 10 of the Sultan’s Firman, only the Veles eparchy was given to the Bulgarian Exarchate, while the rest were supposed to vote in a referendum as to whether they wanted to remain under the Greeks or join the Exarchate. In such circumstances, all propaganda machines were employed to the utmost in their mutual struggle in Macedonia. Hence this is what Slavejkov wrote to the Exarch: The monsignors here are working actively and say that if Mr Nil, owing to some obstacles, fails to return shortly to Salonika, on Easter Day they will invite M[onsignor] Rafail,400 and intend, in the case of any other setback, to come out personally (the Catholic priests here). The inhabitants of Poljanin and Maleševo have with the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, and other similar things” (P .P . Kar apet r ovï , S bi r ka ot ï st at i i , S r õ decï , 1898, 91).

399C oÌo Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, op. cit., 70-71.

400Rafail (Raphael) Dobrev Popov was a Bulgarian, Uniate bishop from 1864 and the leader of Bulgarian

Uniates based in Adrianople.

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expressed their wish to receive them even now, but those living at Kukuš have agreed to wait until Easter, so that their presence may not upset the general movement.401

The struggle between the different propaganda machines was closely followed by the Turkish authorities, and they, too, added their share to the spectrum of repression against the Macedonian population. But in spite of all, the movement flared up. Petko Slavejkov frequently visited the first men of the Macedonian towns and convinced them not to yield to Uniate propaganda. On February 19, 1874, he wrote a second letter to the Exarch from Salonika (with a note added on the next day that he had left for Veles), in which he informed Anthimus in detail concerning the situation in Macedonia, giving very important information on individual activists in the movement. Among other things, Slavejkov wrote: Your Beatitude, […] The Hydra does not control a single place only so that we can defeat it and keep it away from that place, which would be rather easy, but it is active in many places. Therefore I have limited myself to investigating matters and, compelled by the shortage of money, I was about to return yesterday; but I decided to wait and receive at least one letter from Your Beatitude, and see what your opinion concerning the future is; if you would write, please address your letter to Father Averkij [Abercius] Zografski.402 Here in Salonika there is no work in this regard, or if there was, I hope I have completed it. Following your orders, I did not deem it wise to remove the priest Petar,403 as we can do more harm than good with such a move. I acted in a quite different way and I think I have achieved better results, as things may subsequently show. The priest Petar remains under our banner, but secretly, until the appropriate moment, and the same applies to Father Averkij, who, duped by Nil, started pressing things indirectly; but when I explained to them how disastrous the movement was for the people’s general interest, they repented. I have reasons to believe Father Averkij’s repentance. Even if I have some doubts about the priest Petar, I am still calm, because his soul is in the hands of Father Averkij, and I can say that there should be no fears if the two of them remain loyal, as Averkij is influential among respected people and the priest Petar among all the ordinary people. Since my arrival the name of Your Beatitude has been mentioned in the chapel. If you deem it necessary to act, as far as Salonika is concerned, there is no other person than Father Averkij; you can write to him. Please bear in mind that, in addition to Nil, it 401C oÌo

Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, op. cit., 71.

Mount Athos Archimandrite Averkij Zografski was the head of the Zograph monastery estates (metoch) in Salonika and one of the most agile activists of the Uniate movement, but after Slavejkov’s threats, he drew back and started cooperating with the Exarchate.

403The priest Petar (Peter) Dimitrov (Volovarov), from the Salonika village of Zarovo, was at first the Patriarchate’s priest in Seres, but after 1872 he went over to the Bulgarian Exarchate and became the president of the Exarchate community and even the Exarchate representative in the Salonika vilayet.

He was one of the most agile activists of the movement, but he too, influenced by Slavejkov, gave up the idea of the union, even though we later find him in the secret circle in Salonika around Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski, who prepared the Razlovci Uprising.

402The

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was reverend Natanail404 who instructed, to a certain extent, Father Averkij to help the Uniates indirectly, with the intention that everything would turn out well; at least this is what I could understand from his words; but I hope that I was able to make this otherwise good old man understand how misled he had been. As for the priest Petar, he maintains contact with the Skopje prelate, and before my arrival he was notified from Constantinople that they had decided to remove him from the church and put Avramij [Abramius] in his place. But I concluded that the priest Petar should not be removed but should be won over, and therefore I acted and am still acting in this spirit, and I recommend the same to Your Beatitude, as this is no time for multiplying our enemies, and even less giving away people who can be helpful to them instead of being helpful to us.

The greatest busybody in the movement in Constantinople is Sarafov.405 He confounds the hesitant, he reveals the secrets which he steals from the scatter-brained prelates, he has contacts with the main leaders here, i.e. Dimitri Maleševski and the Dojran representative, Nikola G. Ahazarov. Dimitri went to Kukuš and the one who remained here was Nikola, with whom I made close contact. He is a young man, rather disorganized.

The contents of my second letter are fully accurate and the movement is indeed serious and dangerous, but this does not discourage me as I know and feel that the power of conviction with which we can act is much greater than that of our opponents; they will have to go upstream, and we ourselves downstream; only money and work is needed. The eparchies of Strumica, Voden, Poljanin, Drama, Seres and Melnik have to be visited once or twice. It is also necessary to go to Veles, Skopje and Ohrid to remove some prickles there and demand from those communities that they do not lend wings to the unreasonable desires of the aforesaid eparchies, but stand upon their feet and oppose the spread of the union by themselves. Our man in Veles406 has set up his still to prepare himself delicious mastic brandy in his metropolitanate and has no idea whatsoever of the fire which is burning amidst his neighbours and which will first scorch him.

If you intend to send other clerical personnel, which must be done by every means when M[onsignor] Nil sets out this way, be careful not to send persons who might be attracted to the idea of becoming bishops more easily through the union, because they are dangerous, they could be infected rather easily. Even if you send bishops, do not send such as have not proven themselves in their eparchies, as you cannot have full confidence in them and they can rather easily take the opposite road and cause greater evil. […] The best means to prevent the spread of the union now, if you cannot send bishops, is to give hope to the local population that they could appoint representatives before the local authorities, as the greatest evil in the troubled eparchies 404Natanail

KuÌeviški (Zografski) had only recently been appointed as the Metropolitan of Ohrid, and was one of the main representatives of the Bulgarian Exarchate, but also one of the instigators of the union in Macedonia.

405The representative of the Drama eparchy in Constantinople (1869-1872), Kosta V. Sarafov, went to the Turkish capital to act in support of the priest Hariton’s election as Exarchal Bishop, but as the proposal was not accepted, Hariton joined the Uniates.

406This is a reference to the Exarchate metropolitan in Veles, Damaskin, who originated from Macedonia.

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is that the representatives are elected by the Greek bishops, which alienates them from us; if we can offer them hope in the blissful future of their aspirations and turn their attention to such actions, we shall take the strongest weapon out of the hands of the Uniate advocates. For they have turned to the union for no other reason than their belief that they could put their own men in the councils more easily through the alien faith. […] My last point is that if you cannot send bishops, be careful no to work with any other means on the destruction of the union, as thus you would only upset and weaken your influence in case of a suitable opportunity. Do not listen to many people, and especially not Bubotinov, who has greatly discredited the influence of the Exarchate with his ambition for power.407

In the period from February 20 to March 4, 1874, Slavejkov was in Veles and Strumica. In his autobiography he later writes that “the discord” was “the greatest and most dangerous” in Veles, adding: “I had the utmost pleasure in reconciling the citizens of Veles, after which I visited some of the surrounding villages.”408 But he does not mention the resistance he met with in Veles, when, for example, D.P. KaranfiloviÌ rose and roared at him at the general meeting that “nobody invited him, nor had anyone asked him for advice, so he could keep the advice for his own Šopi, as the citizens of Veles knew better than him how they should organize their own general matters”.409 That the citizens of Veles were among the most awakened people in Macedonia is also confirmed by the Austrian consul Lippich in his letter to Minister Andrássy, in which, among other things, he writes: We should at least bear in mind the situation that Skopje Bulgarians have started considering themselves a section apart from the whole of the nation, distinct from the true Bulgarians, a tendency which is strongly prevalent in the intelligent Veles, from where it is spreading vigorously.410

The question of “Bulgarianism and Macedonism” in Veles at the time was the object of bitter polemics on the pages of Bulgarian periodicals in Constantinople, and the dispute about the language in Macedonian schools was renewed.411 Accordingly, the Uniate movement was only a form which could secure the road towards the objectives of the Macedonian national movement.

407C oÌo

Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, op. cit., 71-73. .R. S l aveàkov, S ï Ìi neni ò, áá. P r ozai Ìni t vor bi , S of i ò, 1969, 91.

409N.G. Eni Ìer evï , Vï zpomi nani ò i bõl õÔ ki , S of i ò, 1906, 177.

410D-r ï P . Ni kovï , ,,Avst r i àski t õ konsul i vï Tur ci ò za bï l gar i t õ vï Makedoni ò“, Makedonski pr egl edï , á, 5-6, S of i ò, 1925, 114.

411D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 1983, 37-38.

408P

142

Another confirmation of all this is Slavejkov’s letter to the protosyngel of the Exarchate, Archimandrite Josif (Joseph, the subsequent Bulgarian Exarch), written in Salonika (a day after Slavejkov’s visit to the Veles and Strumica regions), on March 5, 1874.

Petko Slavejkov obviously showed great diplomatic tact towards the movement and patiently strove to undermine the foundations of the people’s aspirations. His letters are a summary of the most essential elements which characterized the movement of the ‘Uniates’ in Macedonia at that moment and connected it directly with the Razlovci Uprising which was prepared and later started as a popular and liberation (not peasant) movement. It was no chance that one of the main proponents of this movement was Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski (Maleševski), the ideologist and leader of the Razlovci and Kresna uprisings. When all data are combined, it turns out that the movement was not instigated from outside, but that it was indigenous; it was not chaotic but organized and had a revolutionary-liberation character. The name of Dimitar Robev from Bitola must also be included among the adherents of the Uniate movement, as he was undoubtedly one of the most respectable and influential Macedonian citizens and tradesmen of the time, a member of the well-known Robev Brothers firm, which also had links and representative offices outside Turkey, in Europe. Hence Slavejkov tried to find the reasons for the movement’s emergence in the influence of foreigners who started to travel throughout Macedonia, especially after the construction of the railway line to Salonika. He writes: A great contributing factor was and still is that following the proclamation of the schism and the attitude of the Greeks towards the Bulgarians as schismatics, people have started scorning the scarecrow of the alien faith and are becoming insensitive to all nicknames and reproaches for apostasy and utterly indifferent to being called Uniates or Papists. […] Another contributing factor has been the scattering of Austrians, Germans and Catholic Slavs along the railway line, who have also propagated it to a certain degree by means of direct communication with the people in the villages and towns; hence the mitigation of religious disturbances among the local population will be rather difficult without certain appeasement. Is it not surprising that even our (brother) Robev, a man from Monastir [Bitola], whom I have met here in Salonika, has become convinced that there is no other salvation than the union?

Slavejkov also discovers one of the reasons in Nil and his role in the Uniate movement in Macedonia, but of particular significance is his acknowledgement of the existence of a Macedonian national ideology and historical consciousness, no matter how small was the number of Macedonian activists who manifested a distinct Macedonian patriotism and respect for their own tongue. He once again confirms, as he did in early 1871 in his journal Makedonija, that the Macedonians 143

do not consider themselves to be Bulgarians but Macedonians who stand much higher than Bulgarians, as they draw their roots from the ancient Macedonians and consider themselves to be direct “descendants of Alexander”. Here it is not important that Slavejkov regards all that as the result of the activity and influence of Serbian and Greek propaganda in Macedonia, as something brought from outside. It is more important for us that he acknowledges the fact of the existence of a Macedonian consciousness, which was expressed through a widespread and organized popular movement at a given historical moment. Slavejkov’s direct testimony deserves to be quoted. He says: The shrewd and unscrupulous preaching of M[onsignor] Nil, the stupid perseverance of the Orthodox people here, the schism, the said uninvited (preachers) are the pillars of the movement; but the worst enemy is this: In addition to those few petty ambitious Bulgarians from Macedonia, whose narrow love of their homeland and unreasonable preference for their native tongue have made them work on its predominance, there has recently come the propaganda of the Serbs and Greeks, who, concealing their ulterior motives from the population, imbue them with disastrous ideas: for instance, that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians, i.e. something higher than the rest of Bulgarians (Alexander’s descendants!), that they can and should be the leaders and champions of the Bulgarian people, because even the Bulgarian hierarchy was and is theirs; with such preaching by foreigners, supported by some of our own foolish men, which has excited the population, they have now managed to spread enough of such ideas to lead them to the disastrous path of separation, and the first fruits of this preaching are: mistrust in the Exarchate and secret counteractions to its striving to unite them in ecclesiastical terms.

Slavejkov is right in pointing out Veles as the centre of these Macedonian actions. He came to know personally the people there and their aspirations. He connected all this with the presence of a Serbian teacher in one section of the town and the incompetence of the Exarchate’s Bishop, but he had to admit that the main culprit was the “ideas” which had taken root among the citizens of Veles, even though the town may have been divided into two parties. It is not accidental that among the Macedonian activists he mentions “The Drandar Sons”; this was a trading firm which had excellent connections not only within Turkey, but also with many European centres, and one of the sons had already issued his own publications (in French), in which he described Macedonia, its situation and future.412 Explaining the “disastrous path” of the citizens of Veles, Slavejkov writes: 412The Veles merchant HadÔi Georgi Drandar, privileged by the Sultan, had two sons: Konstantin Drandar,

fighter in the voluntary Macedonian detachments, and Anton Drandar, the author of a large number of historical, journalistic and other articles, a significant figure in Macedonian development from the second half of the 19th century (Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , Odbr ani del a, ááá, Makedonskot o pr aš awe, S kopje, 1981, 269-284).

144

The nest of this revolting and disastrous idea is at present Veles, which I have left with rather disturbing and sad impressions. The citizens of Veles resemble the type and character of the place where the town is built. Proud, rigid and haughty as the towering stairs which surround them, but likewise fruitless and inaccessible, narrowminded and short-sighted, like the horizons stretching from their place, and swift-flowing like the waters of the Vardar, when they froth, trying to push forward and force their own ideas, like its waters in the gorges, always divided like the town and always hostile one against another; they have done and will still do great harm as proponents of these ideas. After my arrival in Veles I helped in the removal of the Serbian teacher and the reconciliation between Popov 413 and KovaÌev,414 but the letters I have found here tell me that all the schools in Veles have been closed and that the Serbian teacher has returned from Skopje and wanted to go to Salonika, where the proponents of Serbian propaganda, Drandar’s sons, have arranged for him to be accepted! As ill luck would have it, not only is he not where he should be, but… I do not know what to say any more.415

Slavejkov’s last letter to Josif from Salonika is not dated but was written shortly after March 5, and by March 9, 1874 at the latest, when he had already returned to Constantinople. Here, too, this missionary and diplomat makes significant conclusions about the movement in Macedonia and the means for its eradication and also about the headstrong inhabitants of Maleševo and Kukuš, who persistently defended the Macedonian idea and who were to bear such figures as Dimitar Berovski and Goce DelÌev. He admits the efforts he had to go through in order to isolate the people of Kukuš, making personal contacts with the leaders of the movement, even with Dimitar Maleševski and the Dojran teacher, Nikola G. Ahazarov. Slavejkov writes: For reasons which I had to consider during my actions in that situation, I established very close relations with the Uniate leaders, D. Maleševski and N. Poljanski, which had a purpose of its own; guided by the same reasons, my first task was to destroy the redoubts from outside and leave the Kukuš people alone, who are the main proponents of all this; I can assure you that I have succeeded in this, and Kukuš has remained intact for reasons which I can explain to you only in a conversation because of the great length this may take; hence I cannot describe them in a letter, but I believe that after I present my reasoning, you and the Exarchate in general will approve them.

413N.

Popov(iÌ), the Bulgarian teacher in Veles.

414Josif A. KovaÌev from Štip was a prominent Macedonian pedagogue and educator, writer of textbooks

and reformer of the schools in Macedonia. Educated in Russia and Serbia, in 1869 he organized a pedagogical and theological school in his native town. After Slavejkov’s intervention, KovaÌev was unable to stay in Veles as teacher. Invited by the Prilep church-school community, he was the chief teacher in the four-form school there from 1874 to 1877, when he published his well-known primer in “the Šopski dialect”, as unifying for Macedonians and Bulgarians.

415C oÌo Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, op. cit., 73-74.

145

Here, somewhat as the result, let me say, of my suggestions, but more due to the complications around Monsignor’s arrival, the wings of the Uniates have been weakened considerably, and patience and determination is the predominant idea among the earlier enthusiasts. The leaders of the union last night even started negotiating, but this morning they are again encouraged by the arrival of HadÔi Georgi Dramski, a teacher in ProsoÌen, who has brought some better hopes with him not only from the monsignors but also, as I can feel, from some of our own pious men, who, acting in this spirit, apparently with the purpose of using the course of events to their advantage, and being not very well acquainted with the situation and their position here and to what point they can stretch their arms, have actually stimulated the movement and undermined their own position, helping more their opponents than themselves. This must be taken into account and, if possible, you must make them understand this without considering it a disclosure, because I believe that any intelligent person will know how to asses the situation and will aim to use it to his own advantage, whereas exaggerated zeal produces opposite results; and you know that foolishness in action is not too far from crime. Please make them understand this if you can, so that they can stop acting in this manner; it is not important just to show interest; everyone shows interest in these matters, everyone who has the prosperity of the people on his mind must above all pay attention to not saying anything before men like Kusev, Sarafov and others; the proverb says: “Tell the fool to fart and he will shit”; a similar thing is taking place here. They tell them there is nothing wrong with it and who knows what, and these, in order to help them, as it were, and to show them that they are doing them a favour, would go to much greater lengths than that; once you lose hold of the horse’s mane, you will never stop him by holding his tail. I do not know whether HadÔi Georgi has brought any letters, but he has openly said that our bishops have supported and sponsored the union. I really do not know how good and sound this is, but I know it can be devastating for anything that common sense can achieve.

Obviously, the situation with the rumours concerning the agreement between the Exarchate and Patriarchate was significant for the movement as well, as was also the official acceptance of Nil as a Uniate Bishop. The Macedonians actually wanted to make use of the situation and obtain a hierarchy for themselves as well as independent life and development, even under the formal leadership of a Bulgarian. Hence it is not surprising that the Austrian Consul General in Salonika, von Knappitsch, writes on March 23, 1874, to Count Andrássy about the existence of a certain special “committee” in Salonika, something like the true leadership of the movement, while “the Reverend Bishop [Nil] plays not so much the main role of a leader, but rather that of one led, and as far as his so-called adherents are concerned, it is a fairly unconscious and hesitant mass, which is in the hands of a small number of leaders, but which,” the consul assesses, “as matters are standing at this moment, will follow the suggestions of the latter”. 416 That is why Slavejkov 416†Ki

r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , P r i nos kï m bï l gar ski ò cï r koven vï pr os. Dokument i ot A vst r i àskot o konsul st vo v S ol un, S of i ò, 1961, 92.

146

quotes the peasants’ demand that the Uniate Bishop Rafail Dobrev Popov be sent in case Nil is not allowed to come. Popov was the leader of Bulgarian Uniates based in Adrianople, and it did not matter which of the two Bulgarians would come at the head as long as the aim was accomplished. In this connection, Slavejkov writes: As I hear, Reverend Nil’s hopes for his arrival have been frustrated, as today they are sending mahzars417 demanding Rafail’s arrival; the mahzars have been signed only by the Kukuš eparchy. The Poljanin representative, who is here, has refused to put the stamps of the villages that have joined him; at least this is what he says to me, but he does not know for sure. […]

For the time being, only Kukuš is sincerely in favour of the union, as is also Maleševo, which listens to Dimitri, to whom they have entrusted their stamps. I have him nearby and I believe that the last blow can be dealt at the appropriate moment, provided that my absence and information from your city [Constantinople] do not complicate matters later.418

Even though Slavejkov had to return to Constantinople, his intensive activity in Macedonia was not without benefits for the Bulgarian Exarchate. It must be noted that these activities were greatly aided by official Russian policies through the Russian Consulate in Salonika, which maintained constant links with the Bulgarian teacher in this city, Mihail G. Bubotinov,419 against whom the Salonika Community fought so persistently, opposing the activity which he carried out in line with the recommendations of the Bulgarian centre in Constantinople, aimed against any tendencies towards Macedonian independence.420 Even Slavejkov’s secret mission to Salonika did not take place without the suggestions of the Russian diplomatic representative in Constantinople, Ignatiev, who in late December 1873 paid a visit to Exarch Anthimus “to be informed on the situation and also to acquaint the Exarch with the information he had received from the Salonika Russian Consulate”.421 There is no doubt that the rumour concerning an agreement between the Patriarchate and Exarchate at the expense of the Macedonian eparchies was the immediate cause of the eruption of this third union in Macedonia. Of considerable significance were also the actions of Natanail and Hariton in settling their personal 417Mahzars,

written requests by the population to the supreme Turkish authorities.

Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, op. cit., 74-75.

419†Ki r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , Ekzar h A nt i m (1816-1888), 541.

420Due to his “improper” behaviour towards the Uniates, through its Macedonian Society in Constantinople, and looking for “a suitable teacher in Salonika” who would also be its “secretary in the places there”, the Exarchate indeed dismissed Bubotinov and appointed Stefan Zahariev from Tatar-PazardÔik in his place (P r of . I v. S nõ gar ovï , S ol unï vï bï l gar skat a duhovna kul t ur a. I st or i Ìeski oÌer ekï i dokument i , S of i ò, 1937, 133).

421†Ki r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , Ekzar h A nt i m (1816-1888), 541.

418C oÌo

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problems within the Exarchate hierarchy. But it is no less true that all this was only a precondition for the flaring up of the fire which had its own internal reasons, with a clear Macedonian national perspective and concept, regardless of the modest number of such ideologists and adherents. Bishop Nil was used only as a means to accomplish the basic objective, as he was a Uniate representative of Rome in Turkey, in spite of the fact that the Exarchate itself tried to use precisely his presence there as a Bulgarian. That this movement seriously threatened “the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia” is confirmed by the Consul von Knappitsch, who quotes the opinion expressed by Slavejkov himself before his departure from Salonika that “if the movement in the mixed eparchies is not halted, the Bulgarian population in these eparchies will probably be lost for the Exarchate”.422 Likewise, regardless of the use of traditional nomenclature, after Slavejkov’s departure from Salonika, the GumendÔe Exarchal Community wrote to the Bulgarian Exarchate on March 10, 1874: If you think that our eparchy, like the other Macedonian eparchies, is inhabited solely by a few yoghurt and boza423 makers, whose unification with the Exarchate does not deserve the efforts which it had to make for the accomplishment of that aim, a view expressed by some of the Exarchate’s counsellors, and, moreover, that their rights were in your hands… you are wrong… we are not your acquired property you can sell and bargain with, but a people who demands justice.424

The Bulgarian Patriarch Cyril, analysing two of Slavejkov’s letters (sent from Salonika to Exarch Anthimus, one between February 15 and 19, and the other on February 19, 1874) which were by then in private ownership,425 makes a brief paraphrase of their contents and concludes: In their letter to the Salonika eparchy representatives, the agents and adherents of the union mentioned settling the “Macedonian question” through the union. In order to take the utmost advantage of the disappointment in the Macedonian eparchies, they reinforced their accusations against the Exarchate which had appeared in some Bulgarian newspapers in Constantinople. They indeed spoke about the Macedonian question on a church basis, but this nourished the old separatist tendencies, perhaps not fully in the spirit of Midhat’s plans for the differentiation of a new ethnic territory. As the agents of the union prepared, in 1860, by means of the newspaper B’lgarija, a cultural-national programme for the liberation of the Bulgarian people from the Patriarchate through the establishment of the union, so too they now proposed a clear programme for spiritual and national liberation of Macedonian eparchies through the union. The current political language of the r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , P r i nos …, 93. acidulated fermented drink made from millet, maize or wheat flour (translator’s note).

424†Ki r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , Ekzar h A nt i m (1816-1888), 549.

425Ibid., 542.

422†Ki 423An

148

Macedonian activists of the time already spoke of ‘a Macedonian movement’, which implied independent church liberation. Here there is a moment, however, of significant political character: separatism was expanded from a church to a broader national basis.426

6.

Of special significance in all these documents is the leading role of Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski (Makedonski, Maleševski). A student in Odessa and Belgrade, a participant in the 1862 action in Belgrade against the Turks, receiving military training in a military academy, but also politically mature in his permanent contacts with Macedonian expatriates in Russia and Serbia, Berovski also emerged as the main inspirer and organizer of this third union in Macedonia, a movement which most strongly emphasized the independent Macedonian component. True, he also maintained links with representatives of Serbian propaganda dating from the time of his stay in Belgrade, but there is also no doubt that Berovski did all this in a calculated spirit, and he did the same in his contacts with Russian and Bulgarian representatives, trying to look for and find paths for his ideas. His correspondence with Stefan VerkoviÚ, a Serbian secret agent in Macedonia, is an opportunity for us to get a clearer idea of this.

Following his return to his native Berovo, Dimitar took part in a large number of activities. Stefan VerkoviÚ informs the Serbian government: In B[erovo] I saw D. M[akedonski],427 for whom I sent a special man to B. to bring him to me. He comports himself honourably and well, and it is much better and more useful for our cause that he is here rather than staying there. He has been so successful in using his abilities that he has succeeded in founding a party, with which after a lot of pain and effort, he ousted the Graecophiles not only from the Council, but also from the administration in community matters, who together with the Strumica Bishop oppressed and pillaged the poor in that district, whom the people from the popular party immediately took in their own hands, whose head he himself is. He is also a member of the Council, and the popular party does not take any action without his knowledge and consent. His influence begins to spread slowly in neighbouring districts, i.e. those of Pijanec, Radoviš and Strumica.428 426Ibid.,

549-550. his correspondence with VerkoviÚ up to 1865 (while he was in Belgrade) he used the signature D. Makedonski. Later he was also known in Belgrade under that name.

428Mi hai l Ar naudov, Ver kovi Ì i Veda S l ovena. P r i nos kï m i st or i òt a na bï l gar ski ò f ol kl or i na bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane v Makedoni ò, s nei zvest ni pi sma, dokl adi i dr ugi dokument i ot 1855 do 1893 g., S bNU, ááá, S of i ò, 1968, 311, dok. º 25.

427In

149

Much earlier we learn that VerkoviÚ persuaded Dimitar Popgeorgiev Makedonski to cooperate with him. In one of his letters (September 3, 1872),429 he notifies the responsible people in Belgrade of his tour of Macedonia, writing: From Štip, through Radoviš, in one day I came to Novo Selo, which lies halfway between the towns of Strumica and PetriÌ. It was on the eve of the feast of the Virgin Mary. Several years ago a Bulgarian popular school was instituted in the said village, and the church service is held in Slavonic. A teacher in the said village is a native of Maleševo, born at the village of Berovo, a very diligent and honest man; I met him and established communication with him. He will represent our interests in the Strumica, PetriÌ and Maleševo areas.430

VerkoviÚ points out that in these three districts (nahiyes), unlike those of Štip, Prilep and Bitola, “courage and pride has not been quenched”, adding: There is not a single house in the said three nahiyes without weapons. Despite their great impoverishment due to the excessive taxes — so that there is not even enough bread in the house — in spite of all that, there is not a single house which does not keep at least a few cartridge belts in its bags. Reliable people have told me that they are eagerly waiting for Serbia to start a war against Turkey and cross the border with its army. As soon as this happens, they say that the aforesaid three nahiyes will rise en masse against the Turks. The same applies to that of Nevrokop.431

This hope for assistance from Serbia was both natural and understandable in view of the fact that it was the only Slavic and Orthodox state in the neighbourhood, in whose liberation Macedonians had also played part. Therefore VerkoviÚ writes: Everyone thinks that the sun will shine from A. [Serbia], and as far as the B[ulgarian] secret committees in Romania are concerned, the ordinary people in these regions do not even know that they exist at all.432

VerkoviÚ surely acted with this in mind and tried to convince Dimitar of the same: I persuaded him to be cautious against the harmful aspirations of the Secret B[ulgarian] C[ommittee] in Romania, with many ill consequences for the B[ulgarian] people. He accepted my observations and remarks as very appropriate, convincing me that he would pay great attention and make efforts to protect the people of the surrounding areas from the harmful influence of the agents and apostles of 429The letter

bears the date “Sept. 3, 1862”, but most of the documents in the section on Stefan VerkoviÚ in the Archives of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia have had their years altered, and hence we believe that here the correct year is 1872.

430Mi hai l Ar naudov, op. cit., 299.

431Ibid.

432Ibid., 311, dok. º 25.

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Romanian committees who roam on Bul[garian] territory aiming to beguile the Bul[garian] people, putting them on the wrong track. He believes that the best and safest means for the protection of these regions from the influence of those committees would be if several young people from these regions were sent to A. [Serbia] for education, as, he says, no one could better persuade the people from these Mac[edonian] regions of the sincerity, righteousness and fidelity of Ser[bian] intentions than their own children.433

7.

The circumstances described above were the cause for the Herzegovina Uprising and the Serbo-Turkish War, which stirred up many of the hidden hopes of the Macedonian people. The Maleševo region had already shown revolutionary tendencies. The clash between Dimitar Berovski and the Greek Metropolitan Hierotheus (Jerotej) in Strumica, and the expulsion of the latter from Berovo in 1874, led to many Turkish brutalities in the Maleševo region, which forced Berovski to flee first to Constantinople and from there to Salonika, where he lived illegally and made preparations for a popular liberation insurrection. Here is what he wrote somewhat later: Here [in Salonika] I had the opportunity of receiving detailed information on the actions of the Herzegovina Uprising. The circumstances, too, helped me in following all the movements of Turkish troops on land and sea when they arrived and left by railway via Mitrovica to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The strongest movement of troops for Bosnia and Herzegovina could be seen towards the end of 1875 and beginning of 1876.434

The Razlovci Uprising is often described as a peasant social uprising or rebellion. Yet, regardless of whether it had direct links, and to what degree, with the rebels in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and regardless of whether Serbia had any influence in its outbreak, it is a fact that it was an organized Macedonian national liberation uprising, which was not a reflection of the April Uprising in Bulgaria, but a link in the chain of popular resistance by the subjugated peoples in this part of Turkey. Can we talk of any coordination between these actions at all? Here is the testimony of the then still young Teodosija Gologanov, who, after completing the course of education at the Greek grammar school, was sent as a protosyngel to Herzegovina, where he learnt the language and became acquainted with the situation: 433Ibid.

434Mi

hajl o Mi noski , ,,Novoot kr i eni dokument i za r evol uci oner nat a dejnost na Di mi t ar P op Geor gi ev–Ber ovski “, Gl asni k, I NI , Hœ á, 3, S kopje, 1972, 145, dok. br . 1.

151

Two years later an uprising started in Herzegovina; Montenegrin and Serbian newspapers described the heroic acts of the Bulgarian rebels around Kazanl’k in an exaggerated manner. The Herzegovina voivodes, most of them priests, confided to me some of their plans, suggesting that I set off for Macedonia and Bulgaria, meet the rebels and let them know of the plans. Young as I was, 23-24 years of age, excited with passionate fire and with yet undeveloped spiritual forces, I set off for Macedonia via the Adriatic and the Aegean and went to Salonika, and from there to Seres. The Turkish authorities caught me immediately and threw me into jail…435

Even Dimitar Berovski himself tells us that the assessment of the general political situation in European Turkey and the mood among the Macedonian population encouraged him to start the uprising: The news of the Herzegovina actions, the movement of the Turkish troops, and my own position became equally unbearable for me. Impatience grew in me with each day passing, and in the month of December 1875 I decided to organize an uprising in Macedonia, which would help the Herzegovina Uprising by holding a part of the Turkish troops here…436

Among other things, he “gave a picture of an uncrowned lion to Slavka Karaivanova and her mother Nedela to embroider a flag on a golden silk ground, with the lion in red silk and the inscription Macedonia” which was to be “a secret to everyone”.437 He assured his confidants that “the time has come to free ourselves from the Turkish yoke and [that] our uprising will be successful and aided from where it should be…”438 Hence it is not surprising that a witness of these events writes that “the priest Stojan and D. Berovski jumped on their horses, unfurled their flag and set off for the Maleševo region”,439 and Dimitar’s brother, Kostandija Popgeorgiev, cried to the Turks: We have come to gather the peasants and read them a letter which was sent to us from Russia, and after we have read it we shall return the weapons to you and we shall go on to read it in the PehÌevo müdürlÕk [council] as we have in Razlovci.440

Russian archives should offer a clearer picture of Berovski’s links with Russia (probably via the Russian Consulate General in Salonika), but even the available facts that in August and September 1876 statements were made through the 435Ar hi

v na BAN, S of i ò (Archives of BAN, Sofia), f . i nv. ed. 1071. Biobibliography on the election of Teodosija Gologanov as a member of the Bulgarian Literary Society of July 9, 1912.

436Mi hajl o Mi noski , op. cit., 145, dok. br . 1.

437Ibid., 146, dok. br . 1.

438Ibid.

439According to Q uben Lape, Razl oveÌkot o vost ani e od 1876 godi na i l i Ìnost a na negovi ot or gani zat or Di mi t ar P op Geor gi ev Ber ovski , S kopje, 1976, 71.

440Ibid., 72.

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Russian Consul General in Salonika441 show that such links may have existed, especially bearing in mind that he was also educated in Odessa and such channels were not unknown to him.

It is very important that fifteen Maleševo rebels — “leaders” — later, on November 24, 1878, also gave a written statement (on behalf of the Maleševo population) to the British Consul General in Salonika (when he visited Gorna DÔumaja) which clearly expressed the historical and national consciousness of the rebels and the character of the uprising. They wrote of “good hopes for us, Macedonians, the inhabitants of the Maleševo district”, and mentioning their cables sent in 1874 to the British representative in Constantinople, continued: The endless murders, imprisonment, unjustified punishment, the oppression of our religious conscience, the molestation of our wives, daughters and sisters, was something like a habit for the satisfaction of the Turk! We could not confide this secret and pain on our consciousness except to the British consul in Salonika; his altruistic advice was our last hope giving us courage to fill the hükümets with countless applications and protests, but our gratification has always been retaliation as ungrateful kaurins; therefore in 1876, on May 8, we were impelled to protest before the whole world with arms in our hands to attract the attention of the Turkish government, hoping that they would ask themselves what evil had made us so desperate and offer our last drop of blood as a sacrifice before the European altar!!! […] This protest of ours did not attract the attention of the Turkish government with the intention of satisfying us, but instead it sent twelve thousand men of the regular army and many bashibazouks who committed what the human conscience cannot express in words, even when it refers to the male sex, too! Massacres were a commonplace.

The signatories, relying on the Macedonian ideology prevalent at the time of their direct descent from the ancient Macedonians, stated: Will our Macedonian blood, the blood we have resolved in our distress to shed, this blood of that Macedonia which was mercilessly condemned and despised two thousand years ago, put an end, under the present European ruling nations, to the revenge for the great and former glory!!! […] Asiatic peoples, in keeping with their old traditions, may perhaps wish the eradication of the name Macedonia in the world! But does enlightened Europe have any reasons for this and has it not yet borne a saviour to deliver us from the sin of our forefathers?442

From what has been said above, it is clear that the Razlovci Uprising had both a Macedonian and a national liberation character. Moreover, it was not of minor 441Ibid.,

43.

442OsvoboÔ

deni e Bol gar i i ot t ur eckogo i ga. Dokument i v t r eh t omah, ááá, Moskva, 1967, 325, dok. º 205.

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proportions, even though neighbouring historiographers have so far paid little attention to it.

On the other hand, it is important that there were contacts with the European great powers of the time, and also with neighbouring Serbia, although these have still not been sufficiently studied. The statement that “the rebel MiÚo LjubibratiÚ has made a deal in Belgrade that an uprising be started in Macedonia as soon as the same happens in Herzegovina”443 corresponds with Teodosija Gologanov’s testimony, and we must also bear in mind Dimitar Berovski’s remark that the uprising was to be “aided from where it should be”.

We still do not know much about that “popular party” in Salonika mentioned

by VerkoviÚ or about the “secret revolutionary committee which maintained links with the leaders of the Maleševo revolutionary movement”, 444 or about that “circle” which, among others, included “Kostandija, the priest Ivan and the priest Aleksija Popgeorgiev, Stojan Cocov, Goge Širtov, the priest Petar Solunski, grandmother Nedela and her daughter Stanislava Karaivanova and the Evrov brothers”.445 Stefan VerkoviÚ is likely to have been informed of these organizations, and here is what Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski wrote to him on February 19, 1876, from Salonika: As it seems, we shall have to leave our lawsuits before the court pending, and we believe they are more likely to be finally resolved in Maleševo.446

8.

It is clear that the Uniate idea among the Macedonians, and even that of Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski, was not of a religious, but primarily of a national character. Hence the clash between the citizens of Veles concerning their teachers and the joining of the Uniate movement should be seen in this context. Petko RaÌev Slavejkov himself admitted: On my recommendation, in Veles they hired N. PopoviÌ against whom later part of the population rose, favouring Josif KovaÌev.447

Slavejkov himself felt the bitterness of this clash during his visit to Veles, and the Veles-Strumica Bishop, Damaskin, wrote on July 6, 1875, to Dr Stojan 443Vasa

Ëubr i l ovi Ú, Bosanski ust anak, Beogr ad, 1931, 38. bum Makedoni ò, S of i ò, 1931, text below the photo of the teacher Stanislava Karaivanova, 5.

445Q uben Lape, op. cit., 68 – extracts from K.P. Stojanov’s recollections concerning the preparations and course of the Razlovci Uprising.

446Dokument i za bï l gar skot o vï zr aÔ dane ot A r hi vat a na S t ef an I . Ver kovi Ì, 574, dok. º 480.

447P .R. S l aveàkov, S ï Ìi neni ò, áá. P r ozai Ìni t vor bi , 91.

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Ëomakov: “May someone from the Exarchate come here to learn the truth, but if he is like Slavejkov or can be bribed, he will bring poison instead of balm.”448 And indeed, by that time the commotion in Macedonia was clearly visible. The Constantinopolitan newspaper Den (Day) once again wrote that the question of “Bulgarianism and Macedonism”449 had appeared afresh “in reality”, and that “some ideas preached in those areas by some of our Bulgarian compatriots” such as Kuzman Šapkarev, were spreading there, and also wrote that “rare are the people who oppose him, who scold him”.450 After the reply of a citizen of Ohrid that “Mr Šapkarev wants nothing else except that the basic school books which are sent into our lands be written in the local dialect, because the children will thus understand them more easily and will not waste as much time as they are doing now with Baštin Jazik (Father Tongue) and other similar books”, the editors of Den reacted sharply and uncompromisingly: Is there any other worse thought that Mr Šapkarev could have? He knows where he is poking. Today a primer, tomorrow other textbooks and next you’ll see him producing and devising a history of the Macedonian people, etc. etc.451

Such was the degree of development of Macedonian national consciousness at the time of the Razlovci Uprising. It was reflected in this achievement of the people at Razlovci and the surrounding area. It is also important that Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski’s detachment continued to move through the villages and mountains until the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), when it received messages from Iljo Maleševski and took active part in protecting the Pijanec region. There it established and maintained popular authority for two whole months, a kind of a free republic which was crushed only after the decisions of San Stefano and Berlin. It was Berovski once again who made all the necessary preparations and probes and started the Kresna Uprising, which had a clearly defined Macedonian national liberation character, although the young Bulgarian state (not without the help of the Russian occupation authorities) managed to smash this popular effort. Macedonia remained under the authority of the sultans, striving, within the framework offered by the international acts of Constantinople and Berlin, to win its autonomy and gain cultural and national affirmation. The Macedonian national programme was already fully defined and now included the concept of Macedonian statehood and political freedom.

448A. Š

opovï , ,,D-r ï S t oònï Ëomakovï . Ó i vot ï , dõ ànost ï i ar hi va“, S bor ni kï na BA N , Háá, 8, S of i ò, 1919, 179, dok. º 114.

449DenÅ, á, 18, C ar i gr adï , 9.œ á.1875, 7.

450DenÅ, á, 19, 16.œ á.1875, 7.

451DenÅ, á, 21, 30.œ á.1875, 7.

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The Development and Affirmation of Macedonian National Thought from Kresna to Ilinden (1878-1903)

The development of Macedonian national thought between the two most significant attempts to win a Macedonian state in a revolutionary manner (the Kresna Uprising, 1878-1879, and the Ilinden Uprising, 1903) was a time of consolidation of Macedonian national thought. This was a period when Macedonia was physically separated from its Slavic neighbours that had formerly lain within the borders of Turkey and when the groundwork of political and ideological movements was built in Macedonian society (within the land and among the already well-developed ĂŠmigrĂŠ circles), and also when the organized expression of national-political action by the Macedonian people reached its apogee.

This period can be divided into two stages with clearly defined characteristics: (1) years of a homogenization of integrative national consciousness and of the initial affirmation of national thought on the internal and external plane (1878-1893), and (2) a decade of affirmation of the political component of organized Macedonian consciousness as a dominant element with a definition of the initial practical implementation of the Macedonian national programme.

If we assume that the early 1870s were the key stage in the process of definition of the Macedonian national entity, and hence in the building of the national programme; if the year 1878 saw the affirmation of the revolutionary national liberation movement which, two years later, was to promote the first National Assembly of Macedonia, the Macedonian Provisional Government and the first Constitution of Macedonia; if in the late 1880s and early 1890s Macedonian national thought experienced its first public clashes on the road to affirmation on the Balkan and international European scene; if 1893 was the year of the secret foundation of the revolutionary liberation movement along horizontal and vertical lines, then the year 1903 certainly marked a historically crucial stage in Macedonian national and political constitution and affirmation: during the Ilinden Uprising, the broad layers of the people willingly accepted armed struggle as the only way to win national freedom and establish a state of their own (provisionally in the form of autonomy within the borders of Turkey). The struggle for Macedonian 156

statehood, without any support and assistance from neighbouring countries or the European great powers (and in spite of all the obstacles on their part), had both theoretical foundations and practical results which considerably excited the international public. This marked the crossing of the crucial threshold in the process of Macedonian national development, which opened the path for Macedonian cultural and national affirmation. Yet it was also to engender an organized and combined obstruction by the interested neighbouring monarchies.

1.

The early 1870s saw the start of an open struggle against the aspirations and actions of foreign propaganda in Macedonia, and this only reinforced the process of Macedonian national differentiation. While Greek national propaganda was already losing its formerly established position, Bulgarian propaganda (particularly after the foundation of the Bulgarian Exarchate) was severely intensified, having the official Turkish authorities on its side. By opening and controlling churches, schools and communities of its own, and especially through its propaganda with the help of the well-developed Bulgarian press in Constantinople as well as with the actions of the various official ‘societies’ and ‘church-school departments’, the Bulgarian Exarchate was virtually transformed into an official and legal Bulgarian ‘Ministry of Faith and Education’, not only in the territory of Bulgaria but also in all the areas of European Turkey inhabited by Orthodox Slavs.

The joining of this struggle for the control and distribution of spheres of interest in Macedonia by state-organized Serbian propaganda further complicated the process of affirmation of the Macedonian national entity. Rivalry between the different propaganda machines, however, to a large extent reoriented the struggle of Slavism against Hellenism and led to a more marked differentiation of Macedonian national interests.

The propaganda of the various religious missions (mainly Uniate and Protestant) became a means used not only by the great powers and neighbouring states, but also by the indigenous Macedonian movement.

In this spectrum, Romanian national propaganda in Macedonia was of limited extent and potential and did not essentially influence the development of Macedonian national affirmation.

The complicated situation was further aggravated by the notorious fact that Turkey, in accordance with Shariah law, did not recognize nationality (ethnicity) but only faith (religion). As a result, the church appeared as the basic factor in the affirmation of a particular nationality (ethnicity). Following the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate is was impossible to form another Slavic Orthodox 157

church within the borders of Turkey, and the Macedonians remained without any real opportunity for official ethnic differentiation from their neighbours.

Yet the Macedonian ‘separatist’ movement grew stronger and stronger. Petko RaÌev Slavejkov noticed this even before the Church and People’s Synod of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1871)452 and especially while taking part in the suppression of the Uniate movement (1873/74) when he wrote about it in his letters to the Exarch from Salonika.453 Bulgarian teachers in Macedonia also noticed it; one of these was Nikola GanÌev EniÌerev,454 a Bulgarian teacher in Prilep. He writes that a citizen of Struga, Strezov, “came to Prilep several times and had arguments with the Bulgarian teachers there and with the more intelligent young people in connection with the origin of the Macedonians. He allowed the possibility that the Macedonians could be anything else but not Bulgarians.”455 A Bulgarian teacher in Salonika, Stefan SalgandÔiev, wrote the same,456 and the same was confirmed by a Bulgarian activist in Constantinople, P.P. Karapetrov.457 The Austrian consul, Lippich,458 was also very much aware of this process. Accordingly, national awakening in Macedonia was already becoming the object of European diplomacy as well, and not only of the Balkan pretenders.

2.

The Razlovci Uprising (1876) strengthened the independent development of Macedonian national consciousness even further, and the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) opened more realistic prospects for the fulfilment of the Macedonian programme. The Treaty of San Stefano caused mixed feelings among the people: on the one hand, it brought disappointment as the Macedonian people was pushed into the envisioned Bulgarian state in the Balkans under a Bulgarian name, but on the other, the Macedonians nourished hopes that the Russian tsar would create a dual and perhaps federal state — in the spirit of the decisions of the Constantinople 452[P

.R. S l aveàkov], ,,Makedonskì àt ï và pr osï “, Makedoni ò, œ , 3, 18.á.1871, 2.

Bi l òr ski – I l i ò P askov, ,,P i sma na P et ko RaÌev S l aveàkov po uni òt a v Makedoni ò pr ez 1874 g.“, Vekove, Hœ ááá, 1, S of i ò, 1989, 68-75.

454N.G. Eni Ìer evï , ,,G. Š apkar evï za P r i l õ pï i Ohr i dï “, Bï l gar ski pr õgl edï , ááá, 7-8, S of i ò, 1897, 239, zab. 1.

455Ibid., 244, zab. 1.

456S t .K. S al gandÔ i evï , L i Ìni dõl a i spomeni po vï zr aÔ danet o na sol unski t õ i sõr ski Bï l gar i i l i 12-godi š na Ô est oka nar odna bor ba sï gr ï ckat a pr opaganda, P l ovdi vï , 1906, 35-46.

457P .P . Kar apet r ovï , S bi r ka ot ï st at i i , S r õ dec, 1898, 91, zab. 68.

458D-r P . Ni kovï , ,,Avst r i àski t õ konsul i vï Tur ci ò za bï l gar i t õ vï Makedoni ò“, Makedonski pr egl edï , á, 5-6, S of i ò, 1925, 114.

453C oÌo

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Conference (1877) — where Macedonia would finally become “a free kingdom” (or republic), outside Turkey, but under the protectorship of Russia. A similar variant was indeed discussed in the higher circles in St Petersburg, as well as in Vienna and Budapest.459 The Congress of Berlin, however, established a vassal Bulgarian Principality and an autonomous East Rumelia, while Macedonia was returned to the Sultan without a clearly defined future. This was to lead to the start of the greatest insurrection to date, the Kresna (Macedonian) Uprising (1878-1879), which put forward the first constitutional project for the long-awaited Macedonian free state (December 1878).460 The Insurgent (Uprising) Committee codified its position not only as regards the struggle and liberation, but also towards Macedonia’s neighbours (at that moment and in the future), towards the churches and towards the great powers as well, putting emphasis on the right of the Macedonian people alone and the Insurgent Committee to fight and control their struggle, but also to make use of their freedom.

In this way the Macedonian national-cultural programme was now complete and included the revolutionary-liberation component. The Macedonians emphasized their state-constitutional legitimacy and created a Macedonian Army as the principal factor of their liberation struggle. At the same time, however, a new factor, known as Vrhovism, emerged in the Macedonian movement; it was an external (foreign) factor serving hegemonist aspirations in the settling of the “Macedonian question”.461 Subsequent development proceeded in a convulsive manner, primarily owing to constant and organized interference by Macedonia’s neighbours. The main obstructive factor became the free neighbouring monarchies of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. Yet the tendency towards an independent, internal and self-governing settlement of the question of Macedonia’s liberation continued to be expressed uninterruptedly.

The Kresna Uprising failed because it ran contrary to the interests not only of Macedonia’s small neighbours, but also of the major European powers, above all those of Russia, which carefully protected the integrity of Turkey as in their own interest and also the status of the Berlin decisions on the Balkans. In this situation, Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin became an international guarantee of the justness of the struggle of the Macedonian people for effectuation, which was to continue 459D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, S kopje, 1983, 378-293. l at a-Ust avot na Makedonski ot vost ani Ìki komi t et vo Kr esnenskot o vost ani e, S kopje, 1980.

461D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., 386-387.

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up to the year 1912. Only after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire did the great powers lose their acquired right to interfere in the internal matters of this part of the Balkans. Yet the interference continued even after the First World War, although in other forms and using new methods.

3.

Controlled from outside and limited by the international accords, the actions of the Macedonian insurrectionists in the Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka and Kratovo regions were not more successful either. While as far as the Kresna Uprising was concerned, the newly-established Bulgarian state invested all its efforts in obstructing the independent development of the movement, in this case a similar role was played by the Principality of Serbia, which persistently strove, if not to expand its territory to the south, then at least, to secure good prospects for such an action.462 This rivalry had disastrous effects on all attempts at unification of the Macedonian forces into a joint front for liberating the land or at least for gaining autonomy.

The picture will be complete if we also take into account the actions of the Greek government for securing its own sphere of influence and a stronger position in the partition of the territory of European Turkey. The attempts of the founders of the Military Committee for the Liberation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and those of Leonidas Voulgaris’s Slavo-Macedonian Committee in Athens, at establishing links with Serbia and the Macedonian leaders there as well as with the Macedonian champions in Bulgaria, i.e. East Rumelia (and also with all Macedonians from around the land), are the best illustration of this.463 All this impelled the Macedonians to work secretly vis-à-vis the propaganda of the three neighbouring nations. For example, in April 1880 there was an important meeting between Leonidas Voulgaris (originating from the Pijanec region), his old fellow fighters from the Slavo-Macedonian Committee in Athens and the prominent leader in the Kresna Uprising, the priest Kostadin Bufski, in Gremen-TeÎe, southern Macedonia (Ostrovo district). The two commanders and 462J.

Haxi Vasi q evi Ú, ,,Ust anak S r ba u Kumanovskoj i P al anaÌkoj kazi 1878 god.“, Br ast vo, Há, Beogr ad, 1906, 150-204; D-r Q ubi š a Dokl est i Î, S r psko-makedonski t e odnosi vo HáH-ot vek do 1897 godi na, S kopje, 1973, 144-157; Kl i ment Xambazovski , ,,Odbor ot za S t ar a S r bi ja i Makedoni ja i makedonskot o pr aš awe od 1877-1881 g.“, in: Makedoni ja vo I st oÌnat a kr i za 1875-1881, MANU, S kopje, 1978, 341-344. v.B. Š umkovï , P at r i ot i Ìeski i nasï r dÌi t el ni r azkazi … A vt obi ogr af i òt a na I vanï B. Š umkovï , S of i ò, 1907, 154-165; Tane P õ evï , ,,Bï l gar ska l egi ò vï Gï r ci ò pr ezï 1877 g.

(I zvadki i zï moi t õ spomeni )“, Makedonski pr egl edï , ááá, 4, 1927, 30-44; Ri st o P opl azar ov, Osl obodi t el ni t e voor uÔ eni bor bi na makedonski ot nar od vo per i odot 1850-1878, I NI , S kopje, 1978, 242-247.

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their detachments agreed on the basic concepts of the struggle for liberation: the establishment of an independent state of Macedonia, or autonomy within Turkey, provided that spiritual unity of the Macedonian people was guaranteed, the actions of the neighbouring national propaganda machines prevented and the support of the great powers secured. In order to achieve these objectives they decided to convene a National Assembly of Macedonia with democraticallyelected delegates from all the “religious-national” entities and ethnic groups, who were to decide the future of the Macedonian state.

On May 21, 1880, with its Act No. 3 issued at Gremen-TeÎe, the Provisional Government of Macedonia informed the Russian Consul in Salonika that on the same day a decision had been passed by the Provisional Assembly of Macedonia (enclosed in the letter) with a request that it be forwarded to the Russian government. The letter was signed by the president of the Provisional Government of Macedonia, Vasil Simu, its members Anastas DimitrieviÌ and Ali Efendi, and by its secretary, Nikola Trajkov, and validated with the Government’s seal.464 The decision of the Provisional National Assembly itself is validated by four different seals465 and signed by the heads of the appropriate departments.466 The document states that the assembly of “provisional representatives from different eparchies, provisionally elected by the population of Macedonia”, examined the political situation and “the means for fulfilling the wishes of the Macedonian nationalities” and that “by general consent of the members of the Macedonian National Assembly” a resolution was passed “on behalf of the Macedonian people-population” with the following demands: (a) To impart the justified demands of the Macedonian people-population to the Sublime Porte through the mediation of the governor-general in Macedonia, so that the Porte may speed up the implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and convene legal representatives from Macedonia for the examining and amending of the Organic Constitution.

464AVP

RI , Moskva, f . P os-st vo v Konst ant i nopol e, 1880, d. 2276, l . 208. The Russian translation (l . 203) mentions neither the reference number 44, nor the word Equality which is to be found in the seal of the Provisional Government of Macedonia. The letter is hand-written in Greek (in ink) on a sheet of paper with a printed letterhead (also in Greek). The signatures of Vasilos Simos, Anastasos DimitrieviÌ and secretary Nikolaos Trajkos are in Greek, and that of Ali Efendi in Arabic. In the translation, the president is rendered as Vasilij Simu, while the secretary’s signature is not mentioned at all.

465The protocolar decision of the Provisional National Assembly is also hand-written in Greek on four pages of ordinary paper. On page 1, to the left of the title, there is a seal reading Administration organized for the liberation of various tribes in Macedonia, “Sacred Struggle”, and to the right there is a seal reading Macedonia, Candia, Epirus, Thessaly. The same numbers, 3 and 44, appear there, but there is also the signature of the sender: the secretary, Nikola Trajkov. The last page contains two more seals, Head Office of the Macedonian Administration and Command of the Military Forces of Macedonia, with the appropriate signatures of their heads.

466The signatures (in Greek) are illegible.

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(b) To send this decision to the representatives of the European powers, signatories to the Treaty of Berlin, with a request that they forward it to their respective governments and demand that they intervene with the Porte for an unimpeded implementation and fulfilment of the decisions of the aforementioned treaty related to Macedonia. (c) To send special persons to do the same in Constantinople. (d) For the implementation of the decisions passed today we have elected a Provisional Macedonian Government consisting of the following: Vasil Simu, Anastas DimitrieviĂŒ and Ali Efendi (Albanian). (e) The Provisional Macedonian Government is entrusted with carrying out the following: a. To secure in a fully secret manner assistance from the European Powers for the unimpeded implementation of the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin relating to Macedonia. b. To appoint military commanders for the fulfilment of the wishes of the Macedonian population, in the case of failure, by arms. c. If the Provisional Government finds that the Sublime Porte is conducting a policy of delaying the settlement, then it would demand, with a decisive proclamation, armed help from the Macedonian people-population, calling them to arms so that they themselves can take up the struggle for survival. d. With a like proclamation the Provisional Government will ask for help from the governments interested in the rebirth of old Macedonia, and also help from all freedom-loving people. e. The Provisional Government is entrusted to carry out the provisional organization of military and civil authorities, to find the means for the fulfilment of the aforesaid decisions, the symbol of the Macedonian flag, seals and for everything which is related to the establishment of a provisional administration.467

The great powers, however, were not interested in hearing the voice of Macedonia, nor were Macedonia’s small neighbours ready to forego their own aspirations.

4.

In this same period, a draft Law for the Vilayets of Turkey in Europe, prepared by the Sublime Porte in the spirit of the Treaty of Berlin, was circulated for discussion.

On April 5, 1880, representatives from the Bitola, Prilep, Ohrid, Veles and Lerin church-school communities, joined by the communities of Resen and Gevgelija, gathered in Bitola. They examined the draft reforms and sent a detailed request to the European Commission for Reforms in Constantinople, specifying their remarks and proposals on all issues in 24 items.468 467AVP

162

RI , f . P os-st vo v Konst ant i nopol e, 1880, op. 517/2, d. 2276, l l . 209-219 s ob [overleaf].

At the same time Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria continued their revolutionary activity, preparing themselves for new armed actions. The former volunteers in the Russo-Turkish War and the activists of the Kresna Uprising had been scattered all over the Bulgarian state in order to prevent their joint organized action. But as early as the end of 1879, in the distant town of Ruse (on the Danube), a Macedonian league for the liberation of Macedonia was set up. Following the intervention of the Bulgarian authorities, it was renamed as the ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’. The League’s secretary, using the pseudonym of Mavro, called on the Macedonian émigrés to support the action financially and announced that ten Macedonian commanders were ready to depart for Macedonia with their detachments.469 In the spring of 1880 one detachment was defeated in a battle with the Turkish authorities, and memoirs were found among the killed addressed to the great powers, demanding the autonomy of Macedonia.

The largest number of refugees from Macedonia were concentrated in western Bulgaria. In order to organize the struggle and return to their homeland, they associated in various societies. Thus, for instance, in Dupnica, a Macedonian Charitable Society was established which, in July 1880 (during the passage of the Bulgarian prince through the town), presented a petition to Alexander of Battenberg, demanding that the Bulgarian authorities did not scatter them in distant places throughout Bulgaria, as they had no intentions of staying in that country. A similar petition was submitted by a delegation of refugees from the Seres sanjak.470 After a longer period of internal upheaval, volunteers from the Russo-Turkish War took over the leadership of the Ruse League and resolutely demanded the implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and the establishment of an autonomous Macedonian state through the mediation of the European Commission for Reforms. Yet this was precisely the reason why, after the intervention of the Bulgarian authorities, the League ceased to exist.471 On the other hand, there were about 1,800 Macedonian fighters in Sofia, among them some fifteen commanders from the Russo-Turkish War and the Kresna Uprising. Together with the numerous Macedonian intelligentsia there, they founded a new ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’. After establishing contact with 468Zor ni

ca, œ , 21, C ar i gr adï , 20.œ .1880; Makedoni ò, BAN, S of i ò, 1978, 365-367. The same document (in a slightly modified version, mentioning Prilep instead of Priština, was published in Makedonskat a l i ga…, 347-349.

469S l avòni nï , áá, 19, RusÌukï , 18.H.1880, 148-149.

470Makedonskat a l i ga…, 117-129.

471Ibid., 125-127. For more details concerning the League see: †Ki r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , Bï l gar skat a ekzar hi ò v Odr i nsko i Makedoni ò sl ed Osvobodi t el nat a voàna (1877-1878), á, 1, S of i ò, 1970, 460; Konst ant i n P andev, N aci onal no-osvobodi t el not o dvi Ô eni e v Makedoni ò i Odr i nsko 1878-1903, S of i ò, 1979, 40-41; Doàno Doànov, Komi t et i t e ,,Edi nst vo“.

Rol òt a i pr i nosï t i m za S ï edi neni et o 1885, S of i ò, 1985, 288-291.

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the leader of the suppressed uprising, on May 2, 1879, on Mount Maleš, the League issued a proclamation calling for a new uprising in Macedonia.472 The question of the name of the League, however, became crucial for these fighters. They wanted it to be called simply ‘Macedonian League’, while the intellectuals supported the name ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’. After three founding assemblies, a compromise was reached that the organization be called ‘Macedonian-Bulgarian League’. Yet the commanders continued to insist on their preferred designation, as the basic slogan of the Macedonian League was ‘Freedom for Macedonia or Death’.473 At the same time, the League took on the task of reworking the ‘Organic Constitution for the Future State Organization of Macedonia’, whose basic version had already been accepted by the Ruse League. Yet long disputes ensued on this issue, too. The representatives of the Macedonian intelligentsia in Bulgaria insisted on concentrating the entire political power in their own hands, leaving the military command to the commanders. They demanded that, in conformity with this division of powers, the Provisional Government of Macedonia be formed of civilians alone, under the presidency of Vasil Dijamandiev. But the commanders rejected the demand, and it was decided through compromise that political and military powers should not be divided until the liberation of the land. Vasil 472†Bï

l gar ski P at r i ar h Ki r i l , S ï pr ot i vat a sr eë u Ber l i nski ò dogovor . Kr esnenskot o vï st ani e, S of i ò, 1955, 235-236, dok. 115. There are certain omissions at places in the text which might explain the essence of the document. In the lithographed copies of the Appeal, the Macedonian Insurgent Committee proclaims: “Macedonians, “Our mother Macedonia is moaning and crying bitterly under the Turkish fire and yataghan; our suffering and bleeding parents, sons and brothers are calling us to arms against our torturers and tyrants of five centuries, and our molested mothers, wives and sisters, with bitter tears in their eyes, are groaning under the filthy and inhuman Turkish despotism around our devastated homes, waiting to hear their voice.

“Macedonian and Bulgarian heroes! Our glorious lion is roaring in our Macedonian forests and valleys, mountains and deserts, calling all of us to arms.

“Where are you, hasten, let us gather with arms in our hands to liberate the innocent victims of this filthy and disgraceful molestation. Bear in mind that our fathers and grandfathers fought and shed their blood for Greek and Serbian freedom…, think now and recall the earlier years and you will see that they did not spare their blood for the freedom of all. With hope in God and in the justice of the Treaty of San Stefano, let us show that we are all true descendants of our fathers and grandfathers and worthy members of our generation.

“Macedonians! Now is the time to convince our enlightened traitors that, even now, after being enslaved for five centuries, Macedonia has given birth to and has hero sons!”

As in ÏorÒija M. Pulevski’s songbooks, here too, Macedonians called upon the preliminary San Stefano peace treaty, as an act sponsored by Russia, in the hope that this might be a way of freeing themselves from Turkish domination, within the boundaries of a possible dual monarchy, BulgariaMacedonia. This was obviously not in line with the concepts the Provisional Government of Macedonia, but the document was written at a time when this government had not yet been formed and when the League was still a ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’.

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a l i ga…, 127-129.

Dijamandiev was accepted as the president of the League, while the General Staff was to act as the Provisional Administration of Macedonia. Work on the Constitution concerning the state organization of Macedonia started, the task being assigned to the Dijamandiev brothers.474 The Constitution drawn up for the Future State Organization of Macedonia,475 in addition to its important preamble, consists of 103 articles divided into 15 chapters. It legitimizes a State Council and a Supreme Administrative authority with 12 ministries with portfolios, an Administrative-Territorial authority and a Legislative authority, specifying, as its highest legislative authority, the National Assembly consisting of 80 deputies from among all the nationalities living in Macedonia.

It is interesting that the constitutional codification pays strict attention to the equality of all the other nationalities in Macedonia. Furthermore, full freedom of religion and cults is envisaged, recognizing the jurisdiction of all churches: the Oecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, the Exarchate, the Roman Catholic Church (together with the Uniate church), the Islamic Müftülük, the Lutheran Protestant religious corporations and the Jewish Religious Community.

The Constitution also specifies the question of finance in the Macedonian state as well as questions of the economy and agrarian relations, crafts and trade, and also precisely defines the international relations of Macedonia “in conformity with Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin, based on the Cretan Constitution of 1868”.

The Final Clauses emphasize that “the Constitution of the Autonomous State of Macedonia will enter into force after the Sublime Porte approves it, and the representatives of the European Commission for Conducting Reforms in Turkey in Europe approve it in principle”. But if they fail to approve it, the Constitution “will be submitted to the National Assembly of Macedonia for adoption and will be put into practice through military force by the Macedonian liberation army”.

The Provisional Administration of Macedonia (i.e. the General Staff of the military of the Macedonian League) is bound to send the Constitution “to the Sublime Porte, to the representatives of the European Great Powers and to the neighbouring Balkan principalities, and obtain their consent for its putting into practice”. It also envisages that a large number of copies of the Constitution will be made in order to send them to “the entire population of Macedonia for their information and possible comments”. It is particularly important that the last article (103) provides that the Constitution “should also be sent to the Provisional Government of Macedonia at Gremen-TeÎe for its consent and approval”, which is a confirmation 474Ibid.,

129-130.

475Ibid.,

237-261.

165

of the status that this body enjoyed at that stage of organization of the Macedonian state.

In accordance with this Constitution, the Military Staff of the Macedonian League for the Liberation of Macedonia prepared special “Military instructions for the organization of the Macedonian Army in the Autonomous State of Macedonia”, which consisted of two parts. The first part was prepared in the town of Ruse and bears the date April 12, 1880; it was entitled “Military instruction for the organization of the Macedonian Army in the Autonomous State of Macedonia”476 and defined the organization of the Macedonian Army following the liberation of the land and the constitution of the state. The second part bears the title “Provisional military instructions for action of the Macedonian Army”,477 passed by the Military Staff of the Macedonian Army on May 6, 1880, specifying no place of issue.

It is of particular significance that the second act, whose preamble expressly states that “the European Commission for conducting reforms in the vilayets of Turkey in Europe and for the establishment of a single Macedonian vilayet has so far paid no attention, at its sessions, to the memoirs sent to it for the appropriate implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and granting political autonomy to Macedonia by preparing an organic constitution for Macedonia”. The Turkish representative in the Commission, however, proposed a draft for an organic constitution which envisaged “only administrative decentralization in the Macedonian vilayets” to preserve the integrity of the Turkish state. As a result, the Military Staff of the Macedonian League stated: Interpreting the aspirations of the Macedonian people to liberation, the Macedonian League is convinced of the untenability of the signed Peace Treaty of Berlin, and, in addition to the political action for the implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin in the European regions of Turkey, is determined to continue its armed struggle for the liberation of Macedonia and the establishment of a Macedonian state, as it considers the administrative autonomy of Macedonia a stupid cliché of European and Turkish diplomacy. Enslaved Macedonia naturally wants the same rights as free Bulgaria. The Macedonians do not want to bow their heads in slavery and therefore have taken up arms. The movement of insurgent detachments in Macedonia, however, has lately appeared to be more of an armed demonstration than a major insurrectionist movement. In order to unite all the detachments in Macedonia into a single whole and towards a single goal — the establishment of a free 476Ibid.,

262-291. Dojno Dojnov (op. cit., 289), however, confirms the accounts of Kiril (op. cit., 460) and Pandev (op. cit., 41) that “the military instructions” of the Staff, prepared by Commander Walter, had 264 paragraphs, while neither version of these instructions, as they were transmitted to the Macedonian League, contains so many articles. D. Walter was a former captain who took part in the Kresna Uprising; he was persecuted by the Austrian authorities and also became an activist in the Macedonian League (V. Di amandi ev, A vt obi ogr af i ò, l . 121, ob. 122).

477Makedonskat

166

a l i ga…, 292-312.

Macedonian state — the Military Staff of the Macedonian League for the Liberation of Macedonia has undertaken the preparation of this P ro v i s i o n a l M i l it a r y I n s t r u c t i o n s f o r Ac t i o n o f t h e M a c e d o n i a n A r m y .478

The Macedonian League issued a number of other documents of exceptional significance. In addition to the memoir to the members of the European Commission in Constantinople (Ruse, April 14, 1880),479 on June 23, 1880, the Provisional Administration of Macedonia sent from Mount Pirin Planina another memoir to the ministers of the great powers — Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Italy — as well as to the Commission of the European powers for reforms in European Turkey, in Constantinople,480 appending the Constitution of the State Organization of Macedonia to the document. It offered a detailed explanation of all the efforts of the Macedonian people for a just implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and expressed a strong protest against the draft constitution already prepared by the Porte for reforms in the vilayets and against the make-up of vilayet commissions.

This document also quoted a large number of requests and complaints by the Macedonian population from all over Macedonia addressed to the European Commission and to the Porte demanding the delineation of the borderline between Macedonian and other vilayets in European Turkey and the establishment of a single Salonika vilayet for the whole of Macedonia. Yet there was no reply.

On April 17, 1880, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs invited the signatories to the Treaty of Berlin to examine and adopt the newly-prepared regulations, and the Salonika vali had already started implementing these regulations — which had not yet been approved — in his vilayet, even before the European Commission could have examined them. To check the arbitrariness of the Turkish authorities, prior to the convocation of the European Commission in Constantinople, 102 representatives of the Macedonian population submitted a memoir to the European powers, demanding once again a single Macedonian vilayet and the preparation of an organic constitution for Macedonia similar to the Cretan one. Yet this memoir, too, remained without an answer.

The Macedonians who lived in Constantinople immediately submitted a request with 200 signatures, stating the same demands, and “the Macedonian representative KarandÔulov, together with 12 delegates” was received by the British representative in the European Commission, Lord Fitzmaurice, who promised that their request would be forwarded to the Commission. But there was still no answer. Furthermore, the European Commission accepted the draft constitution 478Ibid.,

292.

315-319.

480Ibid., 320-325.

479Ibid.,

167

of the vilayets with an explanation that the Organic Constitution of Crete could be applied to Macedonia, as “the population that lives there is ethnically diverse”.481 In early June the General Staff invited Vasil Dijamandiev, as the president, to come from Plovdiv to Mount Pirin Planina, where on June 29, 1880, it issued an important document, “Manifesto of the General Staff of the Macedonian Army”,482 for the preparation of a general insurrection. This manifesto also reached the leader of Macedonian detachments in south-western Macedonia, Leonidas Voulgaris, who in mid-July, “together with Vasil Simon, a certain Tiko and two other unknown people”, as representatives of the “Provisional Government of Macedonia — Equality”, met Dijamandiev, bringing their own documents, and reached an agreement on joint insurgent action. They agreed that the Provisional Government of Macedonia should be the public proponent of the uprising, and that the Macedonian League and the General Staff should take the military command. They also agreed that the former should use the protection of the Greek government, and the latter that of the Bulgarian government, but only until the liberation of the land and the establishment of the Macedonian state. Dijamandiev acquainted the delegates coming from the south with the prepared Constitution and Military Instructions and then, at the proposal of the delegation of the Provisional Government, another article was added — on the rights and duties of the nationalities in Macedonia.483 Following the talks in Plovdiv, the delegation of the Provisional Government went to Pirin Planina and met the chief commander of the General Staff, Iljo Maleševski, while Vasil Dijamandiev informed the Bulgarian Minister of the Interior of all these activities.484 In Voulgaris’s diary, in the section referring to the talks with the representatives of the Macedonian League, we can read, among other things, that “the old ajduk Iljo Maleševski, little educated and almost illiterate, has a much broader understanding of the future of Macedonia than Vasil Dijamandiev, an educated and learned person”. The following section of Voulgaris’s notes on the talks on Pirin Planina is very interesting: Commander Iljo was delighted with our presence and spared no effort to arrange for us to come to this village house on Mount Pirin. He accepted the agreement with Dijamandiev, but there was a conspicuous frown on his face concerning the patronage of Bulgaria and Greece. What would happen if we were to add the patronage of Serbia; 481Ibid.,

323.

326-327.

483Ibid., 329-331.

484Ibid., 330-331.

482Ibid.,

168

he said that we were going back to the old ways. Leave all those who stir our waters aside, he said. Who will believe us that we are fighting for the freedom of Macedonia when these patrons want to dismember it? We fully agreed with him and decided to work in secret from both the Bulgarians and the Greeks.485

These were indeed the most critical moments in the activity of the Provisional Macedonian Government and the Macedonian League. Detachments were constantly sent to Macedonia and they were active over almost all the territory of this Turkish province. Major armed actions were taken by the police and military authorities against the detachments,486 and as the movement did not enjoy the support of any state in the Balkans or in Europe, it remained of a fairly limited character. It could even be said that everyone was against it; even the diplomatic representatives of the great powers acted as informants for the Turkish authorities in the liquidation of the armed movement.487 Yet it is very important that on April 11/23, 1881, a letter (in French) was sent from Kjustendil to the Russian diplomatic representative in Constantinople, General Nikolay P. Ignatiev,488 in which the Provisional Government of Macedonia asked him to forward the enclosed “Manifesto of the Provisional Government of Macedonia” (also in French) to the Russian government. It is interesting and significant that this letter, bearing the same four seals affixed a year ago, was signed by the president of the Provisional Government, Vasilos Simos, by the four members of the Government (the first signature is illegible, the second in the Cyrillic script is that of Petro Jovanov, the third is that of Kostas, although the surname is not clearly written in the Greek alphabet, and the fourth signature is that of Hriste Ïorgov), while Nikolaos Trajkov once again signed the letter as secretary. These were actually all the members of the Government, whose function and fate has still been insufficiently studied.

The Manifesto of the Provisional Government of Macedonia489 contains the signatures of its president and secretary, validated by two seals, and it, too, was adopted in Kjustendil on April 11/23, although the document is actually a certified copy made on Mount Dospat on April 18/30, 1881. The Manifesto, among other things, declares the following: 485Ibid., 486AVP

137.

RI , f . P os-st vo v Konst ant i nopol e, 1880, op. 517/2, d. 2276.

487Ibid.

488C GAOR,

Moskva, f . 730, op. 1, º 79, l . 1. l . 2-3 s ob. We find a nearly identical version in Makedonskat a l i ga…, 356-357. Yet we can also find the same initial text in the Appeal of the ‘Macedonia to the Macedonians’ Society in Constantinople, dated April 15, 1891 (D-r Vl adan Ûor Ÿevi Ú, S r bi ja i Gr Ìka 1891-1893. P r i l og za i st or i ju sr pske di pl omaci je pr i kr aju HáH veka, Beogr ad, 1923, 95-96). This text is also ascribed to Leonidas Voulgaris, who lived in Athens at the time.

489Ibid., l

169

True Macedonians, faithful children to your fatherland!

Will you allow our dear country to be ruined? Look how, in this slavery, she is covered with wounds inflicted by the surrounding peoples. Look at her and see the heavy chains imposed upon her by the Sultan. Being in such a helpless position and all in tears, our dear Macedonia, our dear fatherland, is calling upon you: You who are my faithful children, you who are my descendants, after Aristotle and Alexander the Great, you in whose veins Macedonian blood flows, do not let me die, but help me. What a sad sight it would be for you, true Macedonians, if you became witnesses of my burial. No, no, here are my dreadful bleeding wounds, here are my heavy chains: break them, heal my wounds, do everything in your power that the words “A single and united Macedonia” will be written on the banner I will raise! Having done this courageously, banish from your land these murderers who carry the flag of discord in their hands and inculcate antagonistic ideas, dividing you, my children, into innumerable nationalities; then, having gathered under the banner of Macedonia as your only national distinction, raise that glorious banner high and make it ready so that you can unanimously write on it: Long live the Macedonian people, long live Macedonia!

We do not know what the effect of these appeals and proclamations was. There is no doubt that they were accepted by the people of Macedonia, but it is also likely that they worried those who aspired to this Turkish province. Hence they took every possible measure and used every possible means to neutralize not only the effect of such appeals and proclamations but also the revolutionary movement in Macedonia itself. They soon managed to break the unity within the leadership of this movement. As part of these actions, Voulgaris was denounced and arrested in Salonika on his return following the meetings with the representatives of the Macedonian League. Only an energetic intervention by Russian diplomacy saved him from jail. He withdrew to Athens, not abandoning, however, the ideas he had proclaimed earlier. At the same time Vasil Dijamandiev was placed under investigation and was conducted by the police from Plovdiv to Sofia, and the Bulgarian government took all the necessary measures to close its border with Turkey to Macedonian armed detachments, a measure also taken by the Greek government.

The split within the movement is also confirmed in report No. 211 of June 14, 1881, by the head of the Russian Consulate General in Macedonia (Salonika) to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, in which he reminded the ambassador of his report sent a year earlier “on the emergence here of what is known as the Provisional Macedonian Government”, and continued: Since then no one had heard anything about that Government. It seemed to have sunk in eternity and my recollections of it remained in my mind as an unsuccessful attempt of naïve political agitators.

But on June 12 this year I unexpectedly received a letter from a certain Baron Gundlas, in which he proposed to give me certain information about the Provisional Macedonian Government.

170

Succumbing to my inclination to curiosity, I invited this without doubt unreliable person, not so much hoping to receive precise information, but rather as an opportunity to meet the new type of political spy.

A very decent young man presented before me, evidently flustered because of his intent.

He began with the recommendations of his personality, which was allegedly known to Count Gatsfelyd and Radolinsky in Constantinople, to our military attachĂŠ in Plovdiv, to Captain Eku and Adjutant General G. Glinka, whose grandson he was.

When I saw that he hesitated to state the reason which had made him turn to me and knowing from experience not to trust in appearances only, I hurried to warn him that if he had come to demand material assistance, then he did not need tell me his secrets and that I, in my turn, would keep his call a secret.

In reply, Baron Gundlas told me that he needed no money, but that he only wanted revenge and to unmask the intentions of his enemy Leonidas Voulgaris, whose secretary he had been and who had allegedly expelled him from his post.

He then told me that the representatives of the provisional Macedonian Government, Messrs Simos, Voulgaris, Tiko, etc., after sending the circular to Salonika, had gone to Plovdiv, from where they conducted their illegal activities.

Their entire activity over the past year consisted of forming as many outlaw gangs as possible in Macedonia. With this purpose in mind, they sent agents throughout the land who spread among the population, in every possible way, a feeling of discontent with the existing order and proposed that they overthrow it by force.

The gangs were formed one after another and were armed with the support of the Provisional Government, which allegedly had and still has a large arms depot in Varna.

Having no opportunity of corroborating the truth of what has been said to me, I feel obliged to confirm to Your Excellency the fact of a real growth of outlawry, which is constantly augmented from among the rural population and armed in ways which are unknown to anyone.

As far as the final objective of all the endeavours of the Provisional Government is concerned, according to Mr Gundlas, it consisted of the simultaneous movement of all outlaw gangs, of fires, explosions in state powder magazines, a general revolutionary movement, of expelling the Turkish authorities, etc., etc.

It is planned that all this be carried out in the course of this summer, and the Provisional Government has already moved its residence here, to Ostrovo, close to Voden.

Simos, Taki and others, together with their adherents, have already passed through Salonika, but they are still waiting for Leonidas Voulgaris, because he is late due to his arrest by the Turkish authorities, from whom he has nevertheless managed to escape.

The signal for general action will be an explosion in the Salonika powder tower, and several sinister persons have already arrived for this purpose.

Baron Gundlas also told me a number of other details, but I will not occupy the attention of Your Excellency any more, as they are not helpful in the explanation of matters at all.

171

In order to give a better idea of the position of the Russian Consul General towards these activities and understand his role in the obstruction of this action, we shall quote the end of his report: Not fully trusting the whole story, just in case I nevertheless warned the local authorities, giving some comments about the possible development of matters, and they have strengthened police control almost everywhere. I told them that I had received this information from an anonymous letter and that in all probability it was a sheer mystification.

At the same time, herewith enclosing Baron Gundlas’s original letter, I have the honour of courteously asking Your Excellency to order me to request the opinion of the German Embassy concerning the personality of the baron, and if it is positive, to let me send a secret agent to the vicinity of Voden to keep an eye on the wrongdoers who, by their criminal activities, will, in all likelihood, bring disaster on the Macedonian Christian population which is already suffering badly.490

That there was indeed a highly developed insurgent movement in Macedonia in 1880 and 1881 is confirmed by several sources. As early as August 18, 1880, the Salonika Russian Consul Nikolay Skryabin, in his report No. 697, informed Evgeny Petrovich Novikov that “the leaders of the Greek outlaw detachments, Katarahja and Kalogiros, who have so far hidden out in the mountains of Olympus, have now abandoned Thessaly and moved to Macedonia via Gevgelija. They have chosen Tikveš and Veles as their new residences and have started holding negotiations with the local Bulgarian outlaws for the alliance of Bulgarian and Greek forces. It is still unknown whether the negotiations have been successful, but the appearance of the new uninvited guests has already been marked by the killing of five Turks on the outskirts of Veles, and the local population is now in terrible fear.” The consul continued by asking himself: “How can this unexpected BulgaroGreek association be explained — I do not know. Some evil tongues have called it a Bulgarian movement and casually mentioned the memorandum printed in the newspaper Neologos which contains a project for the partition of Macedonia.

Others say that the Provisional Macedonian Government is again stepping up its activity, concerning which I had the honour of informing Your Excellency in my report No. 659.”491 On August 27, 1880, Skryabin notified Novikov that what he had written of the “outlaws” Katarahja and Kalogiros was true, but that this had not happened “these days”, but that “Katarahja left the surroundings of Veles even before August 15 and moved to the Bitola district. Here, in the village of Malovište, he marked his presence by major outlawry and then hurried on to Mariovo, which is situated in the vicinity of Prilep. And Kalogiros remained in place to carry out his actions 490AVP

RI , f . P ol i t ar hi v, op. 482, 1881, d. 1124, l l . 188-191 s ob.

491AVP

RI , f . P os-st vo v Konst ant i nopol e, 1880, op. 517/2, d. 2276, l l . 236-237.

172

between Veles and Tikveš. Their relations with the local Bulgarian outlaws brought about the persecution of the unfortunate peaceful population by the Turkish authorities who have already detained 75 innocent Bulgarians in Veles.”492 On August 27, Skryabin reported on a sensitive inclination towards “Graeco-Bulgarian rapprochement” in Macedonia, even though he had never heard of such a readiness, as he says, “from the Bulgarian side”, as there was great fear of the Greeks.493 The Russian consul regularly referred to the Macedonians as “Bulgarians” and to the revolutionaries as “outlaws” or “gangs”. It is interesting that he found a well-developed revolutionary movement in almost all the regions of Macedonia, as a result of which major pogroms were carried out among the population. Thus, for example in his report No. 714 of September 2, 1880, Skryabin wrote: The attempt of Greek outlaws at uniting with Bulgarian ones, the killing of five Turks on the outskirts of Veles (report No. 697 of August 18), and also the refusal by the Bulgarians to help the Albanian League (report No. 708 of August 27) — all this has put the Bulgarian inhabitants of Veles into an extremely difficult situation. Aware of their powerlessness, the Turkish authorities, whose suspicion exceeds the limits of any logic, instead of coldly investigating matters, have been acting under the influence of slanders and capturing innocent Bulgarians solely on account of information by their enemies. Over 150 people have been detain up to the present day. All of them are in jail with no hope that they will ever be released, as the Turkish authorities have given their fate to the justice of the judges, and these are filled with the hatred of one person, a certain Hamid-Pasha, who had been a friend of three of the aforementioned five Turks who were killed…494

The reports from Macedonia constantly emphasized a movement of detachments and the suffering of the population from the Turks. On September 9, Skryabin warned about a large-scale movement of “outlaw detachments” in Macedonia,495 while in his extensive report No. 770 of October 11, 1880, he described the activities of the detachments of Ajada, Zarkada, Katarahja, Panajot Kalogiros and other commanders whose number increased daily and warned of the “danger” of their association, because the demoralized, underpaid and hungry Turkish troops would in that case be unable to deal with them.496 On October 27 he wrote about new acts of “violence” carried out by the detachments of Kamaka, Zarkada and Kalogiros,497 and on November 8 about a large number of interned 492Ibid.,

l . 240 s ob. l l . 241-242 s ob.

494Ibid., l l . 243-244 s ob.

495Ibid., l l . 245-247 s ob.

496Ibid., l l . 299-301 s ob.

497Ibid., l l . 321-322.

493Ibid.,

173

men, women and children who were close to the Macedonian “outlaws” Dimo, Petruš, Pano SamardÔiev and others. He gave details of these commanders: Dimo is described as coming from the village of Vetersko; two years ago he had gone to Bulgaria together with his wife; Petruš came from the village of Rudnik and was in Kjustendil at the time; Pano SamardÔiev was from the village of Podles, in the Tikveš region, who “after the Easter holidays left for Bulgaria”, while Janko from the village of Guzemelci went to Serbia “as early as 12 years ago” and, as of the rest, nobody has heard anything of him.498 The families and relatives of all these migrant workers were interned or arrested, even though they had no links with nor activities in the revolutionary movement. This was not the case in the Veles and Tikveš regions alone. Skryabin’s report from Salonika of November 16, 1880, spoke of new internment of the Macedonian population from KoÌani to Skopje, etc.499 Assistance and protection were sought not only from the foreign consuls in Macedonia, but also from the neighbouring states, and even from the Bulgarian Exarchate.500 For instance, the cable to the Bulgarian Prime Minister sent by the families interned in Salonika, among other things, stated: “The local authorities, considering as outlaws/revolutionaries our relatives who have long ago moved to Bulgaria and Serbia and are there engaged in trade, have detained us for no real reason, and amidst this winter weather too, and have sent us under guard from Veles to Salonika and Kessendra together with our families, all in all 163 persons.” 501 Such and similar news filled the newspapers of the time. Even Vasil Dijamandiev himself declared that the moment had come for insurgent action and called the Macedonians to organized resistance against the Turks.502 Towards the end of 498Ibid.,

l l . 337-343. l l . 347-348 s ob.

500Ibid., l . 367 s ob.

501Ibid., l . 365 s ob.

502Makedonecï , á, 1, Russe, 1.Há.1880, 1. Significant information on the establishment and activity of the Macedonian League in Ruse can be found in the Autobiography of its president, Vasil Dijamandiev (from Ohrid), who, among other things, writes: “Up to the beginning of 1883 I was a member of the Ruse Court of Appeal, and in 1880, together with Georgij A. Georgov, we founded a league under my presidency, while Georgov himself was elected its treasurer. The league was composed of five members: one president, one treasurer, one secretary and two councillors. This ‘league’ was founded according to my plan taking the ‘Irish League’ as its basis, which was said to number about 40,000 members at the time. I assumed that in the Principality of Bulgaria there were more than 100,000 Macedonians, who, if they joined it as sworn members and supporting members, would make the Macedonian League larger than the Irish League and present a great fear for the Turks. In addition, our five-member league which was based in Ruse was considered authorized to act within the Principality of Bulgaria with unlimited rights — such as it would deem it necessary to use as an independent body of the existing main league in Macedonia under the name ‘Pirin Planina’ and under the leadership of seventeen commanders. In the relations with its 499Ibid.,

174

1880, in Ruse, more concrete actions were taken by the ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’, with Dijamandiev as its president, and Georgij A. Georgov, principal of the Agricultural School in this town, as its secretary.503 The joint struggle of the nationalities living in Macedonia against the centuries-old enemy caused anxiety among the neighbouring aspirants and they took concrete steps to destroy it. Much later, recalling this period, the editor of the semi-official mouthpiece Svoboda members, the Ruse League used papers headed with the slogan ‘Pirin Planina Macedonian League under the leadership of seventeen commanders’. Above the slogan there was a Macedonian lion crowned with a triple crown, treading with two feet on the Turkish crescent and all military attributes, in its right paw it holds a sword and roars, and below it is written: ‘Freedom or Death’. On such paper we submitted a request to the Ambassadorial Conference in Constantinople through Mr Hitrovo, and later also to the Berlin International Conference dealing with the Greek-Thessalian question. These two memoranda contained sharp warnings that in the case that the conferences paid no attention to them, the League had the right to start an uprising of as yet unseen horror and terror. Instead of a constitution, the league had Instructions consisting of a few articles in the following spirit: ‘Every Macedonian living in the Principality of Bulgaria should consider himself a sworn member and supporting member and should unconditionally obey the Ruse league. For all those Macedonians who dare reject this, the least punishment is death. This rule is not imposed upon the Moesian and Thracian Bulgarians, but they too are bound to help no less than the Macedonians in the liberation of Macedonia.” [A vt obi ogr af i ò, Del á, Bï l gar ski i st or i Ìeski ar hi v pr i Nar odnat a bi bl i ot eka ,,Ki r i l i Met odi à“, S of i ò, f . 577 (Vasi l Di amandi ev), a.e. 1, l . 120, ob. 121].

In the newspaper Bï l gar i nï (ᜠ, 320, Ruse, 21.Háá.1880, 2), Vasil Dijamandiev and Georgij A. Georgov published a longer letter entitled ‘Our Diplomats’ in which they wrote that “our diplomats have started furiously cursing and intimidating the members of the Macedonian League, and have sent them a circular imparting to everyone that if they participate in the Macedonian League, they will be dismissed from service”. At the same time Dijamandiev and Georgov published letters by the editor of the Ruse newspaper Makedonecï , Nikola Óivkov, and his anti-Macedonian activity and defended the policy and goals of the League.

The French newspaper in Constantinople, Phare du Bosphore, published interesting information, printing the text of the Salonika correspondent of Correspondance politique, where he wrote that on August 6, 1880, one of the League’s detachments, on whose banner was written ‘Freedom or Death’, was seen on Pirin Planina, and that eight battalions of Turkish troops were immediately sent after it (Zor ni ca, œ , 34, C ar i gr adï , 19.œ ááá.1880, 134). On July 29, 1880, a ‘new manifesto’ with the signatures of eight commanders and the president of the League, Dijamandiev, was sent to the newspaper Bï l gar i nï , announcing insurgent actions in Macedonia (Zor ni ca, œ , 35, 26.œ ááá.1880, 140).

503Makedonecï

, á, 17, 5.á.1881, 67-68. The figure of Georgij A. Georgov (Georgiev) still remains insufficiently studied, even though he was one of the more important national activists towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was a teacher and the principal of the Agricultural School in Ruse, but later we also find him close to various societies of the Macedonians in Sofia and around the Young Macedonian Society, while in April 1910 he appears as the treasurer of the Autonomous Macedonia Committee in Sofia (Makedoni ò, HHáá, 1, S of i ò, 28.ᜠ.1910, 1). It is highly important that we find his name among the signatories to the Memorandum of the Macedonians to the Governments and the Public Opinion of the Balkan States of June 7, 1913, in Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 1, S .-P et er bur gï , 9.œ á.1913, 17-20, as the author of significant articles in the Slavophile mouthpiece S l avònskíò i zvõst íò (º 12, 3.áá.1913, 175-177 and º 16, 3.ááá.1913, 257-260), and as one of the three representatives of the Macedonians (together with Dimitrija Ëupovski and Nace Dimov) in St Petersburg, presented in the documentary film Slavic Album as “a Macedonian, a former Bulgarian member of parliament” [D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad, áá, S kopje, 1978, 72-78].

175

warned with unconcealed gall: “We can solemnly conclude that if there were any Macedonian leagues, detachments, societies, newspapers, etc. in Bulgaria, each one, pursuing its own interests, inflicted a great evil rather than good upon their brothers in Macedonia.”504 But the insurgent detachment movement in Macedonia was not fully paralysed.

In June 1881 many arrests were made in connection with what was to become known as the ‘Ohrid Conspiracy’,505 and the creation of new rebel detachments was expected in the following year. The Macedonian League and the Provisional Government of Macedonia were unable to continue their activities, but Macedonian national consciousness strengthened the awareness among the people that a struggle for freedom and a state of their own was inevitable.

A large number of societies were founded in Macedonia and among the émigrés, and as early as 1885 a secret revolutionary Macedonian committee was set up in Sofia, whose core consisted of “some twenty young people from Macedonia”. Yet the Bulgarian authorities smashed this organization as well, and its more prominent activists moved to Belgrade, where Serbian propaganda welcomed them and gradually succeeded in using their activity for the goals of Serbian greater-state policy.506 We have examined the revolutionary component of the Macedonian movement in greater detail because Macedonian national and political consciousness was expressed most strongly in the period immediately following the Congress of Berlin and because the facts presented above are a clear illustration of the very clearly defined Macedonian national-liberation concepts in the popular movement.507

504S voboda, ááá, 280, S of

i ò, 1.œ áá.1889, 3. .G. S enkevi Ì, ,,Novì e dokument ì ob osvobodi t el Ånoà bor Åbe v Zapadnoà Makedoni i i Kosove v konce 70-h — naÌal e 80-h godov HáH v.“ in: S l avònskoe i st oÌni kovedeni e. S bor ni k st at eà i mat er i al ov, Moskva, 1965, 274-284.

506D-r Kl i ment Xambazovski , Kul t ur no-opš t est veni t e vr ski na Makedonci t e so S r bi ja vo t ekot na HáH vek, S kopje, 1960, 162-171; D-r Q ubi š a Dokl est i Î, op. cit., 304-308.

507Particularly strong revolutionary actions were taken in the turbulent year of 1885, after the ‘unification’ of East Rumelia with Bulgaria and following the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Organizers and whole armed detachments were sent to Macedonia in an organized way, mainly across the Bulgarian border, but once again the Macedonian liberation struggle was offered no support from any side (AVP RI , f .

Konsul ï st vo v S al oni kah, op. 565, 1885, d. 512, l l . 30-31, s ob, 53, 55, 57-60 s ob, 63-65 s ob, 67-69 s ob, 78-79 s ob, etc.).

505I

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5.

Developments in Macedonia were accompanied by the simultaneous demonstration of Macedonian national consciousness and actions for cultural and national affirmation.

Thus, for instance, as early as the time of the Kresna Uprising, Commander ÏorÒija M. Pulevski published his revolutionary poem ‘Samovila Makedonska’ (Macedonian Sprite); somewhat later he printed two booklets under the common title Makedonska pesnarka (Macedonian Songbook, 1879),508 and as the question of the Macedonian literary language once again became crucial in the Macedonian liberation struggle, he also published the first part of his extensive grammar Slognica reÌovska (Reka Wordbook, 1880).509 To affirm Macedonian historical consciousness and support the national consolidation, Pulevski wrote his comprehensive Slavjansko-maÎedonska opšta istorija (Slavonic-Macedonian General History),510 which, though remaining in manuscript, marked the beginning of modern Macedonian national historiography. Even though he was not adequately prepared for the task, he also ‘compiled’ a number of other textbooks for Macedonian schools in the vernacular, but of these only two dictionaries were published in Belgrade.511 The extensive collections of folklore, on which he persistently worked, gathering materials from Macedonian émigrés in Sofia, also remained in manuscripts.512 In order to make a more organized contribution — in an institutional manner — to cultural and national affirmation, Pulevski founded a SlavonicMacedonian literary society in Sofia (1888),513 but the authorities soon suppressed it, too.

This was already a time of intensive and state-organized action by the neighbouring national propaganda machines in Macedonia and at the same time of a strongly pronounced resistance on the part of the Macedonian people. The Mace508D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski i negovi t e kni š ki ,,S amovi l a Makedonska“ i ,,Makedonska pesnar ka“, Bi bl i ot eka na spi sani et o Makedonski f ol kl or , 1, S kopje, 1973.

509G.M. P ul evski , S l avònsko-nasel Åeni ski -makedonska sl ogni ca r eÌovska za i spr avuvanÅe pr avosl ovki -òzi Ìesko-pi sani e, ááá kni ga. Osnovana na ááá.t o odel õni e uÌi l Åi š t ko …, P ï r vi del ï , S of i ò, 1880; Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1974, 157-181.

510Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , op. cit., 213-257.

511ReÌni kï ot ï Ìet i r i jezi ka… S kr ojena i napi sana ot ï Ûor Ÿa M. P ul õ vski , ar hi t ekt a u Gal i Ìni k okr uÔ i je di br ansko 1872. godi ne, á-va Ìast , Beogr ad, 1873; ReÌni k ot t r i jezi ka s. makedonski , ar banski i t ur ski , kwi ga áá. Napi sao Ûor Ÿe M. P uq evski , mi jak gaq i Ìki , u Beogr adu, 1875; Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , op. cit., 33-153.

512D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 355-362.

513Upr avda [D. Ëupovski ], ,,Kemï bì l a Bol gar íò dl ò Makedoníi , Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 5, 5.áH.1913, 77.

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donians saw the need not only to know their historical roots, but also to seek means for the further development of the Macedonian nation and culture. The struggle to preserve the autonomy of the church-school communities became particularly intense in the 1880s. Various societies were founded in towns all over Macedonia which according to their official, and especially unofficial, programmes were of predominantly Macedonian character. They included: the St Clement CulturalEducational Society in Ohrid (1872-1890 and later),514 the Razvitok (Development) Educational Society in Skopje (1877-1885), the Bratstvo (Brotherhood) Society in Bitola (1880-1885) and the Christian Charitable Society in Salonika (1882-1883).

Attempts were made to open a printing shop and print textbooks for the Macedonian schools as well as a number of special editions.515 This was a trend which was strongly reflected in the ideas and activity of Anatolija Zografski, Partenija Zografski, Teodosija Sinaitski, Kirijak DrÔiloviÌ, Georgi Dinkata, Marko Cepenkov and others. The power of the printed word was clear to everybody, but the opportunities for its free dissemination were becoming more and more limited over the years.

After the decision of the Bulgarian Exarchate, in particular, to take all the church-school communities in Macedonia into its own hands, there was a spontaneous and powerful agitation among the teachers against interference from outside. Once again large teachers’ meetings were organized in Prilep (1891)516 and Voden (1892), which adopted important resolutions on the protection of the schools and teachers there, and also firmly raised the question of church-school autonomy with the Archbishopric of Ohrid as the national church and Macedonian as the standard.

At about the same time (1891-1892), the Skopje Exarchate Metropolitan Teodosija (Theodosius) Gologanov517 openly rejected the Bulgarian Exarchate, 514D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og kon pr ouÌuvawet o na r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 721-722; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 298-301; A. Keckar ovï , ,,P r edt eÌi na Revol ô ci onnat a or gani zaci ò vï Ohr i dsko“, I l ô st r aci ò I l i ndenÅ, œ áá, 1, S of i ò, 1934, 10-13; D-r S t ojan Ri st eski , Dve makedonski sudbi ni A r gi r i Toma Mar i nÌe, Ohr i d, 1988, 36-56.

515D-r Bor o Mokr ov, Zbor , peÌat , vr eme. Zbor ni k t r udovi od i st or i jat a na makedonski ot peÌat , S kopje, 1987, 87-95.

516The first known teachers’ meeting in Macedonia was held in Prilep as early as August 3, 1871 (P r avo, œ á, 29, C ar i gr adï , 14.áH.1871; Makedoníò, œ , 37, 14.áH.1871; N ovi ni , ᜠ, 36, C ar i gr adï , 28.á.1894, 3; ᜠ, 37, 14.áH.1871; N ovi ni , ᜠ, 36, C ar i gr adï , 28.á.1894, 3; ᜠ, 37, 1.áá.1894, 3; ᜠ, 54, 1.ᜠ.1894, 1; ᜠ, 81, 8.œ áá.1894, 2; ᜠ, 92, 19.œ ááá.1894, 1; N.G. Eni Ìer evï , S pomeni i bõl õÔ ki , 135-139; I v.B. Š umkovï , op. cit., 357-364; D-r Bor o Mokr ov, op. cit., 78-84).

517D-r S l avko Di mevski , Mi t r opol i t skopski Teodosi j — Ô i vot i dejnost (1846-1926), S kopje, 1965; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 120-124.

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and voicing popular demands, tried to secure, first through the Protestants and later with the mediation of the Uniates, the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, which would have the right, as a national autocephalous church, to guide spiritual and educational matters, and as a result, national and political life in the land as well. Yet the powerful propaganda machinery of its neighbours and the total corruptibility of the Turkish authorities again prevented the normal development of the Macedonian nation.

6.

As the Greater-Serbian propaganda was the weakest in Macedonia and had almost no support among the people, prominent Serbian ideologists of the greater-state idea tried to use the legitimate aspirations of the Macedonians for the affirmation of their mother tongue in schools and literature, and prepared and published special “Macedonian” textbooks for “the popular schools” in Macedonia (several large editions of a primer, a reader and the Golub Calendar with texts in the “Macedonian” language). It was actually some kind of Macedonian-Serbian amalgam, and the printing and free distribution within the borders of the Sultan’s Empire was given approval by the relevant Turkish authorities. Despite its being awkwardly assembled, this language was exuberantly accepted in Macedonian circles as it nonetheless differed from both Bulgarian and Serbian. At that time Stojan NovakoviÚ proposed to the Serbian government that a full translation of the Holy Bible into Macedonian be made, but it was immediately assessed that this would play a crucial role in the affirmation of the Macedonian language and Macedonian national individuality, and the proposal was rejected. Serbian propaganda soon saw that by pursuing such a policy it only further stirred up Macedonian national feelings and strengthened Macedonian national consciousness. As a result, it discarded that approach of penetrating into Macedonia and started, by using the Serbian language and a clearly defined Serbian national programme, to set up Serbophile oases inside European Turkey.518 Side by side with these actions, in order to undermine the foundations of Bulgarian propaganda, Serbian propaganda used the frequent rebellions of Macedonian pupils in the Exarchal schools in Macedonia, and by generous promises attracted a large number of young intellectuals, inviting them to study in Serbia.

But when these Macedonian pupils and students saw that neither their language 518D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., 46-63; D-r Kl i ment Xambazovski , Kul t ur no-opš t est veni t e vr ski na Makedonci t e so S r bi ja…, 249; D-r Q ubi š a Dokl est i Î, op. cit., 347-370; Tr ajko S t amat oski , ,,Makedonski bukvar i vo osumdeset t i t e godi ni na devet naeset t i ot vek“, L i t er at ur en zbor , HHH, 3, S kopje, 1983, 59-69.

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nor nationality were respected in Belgrade, they started a major rebellion there as well. After long negotiations, many of them accepted the promises of the Bulgarian diplomatic agency in the Serbian capital and demonstratively left Belgrade, going to Sofia (1890).

Yet even with their first steps on Bulgarian soil, the young Macedonians realized that the agreement reached was once again not observed, and there was a strong reaction: some returned to Macedonia, some went back to Belgrade, and others remained in Bulgaria, aiming to develop and strengthen, through organized forms, the Macedonian national idea and liberation action.519

7.

Macedonian national thought continued to develop in the circles of Macedonian émigrés in Sofia. The newspapers Makedonskij Glas (1885-1887) and Makedonija (1888-1893), and later Glas Makedonski and others, prepared a firm ground for further action. In fact, various Macedonian associations started developing immediately after the suppression of the Macedonian League. For instance, the Bulgarian-Macedonian Charitable Society was founded in 1882 in Sofia,520 and the next year saw the establishment of the Macedonian Society, a modification of the former,521 as well as the Society for Helping Impoverished Macedonians.522 The Alexander of Macedon Bulgarian-Macedonian Charitable Society523 was founded towards the end of 1884 in Ruse, and the secessionist Iskra BulgarianMacedonian Revolutionary Committee was set up soon afterwards.524 The Macedonian Society for Collecting Assistance for the Suffering Macedonians was founded in early 1885 in Plovdiv, but shortly thereafter a Bulgarian counterpart was formed: Central Committee Fighting for the Liberation of Macedonia from Turkish Slavery.525 Thus Macedonian societies emerged in various Bulgarian and East-Rumelian centres, even professional ones, such as the Macedonian Guild Society in Plovdiv.526 519D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 469-590. edi neni e, á, 35, P l ovdi vï , 1883; Konst ant i n P andev, N aci onal no-osvobodi t el not o dvi Ô eni e v Makedoni ò i Odr i nsko 1878-1903, S of i ò, 1979, 42.

521L. Kasï r ovï , Enci kl opedi Ìeski r eÌni kï , á, P l ovdi vï , 1899, 389-390, according to Konst ant i n P andev, op. cit., 42-43.

522Tï r novska konst i t uci ò, á, 11, S of i ò, 8.áá.1884, 4.

523Doàno Doànov, Komi t et i t e ,,Edi nst vo“. Rol òt a i pr i nosï t i m za S ï edi neni et o 1885, S of i ò, 1985, 296.

524Konst ant i n P andev, op. cit., 47-49; Gl asï Makedonski , áá, 49, S of i ò, 19.Há.1895, 4.

525†Ki r i l P at r i ar h Bï l gar ski , Bï l gar skat a ekzar hi ò v Odr i nsko i Makedoni ò sl ed Osvobodi t el nat a voàna (1877-1878), á, 2, S of i ò, 1970, 521; Doàno Doànov, op. cit., 296.

520S ï

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Sofia, however, was the centre of the Macedonian émigré community. As a result, immediately after the “Macedonian meetings”, the Makedonski Glas Society was founded in late 1884, which started printing its own mouthpiece of the same name.527 Macedonian manifestations of considerable interest ensued on the unification of East Rumelia and Bulgaria, the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885), the dethronement and abdication of the Bulgarian Prince Alexander of Battenberg (1886) and especially after the coming of the notorious Macedonophobe, Stefan Stambolov, to the head of the Bulgarian government. After some stormy meetings and conferences of the Macedonians in the Bulgarian capital, a new organization, bearing the name Makedonsko Ìitalište (Macedonian Reading Club), was established in 1889.528 The end of the same year saw the foundation in Sofia of a Macedonian Savings Bank whose official name was Zaemo-spestovna kasa na Makedoncite (Loan-Savings Bank of the Macedonians).529 However, all these and other Macedonian associations and institutions were viewed with suspicion by Stambolov and he brutally suppressed all of them.

Pulevski’s aforementioned Slavonic-Macedonian Literary Society was formed at about the same time, but it, too, had to cease its activity soon. This was supervened by the journeys of Macedonian pupils and students via Belgrade to Sofia. The Macedonian question had already entered upon a new stage of development. The polemic started over Petar Draganov’s articles and The Ethnographic Map of Slavonic Nationalities of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society. Karl Hron published his book The Nationality of the Macedonian Slavs, and the first doctoral dissertation on the Macedonian language, by Leonhard Mazing, was defended and later published in two volumes in the Russian capital. New attempts were made at reaching a Serbo-Greek agreement on the division of Macedonia into spheres of influence, and Sofia succeeded in sending its own, already appointed, bishops to Macedonia.

Among the Macedonians, the generation of DelÌev and Misirkov emerged on the scene. Revolutionary action had already been oriented against the activities of foreign propaganda in Macedonia. The danger of Macedonia’s dismemberment hung in the air. The end of 1890 saw the foundation, in Dame Gruev’s and Dimitar MirÌev’s flat in Sofia, of a secret ‘private’ society, composed mainly of defectors from Belgrade.530 But just when this association had prepared a ‘Constitution’ for 526Makedoni

ò, á, 25, S of i ò, 2.œ á.1889, 98-99. asï Makedonski , áá, 49, 19.Há.1895, 4.

528Makedoni ò, á, 45 and 46, 5.H.1889, 180; áá, 1, 5.Há.1889; Gl asï Makedonski , áá, 5, 23.Háá.1894, 1; áá, 50, 26.Há.1895, 4.

529Makedoni ò, áá, 5, 24.Há.1889, 3-4; Gl asï Makedonski , áá, 5, 23.Háá.1894, 1; áá, 51, 3.Háá.1895, 3; Makedoni ò, á, 1, Russe, 20.á.1902, 3; Makedoni ò, HHááá, 9(497), S of i ò, 6.Há.1910, 4; Bô l et i nï , º 8, S of i ò, 1919, 3.

527Gl

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itself, there occurred the murder of the Bulgarian Minister BelÌev (March 1891) and this event was used to arrest the society’s chief initiators, after which they were expelled (or escaped) to Macedonia.

One of the results of these painful experiences of the Macedonian intelligentsia in emigration was the establishment of the Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia (1891) which, from January the following year, began printing its mouthpiece Loza, after which the whole movement was called ‘Lozars’.531 Even though the journal was published only in a slightly Macedonianized variant of the Bulgarian language, but in phonetic (‘Macedonian’) orthography, it heralded an ideology which was not unknown to Bulgarian politics and propaganda, resulting in the strongest reaction in the Bulgarian public up to that time against “Macedonian national separatism”. After its fourth issue, Loza was banned and the principal members and leaders of the Society were arrested, persecuted, interned or mobilized in the Bulgarian Army (despite being Turkish citizens), while some of them managed to flee to Macedonia, where they started the secret organization of the Macedonian liberation cause, laying the foundations of the Secret MacedonianAdrianople (or Macedonian-Adrianopolitan) Revolutionary Organization (TMORO). This organization was to prepare and carry out the most glorious and yet tragic popular achievement in more recent Macedonian history — the Ilinden Uprising. Precisely at the time when the core of this organization was being shaped in Salonika (1893),532 the Macedonian Socialist Group was set up in Sofia,533 the Vardar Macedonian Student Society was founded in Belgrade,534 and the National Committee for the Autonomy of Macedonia and Albania,535 which had previously begun the publication of its newspaper Albano-Macedonia in Bucharest, started its activities in London.536 530Gl

asï Makedonski , áá, 5, 23.Háá.1894, 2; áá, 51, 3.Háá.1895, 6; Makedono-Odr i nski P r õgl edï , áá, 30, S of i ò, 11.ááá.1907, 467-468; Bô l et i nï , 8, 1919, 3; I l ô st r aci ò I l i ndenÅ, á, 1, S of i ò, 1927, 7-8.

531D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 469-602.

532I st or i ja na makedonski ot nar od, áá, S kopje, 1969, 157-165; D-r Di mi t ar Di meski , Makedonskot o naci onal noosl obodi t el no dvi Ô ewe vo Bi t ol ski ot vi l aet (1893-1903), S kopje, 1981, 137-147.

533D-r DanÌo Zogr af ski , Jugosl ovenski t e soci jal i st i za makedonskot o pr aš awe, S kopje, 1962, 7-60; D-r Or de I vanoski , Bal kanski t e soci jal i st i i makedonskot o pr aš awe od 90-t i t e godi ni na HáH vek do sozdavawet o na Tr et at a i nt er naci onal a, S kopje, 1970, 66-70; Lazar Mojsov, P ogl edi vo mi nat ot o bl i sko i dal eÌno, S kopje, 1977, 99-103.

534D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 126-136; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 9-23.

535L’Autonomie, I, 4, Londres, 1.VII.1902, 2.

536Albano-Makedonia, I, 2, [Bucure‡ti,] 25/6.I.1894, 1-2; L’Autonomie, I, 4, Londres, 1.III.1902, 1-3; Gl asï Makedonski , á, 10, 30.á.1894, 4; Æ go-Zapadna Bï l gar i ò, á, 22, S of i ò, 7.áá.1894, ááá-ᜠ.

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There were also new currents in the émigré circles. In February 1894 a new Macedonian society, called Tatkovina (Fatherland),537 was founded in Sofia, and in May of the same year a renewed Young Macedonian Society (no longer ‘Literary’) appeared and tried to continue the publication of the journal Loza (in the standard Bulgarian orthography and language); yet only two more issues were printed.538 Vojdan Ëernodrinski’s Macedonian Accord (Makedonski zgovor) started its remarkably significant theatrical and literary activity under the auspices of this Society.539 Following the resignation of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov and his liquidation shortly thereafter, the Society set up a large number of regional branches throughout Bulgaria.

Soon, however, an initiative was taken for the merging of the Young Macedonian Society and the Brotherly Alliance, an organization consisting of pro-Bulgarian Macedonian émigrés in Sofia. On December 27, 1894, the Constitution of the Macedonian Committee was finally adopted and its management elected, headed by Trajko KitanÌev. The polemic between the Society’s mouthpiece, Glas Makedonski, and the mouthpiece of the Brotherly Alliance, however, continued in yet harsher and harsher tones.

On March 19, 1895, the foundations were laid for what was to become the Supreme Macedonian Committee in Sofia. At this First Macedonian Congress discussions concentrated on one crucial question: should they seek autonomy for Macedonia or its unification with Bulgaria? The majority voted in favour of autonomy.540 Although the organization continued to call itself simply the Macedonian Committee, it soon became ‘Supreme’ (Vrhoven), an event which marked the beginning of the history of what is known as ‘Vrhovism’ in the Macedonian liberation cause.

As this committee gradually turned into an unofficial instrument of the Bulgarian court, an ‘uprising’ was improvised that same year (1895) in eastern Macedonia and large waves of emigration were provoked, aimed at demonstrating to the world the ‘Bulgarian character’ of the Macedonian people. Yet this could not prevent the growth of the national idea of the Macedonians of freedom and an independent state.

537Æ

go-Zapadna Bï l gar i ò, á, 24, 20.áá.1894, ááá. asï Makedonski , á, 24, 8.œ .1894, 4; á, 25, 5.œ .1894, 1.

539S r . p. P et r ovï , ,,Makedonskot o del o pr edi i pr ezï 1895 g. vï Bï l gar i ò“, I l ô st r aci ò I l i ndenÅ, œ á, 7(57), S of i ò, 1934, 7-9.

540Konst ant i n P andev, op. cit., 91-92; S r .p. P et r ovï , op. cit., 9; D-r I van Kat ar xi ev, ,,S ozdavawet o na Makedonski ot komi t et vo S of i ja i negovat a akci ja vo 1895 godi na vo I st oÌna Makedoni ja“, Gl asni k na I N I , áH, 2, 1963, 77-112; I st or i ja na makedonski ot nar od, áá, 165-170; Gl asï Makedonski , áá, 22, 7.œ .1894, 2-3; P r avo, á, 25, S of i ò, 9.œ .1895, 3-4.

538Gl

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8.

In the meantime the international public was already acquainted with the essential points of the ‘Macedonian question’. The truth about the Macedonian people, their history, ethnography, folklore, language and culture continued to spread all over the world. Prominent European journalists, writers and Slavic scholars published major books and articles on the ethnic individuality of the Macedonians. For example, Petar Draganov,541 a Bulgarian from Bessarabia and a distinguished Russian Slavic scholar, who studied Macedonian matters on the spot as the Exarchate teacher in Salonika, started publishing, in 1887, a series of scholarly papers in St Petersburg and Warsaw on the language, ethnography, folklore and history of Macedonia. The year 1894 saw the printing of the first part of Draganov’s three-volume ethnographic, folklore and philological collection containing the texts of Macedonian folk songs together with ample commentaries, and also with an extremely important introduction which offered a faithful picture of the state of Macedonian national consciousness and culture at that time. This was the first collection of Macedonian folklore to be presented and at the same time analysed from a Macedonian national point of view.542 At approximately the same time the Austrian journalist Karl Hron published a series of articles and polemics in daily newspapers on the nationality (ethnicity) of the Macedonians, and in 1890 his book, The Nationality of the Macedonian Slavs,543 stirred up the ‘ethnographic dispute’ of the Balkan aspirants even further.

In that same year, the Estonian linguist Leonhard Mazing defended, in the Russian capital, the first doctoral dissertation dealing with the Macedonian language, and in 1890 and 1891 he printed it in the form of two serious scholarly publications (in German) on the Macedonian accent and the Macedonian language in the Slavic world.544 His teacher and colleague, the Polish linguist and university professor in Russia, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay,545 made a distinction, in his 541D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,P et ar Dani i l ovi Ì Dr aganov (1857-1928)“, Makedonski f ol kl or , áá, 3-4, S kopje, 1969, 495-528; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 408-466; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest , áá, S kopje, 1987, 73-89; Gane Todor ovski , ,,S t r ani ci za edno makedonof i l st vo“, Godi š en zbor ni k na F i l ozof ski ot f akul t et na Uni ver zi t et ot vo S kopje, 22, S kopje, 1970, 167-190.

542P . Dr aganovï , Makedonsko-S l avònskíà S bor ni kï , á, S .-P et er bur gï , 1894.

543Kar l Hr on, N ar odnost a na Makedonski t e S l oveni . Redakci ja i koment ar i : D-r Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , S kopje, 1966.

544R. Bul at ova, ,,Leongar d Got t hi l Åf Mazi ng (1845-1936)“, Tartu ulikoli ajaloo küsimusi, I (Trü ajaloo komisjoni matrjalid), Tartu, 1975, 142-158; R.V. Bul at ova, ,,P er vì à i ssl edovat el Åòzì ka makedonski h sl avòn L.G. Mazi ng (1845-1936)“, Makedonski jazi k, HHHáá-HHHááá, S kopje, 1982, 63-73; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,P ot t i k za r azvojot na makedoni st i kat a“, N ova Makedoni ja, Hª , 13392, S kopje, 5.œ .1984, 5.

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lectures, between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages, publishing a number of contributions in this spirit.

At the same time, in the reprinted Ethnographic Map of Slavonic Nationalities for the 1890 Calendar of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society, the Macedonian people was shown, for the first time, in a different colour, as an individual people in the Slavic world. This was in fact the first official recognition of the Macedonian national (ethnic) identity — although only at the Slavic level.546 Scholarly debates on this question were further encouraged by the printing of the first edition of the collection of folk songs and customs by Ivan Yastrebov, (1886)547 which, with the support of Serbia, also appeared in a second edition (with additions) in St Petersburg (1889). All this raised the ‘Macedonian question’ onto the international scene and it became an object of general interest for scholarship, and also for politics and propaganda.

Macedonians themselves were prompt to react. As early as 1890, in Sofia, Georgi BalasÌev, a member of the journal Loza, printed the first book in his native tongue,548 heralding the ‘new movement’ in Macedonian history. It was at that moment that the ‘secret’ student circle (‘society’) was established in the Bulgarian capital, which, in spite of persecution, was to become the core of the foundation of the Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia (1891-1892), famed for its mouthpiece Loza. The reactions of the semi-official newspaper Svoboda only served to help the clearer definition of the aims of the Macedonian movement.549 When the renewed Young Macedonian Society was joined by Macedonian Accord, an association of the young Macedonian intellectuals headed by Vojdan Ëernodrinski,550 the Macedonian language emerged on the theatrical stage through plays written mostly by the leader of the Accord. This was a new impulse to the creation of a literature in the native tongue and a fresh support in the affirmation of Macedonian liberation thought.

545D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 395-406.

Todor ovski , P r et hodni ci t e na Mi si r kov, S kopje, 1968, 166; Gane Todor ovski , Tr akt at i za sonceq ubi vi t e (Esei i zapi si na makedonski t emi ), S kopje, 1974, 164; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad, áá, S kopje, 1978, 272; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 474 and 530-531.

547I .S . ö st r ebovï , Obì Ìai i põsni t ur ecki hï ser bovï vï P r i zr õnõ, I pekõ, Mor avõ i Di br õ, S .-P et er bur gï , 1886 (2nd edition 1889).

548N õkol ko kr at ki l õt opi sni bõl õÔ ki po sï st oòni et o na zapadni t õ Makedonci za pï r vat a Ìet i r i deset Å i pet Å godi š na epoha na nast oòë i võkï . I zvl õ kï l ï , nar edi l ï i pr õ vel ï ot ï gr ï cki uÌeni ka Ezer ski , S of i ò, 1890.

549D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 490-506.

550Al eksandar Al eksi ev, Osnovopol oÔ ni ci na makedonskat a dr amska l i t er at ur a, áá dopol net o i zdani e, S kopje, 1976, 29-38.

546Gane

185

Here we must also add the appearance of a whole series of collections of Macedonian folklore, such as those by Kuzman Šapkarev,551 Vasil Ikonomov552 and Naum Tahov,553 and especially the folklore and ethnographic materials which started filling the pages of the distinguished Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija, nauka i kniÔnina (1889), where the accounts and texts by Marko Cepenkov554 occupied a prominent place, contributing significantly to the affirmation of the Macedonian language in a written form and arousing interest in Macedonian culture and the Macedonian past.

Hence it was not surprising that ‘Macedonian speech-forms’ was introduced as a subject in the St Petersburg Faculty of History and Philology in the academic year 1900/1901, taught by Professor Petr A. Lavrov. In 1900 the young Slavic scholar Krste Misirkov (who had still not completed his studies) wrote the first study in his native tongue,555 which his teacher, Lavrov, proposed that it should be printed and published by the Russian Academy of Sciences.556 This was not only the beginning of the new century but also of a new stage in Macedonian cultural and national history. It was not by chance that in 1900 Boris Sarafov’s Supreme Macedonian Committee in Sofia commissioned and printed the play Prilep Saints by Anton Strašimirov557 — based on material by Marko Cepenkov, who had offered it (for a modest remuneration) to the editorial board of the Committee’s mouthpiece Reformi558 — written in a Macedonianized variant (with ÏorÌe Petrov’s help). 559 Thanks to the great interest in this Macedonian play kï ot ï bï l gar ski nar odni umot vor eni ò …, á-áH. S ï br al ï i i zdava K.A. Š apkar evï , S of i ò, 1891-1894.

552Al eksandar Mat kovski , ,,Kni Ô evnat a i pr osvet na dejnost na uÌi t el ot Vasi l I konomov od Lazar opol e“, P r osvet no del o, H, 1-2, S kopje, 1954, 61-74; Gl i gor Todor ovski , ,,Nekoi novi mat er i jal i od Ô i vot ot na uÌi t el ot Vasi l I konomov od Lazar opol e“, P r osvet no del o, Hœ , 5-6, 1959, 278-285; Gl i gor Todor ovski , Mal or ekanski ot pr edel . Opš t est veno-ekonomski i pr osvet ni pr i l i ki vo per i odot od 80-t e godi ni na HáH vek do kr ajot na P r vat a svet ska vojna, S kopje, 1970, 162, etc.; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Vasi l I konomov (1848-1934). P r i l og kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonski ot kul t ur no-naci onal en r azvi t ok, I NI , S kopje, 1985; Vasi l I konomov, S t ar onar odni pesni i obi Ìai od Zapadna Makedoni ja. Redakci ja d-r Ki r i l P enuš l i ski , d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , d-r Bl aÔ e P et r ovski , I F , S kopje, 1988.

553Naumï K. Tahovï , S bor ni kï ot ï Makedonski bï l gar ski nar odni põsni , S of i ò, 1895.

554Mar ko K. C epenkov, Makedonski nar odni umot vor bi vo deset kni gi . Redakci ja: Ki r i l P enuš l i ski , Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Tome S azdov, I F , S kopje, 1972 (2nd revised edition 1980).

555AAN S S S R, Leni ngr ad, f . 284, op. 3, º 81.

556D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 214-234; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski l et opi s. Raskopki na l i t er at ur ni naci onal ni t emi . P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, á, Makedonska kni ga, S kopje, 1993, 153-163.

557C oÌo V. Bi l òr ski , ,,P r ot okol i t e na Vï r hovni ò makedono-odr i nski komi t et meÔ du œ áá i œ ááá kongr es (1900-1901)“, I zvest i ò na dï r Ô avni t e ar hi vi , 51, S of i ò, 1986, 120.

558Ibid., 132.

551S bor ni

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among the Macedonian émigrés, all 3,000 printed copies were sold out within a month.560 For this reason, on December 16, 1900, the Supreme Macedonian Committee supported (with 100 lev) the printing of Vojdan Ëernodrinski’s revolutionary play Makedonska krvava svadba (Macedonian Blood Wedding),561 which was to become the most famous play in the history of Macedonian literature and drama, and continues to be performed in Macedonian theatres up to the present day. The combination of all this reflected the establishment not only of Macedonian scholarly thought but also of modern Macedonian literature and a Macedonian national theatre, whose foremost aim was to support the Macedonian liberation cause.

9.

The organization and swift development of the Macedonian revolutionary liberation movement attracted the attention not only of Balkan politics and diplomacy, but also of the European political and diplomatic institutions. Speculations began concerning an imminent uprising. The affirmation of the national entity of the Macedonians became the imperative of the day.

As early as 1901, Macedonian émigrés in Belgrade started gathering on a national basis, and in the summer of the following year a special Macedonian Club with a Reading Room was founded, which immediately began publishing its mouthpiece (in Serbian and French) Balkanski Glasnik (Balkan Herald).562 The pages of this newspaper brought the first more detailed formulation of the Macedonian national liberation programme of the ‘new movement’, and Macedonian was proclaimed the literary language of the Macedonians (using phonetic orthography). However, when the prepared memorandum was supposed to be submitted to the signatory powers of the Treaty of Berlin, there was a great uproar among the Serbian public and the Club was closed, the newspaper banned, and the chief organizers and its editors, Stefan Jakimov Dedov and Dijamandija Trpkov Mišajkov, had to leave Serbia.

Through the mediation of the Russian diplomatic representative in Belgrade, Dedov and Mišajkov arrived in St Petersburg and there, together with people who shared the same ideas, such as Krste Misirkov, Dimitrija Ëupovski, Gavril Kon559I

l i ndenÅ, á, 25, S of i ò, 27.áá.1908, 1.

V. Bi l òr ski , op. cit., 127.

561Ibid., 149.

562D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 200-223; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad, á, 110-130.

560C oÌo

187

stantinoviÌ, Milan Stoilov, Risto RusulenÌiÌ and certain other Macedonian students and émigrés, on October 28, 1902, they officially founded the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society563 which was to play the role of a Macedonian cultural centre for a considerable period. In the application to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society (SPSCS), the nineteen signatories (headed by Misirkov) emphasized “the necessity for an exchange of ideas among ourselves, so that we can become acquainted with our fatherland, its present, past and future through joint efforts”, so that everyone could see “the damage of being divided into various groups” and avoid “the sad results of that division and have an opportunity of uniting ourselves on the basis of the unity of our fatherland, our same origin and future, and also on the basis of joint research into our fatherland from historical, ethnographic, folklore and linguistic points of view”. They united into a single society and applied for permission to hold their meetings on the premises of SPSCS “on the same basis as such meetings of the Czech, Bulgarian and Serbian young people studying in St Petersburg are held”.564 On November 12, 1902, Stefan J. Dedov and Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, on behalf of the Society, submitted to the SPSCS Council and also to the Russian government, a Memorandum on the Macedonian Question, which was undoubtedly the fullest exposition of the Macedonian national liberation programme.565 The document demanded the recognition of the Macedonians “as a distinct people with a distinct literary language which, together with Turkish, will become the official language in the three vilayets of Macedonia”. It also demanded “the recognition of its independent church”, a governor-general “of the majority nationality in the three vilayets”, and a “regional elective popular assembly” with an “organic constitution of Macedonia”, guaranteed by the great powers. This was in fact the minimal programme at that historical moment, but, as the memorandum stated, “such a free Macedonia in its political, national and religious aspects will aim to attract the neighbouring states to it in a f e d e r a t i o n ” so that it can become the “P i e d m o n t for the unification of Balkan Slavdom and Orthodoxy”.

The SPSCS Council supported the programme566 and thus the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society gained official recognition with opportunities for the development of national and cultural activities on the premises of Slavjanskaja Beseda in the Russian capital, on equal terms with the other similar recognized societies of Slavic peoples. Although only at the Slavic level, this was an extremely 563Q

uben Lape, ,,Dokument i za f or mi r awet o na S l avjano-makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo i negovi ot ust av“, Makedonski jazi k, Hœ á, S kopje, 1965, 193-194; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) …, á, 138-140.

564Ibid.

565D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 180-189.

566Ar hi v AN RAN, S .-P et er bur gï , f . 241, op. 1, d. 29, l . 60 ob.

188

important recognition of the national entity of the Macedonians, which met with varied reactions in the world, and particularly in the Balkans and among the Slavs.

At the Society’s second session (December 29, 1902)567 special gratitude was expressed to the Council of the SPSCS and letters were sent to the other Slavonic societies in St Petersburg (Bulgarian, Serbian and Czech) notifying them of the foundation of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society; the “borders of Macedonia” were defined, and an important decision was passed on the collection of “characteristic Macedonian words” which the Society’s secretary would write down “in a special book with pages divided into four sections: Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian”, in order to demonstrate to the Russians that the Macedonian language was distinct and different from the rest of the Slavonic languages and thus capable of independent literary development.

In spite of all the obstacles, intrigues and intimidation on the part of the interested aspirants to Macedonia, the Society held its sessions regularly, and in December 1903, after the suppression of the Ilinden Uprising, when the people most straightforwardly expressed their determination to win national freedom and a state of their own, the Society adopted a ‘Constitution’ which was submitted for approval to the SPSCS Council on December 20, 1903.568 The first president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society was Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, but in early 1903 the post was given to Dimitrija D. Ëupovski, who retained it to the end of the existence of this national association and institution — until the October Revolution (1917).

The Society achieved highly significant results in the implementation of the Macedonian national programme. For instance, it was within this Society that the first book in modern Macedonian was written and, by its decision, published as a practical application of Article 12 of the Constitution (Za makedonckite raboti,

by Krste P. Misirkov).569 It was here, too, that the elementary textbooks in Macedonian were prepared for the envisaged Macedonian schools in Macedonia, including one primer, which was sent to be printed in New York.570 In December 1903, during the printing of his book in Sofia, Misirkov founded a similar Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in the Bulgarian capital.571 With the purpose of preparing the ground for a similar association among the Macedonian émigré community in Belgrade, he went to the Serbian capital. There he managed to deliver a single but memorable lecture in the hall of the Higher Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 229-230.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 241-250.

569K.P . Mi si r kov, Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903.

570D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 270-297.

571Ibid., 258-260.

567D-r 568D-r

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School on the contemporary situation and the necessary and possible solution of the Macedonian national question, which caused a public reaction in the Belgrade press,572 involving behind-the-scenes intrigues about the author and his published work.573 As a matter of fact, he was able to feel all that for himself in his numerous contacts with prominent Serbian scholars and social, political and public figures.574 All this was synchronized with the performances of plays in the Macedonian language by Ëernodrinski’s Macedonian Theatre Group in Belgrade and Serbia,575 and with the visit of the Sloboda (Freedom) Theatre Group which also gave performances in Macedonian.576 After that a tour of America was planned for the Macedonian expatriates there.577 This was a time when the Macedonian language and Macedonian literature emerged on the scene quite normally, when the public started speaking of a ‘new’ South-Slavonic literature,578 and when the selections of Slavonic poetry allotted a special place to Macedonian poetry.579 In general, a large number of theatrical and other performances in the native tongue were prepared within the émigré community (not only in Sofia but also in all other centres of Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria). This was strongly reflected in Macedonia itself,580 and important works of poetry,581 prose582 and drama583 in Macedonian were printed.

263-264; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 317-320.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 330-333.

574A vt onomna Makedoni ò, á, 24, S of i ò, 14.Háá.1903, 4; DenÅ, á, 37, S of i ò, 3.á.1904, 2; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 312-320.

575D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 311-320; D-r Voi sl av I . I l i Î, L i ce i maska (Kni ga za Ëer nodr i nski ), S kopje, 1988, 395-463.

576D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Makedonskat a t eat ar ska gr upa ,S l oboda‘“, N ova Makedoni ja, HHá, 6655, 25.ᜠ.1965, 7; D-r Voi sl av I . I l i Î, op. cit., 465-509.

577Vojdan Ëer nodr i nski , S obr ani del a, ᜠ. S eÎavawa, dokument i , st at i i , P r i r edi l Al eksandar Al eksi ev, S kopje, 1976, 56-57.

578And. Gavr i l ovi Ú, ,,P r ed Ìet vr t om kni Ô evnoš Úu“, Br ankovo kol o, H, 17, S r emski Kar l ovci , 29.ᜠ(12.œ ).1904, 513-517.

579S l ovenski Jug, á, 8, Beogr ad, 25.Háá.1903, 6.

580A characteristic example is the transferral of poems from Ëernodrinski’s play Meeting performed in Bulgaria to performances in Macedonia: D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, 2, S kopje, 1982, 53-80; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest , á, 245-255.

581D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r aÔ uvawa i mat er i jal i , á, S kopje, 1980, 47-125.

582Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,I dei t e na ,Bal kanï ‘ i ,Bal kanski gl asni k‘ i obi dot da se sozdava l i t er at ur a na makedonski jazi k vo 1903 godi na“, Razgl edi , œ á, 7, 1964, 706-713.

583A. S t r aš i mi r ovï , P r i l õpski svet ci . Tr agi Ìeska i gr a vï t r i dõàst vi ò sï epi l ogï (I zï makedonski ò Ô i vot ï ), S of i ò, 1900; V. Ëer no-Dr i nski , Makedonska kï r vava svadba.

572Ibid., 573D-r

190

The role of the periodicals was not peripheral in this situation. The newspaper Balkan deserves special mention; it was published (now in Sofia) by Stefan Jakimov Dedov, as a kind of continuation of the Belgrade Balkanski Glasnik and an unofficial mouthpiece of the St Petersburg Society.584 At the same time Dedov’s friend and fellow fighter, Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, went to Bitola to test the ground for education in Macedonian, which was expected following the insurgent action.585 In fact, 34 villages in Macedonia demanded this in writing, and the Society sought to satisfy their demands.586 The year 1903 demonstrated the greatest achievement of the Macedonian national liberation idea and was a crucial stage in its national and political consolidation. The Macedonian masses unreservedly and enthusiastically accepted armed struggle as the only means of gaining national freedom, though perhaps in the form of a limited autonomy for a certain period. The struggle for Macedonian statehood already had theoretical premises and had shown practical results, and had, moreover, greatly excited the international public.587 But all this frightened and upset Macedonia’s neighbours, and they hurried to prepare the ground for its partition. Thus, for example, under the disguise of Serbo-Bulgarian student agreements and cultural events, in the background, secret treaties and conventions were signed for the conquest of Macedonia, still a Turkish province at that time.588 In addition, they took all measures possible to paralyse and disorient the Macedonian liberation struggle. Armed detachments of the neighbouring monarchies entered Macedonia; this was the start of what is known as the ‘detachment actions’, whose only aim was to undermine the independence of the Macedonian national liberation movement.589 Tr agedi ò vï œ dõàst vi ò na makedonski govor ï , S of i ò, 1900; V. Ëer nodr i nski à, ,,Maàst or i .

Ednoakt na scõ na i zï makedono-odr i nski Ô i vot ï na mak. govor ï “, A vt onomna Makedoni ò, á, 1, 5.œ áá.1903, 3–á, 12, 21.áH.1903, 2-3 (except in No. 8, 23.œ ááá.1903!); Mar ko K. C õ penkovï , ,,C ï r ne voàvoda. I st or i Ìeska pi esa vï pet Åakt a i zï makedonski ò Ô i vot na mak. govor ï “, A vt onomna Makedoni ò, á, 13, 28.áH.1903 – á, 25, 21.Háá.1903, 3.

584Bal kanï , á, 1, 5.ᜠ.1903 – á, 12, 4.œ .1903. Red.-i zd. S . Dedov. It was printed in Bulgarian (with editorials in Russian as well) and included material in Macedonian.

585D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 241-253; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Ul ogat a i mest ot o na Di jamandi ja Mi š ajkov vo makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na i st or i ja“, in: N auÌna mi sl a – Bi t ol a 1980, Bi t ol a, 1980, 383-401; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i naci onal na i st or i ja, áá, 66-88.

586D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 278 and 284-285.

587Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , I l i ndenskot o vost ani e i meÒunar odnat a javnost , S kopje, 1985.

588D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 303-310; Hr . S i l ònovï , Osvobodi t el ni t õ bor bi na Makedoni ò, áá, S of i ò, 1943, 321-323.

589D-r Gl i gor Todor ovski , P r i l ozi za sr psko-makedonski t e odnosi vo mi nat ot o, S kopje, 1987, 70-91.

191

At this historical point, the Macedonian national idea was the greatest obstacle to the achievement of the aspirants’ plans. This explains why the struggle against this idea was extremely well-organized and coordinated. The Macedonian people found themselves in a limbo of external factors, and even the international programme of reforms in European Turkey remained without real prospects of being implemented.590 The Young Turks only confirmed the impossibility. Obviously, the wars over Macedonia’s partition had been carefully prepared. A new period in Macedonian history ensued.

590D-r

Gl i gor Todor ovski , Ref or mi t e na gol emi t e evr opski si l i vo Makedoni ja (1829-1909), ááá, S kopje, 1984, 12-30.

192

The National Programme of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg

A large number of programme documents were formulated and published in the historical development of the movement for the cultural and national emancipation and social and political affirmation of the Macedonians. Yet we still do not have a thorough scholarly analysis or a comprehensive survey of these events and processes in Macedonia in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is mainly the result of a situation in which perhaps the most important documentation about this period is still outside our country and remains inaccessible to us. According to the information we have gathered so far, however, the programme concept of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg was the first complete and detailed national programme of the Macedonians, formulated as early as its foundation in 1902 and developed and adapted in accordance with historical realities up to the First Session of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia in 1944.

1.

The Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg was established on the basis of the historical experience of the Macedonian people in the preceding period, but in origin and ideologically it was based on the heritage of Pulevski’s Slavonic-Macedonian Literary Society (1881),591 the journal Loza in Sofia (1892)592 and the Vardar Macedonian Student Society in Belgrade (1893),593 and directly on the publicly proclaimed concepts of the Macedonian Club in Belgrade and its periodical Balkanski Glasnik (1902).594 591Upr avda

[D. Ëupovski ], ,,Kemï bì l a Bol gar íò dl ò Makedoníi , Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 5, S .-P et er bur gï , 5.áH.1913, 77.

592D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, S kopje, 1983, 469-602.

593D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og kon pr ouÌuvawet o na r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 126-138; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 9-23.

594D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 200-223; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo

193

The programme principles of the Macedonian movement had been laid down mainly from the mid-19h century onwards, but they were somewhat incomplete and most often remained without public affirmation. In as early as the 1840s some teachers and priests in Macedonia started working on the concept of distinct Macedonian national and cultural interests depending on the stage of development of historical consciousness and the socio-political, economic, social, cultural, educational and ecclesiastical and spiritual situation of the people.595 But the first public demonstration of this consciousness was made in 1859 with the Kukuš Union,596 although it involved compromises in terms of the formulation of the national aims and tasks. In this way, two national-political concepts in the Macedonian movement became established and developed side by side (with a certain intermingling) until the affirmation of the Macedonian nation-state (1944), although some atavisms have not fully disappeared even up to the present day.

Some may be surprised to hear that the monistic platform, which started from the distinct cultural and historical entity of the Macedonians, preceded, as a concept, the dualistic one, which favoured mutual support together with other cultural and national entities in the struggle for affirmation. The Kukuš Union backed Partenija Zografski’s dualistic platform, based on the Macedonian-Bulgarian association in the anti-Hellenic struggle and on projected future developments, and not without regard to the already concluded Serbo-Croatian Vienna Agreement (1850) as a model. In so doing, the Macedonian side stressed its individuality in terms of cultural and historical development, preferring the ‘Macedonian dialect’ in the envisaged joint literary standard, but accepted the name Bulgarian as a national designation, even though it tried to make a distinction through the formula ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’. This dualistic concept was promulgated through the legalized Bulgarian Exarchate as the national church of all Orthodox Slavs in the Ottoman Empire (1870) and enabled Bulgarian national propaganda to use official institutional forms. The process involved lavish support coming from the powerful Bulgarian national centres in Turkey and abroad, which succeeded in disseminating printed works in Bulgarian at an early date and in propagating their cause through a large number of newspapers and journals, collections and calendars, and also by printing complete textbooks. The foundation of the Bulgarian state following the Russo-Turkish War (1878) further strengthened and intensified this P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1978, 110-130.

595D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 194-210.

596D-r S l avko Di mevski , Makedonskat a bor ba za cr kovna i naci onal na samost ojnost vo HáH vek (Uni jat skot o dvi Ô ewe), S kopje, 1988; Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat skot o dvi Ô ewe vo Makedoni ja (áá). Kukuš kat a uni ja od 1859 godi na.“, Razgl edi , áá/ááá, 10, S kopje, 1960, 10051029.

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dualistic concept aimed at the effective and swift elimination of the Macedonian component in the initial dualism. Yet even the Ilinden Uprising was mainly carried out under the banner of that concept, with consequences which Krste P. Misirkov was able to predict even then.597 The dualistic concept was not a phenomenon involving only the Bulgarian element, as there were similar concepts connected with the Serbs and Greeks. The development of foreign nationalistic propaganda resulted in a split in the single Macedonian people, even with regard to the dualistic concept. It is important, however, that this concept nearly always envisaged the establishment of a distinct state entity for Macedonia as well — within a federal or confederal (South-Slav or Balkan) framework. In this respect, of special interest are the activities in the 1880s and 1890s of Spiro GulapÌev in Bulgaria,598 of Paul (Panagiotis) Argyriades in France,599 of the insufficiently studied Stefan DamÌev Makedon in Athens, Bucharest, Paris and London (and in particular his National Committee for the Autonomy of Macedonia and Albania),600 of Leonidas Voulgaris and his Committee for a Balkan or Eastern Confederation in Athens,601 etc.

That is how the concept of Macedonian ‘political separatism’ was built and gained strength. This was expressed primarily in the various Macedonian societies and committees of the Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria, in the Macedonian Socialist Group in Sofia and especially in the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Here we must emphasize that, while seeking a solution to the ‘Macedonian question’, even some Bulgarian activists and revolutionaries repeatedly came out in favour of that concept of ‘political separatism’, but preferring the Bulgarian national designation for the Slavic population of Macedonia. For instance, all the members who founded the Macedonian Secret Committee in Geneva (1898) were ethnic Bulgarians; they advocated “a Macedonian people”, but composed “of various nationalities”, a Macedonian state using the Bulgarian language and church and with Bulgarian education.602 The same spirit and the same tendency is predominant in the programmatic ‘Open Letter’ by D. Vihrov,603 597K.P

. Mi si r kovï , Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903, œ á, etc. r o Gul abÌev, Edi n ogl õd po et nogr af íòt a na Makedoni ò, Gabr ovo, 1887, 32-311.

599Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , Odbr ani del a, 3. Makedonskot o pr aš awe, S kopje, 1981, 190207.

600Albano-Makedonia, I, 2, Bucure‡ti, 25/6.I.1894; L’Autonomie, I, 4, Londres, 1.VII.1902, 1-3; Gl asï Makedonski , á, 10, S of i ò, 30.á.1894, 4; Æ go-Zapadna Bï l gar i ò, á, 22, S of i ò, 7.áá.1894, ááá-ᜠ; S ï gl asi e, á, 42, S of i ò, 16.ááá.1895, ááá.

601S voboda, á, 83, S of i ò, 12.áH.1887, 1-2; áá, 116, 13.á.1888, 3; áá, 118, 20.á.1888, 3-4.

602C oÌo V. Bi l òr ski , ,,Dokument i i mat er i al i na Makedonski ò t aen r evol ô ci onen komi t et (,Ó enevska gr upa‘)“, I zvest i ò na dï r Ô avni t e ar hi vi , 72, S of i ò, 1983, 185-253; DanÌo Zogr af ski , Makedonski ot t aen r evol uci oner en komi t et i ,,Ot m’š t eni e“, S kopje, 1954.

603D. Vi hr ovï [Di mo Ni kol ov], Ot vor eno pi smo do makedonski t e r evol ô ci oner i , S t ar a Zagor a, 1899; Vt or o i zdani e, Gabr ovo, 1901.

598S pi

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who was also a Bulgarian from Kazanl’k. Even the incorporation of the Adrianople region (and not Kosovo) into the organizational territory of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee and the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization604 was deliberate and obvious, and the participation of Bulgarian revolutionaries such as Mihail GerdÔikov, Peju Javorov and Hristo Ëernopeev only strengthened that tendency in the Macedonian movement.

2.

The first programme platform based on the monistic concept in the Macedonian movement was described by the Bulgarian national activist, Petko RaÌev Slavejkov in early 1871 in his newspaper Makedonija, first in general terms,605 and later, in 1874, in greater detail in his letters to the Exarch from Salonika.606 For the first time there was an account of a Macedonian ‘national separatism’ with a clear platform: Macedonians as a distinct nation; Macedonian as a distinct language in the Slavic world and a literary standard for the Macedonians; restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as a Macedonian national church with its own clergy; Macedonian schools and teachers in their mother tongue, and finally, autonomous administration of Macedonia within the borders of Turkey. This was the programme platform upon which Macedonian ‘national separatism’ continued to develop without interruption, although sometimes with varying amplitudes in its development.

We also find this concept in writing (although not in the form of programme documents) in the works of ÏorÒija M. Pulevski (from 1875,607 1878,608 1879,609 1880610 and 1892),611 in spite of the fact that, relying on the decisions of the 604S i

meon Radev, Ranni spomeni , S of i ò, 1967, 266-267. .R. S l aveàkovï ], ,,Makedonskì àt ï và pr osï “, Makedoníò, œ , C ar egr adï , 18.á.1871, 2.

606C oÌo Bi l òr ski , I l i ò P askov, ,,P i sma na P et ko RaÌev S l aveàkov po uni òt a v Makedoni ò pr ez 1874 g.“, Vekove, Hœ ááá, 1, S of i ò, 1989, 68-75.

607Ûor Ÿe M. P uq evski , ReÌni k ot t r i jezi ka s. makedonski , ar banski i t ur ski , kwi ga áá, u Beogr adu, 1875, 40-42.

608GÅ.M.P ., S amovi l a Makedonska, S of i ò, y.a.; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski i negovi t e kni š ki ,,S amovi l a Makedonska“ i ,,Makedonska pesnar ka“, I F , S kopje, 1973, 39-43.

609Makedonska pesnar ka ot ï Geor gÅa P ul Åevski , b.v.m., [á], S of úa, 1879; Makedonska pesnar ka.

Ot ï GÅor gÅa P ul Åevski , b.v.m.i .m., áá, S of úò, 1879.

610GÅ.M. P ul Åevski , S l avònsko-nasel Åeni ski -makedonska sl ogni ca r eÌovska za i spr avuvanÅe pr avosl ovki -òzi Ìesko-pi sani e. Osnovana na ááá.t o odel õni e uÌi l Åi š t ko, P ï r vi del ï , S of i ò, 1880.

611Ïor Òi ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci , I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1974, 213-257.

605[P

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Constantinople Conference, he also came out in favour of a dualistic monarchy of Macedonia and Bulgaria, but with Macedonia as a kingdom which would represent the embodiment of the one-time classical glory of Alexander.

In a substantially clearer form this concept was also expressed in the unofficial programme of the Secret Macedonian Society in Sofia (1890),612 and attempts were made at its affirmation within the Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia (1891-1892) and also within the Vardar Student Society in Belgrade (1893-1894), but it was only after early July 1902 that the newspaper Balkanski Glasnik published the true concepts of the monistic Macedonian national programme by the group known as ‘national separatists’, based around the Macedonian Club and the Macedonian Reading Room in the Serbian capital. The chief organizers of this activity, Stefan J. Dedov and Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, after their expulsion from Belgrade, wrote that the goal of Balkanski Glasnik was “to defend the interests of the Macedonian Christians not only from the subjugation of the Turks, but also from the various kinds of propaganda, and to stand up for an independent Macedonia in the political, national and spiritual respect”.613 They also said that even before the appearance of the newspaper Balkanski Glasnik “we tried to found, in the form of a literary club, a circle whose aim would be to unite the Macedonian intelligentsia in Serbia into a single whole, regardless of convictions, and which would see to the establishment of unity of thought among the Macedonian population”.614 The first issue of Balkanski Glasnik, among other things, stated: “If there is a people which is in the most unfortunate situation on the globe, it is the Macedonian people. History does not recall another similar example where one and the same people in terms of tradition, language and faith has been divided into various opposing parties, each more estranged than the other; and if we add the lack of personal safety and safety of property, and the corrupt Turkish administration, which in its own turn encourages the partition and subjugation of the people, you can imagine what a dark picture is that of Macedonia, where different aspirants see their power and greatness.”

612K. Š

ahovï , ,,P azet e se makedonci ot ï i zmama i bà det e bl agor azumni !“, Gl asï Makedonski , áá, 5, 23.Háá.1894, 2; P . p.Ar sovï , ,,P r oi zhodï na r evol ô ci onnot o dvi Ô eni e i pï r vi t õ st à pki na S ol unski ò ,Komi t et Åza pr i dobi vane pol i t i Ìeski t õ pr ava na Makedoni ò, dadeni i ot ï Bi r l i nski ò dogovor ï ‘“, Bô l et i nï , º 8, S of i ò, 1919, 3; D-r ï Lô b. Mi l et i Ìï , ,,Dame Gr uevï . Kr at ki bi ogr af i Ìeski bõ l õ Ô ki za Ô i vot a i deòt el nost Åt a mu“, Makedono-Odr i nski P r egl edï , áá, 30, S of i ò, 11.ááá.1907, 467-468; D. Mi r Ìevï , ,,Dame Gr uevï (Edi nï vel i Ìavï Ô est ï )“, I l ô st r aci ò I l i ndenÅ, á, 1, S of i ò, 1927, 7-8; S l avko Di mevski , ,,Dame Gr uev i makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe do sozdavawet o na TMORO“, in: P r i l ozi za Dame Gr uev.

Mat er i jal i od t r kal eznat a masa za Dame Gr uev …, Bi t ol a, 1983, 65-68.

613D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad, á, 180-182.

614Ibid., 182.

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“Yes,” continues the editorial, “if there is a means for uniting or disuniting the Orthodox East and the Slavic Balkans, we are pointing to it — it is the future of our fatherland, Macedonia. If the Macedonian question is resolved so as not to leave any traces of the national aspirations in the Orthodox East and the Slavic Balkans, this will help them unite in a political, and perhaps religious way, and, vice versa, if such traces remain, they will be disunited. In a word, Macedonia is the spring which pushes the Orthodox East and the Slavic Balkans towards friendship or hostility.”

“All Macedonians,” concludes the newspaper, “will bless their present-day benefactors if they change the methods of their work, or will curse them, if they become the cause of the perpetuation of the present situation, curses which will sooner or later bring misfortune to them, just as the curses of our parents have brought misfortune to us, and we are now wandering undesired and unwelcome across foreign lands, seeking a remedy for our ailing soul, imperceptibly caught in their claws, returning to our fatherland not as the advocates of progress, brotherhood and freedom, but of corruption, hostility and slavery.”615 The newspaper also gives a clear answer to the question of whether the Macedonians are “Serbs or Bulgarians, or are a distinct group among the Slavic peoples”. “Everyone who has had the opportunity of visiting this unfortunate brother land,” writes Balkanski Glasnik, “has, we believe, seen that the main body of the people is Slavic, which, according to its customs, tradition and past, represents a single ethnic whole, but which, regrettably, is now divided into several parts… In these thirty years the Bulgarians have been unable to make the population in Macedonia Bulgarian, and we believe that the other nationalities cannot succeed in this either.”616 The newspaper concludes: “In the interest of Slavdom in the Balkans, we hope that everybody will work on obtaining autonomy for Macedonia and acknowledging its Slavonic Macedonian dialect.”617 The national programme presented in this way was supplemented by the Macedonian Club in Belgrade recommending combined efforts by Bulgaria and Serbia so that “Macedonia can be granted autonomy, with its local Slavonic language-dialect, and be neutral, a vassal to Turkey and commercially free to both Serbia and Bulgaria”.618 The newspaper wrote that as far as the Balkan peoples were concerned, “their most sacred duty obliges them to stop sowing intrigues of discord, unrest, etc. and start conscientiously working on the neutralization of the controversial Macedonian question so that it can be resolved on the basis of 615Bal

kanski gl asni k, á, 1, Beogr ad, 7.œ áá.1902, 2. kanski gl asni k, á, 4, 28.œ áá.1902, 2.

617Ibid.

618Bal kanski gl asni k, á, 5, 4.œ ááá.1902, 2.

616Bal

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equality and independence, considering the future decentralization of the Balkans, at least of those regions whose inhabitants are one and the same people, who have one and the same faith, the same customs, spirit, character, etc., and particularly those who speak one and the same language,”619 because a stop should be put to the struggle “for domination over the people of Macedonia, who have their own individual dialect that can use the phonetic orthography”.620 Accordingly, the programme of Balkanski Glasnik envisaged the recognition of the Macedonians as a distinct Slavic nation, raising the Macedonian language to a literary standard (with phonetic orthography), in the future autonomy of Macedonia, “under the suzerainty of the Sultan, free in terms of commerce with Serbia and Bulgaria, and under the guarantee of the great powers”, within a Balkan association, where “each province would retain its autonomy (internal independence), and all of them together represent a single neutral federal state under the guarantee of the great powers”.621 The programme also involved the principle of gradual independence for Macedonia, which they called “the evolutionary path”, because the crucial element for them at that moment was not so much liberation from Turkey as protection from foreign propaganda. In this envisaged “autonomous Macedonia, bearing in mind the neutral Balkan federation, there would be no place for fear that the Macedonians would start revolutions and roam across the free brother states, but all provinces would dedicate themselves to their own peaceful, cultural, commercial, economic and financial interests.”622 Because of this programme, at the moment when the Regulations of the established Macedonian Club and Reading Room were submitted for approval to the responsible authorities, and when they announced the prepared “memorandum (complaint) which will soon be presented to the representatives of the Great Powers — signatories of the Treaty of Berlin”,623 mentioning the possibility that a delegation might leave for Europe in order to “describe the intolerable situation of their compatriots”,624 the newspaper was banned. The Club and the Reading Room were closed, and their chief activists were expelled from Serbia. Yet the Macedonian national programme found its way to the European public in printed form and won a large number of supporters both within the land and abroad. The programme was accepted as an authentic expression of the Macedonian people.

619Bal

kanski gl asni k, á, 3, 21.œ áá.1902, 2.

620Ibid.

621Bal

kanski gl asni k, á, 7, 18.œ ááá.1902, 1.

622Ibid.

623Bal

kanski gl asni k, á, 8, 25.œ ááá.1902, 3.

624Ibid.

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3.

Notwithstanding all these activities, we believe that the first comprehensive and decisive Macedonian national programme elaborated in written form was created with the foundation of the St Clement Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society (which later adopted the name Ss Cyril and Methodius). The first known founding act dates from October 28, 1902 (The Application to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society with the 19 signatures of its founders),625 and the last extant document is from June 18, 1917 (Programme for a Balkan Federal Democratic Republic, published in the main Russian newspapers in St Petersburg).626 In these fifteen years of activity, the Society appeared under different names: the St Clement Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg,627 Ss Cyril and Methodius Slavonic-Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society,628 Ss Cyril and Methodius Slavonic-Macedonian National-Educational Society,629 Ss Cyril and Methodius Russian-Macedonian Charitable Society,630 Macedonian Colony in Petrograd631 and the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee.632 The most active organizer and leader of this Society, Dimitrija Ëupovski, writes the following, among other things, in his short Autobiography (1933): From the very first year of my arrival in [the] f[ormer] St Petersburg it became imperative to organize, among the Macedonians who were here, a revolutionary-oriented association under the name ‘Slavonic-Macedonian S o c i e t y ’, a single nationalpolitical union in Russia based on the ideational foundations of the ‘Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization’, which proclaimed the slogan ‘Struggle for the independence of Macedonia’. In the course of 17 years (from 1900 to 1917), the Macedonian Society founded in Leningrad had the honour of carrying that banner, 625Q

uben Lape, ,,Dokument i za f or mi r awet o na S l avjano-makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo i negovi ot ust av“, Makedonski jazi k, Hœ á, S kopje, 1965, 193-194.

626Vol ò nar oda, º 43, P et r ogr adï , 18.œ á.1917, 2; N ovaò Ô i znÅ, º 52, 18.œ á/1.œ áá.1917, 2.

627K.P . Mi si r kovï , op. cit., 1, 45, 67 and 68, and also: ,,P et r ogr adckot o Makedoncko S l ovencko NauÌno-l i t er at ur no Dr ugar st vo ,S v. Kl i ment ‘ (ᜠ)“, in: Bal kanï (á, 1, S of i ò, 5.ᜠ.1903, 1), and also in: S l avònskíà Võkï (ááá, 62, Võ na, 15/28.áá.1903, 431) and A vt onomna Makedoni ò (á, 20, S of i ò, 16.Há.1903, 3). The Society is sometimes also mentioned with the additional adjective Student.

628Q uben Lape, op. cit., 198-202; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) …, á, 241-246.

629D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., áá, 6-23.

630Ibid., II, 143-156.

631This name appeared officially in public for the first time in the Memorandum on the Independence of Macedonia of March 1, 1913, and was used until the last number of the journal Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), dated November 20, 1914.

632D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., áá, 267-268.

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paying no attention to any intrigues or intimidation by its enemies. The mottoes ‘Macedonia to the Macedonians’ and ‘A Balkan Federal Republic’, ingrained in the foundations of the Macedonian programme, drove all pseudo-Slavophiles mad…633

The Society’s activities before October 28, 1902, remain still unknown, not taking into account the foundation and activity of the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Circle (TMOK) in St Petersburg, which was set up on November 12, 1900634 (where Ëupovski’s membership is not confirmed), and whose dualistic platform was based on that of the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (TMORO). The Circle was considered a TMORO Russian branch, even though in the foundation of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society some of its first members were TMOK activists. But regardless of whether the Society was in fact active for 17 or only 15 years, its national programme remained the same and was adapted only in accordance with the new historical realities following Macedonia’s partition in the Balkan Wars.

– The first concept of this Macedonian national programme was announced in the Society’s founding act of October 28, 1902, but it can be found in its integral form in the Memorandum to the Russian government and to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society of November 12, 1902, signed by the principal activists of the Macedonian Club in Belgrade, Stefan Jakimov Dedov and Dijamandija Trpkov Mišajkov.635 All the aspects of the ‘Macedonian question’ 633Ibid.,

I, 99-100.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 159-186.

635D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 180-189. Another document describing the Macedonian national programme of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society is certainly the Report P. No. 193 of November 22, 1902, by the envoy extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Serbia to the Russian capital, Academician Stojan NovakoviÚ, who had first-hand information on the concepts and actions of the Society. Among other things, he writes: “Macedonian separatism, according to their theory, would aim at a separate political and cultural organization of Macedonia, independent of the cultural and political centres of both Sofia and Belgrade.

Were Macedonia to be granted certain autonomous rights, they believe that they should be extended to the secession of the church from the Bulgarian Exarchate in Constantinople, the organization of a separate church authority under the protection of the Constantinopolitan Church, such as was the case in Serbia and Romania prior to the Treaty of Berlin, and the raising of the Macedonian dialect to official and literary use, with phonetic orthography, in order to avoid the use of the Bulgarian language. The future autonomous organization of Macedonia, according to their idea, should be based on these three cornerstones: a separate church, a separate language and a separate autonomous organization, under the protection of the Sultan and Patriarch.”

NovakoviÚ continues by giving information on the response these ideas met with in the Russian society, and also among young Macedonians (primarily university students) who were studying in St Petersburg and had links with Sofia or Belgrade: “The Russian Ministry has so far not interfered in this matter at all. The literary and political circles here, on the other hand, most often react with sympathy and natural curiosity to all this, considering the present situation in Macedonia. Yet as the majority in these circles have become used to consider the Macedonians as part of the Bulgarian people, these separatist Macedonian theories are regarded as a novelty and have aroused suspicion in some that they may be of Austrian origin, as Austria usually 634D-r

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at that moment are described, and the aspirations of the Macedonian people in their long struggle for national liberation are presented in sixteen large hand-written pages. It is a concept which fully corresponded with that published in Balkanski Glasnik, but systematized in an official act whose fundamentals did not remain unknown to the wider European public.

– The third official act of the Society was the brief original minutes of its “regular session” of December 29, 1902,636 taken by the Society’s secretary, Milan Stoilov, when its Administration was constituted. This document contains the following points: “the borders of Macedonia” on its ethnic territory were defined; it was decided “to thank the Sl[avonic] Ch[aritable] Society as it has allowed our society to hold meetings in their salon” (which was still another official acknowledgement of Macedonian national individuality at the Slavic level), and finally, with regard to the question of the individuality of Macedonian in comparison with other Slavonic languages, it was concluded that its members should write down characteristic Macedonian words in a book with pages divided into four sections: Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian, to show to the Russian public that Macedonian was no closer to Bulgarian or Serbian than to the Russian language.

– The fourth document arising from the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg was published (unsigned) in Vergun’s Slavjanskij Vek in Vienna on February 15 (28), 1903,637 where the entire Macedonian national protects Slavic separatist ideas and the division of languages and dialects, and Russia is more inclined towards centralization.

“The great majority of young Macedonian people studying here are with the Bulgarians. They have welcomed this movement with sympathy, because Macedonians willingly accept ideas of a separate organization for their fatherland, even though sometimes they oppose it in favour of Bulgarianism.

Young Bulgarians, on the other hand, are totally opposed to this, fearing that they will thus lose Macedonia. Our young people are rather sympathetically inclined, because with the foundation of a separate Macedonian group among the young people here, the Bulgarians would lose the most, and it is all the same to us, as only two or three Macedonians who are now with our people would leave.

“When the aforementioned Macedonians, Mr Jakimov and Mr TrpkoviÚ, addressed the ‘Slav.

Charitable Society’ with a request to allow the holding of sessions for young Macedonians as well, as they have allowed for the Bulgarians and Serbs, they had two meetings and decided to allow the holding of Slavic-Macedonian meetings. The Bulgarian Agency was against this, but was unable to prevent it and at present is trying to put obstacles in the way of Macedonian separatism by other means.” [Ar hi v S r bi je, Beogr ad (Archives of Serbia, Belgrade), MI D, P P , f . Háá, 1903. Materials from different years].

In fact, the main decision on the recognition of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society by SPSCS was passed on the meeting of its Council of November 1, 1902, where Protocol No. 13 stated that they had examined the request by the Society “to be allowed to assemble for lectures and addresses on the premises of” SPSCS and decided “to allow it on days which would be determined by the Schedule Commission” (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i naci onal na i st or i ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 1989, 208-209).

636Ibid., 202.

637,,Makedonskoe obë est vo vï S .-P et er bur gõ “, S l avònskíà Võkï , ááá, 62, 15/28.áá.1903, 431-432.

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programme was presented in eight elaborated items. The Society’s aim, according to this document, was “the spiritual unification and unity of our fatherland, the study of Macedonia from historical and ethnographic points of view, acquainting the Russian public with the true situation of the Macedonians in the past and now”.

Of particular importance was the fact that, for the first time, it included the following clause: “The members of the Society will speak among themselves only in the Macedonian dialects, and not in Bulgarian or Serbian, as has been the case so far, depending on the place of education.” The Society established links with the Belgrade Balkanski Glasnik, as its editors were also members of this society in St Petersburg and as it expressed “the view that the Christian population is divided into three hostile camps — Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek (rich people, Graecophile Slavs)”, as a result of which “it is necessary to raise one of the four main Macedonian dialects… to the level of a general Macedonian literary standard”, where “the most suitable seems to be the south-western Mijak-Brsjak dialect”. Of considerable interest is also the classification of the four main dialects in Macedonia: “(1) Highland: Skopje, Kumanovo; (2) Mijak-Brsjak, in the Pelagonija Plain: Bitola-Ohrid, Prilep; (3) EnidÔe-Vardar: Voden; (4) Nevrokop,” where “the vowel shift and the topographic basins” were taken as the criteria for classification. It was of special significance that the future Macedonian literary standard was to be taken from the west-Macedonian “Mijak-Brsjak” dialect with its centres at Bitola, Ohrid and Prilep, which is virtually identical with the determination of Misirkov’s “central dialect” and with the basis of our modern literary standard, except that Veles is not mentioned as one of the starting points of Misirkov’s concept. (We must point out that by that time Krste P. Misirkov was a grammar school teacher in Bitola, but maintained contacts with the members of the Society, regularly sending a part of his salary for its activities).638 The document continues: “The fact that Serbian propaganda is not restricted to Skopje and that there are also Serbian schools in Bitola, Voden, Salonika, EnidÔe-Vardar and Kukuš, and until recently there was a Serbian school even in Seres, and also the fact that Bulgarian propaganda has also spread throughout Macedonia, is the best proof of the unity of the Macedonian language, folk customs, character, traditions and everything which may be encompassed under the notion of nationality.” The Society believes that “the attainment of this idea, ‘Macedonia to the Macedonians’, could, with the establishment of a Macedonian standard”, even prove desirable for all the actors interested in the ‘Macedonian question’, enumerating them: “(1) For the Bulgarians, because they could hope that with the return of Macedonian émigrés brought up in the Bulgarian spirit the land would acquire a Bulgarian character; (2) for the Serbs, because this would put an end to Bulgarian 638C ent

r al en dï r Ô aven i st or i Ìeski ar hi v, S of i ò, f . 246, op. 1, ar h. ed. 533, l . 283.

203

propaganda and thwart the danger of having a strong Bulgarian state to the south; (3) for the Romanians, because they would not have to deal with a powerful Bulgaria to the south; (4) for Russia, because the establishment of the autocephalous Macedonian church could weaken the significance of the pan-Hellenic Patriarchate and impel it to consent to the elective principle for the oecumenical patriarchal throne, which would be an opportunity for the election of a Russian candidate to the Oecumenical Cathedra; (5) for Austria, because with the establishment of the Macedonian standard it could win the sympathies of the population and prepare the ground for occupation; (6) for the Pan-Slavs, because this would put a stop to the antagonism between the Bulgarians and Serbs (Pan-Bulgarian and Pan-Serbian ideas) and the unification of Serbia and Montenegro would become possible, providing the Serbs with an outlet to the Adriatic Sea, and because the small states in the Pan-Slavic alliance would need the support of Russia; (7) for the Turks, because this would bring about the cessation of all types of current political and religious propaganda; (8) for Greece, because the hopes for the restoration of the former rights of the patriarch in church and school matters would be reinvigorated.” Finally (as Balkanski Glasnik had emphasized earlier, as stated in the Memorandum of November 12, 1902, and as Misirkov wrote in 1903 and 1905), this document, too, explicates: “During the formation of the Serbian and Bulgarian literary standards, the regions of eastern Serbia, western Bulgaria and the whole of Macedonia were ignored, and the present elevation of this language to a level of higher literacy, could represent a unifying link for the Slavs of the entire Balkan Peninsula.”

– The fifth official act of the Society we know of is the Request to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society of December 20, 1903,639 in which a brief account of the work during the past year is given and the Constitution of the Society is submitted for approval.

– The sixth document is the aforementioned “Constitution of the SlavonicMacedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg under the patronage of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society” of December 16, 1903,640 where the objectives of the Society are defined: “(a) to develop national awareness among the Macedonian colony in St Petersburg; (b) to study the language, songs, customs and history of Macedonia from their ethnographic and geographical aspects; (c) to reconcile and unite all Macedonians, regardless of their education and conviction, in the name of their common descent and the unity of their fatherland; and (d) to spread all the aforesaid among Macedonians in Macedonia and outside its borders (abroad).”

639D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., 226-229.

640Ibid.,

204

241-246.

The Society planned to attain these objectives by: “(a) organizing assemblies and lectures; (b) reading papers, short stories, poems, etc.; (c) collecting folk literature (folklore) and works of historical interest on Macedonia; (d) spiritual support for our compatriots, especially upon their first arrival in Russia, and (e) helping and developing mutual relations with the other Slavonic societies and circles, and also with individual Slavic activists.”

Of particular significance for Macedonian history and culture is Article 12 of this Constitution, which says: “Conversation in the Society will be carried out in the Macedonian (Slavonic-Macedonian) language; all papers and protocols will also be written in this language.” This, as far as we know, is the first introduction of the Macedonian language into official use, and was repeated in Article 31 of the Constitution of the Ss Cyril and Methodius Slavonic-Macedonian NationalEducational Society of June 27, 1912.

– The seventh document is Krste Misirkov’s book Za makedonckite raboti (On Macedonian Matters), which was written under the auspices of the Society (on its recommendation) and printed towards the end of 1903 in Sofia, the centre of Macedonian émigrés in the post-Ilinden turmoil. This was in fact a practical application of the Constitution’s codification and the first standardization of the modern Macedonian literary language using a modern Macedonian alphabet.

Misirkov, as a Slavic scholar and on the basis of the Macedonian national programme already defined during the previous year by the Society, analysed all ‘Macedonian matters’ at that historical moment, assessed all current events and worked out certain programme points in accordance with the new historical circumstances in Macedonia — with the experience gained after the Ilinden Uprising. This was the first book in a modern Macedonian literary language and orthography, which provided both a theoretical basis and a historical survey of Macedonian national development. Basic textbooks for the envisaged Macedonian schools were also prepared,641 but the opening of such schools in Macedonia was not allowed, and the printing of the textbooks proved an impossible task. The aspirants acted in accordance with Misirkov’s predictions in his book.

– The eighth document in order of significance was the letter by the Society’s president, Dimitrija Ëupovski, sent from St Petersburg on February 17, 1904, to Nikola NiÌota, a Society member in Moscow,642 which contains important information on the activities of the Society and its links and relations with the Balkan states, the great European powers and Turkey itself.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 295-29; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) …, á, 253 and 284-285.

641D-r 642D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 273-277.

205

– In addition to the large number of Misirkov’s programmatic letters addressed to various persons and institutions,643 we should mention, as the ninth document in terms of significance, the Programme for the publication of the “Vardar monthly scholarly and literary journal”, formulated by Misirkov in Berdyansk on October 11, 1904,644 and approved by the responsible Russian authorities on March 1, 1905.645 This was a programme meticulously worked out in the spirit of the programme principles of the Society and in accordance with Articles 1, 2 and 12 of its 1903 Constitution.

– And finally, the tenth official programme document of significance was the first (and the only) printed issue of the pioneering scholarly, literary and socio-political journal in the modern Macedonian literary language and orthography, Vardar, which appeared in Odessa on September 1, 1905.646 It represented the full practical application of the provisions contained in the Society’s constitution concerning the publication of a periodical in the native tongue.

4.

Of the Society’s documentation of programmatic character available to us concerning the first three years of its extensive activity, however, a special place and significance must be given to the aforementioned Memorandum of November 12, 1902, as an act with the most complete definition of the Macedonian national programme until Macedonia’s partition.

The essential demand in the document is the autonomy of Macedonia within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, as a provisional status, and federation with its neighbours (with Macedonia as the ‘Piedmont’) as the next step. The Society put forward the following programme demands for such an autonomy: 1. Recognition by Turkey of the Macedonian Slavs as a separate people.

2. Recognition of the distinct Macedonian language as literary and its status as official language, together with Turkish, in the three vilayets: Kosovo, Bitola and Salonika.

643D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 197-416; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Š kol uvawet o na Kr st e Mi si r kov vo Rusi ja (Novi podat oci i soznani ja za f or mi r awet o na Mi si r kovat a mi sl a)“, Gl asni k, HHáH, 1-2, S kopje, 1985, 105-144.

644D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 271-273.

645D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Var dar “. N auÌno-l i t er at ur no i opš t est veno-pol i t i Ìko spi sani e na K.P . Mi si r kov, I MJ S kopje, 1966, 73-74; S .B. Ber nš t eàn, ,,I z i st or i i makedonskogo l i t er at ur not o òzì ka. ,Var dar ‘ K.P . Mi si r kova“, S l avònskaò f i l ol ogi ò, S bor ni k st at eà, vì p. t r et i à, Moskva, 1960, 71-72.

646Photographically reproduced edition in the book: D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Var dar “…, 85-116.

206

3. Recognition of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as an independent Macedonian church.

4. Appointment of a governor-general in the three vilayets from the majority nationality and a deputy from among the less numerous nationalities.

5. A regional elective popular assembly of Macedonia.

6. Granting of an Organic Statute to Macedonia by His Imperial Majesty the Sultan.

7. Guarantees by the great European powers for the implementation of the rights granted by the Sultan. Etc.647

This minimum programme, as a provisional status, was accompanied by detailed and substantiated explanations. What first strikes the reader is the fact that this whole large text mentions neither the Adrianople region nor ‘Old Serbia’ (Kosovo), but deals only with Macedonia within its contemporary ethnic borders.

Another fact which must be pointed out is that the text gives special emphasis to and offers a scholarly interpretation of the language question in Macedonia. The philological analysis contained in the Memorandum was obviously not made without the direct participation of the best qualified Macedonian Slavic scholar at the time, a postgraduate student at St Petersburg University, Krste P. Misirkov. We can read virtually the same formulations a year later in his book Za makedonckite raboti.

The essential question in the Memorandum is the emphasis on the Macedonians as a separate people, leading to the plea “for a Macedonia free, nationally, politically and ecclesiastically”. The authors say that this “may seem like a utopia; it may seem that we are trying to create in an artificial way something which does not exist, that we want to create an ethnic concept from the geographical concept of Macedonia, or, in other words, that we are trying to create a Macedonian nationality artificially. But matters are indeed otherwise.”

Statistical data are given on the population in Macedonia within the borders defined by the Constantinople Conference, indicating that of the total of 2.5 million inhabitants, there was a Slav population of between 1.2 and 1.5 million, followed by the Turkish “with an imposing number of 600 to 800 thousand” inhabitants (which undoubtedly referred to all Mohammedans in Macedonia, including Albanians and Macedonians), whereas the rest of the inhabitants were Greeks, Vlachs, Jews, etc. Hence the conclusion that “in the future Macedonia, free politically, nationally and spiritually, the most important role in the socio-political life of the land will belong to the Slavic element, which is now, regrettably, being divided firstly into three ethnic groups and then, in religious terms, into the following groups: Patriarchists, Exarchists, Catholics, Protestants and MoBl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á. All subsequent quotations are from the same document.

647D-r

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hammedans”. In this division of the Macedonian population “the Church serves as a tool to diverse propagandas” to recruit followers.

Schools in Macedonia are used in a similar way, as “instead of spreading knowledge and enlightening the people, they sway them in favour of this or that Balkan nationality, instil sympathies for one propaganda and nationality and hatred for others”, and have thus become “the enemy of their own fatherland”.

Therefore the authors of the Memorandum believe that the unification of the Macedonians with their own forces is hindered and blocked by the propaganda machines, and also that unification cannot be carried out by any of the neighbouring states, as they are directly opposed to each other.

The Memorandum also takes a position with regard to the Revolutionary Organization in Macedonia, which is almost identical to that of Misirkov a year later. The authors write: “It is true, the Macedonian intelligentsia, brought up in the Bulgarian national spirit, is fighting to obtain autonomous rights for Macedonia, but this activity of theirs is constantly paralysed by the activity of other Balkan states, so that all attempts at effecting a general uprising in Macedonia have not achieved the desired results, attempts which have, however, cost the population dearly. Besides, the Serbs, the Greeks, and even the Romanians, by force of certain higher state interests, will never allow the achievement of Macedonian autonomy without a prior accord with the Bulgarians.” This view was certainly the result of the real situation in Macedonia and the Balkans, but it also paid attention to Russian state policy which was sensitive to any revolutionary action and disturbance of the status quo maintained by Russia and Austria-Hungary together.

If it is impossible to provide political freedom for Macedonia at this moment owing to all these powerful factors, the authors of the Memorandum believe that it is possible to provide “national freedom for the Macedonians”, and this means: “removal of national propagandas from Macedonia and the introduction, instead, of one of the Macedonian dialects at the level of a general Macedonian literary standard”. Here, too, the question of the language in Macedonia and its relations with the languages of the Bulgarians and Serbs are analysed in detail (from the philological and political aspects). The authors conclude that “there is ethnic and linguistic unity in Macedonia and that it is disputed only by the adherents of greater-Serbian and greater-Bulgarian ideas”. Therefore, they believe that “the interests of the Slavic population of Macedonia can be safeguarded in the future destiny of this land only through the development of a common Slavic national awareness among all Macedonian Slavs”, and hence, “it is in the interest of the latter to eliminate Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda in the spirit of their native tongue, their common past and common future”. And because “there is national unity in Macedonia in the sense that all Macedonian dialects constitute a single whole”, it is necessary “to raise one of the Maced. dialects to the level of a literary 208

standard”, and hence “the necessity of eliminating Serbia’s and Bulgaria’s aspirations in Macedonia, of eliminating national propaganda which demoralizes the Macedonian population, and of unifying the Slavic element in Macedonia with the purpose of preserving its predominant significance for the future of Macedonia”.

The same emphasis on the linguistic question in Macedonia can be found in Misirkov’s book Za makedonckite raboti, as one of the most powerful means for Macedonian national unity and freedom from propaganda activities.

Yet the authors of the Memorandum ascribe no lesser significance to the question of “the position of the church in Macedonia”, and hence, among other things, they conclude and envisage: “In order to frustrate the religious partition of Macedonia and eliminate the various types of interference by the enemies of Slavdom and Orthodoxy, we deem the spiritual unification of the Slavs in Macedonia into a single whole as necessary so that they can be ready in any given instance to offer resistance to external incursions. In saying this, we have no intention of creating a new church in addition to the existing ones, but we would like to act in a legal and diplomatic manner wherever this proves necessary for surmounting the schism and transferring the Bulgarian Exarch from Constantinople. In addition, we would like Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian clerics in Macedonia to be replaced by clerics from among the local inhabitants who would be subordinated to the Patriarchate through their own archbishop, whose canonical relations with the Patriarchate would be approximately the same as are, for instance, the relations within the existing autocephalous Orthodox churches. In this way the Oecumenical Patriarchate will lose its pan-Hellenic significance and will only acquire its true oecumenical significance when all autocephalous churches are able to take part in the election of the patriarch. And this can be achieved only if the Macedonian church, too, is made autocephalous.”

In conclusion, the Memorandum states that “no revolutions are needed” for the national and spiritual unification of the Macedonians, and puts forward the naïve belief that “it would be enough if Russian public opinion, together with Russian diplomacy, urges the Balkan states in this respect so that the latter can renounce their policies of conquest and halt their propaganda in Macedonia; and if they wanted, from a humanitarian point of view, to help their brothers (as they have now become accustomed to call them), a thousand other ways could be found to express their brotherly feelings. By halting propaganda,” the authors hope, “the antagonism among the population will cease, the Slavic population will become united into a single compact mass and will always be able to withstand all anti-national currents.”

This programme, however, is planned to last only “until the Albanian question matures politically and nationally” and until “a decision is made on who will rule the Dardanelles”. In the meantime, “Macedonia nolens volens, by necessity, should 209

remain a constituent part of the Ottoman Empire, because the result of any uprising will only be the extermination of the Slavic population, and this can be desired only by the enemies of Slavdom and Orthodoxy.”

At this point the Society offers its minimum programme of seven items as the “minimum rights and reforms which can be demanded and which can be achieved in the existing political circumstances, to preserve the integrity of Turkey, guaranteed by the great powers, which is necessary for the preservation of European peace”. Only in this manner, gradually, can Macedonia emerge as the “Piedmont” and attract the neighbouring states in a federation for “the unification of Balkan Slavdom and Orthodoxy”.

The fundamentals of this Macedonian national programme remained unchanged until the overthrow of Ottoman rule in Macedonia and Macedonia’s partition. This is confirmed in the programme concept of “the separatist circle in Bitola” in its letter dated August 15, 1912, shortly before the proclamation of the First Balkan War, presented succinctly in the following demands: 1. Energetic intercession by brotherly Russia in favour of the Macedonians.

2. Destruction of Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek propaganda in Macedonia.

3. Opening schools in the Slavonic-Macedonian language.

4. Restoration of church independence (autocephalous Slavonic-Macedonian Church in the t[own] of Ohrid).

5. Free development of national awareness, i.e. of the awareness that Slavonic Macedonians are a single and inseparable people.

In the interest of the preservation of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish government should aid with all cultural measures the spread of this propaganda which already has thousands of followers both in Macedonia and outside it.

6. In the name of humanity, human dignity and love for their fatherland, the Macedonian intelligentsia should once and for all put an end to the shameful sale of their conscience and honour in the Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek markets.

7. Broad internal self-government for Macedonia.648

5.

The same concepts are expressed in the programme acts of the Ss Cyril and Methodius Slavonic-Macedonian National and Educational Society in St Petersburg (1912-1913),649 in the memoranda of the Macedonian Colony in the Russian capital of March 1 and June 7, 1913,650 in the journal Makedonskij Golos (Make648Gr aÔ

dani nï , º 37, S .-P et er bur gï , 16.áH.1912, 5.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 5-25.

650Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 1, 9.œ á.1913, 17-23.

649D-r

210

donski Glas), which was actually the mouthpiece of that Society,651 in the numerous articles in the Russian press652 and memoranda to the Russian government,653 to the governments and public opinion of the Balkan states,654 in the appeals to the Macedonians within the land and in emigration,655 etc. The national programme was constantly adapted in accordance with the new historical realities, and following the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, in accordance with the international sanctioning of Macedonia’s partition and the new paths of struggle for liberation and unification of the land and the people.

As Russian politics was directly involved in the events in the Balkans, it did not allow the legal activity of the renamed Ss Cyril and Methodius SlavonicMacedonian National and Educational Society, not even after the amendments which were subsequently made to its Constitution.656 Hence, immediately following the Peace Treaty of Bucharest, the members of this Macedonian association in St Petersburg tried to obtain a permit for the foundation of a Ss Cyril and Methodius Russian-Macedonian Charitable Society.657 Despite the signatures of two distinguished Russian activists and only that of Dimitrija Ëupovski on the part of the Macedonians, this society, too, was not accepted by those responsible in the City Administration. Macedonian national subjectivity was not allowed to appear before the Russian public with the approval of the Russian authorities, even though its aims and tasks were nearly the same as those we find in the 1903 Constitution of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society.

Following the start of the First World War, the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society once again presented its programme through the official acts of the Macedonian Colony, published in its printed mouthpiece and also in the special Memorandum to the Russian government.658 Yet under pressure from Serbia and 651Makedonskíà

gol osï (Makedonski gl as). Or gan na pr i vr zani ci t e na nezavi sna Makedoni ja 1913-1914. F ot ot i pno i zdani e, I NI , S kopje, 1968.

652D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 62-119.

653Ibid., 221-226.

654Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), áá, 11, 20.Há.1914, 199-201.

655Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), áá, 10, 13.œ ááá.1914, 6-10 and 20-21; áá, 11, 20.Há.1914, 201-203.

656D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 20-22.

657Ibid., 143-156.

658In the extensive and well-substantiated Memorandum to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, of August 1914, the signatories Dimitrija Ëupovski and Krste Misirkov (in the capacity of representatives of the St Petersburg Macedonian colony and the Odessa and South-Russian Macedonian colony), among other things, wrote that “the most equitable solution to the Macedonian question would undoubtedly be the establishment of an independent kingdom headed by a monarch of Slavic origin and of the Orthodox faith”. Assessing the historical moment after the start of the First World War in which Russia, too, was taking part, the signatories to the Memorandum declared the following: “We would like a Macedonian king from Great Russia. We must rectify our mistakes from the past and

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Greece, and owing to the bartering negotiations with Bulgaria, Russian policy suppressed Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas) as well.

6.

Unable to appear openly before the world with an official association, the Macedonians made attempts to use the existing Russian and Slavic societies in order to make their views known and influence the final settlement of the question of Macedonia following the War. As a result, Dimitrija Ëupovski became vice-president of the Society for Assistance to Beginner Writers, Actors, Artists and Scientists in Petrograd,659 and it was not surprising that its mouthpiece Slavjane (Slavs, 1915) re-printed Krste Misirkov’s article ‘The Struggle for Autonomy’.660 When this society, too, was banned by the authorities, the representatives of Macedonia became members of the Society for Slavonic Mutuality (1915), and a special commission was formed within the Council of the Society for Slavonic Mutuality, composed of Russians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians. On June 8, 1915, it elaborated a very important Resolution on the Macedonian Question, which was separately published by the Editorial Board of Makedonskij Golos. The first item of this document said: “The most equitable solution to the question would be the establishment of an integral independent Macedonia by taking those parts of Macedonia from Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria which were captured by them in 1913. In this way, a single integral state will finally be established from this long-suffering partitioned land, which will be able to develop freely and exist independently.” 661 instead of looking for support among Balkan states, we should look for it and would certainly find it in the person of the great liberator, Slavic Russia. We believe that the best and most equitable solution to the Macedonian question would be if all Macedonian territories which constituted the three former Macedonian vilayets were seized from the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians, and a new Slavic, fully independent Balkan Kingdom of Macedonia were established, headed by one of the great princes of the Russian imperial house, at the royal choice of His Imperial Majesty, the Great Emperor. In exchange for the Macedonian territories seized from Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, the first can be rewarded at the expense of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the second at the expense of Epirus, and the third at the expense of Dobruja or Thrace.” The Memorandum also suggested enticing prospects for Russian Balkan policies: “The establishment in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula and on the borders of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece of an independent Macedonian kingdom headed by a king of the Russian imperial house will complete the liberation by Russia of all Balkan peoples and thus the unification could commence of all Balkan Orthodox lands into a single whole under the sceptre of the Balkan branch of the Romanov imperial dynasty.” (D-r Rast i sl av Ter zi oski , ,,Ruski dokument i za posebnost a na makedonski ot nar od“, N ova Makedoni ja, ª , 16972, 22.ᜠ.1994, 12).

659D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 227-239.

660K.

P el Åskíà, ,,Bor Åba za avt onomíô “, Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), áá, 11, 20.Há.1914, 205-207; K. P el Åskíà, S l avòne, º 5, P et r ogr adï , 1915, 60-62.

212

7.

The First World War, however, affected the whole of the Balkans and the destiny of Macedonia became even more uncertain. As a result, in August 1915, Dimitrija Ëupovski sent a cable, on behalf of the Macedonians, to the president of the Serbian National Assembly which was then in session: At this moment when Serbia is deciding the question which determines the future destiny of long-suffering Macedonia, we, the Macedonians, express our ardent conviction that the brotherly Serbian people will resolve the Macedonian question in full conformity with the rightful national aspirations of the Slavonic Macedonians, a huge part of whom are now fighting together with the Serbs in the name of Slavic freedom and Slavic happiness. An equitable decision by the Serbian Assembly will not mean a new partition of Macedonia but the restoration of its unity, recognized by item two of the Serbo-Bulgarian Accord of February 29, 1912, which envisages the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia.662

8.

When Dimitrija Ëupovski’s attempt (1916) to come to Macedonia and coordinate the actions deciding the postwar fate of Macedonia failed, a Macedonian Revolutionary Committee was founded in Petrograd, headed by Ëupovski himself. As part of its activity, on June 18, 1917, immediately after the February Revolution and long before the October Revolution in Russia, this committee published, among other things, a Programme for a Balkan Federal Democratic Republic 663 printed in the central Russian newspapers under the slogan “The Balkans to the Balkan peoples. Full self-determination for each nation”. This was a programme in full agreement with that proclaimed 15 years earlier. The published document had three signatories: The Macedonian Revolutionary Committee, The Cyril and Methodius Macedonian Society and The Editorial Board of Makedonskij Golos.664 This was at the same time the last known official document signed by the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in Petrograd (St Petersburg) that presented the programmatic base of the liberation concept of the Macedonians.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 242.

I, 42-43.

663Ibid., II, 266-269.

664The three signatories appear below the text in the newspaper Vol ò nar oda, º 43, 18.œ á.1917, 2,, and we also find them in transcription (copy) by Ëupovski himself, among the personal property he left (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., áá, 263). This surviving original mentions only Makedonskíà Revol ô ci onnì à Komi t et ï , and the published version in the newspaper N ovaò Ô i znÅ, º 52, 18.œ á/1.œ áá.1917, 2, indicates only S l eduô t podpi si (“Signatures follow”).

661D-r

662Ibid.,

213

Emphasizing that the raging war “is bringing freedom and self-determination to many peoples�, the Programme pointed out: Macedonia has fought for centuries and shed streams of blood for this freedom and independence, but it was treacherously, unfairly dismembered by the nefarious chauvinism and by the greed of the bloodthirsty dynasties of surrounding states. The results of this unprecedented plunder in history have been the cause not only of mutual extermination of the Balkan peoples, but also of a hitherto unseen world war. Now, when a huge part of the Balkan Peninsula is in ruins and the rest of its peoples remain under heavy Austro-German slavery, we, the Macedonians, who have suffered more than anyone else, are calling upon all of you, Balkan peoples, to forget the disputes of the past and unite and join our pan-Balkan revolutionary programme in a joint and persistent struggle for the establishment of a Balkan Federal Democratic Republic.

The Programme was presented in 11 explicit items: 1. All the Balkan peoples are bound to overthrow the existing dynasties and introduce a republican form of government.

2. Every Balkan republic should be fully independent in its internal life.

3. All the Balkan republics will constitute a general Balkan Federal Democratic Republic.

4. The Balkan Federal Democratic Republic will consist of the following republics: Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Thrace.

5. Not only ethnically homogeneous states are recognized as independent republics in the Balkans, but also those regions with mixed populations, whose vital interests are closely connected with the geographical, historical, political, cultural and economic conditions.

6. Autonomous districts and municipalities can be established in the republics with mixed populations, where every nationality will enjoy full freedom of its native tongue, faith and customs.

7. The official language of each republic will be the language of the majority.

8. Each individual republic will send its own authorized representatives to the general Federal Parliament of the Balkan Federal Democratic Republic.

9. A Federal Government and a Council which stands in the stead of the President of the Federal Republic will be formed from among the authorized representatives.

10. The Federal Government and the Council will be composed of an equal number of persons from each federate republic.

11. The Federal Government and the Council will control all general federal internal and foreign international affairs of the Balkan Republic.

This Programme was a genuine expression of the legitimate aspirations of the Macedonian people and of their traditional concept of the liberation struggle, best represented, at that period, by the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in Petrograd. The progressive movement among the Macedonians between the two world wars grew as a natural continuation of this concept that was to reach its peak in the Second Ilinden, in 1944.

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The Affirmation of the National Identity of Macedonia and the Securing of its Territorial Integrity (1912-1913)

The Macedonian liberation movement started as cultural and national (from the 1840s onwards), continued as national and revolutionary (1876-1892), evolved into political and revolutionary (1893-1903) and affirmed itself as a national and political movement in the period between the two Ilinden landmarks (1903-1944).

During these extremely important years, however, the continuity of development and affirmation of the Macedonian national idea and action was never interrupted, even though this was a crucial and dramatic period for the Balkans and a time full of arduous and convulsive processes. Indeed, mutually opposing ideas and actions by foreign actors in Macedonian developments frequently came to the surface, in particular after the violent clashes between the organized neighbouring propaganda machines with clearly defined platforms of aggressive aspirations towards the European territories of feudal Turkey, but this was also the result of the unique evolution of the Macedonian people in the mediaeval period and the geopolitical position of Macedonia in the years when most of the Balkan nations and nationstates were established. The study of the historical truth about Macedonia and the Macedonians as a distinct entity has begun only in recent times, in circumstances of still vigorous throwbacks to the former greater-state mythologies, adapted to the new historical conditions and modern methods in the Balkan environment.

1.

Despite its being understood in different ways in different periods of the Macedonian liberation movement, autonomy was not accepted as mere tactic,665 but as a permanent programmatic principle to preserve the independence and integrity of Macedonia, and later also to unite the already divided Macedonian people. Hence it was not surprising that the Macedonians so tenaciously insisted (starting from 665The attempts at presenting it in this way reflect a recognizable tendency: Di

mi t ï r G. Gocev, I deòt a za avt onomi ò kat o t akt i ka v pr ogr ami t e na naci onal no-osvobodi t el not o dvi Ô eni e v Makedoni ò i Odr i nsko (1893-1941), S of i ò, 1983.

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the 1880s) on obtaining autonomy within a wider community of peoples,666 as a federation667 or confederation,668 within the boundaries of Turkey or of an Eastern community, or within a Balkan,669 South-Slav670 or Yugoslav671 framework. This was the imperative for the Macedonians dictated by the history, geography, ethnography and politics of this part of the Balkans. Until the Balkan Wars it was a means of neutralizing the danger of partition by its neighbours, and later was the only possibility for the liberation and unification of the dismembered people. It was these same circumstances and external factors that contributed to the Macedonians joining the Yugoslav federation following their struggle for liberation in the Second World War.672 In seeking a solution, especially in the period between the two world wars, there were even concepts for the autonomy and independence of Macedonia as a buffer state with the purpose of neutralizing revanchism and maintaining peace in the Balkans,673 but it soon became clear that the Macedonians were not the Swiss and that the internal federation of its “nationalities”674 guaranteed no good pros666S pi

r o Gul abÌev, Edi n ogl õd po et nogr af íòt a na Makedoníò, Gabr ovo, 1887, 32-111.

DanÌo Zogr af ski , Odbr ani del a, 6. Makedonskot o pr aš awe i i st or i ski t e r aspaÎa, S kopje, 1986, 105-127; D-r Or de I vanoski , Bal kanski t e soci jal i st i i makedonskot o pr aš awe od 90-t i t e godi ni na HáH vek do sozdavawet o na Tr et at a i nt er naci onal a, S kopje, 1970, 126-147; D-r Manol P andevski , P ol i t i Ìki t e par t i i i or gani zaci i vo Makedoni ja (1908-1912), S kopje, 1965, 135-152; Al eksandar Hr i st ov, S ozdavawe na makedonskat a dr Ô ava 1878-1978. N aci onal noosl obodi t el not o dvi Ô ewe i bar awe obl i ci za konst i t ui r awe na Makedoni ja kako naci onal na dr Ô ava, á, S kopje, 1985, 252-270 and 340-354; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouÌuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 1978, 252-270.

668Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , Odbr ani del a, 3. Makedonskot o pr aš awe, S kopje, 1981, 190207; S voboda, á, 83, S of i ò, 12.áH.1887, 1-2; áá, 116, 13.á.1888, 3; áá, 118, 20.á.1888, 3-4; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, S kopje, 1983, 73-144.

669D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 101-138; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) …, áá, 252-270 and 319-330; D-r Mi hajl o Mi noski , F eder at i vnat a i deja vo makedonskat a pol i t i Ìka mi sl a (1887-1919), S kopje, 1985, 21-277.

670D-r Mi hajl o Mi noski , op. cit., 279-295; Al eksandar Hr i st ov, op. cit., áá, 81-92.

671D-r Mi hajl o Mi noski , op. cit., 301-305; I van Kat ar xi ev, P o vr vi ci t e na makedonskat a i st or i ja, S kopje, 1986, 242; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 537-541; Al eksandar Hr i st ov, op. cit., áá, 93-104.

672Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Di skusi ja“, in: A S N OM vo sozdavawet o na dr Ô avat a na makedonski ot nar od, MANU, S kopje, 1987, 442-454.

673This concept was advocated by the revolutionary organizations not only prior to the First World War, but also between the two world wars and was supported even by Krste Misirkov in some of his articles [D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og kon pr ouÌuvawet o na r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 610].

674Even Sandanski’s federalist concept following the Young Turk Revolution and that of the “federalists” of the 1920s did not envisage a distinct Macedonian people, a distinct Macedonian nation, but 667D-r

216

pects for either Macedonia or the Balkans. As a result, following Macedonia’s partition, the Macedonian liberation movement swiftly oriented itself towards the progressive forces in the world and looked for the solution to the historical reality in concepts proposing a federation of Balkan states and peoples — with Macedonia as an equal member.675 The Macedonian revolution in the Ilinden period was characterized by two essential components, inseparable and compatible in their parallelism, but sometimes confronted from outside. There is no doubt that the unmistakable mass character of the armed revolutionary component with politically clear aspirations towards securing a state-constitutional affirmation for Macedonia bore the legitimacy of a struggle for freedom.676 Yet the absence of a publicly defined national, and not only political, platform,677 the incorporation of the Adrianople region within the Organization’s territory,678 and the acceptance of occasional and conditional support mainly from one of the interested parties,679 resulted in the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization making certain compromises and creating an impression before the largely uninformed world as if it wanted to build its own state — with an alien people! The genuine endeavours of the organization to present its independence and ‘internal nature’ were more or less successfully exploited and used by the interested external actors. Precisely because of the vague national programme of the revolutionary movement, the Ilinden Uprising was used by those actors, even though the uprising was a historic popular achievement, as manipulated with representatives of the neighbouring nations in Macedonia and sought a solution by means of a kind of cantonal constitutional system after the example of Switzerland.

675This option was embraced even by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO, VMRO) of Aleksandrov, Protogerov and Ëaulev, resulting in the May Manifesto [I van Kat ar xi ev, op. cit., 229-257; I van Kat ar xi ev, Bor ba do pobeda, 2. Vr eme na zr eewe. Makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni (1919-1930), áá, S kopje, 1983, 240-307].

676Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , I l i ndenskot o vost ani e i meÒunar odnat a javnost , S kopje, 1985, 46-49; Dop. Ìl en d-r Manol D. P andevski , I l i ndenskot o vost ani e 1903, S kopje, 1978; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest , á, S kopje, 1987, 171-348.

677K.P . Mi si r kovï , Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i ò, 1903, 1-44 etc.

678S i meon Radev, Ranni spomeni , S of i ò, 1967, 266-267. The Adrianople region was included because the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Exarchate encompassed the territories of Macedonia and the Adrianople region, and the Exarchate’s entire activity was concentrated in these two regions of Turkey.

Most of the more prominent activists of the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (TMORO) were officials of the Exarchate and worked in these two regions. This already had a tradition of three decades. Present-day Kosovo was not under the jurisdiction of the Exarchate.

679In this respect, it was not without significance that the ‘Exarchists’ formed the core of the Revolution, that the seat of the Organization’s representative office was in Sofia and that all the information going out to the world passed through the Bulgarian capital, transmitted chiefly via the Bulgarian news agency and the Bulgarian press, while in Macedonia very often it was the Bulgarian church authorities and ‘trade agencies’ that carried the Organization’s mail and communications. The ‘support’ of some Bulgarian governments and parties was also no secret.

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Misirkov lucidly assessed it only shortly afterwards.680 Hence, the Young Turk Revolution, carried out basically as an anti-Macedonian act,681 was fully used by the propaganda of the surrounding countries for legalizing their activities and for the final partition of Macedonia, first into spheres of influence, and then of its territory and people, which greatly encouraged the aggressive policy of the Balkan monarchies in the ensuing wars.682 The other component of the Macedonian revolution was the authentic Macedonian national movement which had deep roots683 in the ethno-cultural traditions and endeavours of the past. Adapting itself to the contemporary circumstances and possibilities, it defined the programme principles which were finally to bring national freedom. The foundation of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg,684 as the principal core guiding this movement,685 was not the work of a single man or of a group of Macedonian intellectuals, but the expression of an ideology which already had its own historical heritage, deeply rooted in Macedonia itself, and also supporters and followers within the Revolutionary Organization itself. According to its goals and tasks, and also its composition and activity, the Society was neither a simple student organization nor an isolated circle, but a general Macedonian popular, national, political, scholarly and cultural association. It developed along a road starting from Macedonia and going via Sofia and Belgrade to St Petersburg, and maintained regular contacts and coordinated its activities with the organized centres within Macedonia and abroad.

At that time it indeed played the role of a central Macedonian association (Matica Makedonska) and it was no chance that it produced the first complete and detailed Macedonian national liberation programme (1902), the first book in the modern Macedonian literary language and orthography (Za makedonckite raboti, 1903), the first public introduction of this language and orthography into official use (Article 12 of the 1903 Constitution), the first textbooks for the envisaged Macedonian 680K.P

. Mi si r kovï , op. cit., 76.

681Regardless of whether the expectations from the agreement between the sovereigns of Russia and Great

Britain in Reval on the autonomy of Macedonia were realistic (and if so, to what degree), the Young Turk Revolution started earlier than envisaged, and in Macedonia at that, because the integrity of the whole Empire was endangered by the possible action of the great powers which might have involved, even temporarily, some kind of autonomy for this Turkish province.

682D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 467-489.

683D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 119-602.

684D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, á, 130-179.

685A Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society was also founded in Sofia, in December 1903 [D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 298]. The following year Nikola NiÌota made a similar attempt in Moscow [D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) …, á, 272-277], and in 1905, Krste Misirkov prepared the ground for the foundation of a similar society in Odessa as well (D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 383).

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schools (1903-1905), the first journal in the modern Macedonian literary language and orthography (Vardar, 1905), the first map of Macedonia (within its ethnic borders) using the Macedonian language (1913), the first journal (in Russian) with a clearly defined Macedonian national programme [Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), 1913-1914], the first special publications defending the Macedonian cause in the most critical historical moment, at the time of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and the first complete federal programme with modern concepts concerning the prospects of the Balkans (1917). All these achievements have secured this Society a special place in the history of the liberation cause of the Macedonian people, as an integral part of the Macedonian revolution.

2.

Bearing in mind all the manifestations of Macedonian national consciousness and the concepts of the Macedonian liberation idea in the period up to the Balkan Wars, we can conclude that the Slavic population of Macedonia was neither “ethnically heterogeneous” nor an “amorphous mass” which could be moulded according to the wishes of the conquerors, but a people with an already defined individuality, aware of its history and culture, and also determined to fight for its future.

Accordingly, it was not and could not be a mere object, but aimed to act as a subject in the historical moments of Balkan history.

Thus, when rumours started spreading in the European public of new accords signed between the Balkan monarchies for war against Turkey, when the Kingdom of Serbia once again took the initiative in acquiring and dividing the Sultan’s ‘legacy’, and Bulgaria concluded that it had no chances of wresting the whole of Macedonia, the Macedonians saw the danger of partition and took steps to thwart these serious threats. It was not by chance that the “Russian Party”686 appeared in the Bitola region as early as 1910, and at the same period demands could be heard for the return of Metropolitan Teodosija Gologanov to Skopje, where he planned, together with Krste Misirkov and Petar Poparsov, to found the first Higher Teachers’ Training College in Macedonia.687 At the same time, the experienced activist Marko A. MuševiÌ arrived in St Petersburg with a memorandum to the Russian government and the Holy Synod of the Russian Church demanding the 686D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 465-466.

687D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, á, 596-602; D-r S l avko Di mevski , ,,P r i sust vot o na Teodosi j Gol oganov vo r azvojot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a vo epohat a na naci onal no-r evol uci oner not o dvi Ô ewe“, Gl asni k, I NI , HH, 2, S kopje, 1976, 101-103.

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establishment of a vocational school in the Macedonian language with a boarding house in the Óitoše Monastery, to produce trained staff for the future schools of Macedonia.688 It was quite natural that the memorandum was accompanied by Nace Dimov’s signature and a conceptual programme which was in total contrast to the actions “of the political hacks in Sofia and Belgrade”.689 We still do not know the details of Dimitrija Ëupovski’s mission to Macedonia in 1911,690 when he had important contacts with people sharing the same ideas and fighting for the same cause in connection with the dangers posed by the haggling policies of the neighbouring monarchies.

When it became obvious that war in the Balkans was imminent, an important letter arrived in St Petersburg (written in Bitola on August 15, 1912, long before the declaration of the First Balkan War), in which this national centre, continuously active from the 1890s onwards, defined, in seven points, the ways and means for the preservation of the integrity and the affirmation of the legitimate aims of the Macedonian people.691 This letter, published in GraÔdanin of November 16, 1912, fully corresponded with the endeavours of the founders of the Ss Cyril and Methodius Slavonic-Macedonian National and Educational Society in St Petersburg, whose Constitution of June 27, 1912, codified the national programme of the Society in the new circumstances.692 The founders aimed to secure the necessary legitimacy for themselves before the Russian authorities so that they could competently and responsibly represent Macedonian interests in the expected turmoil in the Balkans.

The Society aimed “to help the spiritual rebirth and unification of the Macedonian Slavs and their free national-popular self-determination,” acting “in the territories of the Russian Empire and Macedonia”. The following activities were planned for the attainment of these goals: (a) to organize meetings, speeches, readings, addresses, public lectures, performances, concerts and literary evenings; (b) to collect and study the historical monuments and indigenous characteristics of the Macedonian Slavs; (c) to organize publishing houses and open libraries and reading rooms, in accordance with Article 175 of the Stat. on Cens. and Print., item XIV of the Code of Laws, to publish a periodical printed mouthpiece of its own, to organize 688C ent r al

Ånì à Gosudar st vennì à I st or i Ìeski à Ar hi v, S .-P et er bur g (henceforth C GI A), f .

796, op. 191, ed. hr . 157, ot d. œ á, st . 1, l . 4; f . 797, op. 96, d. 250, l l . 1-5.

689C GI A, f . 797, op. 96, d. 250, l l . 1-5.

690S er bo-bol gar skíà spor ï za obl adaníe Makedoníeà, P et r ogr adï , 1915, 112.

691Gr aÔ dani nï , º 37, S .-P et er bur gï , 16.áH.1912, 5.

692D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 8-16.

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competitions for the best scholarly and specialist works on the Macedonian question and to give awards and prizes to their authors; (d) to assist the training and education of its compatriots in a genuine national spirit, offering them material and moral support; (e) to open schools and reconstruct the destroyed Orthodox churches and monasteries in Macedonia; (f) to support and develop mutual relations with all Slavonic societies and also with individual Slavonic scholars and social activists; (g) to institute scholarships for children and orphans in various schooling institutions.693

Stressing that “regular members can be exclusively Slavonic-Macedonian men, Slavonic-Macedonian women and also the wives of Macedonians who agree with the specified basic provisions of this Constitution and who are prepared to help their implementation”, it expressly forbids: “Macedonian men and Macedonian women of Slavonic descent who do not profess the distinct national unity of the Macedonian Slavs, but call themselves Serbs, Bulgarians or Greeks, cannot be regular members of the Society.”694 In addition, Article 31 is specific: “The Slavonic-Macedonian language is considered the spoken and written language among the members of the Society. For the purposes of spreading the idea of solidarity and spiritual unification of all Slavs, regardless of faith and nationality (Russians, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, Slovenes, etc.), the SlavonicMacedonian Society will use, in its relations with other organizations and individual persons from Slavic countries, the pan-Slavonic Russian language; the documentation of the Society’s Administration will be kept in the Russian language and in Slavonic-Macedonian.” 695 At the moment when Russia was the catalyst of the Balkan Alliance against Turkey, the responsible authorities refused to register this society, because its aims and tasks ran contrary to the aims and tasks of the Alliance. The legitimate goals of the Macedonians were not permitted to reach the Russian and international public.

3.

Prominent representatives of the Society, even as members of the Macedonian Colony in the Russian capital, used the various ‘Slavic lunches’ on Mondays and Thursdays as opportunities to promulgate their views, inform the public on the 693Ibid.,

8-10.

10.

695Ibid., 15.

694Ibid.,

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situation in Macedonia and the Balkans, and to prevent the partition of their homeland.696 Thus, in early September 1912, the Macedonians declared: Yes, the situation is critical: there is a smell of death in Macedonia… The victory of the Slavic alliance, if achieved, is absolutely undesirable from a Slavic point of view, as this will be a requiem for the descendants of Cyril and Methodius: Macedonia will be divided into three parts, there will be a temporary triumph over its body, but no one will be satisfied: a fight will unavoidably break out among those who dismembered it and there will be no bright day for the Slavs. If Russia gives support to the Slavic alliance, which is hardly likely, then the outcome will inevitably be a European war and the partition of Macedonia.697

This prediction was not taken seriously as a warning by the rapturous Slavophile circles in Russia, not even by the responsible Russian political circles.

Dimitrija Ëupovski, Nace Dimov, Dr Gavril KonstantinoviÌ and other Macedonian activists were extremely worried and visited various Russian editorial offices and societies; they spoke and wrote about it, but the war in the Balkans broke out and the partition of Macedonia seemed inevitable. What was important at that moment was to act in the field, inside Macedonia, to organize internal resistance against the aggressors and provide popular representation prior to the anticipated peace conference. Therefore, Dr KonstantinoviÌ enlisted as a volunteer in the Balkans, but he was sent to Montenegro as a physician.698 Krste Misirkov left for southern Macedonia in the capacity of a Russian military correspondent from Odessa.699 Nace Dimov went to Sofia to animate the Macedonian émigré circles,700 and his brother, Dimitrija Ëupovski, travelled through Sofia and Skopje to Veles, where he arrived on November 21 (December 4), 1912. On the same day, in Angele Korobar’s home, a general Macedonian conference was held with the participation of prominent Macedonian activists from all over the land to reach agreement on the necessary actions to be taken after the occupation by the various armies, and also on the sending of a Macedonian delegation to the London Peace Conference.

In spite of the insistence of Petar Poparsov, Rizo Rizov, Alekso Martulkov, Angele Korobar and others, they were unable to adopt a joint resolution. It was decided, however, that Rizov should go to Salonika and then to Bitola, to meet their 696Ibid.,

26-142. dani nï , º 37, 16.áH.1912, 3-4.

698DanÌo Zogr af ski , ,,Razvojni ot pat na Makedonecot d-r Gavr i l o Konst ant i novi Î vo Okt omvr i skat a r evol uci ja (P r i l og kon pr ouÌuvawet o dejnost a na makedonski t e pr ogr esi vni emi gr ant i vo mi nat ot o)“, Gl asni k na I N I , á, 2, 1957, 21; C ent r al Ånì à Gosudar st vennì à Voenno-i st or i Ìeski à Ar hi v, Moskva, f . 316, op. 66, d. 1239.

699D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) …, 495-497.

700According to the testimony of Marija Konstantinova, daughter of Nikola D. Ëuparov, from Sofia.

697Gr aÔ

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adherents and act in favour of Macedonia’s autonomy at the Peace Conference in London. Yet in Salonika he was strongly threatened by the Bulgarian emissaries that tongues would be cut and heads would roll for uttering the word autonomy.701 Jane Sandanski heard the same language at the banquet of General Todorov in Salonika, when he drank a toast to the future autonomous Macedonia.702 The old teacher and revolutionary Anton Keckarov from Ohrid had the same experience when he wrote in a letter to Sofia that autonomy should be granted to Macedonia, “and they answered him saying that he should never mention such a thing again, because he would be expelled and incarcerated in Kurt-Bunar. And therefore everyone kept a low profile, as it was war and everything was being done by force.” 703 At about the same time, the distinguished Russian politician, statesman and professor, Pavel N. Milyukov, who was already familiar with Macedonian matters, arrived in Salonika. In a comparatively long article in his newspaper RÆÌ, he writes that in December 1912 prominent Macedonian activists in Salonika handed “the first written protests” to the Bulgarian tsar and the heir to the throne, in which they demanded “a single autonomous Macedonia”. Milyukov points out that they still did not know the agreement on Macedonia’s partition — “or they officially ignore it”. “For the people who have fought all their life for the Macedonian idea, it was obviously psychologically impossible in an instant to bow down before the accomplished fact and admit that their ideas were finally made null and void and consigned to the archives.”704 All these reactions by the Macedonians confirm that there was resistance inside Macedonia as well against the aggressive appetites of its neighbours, but that the real power was on the side of the occupiers.

4.

All that Dimitrija Ëupovski could bring from the conference in Veles was an authorization to represent Macedonia’s interests before Europe through the activity of the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg. As early as January 27, 1913, Ëupovski published an article in the newspaper GraÔdanin in the form of a letter from Macedonia, where, after describing the history of Macedonia, its struggle Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 40-67. ec, á, 11, S of i ò, 15.œ áá.1945.

703Makedonsko sï znani e, á, 8, Vi ena, 16.ᜠ.1924.

704RõÌÅ, º 26, S .-P et er bur gï . 27.á/9.áá.1913, 2.

701D-r

702Dobr ovol

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for freedom and the situation following the incursion of the Balkan armies, he wrote: Now, when the action for Macedonia’s liberation has been completed, i.e. the Turkish authorities have been driven away, and the allies have instituted their own occupation authorities instead, now the prospects for Macedonia’s future seem even gloomier and sadder than before. From the attitude of the occupation authorities towards the Macedonian population it is clear that Macedonia’s former slavery has been replaced by an even worse one, not only political, but also spiritual, and furthermore, a triple one. In the territories of Macedonia seized by the allies the situation has become unbearably difficult. Even before peace with Turkey is concluded, the occupation authorities are using draconian measures to deny the population their nationality, their name and their vows, in the name of which this people has fought for freedom.

To prevent information reaching the independent European press about the violence currently aimed against the Macedonian people, which may give rise to public protests against the purported liberators, the occupation authorities, have resorted to measures hitherto unknown in history: the entire population is condemned to internment and has no rights to travel not only outside the borders of Macedonia but also from town to town. Macedonian detachment heads — the commanders — and the fighters themselves, who until yesterday fought shoulder to shoulder with the allies against the common enemy, have now become the object of persecution by these same occupation authorities. For a single word uttered to anyone in favour of Macedonia’s indivisibility and its political freedom, they are subjected to horrible persecution, torture and murder. All this is supported by hundreds of facts, many of which have been reported by correspondents of Russian and especially foreign newspapers.705

The eyewitness Ëupovski also wrote about the relations between the conquerors themselves and forecast the likeliness of a mutual war: Matters between the allied occupation armies do not stand any better either.

There have already been open clashes between the Bulgarians and Greeks concerning the cities of Salonika, Drama, Kavalla and other populated centres in Macedonia.

The same has been happening between the Bulgarians and Serbs concerning Bitola, Ohrid, Prilep, Veles and other towns. All that makes the allies hold back from mutual war is the conclusion of peace with Turkey. Therefore, in order to avoid these sad consequences which may discredit the best motives of the participants in the war, the Balkan allies should give Macedonia the right to self-determination; frustrating, in this way, any further mutual rivalry, they should be able to create solid and sound foundations for the continuous existence of the alliance. Internal Slavic discord is more dangerous for the Balkan states than the schemes of their numerous external enemies. Slavery under a kindred brother will for Macedonia be as difficult as slavery under an alien or people of another faith.706 705Gr aÔ 706Ibid.

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dani nï , º 4, 27.á.1913, 14.

5.

The Macedonian activist Georgij A. Georgov (Stremjage) also used the pages of the Slavophile mouthpiece Slavjanskija IzvÆstija and in two articles (of February 3 and March 3, 1913) expounded the Macedonian position on Macedonia and the Macedonians, their aspirations and aims, and the situation following the Balkan War. In his article ‘A Dangerous Experiment’, its author warns that European and Balkan diplomacy have been preoccupied solely with the question of providing independence for Albania, but have forgotten the burning and “incomparably more important ethnographic, geographical, historical and political factor on the Balkan Peninsula — Macedonia and the Macedonians”. Even “the allies, intoxicated by success beyond their expectations, as can be seen from their entire activity, have rejected any thought of Macedonia’s autonomy and intend not only to amputate it as a living organism, but also to fully divide it among themselves, completely forgetting that, by carrying out such operations on geographical Macedonia, on its territory, this would in no way imply the killing and dividing of its soul — ethnographic Macedonia…”707 As the Bulgarophile editors and associates of Slavjanskija IzvÆstija reacted sharply against these views,708 Georgov published another article, ‘On Macedonia and the Macedonians’, in which he declared that “the Macedonians do not want and cannot be reconciled with any division”. He examined the history of the various propagandas in Macedonia and underlined that “t h e a u t o n o m y o f M a c e d o n i a — this is the best and most equitable way of settling the Macedonian question, t h i s i s t h e c o m m o n g r o u n d w o r k u n d e r t h e s t a t e buildings of Serbia and Bulgaria, the undermining of which will be equally dangerous for the independent political life of both Serbia and Bulgaria, and for all the Balkan peoples in g e n e r a l . We can sincerely welcome the ‘n i n t h g r e a t s t a t e ’ only in the form of a ‘Balkan federation of the states of Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece and Albania’, or at least of the first four, with joint, federal representative bodies, customs and railway tariffs and perhaps a monetary system and armed forces.” 709 On March 4, 1913, in the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society, Nace D. Dimov held his lecture entitled ‘Macedonia in the Past, the Present and the Future’, later printed as a special publication, where the author demanded: “(1) The allies 707S l

avònskíò I zvõst íò, º 12(5), S .-P et er bur gï , 3.áá.1913, 175-177.

Mat võ evï , ,,Avt onomnaò Makedoníò“, S l avònskíò I zvõst íò, º 13(6), 10.áá.1913, 200201; N.I . S ur i nï , ,,Avt onomíi na Bal kanahï “, S l avònskíò I zvõst íò, º 16(9), 3.ááá.1913, 261.

709S l avònskíò I zvõst íò, º 16(9), 3.ááá.1913, 257-260.

708N.E.

225

should put a stop to their intense ambitions towards the Macedonian people; (2) Macedonia should remain a whole and indivisible Slavic unit; (3) Macedonia should participate in the Balkan Alliance as an independent Balkan state.”710

6.

On March 1, 1913, the authorized representatives of the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg, Dr Gavril KonstantinoviÌ, Dimitrija Ëupovski, Nace Dimov and Aleksandar Vezenkov, signed (in French and Russian) the Memorandum on the Independence of Macedonia, submitted by the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and to the ambassadors of the great powers to the Court in London, which was separately printed in Russian and French and published in whole or in part in a large number of Russian and other European newspapers. This was the first official action of the “authorized Macedonians” before the international public. After describing the struggle of the Macedonians for freedom and a state of their own, putting emphasis on the participation of the Macedonians in the First Balkan War as an equal side in the military actions, the document said: The partition of Macedonia by its brothers is the most unjust act in the history of peoples, a violation of the rights of Man, a disgrace for the entire Slavdom. Turkish slavery is replaced by a Christian one, but that crucial hour is not far (it is approaching — Macedonian fighters have already confronted the enemies of their fatherland) when the Macedonians will openly say to the whole world: “We shall rather die for our freedom than live under slavery again.”

Therefore the following is demanded strongly: (1) Macedonia within its geographical, ethnographic, economic and cultural borders to remain a single, indivisible, independent Balkan state; (2) In the shortest possible time, on the basis of a general vote, to convene a Macedonian National Assembly in Salonika for the purposes of detailed elaboration of the state’s internal organization and definition of relations with neighbouring countries.711

At the same time Dimitrija Ëupovski prepared and published (in colour) a ‘Map of Macedonia according to the Programme of the Macedonian Populists’712 which was printed in the Macedonian language towards the end of March, and was 710Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , N ace D. Di mov (1876-1916), S kopje, 1973, 78. gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 1, S .-P et er bur gï , 9.œ á.1913, 23; RõÌÅ, º 66, 12/25.ááá.1913, 3.

712D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 271-283.

711Makedonskíà

226

immediately sent, together with the Memorandum, to London — to the representatives of the great powers and Balkan states, as well as to the Russian press.

They also announced in the press that the mouthpiece of the Macedonian Colony, Makedonskij Glas, would soon start publication.713 In April 1913, the journal Ves Mir, under a photograph displaying Dr KonstantinoviÌ, Dimov and Ëupovski, announced that Ëupovski would “personally go to Paris and London to propagate the independence of Macedonia”.714 Yet this important task approved at the Veles conference was not accomplished, as Petar Poparsov was expelled by the Serbian military authorities and could not reach St Petersburg, whence both of them were to set off for the European centres as agreed.715

7.

As the permit for the printing of their mouthpiece had still not been issued, the Macedonian Colony made efforts to use the pages of the Russian press to present Macedonian views. For instance, Dimitrija Ëupovski, among others, published his article, ‘The Macedonian State’, in which he pointed out that the thinking in the Memorandum of the Macedonians “is the thinking of the entire Macedonian people”, that “Macedonia, however, from both historical and ethnographic points of view, represents a single entity and cannot willingly end its existence of many centuries, agreeing to dismemberment”, and that “the Balkan Peninsula is too small for several greater-state ideas to coexist peacefully. O n l y a f e d e r a l state, consisting of all the Balkan peoples, which must include a M a c e d o n i a i n d iv i s i b l e a n d i n d e p e n d e n t a s t o i t s i n t e r n a l a f f a i r s , e n j o y i n g e q u a l r i g h t s — only such a federation can secure peaceful coexistence and progress for the Balkan peoples. We believe,” concluded Ëupovski, “that this will take place, but… it will be painful if they come to this conviction only by shedding new blood!…”716 In his article ‘Mother and Stepmother…’, Ëupovski used the anecdote of the judgement of Solomon and stressed that in Macedonia “the living body of a w h o l e p e o p l e is being cut into three or perhaps four parts”, and strongly condemned the Bulgarian government “which, obscuring and destroying for 35 years the national autochthonous spirit of the Macedonian people, and imposing an alien culture upon it, has now betrayed it and subjected it to dismemberment”.

713S l

avòni nï , á, 13, S .-P et er bur gï , 28.ááá.1913, 6; á, 24, 12.œ .1913, 6. , º 16, S .-P et er bur gï , Apr õ l Å1913, 5.

715D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski l et opi s …, á, 299.

716S l avòni nï , á, 18, 21.ᜠ.1913, 3.

714VesÅ Mír ï

227

Responding to the Belgrade Professor Aleksandar BeliÚ (who was in the Russian capital on a special mission for the Serbian government), in his article ‘Macedonia and Serbia’, Ëupovski pointed out that “an independent Macedonia should be established, which would not be an artificially created state, because there are no Serbs, Bulgarians or Greeks in Macedonia, but a fully distinct people”, and because “[n]o agreements among the allies on the partition of Macedonia in this or that part can be binding upon the Macedonians, as Macedonia represents a single living body which cannot be amputated without resistance by the body itself…”

The solution Ëupovski proposed once again was the following: “If the allies do not wish a new and stronger conflagration to break out in the Balkans, if they do not wish a mutual fratricidal and bloody war, which is — unfortunately — very close indeed, if they do not wish to become, one by one, Austria’s booty — there is only one solution: an indivisible, independent Macedonia should join, with rights equal to those of the other states, the powerful Balkan federation.”717 There were numerous appeals like this in the press and at the various public meetings in St Petersburg. The Macedonians and Russians also announced a joint “illustrated collection of articles” entitled In Protection of Macedonia in order “to demonstrate the necessity of establishing an indivisible and independent Macedonia, from both Macedonian and Russian points of view”.718 In the meantime the permit for the publication of the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas) was issued. Over a period of a year and a half, it became the most prominent and at that moment the only voice of the Macedonian people before Europe. Today it is regarded as a highly important collection of documents testifying to the true aspirations of the Macedonians at the crucial historical moment of the partition of their homeland.

The members of the Colony (Society) were not only the loudest and most prominent defenders of the integrity and advocates of the legitimate demands of the Macedonian people, but they also delivered their own lectures at meetings of distinguished societies in the Russian capital which aroused great interest. In May 1913, for instance, Dimitrija Ëupovski delivered a notable lecture in the Lawyers’ Society with the unambiguous title ‘The indivisible and independent Macedonia’.719 What makes a particular impression is the fact that the Macedonians at that moment had Russian public opinion on their side, resulting in the adoption of numerous resolutions in favour of Macedonian rights and freedoms and on the 717S l

avòni nï , á, 20, 28.ᜠ.1913, 3. avòni nï , á, 26, 19.œ .1913, 7.

719S l avòni nï , á, 22, 5.œ .1913, 7.

718S l

228

future of Macedonia. Russian Social-Democrats were particularly active in this respect at the time, putting a strong emphasis on the aggressive character of the Balkan War and demanding a plebiscite in Macedonia.720

8.

On June 7, 1913, the “authorized persons” of the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg, Dimitrija D. Ëupovski, Georgij A. Georgov, Nace D. Dimov, Dr Gavril K. KonstantinoviÌ and Chem[ical] Eng[ineer] I. Georgov, signed the Memorandum of the Macedonians to the Governments and Public Opinion of the Allied Balkan States, explaining once again the Macedonian national programme at that historical moment, shortly before the outbreak of the Second Balkan War between the “allies” (for the partition of Macedonia), with an appeal “for the immediate establishment of an independent Macedonian state”, as “the partition of Macedonia will create a new dependence for us, and the slavery of our blood brothers is no substitute for freedom”. The Memorandum strongly demanded: In the name of natural law, in the name of history and in the name of practical appropriateness, we beg you, brothers, to bear the following in mind: (1) Macedonia is populated by a homogeneous Slavic tribe which has its own history, its own tradition, its own former statehood, its own ideals, and hence has the right to self-determination.

(2) Macedonia within its ethnic, geographical, cultural and historical borders must be an independent state with a government responsible to a National Assembly.

(3) The Macedonian state should be a separate and equal unit within the Balkan Alliance with common customs boundaries.

(4) With regard to its church, in Macedonia it is necessary to restore the ancient autocephalous Ohrid Church, which would be in canonical relations with the other Orthodox churches: the Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian and SyrianArabic.

(5) For the purposes of detailed elaboration of the internal organization of the Macedonian state, it is necessary, as soon as possible, under the sponsorship of the great powers, to convene in the city of Salonika a national representative body (National Founding Assembly) elected by a general vote.721

Two days later the first issue of the most significant Macedonian national liberation periodical, Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), appeared. It continued to be published (with interruptions) until the start of the First World War. Its 11 numbers, on 220 pages, have left a fundamental archive of the Macedonian 720L uÌï

, º 150 (236), S .-P et er bur gï , 3.œ áá.1913, 2.

721Makedonskíà

gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 1, 9.œ á.1913, 19.

229

national consciousness and action in the struggle for the integrity and freedom of Macedonia. In its programmatic editorial, in a visionary way, the editorial board pointed to the following: At this moment the Macedonian question is being decided and many facts indicate that its solution will be final. Whatever destiny befalls this long-suffering land: will it fall, after a slavery of five centuries, only under the authority of a kindred state, will it be torn to pieces and divided among the Balkan allies, or will it at last gain its long-awaited autonomy or independence — the aim of its perennial aspirations — in both the first and the second as well as the third case, the question will be settled and will be forgotten, if not forever, then for a long period to come, in the course of which many things will be completely changed.722

Owing to all these and other circumstances, the editors believed, “the Macedonians themselves [should] invest all their efforts in the attainment of all their expectations and hopes during the long years of slavery and oppression, which helped them preserve their national features, their Slavic individuality and integrity”, and hence they tried to acquaint the Russian public “with our land, its need, interests and aspirations”.723

9.

This was the programme of Macedonia at the crucial moment and therefore its representatives used every opportunity to present their aspirations and rights. What is particularly significant is that they were always attentively listened to and most often unreservedly supported by the Russian scholarly and social circles, but not by official Russian policies involved in the Balkan events. Let us quote as an example the marathon-long discussion in the Lawyers’ Society in St Petersburg, where on June 24 and 27 and July 2, 1913, the representatives of the Macedonians took part in a violent debate, supported by the majority of distinguished Russian figures, and even by some Russian parties. As a reaction and in response to the Bulgarian representatives at the assembly (Ljubomir MiletiÌ, I. Georgov, etc.) and also to the Serbian ones (ÛorŸe A. GenÌiÚ, Dušan I. Semiz, Jeronim P. Taburno, etc.), the Russian press quoted the words of the Macedonians: “The next speaker,” writes the newspaper Den, “was the Macedonian D. Ëupovski, proponent of the theory: Macedonia to the Macedonians. He spoke with bitterness about the agreement which had been a secret from the Macedonians. The Macedonians considered the war a liberating one and had never suspected that Serbia and 722Makedonskíà 723Ibid.

230

gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 1, 9.œ á.1913, 2.

Bulgaria would aspire to divide their fatherland between themselves. The speaker was convinced that every Macedonian would defend its indivisibility and persuaded the assembly that peace in the Balkans was possible only through the autonomy of Macedonia, peace which is so necessary now for all the south-Slavic states.” 724 Ëupovski underlined that “Macedonia should be, above all, autonomous and that in the given case the strengthening of the Serbs in this territory is out of the question”.725 Furthermore, “D.D. Ëupovski strongly reproached the present Bulgarian emissaries at the assembly, Professors MiletiÌ and Georgov, because on their tours across Europe and during their addresses they convinced the public that the Macedonians wanted to join Bulgaria, while there was nothing such there.”726 The participation of Nace D. Dimov at this assembly followed the same line.

The Bulgarophile mouthpiece RÆÌ admitted: “The fervent speech of Mr Dimov met with strong approval; he tried to prove that the only means for putting an end to the present war and for establishing a healthy peace in the Balkans — was the recognition of the autonomy of the whole, single and indivisible Macedonia.

Protesting against the attempts at Macedonia’s partition, devised treacherously by the former allies, without the knowledge of the Macedonian people, Mr Dimov, Ëupovski and other Macedonians strongly insisted on hearing, through a plebiscite, the Macedonian population concerning its expectations and hopes.”727 At the same time, “N. Dimov refuted Semiz and Bryanchaninov, who maintained that Macedonia needed no autonomy, and on the basis of scholarly facts proved its right to independent existence; he then said that if Europe wanted peace in the Balkans it was obliged to grant Macedonia autonomy; otherwise this land would be the apple of discord between the Balkan states. The speaker said that, as a convinced pacifist, he was against the war, and as a Macedonian, against the partition of Macedonia.”728 The discussions were so passionate that the Serbian representative Jeronim Taburno died at the assembly. He was taken out of the room, and the assembly continued its work and voted on the three proposed resolutions: one by the Council of the Lawyers’ Assembly, another by the Russian Social-Democratic Party, and the third by the Party of the Populists. After the vote, they adopted the third resolution with added elements from the first two. The six items of this resolution, among other things, pointed out that the representatives of Russian social and 724DenÅ,

º 171, S .-P et er bur gï , 29.œ á.1913, 3.

13.396, S .-P et er bur gï , 29.œ á/12.œ áá.1913, 13.

726Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 3, 14.œ áá.1913, 56.

727RõÌÅ, º 179, 4/17.œ áá.1913, 2.

728Makedonskíà gol osï (Makedonski gl as), á, 3, 14.œ áá.1913, 56.

725N ovoe Vr emò, º

231

political thought in the St Petersburg Lawyers’ Assembly found “the reason for the raging war between yesterday’s allies… in the cruel acquisitive aspirations of the dynasties and ruling circles of the corresponding Balkan states and in their mutual blind struggle for hegemony”; “that both the economic and political development of the Balkan peoples can be achieved only within the framework of a democratic federation of free Balkan states, not excluding Turkey”; that they considered “as the most equitable solution to the present conflict as regards Macedonia by the granting of autonomy to the latter, with the mandatory provision of the right to cultural and national self-determination of all the nationalities populating it”, where “the plebiscite on this issue, in order to be authoritative, demands, in any case, guarantees for its being freely carried out by the entire Macedonian people”, and that “the armed involvement of the neighbouring states… represents international outlawry”. And finally, “the policy of Russian diplomacy is condemned; for certain reasons, it failed to take appropriate measures for frustrating the fratricidal war in the Balkans”. 729

10.

The Macedonian national programme was also presented in the Russian Parliament. On June 6 (19), 1913, in his speech, the Cadet Party leader, Pavel N. Milyukov, among other things, said: Whatever nationality lives in Macedonia, it is a single and one nationality in the territory of the whole land, and to allow the possibility of dividing this living organism into parts, spans and ells, would mean to go back to the diplomacy identified with the measures of the Congress of Vienna 100 years ago. The most natural solution would be to give Macedonia full-scale autonomy. Unfortunately such a solution is now virtually impossible. An act of violence has been carried out in accordance with the agreement of February 29, an act carried out secretly from public knowledge on both sides. We should consider this violent partition as a fact, but at least do not go any further in this direction; cutting off Macedonia’s north-western corner, do not cut it into two or three parts. It is not appropriate here to dispute what the Macedonians are and who controlled Macedonia earlier or longer.

Let us leave this dispute to the ethnographers, historians and philologists. For the politician this is a question which can be decided by simple consultation: what, at this moment, do the Macedonians consider themselves to be?730 729S l

avòni nï , á, 35, 7.œ áá.1913, 6.

730Russkoe

232

S l ovo, º 130, S .-P et er bur gï , 7/20.œ á.1913, 3.

The representative of the Social-Democratic Party of Russia, the Georgian Arkady I. Chkhenkeli, replied to this speech in the Duma, extensively quoting the Memorandum of the Macedonians of March 1. At the time when the Second Balkan War was raging in the Balkans, Chkhenkeli pointed to the agreements by which Macedonia “was already torn to pieces and divided part by part among the individual states on the Balkan Peninsula”, which “carried out aggression, and are now fighting over the booty”. He sees “only one reasonable means, which is a plebiscite of the Macedonian people, leaving to it the right to decide its destiny alone”. Speaking in favour of the demands of the Macedonians for the independence of their fatherland, as the events indicated that it was no longer “a liberation of Macedonia, but a new subjugation of these Macedonians”, Chkhenkeli stated the position of his party on this question: Gentlemen, we have always welcomed and are now welcoming the aspirations of Macedonia towards national freedom, but we decisively reject that this freedom should be imposed upon it through the partition of its territory among the acquisitive Balkan states. We have condemned and are condemning the Balkan war which has swallowed hundreds of thousands of young lives, which has brought ruin to the broad masses of the warring states, which has given over those masses to political and economic slavery of triumphant militarism and plutocracy. We support the autonomy of Albania and Macedonia and the establishment of a single democratic federal republic, created from the association of all nations and territories on the Balkan Peninsula. This view is shared not only by the Russian socialists, but also by the socialists of the Balkan states, including those of Macedonia and Turkey. This view, as you know, has become imperative for all socialists after the magnificent assembly of the International in Basel…731

But the Russian Balkan policy refused to listen to the wishes and aspirations of Macedonia. The Balkan aggressors were also intoxicated by their victories and elated by their defeat of the enemy. The Peace Treaty of Bucharest, August 10, 1913, put an end to the integrity and unity of Macedonia and of the Macedonian people, but not to the struggle of the Macedonians for unification and freedom.

Macedonia was to become the fate of the Balkans and of Europe as well.

Even this brief journey through the testimony of history shows us that at the time of the Balkan War the Macedonian people was already a single entity with a formed historical and national consciousness. During the Ilinden period the Macedonians were able to define the main points of programme action, but they did not have the power necessary to protect their territorial integrity in the face of the allied aspirants and their military actions. The Balkan War was even at the time 731L uÌï

, º 132 (218), 11.œ á.1913, 1-2.

233

assessed as aggressive in character and destructive for Macedonia and the Macedonians. This was the fateful initial step in breaking the unity of this land and its people. Not only did it bring national disaster for Macedonia, but it also turned into a dangerous detonator threatening the peace and prosperity of the Balkans and the whole of Europe.

234

Macedonian State-National Concepts and Programmes up to the End of the First World War

The programmes and concepts for the establishment of a nation are always and basically the work of the intelligentsia of a people, even though their accomplishment is the result of the broad masses of the people. Owing to the structure of Macedonian society in the last quarter of the 19th century, the Macedonian intelligentsia was not great in number. The bulk of this class consisted of teachers and priests, which were the only social groups allowed to develop freely under the Shariah law of Turkey, but always under the wing of existing and already established nationalistic propaganda machines in Macedonia. There were also some rare representatives of the intelligentsia among the classes of tradesmen and craftsmen (mainly in the towns) as well as among some free professions, such as physicians or bankers. All other intellectuals, immediately after their schooling abroad, were forced to emigrate, chiefly to the neighbouring free countries of the Balkans, and most of them had to serve the national and political aspirations of those societies.

In this way, two types of Macedonian intelligentsia gradually developed: (1) the intelligentsia that was active within the land, which felt the pulse of the people and thought about and worked on changing the oppressive circumstances, and (2) the intelligentsia that lived in the free Balkan and other European or non-European countries, usually living in decent economic conditions, but cut off from their homeland and most frequently serving foreign interests. While the people from the first group were (for the most part) directly dependent on the church-educational institutions of neighbouring propaganda and limited by the constraints of the social and political system of the Sultan’s Empire, without any significant economic base which would allow them a stronger national orientation and without any opportunities for free and public articulation of national ideas and aspirations, the second group was largely heterogeneous in composition, and yet, in spite of their fairly good financial situation, they were nationally divided and most often dependent on the political and national concepts that the host countries promulgated with regard to Macedonia. Hence it was the intelligentsia within the land that became the ideological force drawing the masses to the revolutionary movement for the liberation of Macedonia from Ottoman domination and from the terror of propaganda, actively and fully participating within the ranks of the 235

Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, and building the vision of the future of this people and their homeland upon concepts and programmes of their own.

The intelligentsia among the Macedonians abroad can also be divided into two basic types: those who were brought up in neighbouring countries, which aspired to the legacy remaining after the disintegration of Turkey in the Balkans, and those who lived and worked in other European and non-European countries, where they had better opportunities and greater freedom to develop their ideas and actions concerning Macedonian national liberation.

Owing to all these circumstances, it is difficult to speak of the Macedonian intelligentsia as a homogeneous class in Macedonian society, and even less as a united national-political section of the people with a joint ideological and national liberation platform.

The stratification in the united body of the Macedonian people could especially be felt following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Congress of Berlin, and following the unsuccessful Kresna Uprising and the quenching of the hopes aroused in the liberation mission of the Russian army. Religious division of the people also encouraged ethnic confrontation, strongly instigated by the propaganda machines and tolerated by the Turks. Hence of particular significance were the manifestations of Macedonian consciousness expressed through the activity of various societies, committees and circles in Macedonia in the 1880s and 1890s, and especially among the ĂŠmigrĂŠs, where a large number of Macedonian associations were founded, trying to help and be of service to their homeland and their people.

1.

Macedonian national thought emerged in the 1840s, and in the 1870s the main points of the national programme of the Macedonians were already formulated.

Even though it tried to base its concept on the ancient Macedonian state-constitutional tradition and culture, the Macedonian movement could not but rely on Slavic history and envisaged its prospects as part of the Slavic world. Hence the strong anti-Hellenic disposition in Macedonia and the interest in the Slavophile tendencies launched by Russia.

Slavic thought in Macedonia had a long tradition and was connected with the Slavonic and Orthodox Middle Ages, with the Archbishopric of Ohrid and in particular with Mount Athos, as well as with the permanent strengthening of the power and influence of Orthodox and Slavic Russia, which directed its interests towards the Bosphorus and the Balkans. This orientation was further intensified after the liberation of Serbia, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria (with the invariable 236

active involvement of Russia), and was substantially aided by the development of Slavonic studies as a scholarly discipline and Pan-Slavism and Slavophilism as a policy.

Rhigas’s former (basically greater-Greek) exaltation was replaced in Macedonia by an anti-Hellenic tendency which invigorated the Slavic feeling to the utmost extent. At the same time various combinations were made in the joint struggle against the Ottoman Empire, but the hopes in Serbia and Russia and the signals coming from there were also taken into consideration.

The Serbo-Croatian agreement in Vienna (1850) as regards the common literary language led to the emergence of similar ideas among the Slavs who were still under Turkish domination. This was the reason for the rise of the ideology proposing a common literary language for the Macedonians and Bulgarians, which would also involve a common future, in line with the concept which later developed of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy. Partenija Zografski became the ideologist of this movement which attempted to be based on scholarly foundations with his articles published in the Constantinopolitan and Moscow press. The Miladinov brothers, Kuzman Šapkarev, Dimitar Makedonski and Venijamin MaÌukovski took significant practical steps in this direction. This gave rise to a movement which was to have some disastrous consequences for the further development of the liberation struggle.

The more developed cultural and national centres of Bulgarian expatriates in Russia, Romania and, above all, in Constantinople, using their economic power and means of propaganda (periodicals and other publications, church-school organizations, etc.), showed a considerably greater and more effective activity and announced their serious aspirations to take the lead in the common struggle for affirmation. This met with visible resistance, mainly in the form of what appeared as religious movements in Macedonia (1858-1875). This was a time when the Macedonian national programme was built, most accurately understood and best expounded by the most prominent Bulgarian revivalist, Petko Slavejkov, in his articles (1871) and particularly in his letters to the Exarch from Salonika (1874).

The Uniate movement and Protestantism were only the means for the attainment of higher goals. Hence it is not surprising that this was a period which saw the publication in Belgrade of ÏorÒi Pulevski’s second dictionary, where he so strongly insisted on the Slavic orientation and national individuality of the Macedonians (1875). The Razlovci Uprising (1876), the Conference of Constantinople (1877), the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) and the Congress of Berlin (1878) also introduced new elements into the Macedonian national liberation ideology. It was not by chance that the advance guards of the Russian army infiltrating into Bulgaria consisted of Macedonian voluntary detachments and commanders who, deceived by Russian policy and strategy, believed in the liberation mission of 237

Russia, and came to Macedonia as far as the Pijanec region. But the Adrianople truce and the preliminary San Stefano peace treaty halted the armed offensive of the Macedonian military formations because the liberation of the whole of Macedonia was envisaged. And when in Berlin Macedonia was once again returned to Turkey, this resulted in the strongest and most important Macedonian insurrection in the 19th century, incorporating the concept of liberation from Ottoman domination, establishment of a Macedonian state, and also unification with its neighbours. Emulating the Austro-Hungarian Act of 1876 and relying on the decisions of the Conference of Constantinople in early 1877, the Macedonians demanded “a Macedonian kingdom”, based on the concept of a dual monarchy with Bulgaria.

When this attempt, too, failed (due to the strong reactions in both Bulgaria and Serbia), the Macedonians founded the significant Macedonian League with an impressive armed force and worked out the first Constitution for the State Organization of Macedonia (1880). With coordinated efforts a National Assembly of Macedonia was convened in southern Macedonia, headed by commanders from the Kresna Uprising, and the first Provisional Government of Macedonia was formed, whose acts were sent and made known to European diplomacy and the wider public.

From this point onwards an increasing number of proposals were put forward for a Balkan federation (confederation) with Macedonia as one of its equal members. Paul Argyriades, a Macedonian living in France, worked out the ideas for such a unification (1885), and Leonidas Voulgaris and Vasil Simov founded the Eastern (or Balkan) Confederation Society in Athens (1887). In the Bulgarian town of Gabrovo, Spiro GulapÌev from Lerin published his book An Essay on the Ethnography of Macedonia (1887), where he elaborated the idea of a Balkan federation as the single condition without which there “will be no free Macedonia”.

2.

After the Congress of Berlin (1878) Macedonia remained the only Slavic land entirely within the boundaries of Turkey, but Article 23 of the Treaty left some hope for the autonomy of the Macedonians. This was the principal stipulation involving international guarantees for the liberation idea in the ensuing period up to the Treaty of Bucharest (1913), and even after the start of the First World War, when the aforementioned treaty was proclaimed invalid. Hence the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (TMORO) invoked Article 23 from the moment of its foundation (1893). A decade later it started the Ilinden Uprising (1903) by the same token, demanding, above all, autonomy, and elaborating it in different variations and combinations. We must emphasize that during 238

this whole period the main obstacle to the normal development of the Macedonian people was not the political authority of Turkey but the aggressive nationalistic propaganda coming from Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, which shortly after the Ilinden Uprising was transformed into armed “detachment activities” and which finally shattered the Macedonian people as a whole. The autonomy announced at the Reval summit between the sovereigns of Russia and Great Britain (1908), as a result of the failure of the Mürzsteg Reforms, was adroitly forestalled by the premature, and not accidental, start of the Young Turk Revolution precisely in Macedonia (1908). The earlier struggle on the part of the neighbouring monarchies to secure spheres of influence in this Turkish province, following the Young Turk revolt turned into a no less fierce struggle by these monarchies for the partition of the territory of Macedonia. This, on the initiative of the Kingdom of Serbia, led to the signing of inter-state accords on a war against Turkey for the purpose of acquiring and dividing the “Turkish legacy”.

During this period the Macedonian people was not only the object of foreign combinations and actions, but also a subject which the aspirants had to take into account. Contemporary historiographers seem to pay little attention to or even try to forget the fact that at the time there was an already formed Macedonian national consciousness forced to develop in peculiar circumstances. Krste Misirkov was not the founder of the Macedonian national idea, as has often been suggested, but only the proponent of Macedonian national aspirations (Za makedonckite raboti, 1903, and Vardar, 1905). Macedonian national thought emerged towards the late 18th and early 19th century and was fully expressed in the 1840s; it was defined as a programme in early 1874 and became affirmed on the international scene in 1878, and the ‘Lozars’ (1890-1894) in Sofia and the ‘Vardar’ members (18931894) in Belgrade were only the public reflection of what had been taking place in Macedonia itself, in particular in the movement led by Teodosija Gologanov.

3.

At that time the following speculations could be heard in Belgrade: “The Macedonians are either Serbs or Bulgarians. If they are Serbs, we are not giving them to anyone. If they are not Serbs — we are not giving them anyway, as we need them.” Macedonian émigrés in Serbia, however, managed to establish a Macedonian Club with a Reading Room as a branch of the Slavonic Club in Belgrade, side by side with the Russian, the Czech and the announced Bulgarian Clubs (1902). They started publishing their printed mouthpiece, Balkanski Glasnik, which was the first periodical publicly to proclaim the Macedonian language as literary (with phonetic orthography). Yet when they tried to submit a memorandum 239

to “the representatives of the great powers — signatories to the Treaty of Berlin”, the Club was shut down, the newspaper banned, and the main activists expelled from Serbia.

At the time when a joint Slavonic association was active in the Russian capital (Slavjanskaja Beseda) and there were already established national societies of Czech, Bulgarian and Serbian young people, the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society was founded in St Petersburg on October 28, 1902 (old style).

Its principal objectives were the prevention of national disunion among the Macedonians and the encouragement of their association “on the grounds of the unity of their fatherland, their same descent and future, and also on the basis of joint study of their fatherland from the historical, ethnographic, folklore and linguistic points of view”. As early as November 12, 1902, the special Memorandum to the Russian government and to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society presented the most comprehensive Macedonian national programme for the winning of a “free Macedonia in political, national and spiritual respect” in order “to avoid antagonism among the Slavs from various areas of the Balkan Peninsula and to unite them into a single national-cultural whole”. It envisaged that in the initial period Macedonia was to be granted basic autonomous rights and freedoms in accordance with Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin — where the Macedonians would be recognized “as a separate people with a distinct literary language which will become, together with Turkish, the official language in the three vilayets of Macedonia: Kosovo, Bitola and Salonika,” and which would also involve “the recognition of an independent church”, with a governor-general from among the majority nationality and a deputy from the less numerous nationality, with a “regional elective popular assembly” as well as an “organic statute” from the Sultan which would be guaranteed “by the European great powers”, acting as an autonomous unit “like the province of Lebanon” within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Yet “such a free Macedonia in its political, national and religious aspects,” says the memorandum, “will aim to attract the neighbouring states to it in a f e d e r a t i o n and fulfil its mission peacefully and quietly. In a word, only this kind of Macedonia can appear on the Balkan Peninsula in the role of a true P i e d m o n t for the unification of Balkan Slavdom and Orthodoxy.” On December 29, 1902, the boundaries of that Macedonia were defined and it was decided to compile a parallel Macedonian-Bulgarian-Serbian-Russian dictionary in order to demonstrate to the Russians and foreigners that Macedonian was an individual and distinct language in the Slavonic group of languages.

This programme was reflected in the Constitution of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society of December 16, 1903. Article 12 officially introduced the Macedonian language into literary use for the first time, while Krste Misirkov carried out that decision in practice by the publication of his book Za makedonckite 240

raboti. This book was to become the basis of the modern Macedonian literary language and orthography, which were legitimized by an act of state in 1944 at the First Session of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia.

4.

The Macedonian Club in Belgrade was restored in early 1905, this time headed

by Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ and ÛorŸe ÛerŸikoviÚ. The initiative originated from Macedonia and gathered a large number of adherents. Its programme envisaged the “autonomy of Macedonia, which has its own regional interests — like those of Montenegro” and it “can and should lead to a confederation of the Balkan peoples, where it would constitute a separate political unit”. The mouthpiece of the Macedonian Club, Avtonomna Makedonija, which first appeared in Belgrade on October 12, 1905, presented the Club’s programme for “the autonomy of Macedonia under guarantees from the great powers and the small Balkan states” and “for a Balkan confederation with Macedonia as a member”.

After many problems, the Macedonian Club was again closed, and its newspaper banned following its tenth issue. But its ideas remained: “Autonomy, separatism, denial of all aspirations towards our Fatherland from wherever they come, solidarity of all Christian peoples constituting the Macedonian population, a Balkan confederation — these are the ideas from which no difficulties will turn us away, nor will any events that our opponents might use against our understanding of this question.” For, the Macedonians said: “Macedonia is neither Serbian nor Bulgarian, but ours, Macedonian; the cognizant sons of this land will conclude or not conclude agreements as dictated by the circumstances, not seeking blessing for their activities from priests or candidates for consulships frequenting the editorial offices of certain newspapers.” And while “various committees continue their work, preaching Serbianism, Bulgarianism or Hellenism in Macedonia, arming one group against another, brother against brother, because the first say that Macedonia is Serbian, the second Bulgarian, and the third Greek”, while “in Macedonia there lives a Slavic element of which it has not been proved either historically or ethnographically that it is a purely Serbian or purely Bulgarian element, mingled with the Greeks, Tsintsars [Vlachs], Arnauts [Albanians] and Turks”, such “brotherly” help offered to the Macedonians is unacceptable and “from now on the Macedonian people will refuse that help and will fight alone as far as it can for its own freedom, for the freedom of its own land. When it once becomes free, it will easily organize its national relations.” They made the following known to the aspirants and the whole world: “Our newspaper spreads 241

neither Serbian nor Bulgarian ideas, but Macedonian ones. Whoever wants to discuss autonomy should do this with the Macedonians and with no one else.”

This activity was suppressed in 1905, but the idea continued its development.

It was not by chance that Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ in 1917 became the proponent of a genuine south-Slav platform in the Voden Declaration, and in the next year he travelled as far as Corfu in order to explain his concepts, in a special Promemoria, to PašiÚ’s government, although everyone once again refused to hear the voice of the Macedonian.

5.

We still do not know much about the ‘Russian Party in the Bitola region’ in 1910, and there is no detailed research on the activity of Marko A. MuševiÌ and his mission to Russia at that period, when a special Memorandum to the Russian Government and the Russian Church was submitted. Nor do we know very much about the missions of Krste Misirkov in 1909 and of Dimitrija Ëupovski in 1911 in Macedonia. Yet we know a great deal about the establishment and concepts of the Ss Cyril and Methodius Slavonic-Macedonian National and Educational Society in St Petersburg from June 27, 1912 onwards, whose Article 31 of its Constitution considered “the Slavonic-Macedonian language as the spoken and written language”; and about the concepts of the Bitola Circle expressed in its act of August 15, 1912, and also about the presentations of Ëupovski, Dimov, Dr KonstantinoviÌ and others in the Russian capital, and their warnings that “in Macedonia it smells of death” and their anticipation of future historical events.

“The victory of the Slavic Alliance, if achieved,” they said, “is absolutely undesirable from a Slavic point of view, as this will be a requiem for the descendants of Cyril and Methodius: Macedonia will be divided into three parts, there will be a temporary triumph over its body, but no one will be satisfied, a fight will unavoidably break out among those who dismembered it and there will be no bright day for the Slavs”, and “the outcome will inevitably be a European war and the partition of Macedonia”.

Seeing the speedy preparations for war in the Balkans, in early September 1912, the Macedonians pointed out: “The Macedonians want political freedom, but public opinion (the people) in Serbia and Bulgaria also wants freedom for Macedonia, as the Macedonians will then return to their own fatherland. Of course, there are also aspirations in Bulgaria and Serbia to the creation of a Greater Bulgaria or a Greater Serbia, but this is not the voice of the people.”

The voice of the neighbouring monarchies, however, spoke through the barrels of the cannons and what ensued was what the Macedonians had predicted — 242

concerning both the partition of Macedonia and mutual conflicts, as well as the World War.

6.

When the First Balkan War started, in order to be at the scene of events, Krste Misirkov went to southern Macedonia (in the capacity of correspondent for Russian newspapers), Dr Gavril KonstantinoviÌ volunteered as a doctor on the Montenegrin front, Nace Dimov arrived in Sofia (to test the opinion of the Macedonian émigré community), and Dimitrija Ëupovski came, through Sofia and Skopje, to Veles, where the General Macedonian Secret Conference was scheduled with the purpose of reaching an agreement on the actions to be taken before the eyes of Europe in view of the threat to Macedonia’s integrity and for its liberation. But the armies of occupation offered no opportunities for any effective steps by the Macedonians. Ëupovski was authorized as a representative to Europe and returned to St Petersburg in late December 1912. As early as January 27, 1913, he published his article on the situation and prospects of Macedonia. Making a survey of its history from 1878 onwards and describing the participation of the Macedonians in the present war against Turkey, Ëupovski wrote as a witness: Now, when the action for Macedonia’s liberation has been completed, i.e. the Turkish authorities have been driven away, and the allies have instituted their own occupation authorities instead, now the prospects for Macedonia’s future seem even gloomier and sadder than before. From the attitude of the occupation authorities towards the Macedonian population it is clear that Macedonia’s former slavery has been replaced by an even worse one, not only political, but also spiritual, and furthermore, a triple one. In the territories of Macedonia seized by the allies the situation has become unbearably difficult. Even before peace with Turkey is concluded, the occupation authorities are using draconian measures to deny the population their nationality, their name and their vows, in the name of which this people has fought for freedom.

Ëupovski concluded that the Macedonian people had no opportunities to express their views to the world public, because “the purported liberators, the occupation authorities, have resorted to measures hitherto unknown in history: the entire population is condemned to internment and has no rights to travel not only outside the borders of Macedonia but also from town to town. Macedonian detachment heads — the commanders — and the fighters themselves, who until yesterday fought shoulder to shoulder with the allies against the common enemy, have now become the object of persecution by these same occupation authorities.

For a single word uttered to anyone in favour of Macedonia’s indivisibility and its 243

political freedom, they are subjected to horrible persecution, torture and murder.

All this is supported by hundreds of facts, many of which have been reported by correspondents of Russian and especially foreign newspapers.” As Russia was the catalyst of the Balkan Alliance, the presentation of these facts to the Russian public was undesirable. But Ëupovski reported that there had already been “open clashes” over certain cities and towns between the Bulgarians and Greeks, and even between the Bulgarians and Serbs. “All that makes the allies hold back from mutual war,” concluded the author, “is the conclusion of peace with Turkey,” because “[i]nternal Slavic discord is more dangerous for the Balkan states than the schemes of their numerous external enemies. Slavery under a kindred brother will for Macedonia be as difficult as slavery under an alien or people of another faith.”

At about the same time the experienced Macedonian activist Georgij Georgov started a sharp polemic with the Bulgarophiles of Slavjanskija IzvÆstija, declaring, among other things, that “the autonomy of Macedonia — this is the best and most equitable way to the settlement of the Macedonian question,” and supported the establishment, as a priority, of a Balkan federation of peoples living outside Austria-Hungary, or, if this was impossible, of a South-Slav federation which would include only Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

On March 29, 1913, in his article ‘The Macedonian State’, Dimitrija Ëupovski, horrified by the imminent military conflict among the allies for the partition of Macedonia and seeking a solution for the Macedonian people as a whole, declared: “The preservation of Macedonia’s independence and its entirety will be equally useful for all Balkan nationalities and states… The division of Macedonia, on the other hand, in addition to the energetic opposition by the Macedonians themselves, will unavoidably lead to mutual bloody struggle among the allies: each one of them will also want to rule those parts it was forced to leave to its fellow fighters.”

Therefore he recommended: “The independence of Macedonia will be a buffer between the rival Balkan states. It will thus cease to be the apple of discord, in the struggle for which more than one state has ruined its former greatness. This rivalry is sufficiently strong even today: the Pan-Hellenic idea excludes the Greater-Bulgarian one, and neither of them recognizes the Greater-Serbian one.” As a result, Ëupovski concluded: “Only a federal state, consisting of all the Balkan peoples, which must include a Macedonia indivisible and independent as to its internal affairs, enjoying equal rights — only such a federation can secure peaceful coexistence and progress for the Balkan peoples.”

We find almost the same line of thought in the separately published lecture by Nace Dimov of March 4, 1913, before the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society, where the author is convinced that “a second war for the partition of Macedonia is imminent”, and that “the Macedonian question will be the cause of a general European war”. He pointed out that “the Macedonians have a one-hun244

dred-percent right to independence and a right not to be subjected to dismemberment among the Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians”, even though “the Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian governments are not particular about the means for the expansion of their borders and exterminate the Macedonians who refuse to call themselves Serbs, Greeks or Bulgarians and those who do not speak Serbian or Greek”. Dimov threatened: “The Macedonian people will never be reconciled with those who aim to deprive them of their language, customs and the natural right to be the free masters of their home.” And since “the motto of the Balkan Alliance was the liberation of the Orthodox people from Turkish slavery”, the Macedonians declared that “they do not want to be divided, but want to be free and independent,” as “Macedonia must remain a whole and indivisible Slavic unit” and it “must participate in the Balkan Alliance as an independent Balkan state”.

These demands also included those “written protests submitted in Salonika to the Bulgarian tsar and heir to the throne”, confirmed in late December 1912 by Pavel Milyukov and forming an essential part of the first Memorandum on the Independence of Macedonia. This Memorandum was submitted on March 1, 1913, in the name of the St Petersburg Macedonian Colony, by the authorized representatives, Dr Gavril KonstantinoviÌ, Nace Dimov, Dimitrija Ëupovski and Aleksandar Vezenkov, to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and to the ambassadors of the great powers to the Court in London, as well as to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the editorial offices of all major Russian newspapers. There they protested against what was being done in Macedonia, as the Macedonian Colony “cannot look without pain at this funeral procession — at the burial of their unfortunate fatherland of Macedonia, at the burial and destruction of the political and spiritual life of the whole nation, at the burial of the fatherland of the holy Cyril and Methodius,” as “the partition of Macedonia, by our Slavic brothers at that, is an inhuman act in the history of peoples, a severe violation of the rights of Man, a disgrace and shame to all Slavdom”, and hence the demand: “Macedonia should remain a single, indivisible and independent Balkan state within its geographical, ethnic, historical, economic and cultural borders.”

7.

When the conflict among the allies was already apparent on the horizon, on June 9, 1913, the first issue of the most significant Macedonian periodical up to the Liberation, Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), appeared. It was unquestionably the most complete archive of the thoughts and actions of the Macedonian people at the most sublime moment in Macedonian history. In the course of a year 245

and a half, the 11 issues of the journal presented the true feelings and aspirations of the Macedonians to the international public, serving as the most competent mouthpiece of the struggle for the preservation of Macedonia’s integrity and freedom. It published a large number of ideas dealing with the future organization of the Balkans and the Slavic world and about the place of Macedonia there. But as a result of joint actions by Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece in St Petersburg/Petrograd, the journal was finally banned in November 1914. Yet this was by no means the end of the endeavours of the Macedonians to attain their national liberation objectives.

June 7, 1913, saw the publication of the second Memorandum of the Macedonians to the Governments and the Public Opinion of the Allied Balkan States, signed by the “authorized persons”, Dimitrija Ëupovski, Georgi Georgov, Nace D. Dimov, Dr Gavril KonstantinoviÌ and Chem[ical] Eng[ineer] I. Georgov.

The demands were formulated in five items that again envisaged Macedonia’s association with Balkan relations.

This was a period when a number of declarations and resolutions were made with the participation of the Macedonians living in the Russian capital, and they always involved a broader Balkan or South-Slav federal community. Yet the Second Balkan War and the Peace Treaty of Bucharest, dictated by the ‘victors’, also sanctioned the partition of Macedonia in terms of international law and in fact. But peace was still not secured, and the great world war was yet to come.

8.

To secure a legal representative body, the Macedonians tried to form the Ss Cyril and Methodius Russian-Macedonian Charitable Society and on November 25, 1913, proposed a ‘Constitution’ with roughly the same goals and tasks as those of 1903 and 1912. The Russian authorities, however, on the insistence of Serbia, once again refused to issue a permit for the activity of this society. After the intervention of the Serbian diplomatic representative in St Petersburg, the Russian government stopped the publication of the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), but six months later, at the moment when the First World War broke out and new hopes arose for the annulment of the Treaty of Bucharest, it started appearing again. The editorial board was forbidden to publish attacks against the Kingdom of Serbia, as this stood on the side of Russia in the war, but the articles in the two last issues were full of testimonies about the struggle of the Macedonians for liberation and unification.

At the time when the journal was banned, the Macedonian Colony expressed its views on specific questions through separate publications; for instance, the 246

leaflet The Pseudo-Slavophiles and the Macedonophobes of the New Times was published in 1914 in Petrograd. It was under the name VraÔinovski and presented the essentials of the Macedonian national programme at that historical moment: We, Macedonian autonomists, have always been sincere Slavophiles, for us there are neither Jews nor Greeks among the Slav or non-Slav nations — they are all our brothers. Our programme is not narrowly nationalistic, but general for all the Slavs.

Our holy ideal has always been and will be: the unification of the whole of Slavdom under the sponsorship of Russia; it will gain its real power only when every Slavic nation voluntarily joins the future Slavic states, by fully preserving national and political freedom, and not through violent and fratricidal division…

Fully explaining this broad Slavic programmatic orientation, VraÔinovski wrote: The small peoples on the Balkan Peninsula can exist only on federal principles and without doubt under the protectorship of the great powers, as otherwise they will be greatly weakened by blows of mutual extermination, economic slavery and militarism, and will be easily devoured by the strong stomach of some of the neighbouring great powers.

An important article by Krste Misirkov, entitled ‘Macedonia and Slavdom’ (1914), also emphasized the role of Macedonia in the unification of Slavdom, but this, writes the author, “will rid us of misfortune and harsh disappointments, will begin healing our wounds and establish a permanent peace in the Balkans on the basis of national independence for all Balkan peoples. Then Macedonia, too, will obtain what belongs to her.” Misirkov threateningly reminds that if the Slavs fail to help the Macedonian people, “help may come from another side, which will deal a new blow both to Slav self-centredness and the interests of Slavdom”.

9.

When Russia joined the First World War, on August 6, 1914, Krste Misirkov delivered a notable speech at a large General Slavic Assembly in Odessa, and replying to a cable by the Russian Tsar to the Poles in the Minsk province “for the final unification of the whole of Slavdom and for the bright future of its individual peoples”, and also in reply to the special manifesto for Poland, he stated: “Macedonia, that second Poland, also has the legal right to a manifesto for its unification and restoration of the empire of Tsar Samuel and King Volkašin,” because, among other things, “[a]s the homeland of the Slavonic apostles, the holy Cyril and Methodius, of the Slavonic script and the old literary and church language of the whole of Orthodox Slavdom, possessing the oldest Slavonic culture, as a land 247

which has defended its Slavic national individuality over a period of 1,400 years, enduring in the most persistent struggle against the eternal enemies of Slavdom in the Balkans — the Greeks and the Turks — where the past 20 years of the history of Macedonia have been a continuous and widespread uprising of the Macedonians against the Turks, Macedonia, with its participation in the First Balkan War against Turkey and in the struggle of Serbia against Austria-Hungary, deserves the same promises and the same prize as the dismembered, into three parts, Poland.”

In his article ‘The Macedonian and Bulgarian National Ideals’, published in the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), Misirkov again condemned Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia and the Bulgarophile inclinations of some Macedonians: “It is time to reject the Bulgarian screen which blocks our way to directly addressing the conscience of civilized Europe for help and support.

Because of the mistakes of Bulgaria, they do not see our historical merits and national virtues. It is time that the whole world understood that a Macedonian people lives in Macedonia, and not Serbian or Bulgarian or Greek, and that this people has its own history, its own national dignity, its own major historical merits in the cultural history of Slavdom.” Misirkov was convinced that “no one will succeed in eradicating this old Slavic culture and establishing their interests in a wilderness such as this” and that “Macedonia will survive all misfortunes”, because the major figures of Macedonian history will “serve as a message to the sons of Macedonia that a bright future awaits Macedonia, once it joins, united and liberated, as an equal member, the family of the Balkan peoples”.

Of special significance is the Memorandum to the Russian Government, submitted in August 1914 by Ëupovski and Misirkov, on behalf of the Macedonian colonies in Petrograd and Odessa, to Prince G.N. Trubetskoy, in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This extensive and very important document makes a full survey of the history of Macedonia and of the ‘Macedonian question’, underlining the continuous character of the national liberation struggle of the Macedonian people and its significance for the Slavic world, and concluding with the appeal: “We hope that Russia will not forget Macedonia either, and that this time the Macedonian question will be resolved primarily in the interest of the local population and then in the interest of Russia and Slavdom.”

In addition to this memorandum, the activists of the Macedonian Colony in Petrograd sent a number of official documents to the international and Balkan public as well as to the Macedonian people, in which they explained in detail their views of the struggle for freedom and the future of the Macedonian people. For instance, in the Appeal to the Macedonian People ‘Let us Set Out towards a Slavic Victory’, the authorized representatives called: 248

Let us remind ourselves, Macedonians, that our fathers and grandfathers have always fought not only for the Macedonian, but also for the general Slavic cause. Let us remind ourselves that the whole weight of the struggle on the Balkan Peninsula against historical aggressors have always fallen on the Macedonian Slavs and we have fought it with honour, in so far as our forces have allowed. Let us remind ourselves that only the persistence of the enslaved Macedonians encouraged the hopes, vigour and determination of our south-Slav neighbours, whose mutual reconciliation is ordained by destiny itself to free Macedonia. Let us remind ourselves of all that and let us join the pan-Slavic ranks, not in the rear, but in the same front line. Let us set out where the Russian state banner has been leading the whole of Slavdom, that is towards victory.

With the signatures of Dimitrija D. Ëupovski, Nace D. Dimov, Georgi A. Stojanov, P. BoÔidarski, Done Peškovski, K. Georgiev and Grigor N. Ugrinovski, the Macedonian Colony in Petrograd also sent a special appeal “to their brothers in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece”, as “the foremost fighters for the Christian-Slavic idea on the Balkan Peninsula”, calling upon the Macedonians to join “the holy war” for “the unification of the whole of Slavdom and for the bright future of its individual peoples”.

The editorial board of Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas) also declared that “it will fight with an even greater force for the necessary south-Slavic brotherly rapprochement, which is unimaginable without a fair position towards Macedonia, which seeks freedom and unification of all its parts which are currently cut off from each other”.

The Macedonians stated that “they have suffered enough for their right to freedom” and rose up against Bulgaria’s trade with Macedonia in “the most important moment for Slavdom”, declaring that their place was “within the Slavic ranks”, as “only a free Macedonia will make the existence of a strong Slavic family in the Balkans possible and, reconciling the Serbs and Bulgarians, it will be an imposing power to scare the enemy and help friends and relatives”.

A document of particular significance was the Resolution of the Macedonian Émigrés in which “the Macedonians find it necessary to declare that this important moment… demands from all of us, the children of our only mother Slavia, a great responsibility and full unity not only on the battlefield, but also beyond it, so that no acts engendering disunion of the Slavic forces can darken with sadness the foreheads of the fighters for the Slavic cause”, as a result of which we, “the Macedonian exiles, in full accord with those who have remained there in our unfortunate, suffering fatherland, declare that today, in the face of the terrible common enemy, we believe that it is impossible to wage internal war against our brothers and neighbours who have insulted us, and leaving the settlement of our Macedonian question as regards securing the independence, autonomy and entirety of our fatherland to the near future and entrusting our destiny to the 249

righteousness of Russia, we are now standing up together with the whole of Slavdom, shoulder to shoulder with them, not laying our arms aside as long as the enemy of Slavdom is not fully defeated”.

In the last issue of Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas), November 20, 1914, Ëupovski, Peškovski, Ugrinovski and BoÔidarski published an extensive Appeal of the Macedonians Patriots to the Popular Representatives of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, in which they wrote that one of the main reasons for the outbreak of “the great European war which has engulfed the peoples of virtually the entire world” was the Macedonian question itself, and therefore “the desires of the Macedonians themselves” and “their national aspirations”, which “have been expressed more than once in the past years” had to be heard; “they are known to both European diplomacy and the Balkan politicians and statesmen”, in which “it is clearly and decisively said: Macedonia should be autonomous, united and independent”. For “Bulgaria has no greater rights to Macedonia than the Serbs or Greeks who have also at one time, just like the Bulgarians, ruled our fatherland as conquerors. But conquest by force does not deprive the people of their national character, of their desire to feel as they feel and not as something else, and to fight for the recognition of their independence”. After making a detailed survey of Macedonia’s historical destiny over the centuries, the Appeal warned: Naturally and logically, Macedonia’s liberation can be achieved only through the restoration of its independence. And the present partition of the land or the currently propagated new partition or the annexation of the majority of the Slavonic-Macedonian land by any state can by no means be an equitable solution; no one will be satisfied and the Balkan peoples will never be pacified.

Precisely with this in mind, we, the Macedonian patriots, are appealing now, at this exceptionally important moment, both historically and politically, to you, our brothers in Slavic blood — Serbs and Bulgarians — and to you, our brothers in the Orthodox faith — Greeks — reminding you of the great responsibility ordained to you by destiny, entrusting the settlement of the question of Macedonia to you.

Remember, brothers, an ethnically homogeneous people is a living body which will be condemned to death if cut into pieces.

Relying again on the statement issued by Russia “for the liberation of all the Slavs and the satisfaction of their national yearnings” and reminding Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece that “they can also hope to receive the support of Russia and the approval of the great powers on the issue of satisfying their state interests which are not in contravention of the proclaimed principles of the liberation war”, and also pointing to the attitude of Russia, Britain and France “towards the peoples of Austria-Hungary and Germany which are subjected to German-Hungarian slavery”, and which have been “promised full freedom and independence”, the Appeal spoke out poignantly: 250

And you whom, regardless of what we have experienced, we are still calling brothers, will you not follow the example of the great powers and will you not utter the long awaited brotherly word to us, admitting the past enmity and the Bucharest partition of our fatherland as a serious mistake which should be rectified and relegated to oblivion as soon as possible?

We declare unto you that we, the Macedonians, are not Serbs, we are not Bulgarians and we are not Greeks, and yet our heart is open for love and eternal friendship with all of you. Relinquish only what, in the excitement of bitterness, engendered by the surreptitious intrigues of our common enemies, you have captured with your sword and can retain only with the force of arms. And give us, the Macedonians, an opportunity to organize life in our native land in accordance with our own interests. Do not hinder Macedonia from becoming unified, autonomous and independent. The freedom of Macedonia will bring peace to you; it will put an end to the hostility between the Balkan peoples. The freedom of Macedonia is the necessary condition for the permanence and completeness of the freedom of the whole of South-Slavdom.

The article ‘The Final Hour Has Struck’ is written along the ‘South-Slavdom’ lines as interpreted by the Macedonians of the time. Starting from the premise that “Macedonia does not want to, cannot and should not be Bulgarian”, and that “it should be neither Greek nor Serbian”, the article examines all the options in connection with the war and concludes that precisely that “independent Macedonia” will become “the central core of Slavdom on the Balkan Peninsula and will soon lead to the reconciliation and unification of all South Slavs”.

10.

That is how the Macedonians thought and acted up to the end of 1914. After that, in the interest of its “allied” friends, Russia took steps to shut the mouth of the Macedonians. Their attempts to present their views through certain scholarly and other societies were promptly blocked. Yet we must mention the ‘Resolution on the Macedonian Question accepted by the Special Commission of the Council of the Society of Slavonic Mutuality’ (Petrograd, June 8, 1915), which was also separately issued as a publication by the editorial board of the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas) which had been shut down earlier. This very important document was prepared by a commission chosen by the council of this distinguished Russian association, composed of four Russians, two Macedonians, two Serbs and two Bulgarians. After submitting “a series of papers” on “the question of the destiny of Macedonia and its population” by representatives of the interested Slavic nationalities — Macedonians, Serbs and Bulgarians — the conclusion was the following: 251

(1) The most equitable solution to the question would be the establishment of an integral independent Macedonia by taking those parts of Macedonia from Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria which they captured in 1913. In this way, this long-suffering land, dismembered into three parts, will finally be constituted as a single and united state able to develop freely and live independently.

The next five items of the Resolution defined the other elements in connection with the achievement of this goal, and the four items of the explication more closely described “the huge practical difficulties which would be connected with putting this resolution into effect”. Here we should not forget that this was a time when Macedonia was being auctioned off on the Balkan market as a condition for Bulgaria and Greece joining the warring parties. On August 4, 1915, the forces of the Entente issued an ultimatum to Serbia to leave eastern Macedonia to Bulgaria as a condition for winning Bulgaria as an ally. At that time PašiÚ’s government already had regular contacts with the Yugoslav Committee in Rome, Paris and London. On August 10, the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Serbia, at a closed session, passed a resolution on the final objectives of the war in the spirit of the Niš Declaration. It was in these days of August 1915 that Dimitrija Ëupovski sent the following cable, in the name of the Macedonians in Russia, to the president of the Serbian National Assembly: At this moment when Serbia is deciding the question which determines the future destiny of long-suffering Macedonia, we, the Macedonians, express our ardent conviction that the brotherly Serbian people will resolve the Macedonian question in full conformity with the rightful national aspirations of the Slav Macedonians, a huge part of whom are now fighting together with the Serbs in the name of Slavic freedom and Slavic happiness. An equitable decision by the Serbian Assembly will not mean a new partition of Macedonia but the restoration of its unity, recognized by item two of the Serbo-Bulgarian Accord of February 29, 1912, which envisages the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia.

Serbia, however, refused to negotiate the Vardar part of Macedonia which now came within its borders. Bulgaria accepted the offer of the Central Powers and joined them on October 14, 1915. Serbia suffered a total military defeat and its army had to seek a way out through Albania to the island of Corfu. Negotiations started between the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee. The Corfu Conference began on June 15, 1917, ending with the adoption of the Corfu Declaration of the Kingdom of Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee for the establishment of a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

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11.

Macedonian activists abroad (there was no possibility whatsoever of any activity inside their homeland) did not interrupt their battle for the unification of Macedonia in the crucial stages of the war. Dimitrija Ëupovski wrote that he set out “in the spring of 1916 to Romania, through which I wanted to reach Macedonia, but I was unsuccessful and had to give up any further attempts”. Surviving sources confirm that on March 18 he actually crossed the border near Ungheni, Romania, but was unable to reach Macedonia.

When revolutionary commotion started in Russia and the government of the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionary Party (ESERY) was formed on May 5, 1917, the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee, the Ss Cyril and Methodius Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society and the Editorial Board of Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas) stepped up their activity and published “a series of appeals to the Balkan peoples for the overthrow of all existing dynasties on the Peninsula and for the establishment of a ‘Balkan Federal Democratic Republic’ headed by a council”. On June 18, 1917 (old style), the central Petrograd newspapers printed the complete programme for this federation in prominent positions on their pages. This was actually a project in response and reaction to the Corfu Declaration, which was basically unitarist in concept and involved “a three-named people in a compact and consistent mass” using three equal “names of peoples”: Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Macedonia was envisaged as representing nothing more than a part of Serbia, all of which was to be incorporated into the enlarged kingdom.

The democratic programme involving the federal Balkan concept prepared by the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee, the Society and the Editorial Board, was a unique achievement in the thinking of all South Slavs of that time. It was close to the Social Democratic federalist concepts of the Balkans at the time, but a detailed analysis shows that it involved a unique vision of the establishment of a federation which in many respects anticipated the organization of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but one that included all the Balkan entities. Let us examine some of its basic points.

Starting from the situation in Macedonia in the current historical circumstances of a world war whose end was already in sight, and in response to the provisions of the Corfu Declaration and the genuine aspirations and needs of the Balkan peoples, the Macedonians sent an appeal, shortly before the start of the October Revolution, to all the peoples in the Balkans for the foundation of a democratic alliance, choosing ideas that reflected their basic concepts as the motto of their document: “The Balkans to the Balkan peoples. Full self-determination for every nation.” Expecting that the long world war would “bring freedom and self-deter253

mination to many enslaved peoples”, the signatories to this programme posed the settlement of the question of Macedonia as the central problem, defining their democratic-revolutionary programme in 11 detailed points.

Of special significance are the provisions contained in point 5: “[N]ot only ethnically homogeneous states are recognized as independent republics in the Balkans, but also those regions with mixed populations, whose vital interests are closely connected with the geographical, historical, political, cultural and economic conditions.” This was a reference to the republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of Thrace, where different peoples and cultures lived together, and yet demanded independent status within the federation. It must be mentioned that at that time Thrace was treated as a special region and was an important topic in the policies of the Balkan states and great powers. At a certain time it was even constituted as an independent state, of which the Comintern took care in the inter-war period. The same solution as that adopted later at the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia was envisaged for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Respecting the principle of self-determination, it was envisaged that in these two republics (owing to their “mixed population”), “[a]utonomous districts and municipalities will be established, where each nationality will enjoy full freedom of its native tongue, faith and customs”.

The programme envisaged that “the official language of each republic will be the language of the majority”. Of particular interest was the provision that the republics were to send their “authorized representatives to the general Federal Parliament”, and that a “Federal Government and a Council which stands in the stead of the President of the Federal Republic” were to be formed from among them. To preserve full equality between the peoples and republics, “the Federal Government and the Council” were to be composed “of an equal number of persons from each federate republic”, and “the Federal Government and the Council” were to “control all general federal internal and external international affairs of the Balkan Republic”.

Accordingly, the concept of this programme, regardless of the fact that it envisaged a Balkan, and not merely a South-Slavic, unification, represented the highest achievement in the democratic federalist thinking among the Macedonians, and not only among them. It was no mere chance that the Macedonian people from all the parts of the divided land lived constantly with these visions in the period between the wars and also during a large part of the Second World War and the National Liberation War. This was the only way and manner of achieving the unification and liberation of the Macedonian people and of securing peace and harmony in the Balkans.

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12.

We must not neglect the fact that the Macedonians also considered the idea of a federalist unification of the South Slavs alone, and after the publication of the Corfu Declaration, also of a federally organized South-Slav (Yugoslav) state, but with enlarged borders that included the whole territory of Macedonia.

These were principally the tendencies that appeared within the Macedonian Club in Belgrade, now supported mainly by people from southern Macedonia, the section of the land which was to remain outside the borders of the envisaged state of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The character of the ‘Yugoslav’ orientation of the Corfu Declaration was clear not only because it proclaimed a “triple” or “three-named” people, but also because the declaration did not invite, or did not even take into consideration, Montenegro and Macedonia as subjects. PašiÚ’s greater-state concept was clear and patronizing, especially with regard to the Macedonians. In his letter of November 3, 1917, he was quite categorical in the formulation of his directives to M. MarinkoviÚ in the Serbian mission to the Bolsheviks in Russia: “The question of Macedonia should not be allowed to be raised at all. It is a Serbian land…” As a matter of fact, as early as November 11, 1904, PašiÚ said to HesapÌiev, the Bulgarian chargéd’affaires: “I have decisively opposed the autonomy of Macedonia. I have refused to recognize that there is a third Slavic nationality in the Balkans besides the Serbs and Bulgarians, and accordingly, Macedonian Slavs should not be created in addition to them at any cost. They are either Serbs or Bulgarians. Those sections which lie closer to Serbia and are more exposed to Serbian influence — these are Serbs, and those sections which lie closer to Bulgaria — these are Bulgarians…

Finally, I do not think that for the proper development of the Balkan states it is necessary or justified to create a fourth tiny Slavic state.”

Yet now PašiÚ was also upset by the rumours coming from Macedonia, by what was happening among the people, and also by what was taking place in the ranks of the allies.

France was particularly active in the background during the fighting on the Macedonian Front. As early as 1916 it founded a Commercial Bureau as part of the Command of the Eastern Front, which started publishing its mouthpiece Bulletin Commercial de Macédoine (Armée d’Orient — Ravitaillement civil, Bureau commercial). The Commercial Bureau developed extensive activities for the investment of French capital in Macedonia, also founding various Macedonian-French committees in many French towns. At the same time, in order to acquaint the French public with the economic, commercial, historical, archaeological and other conditions in Macedonia, the journal Revue FrancoMacédonienne was printed in Salonika. A discussion was initiated as to “what to 255

do with Macedonia after the war, how to organize it, and thus secure a permanent peace in the Balkans, which would enable the safe investment of French capital”.

An article of February 1, 1917, referring to the fairs and marketplaces in Macedonia, stated that their past memories “are not only of historical interest; they serve to determine what can and should be the future of a land recalling an impressive economic prosperity and whose development has been impeded and slowed down only by recurrent conflicts, wars and devastation. The security which the new status of Europe will bring to Macedonia should enable it to start once again along the road of its own natural development”. For: “To prepare the future prosperity of Macedonia means to put an end to the conflicts whose severity was that which disturbed Europe. It is necessary once and for all to extinguish the source of the fire, ready to break out again if we do not guard it.”

This and other ideas allow us to conclude that there was indeed a vision to “organize Macedonia after the war as an independent state unit under guarantees from the great powers, based upon the interest of capital”. This was even better described by the article entitled ‘French Culture in Macedonia’, which appeared in Revue Franco-Macédonienne in April 1917, where, in addition to “industrial and commercial expansion”, the third “item” mentioned was French culture, which, it assessed, was not at the level of “the allotted place which Macedonia should take in French interests in the East, and primarily in the Balkans”. Moreover, “[n]o one can deny that it is desirable to turn Macedonia into one of the major French centres”. As a matter of fact, there were French educational centres in Macedonia even earlier, especially in Salonika, as “the focus of genuine French culture”. The article called for a drawing closer to the Macedonian masses: “Let us learn their language, which is not in contradiction to the efforts we would make to propagate our language. Let us show interest and make them interested in their own life, their own history and land.” It was no chance that it recommended the setting up, in Salonika itself, of a “centre for Macedonian studies”, which, together with the other institutions in the field of culture, would secure this centre as “the focus of ‘Macedonism’”.

And yet this was only one side of the complex activity of France in Macedonia.

In his research into this question, Ivan KatardÔiev has concluded that French political action on the ground was of no lesser scope, especially in 1918. Specialists in various areas were sent (geographers, historians, linguists, etc. from various French universities) to make detailed studies of Macedonia. In April 1918 the French command sent a questionnaire (with 20 questions) to all regional commands, requiring them to describe the real situation on the ground. This did not remain a secret from the Serbian intelligence service and on April 15, 1918 the Ministry of the Interior reported that the Lerin police station had informed them that “a circular has been sent from the Salonika Central Office and the Political 256

Department of the Staff of the Eastern Army to all French military and police services under the jurisdiction of the Second Bureau. They are required to collect ethnographic, economic, historical, geographical and other information in the territory where the relevant institution is located.” Further on it is said that “the chief of the French police in Lerin has asked Professor Miloš IvkoviÚ, a distinguished linguist, to help him as an advisor, and the latter has put all the data on the population, customs, history, language, etc. at his disposal. Moreover, he has offered to cooperate with the responsible French officers in the process of collecting information.”

Although the directive of the Serbian ministry was not without practical effect on the collection of data, this French study and historical survey of Macedonia in the course of “about 20 centuries” (encompassing the state of Philip and Alexander of Macedon and the domination of Rome, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia and Turkey) offers a fairly accurate picture of the circumstances in Macedonia, even though there are also contradictory data and some vague views about the cultural and national situation of the Macedonian people. For example, it mentions: “Bitola, where 5,000 Slavic families have long been exposed to the influence of Bulgarian propaganda, but speak Macedonian”; the town population of Lerin is designated as Greek, and the rural population as Bulgarian, while in the region comprising the villages of Leskovec, Ajtos, Gorno Kotori and Dolno Kotori “the Macedonian element is in the majority”; the population along the Bend of the River Crna is “homogeneous and composed of Macedonians of Serbian descent, Orthodox in faith”, whereas “on the western shores of Prespa most of the inhabitants are Orthodox Christians and depend on the Patriarchate”, but “their spoken language is a Macedonian dialect, written in the Bulgarian and, chiefly, in the Greek alphabet”.

This survey upset the Serbian government and propaganda, especially the data that in Macedonia (albeit in some parts only) there lived Macedonians. Great alarm was created by the statements of the French Slavicist André Vaillant, second lieutenant in the General Staff, who was given the task “of studying the language situation, customs and monuments in the surroundings of Lerin”. In a conversation, Vaillant said among other things: “In Macedonia, both Serbian and Greek, there exists only a Macedonian language, while Serbian customs and culture are indisputable.” In a letter dated January 15, 1918, the chief of the office of the police station for state security in Lerin, Jovan AleksiÚ, wrote to his minister: “I have explained to M. Vaillant, to the best of my ability, that a Macedonian language does not exist, and that we can speak only of a dialect, but M. Vaillant adhered to his assertion.” This view of Vaillant’s was also confirmed in the letter of the Commissariat and Security Service in Lerin of May 3, 1918, to the responsible Serbian Security Service in Salonika; he told AleksiÚ again: “After this war the 257

1913 borders of the Balkan states will not be retained, but the Slavic areas (including the Slavic areas in Greek territory) will be grouped within Yugoslavia, which Bulgaria, too, will later have to join”. AleksiÚ added that “M. Vaillant firmly stands on the position that the Macedonian Slavs, according to their culture and tradition, are not Bulgarians, even though he believes there are certain similarities between the Macedonian language and the Bulgarian language”. Hence it was not surprising that the French officers, upon saying goodbye to the peasants, urged them “to preserve their Slavonic mother tongue”.

All this shows that shortly before the end of the war, France already had a definite picture of the ethnic culture and aspirations of the Macedonians, and also of the true situation on the ground, which, understandably enough, worried the Serbian occupation authorities in southern Macedonia and PašiÚ’s government on Corfu.

13.

Similar information, however, was received concerning the views and actions of the British and Italians in Macedonia. On February 22, 1918, Infantry Major Dr M. PetroviÚ reported that “the English are greatly interested in the historical descent of our population in Macedonia and in its current national feeling”, and that the interest of the British was “by far the greatest”. For instance, the London University Professor Dr Simpson, who worked in the British hospital in Kremen, “was engaged in the study of the language and the question of the nationality of the Macedonians”, and “had a whole collection of data which he had gathered from his patients”. His work was continued by Mary Stewart, who replaced him, whereas Miss Campbell, who provided food for the children in the village of Dobroveni, “in reference to the language of the local population as well as their nationality, has never said anything but: ‘Macedonians; I do not speak Serbian, I speak Macedonian’”.

Serbian reporters were seriously worried because “the English, French and Italians (earlier more often, and now more rarely) go into the villages of SkoÌivar, Dobroveni and BaÌ, and under the pretext of taking pictures, or for other reasons, they come into contact with the local population and ask questions about the language and nationality”. The Serbs were even more upset to hear that “the allied officers have books about Macedonia in their hands, issued by the ministries of the military, which, just like the studies carried out, do not favour the aspirations of the Serbian government”. As a result, as early as April 1, 1918, Nikola PašiÚ instructed Milenko VesniÚ in Paris “to react most energetically against such views — with all the means and data he has at his disposal”, demanding that the French 258

government ban such publications or revise them “in favour of the Serbian thesis”. PašiÚ demanded of the Belgrade professors Aleksandar BeliÚ, Jovan CvijiÚ and others that they prepare publications in favour of Serbian policy and that the High Command send representatives to the allies who “will not consider the language of the Macedonians a part of the Bulgarian language only because they do not speak the Podrinje-Bosnian dialect”.

On April 24, 1918, the Serbian High Command sent a circular to frustrate “the wrong and, for us, damaging views of the national models of the Macedonian population”, and among other things, “to pay serious attention in the choice of persons who serve as interpreters and liaison staff with the French, English and Italians. The appropriate persons, in addition to the command of the language, should be able to give reports and know precisely the differences between the Serbian and Bulgarian languages, and also, if possible, know the characteristics of the Macedonian population, and its dialect, which they must not include within the Bulgarian language, only because it is different from the Podrinje-Bosnian dialect, because the birthplace of the Serbian language was Old Serbia.”

All this made the High Command of the Serbian Army address, on June 28, 1918, its Minister of the Military with concrete proposals presented in four points, concluding that it was necessary “to create a unity in our own doctrine concerning Macedonia and the Macedonian question”, because “at present there is no such unity of doctrine either in our scholarship or in public opinion”, as a result of which it was necessary to gather, in Salonika, “the well-known national activists” to formulate “our views and determine our aspirations”. Once established as binding on all, this “would be spread by every possible means”, and the whole would be directed by a single person who would be relieved of any other obligations. This implied that shortly before the end of the war, Serbia still had no definite and consistent vision of the destiny of Macedonia, even though the Serbian government endeavoured in principle to incorporate that part of Macedonia granted in accordance with the Treaty of Bucharest within its territory.

Accordingly, the ‘Yugoslav idea’ was only an optional concept in the spectrum of Serbian greater-state interests, which ignored the Macedonian people and refused to listen to its prominent representatives abroad. Hence the Minister of the Military was swift to accept the suggestions of the High Command and, in his letter to the president of the Serbian government on Corfu, of July 1, 1918, he copied almost verbatim the four points, adding a fifth that enumerated the persons who were supposed to form the commission which would work out the proposed paper for Serbian propaganda in Macedonia.

On the 27th of the same month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a letter to the Serbian envoy to Paris, emphasized its “uniform, clear and precise” view “on the national and political demands” for acquainting the French, British and 259

Americans “with our ethnic and historical rights”, i.e. “with our ethnographic borders and our goals in this bloody struggle”. The following instructions were given: With the purpose of making it possible, at least from now on, for our writers and journalists as well as ordinary citizens to have consistent and definite views in private conversations of the ethnographic borders of our people, and also of our other ethnographic, ethnic and national questions, it is my honour, Mr Envoy, to invite the professors of our university, Dr CvijiÚ, Dr BeliÚ, Dr ÛeriÚ, Dr RadonjiÚ and Dr StanojeviÚ, and request them together to draw up the ethnographic borders of our three-named people in all the regions, paying special attention to the borderline with the Bulgarians and Greeks, where the most frequent errors are being made.

14.

Yet more and more information arrived concerning the opinion of the Macedonians themselves about their future following the war. Serbian representatives could also feel this. It was not by chance that as early as the spring of 1918 the allies started once more to use the ‘Macedonian question’ and Bulgaria’s aspirations on the approaching end of the war. As a result, on March 2, 1918, the Serbian diplomatic representative in London, Jovan JovanoviÚ, proposed to his government that it should not only leave nothing to Bulgaria under any condition, but that it should accept the border line of 1912 and demand that the people from the “disputed zone” vote in a referendum whether they wanted to go with the Serbs or Bulgarians. What is particularly interesting, JovanoviÚ suggested that “autonomy be proposed for Macedonia (the old vilayets — Bitola and Salonika — the latter without the Veles district)”, and that “the question be put before scholarly arbitration or before a mixed special commission”.

It is interesting that as early as 1917, in the negotiations with the Entente concerning a separate peace with Bulgaria through the mediation of the Exarchate metropolitan Stephen, it was agreed that “Macedonia should be proclaimed an autonomous region with Salonika as its capital, under the protectorship of America”. A similar proposal was made by the Macedonian Bombolov in London, in July 1918, for the autonomy of Macedonia, and the idea was accepted favourably by the British as well.

In August 1918, special representatives of the American president Wilson arrived in Bitola to become acquainted with the ethnography of the population on the spot. Here we must take into account the claims of Greece which were expressed through several concrete actions in Macedonia. PašiÚ’s minimal and maximal claims to Macedonia from April that year seemed to be called into question. Coming out against “the public discussion of the Macedonian question”, 260

JovanoviÚ was categorical that “for us it does not exist”. Recommending that any such discussion should be ignored, he wrote: “By discussing it now, we ourselves admit that it has not been settled.”

In this situation, it is of essential significance to determine what the attitude of the Macedonian people was concerning this question. We still do not have sufficient archive materials available to us. Yet even from the sources of Serbian representatives in the occupied territory at that time it can be seen that “there is some secret agitation which is spreading ideas of some Macedonian nationality”.

The Serbian agent in the Voden police station made it clear: “The peasants, and especially the children, say that they are Macedonians”, and the chief of the local Lerin division, Jovan AleksiÚ, testified that “among the women there have been vigorous discussions about the autonomy of Macedonia which would come very soon”. The Serbian government became fully aware that Macedonia might even be supported by the allies as a separate national entity or that Serbia might lose it altogether — “if we fail to re-conquer it with armed force and before the end of the war”. Therefore, all the forces were concentrated on the Macedonian Front and the first territory “regained” was indeed Macedonia. They had in mind that as early as January 1918, the Briton Arthur Evans had proposed the establishment of “a single state with administrative autonomies”, suggesting “Skopje (for the Macedonian regions)” as the centre of Macedonia. Furthermore, the vice-president of the National Council of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, Dr Ante PaveliÚ, in early November expressed the position of his Croatian Party of Rights that they understood the provisions of the Corfu Declaration in such a way that “the future state would consist of separate autonomous regions” (although “not delineated by nationality, but by geographical appellations”), where Macedonia was envisaged as one of those separate autonomous regions.

15.

The ‘autonomist’ movement in Macedonia, which already had a comparatively long history, became the kernel of Macedonian national liberation ideology and action. With the approach of the end of the war this platform was becoming more and more prominent. Some of the more rational Serbian officers on the Macedonian Front noticed this. In order to thwart Bulgarian aspirations in the future peace bargaining and to secure Macedonia’s incorporation, together with Serbia, within the future ‘South-Slav’ (Yugoslav) state, they even prepared a special declaration to the Serbian government as a supplement to the Corfu Declaration referring to Macedonia. It reached M. TrifunoviÚ, Minister in PašiÚ’s government, who sent a cable, on August 11, 1918, to the Minister of the Interior on the island of Corfu: 261

I have understood that a movement about Macedonia has appeared here for its becoming a member of the Yugoslav community and demanding from the government that the Corfu Declaration encompass the whole of Macedonia as an individual ‘South-Slav people’. Because Professor Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ and Dr Ëeda ÛurŸeviÚ have been designated as leaders of this movement, I have demanded reports from both of them. HadÔitaškoviÚ says that the initiative was started by ÛurŸeviÚ and that he agrees with the idea and intends to support it, if the government gives approval. ÛurŸeviÚ admits that he is the promoter of the idea, and justifies it with the need for Macedonian intellectuals, using the slogan that the Macedonians are ‘South Slavs’, in accordance with the theory of CvijiÚ and BeliÚ, to smash the propaganda of the Bulgarians and friends of Bulgaria that the Macedonians are Bulgarians; this would prevent Macedonia’s going to the Bulgarians, and it can be incorporated into Yugoslavia, like Croatia and Slovenia. I pointed out to Mr ÛurŸeviÚ, a medical colonel, that he had made a wrong step which, even as an idea, may harm our interests, and recommended to him that he cease all activities. He said that he did not intend to undertake anything until he receives the opinion and approval of the government. Yet he had already written a declaration which was submitted to certain persons for their opinions. According to my investigation, a month ago, in a group which included General VasiÚ and medical major Miloš PopoviÚ, Mr ÛurŸeviÚ claimed that in our dispute with the Bulgarians on the question of the ethnic character of the Macedonians, the most accurate was the opinion of Dr CvijiÚ. The same was the opinion of HadÔitaškoviÚ, who claims that it has been established by scholarship that the ethnic character of Macedonia was neither Serbian nor Bulgarian, but Slavic. Accordingly, I believe that this movement is unwholesome and harmful, that it has met with disapproval from the Macedonian champions and that it should be stopped. With this in mind, I have already taken steps and we believe that the government should also issue an order, and even start formal investigations. Mr ÛurŸeviÚ claims that, in addition to the entire documentation he has sent here, special documentation will follow in another cable, after which, he believes, Mr PašiÚ will approve his action.

We do not know much about that “special documentation” which was to explain the action of the Declaration’s authors, but this must have referred, primarily, to the conviction and feeling of the Macedonian people themselves and to the position of the allies on this question. Highly illustrative here was the statement of Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ, who once again, as in 1904/1905, spoke about the individual ethnic character of the Macedonians, as a result of which he insisted on them being fully incorporated into the new state as a separate Slavic entity. This concept sprang from both the ordinary people and the intelligentsia of the population, and hence the Declaration was not made in the name of the Serbian military command, but “in the name of the Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs), those within the borders of Serbia as well as those beyond it”. This exceptionally important document declared: One. No one denies that the Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs) are a South-Slav people, and this is the feeling of all Macedonians without distinction.

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Two. As a South-Slav people, we show solidarity with all Yugoslav [South-Slav] aspirations and accept the Corfu Declaration of 1917. We wish and request that the Corfu Declaration be supplemented by encompassing the whole of Slav Macedonia and all Macedonians.

Three. Accordingly, we accept unity with all other South-Slavs, on the basis of democratic organization, headed by the KaraŸorŸeviÚ dynasty.

Four. Hence we, the Macedonians, also wish to have our own representatives in the Yugoslav Committee, and appeal to the Committee to enlarge its structure, accepting Macedonian representatives from outside the borders of Serbia, in the same way as representatives from the other regions outside the borders of Serbia have been included in the Committee.

This Declaration was undoubtedly one of the strongest indications concerning the understanding of the “Yugoslav idea” by the Macedonians. It was not formulated only by HadÔitaškoviÚ, though he could not be reconciled to the idea that his native Voden would remain outside the borders of the future state. It was not by chance that Voden was indicated as the place where this document was written in late July 1918. The Declaration started from the distinct ethnic identity of the Macedonians and demanded special treatment for the entire Macedonian people, as was the case with “the other regions outside the borders of Serbia”.

These views were not essentially different from those upheld by the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee and the St Petersburg Society, regardless of the fact that they advocated a Balkan federation and this declaration favoured a South-Slav federation. That it envisaged the same type of federal community is shown by HadÔitaškoviÚ’s personal statements.

Immediately after receiving and studying TrifunoviÚ’s cable and the text of the Voden Declaration, the acting Foreign Minister, Dr Milan GavriloviÚ, invited not ÛurŸeviÚ but HadÔitaškoviÚ himself to Corfu to explain the document. In the discussion which lasted for two hours and after the presentation of the Promemoria on the manner of resolving the status of Macedonia in the envisaged state, on September 1, 1918, a written version was demanded from HadÔitaškoviÚ, which he only finished as late as September 19, 1918 (as he became ill in the meantime). Both versions of the Promemoria have been preserved and they explain and expand the Voden Declaration in many aspects.

Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ’s South-Slav concept today sounds very modern. It was superior to the concept of the Yugoslav Committee, let alone the unitarist concept of PašiÚ’s government, where Macedonia was not even mentioned. In order to demonstrate that the Voden Declaration was not an isolated view of individual Serbian officers, but the expression of the aspirations of the Macedonian people, we would like to quote some of the basic points in this extensive Promemoria.

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HadÔitaškoviÚ reported that “around mid-July” he was invited by Medical Colonel Dr Vlajko PopoviÚ to the Serbian hospital in Salonika, where he met Medical Colonel Dr Ëeda ÛurŸeviÚ for the first time and was acquainted with the already formulated declaration on Macedonia. The basic concept of the document, according to HadÔitaškoviÚ, was “to proclaim the Macedonian people as an individual South-Slav people which would be included as such within the framework of the Yugoslav [South-Slav] state”. It was intended that the Declaration be signed (probably by a larger number of supporters of this ideology in Macedonia) and later a representative of the Macedonians be sent to the Yugoslav Committee in order to amend the Corfu Declaration in the spirit of this concept. The idea, believed HadÔitaškoviÚ, “is only the logical conclusion of our view on the ethnography of the Macedonian Slavs, as it has been publicly disseminated, and in this way the Macedonians would be politically even more strongly linked to Serbia”.

This would also be accepted by the allies and would be in the spirit of Wilson’s Fourteen Points concerning world peace.

It is interesting to note HadÔitaškoviÚ’s response in connection with the activity of the initiator, Dr ÛurŸeviÚ, who in 1895-1897 was sent by Serbian propaganda as a physician to Skopje. ÛurŸeviÚ himself said that “he has long dealt with this question, having spent whole two years on propaganda in Skopje; that now he has undertaken this activity without consultations with the government, but that he has reasons to believe that at least two or three members of the government maintain the same position; he invited me,” writes HadÔitaškoviÚ in the Promemoria, “because he has heard that I am considered as an ideologist of this question among the Macedonian intelligentsia”.

HadÔitaškoviÚ also mentioned his autonomist and confederalistic activity of 12 years earlier and wrote that he had met Dr ÛurŸeviÚ four times in Salonika, also giving him “data included in the memorandum”. At the same time he talked to his “friends amongst the Macedonian intelligentsia” and “all those to whom I spoke fully approved of my view”, but owing to the special circumstances of war and the sensitivity of the question, everyone demanded first to hear the opinion of the Serbian government and then to sign the document. “If the government takes that position,” says he, “it can convene a conference and open a discussion there”. For, “as far as the Macedonians are concerned, this question is of particular significance, and it must be precisely defined”. HadÔitaškoviÚ tried to justify his action concerning the Declaration with the danger of “the Macedonian question being settled on a different basis from the settlement of the Peace of Bucharest”, as in Salonika there were already rumours “of negotiations between the allies and Bulgaria for a separate peace”. Even though the Serbian diplomat and journalist Óivojin BalugdÔiÚ told him: “We have a promise on the part of the allies for the restoration of Serbia, and accordingly the Macedonian question does not exist for 264

us,” HadÔitaškoviÚ nevertheless pointed to the serious claims by the Bulgarians and even by the allied Greeks to “that fully Slavic Macedonia”, and at that crucial historical moment he again put forward the thesis “on the ethnography of the Macedonian Slavs”, which was “a formula for a Yugoslav [South-Slav] Macedonia within the framework of the Yugoslav state”, i.e. “recognition of the individuality of the Macedonians and of Macedonia within the borders of the Yugoslav state”.

This would entail the following: (1) It recognizes the ethnic individuality of the Macedonians which has developed in the course of centuries: even if this people was formerly not ethnically a separate South-Slav people, it has gradually become such owing to its geographical and historical destiny, forming part at different times of one or another Balkan state, and thus acquiring its own individuality.

(2) It would comprise the whole of Macedonia, that means also Bulgarian and Greek, within its geographical and ‘moral’ if not ethnic borders; indeed all Macedonians feel themselves to be a single moral whole.

(3) This formula also resolves the question of southern, Greek, Macedonia, the cradle of general Slavic racial consciousness: by any other formula, the one-thousandyear-old Slavic character of that nursery of all Slavonic literature and culture would be condemned to ruin, and this would be an eternal source of remorse for the entire Slavic race.

(4) This formula, satisfying the autonomist aspirations of all aware Macedonians — in the spirit of which they have been brought up for twenty years — would attract all Macedonians to the Yugoslav [South-Slav] idea, not only those from Greek Macedonia, but also, which is of enormous importance, those from America and Bulgaria, who would be invited to return to their hearths: thus an impenetrable front would be built vis-à-vis Bulgaria, which would permanently separate it from Macedonia… And this Yugoslav community, in the light of history and sociological laws, will either be federal — or it may never come into being.

HadÔitaškoviÚ left it to the Serbian government to decide whether it was possible for “Serbia today to have the moral force to make such a generous and also profound statesmanlike gesture, to recognize these principles”, and also pointed to the following arguments “supporting this thesis”: (5) First of all, an argument of high moral value: this formula will put an end to a painful anomaly — the sons of one and the same people, often from one and the same family, being divided into four nationalities: Macedonians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks.

(6) Then an argument of intellectual honesty: it will help the study of Macedonia to return to its true ground, to the ground of objective research and examination, with no ulterior motives or biased claims.

(7) In the political respect, the advantages of this formula would include the following: (a) It will finally resolve the complicated Macedonian question, and on the most democratic basis at that, in accordance with the political ideology and military goals

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of the allies and America: by this thesis we would indeed have all the allies on our side, including president Wilson. (b) Macedonia will forever be separated from Bulgaria. (c) Serbia will secure itself access to Salonika and the Aegean Sea without a new war: it will thus resolve, without a new war, a historical problem it is forced to resolve by mere geographical necessity; even the Greeks themselves see and publicly highlight that necessity. (See the book Greek-Slavic Borders, p. 10). (d) Bulgaria, making a separate peace and declaring that it accepts Wilson’s principles, hopes that it will nevertheless gain something, if nothing else, because of the name ‘Bulgarian’ by which, even according to CvijiÚ, the Macedonians call themselves; we should outwit them in this by taking the name Macedonian and giving that name its full content, at the expense of its links with the Bulgarian nationality.

These considerations and concrete proposals by Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ represented a step forward in the discovery of the national identity and historical prospects in the development of the Macedonian people in comparison with his views and actions of 1905. He himself admitted that he had done this “in full freedom of thought and conscience”, presenting the “scholarly, moral and political arguments in favour of this thesis… guided solely by the love of truth, as it has presented itself to me on the basis of study of the history of the Balkan peoples, on the basis of extensive reading and thinking and on the basis of full knowledge of the psychology of the Macedonians”, at the same time fully convinced that “any other solution will be harmful for Serbian interests and peace in the Balkans”.

Starting from the premise that at the moment “when cultural superiority and tolerance, which are the traits of both culture and power, should be the chief factors in the establishment of a state”, HadÔitaškoviÚ ended the Promemoria by pointing out that “there is no place for narrow-mindedness in a large state; as both the individuals and the regions have their own individual moral life which must be respected, and efforts should be made not to destroy individualities but to bring them into agreement, so that everyone can breathe with the same political will.

The power of Great Britain and America is based on this principle. In this respect, the Macedonians have certain psychological characteristics which will not be damaging to the general state and social life, but on the contrary: unrestrained, both politically and morally, the Macedonians will develop their personal and ethnic faculties and will thus make a contribution of their own to the common Serbian and South-Slav culture.”

At the request of the Minister, HadÔitaškoviÚ made a brief summary of this Promemoria, introducing some new elements which are not uninteresting if we wish to have a complete picture of his views and actions. Despite pointing out that the implementation of this “formula” would depend on “political opportuneness”, the author insisted on turning “the present defensive” into “an offensive formula” of Serbian policy, because not only the Bulgarians but also the Greeks had 266

conducted “an offensive policy”. For this reason he proposed: “This offensive formula would encompass the whole of Macedonia, both Bulgarian and Greek, with Salonika at the head. Everyone today, including Senegalese and Indian soldiers on the Macedonian Front, have realized that Greek Macedonia is in fact Slavic, South-Slavic Macedonia — even though not everyone knows that it was the cradle of Slavonic racial consciousness and the first fountain of Slavonic literature and culture.” Emphasizing that this “formula… can gather around itself all Macedonians, wherever they may be and whatever they may have chosen”, he proposed that “careful and diplomatic action should also be taken among the Macedonians in Greece, Bulgaria and America, and also among the Jews and Turks in Salonika”. He also proposed that, “if possible”, “at least one intelligent Macedonian be sent to the capitals of the allies who would work at an appropriate post in the Yugoslav Committee. The same should be done in Bern and Geneva”, quoting a comprehensive list of seven Macedonian intellectuals as candidates for these posts, from among the fifty or so people mentioned in the longer version of the text.

In a nutshell, Grigorije HadÔitaškoviÚ (together with his adherents and people sharing the same ideas) proposed to the Serbian government a Yugoslav concept for the future common state, where Macedonia was to be an individual region within the federal community, and the Macedonians were to be recognized as a distinct nation and culture, side by side with the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The Declaration and Promemoria, however, were not accepted by PašiÚ’s government. Moreover, they were not even the subject of special analysis by the responsible institutions and bodies. The ‘Macedonian question’ continued not to exist for Serbia and the Macedonians were treated as being Serbs.

16.

Such were the views of the Macedonians who fought in the First World War on the side of Serbia. This was a direct reflection of the feelings and aspirations of the people in Macedonia itself. Moreover, the positions of other Macedonians who lived as émigrés, even of those who were ready to take the policy of Bulgaria into consideration, were similar. Amidst the storm of the world war, the Macedonian associations in Switzerland developed particularly significant activities. They were founded towards the end of the 19th century, emerged in public immediately following the Ilinden Uprising, and became especially active after 1915, playing a very important part in the period of the Peace Conference at Versailles.

At the head of this activity was the privatdozent of the Medical School in Geneva, Dr Anastas Kocarev (from Ohrid). In the autumn of 1915 he founded 267

the Academic Society Macedonia (Geneva), and towards the end of that year the Macedonian students at Zurich University set up the Political Society Macedonia to Macedonians. Early 1916 saw the foundation of the Political Society Macedonia — For the Defence of the Rights of Macedonians, and in the same period another Macedonian association was established in Geneva: the Political Society for the Independence of Macedonia. All this took place at a time when Macedonia was almost completely under the occupation of Bulgaria and cannot be considered a result of Bulgarian policy and propaganda. These were associations whose concepts were directed against the aggressive appetites of all the Balkan monarchies, including the aspirations of Bulgaria.

Their activity became particularly strong after the start of peace negotiations.

For example, in July 1919, a second Macedonian society was formed in Lausanne that bore the name Vardar and promoted the slogan ‘Macedonia to the Macedonians’, and there were similar associations in Bern, Zurich and Neuchâtel. For the purpose of being more effective after the end of the First World War and especially following the proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, when it became clear that the partition of Macedonia and the triple subjugation of the Macedonians seriously threatened to become an accomplished fact with international guarantees, on December 15, 1918, representatives from the three strongest Macedonian societies (in Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich) elected a joint managing body whom they called a General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland, which was active for nearly a year.

Both the Serbian and Bulgarian sides made attempts, from the very outset, to infiltrate the Macedonian societies in Switzerland and to influence the programmatic orientation of the Macedonians from within. As early as March 1917 the Serbian historian and politician, Jovan N. TomiÚ, reported that Dr Anastas Kocarev in Geneva “has penetrated among our young people and there spreads the idea of a Balkan confederation with autonomy for individual provinces”. He also gave a public lecture in this spirit. In the next year the Society of Macedonians for the Independence of Macedonia, Geneva, issued an appeal to the Macedonians, where, among other things, it was stated: “Macedonia and its people represent a single entity pitifully divided by the unjustified rivalry of neighbouring states…

Macedonia does not belong either to the Bulgarians, or the Greeks, or the Serbs, it belongs to the Macedonians. Macedonia to the Macedonians.” Therefore they propagated the slogan: “Long live independent Macedonia!”, even though they had a federalist concept. Starting from the Swiss state-constitutional organization, the objectives of the society were: “(1) to inform, in the correct manner, public opinion on the Macedonian question, and (2) to work on the establishment of an independent Macedonia and its organization into a federal state.”

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Serbian diplomacy not only regularly informed its government concerning these actions by the Macedonians, but also tried to act inside these associations by using hired instruments from the Macedonian community. For example, it used the Central Committee of the Serb-Croat-Slovene University Youth in Switzerland, which issued a public protest against the demands of the Macedonians “to allow the Macedonian people to decide freely on its destiny”. Greek academic societies in Switzerland issued similar statements. The key element was the principle of national self-determination in the spirit of the Fourteen Points of the United States President Wilson. The objective of the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland was formulated in this way even in its ‘Founding act’: “To demand the implementation of the principles of president Wilson and the Entente powers, i.e. to make it possible for the Macedonian population to control freely its own destiny, as it has been made possible for the other subjugated peoples.” It was no chance that, from the very first meeting of this council, cables were sent to president Wilson and the heads of the French, British and Italian governments. The General Council not only promptly reacted with letters, cables, memoranda and bulletins, but it also sent delegates to the congresses of the Second Socialist International in Bern and Lucerne, and to the International Conference of the League of Nations in Bern, and also made several attempts to send a three-member delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris. In this connection, of particular significance was the Memorandum sent to the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, the United States of America, France, Italy and Belgium, and also to the Socialist International and others who might be “interested in our cause”. This document proposed the following basic points for the settlement of the Macedonian question: (1) Military occupation of Macedonia exclusively by the British, French, American and Italian armies; (2) Provisional assignment of the country’s administration to the Macedonian population, under the control of the occupation troops composed as stated above; (3) Return of all Macedonian émigrés to Macedonia, regardless of faith and party, free to participate in the renewal of the country.

Trying to secure support for their cause, in addition to seeking it from prominent politicians, social figures, professors and writers, the Macedonians in Switzerland established direct contacts with various Macedonian organizations and societies abroad and even with the Central Committee of the Macedonians in America. Thus they acted not only as representatives of “the Macedonians in Switzerland” but also of “those in the United States of America”, affirming the General Council as an institution “constituted from an organized body of 50,000 269

young people who correspond with over 250,000 people from Macedonia”.

Therefore the Appeal to the Civilized World Pro Macedonia, issued by the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland, Lausanne, June 1919, among other things, stated: The most recent and the most painful of the Macedonian Martyrdoms is the Balkan Wars. That first Balkan Alliance which took as its principal condition a sacred crusade for freeing Macedonia from the Turkish secular oppressor, alas, only ended by proving the corruption of our neighbours’ diplomacy, who only aimed at the sharing of Macedonia.

Through the ultimatum addressed to the Sublime Porte in the autumn of 1912, the Balkan Allies demanded the autonomy of Macedonia. This was nothing but an artifice to deceive the Macedonians; for between the diplomats of Sofia and Belgrade, between Belgrade and Athens, secret treaties stipulated the sharing of Macedonia in three parts among them.

This was the starting point of the fratricidal wars between the same allies and it is precisely this crime, this coarse mistake of Balkan diplomacy which has become the core, the centre of the misfortunes and sufferings of the Macedonian people.

The nefarious Treaty of Bucharest (1913) is there to show the deceitful ways of this diplomacy. Without consulting the Macedonian people, our neighbours disposed of us as if they had been our masters and proceeded with wretched mercantile transactions at the expense of our country only to gratify their thirst for conquest.

The Appeal from Lausanne, like the appeals and memoranda of 1913 and 1914 from St Petersburg, called upon “the civilized world” to offer a fair helping hand in the decisive moment following the world war disaster: Has not then Macedonia, our beloved country, any right to your help? Cannot the Macedonians, divided into several dissected parts, utter a shriek of distress? The tragedy of their existence does not even allow them to offer, as they would like to, the sacrifice of their lives for their country’s sake. Most happy Belgians, Czechs and Slovaks, Poles, Slovenes, Armenians, Syrians, etc., you, upon whom humanity had such pity, so justly deep, we envy you; you had the honour of being able to die for your country, even that we do not have…

Must Macedonia, as a victim of the competition among her neighbours, be counted as a belligerent? No! It is a neutral country; however, it is laid waste; it calls for justice before the whole world!

At the moment when “all honest consciences” and “all minds anxious as to what humanity will become” demanded that “the free decision of nations should be respected”, the Appeal declared: We, Macedonians, demand that this intangible right should be respected also when Macedonia is at stake. The Macedonians have the necessary and indispensable faculties to be able to govern themselves; for they are neither an amorphous mass, nor an unaware entity as many an interested writer wishes to assert. Quite the

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contrary, under this apparent chaos is hidden a unity of souls resting on unshakable psychological bonds such as: revolutions followed en masse, common sufferings and pains under the very same yoke. One of the main bonds of this unity of souls is precisely that sublime abnegation of the mass of the Macedonian people for the sake of the independence of their land, which has produced at all times heroes, apostles and martyrs.

After describing all this in their Appeal, the signatories of the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland specified their concrete demands (with explanations) which are of particular significance for our subject: We assert our right to live (as a nation) and for the last time we underline the wish of the great majority of Macedonians which is summed up thus: Macedonia’s independence with a cantonal administration, after the style of democratic Switzerland and under the protectorship of one of the disinterested great powers: the United States of America. For those who know Macedonia and the appetites of the Balkan States, it will not be difficult to understand that we are trying to obtain thus four solutions: I. In making an independent state of Macedonia, its tearing between the Balkan States will come to an end forever, the Macedonian people will cease to be the object of commercial transactions between its neighbours.

II. The cantonal administration copied from democratic Switzerland which we plan to introduce in our country will secure for all minorities, without distinction of languages or religions, an absolute intellectual equality to develop themselves economically.

III. The protectorship of Macedonia by one of the great powers is indispensable, so that the intrigues of the corrupt diplomacy of the Balkan States can be thwarted in the future.

IV. Once free and independent, Macedonia, thanks to its excellent geographical situation, will act as a uniting factor between the Balkan States and will allow them at last to meet otherwise than bearing arms and thus contribute to the realization of the Balkan Confederation.

On the basis of these demands, the Macedonians anxiously awaited from the ‘ville lumière’ “the solemn proclamation of our right to live and the changing of our country into a Switzerland in the Balkans”. They were firmly convinced that “Macedonia will obtain your help; for parcelled out and subdued, she has never denied her glorious past; she will never cease to struggle against brute force, nor to loudly assert a free nations’ sacred rights”. If, however, “in contempt of all justice, our unfortunate country were yet thrown as a prey to be shared out, or to the imperialist folly of our neighbours, they would but lengthen the period of troubles and insecurity which has reigned in the Balkans as long as Macedonia has been oppressed”.

This orientation of the Macedonians was also strengthened by Point 11 of Wilson’s Fourteen Points which stipulated: Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the

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several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

The Macedonian émigré community in the United States, in its own right, emerged as an important factor before the international public. These Macedonians (“more than 100,000” people) organized “huge rallies” in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and other large American cities, where they decided to establish contacts with the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland, and to “authorize it to represent the interests of the whole nation”.

As a result, on April 7, 1919, the following telegram was sent to the General Council, signed by a Central Committee member, Banev: “The Central Macedonian Committee in the United States of America gives you unlimited authorization to represent our cause before the Peace Conference in Paris.”

After rendering its programme even more precise, and following significant personal changes inside the General Council itself — since in the meantime the activity of the Bulgarian diplomatic office in Bern had intensified — the session of the General Council on May 2, 1919 examined “the question of the possible choice of a disinterested power for the protectorship of Macedonia”. Assessing that France would be inappropriate in this matter (owing to “its alliance with Serbia and Greece”), as also would be Italy (as “it undoubtedly favours the interests of the Bulgarian government and pulls the land towards new political unrest”), the Council concluded: “The huge emigration of Macedonians to America, where they have been received as brothers, and this country’s disinterestedness in the Balkans, make us unanimously put our choice on the United States of America as the protecting power over independent Macedonia to secure our economic and political freedom.”

In an attempt “not to offend the sensibilities of Great Britain, as it has always shown concern over the Macedonian question, and as our land hopes [to find] a good friend even in the British Parliament”, it was decided first to send a cable to president Wilson and the Senate of the United States in Washington requesting them “to accept the protectorship of Macedonia”, and “if America, owing to its constitutional provisions, rejects this mandate, we would request Great Britain to take in hand the destiny of unfortunate Macedonia”. Following this line, a cable was also sent, on May 23, 1919, to the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, expressing the hope of the Macedonians that if the United States, “owing to the provisions of its constitution”, could give an affirmative answer, he would support their demand and “contribute to the just and righteous settlement of the Macedonian problem with the establishment of an independent Macedonia, the only radical solution which will lead to permanent peace in the Near East for all times”.

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In the same spirit, the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland sent a telegram to a member of the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, Edward House, as well as to the Peace Conference itself. Of particular interest and significance were also the contacts between the Macedonians and an American professor in Geneva, Dr George Herron, who told them: “From what I have understood, you are not demanding an eternal protectorship by some power which would exploit Macedonia, but on the contrary, you are demanding a provisional protectorship until the moment your country becomes fully able to govern itself, and this protectorship and this moral and material support can be provided for you only by America.”

At the session of July 8, Dr Anastas Kocarev read an express letter from Professor Herron, asking Kocarev to call him urgently in order to let him know that Colonel House had sent a telegram saying that “the Macedonian question will be taken into consideration and that the Macedonians have the same right to independence as the Poles, Armenians, Czechs and Slovaks, etc.” At the same time, Herron advised Kocarev that “the Macedonians in Switzerland must establish a National Council of their members among whom there must figure one American, one Briton and one Italian”.

But the discussion concerning “the establishment of a National Council and the proclamation of the independence of Macedonia” led to serious friction within the General Council itself, as the Appeal to the Civilized World Pro Macedonia had “a bad effect in Bulgarian diplomatic circles in Bern”, as a result of which “several members” of the General Council were invited to Bern and given “suggestions” as to how to act in line with Bulgarian policy, or even discontinue their activity in the General Council.

But in spite of all the Bulgarian endeavours and pressures, in spite of Serbian and Greek intrigues and attacks, and even with its new management, the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland continued its activity up to the signing of the peace treaties in Versailles and Neuilly. They discussed renaming the General Council as the Macedonian General Council in Switzerland, organizing rallies and conferences on Macedonia in Switzerland and setting up a Macedonian Press Bureau, but of all these plans only three important issues of the journal L’Independance Macédonienne were published (as the mouthpiece of the Lausanne Council), together with some other significant materials that reflected the attitude of the Macedonian intelligentsia towards the peace talks concerning Macedonia. Thus, for example, the protest of a group of Macedonian students from the Macedonia Society in Geneva, published on November 8, 1919, in La Tribune de Genève, was written in a warning tone: 273

The Macedonian people, like many other oppressed peoples, has awaited the liberation of its own land from the Peace Conference. Yet this hope has now vanished; the Peace Conference, in accordance with the peace with Bulgaria, divides Macedonia among its three neighbours, contrary to the principle of the self-determination of peoples.

We strongly protest against the partition of our own land and declare that we shall not accept any solution without the free consultation of the Macedonian people concerning the destiny of its own land.

The solution the Macedonian people demanded was the raising of Macedonia to an independent state, organizing it after the example of Switzerland, and under the protectorship of one of the disinterested powers.

By dividing Macedonia, the Peace Conference takes a heavy responsibility upon itself for new conflicts and new wars which will break out in the Balkans.

The Macedonian people, that has lived since 1912 under the horrible oppression, one after another, of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian authority, will no longer tolerate a life of suffering which, as it seems, the Peace Conference perpetuates for it. We are firmly determined to continue our struggle by all means possible for the independence of Macedonia.

These pronouncements were very similar to the protests and appeals of the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg/Petrograd at the time of the Balkan Wars, which accurately predicted the history of the Balkans and Europe. Disappointed and deeply hurt, but not losing faith, the Macedonians once again came out strongly against the neighbouring monarchies and, in particular, against Bulgaria.

Following “the alarming news in the press that Bulgarian diplomats had demanded in their counter-proposals at the Peace Conference that the Macedonians should opt for Bulgarian nationality, and that, accordingly, they were far from the thought of renouncing Macedonia”, a three-member delegation from the General Council visited the Bulgarian Prime Minister Stambolijski in the National Hotel, Geneva, where he told them that “his policy aims to improve the destiny of the Macedonians through the proceedings in Paris in order to save the property of those who would return to Macedonia as Bulgarian subjects from sequestration” and that “he was able to do nothing more than to conform to the provisions referring to the rights of minorities”.

The delegates returned, totally “disappointed in Bulgarian policy” because they had expected “a loyal and sincere policy towards our unfortunate land” from Stambolijski. “[I]nstead of leaving Macedonia alone,” they wrote in their report to the General Council, “and giving a courageous example to the other Balkan aspirants, Bulgarian diplomats adhere to the same great mistakes of the past”.

As a result, on November 18, 1919, the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland sent the following, highly indicative, telegram to the Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Stambolijski: 274

Your coming into power has made us, all the Macedonians and the whole civilized world, believe that the enormous mistakes of Bulgarian diplomacy will be rectified.

Unfortunately, nothing of the kind has been done by your entourage consisting of people who faithfully served the policy of Ferdinand of Coburg and who bear a heavy responsibility for all the Macedonian misfortunes. Instead of leaving Macedonia alone and thus giving a courageous example to all Balkan aspirants, you have continued making the same serious blunders over our land. You are about to sign an accord in Paris the provisions of which on the rights of minorities will bring nothing good to the unfortunate Macedonians.

We energetically protest against this sad diplomatic game and refuse to opt for Bulgarian nationality. We declare before the conscience of the whole world that we do not wish to be instruments of the new irredentism you have been creating with your imperialist policy.

The following telegram was sent on the same day to the Peace Conference in Paris: The General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland, assembled at its plenary session and working on behalf of the whole Macedonian people, without serving any foreign policy whatsoever, energetically protests against the provisions allowing Macedonians the right to opt for Bulgarian nationality.

We do not want to be made instruments of Bulgarian irredentism in Macedonia.

Macedonia has never been a part of the present Kingdom of Bulgaria. Bulgarian diplomats, who bear a part of the responsibility for the misfortunes of the Macedonian population, are by no means qualified to represent our cause and have no right to do so.

Starting from the principles which inspire the Peace Conference, for the very honour of it, we wish, we beseech it, to establish Macedonia as an autonomous entity and incorporate it into Yugoslavia.

This was the most categorical appraisal of Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia and most explicit differentiation between Bulgarian and Macedonian national interests. This was a language which came close to that of Ëupovski and Misirkov and also reflected the position within the community of Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria. The last paragraph of the telegram to the Peace Conference was of particular significance, where the representatives of the Macedonian people in that historically crucial situation sought the salvation of the integrity and freedom of Macedonia within the joint, federal state of Yugoslavia, and expressly outside the borders of Bulgaria, hoping that in this way, considering the interests of the other united peoples in the newly-established state, they would somehow be protected from the greater-state and assimilatory policy of Serbia. This fully corresponded with the clauses of the Voden Declaration and the provisions of HadÔitaškoviÚ’s Promemoria, and was very close to the concepts of the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee of Dimitrija Ëupovski in Petrograd, and finally to the political option which was achieved (only in one section of the land) following the Second World 275

War. This was another testimony to the sympathies that the Macedonians, too, nourished for the genuine South-Slav (Yugoslav) idea, as the foremost token of the freedom, self-determination, self-rule and equality of the peoples in the Balkan region. And the prospects of what was becoming a historical consciousness seemed auspicious.

17.

The activity of the Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria was of particular significance at that time. “The forces of the left” were among the first to raise their voice for the preservation of Macedonia’s entirety and for securing its freedom.

Perhaps this was most vividly expressed in Dimitar Blagoev’s words, who as early as December 10, 1917 (speaking in the Bulgarian National Assembly in connection with the adoption of the military budget for the coming year), condemned Bulgarian policy as acquisitive and favouring division. He added that the First World War was in fact a continuation of the previous wars for establishing “full control over the Slavic element in Macedonia”. When the bourgeois representatives demanded of him that he explain his descent and his position on Macedonia more clearly and more openly in public, he bravely declared: “I was born in ZagoriÌani; however, I am not a Bulgarian, but a Slav, and being that, if you want to know, I am for Macedonia, as a Slavic land, which would have its own administration.” A year later he presented the same views, once again in the National Assembly, as the leader of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. He demanded the withdrawal of Bulgarian troops from Macedonia and its return to the Macedonians “who, in full freedom, will decide on their future themselves”.

Supporting the signing of peace, Blagoev made it clear that the Macedonians were not Bulgarians and repeated his conviction that Macedonia had been occupied and annexed by force by Bulgarian thieves. In reply to the retorts of some representatives that the Bulgarians were Macedonia’s liberators, he said: “Macedonia is not liberated; that is what the Macedonians themselves think, and your goals in the Balkan [Wars] and now are acquisitive.” Therefore, he demanded of the Bulgarian government that it leave Macedonia and make it possible for the Macedonians to decide freely on their future, because “a large part of the Macedonian intelligentsia wishes Macedonia to be for the Macedonians” and “even in Bulgaria the Macedonian activists propagate Macedonia for the Macedonians, an independent Macedonia”, as a result of which it was necessary for the Macedonians themselves to state “what they feel themselves to be”.

Another ‘leftist’, the old socialist revolutionary and comrade of DelÌev and Sandanski, Dimo HadÔidimov, during “the Ilinden celebrations” in Sofia, when 276

the ‘External Representative Office’ proudly “paraded before the German kaiser”, wrote his article ‘These and Those’, where he gave a sharp critical review of the Macedonian struggle and Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia, when everything was being done to destroy the soul of the Macedonian liberation cause, when “Macedonia was not even allowed to belong to herself”. HadÔidimov pointed out Bulgaria’s involvement in the ‘settlement’ of the Macedonian question, writing: “It finally involved itself in a fatal way: through an agreement for the partition of Macedonia. Subsequent history is already known, as it has continued up to the present day.” HadÔidimov described the insurmountable difficulties in the struggle for the attainment of the true ideals of the Macedonian people, and concluded: “And I will bow before the memory of those Macedonian activists who have fought for an unrecognized ideal, always guided by the sober predictions that acquisitive policy has been fatal for Macedonia as well as all of the neighbouring Balkan states, and for Bulgaria in particular.”

But the “military and Macedonian” censors prevented the publication of this article at that point. It appeared a year or two later, when the War had already ended and the fatal recapitulation was being made.

A very similar case was that of Anton Keckarov, who in the storm of the First World War had the courage, despite all Bulgarian ambitions, to demand autonomy for Macedonia. A few years later, writing in the journal Makedonsko S’znanie, an author sharing similar ideas and signing himself with the initials G.K. remembered: “At that time, A.K-ov, a good Macedonian, born in the town of Ohrid, an old writer and revolutionary, now in Bulgaria, wrote a letter to Sofia. There he wrote that Bulgaria should give autonomy to Macedonia, and they answered him saying that he should never mention such a thing again, because he would be expelled and incarcerated in Kurt-Bunar. And therefore everyone kept a low profile, as it was war and everything was being done by force.”732

18.

These demands were most fully expressed among Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria only after the breaking of the Macedonian Front and the capitulation of Bulgaria, when in October 1918 a group originating from Seres, headed again by Dimo HadÔidimov, published a historically very important Declaration, which, among other things, stated: Faithful to their earlier struggle in the Macedonian liberation movement for the attainment of a popular ideal which was not in accord with the aspirations of Balkan 732Makedonsko

sï znani e, á, 8, Vi ena, 16.ᜠ.1924.

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nationalism and imperialism, the adherents of the revolutionary organization active in the former Seres revolutionary district, bearing in mind all the past and forthcoming events, make the following declaration: 1. Instead of Balkan nationalism which, in its aspirations for acquisition and dominance over alien lands and peoples, has ruined the whole of the Balkan Peninsula part by part, we raise the old flag of Macedonian autonomy, the flag of Balkan concord and future Balkan brotherhood.

2. Macedonia should be established within its appropriate geographical borders and mainly on the basis of Salonika and the valley of the Vardar; Skopje and Bitola should have their own natural geographical, commercial and economic hinterland.

3. The territorial liberation of Macedonia is not an act of hostility towards the free Balkan peoples, nor is it a forceful or separatist mutilation of their territories.

It should be established for the sake of all as a well-circumscribed geographical unit and represent a joint capital invested for the common enterprise of those peoples — the only thing that will unite them in peaceful life, sincere cooperation and an honourable future.

4. Macedonia should have for itself, for the nationalities who live there and for its Balkan brothers, the most suitable form of government, created after the example of the Swiss Federal Republic, with full and equal freedom for all the nationalities in educational, religious, political, cultural and economic respects under the protectorship of the free democratic nations.

At the same time, seeing a threat to “Bulgarian national ideals”, the responsible state agencies organized, in Sofia, on the premises of the University, an assembly of “confirmed” and “distinguished activists from all the currents of the former revolutionary struggle” and aimed to “reach decisions” on “two questions: (1) what to demand, and (2) what body should demand it?” They concluded that “the only way is to re-establish, if possible, all the brotherhoods; their delegates should elect a new Executive Committee, a purely legal body which will be the interpreter of the will of the émigré community, and even of the population of Macedonia”.

In spite of the reaction of prominent Macedonian activists, the Founding Convention of the Brotherhoods started on November 22, 1918, again “in one of the university lecture-halls”, electing a Provisional Bureau of the Brotherhoods headed by Ivan KarandÔulov as the president and Prof. Nikola Milev as the secretary. After two days of work, “43 delegates” elected an Executive Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, headed by the same president, and adopted the following resolution: The delegates of the brotherhoods, expressing the unequivocal will of the Bulgarian population in Macedonia, give the Executive Committee an imperative mandate to be guided by the following two principles in its activity: (1) The indivisibility of Macedonia; (2) Its incorporation within Bulgaria.

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In the same spirit, in the period from January 5 to 12, 1919, the Executive Committee submitted “a short preliminary memoir” to the military missions of the Entente and the head of the American legation in Sofia.

Yet as early as January 28, 1919, a Group of refugees from the regions of Kukuš, Seres, Salonika, Skopje, Bitola, KoÌani, Kostur and Veles published a Call to the Macedonian Refugees in Bulgaria and were the first to join, openly and clearly, the Declaration of the ‘Seres circle’, because “all the other activists and leaders of the once glorious Internal Revolutionary Organization are either mercenary servants of a policy for which Macedonian ‘cliffs and rocks’ are of no state value, or have no courage to express the interests of their own people and protest against the shameful twisting of their will”. At the moments when the fateful Peace Conference was held in Paris, the signatories stated: “Dark forces moving along dark roads are feverishly working to prevent the voice of the Macedonian people from being heard before the judgement of mankind”, continuing: “It is in the foremost interest of the present Balkan governments to suppress that voice, as they want to divide our land and cut up our people, as if it were some wild African tribe, unworthy of independent existence.” Standing up strongly against the slogan of the Executive Committee, “Unification and incorporation!”, the Group asked the question: “Until when shall we tolerate that shameful guardianship by people who have neither children nor property or homes in Macedonia, who abandoned it half a century ago and who have traded and are again trading with the Macedonian cause and Macedonia, for which, just like some of the present Bulgarian ministers, they too, ‘do not give a damn’?” Protesting against the various manoeuvres of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods, the signatories declared: Autonomy is the ideal of the Macedonian population itself and it can be given credit only when it is demanded by that population. And it should be demanded at the right moment and without hesitation. The road has already been opened. The people of Seres, Bitola, Prilep, Salonika, Skopje and Veles, through their representatives from the former Internal Revolutionary Organization, have achieved a great deal in this direction, both inside Macedonia, before all the nationalities, and abroad.

Therefore: Let us raise our voice for an Autonomous Macedonia, guaranteed internationally and protected from any attempts at aggression, and thus thwart the planned division and breakup which will always carry the spark of future Balkan fires… No silence, no hesitation, no alternatives! Together with the population within it, let the Macedonian refugees, wherever destiny may have thrown them, present their demands, in all ways possible, before the military, civil and any other representatives of the outer

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world and everywhere and always point to autonomy as the general ideal of the people.

On March 9, 1919, the Appeal to the Macedonian population and to the émigré community in Bulgaria was signed, which is the second important document of the drama of Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria. It bore the signatures of ÏorÌe Petrov, Petar Acev, Tuše Deliivanov, Mihail I. GerdÔikov, Taskata Spasov Serski, Anastas LozanÌev, Dimo HadÔidimov, D. Ikonomov, Hristo Jankov, Krsto Ljondev, Nikola Puškarov, Toma Nikolov, Ëudomir KantardÔiev, Rizo Rizov, Georgi SkriÔovski, Petar Poparsov, Pavel Hristov, Luka DÔerov, Mišo Škartov, A. Manasiev and H. St-v. The signatories were actually “activists of the former Internal Revolutionary Organization in western Macedonia” and “representatives of the Seres wing of the same organization”, who “after joint and extensive consideration” of “the general situation and future political existence of Macedonia” analysed the published Declaration of the ‘Seres circle’ and accepted the “basic views” of this document, deciding to come out with a joint appeal for “the idea of the future independent existence of Macedonia”, “for the building and strengthening of the cause aimed at securing Macedonia’s independence”. The signatories stated: Filled with deep faith that we express the general wish [and] that no Macedonian or Macedonian exile would suspect the purity of our intentions, the firmness of our convictions and the sincerity of our actions, with utmost bitterness we must declare that in the so-called Executive Committee of some of the Macedonian brotherhoods we see a form of organized resistance against our endeavours and that we can by no means acknowledge the competence it ascribes to itself — to express the wishes, aspirations and feelings of the Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria and those of the Macedonian population. This can be justified neither by the motives of its foundation nor by the means of its election or the people constituting it. In our eyes, the Executive Committee is nothing other than a contrived representative body of Macedonia, without links to that land, whose task is to divide the émigré community in Bulgaria and ascribe to them desires that the majority of them do not nourish…

As for the principle of the independent existence of Macedonia and the struggle in this regard, just as in the past, only the former revolutionary organization is competent to act, and it is the only one capable of giving both the struggle and the principle itself the content which can guarantee sufficient credit before the Macedonian population and create optimistic prospects for success at the Peace Conference.

Any other ‘representative bodies’ of ‘autonomous’ ideas can only damage our cause and frustrate its success, frustrate the hopes of a people which does not want foreign rule and which at the same time is thirsty for stable peace in the Balkans, for putting an end, once and for all, to hostility and rivalry between the Balkan peoples.

The text that followed synthesized the demands into four points which basically elaborated the concept of the ‘Seres circle’ expressed in the Declaration.

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19.

In the meantime, Bulgarian diplomacy and propaganda activated all possible ‘actors’ in the Macedonian circles — both in Bulgaria and abroad. In addition to the documents described above, we should mention the Memoir signed by the Macedono-Bulgarian Central Committee in America and sent, on January 15, 1919, to the United States president Wilson, to the great powers of the Entente and their representatives at the Peace Conference in Paris, and also to the European neutral states, appealing for the preservation of the entirety of Macedonia and its annexation “as a whole to the common Bulgarian fatherland”, because “Macedonia should be Bulgarian”.

On the other hand, the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, immediately after the publication of the Appeal of March 9, on March 27 sent a ‘written request’ that “Macedonia be occupied by the armies of the Entente until the final solution of the question”. Another request was submitted on March 31, demanding “a permit for a delegation representing the Macedonian émigré community to be sent to Paris”.

Even though it bears the date February 1919, it was in April that an elaborate Memoir to the president of the Peace Conference and to the governments of the United States of America, Great Britain, Italy, France and Japan was sent, describing in detail the history of Bulgarian aspirations to control of Macedonia and ending with the request “to incorporate Macedonia, whole and undivided, within its common homeland — its mother Bulgaria”.

The mouthpiece of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods, La Macédoine–Macedonia (in French and English) first appeared in March 1919, and the complete machinery of Bulgarian propaganda was engaged in the collection of 19,000 signatures for a Petition to the Peace Conference in Paris.

During the same period, an extensive document bearing the date March 1, 1919 and entitled Memoir of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization to the presidents of the delegations of the great powers at the Peace Conference was signed by “the external representatives of the Organization”, Aleksandar Protogerov and Todor Aleksandrov. The Memoir stated: “The Macedonian population wishes Macedonia to remain undivided, and by no means to be left under the authority of Serbia and Greece!” The Memoir demanded “self-determination for Macedonia”, which would be substantiated by a delegation that “would competently represent the whole Bulgarian population of Macedonia”.

As early as March 15, the Provisional Representative Office of the Former Internal Revolutionary Organization issued a Warning to the Macedonian population and Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria, which said that 281

the Memoir had been received only after the Appeal of March 9 “had already been written and signed”, warning the Macedonians: The signatories to the aforesaid memoir, former activists of the Revolutionary Organization, have obstructed and thwarted at the most crucial moments for our fatherland any attempt at mobilizing the collective mind, consciousness and conscience of the Internal Macedonian Organization so that it itself may deal with the situation created around the Macedonian question and the events before, during and after the war, and by using their accidental power abundantly, these two men have personally appropriated the right to make decisions on behalf and at the expense of Macedonia.

It is not our business to point to the disgrace of Bulgarian statesmen who have allowed such accidental persons to play high political roles only because of their reverence for the rewards offered by Kaiser Wilhelm and due to the fear arising from their connections with the Bulgarian Court. We leave this odd political anomaly to the judgement of the Bulgarian political and social conscience, if there is such a thing.

As far as our compatriots in Macedonia and Bulgaria are concerned, we are bound to declare before them that these persons have long ago ceased to have anything in common with the Revolutionary Organization and have long ago chosen not to follow its path, but another, abusing its name only for their personal benefit; that any involvement on their part today in the affairs of the Macedonian cause bears only venom and spite, and that the name, the honour and the past of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization stand sufficiently high to make us frustrate with all our might, fully and immediately, this unparalleled insanity: our bloodstained and long-suffering Macedonia’s being protected before the Peace Conference by the tools of Kaiserism and by the blustering heroes of the imperial ceremonies in Niš.

20.

There is no doubt that the most important work was that of “the activists of the former Seres revolutionary organization” and that of “the Former United Internal Revolutionary Organization”. As early as October 1918, the first group published the Declaration on the Settlement of the Macedonian Question described above, and a short time later they came out with a detailed explication entitled Back to Autonomy, which was “a kind of commentary on the Declaration of the former Seres revolutionaries”, whose unnamed author was actually the ideologist of this group, Dimo HadÔidimov. This pamphlet, which played a significant role not only among the Macedonians but also in the wider public, examined nearly all the essential questions at that historical moment. After giving an ‘Assessment of the present political situation in Bulgaria’, it analysed the following subjects: ‘The origin and development of the idea of autonomy in the past’, ‘Autonomy is destroyed as a national ideal’, ‘The role of the Macedonian émigré community in 282

Bulgaria’, ‘Infiltration within the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization’, ‘The struggle of the Seres revolutionaries’, ‘Bulgaria reveals its cards’, ‘The role of the Balkan dynasties’, ‘Balkan nationalism in practice’, ‘Macedonia in 1913’, ‘The Balkan peoples in the general war’, ‘The involvement of Bulgaria’, ‘The military objectives of Bulgaria’, ‘The role of Macedonian nationalist revolutionaries’, ‘Following the capitulation’, ‘Once again towards autonomy as a goal’, ‘The Balkan governments and autonomy’, ‘The autonomy of Macedonia and the national self-determination of the Balkan peoples’, ‘Macedonia facing its destiny and the instigation of national patriotism’, ‘On the sacrifices of Bulgaria’, ‘The two Bulgarias’, ‘Criticism of the idea of autonomy and fear of it’, ‘The Macedonian ideal in the face of peaceful liquidation’, ‘The general Balkan role of Macedonia’, ‘Who is abandoning whom?’, ‘The Macedonian nationalities and autonomy’, ‘The leftist currents in Bulgaria and the national question’ and ‘Through autonomy, towards Balkan self-determination and unification’. As can be seen from the titles, this booklet made a detailed recapitulation of the Macedonian question at that moment, and this was certainly the most powerful and most dependable voice of the Macedonian people, raised in early 1919.

At the same time, some of the more aware activists of the old Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization started gathering for consultations and discussions concerning the future destiny of Macedonia. They also took part in some of the discussions of the brotherhood organizations, where they tried to express the true wishes of the Macedonian people, unmasking Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia. At a gathering of the Macedonian brotherhoods, one of these activists aimed to “prove that Bulgaria has waged ‘acquisitive’ wars, because there are no Bulgarians in the regions of Seres, Drama, etc.”, and when some of the participants reacted to this, he started “patting his pockets and shouting that he had figures with which he would prove his claims”.

In November 1918 there was already a larger group of revolutionaries who formed the core of a whole movement. Together with the ‘Seres circle’, they elected a six-member Provisional Representative Office of the Organization, composed of ÏorÌe Petrov, Dimo HadÔidimov, Pavel Hristov, Mihail GerdÔikov, Taskata Spasov Serski and Petar Acev. Having defined the essentials of their concept of the struggle for Macedonia, on November 25, 1918, they authorized the chief vicar of the Bulgarian Uniate Church, Father Paul Christoff, “to represent the former Internal Revolutionary Organization before the outside world and before the Peace Conference, if possible and to the extent that it is made possible for him”. He was indeed not admitted to the Peace Conference, but he accomplished a large number of very important actions for the affirmation of the idea of autonomy among the European public and for “the establishment of a new 283

Switzerland in the Balkans, or of the Macedonian Republic, autonomous and neutral”.

Of special significance was the effort to print the mouthpiece of the Provisional Representative Office of the Former United Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, Bjuletin (Bulletin). Its 10 numbers published the most reliable testimonies reflecting the genuine frame of mind of Macedonian émigrés. It printed a large number of official acts of the movement as well as prompt reactions against the moves of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods and the organization of Aleksandrov and Protogerov, and also against the actions of the Bulgarian government and policies. From the fourth number onwards the motto ‘Long live a free and independent Macedonia — the pillar of Balkan peace and the Balkan federation!’ was printed beside the newspaper’s title.

The Provisional Representative Office raised the concept of Macedonian statehood and relations with neighbouring states and peoples to the highest point.

It aimed to define the relations between the Macedonians and other nationalities living inside Macedonia on a fully equal basis. Yet once again, whether because of the circumstances in which it worked or owing to the makeup of its leadership, the Provisional Representative Office could not find enough force to abandon the thesis of the ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’ and affirm the Macedonian language as the essential instrument in their struggle. Even when their authorized representative in Paris, Paul Christoff, pointed out to the Provisional Representative Office that the Greek and Serbian delegations reacted strongly against the ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’ thesis, and that they proposed their own thesis that “the national feeling of the Macedonians is a flexible concept, indifferent to foreign propaganda”, the Representative Office sent him detailed answers on all the questions he had asked, but completely ignored the essential question of Macedonian nationality. On the contrary, defending themselves from attacks that they stood “on international ground and did not recognize that the majority of the Macedonian population was Bulgarian” and that “they did not want the incorporation of Macedonia within Bulgaria in any way”, they gave a very definite answer (in order “to make it clear”) that they remained “Macedonian Bulgarians”, even though they always aimed to distance themselves from the Bulgarians (in Bulgaria) and in particular from Bulgarian national policy.

In the first issue of Bjuletin they stated: “Everyone, together with us, desires and declares one thing only, everywhere and before everyone: we do not want the dismemberment of Macedonia in any way, as we want to preserve our language, our faith and our nationality,” but a little below they added: “If, however, the officials of the Foreign Ministry do not share this principle, then we are ready to confess that the Macedonian Bulgarians would never wish and would never agree to pay for Bulgaria’s expansion at the cost of their fatherland or parts thereof.”

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This duality in their position once again (just as in Bucharest) proved to be fatal for the success of the entire movement and for the result of the Peace Conference in Paris. For, in spite of everything, nearly all the memoranda received from Macedonians dared not affirm the Macedonian national individuality and present it before the international public at the crucial moment; on the contrary, almost all of these spoke in the name of the ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’. This was not only tolerated, but was also supported and adroitly exploited

by Bulgarian propaganda and policy. They even went further than that, and all other currents inspired from official circles, even the Bulgarian government itself, started occasionally supporting not Macedonia’s ‘unification’ with or ‘incorporation’ into Bulgaria, but Macedonia’s autonomy — as a palliative solution, once it became clear that annexation was impossible. One of the consequences was that this also discredited the concept of the Provisional Representative Office. As a result, Paul Christoff insisted on a clear Macedonian national concept. Yet it seemed that the circumstances were not favourable for such a presentation of Macedonia from the capital of defeated Bulgaria.

21.

In addition to these two camps — the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods and the Provisional Representative Office — there appeared other organized groups which nevertheless joined one of these two currents. Here we must mention, for instance, the Memoir to the Peace Conference in Paris by Macedonian émigrés in Constantinople of January 18, 1919, which, among other things, said: Macedonia has always fought and suffered to gain the attributes of a national unit, single and undivided… Our greatest wish, and it is a reflection of the wishes of the Macedonian population itself, is that the Peace Congress establish our land as our joint homeland, a single and undivided Macedonia, with autonomy similar to the Swiss cantonal regime.

In June 1919, the Macedonian-Romanian Cultural Society in Bucharest sent a Memoir to the Peace Conference in Paris, where it, too, supported “the idea of the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia”.

Even the mouthpiece of the ruling Bulgarian Agrarian Union, ZemledÆlsko Zname (Agrarian Flag), published an article entitled ‘Long live autonomous Macedonia!’. This was also done by the mouthpieces of other parties, but always referring to the ethnic character of Macedonia as “Bulgarian”.

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Of special significance in this period was the renewed Macedonian Student Group in Sofia. It was founded by young Macedonian students who had returned from the front and had already experienced Bulgaria’s ‘unifying’ national policy.

As a result, they immediately raised the already greatly dishonoured flag of “the autonomy of Macedonia” and put forward the slogan of a Balkan federation, supporting unreservedly the position of the Provisional Representative Office and categorically rejecting that of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods.

In their Call to the Macedonian Émigré Community, printed separately, the Macedonian Student Group came out decisively against the convocation of the Great Assembly of the Macedonian Émigré Community in Sofia, making the appeal: Macedonians, the Executive Committee, which was the basis for the creation of Vrhovism in the past and which has committed the most insolent treachery against Macedonia and its ideal, can never delight in the idea of an autonomous Macedonia.

Even today, when this committee says that they have accepted it and will fight for that idea, their printed mouthpieces do not mention even a word of this, and their relations with government circles have not changed at all to give you any assurance and hope that the old sinners have finally reformed themselves and become sincere autonomists. […] Today, when there is still some small hope that our desperate voice might be heard, there is a healthy, unified organization, basing itself on the pure ideal, in the form of the Provisional Representative Office of the old Internal Revolutionary Organization. […] Therefore, Macedonians, with a solemn gesture demonstrate to those dark individuals who have committed so many treacheries towards our fatherland that you will never allow mockery of your name and of the sacredness of your ideal, but that you will be filled with indignation by the unscrupulous people of the Executive Committee […] and that you will use all your efforts for the attainment of your and national ideal — a free and independent Macedonia.

22.

Preparations were also under way in this period for the publication of a Memoir on the Situation in Macedonia, which would support the idea of autonomy. The document with a detailed explanation was to be printed in French, German, English, Italian and Bulgarian and aimed “to encompass the whole of Europe, for which Macedonia was a mere geographical term, and very little known at that”.

Naumov, an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was given a permit to print the text in the State Printing House free of charge, but at the same time, to use the words of a contemporary, “a vile and unprecedented forgery was carried out…

That part of the Memoir which pleaded in favour of Macedonia’s autonomy was tampered with by criminal hands, deliberately altered in the sense — that the 286

Macedonian people wanted to be unified within the common homeland — mother Bulgaria!” The forgery was discovered by the Macedonian student groups in Geneva and Vienna, there was a great storm among the members of the Macedonian Student Group of Sofia University and the nine members involved in the forgery were expelled. In June 1919, the Group sent a strong protest to the Peace Conference in Paris, which, among other things, stated: The policy of the neighbouring countries of Macedonia, friends and enemies, has led to three wars and turned our native land into ashes and has banished its sons to foreign lands. […] We, the academic young people of this unfortunate land, acting as the spokesmen of the wishes and will of Macedonian refugees, and also of the entire Macedonian population, most energetically protest against the inhuman measures used by the Serbs and Greeks to devastate our land and destroy its elite with the purpose of suppressing any form of free and independent life.

We also protest against any policy of partition of our native land and declare that the entire Macedonian people, regardless of race and religion, has always longed for, and now longs more than ever for and awaits with impatience the realization of its sacred ideal — Autonomy, so that it can start a free and independent life, for the sake of the good and peace of its fatherland, for the sake of the good of and peace in the Balkans, for the sake of the good, peace and progress of humanity.

We most insistently beg the Conference to take this unfortunate land under its protection and oblige the military and administrative authorities of the Balkan states to withdraw from there and to prevent their interference in its life.

To establish an autonomous Macedonia, under the protectorship of a great power, disinterested in Balkan affairs, this means to build a natural barrier on this volcanic peninsula and thus guarantee peace once and for all.

The Group did not abandon this position even after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the endorsement of Macedonia’s partition, and at the Second Great Assembly of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Sofia responded with a Resolution of its own, publicized in the energetic Call to the Macedonian Émigré Community in Bulgaria of January 2, 1921, condemning once again the actions of the Executive Committee and the dispatch of Ivan KarandÔulov “to plead in favour of the Macedonian cause abroad” and continuing to defend the idea of an “autonomous Macedonia”.

In spite of their ardent youthful patriotism, the Group still did not have the power to elevate the Macedonian ethnographic idea onto the necessary pedestal, something which was done a decade later by the revived Macedonian Student Group — within the framework of the activity of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United).

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23.

Although there was a whole array of Macedonian organizations and groups in the émigré circles in this period, the principal ones were the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods and the Provisional Representative Office of the Former United Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Here we cannot consider the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization of Aleksandrov and Protogerov as a separate organization as it worked in full agreement with the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods, and both were instruments of the Bulgarian government.

But the Versailles decision was approaching and the government made an attempt to gather all the Macedonian currents under a single leadership and to act on behalf of all Macedonians before the international Peace Conference, to protect its “national interests”. The Ninth Regular Assembly of the Brotherhoods was scheduled for August 24, 1919, in Sofia, with this purpose in mind. A Neutral Unifying Commission was formed there, which started contacting both parties.

The negotiations, however, showed that there were insurmountable differences of ideological and political nature, and the attempt to unite them failed.

On September 21, 1919, the Executive Committee, via Dr K. Stanišev, declared: “The Executive Committee refuses to enter into relations with persons who are not elected by a body and are representing no one.” On September 20, ÏorÌe Petrov informed the Neutral Unifying Commission that the invitation had been received at a time “when the other four of the Provisional Representative Office were absent from Sofia, as a result of which the Representative Office cannot hold a meeting immediately to give an answer”. This was in accordance with the letter of September 3, where the Provisional Representative Office clearly stated: “We do not deem it necessary to make, without a mandate from our organizations, any further judgements concerning the question raised, and we shall leave it to the intelligence and conscience of the émigrés to assess who has invested what in the protection of the freedom and independence of Macedonia.” In fact, the reasons were clearly expressed in the official public “Declaration of the Provisional Representative Office of the former Internal Mac. Revol. Organization” issued on August 3, 1919.

On September 8, the Neutral Unifying Commission issued a “Very Urgent Circular” to “the entire Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria”, proposing the convocation, on September 28, of a congress of the Macedonian émigré community with the following tasks: (a) to manifest the unity of the émigré community; (b) to manifest the principle of the autonomy of Macedonia;

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(c) to elect an overall managing body with a Higher Council which would be given a mandate to act before all external major and minor factors for the attainment of the ideal of an autonomous Macedonia in its geographical and economic entirety; (d) to elect an editorial committee for a single mouthpiece of the entire émigré body.

The “great objective” of the Macedonians, according to the Commission, could be achieved: (a) only if an end is put to personal conflicts and partisan passions; (b) only if a stop is put to all individual legal and illegal organizations, and if, through mutual concessions and personal sacrifice, a s i n g l e legal organization is created which will take over the leadership of the entire émigré community in the name of our ardent salvation and the salvation of the minorities that populate our long-suffering Fatherland; and (c) only if we give the movement a purely Macedonian colour and if we protect it from any external and dangerous — state, party, factional, etc. — influences.

This circular was regarded as the emergence of a third party within the Macedonian émigré community and was attacked by both bodies. The Executive Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria tried, on September 12, to explain its position before the brotherhoods by a Circular of its own, but there was an even greater reaction within the brotherhoods. For instance, the Kostur Charitable Brotherhood convened an extraordinary general assembly in Sofia as early as September 14, where it passed the following resolution: 1. The Kostur Brotherhood in Sofia which has 300 members at present, all of them émigrés from the far-off Kostur region, stands firmly and unreservedly on the position: an Autonomous Macedonia within its geographical and economic borders under the protectorship of the great powers; this position expresses the will of all Kostur émigrés to be found on the territory of Bulgaria and also outside it.

2. As the entire Macedonian émigré community in Bulgaria has now accepted the principle of an autonomous Macedonia and as there are accordingly no differences among them, in principle and also in tactical terms, the Brotherhood believes that the mutual struggle between the two leading bodies — the Executive Committee and the Provisional Representative Office — is the product of personal ambition.

3. The Brotherhood, finding that the choice of the two leading bodies which have usurped the leadership of certain parts of the émigré community is irregular, condemns the activity of the aforementioned bodies as being directed not towards the main objective — the defence of the rights and wishes of Macedonian émigrés — but towards mutual conflicts motivated by personal aspirations and ambitions, that uselessly spend the forces, energy and time of the people, thus removing them from any creative work.

4. It protests against the conduct of the two leading bodies which up to the present day — when Macedonia is hanging over the abyss of permanent subjugation — have been unable to rid themselves of mutual friction to retain their illegally gained

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leading position, thus tantalizing the émigrés for a whole year now and blocking the demonstration of their collective power; therefore, we invite the Macedonian émigré community to rid themselves of these divided leading bodies, as well as of the persons who constitute them, by taking part in a congress which they will do their utmost to make a general congress uniting the émigré community, proclaiming courageously and categorically the formula of Autonomy adopted by the entire émigré community and electing a single representative body which will make use of the confidence of the delegates of the entire émigré community.

5. It supports any initiative for the convocation, with the agreement of the two bodies, of the great congress in Sofia on September 28 and requests of the émigrés that they influence their leaders in this direction. If, however, this action before the leading bodies fails, the Macedonian émigré community is obliged to impose a unification from below by sending delegates to the congress convened by the Executive Committee on the same date of September 28, where by the force of its declared slogans it will choose such people at the head of the émigré community as will be worthy and suitable to represent them and their wishes and aspirations before the external world, raising the motto: Macedonia to the Macedonians.

6. It appeals to the inhabitants of Kostur to organize themselves within the province into brotherhoods and societies, reinforcing their ranks and giving an example and encouragement to the entire émigré community in its aspirations to achieve union on the basis of an Autonomous Macedonia, the only solution for the salvation of such far-off regions as our Kostur — to elect and send delegates to the congress on September 28 who will firmly adhere to the proclaimed slogans and who will finally be determined to disassociate themselves from all the leaders in the bodies who have been abusing the Macedonian cause, deflecting it from its true course.

7. The Kostur Brotherhood declares that if the forthcoming congress does not accept unreservedly the formula of autonomy and does not elect, as representatives of the émigré community, persons who will guarantee indomitable support for the position taken by the entire Macedonian émigré community, it reserves its freedom of action and therefore asks the émigré community to send delegates with a conditional mandate concerning the adoption of the aforesaid demands.

8. It invites all Macedonian brotherhoods and societies to join in this resolution which will serve as a programme of action at the forthcoming congress.

Obviously, the Resolution of the Kostur Brotherhood expressly took the side of the Neutral Unifying Commission and accepted the concepts of the Representative Office as its own and the general Macedonian programme, but seemed not fully to understand the essence of the struggle that the Representative Office fought against the Executive Committee and Greater-Bulgarian policy in the Macedonian cause. These actions of the Kostur Brotherhood, however, as well as the actions of some other organizations, were significant encouragement for the Macedonian émigré community to take a more independent position at the ensuing congress.

On September 20, 1919, the Neutral Commission once again formulated its conclusions and proposals in its Call to the Entire Macedonian Émigré Community in Bulgaria, presenting the positions of the two main bodies of Macedo290

nian émigrés, and at the Great Assembly of the Macedonian Brotherhoods (September 28 — October 1, 1919) it submitted a Report in which it described the course of negotiations, enclosing the texts of the letters exchanged with the two bodies — the Executive Committee and the Provisional Representative Office. It also registered the agreed distancing from the organization of Protogerov and Aleksandrov, which did not formally take part in the assembly, as indeed the Provisional Representative Office did not.

One of the most active members of the Neutral Unifying Commission, Nikola Kirov Majski, wrote in his Recollections of the course of the congress: Guided by the ardent desire to manifest its unifying power and enthusiastic in its aspirations to create a united front, i.e. a single united Macedonian legal organization built on sound foundations, the émigré community, whom we invited, took a massive and active part in the work of the First Great Congress, if nothing else, in the duel between the Greater-Bulgarian idea of annexation, putting forward Simeon Radev, the Minister Plenipotentiary of Bulgaria, as its ideologist, and the autonomist idea, with Kliment Razmov appearing as its ideologist. The idea of autonomy won, the idea of a unified, integral and independent Macedonia within its geographical and economic borders.

The Resolution of the Great Assembly of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria also stated: In the name of justice, humanity and lasting peace, the Assembly makes a supreme call to the Paris Conference and begs it to raise Macedonia, within its geographical and economic borders, into an autonomous state, independent of the rest of the Balkan states.

At the same time the Assembly declares that Macedonia cannot be considered bound by any decisions which might be taken against its right to life and against its lawful demands, which in the case of dispute can be verified through a plebiscite carried out under the supervision of the great powers.

As a matter of fact, these were the demands of all the Macedonian émigrés who were in a position to state their opinion in public. The mouthpiece of the Provisional Representative Office, Bjuletin, published several dozens resolutions by various Macedonian brotherhoods and societies which put forward precisely these demands. As an illustration, we shall quote the demands of the Society of the Macedonian Émigré Community in Plovdiv, encompassing members from all the regions of Macedonia. The demands were expressed in its Resolution adopted on August 3, 1919: 1. We want freedom and independence for our tormented fatherland of Macedonia in the name of justice, so highly proclaimed by the president of the United States; in the name of the glorious and revolutionary past of Macedonia; in the name of its full emancipation from the national policies of the Balkan states and in the name of tranquillity, peace and brotherhood in the Balkans, and

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2. We give a solemn oath before the whole world and its conscience, and also before the altar of our fatherland, that if this time, again, it is abandoned and dismembered by oppressors, as long as there is Macedonia, as long as the hearts of its sons beat, as long as blood flows in their veins — and until we finally see our fatherland undivided, free and independent of anyone — we shall not cease our struggle, however unequal it may be.

On November 27, 1919, however, the Treaty of Neuilly was signed between the victorious powers and Bulgaria, sanctioning the division of Macedonia. The hopes of the Macedonians were again betrayed, and this time new paths for a new struggle had to be sought. Several questions arose as being of essential importance: was it possible to manipulate any further with the ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’ thesis; what should be done if autonomy could not be secured under the sponsorship of Bulgarian policy and what position should be taken towards the new state of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; and what social and political forces would be willing to accept and lead the Macedonian national liberation struggle?

Even though, when communicating in public, all the currents in Bulgaria, for fear of being shown the “Dupnica border crossing” at the least, had to use the expression ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’, there are testimonies that, for instance, the ‘Seres circle’ worked not “on the realization of Bulgarian ideas concerning Macedonia” (“as before”), but on the attainment of “either autonomy for Macedonia or a confederation of Balkan states”. They added that “they feel themselves to be neither Serbs nor Bulgarians or Greeks”, but “call themselves MacedoniansSlavs”.

In a brief period of less than a year, Bulgarian policy covered a long evolutionary path from a formal point of view: from its demands for unification and Macedonia’s annexation to Bulgaria it now turned to the slogan of the autonomy of Macedonia. There it saw the only chance of strengthening the Bulgarian ethnographic identification of the Macedonian people, waiting for a more suitable moment to achieve the essential aim of its “national programme” of “unification”.

Bulgarian policy sometimes went even further, as illustrated by the words of the “agrarian” Prime Minister Stambolijski who, during his stay (together with another member of the Bulgarian delegation) in Lausanne, in early August 1919, declared: “Bulgaria, as a final resort, will demand Macedonia’s autonomy. If it fails in this, it will demand its autonomy within the framework of Yugoslavia,” believing that “there will be no peace in the Balkans if Macedonia remains part of Serbia and is not granted autonomy”, as was envisaged for the Croats in the new state.

Yet the refusal of the Macedonians to go along with the Bulgarians and their orientation towards Yugoslavia was by no means acceptable to Sofia. On October 8, 1919, the delegate of the Serbian government and of the High Command in 292

Sofia, General TucakoviÚ, informed those responsible in Belgrade that the Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria were divided into four groups, saying: “One group was in favour of Macedonia’s autonomy under the protectorship of Yugoslavia, with municipal, local and educational self-rule. The Church would come, in their understanding, under the authority of the Serbian Patriarchate.” Another group was interested “in knowing the minimal rights which Yugoslavia would give to the Macedonian population”, whereas the other two groups favoured cooperation with Bulgaria alone.

At the moment when Belgrade expected decisions most favourable to itself from Paris, and when the Macedonians “owing to the uncertainty, are still suspicious of Yugoslavia as well”, General TucakoviÚ wrote from Sofia: “It is necessary to take very cautious political action to explain to these people that Yugoslavia is actually the achievement of their former and current idea of a Slavic confederation of the Balkan states.” A letter from the Serbian Minister of War and the Navy, of October 3, 1919, was written in the same spirit. There, among other things, he said: I find that the Bulgarians believe that the most dangerous thing would be if the Macedonians develop the idea of — Macedonia with Yugoslavia. This is a very attractive idea for the great majority of the Macedonians, especially after political freedoms and various kinds of material assistance have been given to them in our country; therefore I believe that this idea should be developed in opposition to the Bulgarian idea of autonomy. The Macedonians, who are proud of their name, as a result of the struggle between us and the Bulgarians in particular, are beginning to see a great advantage in going with us, both because of the question of guarantees for the development of their people (they consider themselves as independent of us and the Bulgarians) and because of their future political freedoms and material well-being. The majority of them indeed feel themselves to be neither Serbs nor Bulgarians.

Probably because of this tactic of Serbian policy before the adoption of the final decisions by the Peace Conference, some prominent activists of the Macedonian movement in Bulgaria at the time, such as ÏorÌe Petrov, Paul Christoff (Pol Hristov), Petar Ëaulev and Milan Ïurlukov, demanded a meeting with the Serbian delegation in Sofia and even said that “the further struggle is fruitless and that they wanted to suggest to the Macedonians that they be reconciled to remaining equal members of a greater Yugoslavia, demanding amnesty and safety in return”. The accuracy of this information cannot be corroborated, but subsequent events undoubtedly point to the fact that the activists had already seen the decisions fatal for Macedonia and were seeking ways to find a less harmful solution.

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Moreover, these activists personally felt the Bulgarophile activity of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization of Todor Aleksandrov, which enjoyed the full support of the official and unofficial circles of Bulgaria. In those days, in a letter dated July 6, 1919, Aleksandrov wrote to commander Panajot Karanfilov that for the time being the Macedonians should fight for “the establishment of a more independent Macedonia, as the lesser evil, faced with the impossibility of unification at this time. Only the leftist and Bolshevik HadÔidimov, the idle anarchist GerdÔikov, the dandy devil ÏorÌe and the traitors of the Bulgarian people in the past and now, the followers of Sandanski, speak about and agitate for autonomy being demanded for Macedonia — as it has been a separate economic and geographical entity, with a distinct ‘Macedonian people’, with its own history for centuries — so that they would not pay the debts of Bulgaria, and some of them are threatening in this way: ‘If by some chance the whole of Macedonia is given to Bulgaria, we shall fight with arms in our hands to prevent that unification’.”

And indeed, a little later, ÏorÌe Petrov, Dimo HadÔidimov and others nourishing the same beliefs were liquidated in the middle of Sofia or in its surroundings by that same Todor Aleksandrov, who regarded the Macedonian national idea as the greatest danger to the “Bulgarian cause” among the Macedonians.

24.

While Macedonian émigrés waged their battle using the public word and numerous meetings, symposia, gatherings and congresses, in Macedonia itself the national movement developed in the shadow of the occupiers’ bayonets and with extremely limited opportunities. There was indeed a widespread conviction that Macedonia would gain national self-rule, regardless of the framework. As a result, concrete plans and proposals were made, of considerable significance for the subsequent development of Macedonian national thought. Highly illustrative is the report of the Serbian command of the border troops in Veles and its surroundings of March 7, 1919, where, among other things, it describes the idea of Macedonian autonomy, saying: This autonomy of Macedonia would encompass the whole of the Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian parts of Macedonia — from KaÌanik to the Šar Mountains and to the River Struma. Its centre would be Salonika. It is believed that America would wholeheartedly support this action. According to this same agreement with America, American troops and police would remain in that autonomous Macedonia for three years, centred in Salonika, after which the Americans would withdraw and the Macedonians would form their own army, police and other authorities.

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You can very often hear that somewhere negotiations are under way between the representatives of an autonomous Macedonia and a representative of Albania for joint action. They have reached agreement on all questions; there was a dispute only concerning Ohrid and Debar.

The work on an autonomous Macedonia would consist, above all, of acquainting the people with this idea and persuading them of the possibility of its achievement; then each region of Macedonia would send a petition to the congress and to Wilson, demanding, in accordance with the principle proclaimed by Wilson himself, guarantees for the right of the Macedonians to self-determination. These petitions, supported by a sufficient number of signatures, would demand the autonomy of Macedonia under the protectorship of the great powers.

A large part of the people believe that the present situation will not be maintained, and that it is fairly certain that Macedonia will gain autonomy. They cleverly hide this conviction and communicate it only to those whom they believe to share the same idea.

Sober people are saying that if by any chance Macedonia is not granted autonomy, they would set as the minimum of their demands a guarantee for the respect of the right to minority, as stated in the proclamation by the heir to the throne in the month of December. Respect for the right to minority would be guaranteed by the congress in Paris. According to this right, they would have their own schools and their own language in the administration. Some of them even say: We shall start a cultural struggle against those coming from Serbia; if they are stronger — the Macedonian language will gradually disappear, and together with it the Macedonian question as well, but if they do not prove stronger — they themselves will receive our language and will be melded with the Macedonians.

At the same time the Macedonians also looked for friends or allies in the states among which they were divided and where they had to live. It was obvious from subsequent developments that the only trustworthy ally could be found in the Communist movement, which from the very outset proclaimed the principle of self-determination of nations, including the right of secession from the existing states. General TucakoviÚ was well aware of this and, analysing the position of the ‘Seres circle’ vis-à-vis the current situation, he wrote: But their present drifting does not exclude the possibility of their acceptance, above all, of the Bolshevik movement, hoping that it will give them the strongest guarantees of their future independence.

In Vardar Macedonia, for example, the Macedonians found occasional protection in the Serbian Social-Democratic Party as well as in the Socialist Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia (Communists), whose periodicals printed many truths about the real situation and true aspirations of the Macedonian people. Even the Bulgarian Communist Party (left-wing socialists) as early as June 19, 1919, issued a special leaflet, “‘Greater’ Bulgaria or a Balkan Socialist Republic?”, in which it explained in detail its position on and attitude towards the “nationalistic acquisitive 295

policy” of Bulgaria. It rejected the outdated thesis of Macedonia’s autonomy and spoke out in favour of a “socialist republic” with the following clear objectives: “Not autonomy for Macedonia, but a Balkan Socialist Federation of Soviet Republics, where Macedonia would be an autonomous region, equal to the other Balkan nations — this is the only safe way leading to the liberation of Macedonia and the national unification of the Bulgarian people.”

Obviously, even communists in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were still unable to abandon the traditionally accepted views on the ethnic character of the Macedonian people. They started speaking of an individual Macedonian ethnic entity considerably later, and it was in the 1930s that they finally made that position a part of their programme.

A group of the Macedonian progressive émigré community in Bulgaria, led by Dimo HadÔidimov, left the Provisional Representative Office and the brotherhood organizations and came under the wing of the Émigré Communist Union, which was a body of the Bulgarian Communist Party (left-wing socialists), resulting in further obfuscation of the Macedonian national liberation programme. Another group of émigrés joined the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization of Todor Aleksandrov and Aleksandar Protogerov, which subsequently came to be known as the only armed force of the Macedonians, but more or less directly serving Bulgarian ‘national’ policy. Yet a third group of the émigré community remained within the ranks of the brotherhoods, but at the Second Great Assembly of this organization there was a split, after which a Provisional Commission of the Macedonian Émigré Community in Bulgaria was formed.

At its founding congress, on December 2, 1921, it chose the title Managing Committee of the Macedonian Federal Émigré Organization in Bulgaria, which fought, with an insufficiently clear programme, for “a free and independent federal Macedonia”.

The subsequent developments are well known. The efforts to unite the Macedonian forces, as a result of the undermining involvement of the interested factors in the Balkans and Europe, led to even greater discord and to the establishment of many factions and organizations following different concepts and choosing various programme objectives and tasks, accompanied by even greater oppression of the Macedonian people in all the parts of the neighbouring monarchies where they lived. The emergence of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) and the clarification of its national programme after 1933 played a highly significant role in the preparation for the crucial period which came with the Second World War.

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The Position of the Macedonians towards the Establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

The unification of peoples for their own protection and prosperity is undoubtedly a progressive integrative step. The Macedonians have always found themselves in historical situations that have impelled them to aspire towards such a unification.

Bearing in mind the struggle of the Macedonians for their statehood from the 1870s to the start of the First World War, it is quite understandable why they reacted so resolutely against the way the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established, no matter in which part of their dismembered land they lived.

Following the Treaties of Versailles and Neuilly, when the fate of Macedonia was finally sealed, the Macedonians started seeking new ways to gain freedom and defined their position towards the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. As early as June 1920, even the Vrhovist-oriented Central Committee of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO, VMRO) prepared a “directive for work in Macedonia”, in which it set out: “The aim of the Organization remains the same as before: winning freedom — in the form of autonomy or independence — for Macedonia within its ethnic and economic borders.”733 That is how the activity of Todor Aleksandrov and Aleksandar Protogerov started; it soon turned into a powerful armed force which had to be reckoned with, and not only in the neighbouring states. Incursions began inside the territories of the Vardar and even the Aegean part of Macedonia, involving armed actions against the greater-state assimilatory regimes.

It must be emphasized that IMRO underwent an evolution in its position and relations which was dictated by the circumstances. As a result, at the 1920 municipal elections in Yugoslavia, Aleksandrov categorically recommended to the Macedonians to vote for the candidates of the Communists, as it was in the communist movement that he saw his ally in the struggle for the settlement of the “Macedonian question”.734 Taking into account the armed potential in the Balkans and the constellation of political forces, Soviet Russia showed special interest in 733Makedoni

ò. S bor ni k ot dokument i i mat er i al i , S of i ò, 1978, 658.

734Jovan

Janev, ,,S t avovi t e na Ef t i m S pr ost r anov i Jovan Íi r kovi Î za avt onomi ja na Makedoni ja vo sost avot na jugosl ovenskat a f eder aci ja“, Gl asni k, HHœ áá, 1-2, I NI , 1983, 78.

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the activity of Aleksandrov and Protogerov’s IMRO, and offered them moral and material assistance. Closer contacts and talks ensued, and an agreement was even proposed.735 Aleksandrov himself, in December 1923, proposed a project for agreement between IMRO and the Soviet government, which included the following: The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, which represents the Macedonians fighting for national self-determination, political freedom and the greatest possible social justice, has as its aim: Unification of Macedonia — partitioned by Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece in 1913 following the Peace Treaty of Bucharest and the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly — into a political unit which would later become an equal member of a Balkan federation or at least, in the first stage, of a Yugoslav federation.736

The negotiations were held in this spirit and their outcome was the signing of the May Manifesto and other accompanying documents in 1924.737 As a result, Aleksandrov was killed in Sofia that same year (the same happened to Protogerov somewhat later) and there was a dramatic split within the Organization. Yet this laid the groundwork for the foundation of IMRO (United) the following year, which was to become the most important proponent of the Macedonian national liberation struggle under the wing of the progressive movement — up to the organization’s abolition a decade later.

These concepts were also in accord with the programme of the Balkan Communist Federation. The great majority of the Macedonian people stood on the side of “progressive forces” and this crucial factor in the Macedonian liberation movement was to lead to ultimate success, even though only in a part of the divided land. The Balkan federation became the ideal of the Macedonian fighters.

Even after the change in the concepts of struggle (within the Comintern in 1935), which marked the start of the creation of the anti-fascist movement and, within its framework, of “the general popular front”, the slogan of the Balkan federation remained still strong in the consciousness and action of the Macedonians.

In 1923, vigorous discussions on the national question commenced within the progressive circles in the Balkans. Similar discussions were held in both Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, and even in Greece. The Macedonian national question was discussed with special attention. Even the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party worked out “theses on the Macedonian question”, and discus735Di

mi t ar Vl ahov, Memoar i , S kopje, 1970, 211-232. ò. S bor ni k ot dokument i i mat er i jal i , 676. See also Todor Aleksandrov’s statement of August 1, 1924, concerning Federal Yugoslavia with a united Macedonia within it (P r i l ozi za I l i nden, ááá, 257).

737D-r I van Kat ar xi ev, Vr eme na zr eewe. Makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni (1919-1930), á, S kopje, 1977, 219-279.

736Makedoni

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sions concerning the federalist visions once again could frequently be heard in Macedonian émigré circles. The mouthpiece of the Ilinden Organization in Bulgaria, Ilinden, on August 26, 1923, asked in one of its headlines: ‘Yugoslav or Balkan Federation?’738 and gave the following answer: “…those who long for a federal Yugoslavia are right in one respect only: at the current moment, due to the ethnic struggle in present-day Yugoslavia, this federation can be a stage towards the common Balkan confederation, just as the autonomy of Serbian Macedonia can be the core around which Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia will be assembled”.

For “once Macedonia wins independence, achieved even partially, once the first step towards a federation is made, the elimination of conflicts around Macedonia as far as Greece and Turkey are concerned, and the full independence of Macedonia, and also the pacification of the whole of the Balkans, will come only through a Balkan federation, in which Macedonia will take a central economic and cultural position.”

In circumstances when a group of Macedonian intellectuals in 1923 tried to establish a legal Macedonian party in Yugoslavia and form a legal Macedonian movement around it, when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia prepared itself to define its programme on the national question, the Croatian communist activist, Ante Ciliga, who had first-hand knowledge of the aspirations of the Macedonians, expressed, among other things, the discontent of the Macedonian people with the existing situation and stated before the Yugoslav progressive public that the Macedonians had “developed as an individual people in the course of the entire 19th century”.739 In another of his articles he wrote: We want autonomy for Macedonia. All right. But we must clearly — in the resolution, too — emphasize that we do not consider Macedonia to be Serbian and that we are in favour of an independent Macedonia, and that we see in its autonomy the first step towards independence. Here a line must be drawn between us and Serbian Republicans who see in that autonomy the first step towards gradual Serbianization of Macedonia.740

The Belgrade middle-class press, however, was full of chauvinistic excitement and glorified Serbia as ‘the Balkan Piedmont’. Reacting to the writing of the Serbian press, Krste Misirkov responded, on September 2, 1923, with a polemic article entitled ‘Piedmont or Austria?’: 741 “Present-day Serbia is not the Piedmont but the Austria of the Balkan Peninsula. […] Like Austria, which was a conglomerate of regions with different populations in terms of nationality and culture, so 738,,Æ

gosl avònska i l i Bal kanska f eder aci ò?“, I l i ndenÅ, ááá, 23, S of i ò, 26.œ ááá.1923, 1. ,,SamoodreŸenje naroda u Jugoslaviji“, Borba, 30, Zagreb, 16.VIII.1923.

740Mbt, ,,Za jasnoÚu i odluÌnost po nacionalnom pitanju“, Borba, 38, 18.X.1923.

741K. Mi si r kovï , ,,P i emont ï i l i Avst r i ò?“, I l i ndenÅ, ááá, 24, 24.áH.1923, 1.

739Mbt,

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too present-day Yugoslavia is a conglomerate of such different geographical, historical and ethnic units with centrifugal tendencies.” Therefore, Misirkov recommended that Yugoslavia started “along the cultural road of concessions and equality in the state in order to create contentment and support among the population towards the state. In other words,” Misirkov wrote, “not oppression in the name of unity, but a federation of regions and nationalities in the name of freedom and equality — can save Yugoslavia from inevitable disaster.”

The federalist concept, however, had been present for a long time in the Macedonian movement. At this same period Dimitrija Ëupovski, in his letter to Moscow Pravda, reacted to the Yugoslav-Bulgarian Accord in Niš of March 23, 1923, envisaging joint action against Macedonian revolutionary activities, and said: “In the name of the freedom and right of a people to be the master of its own destiny, the Macedonian revolutionaries cannot be left without support. The ideal of the Macedonians is not narrow, but revolutionary. We defend the independence of Macedonia together with the idea of the establishment of a Balkan People’s Federal Republic as the necessary condition.” As a result, Ëupovski emphasized: “The liberation and independence of Macedonia is the first and greatest step in the realization of the Balkan Federation.”742 * * * Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, many people abroad supported a “Yugoslav” solution to the Macedonian question in the Balkans. Here, for example, is the opinion of the prominent British General Thomson: “The solution which finally seems most effective to me is an autonomous Macedonia within the borders of a federal Yugoslavia.”743 Taking into account the actual situation in Yugoslavia and in the Balkans, and also the difficult position of the Macedonian people, Krste Misirkov replied strongly to Thomson: We, the Macedonians, have been used to suffering under the most tyrannical regimes, to enduring the indifference of Europe towards our destiny and to dealing with cunning and brutal oppressors, but despite all of this we have never for a single moment doubted that one day we shall gain freedom. This faith did not abandon us even when, well-informed on Macedonian affairs, the English journals and politicians convinced us that Europe was not willing to add a free Macedonia to the existing newly-established states after the war. We believe in the fulfilment of our ideal, because only in an independent Macedonia will Europe find a means of thwarting new wars of world character, such as the last one.744 742D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940)…, áá, 330.

743,,Gener . Tomsonï

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za Makedoni ò“, Mi r ï , HHH, 7098, S of i ò, 11.áá.1924, 2.

Misirkov did not nourish a very favourable opinion even of Slavic solidarity, in particular bearing in mind the history of Macedonia, and in his article entitled ‘Macedonia and the Prague Congress’745 he wrote: “The forthcoming congress of Slavonic ethnographers in Prague, where Macedonian ethnographers will not take part, as there is no Macedonian independent or autonomous state and, accordingly, there is no Macedonian capital with a Macedonian government, Macedonian academy of sciences and a Macedonian university, which would be able to send their own representatives to the congress, is nevertheless of considerable interest to us, Macedonians.” Referring above all to the Serbs and Bulgarians, Misirkov reacted strongly against the “oppressor Slavs” who “in Prague may forge new chains for our unfortunate fatherland, which, having been dismembered by Slavs and through the initiative of Slavs allied with non-Slavic peoples, having been heavily bound by Serbo-Bulgarian political accords, it would also be bound by the scholarly chains of the victor oppressors.” He then added: “Our ideal is not a Slavic ideal, but a general human one; we want to be freed from your Slavism and make our fatherland not a similar Slavic but simply a cultured state, in which every village and every human group in this village or town will have absolute freedom of religious and national self-determination.”

The central question concerning Balkan peace and understanding in the period between the two world wars was precisely the question of Serbo-Bulgarian (later Yugoslav-Bulgarian) relations. It was, in turn, directly dependent on the question of Macedonia’s destiny and position. As a result, the Macedonian press of the time very frequently analysed those relations, and Krste P. Misirkov devoted a number of articles to them, competently presenting the Macedonian position: “The Serbs and Bulgarians should know that we, the Macedonians, have suffered the most and are still suffering because of Serbo-Bulgarian disagreement, and can hence help the most in the attainment of a permanent Serbo-Bulgarian reconciliation and the well-being of the whole of southern Slavdom, if we are but granted greater freedom in the hammering out of general south-Slav prosperity.” For this reason, Misirkov appealed again: “Give us the right and freedom to respect ourselves, our own language, our own past, as we respect you, your present and past, and we shall build a permanent bridge between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.”746 Speaking about the situation and role of the Macedonians in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, and pointing to the means of reconciliation,747 Misirkov first addressed the Bulgarians: “[A]llow us to freely call and feel ourselves Macedonians, 744K.

Mi si r kovï Mi si r kovï 746K. Mi si r kovï 747K. Mi si r kovï 745K.

–makedonecï , ,,Naš at a võ r a“, Mi r ï , HHH, 7139, 31.ááá.1924, 1. , ,,Makedoni ò i P r aÔ ki ò kongr esï “, 20 ô l i à, á, 9, S of i ò, 8.œ á.1924, 3. , ,,Razdor i i l i r azbi r at õ l st vo“, Mi r ï , HHH, 7354, 22.Háá.1924, 1. , ,,I à t Åt ï na pr i mi r eni et o“, I l i ndenÅ, œ , 5, 30.á.1925, 2.

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without the addition Bulgarians”, and then the Serbs: “[I]f you want us to love Yugoslavia as we love Bulgaria, give us the right and freedom to call ourselves simply Macedonians, without attaching the Serb name to it. As Macedonians we want to love equally the states in which we live as free and equal citizens and at the same time to love our long-suffering and dismembered fatherland.” He asked the Serbs why the Macedonian, as “a good and loyal Yugoslav citizen has no right at the same time to feel himself a Macedonian and also to be interested in the past, present and future of all the parts of Macedonia?”, and warned: “In both Bulgaria and Serbia they should remember one thing, that in Macedonia there lives a population with a passionate patriotic feeling and with a specific national consciousness, which must be correctly taken into consideration and employed reasonably for both the benefit of the local population and the benefit of the Slavic states in which the Macedonians live, and also in the interest of South-Slav solidarity.”

Summarizing his activity and the activity of his generation, Misirkov pointed to his book Za makedonckite raboti (On Macedonian Matters, 1903) and his study Za znaÌenjeto na moravskoto ili resavskoto nareÌje za sovremenata i istoriskata etnografija na Balkanskiot Poluostrov (On the Significance of the Morava and Resava Dialects to Contemporary and Historical Ethnography on the Balkan Peninsula, 1897), as proofs that “a part of the Macedonian intelligentsia sought and found other means of struggle — namely independent Macedonian scholarly thought and Macedonian national consciousness”. Therefore, he wrote: “I do not regret that I spoke out in favour of Macedonian separatism as long as 28 years ago.

This was and remains for me the only solution, the best road along which the Macedonian intelligentsia could fulfil and will fulfil its debt towards its own fatherland and towards our people!”

However, speaking in the name of all the Macedonians, Misirkov wanted to be clearly understood: [M]ay you forgive me, but I, as a Macedonian, put the interests of my fatherland and my compatriots in the first place, and only then the interests of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. I am a Macedonian, with Macedonian consciousness, and being that I have my own views of the past, present and future of my fatherland and of the whole of southern Slavdom, and therefore I wish that we, too, the Macedonians, be asked about all the questions affecting us and our neighbours, and that not everything be accomplished through agreements between Bulgaria and Serbia concerning us, but without us. May everyone interested be convinced that the Macedonian will find enough tact, vision and self-sacrifice for the achievement of general prosperity in the Balkans; it will suffice that the national and personal dignity of the Macedonian is respected.748 748K.

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Mi si r kovï , ,,Makedonski naci onal i zï mï “, Mi r ï , HHHá, 7417, 12.ááá.1925, 1.

When the semi-official Bulgarian newspaper Svobodna RÆÌ attacked him, insulting him by calling him “A man who still does not know his own nationality”,749 Krste Misirkov reacted very strongly with regard to the position of the Macedonians in Serbo-Bulgarian relations by writing an article entitled ‘Self-determination of the Macedonians’.750 He wrote: Because it is we, Macedonians, above all, who suffer from Serbo-Bulgarian disagreement, it is our obligation to seek and find the means and way of reconciliation. This has made us ‘not know’ our nationality to this day and to say to both the Serbs and Bulgarians: forget your greater-Serbian or greater-Bulgarian idea, give up imposing upon us your nationalism and patriotism, based largely on the preference of your interests before ours. Let us have our own understanding of our position towards you and your dispute concerning us and our fatherland, and also of the means by which general south-Slavic prosperity will be achieved. Let us have our own, Macedonian national feelings and develop our own Macedonian culture, as we have been doing for centuries, even when our fatherland and yours did not form part of the same state. […] The consciousness and feeling that I am a Macedonian should stand higher than anything else in the world. The Macedonian should not merge and lose his individuality, living between Bulgarians and Serbs.

We can assume that there is a closeness between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian interests, but everything must be evaluated from the Macedonian point of view.

Because, in his understanding, [i]t is the Macedonian national feeling, it is the historical call of the Macedonian which he can fulfil only as a free and equal citizen of Yugoslavia who is allowed to think, feel, speak and act as a Macedonian.

This was Misirkov’s position and his vision of Macedonia and the states among which it was partitioned, and his position towards Yugoslavia as he saw it and as he wanted it to be. And this was not an isolated opinion and feeling; he always spoke not only in his personal name, but also as a popular tribune who was widely respected and trusted. * * * The federalist concept was not only the conviction of communists, federalists and Ilinden fighters. It was also fully accepted by the Protogerovist751 wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization after 1928, seeing a solution in a South-Slav (Yugoslav) federation with Macedonia as its equal 749,,Edi

nï Ìoveõ kï , koàt o oë e ne si znae nar odnost Åt a“, S vobodna r õÌÅ, áá, 313, S of i ò, 14.ááá.1925, 2.

750K. Mi si r kovï , ,,S amoopr õ del eni et o na makedonci t õ “, Mi r ï , HHHá, 7428, 25.ááá.1925, 1.

751Related

to the followers of Aleksandar Protogerov (translator’s note).

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member. “The Macedonian people,” it was written in the programmatic article of the Makedonska Pravda752 newspaper, “should be ready in any new situation, following any new changes in Greece, Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, to speak out, to express their will and participate there through their active presence.” The newspaper, it emphasized, “will cultivate the idea of a Balkan federation as the only means, at this moment, for the pacification of the Balkans, a federation within the framework of which it [Macedonia] w o u l d b e f r e e and happy”. The newspaper “will pave the road for a federation of the South Slavs on the basis of full equality and equal respect of the rights of all peoples and for the creation, amidst the present Yugoslav chaos, of a free state with free autonomous regions.”

But when certain steps were made towards a “Serbo-Bulgarian agreement”, the newspaper of the Protogerovists clearly stated: “…until the Macedonian question is resolved in the correct way, until that moment, any sincere agreement and brotherly cooperation between the peoples of Serbia and Bulgaria will be inconceivable”. Therefore, continues the newspaper: “Our efforts, i.e. the efforts of all the wronged and oppressed peoples and ethnic minorities in the territory of present-day ‘Yugoslavia’ will have to be directed towards the destruction of Serbian dictatorship and the introduction of a new popular authority. Only such a genuine popular authority will be capable of resolving not only the Macedonian problem, but also the great problem of the unification of all the South Slavs into a huge, popular, federal South-Slav republic without dictators and hegemonists.

Our Macedonian question will find its final solution within the framework of that popular federal republic and Macedonia will be free.”

The Protogerovists were particularly interested in the then emerging new Yugoslav youth revolutionary organization, URO, whose final ideal within its programme was “an alliance of South-Slav people’s republics from the Adriatic to the Black Sea”, and whose “greatest efforts” were directed “against dictatorship and against Serbia’s hegemony”. The newspaper Makedonska Pravda wrote that “URO is not only against dictatorship and its main proponent, King Alexander, but that it is also against centralism and in favour of federalism… Centralism is a means for the forceful imposition of greater-Serbian hegemony over the Croats, PreÌans,753 Macedonians and other peoples in Yugoslavia. It is clear to everyone that unitarism leads to catastrophe.”754 As a result, the newspaper supported the concept of Svetozar PribiÌeviÚ, envisaging a Yugoslavia with “a federalist state organization on the basis of historical-political individualities” which would be 752,,Naš

i òt ï pà t ï , Makedonska pr avda, á, 1, S of i ò, 3.áH.1933, 1. population of what is today Vojvodina in Serbia (translator’s note).

754,,I deol ogi òt a na U.R.O.“, Makedonska pr avda, á, 2, 10.áH.1933, 3; ,,U.R.O. i f eder aci òt a“, Makedonska pr avda, á, 3, 17.áH.1933, 3.

753The

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constituted of seven federal units: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Vojvodina and Macedonia,755 the same concept envisaged by URO. Yet the Protogerovists openly stated their fear of integration as a “greater-Serbian idea”. Makedonska Pravda adhered to its “final ideal: Yugoslav federation with Macedonia as an equal state unit”,756 but the way in which it understood it was explained in its reply to a reader: “Our ideal, the ideal of the honest-thinking and progressive Macedonian émigré community, and of all good people of the Balkans, is and should be a Balkan federation. For only through a Balkan federation one can reconcile the cultural, economic, commercial and political interests of the Balkan peoples and surmount their rivalries… We speak of a Yugoslav federation as a stage towards the future Balkan federation, which would be easier to achieve after the realization of the first one.”

In connection with the expression “integral Yugoslavia”, the newspaper makes it clear: “Integrationism is a greater-Serbian idea. Federalism is a Yugoslav idea.”

However, supporting Dimitar Vlahov’s position in Makedonsko Delo, the mouthpiece of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United), concerning the question of “‘Integral Yugoslavia’ or a Balkan federation”,757 the Protogerovist Makedonska Pravda wrote: “The federation, whatever it may be, makes any sense for us only if we can see our sacred ideal achieved through it — the freedom of our fatherland. A thousand federations would mean nothing to us without this ideal. We are in favour not of an integral but a free Yugoslav republic, in which the republic of Macedonia will figure as a fully free and equal member, as the only means for the pacification of the Balkans.”758 In this context, the newspaper accepted URO’s demands: “a republic, federation, socialization and popular authority”.759 * * * Macedonian liberation thought in the 1930s moved within the same or a similar framework. The ‘autonomists’ of VanÌo Mihajlov indeed fought for a “united Macedonia”, but they did this with an unclear national programme and with a 755,,Novat a

pol i t i Ìeska pr ogr ama na S v. P r i bi Ìevi Ìï “, Makedonska pr avda, á, 3, 17.áH.1933, 1.

756S t . Ki r i l ovï , ,,P ï r vat a st à pka kï mï Bï l gar sko-ô gosl avònsko sbl i Ô eni e“, Makedonska pr avda, á, 4, 24.áH.1933, 3.

757D. Vl ahovï , ,,,I nt egr al na Æ gosl avi ò‘ i l i Bal kanska f eder aci ò“, Makedonsko del o, œ ááá, 168/169, 25.H.1932, 6-7.

758,,I nt egr al na Æ gosl avi ò l i ?“, Makedonska pr avda, á, 6, 8.H.1933, 3.

759,,Revol ô ci onnat a bor ba na U.R.O.“, Makedonska pr avda, á, 6, 8.H.1933, 3.

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pro-fascist political orientation, as a result of which, after 1934, that section of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization almost ceased to be a significant factor in the genuine Macedonian movement. In this period the masses were attracted to the already proven national programme and concept of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) and also to the programme principles of the Comintern and the Communist parties in the Balkans, which nevertheless retained, as their final goal, a Balkan federation, even though not all of them were equally sympathetic to it. The Seventh Congress of the Comintern adopted a directive for the maintenance of the Versailles borders and for the organization of an anti-fascist popular-front movement. Yet the Macedonians never sincerely accepted that part of the directive concerning the preservation of the Versailles partition, and the Macedonian ĂŠmigrĂŠ community, particularly in overseas countries, never adhered to it in practice.

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The Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian Nation and the Macedonian Language (1934)

The Macedonian people, the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language have never demanded from anyone, and there have been no reasons to demand it, any official recognition of their existence. Recognition can be demanded for a state or an institution, but not for a nation or a language. The Macedonian people has waged a continuous struggle for the affirmation of its national entity for a century and a half, and within this framework, for its own language and its own culture.

In the process of this struggle for affirmation there have been various acts by different individuals, institutions, organizations and states that have significantly helped the Macedonian cultural and national development and its affirmation at national, Slavic, Balkan or international level. The resolution of the Comintern, although published as a resolution of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United), was undoubtedly the most significant international acknowledgement of the Macedonian national individuality, which had very favourable consequences for its development and affirmation. It was not a founding act by some international arbiter, albeit within the framework of the communist movement. It sanctioned the historical development of the Macedonian people, which itself imposed that acknowledgement. * * * The Comintern decision of January 11, 1934, did not come suddenly and unexpectedly. Immediately after the First World War, the Communist movement started making efforts to resolve the ‘Macedonian question’ in its entirety and in its historical context. Of special significance was the year 1923, when great efforts were made to look at this question as a national one as well. The Balkan Communist Federation, as early as its Fifth Conference in Moscow (December 8-12, 1922) expressed its dissatisfaction with the treatment of Macedonia by the Balkan communist parties, and soon afterwards decided to separate the party organization in Macedonia from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and to connect it directly to the Balkan Communist Federation (BCF).760 That Macedonia did not receive the appropriate aid from either the CPY or the Bulgarian 307

Communist Party, nor from the BCF, was confirmed by the Macedonian delegate at the CPY Second Conference (May 9-12, 1923), Stefan Popivanov.761 Its resolution, among other things, stated that the population in Macedonia wanted its own “autonomous and independent state”, in the spirit of the principle of “the full acknowledgement of the slogan on the right to self-determination of nations, including secession”.762 The subsequent plenum of the CPY Central Party Council (May 13-16, 1923) went even further than that, and, accepting that “the Macedonian question can be decided only in a Balkan federation”, concluded that “the Macedonians are an ethnographic transition between the Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks”.763 This view was also accepted by the Comintern, and it was no chance that K. Radek’s report at the Third Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (June 12-23, 1923) criticized the Bulgarian Communist Party, underlining that “Macedonia, populated by peasants, of whom it is difficult to say whether they are Serbs or Bulgarians, has long ago served as an object of dispute between Serbia and Bulgaria”.764 It was in that same year, 1923, that a group of Macedonian intellectuals made an unsuccessful attempt at organizing a legal Macedonian party around which a legal Macedonian movement would develop in Yugoslavia.765 At approximately the same time, several numbers of the illegal newspaper Iskra were printed in Veles.766 Of special importance was CPY’s appeal for a public discussion of the national question in Yugoslavia through the pages of the newspaper Radnik–Delavec (May 31, 1923). Very significant views were published in the Zagreb party newspaper Borba. The articles of the Croatian communist Ante Ciliga were highly illustrative; he had the opportunity of being directly acquainted with the true aspirations of the Macedonians, as his wife, Dr Ljuba VolÌeva, came from Prilep; together they had stayed for some time in the Soviet Union. In his extensive article ‘The Self-determination of the Peoples of Yugoslavia’, Ciliga writes: Of the Slavic peoples that live in Yugoslavia there are also the Macedonians.

Throughout the 19th century they developed as an independent people. All the efforts of the Serbian bourgeoisie to make them Serbian have so far failed. They are a separate 760J.

VrÌinac, ,,Prva, Druga i TreÚa konferencija KPJ (prema zapisnicima, rezolucijama i drugim materijalima sa svih konferencija)“, in: Istorija XX vijeka, knj. 1, Beograd, 1959, 250.

761Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , Æ gosl avskat a komuni st i Ìeska par t i ò i makedonski òt vï pr os 1919-1945, S of i ò, 1985, 89.

762Ibid., 91.

763Dušan LukaÌ, RadniÌki pokret u Jugoslaviji i nacionalno pitanje 1918-1941, Beograd, 1972, 107.

764Rasš i r ennì à pl enum I spol ni t el Ånogo komi t et a Kommuni st i Ìeskogo i nt er naci onal a (12-23 i ô nò 1923 goda), Moskva, 1923, 257.

765Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 104.

766D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1983, 47-48.

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national entity and they should be granted all the rights deriving from it. Our movement made a mistake when it did not as early as 1919 start issuing publications in the Macedonian language for the Macedonian population. Opening schools in the Macedonian language should also be insisted on. The population itself will then decide whether they want to send their children to schools with instruction in Serbian or Macedonian.767

Accordingly, there were no dilemmas as to whether or not there was a separate Macedonian nation;768 the important thing was to accept it as a reality and enable its free development. Even though Ciliga was in favour of an independent Macedonia, at that moment he supported Macedonia’s autonomy within the borders of Yugoslavia, as “we see in its autonomy the first step towards independence”.769 At the Sixth Conference of the BCF (December 1923) the Bulgarian communist activist, Vasil Kolarov, said that the Macedonians “want to be united into a Macedonian nation”,770 and the resolution adopted at the Vitoša Conference of the BCP (May 1924) expressed concepts which are not far away from this tendency.771 Although not sufficiently clearly, the ethnic individuality of the Macedonian people was also reflected in the pamphlet printed (in cooperation with Stefan Popivanov) and signed by Kosta NovakoviÚ, entitled Macedonia to the Macedonians! The Land to the Farmers! (1924) as a publication of the Independent Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. It was also no coincidence that the resolution of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern (1924) recommended the CPY to fight for self-determination of the peoples of Yugoslavia with a demand “for the secession of Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia from the body of the Yugoslav state and for the establishment of independent republics of these regions”.772 In the Platform of the CPY Central Committee for the municipal elections (1926), the communists were advised to point to “the concrete facts of national oppression: the ban on the Macedonian language and schools, the ban on Macedonian names under the State Protection Law”, etc.773 767Mbt

[Ante Ciliga’ pseudonym], ,,SamoodreŸenje naroda u Jugoslaviji“, Borba, II, 30, Zagreb, 16.VIII.1923.

768This was also confirmed by the Veles party activist hiding behind the initial Z in his article ,,Naci onal ne bor be u Makedoni ji “, Radni k–Delavec, áá, 57, Beogr ad, 1.œ áá.1923. Another important contribution in this respect was the article written by an unsigned author from Veles, ,,Naci onal no pi t awe u Makedoni ji “, Radni k–Delavec, áá, 76, Beogr ad, 5.áH.1923.

769Mbt, ,,Za jasnoÚu i odluÌnost u nacionalnom pitanju“, Borba, áá, 38, 18.H.1923. See also the previous issue of this newspaper (October 11, 1923).

770Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 119.

771Geor gi V. Di mi t r ov, S t anovi ë e i pol i t i ka na BKP po makedonski ò vï pr os, Bl agoevgr ad, 1971, 31-32.

772I st or i jski ar hi v Komuni st i Ìke par t i je Jugosl avi je, 2, Beogr ad, 1949, 421.

773I zvor i za i st or i ju r adni Ìkog pokr et a i r evol uci je u C r noj Gor i (1918-1945), S er i ja á, kw.

1 (1918-1929). Odabr ao i pr i r edi o dr Jovan R. Bojovi Ú, Ti t ogr ad, 1971, 496-497. The same

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The official party documents stated that in the Vardar section of Macedonia there lived “630,000 Macedonians”,774 and on August 23, 1926, the secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Macedonia insisted on including a special item about the national question in Macedonia on the agenda for the forthcoming plenum of the CPY Central Committee, where the reporter would be the Central Committee member from Macedonia.775 The resolution concerning the activities on the renewal of the Macedonian national revolutionary movement, adopted by the Regional Conference of the Communist Party in Macedonia (1926), called for a struggle “for the most basic cultural and political rights of the Macedonian people, such as the right to the Macedonian language in schools, in books, in names, and the right to a name and an organization of the Macedonian people in Yugoslavia”.776 All this was a reflection of internal developments and of the aspirations of the Macedonian people, which at that moment were favourably received only by the avant-garde of the workers’ movement.

These facts were undoubtedly well known to the Sixth Congress of the Comintern (July 1928) and to the Eighth Conference of the BCF, held shortly afterwards. All this found concrete expression in the formulations of the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Dresden (October-November 1928), where the delegate from Macedonia, KoÌo Racin, took an active part.777 The foundation of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) in 1925 marked a new stage in the Macedonian liberation movement.778 Even though in the beginning it could not openly and clearly proclaim its national programme, with its consolidation, the national component became more and more views were expressed by the Macedonian communists themselves in a 1927 leaflet published by Makedonsko del o and Bal kanska f eder aci ò, and reprinted in Zagreb Borba of January 1, 1928.

Here is an extract from this document: “The Macedonians have been deprived of all basic civil and political rights, and they have been most terribly oppressed nationally by the hegemonistic regime. In the courts, in the schools and in the administrative authorities they have no right to their own language.

Their children cannot even pray to God in their own language” [D-r I van Kat ar xi ev, Vr eme na zr eewe. Makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe meÒu dvet e vojni (1919-1930), á, S kopje, 1977, 422]. In 1928 the newspaper Makedonsko del o published an article entitled ‘For the Freedom of Macedonia and Montenegro”, also reprinted in Borba, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, where, among other things, a specific demand was put forward for “the introduction of the language the Macedonian people speak in all the schools and institutions of the society” (Ibid., 425).

774Kost a Novakovi Ú, Makedoni ja Makedonci ma! Zemq a zemq or adni ci ma!, ËaÌak, 1966, 52.

775Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 179.

776Mar i ja Mi l oš evska, ,,ZnaÌaen dokument vo zaost avni nat a na KoÌo Raci n“, Del o 74, Hááá, 1-2, Š t i p, 1986, 63.

777D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n …, 17-20.

778I van Kat ar xi ev, ,,VMRO (Obedi net a), pojava, r azvoj i dejnost ", in: C K na VMRO(Ob), P r edavni ci t e na makedonskot o del o, Redakci ja i koment ar I van Kat ar xi ev, Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1983, 5-56.

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emphatic. Starting from 1928 the Macedonian national entity was also accepted by the CPY and some other parties in the Balkans. This was increasingly reflected in the pages of the journal Makedonsko Delo.779 An organization within the Macedonian progressive movement which came to particular prominence was the Goce DelÌev Macedonian Popular Student Group (1930), active in the Pirin section of Macedonia and among the Macedonian émigrés (mostly in Bulgaria).

In the period 1931-1934, it continually published several printed mouthpieces (Makedonski Studentski List, Makedonska Studentska Tribuna and Makedonska MladeÔ), and the newspaper Makedonsko Zname (1932-1934) became the unofficial legal mouthpiece of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United).780 As far as the Aegean section of Macedonia was concerned, it was difficult for any Macedonian group to establish itself more firmly, but IMRO (United), supported by the Communist Party of Greece, in the period 1913-1935, through the newspaper Rizospastis, strongly and clearly expressed the historical ideals of the Macedonian people.781 As for the Vardar part of Macedonia, which was also harshly oppressed in ethnic terms, except in the early period, IMRO (United) could not establish itself, as it had no support from anyone. The great legal proceedings against the leaders and adherents of this organization in 1929 showed its genuine national concepts for the future development of the Macedonian people and the Balkans in general.782 The year 1932 saw the start of activity in Skopje and the whole of the Vardar section of Macedonia by the Macedonian Youth Revolutionary Organization (MORO), which attracted virtually all the more prominent young activists, who were later to stand at the head of the national liberation movement.783 The Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Macedonia, led by KoÌo Racin, was founded in 1933 in Skopje.784 This was a new step forward towards the affirmation of Macedonian national thought and 779D-r

I van Kat ar xi ev, Vr eme na zr eewe. Makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe meÒu dvet e vojni (1919-1930), á-áá, Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1977.

780D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, áá, 481-560; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i naci onal na i st or i ja, ááá, Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1990, 293-318.

781Makedonskot o pr aš awe na st r ani ci t e od ,,Ri zospast i s“ meÒu dvet e vojni . I zbor i r edakci ja Josi f P opovski , Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1982.

782Todor G. Zogr af ski i Di mÌe A. Zogr af ski , KP J i VMRO (Obedi net a) vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja vo per i odot 1920-1930, I NI , S kopje, 1974; D-r I van Kat ar xi ev, Vr eme na zr eewe…, á; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa.

P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, Makedonska kni ga, S kopje, 1983, 32-33.

783D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n …, 59-176.

784Ibid., 62-127; I l egal ni ot peÌat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni , t om áá, kni ga 2. P odgot vi l d-r I van Kat ar xi ev, Komuni st , S kopje, 1983, 39-55.

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action, while the foundation of the Vardar Macedonian Cultural-Educational Society in Zagreb (1934)785 represented probably the most important and most enduring Macedonian association which fought for the affirmation of Macedonian national individuality and of the Macedonian language as a literary standard in Vardar Macedonia.

All this indicated that Macedonian national consciousness was already a consciousness of the masses of the Macedonian people in all the sections of divided Macedonia, and that all the actors fighting for territory in this part of the world had to reckon with this fact. Even the Vrhovist Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, from 1932 onwards, started to give way before this option and in the Pirin region had to conduct a policy of Macedonian ethnic individuality, and even introduced a special subject in the schools (Macedonian history) and envisaged the introduction of instruction in the Macedonian language.786 In 1933, however, there was a split in Sofia within the Regional Committee of IMRO (United) for Macedonia under Bulgaria, when Vasil HadÔikimov was revealed as a provocateur, planted by the police, and refused to agree with the rest of the members “that the Macedonians are a separate people and that the Macedonian people from Pirin Macedonia is under national oppression”.787 At the same time the newspaper Makedonsko Zname took an even firmer position and openly declared: “The Macedonian progressive movement is a national one, as its goal is the national liberation of Macedonia. It is not a party movement, nor a movement of a particular group or class, but according to its character it is broadly popular and democratic, as its very goal (the national liberation of Macedonia) is a broadly popular and democratic task. The progressive Macedonian movement supports a united front consisting, in addition to the other subjugated peoples, of the oppressed classes of the ruling nations, but this by no means indicates that it gives priority to social rather than national questions.”788 On January 15, 1934, there was a ‘session’ of the secessionist and fictive ‘Action Committee of the Macedonian Progressive Movement’, headed by Vasil HadÔikimov, which “expelled” the five most active leaders of IMRO (United) among the Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria and in the Pirin region.789 On February Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja…, 2, 1982, 159-191.

786D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, áá, 550-555.

787Angel Di nev, Bugar skat a r abot ni Ìka par t i ja (k) pr ed sudot na i st or i jat a…, á, 38 – manuscript in the Archives of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Ar hi v na MANU) and also in the Archives Section of the Institute of National History (Ar hi vno oddel eni e na I NI ), S l . ᜠ.32/1.

788Makedonsko zname, áá, 17, S of i ò, 14.Háá.1933, 2.

789,,Rezol ô ci ò“, Makedonska bor ba, á, 2, S of i ò, 25.áá.1934, 2.

785D-r

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5, 1934, it started printing its own mouthpiece, Makedonska Borba, where it defined its counter-position very clearly: “There is no Macedonian nation, as there is no national oppression in the PetriÌ region. There is only a Macedonian people as a political whole consisting of the national groups: Bulgarians, Turks, Aromanians, Greeks and Serbs.”790 HadÔikimov designated the activity of the Regional Committee of IMRO (United) as “red Vrhovism” and publicly denounced its members, as a result of which “many went underground and the police started pursuing some of them”.791 There was a sharp polemic between Makedonska Borba, on the one hand, and Makedonsko Zname and Makedonska MladeÔ, on the other, which lasted until the coup of the Zveno Group in Bulgaria. Shortly thereafter, all progressive publications, including Makedonsko Zname and Makedonska MladeÔ, were banned.792 In those circumstances and confrontations, the Comintern was impelled to declare its position. In 1932, the Macedonian Dino Íosev gave a lecture in Moscow on the distinct Macedonian national consciousness.793 The question was also studied in the highest institutions of the Comintern. In the autumn of 1933, Dimitar Vlahov and Georgi KaradÔov arrived in Moscow and took part in a number of meetings and conferences, after which, on January 11, 1934, the Political Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Comintern adopted its final and historic decision on the Macedonian nation.794 This was indeed an inevitable acknowledgement of the actual situation, imposed by the development of the Macedonian people itself, but at the same time it was the first official recognition of the Macedonian national entity on the international scene, which had an exceptionally beneficial influence on the subsequent development of the Macedonian national liberation struggle and affirmation. The Macedonians thus not only secured support from the Comintern as a leading institution, but also from the individual communist and workers’ parties in the world, and, most importantly, from the parties within the states that controlled Macedonia.

The text of this historic document was prepared in the period December 20, 1933 – January 7, 1934, by the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern. It was accepted by the Political Secretariat in Moscow on January 11, 1934, and approved by the Executive Committee of the Comintern. It was published for the first time 790Ibid.

791Angel

Di nev, op. cit., 38. zname‘ ë e spr e“, Makedonsko zname, ááá, 31.œ áá.1934, 1.

793According to his own words, in Sofia, in May 1967.

794Di mi t ar Vl ahov, Memoar i , S kopje, 1970, 356-358; M-r S pi r i don Bl agoev, ,,Š eeset godi ni od Rezol uci jat a za makedonskot o pr aš awe i VMRO(Ob) na Komuni st i Ìkat a i nt er naci onal a“, VeÌer , 15-16.á.1994, 25.

792,,,Makedonsko

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in the April issue of Makedonsko Delo under the title ‘The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of IMRO (United)’.795 After replying to those who, even within the progressive movement, denied the existence of a separate Macedonian nation, the Resolution, among other things, stated: The bourgeoisie of the ruling nations in the three imperialist states among which Macedonia is partitioned, tries to camouflage its national oppression, denying the national features of the Macedonian people and the existence of the Macedonian nation.

Commenting on the situation of the Macedonian people in Macedonia’s three parts and the position of those states towards the national ideals of the Macedonians, the text emphasized: Bulgarian chauvinists, exploiting the kinship between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages, claim that the Macedonians are Bulgarians, and in this way try to justify their control of the PetriÌ region and their policy of annexation extending to the whole of Macedonia.

Stating the aims and tasks of IMRO (United), the Resolution made it clear: In waging its struggle against the dismemberment and subjugation of the Macedonian people and against all forms of cultural, social and economic oppression, and for national liberation and unification of all the parts of Macedonia, IMRO (United) should reveal the true purpose of all speculations aiming to deny the Macedonians their character of a nation and prevent them from pervading their own environment.

The extensive text of this Resolution continued by unmasking the role of “the Mihajlovists as faithful agents of the Bulgarian bourgeoisie and of Italian fascism” and pointed to “the revolutionary struggle of the Macedonian labouring masses for their own liberation” from the ruling states, concluding that “the struggle for a united and independent republic of the Macedonian labouring masses is not only the work of the latter but also of the working class and the peasants of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece, fighting under the leadership of the class organizations of the revolutionary proletariat.”

Enumerating the weaknesses of IMRO (United) itself in the three parts of Macedonia, the Resolution issued the following directives: IMRO (United) should become a mass organization of workers from the whole of Macedonia, guiding them in the struggle against their subjugation by the 795,,P

ol oÔ eni et o v Makedoni ò i zadaÌi t e na VMRO (Obedi nena). Edna r ezol ô ci ò na C K na VMRO (Obed.)“, Makedonsko del o, œ ááá, 185, [P ar i Ô ], Apr i l 1934, 1-2.

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Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek bourgeoisie and landowners and their fascist governments, and for their national liberation and unification.

IMRO (United) should organize and direct the struggle against any manifestation of national oppression, against any exclusive law affecting the right of the Macedonian masses to use their own mother tongue in all the institutions of government and the society, and for their freedom to study in it and publish books.

After emphasizing the relevant economic factors, the text pointed out: In this struggle the main slogan of IMRO (United) should be the right of the Macedonian people to self-determination, including the right to secession from the subjugator states and the winning of a united and independent republic of the Macedonian labouring masses.

Despite the fact that this was formally a Resolution of IMRO (United), it was a document adopted by the Comintern, which was immediately published in all the mouthpieces of this international communist centre. It was printed in different languages and was understood as a right of the Macedonian people, but also as an obligation of the communist parties and organizations in neighbouring Balkan countries to help the justified struggle of the Macedonians for liberation and unification. This was at the same time the first truly effective support for the centuries-old struggle of the Macedonian people; as a result, they oriented themselves towards the international workers’ movement which inspired them with faith in a righteous victory.

Furthermore, it was the External Bureau of the Bulgarian Communist Party that tried “to urge Slavic scholars from Moscow and Kiev to work out a plan for the creation of a Macedonian literary language”.796 In June 1935, Aleksandar S. VeliÌkov in Kiev wrote a letter to Petar Iskrov, member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in Moscow and a Macedonian, in which, among other things, he wrote: There are several professors working in the field of Slavonic linguistics here: Bulakhovsky, Grunsky, Drinov and others… Bulakhovsky and Drinov are also well-known abroad. I talked to these Slavic scholars and they promised to write a number of scholarly studies on various questions concerning different Slavonic dialects on the Balkan Peninsula.

Then VeliÌkov passed on to the concrete problem: We have focussed on the scholarly analysis of the following subject: ‘Is the Macedonian language an individual Slavonic language or is it only a variation (speech form) of the Bulgarian language?’ All the Slavic scholars in Ukraine agree that the Macedonians are an individual Slavic people, but as far as the language is concerned, there are differences of opinion. Some believe that there is no specific Macedonian 796Kost adi

n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 224, according to: C P A, f . 3, op. 4, ar h. ed. 446.

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literary language, others think that the Macedonian language is an individual Slavonic language with its own characteristics distinguishing it from all other languages. There were attempts at the establishment of an individual Macedonian literary language, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century (for example, Grigor PrliÌev’s Autobiography, the works of Kiril PejÌinoviÎ and Joakim KrÌovski), but as a result of the strengthening of nationalistic propaganda in Macedonia (Bulgarian, Serbian), the Macedonian intelligentsia started using Bulgarian and Serbian, and also the Greek literary language.

Further on VeliÌkov (himself insufficiently informed on the historical development of the Macedonian written language) wrote: I do not know whether our party and the Comintern have a precisely and fully defined position on the language of the Macedonians; if there is such a position, if the BCP and the Comintern consider that the Macedonian language is an individual language, will you let us know immediately so that we can direct research work on the correct track. The study of the question of the language is of considerable political significance, especially now, bearing in mind the fascist theories on race and ethnicity, etc., and also the strengthening of nationalistic preaching by Bulgarian and Serbian bourgeois scholars.797

On June 25, 1935, Vladimir Poptomov (V. Gromov) replied to the External Bureau of the BCP in connection with VeliÌkov’s letter and the enclosed note from Bogdanov: The readiness that some distinguished Soviet Slavic scholars in Kiev have expressed to Comrade VeliÌkov for the start of special research into the character of the Macedonian language is of great significance and should be encouraged and used to the greatest possible extent.

Then the Macedonian Popotomov added: The question of the character of the Macedonian people as an individual national and historical entity and also the question of the individual character of the Macedonian language are questions which have long been waiting for their scientific Marxist clarification and are of great current political and revolutionary significance to the people of the Balkans. The affirmative verification of that question represents the objective basis for the thesis of the Comintern and the communist parties of the people of the Balkans concerning the self-determination of the Macedonian people.

That position of the Comintern found its concrete formulation at the Fifth Congress in Lausanne, supporting a united and independent Macedonia. And the Resolution on the Macedonian Question of the B[alkan] L[ender] S[ecretariat], of February 1934, points to the principal direction concerning the question of the Macedonian nation and language.

797D-r

Rast i sl av Ter zi oski , ,,Ruski dokument i za posebnost a na makedonski ot nar od“, N ova Makedoni ja, ª , 16972, 22.ᜠ.1994, 12 and 16973, 23.ᜠ.1994, 8; Li na Ó i l a, ,,Komi nt er nat a i pr aš awet o na makedonski ot jazi k“, Kul t ur en Ô i vot , HHHáH, 6-7, 1994, 73.

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After describing the oppression of the Macedonian people by “the ruling nations in the three imperial states among which Macedonia is divided”, Poptomov pointed out: IMRO (United) should organize and direct the daily struggle against any manifestations of national oppression inside IMRO (United), waging a struggle against the dismemberment and subjugation of the Macedonian people and against all forms of cultural, social and economic oppression, and for the national liberation and unification of all the parts of Macedonia; it should expose the true meaning of all speculations aiming to deny the Macedonians their character of a nation […] with regard to any exclusive law affecting the right of the Macedonian masses to the use of their mother tongue in all the institutions of the state and society, for the freedom to study in it and publish books.

Explaining the historical reasons why it had been impossible in the past “to form a literary language” of the Macedonian dialects, Poptomov concluded that “the lack of such a language cannot serve as a basis for denying in general the individual character of the Macedonian language spoken by millions of the masses of the Macedonian people”. Therefore he insisted on “the necessity of a prompt start on a scholarly elaboration of these questions,” because they were posed from within, by the Macedonians themselves. He continued: How pressing these questions are can be seen from the vivid interest shown both in the party and in Macedonian and national-patriotic circles in Macedonia and among the émigré community. And the leadership circles of IMRO (United) have long persistently proposed this, trying to get Soviet scholars interested in the Macedonian question, and have even made concrete proposals to ask Professor Derzhavin to write a pamphlet on the question of the Macedonian nation. As far as the PetriÌ region is concerned, these questions are of even greater significance, because there is not only the Bulgarian bourgeoisie, but also its agents in the form of the Macedonian Vrhovists, who are conducting widespread propaganda about the purported Bulgarian national character of Macedonia. I believe that the elaboration of the Macedonian question should move along the following lines: (1) Elaboration of the question of the Macedonian nation; (2) Elaboration of the question of the Macedonian language, and (3) Critique of bourgeois theories on these questions.

Poptomov also made a practical proposal: [F]or the organization of this work the most appropriate solution will be if the E[xternal] B[ureau] appoints a special brigade which will work under its control. The task of the brigade will be to gather not only the Soviet scholars in Kiev, Moscow, Leningrad and other places in the Soviet Union, where they deal with the Macedonian issues, [but also] to make it easier for them and help them in their work, to report on the results obtained and their use by the EB, etc. That brigade should consist of: Comrade VeliÌkov, who, it seems, can be useful in this area, Comrade Gachev (in Moscow) and two other academicians — historians and philosophers — if there are

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such. Comrade Dino Íosev (Moscow), who has certain qualifications in these questions and can be useful, could also be co-opted in the group.

As far as VeliÌkov was concerned, in reply to his letter, he should be notified of the position of the Comintern on the question of the Macedonian nation and language, so that the start of the work in Kiev would not be delayed.798

At that same period the young Soviet philologist, Samuil B. Bernstein, while searching through the Odessa State Archives, found the proof sheets of the first issue of Misirkov’s Vardar (1905),799 and later wrote the first contribution on the Macedonian language in the first Soviet encyclopaedia.800 There are documents confirming that there were official proposals that the periodicals of IMRO (United) be printed in “a popular Macedonian dialect”, instead of Bulgarian.801 In the “secret” report of V. Gromov (Vladimir Poptomov) of September 11, 1935, entitled Konkretnite v’prosi na nacional-revoljucionnoto dviÔenie na Balkanite sled VII kongres na Kominterna (Concrete questions of the national-revolutionary movement in the Balkans after the Seventh Congress of the Comintern), the section dealing with Macedonia (in Yugoslavia) demanded “publication in Macedonia of a popular people’s newspaper in the Macedonian language” and “the writing of a popular pamphlet about the Macedonian question and the tasks of IMRO (United) in the Macedonian language for widespread distribution in Macedonia”. In the section dealing with Macedonia under Greece, Gromov defined the following task as the second: “Publication of a Macedonian newspaper and two popular pamphlets in the Macedonian language: the first should treat the past of the Macedonian national and revolutionary movement, and the second — the present situation in Macedonia and the tasks of IMRO (United).” In all probability, after the abolition of the External Bureau of the Central Committee of IMRO (United) in Paris and “after the reorganization of the publication of Makedonsko Delo”, it was suggested that its editor, Vlahov, came “for a vacation and medical treatment in the USSR”. It is significant that Gromov specified another very important idea which was unfortunately not put into practice: “Setting 798D-r

Rast i sl av Ter zi oski , op. cit., 23.ᜠ.1994, 8; Li na Ó i l a, op. cit., 74-75. There are considerable differences in the translations of both documents by these two authors.

799S .B. Ber nš t eàn, ,,I z i st or i i makedonskot o l i t er at ur nogo òzi ka. ,Var dar ‘ K.P . Mi si r kova“, S l avònskaò f i l ol ogi ò. S bor ni k st at eà, vì pusk t r et i à. P od r edakci eà pr of . S .B. Ber nš t eàna, Moskva, 1960, 70-71.

800Bol Åš aò sovet skaò ænci kl opedi ò, t . 37, Moskva, 1938, 743-744; C vet an S t anoevski , ,,Makedoni ja vo r uski t e i sovet ski t e enci kl opedi i “, Razgl edi , Hœ ááá, 4, S kopje, 1967, 473.

801Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 224; C P A, f . 10, op. 1, ar h. ed. 75.

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up regular links with Salonika, where it is presumed that the Unifying political centre of IMRO (United) should be and where the newspaper Makedonsko Delo should be published. It is necessary to coordinate this with our Greek comrades at this very moment.” So Makedonsko Delo was to become a “central newspaper”, printed in Salonika and distributed also to the Macedonians in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

The Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian question immediately reinvigorated the Macedonian press in the Balkans and in émigré circles across the ocean. No legal periodicals in the Macedonian language were allowed to be published, but exceptionally important mouthpieces appeared using the official languages of the countries where the Macedonians or Macedonian émigrés lived.

Some of them printed texts in Macedonian as well.

In a period of only two years, until the ‘abolition’ of the External Bureau of the Central Committee of IMRO (United), a large number of legal and illegal newspapers and journals were published in Bulgaria. In addition to Makedonsko Zname and Makedonska MladeÔ, whose last issues appeared on July 1 and May 6, 1934, respectively, when all progressive periodicals were banned in Bulgaria, in the years 1935-1936 the two most important Macedonian publications, Makedonski Vesti (January 24, 1935 – October 16, 1936)802 and, for a brief period, Makedonska Zemja (January 23 – March 18, 1936) were legally printed. Besides them, the following illegal publications also appeared: Obedinist (February 1 – July 1935), NoÔot (? – May 5, 1935), Makedonska Revoljucija (May–June 1935), Hristo Trajkov (January 1936), Bjuletin na V’trešnata Makedonska Revoljucionna Organizacija (Obedinena) (July 1936) and Makedonsko Edinstvo (October 1936).803 The people from the Pirin part of Macedonia and the émigrés in Bulgaria accepted the programme of IMRO (United) as representing their own ideals, and this organization started playing the role of a sole Macedonian communist party over the entire ethnic territory of the divided land.

Yet, taking into account the interests and integrity of the states that controlled Macedonia and due to the fact that IMRO (United) envisaged first Macedonia’s unification and only later its incorporation as a whole within a possible Balkan federation, on the insistence of the parties coming from these states and as part of the concept of a united anti-fascist front, following the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in Moscow a decision was passed on the silent ‘abolition’ of IMRO Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i …, á, 230-246; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi …, ááá, 401-458.

802D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, áá, 502-510; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Naci onal ni ot i zr az vo i l egal ni ot peÌat na VMRO(Ob)“, Razgl edi , HHHœ á, 9-10, 1993, 695-724.

803D-r

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(United) and the incorporation of its members within the parties of the corresponding countries.

The political decision on the ‘abolition’ of IMRO (United) itself remains still insufficiently studied. It can be inferred from the general platform concerning “the popular front” and the protection of the countries between which Macedonia was partitioned. The first to raise the question of the abolition of IMRO (United) was the Communist Party of Yugoslavia at its Plenum in Split, in June 1935, even before the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, even though different views were expressed during the discussion.804 It is important, however, that the Comintern itself maintained a much more careful approach concerning the question of the Macedonian national liberation struggle. Shortly after the Seventh Congress, there was a special meeting of the Balkan section of the Comintern in Moscow, where the activity of IMRO (United) was analysed. At that time this organization had stepped up even more its activity in the Aegean and, in particular, the Pirin part of Macedonia as well as among the émigrés in Europe and overseas countries. This was indeed the most fruitful period bringing the strongest affirmation of the Macedonian nation in the period between the two world wars. This activity was also developed among the Macedonians in Yugoslavia, but only through the Vardar Cultural and Educational Society in Zagreb (later in Belgrade and Skopje), and also in particular through MANAPO (the Macedonian National Movement), but with a concept of struggle extending no further than the borders of Yugoslavia, without the vision of a single Macedonian national liberation front in all the parts of the dismembered land, and without even mentioning the prospects of unification.

Even though in the autumn of 1936 IMRO (United) was severely persecuted in Bulgaria and almost ceased its public activity, we should bear in mind that it was as late as March 20, 1937, that the Executive Committee of the Comintern worked out “a new Project-directive for the tasks of the Macedonian movement”.

It was clear that the Executive Committee of the Comintern assessed that IMRO (United) was still carrying out certain activities among the Macedonians in Bulgaria and Greece, but it also explained that this organization had already been “rendered obsolete”: “The experience of the past years,” says this Project-directive, “has shown that the existence of a single Macedonian national-revolutionary organizations for the three parts of Macedonia is not expedient”, because “the concrete national demands and organizational forms of struggle of the Macedonian masses in the three parts of Macedonia are beginning to become increasingly diverse”. Therefore, 804Kost adi

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n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 236-238.

A single and independent Macedonia is the political ideal of the entire Macedonian people, towards which it has always aspired and which derives from its right to national self-determination, including secession. But to speak and write today, in the present internal and international situation, of an ‘independent Macedonia’ as a pressing task of the Macedonian nat[ional] lib[eration] movement is not expedient.

It alienates not a small number of democratic and progressive forces in the Balkan and non-Balkan countries from the Macedonian national liberation movement, which could otherwise be sympathetic, or even act as allies, to the Macedonian masses in the struggle for the enlargement of their rights and freedoms along the road of democratization of states.

The directive applied to all the parts of Macedonia and was addressed to the three communist parties, demanding from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia that it fight “for the elementary national-cultural, educational and linguistic rights and freedoms, for national equality”, but that at that stage “the slogan of political autonomy for Macedonia within the framework of the federal democratic state can be used only for the purpose of propaganda”; yet the CPY should “refrain from open interference in the Macedonian movement, from giving orders or imposing political or tactical platforms incompatible with the broad national character of this movement”.805 It was obvious that the Balkan communist parties had succeeded in persuading the Comintern that it should avoid the “parallelism” in order to strengthen “the popular front” of these countries. IMRO (United) had to disappear formally from the Macedonian political scene. It endangered the integrity of these Balkan states.

As a result, the Comintern frequently oscillated in its practical policy on this question. For example, the secretary-general of the Comintern, Georgi Dimitrov, first ordered Dimitar Vlahov not to print the already typeset material for the last issue (200) of Makedonsko Delo, the mouthpiece of IMRO (United),806 but later, immediately after the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, a Project-directive on the work of the communist parties in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece concerning the Macedonian national-revolutionary movement was issued, in which IMRO (United) was strongly supported and the appropriate communist parties were obliged to offer it assistance “in the building of a general Macedonian national revolutionary front, for the struggle against national oppression and for the self-determination of Macedonia”, recommending even the establishment of a political and organizational centre inside the land and, what was particularly significant, the publication of a central newspaper “in the Macedonian language”.807 805According

to Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 252-254.

806Di

mi t ar Vl ahov, Memoar i . P r edgovor i r edakci ja VanÒa i Kol e Ëaš ul e, S kopje, 1970, 364 and 366.

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Altogether, it seemed that the Comintern “oriented itself towards a painless, slow and unforced dissolution of IMRO (United) in all three parts of Macedonia, depriving it of its functions in the class movement”.808 The Macedonians in Bulgaria long opposed this abolition and continued to print their mouthpieces, but towards the end of 1936, when left without adequate support and after the great legal proceedings of its members and leaders, their organization had to cease its activity.

This, however, did not mean discontinuation of the struggle of the Macedonians for the achievement of their final objectives. If it was impossible for the half-underground Macedonian Literary Circle (MLK), set up as part of the editorial board of Makedonski Vesti (1936),809 to work, two years later it continued its activity as an underground Macedonian Literary Circle,810 under the leadership of Nikola Jonkov Vapcarov (1938-1941). Numerous Macedonian literary works were produced under its aegis — in both Macedonian and Bulgarian — and some of its members were later to become the founders of the Writers’ Association of Macedonia (active up to the present day) as well as founders of other scholarly and cultural institutions and associations in the liberated part of Macedonia.

It must be emphasized that the Macedonians in Bulgaria in this period made attempts at publishing a printed mouthpiece on a regular basis. They first tried to reorganize the newspaper Globus (1934-1937), but it was banned; the newspaper Goce (1938) was ready for print, but it, too, was not allowed to leave the printing shop. In 1939 there finally appeared the first (and only) number of the miscellany entitled Ilinden 1903: it, too, could not continue its existence.811 At that time progressive Macedonians abundantly used the pages of the Bulgarian progressive press, even taking over some of the periodicals (such as Literaturen Kritik).

Of special significance was the publication of individual items. Some ten collections of poetry by members of the Macedonian Literary Circle appeared, and also important studies and national-political tracts were printed, such as MakedonskitÆ slavjani (The Macedonian Slavs) by Angel Dinev (1938) and Makedonskijat v’pros i balkanskoto edinstvo (The Macedonian Question and Balkan Unity) by Kosta Lambrev (1938). Of particular importance were the publications Nacionalno-porobeni narodi i nacionalni malcinstva (Nationally807According

to Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , op. cit., 246-248.

248.

809D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Nepr eki nat kont i nui t et meÒu HáH i HH vek“, N ova Makedoni ja, Hª , 13469, 21.œ áá.1984, 6; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski l et opi s. Raskopki na l i t er at ur ni i naci onal ni t emi , áá, S kopje, 1993, 23-46.

810D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i …, á, 246-258 and 273-317; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, áá, 561-634.

811For these events, see: Ibid., 504-505.

808Ibid.,

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Subjugated Peoples and National Minorities, 1938), V’zraÔdaneto na Makedonija i Ilindenskoto v’zstanie (The Rebirth of Macedonia and the Ilinden Uprising, 1939) and Borci za nacionalna svoboda (Fighters for National Freedom, 1940) by Kosta Veselinov [as part of the K’lbo (‘Circle’) National Scientific Library], which served as genuine textbooks for the national education of the younger Macedonian generation, and it was no chance that immediately after the Liberation (1944) some of these pamphlets became the first textbooks of national history in the newly-established Macedonian schools.

And while after the establishment of Metaxas’s military-fascist dictatorship in Greece the Macedonians were unable to boast of any public accomplishments in this area, in the Vardar part of Macedonia it was in the years 1936-1941 that the major achievements were made in the affirmation of the Macedonian national literature and culture and of the Macedonian language as a literary standard. The Vardar Macedonian Society in Zagreb printed the first issue of Naš Vesnik (March 31, 1937),812 which, among other things, printed poetry in the mother tongue, but it was banned from the very outset. Shortly thereafter, the journal LuÌ (19371938)813 began to be printed in Skopje, publishing a large number of poems in Macedonian, the play PeÌalbari (Migrant Workers) by Anton Panov and other materials of major significance to Macedonian literary and cultural history. When this periodical, too, was suppressed, in Maribor there appeared the first and only number of the newspaper JuÔna Stvarnost (1939).814 The unofficial mouthpiece of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia, Naša ReÌ (19391941), started appearing somewhat earlier.815 Despite its being frequently banned and persecuted, this periodical played an important role in the preparation of Macedonian young people from this part of Macedonia for the approaching fateful events.

In addition to these legal publications, this was the period which saw the publication of the first underground periodicals in the Macedonian language: Bilten, mouthpiece of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia (July 20 – October 30, 1940)816 and Iskra, mouthpiece of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia (January 1941).817 Following Misirkov’s Vardar (1905) and the Veles newspaper Iskra (1922),818 these periBl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i …, á, 264-266 and áá 168-170.

I, 70-77 and 266-271.

814I van Kat ar xi ev, Bor ba do pobeda, ᜠ. S t udi i i st at i i , 537-559.

815D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i …, á, 273-272; D. Al eksi Î, ,,N aš a r eÌ“ 1939-1941.

Od i st or i jat a na napr edni ot peÌat vo Makedoni ja, Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1960.

816I l egal ni ot peÌat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja…, 101-194.

817Ibid., 197-222.

818D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n …, 47-48.

812D-r

813Ibid.,

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odicals continued the tendency towards the establishment of a Macedonian press in the Macedonian language. Their significance was even greater as they managed to maintain that tradition in the period of the National Liberation War and maintain the continuity of ideology and practice in the building of the modern printed word.

This was also a time when the Macedonian language in the Vardar section of Macedonia was in widespread literary use. This tendency was best reflected in drama (Vasil Iljoski, Anton Panov, Risto Krle, Radoslav Petkovski, etc.), and the Skopje State Theatre staged several plays in the native tongue.819 Poetry was also an important medium: a pleiad of mostly young writers started publishing poems in progressive Yugoslav periodicals,820 and the first collections of poetry appeared: Idi prolet (The Spring is Coming) by VolÌe NaumÌeski (1939)821 and Beli mugri (White Dawns) by KoÌo Racin (1939).822 This was a period when the Macedonian literary word established itself with its artistic achievements, experiencing a great affirmation and merging into the currents of the National Liberation War, when the first books in the history of free Macedonian literature were printed.

The Macedonian émigré community always played an important part in the liberation struggle of the Macedonian people. In the 1930s, Macedonian émigrés in North and South America played a particularly significant role. Such a journalistic activity developed there that it occupies a special place in the history of the Macedonian press.823 Of all émigré publications, the journal Makedonsko Delo (1925-1935), the official mouthpiece of IMRO (United) printed in Europe, had the greatest significance and impact. Of the periodicals published across the Ocean, we should mention Makedonski Bjuletin (1930-1931), the first mouthpiece of the Macedonian progressive movement in America. After the founding congress of the Macedonian People’s League of America, the monthly Balkansko SdruÔenie (1931-1934) started its publication. Precisely at the moment when the newspaper Makedonsko Zname was banned in Sofia, after the crucial fourth congress of the Macedonian People’s League in Chicago, starting from July 1, 1934, there appeared probably the most important mouthpiece of Macedonian émigrés in Amer819Al

eksandar Al eksi ev, Osnovopol oÔ ni ci na makedonskat a dr amskat a l i t er at ur a, áá dopol net o i zdani e, Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1976.

820D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r aÔ uvawa i mat er i jal i , á-áá, Mi sl a, S kopje, 1980.

821Vol Ìe NaumÌeski , S t i hovi (1939-1941). Redakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S t udent ski zbor , S kopje, 1979.

822KoÌo Raci n, Bel i mugr i . P r edgovor , i zbor , bel eš ki i r edakci ja Al eksandar S pasov, Mi sl a, S kopje, 1981.

823For more details concerning this activity see: D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, áá, 511-522.

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ica, Trudova Makedonija (1934-1938), which, in addition to Makedonsko Delo, was the only Macedonian periodical at that time which openly and freely propagated the Macedonian nation and national culture, including the Macedonian language. It continued to appear even after IMRO (United) was ‘abolished’ and its mouthpieces banned, and became the sole banner under which Macedonians from all parts of the divided fatherland gathered, where activists from the Balkans cooperated and where the most important documents of the Macedonian progressive movement of the period were published, including the article ‘Why We Macedonians are a Separate Nation’, under the pseudonym Bistriški (Vasil Ivanovski).824 Trudova Makedonija became a transmitter of the authentic ideology of the Macedonian people for a free and united Macedonian republic. Yet at that time the platform of Trudova Makedonija was not acceptable to the Comintern, and at the conference of the Bulgarian-Macedonian Workers’ Educational Clubs in the USA, in Detroit, on January 30, 1938, the Macedonian newspaper Trudova Makedonija and the Bulgarian S’znanie were united into a single and joint “newspaper of the Bulgarians and Macedonians in America” under the new name Narodna Volja (February 11, 1938 – 1978). This mouthpiece continued to unite journalists and associates from all three parts of Macedonia and to cultivate the ideology of the previous newspaper. It continued to publish highly important documents of the Macedonian liberation movement which could not be printed in the Balkans, making it possible for them to reach the international public.825 The impact of these periodicals was even greater considering the fact that some articles were published in both English and Macedonian.

There were also other Macedonian periodicals published by the Macedonian émigré community, such as Proletersko Delo (Toronto, 1934-1935), Edinstvo (Toronto, 1936-1940) and Narodna Tribuna (Buenos Aires, 1936-1939), but the most important seems to have been “the mouthpiece of the Macedonian progressive group in Buenos Aires, Argentina”, Makedonski Glas (1935-1939), which in South America was what Trudova Makedonija was in the northern part of the continent.

Besides these periodicals, we should also mention the annual collections published after each congress of the Macedonian People’s League, bringing articles of major historical significance for the affirmation of Macedonian national and cultural thinking and action. We should also point out that the Macedonian People’s League issued other publications, some of them in English.

824Tr udova Makedoni

ò, á, 6, Det r oi t , Dekem. 1934, 4-5.

825Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,I l i nden vo peÌat ot na makedonskat a emi gr aci ja“, in: P r i l ozi za I l i nden, œ , Bi t ol a–Kr uš evo, 1983, 230-235.

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In conclusion, we can say that the Macedonian national development was able to maintain a line of full continuity. In their authentic struggle for national affirmation the Macedonians found individuals and organizations that offered them precious support, but the Resolution of the Comintern in early 1934 was undoubtedly the most important act contributing to the international affirmation of the Macedonian national identity. It gave the Macedonian national liberation movement a new dimension, which led to the full establishment of Macedonian as a literary standard, of Macedonian literature in the native tongue and of the Macedonian nation and culture in all its aspects. The Resolution was a document that sanctioned the reality of the Macedonian national consciousness and helped its affirmation in an effective way. From this point to the Second Ilinden there was no other road for the Macedonians. The task was to be completed, although with some compromises, at the First Session of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia on August 2, 1944.

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The National Liberation Programmes of the Macedonian Movement in Progressive Émigré Circles (1934-1941)

Our research into Macedonian progressive émigré circles has shown that there are no relevant grounds for assuming that there was a single Macedonian progressive movement in the form of an association, organization or institution. It was actually a conglomerate of social, political, cultural and national activities in all the environments of the heterogeneous Macedonian émigré community throughout the world in the 1930s. When speaking of the programme principles of the Macedonian progressive movement in emigration, we refer, above all, to the Macedonians in Bulgaria,826 and also to those in Europe and across the Ocean — in the United States, Canada, Argentina and Uruguay.827 Specific centres were set up there acting as organizational cores which, through their programmatic action, exerted influence outside their geographical environments as well. Here we must not forget the Macedonian fighters in the international brigades in Spain, which, as a distinct organized national group consisting of people from all the parts of Macedonia, appeared as a single national entity before the international and Macedonian public.828 We must also bear in mind that, in one or another way, all these progressive émigré circles were rather close to the ideology and programmes of workers’ or communist movements, which operated largely under the direct or 826As

there was a large number of active and revolutionary Macedonian émigrés living in Bulgaria after the Congress of Berlin up to the Balkan Wars, they always felt themselves and insisted on being treated as émigrés (‘émigré community’). This situation continued even after 1918, when a section of Macedonia came within the frontiers of this monarchy, and even today we refer to the Macedonians who lived in the period between the world wars, for instance, in Sofia, as Macedonian émigrés, and yet we do not use the same term for those living, for example, in Belgrade, even though their position was identical.

827D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, áá, S kopje, 511-522; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi …, ááá, 502-532; Mi l e Mi hajl ov i Mi hajl o Geor gi evski , ,,P ol i t i Ìkat a akt i vnost na Makedonski ot nar oden sojuz vo S AD i Kanada od 1928 do 1935 godi na“, Gl asni k, Hœ , 1, S kopje, 1971, 105-136.

828D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa. P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1983, 304-348; Or de I vanoski , ,,Vesni kot ,Tr udova Makedoni ja‘ za Š panskat a gr aÒanska vojna (1936-1939)“, N ova Makedoni ja, 15-19.ᜠ.1987.

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indirect control of the Comintern. And the Macedonian people saw very early on that the sole hope for their liberation and unification was in that orientation, even though from a historical point of view, the national rather than the class question was of foremost significance to them.

1.

Due to the inaccessibility of relevant archive sources (primarily in Sofia and Moscow), in the gathering of facts and information we have relied mainly on available printed materials and also on the contemporary Macedonian and other progressive press of the period in question, which reflected the ideology and national concepts of the Macedonian progressive movement accurately and in great detail. This means that we have used approximately twenty Macedonian legal and underground periodical publications which we have been able to consult in our country, in Sofia and in Moscow.829 A general characteristic of the Macedonian progressive émigré community in this period was the coordination of its political programme with the lines of development of the progressive movement in the world and particularly in the Balkans, guided from a single centre — the Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation as its branch until the time of its modification. Hence it is small surprise that the same articles were re-printed in different Macedonian publications.830 Yet the practical aspects of the national programme of this movement among the Macedonian progressive émigré community bore certain differences depending on the environment and concrete historical circumstances. Typical examples of this are the various resolutions, declarations, announcements, conclusions and similar documents published in these periodicals, from which the general development of Macedonian progressive liberation thought and action can be followed.

An essential and common characteristic which must be emphasized is the fact that the Macedonian progressive émigré community was organized and acted as a single organism, with no divisions or barriers depending on the place of origin of its individual members whatsoever. It was a united Macedonian progressive émigré community and its goals and tasks stemmed from its powerful patriotism and ideology.

We take the year 1934 as crucial, as it marked a turning point in the evolution of the Macedonian national liberation movement. It was by no means dictated from Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, áá, 502-527. For some of these publications, only individual numbers, years or contributions were available to us.

829D-r 830Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,I l i nden vo peÌat ot na makedonskat a emi gr aci ja“, in: P r i l ozi za I l i nden, œ , Bi t ol a–Kr uš evo, 1983, 227.

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outside, but was actually the result of internal developments and the degree of maturity of the Macedonian national question. Even though Macedonian national thought had developed uninterruptedly from as early as the 1840s,831 and even though the Macedonian progressive press had written about this aspect much earlier,832 underlining its basic principles in 1933,833 we must, however, bear in mind that it was in January 1934 that the Executive Committee of the Comintern sanctioned the official acknowledgement of the Macedonian national individuality. This encouraged the free development of Macedonian national thought and facilitated its actions, and defined the conditions for support to the communist parties in the countries controlling the respective parts of Macedonia. In some parts of the land in particular, IMRO (United) was welcomed and accepted by the masses of the people and by the Macedonian émigré community as a Macedonian communist organization or party (which had even earlier led to some intense discussions within the Communist Party of Yugoslavia).834 Macedonian communists seemed to show greater enthusiasm in becoming members of IMRO (United) rather than of the communist parties of the countries in which they lived. This caused the reaction of these communist parties and was largely responsible for the proclamation of the principle of preservation of the Versailles borders, which coincided with the emergence of aggressive fascism that posed a threat to the “first socialist state”.

In accordance with this principle, the slogan of independent Macedonia was changed into the slogan of a Balkan Federation. It seemed rather utopian, and in 1934 a new slogan was formulated for the struggle for cultural and national autonomy of the parts of Macedonia within the countries controlling it. This was aimed to contribute to the easier creation of conditions for cooperation and unity in the struggle of the Balkan workers’ and peasants’ movement, which would lead to the laying of foundations for the proclamation of people’s republics, and only later, following the victory of the proletariat in all the Balkan states, could one think of the unification of the parts of Macedonia into a single and individual republic within the future federation. It was then that the slogan of the creation of a Piedmont was raised — regardless of the country in which historical circumstances would lead to the creation of that “Piedmont autonomy” first. It was believed that the most favourable conditions for achieving this aim at that moment were to be found in the Pirin part of Macedonia, which still manifested some Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja…, á, 1983, 163-280.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , op. cit., áá, 528-549.

833Makedonsko zname, áá, 17, S of i ò, 14.Háá.1933, 2.

834I zvor i za i st or i jat a na S KM. Dokument i i mat er i jal i 1921-1941, á, 2. Redakci ja, pr evod i koment ar i I van Kat ar xi ev, S kopje, 1985, 38-39, 183-184, 224-228 and 278.

831D-r 832D-r

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‘autonomist’ tendencies, and some form of Macedonian patriotism was being intensively built up there.

Yet when the Plenum of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Split posed the question of the preservation of the Versailles borders,835 it was, naturally, accepted by the rest of the Balkan communist parties. At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern that line became imperative for the communist movement in general, which was now made part, through a directive, of the organized antifascist popular front. The Macedonian progressive émigré community was also included in that concept, and IMRO (United) was sacrificed, to the great relief of some Balkan communist parties,836 even though this party offered certain resistance and postponed its removal from the political scene.837 It is interesting, however, that even when IMRO (United) was removed, its ideology continued to exist, particularly within the Macedonian People’s League of America (United States and Canada), within the Macedonian progressive groups in South America and on the Spanish antifascist front. Thus, even within the framework of the proclamation of the antifascist popular front, which was accepted by the Macedonian progressive movement, the traditional concept of the unity of the Macedonian national front was retained, embodying the slogan of a united, general, Macedonian national liberation and antifascist front.838 It is also interesting that all programme documents emphasized that the Macedonian progressive émigré community by no means abandoned the idea of the unification of the land and the people as their final objective and programme task, and that due to the historical circumstances alone they released that task from prompt operative action.839 They did the same at the moments when this movement 835P r egl

ed na i st or i jat a na S ojuzot na komuni st i t e na Jugosl avi ja, S kopje, 1963, 232-233; Dr Ivan JeliÚ, KomunistiÌka partija Hrvatske 1937-1941, Zagreb, 1972, 57; Vl adi mi r Kar t ov, ,,Tr et manot na makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe vo pol i t i Ìkat a pl at f or ma na KP J vo t ekot na 1935-1936 godi na“, I st or i ja, HHá, 2, S kopje, 1985, 192-193.

836BlaÔe Ristovski, “The 1934 Comintern resolution on the Macedonian nation and language in the development of Macedonian national culture”, Review, XXX (1), INH, Skopje, 1986, 112-114.

837D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 492-501; see also: Kost adi n P al eš ut ski , Æ gosl avskat a komuni st i Ìeska par t i ò i makedonski òt vï pr os 1919-1945, S of i ò, 1985, 246-254.

838K. Lambr evï , ,,Kakvo i ska makedonski òt ï nar odï ot ï pr ogr esi vnat a obë est venost Å“, N ar odna vol ò, á, 48, Det r oi t ï , 6.á.1939, 1 and 3; ,,Edno i zl oÔ eni e“, N ar odna vol ò, á, 48, Det r oi t ï , 6.á.1939, 2; Vl . Mar Ìï , ,,Do ger oi t õ na Makedoni ò“, N ar odna vol ò, á, 50, 20.á.1939, 3; ,,Makedonski òt ï vï pr osï na evr opeàskat a scena“, N ar odna vol ò, á, 51, 27.á.1939, 3; ,,I l i ndenci do ,Nar odna vol ò‘“, N ar odna vol ò, áá, 2, 17.áá.1939, 1.

839This was particularly clearly formulated by the secretary of the Macedonian People’s League of America, Geo Pirinski (,,Novot o pol oÔ eni e na Bal kani t õ i r eal nat a post anovka na mal ci nst veni ò vï pr osï “, N ar odna vol ò, áá, 10, 14.ᜠ.1939, 1-2), at the moment when Hitler occupied Austria and invaded Czechoslovakia. “It is clear,” wrote Pirinski, “that a Joint Balkan Bloc against the incursion of Hitler can be strong only if oppressed peoples and minorities, such as the Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Slovenes, etc., actively join it. But these Balkan peoples and minorities

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insisted on unification with the entire Macedonian émigré community in general, offering this option, for instance, to the Macedonian political organizations in the United States and Canada.840 Thanks to all these circumstances, when fascism led to the outbreak of the Second World War the Macedonian progressive émigré community, together with the progressive forces inside Macedonia, joined the united Balkan antifascist bloc.841 will still hesitate to take part in such a Joint Balkan Bloc if they are not granted certain rights, if their position is not made easier. Therefore democratic forces in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania are raising as their chief internal slogan the struggle for equal democratic rights of all peoples and minorities in Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. This means that Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek democratic movements and forces will fight in their countries so that democratic rights and freedoms as regards language, schools, churches, press, organizations, etc. may be granted to the Macedonians, Croats, Montenegrins, Slovenes, etc. Yet this struggle for equal democratic rights of the Macedonians, Croats, Montenegrins, etc. will be the more successful the sooner the Macedonians, Croats, etc. themselves take a more active part in it.” The author continued by writing imperatively: “Today the Macedonians and Croats should not raise as a main slogan the struggle for their final goal — full national independence or full autonomy — and put the achievement of these slogans as a condition for their participation in the democratic front of the Balkan countries or for their participation in the Joint Balkan Bloc against Hitler’s campaign in the Balkans, because if they posed that question in such a manner at the present political moment, they would not only fail to help the early establishment of the Joint Balkan Bloc and democratic front of popular forces in the countries themselves, but on the contrary — with these slogans for their final goal they would encumber the struggle for a Joint Balkan Bloc and would aid the German imperialist incursion. The final goal of the Macedonian and Croatian national liberation movements — full national independence — will be achieved the sooner the Macedonians and Croats take active part now in the struggle for equal rights of all peoples and minorities in the Balkan countries and also in the building of the Joint Balkan Bloc against Hitler’s incursion. Many Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks, who are now ready and are fighting together with the Macedonians and Croats for equal rights, have still not reached the stage of helping and taking an active part in the struggle of the Croats and Macedonians for full autonomy and national independence. These Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbs will most quickly come to an understanding of the final goals of the national liberation movements of the oppressed peoples and minorities in their countries through the struggle for equal rights.”

840,,Š est i ò kongr es na S ï ô za. Dokl ad na C .K. na M.N.S . po deànost a na obedi neni et o na makedonskat a emi gr aci ò“, Dokl adÌi k – Geo P i r i nski . Tr udova Makedoni ò, ááá, 1, Det r oi t , 15.œ áá.1936, 1-5; ááá, 2, 30.œ áá.1936, 4-5; ááá, 3, 15.œ ááá.1936, 4-5 and 7; ááá, 4, 30.œ ááá.1936, 4-5 and 7; D. Todor ov, ,,Edi nst vo!“, Tr udova Makedoni ò, ᜠ, 7, 15.H.1937; ,,C ent r al ni ò Komi t et ï na Makedonski ò Nar odenï S ï ô zï , S .A.ê . Dekl ar aci ò vï r hu t ekuë i t e sï bi t i ò i pr edst oòë i t e zadaÌi pr edï makedonci t e vï Amer i ka“, N ar odna vol ò, ááá, 4, 1.ááá.1940; ,,C ent r al ni ò Komi t et ï na Makedonski ò Nar odenï S ï ô zï , S .A.ê . Rezol ô ci ò vï r hu bor bat a za edi nst vo na makedonci t e vï Amer i ka“, N ar odna vol ò, ááá, 5, 8.ááá.1940, 1; ,,Edi nst vo za svobodat a na Makedoni ò!“, N ar odna vol ò, ááá, 9, 1940, 2; ,,Da zaë i t i mï pr avot o na makedonski ò nar odï da se bor i za svobodat a si !“, N ar odna vol ò, áá, 10, 14.ᜠ.1940, 3; A.M., ,,Makedonskot o edi nst vo“, N ar odna vol ò, ááá, 24, 1940, 1; ,,Apel a na zagor i Ìani za makedonskot o edi nst vo“, N ar odna vol ò, ááá, 7, 22.ááá.1940, 3; ,,Naci onal ni ò Komi t et ï na Makedono-Amer i kanski ò Nar odenï S ï ô zï pr edl aga na C ent r al ni ò Komi t et ï na Makedonski t e P ol i t i Ìeski Or gani zaci i obë a akci ò. Vï zaë i t a na Makedoni ò“, N ar odna vol ò, ᜠ, 6, 14.ááá.

1941, 2.

841The president of the Macedonian People’s League, Smile Vojdanov, signed an important document (,,Ger manskot o naš est vi e na Bal kani t e ne nosi osvoboÔ deni e, a novo i oë e po-Ìer no r obst vo i za Makedoni ò. Edno vaÔ no komô ni ke na Makedono-Amer i kanski ò Nar odenï S ï ô zï do amer i kanskat a pr esa“, N ar odna vol ò, ᜠ, 11, 18.ᜠ.1941, 1 and 3) that ended with the

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For almost the entire duration of the war Macedonia acted as an individual factor, but not putting special emphasis on the element of unification until the victory of this bloc in the Balkans was achieved. It thus found itself in a situation to wage a joint struggle without a single national leadership, cut up into four insufficiently coordinated segments.842 This is what largely frustrated or at least lessened the prospects of the struggle for the final equitable and fair solution to the ‘Macedonian question’ as a whole.

2.

In the course of this period the Macedonian progressive movement waged a purposeful struggle for the development and affirmation of Macedonian national thought and culture. Various legal forms of activity were established: societies, circles, committees, theatres, libraries, reading clubs, etc. Some existing associations of Macedonian émigrés headed by people outside the movement were also used. As a result, in various places in Bulgaria843 and America844 (as was indeed the case within Macedonia, too), theatre groups were established performing plays in the Macedonian language, which dealt with subjects from the life and struggle of the Macedonian people and which met with a widespread and favourable reception in the émigré circles. A new Macedonian National Theatre was founded in Sofia845 and the play Makedonska krvava svadba (Macedonian Blood Wedding) by Vojdan Ëernodrinski was again staged, the author having made considerable changes in the text.846 following words: “Since the Balkan Wars in 1912/13 the Macedonian people has suffered extreme injustice under the triple oppression of the reactionary and pro-fascist leaders in Athens, Sofia and Belgrade. The Macedonians, however, know that their future as a free people lies not in joining Hitler and Mussolini, who are devastating the Macedonian villages and towns, nor in the opposite camp which in 1919 agreed to the partition of Macedonia among the three Balkan states, but that it lies in the understanding and joint struggle of the Balkan peoples for a Democratic Federation of Free Balkan Peoples’ Republics.”

842D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest . P r i l ozi za r azvi t okot na makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na mi sl a, á, S kopje, 1987, 381-392; see also the discussion in: A S N OM vo sozdavawet o na dr Ô avat a na makedonski ot nar od, MANU, S kopje, 1987, 442-450; Kol e Ëaš ul e, Zapi si za naci jat a i l i t er at ur at a, S kopje, 1985, 164-185.

843Makedonski vest i , á, 2, S of i ò, 2.áá.1935, [9]; á, 3, 9.áá.1935, 8; á, 9, 23.ááá.1935, 7; Makedonska zemò, á, 1, S of i ò, 23.á.1936, 8.

844Tr udova Makedoni ò, ááá, 13, 15.á.1937, 1 (pi esat a KovaÌi t e); ááá, 14, 30.á.1937, 1 (dr amat a Upor i t i ot ) and 3 (S l avnat a pet or ka).

845Makedonski vest i , áá, 65, 5.œ ááá.1936, 3; áá, 66, 12.œ ááá.1936, 4.

846Makedonski vest i , áá, 65, 4.ááá.1936, 12; Vojdan Ëer nodr i nski , S obr ani del a. P r i r edi l Al eksandar Al eksi ev, á, S kopje, 1976, 262-264.

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The activity of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia (1936-1941) was of special significance for the historical development of the Macedonians.847 It was undoubtedly the most important cultural and national Macedonian association of Macedonians from all parts of Macedonia in the inter-war period. It was based on a broad concept and not only united literary authors, but also promoted Macedonian arts, criticism, science and political thought — supporting the aims of the national liberation struggle.

Here we must underline the fact that, in all these events and manifestations, the national aspect was treated with a highly-developed consciousness of the Macedonian individuality. It was no chance that Makedonski Vesti re-printed three times the facsimile of the front page of the journal Makedonskij Golos (Makedonski Glas)848 of Dimitrija Ëupovski and of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg/Petrograd. The same reprint could be found in the pages of the congress collection of the Macedonian People’s League of America in 1937.849 It was also not by chance that, in his pamphlet Makedonskata prerodba i Ilindenskoto vostanie (The Macedonian Revival and the Ilinden Uprising, 1939), the prominent Macedonian national activist Kosta Veselinov put Krste Misirkov in the foremost place among the Macedonian cultural and national activists of the past.850 Misirkov’s book Za makedonckite raboti was copied and studied in the Macedonian Literary Circle, and sections of these copies were sent to Belgrade to be studied by the Macedonian students there,851 while in 1940 the members of the Circle visited Misirkov’s wife in Sofia, and Kole Nedelkovski wrote in a letter with programmatic overtones to Misirkov’s son, Dr Sergej Misirkov, that the Macedonian Literary Circle wanted to present the biography and activity of his praiseworthy father to the Macedonian public.852 847Mi

hai l S mat r akal ev, ,,Duš at a na Makedonski ò l i t er at ur en kr ï Ô ok“, P i r i nsko del o, œ , 30, G. DÔ umaò, 24.œ áá.1947, 4; Mi hai l S mat r akal ev in: N i kol a ä onkov Vapcar ov. S pomeni , pi sma, dokument i , BAN, S of i ò, 1953, 159-171; Di mi t ar Mi t r ev, Makedonski ot l i t er at ur en kr uÔ ok, Bi bl i ot eka ,,S ovr emenost “, kn. 37, S kopje, 1977; Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,P r i l og kon makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja. Makedonski ot jazi k vo l i t er at ur na upot r eba i l i t er at ur at a na Makedonci t e pi š uvana na t uÒi jazi ci (áá)“, S ovr emenost , Hᜠ, 5, S kopje, 1964, 509-530; Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,P ogl ed kon naci onal nat a akt i vnost na Ni kol a Vapcar ov i na Makedonski ot l i t er at ur en kr uÔ ok vo S of i ja“, S ovr emenost , HHH, 1, 1980, 40-50: Gane Todor ovski , ,,40 godi ni od f or mi r awet o na Makedonski ot l i t er at ur en kr uÔ ok vo S of i ja (1938-1978). Bl eskavo pogl avje vo naš at a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja“. S t r emeÔ , HHHááá, 1, P r i l ep, 1979, 83-95.

848Makedonski vest i , á, 26, 20.œ áá.1935, 5; á, 29, 7.œ ááá.1935, 9; áá, 59, 24.œ á.1936, 1.

849Dokl ad na C ent r al ni ò komi t et na Makedonski ò nar oden sï ô z pr ed del egat i t e na S edmi ò godi š en kongr es, v Ger i , I ndi ana, na 5, 6 i 7 sept emvr i , 1937 god., 32.

850Kost a Vesel i novï , Vï zr aÔ danet o na Makedoni ò i I l i ndenskot o vï zst ani e, S of i ò, 1939, 32.

851According to Mitko Zafirovski’s words in Skopje, in 1961.

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In the same spirit, as early as 1934, in his article on the Macedonian national individuality853 (as well as in his pamphlet published two years later),854 Bistricki (Bistriški, Vasil Ivanovski) put particular emphasis on the cornerstone achievements of the ‘Lozars’, Teodosija Skopski (Gologanov) and Petar Poparsov, together with the impressive Ilinden traditions which continually inspired the intellectual potential of our émigrés in this period. The activity was thus consciously directed towards the establishment of the indispensable historical continuity of the Macedonian national and cultural development, without which the success of the national liberation struggle was inconceivable.

Only if we look at the entire activity of the Macedonian progressive émigré community through this prism can we understand the tactful endeavours of its printed mouthpieces (Makedonski Vesti, Makedonska Zemja, Goce, Ilinden 1903, etc.) to publish as many texts as possible on Macedonian national history and, in particular, Macedonian revolutionary history, and thus to contribute with an active and concentrated effort to the building and animation of Macedonian historical consciousness. Hence the editor of Makedonski Vesti, Angel Dinev, in each issue of his periodical had regular columns presenting texts from the Macedonian past, and as early as 1936 he officially announced the publication of his distinguished monograph Ilindenska epopeja (The Ilinden Epic),855 even though its first volume was published only after the Second World War (1945),856 and its second volume could only be printed in 1949 in the free section of his fatherland.857 For these reasons, Dinev published parts of his book Makedonskite Sloveni (The Macedonian Slavs) as articles in 1935-1936, and it was printed separately as an organic whole only as late as 1938,858 playing a historic role in the affirmation of the 852D-r

S er gej Mi si r kov, ,,Mal i spomeni za Kol e Nedel kovski i Ni kol a Vapcar ov“, Repor t er , á, 10, S kopje, 9.Há.1955, 4; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Kol e Nedel kovski za del ot o na Mi si r kov.

Test ament al ni por aki “, L I K, œ ááá, 262, 16.ááá.1994, 13.

853Bi st r i š ki , ,,Zaë o ni e makedonci t e sme ot del na naci ò?“, in: Ëet vï r t i ò kongr es na Makedonski ò nar oden sï ô z v A mer i ka, Det r oi t , 1934, 42-55.

854Bi st r i cki , Makedonskat a naci ò, S of i ò, 1936. We have not had the opportunity of examining the pamphlet, but we know of it from the unsigned review by its editor, Dr N. Minkov (D-r N. Mi nkov, ,,Makedonska naci ò“, N aci ò i pol i t i ka, áá, 5, S of i ò, Æ ni –avgust 1936, 148-149).

855Makedonski vest i , áá, 73, 8.H.1936, 3.

856Angel Di nev, I l i ndenska epopeò (Razvoò na maked. osvobodi t el no dvi Ô eni e), t om á, S of i ò y.a. (but according to the writing of the author himself on the non-paginated page 440, it must have been published after October 11, 1945).

857Angel Di nev, I l i ndenska epopea, del áá, S kopje, 1949.

858Angel ï Di nevï , ,,Makedonski t õ sl avòni “, Makedonski vest i , áá, 69, 3.áH.1936, 4; áá, 70, 10.áH.1936, 4; áá, 71, 17.áH.1936, 4; áá, 73, 8.H.1936, 2; áá, 74, 16.H.1936, 4. Due to the newspaper’s being banned, the text was not completed. It was published in its entirety as a separate booklet: Angel ï Di nevï , Makedonski t õ sl avòni , S of i ò, 1938, 72.

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Macedonian historical and national consciousness and in the organized activity of the Macedonian progressive émigré community for the liberation cause.859 All these and other actions and acts by the Macedonian progressive movement made it possible to define more clearly the national liberation concept of the Macedonian people and to incorporate this consciousness and will into the Second Ilinden (in spite of all the obstacles presented from outside), as reflected in the documents of the First Session of the Antifascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia (1944).

859Api

sï [Vasi l Haxi ki mov], S Ã ë est vuva l i makedonska naci ò, S of i ò, 1939, s. 46; S t .

BoòdÔ i evï , S Ã ë est vuva l i makedonska naci ò?, S of i ò, 1940, s. 39.

335

Macedonian Cultural and National Thought and Action in the Period between the Two World Wars

Immediately after the Treaty of Versailles, the Macedonian forces of all factions consolidated themselves and continued the struggle for liberation in the new circumstances. They soon began to differentiate themselves into two basic currents: the ‘right’ (headed by IMRO and the Executive Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods) and the ‘left’ (headed by adherents of progressive movements).

Both fought for a united Macedonian state, but with different means and on different platforms: IMRO continued its revolutionary and terrorist activity, with a compromise national policy serving Bulgarian revanchist policy, while the Macedonian progressive movement saw its prospects in the unification of liberation forces around the ‘leftist’ programme platform which had Balkan connotations and enjoyed international support, and respected the centuries-old aspirations of the Macedonian people.

In late April and early May 1924 a serious attempt was made at unifying the shattered Macedonian liberation movement, and a Declaration was signed which stressed that the movement “fights for the liberation and unification of the dismembered parts of Macedonia into a fully individual (independent) political unit, within its natural ethnic and geographical borders”.860 This was also confirmed in the Minutes of the meeting of representatives from the Central Committee of IMRO and the Central Committee of the Macedonian Émigré Federal Organization of April 30.861 May 6, 1924 was the date when the “Manifesto to the Macedonian people, to the organized revolutionary population of Macedonia and to the Macedonian revolutionaries” was signed, a document which elaborated in the most comprehensive and accurate way the same programmatic orientation as “the first and the most decisive step in the creation of the indispensable favourable atmosphere for the convocation in the near future of a unifying congress of the entire Macedonian revolutionary movement, where, with the efforts of all sincere Macedonian revolutionaries, a united Macedonian revolutionary front will be created, which, in close cooperation with all progressive-revolutionary movements 860I

zmenni ci t e na makedonskot o del o, P r aga, 1926, 53.

861Ibid.,

336

55-56.

in the Balkans and in Europe, will win freedom and independence for Macedonia, and which will impose the establishment of the Balkan federation and secure peace in the Balkans — in order to help the establishment of peace in the whole of Europe”.862 The federalist concepts on the solution of the ‘Macedonian question’ were deeply instilled in the consciousness of the Macedonians, as the unification of partitioned Macedonia could only be achieved within a federal or confederal framework. As a result, Dimitrija Ëupovski once again appealed: “We defend the independence of Macedonia together with the idea of the establishment of a Balkan People’s Federal Republic as an indispensable condition.”863 In those years Krste Misirkov came to the same conclusion, even though it concerned only the partial settlement of the ‘Macedonian question’ in the separate parts of Macedonia. Seeing the unprecedented terror of the Serbian authorities over the Macedonian population in Yugoslavia, he proclaimed: “Not simply putting one’s signature in the name of unity, but a federation of regions and nationalities in the name of freedom and equality can save Yugoslavia from inevitable disaster.”864 Misirkov was above all interested in the human and national rights of the Macedonians and sought means for the establishment of peace in the Balkans. Aware that “the road to mediaeval rivalries between the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs for domination and hegemony in the Balkans leads only through Macedonia,” Misirkov warned: “Only through the unification of all Macedonians in the three Macedonias and of all the émigrés in the four neighbouring Balkan capitals and in America, with a joint programme for making Macedonia a Switzerland in the Balkans, where every municipality will have a right to national and religious self-determination, will a stop be put to Balkan and general European rivalry for hegemony in the Balkans. It is only in an independent Macedonia that the guarantee lies for the pacification of the Near East, and through it, of the whole of Europe.”865 As the Balkan Communist Federation was set up and became active in the meantime — envisaging, among other things, a united republic of Macedonia in the planned federal state — the Macedonians saw their future in the communist movement, which was the only movement to promise liberation together with national self-determination and unification. It was on these premises that, in October 1925, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) was 862La

Fédération Balkanique, á, 1, 15.œ áá.1924, 16.

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja Ëupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauÌno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad, áá, S kopje, 1978, 329.

864K. Mi si r kovï , ,,S ï r bi t õ i i l i ndenskat a 20-godi š ni na“, I l i ndenÅ, ááá, 23, S of i ò, 26.œ áá.1923, 2.

865K. Mi si r kovï , ,,I zhodï t ï “, P i r i nï , á, 8, S of i ò, 2.Háá.1923, 1.

863D-r

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established, which immediately started publishing its mouthpiece, Makedonsko Delo. It was a national organization that united “all the revolutionary Macedonian forces of different orientations and nuances on the basis of the principles and ideas contained in the essentials of the Manifesto of May 6, 1924”.866 Article 1 of the Constitution of IMRO (United) said that the Organization “has the task of achieving the freedom and independence of Macedonia within its geographical and economic borders, and making an autonomous political unit of it, which, as an equal member, will be a constituent part of the future Balkan federation”.867 For more than a decade IMRO (United) was the pillar around which Macedonian liberation action was organized over the whole ethnic territory of Macedonia, through the activity of special regional committees.

The activity of the Macedonian student groups in the various centres of the Balkans and in Europe was of particular significance in this period. The most important among these were the Goce DelÌev Macedonian Popular Student Group in Sofia (1930-1934),868 which published as its mouthpieces Makedonski Studentski List, Makedonska Studentska Tribuna and Makedonska MladeÔ, and actively participated in writing articles for the unifying mouthpieces Makedonsko Zname (1932-1934), Makedonski Vesti (1935-1936), Makedonska Zemja (1936), etc., and the Vardar Cultural-Educational Society in Zagreb (1935-1938),869 which later developed its own important branches in Belgrade and Skopje, and whose printed mouthpiece became Naš Vesnik (1937), banned after its first issue.

The activity of the Literary Group in Skopje (1931-1933), which gathered mostly progressive writers, was similar. Shortly thereafter this group gave birth to the revolutionary-conspiratorial Macedonian Youth Revolutionary Organization (known under its acronym, MORO, 1933-1934),870 which swiftly spread its activity over almost the entire territory of the Vardar section of Macedonia and based its operation on the platform of the May Manifesto, but only within the frontiers of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In addition to the writing of literature in the native Macedonian tongue, MORO’s young revolutionaries made efforts to get 866Makedonsko

del o, á, 15, 10.ᜠ.1926, 5.

(Obedi net a) Dokument i i mat er i jal i , á. I zbor , r edakci ja i koment ar I van Kat ar xi ev, S kopje, 1991, 89.

868S t udent sko zname, áá, 4, S of i ò, 20.Háá.1930; Makedonski st udent ski l i st ï , á, 1, S of i ò, 4.Háá.1931, 1-2; á, 2, 19.Háá.1931, 3-4; Makedonska st udent ska t r i buna, áá, 1, S of i ò, 20.H.1932, 1; Makedonsko zname, áá, 20, S of i ò, 9.ᜠ.1934, 4; Makedonsko del o, œ ááá, 185, Apr i l 1934, 8; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i naci onal na i st or i ja, ááá, S kopje, 1990, 293-318.

869D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i od makedonskat a l i t er at ur na i st or i ja, áá, S kopje, 1982, 161-191.

870D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa, S kopje, 1983, 128-176.

867VMRO

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to know themselves better, and studied Macedonian history and culture, gathered works of Macedonian folklore and tried to define the Macedonian alphabet, proposing their own designs for some of the graphemes representing unique Macedonian sounds. It was here that we find some of the subsequently distinguished writers and national activists such as Venko Markovski, Kole Nedelkovski and KoÌo Racin. Their work was suppressed following the assassination of King Alexander, and a large number of MORO’s more prominent members were arrested, but soon afterwards some of them became active again within the Sofia Macedonian Literary Circle and took part in the National Liberation War during the Second World War. Of special significance for this progressive movement in the Vardar part of Macedonia was the manifold activity of the self-educated KoÌo Racin. He joined the communist ranks as early as 1924, became a prominent member after 1928, and developed his most significant activity following his arrival in Skopje and the organization of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia (1931-1933), when he started printing its official mouthpiece, Iskra, and publishing the pamphlets The USSR and Macedonia; Macedonia is neither Serbian nor Bulgarian or Greek, etc.871 It was Racin’s detention and sentence that resulted in a temporary delay in the rapid growth of the national liberation movement.

The most significant question for the Macedonians until the Second World War was the building of the Macedonian national and historical consciousness and the affirmation of the Macedonian literary language. In the 1930s the young intelligentsia was very active in trying to become better acquainted with its own past, which was considerably muddled by the brutal greater-Serbian regime. Contacts with the young progressive circles of Macedonian émigrés in Sofia and the transfer of publications and ideas into the Vardar section of the land proved very useful.

This became a particularly frequent practice after the May visit of Macedonian students from Belgrade University to Sofia (1939) and the historic meeting with the members of the Macedonian Literary Circle.

The 1930s in the Vardar part of Macedonia were characterized by significant creative activity in the Macedonian language, above all, in the fields of drama and poetry. In addition to the plays of Vasil Iljoski, Anton Panov and Risto Krle, which were publicly performed on the stage in Skopje, a number of dramatic pieces by Macedonian authors remained in the form of manuscript, testifying to a widespread process which was directly transferred to the liberation front.872 There was 871Ibid.,

93-116. eksandar Al eksi ev, Osnovopol oÔ ni ci t e na makedonskat a dr amska l i t er at ur a, S kopje, 1972; Al eksandar Al eksi ev, Makedonskat a dr ama meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni (I zbor ), á-áá, S kopje, 1976; Mi odr ag Dr ugovac, I st or i ja na makedonskat a kni Ô evnost HH vek, S kopje, 1990, 117-132, 148-156 and 159-171.

872Al

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an even greater number of people who wrote poetry in their native tongue and published it in periodicals throughout Yugoslavia, and particularly in Macedonia.

Of considerable importance for the affirmation of the Macedonian poetic word were the Skopje journal LuÌ (1937-1938) and the newspaper Naša ReÌ (19391941), where the following young authors published works of poetry: KoÌo Racin, Anton Panov, Ceko Stefanov Popivanov, Radoslav Petkovski, Voislav IliÎ, Blagoj Stefkovski, Asen Todorov, Hristo Popsimov, Mite Bogoevski, Kire Dimov, Branko Zarevski, Kuzman Josifovski, Risto Lazoski, etc.873 A special place in the history of modern Macedonian literature must be assigned to the collections of poetry Idi prolet (The Spring Is Coming, 1939) and Makedonska kitka (Macedonian Posy, 1941) by VolÌe NaumÌeski874 and, in particular, Beli mugri (White Dawns, 1939)

by KoÌo Racin.875 The Macedonians living within the borders of Bulgaria also developed a widespread literary and national activity. In addition to the plays of Vojdan Ëernodrinski,876 there appeared the celebrated dramatic piece Ilinden (1923) by Nikola Kirov Majski,877 Narod i crkva (People and Church); Duhot na Makedonija (The Spirit of Macedonia) (1931) and Pesnata na robot (The Song of the Slave)

by Nikola Drenkov, etc. Besides the individual books of poetry by Nikola DÔerov, Dimitar Milenski, Nikola Kirov Majski, etc.,878 the following collections of verse were published: Narodni bigori (The Bitterness of the People) and Oginot (The Fire) (1938); Lulkina pesna – Elegii (Cradle Song – Elegies); Goce DelÌev – Poema (Goce DelÌev – A Poem), and Prangi – Soneten venec (Shackles – A Sonnet Sequence) (1939); Lunja – Makedonska lirika (Tempest – Macedonian Lyrics); Ilinden – Poema (Ilinden – A Poem), and Ëudna e Makedonija (Macedonia is Marvellous) (1940); Bie dvanaeset (It Strikes Twelve, 1941) by Venko Markovski,879 and M’skavici (Flashes of Lightning, 1940) and Peš po svetot (Around the World on Foot, 1941) by Kole Nedelkovski.880 873D-r

Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r aÔ uvawa i mat er i jal i , á-áá, S kopje, 1980. More than 120 poets are known to have written in Macedonian in this period.

874Vol Ìe NaumÌeski , S t i hovi (1939-1941). Redakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel eš ki d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1979.

875KoÌo Raci n, S t i hovi i pr oza. Ur edi l d-r Al eksandar S pasov, S kopje, 1966; KoÌo S ol ev Raci n, I zbr ani del a (á-œ á), S kopje, 1987; D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , KoÌo Raci n. I st or i skol i t er at ur ni i st r aÔ uvawa, 1983.

876Vojdan Ëer nodr i nski , S obr ani del a, ááá. P r i r edi l Al eksandar Al eksi ev, S kopje, 1976.

877Makedonskat a dr ama meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni , á, 17-74.

878D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944, á, 108-132.

879D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi …, ááá, 431-473; Venko Mar kovski , Gl amji i por oi . I zbor i pr edgovor Al eksandar Al eksi ev, S kopje, 1992.

880Kol e Nedel kovski , S obr ano del o. Jubi l ejno i zdani e po povod na 40-godi š ni nat a od smr t t a na poet ot -bor ec. P r edgovor , koment ar , i zbor i r edakci ja Todor Di mi t r ovski , S kopje, 1981.

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There was an even greater number of Macedonian poets and writers in Bulgaria who used the official Bulgarian language. They not only published many individual works, but also important collections [Nikola Vapcarov, Angel Óarov (Mihail Smatrakalev), Anton Popov, Todor Šomov, Georgi AbadÔiev, Kiril Manasiev (VeÌerin), etc.]. All of them, from all three parts of Macedonia, in 1936 founded in Sofia the Macedonian Literary Circle, which was active as part of the editorial board of Makedonski Vesti.881 When the newspaper was banned and the Circle dissolved, the Macedonian activists set up a new association, Nation and Culture (1937), and later, via the Journalists’ Circle, renewed the Macedonian Literary Circle (1938-1941),882 which became the most active Macedonian national association of the period and the most successful organizer and propagator of Macedonian national thought. It was there that the history of the Macedonian revolutionary movement, Ilindenska epopeja (Ilinden Epic) by Angel Dinev, was prepared (1936).883 It was there, too, that the same author published the most outstanding book on Macedonian national development, Makedonskite Sloveni (The Macedonian Slavs, 1938). Towards the end of the book Dinev states: “The people who gave the alphabet to the entire Slavic world, who brought forth the great revolutionary and reformer Bogomil and the austere warrior Samuel; who lived for 19 whole years, from 1893 to 1912, in the revolutionary republic established secretly in the Sultan’s state; who by self-denial created the Ilinden epic; who waged a bloody armed struggle against armed propaganda; who fought against the Sultan’s troops in the streets of Constantinople — that people will never, never forget its historical past and, in spite of having no freedom whatsoever, will never lose its ethnic character, its spirit or its mother tongue.” 884 Historical and theoretical contributions on the Macedonian nation and culture started appearing especially in the 1930s, mostly from people within the Macedonian progressive movement. In 1933 Vasil Ivanovski published the pamphlet The Ideas and Tasks of the Macedonian Progressive Movement, and the newspaper Makedonsko Zname explained: “The Macedonian progressive movement is a national one, as its goal is the national liberation of Macedonia. It is not a party movement, nor a movement of a particular group or class, but according to its character it is broadly popular and democratic, as its very goal (the national liberation of Macedonia) is a broadly popular and democratic task.”885 As it was 881Bl

aÔ e Ri st ovski , ,,Osnovi t e i koncepci i t e na Makedonski ot l i t er at ur en kr uÔ ok vo S of i ja“ (1936), Gl asni k, HHáH, 3, S kopje, 1985, 111-128.

882D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi …, áá, 1989, 486-532; Di mi t ar Mi t r ev, Makedonski ot l i t er at ur en kr uÔ ok, S kopje, 1977; Ni kol a J. Vapcar ov, P esni za Tat kovi nat a.

S obr ani st i hovi . P odgot ovka i pr evod d-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1986.

883Makedonski vest i , áá, 73, S of i ò, 8.H.1936, 3.

884Angel ï Di nevï , Makedonski t õ sl avòni , S of i ò, 1938, 72.

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impossible, due to the different conditions in the countries that controlled Macedonia, to gain independence within the framework of a Balkan federation, the movement raised the principle of “the right to self-determination of the Macedonian people, including separation into an independent state-political unit”. The option of establishing “an autonomous national region (autonomous republic)” in one of the ruling countries was publicly announced, “until the other two parts of Macedonia are liberated, and all of them are separated from Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia to be united into a joint Macedonian state”.886 Yet the most important thing for the movement was the equitable settlement of the national question. As a result, numerous contributions were published dealing with the Macedonian nation, and Vasil Ivanovski published his detailed paper ‘Why We Macedonians are a Separate Nation’.887 The Comintern could not ignore this activity and assessed it from its own point of view: in early 1934 it was impelled to acknowledge officially the Macedonian national entity and the Macedonian language as separate in the Slavic world. This actually meant the acknowledgement of the century-long struggle of the Macedonian people for national affirmation and represented a very significant support aiding the final liberation.

It can by no means be interpreted as the creation of the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language, as the Macedonians have always emphasized their slogan: “We must state clearly so that everybody can hear us that we are neither Serbs nor Greeks or Bulgarians. We are Macedonians, an individual Macedonian nation. It is only in this way that we can best defend the individuality of our movement and of our right to an independent Macedonian state.”888 Due to the fact that they could not freely express their programme objectives, the Macedonians published underground newspapers such as Obedinist, NoÔot, Makedonska Revoljucija and Makedonsko Edinstvo,889 in which they raised high “the banner of the Macedonian revolution to win the right to self-determination for Macedonia until its separation into an individual political state unit, for a free and independent Macedonia of the Macedonian people”, for “[w]e are neither true Serbs, nor pure Bulgarians, nor are we Slavophone Hellenes, we are an individual Macedonian nation”.890 885Makedonsko

zname, áá, 17, 14.Háá.1933, 2. zname, áá, 18, 22.áá.1934, 1.

887Bi st r i š ki [Vasi l I vanovski ], ,,Zaë o ni e makedonci t e sme ot del na naci ò?“, in: Ëet vï r t i ò kongr es na Makedonski ò N ar oden S ï ô z v A mer i ka. Rezol ô ci i , I zl oÔ eni ò, Det r oi t , 1934, 42-55; Tr udova Makedoni ò, á, 6, Det r oi t , Dekemvr i 1934, 4-5.

888I st or i ska vi st i na. P r ogr esi vnat a opš t est vena javnost vo Bugar i ja i P i r i nska Makedoni ja za makedonskot o naci onal no pr aš awe. Dokument i , st udi i , r ezol uci i , apel i i publ i ci st i Ìki pr i l ozi 1896-1956. I zbor i r edakci ja P er o Kor obar i d-r Or de I vanoski , S kopje, 1981, 79.

889D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi …, ááá, 491-501.

886Makedonsko

342

The Macedonian national liberation programme defined in this way in the period prior to the Second World War was expressed through a large number of leaflets, proclamations, protests and public meetings, and also through individual publications, such as the banned periodicals Goce (1938)891 and Ilinden 1903 (1939).892 Kosta Veselinov, a member of the Macedonian Literary Circle, started publishing a whole series of booklets as part of his National Scientific Library: Nationally-Subjugated Peoples and National Minorities (1938), The Rebirth of Macedonia and the Ilinden Uprising (1939) and Fighters for National Freedom (1940).893 As far as the Vardar section of Macedonia was concerned, the liberation movement turned entirely towards the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia, as it was only there that they could see their future, warning: “Defend your people’s name and wage a struggle for popular rights and the freedom of Macedonia.”894 And when Professor Nikola VuliÚ, in 1939 and 1940, again authoritatively demanded that the name Macedonia should not be used, but South Serbia, there were protests from all sides: “The name Macedonia has not been imposed by force in recent times, but it is the name ‘South Serbia’, Professor, Sir, which has been introduced and used by Serbian chauvinists, imperialists and oppressors of the new age… The Macedonian ethnicity, i.e. nationality, exists although not in the form of a separate independent state at this moment… No historical rights, no traditions can justify the authority of Serbian imperialists in Macedonia… First of all, the Macedonian language is neither Serbian nor Bulgarian, it is different, Macedonian… The Macedonian nation has been formed historically, and is not the product of the mind of this or that person. The Macedonian people has been waging an organized struggle for its existence for more than 50 years… The crown of all this was the great Ilinden Uprising and the Kruševo Popular Republic headed by the glorious Karev and Pito Gulev… After the unsuccessful Ilinden Uprising, following 1903, we have had Serbophile, Bulgarophile and Graecophile propaganda in Macedonia… But neither the terror st or i ska vi st i na…, 130. hai l o Geor gi evski , ,,Eden dosega neobjaven vospomenat el en vesni k za Goce Del Ìev od 1938 godi na“, Gl asni k, Hœ á, 2, 1972, 35-50. The newspaper was the product of the Nation and Culture Circle in Sofia.

892D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, S kopje, 1983, 505.

893D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi …, ááá, 458-490. It is significant to mention that in the school year 1944/45 Veselinov’s second booklet became the first textbook of Macedonian national history in the newly-opened schools in the Macedonian state.

894Dokument i i mat er i jal i 1921-1941, á, 2. Redakci ja, pr evod i koment ar I van Kat ar xi ev, S kopje, 1985, 316.

890I

891Mi

343

nor the propaganda, to this very day, has broken the Macedonian spirit of freedom and equality. The Macedonian people fought, fights and will fight together with all those oppressed until its full liberation…”895 The national spirit of the liberation movement became particularly strong after the establishment of the new Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia headed by Metodija Šatorov Šarlo. This was a period when the largest number of underground materials in the Macedonian language were published and the time when the important Regional Conference was held (September 1940). Its Resolution actually presented the national programme of the struggle for “a free and independent Macedonia,”896 which the Macedonian people used in carrying out the mass Ilinden demonstrations in towns and taking part in the National Liberation War, with “their final goal: full liberation and equality for Macedonia — including the demand for secession into an individual state community”.897 This was confirmed by the mouthpieces of the Regional Committee, Bilten (1940) and Iskra (1940), which also pointed to the “final goal — a f r e e Ma c e d o n i a n r e p u b l i c ”.898 The situation among the Macedonians in the Aegean part of Macedonia was not very different in spite of the brutal measures applied by the authorities.

Macedonian national consciousness and the Macedonian mother tongue were manifestly expressed considerably earlier than the Resolution of the Comintern.

There were many examples; we shall quote only a few of them. For instance, three Macedonians (Stojan Balaska, G. PeÌkov and T. Manov) killed a Graecophile in Lerin (Cantevski), and were sentenced to death and shot (1932). In court Balaska declared that he “was born a Macedonian and will die a Macedonian”, because as a former “member of the Macedonian national liberation organization”, he now, too, fought “for the freedom of Macedonia”.899 When the court ruling was read to PeÌkov, and “when they stated that he had been born in Lerin and that he was Greek, he exclaimed: ‘No, no, I was born in Sofia, but I am not a Bulgarian, nor am I a Greek, I am a Macedonian’”.900 Unforgettable too are the words of Manov, who exclaimed just before being shot: “I am a Macedonian and will die a Macedonian! I am neither a Bulgarian nor a comitadji…”901 895Ibid.,

318-322.

334-338.

897Ibid., 382.

898I l egal ni ot peÌat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni , áá, 2.

P odgot vi l d-r I van Kat ar xi ev, S kopje, 1983, 198.

899Makedonskot o pr aš awe na st r ani ci t e od ,,Ri zospast i s“ meÒu dvet e svet ski vojni . I zbor i r edakci ja Josi f P opovski , S kopje, 1982, 126.

900Ibid., 162.

901Ibid., 162.

896Ibid.,

344

In November 1932 a Macedonian wrote extensively in the newspaper O Neos Rizospastis on the position of the Macedonian national minority in Greece and on the attitude and “patriotism” of the “liberators” towards “a single people — the Macedonian nationality — which is neither Bulgarian, nor Greek or Serbian, but — Macedonian”, because “[i]n Macedonia under Bulgaria, Greece or Serbia there are neither Greeks, nor Bulgarians or Serbs. There exist only Macedonians (of course, we are not referring to those who have recently settled in Macedonia)”.

The reporter pointed out that during his visit to “the places and mountains in Macedonia (Kostur, Lerin)” what immediately came to mind was that they were “not at all Greek, or Bulgarian, or Serbian”. “There is something special in their clothes; the same refers to their language. Their Slavonic language resembles Bulgarian, but it is not the same. Speaking the Macedonian language, you can certainly communicate with the Serbs as well as the Bulgarians. That language is still spoken today by more than 100,000 people as their mother tongue. They do not know any other language. So many centuries have passed since the Slav element settled Macedonia that no one knows anything other than that he was born in that place and that he will die there. And that he is neither a Greek, nor a Bulgarian or a Serb.” As a result, the Macedonian reporter concluded: “[W]e are not dealing here with Greeks, or Bulgarians, or Serbs in Macedonia, but with a Macedonian people, with a Macedonian minority, which, despite all blows and despite all oppression, has preserved its economic and national existence and its distinct culture. In this case it means that the Macedonian people has national consciousness.” He also pointed out that “it is forbidden for the children, who are obliged to go to school in order to learn the Greek language, etc. […] to speak their Macedonian mother tongue. If anything like that happens, the teacher confines the child in the school cellar for a day or frequently longer.” Inspectors and policemen kept vigil to prevent Macedonian from being spoken even at home, though, for instance, “no woman speaks Greek”. In 1931, for example, the Greek captain Vangelis in Lerin, “made a farmer black by beating him, because the latter spoke Macedonian”. Or “[i]n V’mbel, in the Kostur region, ten young people were beaten until they bled and then sentenced to prison terms, because they sang songs in their native tongue. The same happened in the village of Aposkep, where the peasants celebrated May Day by singing national-revolutionary songs and the Internationale, translated into Macedonian.”902 Those Macedonians, in the words of another reporter, “clench their teeth, persistently speak their Macedonian language, proudly wear their Macedonian folk costumes and believe, hope and patiently and silently fight for a Macedonia of their own, for a free Macedonia”.903 902Ibid.,

134-138.

903Ibid.,

158.

345

In early September 1934 the Macedonian Societies from the Voden villages of Arsen and Vrtikop “thunderously” proclaimed: “We are neither Bulgarians nor Greeks! We are Macedonians! We will fight for full independence from the Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek yokes” and called upon the Macedonians from the Lerin and EnidÔe-Vardar regions to start publishing “a newspaper of the Macedonians from western Macedonia in our mother tongue”.904 In January 1935 a group of Macedonians joined the protests against the closure of Greek schools in Albania, saying: “We, the subjugated Macedonian minority, wholeheartedly wish that the demands of our brothers from northern Epirus be satisfied, as we, the Macedonians, are in the same position, under the yoke of the Greek government. We are also demanding before the entire working class and before the progressive press that they, too, raise their voice in favour of our rights. We also wish to speak our Macedonian language freely and to open our own schools, Macedonian ones, where our children will learn.”905 Such was the consciousness of the Macedonians from the Aegean part of Macedonia when the Second World War broke out and they joined the antifascist struggle.

But, undoubtedly, many thousands of Macedonian émigrés in Europe, and North and South America strongly supported Macedonian national affirmation in the inter-war period. In addition to the mouthpiece of IMRO (United), Makedonsko Delo, the following progressive newspapers appeared in the Macedonian Diaspora: Makedonski Bjuletin (Pontiac, 1930-1931), Balkansko SdruÔenie (Detroit, 1931-1934), Trudova Makedonija (Detroit, 1934-1938), Narodna Volja (Detroit, 1938), Edinstvo (Toronto, 1936-1940), Makedonski Glas (Buenos Aires, 19351939), etc.906 The annual collections of printed materials from the congresses of the Macedonian People’s League of America were also of considerable importance. They paid special attention to the Civil War in Spain, where the Macedonian fighters called upon the congress of the Macedonian People’s League: “Explain to every Macedonian man and Macedonian woman that everyone who fights for the salvation of Spain from fascism at the same time fights for the liberation of Macedonia.”907 At this time when it was impossible for the Macedonians in Macedonia (in all its parts) to spread their ideas freely, all the more important official documents of the liberation movement were published in the Diaspora, manifesting the unity of 904Ibid.,

226-227.

249-250.

906D-r Bl aÔ e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, áá, 511-522.

907Makedonci t õ vï A mer i ka i bor bat a na t õhni ò nar odï za naci onal na nezavi si most Å na Makedonski ò N ar odenï S ï ô zï vï A mer i ka, Madi sonï , 1938, 29.

905Ibid.,

346

the Macedonian people from all parts of their fatherland, as “without the building of Macedonian unity the liberation of Macedonia is unthinkable, the completion of the national revolution is unthinkable”.908 Thus-prepared, the Macedonian people joined the anti-Hitler coalition in the Second World War. Therefore the activists from the inter-war period also became organizers and leaders of the armed national liberation struggle in all the parts of Macedonia. And thus there began the Second Ilinden.

908Tr udova Makedoni

ò, áá, 2. Æ l i 1935, 1 and 3.

347

Index of Personal Names

Aaron, brother of Tsar Samuel 73 AbadÔiev, Georgi, Macedonian writer and historian, member of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia 341 Abbot, Jacob, British historian 113 Abdul-Aziz, Turkish sultan 130 Acev, Petar, revolutionary from Prilep 280, 283 Adalbert, ‘Russian bishop’, Papal envoy 86 AdÔimitreski, DimÌe, author 115 Adrian II, Roman pope 63-65, 67, 87 Agathon, Greek archbishop in the town of Morava (Serbia) 68 Ahazarov (Poljanski), Nikola G., teacher from Dojran, activist of the Uniate movement 141, 145 Ajada, detachment commander 173 Aksakov, Ivan, Russian Slavophile, poet and writer 106-107 Aleksandrov, Todor, member of the IMRO Central Committee 217, 281, 284, 288, 291, 294, 296-298 Aleksiev, Aleksandar, author 185, 190, 324, 332, 339-340 Aleksij Slav, uprising leader in Macedonia 12 AleksiÚ, D., author 323 AleksiÚ, Jovan, Serbian officer, chief of the office of the police station for state security in Lerin 257-258, 261 Aleksova, Blaga, author 61 Alexander, King of Yugoslavia 304, 339 Alexander of Battenberg, Bulgarian prince 163, 181 Alexander of Macedon, see Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great (Alexander of Macedon), King of ancient Macedonia 38, 40-41, 53, 76, 101-116, 122, 129, 144, 170, 180, 197, 257 Ali Efendi, member of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 161-162 Alvin, bishop 65 Amyntas II, King of ancient Macedonia 112 Andonov-Poljanski, Hristo, author 102, 144, 184, 191, 195, 216-217 Andrássy, Count, Austrian Foreign Minister 142, 146 Andrejaš, brother of King Mark 97 Angelarius, disciple of Cyril and Methodius 55 Angelov, Bonju St., author 56, 66-67, 73, 86 Angelov, Dimit’r, Bulgarian historian and scholar, specialist in Byzantine studies 7, 31-32, 34, 56 Anne, Princess, sister of Basil II 91-92 Anno, Bishop of Freising 64 Anthimus (Antim), Bulgarian exarch 135, 140, 147-148 AntiÎ, Vera, see StojÌevska-AntiÎ, Vera Apis, Vasil HadÔikimov’s pseudonym Apostle Andrew, St Andrew 97-98 Apostle Paul, St Paul 19, 63, 67, 97 Apostle Peter, St Peter 62-63, 67, 97-98 Apostolova, Pavlina, daughter of Milan Ï.

Vojnicalija 83 Aprilov, Vasil, Bulgarian revivalist 49 Archangel Michael 98 Argyriades, Paul (Panagiotis), author 195, 238

349

Aristotle, classical philosopher, teacher of Alexander the Great 104, 113-114, 170 Arnaudov, Mihail, author 103, 149-150 Arsh, G.A., author 46 Arsenius III ËarnojeviÚ, Serbian patriarch 44 Arsenius the Miracle Worker, Archbishop of Ohrid 73, 81 Asen II, Bulgarian tsar 36 Asohik, Stepanos Tarenski, Armenian historian 91 Asparuh (Asparuch), Bulgarian khan 8-9 Athanasius, Archbishop of Ohrid 42 Averkij (Abercius) Zografski, head of the Zograph monastery estates (metoch) in Salonika, Uniate 140-141 Avramij (Abramius), priest 141 BadÔoviÚ, Kuzman, Macedonian textbook writer, teacher and Serbian propagandist 109 Balabanov, Kosta, author 72, 75, 77, 99 BalasÌev, Georgi, author 58, 60, 111, 185 Balaska, Stojan, fighter, shot in Lerin 344 BalugdÔiÚ, Óivojin, Serbian diplomat and writer 264 Banev, member of the Central Committee of the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland 272 Bardas Phocas, pretender to the Byzantine throne 91 Basil I the Macedonian, Byzantine emperor 40 Basil II, Byzantine emperor 14, 20, 34, 91, 93 Batbayan, Khan Kubrat’s eldest son 9 Belevcev, Ioann, author 92-93 BelÌev, Bulgarian minister 182 BeliÚ, Aleksandar, Serbian linguist and propagator of the Serbian greater-state doctrine in Russia 228, 259-260, 262 Bernstein, Samuil B., author 206, 318 Berovski, Dimitar Popgeorgiev (Makedonski, Maleševski), Macedonian

350

revolutionary, leader of the Razlovci Uprising, the Kresna Uprising and the ‘third union’ 106, 137, 140-141, 143, 145, 147, 149-152, 154-155 Biljarski, CoÌo, author 135, 137, 139-140, 142, 145, 147, 158, 186-187, 195-196 Bistriški (Bistricki), see Ivanovski, Vasil Blagoev, Dimitar, Bulgarian socialist and communist leader (from Macedonia) 276 Blagoev, Spiridon, author 313 Bogdanov, A. Ivanov’s pseudonym Bogdanov, Ivan, author 57 Bogoevski, Mite, Macedonian poet and revolutionary 340 Bogomil, founder of Bogomilism in Macedonia 125, 341 BojadÔiev, S., author 335 Bojanovski-Dize, Dime, barber from Prilep, political prisoner, communist 115 BojoviÚ, Jovan R., author 309 Boleslav the Czech, Czech ruler 86 Bombolov, Macedonian autonomist from Prilep 260 Bonetti, Monsignor, Uniate bishop in Salonika 137 Boril, Bulgarian tsar 66, 68 Boris and Gleb, the first Russian saints 88, 90, 96 Boris, Bulgarian prince 11, 25-26, 56-59, 68-69 Botev, Hristo, Bulgarian poet and revolutionary 49, 125 Botzaris, N., author 46 BoÔidarski, P., member of the Macedonian Colony in Petrograd 249-250 BrankoviÚ, Serbian reigning family 43 BrkoviÚ, Savo, author 131 Bryanchaninov, pro-Serbian Russian writer 231 Bubotinov, Mihail G., Bulgarian teacher in Salonika 137, 142, 147

Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander the Great 113 Bufski, Kostadin, priest, Macedonian revolutionary and commander 160 Bulakhovsky, Leonid Arseniyevich, linguist, member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, university professor in Perm and Kharkov 315 Bulatova, R.V., author 184 Burmov, Aleksandar, author 8, 33 Campbell, (Miss), British humanitarian worker in the village of Dobroveni 258 Cantevski, Graecophile, killed in Lerin 344 Carloman, son of Louis the German 26 Ëašule, Kole, author 321, 332 Ëašule, VanÒa, author 321 Catherine the Great, Russian empress 46 Ëaulev, Petar, member of the IMRO Central Committee 217, 293 Celakoski, Naum, author 74 Cepenkov, Marko K., Macedonian folklorist, ethnographer and writer 80, 110, 178, 186, 191 Ëernodrinski, Vojdan Popgeorgiev, Macedonian dramatist and theatre worker 183, 185, 187, 190-191, 332, 340 Ëernopeev, Hristo, detachment commander 196 Ëernorizec Hrabar, Old Slavonic writer 1718, 20-24, 28, 56, 58, 61, 66 Charlemagne (Charles the Great), King of the Franks 3 Chkhenkeli, Arkady I., Social Democratic representative in the Duma, Georgian Macedonophile 233 Christoff, Paul (Pol Hristov), chief vicar of the Bulgarian Uniate Church 283-285, 293 Ciliga, Ante, author, Croatian communist activist and writer 299, 308-309 ÙirkoviÚ, Jovan, Serbian administrator in Macedonia 297 Clement, Roman pope 66, 70, 74

Clement (St Clement, Clement of Ohrid, Kliment Ohridski), disciple and associate of Cyril and Methodius, Macedonian educator and writer 7, 17, 19, 21, 28-31, 35, 38, 54-74, 76-82, 85-87, 94, 97-98, 178, 200 Cocov, Stojan, priest, one of the principal organizers of the Razlovci Uprising 152, 154 Ëomakov, Dr Stojan, Bulgarian religious and national activist in Constantinople 154-155 Constantine, Bishop, Bulgarian writer 57 Constantine Kabásilas, Archbishop of Ohrid 97 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Byzantine emperor and historian 86 Constantine the Philosopher, see Cyril (St Cyril…)

Constantini et Methodii, see Cyril and Methodius Courtenay, Jan Baudouin de, Polish and Russian linguist 184 Crne, Spiro, Macedonian comitadji from Prilep 106, 191 ËubriloviÚ, Vasa, author 154 Ëuparov, Nikola D., the eldest brother of Dimitrija Ëupovski 222 Ëupovski, Dimitrija Dimov, Macedonian cultural and national activist, president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society and the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg/Petrograd, cartographer and writer 82, 99, 107, 113, 124, 175, 177, 185, 187-189, 191, 193, 197, 200-201, 205, 207, 210-213, 216, 218, 220, 222-224, 226-231, 242-246, 248250, 252-253, 275, 300, 333, 337 Cvetkovski, Ëedo, author 89 Cvetku, Hristo, Ohrid goldsmith 77 CvijiÚ, Jovan, Serbian geographer, anthropologist and national politician 259260, 262, 266

351

Cyril, Bulgarian patriarch, see Kiril (Cyril), Patriarh B’lgarski Cyril (St Cyril, Cyril of Salonika, Kiril Solunski, Constantine the Philosopher), brother of Methodius (St Methodius), Byzantine missionary and Slavic educator, writer and saint, creator of the first Slavonic script (see also Cyril and Methodius) 18-21, 23-24, 27, 29, 5455, 59-67, 70-71, 74-76, 79-80, 82-84, 98-99, 101 Cyril and Methodius (Ss Cyril and Methodius), Byzantine missionaries, Slavic educators and saints [see also Cyril (St Cyril…) and Methodius (St Methodius)] 10, 17, 19, 22-30, 33, 35, 52, 55-56, 60, 63-64, 67, 69, 71-87, 97-99, 101, 110, 112, 129, 175, 200, 205, 210-211, 213, 220, 222, 242, 245247, 253 Cyril of Cappadocia, alphabet author 2324 D’akov, V.A., author 128 Damaskin, Exarchate metropolitan in Veles 141, 154 Daniil Moskopolski, author of the Dictionary of Four Languages 37 Daskalakis, A., author 46 David, Christian name of the Russian saint Gleb Vladimirovich 96 David, brother of Tsar Samuel, saint 73 Dedov, Stefan Jakimov, Macedonian national activist and writer in Belgrade, St Petersburg and Sofia, founder of the Macedonian Club and member of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society, signatory of the Memorandum of November 1902 82, 187-188, 191, 197, 201-202 Dejanovci, ruling family in eastern Macedonia 12 DelÌev, Goce, Macedonian revolutionary 85, 115, 125, 145, 181, 276, 311, 338, 340, 343

352

Deliivanov, Tuše, revolutionary from Kukuš 280 Demetrius (Saint Demetrius, Demetrius of Salonika), saint 27, 33 Demosthenes, Athenian statesman and orator 104 Denkoglou, Ivan, patron of the Bulgarian revival 79 ÛerŸikoviÚ, ÛorŸe, editor-in-chief of the Belgrade journal Avtonomna Makedonija 241 ÛeriÚ, Dr, Serbian university professor 260 Derzhavin, Nikolay, Russian and Soviet historian, head of Leningrad University and director of the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR 8, 317 Despodova, Vangelija, author 87, 94 DiÌo Zograf, prominent representative of the Debar Fresco-painting School 77 Dijamandiev brothers, Macedonian activists 165 Dijamandiev, Vasil, founder and president of the Macedonian League, Ruse 164166, 168, 170, 174-175 Dimeski, Dimitar, author 182 Dimevski, Slavko, author 135, 178, 194, 197, 219 DimitrieviÌ, Anastas (Anastasos), member of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 161-162 Dimitrija, priest from the Kriva Palanka region 103, 129 Dimitrov (Volovarov), Petar (Peter), priest, president of the Salonika Exarchate community, adherent of the Uniate movement 140-141 Dimitrov, Blagoja, member of the MORO leadership in Skopje 115 Dimitrov, Georgi, General Secretary of the Comintern, Moscow 321 Dimitrov, Georgi V., author 309 Dimitrovski, Todor, author 104, 340

Dimo, fighter from the village of Vetersko 174 Dimov, Georgi, author 103 Dimov, Kire, Macedonian poet 340 Dimov, Nace D., Macedonian national and cultural activist, one of the most active members of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg/ Petrograd, brother of Dimitrija Ëupovski, author of a book on Macedonia 113, 124, 175, 220, 222, 225-227, 229, 231, 242-246, 249 Dinekov, Pet’r, author 73, 132 Dinev, Angel, Macedonian cultural and national activist, historian and writer 84, 114, 124-125, 312-313, 322, 334, 341 Dinkata, Georgi, Macedonian revivalist, teacher, textbook writer, poet and journalist 79, 178 Dobeta, see Dometa Dobromir Hrs, uprising leader in Macedonia 12 Dogo, Marco, author 133 Dojnov, Dojno, author 163, 180 DoklestiÚ, Ljubiša, author 160, 176, 179 Dometa (Dobeta), Bulgarian administrator of a region in Macedonia 59, 68 ÛorŸeviÚ, Vladan, author 169 Dorotej Skopski, see Dorotheus of Skopje Dorotheus of Skopje (Dorotej Skopski), Exarchate metropolitan 136 Dorovsky, Ivan, author 132 Dostyan, I.S., author 132 Draganov, Petar Daniilovich, Russian scholar of Bulgarian descent, specialist in Macedonian studies 78, 81, 181, 184 DragaševiÚ, Jovan, author 75, 105-106 Dragova, NadeÔda, author 56 Drakul, Simon, author 107, 131 Drandar, Anton, merchant and writer from Veles, adherent of the Uniate movement 144

Drandar, HadÔi Georgi, merchant and prominent citizen of Veles 144 Drandar, Konstantin, revolutionary from Veles, fighter in the voluntary Macedonian detachments 144 Drenkov, Nikola, dramatist from Kruševo 340 Drinov, Marin, author 55 Drinov, philologist in Kiev 315 Drugovac, Miodrag, author 339 DrÔiloviÌ, Kirijak, printer from Salonika 178 Du Cange, Charles, French scholar, specialist in Byzantine studies 66 DujÌev, Ivan, author 18, 54-55, 63 ÛurŸeviÚ, Dr Ëeda, Serbian military doctor in Voden 262-264 Dušan, Stefan, see Stefan Dušan Dvornik, František, author 56-59, 63-69 DÔambazovski, Kliment, author 106, 160, 176, 179 DÔerov, Luka, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 DÔerov, Nikola, poet and writer 340 Egzarh, Aleksand’r, Bulgarian activist, newspaper publisher in Constantinople 80 Eku, Russian captain 171 EniÌerev, Nikola GanÌev, author, Bulgarian teacher in Prilep 142, 158, 178 Euthymios, Roman envoy to Constantinople 64 Evans, Arthur, British journalist and writer 261 Evliya Çelebi, Turkish travel writer 36 Evrov, brothers, participants in the Razlovci Uprising 154 Ezerski, see BalasÌev, Georgi Ferdinand of Coburg, Bulgarian prince and tsar 275 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, German philosopher vii Finka, BoÔidar, author 129

353

Fitzmaurice, Lord, British representative in the European Commission, Constantinople 167 Formosus, Roman bishop 62, 65, 67 Freydzon, V.I., author 133 Gabriel of Lesnovo (Sveti Gavril Lesnovski, Saint Gabriel), Macedonian saint 96 Gachev, Dimitar Ivanov, Soviet Slavic scholar, writer and editor of Goslitizdat, Moscow 317 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, the unifier of Italy 125 Gatsfelyd, Count, representative in Constantinople 171 Gauderich, Roman bishop 62, 65-67 GavriloviÚ, And., author 190 GavriloviÚ, Milan, acting Foreign Minister of Serbia 263 GenÌiÚ, ÛorŸe A., Serbian general in Russia 230 George, the second Bulgarian archbishop 57 George, Lloyd, British prime minister 272 Georgiev, Emil, author 19, 23-24, 54-58, 60-61, 64, 66, 68-69 Georgiev, Georgij A., see Georgov (Georgiev), Georgij A. Georgiev, K., member of the Macedonian Colony in Petrograd 249 Georgievski, Mihajlo, author 66, 327, 343 Georgov (Georgiev), Georgij A. (pseudonyms Stremjage and StremjaÌe), secretary of the Macedonian League in Ruse and Sofia, national activist in St Petersburg/Petrograd 111, 174-175, 225, 229, 244, 246 Georgov, I., professor at Sofia University 230-231 Georgov, I. (chemical engineer), signatory of the Memorandum of the Macedonians 229, 246

354

GerdÔikov, Mihail I., revolutionary from Adrianople 196, 280, 283, 294 Gilyferding, Aleksandr F., author 76, 80 Glinka, G., adjutant general in Russian service 171 Glumac, Dušan, author 61 Gocev, Dimit’r G., author 215 Golaboski, Sotir, author 89, 94 Golobovc’ki, Volodomir, author 99 Gologanov, Jovan, author of folklore mystifications 103 Gologanov, Teodosija (Skopski), see Theodosius of Skopje Gorazd, Moravian archbishop, successor to Methodius 55, 66 ÏorÒi Vojteh, uprising leader in Macedonia 12 Ïorgov, Hriste, member of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 169 Gošev, Ivan, author 58 Grecow, Trifun, see Grekov (Grecow), Trifun Gregory, author, copyist of the Ostromir Gospel, priest at Preslav 58, 89, 94 Grekov (Grecow), Trifun, Macedonian national activist in Switzerland and writer 113-114 Grey, Sir Edward, British foreign secretary 226, 245 Grigorovich, Viktor Ivanovich, Russian Slavic scholar 76, 79-80, 104, 129, 133 Grigory, author of religious texts 79 Grivec, F., author 61, 64 Gromov, V., Vladimir Poptomov’s pseudonym Grozdanov, Cvetan, author 55, 70, 72, 74, 94, 96-97 Gruev, Dame, Macedonian revolutionary, one of the three leaders of the Uprising 181, 197 Gruev, J., Bulgarian textbook writer 78 Grunsky, Ukrainian philologist in Kiev 315

GulapÌev, Spiro, writer, federalist, member of the Siromahomilist movement (movement for the protection of the poor), from the Lerin region 195, 216, 238 Gulev, Pito, see Guli, Pitu Guli, Pitu (Pito Gulev), legendary Macedonian revolutionary from Kruševo 343 Gundlas, Baron, Leonidas Voulgaris’s secretary, Austrian national 170-172 GunduliÚ, Ivan, Croatian writer 75 Ïurlukov, Milan, Vrhovist military commander 293 Gutenberg, Johannes, German printer, reputedly first to print with movable type 40 HadÔi Georgi Dramski, see Zimbilev, Georgi Ivanov HadÔidimov, Dimo, Macedonian revolutionary and writer, socialist and communist 276-277, 280, 282-283, 294, 296 HadÔikimov, Vasil, activist of IMRO (United), poet and writer, renegade 312-313, 335 HadÔikonstantinov-DÔinot, Jordan, Macedonian writer and teacher 75, 79, 84, 130-131 HadÔitaškoviÚ, Grigorije, Macedonian activist in Serbia, publisher of the journal Avtonomna Makedonija, author of a declaration and promemoria on Macedonia 241-242, 262-267, 275 Hamid-Pasha, influential Turkish pasha in Macedonia 173 Hapsburg (Habsburg), ruling family of Austria and Austria-Hungary 119-120 Hariton (Chariton), see Karpuzov, Hariton (Chariton) Angelov Henry II, German emperor 88 Hermanrich, Bishop of Passau 65, 67 Herron, Dr George, American professor in Geneva 273

HesapÌiev, Bulgarian diplomatic representative in Belgrade 255 Hierotheus (Jerotej), Greek metropolitan in Strumica 151 Hitler, Adolf, Nazi dictator of Germany 330-332 Hitrovo, Mikhail A., Russian consul, Slavophile activist 80, 175 Homatian, Demetrius, Archbishop of Ohrid, author of the Shorter Life of Clement 29, 54-55, 62-63, 87 Homer, 9th-century BC Greek epic poet 104, 110 House, Edward, member of the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference 273 Hristov, Aleksandar T., author 216 Hristov, Hristo A., author 79, 103, 137 Hristov, Pavel, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280, 283 Hristov, Pol, see Christoff, Paul Hroch, Miroslav, author 133 Hron, Karl, Austrian writer and author of a book on the nationality (ethnicity) of the Macedonians 181, 184 Ignatiev, Nikolay P., Russian diplomatic representative in Constantinople 147, 169 Igor, Russian prince 86 Ikonomov, D., signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 Ikonomov, Vasil, author 186 IliÎ, Voislav I., author 78, 83, 190, 340 Iljoski, Vasil, dramatist 324, 339 Ilyinsky, G.A., author 58-59, 95 Iskrov, Petar, member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Moscow 315 I-v, Nik., author 84 Iv., Il., author 80 Ivan Asen, Bulgarian tsar 35 Ivan Asen II, Bulgarian tsar 12 Ivan the Terrible, Russian tsar 98

355

Ivan, priest, brother of Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski 154 Ivanoski, Orde, author 182, 216, 327, 342 Ivanov, brothers, merchants and Macedonian activists in Sofia 111 Ivanov, A., (pseudonym Bogdanov), activist of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Moscow 316 Ivanov, Jordan, author 23, 29, 66-67, 74, 77, 94 Ivanova, K., author 67 Ivanovski, Vasil (pseudonyms Bistriški and Bistricki), Macedonian cultural and national activist and writer 84, 114, 125, 325, 334, 341-342 IvkoviÚ, Miloš, Serbian linguist 257 Izbul, Bulgarian khagan 11 Izvorov, Nil (Nilus), Exarchate prelate and Uniate bishop 136-141, 143-144, 146148 Izyaslav, son of Prince Vladimir I 90 Janev, Jovan, author 297 Janko, émigré in Serbia (from the village of Guzemelci) 174 Jankov, Anastas, Macedonian Vrhovist commander, Bulgarian colonel 111 Jankov, Hristo, revolutionary from Salonika, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 Jašar-Nasteva, Olivera, author 74 Javorov, Peju, Bulgarian poet and revolutionary in Macedonia 196 JeliÚ, Ivan, author 330 Joachim of Korsun, Metropolitan of Novgorod 91-92, 94 Joachim, Greek Bishop of Salonika 137 John, Metropolitan of Kiev 88 John VIII, Roman pope 64-65 John XII, Roman pope 86 John XIII, Roman pope 86 John (John of Debar), bishop and metropolitan, later Archbishop of Ohrid 88, 96

356

John of Ephesus, Byzantine historian 33 John of Macedonia, saint 72, 98 John, Priest (Pop Jovan), priest 96 John Vladimir the Myrrh-Bearer (Myroblítis), son of Aaron, tsar and saint 73 John Vladislav (Jovan Vladislav), tsar in Macedonia and saint 72 Joseph of Salonika, saint 72, 98 Joseph (Josif), Archbishop of Bulgaria 19, 57 Josif (Joseph), protosyngel, subsequent Bulgarian exarch 143, 145 Josif (Joseph) Sokolski, Bulgarian Uniate archbishop 50 Josifovski, Kuzman, Macedonian activist, revolutionary and writer 340 Jovan Ugleša, feudal ruler in Macedonia, brother of King Volkašin 12 Jovan Vladislav, see John Vladislav Jovanov, Petro, member of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 169 JovanoviÚ, Û., author 44 JovanoviÚ, Jovan, Serbian diplomatic representative in London 260-261 JovanoviÌ, Najden, Bulgarian teacher and translator from Macedonia 132 Julius Caesar, Roman emperor 3 Jurukov, Nikola, leader of the Macedonian Federalists in Sofia 113 Justinian, Byzantine emperor 32 K., G., author 110, 277 Kalogiros, Panajot, detachment commander 172-173 Kaloyan, Bulgarian tsar 12, 35 Kamaka, detachment commander 173 Íamilov, Kiril, author 110 Kandilarov, Georgi S., author 78 KantardÔiev, Ëudomir, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 KantardÔiev, Risto, author 130

Kapodístrias, Ioánnis, Russian politician and the first president of the Greek state 47 KaraŸorŸe, leader of the First Serbian Uprising 121 KaraŸorŸeviÚ, Serbian ruling dynasty 263 KaradÔata, Stefan, Bulgarian revolutionary 49 KaradÔiÚ, Vuk, Serbian cultural and national activist, folklorist, ethnographer, historian and philologist 37, 132 KaradÔov, Georgi, activist of IMRO (United) and of the Comintern (from the Pirin region) 313 Karaivanova, Slavka, Bulgarian teacher in Macedonia 152, 154 Karamzin, Nikolay M., author 90 KarandÔulov, Ivan, president of the Executive Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria 278, 287 KarandÔulov, Macedonian representative (1880) 167 Karanfilov, Panajot, detachment commander in Aleksandrov’s IMRO 294 KaranfiloviÌ, D.P., activist in Veles 142 Karapetrov, P.P., author 138-139, 158 Karavelov, Ljuben, Bulgarian writer and revivalist 49, 125 Karev, Nikola, Macedonian revolutionary from Kruševo 343 Karolev, R., author 57 Karpuzov, Hariton (Chariton) Angelov, priest, religious and national activist from the Nevrokop region 135-136, 141, 147 Kartov, Vladimir, author 125, 330 Kas’rov, L., author 180 Katarahja, detachment commander 172173 KatardÔiev, Ivan, author 84, 183, 216-217, 256, 298, 310-311, 323, 329, 338, 343344 Kaufman, Nikolay, author 108

Keckarov, Anton, teacher and revolutionary from Ohrid 81, 178, 223, 277 Kiepert, Heinrich, Austrian cartographer 134 King Mark (Marko, Krali Marko), the last Macedonian king, the epic hero of the South Slavs 12, 17, 97, 101, 103-104, 111-113, 129 Kiril (Cyril), Patriarh B’lgarski, Bulgarian patriarch, author 146-148, 163-164, 166, 180 Kiril Solunski, see Cyril (St Cyril…)

Kirilov, S., author 305 Kiselkov, Vasil S., author 60, 72, 76 KitanÌev, Trajko (TrajÌo), Macedonian literary and revolutionary activist, the first president of the Supreme Macedonian Committee 80-81, 183 Kliment Ohridski, see Clement (St Clement…)

Knappitsch, von, Austrian consul in Salonika 146, 148 Kocarev, Dr Anastas, privatdozent in Geneva, president of the General Council of the Macedonian Societies in Switzerland 267-268, 273 Kocel, Pannonian prince 56, 64, 67 Koco, DimÌe, author 68, 72 Kodov, Hristo, author 56, 66-67, 86 Kolarov, Vasil, Bulgarian activist in the Comintern 309 Koledarov, Pet’r S., author 59, 67 Koneski, BlaÔe, author 28, 30, 55, 59, 61, 69-70, 72, 74-75, 78, 87-88, 92, 94-98, 104-105, 128-129, 131-132 Konstantin Dejan, feudal ruler in eastern Macedonia 12 Konstantinova, Marija, daughter of Nikola D. Ëuparov from Sofia 222 KonstantinoviÌ, Dr Gavril, vice-president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg/Petrograd,

357

and Macedonian revolutionary 187188, 222, 226-227, 229, 242-243, 245246 Koraïs, Adamántios, Greek revivalist 46 Korobar, Angele, citizen of Veles 222 Korobar, Pero, author 342 Íosev, Dino, activist of IMRO (United), writer and historian 313, 318 Kostas, member of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 169 Kostyukhin, E.A., author 116 K-ov, A., see Keckarov, Anton KovaÌev, Josif A., educator, teacher and textbook writer from Štip 145, 154 KoÔuharov, Stefan, author 97 KrajniÌanec, J., author 78 Kratovaliev, Trajko, citizen of Skopje, living in Bulgaria 83 KrÌovski, Joakim, Macedonian writer 128, 132, 316 Krle, Risto, dramatist 324, 339 Krum, Bulgarian khan 10-11 Kuber, brother of Khan Asparuh 9, 27 Kubrat, Bulgarian khan 8-9 Kuev, Kujo M., author 22, 66-67 KulušiÚ, Špiro, author 131 Kusev (KuseviÌ), Metodija, Exarchate dignitary 146 Kusev, Tode, revivalist, later Exarchate metropolitan 130 Íuzliev, Macedonian activist in Sofia 111 Lambrev, Kosta, author 322, 330 Lape, Ljuben, author 82, 152, 154, 188, 200 Laurentius, disciple of Cyril and Methodius 55 Lavrov, Petr A., author 186 Lazoski, Risto, poet and dramatist 340 Lebedev, Lev, author 88, 91-92 Léger, Louis, French linguist 103 Lekov, DoÌo, author 77, 104 Leo IX, Roman pope 55

358

Leo VI, Byzantine emperor, author of Tactics 86 Leon, Archbishop of Ohrid 55 Leon, Bishop and Metropolitan of Kiev 91 Leopold I, Austrian emperor 41, 45 Levchenko, M.V., author 86, 88 Levov, D.T., author 107 Levski, Vasil, Bulgarian revolutionary 4849 Likhachev, D.S., author 98 Lippich, Austrian consul 142, 158 Ljondev, Krsto, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 LjubibratiÚ, MiÚo, leader of the Herzegovina Uprising 154 LjubinkoviÚ, Radivoje, author 68-69 Logadi, K., Greek political agent in Salonika 139 Louis the German, King of the Franks 2526, 67 LozanÌev, Anastas, revolutionary from Bitola, one of the three leaders of the Ilinden Uprising 280 LukaÌ, Dušan, author 308 Macedon, legendary founder of the Macedonian dynasty 114 MaÌukovski, Venijamin, Macedonian textbook writer and writer, author of a Macedonian grammar book 81, 104, 132, 237 Majski, Nikola Kirov, Macedonian revolutionary, cultural and national activist and writer of poetry, fiction and drama 83, 113, 291, 340 Makedon, Stefan DamÌev, Macedonian revolutionary and writer (from the Bitola region) 195 Makedonski, Dimitar Vasilev, Macedonian textbook writer, national activist and writer 13, 78, 105, 111, 131-132, 237 Makedonski, Dimitrija, from the Kriva Palanka region 103

Makedonski, ÏorÒija, teacher from Kriva Palanka 103, 129 Makedonski, Mihail, activist in the Kriva Palanka region 103 Malenko, DimÌe, Macedonian writer 83 Maleševski, Dimitar (Dimitri), see Berovski, Dimitar Popgeorgiev Maleševski, Iljo, see Markov, Iljo Manasiev, A., signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 Manasiev, Kiril, (VeÌerin), Macedonian progressive poet and writer in Sofia 341 Mandušev, Macedonian activist in Sofia 111 Manov, T., fighter, shot in Lerin 344 MarÌ, V., author 330 Maria Theresa, Austrian empress 45 MarinkoviÚ, M., Serbian diplomatic representative in Russia 255 Mark, Marko, see King Mark Markov, D.F., author 128 Markov, Iljo (Iljo Maleševski), Macedonian comitadji and uprising leader 106, 155, 168 MarkoviÚ, Svetozar, Serbian socialist and writer 106 Markovski, Venko, Macedonian poet, member of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia and participant in the National Liberation War, renegade 339340 Martulkov, Alekso, Macedonian revolutionary and writer 222 MatiÌetov, Milko, author 74 Matkovski, Aleksandar, author 41-42, 73, 99, 102, 129, 186 MatvÆev, N.E., author 225 Mauricius, emperor 8 Mavro, pseudonym of the secretary of the Bulgarian-Macedonian League, Ruse 163 Mazing, Leonhard (Leongard Gotthil’f Mazing), Estonian linguist and scholar,

specialist in Macedonian studies 181, 184 Mazon, André, author 61 MaÔovski, Isaija Radev, author of an autobiography 75, 109-110 Mbt., Ante Ciliga’s pseudonym Meletius, Metropolitan of Ohrid 77 Mercator, Gerhardus, Flemish cartographer and geographer 40 Mesmer, Toma, copper engraver 73 Metaxas, Ioannis, Greek general and dictator 323 Methodius (St Methodius, Methodius of Salonika), brother of Cyril (St Cyril, Constantine the Philosopher), Byzantine military strategist and missionary, Slavic educator, literary worker, the first Slav archbishop and saint (see also Cyril and Methodius) 19, 21, 24, 29, 55-58, 60-61, 63-67, 70-71, 73-74, 76, 80, 82-84, 87, 98 Metternich, Klemens von, Austrian statesman 47 Michael Cerularius, Constantinopolitan patriarch 55 Michael III, Byzantine emperor 24-25, 65, 67, 87 Michael, Russian metropolitan 92 Midhat Pasha, vali of Salonika and YoungTurk leader 138, 148 Mihajlov, Mile, author 327 Mihajlov, VanÌo, IMRO leader 305 Mijatev, K., author 58 Miladinov brothers, the brothers Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov (q.v.) from Struga 104, 237 Miladinov, Dimitar, Macedonian revivalist and collector of folklore 77, 79-80, 104 Miladinov, Konstantin, Macedonian poet and publisher of a collection of folk songs 79-80, 104 Miladinova, Mitra D., wife of Dimitar Miladinov (from Struga) 77

359

Milenski, Dimitar, Macedonian poet 340 MiletiÌ, Ljubomir, author 197, 230-231 Milev, Aleksand’r, author 54-64, 66, 69, 87 Milev, N.I., author 62 Milev, Nikola, secretary of the Executive Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria 278 MiljkoviÎ-Pepek, Petar, author 72, 94 Miloševska, Marija, author 310 Milutin, Serbian king 12 Milyukov, Pavel N., Russian politician, statesman and university professor 223, 231, 245 Minkov, Dr N., editor 334 Minoski, Mihajlo, author 151-152, 216 MirÌev, Dimitar, Macedonian revolutionary and Bulgarian philologist 181, 197 Mišajkov, Dijamandija Trpkov, one of the founders of the Balkan Club in Belgrade and the first president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg 187-188-189, 191, 197, 201-202 Misirkov, Dr Sergej K., son of Krste Petkov Misirkov 333-334 Misirkov, Krste Petkov, Macedonian cultural and national activist, Slavic scholar, philologist, historian, folklorist, ethnographer, writer and journalist 16-18, 20, 26, 38-39, 52, 76, 79, 82-83, 99, 103, 112-113, 120, 124, 131, 178, 181-182, 185-191, 193, 195, 200-201, 203-209, 211-212, 216-219, 222, 239240, 242-243, 247-248, 275, 299-303, 318, 323, 333, 337 Miteski, Goce, poet 115-116 Mitrev, Dimitar, Macedonian critic, writer and historian, member of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia 333, 341 Mladenovski, Simo, author 131 Mojsov, Lazar, author 182 Mokrov, Boro, author 178 Moshin, Vladimir, author 88-89, 91, 93-94

360

MosziØski, Leszek, author 56, 60 MrnjaÌevci, Serbian ruling family 12 Mstislav, son of Prince Vladimir I 90 MuševiÌ, Marko A., Macedonian cultural and national activist 219, 242 Mussolini, Benito, ideologist and leader of fascist Italy 332 Myl’nikov, A.S., author 128, 133 Myssiodakas, Iosipos, Greek educator 4546 Nahtigal, Rajko, author 61 Napoleon, French sovereign 71 Natanail (Nathaniel) KuÌeviški, see Nathaniel of Ohrid Nathaniel of Ohrid (Natanail KuÌeviški, Natanail Zografski), Exarchate metropolitan, leader in the Kresna Uprising, proponent of the Uniate movement in Macedonia and writer 135-136, 141, 147 Naum (St Naum, Naum of Ohrid, Naum Ohridski), Slavic religious dignitary and writer, one of the Slavonic Holy Seven Saints 17-18, 21, 28-29, 35, 5455, 58, 60-61, 63-64, 68-74, 76-80, 87, 97-98, 101 NaumÌeski, VolÌe, poet 324, 340 Naumov, official in the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 286 Nedela (Petkova), Bulgarian teacher in Macedonia, mother of Slavka Karaivanova 152, 154 Nedelkovski, Kole, Macedonian poet and revolutionary, member of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia 333-334, 339-340 Nemanja, Serbian ruling dynasty 16-17 Nemanja, Stephen (Stefan), Serbian Grand Óupan, founder of the Serbian Nemanja dynasty 95 NeškoviÚ, Jovan, teacher in Veles 130 Nestor, Russian chronicler 90, 98 Nicholas I, Roman pope 63-65, 67

Nicholas, prince in Macedonia, father of Tsar Samuel 11 Nicodemus the Myrrh-Bearer (Myroblítis), saint buried in Berat, Albania 73 NiÌota, Nikola, member of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg 205, 218 NiketiÚ, Svetislav, Serbian professor 106 Nikol’sky, S.V., author 132 Nikolov, Dimo, Bulgarian anarchist and writer 195 Nikolov, Toma, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 Nikov, P., author 142, 158 Nil (Nilus), see Izvorov, Nil (Nilus) Nilus Doxopater, archimadrite 34 NoÔarov, Macedonian activist in Sofia 111 NovakoviÚ, Kosta, author 309-310 NovakoviÚ, Stojan, Serbian statesman, diplomat and prominent Slavic scholar 179, 201 Novikov, Evgeny Petrovich, Russian ambassador in Constantinople 172 ObradoviÚ, Dositej, Serbian writer and educator 46 Oksiyuk, I.F., author 86, 92 Olga, Russian princess 86 Omurtag, Bulgarian khan 10 Orbini, Mavro, historian from Dubrovnik 42, 73, 75 Orel-Oshmyantsev, Yakov O., Russian Slavophile 80 Oskar, Yeger, author 88 Ostromir, Novgorod nobleman 89 Otto I, ruler of the Franks 86 Paisij Hilendarski, see Paissius Paissius (Paissius of Chilandar, Paisij Hilendarski), Bulgarian revivalist and historian, monk from Bansko 73, 78, 101, 121 Palauzov, N., Bulgarian revivalist and historian 49

Palešutski, Kostadin, author 308-310, 315, 318, 320-322, 330 Pandev, Konstantin, author 163, 166, 180, 183 Pandevski, Manol, author 216-217 Panov, Anton, dramatist 323-324, 339-340 Panov, Branko, author 35, 54 Panteleimon, Saint (Sveti Pantelejmon), saint 78 PanteliÚ, Marija, author 69 Paparigopoulos, I., Russian consul in Greece 79 Partenija Zografski, see Zografski, Partenija PašiÚ, Nikola, Serbian politician and statesman 242, 252, 255, 258-263, 267 Paskov, Ilija, author 135, 137, 139-140, 142, 145, 147, 158, 196 Pastuhov, I. author 69 Paul, Bishop of Ancona 65 PaunÌev brothers, Dimitar and Nikola, national activists, born in Ohrid, lived in Salonika 136-137 PaveliÚ, Ante, vice-president of the National Council of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs 261 PavlinoviÚ, Mihovil, Croatian cultural and national activist 131 PavloviÚ, Milivoj, author 60 PeÌkov, G., fighter, shot in Lerin 344 PÆev, Tane, author 160 PejÌinoviÎ, Kiril, Macedonian writer 37, 128, 316 Pel’sky, K., Krste Misirkov’s pseudonym 212 Penušliski, Kiril, author 186 Perun, pagan Slavic god 86, 90 Peškovski, Done, member of the Macedonian Colony in Petrograd 249-250 Petar (Peter), see Dimitrov (Volovarov), Petar (Peter) Petar Deljan, uprising leader in Macedonia 12

361

Petar Solunski, priest in Salonika 154 Peter Asen, Bulgarian tsar 35 Petkanova-Toteva, Donka, author 74 PetkoviÌ, Konstantin, Macedonian poet, philologist, lexicographer and travel writer, Russian consul 79 Petkovski, Radoslav, Macedonian writer 83, 324, 340 Petrov, ÏorÌe, Macedonian revolutionary and ideologist of the movement 81-82, 186, 280, 283, 288, 293-294 Petrov, Pet’r Hristov, author 8, 29-30, 6061 Petrov, Sr. p., author 183 Petrov, Stojan, author 77, 81 PetroviÚ, Dr M., Serbian major 258 Petrovski, BlaÔe, author 186 Petruš, fighter from the village of Rudnik 174 Petruševski, Ilija, author 102 Philaret, Metropolitan of Minsk and Belorussia 88, 98 Philip II, King of ancient Macedonia 4, 38, 40, 76, 103-104, 106, 108, 111-112, 114, 122, 129, 257 Photius, Constantinopolitan patriarch 20, 22, 67 Piccolomini, Austrian general 121, 127 Pirinski, Geo, secretary of the Macedonian People’s League of America 330-331 Pogorelov, Valery, author 88 PolenakoviÎ, Haralampie, author 35, 57, 66, 68, 74, 78-80, 104, 131-132 Poljanski, N., see Ahazarov (Poljanski), Nikola G. Pop-Angelov, KamÌe Nakov, teacher in the village of Vataša and printer in Salonika 131 Poparsov, Petar, Macedonian national and revolutionary activist 197, 219, 222, 227, 280, 334 Popgeorgiev, Aleksija, priest, brother of Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski 154

362

Popgeorgiev, Dimitar, see Berovski, Dimitar Popgeorgiev Popgeorgiev, Kostandija, revolutionary, brother of Dimitar Popgeorgiev Berovski 152, 154 Popivanov, Ceko Stefanov, Macedonian poet, journalist and reporter 340 Popivanov, Stefan, Macedonian communist activist 308-309 Poplazarov, Risto, author 160 Popov, Anton, Macedonian cultural and national activist and writer, member of the leadership of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia, the closest friend and fellow fighter of Nikola Vapcarov 125, 341 Popov, Rafail (Raphael) Dobrev, leader of the Uniate church in Adrianople, a Bulgarian 139, 147 PopoviÌ (Popov), N., Bulgarian teacher in Veles 145, 154 PopoviÚ, Dr Vlajko, Serbian medical colonel in Salonika 264 PopoviÚ, Miloš, Serbian medical major 262 Popovski, Josif, author 311, 344 Poppe, A., author 88 PopruÔenko, M.G., author 66 Popsimov, Hristo, Macedonian writer 83, 340 Poptomov, Vladimir (V. Gromov), teacher, revolutionary and communist activist from the Pirin region, editor of Makedonsko Delo, mouthpiece of IMRO (United), and activist of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Moscow 316-318 Pressian, Bulgarian khan 11 PribiÌeviÚ, Svetozar, Serbian politician and writer 304-305 PribojeviÚ, an ‘Illyrian’ 75 Priest John (Pop Jovan), copyist of the Macedonian Gospel

Primov, Borislav, author 35 Priselkov, M.D., Russian Slavic scholar and writer 88, 92, 96 P’rliÌev, K.G, author, 78, 110 PrliÌev, Grigor, Macedonian revivalist and writer 74, 78, 80, 110, 132, 316 Procopius, Saint 64 Prošek, B., printer in Sofia Protogerov, Aleksandar, Bulgarian general, member of the IMRO Central Committee 217, 281, 284, 288, 291, 296-298, 303 ProtopopoviÌ, Hristo P. Vasiliev, author 102 Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), Alexandrian geographer and astronomer 40 Pulevski, ÏorÒija M., Macedonian cultural and national activist, textbook writer, lexicographer, grammarian, historian, folklorist, poet, insurrectionist and commander 75, 79-80, 105-110, 113, 124, 132, 164, 177, 181, 193, 196, 237 Puljevski, ÛorŸe M., see Pulevski, ÏorÒija M. Puškarov, Nikola, revolutionary in Macedonia, a Bulgarian 280 Rachinsky, Aleksandr V., Russian consul, Slavophile 80 Racin, KoÌo, Macedonian writer, cultural and national activist and revolutionary 84, 114, 125, 308, 310-311, 323-324, 327, 338-340 Radek, K., functionary of the Comintern 308 Radev, Simeon, author 196, 217, 291 RadojiÌiÚ, ÛorŸe S., author 55, 57-58, 68 Radolinsky, representative of the Uniates in Constantinople 171 RadonjiÚ, Dr Jovan, Serbian university professor 62, 260 Rafail (Raphael), see Popov, Rafail (Raphael) Dobrev RajiÚ, Jovan, author 73, 101, 109

Rajkov, BoÔidar, author 55 Rakovski, Georgi S., Bulgarian revivalist, writer and revolutionary 49, 79 Ratkoš, Peter, author 64-65 Razmov, Kliment, autonomist 291 Rhigas Velestinlis, Greek revolutionary, ideologist and poet 46, 237 Risteski, Stojan, author 83, 110, 178 RistoviÚ, K., KoÌo Racin’s pseudonym 125 Ristovski, BlaÔe, author vii-x, 17, 20, 32, 49-50, 52, 54, 60, 62, 70, 75-76, 78, 80-83, 87, 99, 101-103, 107-110, 112115, 124-126, 128-129, 132, 134, 142, 159, 175, 177-180, 182, 184-191, 193194, 196-197, 200-202, 204-207, 210213, 216-220, 222-223, 226-227, 300, 308, 310-312, 319, 322-325, 327-330, 332-334, 337-338, 340-343, 346 Rizov, Rizo, Macedonian national and revolutionary activist from Veles 222, 280 Robev family, merchant family from Bitola and revivalists 77 Robev, Dimitar, prominent citizen of Bitola and national activist 143 Roger II, Sicilian king 34 Rogneda, wife of Prince Vladimir I 90 Roman, Christian name of the Russian saint Boris Vladimirovich 96 Romanov, Russian imperial dynasty 212 Romanska, Cvetana, author 74 Rostislav, Greater-Moravian prince 22, 2425, 64-65, 67, 87 Rustaveli, Shota, Georgian poet 95 RusulenÌiÌ, Risto, member of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg 188 Šahov, Kosta, author 110-111, 197 Sal’ko, N.B., author 72, 98 SalgandÔiev, Stefan K., author 158 Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian writer 108 SamardÔiev, Pano, fighter from the Tikveš village of Podles 174

363

Samuel (Samoil, Samuil), tsar in Macedonia 12, 14, 17, 30, 34, 55, 60, 73, 87-91, 93-94, 96, 101, 103, 111, 247, 341 Sandanski, Jane, Macedonian revolutionary 216, 223, 276, 294 Šapkarev, Kuzman A., Macedonian textbook writer, folklorist and ethnographer, national activist and revivalist 75, 78, 107, 110, 131-132, 155, 158, 186, 237 Sarafov, Boris, Macedonian revolutionary, president of the Supreme Macedonian Committee and one of the three leaders of the Ilinden Uprising 135, 186 Sarafov, Kosta V., representative of the Drama eparchy, adherent of the Uniate movement 141, 146 Šatorov Šarlo, Metodija, Macedonian national and communist activist, secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia 344 Sava, disciple of Cyril and Methodius 55 Sava, Saint (Sveti Sava), the first Serbian archbishop, writer 95 Sazdov, Tome, author 74, 186 Segedinac, Pera, Serbian uprising leader 45 Semiz, Dušan I., Serbian writer and journalist in Russia 230 Senkevich, I.G., author 176 Serski, Taskata Spasov, revolutionary, adherent of Sandanski’s 280, 283 Sevastyanov, Pavel I., Russian general 80 Sevastyanov, Petr I., Russian Slavophile, archaeologist and traveller 80 Shklovsky, Viktor B., author 89-90 Shofman, A.S., author 116 Siljanov, H., author 191 Simeon, Bulgarian prince and tsar 30, 37, 43, 56-59, 61, 64, 68-69, 87 Simos, Vasilos, see Simu, Vasil Simov (Simon), Vasil, see Simu, Vasil

364

Simpson, Dr, professor at London University 258 Simu, Vasil (Vasil Simov, Vasil Simon, Vasilij Simu, Vasilos Simos), president of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 161-162, 168-169, 171, 238 Sinaitski, Teodosija, Macedonian printer in Salonika 95, 178 Širtov, Goge, participant in the Razlovci Uprising 154 Šišmanov Ivan D., author 103 Škartov, Mišo, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 SkriÔovski, Georgi, signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 Skryabin, Nikolay, Russian consul in Salonika and Bitola 172-174 Slavejkov, Petko RaÌev, Bulgarian revivalist, writer and journalist 75, 105, 133135, 137-140, 142-148, 154-155, 158, 196, 237 Slaveva, Lidija, author 87, 94 Smatrakalev, Mihail, Macedonian cultural and national activist, writer and journalist, member of the leadership of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia 125, 333, 341 Snegarov (SnÆgarov), Ivan, author, 54, 56, 61, 66-67, 79, 81, 147 Solomon, King of Israel and a wise man 90, 227 Šomov, Todor, poet from the Pirin region 341 Šopov, A., author 155 Sotirovski, Dr Nikola, author Spasov, Aleksandar, author 84, 125, 324, 340 Speransky, Mikhail N., author 89, 93 Sprostranov, Eftim, ‘Lozar’, writer, journalist and revolutionary 297 Spyridakis, Georgios, author 112 Stamatoski, Trajko, author 179

Stambolijski, Aleksandar, Bulgarian prime minister and leader of the Agrarian Party 274, 292 Stambolov, Stefan, Bulgarian prime minister and Macedonophobe 181, 183 StanÌiÚ, Nikša, author 131 Stanišev, Dr K., president of the Executive Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria 288 Stanoevski, Cvetan, author 318 StanojeviÚ, Dr, Serbian university professor 260 Stardelov, Georgi, author x Stefan Dušan (Stephen Dushan), King and Tsar of feudal Serbia 12, 39 ŠtefaniÚ, V., author 68 Stefanija, Dragi, author 132 Stefkovski, Blagoj, Macedonian poet and fighter 340 Stephen, Exarchate metropolitan 260 Stewart, Mary, British national working in the hospital in the village of Kremen 258 Stoilov, Milan, secretary of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society (from Kukuš), killed in the Ilinden Uprising 188, 202 Stojan (priest), see Cocov, Stojan Stojanov, Georgi A., author 249 Stojanov, K.P. author 154 Stojanov, Man’o, author 49 StojÌevska-AntiÎ, Vera, author 74, 102 Strabo, Greek geographer and historian who also lived in Rome 104 Strašimirov, Anton, author 186, 190 Stremjage and StremjaÌe, pseudonyms of Georgij A. Georgov (Georgiev) Strez, independent feudal lord in Macedonia 12, 17, 103 Strezov, Georgi, author 78 Strezov, teacher from Struga 158 Strukova, K.L., author 81

St-v, H. (possibly H. Stanišev), signatory of the Appeal of March 1919 280 Šumkov, Ivan B., author, teacher and cultural and national activist 111, 160, 178 Surin, N.I., author 225 Svatopluk (Svätopluk, Svetopolk), Prince of Moravia 64, 66 Svyatopolk, Russian prince 90, 96 Svyatoslav, Russian prince 11, 90 Taburno, Jeronim P., ‘Montenegrin Serb’ in Petrograd, anti-Macedonian writer 230-231 Tahov, Naum K., author 186 Taki, see Tiko Taleski, Borka, student from Prilep and revolutionary 115 Taškovski, Dragan, author 53 Teodorov-Balan, Aleksandar, author 22 Teodosija Skopski, see Theodosius of Skopje Terzioski Rastislav, author 212, 316, 318 Theoctistus, Monk, ‘the Holy King’ (see also Trivelia) 73 Theoctistus of Tiberiopolis, Bishop of Strumica 20 Theodorus Comnenus, Epirote despot 12 Theodosius of Skopje (Teodosija Skopski, Teodosija Gologanov), Exarchate metropolitan in Skopje, national activist 84, 151-152, 154, 178, 219, 239, 334 Theognostos, Roman envoy to Constantinople 64 Theophanes, Byzantine historian 32 Theophylact of Ohrid, Archbishop of Ohrid, author of the Longer Life of Clement 29, 54-55, 62, 69, 73, 78, 80 Theophylact Simokata, Byzantine historian 33 Thomson, British general 300 Tiko, member of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 168, 171 Tocinovski, Vasil, author 125

365

Todorov, Asen, Macedonian poet and journalist 340 Todorov, D., author 331 Todorov, General, Bulgarian general in Salonika 223 Todorov, Ilija, author 132 Todorov, Nikolaj, author 46-47 Todorovski, Gane, author 80, 103, 125, 184-185, 333 Todorovski, Gligor, author 186, 191-192 TomiÚ, Jovan N., Serbian historian and politician 268 Tomoski, Tomo, author 66 Tozi, Niko P., author 75 Trajkov, Nikola, author 77, 79 Trajkov, Nikola (Nikolaos Trajkov, Nikolaos Trajkos), secretary of the Provisional Government of Macedonia 161, 169 TrifunoviÚ, M. Serbian minister 261, 263 Trivelia, also known as the Monk Theoctistus 73 Trubetskoy, G.N., Prince, high-ranking official in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 248 TucakoviÚ, D., general, delegate of the Serbian government and Serbian command in Sofia 293, 295 Tudor, monk 57 Ugrinova-Skalovska, Radmila, author 74 Ugrinovski, Grigor N., member of the Macedonian Colony in Petrograd 249250 UndÔieva, Cveta, author 77, 104 Upravda, Dimitrija Ëupovski’s pseudonym Uzunov, Dimitar H., teacher and textbook writer from Ohrid 131 V’lov, Trifon, author 79, 103, 137 Vaillant, André, French Slavicist 257-258 Vangelis, Greek captain in Lerin 345 Vapcarov, Nikola Jonkov, Macedonian poet, cultural and national activist,

366

head of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia 84, 322, 333-334, 341 Vasilev, Asen, author 74 Vasilev, Stefan P., author 81 Vasileva, Irina A., author 74 VasiljeviÚ, J. HadÔi, author 160 VasiÚ, Serbian general 262 VeÌerin, Kiril Manasiev’s pseudonym Veleva, Darina, author 79, 103, 137 VelÌeva, Borjana, author 61 VeliÌkov, Aleksandar S., teacher from Macedonia, associate of the Ukrainian Com-Academy, Kiev 315-318 Venedikov, Ivan, author 59, 68 Venelin, Yuri, Russian historian and Slavic scholar 49 Vergun, D.N., Russian Slavophile and writer 202 VerkoviÚ, Stefan I., Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian activist, folklorist, ethnographer and ‘archaeologist’ in Seres 76, 79-80, 103-104, 137, 149-150, 154 Veselinov, Kosta, Macedonian cultural and national activist, writer and journalist 84, 125, 323, 333, 343 VesniÚ, Milenko, Serbian diplomatic representative in Paris 258 Vezenkov, Aleksandar, signatory of the Memorandum on the Independence of Macedonia (1913) 226, 245 Vezenkov, Stojan, fighter for the freedom and independence of Macedonia 106 Vihrov, D., Dimo Nikolov’s pseudonym Vladimir I (Saint Vladimir, Vladimir the Great), Russian prince 88-94, 96, 98 Vladimir, Bulgarian prince, son of Prince Boris 61, 69 Vlahov, Dimitar, Macedonian revolutionary and national and political activist 298, 305, 313, 318, 321 Vojdanov, Smile, president of the Macedonian People’s League of America 331

Vojnicalija, Milan Ïorev, Macedonian poet and revolutionary 83 Vojnov, Mihail, author 58 VolÌeva, Dr Ljuba, wife of Ante Ciliga (from Prilep) 308 Volkašin, king in central Macedonia, father of King Mark (Marko) 12, 17, 103, 247 Vondrák, V., author 58 Voulgaris, Eugenios, founder of Mount Athos Academy Voulgaris, Leonidas, revolutionary in Macedonia, confederalist in Athens 46, 160, 168-171, 195, 238 VraneševiÚ, Branislav, author 130 VraÔinovski, possible pseudonym of Dr Gavril KonstantinoviÌ, author 112, 247 VrÌinac, J., author 308 Vsevolod, son of Prince Vladimir I 90 VuliÚ, Nikola, Serbian university professor, archaeologist 114, 343 Vysheslav, son of Prince Vladimir I 90 Walter, D., Chief of Staff of the Macedonian League 166 Weingart, Miloš, author 61 Wiching, Bishop of the Holy Church of Nitra 64, 66 Wilhelm, German Kaiser 282 Wilson, Woodrow, president of the United States 260, 266, 269, 271-272, 281, 295 Yaropolk, Russian prince, brother of Vladimir I and father of Svyatopolk 96 Yaroslav Vladimirovich (the Wise), son of Prince Vladimir I 90, 93-94 Yastrebov, Ivan, Russian consul, folklorist, ethnographer and historian 185 Ypsilanti, A., Greek national activist, Russian general 47 Yuzhakov, E., Russian Slavophile 80

Zafirovski, Mitko, cultural and national activist, writer and fighter, member of the Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia 333 Zagorov, Petar, poet 112 Zahariev, Stefan, Bulgarian teacher in Salonika (from Tatar-PazardÔik) 147 Zarevski, Branko, Macedonian revolutionary, writer and journalist 340 Zarkada, detachment commander 173 Óarov, Angel, Mihail Smatrakalev’s pseudonym Zarov, D.G., see Zafirovski, Mitko ÓeÌev, Nikolaj, author 132 ÓefaroviÌ, Hristofor, painter and genealogist from Dojran 37, 42, 73, 95, 102 Óila, Lina, author 316, 318 Zimbilev, Georgi Ivanov (HadÔi Georgi Dramski, HadÔi Georgija Dramskijt, Georgi Daskalot) teacher in the village of ProsoÌen, Drama region, Uniate leader 146 Óinzifov, Rajko, Macedonian poet, writer, teacher and Slavophile 77, 80, 104 Óivkov, Nikola, editor of the newspaper Makedonec, Ruse 175 Zlatar, Hristo, citizen of Ohrid 77 Zlatarski, Vasil N., author, Bulgarian historian 56, 61 Zografski, Anatolija (Anatolij), church activist and textbook writer 107, 131, 178 Zografski, DanÌo, author 126, 182, 195, 216, 222 Zografski, DimÌe A., author 311 Zografski, Partenija, Macedonian textbook writer, philologist, folklorist and church dignitary 78-80, 131, 178, 194, 237 Zografski, Todor G., author 311

367

Index of Geographical Names

Adrianople (Edirne, Odrin) 34, 40, 135, 138-139, 147, 182, 196, 201, 207, 217, 238 Adriatic (Adriatic Sea) 112, 152, 204, 304 Aegean (Aegean Sea) 7, 120, 152, 266, 297, 311, 320, 344, 346 Ajtos 257 Albania 4-5, 7, 10-11, 43, 73, 121, 182, 195, 212, 214, 225, 233, 252, 295, 346 America 83, 114, 125, 190, 260, 265-267, 269, 272-273, 281, 294, 324-325, 330334, 337, 342, 346 Amsterdam 40 Amu Darya (Oxus) 112 Ancona 65 Aposkep 345 Argentina 325, 327 Arsen 346 Asia 116 Asia Minor 24, 46, 91 Athens (Athínai) 114, 160, 169-170, 195, 238, 270, 332 Athos, see Mount Athos Austria 41, 43, 45, 204, 228, 299, 330 Austria-Hungary 167, 208, 244, 248, 250 Azov, Sea of 9 BaÌ 258 Balkan Mountains 132 Balkan Peninsula (see also Balkans) 4, 7, 41, 53, 108, 112, 204, 212, 214, 225, 227, 233, 240, 247, 249, 251, 278, 299, 302, 315 Balkans (see also Balkan Peninsula) viii, 4, 6-8, 12-15, 19, 21, 25-26, 31, 36, 38, 45-47, 52, 56, 60, 72, 76, 87, 94, 98, 106, 111, 116, 119-120, 126, 129, 133134, 158-160, 169, 198-199, 208, 213217, 219-220, 222, 225, 228, 231-236,

242, 247-249, 253-256, 266, 271-272, 274, 280, 284, 287, 291-292, 296-300, 302, 304-306, 311, 316, 319, 325, 328, 330-332, 337-338 Banat 11 Bansko 43 Basel 233 Battenberg 163, 181 Belasica (Mount Belasica) x, 101 Belgium 3, 269 Belgrade (Beograd) 4, 11, 15-16, 19, 33, 36, 39, 44, 56, 59, 68, 75, 94, 102, 105-106, 109, 125, 132, 149-150, 154, 160, 169, 176-177, 180-182, 187, 189191, 193, 196-198, 201-203, 218, 220, 228, 237, 239, 241, 255, 259, 270, 293, 299, 308-309, 320, 327, 332-333, 338339 Belogorotka 90 Belorussia 98 Berat 73 Berdyansk 206 Berestovo 90 Berlin 47, 108, 155, 159, 161-163, 165167, 175-176, 187, 199, 201, 236-238, 240, 327 Bern 267-269, 273 Berovo 149-151 Berzitia 32 Bessarabia 48, 184 Bialystok (BiaÂystok) 95 Bitola 9, 20, 74, 77, 79, 124, 150, 162, 178, 191, 197, 203, 206, 210, 219-220, 222, 224, 240, 242, 257, 260, 278-279, 325, 328 Black Sea 7-8, 97, 304 Blagoevgrad 309 Bohemia 85

369

Bosnia 4, 10 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia-Herzegovina 10, 39, 41, 151, 212, 214, 254, 305 Bosphorus 48, 236 Boston 272 BraniÌevo 33 Bratislava 64 Brdo 115 Bregalnica x, 19-20, 24, 59, 61, 67-68 Britain, see Great Britain Brno 132 Bucharest (Bucure‡ti) 45-47, 81, 182, 195, 211, 233, 238, 246, 251, 259, 264, 270, 285, 298 Buda 78 Budapest 159 Buenos Aires 125, 325, 346 Bulgaria 4, 8-16, 19-20, 24-38, 40, 43, 47-51, 54-63, 66-69, 72-73, 87, 90, 9293, 108, 114, 121, 125, 127, 131-132, 151-152, 157, 159-160, 163-164, 166, 168, 174-177, 180-181, 183, 190, 193, 195, 197-199, 204, 209, 212, 214, 219, 225, 231, 236, 238-239, 242, 244, 246, 249-250, 252, 255, 257, 260, 264-265268, 274-296, 298-299, 301-302, 304, 308, 311-314, 319-322, 327, 331-332, 340-342, 345 Bulgarian Empire 30, 35, 67 Byzantine Empire 4-5, 8-14, 22, 25-26, 40, 60, 87, 120 Byzantium 16, 20, 25, 32, 34, 55-57, 67, 91-93, 257 ËaÌak 310 Canada 83-84, 327, 330-331 Candia 161 Carigrad (Caregrad) see Constantinople Carpathian Mountains 86 Celje 61 Central Europe 3, 25, 73, 132-133 Chalcidice Peninsula 114 Chersonesus (Cherson, Korsun) 88, 91, 97 Chicago 272, 324

370

Chilandar (Chelandari) 94 Coburg (Koburg) 275 Constantinople (Istanbul, Carigrad, Caregrad) 4, 7, 13, 19, 25-26, 29, 32, 34-35, 45, 49-50, 55-57, 61, 63-64, 67-69, 72, 75-79, 81-82, 88, 91-92, 97, 104-105, 121, 130-137, 141-142, 145, 147-148, 151, 153, 155, 157-158, 161-163, 165, 167, 169-172, 175, 178, 196-197, 201, 207, 209, 237-238, 285, 341 Corfu 242, 252-253, 255, 258-259, 261264 Crete 168 Crna x, 257 Croatia 9-10, 41, 214, 262, 305, 309, 330 Czechoslovakia 330 Dalmatia 55, 69, 131 Danube 4, 7-9, 11, 44, 48, 56, 132, 135, 138, 163 Danube Region 14, 34, 138 Dardanelles 209 Debar 43, 185, 295 Debarca 115 Detroit 114, 125, 325, 330-331, 334, 342, 346 Devol 20, 59 Dnieper 8, 97 Dobroveni 258 Dobruja 212 Dojran (see also Poljanin) 37, 42, 73, 137, 141, 145 Dolno Kotori 257 Don 9 Dospat, Mount 169 Drama 137-138, 141, 224, 283 Drembica (Dremvica) 59, 64, 80 Dresden 310 Dubrovnik 41-42, 75 Duisburg 40 Dupnica 163, 292 Dyrrachium (Durrës) 69 East Rumelia 159-160, 176, 181 Egypt 23 Elbasan 73

EnidÔe-Vardar (Yannitsá, Giannitsá) 203, 346 Epirus 161, 212, 346 Europe 41, 52, 56, 75, 101, 105, 108, 111, 116, 126, 129-130, 133, 143, 153, 169, 199, 223, 228, 231, 233-234, 243, 248, 256, 274, 286, 296, 300, 320, 324, 327, 337-338, 346 European Turkey (Turkey in Europe) 41, 44, 47, 152, 157, 160, 162, 165-167, 179, 192 France 3, 46, 167, 195, 250, 255-256, 269, 272, 281 Freising 64 Gabrovo 195, 216, 238 Galata 131 GaliÌnik 131, 177 Gary 333 Gaul 3 Gdansk (GdaØsk) 56 Geneva (Genève) 46, 113, 195, 267-268, 273-274, 287 Germany 3, 167, 250 Gevgelija 162, 172 Glavinica 20 Gorna DÔumaja 153, 333 Gorno Kotori 257 Granite City 84 Great Britain 102, 167, 218, 239, 250, 266, 269, 272, 281 Greater Moravia (see also Moravia) 24-27, 56, 64, 66-67, 70 Greece (Hellas) 4-5, 7-8, 45-47, 79, 97, 110, 120, 159-160, 168-169, 204, 212, 214, 225, 236, 239, 246, 249-250, 252, 260, 267, 272, 281, 298-299, 304, 311, 314, 318, 320-321, 323, 331, 342, 345 Greek Empire 46 Gremen-TeÎe 160-161, 165 GumendÔe (Gouménissa) 148 Guzemelci 174 Hellas, see Greece Herzegovina 151-152, 154 Hungarian Kingdom 44

Hungary 10, 44-45 Hvar 112 Ierikho 67 Ihtiman 91 Illyria (Illyricum) 56, 63-65, 67, 69, 87 Imaret 68, 72 India 112 Indian Ocean 112 Indiana 333 Ionian Islands 120 Ionian Republic 120 Ipek, see PeÚ Italy 3, 47, 65, 67, 98, 167, 269, 272, 281 Jannina (Ioánnina) 45 Japan 281 Jassy (Ia‡i) 45-46 KaÌanik 294 Kalofer 49 Kanina 67 Karéa 107 Karlovci 49 Kastamonia 23 Kavalla 224 Kazanl’k 152, 196 Kessendra 174 Kiev (Kyïv) 72, 86, 88-91, 93, 95-99, 109, 134, 315-318 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (official name of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the years 1918-1929) 252, 268, 297, 300 Kjustendil 169, 174 KoÌani 174, 279 Koprivštica 49 Korsun, see Chersonesus Košišta 77 Kosovo 4, 176, 196, 206-207, 217, 240 Kostur (Kastoría) 20, 279, 289-290, 345 Kratovo 96, 160 Kremen 258 Kresna 105-107, 143, 155-156, 159-160, 163, 166, 177, 236, 238 Kriva Palanka 103, 129, 160 Kruševo 325, 328, 343

371

Ksilurg (Xylourgos) 94-95 Kuban 9 Kukuš (Kilkís) 104, 136-137, 140-141, 145, 147, 194, 203, 279 Kumanovo 160, 203 Kurt-Bunar 223, 277 KutmiÌevica 58 Latin Empire 12 Lausanne 268, 270, 273, 292, 316 Lazaropole 186 Lebanon 240 Leningrad (see also St Petersburg, Petrograd) 72, 98, 186, 317 Lepoglava 115 Lerin (Flórina) 162, 238, 256-257, 261, 345-346 Leskovec 257 Lesnovo 96 Libjahovo 135 Ljubljana 61, 128, 132 London 182, 195, 222-223, 226-227, 245, 252, 258, 260 Lucerne (Luzern) 269 Luxembourg 3 Macedonia vii-x, 1, 4-6, 9-24, 26-44, 46, 48-56, 58, 60-62, 65-81, 83-87, 89, 91, 93, 95-108, 110-113, 116, 120-122, 125-137, 139, 141-145, 147-150, 152184, 188-305, 307-314, 316-327, 329333, 335-347 Madison 346 Maleš, Mount 164 Maleševo 137, 139, 145, 147, 150-154 Malovište 172 Maribor 323 Marica 12, 40, 101 Mariovo 172 Matka 97 Mediterranean 46, 120 Meglen 20 Melnik 12, 136-137, 141 Mesta 11, 20 Middle East 4, 116 Minsk 98, 247

372

Mitrovica 151 Moesia 10, 14, 29, 37, 138 Moldavia 5, 14, 45-48 Monastir (Bitola, see also Bitola) 143 Montenegro 4, 10, 39, 43, 204, 212, 214, 222, 225, 241, 244, 255, 271, 305, 309310 Morava 7, 19, 67-68, 185, 302 Moravia (see also Greater Moravia) 10, 22-25, 29, 33, 55-57, 60-61, 63-66, 7374, 85 Morozdvizd 20 Moscow (Moskva) 8, 46, 49, 79-81, 86, 88, 90-93, 98-99, 104, 107, 116, 128-129, 132-133, 153, 161, 169, 176, 205-206, 218, 222, 237, 300, 308, 313, 315, 317320, 328 Moskopole 37 Mount Athos 23, 45-46, 71-73, 79, 94-95, 99, 127, 140, 236 Munich (München) 112 Mürzsteg 239 Near East 272, 337 Netherlands 3-4 Neuchâtel 268 Neuilly 273, 292, 297-298 Nevrokop 135-136, 150, 203 New York 189, 272 Niš 68, 252, 282, 300 Nitra 64 North America 324, 346 Novgorod 89, 91, 93-94, 97-99 Novi Sad 44, 72-73, 112, 130 Novo Selo 150 Odessa 47-48, 76, 99, 103, 124, 149, 153, 206, 211, 218, 222, 247-248, 318 Ohrid 12, 14-17, 20-21, 28-30, 34-36, 39, 54-56, 59-62, 66-75, 77-83, 85, 87-90, 92-94, 96-99, 101-102, 104, 110-111, 115-116, 121, 127, 129-130, 135, 137139, 141, 155, 158, 162, 174, 176, 178179, 196, 203, 207, 210, 223-224, 229, 236, 267, 277, 295 Ohrid, Lake 72, 74, 129

Olympus 24, 66, 172 Ostrovo (Árnisssa) 160, 171 Ottoman Empire (see also Turkey) 6, 44, 51, 110, 119-121, 126-127, 160, 194, 206, 210, 237, 240 Ovech (Provadija) 19 Paeonia 10 Pannonia 56-57, 63-64, 67, 70 Paris 46-47, 56, 133, 195, 227, 252, 258259, 269, 272-275, 279, 281, 284-285, 287, 291, 293, 295, 314, 318 Paristrion 34 Passau 67 PeÚ (Ipek) 36, 185 PehÌevo 152 Pelagonija 203 Pella 40 Peloponnesus 38 Pereyaslav 98 PetriÌ 150, 313-314, 317 Petrograd (see also St Petersburg, Leningrad) 82, 83, 99, 107, 113, 124, 175, 185, 187, 194, 197, 200, 212-214, 216, 220, 246-248, 251, 253, 274-275, 333, 337 Phener 50 Philippopolis (Plovdiv, see also Plovdiv) 19 Piedmont (Piemonte) 188, 206, 210, 240, 299, 329 Pijanec 149, 155, 160, 238 Pindus 112 Pirin (Mount Pirin, Pirin Planina) 167-168, 174-175, 311-312, 319-320, 329, 337, 342 Pliska 28, 30, 57, 61, 68 Plovdiv 34, 40, 107, 158, 168, 170-171, 180, 291 Podles 174 Podrinje 259 Poland 247-248 Poljanin (Dojran, see also Dojran) 138139, 141, 147 Polychron 25

Pontiac 346 Prague (Praha) 56-58, 61, 86, 133, 301, 336 Preslav 28, 30, 57-59, 61, 68, 87-88 Prespa 12, 257 Prespa, Lake 129 Prilep 41, 61, 77, 80, 87, 101, 115, 130, 145, 150, 158, 162-163, 172, 178, 203, 224, 308, 333 Priština 163 Prizren 49, 185 ProsoÌen 146 Provadija, see Ovech Provat 67 Radibuš 103 Radoviš 149-150 Razlovci 42, 137, 140, 143, 151-155, 158, 237 Reka 177 Resava 302 Resen 162 Reval (Tallinn) 218, 239 Rhine 3 Rhodopes 11, 59, 67 Rila 42, 49 Rinhos 33 Roman Empire 5, 88 Romania 5, 10, 43, 47, 120-121, 150, 201, 236-237, 253, 271, 331 Rome (Roma) 20-21, 29, 56-57, 59-60, 63-70, 87, 92, 94, 97-98, 148, 252, 257 Rovine 12 Rudnik 174 Rumelia 46, 159-160, 176 RusÌuk see Ruse Ruse (Russe, RusÌuk) 111, 163-164, 166167, 174-175, 180-181 Russia 36, 43, 46-48, 71-72, 79-81, 86, 88, 90-93, 95-96, 98-100, 120-121, 127, 131, 145, 149, 152, 159, 164, 167, 184, 200, 202, 204-206, 208, 210-213, 218, 221-222, 233, 236-239, 242, 244, 246248, 250-253, 255, 297 Russian Empire 220

373

Salonika (Thessaloníki, Solun) 9-10, 22, 24-25, 27, 32-33, 41, 66-67, 69, 71, 74-75, 77-79, 81, 83, 87, 94, 104, 110, 131, 134-140, 143, 145-147, 151-154, 158, 161, 167, 170-172, 174-176, 178, 182, 184, 196, 203, 206, 222-224, 226, 229, 237, 240, 245, 255-257, 259-260, 264, 266-267, 278-279, 294, 319 Samokov 43 San Francisco 272 San Stefano 49, 134, 155, 158, 164, 238 Šar (Šar Mountains) 7, 112, 294 Sava 44 Sclavinia, see Slavinia Serbia 4, 8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 26, 36, 39-40, 45, 68, 109, 120-121, 145, 149-151, 154, 159-160, 169, 174, 176, 179, 185, 187, 190, 197-199, 201-202, 204, 207, 209, 211-214, 219, 225, 228, 230, 236240, 242, 244, 246, 248-250, 252-253, 255, 257, 259, 261, 263-267, 271-272, 275, 281, 292, 295, 298-299, 302, 304305, 308, 342-343, 345 Seres (Serres, Sérrai) 136-138, 140-141, 152, 163, 203, 277-280, 282-283, 292, 295 Silistra (Durostorum) 19, 59 Sinai 95 Sinope (Sinop) 97 SkoÌivar 258 Skopje 17, 20, 28, 35, 41-42, 50, 52-55, 57, 59-60, 62, 66, 68, 70, 72-76, 78, 80-85, 87-89, 96, 99, 101-103, 107-108, 110, 112, 114-115, 124-126, 128-132, 134, 139, 141-142, 144-145, 151-152, 159160, 174-179, 182, 184-186, 188, 190196, 200, 202-203, 206, 211, 216-217, 219, 222, 226, 243, 261, 264, 278-279, 298, 308, 310-311, 313, 318, 320-323, 327, 329-330, 332-334, 337-344 Slavinia (Sclavinia) 9, 32, 88 Slovakia 64 Slovenia 214, 262, 305, 309 Sofia (Sofija, see also Sredec) 7-8, 11, 16-20, 22-24, 27, 29-31, 34-36, 38, 46,

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49, 54-59, 61-64, 66-67, 69, 72-74, 7784, 87, 94, 97, 101, 103-104, 107-114, 124-125, 131-132, 135, 137, 142, 146147, 149, 152, 154-155, 158, 160, 163164, 170, 175-178, 180-183, 185-187, 189-191, 193, 195, 197, 200-201, 203, 215-218, 220, 222-223, 239, 243, 270, 276-279, 286-290, 292-293, 297-301, 303-304, 308, 312-313, 324, 327-330, 332-335, 337-338, 341, 343-344 Solun see Salonika Sombor 44 South America 324-325, 330, 346 South-Eastern Europe 132-133 Soviet Union (USSR) 308, 317-318, 339 Spain 327, 346 Split 320, 330 Sredec, SrÆdec (Sofia, see also Sofia) 1920, 68, 96, 139, 158 Srem 33 Sremski Karlovci 120, 190 St Petersburg (see also Petrograd, Leningrad) 81-82, 88, 99, 113, 124, 159, 175, 181, 184-189, 191, 193, 200-205, 207, 210-211, 213, 218-220, 223, 225-232, 240, 242-246, 263, 270, 274, 333 Stara Planina, Mount 4, 8, 13 Štip 20, 75, 130, 145, 150, 310 Stobi 41 Stara Zagora 195 Struga 66, 77, 79, 158 Struma 11, 112, 294 Strumica 12, 136-138, 141-143, 149-151, 154 Strymon 33-34 Subotica 44 Šumadija 15 Suzdal 99 Switzerland (Swiss Federal Republic) 3, 217, 267-275, 278, 284, 337 Syr Darya (Jaxartes) 112 Syria 23 Tartu 184 Tatar-PazardÔik 147

Thassipiat 67 Thessaly 97, 161, 172 Thrace 10, 14, 34, 40, 49-50, 97, 112, 131, 138, 212, 214, 254 Tiberiopolis (Strumica, see also Strumica) 23, 66 Tikveš 131, 172-174 Timisoara 44 Timok 8, 11 Titograd (Podgorica) 131, 309 Titov Veles (Veles, see also Veles) 130 Toronto 84, 325, 346 Transylvania 11 Trent (Trento) 62 Trieste 133 Trnovo (Turnovo) 16, 28, 36 Turkey (see also Ottoman Empire) 5, 13, 16, 41, 44-45, 47-51, 73, 78-79, 103104, 109, 121, 128-129, 133-134, 139, 142-144, 148, 150-152, 156-162, 165167, 170, 179, 192, 194, 196, 198-199, 205-206, 210, 215-217, 219, 221, 224, 232-233, 235-236, 238-239, 243-244, 248, 257, 299 Turkey in Europe, see European Turkey Ukraine 10, 42, 99, 102, 315 Ungheni 253 United States of America (United States, USA, America) 83-84, 260, 266, 269, 271-273, 281, 291, 294, 325, 327, 330331 Uruguay 327 USA, see United States of America USSR, see Soviet Union Vardar x, 20, 112, 125, 145, 182, 197, 206, 219, 239, 252, 268, 278, 295, 297, 310312, 318, 320, 323-324, 338-339, 343344 Varna 171 Vataša 131 VelbuÔd 20 Veles 79, 130, 138-145, 154, 162, 172-174, 203, 222-224, 227, 243, 260, 279, 294, 308-309, 323

Velika (Velica, Belica) 59, 64, 66, 69, 80 Velletra (Velletri) 66 Venice (Venezia) 67 Versailles 267, 273, 287-288, 297, 306, 329-330, 336 Vetersko 174 Vienna 46-47, 101-102, 113-114, 131, 159, 194, 200, 202, 223, 231, 237, 277, 287 Vitoša 309 Vladimir 99 V’mbel 345 Voden (Edessa, Édhessa) 112, 136-138, 141, 171-172, 178, 203, 242, 261, 263, 275, 346 Vojvodina 15, 44-45, 304-305 Volga 8-9 Vrtikop 346 Vyšehrad 57 Vyshegorod 90 Wallachia 5, 14, 36, 45-48 Wallachia-Moldavia 46 Washington 272 Warsaw 184 Western Europe 3, 40-41, 119-120 Wroclaw (WrocÂaw) 96 Xylourgos see Ksilurg Yugoslavia (for the years 1918-1929 see also Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) 7, 56, 85, 112, 253-254, 258, 262, 275, 292-293, 295-305, 307-311, 314, 318-321, 329-331, 337-338, 340 ZagoriÌani 276 Zagorsk 99 Zagreb 69, 89, 125, 128, 131-133, 299, 308-310, 312, 320, 323, 330, 338 Zarovo 140 Óitoše 220 Zograph (Zographou) 80, 94, 140 Zurich (Zürich) 268

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