M E M O R A N D U M
of the Macedonian Scientific Institute - Sofia
concerning the relations
between the Republic of Bulgaria
and the Republic of Macedonia
(regarding the language dispute)
* * *
Being the only centre in Bulgaria directly involved with the study of the scientific problems of the geographic region of Macedonia, the Macedonian Scientific Institute in Sofia discussed the up-to-date problems of the mutual relations between the republics of Bulgaria and Macedonia (which constitutes only one-third of the region).One of the recent is the language dispute imposed by Skopje, since it involves not only the public in both countries, but also the world public opinion. A testimony of this is the May Declaration of this year of the Macedonian Bulgarians living throughout the world (USA, Canada, Bulgaria), yet associated by the Macedonian Patriotic Organization seated in Toronto, Canada.
Upon a comprehensive analysis of the publications (the press included), both in Bulgaria and abroad, the members of the Institute - academicians, corresponding members, professors, assistant professors and public figures, working in various areas of humanities, reached at the only correct conclusion possible, i. e. that long-term decisions could only be obtained through bringing to the fore of the truth about the process.
Any ad hoc pragmatic approach applied so far because of some of another short-lived political considerations of a domestic or international character has failed to stand the test of time and has led to further and deeper complications and, eventually, to a dead-end.
In spite of the attempts of certain politicians to influence on its development, history has never forgiven to any of those who have tried to forge it. Sooner or later, next generations find an easier approach to the mounds of facts and documents which reveal the outrageous truth and upon discovering it, the names of the politicians are either mentioned with boredom or anathematized. An example in this respect is the case of the founders of post-war Serb-Communist Macedonia - Sv. Tempo and L. Kolishevski (who bound the country to the Yugoslav chariot), and who are nowadays inherited by the old-newish authorities in Skopje.
At mentioning the names of Sv. Tempo and L. Kolishevski (authors of the state line of anti-Bulgarism in the Republic which, unfortunately, is sustained to the present day), the whole people of the Republic of Macedonia feels not only hostility but indignation, as well.
Such has been the fate of the Bulgarian authorities for the last 50 years, since their party has not yet apologized for the unforgivable damages being inflicted since 1934 on the Bulgarian national memory brought to oblivion. The present-day attempts on the part of some of its leaders to acquit their past behaviour by _recognizing_ its own-created so-called _realities_, are ridiculous and unworthy. Unfortunately, the deformations over the national character are so deep, that the Comintern thinking which is now labelled _European_ is typical of some new politicians who received their education in the old king of Bulgarian schools. The lack of basic schooling in terms of some notions of sociology and political science constitutes the main threat to present-day social thinking in Bulgaria.
The decoration of (Com)internationalism with new _European_ draperies is a sign of bad taste and reminds of the French saying: _The King is dead. Long live the King!_, which implies that the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Macedonia are to enter the new Europe remade up with their obsolete ideological Communist luggage.
Which are those absurd Communist ideas which, consciously or unconsciously, still dwell in the minds of the politicians from both sides of the Ograzhden Mountain:
1. The idea that nations and languages are established on certain dates, on the decisions of certain persons, groups of people, parties, or institutions.
2. The idea that in the 20th c. the _new_ nations and languages (in Europe including) could emerge through splitting up of former nations and languages priding themselves of a millennial history.
3. The idea that a sign of equivalence could be placed between a state, a nation and a language or, more precisely, that the nation and the language are _attributes_ of the state.
4. The idea that the national and the language are political and not ethnological realities (which are the subject of science).
5. The idea that the nation and the language should be _recognized_ in terms of recognizing a state.
6. The idea that the newly formed state could not only usurp and forge the history and culture of the old state, but it could even _counterpoise_ the two cultures.
7. The idea that the newly formed state could have territorial claims towards the former states.
8. The idea that the newly formed state could establish _national_ minorities within the former state, etc.
Those Stalinist presumptions emerged in the east (the USSR) during the 1930's when, according to the principle _divide and rule_, a number of new states were founded on the basis of the numerous Central-Asian Turkis. State differentiation was also proclaimed a national-linguistic one, i. e . ethnical.
Further on, in 1923-24, and especially after 1944, the Comintern model was transferred in the European part of the USSR where, a _Carelofinnish_ nation (and language) were conjured up on the basis of the Finnish nation and language, and the Romanian nation (and language) gave the origins of a _Moldovian_ nation (and language). The Western countries comprising more than one ethnos did not compile a new languages but rather chose one or two of the former ones. This applies even for whole continents, such as America and Australia.
The Soviet model was also mechanically adopted by the Communist movement in Southeastern Europe and in the Balkans, in particular, where the Bulgarian nations was torn apart after the First and the Second Balkan Wars into the neighbouring countries. After the replacement of the national ideal for an union with the class one, Bulgarian Communists were put on by cunning on the part of the Serbian, Greek and Rumanian ones and adopted the thesis of the existence of _Macedonian_, _Thracian_ and _Dobroudja_ nations not only outside the country, but also within its borders. An echo of those ideas is still to be found nowadays in the cases of conjuring up of new _languages_ throughout the Bulgarian national territory - _Pomak's_ in Greece, _shop's_ in Serbia, etc.
The 1934 Stalinist Comintern decisions made under the dictate of the Yugoslav Communists reflected, in fact, the 100-year-old Great-Serbian utopian theories, namely that Serbia was the Piemont of the Southern Slavs and that all Slavonic peoples gathered around it were _Serbian_ by origin, hence they should unite around it and comprise one common state (cf. _Ќ ·Ґ°І ЁҐІ(r)_ - _The Outline_ by I. Garashanin, 1848). A variation of the Garashanin thesis is the later concept of St. Novakovich (1888), i. e. that in view of the Serbization of the Bulgarian people in Macedonia - which reacted strongly against the direct foreign influence - it was necessary that its conversion to Serbism passed through an intermediary _Macedonistic_ stage. During that period, the Bulgarian national consciousness and awareness were to be destroyed.
In certain periods, in Macedonia, under the Sebian power, either the Garashaninov plan (1913-41), or the Novakovich one (1848-1913; 1944-90) were applied. The contemporary government of the Republic of Macedonia leads no policy differing from the Serbian-Communist one. As an ideology and a practice, Macedonism is an attempt at a denationalization of the Bulgarian people and language in Macedonia.
Apart from Serbian Macedonism (in the Vardar region), there is also a Greek Macedonism (in the Aegean region). The latter also appears in two variations: a direct one - through crude and forcible conversion of the Aegean Bulgarians into Greeks, and an indirect one - through the indirect assimilation of the _Bulgarian-speaking_ (later on the _Slavonic-speaking_) into Greeks - by occasionally creating the impression that the native _Slavophones_ were granted certain rights.
During the Civil War years (1946-49) in Greece, the Greek Communist Party _created' an Aegean-Macedonian _nation_ differing from the Skopje one and, along with this, the _Nea Elada_ Publishing House proclaimed the conjuring up of another - Aegean-Macedonian - _language_, differing from the Skopje one, as well. In 1953, the Publishing House also published textbooks in that _language_ to be used by the children of the political immigrants from Aegean Macedonia to the former socialist countries, on the basis of the alleged Kostour-Lerin Bulgarian dialect. (At present, the Bulgarian languages_ on the Balkans number already five.)
Thus, the Bulgarian language body hosted two more _languages_ - in Greece and in former Yugoslavia, which, in turn mutually denied each other and their varied norms.
For the truth's sake it should be pointed out that the anonymous authors of the Aegean _language_ have never concealed that they had used Prof. L. Andrejchin's _Basic Bulgarian Grammar_, as well as the traditional Bulgarian alphabet (including the letters є, ї, 3/4, etc.)
In Greece, the inventors of the second _Macedonian language_ have not strived at differentiating the Aegean norm from the literary Bulgarian one. In contrast, in the Republic of Macedonia, the line of St. Novakovich was followed for a gradual Serbization of the Bulgarian language through conjuring up of a _Macedonian literary language_ - a political order of Belgrade, fulfilled by the loyal subjects from Skopje.
In principle, the creation of a literary language on the basis of an existing dialect is usual for linguistics. In this was, even nowadays, a number of languages appear to serve the needs of some African and Asian tribal and ethnic groups which have been retarded in their social development and have failed to assert a writing of their own. However, the case of Macedonia - which is the native land of the Bulgarian and the Slavonic scripts (9th c.) and has a more-than-thousand-year old tradition behind its back - is not the same.
Europe has long ago seen the end of the processes of emerging nations and modern literary languages. These were most typical during the National Revival and it is namely that period in Macedonian history (19th c.) that has experienced the strongest Bulgarian influence.
Being the cradle of the Bulgarian National Revival, Macedonia has made its contribution to the emergence of the Bulgarian nation and the modern Bulgarian literary language (Father Paissiy, J. Karchovski, K. Pejchinovich, T. Sinaitski, K. and D. Miladinov, J. Hadjinikolov-Djinot, N. Zografski, Gr. Parlichev, K. Shapkarev, R. Zhinzifov, M. Tsepenkov, and many more).
All of the ideologists of the revolution in Macedonia (Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Hristo Tatarchev, Georche Petrov, Pere Toshev, Todor Popantov, Todor Alexandrov) wrote in the literary Bulgarian language, emphasizing their explicit Bulgarian national awareness. The literary Bulgarian was also the language used by Vladimir Poptomov, Yane Sandanski, Metodi Shatorov, Pavel Shatev (and even the most outright Comintern supporter, Dimiter Vlahov). The statements of the authorities in Skopje that those active figures did not know their own language and therefore wrote in a foreign one, as well as the attempts to posthumously preach to them that they had been wrong, is a blasphemy par excellence. The names of Gotse and Dame are an icon for the Republic of Macedonia. Their Bulgarian self-awareness and their literary Bulgarian language are bound to be linked with that icon and are an indisputable evidence in the language dispute fabricated by Skopje. In spite of the final statement of the documents to be signed between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, it is very clear that, in any case, they would be signed in the language of Gotse and Dame, who have determined their ethnical appurtenance on their own.
On a certain date towards the end of World War II (2 August 1944), and at a certain place (the _Prohor Pchinsy_ Monastery), it was for the second time (after the Comintern decision of 1934) that a decree proclaimed and institutionalized the existence of an _formal_ language. (There were not any norms yet. Poets, such as Venko Markovski and Kocho Ratsin had so far written both in the literary Bulgarian language and in their native dialect. That was the cost of K. Ratsin's life, for he was killed in the partisan camp.)
After an about three-year-long activities controlled directly by the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party, the three orthographic commissions instituted by Tito and Tempo finally came to invent norms which did not correspond to the pronunciation, yet approached in graphical terms the Skopje construct to the Serbo-Chroatian one. The protocols of those commissions published in the press testify that the so-called Macedonian language is a fabrication. And it is not the Bulgarian state that denies such a linguistic formation, but rather it denies itself through self-confessions. Here we shall quote the most important of these in order to make clear that it does not go about a natural language phenomenon but rather about a political act for which no attempts are even being made to conceal.
The main ideas of the protocols are as follows (quoting the Macedonian members on the commissions):
- _We, the Macedonians, who have never had a literature of our own so far, have no definite common literary language_.
- The Republic of Macedonia appeared _due to the efforts of the Communist Party_, _due to the efforts of the troops of our far-sighted and dearest Marshall Tito_.
- The people are _still to assert themselves as a nation_, taking into account _the interests of the Federative and Democratic Yugoslavia_.
- _We have no time to wait for that language to be created. We are facing the issue of having a literary language of our own, yet we have not the time to wait for this language to be created by poets, men of letters and journalists_.
- _We have no time to wait for some of our dialects to develop into a literary language_.
- _Our teachers would have finished the fifth or the sixth grade of school. Education with insufficiently qualified teachers world be very difficult_.
- _The word goes about pedagogy and students. However, the same applied to adults. Those people will never learn the language rules_.
- _We should therefore set the basics of our orthography by establishing a Macedonian alphabet and a Macedonian literary language_; _These literary materials are to be completed by certain political circumstances which are also influential in the Macedonian language dispute _; _We should be careful about our actions_; _it is better to make a grammar mistake than to make a political one_; The same applies to the letters of the Serbian alphabet; _It would be no use to maintain the differences between ourselves and the Serbs through the alphabet_.
- The language of our people _has not been completely formed yet_; _If the Bulgarians have a look ate the Serbian letters, they would say: 'Those people have turned Serbs_; _the editor of _Bregalnishki Glas_ newspaper (a publication of the SRM at that time) acts as if in a shock upon hearing of Serbian letters. On the other hand, we shall be having troubles with the Federation of Yugoslavia. Therefore it is necessary that we adopt the Serbian letters as soon as possible, instead of the Bulgarian ones; _not to make our brothers in Serbia and Croatia angry_; _it may be possible that we find out something in-between, although not quite scientifically grounded, but well-tempered and of practical use_; _I am afraid that we might make a mistake which would cause people laugh at us_.
The confessions testify that the literary language in Skopje was conjured up in a haste, that it is far from being natural - like most languages throughout the world - and that it is not the result of centuries-long continuing historical development (which is the most typical feature of any normal language formation). It does not rest on any non-Bulgarian literature to serve as its basis (poetry, fiction, journalism), and has no definite dialect basis on which to develop (so far there was a misconception that at least such a basis existed), therefore the fabricated rules could never be learned for they have no scientific foundation to lie on.
The most important goal in fabricating that _language_ (or rather _a political language_) consisted mainly in serving the purposes of the Yugoslav Federation, and the Serbs in particular, by its gradual conversion to the Serbian language. That is all the product of the Communist Party and the Marshall Tito's troops who was no to be angered in order to prevent troubles. Consequently, the so-called Macedonian literary language is a partially destructured literary Bulgarian language.
Language, however, is an ethnical category, and not a suit or a handkerchief which could be replaced easily on somebody's will. That was something some of the _inventors_ of the language soon came to realize. V. Markovski, whose proposal for preserving the letter є in the alphabet, protested and was sent to the _Goli Otok_ prison camp. Later on, in his work titled _Blood is Thicker than Water_ (_Љ°єўІ ў(r)¤ Ґ ±І ў _), which was published in English in the USA, he wrote: _All serious researchers have reached in different ways at the conclusion that the villages of Macedonia, Thrace, Moesia and Dobroudja are inhabited by Bulgarians; that the people's and national awareness of those Bulgarians is neither Macedonian, nor Thracian, nor Moesian, nor Dobroudjan, but Bulgarian; that the language of those Bulgarians is neither Macedonian, nor Thracian, nor Moesian, not Dobroudjan, but Bulgarian; that the history of those Bulgarians living in either Macedonia, Thrace, Moesia, and Dobroudja is not any separate Macedonian, Thracian, Moesian, or Dobroudjan history, but a common Bulgarian history; that Macedonia, Thrace, Moesia and Dobroudja are a geographical expression of the Bulgarian territory_.
In short, we are facing a repetition of the self-denial once made by Kr. Misirkov, the author of the booklet _‡ ¬ ЄҐ¤(r)¶ЄЁІҐ ° Ў(r)ІЁ_ (_On the Macedonian Problems_) published in 1903. (At present, the Institute for Macedonian Language in Skopje bears the name of Misirkov.) Later on (in 1924) he wrote: _The beginning of the 19th c. in Macedonia saw a Greek clergy and a Bulgarian national awareness among the brighter Macedonians... That intellectual and national unity of Moeasians, Macedonians and Thracians followed and preceded the emergence of a Bulgarian Exarhate and the Liberation of Bulgaria. The Serbs... took over the greatest part of Macedonia... It was given to them by those who, in the long run, recognized the Bulgarian national character of Macedonia. Yet, this is not the end of the nationality of the Macedonians... However, the Bulgarians are not fond of philology and history, they do not like being reproached of chauvinism and are inclined to live, at any price, at peace with their neighbours even if they would like to take over half of their villages, yards, etc.... Yet, there are appeals on the part of the Macedonians themselves: _We are Bulgarians, even more than the Bulgarians living in Bulgaria... That is what we call ourselves today and that is what we would like to call ourselves in future... Would you want concessions from us? Would you want us to be less Bulgarian that the Bulgarians themselves? To concede to you?... We shall be Macedonians rather than Bulgarians, but Macedonians with a consciousness different from your own Serbian national consciousness, with a historical past of our own, with a literary language of our own - common to the Bulgarian one - and with Macedonian-Bulgarian national schools of our own_.
The further development of the Macedonian language is a plagiarism proper.. The name has been cribbed. Under the name Macedonian, world linguistics classifies a completely different non-Slavonic language which has nothing to do with the present-day language Slavonic formation in Skopje, which is Bulgarian by its origin. The Macedonian tribes (Orestes, Linkestes, Aeordians, Elymyotes, etc.) were ethnically related to the Greek ones in Thessalia, and partly to the Illyrians and the Thracians. As early as 148 B. C., the former Macedonia was defeated by Rome and the ancient Macedonians were Romanized and Greecisized. Their language became extinct and not much is known of it today.
Six or seven centuries later, those lands hosted the Bulgarian Slavs; yet not even the memory has remained of the ancient Macedonians. The name of the region was not updated by the Greeks until the National revival period. Until then, it was called Lower Moesia, in contrast to Upper Moesia (Northern Bulgaria).
Cribbing is not the monopoly of Skopje alone. That was earlier done by the Serbs who had proclaimed Tsar Samouil a Serbian Ruler. Now, the attribute _Serbian_ is simply replaced by _Macedonian_, in spite of the fact that the Macedonian dynasty of Basil II Bulgaroctone fought against the Bulgarians. This is a complete paradox which is hardly to explain in Skopje, for it turns out, after all the metamorphoses, that the Macedonian dynasty of Basil II was at war with... the Macedonians.
The Skopje alchemists after 1944 are hardly ashamed to cross over the words _Bulgarians_ and _Bulgarian language_ even in historical documents. In _The Homily of Kliment of Ohrid_ by Theophilactus (11th-12th cc.), the Skopje historian Dragan Tashkovski has made an enormous forgery. the Greek original has been forfeited through a _translation_: _Kliment, a Bulgarian bishop_ becomes _Kliment, a Slovenian bishop_. The text _...because there were no even words of praise in Bulgarian... he made up words... comprehensible for even the most common Bulgarian and with those he fed the souls of the most common Bulgarians... and became the new Paul for the new Corinthians - the Bulgarians... As a whole, Claimant has given it all to us, the Bulgarians_ was transformed to: _There being no festive words in the Slovenian language... he wrote preachings... accessible for even the most common Slovenians, and with these he fed the souls of even the most common Slovenians. And he became the second Paul for the new Corinthians - the Slovenians. And, as a whole... Kliment gave it all to us... the Slovenians..._
The plundering of Bulgarian culture knew no limits: the collection _Bulgarian Folk Songs_ by the K. and D. Miladinov brothers (1861) was re-published in Skopje as a _‡Ў(r)°ЁЄ_ (_A Collection_) in 1962 by D. Mitrev, K. Penoushlijski and A. Spasov; St. Verkovich_s book _Ќ °(r)¤Ґ ЇҐ±¬Ґ ¬ ЄҐ¤(r)±ЄЁ ЃіЈ ° _ (_Folk Songs of Macedonian Bulgarians_) - (1860) was re-published in 1961 by K. Penoushlijski as _Macedonian Folk Songs_.
The title _Polog and Its Bulgarian Population_ (_Џ(r)«(r)Ј Ё ҐЈ(r) Ў(r)«Ј °±Є(r)Ґ ±Ґ«ҐЁҐ_ ) by the eminent Russian scholar A. M. Selishtev was cited by Blazhe Koneski as just _Polog_.The very same Blazhe Koneski (as an undergraduate in Sofia - Blagoy Konev), known for his trial for plagiarism from G. Kiselinov in the Republic of Macedonia, re-wrote the main postulates of the _Historical Grammar of the Bulgarian Language_. For that he was appointed an Academician at the Macedonian Academy of Sciences.
The present President of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences, Bozho Vidoeski (Bozhidar Vodoevich), re-wrote the bibliographical works of M. Mazhdrakova (1905), Hr. Gerchev (1911) and St. Stoykov (1937) and, in fact, published them as a collection under the title of _Џ°Ё«(r)Ј Є(r) ЎЁЎ«Ё(r)Ј° ґЁїІ ¬ ЄҐ¤(r)±ЄЁ(r)І ї§ЁЄ_ (_A Contribution to the Bibliography of the Macedonian Language_) in 1953.
The list of intellectual robberies (to put it mildly) is so rich that in itself it could constitute a number of volumes of bibliography.
Here, for sure, belong neither _the translation_ of G. Delchev's letters from literary Bulgarian into the Serbian version of the Bulgarian language which was proclaimed as _authentic_, nor the adapted version of Vaptsarov's poetry into the folklorized _native_ language of the Tempo-Kolishev variation, since the poet had no idea that it would be conjured up upon his death.
All forgeries aim at one and the same thing - the delusion of the young people within the country. Skopje science has been highly appraised from Gevgely to Koumanovo. Outside the Republic of Macedonia it is of no value. Linguistics turns into linguistic mythology, history - into historical mythology, and humanities as a whole - into humanitarian mythology.
That is the source of the fears experienced by the present minister of foreign affairs Bl. Handjijski in terms of internationalizing the language dispute between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia. Everemore, international experts would consult the documents of their own countries, they would look up such reference books as the Larousse and Encyclopaedia Britannica, they would seek for references in the reports of their ambassadors and consuls to the Balkans, they would make themselves acquainted with the results of the Karnegie Inquiry and Chichill's memoirs, they would get hold of the thousands of documents kept at the scientific institutes in Bulgaria which have been published and translated into foreign languages, they would become acquainted with the hundreds of forgeries done both in the past and recently.
The dispute between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece about the name of the former Republic of Yugoslavia is only fictitiously related to Antiquity.
The dispute between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia refers not only to the romantic past, as the Bulgarian President P. Stoyanov delicately put it, but also to the present history which is far from being romantic, since the anti-Bulgarian campaign in Macedonia has never stopped at all. And it has been led not only in terms of words but also an exterminatory one.
By force of the _Law for Protection of the National Dignity_, thousands of Bulgarians were pursued in our southwestern neighbour-country. Since 1944 till the present day, more than 720 trials have been held in the Republic of Macedonia, and over 200 death sentences have been passed, mainly against the elite of the Bulgarian intelligentsia. Here do not fall the mass slaughters in Veles and other towns which were accomplished in 1945 without any charge or trial. More than 150 000 Bulgarians have been put to prison (mostly in Idrizovo and Goli Otok). Over 180 000 have left their native places to seek their real freedom throughout all continents of the world. Bulgaria could hardly recognize those _facts_ as totalitarian, not in the least to consider them _European_.
In terms of science, police methods are still applied as the main means of mental cruelty. Those who have been invited to international conferences are being called on by the local authorities to be _counselled_ until they give up on their participation in such events. The most daring ones, which do not accept the _advice_, are being taken down off the plane and closed up in the vicinity of Skopje, until the end of the respective international meetings.
The Slavonic centres which have sent invitations to these people, mail distress cables to the University and the Academy. Yet, the formal denial of Serbian Communism as a theory does not mean its denial as a practice.
Serbian communism (Blazhe-Konevism in linguistics) fights those who truly aim at reforming the Skopje Karadzhitsa, which comprises superfluous Serbian letters and lacking written symbols for the so-called Bulgarian symbols which are, naturally, typical for the speech of the population of Macedonia.
The inceptive linguistic mythologists L. Spasov and O. Vanguelov, which are successors of the Blazhe-Konevism, fill up whole pages of the _Pulse_ newspaper, blaming every reformer of pro-Bulgarism, or Kronsteinerism (after the name of the Austrian scholar Prof. Dr. Otto Kronsteiner, who emphasized the Bulgarian essence of the Skopje formation), etc.
Goshev and Popovski have also turned themselves to _linguists_, and Argirovski sagely assumes that the Bulgarian language could be considered a dialect of the _Macedonian_. Although humorous, this statement could contain a grain of rationality, insofar the relations between dialects and literary language are to be sought for within one and the same languages.
The feigned scientific mythology in Skopje has simply consciously closed its eyes in order not to see that the Bulgarian situation is not the only one (unique) on the Balkans, but is rather to be found in every neighbouring country. The Greek language is represented by two written variants - Dimotiki and Katarevus; the Serbo-Croatian has two, and recently even three forms - Serbian, Croatian and recently Bosnian ones (and, furthermore, the Croatian language could be considered separately from a historical point of view, i. e. in the same way this could have happened with the Macedonian language, which has had an explicit 13-century-long Bulgarian history); the Albanian language is known for its two varieties - Toskian one (southern) and Gegyan one (northern); Rumanian also exists in two variants - Rumanian and Moldovian. It was not long ago that, on Bulgarian TV, namely the Moldovian President Mircha Snegur announced that it was now already accepted in the Republic of Moldovia to speak of a Rumanian, and not of Moldovian as a separate language. He compared the situation in the Republic of Macedonia to that in Moldovia and gave a perfect lesson to many of our nihilistically-minded paper-writers.
It would, however, not be fare to determine language variations as a Balkan feature alone.
The Armenian language also has two variants: eastern - in Armenia, and western - in Turkey (and at present throughout Europe). Norway, which is APR excellence European country, also uses two written forms: a) Rejksmole - the official language which also bears the name of Boeksmoel (literary), and b) Lansmoel - the language of the people, also called Nejnorske (Norwegian).
Rejksmole (or Boeksmoel) has developed on the basis of Danish, while Lansmoel (or Nejnorske) has emerged on the basis of Norwegian dialects. Being an educated people, Norwegians have no qualms of consciousness that Danish lies at the basis of their official (literary) language. The common life of Danes and Norwegians in the 1380 Danish-Norwegian Union, as well as their joint fight against the Swedes are the historical circumstances which have formed up the language variations of present-day Norwegian.
From time to time, among the allegedly scholarly mythological writings of Skopje, there are certain sparks of regaining consciousness; emphasis is laid on the so-called B- (Bulgarian) complexes of the most eminent men in the Republic.
In this respect, indicative is the confession of Gane Todorovski made on 8 February 1991.
_During the Macedonian 19th century - he wrote - literature was made by fifty or more people which had been brought up with pro-Bulgarian oriented ideas in a nationalistic sense... This has been the case with Djinot, the Miladinov brothers, Parlichev, Tsepenkov, Shapkarev, Dinkov, Zhinzifov, Sprostranov, Chernodrinsky. How were we supposed to deal with that legacy?... Who were these people and what are they now? I avail of the manuscript of _A History of the Macedonian Literature of the 19th c._, yet something constantly prevents me from presenting it to the public. What stands in the way? It was not long ago that Blazhe Ristovski formulated it genuinely during a public debate. This is the political barrier, or rather the barrier of the political prejudices. In other words, to put it figuratively, the word goes about the Macedonian _B-complex_ (the Bulgarian orientation in the acts of the most eminent of our people during the 19th c.).
There is a necessity, once and for all, to clearly state that Serbomans in Macedonia have, for those 45 years of freedom and being protected by Kolishevski and Yugoslav unitarism, blocked the development of Macedonian literary science with their sturdy prejudices... Science was not supposed to subject to everyday politics, yet it did so_.
The above truths, spelled out by Gane Todorovski and Blazhe Ristovski - one of the most prominent Macedonian scholars - reveal the overall picture of the social and political realities in the republic of Macedonia during the past half century of totalitarianism.
That is why it is hard to understand the wailing of the _New Macedonia_ newspaper on the occasion of the concise statement made by the Bulgarian President Stoyanov in Strassbourg, namely that _Macedonia is a part of Bulgarian history, and what is more, one of its most romantic parts_.
Gane Todorovski is a Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Macedonia to Moscow. Bl. Ristovski is the author of voluminous books filled with impossible tasks - to give proof of Macedonism where it never existed. Yet, being hard pressed by the facts, they have confessed to the truth. That truth, pronounced or not, is known to every citizen of the Republic. It is also known to the author of the pamphlet against the Bulgarian President - the Skopje journalist D. Chulev, originating from an old Bulgarian revolutionary family.
From what has been said so far, it becomes evident that the problems of the relations between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia constitute a whole range of questions which should be strictly differentiated in order to avoid their mixing, since they have no uniform solution. These are the problems related to the state, the nation and the language:
1. The problem of the state. Bulgaria has passed its way of approaching the new state by being the first in the world to recognize it. Recogintion is an institution of international public law. It provides for the legal status of newly emerged legal subjects of international law itself. Recognition grants the possibility of the international subject under question to enter international life.
The centuries-long practice is absolutely unanimous: recognition is given to states and governments. No subject of recognition are formations and groupings. There is also no precedent in international law in terms of recognition of ethnic groups, nationalities, or nations. Even more absurd seem the claims for recognition of a language. Contracts could be signed in internationally recognised languages, as well, which are foreign to the contracting parties.
Of all the world's states, Bulgaria is the most friendly disposed towards the Republic of Macedonia: 1) it was the first to recognize its status of a state; 2) it saved its economy 9without any sighed agreements) during the double economic embargo imposed from the North and the South; it was its only window to the world; 3) it did not concede to a division of the territory with Greece; 4) it rejected a similar suggestion from Yugoslavia; 5) it interceded for its recognition from Russia, and a lot more.
The dignity in its behaviour is also evident from the fact that it has stood for years against responding to the continuous (thousands of) attacks which are daily imposed, with or without any occasion, in the press, radio and TV and, above all, in the edition specialized in state anti-Bulgarism - the _New Macedonia_ official gazetteer. Along with doing a bad favour to our country, it also creates among the population of the Republic that it has not been left to oblivion and there is still a constant interest in it. In fact, the Bulgarian propaganda in the Republic of Macedonia, whatever it may be, is being carried out by the media of these states themselves.
The efforts and means spent by the small state on supporting the so-called Macedonistic organization OMO _Ilinden_ in the Pirin region - a formation created with the help of the former Yugoslav embassy in Sofia - were futile. This is testified by the words of the attach(c) on the press and cultural affairs, M. Knezhevich: _In our contacts with OMO _Ilinden_ we have considered it a legal organization_.
Later on, some joint and one-man companies emerged for the sake of covering up the foreign financing (e. g. _Koukoush-1913_ with President At. Kiryakov, which published several anti-Bulgarian newspapers). The financial affairs and the outrageous struggle for allotting the money among the leaders divided the _Organization_ into winglets, the more so as it consisted of a _carful of people_.
2. The problem of the nation. The unskilled politicians, journalists and graphomaniacs from both sides of the Ograzhden mountain misplace an equivalence sign between state and nation, without taking into account that, as a political category, the state is of a temporary nature (Cf. Austro-Hungary, the USSR, Yugoslavia), while the nation, which is constituted on an ethnical basis, is of a long-standing nature.
The claims for the emergence of _a Soviet_, _a Yugoslav_, _an Eastern Gernam_, etc. nations in the nearest past proved futile.
The consolidation of the Bulgarian nation (18th-19th cc.) on the basis of the centuries-long Bulgarian nationality existing since the 9th c. in Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia is a completed process in line with the changes which have taken place in Europe.
The new phenomena in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, i. e. the regions under Greek domination, could be termed quite precisely _a denationalization_.
During the totalitarian and post-totalitarian periods, when personal and social freedom was restricted, the exact state of the national relations was hardly possible to account.
Furthermore, the concepts about the content of the term _nation_ vary considerably. The Stalinist (or Comintern) postulate about the nation, on the basis of which the Macedonian nation was decreed, collapsed. The American, British, Spanish and French definitions about the nation also differ. There is no unanimous view on that problem even in the Republic of Macedonia itself, in terms of the inclusion or the exclusion of the Albanian element (30-40 %).
Ignoring the fact that nations are not a subject or an object of international law, hence they are not to be _recognized_, no one could tell exactly what is to be recognized.
3. The problem of the language. The incorrect relating of language and state also causes comic and even absurd effects. Just like nation, the language is not _an attribute_ of the state. Otherwise, we should have spoken of _Swiss_, _Belgian_, _Cyprus_, _Luxembourg_, _South African_, _Australian_, _Mexican_, _Chilean_, etc. languages which, as a matter of fact, do not exist.
In its function of a means of communication between people, every language consists of three important elements: 1) language history; 2) dialects; and 3) written (or literature) form.
The so-called Macedonian language is characterized by: 1) thousands-of-centuries-long Bulgarian history; 2) Bulgarian dialects; and 3) following World War II, a written form which is, in fact, partially destructured literary Bulgarian (by means of a certain lexical Serbization and certain grammatical dialectization).
As a whole entity comprising the three elements, Macedonian language does not exist. The third component which has allowed certain variations - the written one - is not sufficient to cover for the whole range of the concept of a language. What is more, it is of a regional nature not because of its being denied in Bulgaria or abroad, but for certain objective reasons - it is the official norm for only one region of the geographical area of Macedonia, i. e. the Vardar region. The other two regions - the Pirin and the Aegean - are not related to it. Until 1913, for about a century, literary Bulgarian (despite the Turkish yoke) was the language used in schools, literature and press throughout the three regions and the area as a whole; it was of an all-Bulgarian nature rather than of a regional one.
Down to the present day, the Skopje norm is not stabilized even in the one-third of the area (the Vardar one), since there is a linguistic chaos evident. As the _Focus_ newspaper wrote in its issue of 13 December 1996, _If one day, hopefully in the near future, some of the simpletons in Bulgarian government sign the agreements between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria in the Macedonian language, using the ridiculous writing of which not even half of Macedonia is aware of, then probably a part of the police-supported scribblers would lose their jobs_.
The claims of the written form in Republic of Macedonia to represent the _Macedonian language_ as a _whole entity_ in the three areas - with the purpose to substantiate not only pretences towards the language and the dialects, but also further political aspirations, are groundless. The aspirations of Skopje are stipulated for in the country's constitution - Art. 49 - providing _care_ for the minorities outside the borders.
For a certain period of time, there was a kind of understanding on the part of Skopje, that the language dispute could not be solved outside the borders of Macedonia.
The latest _ultimatum_ of Minister Handjijski, that the signing of the agreement would consider the matter of _a Macedonian language in general_, i. e. Macedonian language in the Pirin region, is an expression of the great-Macedonism and megalomania which would, inevitable, lead to an international arbitrage.
The two countries may be able to solve the problems by themselves, on the basis of their good will. The pertinence of Skopje to apply different approaches to its neighbours (the agreements with Greece are signed in English, which is not the case with Bulgaria) indicates that the policy of equidistancing towards its neighbours proclaims is, in fact, just an empty statement. Obviously, the present authorities in the Republic of Macedonia are not able to solve their domestic political problems and it would be advisable to wait for a more sensible government.
The threat by Handjijski that Bulgaria would not join the NATO if it does not sign the agreements is groundless, since the problems Macedonia is causing to its neighbours are even four times bigger.
Bulgaria's problems refer only to that new state. The Republic of Macedonia, however, has urging problems with all of its neighbours: with Serbia - about the northern border and the church; with Albania - about the Albanian minority which is about to become a majority in the near future.
It is only the political short-sightedness of the present Skopje government that could prevent the country from relying on its closest and faithful friend - the Republic of Bulgaria - which is already really tired of forgiving.
The attitude of our country towards the young republic is in no case prompted by patronising, but rather by the thousands-of-years-long tradition which cannot be simply neglected, in spite of the efforts made to this end. The same names of scientists, writers and artists are studied in the schools and universities in both countries. These names have been given to various cultural institutions, streets, places and boulevards with equal affection and respect on both sides of the border.
From an objective point of view, there are no reasons for our countries not to be integrated into NATO and Europe.
The problems lie excessively with the present state authorities of the Republic of Macedonia which are following along the traditional lines of anti-Bulgarism and are continuously conjuring up points of dispute .
7 July 1997
Sofia
Outgoing No 86/08 Sept. 1997
Attention: Mr. Kiro Gligorov
President of the Republic of Macedonia
Skopje
O P E N L E T T E R
from the Macedonian Scientific Institute, Sofia
(re: Your interview of 23 July 1997)
Mr. President,
Not long ago, the Macedonian Bulgarians living in the USA, Canada and Australia, as well as those in Germany, addressed You with an Open Letter on the occasion of Your interview of 23 July 1997. In our capacity of Macedonian Bulgarians and members of the Macedonian Scientific Institute - academicians, corresponding members, professors, assistant professors, research associates, and public figures, we would also like to express our attitude to the problems treated by You in the interview.
We are pleased with the fact that You recognized a number of facts considering the Republic of Macedonia and the relations between our two countries, namely:
1. This was the first time You have declared before the world that the process of _de-Bulgarization_ in the Republic of Macedonia has been completed _with the exception of some persons and one or two parties_. That statement of Yours confirms the historic truth that, until 1944, the Slavonic population of the Republic of Macedonia has been a Bulgarian one. Furthermore, in this way You supported the statement made by President Petar Stoyanov in Strasbourg - that _Macedonian history is a part of Bulgarian history, and one of its most romantic parts - the struggle of the Christian population against the enslavers_.
2. You pointed out that the pro-Bulgarian attitudes in the Republic of Macedonia were a _standing problem_ for You. This, Mr. President, is true only regarding the period since 1944. It is well known that the population of Macedonia has always legitimized itself as being Bulgarian, which is testified by the Ottoman archives, the diplomatic correspondence of the foreign consuls, foreign observers, travellers, eminent scientists, military people, and others who had worked in the historical-geographic region on Macedonia, as well as by the written documents left by the most prominent figures of the National Revival period - Father Paissiy, Neophyte Rilski, Grigor Parlichev, the Miladinov brothers, Jordan Hadjikonstantinov (Djinot), Kouzman Shapkarev, Rayko Zhinzifof, etc.; the national revolutionaries Damyan Grouev, Gotse Delchev, Pere Toshev, Todor Alexandrov, Ivan Mihaylov; the builders of our state - M. Andonov (Chento), P. Shatev, V. Markovski, etc.
3. You finally found the courage to confirm a statement we have made a number of times, namely that _the recognition of a state, and not of a language or a nation, is a matter of international law_. This is exactly the truth, Mr. President, for the state is a political, i. e. legal category, which is subject to recognition or non-recognition, while the language and the nation are scientific categories which are not subject to recognition. The policy of the Serbo-Communists in the Republic of Macedonia towards legitimizing the Comintern decision of 1934 for creation a _Macedonian nation_ and a _Macedonian language_ have led to the present situation, i. e. search for a political decision of the problem. The recent statement of the Greek President, Mr. Kostas Stefanopoulos, cited by the _New Macedonia_ newspaper, that _the Macedonians are Bulgarians and their language is a fabrication_ confirm indisputably in another way the historical truth.
4. You are right, Mr. President, in stating that the language dispute is _a domestic problem of your own_. The Macedonian Serbo-Communists have _conjured up_ that language which, according to the _Focus_ newspaper, is spoken by less than a half of the people of the Republic of Macedonia. Therefore, we dare ask you: since this is a domestic problem of yours, why is Your government constantly intruding it onto us and using it to block the normal relations between our states?
However, along with the confessions made, You went on by trying to support and legalize a number of non-truths:
First. You allowed Yourself to identify the Republic of Macedonia with the whole historical-geographical region of Macedonia, as well as to appear as a spokesman for its entire population. Yet you neglected the fact, Mr. President, that the region in question belongs to three independent states - the republics of Macedonia, Greece and Bulgaria. Your behaviour gives us the reason to assume that You are expressing explicit territorial claims which is an anachronism for the present day.
You declared Yourself a spokesman for the population of the three areas of Macedonia. We have the right to ask you: who authorized You to do so? The events in _Mechkin Kamen_ on the occasion of the Ilinden Uprising allows us to doubt Your chances of being a spokesman even for the opinion of the Republic of Macedonia.
Second. In Your interview, You once again made an attempt at proving the existence of a _Macedonian minority_ in the republics of Greece, Albania and Bulgaria. You certainly are aware of the fact that there is no such minority not only in Bulgaria, but also in the rest of the countries. It is well known that the attempts made on the part of the Bulgarian Communist Party, under the strong pressure exerted by the Comuntern and Tito's Yugoslavia, to Macedonize the Bulgarian population in the Pirin region in 1946-47 were a complete failure. Nowadays, the successors of that Party - Bulgarian socialists - came out with a declaration which confessed and condemned the attempts at a de-Bulgarization made by their predecessors, since these were strongly urged from foreign powers and against the will of the people from the region. Not long ago, the former Albanian President, Mr. Sali Berisha declared that about 150-200 thousand Bulgarians are living in his country. The International Kelsinki Committee, as well as the American newspaper _New York Times_ of 1996 stated that about 150 000 Bulgarian live in Greece. Probably You consider a minority the small group of people who (with the financial support of the Yugoslav embassy in Sofia and the _Koukoush-1913_ joint company) established the illegitimate organization OMO _Ilinden_. Their activities confine to their appearances on Skopje Television and in the anti-Bulgarian loudspeaker - the newspaper _Nova Macedonia_. Their slapstick actions are a subject of ridicule and regret in Bulgaria.
Third. In Your interview, You attributed a sign of equivalence between nationality and political regime in the Republic of Macedonia. Mr. Gligorov, political regimes are something transitory. They come and go, yet nationality remains. The regime of Serbo-Communism in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia has left painful memories in the consciousness of the population of the Republic of Macedonia. During a period of about 50 years, about 720 trials were held, resulting in over 200 death sentences; more than 20 000 citizens were killed without any trial or sentence; over 150 000 were sent to prisons and prison camps in Idrizovo, Goli Otok, etc.; another 180 000 were forced to leave the country seeking refuge in Bulgaria and in other countries all over the world - only because they wanted to remain Bulgarians. That population, subjected to genocide by Your ideological adherents and political regimes, has nothing in common with the ruling top.
Fourth. You often take unfair advantage of the _Bulgarian occupation in Macedonia_. For more than a half century you have identified the Bulgarians with fascists. Both in the past and at present, Bulgarians, like people all over the world, have had differing political convictions and views.The fact that the Bulgarian people availed themselves of the war-time situation to regain the territories torn from it by force of the Bucharest (1913) and Neuilly (1919) treaties, does not give You the right to use a forged terminology. Let us remind you that before the invasion of Bulgarian troops in Vardar Macedonia, the area already hosted Bulgarian action committees organized by the local population, which is a historical demonstration of a national self-identification and establishment of a local Bulgarian power. During that period, Mr. President, the whole population greeted with flowers, flags and church gonfalons _the occupiers_, as You termed them. Let us remind You that 70 % of the officers and 50 % of the soldiers were born in Macedonia. They were coming back to their native places and their relatives. That is why the population greeted them as liberators. This is testified by the archive documentaries which are being kept in our archives.
We would also like to remind you that, during the Bulgarian administration of Vardar Macedonia, dozens of schools, hospitals,roads and bridges were built; the construction of several railroads to Sofia started; all settlements were provided with town-settlement plans, etc. In other words, for less than 4 years Bulgaria did more than what was done during the 26-year-long Serb occupation. Yet, never and nowhere have You spoken out a single word against it. Our archives keep numerous documents about the active involvement of the young people of Vardar Macedonia in the social-political and cultural life.
Fifth. In the same interview, You rejoiced that it is the great advantage of the Republic of Macedonia and the _Macedonian language_ that they avail of their own alphabet. Why are You unable, Mr. President, to tell the truth that this is not a Macedonian but a Serbian alphabet. Why did not You tell that it was made up by order of Tito, Djilas, Tempo and Kolishevski by special orthographic commissions (27 November - 3 December 1944)? Those commissions rejected the Bulgarian alphabet which had been used till 1913 by the Bulgarians throughout Macedonia, in 1373 schools and 13 high schools, by 2266 teachers and over 100 000 students. that was the alphabet used by all figures of the National Revival period, led by Dame Grouev, Gotse Delchev, Todor Alexandrov, etc. The Serbian alphabet which was introduced by the Serbs in 1913 and legitimized in 1944 infringed on the eleven-century-long all-Bulgarian cultural tradition started by Cyril and Methodius and their disciples Kliment and Naoum.
Mr. President, once upon a time, our great poet Ivan Vazov, who is of a Macedonian origin, used to say - _You cannot quench the unquenchable_. You and your follower would not be able, in spite of every efforts made, to quench the Bulgarian spirit of the population of Macedonia. You are afraid that the notion of _One people in two states_ might assert itself. You are right to do so because that is an idea which enjoys ever greater popularity among the people from both sides of the Rouen and Belasitsa mountains. That idea has also been a part of the programme of the national liberation movement of the Bulgarians in Macedonia for decades now. This is a righteous idea which has its future.
At present, the attitude of the Republic of Bulgaria towards the Republic of Macedonia is more than well-wishing one. Namely because of this Bulgaria:
1. Was the first country in the world to recognize Your state.
2. Helped you save your economy from a crash (without any signed agreements) and during the double economic embargo.
3. Did not consent to a division of the territory of the Republic of Macedonia.
4. Interceded with Russia and other countries for the recognition of Your state, and they listened to the voice of Sofia.
All this testifies to the fact that the Bulgarian state is not an enemy of the Republic of Macedonia, and that its people are a real brother to its people. You should not also forget that the Republic of Bulgaria is the home for over 3 million of Macedonian Bulgarians and their descendants who have been driven away by the Turkish, Serbian and Macedonian authorities, i. e. over than three times more than the Slavonic population of Macedonia. Therefore, we are not indifferent to the fate of the Republic of Macedonia.
Mr. Gligorov, in our capacity of Bulgarians from Macedonia and as scholars, we are well aware of the complex political heritage left by the Serbo-Communists to the Republic of Macedonia. Yet, the brothers from both sides of the Rouen and Belasitsa mountains, would like to live at peace and with wide open borders, instead of in an atmosphere of mistrust and hostility, imposed by the present government of Yours and servicing interests alien to both the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria.
September 1997 Macedonian Scientific Institute
Sofia
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