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

[Ptolemy]

The Bulgarians in their turn wanted to exploit the dense presence of Slavonic-Speakers all over Macedonia to support their own irredentist aspirations in the region. A leading part in achieving their national goals was to be played by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Bulgarian presence and influence throughout Macedonia, particularly in the controversial middle linguistic zone, was considerably strengthened by means of education and the Exarchal Church. This combination was regarded as the best counterweigtht to the Greek Patriarchal influence in the region, in an effort to offset the losses inflicted by the treaty of Berlin. The chief aim of the Bulgarian strategy was to awaken the notion of self-defence in the Bulgarian-speaking population of Macedonia and Thrace, which would urge them to demand and achieve a degree of political autonomy within the Ottoman empirel subsequently they could be annexed by Bulgaria.

Mediterranean Politics By Richard Gillespie, page 88

[Ptolemy]

According to Mustakov, Yane asserted that, in spite of believing in the possibility of Turkey's regeneration, HE WAS STILL A PURE BULGARIAN AT HEART, and he spoke bitterly of those who accused him of lack of patriotism, of hostility towards Bulgaria, etc., when he had done nothing for Turkey which had harmed his own people, when he had protected them against what they had suffered in other regions, when he had preserved his arms (and even increased them) and was always ready, when necessary, to win something through revolution.

For Freedom and Perfection. The Life of Yane Sandansky
M. MacDermott (1988)

It was my intention to make Castoria my central position, from which to make radial excursions to different points of the environs. All those it was not, however, in my power to accomplish, for various reasons, one of which was, that the surrounding inhabitants in general understood only their own tongue, that of the modern Bulgarians

"Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly", F. Pouqueville (1820)

My first expedition was directed northwards for Monastir, or Bitolia, the seat of the general government of Macedonia. Travelling by Visani and Papso-Derveni, over the spurs of Mount Sarakina, I arrived at a ford over a river running, like all the small streams on my route, to the eastward. This river the Bulgarian inhabitants called the Vardar of the Sarigul (the yellow lake,) to distinguish it from the other Vardar, the Axius of antiquity; and I concluded it to be the Erigon

"Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly", F. Pouqueville (1820)

Pushing forward beyond the Erigon for an hour, in compliance with the desire of my guides, who expected every step to be beset by robbers, we came to Machala, a large Bulgarian village, on a river still running eastward.

"Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly", F. Pouqueville (1820)

Consulting with my guide, we turned northward up the course of the Devol to Bobsouri, a Bulgarian village, where we passed the night.

"Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly", F. Pouqueville (1820)

A league north-north-west from Gheortcha, after crossing the Devol on a stone bridge, if you turn north, you enter a derven or narrow gorge of the mountain, watered by a small stream. Following it for a league and-a-half below the village of Panta-Vinia, are seen the remains of an acropolis, probably the site of Sation; and nearly opposite, a league to the westward, is the village Mocrena. To the northward, and below these villages, inhabited by Bulgarians, commences an open space of ground, which expands for a distance of four miles on to the lake of Ochrida or Lychnidus

"Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly", F. Pouqueville (1820)

At the discharge of the lake is situated Strunga, (Stronges in Procopius,) divided by the Drin, as Geneva at the discharge of its lake is divided by the Rhone, the two parts being connected by a wooden bridge, where the river is the narrowest. The inhabitants of the town, where a much frequented fair is held annually on the 8th September, are 3,000, one-fifth of them mussulmans. The course of the Drin northwards is the limit between the Bulgarian language on the east, and the Albanian on the west. From the West end of Strunga proceed two ronds, the one northwards to the Dibras, Scutari, and Dalmatia; the other southwards up the west bank of the lake, to the pass over the hills info the valley of the Devol, or Genusus, and to Elbassan and Durazzo

"Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly", F. Pouqueville (1820)

the Macedonian question has been the cause of every great European war for the last fifty years, and until that is settled there will be no more peace either in the Balkans or out of them. Macedonia is the most frightful mix-up of races ever imagined. Turks, Albanians, Serbs, Rumanians, Greeks, and Bulgarians live there side by side without mingling

"War in Eastern Europe", John Reed (Scribners, London, 1916)

[akritas]

Albert Sonnichen in "Our Slavic Citizens", 1910,pages 274-275

The general estimate is that between forty and fifty thousands Bulgars (from Bulgaria and Macedonia) have come to this country, including those in Canada.

I hope you are not making any racial ditrinctions between Bulgars and Macedonians. I believe the Bulgars who have come from Macedonia and registered on Ellis Island as Macedonians, which is bound to be confusing and inaccurate, for Macedonians may include Greeks, Vlachs, and even Turks. The distinction between the Bulgars from Bulgarian and those from Macedonia is purely political.

The majority (I should say about 80 per cent) of the Bulgars in this country (USA) are from Macedonia; and nearly all are from one small district in Monastir vilayet;Kostur or Castoria.

[Ptolemy]

The issue was to be of great importance after World War II. However in the nineteenth century the term Macedonian was used almost exclusively to refer to the geographic region; the Macedonians were usually not considered a nationality separate from the Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, or Albanians. The diplomatic records of the period make no clear mention of a separate Macedonian nation. At the time of the Constantinople conference of 1876 and the Congress of Berlin, as we have seen, the representantives of the great powers considered the region to be of an extremely mixed ethnic composition, but predominantly Bulgarian. The second major claimant was believed to be Greece, with Serbia in a weak third place.

History of the Balkans By Barbara Jelavich, page 91

[akritas]

This upstart mini-Macedonia(FYROM, mine comment) is a product of the terrible conflict which is described here by Professor John Koliopoulos. It did not appear as Macedonia on any map before the Second Wodd War. It is a landlocked area with no natural boundaries. Its population, apart from the usual Balkan minorities, is mainly Slavonic and Albanian-
As 'Macedonia' it was a creation of Tito, to provide a launching-pad from which to invade and take over the real Macedonia in northern Greece.

Chris Woodhouse in .........[Plundered Loyalities, John Koliopoulos,Hurst publications, page ix]

[Ptolemy]

"The Intelligent American's Guide To Europe" by Erik von'Kuehnelt-Leddihn Arlington House Publishers, New Rochelle, New York, Copyright 1979

In his introduction the author states that this book offers the reader a chance to become acquainted with a ( not neccessarily"the" ) European viewpoint, though he seems to know what he is talking about providing more than 1200 footnotes as evidence and examples.

from section, 30 / Yugoslavia, paragraph 14

"Another constituent "nation" in Yugoslavia is the Macedonians; they have their own federal state, though ethnically a Macedonian nation does not exist - it is a creation of the leading Yugoslav politicians after 1945. When the Serbs wrested Macedonia from the Turks and Bulgars in the first two Balkan wars ( 1912-1913 ), they declared the Macedonian Slavs, i.e. these West Bulgars to be "southern Serbs."
The Serbs of course, ignored the fact that the International Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), dreaming of an independent multinational state of Bulgars, Greeks, Vlachs, and Albanians, had fought the Turks for decades. Bulgars had led that organization, and the number of Serbs in the region was insignificant ( although Belgrade had financed Serb schools ) The Serb claim to Macedonia was based on the short-lived domination by Stefan Dusan and his coronation in Skopje, The Macedonian capital. So the fight that IMRO had waged against the Turks now continued against the Serbs, who retaliated with mounting savegery. A methodical DENATIONALIZATION was attempted: even family names ending, as most of them did, in ...ov or ...ev ( rarely in ...ski ) were changed to to end in ...ic. World Wars I and II brought Bulgar occupations of Macedonia, but the Communists conceived a shrewder idea than the ridiculous one that Macedonians were "southern serbs" : they were declared to be Macedonians pure and simple, and the local Bulgar speech was adapted to Serbian typewriters and printing presses, which meant the elimination of four Bulgarian letters. Encyclopedias in Western countries were, as a rule, stupid enough TO FALL FOR THE TRICK; the Macedonians now figure in them as a brand-new ethnic unit. the trouble, however, is "Macedonian literature," since there is, needless to say, no such entry to be found in reference works for the period prior to 1945! The Bulgars continue, of course, to claim Macedonia while the Belgrade government, with apparent cleverness, demands the "liberation" of southwestern Bulgaria, inhabited by "Macedonians." In this connection it should not be
forgotten that the renaissance of the Bulgarian language came from Macedonia, which produced notable poets and writers.

[akritas]

But later Bulgaria and Serbia quarrelled over Macedonia: the Serbs regarded the Macedonians as Serbs, and the Bulgarians regarded them as Bulgarians. Actually, they are a separate Slavonic-speaking group, whose dialect is related to the Bulgarian language, but is not identical with it.
Of course, the modern Macedonians are Slavs, and have nothing whatever in common with the ancient Macedonians, who were akin to Greeks and Thracians, and became world-famous in the fourth century bc under Alexander

[The Paths of History, Igor Diakonoff, page 229]

[ΒΗΣΣΑΡΙΩΝ]

Dear Ptolemy,
First of all, congradulations for your job. Collecting all these books and articles is a feat in itself !

But please listen my opinion :
I believe that today the FYROM citizens feel Macedonians to a great degree. Thay have been learning that at school for over fifty years, they have been supressed by Serbs for over 20 years (1920-1940) they have been scoffed by Bulgarians themselves as speaking a mongrel Bulgarian dialect and conseqently treated as poor relatives, so they behave like a molasse that ultimately has found its rock.

A similar situation holds for Palestinians : Before 1900 they were all Arabs. After many years being treated as foreign body by neighboring Arab countries, they have now built a strong Palestinian national consciousness.

So, today the Macedonian national consciousness does exist. The problem is that they chose a name usurpating our heritage, and not only that, they are trying to create a history of 'Macedonians' going back for centuries.

The latter is a blattant lie, and that is what we have to prove. Your job is exactly what we need. Thanks, friend !

[Tsontos]

Most people of Slavic origin who left Vardar and Aegean Macedonia before World War II identified themselves as Bulgarians or Bulgaro-Macedonians.

Paul R. Magocsi, Encyclopaedia of Canada's people, 1999, p287

[akritas]

Macedonia inhibited by homogeneous Slavic race, that has its history, its way of life, the old government owned substance, its ideal and the right of the self-determination.

[Dimitrija Cupovski, Makedonskij Golos, 9.6.1913, Nr. 1.]