The Belasitza battle from 1014 by prof. Maciej Salamon

"Historia Imperatorum 

The Battle of Belasitza, [1]  fought in the summer of 1014, was a pivotal event in the history of medieval Bulgar- ia, which continues to draw the attention of historians of medieval military science from different countries. 

The clash of two outstanding commanders, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II (976 – 1025) and the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel (997 – 1014), is all the more interesting because original tactical principles were used during the battle, and many aspects of its course, despite many years of studies, still require an explanation[2]..." 

Full article below:

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Socio-economic structure in Vardar Macedonia (1941 – 1944)

Macedonian Review, Issue 44/2 (2021). Siya Nikiforova. Building the socio-economic structure of the Bulgarian interim government in Vardar Macedonia (1941 – 1944)... 27 - 42

In mid-April 1941, in pursuit of Aufmarsch 25, hastily ordered by Adolf Hitler following the anti-German military coup in Belgrade in March of that year, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was destroyed by advancing German, Hungarian and Italian troops. In the newly created Skopje and Bitola districts2 included in the territorial-administrative structure of the Bulgarian Tsardom, Bulgarian military authorities were established, after which police bodies entered in a few days, followed by other administrative institutions. 

Bulgarian military and civilian representatives were welcomed in the area with joyful enthusiasm, because most people thought that this was the last step that would allow them to call themselves Bulgarians freely and feel that way in their homeland3. Indeed, in Vardar Macedonia, in terms of the demographic picture, the authorities did not have the big problem they faced in the Aegean, and could almost freely invest state resources in socio-economic terms more than in striving to restore the Bulgarian image of the region as in the regions of Xanthi, Gyumyurjin (Komotini) or Dedeagac (Alexandroupoli)4. 

At the very beginning, the local government in Vardar Macedonia found itself in the hands of the German military services and the Bulgarian action committees set up by the population immediately after the retreat of the Yugoslav authorities5. 

A special department at the Ministry of Interior and Public Health (MIPH) in Skopje launched a procedure to evict Serbian officials and gendarmes, as well as freelancers of Serbian origin. In order to take the post of Skopje regional director, the governor of the Burgas region Anton Kozarov was seconded, and in 1942 he was replaced by Dimitar Raev, until then also regional director in Old Bulgaria6. Bitola region was headed successively by five directors – Todor Pavlov, Hristo Gutsov, Anton Kozarov, Hristo Miladinov and Sotir Nanev. These were the people who for the next three years worked for the integration of a large part of Vardar Macedonia to the old territories of the country in a single wartime socio-economic structure. 

And until the war ended, almost everyone in Macedonia remained hoping that the temporary Bulgarian government would be replaced by a permanent one. Therefore, from then on, the government committed itself, especially financially, to filling the huge gaps left after the Serbian rule in 1913 – 1941. Systematic organizational and practical work began, sometimes hindered by the course of the war. The agricultural sector, which was central to Balkan society, was a priority. Agricultural services were constructed in the Skopje and Bitola Regional Agricultural Directorates, headed by Ferdinand Bachev and St. Pushkarov, сhief Inspectors at the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property (MASP)7 . 

The government headquarters stressed that “when sending officials to the new lands ... special emphasis should be placed on personal behaviour and the attitude of employees towards the population”8 . 

The Bulgarian rulers realized that the officials seconded to responsible positions must have sufficient class and professional prestige, but much more important at that time was the attitude towards ordinary citizens in the recaptured territories.In addition to the Regional Directorates, MASP organized 18 regions and district agronomies, 20 orchard and vineyard nurseries, a horse farm and cattle depot in Skopje, an experimental cattle station in Ovche Pole, agricultural schools in Kumanovo and Preshevo9 .

 After May 1941, heads of regional and district agronomies and 30 specialists began to arrive from the interior of the country10. Gradually, the seconded district agronomists were replaced by local ones, which marked a certain tendency in Vardar Macedonia for the state services to be headed by representatives of the local population. Macedonian Bulgarians headed nurseries, state farms, veterinary services, and the lower units in the hierarchy were occupied entirely by them11.

 In connection with the work on measuring properties and application of the consolidation, the Land Directorate in Skopje and the cadastre maintenance services in Bitola, Prilep, Ohrid and Strumica were opened. By order of Minister Slavcho Zagorov of June 7, 1941, 54 local geometers with secondary education were appointed12. After passing the necessary specialization in the interior of the country, they returned and put into practice the experience gained during their training course. In total, during the period BGN 29,934,673,094 were spent in the form of personal and material expenses for the staff of state institutions, of which 80% was paid to local citizens13. 

The Bulgarian government created preconditions for solving the problems related to agricultural production, sanitary-veterinary work and forestry. It planned the construction of experimental, research, production and control institutes, stations, laboratories, fields and agricultural plots. The Agricultural Research Institute in Skopje and the Tobacco Institute in Prilep, the Regional Veterinary and Bacteriological Institute for Parasitic Diseases and the Institute for Afforestation and Reinforcement Studies and Experiments in Skopje were opened. All institutes and stations drew funds to work from the state budget and funds from the Bulgarian Agricultural Cooperative Bank (BACB). In November 1941, the district agricultural director Esyu Bonev reported that the Directorate of Agriculture, Livestock and Agricultural Education had spent thousands of levs on advances to the district agronomists and nurseries in the Skopje region, for the Agricultural Institute and schools14...

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Paris Peace Conference and the “Corpse” from Neuilly (1919)

Macedonian review, XLII, 2019, 2. Assoc. Prof. Aleksandar Grebenarov, PhD Paris Peace Conference and the “Corpse” from Neuilly (1919)... 13-20

However, with few exceptions, they were not favorable to the Bulgarians. Most of the publications presented in a negative light the actions of the Bulgarian governments during the war period. Bulgarians were accused of mass murders and torture in Moravia and Drama regions, subjecting to famine, robbing or forcibly mobilizing foreign ethnic population, killing prisoners of war, etc. Some French newspapers took advantage of the fear of Bolshevik revolution in Europe and circulated the news that the ruling authorities in Sofia were secretly inciting the masses to social unrest.

Also a result of this campaign was the renaming of Paris Boulevard named “Sofia” into the Boulevard of the Portuguese. Not only did the French hatred of the military adversary contribute to the campaign against the Balkans’ “troublemaker”. It was reinforced by the increased propaganda efforts of Belgrade, Athens and Bucharest. Books, brochures, and materials from the three countries spread news of ‘Bulgarian atrocities’ over the population in the occupied lands during the war.

Some of the articles were published in Western newspapers and set up public opinion in Paris against Bulgaria. Sofia’s counterarguments remained muted. Such was the fate of the large-scale exhibition “The Truth about the Accusations against Bulgaria”, prepared in French by the Foreign Ministry in Sofia. The Bulgarian delegation deposited this well-reasoned work shortly after their arrival in Paris. The exhibition remained without consequence and resonance.

The fate of all the propaganda materials of the Bulgarian delegation was similar. At that moment, the Bulgarian state felt the lack of a lobby, which it had failed to create in either Western Europe or America. Episodic contacts with members of the Western public had little impact. In Switzerland, at the beginning of World War I, a Bulgarian propaganda center had been set up to clarify the Bulgarian national issue.

However, after our country’s involvement in the hostilities, the Swiss press gradually restricted the center’s appearances. Belgrade took advantage of the helplessness of the Bulgarian state and in the summer of 1919 intensified the pressure against it by sending a memoir to the French Prime Minister and Conference Chairman George Clemenceau. It insisted that the entire Bulgarian-Yugoslav border from the Danube to Belasitsa be moved from 20 to 70 km inland in Bulgaria. Serbian claims affected more than 13,000 square kilometers (including the towns of Vidin, Kula, Belogradchik, Tran, Tsaribrod, Bosilegrad, Kyustendil, Strumitsa and Petrich), inhabited by approx. 500,000 Bulgarians. Belgrade’s arguments distorted the history and ethnic character of the population living in these areas, presented as ‘purely Serbian’. Strategic security considerations were cited as additional arguments for the requested border change.

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P.K. Yavorov - closest friend and associate of Gotse Deltchev

As early as during his school years, the great Bulgarian poet, Peio Yavorov links his life with the struggle for the liberation of Macedonia and Adrianople region, torn from the entity of Mother - Bulgaria, according to the cruel and unjust clauses of the 1878 Berlin Peace Treaty. 

 The poet begins his active participation in the “secret complot”, as he calls the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Organization, after his arrival in Sofia in the end of 1900. It is then when he meets Gotse Deltchev and between him and “the fearless revolutionary”, who “holds the threads of the whole organization”, a longlasting ideal and sincere friendship is established. The principal positions of IMARO and its differences with the Supreme Committee of the legal Macedono-Adrianople Organization in Bulgaria, are presented by Yavorov in the “Delo” newspaper, whose editor in chief he is. Political maturity and farsightedness is felt in his articles. Believing that his journalistic activity is not enough for the fight against the “supremacists”, he combines it with the impact of the living speech. During his public campaigns throughout Bulgaria, he organizes meetings and public speeches explaining the ideas of IMARO. 

He defends his ideas on IMARO, not only as author of “Rebels aspirations”, but as member of the revolutionary military groups and the three entrances in Macedonia in 1902 and 1903. In the heart of the Macedonian mountains he publishes the revolutionary paper “Liberty or Death”, whose main aim is the awakening of the revolutionary spirit of the slave-victim and its preparation for the great selfsacrifice, as in the forthcoming battle he will have to count only on himself and not on any help from outside. 

During the great and heroic days of the Ilinden uprising, Yavorov and Toma Karayovov, publish the “Autonomy” newspaper, as well as its daily bulletins. The main aim of the edition of the foreign representatives of IMARO in Sofia is to ”explain in front of the world the demands of the struggling population and to defend its cause against those slanders, seeded by its enemies in the society “Autonomy” and its bulletins and booklets are a valuable dairy of the uprising, of the heroism of the population of Macedonia and Adrianople, of the wild cruelty of the Ottoman rulers, of the treacherous and aggressive activities of the Serbian, Greek and Albanian military groups. Authentic documents of historical value are Yavorov's materials on the macedonian theme as well. In the eve of the Balkan War, already as commander of a military group and not as regular soldier, Yavorov fights for the liberty of the “mother-martyr”. 

Unanimously after the liberation of Nevrokop by the military groups of IMARO, he is elected the first Mayor of the town. With unheard of boldness and bravery, Yavorov together with three other macedonian commanders - Mikhail Tchakov, Jonko Vapzarov and Hristo Tchernopeev, free the town of Kavala (50000 pop.) two days before the arrival of the Bulgarian army. As foreign representative of IMARO, Yavorov, having sound international reputation, is entrusted with unlimited confidence and is responsible for numerous important tasks. In response of the decision of the Great Powers for partitioning Macedonia and the creation of a “zone of contest”, Yavorov sends on June 5/18 th 1913, a declaration of protest, written in French, to the Bulgarian government and the representatives of the Great Powers. Totally dedicated to a holy for him cause, Yavorov, even in his last moments thinks of Macedonia and his last wish is to be buried with the clothes in which he has fought for the freedom of Macedonia.

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The destiny of the Macedonian dioceses of the Bulgarian church (after 1913)

After the Allies’ war of 1913, Bulgaria underwent a national catastrophe and the big exarchic diocese in the Macedonian and Thracian region was almost destroyed. The Macedonian eparchies (nine tenths of Macedonia) were plundered by the Serbian and Greek conquerors, who expelled Bulgarian bishops and dispersed Bulgarian church communities. 

When World War I started a year after that, Bulgaria entered the war as a part of the Central Forces, as their diplomats offered Bulgaria to help it return the whole region of Macedonia. After Vardar Macedonia was liberated and Eastern Serbia was occupied, the Bulgarian exarchate hurried to found its own office and build an ecclesiastical network. The bishops and priests who had been expelled in 1913 returned to their canonical eparchies and parishes. Other bishops and priests were sent to the free parishes.

 The exarchic work was sponsored by the state budget until the autumn of 1918. In 1918, Bulgaria underwent its second national catastrophe. According to the Peace Treaty, it lost the Western outlying districts and the Struma region. Therefore, after World War I the Bulgarian Exarchate was again limited within the country’s political borders, with the only exception of Istanbul’s exarchate. Vardar Macedonia and its eparchies became a part of the newly founded Kingdom of Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians. Within the kingdom, the Serbian Patriarchate was renewed in 1920, where the ex-Macedonian eparchies entered, having been bought by the Istanbul’s Greek Patriarchate. At the beginning of World War II there were some possibilities again for the Bulgarian exarchate to receive back the Macedonian parishes it had lost. Macedonia was at the time occupied by Bulgaria’s allies Germany and Italy, who turned it on Bulgaria for administration. Temporary eparchies were again established, and they were governed by Bulgarian bishops. Hundreds of priests were sent to the newly annexed regions. 

In the autumn of 1944, the Bulgarian army had to withdraw from the newly annexed regions in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, and the civil and church administration left with the army. It was in fact the end of the Bulgarian exarchate’s active participation in settling the Bulgarian national issue, meaning, in the particular historical period under discussion, the unification of Bulgarian ethnic territories and communities into one nation’s country. In October 1944, a committee was founded in Vardar Macedonia with the aim of organizing church life in Macedonia. 

During the First Ecclesiastical Popular Council on March 4 and 5, 1945 in Skopje, a resolution was adopted for the Ohrid Archbishopric’s renewal by the name of Macedonian Orthodox Church. The Serbian Orthodox Church’s Bishops’ Synod did not officially recognize this separation and condemned the adopted act. During the Second Ecclesiastical Popular Council on October 4 to 6, 1958 in Ohrid a decision was taken to renew the ancient Ohrid Archbishopric under the name of Macedonian Orthodox Church. Immediately after that, a Macedonian bishop was elected to be the head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, who received the title of “Ohrid and Skopje’s Archbishop and Macedonian Bishop.” 

After many vicissitudes, on the Third Ecclesiastical Popular Council on July 1967 the Macedonian Orthodox Church was proclaimed independent. This independence was recognized neither by the Istanbul’s Ecumenical Greek Patriarchate, nor by the other independent orthodox churches, including the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

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About Venko Markovski /1915-1983/

The famous Bulgarian poet, patriot and public activist Venko Markovsky /1915-1983/ was son and victim of his controversial, complex and cruel time. Because of his patriotic activity just in 1934, he was expelled from the Skopie High School and was sent to prison by the Serbian King authorities. In 1937, he managed to go to Bulgaria and became student of Slavonic Philology at the Sofia University. 

Even here, because of his public activity and creative work he was arrested and sent to the concentration camp “Gonda voda” and “Krasto pole”. Later, he was transferred to the Sofia Central Prison. Considering his high erudition and substantial talent definite forces of the Bulgarian Communist Party confided him and thrusted on him the Comintern task to work on the creation of a Macedonian language. Venko Markovsky managed to leave the old confines of Bulgaria. In Western Macedonia, he was immediately attracted in the headquarters of the partisan groups, which in fact were commanded by Serbs and Serbo-mans. After the end of the World War II, he occupied most responsible positions in Yugoslavia inclusive the position of a member of parliament in Belgrade. In 1955, under the alias Leopardy he published his poem “Contemporary Paradoxes”. 

He was soon revealed and because of this and because of his unhidden Bulgarian national conscious he was sent to one of the most sinister concentration camps in Europe – the Tito “Goli otok”. In the camp, which is the ninth circle of hell, Venko Markovsky spent five years under continuous terror, humiliations, beatings, and anti-human conditions of life. After serving his severe sentence, under the pretext that he needed an ophthalmologic operation in the Soviet Union, he left Tito Yugoslavia and stayed in Bulgaria on the invitation of the poet Ivan Argentinsky. In Sofia, he instantly joined the struggle for the victory of the truth about the artificially created so-called Macedonian issue. He has long understood the whole groundlessness of the formulation of subordination “of the national to the class-party principle”. 

Of course, in the specific case, everything that was conducted in the Republic of Macedonia was a new form of Serbization of the Bulgarian population, which was forcefully torn from Bulgaria.  The result of these strivings and ambitions of his was not only his enormous poetic creative work. Especially indicative is his work of many years – “History of the Macedonian Struggles” /Blood never turns to Water/. In the framework of more than 620 large-format machine-typed pages, he denounced the falsifiers of the so-called “History of the Macedonian People”, published in Skopie in 1969. In deed, the contributive and grounded work of Venko Markovsky under the title “Blood never Turns to Water” was published in 1981 in Sofia. 

Unfortunately, because of the “warming of the Balkan relations” it did not contain the entire text of the initial four volumes. Moreover, immediately after it appeared the book was confiscated and destroyed. All this requires the work of Venko Markovsky to be published again in the appropriate total print. It is paradoxical that another book of Venko Markovsky – “Goli Otok – the Island of Death” remains inaccessible for the Bulgarian reader. In the United States it was published in English still in 1984. 

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CHURCH-NATIONAL STRUGGLE IN MACEDONIA FROM 1870 THROUGH 1913

The church-national struggle continued almost four decades and ended on February 27, 1870, with the foundation of an independent Bulgarian church hierarchy in the form of a Bulgarian hexarchy by virtue of a decree of the sultan. The construction of the Bulgarian hexarchy was a hard and difficult process because of the constant obstacles prepared by both the Tzarigrad Patriarchy and the dilatory Ottoman administration. 

Representatives of all Bulgarian hexarchy eparchies, including of the Macedonian, participated in the First Church-Peoples Council, which was summoned in 1871 in Tzarigrad. They worked out and signed a Hexarchy Statutes, which contained rather progressive and democratic principles of government of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The Hexarchy work, which was created with so much labour and devotedness, was disturbed by the Liberation Russian-Turkish war. After the Berlin Congress, which atrociously tore the San-Stefano Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Hexarchy was put at a crossroad. After long disputes, it was decided that the seat of the Hexarchy had to remain in Tzarigrad and from Tzarigrad the church had to care for its units in Macedonia and Odrin Thrace. 

Thus, by the end of 1913 the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had one foreman (Exarch Joseph I), however it went two different ways of development. In Macedonia and the region of Odrin struggle for the affirmation and the expansion of the hexarchy diocese and for the educational and cultural regain of consciousness of the enslaved Bulgarian people was led. Until the end of 1912 7 eparchies governed by hexarchy bishops were established, 8 eparchies in Macedonia and one in the region of Odrin were governed by “hexarchy vicars”; they incorporated about 1600 temples and chapels, 73 monasteries and 1310 priests.

 The number of the hexarchy schools totaled to 1373 (of which 13 high schools and 87 pre-high schools) with 2266 teachers and 78.854 pupils. After the First National Catastrophe (The Inter-Allies War of 1913) the hexarchy diocese was strongly narrowed, the seat of the Hexarchy was moved to Sofia, however, the hexarchy representation, which held the doors for new future expansions open, remained in Tzarigrad. For three decades after the death of Exarch Joseph (1915), the church was governed by the vicar-chairmen of the Holy Synod.

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The Bulgarian dialects in Albania: Vrubnik village

As a dialect of the Bulgarian language and sharing its linguistic characteristics, the Vrabnik dialect in Albania possesses a systematic and encompassing in function morphological category of definitiveness in nouns. The article system consists of one member only, as in most Bulgarian dialects. The same type of system functions in the Bulgarian literary language.

The aim of the present research is to reveal the mechanism of using the article with nouns, as well as to shed light on some of its special features.

Masculine nouns produce singular definite forms following a common model, as is with most Eastern and Western Bulgarian dialects. The definite article for these forms is —o and it is realized through the allomorphs o or у: бракаро (wedding-guest), гъзаро (bottom), прегаче (apron), сиромао (poor person), разбойо (robber), etc.

Feminine nouns, regardless of the ending in the indefinite form, receive a singular definite article —та: бълвата, врешчата, земата, скалата, черепната, гранката, etc.

The singular neuter nouns receive a singular definite article —то, also regardless of the ending of the indefinite form: бърдилото, гувендото, дървото, чендото, черевото, etc.

Both in the literary Bulgarian language and in the Vrabnik dialect, when choosing an article morpheme for nouns in the plural, the so-called vocal harmony is displayed. Thus, masculine nouns in the singular receive the definite article —те (бройовите, сърповите, царовите), and one-syllable nouns with collective meaning — the definite article —та (стремйата, търната, шопйата). With little exceptions, the definite article for multiple-syllable male nouns in the plural is —те: говендарите, мачорите, пъндарите. With little exceptions, the definite article for the plural —те is given to feminine nouns as well: бълвите, гъмбите, къшчите. In neuter nouns, if the indefinite form ends in —a, the definite article for the plural is —та (зърната, кросната, именишчата, гърненишчата, лозйата, черевйата, гробишчата). If the indefinite form ends in —и, the definite article is —те (чудиите, очите, ушите).

In the discussed dialect one often comes upon “weird” constructions, whose grammatical meaning is related to the category of definitiveness. They are combinations of demonstrative pronouns and a noun with an article. In these constructions, which are specific for the dialect, one discovers an interesting combination of simultaneous demonstrativeness and definitiveness. These constructions are formal expressions of a special kind of definitiveness in the Vrabnik dialect:

Татуй децте барае, барае и ойдое дур на ено место. Найдое ено село. О татуо селто и фати вечерта и ойдое о ен поп.

This kind of definitiveness is not an isolated phenomenon exclusive for the dialect in the village of Vrabnik. It can be also found in the region of the neighbouring Kostour dialects, in the more distant Lerin dialect, and in some Thracian dialects.

In this entirety of a demonstrative pronouns and a noun with an article there is a simultaneous presence of demonstrativeness and definitiveness.  At the contemporary stage of the Bulgarian language development these two categories are independent and they contradict each other. The simultaneous use of two categories in opposition cannot result in ‘resonance’. When placed in a common construction, they do not lead to the reinforcement of demonstrativeness, and even less — of definitiveness. The result is the appearance of a special type of definitiveness — a specifying, concretizing, actualizing one. We employ the term used by S. Ivanchev and call it pleonastic definitiveness.

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The Macedonian Literary Circle in Sofia (1938 — 1941)

In 1938 young, and just beginning to write, poets and novelists, most of them born in or having parents from the geographic region of Macedonia, grouped together and started the pretentiously named Macedonian Literary Circle. It has been an object of multiple speculations in Skopje for more than five decades. 

There have been attempts to ascribe permanent Macedonian, and even Yugoslavian, identity to the circle, and the group’s activities have been presented as a link in the „genesis“ of „Macedonian“ literature, language and nation as a whole.

 It political acts, on the other hand, have been ascribed to the Yugoslavian Communist Party’s endeavours for changes in the eve of the Second World War, as well as during the War itself. The motives behind the appearance of such writings are political; and their decades-long presence in the history and literary criticism studies has become possible due to the lack of scientifically-based historical research on the issue in Bulgaria. The present article discusses the appearance and activities of the Macedonian Literary Circle as they were in reality — the fact of provoking an illusion of youth because of a political errand from the communist party, the tremendous exertion during the attempts to realize the illusion, and the brave, honest and worthy farewell to this illusion, which led to an outburst of fervent Bulgarian patriotism. 

The article consists of two parts. Part One reveals the way in which the Macedonian Literary Circle was formed in order to become a champion of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s policy among the young and educated Macedonian refugees in Bulgaria. It becomes clear that in the process of the circle’s formation the aim was redefined into a task of instilling Macedonian identity by means of literary devices. The circle’s members considered this to be both a task assigned by the party, and an urgent political expediency. 

The redefinition was a result of the Comintern influence (with its idea of the formation of a separate Macedonian nation) and the young writers’ political and literary naïveté. The article proves that the activities of the Macedonian Literary Circle are externally imposed and unrelated to the identity of Bulgarians, including the Macedonian refugees in Bulgaria. That reduced the members of the literary circle to about a dozen. Soon they turned their backs to their initial intentions and proclamations. 

The self-deceit that by writing on the subject of Macedonia they would create Macedonian national works (although they were clearly and unquestionably Bulgarian in character to all experts) turned them into literary outsiders. The most penetrating authors realized they had been trapped. They found a way out in their return to a wider interpretation of common Bulgarian issues. An argument evolved which put their ideological doctrine to the test and practically marked the end of their incongruous youth aberration.

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The Bulgarian town municipalities in Macedonia (1878 — 1903)

After the Berlin congress (1878) the Bulgarian town municipality network in Macedonia started to get rehabilitated and expanded. This was one of the priorities before the Exarchate which acted jointly with the self-governed institutions for the successful implementation of the national church activity within the vilayets.

In 1880 the program of the exarchate came out, which concerned the organization and the activity of the municipalities, their obligations and competence, their relation with the supreme church body, the population, the Ottoman authorities, as well as the inter municipal relations. Two years later - 1882 N. Sprostranov developed a draft statute for the municipality of Thessalonica, which was designed according to the requirements of the Exarchate and approved by it. It does not contain geographical restraints or specificities, therefore, it was planned for joint application (also in the other municipalities).

During the discussed period from 1878 to 1903 the Bulgarian town municipalities have strongly outlined structures and organization - internal allocation of duties among the members of the municipality. The chairperson has his leading place for the town governance of the activities which fall under their jurisdiction. Along with this church and school boards were formed which had specific functions. The voting system of the municipalities was interesting, which until 1896 was not firmly regulated and commonly valid. The unification came the instructions published this same year regarding the voting procedure.

 The institutions supported permanent relationship with the Exarchate and turned to it for cooperation in connection with different issues. They established contacts to help their common work. It was important for the success of the church and the school activity in the vilayets is also the cooperation between the municipalities and the population - the supportive attitude of the institutions, which present the people, on the one hand, and the adherence to the municipal decisions, on the other hand. A significant problem for all Bulgarian self-governance bodies is their financial situation. For this purpose the more initiative of them search for additional sources of finances, which would help to support their activity. Regardless of these efforts, the permanent insufficiency of fund forced the municipalities to search for support by the exarchate, which, as a common Bulgarian institution had the moral obligation to respond the requests for help.

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Political aspects of the attempt to create „Macedonian alphabet and language

Upon the attempt to create "Macedonian alphabet and language“ in the period 1944-1945 four language committees were assigned, the decisions of which were to a great extent influenced both by the fact that their members tended to sympathize the pro-Serbian and the pro-Macedonian movements, which at that time fought to gain power in Macedonia and by the political conditions, in which these people were forced to work. 

As a whole their work may be qualified as useless, not only because of the absurd fact that they aimed to create an already existent (only under another name) language and that the participants didn’t have the necessary qualification, but mostly because the issue about the „Macedonian alphabet and language“ was finally resolved by a political decision, under the dictate of Belgrade, where neither the results from these language conferences, nor the linguistic situation in Macedonia were taken into consideration. 

The alphabet, which was adopted represented a political compromise between the cited organizations and does not correspond to the Bulgarian spoken by the Macedonian population, because certain graphemes were taken out, which were characteristic for the Bulgarian alphabet and replaces by Serbian ones, and because new „demonstrating independence“, „the so called „purely Macedonian“ letters were introduced. Nevertheless after the SRM was created the Bulgarian speech varieties in this area did not stop being so much Bulgarian. The people who lived there did not start talking different dialect, but on the contrary, they continues talking into their own language.

 This practice of creating „Macedonian literary language“ as the most significant feature of the Macedonian nation“ in the end of the second World War and its imposing during the following years explicitly shows that this actually represents the political strategy of YCP and Yugoslavia for hegemonic and leading presence on the Balkans against Bulgaria and the Bulgarian foundations. 

Namely because of this this language and this nation are formed solely upon an anti-Bulgarian ground, while Macedonian Bulgarians are forced to leave their fatherland and their centurial traditions are being up rooted. They are political, and philological and ethnical categories and have nothing in common with the linguistic science and science about nations and the national issues, the voluntary and democratic self-assessment of the population.

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The Belgrade’s claims on “Serbian” national minority in Aegean Macedonia

The “Kalfov-Politis” Journal was signed on September 29th, 1924, on the occasion of the murder of 19 innocent Bulgarians from the village of Tarlis, the region of Dram, committed by the Greek authorities. The journal ensures a much more efficacious protection of the numerous Bulgarian population on Greek Macedonia than the standard Treaty for Protection of the Minorities, signed by the Greek government in 1920 in Sevar. E. Drummond, the Secretary General of the UN was to guarantee for its implementation. It is explicitly outlined in the journal that the Slavic population in Aegean Macedonia is Bulgarian, from which follows that the Slavs from Vardar Macedonia are of the same nationality, but not “Southern Serbs”, as the official statement of Belgrade puts it forward.

Under the intense pressure of the internal opposition and especially under the pressure of the former government, which denounce the Allied Treaty of 1913 between Serbia and Greece, the Greek parliament rejected the Journal. Nevertheless, Serbian emissaries were sent to Greek Macedonia, who, due to lavish promises for patronage against the outrage of the Greek authorities, succeeded in sending to the UN three petitions of villagers from the region of Kozhan, in which they insist on being recognized as “Serbian national minority” and therefore be permitted to open schools and churches where Serbian language would be spoken. For the Greek government it was not difficult to prove the absurdity of these claims and the Council of the UN rejected the “petitions”. At the same time the UN took drastic measures to quickly subdue the overt actions of the Belgrade emissaries and they were forced to turn to some secret, including revolutionist’s activities, which were also to fail.

However paradoxical it may sound, in the very beginning Belgrade embarked on its campaign in Greek Macedonia in cooperation with the Bulgarian government. The authorities on Sofia hoped that the actions of the Serb in defence of this population would protect it from force Hellenization. The sobering came when it became clear that the Serbian emissaries in Aegean Macedonia are calling out for minority rights not for the Slav population in general, but for the nonexistent Serbian national minority.

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Trends in the demographic development of the Republic of Macedonia

The notion “ethnic Macedonians” appeared after 1944. None of the statistics before this period mentions the existence of such a group and its representatives were considered Bulgarians.

The census shows that while in 1994 compared to 1948 the population of the Republic of Macedonia as a whole increased with 169%, the increase with the “ethnic Macedonians” is 164%. At the same time the increase with the Albanian ethnos is 223%, and compared to 1953 - 271%. This is the reason why the average share of the “ethnic Macedonians” continuously decreased compared to the total number of the population in Macedonia. The results are such because of the various information coming from the marriages rate, birth 

rate, death rate and migratory growth indexes, which are characteristic for the various ethnic groups.

While in 1994 the total gross birth rate factor of the whole population is 17,2‰, the gross group birth rate factor of the Macedonians is 12,9‰, and the gross group birth rate factor of the Albanians is 27,2‰. While in 1994 to 1000 Macedonians of the age 15 to 49 25,8 Macedonian children were born, to 1000 Albanians of the age 15 to 49 during the same period 54,9 Albanian children were born. Since 1994 the share of the Macedonians in the reproduction of the population is under 50%.

The dynamic movement of the ethno-demographic processes in Macedonia was strongly reflected also by the status of the marriages. There is no doubt that the higher marriage rate observed with the Albanians (11,3‰), the Turks (‰), the Roma (12,7‰) and the others (here the self-determined as Muslims prevail), is a precondition for the higher birth rate observed there.  It is impressing that the marriage rate of the Macedonians (5,8‰) is lower than the average observed in the country (7,0‰)

Similar trends are observed also with the death rates. While the total gross death rate factor of the whole population during 2000 was 8,4‰, the gross group death rate factor for the Macedonians was 9,9‰, and the gross group death rate factor for the Albanians was 5,9‰.

Extremely high is also the Albanian migratory growth.

The demographic indexes show that the Macedonian population is objectively decreasing. This may cause a crisis of the Macedonian national identity and a turn towards the old ethnic self-determinations, including re-Bulgarization. The political weight of the Albanian population is growing in accordance to the increase of the Albanian population. The processes of removal of the Bulgarian-Albanian ethnographic boundary to the East, observed in the period XV — XIX centuries continue in present days.

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The definition “Macedonian” in the Bulgarian dictionaries at the time of the National Revival

In the first Bulgarian dictionaries, which were appeared in enslaved Bulgaria in the second and third quarter of XIXth century, the concept “Macedonian language” does not exist. In the first attempts for the compiling of dictionaries at the time of the Revival, attempts made by men of letters, who were native for the geographical region known as Macedonia, the mother tongue, from which words and phrases were translated into another was defined as Slavic Bulgarian, Bulgar or Bulgarian. 

In proof of this discovery comes the work of priest Teodosii Sinaitski from the town of Doyran in Macedonia – “Kniga za izuchenie trih yazikov slavyanobolgarskii I grecheskii I Karamanlickii”(Turkish)(Thessalonike, 1841).

The definition “Macedonian language” is unfamiliar for another Bulgarian man of letters – Konstantin Petkovich, born in the town of Veles (also in the geographical region of Macedonia). While he was a student in Slavic philology at the University of Petersburg, he compiled a hand-written “Slovar Bolgaro-Ruskii” (1848), where on the first page of the manuscript he explicitly emphasizes on his Bulgarian nationality: “Sostavlyaemoy Bolgarinom Konstantinom M. Petkovichem”.

 The manuscript of the dictionary is preserved until present days in the Research Archives at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Petersburg (stock 216, inv. 3, arch. 378). In the process of explaining Bulgarian words of ethnographic importance into Russian K. Petkovich outlines the nationality of those who speak that language – they are Bulgarian; therefore, the definition “Macedonian” is used by the author in geographical and not ethnical sense.

 In the same sense the attributive term “Macedonian” is used by yet another great man of letters of the XIXth century – the monk Neophyte of Rila, who was born on the town of Bansko. In his big “Slovar Bolgarko-Greckii” (which remained an unfinished manuscript), the author use with different words and phrases the abbreviations “maced.” and “macd.” to point out that they are regionally restricted in use to the Bulgarian spoken varieties in Macedonia, meaning that they have regional character as part of the word fund of the lexical fund of the Bulgarian language.

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The Niš Eparchy of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church 1915 – 1918

Ever since its establishment, the Eparchy of Niš which approximately covers the territory along the Morava changed a number of ecclesiastical jurisdictions, but for the longest time was related to the church organization of Christianity in the Bulgarian lands. For this reason, when in October 1915 Bulgaria entered the First World War, and the Bulgarian army occupied parts of Serbia’s territory, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) restored its jurisdiction over it. 

As temporary head of the Niš Eparchy was appointed bishop Varlaam, vicar of the Metropolitan of Sofia. Some of the Serbian priests fled together with the retreating Serbian army, while others were interned in inner Bulgaria, and still others recognized the jurisdiction of BOC. Along the Morava were sent also a few dozens of Bulgarian priests. 

The functions of the temporary head of the Niš Eparchy and his priests were limited to strictly religious frameworks, related to civil status, family and marriage relations and confession of faith, such as weddings, baptisms, funerals, and liturgies. Schooling was outside their prerogatives. For this reason, the Bulgarian military authorities played a crucial part and bore the responsibility for all that went on along the Morava in 1915–1918, while the role of the church was far more modest and to a great extent a decorative one.

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Colonel Boris Drangov (1872–1917)

There are personalities in Bulgarian history of whom enough can never be written or said. Colonel Boris Stoyanov Drangov occupies a distinguished place among them. He was an eminent Bulgarian soldier and educator, war theorist, teacher and researcher, psychologist, writer and publicist. He was also an activist of the Macedonian and Hadrianople liberation movement who perished for the freedom of Macedonia and the unification of the Fatherland. 

 Boris Drangov was born on 3 March 1872 (15 March New Style) at Skopje in the patriotic family of local Bulgarian notable Stoyan Drangov and his wife Gyurgya. The father’s occupation as wine and timber merchant offered him opportunities to travel often and meet diverse people, each with their own attitudes and views, which allowed him to broaden his outlook constantly. This undoubtedly reflected on young Boris. 

But the public environment, alongside the family one, also played an important role in shaping the youth’s character and views. His soul echoed the strongly formative Bulgarian historical events to which he was witness: the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation of 1877–78, the restoration of Bulgarian statehood, the 1885 Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, and the Servian-Bulgarian War which followed it that same year.

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Clan Names from the Area of Tsaribrod – Part of the Bulgarian Anthroponymic System

The Bulgarian anthroponymic system has its peculiarities. This is the reason we are paying closer attention to the clan names which undoubtedly held great significance for the formation of Bulgarian family names in the end of the 19th century. 

 Subject of our research are nearly 545 clan names registered in the former okolia [administrative unit] of Tsaribrod, and some settlements to the north of the village of Slavinya, which now belong to various municipalities of Serbia. Our focus is directed on revealing the main types of clan names, as we also attempt to touch upon the ethno-psychology of Bulgarians as reflected in this type of anthroponymic nomination. 

In this way, we outline the motives for the appearance of clan names which reflect the spiritual desires, beliefs, and understanding of good and evil among the Bulgarian people.

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Serbian economic policy in Vardar Macedonia (1918-1941)

The Kingdom of Serbia, which did not acknowledge the existence of Bulgarians in Macedonia, called the area Južna Srbija (Southern Serbia) and conducted a policy whose ultimate end was the thorough and exhaustive ethnic conversion of Macedonian Bulgarians. 

By introducing Serbian colonists into strategically important areas, agrarian reform pursued the purely political tasks of changing the ethnically Bulgarian character of the area and creating a national basis for strengthening the Serbian régime. The abject backwardness of Macedonia in agricultural production was patently obvious. 

The Belgrade government failed to create any conditions for the utilisation of natural resources whose surpluses could have found natural outlets in industrial production. Only the lowest degree of industrialisation was manifest. The economic problems of Vardar Macedonia were the natural consequence of obstacles in the way of industrialisation in a technologically backward economy based on petty village agriculture.

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The Post-Ilinden Crisis in IMARO and the Bulgarian State

The failure of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 inflicted serious damage on the conceptual and organizational state of IMARO. After 1903, two main ideological trends emerged in the organization – a leftist (reformist, “left wing“) and a moderate (centralist, “right wing“) one. Until the beginning of 1907 existed also the faction of Boris Sarafov supporters (the so-called Sarafists), that adhered to its own line of conduct. 

 The leftist ideologists held that maintaining contacts with official Bulgaria compromised the independence of IMARO and would serve as an obstruction for the other ethnicities in Macedonia (different than Bulgarian) to perceive the idea of autonomy. The attitude of the moderate trend was more realistic and was expressed through collaboration and tighter involvement with the Bulgarin state, whose financial and military help it relied on. 

 The Bulgarian governments sensibly preferred the moderate trend, but at the same time strove to keep the balance between the factions and restrain them from internal conflicts. It was only the assassination of IMARO’s foreign representatives Ivan Garvanov and Boris Sarafov, committed by extreme leftists (Serres faction), that led to an open and long-lasting rift between official Sofia and said part of the Internal Organization.

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The Bulgarian National Liberation Movement in Macedonia (1893–1912)

The Kresna-Razlog Uprising 1878–1879 and the Unification of the “Two Bulgarias” in 1885 were the two highlights along the journey on which embarked the all-Bulgarian revolutionary movement from the epoch of National Revival towards its “Modernity”. 

The first event continued the “Bulgarian uprisings” for political independency (statesmanship) from before 1878. The second one provided – again with respect to continuity – an Eastern Rumelian autonomy model and the example of the Unification to those parts of the ethnical territories remaining “under the yoke” of the Ottoman empire. The organized (conspiracy) mass national liberation struggle of the Bulgarian population in Macedonia and Adrianople region, led by IMARO, was a result of the same processes that determined the emergence, although under different circumstances, of the legal Macedonian/Macedonian- Adrianople organization in the Principality of Bulgaria. 

The earlier origin of the Internal Organization is only but a chronological detail owing to a single factor: the rule of Stefan Stambolov and his attitude to revolution and revolutionary conspiracies as a means of settling the Bulgarian national issue after the Congress of Berlin. The governmental concept of the former, in his young age, revolutionary apostle, considered by his admirers a Balkan copy of the “iron chancellor” Bismarck, convincingly relied on a sensible and firm, as much as possible and required, “real policy” towards the Ottoman Empire. 

Namely: the obtaining of greater concessions in favor of the Bulgarian element in the “vilayets” through the Exarchate – the legitimate institution that represented legally the interests of the Bulgarian Christian ethnic community – “millet”, under the rule of the Sultan-Caliph in Constantinople. To that “foreign” peculiarity of the Bulgarian policy regarding the Macedonian Issue until the mid-90s of the 19th century must be added also one important “interior” reason: the engagement of the Macedonian (Macedonian-Adrianople) circles with the illegal Russophile opposition and their incessant plots against Knyaz [Prince] Ferdinand and his Prime Minister Stambolov. 

The spiral of internal Bulgarian political violence entangled the Prime Minister and the Macedonian activists in a true vendetta, which led to the public stabbing of 22 Sen. Asst. Prof. Georgi N. Georgiev, PhD the disgraced politician in Sofia in the summer of 1895. It was only then, after the “dictator” Stambolov had fallen from power, that the Macedonian movement in Bulgaria shifted all of a sudden from its quiet cultural-educational and charity trajectory to the liberalized sphere of political life, where it consolidated its organization, cleared up its ideology and… only began looking for its place – below, among or beyond parties’ headquarters.

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