Xiotis
09-08-2006, 11:35 PM
The following is an excerpt from Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian Question by Palmer & King and was published in 1971.
It is a non-Greek source that describes the cultural and social implementations imposed on the Slavic population of FYROM by the communists. The implementations were relatively easy to carry out since the population was largely uneducated and illiterate. It is my opinion that Tito did not "invent" the "Macedonian" ethnicity. It was the Serbs during the early 20th century that were amongst the first to categorize the Slavic population in the south Balkan/Ottoman region as a distinct ethnic group from the Bulgarians for political purposes. This is described in detail by the 1914 Carnegie Commission and by H.R Wilkinson in his book Maps and Politics published in the early 1950s. Another instigating factor for the divergence between the Slavs of FYROM from their Bulgarian cultural past was the codification and officialization of the Bulgarian language. The Slavic population in the Ottoman region that were not exposed to this officialization continued to speak in their original Bulgarian dialect initiating a cultural separation from the Bulgarians in Bulgaria. As a result some Slavic intellectuals started to argue that the two populations were distinct ethnic groups. Danforth states that despite the calls for separation by intellectuals such as Misirkov the educated element and political leaders of the Slavic population still regarded themselves as Bulgarians. Tito and the Yugoslav communists capitolized on the early 20th century politically motivated notion that the south Balkan slavs were a distinct ethnic group by developing the Socialist Republic of Macediona and the so called "Macedonian" ethnicity for irridentist purposes.
The following is an excerpt that describes this process from Palmer and King. It describes how language, history and religion were used to develop the "Macedonian" ethnicity:
It is reasonable to hold that, prior to World War II, the Slavs
of Yugoslav Macedonia considered themselves Bulgarians [..]
The Yugoslav communist policy has encouraged the national consciousness of the Macedonian Slavs [..]
The encouragement and evolution of Macedonian culture has had a far greater and more permanent impact on Macedonian nationalism than has any other aspect of Yugoslav policy. While development of national music, films and the graphic arts has been encouraged in Macedonia, the greatest cultural effect has come from the creation of the Macedonian language and literature, the new Macedonian national interpretation of history, and the establishment of a Macedonian Orthodox Church....
Even those who claim that a seperate Macedonian language existed prior to 1945 admit that all these dialects have a very close affinity to Bulgarian...
It was natural that the Yugoslav government regarded a distinct Macedonian language as a bulwark against Bulgarian irredentism. At the same time, it was a very real concession to the Macedonians vis-a-vis the Serbs. The First Assembly of the ASNOM in August 1944 passed the resolution declaring Macedonian the republic's official language. A commission was created to determine which features of the spoken dialects were to be incorporated in the written language, and in May 1945 an alphabet was adopted by law...
From the very beginning, Macedonian linguists concentrated on showing the Macedonian language to be different from other languages. The first grammar, published in 1946, established nine distinctive traits of the new language and stressed its differences from other Slavic languages. At first the language had many words, especially political, literary, philosophical, and technical terms, which were borrowed from Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian. However, from the beginning an effort was made to purge these foreign elements, particularly those from Bulgarian. The commission which codified the language was guided by the principle:
The vocabulary of the literary language should be enriched with terms taken from all Macedonian dialects. New words should be created with living inflections of the folk speech. Borrowed words from other languages should be retained only where necessary.
As a result, Bulgarian, Russian (after 1948) and other foreign words were replaced by words existing in one of the local Macedonian dialects or by terms created by combining native elements....
The standardization of the new literary language has been a continuing process. But with its constant use in schools, the press, radio, books and theater, Macedonians have gradually come to understand and use the new language.
Reports on Macedonian acceptance of the language have varied greatly. A more realistic assessment comes from a Skopje schoolteacher who emigrated from Yugoslavia:
Among the wide massess of the urban population and intelligentsia, the Macedonian language is accepted as the most important, and often the only good aspect of the present day Yugoslavia. The children are learning it in schools and their parents are very satisfied that this is the case. There are places in the country side where people were reluctant to send their children to school in the days of old Yugoslavia, but now they do so willingly, for they want their children to learn the Macedonian language.. The new literature and poetry in the national language has aroused great interest, for through it is created and formed the new national spirit and language. This new literature, as well as the printing of prewar literature and poetry by Macedonians in the national language, has resulted in much reading.
Having been taught in schools and used extensively throughout the SRM for over twenty five years, the Macedonian language is accepted by most Macedonians....
Denial of the existence of the Macedonian language is considered so serious a challenge to the Macedonian nationality that Belgrade has not hesitated to condemn the Bulgarians regardless of the state of relations with Sofia. Vigorous and vehement denunciations of Bulgarian academicians have been published by leading Yugoslav newspapers even during periods of good relations with Bulgaria. The Yugoslav leaders thus acknowledge that the wide, if imperfect, usage of the Macedonian language is one of the most vital contributions to Macedonian nationalism.
The treatment of Macedonian history has the same primary goal as the creation of the Macedonian language- to de-Bulgarize the Macedonians and create a seperate national consciousness. Since Marx claimed to have discovered the immutable laws of history, Communists have considered the "correct" interpreation of history as the foundation of all social science and a key element of nationality. In the Balkans, history is a primary ingredient in the development of national consciousness which possesses a current relevance that extends beyond mere academic interest. Hence, the Yugoslav communists were most anxious to mold Macedonian history to fit their conception of Macedonian consciousness.
In setting the tone for the new interpration of history, Communist experts found past Macedonian history to suffer from two defects, First "bourgeois historians, although they may have certain merits for the elaboration of the material facts of history, suffer from the weakness of their idealistic theoretic basis." Hence, new historical works must be based on a correct Marxist-Leninist interpretation of history. Second, and perhaps mor important,
Macedonian history had to sever the umbilical cord to Bulgaria. It was advanced as a principle of Macedonian histography that key aspects of Macedonian culture had origins seperate from Bulgaria, that Macedonian history was distinctive from Bulgarian history.
Lazar Kolisevski gave the initial clues as to the correct interpretation of Macedonian history in his report to the First Congress of the CPM in 1948. The resolution adopted by the First Congress stressed the importance of ideological conformity and emphasized the use of history to re-educate the Macedonian massess:
Great interest should be created[in history] and there should be a systematic approach, with a materialistic elucidation of the historical past of our people in general, and special elaboration of the socialist movement in our country. The history of the people's liberation struggle should be particularly elaborated. A struggle should be carried out for systematic studies of our past among the broad massess as well as among party members.
Macedonian historians, however, apparently had some difficulty in adjusting to the new guidelines for Macedonian history- particularly in distinguishing Macedonian from Bulgarian history. In an article in Komunist in January 1950, Vidoe Smilevski gave a summary of the correct interpretation of Macedonian history. Another article by Kiro Miljovski appeared about the same time but went farther, specifically criticizing Macedonian historians and setting out in more detail the party guidelines for interpreting history. Miljovski was particularly crtitical of the failure to eliminate Bulgarian influences:
Some of our people fail to understand correctly Kuzman Sapkarov's cultural activity in the struggle of the Macedonian language, and they are suspicious about the national character of our entire early national movement simply because Sapkarov or others in the movement were not clearly, explicitly and to the very end nationally inclined, because some of them felt "now a Macedonian, now a Bulgarian." In the same way some people fall in to uncertainty about the Macedonian character of the national liberation movement in Delcev's time simply because Goce Delcev wrote in Bulgarian, because he did not say definitely that Macedonia is one nation and that Bulgaria is another.
To avoid future uncertainty, Miljovski listed a number of expressions (most of the frequently used in Bulgarian historical writing) which were banned from Macedonian history.
Although Macedonian historical works began to appear, historians found that research on Macedonia was "complex and difficult" because existing literature "is still permeated with Great Bulgarian spirit, with omissions distortions and falsifications of many historical facts." The Scientific Institute for National History of the Macedonian Nation was established "to eliminate the influece "of the Macedonian Scientific Institute in Sofia which during the interwar period "published most of the documentary and propaganda materials about Macedonia." The Institute, which had indeed published a great deal of material on Macedonia, was the principle scholarly advocate during the interwar period of the thesis that the Macedonian Slavs are Bulgarians...
In order to conform to the standards of Yugoslav Marxist
historiography and at the same time degrade Bulgarian influence and
affirm the Macedonian nationality, Macedonian historical writing
has stressed certain themes. In order to create a continuous
record of Macedonia as a nation, there is constant re-analysis and
rediscovery of probable and improbable historical fragments. The
medieval empire of Samuelo with its capital at Ohrid has been
designated as a "Macedonian" empire (despite the fact that
the empire was destroyed by Basil II who earned the title
"Bulgar slayer" for his campaigns against Samuelo). The "Slavic"
missionaries Cyril and Methodius are treated with greatest respect
and emphasis is placed on their Macedonian birthplace (Salonica)
and on their use of a "Macedonian" dialect as the first Slavic
literary language. Macedonian revolutionary heroes are carefully
treated. In addition to appropriating the historical legacies
of the key founders of the original IMRO-Goce Delcev, Damian Gruev
and Pere Tosev- Macedonian historians play up lesser figures who
might have given the slightest indication of "socialist"
inclination or who were not openly Bulgarophiles. Thus there is
glorification of men like Jane Sandasky, Dimo Hadzi-Dimov, Petar
Peparsev and Nikola Karev, who because they defected from
IMRO or lost out in internecine organizational fights, have long
been forgotten by chroniclers of the IMRO. Th more recent IMRO
leaders -Aleksandrov, Protogerov and Mihailov- are excluded from
the ranks of the progressive for having been tools of Sofia.
Besides, they are symbols which are too dangerous and too recent
to attempt to manipulate.
One of the most interesting aspects of Macedonian cultural life
was the struggle for the creation of an independent Macedonian
Orthodox Church. In the Balkan countries, one's religion is a
key element of nationality...
Probably the most crucial element in bringing about the
establishment of a seperate church at this time was the Bulgarian
denial of the existence of the Macedonian nationality. As
relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union declined
before April 1958, the Bulgarian government launched a strong
attack against Belgrade, publishing articles and speeches
to show that Macedonians are Bulgarians. The Bulgarian
campaign provoked vigorous countermeasures in Yugoslavia and
Kolisevski's speech in Titov Veles which gave a new slant to
Macedonian hitory. Macedonian National holidays on Aug 2
(Ilinden) and Oct 11 (the anniversary of the first Macedonian
partisan operations in 1941) were used as a major occasions
to reaffirm the Macedonian nationality. The conference to
create the Macedonian church came just two weeks after Dimitur
Ganev made the most anti-Yugoslav irredentist speech of any
postwar Bulgarian leader up to that time. When the existence
of the Macedonian nationality was being more serious challenged
than at any previous time, the creation of the Macedonian
Orthodox Church was a powerful way for the Yugoslavs to reaffirm
its seperate existence.
Because of the Bulgarian consciousness of a large part of the
Macedonian population, culture in Macedonia has been allowed
somewhat greater latitude than in other republics of Yugoslavia.
The cultural field ahs also contributed more to the development
of a Macedonian national consciousness than any other area.
After twenty-five years the major questions of Macedonian culture
have been resovled. The Macedonian literary language has
achieved a standard form generally accepted by the
Macedonian population; the premises an outline of the Macedonian
national interpretation of history have been worked out; the
Macedonian Orthodox Church has been established fully
independent of the Serbian church; graphic and performing arts
have utilized nationalistic themes though their direct
contribution to Macedonian consciousness has been more limited....
Since the Macedonian Slavs were now a nationality, the
Macedonians of Pirin and Aegean Macedonia should, it followed,
be united with their more numerous Yugoslav Macedonian brothers
and become part of the Macedonian Republic in the Yugoslav federal
state.
[Palmer & King, _Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian Question_,
1971, excerpts taken from Chapter 9 "The Encouragement of
Macedonian Culture", the first two paragraphs taken from pg 14,
the last paragraph taken from pg 117]
It is a non-Greek source that describes the cultural and social implementations imposed on the Slavic population of FYROM by the communists. The implementations were relatively easy to carry out since the population was largely uneducated and illiterate. It is my opinion that Tito did not "invent" the "Macedonian" ethnicity. It was the Serbs during the early 20th century that were amongst the first to categorize the Slavic population in the south Balkan/Ottoman region as a distinct ethnic group from the Bulgarians for political purposes. This is described in detail by the 1914 Carnegie Commission and by H.R Wilkinson in his book Maps and Politics published in the early 1950s. Another instigating factor for the divergence between the Slavs of FYROM from their Bulgarian cultural past was the codification and officialization of the Bulgarian language. The Slavic population in the Ottoman region that were not exposed to this officialization continued to speak in their original Bulgarian dialect initiating a cultural separation from the Bulgarians in Bulgaria. As a result some Slavic intellectuals started to argue that the two populations were distinct ethnic groups. Danforth states that despite the calls for separation by intellectuals such as Misirkov the educated element and political leaders of the Slavic population still regarded themselves as Bulgarians. Tito and the Yugoslav communists capitolized on the early 20th century politically motivated notion that the south Balkan slavs were a distinct ethnic group by developing the Socialist Republic of Macediona and the so called "Macedonian" ethnicity for irridentist purposes.
The following is an excerpt that describes this process from Palmer and King. It describes how language, history and religion were used to develop the "Macedonian" ethnicity:
It is reasonable to hold that, prior to World War II, the Slavs
of Yugoslav Macedonia considered themselves Bulgarians [..]
The Yugoslav communist policy has encouraged the national consciousness of the Macedonian Slavs [..]
The encouragement and evolution of Macedonian culture has had a far greater and more permanent impact on Macedonian nationalism than has any other aspect of Yugoslav policy. While development of national music, films and the graphic arts has been encouraged in Macedonia, the greatest cultural effect has come from the creation of the Macedonian language and literature, the new Macedonian national interpretation of history, and the establishment of a Macedonian Orthodox Church....
Even those who claim that a seperate Macedonian language existed prior to 1945 admit that all these dialects have a very close affinity to Bulgarian...
It was natural that the Yugoslav government regarded a distinct Macedonian language as a bulwark against Bulgarian irredentism. At the same time, it was a very real concession to the Macedonians vis-a-vis the Serbs. The First Assembly of the ASNOM in August 1944 passed the resolution declaring Macedonian the republic's official language. A commission was created to determine which features of the spoken dialects were to be incorporated in the written language, and in May 1945 an alphabet was adopted by law...
From the very beginning, Macedonian linguists concentrated on showing the Macedonian language to be different from other languages. The first grammar, published in 1946, established nine distinctive traits of the new language and stressed its differences from other Slavic languages. At first the language had many words, especially political, literary, philosophical, and technical terms, which were borrowed from Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian. However, from the beginning an effort was made to purge these foreign elements, particularly those from Bulgarian. The commission which codified the language was guided by the principle:
The vocabulary of the literary language should be enriched with terms taken from all Macedonian dialects. New words should be created with living inflections of the folk speech. Borrowed words from other languages should be retained only where necessary.
As a result, Bulgarian, Russian (after 1948) and other foreign words were replaced by words existing in one of the local Macedonian dialects or by terms created by combining native elements....
The standardization of the new literary language has been a continuing process. But with its constant use in schools, the press, radio, books and theater, Macedonians have gradually come to understand and use the new language.
Reports on Macedonian acceptance of the language have varied greatly. A more realistic assessment comes from a Skopje schoolteacher who emigrated from Yugoslavia:
Among the wide massess of the urban population and intelligentsia, the Macedonian language is accepted as the most important, and often the only good aspect of the present day Yugoslavia. The children are learning it in schools and their parents are very satisfied that this is the case. There are places in the country side where people were reluctant to send their children to school in the days of old Yugoslavia, but now they do so willingly, for they want their children to learn the Macedonian language.. The new literature and poetry in the national language has aroused great interest, for through it is created and formed the new national spirit and language. This new literature, as well as the printing of prewar literature and poetry by Macedonians in the national language, has resulted in much reading.
Having been taught in schools and used extensively throughout the SRM for over twenty five years, the Macedonian language is accepted by most Macedonians....
Denial of the existence of the Macedonian language is considered so serious a challenge to the Macedonian nationality that Belgrade has not hesitated to condemn the Bulgarians regardless of the state of relations with Sofia. Vigorous and vehement denunciations of Bulgarian academicians have been published by leading Yugoslav newspapers even during periods of good relations with Bulgaria. The Yugoslav leaders thus acknowledge that the wide, if imperfect, usage of the Macedonian language is one of the most vital contributions to Macedonian nationalism.
The treatment of Macedonian history has the same primary goal as the creation of the Macedonian language- to de-Bulgarize the Macedonians and create a seperate national consciousness. Since Marx claimed to have discovered the immutable laws of history, Communists have considered the "correct" interpreation of history as the foundation of all social science and a key element of nationality. In the Balkans, history is a primary ingredient in the development of national consciousness which possesses a current relevance that extends beyond mere academic interest. Hence, the Yugoslav communists were most anxious to mold Macedonian history to fit their conception of Macedonian consciousness.
In setting the tone for the new interpration of history, Communist experts found past Macedonian history to suffer from two defects, First "bourgeois historians, although they may have certain merits for the elaboration of the material facts of history, suffer from the weakness of their idealistic theoretic basis." Hence, new historical works must be based on a correct Marxist-Leninist interpretation of history. Second, and perhaps mor important,
Macedonian history had to sever the umbilical cord to Bulgaria. It was advanced as a principle of Macedonian histography that key aspects of Macedonian culture had origins seperate from Bulgaria, that Macedonian history was distinctive from Bulgarian history.
Lazar Kolisevski gave the initial clues as to the correct interpretation of Macedonian history in his report to the First Congress of the CPM in 1948. The resolution adopted by the First Congress stressed the importance of ideological conformity and emphasized the use of history to re-educate the Macedonian massess:
Great interest should be created[in history] and there should be a systematic approach, with a materialistic elucidation of the historical past of our people in general, and special elaboration of the socialist movement in our country. The history of the people's liberation struggle should be particularly elaborated. A struggle should be carried out for systematic studies of our past among the broad massess as well as among party members.
Macedonian historians, however, apparently had some difficulty in adjusting to the new guidelines for Macedonian history- particularly in distinguishing Macedonian from Bulgarian history. In an article in Komunist in January 1950, Vidoe Smilevski gave a summary of the correct interpretation of Macedonian history. Another article by Kiro Miljovski appeared about the same time but went farther, specifically criticizing Macedonian historians and setting out in more detail the party guidelines for interpreting history. Miljovski was particularly crtitical of the failure to eliminate Bulgarian influences:
Some of our people fail to understand correctly Kuzman Sapkarov's cultural activity in the struggle of the Macedonian language, and they are suspicious about the national character of our entire early national movement simply because Sapkarov or others in the movement were not clearly, explicitly and to the very end nationally inclined, because some of them felt "now a Macedonian, now a Bulgarian." In the same way some people fall in to uncertainty about the Macedonian character of the national liberation movement in Delcev's time simply because Goce Delcev wrote in Bulgarian, because he did not say definitely that Macedonia is one nation and that Bulgaria is another.
To avoid future uncertainty, Miljovski listed a number of expressions (most of the frequently used in Bulgarian historical writing) which were banned from Macedonian history.
Although Macedonian historical works began to appear, historians found that research on Macedonia was "complex and difficult" because existing literature "is still permeated with Great Bulgarian spirit, with omissions distortions and falsifications of many historical facts." The Scientific Institute for National History of the Macedonian Nation was established "to eliminate the influece "of the Macedonian Scientific Institute in Sofia which during the interwar period "published most of the documentary and propaganda materials about Macedonia." The Institute, which had indeed published a great deal of material on Macedonia, was the principle scholarly advocate during the interwar period of the thesis that the Macedonian Slavs are Bulgarians...
In order to conform to the standards of Yugoslav Marxist
historiography and at the same time degrade Bulgarian influence and
affirm the Macedonian nationality, Macedonian historical writing
has stressed certain themes. In order to create a continuous
record of Macedonia as a nation, there is constant re-analysis and
rediscovery of probable and improbable historical fragments. The
medieval empire of Samuelo with its capital at Ohrid has been
designated as a "Macedonian" empire (despite the fact that
the empire was destroyed by Basil II who earned the title
"Bulgar slayer" for his campaigns against Samuelo). The "Slavic"
missionaries Cyril and Methodius are treated with greatest respect
and emphasis is placed on their Macedonian birthplace (Salonica)
and on their use of a "Macedonian" dialect as the first Slavic
literary language. Macedonian revolutionary heroes are carefully
treated. In addition to appropriating the historical legacies
of the key founders of the original IMRO-Goce Delcev, Damian Gruev
and Pere Tosev- Macedonian historians play up lesser figures who
might have given the slightest indication of "socialist"
inclination or who were not openly Bulgarophiles. Thus there is
glorification of men like Jane Sandasky, Dimo Hadzi-Dimov, Petar
Peparsev and Nikola Karev, who because they defected from
IMRO or lost out in internecine organizational fights, have long
been forgotten by chroniclers of the IMRO. Th more recent IMRO
leaders -Aleksandrov, Protogerov and Mihailov- are excluded from
the ranks of the progressive for having been tools of Sofia.
Besides, they are symbols which are too dangerous and too recent
to attempt to manipulate.
One of the most interesting aspects of Macedonian cultural life
was the struggle for the creation of an independent Macedonian
Orthodox Church. In the Balkan countries, one's religion is a
key element of nationality...
Probably the most crucial element in bringing about the
establishment of a seperate church at this time was the Bulgarian
denial of the existence of the Macedonian nationality. As
relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union declined
before April 1958, the Bulgarian government launched a strong
attack against Belgrade, publishing articles and speeches
to show that Macedonians are Bulgarians. The Bulgarian
campaign provoked vigorous countermeasures in Yugoslavia and
Kolisevski's speech in Titov Veles which gave a new slant to
Macedonian hitory. Macedonian National holidays on Aug 2
(Ilinden) and Oct 11 (the anniversary of the first Macedonian
partisan operations in 1941) were used as a major occasions
to reaffirm the Macedonian nationality. The conference to
create the Macedonian church came just two weeks after Dimitur
Ganev made the most anti-Yugoslav irredentist speech of any
postwar Bulgarian leader up to that time. When the existence
of the Macedonian nationality was being more serious challenged
than at any previous time, the creation of the Macedonian
Orthodox Church was a powerful way for the Yugoslavs to reaffirm
its seperate existence.
Because of the Bulgarian consciousness of a large part of the
Macedonian population, culture in Macedonia has been allowed
somewhat greater latitude than in other republics of Yugoslavia.
The cultural field ahs also contributed more to the development
of a Macedonian national consciousness than any other area.
After twenty-five years the major questions of Macedonian culture
have been resovled. The Macedonian literary language has
achieved a standard form generally accepted by the
Macedonian population; the premises an outline of the Macedonian
national interpretation of history have been worked out; the
Macedonian Orthodox Church has been established fully
independent of the Serbian church; graphic and performing arts
have utilized nationalistic themes though their direct
contribution to Macedonian consciousness has been more limited....
Since the Macedonian Slavs were now a nationality, the
Macedonians of Pirin and Aegean Macedonia should, it followed,
be united with their more numerous Yugoslav Macedonian brothers
and become part of the Macedonian Republic in the Yugoslav federal
state.
[Palmer & King, _Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian Question_,
1971, excerpts taken from Chapter 9 "The Encouragement of
Macedonian Culture", the first two paragraphs taken from pg 14,
the last paragraph taken from pg 117]