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I MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS
(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
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
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
Macedonian Cultural and National Thought and Action in the Period between the Two
World Wars 336
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 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--vis those of their neighbours. An
ethnic birth was necessary first; and only then could they raise the question of
political liberation.
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 ar
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. Dimitr 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 r Angel ov, ,,B 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 ua 1050 godi ni ot sm r t t a mu, BAN,
S of i , 1966, 7. These views are also expressed in other papers by this author. We should mention his
article ,,P o v pr osa za nasel eni et o v Makedoni pr ez sr ednovekovnat a epoha ( -H v.)
in the journal I skust vo, H, 4-5, S of i , 1962, and they are expounded in greater detail in his book,
published later, ,,Obr azuvane na b l gar skat a nar odnost (S of i , 1971), covering the period to
the 11th century.
2 Di mi t r Angel ov, ,,B l gar skat a nar odnost , 12.
3 Ibid., 8.
4 Ibid., 7.
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 Asparuhs company in moving to what is today Bulgaria,
which may be relevant for further research (,,I st or i eski e osnov dr u b r usskogo i bol gar skogo nar odov, S l avne, 11, Moskva, 1943, 30-31).
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 Kubrats Bulgaria as the first one!) was
founded by Kubrats 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 Asparuhs 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.
11
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 ori 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 Kaloyans 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 Duan 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
Duan retained the autonomy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, even though he
somewhat decreased its competencies. In addition, the regional feudal lords in
Macedonia under Duan enjoyed a special status and were granted a great degree
of autonomy. As a result, following Duans death (1355), the Dejanovci and
Mrnjaevci families established fully independent feudal rule. Around 1365
Volkain 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
Uglea. Volkains 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 peoples
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
13
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 nations 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
umadija, 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 countrys
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?
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 (translators
note).
10 K. Mi si r kov , ,,Makedonska kul t ur a, P i r i n , , 2, S of i , 21.H.1923, 2.
16
nians and Macedonia in the Middle Ages, but also the very history of the Serbs and
Bulgarians.
12
For more details see: D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, ,
Mi sl a, S kopje, 1983, 88-116.
17
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
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 Misirkovs 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
14
18
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 Bulgarias 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 i r azvi t i et o na b l gar skat a kul t ur a, Hi l da i st o
godi ni sl avnska pi smenost 863-1963. S bor ni k v est na Ki r i l i Met odi , BAN, S of i ,
1963, 27.
19
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, Velbud 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 ernorizec Hrabar (and confirmed by Misirkov), gave rise to the
development of literacy.
20
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 (raboi)
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 ernorizec 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
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
18
22
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. ernorizec 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
20
23
and in which the Semitic symbols , C and 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 Rostislavs 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. ernorizec 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
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 Empires
aspirations in the Balkans.
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 Methodiuss 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 Louiss 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.
27
(with small modifications) as the standard state script of the Bulgarian court in
Preslav.
The time in which ernorizec 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 Methodiuss
disciples Clement and Naum established the Ohrid Literary School, which, to
quote Blae 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 Clements 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
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 Clements 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 Clements.28 If we add the assertion of Theophylact of Ohrid
(the Archbishop of Ohrid, two centuries after Clements 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
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
30
Di mi t r Angel ov, ,,B 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 ua 1050 godi ni ot sm r t t a mu, BAN,
S of i , 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, Blae
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 Slavs33
(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 cki i zvor i za b l gar skat a i st or i , , 1960, 265.
34 Di mi t 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 Branievo and Srem regions,
together with present-day Belgrade, came within Bulgarias 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
33
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 Samuels 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
34
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 Asens heir, Kaloyan
37
35
36
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 efarovi 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
Karadi, 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 Pejinovis 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 Simeons 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.
37
38
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 Duans 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 opi for the Bulgarians, as the Macedonians knew no other
peoples living much further than the land of the opi. Yet because the Bulgarians
42
Ibid., 117.
Ibid., 120-121.
44 Ibid., 122.
45 Ibid.
43
39
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
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--vis the Orthodox Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians and Greeks, and were entered in the
registration form as i z makedonsko naci e (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..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.
42
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 Brankovi), 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 Simeons
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.
43
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 Theresas 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 (Ionnina) 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
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 prparation de la Rvolution grecque (1789-1821), Genve-Paris, 1962; G.A. Ar , ,,K vopr osu
ob i denom vozdest vi i Vel i ko F r ancuzsko r evol ci i na bal kanski e nar od (Nei zvest n t ekst konst i t uci i i ,Voennogo gi mna Ri gasa Vel est i nl i sa), F r ancuzski e egodni k,
1963, Moskva, 1964; Ni kol a Todor ov, F i l i ki et er i i b l gar i t e, BAN, S of i , 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, Kapodstrias 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 Philik Etairea (Philik 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
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 Simeons 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 Etairea
committees, in the subsequent years, Vasil Levskis 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 Venelins 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
Karadata 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
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 italite (Reading Club), printing
articles by many Macedonian activists as well. The Bulgarian Charitable Society
Prosvetenie (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 a e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja, Razgl edi ,
, 9, S kopje, 1960, 908-936; , 10, 1005-1029; , 1, 72-90 and , 2, 158-189.
54
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 Bulgarias 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
Macedonias 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.
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
53
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 Clements
hagiographies were written by the Ohrid archbishops Theophylact58 and Homa57
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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i na sv. Kl i ment
Ohr i dski , S of i , 1961, 29-68; Al eksand r Mi l ev, Dvet e gr cki i t i 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 ua 1050 godi ni ot sm r t t a
mu, S of i , 1966, 143-155; I van Duev, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i negovot o del o v naunat a
kni 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 B l gar i , S of i , 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 lactivit de
Clment dOchrida, Byzantinobulgarica, I, Sofia, 1962, 79-119; I . S negar ov, ,,F ot okopi e ot
ohr i dski (moskovski ) pr epi s na P r ost r anot o i t i e na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment
Ohr i dski , 173.
54
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 Duev, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski i negovot o del o v naunat a kni ni na ,
424-428; I van Duev, ,,Kr at kot o Kl i ment ovo i t i e ot Di mi t r i Homat i an, in: Kl i ment
Ohr i dski , 161-164; Al eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 121-131; Al eksand r Mi l ev, Dvet e
gr cki i t i , 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 a e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na
sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva, P r i l ozi , , 1-2, MANU, S kopje, 1976, 65); Bo i dar
Rakov, ,,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 n Dr i nov , S i neni , , S of i , 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.
or e S p. Radoji i , ,,O Konst ant i nu- i r i l u i Met odi ju i o poeci ma sl ovenske pi smenost i , in: S i mpozi um 1100-godi ni na od smr t t a na Ki r i l S ol unski , 1, S kopje, 1970,
213.
55
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 Kocels 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i t a, 95; Di mi t r Angel ov, ,,B 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 ovna kol a, in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . S bor ni k ot st at i i , 55; Nade da
Dr agova, Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S of i , 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i t a, 91, 95 and 97)
and were barely able to carry any manuscripts or books (I van S negar ov, ,,er nor i zec Hr ab r ,
in: Hi l da i st o godi ni sl avnska pi smenost 863-1963. S bor ni k v est na Ki r i l i
Met odi , BAN, S of i , 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 Mosziski, ,,Zywy po jedenastu wiekach. W 1100 rocznice mierci
naucziela i pierwszego arcybiskupa Slowian, wsplpatrona Europy witogo Metodego, Gwiazda
Morza, No. 7 (36), Gdask, 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, ,,Velk Morava a Bulharsko v IX ctoroi, in: Ria Velkomoravsk, 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 br ani s i neni , . P r ost r ani i t i na Ki r i l i Met odi . P odgot vi l i za
e
peat Bon S t . Angel ov i Hr i st o Kodov, S of i , 1973,
210), a view put forward, for instance,
by Frantiek Dvornik (Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IX sicle, 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 Mosziski, op. cit., 5.).
56
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 Radojii is
72
Har al ampi e P ol enakovi , ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski . 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 99).
73 Al eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 95.
74 Al eksand r Mi l ev, Dvet e gr cki i t i , 147 (Pliska was probably still the capital then);
I van Bogdanov, Kl i ment Ohr i dski . I st or i eski oer k s nauen koment ar , S of i , 1966,
103 (Pliska was the capital of the first Bulgarian state up to the year 893). Emil Georgiev
(,,S st oni e na naunat a pr obl emat i ka okol o l i nost t a i denost t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Mat er i al i za negovot o est vuvane po sl ua 1050 godi ni ot
sm r t t a mu, S of i , 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 Methodiuss 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 Boriss 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 (Frantiek Dvornik, Byzantsk misie u Slovan, VyehradPraha, MCMLXX, 251).
75 The first archbishops of the Bulgarian Church were the Greeks Joseph and George (R. Kar ol ev ,
Ur oci po b l gar skat a er kovna i st or i , C ar i gr ad , 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 aal o na sl avnskat a pi smenost v B l gar i , S of i , 1942, 30-32), however,
57
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 Boriss 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 Vondrk,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 Kutmievica to be a
teacher (even though he was given a house and rest homes). The region of
Kutmievica 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.
or e S p. Radoji i , op. cit., 213.
Ibid.
This is true regardless of the fact that some traces of Glagolitic have been found at Preslav (Kr .
Mi t ev , ,,S i meonovat a c r kva v P r esl av i neni t epi gr af ski mat er i al , B l gar ski pr egl ed , 1, S of i , 1929, 112; I van Go ev, S t ar ob l gar ski gl agol i eski i ki r i l ski
nadpi ci ot H i H v., S of i , 1963; I van Go ev, ,,Razvi t i e na negr cki t e ki r i l omet odi evski bukveni znaci v t . nar . ki r i l i ca, in: Hi l da i st o godi ni sl avnska pi smenost ,
274-286). Thus, even Emil Georgiev (N aal o na sl avnskat a pi smenost v B l gar i , 14-15)
admits the force of V. Vondrks view that Clement, as a sign of protest, moved to Macedonia.
V. Vondrk, ,,Studie z oboru crkevn-slovanskho psemnictv, Rozpravy esk akademie ved, 20,
Praha, 1903, 124.
G.A. I l i nski , ,,Gde, kogda, kem i s kako cel gl agol i ca b l a zamenena ,ki r i l i ce,
Byzantinoslavica, , 1, 1931, 79-88.
Dvornik (op. cit., 255) also believes that the question of the alphabet was one of the main reasons for
Clements departure from the Bulgarian capital. He points out that ernorizec 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 Methodiuss translation, i.e. a
Bulgarization of the Macedonian and Moravian expressions used in the original translation. Mihail
Vojnov (,,P r omnat a v b l gar o-vi zant i ski t e ot no eni pr i car S i meon, I zvest i na
I nst i t ut a za i st or i , 18, S of i , 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 100; Geor gi Bal asev , Kl i ment , epi skop sl ovnski i
sl u bat a mu po st ar sl ovnski pr evod , S of i , 1898, HH-HH; Ki r i l o-met odi evska
58
83
84
85
86
87
enci kl opedi v t r i t oma, , S of i , 1985, 58. Petr S. Koledarov (,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski , ,p r vi
epi skop na b l gar ski ezi k na dr agovi t i t e v S ol unsko i na Vel i ki v zapadni t e Rodopi ,
in: Konst ant i n-Ki r i l F i l osof . bi l een sbor ni k po sl ua 1100-godi ni nat a ot
sm r t t a mu, S of i , 1969, 141-167) stretches Clements 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 Clements 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 Blae Koneski (,,Ohr i dskat a kni ovna kol a, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 77)?
Al eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 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 Boriss 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 110) meaning that there were possibly only two
cathedrals on Bulgarian territory which of the other five were located on Clements territory? On
the other hand, does not the exemption of Clements 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 ( i t i , 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 Frantiek 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
59
60
92
93
94
95
All Clements 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 , , 292). In connection with the
alphabets, precious information can be found in Blaga Aleksovas 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 eksand r
Mi l ev, i t i , 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 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 Vladimirs deposition.
Naum of Ohrid is treated only as presbyter and under the name he also retained as a monk. Ivan Snegarov
(,,er nor i zec Hr ab r , in: Hi l da 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 (Du an
Gl umac, ,,Ne t o za i vot ot na Naum Ohr i dski , in: N aum Ohr i dski , Ohr i d, 1985, 21-22).
Bl a e Koneski , ,,Ohr i dskat a kni ovna kol a, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 69-87;
Bor na Vel eva, ,,Gl agol i cat a i 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 st oni e na naunat a pr obl emat i ka okol o l i nost t a
i denost t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Mat er i al i , 55-58.
Milo Weingart, Bulgai a Carihrad ped tsciletim, Praha, 1915, 9; Andr Mazon, ,,Le moine Crabre
et Cyrille, in: S bor ni k v est na Vasi l N . Zl at ar ski , S of i , 1925, 119-122; Rajko
Nahtigal, ,,Nekaj pripomb k pretresu Hrabrovega spisa o azbuki Konstantina Cirila, Slavistina revija,
Ljubljana, 1948, 5-18; Fr. Grivec, Slovanska blagovestnika sv. Ciril in Metod, 863-1963, Celje, 1963,
197; Bl a e Koneski , op. cit., 80; Du an Gl umac, op. cit., 22-23.
61
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
language98
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 a e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja,
. Bel e ki za kat ol i ci zmot i uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja do pol ovi nat a na HH vek,
Razgl edi , /, 9, S kopje, 1960, 908-936; see also: N.I . Mi l ev , Kat ol i kat a pr opaganda
v B l gar i pr z H vk . I st or i esko i zsl edvane s pr i l o eni , S of i , 1914; Jovan
Radowi , Ri mska kur i ja i ju nosl ovenske zemq e od H do HH veka, S ANU, CLV, Beogr ad,
1950).
97 Almost all researchers agree that Theophylact had a hagiography of Clement written by a contemporary
of Clements at hand, as confirmed in paragraph 58 of the Longer Life (Al eksand r Mi l ev,
i t i , 102-103). In addition to older sources, Homatian no doubt had access to Theophylacts
Longer Life.
98 Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S br ani s i neni , , S of i , 1973, 140.
62
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 it100
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 place101
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 bishops 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 74-75.
101I van Duev , I z st ar at a b l gar ska kni ni na, . Kni ovni i i st or i eski pamet ni ci
ot P r vot o b l gar sko car st vo, S of i , 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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 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
63
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 osnovopol o ni ci na sl avnski t e l i t er at ur i , S of i , 1956, 111). Of special significance is
Methodiuss 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 Ratko, Pramene k dejinm Velkej Moravy. Druh opraven a roziren vydanie, Bratislava,
1968, 174). In his letter to the Greater-Moravian prince Svatopluk (Svtopluk, 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 br ani s i neni ,
, 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
bishops office (Al eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 150). F. Grivec, however, believes that the
disciples who were brought to Rome were not deemed worthy of the bishops 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 Ratko, 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 (Frantiek Dvornik, Byzantsk misie u Slovan, 160-161).
64
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 br ani s i neni , , 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 Ratko, op. cit., 431). If we subtract the three years of the banishment of Methodius
from the bishops 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.
65
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
Methodiuss disciples in the disputes with Wichings and Svatopluks opponents,107 we must accept that they were Methodiuss 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 bishops office even in Moravia in Du Canges 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
Methodiuss insistence) he was buried in the Church of St Clement in Rome, and even the cathedral
church of Gauderich in Velletra bears that name (Frantiek 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 br ani s i neni , t om p r vi . Obr abot i l i B.S t . Angel ov, K.M. Kuev, Hr . Kodov, S of i ,
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, HHH, 370, S kopje, 1984, 29). In connection
with changing his name see: I van S negar ov, ,,er nor i zec Hr ab r , in: Hi l da i st o godi ni ,
308-309; l .-kor . Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,S st oni e na naunat a pr obl emat i ka okol o l i nost t a i
denost t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment Ohr i dski . Mat er i al i , 53-54.
107Al eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 86, 89 and 90.
108Al eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 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 Polenakovi (Har al ampi e P ol enakovi , ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski . i vot i
dejnost , in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S kopje, 1966, 11).
109P r of . or dan I vanov , B l gar ski st ar i ni i z Makedoni . Vt or o dop l neno i zdani e,
S of i , 1931, 565.
110M.G. P opr u enko, ,,S i nodi k car Bor i l a, B l gar ski st ar i ni , , S of i , 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; l .-kor . Emi l Geor gi ev,
66
of them have examined the possibility that Clements 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 v pr osa za epar hi t a na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , in: Kl i ment
Ohr i dski 916-1966, 291-305; P et r Kol edar ov, ,,Kl i ment Ohr i dski , ,p r vi epi skop na
b l gar ski ezi k na dr agovi t i t e v S ol unsko i na Vel i ki v Zapadni t e Rodopi , in: Konst ant i n-Ki r i l F i l osof . bi l een sbor ni k, 141-167.
112In all probability Frantiek 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 Rostislavs state. This was the result of the rejection of Rostislavs 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 Rostislavs 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 Methodiuss 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 Kocels
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 br ani s i neni ,
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 , 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 . or dan I vanov , 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.
67
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 Clements 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. Ljubinkovi is perhaps
right when he concludes: Whereas the Preslav prelate, together with his Synod,
administered the territory of his own church: two thirds of Boriss state [?], the
114Vj.
t ef ani , ,,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 ni na na Kl i ment Ohr i dski , Nar oden muzej, Ohr i d, 1966,
13; Har al ampi e P ol enakovi , 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; l .-kor . Emi l Geor gi ev, ,,S st oni e na
naunat a pr obl emat i ka, 55 (perhaps a spiritual brother, and perhaps a brother in blood);
or e S p. Radoji i , 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 Boriss Monastery in Preslav. For
this monastery see: Di me 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, Ni, Belgrade, Sredec, etc. (Ki r i l oMet odi evska enci kl opedi , , 291). If, according to Frantiek 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 , ,,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.
68
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, Ljubinkovi 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 Clements 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 Panteli (,,O Kijevskim i Sinajskim listiima,
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 eksand r Mi l ev, i t i , 112-114.
121Blae Koneski (,,Ohr i dskat a kni ovna kol a, in: Kni ga za Kl i ment Ohr i dski , 86), relying
on I. Pastuhovs writings (B l gar ska i st or i , , S of i , 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 Georgievs view (N aal o na sl avnskat a pi smenost v B l gar i , S of i , 1942, 44-45) concerning the alphabet as the main reason for the
departure of Cyril and Methodiuss 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
Clements eparchy as well, as a result of which the latter stood on the side of Boris in Vladimirs
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 Clements activity. It is indeed strange how the
hagiographer missed the opportunity of describing Naums funeral and Clements outstanding partici-
69
Thus we can assume that the main reason for Clements 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 Clements (and Naums) 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. Blae Koneski (,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva,
P r i l ozi , , 1-2, MANU, S kopje, 1976, 66) is right in pointing out that Naums 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 Koneskis view that the
cult of Naum was revived in Ohrid only after the arrival of the Turks, when St Clements monastery
was turned into a mosque, and St Naums monastery came to prominence as a cult site. As a matter of
fact, the hagiographies make almost no references to Clements 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 a e Ri st ovski , ,,Nekoi pr a 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.
70
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 Methodiuss 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 (Sedmoislenici) 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
72
130I
zobr a eni j or u i j i l i r i eski h S t emat ogr af i ja. Rezal i u bakr u Hr i st of or ef ar ovi 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, efarovi grouped the following around the Ohrid
Church: the holy David, Tsar of Bulgaria; and Theoctistus; Nicodemus the Fragrant (Myrobltis,
Myrrh-emanating), buried in Berat, Albania; Arsenius, the Miracle Worker, the Archbishop of
Bulgaria; Theophylact, the Archbishop of Bulgaria; John Vladimir the Fragrant (Myrobltis), buried in
Elbasan, etc. It is interesting that efarovi, 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 kings 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 Hi l endar ski , S l avnob l gar ska i st or i . P od r edakci na P et r
Di nekov . Vt or o i zdani e, S of i , 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-peoples fresco-painter Hristofor efarovi 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 efarovi 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 ef ar ovi , I st or i ja, , 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 (Bon S t .
Angel ov, ,,Ki r i l i Met odi v sl avnski t e peat ni kni gi ot H -H v., in: Hi l da i st o
godi ni sl avnska pi smenost , 358-375).
73
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
74
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
opski;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- 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 HH vek, in: Ki r i l S ol unski . S i mpozi um 1100-godi 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 ar i , in: Ki r i l S ol unski . S i mpozi um 1100-godi 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 ava,
, S kopje, 1981, 182 and 203-204; D-r Bl a 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, , S kopje,
1983, 193-204.
137P .R. S l avekov , ,,Makedonsk t v pr os , Makedon, , 3, C ar egr ad , 18..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 Dragaevi, before becoming inveigled by Greater-Serbian ideas, at several points in his textbook
Geografija za srednje kole (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 Gunduli or Pribojevi, since similar beliefs were
widespread among the people, so the views of Jordan Hadikonstantinov-Dinot, orija M. Pulevski,
Isaija R. Maovski and others in 19th-century Macedonia are not incomprehensible.
139K.A.P . apkar ev , N ar no sv. bl agovst vovane i l i S bor ot Evangel ski t t en,
C ar i gr ad , 1869, 3; Bl a e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba. Makedonski t e uebni ci
od 19 vek. Vt or o i zdani e, S kopje, 1959, 57 and 59.
140or e M. P uq evski , Reni k ot t r i jezi ka s. makedonski , ar banski i t ur ski , , u Beogr adu,
1875, 42; Makedon, , 14, 2..1868; , 33, 13. .1868, 3, etc.
75
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 Verkovi 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
76
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 peoples 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
(Rako i nzi f ov, P ubl i ci st i ka, . S st avi l i C vet a Und i eva i Doo Lekov, S of i ,
1964, 256); in Salonika this took place two years later (Makedon, , 27, 1. .1868); in Bitola it was
celebrated as late as 1871 (Makedon, , 21, 25. .1871), etc.
146According to the journal B l gar (, 63, C ar i gr ad , 4. .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 Ui l i e ,,S v. Ki r . i Met . Ko i a Ohr i d g. 1861.
Ma 6-i was to be seen above the entrance door to the school in the Koita quarter in Ohrid (P r of .
or dan I vanov , 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 Miladinovs documents upon his arrest
in Struga on February 16, 1861, there were only the following words: i l . B l gar. V ohr. ul i c .
Ko i a (Br at 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 akov,
S of i , 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 Dio 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 Koita, 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 ki t e, Makedon, ,
27, 1. .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 on P et r ov, ,,Del ot o na br at t a Ki r i l i Met odi i
77
received is perhaps best illustrated by Grigor Prlievs 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 apkarev152 also increasingly
b l gar skat a muzi ka, in: Hi l da i st o godi ni sl avnska pi smenost , 490-509). J. Gruevs
song I sl ed t i s a godi ni , which was also sung by our teachers, achieved great popularity
(Makedon, , 31, 3. .1871).
149K.G. P r l i ev , ,,K m har akt er i st i kat a na Gr .S . P r l i ev (po spomeni , svedeni i
dokument i ), Makedonski pr egl ed , , 2, S of i , 1928, 116-118; Geor gi S t . Kandi l ar ov ,
B l gar ski t gi mnazi i i osnovni ui l i a v S ol un , S of i , 1930, 32-35; Geor gi S t r ezov ,
,,P r vi st pki na S ol unskat a gi mnazi , in: S br oni k S ol un . I zdani e na v zpi t at el i t
i v zpi t ani ci t ot sol unski t b l gar ski gi mnazi i , S of i , 1934, 289; i t i e na I oana
Kr ajni anskoga 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 . , 165, st r . 12-13; Voi sl av I . I l i , ,,Ki r i l omet odi evskat a
t r adi ci ja vo dve besedi na Gr i gor P r l i ev, in: Ki r i l S ol unski , , 113-120; Bl a e
Ri st ovski , ,,Kon pr ouuvawet o na sol unski t e godi ni na P r l i ev (G. P r l i ev vo oi t e na
P . Dr aganov i J. Kr ajni anec), in: i vot ot i del ot o na Gr i gor P r l i ev (S i mpozi um
posvet en na i vot ot i del ot o na Gr i gor P r l i ev, 10-11 maj 1985 na F i l ol o 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 , ,,Bel e ki za ki r i l omet odi evskot o
pr a awe kaj Makedonci t e vo HH vek, Gl asni k na I N I , , 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 sv ena
i st or i (1857), which was used widely in the Macedonian schools. He was also the first to publish
Archbishop Theophylacts Life of Clement in his native tongue (1858).
151In his work Kr at ka sv enna i st or za ui l i a-t a po Makedon (na makedonsko nar e),
C ar i gr ad , 1867, where he undoubtedly relies on facts from C ar st venni k i l i I st or Bol gar ska 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 no sv. bl agovst vovane i l i S bor ot
Evangel ski t t en, 1869, K.A.P. apkarev 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 apkarev
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 a e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba, 65).
78
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 orija 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 Hadikonstantinov-Dinot,154
Konstantin Petkovi,155 Georgi Dinkata,156 Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov,157
153or e
M. P uq evski , Reni 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 avnsko-makdonska op t a i st or i (R kopi sen ot del na Nar odnat a bi bl i ot eka ,,Ki r i l i Met odi , S of i , 32/1958,
l . 1-11).
154H. P ol enakovi , op. cit., 162-169; P r i l ozi , MANU, , 1-2, 1983.
155Studying in Russia, Konstantin Petkovi 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 Verkovi, 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 b l gar skot o
v zr a dane ot A r hi va na S t ef an I . Ver kovi 1860-1893. S st avi l i i podgot vi l i za peat
Dar i na Vel eva i n.s. Tr i f on V l ov, pod r edakci t a i s pr edgovor ot l .-kor . Hr i st o A.
Hr i st ov, S of i , 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 n gar ov , S ol un v b l gar skat a duhovna kul t ur a. I st or i eski
oer k i dokument i , S of i , 1937, 208-215), and in the document entitled P ozna 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 v d ni na makedonski t
st r ani (Makedon, , 33, C ar egr ad , 13. .1868, 3) be printed in his own Salonika dialect,
which if it did not fully preserve the beauty of Cyrils 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 Miladinovs published correspondence (Br at 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 akov, S of i , 1964, 15), as well as of Grigorovichs personal writings
(Oer k put e est v po Evr opesko Tur c. I zdane vt or oe, Moskva, 1877, 98-99). Miladinovs 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 Naums 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
79
Rajko inzifov158 Grigor Prliev,159 orija M. Pulevski,160 Marko K. Cepenkov,161 Trajo Kitanev162 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 mothers 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
Verkovi, Yakov O. Orel-Oshmyantsev, Aleksandr V. Rachinsky, E. Yuzhakov, Petr I. Sevastyanov,
Pavel I. Sevastyanov, Mikhail A. Hitrovo, Aleksandr 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 Zografskis 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 Theophylacts 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 inzifov 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 , 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 Prliev, 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, Prliev 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 Prliev gave the name Kiril (Cyril) to his only son.
160or i ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel e ki d-r
Bl a 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 as
Makedonski , , 51, S of i , 28. .1896, 4), and in his not completely known Prilepski letopis (I l .
I v., ,,P r i l epski l t opi sci , in: P r i l ep pr edi 100 godi ni . V zpomenat el en l i st po
sl ua st o godi ni ot osve avanet o na pr i l epskat a c r kva ,,S v. Bl agove eni e
7. .18387. .1938, S of i , 7. .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 Methodiuss 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 a e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1980, 395).
80
81
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 Societys 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 patrons holiday.171 Yet in the Constitution of the Macedonian Scholarly and
Literary Society, adopted by its members (in Misirkovs 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 upovski, 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 upovski 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 zhod a kni ga na Ohr i dskot o
Ned l no ui l i e ,,S v. Kl i ment , st r . 14; N ovi ni , , 19, C ar i gr ad , 25.H.1894, 4 (the same
can be found in the following number).
169or e 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 kov , Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i , 1903, , 1, 45, 67 and 68.
171Kur i er , , 14, S of i , 21.H.1904, 4.
172D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e
vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, , 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. upovsk, ,,Makedon i Makedonc (Kul t ur no-i st or i esk obzor Makedoni i ),
Makedonsk gol os (Makedonski gl as), , 1, S .-P et er bur g , 9. .1913, 7-8. All the numbers of
the journal present the first Slav teachers as the symbol of Macedonian national culture.
82
Bl a e Ri st ovski , op. cit., , 262-263; Vol nar oda, 43, P et r ogr ad , 18. .1917, 2.
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r a uvawa i mat er i jal i , ,
S kopje, 1980, 116-117.
178His daughter Pavlina Apostolova, living in Skopje, had a large collection of 48 songs and poems by
Milan . Vojnicalija, dedicated by the author to Trajko Kratovaliev on November 21, 1938 (two months
before his death), where the first poem, Ot eest vo (1927), has the dedication to Cyril and
Methodius.
179D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944, , 207-208.
180Ibid., 230-231. Hristo Popsimovs 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
Ili, dating from 1935 (D-r Bl a 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, ,
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 a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944, , 97.
182K. Mi si r kov , ,,Kr al i Mar ko, I l i nden, , 12, S of i , 25..1923, 2.
183K. Mi si r kov makedonec , ,, e uspet l i ?, Mi r , HHH, 7147, S of i , 10. .1924, 1.
184K. Mi si r kov , ,,Makedoni i pr a ki kongr es , 20 l i , , 9, S of i , 8. .1924, 2.
177D-r
83
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. Koo
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 Dinot,
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 Slavs193
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 en bi l een
al manah na Makedono-B l gar skat a P r avosl avna C r kovna Ob i na ,,S v. S v. Ki r i l i
Met odi , Tor ont o, Kanada, 1910-1960).
186,,D l ot o na dvamat a S ol unski br at , Makedonski vest i , , 18, S of i , 22. .1935, 2; ,,P amet ni k na r avnoapost ol i t Ki r i l i Met odi , MV, , 38, 30.H.1935, 8; A.D., ,,Zat v r dvanet o
na Makedonskat a naci onal na kul t ur a, VM, , 44, 19..1936, 5; Angel Di nev , ,,Vel i ki t
ui t el i na makedonski nar od i na vsi ki sl avni , MV, , 55, 27. .1936, 4; D.G. Zar ov ,
,,S v. S v. Ki r i l i Met odi , MV, , 21, 12. .1935, 11, etc.
187Angel Di nev , Makedonski t sl avni , S of i , 1938, 19-24 and 49-61.
188Koo 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 onkov Vapcar ov, S pomeni , pi sma, dokument i , BAN, S of i , 1953, 221.
190Kost a Vesel i nov , V zr a danet o na Makedoni i I l i ndenskot o v zst ani e, S of i , 1939.
191In addition to other articles (published after 1934), Vasil Ivanovski is the author of the monographic
manuscript ,,Makedonski v pr os v mi nal ot o i sega. Makedonskat a naci i makedonskot o
naci onal no s 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 , Zo 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 -v , ,,P r ovl eni e na maked. s znani e, Makedonski vest i , , 66, 12. .1936, 3.
193I l egal ni ot peat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja meu dvet e svet ski vojni . P odgot vi l
d-r I van Kat ar xi ev, t . , kn. 2, S kopje, 1983, 207; I skr a, , 1, [S kopje], Januar [1941], [6].
84
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 Delev, the Macedonian revolutionary struggle, the
Macedonian language (our language was allegedly sweet and melodious Bulgarian). 194 This is repeated in the next years 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 Methodiuss 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
Peoples 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 Ohrids 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 . .
Dokument i na Komuni st i kat a par t i ja na Jugosl avi ja i Komuni st i kat 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 kat a par t i ja na Makedoni ja, t . . 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 a i st i ko 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 . , kn. 1, AM, S kopje, 1984,
232-233.
199Ibid., 339-341.
85
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
201I
86
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 Clements and Naums 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 Homatians Life of Clement that Pope
Adrian (in Rome) raised Clement to the bishops 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
Simeons 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
87
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 Samuels,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 Blae 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 Samuels 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 (Vseob a i st or v et r eh t omah , 5-e i zdane, S .-P et er bur g , 1896, between
pp. 144 and 145), taken from the collection Evangel i ski et i va, which belonged to Emperor Henry
II (1002-1024), from the time when the only Slavic empire was Samuels 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 e Lev Lebedev, Kr e eni e
Rusi 988-1988, Moskva, 1987, 8-10). Can we thus assume that Samuels 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 kov , ,,Oer ki po cer kovno-pol i t i esko i st or i Kevsko Rusi , Zapi ski
I st or i ko-F i l ol ogi eskago f akul t et a S P b. uni ver si t et a, S P b., 1913, 23-76. We must
note, however, that Priselkovs 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.
Levenko, op. cit., 373, etc.; A. P opp, ,,Russki e mi t r opol i i Konst ant i nopol sko P at r i ar hi i v H st ol et i i , Vi zant i ski vr emenni k, 28-29, Moskva, 1968-1969; Mi t r opol i t
Mi nski i Bel or usski F i l ar et , ,,Kr e eni e svt ogo knz Vl adi mi r a i Russko zeml i ,
Bogosl ovski e t r ud , 28, Moskva, 1987, 71, etc.).
208Bl a e Koneski , ,,Kanoni zaci ja na sl ovenski svet ci vo Ohr i dskat a cr kva, P r i l ozi ,
MANU, , 1-2, S kopje, 1976, 63.
88
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 Russias 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 (Kiprians) 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
89
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 Vladimirs 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 Nestors 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 Bulgaria220 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 Vladimirs conversion to Christianity (988) to his death (1015) there was no
Bulgarian state or church, but probably it was Samuels 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 Vladimirs from Ohrid, to use the words of
Shklovsky. When and how did this happen?
216N.M.
Kar amzi n, ,,I st or i gosudar st va Rossi skogo, Moskva, 2, Moskva, 1988, 120.
121.
218P amt ni ki l i t er at ur dr evne Rusi Hnaal o H veka, Moskva, 1978, 94.
219Ibid., 278.
220In the sources: ,,ot bol gar ni Bor i sa i Gl ba (P ovest , 94); ,,ot b l gar n Bor i sa i
Gl ba (S kazani e, 278).
221See note 205.
217Ibid.,
90
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. Samuels 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 (Basils 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 Vladimirs wife.
Under pressure from Samuels 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 Vladimirs 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
222Vseob
91
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 Tsaritzas
because of their canonical affiliation with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and
not in terms of their nationality. In conclusion he writes: Joachims chronicle
and some hagiographies of Prince Vladimir say that the newcomer to Chersonesus
and administrator of Russias 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
92
93
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
Blae 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 Clements 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 Samuels state, the reputation
235According
94
95
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 Vladimirs sons by his Bulgarian wife
from Ohrid bore the Christian names Roman (Boris) and David (Gleb),246 and
these were names taken directly from Samuels family, perhaps on the insistence
of the childrens 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 Svyatopolks 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
a e Koneski , ,,Za r uskot o vl i jani e vr z ju nosl ovenski t e t ekst ovi od H-H vek, in:
Opuscula Polono-Slavica. Munera linguistica Stanislao Urbanczyk dedicata, Wrocaw, 1979, 176.
243Ibid., 176-177; Bl a e Koneski , ,,Ruskot o jazi no vl i jani e vr z makedonski t e t ekst ovi od
H-H vek, in: Ref er at i na makedonski t e sl avi st i za H meunar oden sl avi st i ki
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 H-H vek, S kopje,
1983.
245Bl a 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 kov , ,,Oer ki , 39-43.
246P amt ni ki l i t er at ur dr evne Rusi Hnaal o H veka, 280 and 454.
247Ibid., 88-94.
96
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
Christs 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 Kabsilas (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 Andreja King Marks 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 Ko uhar ov, ,,P esennot o t vor est vo na st ar ob l gar ski kni ovni k Naum Ohr i dski , L i t er at ur na i st or i , 12, S of i , 1984, 3-19.
249Kl i ment Ohr i dski , S br ani s i neni , , 140.
250Bl a 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 a e Koneski , ,,Kul t ot na svet i t el i t e, 6.
97
Nestors 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
Cyrils 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. Salko, are closely connected with the South-Slavonic
fresco-painting school in the Balkans.255 In fact, this composition in Cyrils
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.
a e Koneski , ,,Kul t ot na svet i t el i t e, 8 according to D.S . Li haev, N aci onal noe
samosoznani e dr evne Rusi , M.L., 1945, 100.
255N.B. S al ko, i vopi s Dr evne Rusi Hnaal o H veka. Mozai ki F r eski I kon ,
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
98
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 Cyrils 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 H i H 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 ueni ci , Gl asni k na
UN ES KO, HHH , Apr i l , 1982, 40.
257The versified speech of the Zaporozhians to the Turkish Sultan of 1679, among other things, mentions
makedonski kol esni k (Vol odomi r Gol obovcki , Gomi n, gomi n po dbr av, Ki v, 1968, 174).
258Al eksandar Mat kovski , Makedonski ot pol k vo Ukr ai na, S kopje, 1985.
259K. Mi si r kov, ,,I zni knuvanet o i r azbor na bugar ckat a i sr pcka t eor i i za nar odnost a na
makedonci t e, Var dar , , 1, Odesa, 1.H.1905, 8-16.
260D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e
vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, , S kopje, 1978, 202.
99
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.
100
101
already creating ideas which were to have a significant role in subsequent developments; the stemmatographiae (particularly that of Hristofor efarovi)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
102
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 inzifov, Dimitar
Miladinov had a dispute with a Greek in Kuku on Macedonian ethnicity. inzifov
writes: The Greek remained silent before Miladinovs 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 Slavic275 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
vstnik (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 Maukovski demanded from Verkovi stories about
Bela and songs about Alexander and Philip (February 16, 1865)279 and had a
273Ibid.,
204.
put e est v po Evr opesko Tur c (s kar t o okr est nost e ohr i dskago i
pr espanskago ozer ) Vi kt or a Gr i gor ovi a. I zdane vt or oe, Moskva, 1877, 139.
275Rako i nzi f ov, P ubl i ci st i ka, , S st avi l i C vet a Und i eva i Doo Lekov, S of i , 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 i Todor Di mi t r ovski , S kopje, 1983, 502.
277Bl a e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba. Makedonski t e uebni ci od 19 vek, vt or o
i zdani e, S kopje, 1959, 80.
278Ibid., 49-50.
274Oer k
104
dispute with the Greek as to whose Macedonia was, on the basis of Alexanders
coins (August 19, 1865).280
The Bulgarian national figure and writer, Petko Raev 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 Pulevskis 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 Dragaevi, 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. Dragaevi 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 b l gar skot o v zr a dane, 152.
182
281Bl a e Koneski , op. cit., 74-75.
282D.V. Makedonsk, ,,P o makedonsk v pr os , Makedon, , 7, C ar egr ad , 16..1871.
283Dr aga evi , Geogr af i ja za sr edwe kol e. P r egl edal a i odobr i l a kol ska komi si ja, u
Beogr adu u Dr avnoj t ampar i ji , 1871, 127-128.
284Ibid.
279Dokument
280Ibid.,
105
114.
Kliment Dambazovski, ,,Srpska socijalistika tampa o makedonskom nacionalnom pitanju
poslednjih decenija XIX veka, in: Poeci socijalistike tampe na Balkanu. Meunarodni nauni skup
posveen stogodinjici izlaska ,,Radenika, Beograd, 1974, 418.
287or e M. P uq evski , Reni k ot t r i jezi ka s. makedonski , ar banski i t ur ski , kwi ga , 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 Aksakovs 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. orija 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 Elijahs Day), Petrovden (St Peters 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
uprisings 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
apkar ev], ,,Nar odni p sni i st ar i ni , Mar i ca, , 378, P l ovdi v , 16. .1882, 2.
, ,,,Loza, S voboda, , 786, S of i , 13. .1892, 3.
293D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e
vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, , 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 Kara.
295P r avi l at a-Ust avot na Makedonski ot vost ani ki komi t et vo Kr esnenskot o vost ani e,
S kopje, 1980, 203.
296Razgl edi , H (HH), 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 avno ur eduvawe na Makedoni ja od 1880, S kopje, 1985,
237-261.
299Ibid., 262-312.
292D.T. Levov
107
It was in this insurgent and revolutionary turmoil in Macedonia and among the
migrs 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 orija 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,
weve 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 a
Kauf man, B l gar ski gr adski pesni , S of i , 1968, 201 and 210.
301G. M.P ., S amovi l a Makedonska, peat ni ca na B. P r o ek v S of i , b.g., Gosudar st venna
publ i na bi bl i ot eka i m. S al t i kova- edr i na, S . 29. 8, 103; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , or i ja
M. P ul evski i negovi t e kni 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
In this same spirit, on December 7, 1878, Pulevski wrote from the Macedonian
front to his old acquaintance and compatriot Kuzman Badovi (in Serbia) about
the plans for the Macedonian Uprising and, inviting him to join them, said: With
Gods 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-maedonska opta istorija (Slavonic-Macedonian General History) by orija 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 Rajis 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 Pulevskis close associates, and certainly not the only one, was Isaija
Radev Maovski, who, on July 18, 1888, delivered in Kiev a patriotic speech based
303Ibid.,
7-8.
8.
305Razgl edi , H , 10, 1972, 1131.
306or i ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . I zbor , r edakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel e ki D-r
Bl a 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
Prliev must have had personal contacts with Pulevski, as copies of both Pulevskis
Slognica reovska (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 apkarev, 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 ahovs 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 na I sa Radev Ma ovski , S of i , 1922, 14-27.
Ki r i l ami l ov, ,,Gr i gor P r l i ev kako kr i t i ar na gr kat a i st or i ja, S ovr emenost ,
, 10-11, 1955, 900-912; D-r Ki r i l ami l ov, ,,G.S . P r l i ev za kul t ur at a na El ada, S ovr emenost , , 1-2, 1956, 75-96; see Prliev 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 ev.
N ovi st r ani ci , Ohr i d, 1989, 70-93.
310K.G. P r l i ev , ,,K m har akt er i st i kat a na Gr .S . P r l i ev (po spomeni , svedeni i
dokument i ), Makedonski pr egl ed , , 2, S of i , 1928, 118.
311K.[uzman apkar ev], ,,Nar odni p sni i st ar i ni , Mar i ca, , 377, 13. .1882, 5.
312Mar ko C epenkov, Makedonsko nar odno t vor e 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 a e Ri st ovski , I F , S kopje, 1972, 246.
308V
309D-r
110
The great Macedonian state, in the person of Alexander, has done a great service to
scholarship313
3.
315Ezer ski
316S voboda,
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
318Kr st e
112
And finally, the president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in
St Petersburg, Dimitrija upovski, 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 Pulevskis Slognica reovska 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 Greats horse, Bucephalus,
standing as the symbol and basic emblem on a red background,321 while upovski
himself carried a silver piece with Alexanders 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 peoples 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
Sznanie (Macedonian Consciousness, 1924) published a Brief History of Macedonia (in instalments) by this same Dr Grekov.326
319K.
113
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 migr, 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 migr community in Bulgaria
were widespread and were often reflected in printed works. For example, Vasil
Ivanovski (Bistriki), 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 Grekovs 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 Alexanders 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 Vulis 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
114
The cult of Alexander was cherished with particular reverence, for instance, in
middle-class circles in Prilep. Here is the testimony of Dime Adimitreski: 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 Adimitreski 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 Delev (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 a 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, , S kopje, 1982, 297.
334Ibid., 305.
335D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r a uvawa i mat er i jal i , ,
S kopje, 1980, 405.
336Ibid., 409.
337Ibid., 413.
333D-r
115
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 Macedonias 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 . of man,
I st or i ant i no Makedoni i . Dol l i ni st i eska Makedoni , ast per va,
I zdat el st 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 hi n, Al eksandr Makedonski v l i t er at ur no i f ol kl or no t r adi ci i , Moskva, 1972).
116
II
THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE
AND
CULTURE
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 ones 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 Macedonias 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 Karaores 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 Paissiuss 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 Russias 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 Sultans 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 Macedonias 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.
121
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 peoples
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, Macedonias 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 Macedonias 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).
123
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 upovski341 and Nace Dimov342 accepted the work of orija 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, i va 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 Makedonsk gol os (Makedonski gl as) (Petrograd,
1913-1914) and later in the Sofia newspapers I l i nden, 20 l i , P i r i n and Mi r (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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og
kon pr ouuvawet o na r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 137835; D-r Bl a 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, , S kopje, 1983, 197-438; D-r Bl a 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 a e Ri st ovski , Mi sl a, 1991.
341Dimitrija D. upovski 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 a dani n , S l avni n ) and especially in the mouthpiece of the Macedonian colony in
Petrograd, Makedonsk gol os (Makedonski gl as) in 1912-1914, and also later in the newspapers
N ova i zn and Vol nar oda (1917). For more details see: D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja
upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad.
P r i l ozi kon pr ouuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a
naci onal na mi sl a, -, S kopje, 1979.
342Bl a e Ri st ovski , N ace D. Di mov (1876-1916), MANU, S kopje, 1973. Nace Dimovs 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 mov , . I st or i esk oer k Makedoni i makedonski h
sl avn . . P r i i n vozni knoven et ni eskago dvi en v Makedoni . . P ol i t i esk obzor Makedoni i makedoncev , S P b, 1913.
343D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , or i ja M. P ul evski i negovi t e kni ki ,,S amovi l a Makedonska i
,,Makedonska pesnar ka, I F , S kopje, 1973; or i ja M. P ul evski , Odbr ani st r ani ci . Redakci ja, pr edgovor i zabel e ki d-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , S kopje, 1974; D-r Bl a 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, , S kopje, 1982, 9-29; D-r
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 302-393; D-r Bl a e
Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest , , S kopje, 1987, 43-59.
124
Vasil Ivanovski,345 Koo 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
125
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
126
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.
Macedonias 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 migr 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 peoples
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
Krovski and Kiril Pejinovi (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
a e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat st vot o vo Makedoni ja, Razgl edi , /, 9, S kopje, 1960, 908-936;
/, 10, 1960, 1005-1029; /, 1, 1960, 72-90; /, 2, 1960, 158-189.
353V.A. Dakov, D.F . Mar kov, A.S . M l ni kov, ,,Nekot or e uzl ov e met odol ogi eski e vopr os i st or i i mi r ovo sl avi st i ki , in: I st or i , kul t ur a, t nogr af i i f ol kl or
sl avnski h nar odov. me dunar odn s ezd sl avi st ov, Zagr eb-L bl na, S ent br 1978
g. Dokl ad sovet sko del egaci i , Moskva, 1978, 473.
354Bl a e Koneski , ,,Ki r i l P eji novi , introduction to: Ki r i l P eji novi , S obr ani t ekst ovi .
P r i r edi l Bl a e Koneski , S kopje, 1974, 12.
128
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 orija
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 nfus (population). These were the basic contours of the
355D-r
129
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 Hadikonstantinov-Dinots school in
1837,359 and the teacher Jovan Nekovi 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 Nekovi, 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 peoples 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.
Tradesmens 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
130
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 Naalnoe uenie (Primer), printed in the first Macedonian
printing shop in Salonika.362 Jordan Hadikonstantinov-Dinot 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 Galinik), who was also educated in Russia. He not only re-printed the
earlier textbook of his compatriot Anatolija entitled Naalnoe uenie za decata
(Childrens 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 na i ot pr v pr er odbenski uebni kar , S ovr emenost , HHH, 6, S kopje,
1982, 57-71.
363P r of . H. P ol enakovi , ,,Nekol ku i st or i sko-kni 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, , 6, S kopje, 1948, 49-50; S i mo
Ml adenovski , ,,Ui t el ot Kame Nakov P op-Angel ov i negovat a pr osvet i t el ska dejnost vo
s. Vat a a, Ti kve ko, in: kol st vot o, pr osvet at a i kul t ur at a vo Makedoni ja, 453463.
364Bl a 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: Nika Stani, Hrvatska nacionalna ideologija
preporodnog pokreta u Dalmaciji (Mihovil Pavlinovi i njegov krug do 1869), Zagreb, 1980, 91-119;
piro Kului, O etnogenezi Crnogoraca, Titograd, 1980; Savo Brkovi, O postanku i razvoju
crnogorske nacije, Titograd, 1974.
365Bl a e Koneski , Kon makedonskat a pr er odba. Makedonski t e uebni ci od 19 vek. Vt or o
i zdani e, S kopje, 1959, 26-43.
366B l gar ski kni i ci , , 1, C ar i gr adGal at a, 1858, 35-40.
367K.P . Mi si r kov, Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i , 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 a e Koneski , Gr amat i ka na makedonski ot l i t er at ur en jazi k, , S kopje, 1952, 32-71.
131
132
donians, we are not Bulgarians and We have barely freed ourselves from the
Greeks, should we now become opi?!378
Even the leader of the Bulgarian national revival in Constantinople, Petko
Raev 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 weyou.
See also: A.S . M l ni kov, ,,K vopr osu o f or mi r ovani i naci onal nogo samosoznani v
per i od skl ad vani naci v C ent r al no i go-Vost ono Evr ope, in: F or mi r ovani e
naci v C ent r al no i go-Vost ono Evr ope, Moskva, 1981, 240-441., and for more details
concerning this problem see: A.S . M l ni kov, V.I . F r edzon, ,,F or mi r ovani e naci v C ent r al no i go-Vost ono Evr ope v H -HH vekah, Vopr os i st or i i , 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,,Makedonskt v pr os , Makedon, , 3, 18..1871, 2.
380Miroslav Hroch, ,,Oblikovanje modernih nacija i nacionalni pokret 19. stoljea, asopis za suvremenu
povijest, XI, 1(29), Zagreb, 1979, 27.
381Miroslav Hroch, ,,vodem, Acta Universitatis Carolinae Philosophica et historica, 5, 1976. Studia
Historica, XV: loha historickho povedom v 19. stolet, Praha, 1976, 7-14.
133
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 Macedonias 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
134
135
136
Obviously, Slavejkov was well acquainted with the real situation in Macedonia;
he also had original materials from the unions 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 Paunev 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.
396Slavejkovs 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
Verkovi 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 Maleevo, which is by no means a result of
the Exarchates heedlessness and is yet to spread elsewhere. Due to this situation, he asks Verkovi
to send the letter under a French inscription To his Grace, Mr Bonetti, Apostolic Missionary of the
French Church to Salonika (Dokument i za b l gar skot o v zr a dane ot A r hi vat a na S t ef an I . Ver kovi 1860-1893. S st avi l i i podgot vi l i za peat Dar i na Vel eva i n.s. Tr i f on
V l ov pod r edakci t a i s pr edgovor ot l . kor . Hr i st o A. Hr i st ov, S of i , 1969, 558, dok.
463).
397C oo Bi l r ski I l i P askov, op. cit., 68-70.
394The
137
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
138
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 Sultans 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 Maleevo have
with the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, and other similar things (P .P . Kar apet r ov ,
S bi r ka ot st at i i , S r dec , 1898, 91).
399C oo Bi l r ski I l i P askov, op. cit., 70-71.
400Rafail (Raphael) Dobrev Popov was a Bulgarian, Uniate bishop from 1864 and the leader of Bulgarian
139
expressed their wish to receive them even now, but those living at Kuku 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 peoples general interest, they repented. I have reasons to
believe Father Averkijs 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 oo
140
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 Maleevski and the
Dojran representative, Nikola G. Ahazarov. Dimitri went to Kuku 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
Kueviki (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 Haritons 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.
141
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. Karanfilovi 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 opi, 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 Andrssy,
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 oo
142
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
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, , Makedonskot o
pr a 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 Kovaev,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, Drandars 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
Slavejkovs 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 Maleevo and Kuku, who persistently defended the Macedonian idea and who were to bear such figures as Dimitar
Berovski and Goce Delev. He admits the efforts he had to go through in order to
isolate the people of Kuku, making personal contacts with the leaders of the
movement, even with Dimitar Maleevski 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. Maleevski 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 Kuku people alone, who are
the main proponents of all this; I can assure you that I have succeeded in this, and
Kuku 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.
414Josif A. Kovaev from tip 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 Slavejkovs intervention, Kovaev 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 opski dialect, as unifying for Macedonians and Bulgarians.
415C oo Bi l r ski I l i 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 Monsignors 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 Hadi
Georgi Dramski, a teacher in Prosoen, 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 horses mane, you will never stop
him by holding his tail. I do not know whether Hadi 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 Andrssy 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
416Ki
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 Nils hopes for his arrival have been frustrated, as today they
are sending mahzars417 demanding Rafails arrival; the mahzars have been signed only
by the Kuku 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 Kuku is sincerely in favour of the union, as is also
Maleevo, 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
147
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 Slavejkovs departure from
Salonika, the Gumende 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 Exarchates 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 Slavejkovs 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 Midhats plans for the differentiation
of a new ethnic territory. As the agents of the union prepared, in 1860, by means of
the newspaper Blgarija, 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 B l gar ski , P r i nos , 93.
acidulated fermented drink made from millet, maize or wheat flour (translators note).
424Ki r i l P at r i ar h B l gar ski , Ekzar h A nt i m (1816-1888), 549.
425Ibid., 542.
422Ki
423An
148
6.
Of special significance in all these documents is the leading role of Dimitar
Popgeorgiev Berovski (Makedonski, Maleevski). 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 Verkovi, 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 Verkovi 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, Radovi and Strumica.428
426Ibid.,
549-550.
his correspondence with Verkovi 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 i Veda S l ovena. P r i nos k m i st or i t a na b l gar ski f ol kl or i na b l gar skot o v zr a dane v Makedoni , s nei zvest ni pi sma, dokl adi i dr ugi
dokument i ot 1855 do 1893 g., S bNU, , S of i , 1968, 311, dok. 25.
427In
149
Much earlier we learn that Verkovi 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 tip, through Radovi, in one day I came to Novo Selo, which lies halfway
between the towns of Strumica and Petri. 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
Maleevo, 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, Petri and Maleevo areas.430
Verkovi points out that in these three districts (nahiyes), unlike those of tip,
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 Verkovi
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
Verkovi 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 Verkovi
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. 25.
150
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 Maleevo 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 Maleevo 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
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 evBer ovski , Gl asni k, I NI , H , 3, S kopje, 1972, 145, dok. br . 1.
151
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 here436
Russian archives should offer a clearer picture of Berovskis 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 (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 ovekot o vost ani e od 1876 godi na i l i nost 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.
152
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 Maleevo rebels leaders later, on
November 24, 1878, also gave a written statement (on behalf of the Maleevo
population) to the British Consul General in Salonika (when he visited Gorna
Dumaja) 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 Maleevo 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 hkmets 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.
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.
442Osvobo
153
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 Raev
Slavejkov himself admitted:
On my recommendation, in Veles they hired N. Popovi against whom later part
of the population rose, favouring Josif Kovaev.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
154
omakov: 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 Macedonism449 had appeared afresh in reality, and that
some ideas preached in those areas by some of our Bulgarian compatriots such
as Kuzman apkarev, 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
apkarev 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
Batin Jazik (Father Tongue) and other similar books, the editors of Den reacted
sharply and uncompromisingly:
Is there any other worse thought that Mr apkarev could have? He knows where
he is poking. Today a primer, tomorrow other textbooks and next youll see him
producing and devising a history of the Macedonian people, etc. etc.451
155
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 migr 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
Raev Slavejkov noticed this even before the Church and Peoples 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 Ganev Enierev,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 Salgandiev, 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
158
159
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 Voulgariss 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--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-Tee, southern Macedonia (Ostrovo district). The two commanders and
462J.
Haxi Vasi q evi , ,,Ust anak S r ba u Kumanovskoj i P al anakoj kazi 1878 god., Br ast vo,
H, Beogr ad, 1906, 150-204; D-r Q ubi a Dokl est i , S r psko-makedonski t e odnosi vo HH-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 a awe od 1877-1881 g., in: Makedoni ja vo I st onat a kr i za
1875-1881, MANU, S kopje, 1978, 341-344.
v.B. umkov , P at r i ot i eski i nas r di t el ni r azkazi A vt obi ogr af i t a na I van
B. umkov , S of i , 1907, 154-165; Tane P ev , ,,B l gar ska l egi v G r ci pr ez 1877 g.
(I zvadki i z moi t spomeni ), Makedonski pr egl ed , , 4, 1927, 30-44; Ri st o P opl azar ov,
Osl obodi t el ni t e voor u eni bor bi na makedonski ot nar od vo per i odot 1850-1878, I NI ,
S kopje, 1978, 242-247.
463I
160
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-Tee, 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 Dimitrievi and Ali Efendi, and by
its secretary, Nikola Trajkov, and validated with the Governments 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
Dimitrievi 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 secretarys 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.
161
(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 Dimitrievi 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 Macedonias 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 migrs 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 Leagues secretary, using the pseudonym of Mavro, called
on the Macedonian migrs 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, , 21, C ar i gr ad , 20. .1880; Makedoni , BAN, S of i , 1978, 365-367. The same
document (in a slightly modified version, mentioning Prilep instead of Pritina, was published in
Makedonskat a l i ga, 347-349.
469S l avni n , , 19, Rusuk , 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 B l gar ski , B l gar skat a ekzar hi v Odr i nsko i Makedoni sl ed Osvobodi t el nat a vona (1877-1878), , 1,
S of i , 1970, 460; Konst ant i n P andev, N aci onal no-osvobodi t el not o dvi eni e v Makedoni i Odr i nsko 1878-1903, S of i , 1979, 40-41; Dono Donov, Komi t et i t e ,,Edi nst vo.
Rol t a i pr i nos t i m za S edi neni et o 1885, S of i , 1985, 288-291.
163
the leader of the suppressed uprising, on May 2, 1879, on Mount Male, 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
472B
473Makedonskat
164
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 Mftlk, 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-Tee 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 Macedonia476 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 clich
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 , 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
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
Maleevski, while Vasil Dijamandiev informed the Bulgarian Minister of the
Interior of all these activities.484
In Voulgariss 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 Maleevski, 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 Voulgariss 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 orgov), 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,
489Ibid., l
169
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 nave 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
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 Gundlass 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
491AVP
172
between Veles and Tikve. 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 killed494
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,
Petru, Pano Samardiev 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; Petru came from the village of Rudnik and was
in Kjustendil at the time; Pano Samardiev was from the village of Podles, in the
Tikve 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
Tikve regions alone. Skryabins report from Salonika of November 16, 1880,
spoke of new internment of the Macedonian population from Koani 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.
502Makedonec , , 1, Russe, 1.H.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
, , 17, 5..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 , HH, 1, S of i , 28. .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
Makedonsk gol os (Makedonski gl as), , 1, S .-P et er bur g , 9. .1913, 17-20, as the author of
significant articles in the Slavophile mouthpiece S l avnsk i zvst ( 12, 3..1913, 175-177 and
16, 3..1913, 257-260), and as one of the three representatives of the Macedonians (together with
Dimitrija upovski 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 a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja
upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad, ,
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
migrs, 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
i , 1. .1889, 3.
.G. S enkevi , ,,Nov e dokument ob osvobodi t el no bor be v Zapadno Makedoni i i
Kosove v konce 70-h naal e 80-h godov HH v. in: S l avnskoe i st oni kovedeni e. S bor ni k
st at e i mat er i al ov, Moskva, 1965, 274-284.
506D-r Kl i ment Xambazovski , Kul t ur no-op t est veni t e vr ski na Makedonci t e so S r bi ja
vo t ekot na HH vek, S kopje, 1960, 162-171; D-r Q ubi a Dokl est i , 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 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
176
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
orija 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 reovska (Reka Wordbook, 1880).509 To affirm Macedonian historical
consciousness and support the national consolidation, Pulevski wrote his comprehensive Slavjansko-maedonska opta 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 migrs 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
177
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 Drilovi, 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
178
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 Sultans 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 Novakovi 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 a e Ri st ovski , op. cit., 46-63; D-r Kl i ment Xambazovski , Kul t ur no-op t est veni t e
vr ski na Makedonci t e so S r bi ja, 249; D-r Q ubi a Dokl est i , 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.
179
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
migrs 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
180
181
itself, there occurred the murder of the Bulgarian Minister Belev (March 1891)
and this event was used to arrest the societys 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
182
There were also new currents in the migr 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 ernodrinskis 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 migrs in Sofia. On December 27, 1894, the Constitution of
the Macedonian Committee was finally adopted and its management elected,
headed by Trajko Kitanev. The polemic between the Societys 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.
537
183
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 Draganovs 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
184
185
186
among the Macedonian migrs, 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 ernodrinskis 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 migrs 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
Miajkov, had to leave Serbia.
Through the mediation of the Russian diplomatic representative in Belgrade,
Dedov and Miajkov arrived in St Petersburg and there, together with people who
shared the same ideas, such as Krste Misirkov, Dimitrija upovski, Gavril Kon559I
187
stantinovi, Milan Stoilov, Risto Rusuleni and certain other Macedonian students and migrs, 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. Miajkov, 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
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 Societys 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 Societys 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. Miajkov, but in early 1903 the post was given to Dimitrija D.
upovski, 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 migr 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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 229-230.
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 241-250.
569K.P . Mi si r kov, Za makedoncki t e r abot i , S of i , 1903.
570D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 270-297.
571Ibid., 258-260.
567D-r
568D-r
189
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 ernodrinskis 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 migr community (not only in Sofia but also in
all other centres of Macedonian migrs 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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 317-320.
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 330-333.
574A vt onomna Makedoni , , 24, S of i , 14.H.1903, 4; Den, , 37, S of i , 3..1904, 2; D-r Bl a e
Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 312-320.
575D-r Bl a 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 , L i ce
i maska (Kni ga za er nodr i nski ), S kopje, 1988, 395-463.
576D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , ,,Makedonskat a t eat ar ska gr upa ,S l oboda, N ova Makedoni ja, HH,
6655, 25. .1965, 7; D-r Voi sl av I . I l i , op. cit., 465-509.
577Vojdan er nodr i nski , S obr ani del a, . S eavawa, 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 , ,,P r ed et vr t om kni evno u, Br ankovo kol o, H, 17, S r emski Kar l ovci ,
29. (12. ).1904, 513-517.
579S l ovenski Jug, , 8, Beogr ad, 25.H.1903, 6.
580A characteristic example is the transferral of poems from ernodrinskis play Meeting performed in
Bulgaria to performances in Macedonia: D-r Bl a 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 a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot f ol kl or i naci onal nat a svest , , 245-255.
581D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot st i h 1900-1944. I st r a uvawa i mat er i jal i , ,
S kopje, 1980, 47-125.
582Bl a e Ri st ovski , ,,I dei t e na ,Bal kan 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 , , 7, 1964, 706-713.
583A. S t r a i mi r ov , P r i l pski svet ci . Tr agi eska i gr a v t r i dst vi s epi l og (I z
makedonski i vot ), S of i , 1900; V. er no-Dr i nski , Makedonska k 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 Dedovs
friend and fellow fighter, Dijamandija T. Miajkov, 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 Macedonias 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 v dst vi na makedonski govor , S of i , 1900; V. er nodr i nski , ,,Mast or i .
Ednoakt na sc na i z makedono-odr i nski i vot na mak. govor , A vt onomna Makedoni ,
, 1, 5. .1903, 3, 12, 21.H.1903, 2-3 (except in No. 8, 23. .1903!); Mar ko K. C penkov ,
,,C r ne vovoda. I st or i eska pi esa v pet akt a i z makedonski i vot na mak. govor ,
A vt onomna Makedoni , , 13, 28.H.1903 , 25, 21.H.1903, 3.
584Bal kan , , 1, 5. .1903 , 12, 4. .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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 241-253; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski ,
,,Ul ogat a i mest ot o na Di jamandi ja Mi ajkov vo makedonskat a kul t ur no-naci onal na i st or i ja, in: N auna mi sl a Bi t ol a 1980, Bi t ol a, 1980, 383-401; D-r Bl a 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, , 66-88.
586D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 278 and 284-285.
587Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , I l i ndenskot o vost ani e i meunar odnat a javnost , S kopje,
1985.
588D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 303-310; Hr . S i l nov , Osvobodi t el ni t bor bi na Makedoni , , S of i , 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 Macedonias 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),
, S kopje, 1984, 12-30.
192
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 Pulevskis
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. upovski ], ,,Kem b l a Bol gar dl Makedoni , Makedonsk gol os (Makedonski gl as), , 5, S .-P et er bur g , 5.H.1913, 77.
592D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , S kopje, 1983, 469-602.
593D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og kon pr ouuvawet o na
r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 126-138; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 9-23.
594D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 200-223; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski ,
Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-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 Kuku
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 Kuku Union
backed Partenija Zografskis 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 ouuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e vr ski i r azvi t okot na
makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, , S kopje, 1978, 110-130.
595D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 194-210.
596D-r S l avko Di mevski , Makedonskat a bor ba za cr kovna i naci onal na samost ojnost vo HH
vek (Uni jat skot o dvi ewe), S kopje, 1988; Bl a e Ri st ovski , ,,Uni jat skot o dvi ewe vo
Makedoni ja (). Kuku kat a uni ja od 1859 godi na., Razgl edi , /, 10, S kopje, 1960, 10051029.
194
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 Gulapev in Bulgaria,598 of Paul (Panagiotis) Argyriades
in France,599 of the insufficiently studied Stefan Damev 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 migr 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
195
who was also a Bulgarian from Kazanlk. 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 Gerdikov, Peju Javorov and Hristo ernopeev 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 Raev 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 orija 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
196
197
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
198
620Ibid.
621Bal
622Ibid.
623Bal
624Ibid.
199
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 upovski, 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
200
The Societys 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 upovskis 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 Macedonias partition in the Balkan Wars.
The first concept of this Macedonian national programme was announced in
the Societys 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 Miajkov.635 All the aspects of the Macedonian question
633Ibid.,
I, 99-100.
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 159-186.
635D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 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 Novakovi, 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.
Novakovi 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
201
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 Societys 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 Verguns 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 Trpkovi, 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 . H, 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 a 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, , S kopje, 1989, 208-209).
636Ibid., 202.
637,,Makedonskoe ob est vo v S .-P et er bur g , S l avnsk Vk , , 62, 15/28..1903, 431-432.
202
programme was presented in eight elaborated items. The Societys 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) Enide-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 Misirkovs central dialect and with the basis of our modern
literary standard, except that Veles is not mentioned as one of the starting points
of Misirkovs 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, Enide-Vardar
and Kuku, 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 migrs 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
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
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 Misirkovs 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 migrs in the post-Ilinden turmoil. This was in fact a practical
application of the Constitutions 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 Misirkovs predictions in his book.
The eighth document in order of significance was the letter by the Societys
president, Dimitrija upovski, sent from St Petersburg on February 17, 1904, to
Nikola Niota, 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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 295-29; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski ,
Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) , , 253 and 284-285.
641D-r
642D-r
205
4.
Of the Societys 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 Macedonias 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
206
647D-r
207
standard, and hence the necessity of eliminating Serbias and Bulgarias 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
Misirkovs 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 nave
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 Macedonias
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 a
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 Macedonias 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 upovski 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
651Makedonsk
211
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 upovski 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 Misirkovs 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, , 16972, 22. .1994, 12).
659D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 227-239.
660K.
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
upovski 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 upovskis 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 upovski 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 a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 242.
I, 42-43.
663Ibid., II, 266-269.
664The three signatories appear below the text in the newspaper Vol nar oda, 43, 18. .1917, 2,, and
we also find them in transcription (copy) by upovski himself, among the personal property he left
(D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , op. cit., , 263). This surviving original mentions only Makedonsk
Revol ci onn Komi t et , and the published version in the newspaper N ova i zn, 52,
18. /1. .1917, 2, indicates only S l edu t podpi si (Signatures follow).
661D-r
662Ibid.,
213
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 r G. Gocev, I det a
za avt onomi kat o t akt i ka v pr ogr ami t e na naci onal no-osvobodi t el not o dvi eni e v
Makedoni i Odr i nsko (1893-1941), S of i , 1983.
215
r o Gul abev, Edi n ogl d po et nogr af t a na Makedon, Gabr ovo, 1887, 32-111.
Dano Zogr af ski , Odbr ani del a, 6. Makedonskot o pr a awe i i st or i ski t e r aspaa,
S kopje, 1986, 105-127; D-r Or de I vanoski , Bal kanski t e soci jal i st i i makedonskot o
pr a awe od 90-t i t e godi ni na HH 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 ki 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 ava 1878-1978. N aci onal noosl obodi t el not o dvi ewe i bar awe obl i ci za konst i t ui r awe na Makedoni ja kako naci onal na dr ava, , S kopje, 1985, 252-270 and 340-354;
D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o nauno-l i t er at ur no dr ugar st vo vo P et r ogr ad. P r i l ozi kon pr ouuvawet o na makedonsko-r uski t e
vr ski i r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, , S kopje, 1978, 252-270.
668Hr i st o Andonov-P ol janski , Odbr ani del a, 3. Makedonskot o pr a awe, S kopje, 1981, 190207; S voboda, , 83, S of i , 12.H.1887, 1-2; , 116, 13..1888, 3; , 118, 20..1888, 3-4; D-r Bl a e
Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , S kopje, 1983, 73-144.
669D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 101-138; D-r Bl a e
Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) , , 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 ka 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., , 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 a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a
naci ja, , 537-541; Al eksandar Hr i st ov, op. cit., , 93-104.
672Bl a e Ri st ovski , ,,Di skusi ja, in: A S N OM vo sozdavawet o na dr 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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926). P r i l og kon pr ouuvawet o na
r azvi t okot na makedonskat a naci onal na mi sl a, S kopje, 1966, 610].
674Even Sandanskis 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
217
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
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 a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 467-489.
683D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 119-602.
684D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 130-179.
685A Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society was also founded in Sofia, in December 1903 [D-r
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Kr st e P . Mi si r kov (1874-1926) , 298]. The following year Nikola Niota
made a similar attempt in Moscow [D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940) ,
, 272-277], and in 1905, Krste Misirkov prepared the ground for the foundation of a similar society in
Odessa as well (D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 383).
218
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 Sultans
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 Party686 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. Muevi arrived in St Petersburg with a memorandum to the
Russian government and the Holy Synod of the Russian Church demanding the
686D-r
687D-r
219
220
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
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.,
221
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 upovski, Nace Dimov, Dr Gavril Konstantinovi 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 Konstantinovi 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 migr circles,700 and his
brother, Dimitrija upovski, travelled through Sofia and Skopje to Veles, where
he arrived on November 21 (December 4), 1912. On the same day, in Angele
Korobars 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 n , 37, 16.H.1912, 3-4.
698Dano Zogr af ski , ,,Razvojni ot pat na Makedonecot d-r Gavr i l o Konst ant i novi vo Okt omvr i skat a r evol uci ja (P r i l og kon pr ouuvawet 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 , , 2, 1957, 21; C ent r al n Gosudar st venn
Voenno-i st or i eski Ar hi v, Moskva, f . 316, op. 66, d. 1239.
699D-r Bl a 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. uparov, from Sofia.
697Gr a
222
4.
All that Dimitrija upovski could bring from the conference in Veles was an
authorization to represent Macedonias interests before Europe through the
activity of the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg. As early as January 27, 1913,
upovski published an article in the newspaper Gradanin in the form of a letter
from Macedonia, where, after describing the history of Macedonia, its struggle
Bl a e Ri st ovski , Di mi t r i ja upovski (1878-1940), , 40-67.
ec, , 11, S of i , 15. .1945.
703Makedonsko s znani e, , 8, Vi ena, 16. .1924.
704R, 26, S .-P et er bur g . 27./9..1913, 2.
701D-r
702Dobr ovol
223
for freedom and the situation following the incursion of the Balkan armies, he
wrote:
Now, when the action for Macedonias 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 Macedonias future seem even
gloomier and sadder than before. From the attitude of the occupation authorities
towards the Macedonian population it is clear that Macedonias 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 Macedonias 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 upovski 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 a
706Ibid.
224
5.
The Macedonian activist Georgij A. Georgov (Stremjage) also used the pages of
the Slavophile mouthpiece Slavjanskija Izvstija 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 Macedonias 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 Macedonia707
As the Bulgarophile editors and associates of Slavjanskija Izvstija 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
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 Konstantinovi, Dimitrija upovski, 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.
At the same time Dimitrija upovski prepared and published (in colour) a Map
of Macedonia according to the Programme of the Macedonian Populists712 which
was printed in the Macedonian language towards the end of March, and was
710Bl
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 Konstantinovi, Dimov and upovski,
announced that upovski 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 upovski, 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 upovski, 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, upovski 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
227
Responding to the Belgrade Professor Aleksandar Beli (who was in the Russian
capital on a special mission for the Serbian government), in his article Macedonia
and Serbia, upovski 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 upovski 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, Austrias 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 upovski 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
228
8.
On June 7, 1913, the authorized persons of the Macedonian Colony in St Petersburg, Dimitrija D. upovski, Georgij A. Georgov, Nace D. Dimov, Dr Gavril K.
Konstantinovi 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 u
721Makedonsk
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 Mileti, I. Georgov, etc.) and
also to the Serbian ones (ore A. Geni, Duan 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. upovski, 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
722Makedonsk
723Ibid.
230
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 upovski 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. upovski strongly reproached the present
Bulgarian emissaries at the assembly, Professors Mileti 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 R 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 Macedonias partition, devised treacherously by
the former allies, without the knowledge of the Macedonian people, Mr Dimov,
upovski 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
724Den,
231
political thought in the St Petersburg Lawyers Assembly found the reason for
the raging war between yesterdays 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 Macedonias
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
730Russkoe
232
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 u
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
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 Sultans 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
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
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 Gulapev 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 Mrzsteg 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 migrs 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
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 Haditakovi and ore erikovi. 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 Clubs 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 Haditakovi 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 Pais 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. Muevi 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 upovski 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 upovski, Dimov, Dr
Konstantinovi 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 Konstantinovi volunteered as a doctor on the
Montenegrin front, Nace Dimov arrived in Sofia (to test the opinion of the
Macedonian migr community), and Dimitrija upovski 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 Macedonias integrity and for its
liberation. But the armies of occupation offered no opportunities for any effective
steps by the Macedonians. upovski 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, upovski wrote as a witness:
Now, when the action for Macedonias 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 Macedonias future seem even
gloomier and sadder than before. From the attitude of the occupation authorities
towards the Macedonian population it is clear that Macedonias 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.
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 upovski 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 Izvstija, 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 upovski,
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 Macedonias 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,
upovski 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 Konstantinovi, Nace Dimov, Dimitrija upovski 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 Macedonias 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 upovski, Georgi Georgov,
Nace D. Dimov, Dr Gavril Konstantinovi and Chem[ical] Eng[ineer] I. Georgov.
The demands were formulated in five items that again envisaged Macedonias
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 Vrainovski 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
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 Volkain, 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
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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 upovski 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:
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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.
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:
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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:
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(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 Pais 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 Ni Declaration. It was in these days of August 1915 that Dimitrija upovski
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 upovski 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. Pais 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. Marinkovi 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, Pai said to Hesapiev, the Bulgarian chargdaffaires: 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 Pai 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 Macdoine (Arme dOrient 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 FrancoMacdonienne was printed in Salonika. A discussion was initiated as to what to
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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-Macdonienne 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 Katardiev 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
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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 Milo Ivkovi, 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 Andr 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 Aleksi, 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 Vaillants 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 Aleksi again: After this war the
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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. Aleksi 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 Pais 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. Petrovi 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 Skoivar,
Dobroveni and Ba, 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 Pai
instructed Milenko Vesni in Paris to react most energetically against such views
with all the means and data he has at his disposal, demanding that the French
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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 Cviji, Dr Beli, Dr eri, Dr Radonji and
Dr Stanojevi, 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 Bulgarias aspirations on the approaching end of the war. As a result, on March 2, 1918, the Serbian
diplomatic representative in London, Jovan Jovanovi, 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, Jovanovi 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. Pais 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,
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Jovanovi 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 Aleksi, 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 Paveli, 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 Macedonias 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. Trifunovi, Minister in Pais government, who sent a
cable, on August 11, 1918, to the Minister of the Interior on the island of Corfu:
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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 Haditakovi and Dr eda
urevi have been designated as leaders of this movement, I have demanded reports
from both of them. Haditakovi says that the initiative was started by urevi
and that he agrees with the idea and intends to support it, if the government gives
approval. urevi 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 Cviji and Beli, to smash the
propaganda of the Bulgarians and friends of Bulgaria that the Macedonians are
Bulgarians; this would prevent Macedonias going to the Bulgarians, and it can be
incorporated into Yugoslavia, like Croatia and Slovenia. I pointed out to Mr
urevi, 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 Vasi and medical major Milo
Popovi, Mr urevi 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 Cviji. The same was the opinion of Haditakovi, 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 urevi claims that, in addition to the entire documentation he has sent here, special documentation will follow in another cable, after
which, he believes, Mr Pai will approve his action.
We do not know much about that special documentation which was to explain
the action of the Declarations 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
Haditakovi, 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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265
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 Wilsons
principles, hopes that it will nevertheless gain something, if nothing else, because of
the name Bulgarian by which, even according to Cviji, 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 Haditakovi 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, Haditakovi 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, Haditakovi 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
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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 migrs, 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 Neuchtel. 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. Tomi, 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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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
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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 countrys 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
270
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: Macedonias 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 lumire 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
Wilsons 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 migr 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 countrys 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.
272
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 LIndependance Macdonienne 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 Genve, 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 upovski and Misirkov
and also reflected the position within the community of Macedonian migrs 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 Haditakovis
Promemoria, and was very close to the concepts of the Macedonian Revolutionary
Committee of Dimitrija upovski 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 migr 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 Macedonias entirety and for securing its freedom.
Perhaps this was most vividly expressed in Dimitar Blagoevs 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 Zagoriani; 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 Macedonias 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 Delev and
Sandanski, Dimo Hadidimov, 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. Hadidimov pointed out
Bulgarias 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. Hadidimov 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 Sznanie, 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 migrs 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
Hadidimov, 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
277
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 migr 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 Karandulov 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
Kuku, Seres, Salonika, Skopje, Bitola, Koani, 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.
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 migr 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 MacdoineMacedonia (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 migr community in Bulgaria, which said that
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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 Macedonias being protected before the Peace Conference by the tools
of Kaiserism and by the blustering heroes of the imperial ceremonies in Ni.
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 Hadidimov. 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 migr community in
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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 ore Petrov, Dimo Hadidimov, Pavel Hristov, Mihail Gerdikov,
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
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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 Macedonias unification with or incorporation into Bulgaria, but Macedonias 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 migrs 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.
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 Macedonias autonomy was
tampered with by criminal hands, deliberately altered in the sense that the
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The Group did not abandon this position even after the signing of the Treaty
of Versailles and the endorsement of Macedonias 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
migr Community in Bulgaria of January 2, 1921, condemning once again the
actions of the Executive Committee and the dispatch of Ivan Karandulov 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
migr 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. Staniev,
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,
ore 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 migrs 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 migr community in Bulgaria, proposing
the convocation, on September 28, of a congress of the Macedonian migr
community with the following tasks:
(a) to manifest the unity of the migr 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 migr
body.
This circular was regarded as the emergence of a third party within the
Macedonian migr 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 migrs 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 migrs
to be found on the territory of Bulgaria and also outside it.
2. As the entire Macedonian migr 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 migr 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 migrs
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 migrs for a whole year now and blocking the
demonstration of their collective power; therefore, we invite the Macedonian migr
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 migr community, proclaiming courageously
and categorically the formula of Autonomy adopted by the entire migr community
and electing a single representative body which will make use of the confidence of
the delegates of the entire migr 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 migrs
that they influence their leaders in this direction. If, however, this action before the
leading bodies fails, the Macedonian migr 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 migr 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 migr 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 migr community, persons who will guarantee indomitable support for the
position taken by the entire Macedonian migr community, it reserves its freedom
of action and therefore asks the migr 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 migr 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 migr Community in Bulgaria, presenting the positions of the two main bodies of Macedo290
nian migrs, 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 migr 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.
As a matter of fact, these were the demands of all the Macedonian migrs 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 migr 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
Macedonias 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 Macedonias 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
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Sofia, General Tucakovi, informed those responsible in Belgrade that the Macedonian migrs in Bulgaria were divided into four groups, saying: One group was
in favour of Macedonias 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 Tucakovi 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 ore Petrov, Paul Christoff
(Pol Hristov), Petar aulev and Milan urlukov, 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 Hadidimov, the idle anarchist Gerdikov, the dandy devil ore 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, ore Petrov, Dimo Hadidimov 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 migrs 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 Kaanik to the ar 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 Tucakovi was well aware of this and, analysing the position of
the Seres circle vis--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
296
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
734Jovan
Janev, ,,S t avovi t e na Ef t i m S pr ost r anov i Jovan i r kovi za avt onomi ja na Makedoni ja vo sost avot na jugosl ovenskat a f eder aci ja, Gl asni k, HH , 1-2, I NI , 1983, 78.
297
the activity of Aleksandrov and Protogerovs 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
organizations 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
298
sions concerning the federalist visions once again could frequently be heard in
Macedonian migr 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
gosl avnska i l i Bal kanska f eder aci ?, I l i nden, , 23, S of i , 26. .1923, 1.
,,Samoodreenje naroda u Jugoslaviji, Borba, 30, Zagreb, 16.VIII.1923.
740Mbt, ,,Za jasnou i odlunost po nacionalnom pitanju, Borba, 38, 18.X.1923.
741K. Mi si r kov , ,,P i emont i l i Avst r i ?, I l i nden, , 24, 24.H.1923, 1.
739Mbt,
299
743,,Gener . Tomson
300
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 Congress745 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 Macedonias 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 kov
Mi si r kov
746K. Mi si r kov
747K. Mi si r kov
745K.
301
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 znaenjeto na moravskoto ili resavskoto nareje 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.
302
This was Misirkovs 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
303
304
305
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 migr community, particularly in
overseas countries, never adhered to it in practice.
306
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. Radeks 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 CPYs appeal for a public discussion of the
national question in Yugoslavia through the pages of the newspaper RadnikDelavec (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 Voleva, 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.
Vrinac, ,,Prva, Druga i Trea 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 e ut ski , gosl avskat a komuni st i eska par t i i makedonski t v pr os
1919-1945, S of i , 1985, 89.
762Ibid., 91.
763Duan Luka, Radniki pokret u Jugoslaviji i nacionalno pitanje 1918-1941, Beograd, 1972, 107.
764Ras i r enn pl enum I spol ni t el nogo komi t et a Kommuni st i eskogo i nt er naci onal a
(12-23 i n 1923 goda), Moskva, 1923, 257.
765Kost adi n P al e ut ski , op. cit., 104.
766D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Koo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r a 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.
308
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
[Ante Ciliga pseudonym], ,,Samoodreenje 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 kDelavec, , 57, Beogr ad, 1. .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 kDelavec, , 76, Beogr ad, 5.H.1923.
769Mbt, ,,Za jasnou i odlunost u nacionalnom pitanju, Borba, , 38, 18.H.1923. See also the previous
issue of this newspaper (October 11, 1923).
770Kost adi n P al e ut ski , op. cit., 119.
771Geor gi V. Di mi t r ov, S t anovi e i pol i t i ka na BKP po makedonski v pr os, Bl agoevgr ad,
1971, 31-32.
772I st or i jski ar hi v Komuni st i ke par t i je Jugosl avi je, 2, Beogr ad, 1949, 421.
773I zvor i za i st or i ju r adni kog pokr et a i r evol uci je u C r noj Gor i (1918-1945), S er i ja , kw.
1 (1918-1929). Odabr ao i pr i r edi o dr Jovan R. Bojovi , Ti t ogr ad, 1971, 496-497. The same
309
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, Koo 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 , 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 a awe meu dvet e vojni (1919-1930), , 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 , Makedoni ja Makedonci ma! Zemq a zemq or adni ci ma!, aak, 1966, 52.
775Kost adi n P al e ut ski , op. cit., 179.
776Mar i ja Mi l o evska, ,,Znaaen dokument vo zaost avni nat a na Koo Raci n, Del o 74, H,
1-2, t i p, 1986, 63.
777D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Koo 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.
310
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 Delev Macedonian Popular Student Group (1930), active in the Pirin
section of Macedonia and among the Macedonian migrs (mostly in Bulgaria).
In the period 1931-1934, it continually published several printed mouthpieces
(Makedonski Studentski List, Makedonska Studentska Tribuna and Makedonska
Mlade), 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 Koo 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 a awe meu dvet e
vojni (1919-1930), -, Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1977.
780D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 481-560; D-r Bl a 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, ,
Kul t ur a, S kopje, 1990, 293-318.
781Makedonskot o pr a awe na st r ani ci t e od ,,Ri zospast i s meu 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 me 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, ; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Koo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r a 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 a e Ri st ovski , Koo Raci n , 59-176.
784Ibid., 62-127; I l egal ni ot peat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja meu dvet e svet ski vojni ,
t om , kni ga 2. P odgot vi l d-r I van Kat ar xi ev, Komuni st , S kopje, 1983, 39-55.
311
312
313
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.
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
314
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.
Velikov 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.
315
Further on Velikov (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 Velikovs letter and the enclosed note from
Bogdanov:
The readiness that some distinguished Soviet Slavic scholars in Kiev have
expressed to Comrade Velikov 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.
Rast i sl av Ter zi oski , ,,Ruski dokument i za posebnost a na makedonski ot nar od, N ova
Makedoni ja, , 16972, 22. .1994, 12 and 16973, 23. .1994, 8; Li na i l a, ,,Komi nt er nat a i
pr a awet o na makedonski ot jazi k, Kul t ur en i vot , HHHH, 6-7, 1994, 73.
316
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 migr 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 Petri 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.
317
such. Comrade Dino osev (Moscow), who has certain qualifications in these
questions and can be useful, could also be co-opted in the group.
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 Misirkovs 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 vprosi na nacional-revoljucionnoto
dvienie 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 peoples 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. .1994, 8; Li na i l a, op. cit., 74-75. There are considerable
differences in the translations of both documents by these two authors.
799S .B. Ber n t en, ,,I z i st or i i makedonskot o l i t er at ur nogo zi ka. ,Var dar K.P . Mi si r kova, S l avnska f i l ol ogi . S bor ni k st at e, v pusk t r et i . P od r edakci e pr of . S .B.
Ber n t ena, Moskva, 1960, 70-71.
800Bol a sovet ska nci kl opedi , 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 , H , 4, S kopje, 1967, 473.
801Kost adi n P al e ut ski , op. cit., 224; C P A, f . 10, op. 1, ar h. ed. 75.
318
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 migr 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 migrs 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 Mlade, 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),
Noot (? May 5, 1935), Makedonska Revoljucija (MayJune 1935), Hristo
Trajkov (January 1936), Bjuletin na Vtrenata Makedonska Revoljucionna Organizacija (Obedinena) (July 1936) and Makedonsko Edinstvo (October 1936).803
The people from the Pirin part of Macedonia and the migrs 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 Macedonias
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 a e Ri st ovski , P r ojavi i pr of i l i , , 230-246; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i
pr ocesi , , 401-458.
802D-r
803D-r
319
(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
migrs 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
320
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
806Di
321
322
813Ibid.,
323
324
825Bl
a e Ri st ovski , ,,I l i nden vo peat ot na makedonskat a emi gr aci ja, in: P r i l ozi za I l i nden, , Bi t ol aKr u evo, 1983, 230-235.
325
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.
326
Our research into Macedonian progressive migr 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 migr 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 migr 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 migrs living in Bulgaria after
the Congress of Berlin up to the Balkan Wars, they always felt themselves and insisted on being treated
as migrs (migr 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 migrs, 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 a 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, , S kopje, 511-522; D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , P or t r et i i pr ocesi , , 502-532; Mi l e Mi hajl ov i Mi hajl o Geor gi evski , ,,P ol i t i kat a akt i vnost na Makedonski ot nar oden sojuz vo S AD i Kanada od 1928 do 1935 godi na,
Gl asni k, H , 1, S kopje, 1971, 105-136.
828D-r Bl a e Ri st ovski , Koo Raci n. I st or i sko-l i t er at ur ni i st r a 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 panskat a gr aanska vojna (1936-1939), N ova
Makedoni ja, 15-19. .1987.
327
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 migr 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 migr 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 migr 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 migr 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 a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 502-527. For some
of these publications, only individual numbers, years or contributions were available to us.
829D-r
830Bl
a e Ri st ovski , ,,I l i nden vo peat ot na makedonskat a emi gr aci ja, in: P r i l ozi za I l i nden, , Bi t ol aKr u evo, 1983, 227.
328
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 migr 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 peoples 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 a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 1983, 163-280.
Bl a e Ri st ovski , op. cit., , 528-549.
833Makedonsko zname, , 17, S of i , 14.H.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, , 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
329
330
331
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 migrs 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 migr circles. A new Macedonian National Theatre was
founded in Sofia845 and the play Makedonska krvava svadba (Macedonian Blood
Wedding) by Vojdan ernodrinski 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 a 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, , S kopje, 1987, 381-392; see also the
discussion in: A S N OM vo sozdavawet o na dr avat a na makedonski ot nar od, MANU, S kopje,
1987, 442-450; Kol e a 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 , , 2, S of i , 2..1935, [9]; , 3, 9..1935, 8; , 9, 23..1935, 7; Makedonska
zem, , 1, S of i , 23..1936, 8.
844Tr udova Makedoni , , 13, 15..1937, 1 (pi esat a Kovai t e); , 14, 30..1937, 1 (dr amat a
Upor i t i ot ) and 3 (S l avnat a pet or ka).
845Makedonski vest i , , 65, 5. .1936, 3; , 66, 12. .1936, 4.
846Makedonski vest i , , 65, 4..1936, 12; Vojdan er nodr i nski , S obr ani del a. P r i r edi l
Al eksandar Al eksi ev, , S kopje, 1976, 262-264.
332
333
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
(Bistriki, 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 migrs 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 migr
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 ,
, 10, S kopje, 9.H.1955, 4; D-r Bl a 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, , 262, 16..1994, 13.
853Bi st r i ki , ,,Za o ni e makedonci t e sme ot del na naci ?, in: et v r t i kongr es na Makedonski nar oden s z v A mer i ka, Det r oi t , 1934, 42-55.
854Bi st r i cki , Makedonskat a naci , S of i , 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 , N aci i pol i t i ka, , 5, S of i , ni avgust 1936, 148-149).
855Makedonski vest i , , 73, 8.H.1936, 3.
856Angel Di nev, I l i ndenska epope (Razvo na maked. osvobodi t el no dvi eni e), t om , S of i
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 , S kopje, 1949.
858Angel Di nev , ,,Makedonski t sl avni , Makedonski vest i , , 69, 3.H.1936, 4; , 70,
10.H.1936, 4; , 71, 17.H.1936, 4; , 73, 8.H.1936, 2; , 74, 16.H.1936, 4. Due to the newspapers
being banned, the text was not completed. It was published in its entirety as a separate booklet: Angel
Di nev , Makedonski t sl avni , S of i , 1938, 72.
334
859Api
335
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 migr 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
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 upovski once again appealed: We defend the
independence of Macedonia together with the idea of the establishment of a Balkan
Peoples 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 ones 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 migrs 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
337
338
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 Koo Racin. Their work was suppressed following the assassination of King
Alexander, and a large number of MOROs 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 Koo 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 Racins 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 migrs 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 o 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 meu dvet e svet ski vojni
(I zbor ), -, S kopje, 1976; Mi odr ag Dr ugovac, I st or i ja na makedonskat a kni evnost HH
vek, S kopje, 1990, 117-132, 148-156 and 159-171.
872Al
339
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 Lu (1937-1938) and the newspaper Naa Re (19391941), where the following young authors published works of poetry: Koo Racin,
Anton Panov, Ceko Stefanov Popivanov, Radoslav Petkovski, Voislav Ili, 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 Vole Naumeski874 and, in particular, Beli mugri (White Dawns, 1939)
by Koo 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
ernodrinski,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 Derov,
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 Delev
Poema (Goce Delev A Poem), and Prangi Soneten venec (Shackles A Sonnet
Sequence) (1939); Lunja Makedonska lirika (Tempest Macedonian Lyrics);
Ilinden Poema (Ilinden A Poem), and udna e Makedonija (Macedonia is
Marvellous) (1940); Bie dvanaeset (It Strikes Twelve, 1941) by Venko Markovski,879 and Mskavici (Flashes of Lightning, 1940) and Pe po svetot (Around the
World on Foot, 1941) by Kole Nedelkovski.880
873D-r
340
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 arov (Mihail
Smatrakalev), Anton Popov, Todor omov, Georgi Abadiev, Kiril Manasiev
(Veerin), 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 Sultans state; who by self-denial created the Ilinden
epic; who waged a bloody armed struggle against armed propaganda; who fought
against the Sultans 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
341
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, Noot, 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
342
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 liberation895
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 atorov arlo. 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. Pekov 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
Pekov, 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 comitadji901
895Ibid.,
318-322.
334-338.
897Ibid., 382.
898I l egal ni ot peat na KP J vo Var dar ska Makedoni ja meu dvet e svet ski vojni , , 2.
P odgot vi l d-r I van Kat ar xi ev, S kopje, 1983, 198.
899Makedonskot o pr a awe na st r ani ci t e od ,,Ri zospast i s meu 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
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 Enide-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 migrs 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 Sdruenie (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 Peoples 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 Peoples 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 a e Ri st ovski , Makedonski ot nar od i makedonskat a naci ja, , 511-522.
907Makedonci t v A mer i ka i bor bat a na t hni nar od za naci onal na nezavi si most na
Makedonski N ar oden S z v A mer i ka, Madi son , 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.
, , 2. l i 1935, 1 and 3.
347
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
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 Blgarski, 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
Kitanev, Trajko (Trajo), 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, Dime, author 68, 72
Kodov, Hristo, author 56, 66-67, 86
Kolarov, Vasil, Bulgarian activist in the
Comintern 309
Koledarov, Petr S., author 59, 67
Koneski, Blae, 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. uparov from Sofia 222
Konstantinovi, Dr Gavril, vice-president
of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in St Petersburg/Petrograd,
357
358
359
360
361
362
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
apkarev, 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
atorov arlo, 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, Duan I., Serbian writer and journalist in Russia 230
Senkevich, I.G., author 176
Serski, Taskata Spasov, revolutionary, adherent of Sandanskis 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
365
366
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-Pazardik) 147
Zarevski, Branko, Macedonian revolutionary, writer and journalist 340
Zarkada, detachment commander 173
arov, Angel, Mihail Smatrakalevs pseudonym
Zarov, D.G., see Zafirovski, Mitko
eev, Nikolaj, author 132
efarovi, Hristofor, painter and genealogist from Dojran 37, 42, 73, 95, 102
ila, Lina, author 316, 318
Zimbilev, Georgi Ivanov (Hadi Georgi
Dramski, Hadi Georgija Dramskijt,
Georgi Daskalot) teacher in the village
of Prosoen, Drama region, Uniate
leader 146
inzifov, Rajko, Macedonian poet, writer,
teacher and Slavophile 77, 80, 104
ivkov, 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, Dano, author 126, 182, 195,
216, 222
Zografski, Dime 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
369
Bosnia 4, 10
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia-Herzegovina 10, 39, 41, 151, 212, 214, 254,
305
Bosphorus 48, 236
Boston 272
Branievo 33
Bratislava 64
Brdo 115
Bregalnica x, 19-20, 24, 59, 61, 67-68
Britain, see Great Britain
Brno 132
Bucharest (Bucureti) 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
aak 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 (Durrs) 69
East Rumelia 159-160, 176, 181
Egypt 23
Elbasan 73
371
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 (Mnchen) 112
Mrzsteg 239
Near East 272, 337
Netherlands 3-4
Neuchtel 268
Neuilly 273, 292, 297-298
Nevrokop 135-136, 150, 203
New York 189, 272
Ni 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
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
Pritina 163
Prizren 49, 185
Prosoen 146
Provadija, see Ovech
Provat 67
Radibu 103
Radovi 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
Rusuk see Ruse
Ruse (Russe, Rusuk) 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
374
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, Srdec (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
tip 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
umadija 15
Suzdal 99
Switzerland (Swiss Federal Republic) 3,
217, 267-275, 278, 284, 337
Syr Darya (Jaxartes) 112
Syria 23
Tartu 184
Tatar-Pazardik 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
Tikve 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
Vataa 131
Velbud 20
Veles 79, 130, 138-145, 154, 162, 172-174,
203, 222-224, 227, 243, 260, 279, 294,
308-309, 323
375