Modern historians on the origins of the Slavs of the Macedonia and Vardar

[Ptolemy]

Sure you can.

In Monastir also, the majority of the inhabitants is Bulgarian, and Bulgarian is the language in the market

"We, the Macedonians", by Constantine Stephanove

and Uskub, the great majority of the population is Slavic, ... the middle ages until 1913 called themselves and were called by their neighbors Bulgarians

The Journal of International Relations By george h. blakeslee

Si la Bulgarie, après beaucoup d'hésitations et non sans regret, a fait le grand sacrifice d'abandonner Uskub, dont la population est bulgare

Documents diplomatiques français (1871-1914). By France. Commission de publication des documents relatifs aux origines de la guerre de 1914

Translation: If Bulgaria, after many hesitations and not without regret, did the great sacrifice and give up Uskub, whose population is Bulgarian

[Ptolemy]

The writer who has frequently visited Monastir, can add his to mony to these pronouncements. The population of Monastir is Turkish, Bulgarian and Vlach

"The Quarterly Review" Published 1872, J. Murray

[preston]

Originally Posted by christov

Good start. Thank you!

this one with love....lol..!
APOPIRINIKOPIIMENI=Nuclear Free

[Christov]

Originally Posted by preston

this one with love....lol..!
APOPIRINIKOPIIMENI=Nuclear Free

It sounds very up-to-date. By the way after the nuclear station of Kozlogui will be stopped in the end of December, there is quitе a hard winter in front of us. At least until the new atomic central will start.

[Ptolemy]

Krushevo:
"In the house where the power resided, a BULGARIAN flag was put": A wire of the Serbian cunsul in Bitola to the Moinister of the Foreign
Affairs of Serbia, 13 August 1903.

(Quote after Ilindenski Sbornik, 1903 - 1953, Skopje 1953, p. 40.)

Tagepost 15 August 1903:
"The Bitola pashalik has been took over by general common
movement. Krushevo has saluted the BULGARIAN banner and
wants temporary to proclaim a republic".

Istambul, August 15, 1903:
SIR,
The political situation in Macedonia continues to grow worse each week.[...]
The real foundation for all the trouble is the desire of the BULGARIAN
population for freedom from Turkish rule, and were the powers to say to Bulgaria what they have already said to Turkey, "that under no conditions
would she be permitted to take one foot on additional soil", the trouble
would be speedily ended , but this they will not do, and consequently the
twentieth century crusade against the Turks is likely to go on, as no power,
not excepting Germany, is to brave public opinion openly taking sides with
the Turks against the Christians".

September 19, 1903:
"The Bulgarian government is in most delicate position.... and unless the
powers should intervene Bulgaria will be forced openly to embrace the
Macedonian cause. ... I am quite of the opinion that the people in Bulgaria
will revolt against the government unless something be done..." writes the
American ambassador at the Porte, Leishman

John G. Leishman, US Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (serving 1900 - 1908)
to John Hay, American Secretary of State.Source: U.S. Deaprtment of State.
Diplomatic Despatches. Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Turkey, 1818 -
1906. National Archives Publications, M46, Roll 72, July 5 - October 29,
1903.

[preston]

Originally Posted by christov

It sounds very up-to-date. By the way after the nuclear station of Kozlogui will be stopped in the end of December, there is quitе a hard winter in front of us. At least until the new atomic central will start.

so you rely on electricity heating?..from Russia?...which parts of your country are like that?...what kind of domestic hetaing do you have christov?

[Christov]

Originally Posted by preston

so you rely on electricity heating?..from Russia?...which parts of your country are like that?...what kind of domestic hetaing do you have christov?

Most of the big cities in Bulgaria are equipped with central heating and hot water. But it’s not powered by electricity. Large part of the transport like the railway, tramway and trolleybuses are powered by electricity. The problem is that a substantial part of the national budget is based on the electrical export to other countries. From Russia we import gas.

[Ptolemy]

The name ANTES suggest this people was intermixed with Iranians, and linguists point to a large number of Iranian loanwords in Slavic that were acquired very early. This would not be surpsising if the Slavs came from Ukraine because they would have had contact with both Iranian Scythians and Sarmatians. Indeed the Sarmatians were still to be found in Backa and the Banat near the Danybe at the time Slavs arrived there.

The Early Medieval Balkans: a critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century By John Van Antwerp Fine, page 26

Most of the Balkans were settled by Slavs of one of the two types. (excluding the smaller groups of Slavic Slovenes and Turkic Avars in the western Balkans). Each one of these two main Slavic groups was to be named for a second conquering group who appeared later in te Seventh century.

The first of these two groups was the Bulgaro-Macedonians, whose Slavic component the Bulgarian historian Zlatarski derives from the Antes. They were conquered in the late seventh century by the Turkic Bulgars. The slavs eventually assimilated them, but the Bulgars' name survived.

The Early Medieval Balkans: a critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century By John Van Antwerp Fine, page 36

Until the late nineteenth century both outside observers and those Bulgaro-Macedonians who had an ethnic consiousness believed that their group, which is NOW two seperate nationalities, comprised a SINGLE people, THE BULGARIANS. Thus the reader should IGNORE references to ethnic Macedonians in the Middle Ages which appear in some modern works. In the Middle Ages and into the nineteenth century, the term 'Macedonian' was used ENTIRELY in reference to a geographical region. Anyone who lived within its confines, regardless of nationality could be called a Macedonian.

The Early Medieval Balkans: a critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century By John Van Antwerp Fine, Page 37

[Ptolemy]

It is the national identity of these Slav Macedonians that has been the most violently contested aspect of the whole Macedonian dispute, and is still being contested today. There is NO DOUBT that they are southern Slavs; they have a language, or a group of varying dialects, that is grammatically akin to Bulgarian but phonetically in some respects akin to Serbian, and which has certain quite distinctive features of its own.

[Elisabeth Barker, "Macedonia, its place in Balkan power politics",
(originally published in 1950 by the Royal Institute of International Affairs), p.10]

In regard to their own national feelings, all that can SAFELY be said is that during the last eighty years many MORE Slav Macedonians seem to have considered themselves Bulgarian, or closely linked to Bulgaria, than have considered themselves Serbian, or closely linked to Serbia (or Yugoslavia). Only the people of the Skoplje region, in the north west, have ever shown much tendency to regard themselves as Serbs. The feeling of being Macedonians, and nothiNg but Macedonians, seems to be a sentiment of fairly recent growth, and even today is not very deep-rooted.

[Elisabeth Barker, "Macedonia, its place in Balkan power politics",
(originally published in 1950 by the Royal Institute of International Affairs), p.10]

May the heroic Serb people at last find the necessary moral force--and they have it, it dwells within them--to recognize spontaneously what has long and unanimously been recognized by history, science, and the national sentiment of the Macedonian population itself, which sees in the Bulgarians ITS BROTHERS in language and blood, and which has fought hand in hand with them for religion, life, and liberty.

[N.S. Derzhavin, "Bulgaro-Serb Relations and the Macedonian Question", (1918)]

You seem to be afraid of Kimon Georgiev, you have involved yourselves too much with him and do not want to give autonomy to Pirin Macedonia. That a Macedonian consciousness HAS NOT YET DEVELOPED AMONG THE POPULATION IS OF NO ACCOUNT. No such consciousness existed in Byelorussia either when we proclaimed it a Soviet Republic. However, later it was shown that a Byelorussian people did in fact exist.

[Stalin to Bulgarian Delegation (G. Dimitrov, V. Korarov, T. Kostov) on 7 June 1946]

It should be remembered, to begin with, that there is NO Macedonian race, as a distinct type. Macedonians may belong to any of the races of Eastern Europe or Western Asia, as, indeed, they do. A Macedonian Bulgar is just the same as a Bulgar of Bulgaria proper, the old principality, that in October, 1908, at Tirnova, was proclaimed independent of Turkey. He looks the same, talks the same, and very largely, thinks the same way. IN SHORT HE IS OF THE SAME STOCK. There is no difference, whatsoever, between the two branches of the race, except that the Macedonian Bulgars, as a result of their position under the Turkish government, have less culture and education than their northern brethren.

[Arthur Douglas Howden Smith, "Fighting the Turk in the Balkans: An American's Adventures with the Macedonian Revolutionists", 1908, p. 4-5]

In general, however, the Macedonian Slavs differ somewhat both in appearance and character from their neighbours beyond the Bulgarian and Servian frontiers: the peculiar type which they present is probably due to a considerable admixture of Vlach, Hellenic, Albanian and Turkish blood, and to the influence of the surrounding races. Almost all independent authorities,however, agree that the bulk of the Slavonic population of Macedonia IS BULGARIAN. The principal indication is furnished by the language, which, though resembling Servian in some respects (e.g. the case-endings, which are occasionally retained), presents most of the characteristic features of Bulgarian.

[The 1911 Edition Encyclopedia, found online at: ]Bad title - LoveToKnow 1911

Modern turkish histories present the idea that the macedonian question was the essential ingredient in understanding the volatile mix of problems that ultimately led to Balkan wars. Because the population of Macedonia was primarily Bulgarian, it was influenced heavily by the events of 1878. It is very likely that the establishment of the greater Bulgaria envisioned by the treaty of San Stefano, and which included much of Macedonia whetted the nationalistic appetites of a substantial portion of the Bulgarian population of Macedonia.

"Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913" By Edward J. Erickson, page 39

In Sofia, Bulgarians organized the Adrianople Region- MAcedonia Committee in 1890, and in Salonika, the internal Macedonian Revolutionary committee and Organization was formed in 1893.

"Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913" By Edward J. Erickson, page 42

[Ptolemy]

In order to pave the way to the annexation of Rumelia, the task before the Bulgarian imperialists was twofold. In the first place they had to detach the Slav-speaking inhabitants from the Patriarcate, and attach them to the Exarchate. But that in itself would not have been enough, because of the local distribution of the different races. The Hellenes, as we should expect, occupy the whole of the sea coast in a nearly solid mass, which shades off in approaching the centre and north. The Slav element is equally solid in the north, and fades away to almost nothing on approaching the sea. The danger which the statesmen of Sofia had to fear was an equitable partition of the country on these lines between the two natioanalities, which would leave Bulgaria bigger indeed, but without the coveted coastline of the Aegean, and without that reversion to Contantinople which is the prime goal of Balkan ambitions. [...]

In order to justify the annexation of the entire territory between Bulgaria and the sea, therefore, it became necessary to create a FICTITIOUS country with a FICTITIOUS nationality. To return to the former illustration, we must imagine an independant Irish Republic desirous of adding the whole of Scottland to its dominion. It would be obliged, in the first place, to teach the Gaelic population that they were Irishmen, in order to enlist their support, and then to preach that Scotland was an invisible whole in order to establish a claim over the low lands.

[b]The Bulgarian propagandists found what they required in the word "Macedonia" a name with no more definite significance than Wessex or Languedoc.[/B] Unfortunately for themselves, the Greeks had been the first to make use of this name, with its classical associations, and to give it a wide extension to the north in interests of Hellenic expansion. As usual their exaggerated pretensions defeated themselves, and the Bulgars now hoist them with their own petard, by persuading Europe that Macedonia was a definite political entity, like Wales or Switzerland. [..]

The Macedonia thus constituted has no more national identity or cohesion than India. But the Christians on the whole outnumber the Moslems by probably four to three, and if the European Powers could be wrought upon to ignore the Moslem element in the population, as is so constantly done by European writers, and erect "Macedonia" into an autonomous state like Eastern Rumelia, Bulgaria would have the fairest prospect of repeating her former coup. It was possibly with a view to some such result that Gladstone threw out the phrase "Macedonia for the Macedonians", a phrase which, be it said with all respect, could *not* have been used by any man of impartiality and intelligence who possesed a first hand knowledge of the country. The Bulgarians were prompt to adopt it, for the use against the Turks, while keeping that of Macedonia for the bulgars for use against the Greeks. Within the last few years, however, they have felt encouraged to lay claim openly to the remaining vilayet of Rumelia; the committee which directs the Folk War from Sofia has taken the name of "Macedonia-Adrianople" and bands of Comitadjis have been actively at work in the valley of the Martiza. IT IS THEREFORE NO LONGER NECESSARY TO DEMONSTRATE THE MYTHICAL CHARACTER OF THE "MACEDONIAN" nationality in the eyes of every element in the Macedonian population.

Allen Upward, The East End of Europe, London 1908, pp 25-27

And so the "Bulgarophone" villagers are no longer willing to admit they speak Bulgarian. They have coined a NEW term of their own accord, and henceforth, until they have got rid of it, is to be known as "Macedonian". My Athenian friends were delighted when I told them of this on my return. It should give even greater pleasure to those Bulgarian agents who are SO ANXIOUS TO SEE THE MACEDONIANS TAUGHT THEY ARE MACEDONIANS

Allen Upward, The East End of Europe, London 1908, pp 205