Born in the town of Bansko (Pirin Macedonia), Paisij becomes a monk in Mount Athos in 1745. The Greek and Serbian clergymen there used to deride the Bulgarians by saying the latter did not have history. This was one of the reasons Paisij began to investigate the old manuscripts in Mount Athos and various other places he visited while being a collector of donations. In 1762, he finished his Slavobulgar History.
This book marked the inception of the Bulgarian National Revival and it contained a program of objectives which the young Bulgarian nation was to attain – a modern culture and education, ecclesiastical autonomy and an independent state.

This is what the great son of Macedonia writes:

” Some, however, do not like their Bulgarian race and convert to a foreign culture and a foreign language. They do not care about their own Bulgarian tongue, but learn to speak and read Greek, being ashamed to call themselves Bulgars… Out of the entire Slavonic race, the Bulgars used to be the most famous. It was they who first elevated kings, who first had a Patriarch, who first were baptized, who subdued the largest territories. And so, among the Slavonic race, they were the most powerful and respected; the first Slavonic saints shined out of the Bulgarian race and language!”

“You, Bulgar, do not be enticed! Know thy race and learn in thy tongue!”

Title page of the book by Kiril Peychinovich
(spelled also as Pejchinovich, Pejcinovic)

“Kniga sija zovomaja Ogledalo opisasja radi potrebi i polzovanija preprosteishim i ne knizhnim jazykom Bolgarskim dolnija Myssii … v Budine grade 1816″ (simplified spelling)

Translation: “This book, called “Mirror”, was written for the needs and use of the very simplest and unlettered Bulgarian people of Lower Moesia Budapest 1816″

By Dr. Ilya Talev

The word “jazyk”, until the mid-19th century, in all written documents of the Bulgarian linguistic community, meant either “language” or “people”, according to the context. During the same period, the word “narod” meant “multitude, crowd”, e.g.: “Divisha se narodi glagoleshte” (Matthew 9:33), or “Vzpisha zhe s vsem narodom,” (Luke 23:18).

The word “narod” (meaning exclusively “people”) was introduced after the 1830′s, in both Bulgarian and Serbian, as a borrowing from the contemporary Russian of the time, by Russian missionaries and by South Slavs who had been educated in Russia.

Semantically, the occurence of “jazyk” in title page cannot be translated as “language”, because a book is not published “for the use of a language”, but “for the use of” (that is, to be used by) “and for the benefit of the people” – in this case, “the Bulgarian people of lower Moesia”.

The correctness of the above ensured by Dr. Ilya Talev. and Mr. Plamen Bliznakov.

JOAKIM KARCHOVSKI

Joakim Karchovski was born in the village of Oslomej (the region of Kichevo) around 1750 and died in 1820. This spreader of enlightenment is the author of four books written in “the plainest Bulgarian language”. He devoted all his life to the cause of education and stayed in history as a person who worked for the establishment of a literary language comprehensible for the common populace.

His books were typed between 1814 and 1817.

1814 “A narration about the formidable and second advent of Christ, composed from various Holy Scriptures and translated into plainest Bulgarian language which is used for the sake of the most common and illiterate people”.

1817 “Trials”. On the frontpage, the great man of enlightenment mentions the Macedonian cities which helped the issuing of the book: “Kratovo, Kriva Palanka, Sechishta and other Bulgarian cities”.

1817 “The Wonders of the Holy Virgin translated from Amartolon Soteria into Bulgarian”

His books were typed between 1814 and 1817.

1814 “MARKO THEODOROVICH VEZOV’S PRIMER A n

arratioMarko Teodorovich Vezov is a great-grandfather of the poet Nikola Vapcarov. In the year of 1792, he edits a primer in Vienna, and emphatically states on the front page that the book is written by:

“Mr.Marko Thedorovich, a Bulgarian from the Razlog (a region in Pirin Macedonia)”

n about

THE MILADINOV BROHTERS AND THEIR PLIGHT

The name Bulgarian Folksongsis eloquent enough to demonstarte what the national consciousness of Constantine and Dimitar Miladinov was. Today, the name of the great Bulgarian National Revival figures from the town of Struga is oftentimes quoted in Skopje as a name of pioneers of the “Macedonian national awakening”. It is interesting though why their epoch-making work Bulgarian Folksongs has been constantly edited there under titles of all kinds, has never been edited in its original version, and the authentic copy of the book found in the museum of the Miladinovs in Sturga is opened so nobody can see its frontpage.

As far as the contents of the book is concerned, this is what Constantine Miladinov himself writes:

“We have begun to gather the songs from various places in Western Bulgaria, i.e. from Macedonia -the regions of Ohrid, Struga, Prilep, Veles, Kostur, Kukush, Strumica, and other places, from Eastern Bulgaria too.”

A considerable number of songs from Bulgarian parts outside Macedonia, such as the regions of Sofia and Panagjurishte. the

f
KUZMAN SHAPKAREV AND HIS CAUSE
This is the original of Kuzman Shapkarev’s cornerstone work Collection of Bulgarian Folklore (Sofia, 1891). The name of the eminent figure of the Bulgarian National Revival, who was born in 1834 in the town of Ohrid, can be encountered in numerous books edited during the last 50 years in Skopje where he is considered one of the modern Macedonian “national culture and language”. The book’s very name together with the entire life of this Bulgarian man of Enlightenment and ardent patriot certifies, in a superb way.

fee ainest Bulgarian language which is used for the sake of the most common and illiterate people”.
http://imro.hit.bg/
1817 “Trials”. On the frontpage, the great man of enlightenment mentions the Macedonian cities which helped the issuing of the book: “Kratovo, Kriva Palanka, Sechishta and other Bulgarian cities”.

1817 “The Wonders of the Holy Virgin translated from Amartolon Soteria into Bulgarian”

http://macedonia-istinata.hit.bg/

A BATTLE ABOUT BULGARIAN EXARCHATE IN MACEDONIANS

The Bulgarian Exarchate was established on 28 February 1870 with a Firman from the sultan as a result of the long struggle of the Bulgarian people for church independence from the Greek Patriarchate. This struggle began in 1824 in the towns of Vratsa, Skopje and Samokov, but most active in it was the Bulgarian community in Constantinople, a great part of which were Macedonian Bulgarians.

The Firman granted the Exarchate the following eparchies: Ruschuk, Silistra, Tirnovo, Lovech, Vratsa, Vidin, Sofia, Samokov, Kjustendil, Nish, Pirot and Veles. It also decided that other eparchies could acknowledge the Exarchate if 2/3 of their Christian inhabitants demanded this. A plebiscite was conducted in Ohrid, Bitola and Skopje eparchies where the overwhelming majority of the population chose to join the Exarchate. There was also a demand for a plebiscite from the Salonica Bulgarians but it was not carried out. The Exarchate was pressing for a plebiscite in the Debar, Strumitsa and Kukush (Poljanino) eparchies when the Bulgarian insurections of 1875 and 1876 broke out. They and the Russo – Turkish war of 1877-78 exposed the Bulgarians in the eyes of the Turks. Therefore the vote could not be completed in Southern Macedonia and, where it had been completed, bishops were not appointed to all of those eparchies (only Skopje and Ohrid). In the course of the war the Bulgarian Exarch Antim I was exiled in Asia Minor and replaced with Josif (1877). The bishops of the eparchies that remained in Turkish hands after the war (Skopje, Veles, Ohrid) were driven away by the authorities.

The attemp to restore them in 1884-85 failed on account of the resistance of the Patriarchate, of Greece and of Serbia. Only in 1890 bishops could be appointed in Skopje and Ohrid. Then followed Veles and Nevrokop (1894) and Bitola, Debar and Strumitsa (1897). The other nine Bulgarian eparchies in the Ottoman empire (Adrianople, Salonica, Drama, Serres, Melnik, Kukush, Vodena, Maglen and Kostur) never saw Bulgarian bishops but only Exarchate deputies who looked after the schools and represented the Bulgarian population of the region before the authorities.

More prominent Bulgarian bishops who came from Macedonia were Partenij Zografski of Poljanino (born in Galichnik near Debar), Panaret of Plovdiv (born in the village of Patele near Lerin), Natanail of Ohrid and Plovdiv (born in Kuchevishta, Skopje), Meletij of Sofia (born in Strumitsa) and Metodij of Stara Zagora (born in Prilep).

We have not discussed the here, but the fact that they equally participated in them together with the Moesians and the Thracians and that they willingly joined the Exarchate testifies to their national self-identification.

http://imro.hit.bg/

This map represents the boundaries of the Bulgarian Exarchate. The quarrel about the establishment of the Bulgarian National-Church lasted 40 years; it began 1830 and found an end on the 28th of February 1870 (ancient style) by a Turkish Ferman

Sultan’s Ferman for the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate.

which establish the Bulgarian Exarchate at Constantinople. – At first the Bulgarian people demanded the right of electing themselves their own bishops, who should have to belong to the Bulgarian nationality too. The first towns to declare such desire were Uscub (Skopje) and Samokov (in the year 1833). But the Greek Patriarchate was decidedly opposed to it and the controversy took two new forms: the demand of the Bulgarian Bishops was increased with the desire for religious service of their own and schools of their own, the Greek Bishops in the Bulgarian Eparchies were openly and violently persecuted. This happened in many towns of Bulgaria, Thracia and Macedonia. The Ferman of the Sultan relating to the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, expressly denominated in the first paragraph of the 10-th article as Bulgarian the following Eparchies: Rustschuk, Silistra, Varna, Schumen, Tirnovo, Lovetsch, Vratza, Vidin, Sofia, Kiustendil, Samokov, Nisch, Pirot and Veless; the second paragraph of the same article decides that other Eparchies too should be allowed to acknowledge the Exarchie if at least 2/3 of their Christian inhabitants should demand this. According to this second paragraph of the Ferman a “people’s-vote” was made by the Turkish authorities under control of the Greek Patriarchate. This „people’s-vote” proved that the largest part of Macedonia wanted to acknowledge the Bulgarian Exarchate, whereupon bishops were appointed for Uscub, Ochrida and Monastir; (for Veless, expressly named in the Ferman, such appointment had already taken place). But soon after this occurred the Bulgarian insurrections of 1875-76, which were followed by the Russo-Turkish war, which events exposed the Bulgarians in the eyes of the Turks. Unfortunately the „people’s-vote” could not be completed in the southern part of Macedonia and, where it was completed, Bulgarian Bishops were not appointed in all of these Eparchies; and where such had tried to go, they were thence driven away by the authorities. The attempts made 1884/1885 to send Bulgarian Bishops in Macedonia failed on account of the protest of the Greek Patriarchate, of Serbia and of Greece. Soon after came the union of the two Bulgarias which newly compromised the Bulgarians in the eyes of the Turks. Only in the year 1890, new Bulgarian Bishops were appointed at Uscub and at Ochrida; in the year 1894 bishops came to Veless and Nevrokop, and 1897 to Monastir, Debar and Strumitza. The other Eparchies never had any Bulgarian Bishops. The Turkish Government only allowed the Bulgarian clergy of these Eparchies to represent the Bulgarians before the local authorities and to manage their own school-matters.

The white-hatched places on the map denote those Eparchies that did not get Bulgarian Bishops.

————————————————————————-’s Ferman for the establishment of a Bulgarian Exarchate.

I. Sultan

..But in spite of all this we observed with regret the disputes and controversies which contrary to our good will, have lately arisen between the Bulgarians of the Orthodox faith and the Greek Patriarchal, i.e. concerning the relations between the Bulgarian archbishops, bishops, priests, the Bulgarian Church and the Patriarchate.”"the Sultan’s decree allowed a free referendum and when the people of Macedonia with a majority of over two thirds accepted the Bulgarian Exarchate as their own”.

CONCLUSION

It is more than obvious that the Turkish statistics and documents explicitly referred to the Slavonic population in Macedonia as Bulgarian. Both bureaucracy nomenclature and personal testimony of prominent figures witness on Bulgarians in Macedonia; there is no mention of some

http://macedoniainfo.com/

http://imro.hit.bg/

“Macedonian ethnic nation” whatsoever. Such ethnicity was unknown to the all non-Slave living in Macedonia. The Turks ruled the region of Macedonia for over five centuries, hence, they were well aware on the ethnic character of the population.

The following articles, the result of many discussions and much though about the best solution of the difficult problem were formulated as follows:

1. A special spiritual jurisdiction shall be established under the name of Bulgarian Exarchate, which will include the below mentioned archbishoprics, bishoprics, and others; the Exarchate shall be authorized to manage all the church affairs of this religious faith.

… 10. The spiritual jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Exarchate shall include the bishoprics of Ruse, Silistra, Shurnen, Tarnovo, Sofia, Vratsa, Lovech, Vidin, Nish, Pirot, Kyustendil, Samokov, Veles, Varna… , the district of Sliven…, the country of Sozopol… , the bishopric of Plovdiv…

If all, or at least two thirds of the Orthodox Christian population in other places, besides those enumerated above, are willing to accept the supremacy of the Bulgarian Exarchate in religious matters and if this is duly proved, they will be allowed to do so, but this shall happen only by the will and with agreement of all or, at least two thirds of the population. Those, who try by these means to create trouble and disturbances among the population, will be persecuted and punished according to the law

Note: The Bishops of Kyustendil and Samokov contained parts from the geographical area of Macedonia. Whole Bishop of Veles was situated in Macedonia. After a plebiscite (1871-1873) almost whole Slavic population in the rest of Macedonia chose the supremacy of the Bulgarian Exarchate. According to Lyubcho Georgievski, a leader of the biggest Macedonian non communist party VMRO-DPMNE (IMRO-DPMNU), this event was the first time when

The school was established in Ohrid in 886 by Saint Clement of Ohrid simultaneously or shortly after the establishment of the Preslav Literary School. After Clement was ordained bishop of Drembica (Velika) in 893, the position of head of the school was assumed by Naum of Preslav.

The Ohrid Literary School used the Glagolytic alphabet from its establishment until the 12th century and the Cyrillic alphabet from the end of the 9th century onwards.

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:dYPYdbevPRAJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Ohrid_Literary_School+Ohrid+Literary+School&hl=bg&gl=bg&ct

=clnk&cd=1

Monumenta Slavorum meridionalium II, Zagrabiae, 1870, p. 278.

* Zachulmia, Dioclea and Zeta – small Serbian principalities on the Adriatic

** Pomorie – the Aegean coast of Macedonia

*** Romania – the European part of Byzantium

1353 – The scribe Stanislav in the Lesnovo monastery puts the name of the Bulgarian tsar in front of that of the tsar of Serbia, although the monastery is in Macedonia, which is possessed by the Serbs*.
“…This book was written in the time of the pious and Christ-loving Bulgarian tsar Ioan Alexander and the pious and holy tsar of the Serbian and Greek land Stefan and the great despot Ioan Oliver**.”

Lesnovo Parenesis, the original is in Old Bulgarian.

* This is evidence that although the monastery was in Serbia, the monks felt Bulgarian and acknowledged the Bulgarian king. Moreover, they continued to write in the Bulgarian version of Old Bulgarian, whereas the Serbs wanted to introduce the Serbian version. This case is very similar to the Bologna Psalter (click here).

** Ioan Oliver was a Serbian voivoda (military leader) who later become a despot (big feudal lord) and was given lands in Zletovo in central Macedonia by the Stefan Dushan.

1381 – 1383 – Documents of the notary Manoli Bresciano in the town of Candia on the island of Crete about the sales of slaves.*
Sept. 12, 1381 – “… a slave … Maria of Bulgarian stock [de genere Bulgarorum], from the locality of Prilep.” (#19)

Nov. 4, 1381 – “… Theodora, of Bulgarian stock, from the locality of Kostour…” (#31)

July 5, 1382 – “… a slave named Alexo, of Bulgarian stock, from the locality of Serres…” (#99)

July 8, 1382 – “… a slave named Irina, of Bulgarian stock, from the locality of Kostour…” (#100)

July 12, 1382 – “… a slave named Irina, of Bulgarian stock, from the locality of Devol**…” (#105)

Sept. 18, 1382 – “… a slave named Dimitar, a Bulgarian from the locality of Vodena…” (#125)

Sept. 21, 1382 – “… of Bulgarian stock, from the locality of Veles…” (#126)

Mar. 7, 1383 – “…Mihail, of Bulgarian stock, from the locality of Skopie…” (#184)

Iv. Sakuzov, Newly found documents from the end of the XIVth c. about the Bulgarians from Macedonia sold as slaves, Makedonsky Pregled, 1932, No. 2-3, pp. 1- 62; the original is in Italian.

* The famous slave market in Candia was on the island of Crete, held by the Venetians. Each selling or liberating of a slave had to be confirmed by a notarial deed. The notary asked the slaves questions and according to the answer wrote down his name, nationality and place of birth. All slaves from Macedonia, with the exception of a few Greeks and Wallachians have been recorded as Bulgarians.

** Devol – a town in East Albania close to Ochrid

From the “Life of St. John of Rila [Sveti Ivan Rilski]” (end of the XIVth century), written in the library of the “St. Clement [Sveti Kliment]” church in Ohrid.
“Pray to the merciful God to save your compatriots – your congenial Bulgarian people.”

c. 1500 – The Serbian historian Mihail of Ostrovitsa in his chronicle reports that Dushan’s son and successor, Stephan Urosh V, gave the two brothers, the Serbian feudal lords Vukashin and Uglesha, to rule over the Bulgarian lands.*
“He allowed the two brothers to govern the Bulgarian Kingdom… When he was only four miles away from Drenopole, the two brothers, who had occupied the Bulgarian land, rose up against their master.”

The original is in Serbian.

* to see the extent of Vukashin and Uglesha’s lands click here

1591 – Information by the Venetian ambassador Lorenzo Bernardo about the Bulgarian character of the localities in Macedonia.
“They say that Struga is a town but as a matter of fact it is rather a village; it is the first locality in succession in Bulgaria. A river flows across Struga which runs out of the lake of Ochrida; here, they say, is also the spring of the river of the town of Lesius [Drim river]. Practically the whole plain of Struga is cultivated, tiled and very fertile; a little further away, at the beginning of the plain of Struga, one passes through a bridgewhich is on the border between Bulgaria and Albania. The Bulgarians speak Slav and observe the Greek [Eastern Orthodox] rite.”

“On May 23, proceeding further on a good road, they reached Bitola at 7 o’clock. Bitola is a Bulgarian town, densely populated, as they say, 1,500 houses, including 200 Jewish.”

“On May 27, descending the hill abounding in water and wells, they followed the foot of the mountain situated opposite the hill and came down in a wide plain which the Turkscall Vardar Ova and the Bulgarians – Slanitsa.”

“They passed through a wooden bridge, 300 steps long, leading across the Vasrdar River which further on flows through Skopje…This bridge is the boundary between Bulgaria and Thessaly. Near the bridge there is a house from which a Bulgarian maid came with a loaf baked under hot ashes.”

Jordan Ivanov, The Bulgarians in Macedonia, pp. 169-170; the original is in Italian.

http://www.bulgaria.com/VMRO/documen3.htm

2. The fact that Simeon’s grandson Roman was the nominal ruler of that state in Skopje, where he built the “Sveti Georgi Brzi” monastery, until 991, when he was captured in battle by the Greeks; Samuil proclaimed himself a tsar only in 997 AD, when Roman died in the Byzantine dungeon.

3. The fact that the state organization exactly copied the organization of the 1st Bulgarian empire from the pre-Christian times, i.e. the high officials had proto-Bulgarian (“Tartar”) titles; the same was in Petar Deljan’s state; the same was during the Georgi Voiteh’s and Konstantin Bodin’s uprising of 1072.

4. The fact that on account of vanquishing Samuil Basil II was called “Bulgaroctonos” – Bulgar slayer and not Macedonian slayer; Basil II himself was Macedonian, from the theme Macedonia in nowaday Thrace where the remnants of the ancient Macedonians were resettled.

5. The fact that the conqured lands of Samuil’s empire were designated “theme Bulgaria” whereas the Northern Bulgarian lands were called “Paristrion” – Danubian region.

6. The fact that Basil II granted autonomy to the Ohrid archbishopric under the name “Archbishopric of Bulgaria” as it was known until 1767.

7. The fact that later Bulgarian royal family members of the 2nd Bulgarian empire claimed lineage from Samuil’s dynasty.

8. The fact that Samuil and his state were named Bulgarian by all contemporary and later chronographers and historians.

9. The fact that the act of the assimilation of the proto-Bulgars by the Slavs had already finished by the beginning of the 10th century, so the Slavs can’t have rebelled against the Bulgarians; nevertheless, no historian describes those people as Slavs, everywhere they are presented as Bulgars.

http://www.bulgaria.com/VMRO/drzhava.htm

About Clement of Ohrid (840-27.VII. 916), scholar of Cyril and Methodius. Clement is regarded as the creator of the cyrillic alphabet

Theophylact of Ohrid: Life of St. Clement of Ohrid
Theophylact of Ohrid:

94) {4}. Perhaps you would like to know who these church fathers are? Methodios, who adorned the Pannonian diocese by becoming the Archbishop of Moravia, and Cyril who was great in his knowledge of the heavenly philosophy, and even greater in his knowledge of the Christian lore, and knew the nature of all things that actually exist …

{5}. Because the Slavic and Bulgarian people did not understand the Scripture as written in Greek, the saints deemed this loss the greatest. They found a reason for their unconsolable grief in the fact that the lamp of the scriptures was not shining in the dark place [II Pet., 1: 19] of the Bulgarians. They grieved, suffered, and denied this earthly life.

{6}. And so, what were they to do? They turned to the Comforter [Acts, 2: 2] and begged of him this grace: to invent an alphabet that might contain the wildness of the Bulgarian language. They begged him for the ability to translate the divine scriptures into the tongue of that people. And in truth, giving themselves up to strict fast and enduring prayer, to mortification of the flesh and to humbling unto meekness of the spirit, they received that for which they yearned …

(95) {7}. And so they received spiritual grace sure as the dawn [Hos., 6: 3], and light rose in the darkness for the upright [Ps., 96: 11; 111: 4], and the joy that comes from these things dispelled their grief. After they received the coveted gift, they invented the Slavic alphabet, translated the divinely-inspired Scriptures from the Greek into Bulgarian and took care to impart divine knowledge to the best of their disciples. And many drank of the source of learning and from among them the chosen leaders were Gorazd, Clement, Naum, Anguelarii and Sava.

…

(96){10}. After that the Pope saw those of the party accompanying the holy men. The teachers testified that they had sufficient experience with Slavic letters and were adorned with a pious life. Some were ordained priests, some deacons, and others subdeacons. And although great Methodios kept refusing and would not consent, the Pope ordained him Bishop of Moravia in Pannonia because he thought it unjust to deny ecclesiastical rank to one who had earned it by his deeds …

…
{13}. Thus death brought Cyril honour from both the the most divine pope and from God. Methodios, for his part, having lost his companion and fellow toiler, who has been a true brother to him in flesh and in God, gave his heart to sorrow …

(98) {14}. And when the time came for Methodios to start on his way to Pannonia, and he had finally to raise his eyes towards the bishopric in that land, he hugged his brother’�s tomb, uttered many times the name Cyril, bewailed his own desolation in the flesh, evoked Cyril�’s power of intercession on their behalf, and set out for Moravia with his disciples. And when he arrived there, he became a true bishop, manifesting in himself such qualities as are listed by Paul in his character of the bishop [1 Tim., 3, 2-7; Tim., 1, 7-9] and outshone all with his teaching. He did not bury his talent [Mat., 5: 18], and did not sell the grace of his spiritual gifts [Acts, 8: 18; 1 Tim., 3: 3; Tit., 1: 7]. Nor did he turn his power into a source of luxury [Tit., 1: 9] but made all fellow communicants in goodness by equally spreading the light of the word [Mat., 5: 45]. He, who even before his bishopric was such a zealous teacher and preacher that he subjected himself to danger, now that office had been entrusted to him, and he had received the pledge and knew the charge of an apostle, �Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!� [1 Cor., 9: 16], how could he not but commit himself to teaching, devote himself with heart and soul, all day long, to the word of God alone, which was sweeter than honey in his mouth [Ps., 18: 11; 118: 103]?

{15}. He did not cease from giving daily instructions to Prince Rostislav of Moravia, nor from educating his soul in the divine commandments. He also instructed and educated the ruler of all Pannonia, named Kotsel, so that he may never have fear of the Lord [Ps., 118: 120] and, detained and restrained by his bridle, would avoid all wickedness.

Great Methodios did not cease from lavishing the love of the word on the Bulgarian prince Boris, who lived during the days of the Byzantine emperor Michael, whom he had already made is spiritual son.

{16}. This Boris was altogether possessed of sane reason and was inclined to goodness. It was under him that the Bulgarian people began to (99) receive divine baptism. When those saints, Cyril and Methodios, saw that there were many believers and that many children of God were being born through water and spirit [John., 3: 5], but that they were wholly deprived of spiritual food, they invented the alphabet, as we said, and translated the Scriptures into Bulgarian so that the newborn children of God could have enough divine nourishment … Thus the Bulgarian people, freed of the Scythian deceit, came to know the straightest road, Christ [John, 14: 6]. And thus at the eleventh hour they entered God’�s vineyard through the grace of He who had beckoned all labourers [Mat., 20: 6; Gal., 1: 15; Tim., 1: 9]. And so the call went out to that people in the 6377th year of the creation of the world.

…

{18}. The heretics [i.e. Franks, promoting the filioque clause], being thus defeated by the power of the word and of truth, did only what they could, or, rather, what they were sent to do (100) by their father who was a murderer from the beginning [John, 8: 44]. He bragged of his wickedness, and tortured the saint with all kinds of evils and temptations. Deceiving him with cunning, they had fully won for their teaching Svetopolk, prince of Moravia after Rotislav, who was but a coarse prince, unable to understand goodness. How could a slave of physical pleasures, wallowing in the mire of his filthy deeds [Prov., 7: 18] keep from submitting himself to those, who opened before him every door of bodily lust, instead of to Methodios, who condemned the bitterness of pleasure seeking, which poisons the soul. That which Eunomius, founder of the Anomian heresy, created in order to draw to himself more disciples, the insensible Franks also embraced. They forgave sinners everything, even the without toil and diligence on their part, for the sake of mere agreement with their doctrine. They allowed their converts to lead a life of vice in order to secrue the success of thier perverse teaching by exchanging rubbish for dirt, being worthy only to trade with such treasures in which the goods are obnoxious and the price repellant.

{19}. Because of that, Svetopolk was perverted by them, since they would allow him anything. He paid little heed to the words of Methodios, whom he treated as an enemy. To the sinner piety is shameful [Sirach., 1: 25]. Nevetheless, the teacher did everything he could to speak fairly to the prince and to caution him against all manner of terrors. On one hand, he proved the correctness of his teaching through the divine Scriptures, and bade Svetopolk trust them as the source for life and salvation [Isa., 12: 3]. The Lord Himself teaches us that life consists in searching the Scriptures [John, 5: 39], and Isaiah admonishes us to draw water not from the swamp of heresy, but from the wells of salvation [Isa., 12: 3]. On the other hand, the teacher told him that should he join the heretics, he would condemn not only himself, but also all those under his power. He would easily become vulnerable to enemies, and be vanquished, for lacking chastity, even if one flourishes for a time, eventually leaves wither and fall. The teacher Methodios prophesied that this would befall Svetopolk after his own death, and the saint’�s prophecy came true.

{20}. While Methodios still lived, Svetopolk did not reveal the schemings of his heart, even though he did have a basilisk, and was hiding and nursing it within the eggs of an asp [Isa., 59: 5]. … (101) But when the saint died a flurry of evil whirled about and no longer hid its hideous face with a mask or veil. Like a harlot, it acted shamelessly and stirred persecution against the orthodox. Then it was that God punished the prince.

{21}. Methodios foretold his own death within three days. He did so to uphold the abundant advice he had given the prince. Thus, when his prophecy came true, it showed him as truly as prophet with a gift to foresee the future. It revealed that his doctrine was spiritual and inspired by the Lord.

ABOUT KING SAMAEL. CAR SAMUIL.

About king Samuel (997-1014)

JOHN SKYLITZES, SYNOPSIS HISTORION The Battle of Kleidion, 29 July 1014
…The emperor did not relent, but every year he marched into Bulgaria and laid waste and ravaged all before him. Samuel was not able to resist openly, nor to face the emperor in open warfare, so, weakened from all sides, he came down from his lofty lair to fortify the entrance to Bulgaria with ditches and fences…”

CHRONICLE OF THE PRIEST OF DUKLJA (Ljetopis’ Popa Dukljanina)
“…Tugemir succeeded to the kingdom. Having taken a wife he sired a son whom he named Chvalimir. At that time, among the race of Bulgars , a certain Samuel commanded that he be called emperor, fought many battles with the Greeks, and drove them completely from Bulgaria . During his reign the Greeks did not dare approach that land…”

Michael Psellus – Chronographia
39. The people of Bulgaria, after many vicissitudes of fortune and after frequent battles in the past, had become subjects of the Roman Empire . That prince of emperors, the famous Basil, had deliberately attacked their country and destroyed their power. For some time the Bulgarians, being completely exhausted after pitting their strength against the might of the Romans, resigned themselves to defeat, but later they reverted to the old arrogance. There were no immediate signs of open revolt, however, until the appearance among them of a political agitator, when their policy at once became hostile to the Empire.

40. The man who moved them to this folly was, in their opinion, a marvel. He was of their own race, member of a family unworthy of mention, but cunning, and capable of practising any deceit on his compatriots, a fellow called Dolianus. I do not know whether he inherited such a name from his father, or if he gave himself the name for an omen. He knew that the whole nation was set on rebellion against the Romans; indeed, the revolt was merely a project only because no leader had hitherto risen up among them able to carry out their plans. In the first place, therefore, he made himself conspicuous, proved his ability in council, demonstrated his skill in the conduct of war. Then, having won their approval by these qualities, it only remained for him to prove his own noble descent, in order to become the acknowledged leader of the Bulgarians. (It was their custom to recognize as leaders of the nation only men of royal blood.) Knowing this to be the national custom, he proceeded to trace his descent from the famous Samuel and his brother Aaron, who had ruled the whole nation as kings a short time before. He did not claim to be the legitimate heir of these kings, but he either invented or proved that he was a collateral relation. He readily convinced the people with his story, and they raised him on the shield. He was proclaimed king. From that moment Bulgarian designs became manifest, for they seceded openly. The yoke of Roman domination was hurled from their necks and they made a declaration of independence, emphasizing the fact that they took this course of their own free will. Whereupon they engaged in attacks and plundering expeditions on Roman territory

Anna Comnena: “The Alexiad”, Book VII
…Samuel, the last of the Bulgarian dynasty…

Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria. He built up another great Bulgarian Empire, with its capital at Ochrid, extending from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and from the Danube to the Peloponnesus. In 981 he defeated Basil near Sofia.

http://www.bartleby.com/67/438.html

Revolt of the Bulgarians under Peter Delyan, a descendant of Tsar Samuel. The revolt was directed against the harsh fiscal policy of the government. The Bulgars attacked Salonika (Thessalonica), but the city held out. Ultimately the movement collapsed as a result of dissension among the leaders. Bulgaria was then incorporated in the empire and the autocephalous church of Ochrid became the prey of the patriarchal hierarchy.

http://www.bartleby.com/67/499.html

tsar of Western Bulgaria, or Macedonia, from 980; his realm was successor to the First Bulgarian empire.

Ruling originally in Macedonia, Samuel then conquered independent Serbia and further extended his power into northern Bulgaria, Albania, and northern Greece. He established his capital at Ochrida (now Ohrid, Macedonia) and revived the Bulgarian patriarchate. In the 980s he defeated the Byzantine emperor Basil II Bulgaroctonus near Sofia, but from 997 the intermittent struggle with the Byzantines went against him. Finally, on July 29, 1014, Basil overwhelmed Samuel in the Battle of Belasitsa. At Basil’s order, the Bulgarian prisoners (said to number 15,000) were blinded and returned to Samuel, who fainted from shock and soon died. He was succeeded by his son Gavril (murdered in 1015) and a nephew Ivan (killed in battle in 1018), after which Bulgaria became a Byzantine province.

Encyclopaedia Brittanica about king Samuel

G. Bulgarians

The Slavonic tribes living in ancient Roman Mœsia and Thrace south of the Danube and southeast of the Serbs as far as the Black Sea came under the sway of the Turanian tribe of the Bulgars, which established the old Kingdom of Bulgaria in this region as early as the second half of the seventh century. The conquerors soon began to adopt the language and customs of the subjugated people, and from this intermixture arose the Bulgarian people. The historical development was not a quiet and uniform one; there were continual migrations and remigration, conquests and inter- mingling. When the Slavs first entered the Balkan peninsula they spread far beyond their present boundaries and even covered Greece and the Peloponnesus, which seemed about to become Slavonic. However, thanks to their higher civilization and superior tactics, the Greeks drove back the Slavs. Still, Slavonic settlements continued to exist in Greece and the Peloponnesus until the late Middle Ages. The Greeks were aided by the Turkish conquest, and the Slavs were forced to withdraw to the limit that is still maintained. The Turks then began to force back the Slavonic population in Macedonia and Bulgaria and to plant colonies of their own people in certain districts. The chief aim of the Turkish colonization was always to obtain strategic points and to secure the passes over the Balkans. The Slavonic population also began to withdraw from the plains along the Danube where naturally great battles were often fought, and which were often traversed by the Turkish army. A part emigrated to Hungary, where a considerable number of Bulgarian settlements still exist; others journeyed to Bessarabia and South Russia. After the liberation of Bulgaria the emigrants began to return and the population moved again from the mountains into the valleys, while large numbers of Turks and Circassians went back from liberated Bulgaria to Turkey.

On the other hand the emigration from Macedonia is still large. Owing to these uncertain conditions, and especially on account of the slight investigation of the subject in Macedonia, it is difficult to give the size of the Bulgarian population even approximately. In approximate figures the Bulgarians number: in the Kingdom of Bulgaria, 2,864,735; Macedonia, 1,200,000; Asia Minor, 600,000; Russia, 180,000; Rumania, 90,000; in other countries 50,000, hence there are altogether perhaps over 5,000,000. In Bulgaria there are besides the Bulgarian population, 20,644 Pomaks, that is Moslems who speak Bulgarian, 1516 Serbs, 531,217 Turks, 9862 Gagauzi (Bulgarians who speak Turkish), 18,874 Tatars, 66,702 Greeks in cities along the coast, 89,563 Gypsies, and 71,023 Rumanians. The kingdom, therefore, is not an absolutely homogeneous nationality. In religion the Bulgarians are Eastern Orthodox with the exception of the Pomaks, already mentioned, and of the Paulicians who are Catholics. The Bulgarians are divided into a number of branches and dialects; it is often doubtful whether some of these subdivisions should not be included among the Serbs. This is especially the case in Macedonia, consequently all enumerations of the population differ extremely from one another.

If, on the basis of earlier results, the natural annual growth of the Slavonic populations is taken as 1.4 percent, it may be claimed that there were about 156-157 million Slavs in the year 1910. In 1900 all Slavs taken together numbered approximately 136,500,000 persons divided thus: Russians, 94,000,000; Poles, 17,500,000; Lusatian Serbs, 150,000; Bohemians and Slovaks, 9,800,000; Slovenes, 1,500,000; Serbo-Croats, 8,550,000; Bulgarians, 5,000,000.

Catholic encyclopedia – the slavs

This is the first issue in the series of “Macedonia: and the Macedonian Question”.
Throughout the series, we will be inviting emminent academics and political figures from around the world to view, examine and comment on this most difficult of socio-political problems.
The series will deal at length with all aspects of the question, from the ancient movements and settlements of peoples to the most up-to-date polls and censuses; from the manipulation of people by the use of force and terror to the more insidious techniques of modern propaganda; and from the development of early slavic languages to the present, unprecedented accusations of the creation of a new, “literary standard language”, all of which have been used to convince a people of who they are and what they are not!
Ultimately, this publication hopes to help the efforts being made to set straight the problems within the region known as Macedonia and to disentangle the knot of misinformation, hidden facts and lies, all of which has resulted in particular interpretations (or misinterpretations) of history. This is the legacy of many periods of instability, dating back to the 1877 – 78 Russo-Turkish War and the Bulgarian liberation, the Berlin Treaty of 1879 and decades of Serbianization and of the far more protracted and subtle Hellenization of the Southsrn region of Macedonia. Of course, the last 45 years of totalitarian rule has done more to bury the truth than any other single force, but this series will endeavour to confront the expantionist nationalism that presently seeks to continue its history of falsification and oppression of the Bulgarian character of Macedonia.
By presenting the views of outside observers and “innocent bystanders”, we feel sure that this series will help to give the clearest and most objective view of the problems and their best solutions and will serve as an essential companion to the other publications, concerning this problem, which have more “involved” contributors.
We are certain that, in the end, by careful work and study, the truth will out and real and, above all, just solutions will be found and adopted.

Andy Barrett

(Prof. Heinrich A.Stammler , IMRO – Union of The Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, Sofia, 1991)

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Mr. President, Dear friends. Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all please allow me to express my sinccrcsl gratitude to the President of this Organization and to the Committee for having afforded me the precious opportunity of addressing this Conference. Time is short and I do not want to claim your attention longer than is absolutely necessary. I honestly feel that perhaps my justification for speaking to you about the problems of Macedonia is somewhat flimsy. What are my credentials? It is true, I am a professor of Slavic and East European Studies, but as far as my teaching and writing is concerned, Russia and, more recently, Poland have come more closely under my observation. I hope , nevertheless, that you might forgive me my boldness to appear here before you when I refer to a point of saving grace in my favour: I love the Southeast of Europe, and five wonderful years of my life were spent in Bulgaria in the capacities of an academic teacher and a public servant. There I had the opportunity of meeting people from all walks of life, of making myself familiar with the history, the culture and living conditions of the country and last but not least, of striking up close and firm friendships, some of which have survived the trials and tribulations of the catastrophic events which living through has been our common lot. I also availed myself of the possibility of making a trip to Macedonia and, although the journey was short, places like Kratovo, Skopic, Veles, Shtip and Goma Dzumaya are for me not merely names, geographic nomenclature or statistical data, but I can say: I was there; I saw, I listened and heard; I have not forgotten!
I will not go into a presentation of the manifold facts of history, ethnography, linguistics, folklore and statistics which bear testimony – and I think this testimony is incontrovertible – of the Bulgarian character of the Slavic-speaking population settled in Macedonia. Whole libraries, have been written to establish the Bulgarianism of the Macedonian Slavs and I believe that many of you are much more intimately familiar with this vast literature than I could ever be. And, Indeed, it would be absurd if I, a mere outside observer, and only an occasional one at that, would presume to teach you things which you not only know, but live.
Let me, however, point out one circumstance which in my eyes, has profoundly changed the whole situation. Up to the Second World War the Bulgarian Macedonians, after the retreat of Turkey from Europe, had to struggle incessantly for the preservation of their heritage against the encroachment and machinations of the Pan-Serbian circles, carried under the slogan that Macedonia is nothing but Southern Serbia; and on the other hand they had to fight the absurd notion propounded by Athens, that the Bulgarian-speaking Macedonians are but “Slavophone Greeks”. That would be the same as if the English would assert that the French-Canadians are but “Francophone” English people! Recent events have taught us what reactions to expect from the French-Canadians if such insinuations were to be made.
I believe, however, that it was easier to counter the Pan-Serbian claims, even though they were dressed in the political scholarship of men like A.Belie and Jovan Cvijic, because here was only the matter of a spirited and well-reasoned defense against the illegitimate ambitions of expansionists, which was, at bottom, still old fashioned nationalism. And this is still the situation in which the Macedo-Bulgarians find themselves under Greek rule.
I wish,however, to call your attention to a much more sinister device concocted in Belgrade under the sign of the Red Star, the Hammer and the Sickle. That the invention of a separate Macedonian nation, a Macedonian literary language and even a Macedonian history, is divorced from all the evidences of historical research and scholarship. By sophistry and the distortion of the historical facts it is said, for example, that St.Clement of Ochrid was a member of some separate Macedonian people which has never exited, and that the language used by the apostles and teachers of the Slavs for the christianization and the enlightenment of the Slavonic world was a separate Macedonian idiom, which has nothing or only very little to do with the Bulgarian language as such. In order to find some historical foundation for these unproven and undemonslrable allegations, historians of this school have even restyled the West-Bulgarian Kingdom of Tsar Samuel as a state run for the benefit of the mythical separate Macedonian people. Let me quote only one authority, the eminent Russian byzaniologist, A. A. Vassilijev, whose monumcnted history of the Byzantine Empire is generally considered a standard work in this field. What has he to say about the national character of Samuels Kingdom?”Afler the death of John Tzimisoes the Bulgarians took advantage of the internal complications in the Empire and rebelled against Byzantine domination. The outstanding leader of this period was Samuel, the energetic ruler of Western independent Bulgaria, and probably the founder of a new dynasty, one of the most prominent rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire.” In the entire passage dealing with this heroic, as well as tragic episode in Bulgarian history, Vassiljev consistently uses the term “Bulgaria”. In a footnote, it is true, he mentions the hypothesis put forward by the Serbian historian D.Anastasijevich that Samuel’s Kingdom was not lawfully Bulgarian, but a “Sloveno-macedonian Empire”. But quite obviously he does not make this hypothesis his own. I think that in the market of international historical scholarship the authority of Professor Vassiljev rates considerably higher than that of Mr.Anaslasijevich. Another noteworthy fact that is such attempts to deprive the Bulgarians of their history and heritage by declaring that they were not Bulgarians at all, had already been made in the years soon after the First World War. This shows that the recent creation of a separate non-Bulgarian Macedonian nation, complete with history, literary language, folklore, etc., by fiat from above, does have its precedent.
It goes without saying that the endeavors to divest the Macedo-Bulgarians of their national identity were accompanied in recent times by violent measures designed to lend force to the arguments set forth by Pan-Serbian propaganda, no matter whether this propaganda appeared disguised as scholarship or downright indoctrination. Let me quote from a symposium entitled,” The case for an Autonomous Macedonia” compiled and edited in 1945 by Mr.Christ Atanasoff. One of the crown witnesses summoned to testify was the well-known British Balkan expert. Miss Edith Durham. In 1931, she wrote the following in the paper La Macedonian, published in Geneva: “During the Balkan War there was a Serbian schoolmaster – an Austrian subject – at Cetinje, who taught German in the boy’s school. He rejoiced greatly over the conquest the Serbian army was making in Macedonia. It would add much valuable land to Serbia. An Englishman said to him: “Oh, but Serbia cannot annex these places, they are all Bulgar”. The inhabitants put the article after the noun. This is well known as a Bulgar peculiarity. The Serb replied: “That does not matter. When our army has been there for two years, you will find no articles after nouns there, I can assure you”. But, in spite of torture, murder, imprisonment, the Bulgai article still lives on at the end of the noun.”
Since it was not possible to do away with that stubborn post posited article by administrative matters, comprising the whole gamut from violent suppression to persistent persuasion and bribery, a new tack had to be tried. The article was declared not to be a peculiarity of the Bulgarian language, but also a characteristic of a hitherto non-existent separate Macedonian language.
In parenthesis let me say this: Since the disappearance of the classical, semi-Hellenic Macedonian Kingdom of Philip, Alexander and Perseus in Roman limes, the terms “Macedonian” and the “Macedonia” have been used as geographic terms for that area in Southeastern Europe, which is still known under this name. Since the middle ages it has been inhabited predominantly by Slavo-Bulgarians and by minorities of Albanians, Valachians, Turks, Greeks, Gypsies, Jews and, as the statistics of the 19th and 20th Centuries show, surprisingly few Serbians. For more than a thousand years the Slavs living in this area have been considered Bulgarians, or to be more precise. Western Bulgarians whose idiom is distinguished by certain dialectical peculiarities, without thereby losing its general Bulgarian character. This clearly recognized fact, incidentally, caused the great 19th century philologists, who laid the groundwork for a systematic study of this language to call it, in the early stages of its development, Old Bulgarian. The language employed by Sts.Cyril and Metodi, St.Klement and St.Naum and a host of other medieval writers and teachers is an old Bulgarian idiom. Please allow me to make a personal remark in this context. When I, in the spring “of 1931, began to study Slavic philology at the University of Munich, we used the famous handbooks and grammar of this language written by the celebrated German Slavist, August Leskich. These books described and analyzed the phonology, morphology, vocabulary syntax of a language which unequivocally was designated as Old Bulgarian :Handbuch or Grammatik der Altbulgarichen Sprache. It is also true that the term “Old Church Slavonic”, most frequently used nowadays,was sometimes applied to this language, but one should keep in mind that this term is basically meaningless, at least up to the times of Peter the Great. In the course of his secularizing transformations and reforms, Peter favored the introduction of the Russian vernacular into common usage, relegating the then library language of the Muscovite Tsardom, still based as it were on Old Bulgarian, to purely liturgical and ecclesiastical purposes. This practice was later followed by other awakening Slavic nations, especially those of the Orthodox faith.profoundly. Nevertheless may it be said here, in parenthesis only, that the Old Bulgarian imprint on the native language of the Russians was so strong that even nowadays authoritative scholars in the field of Slavic linguistics and philology, such as Boris Unbegaun, speak with good reason about the partially Old Bulgarian character of the Russian standard literary language.
Thus, the fiction of Macedonia as “Southern Serbia” could not be maintained in the long run because it really held no water. Even responsible Serbian leaders could not close their eyes to this fact. Even the Yugoslav Ambassador in Sofia, Mr.Milanovich, in a moment of deep crisis for the Yugoslav State, that is in the summer of 1940, saw fit to forward to his master in Belgrade the Prime Minister Slojadinovich, a statement from Macedonia received in Bulgaria on the situation in this region. Here we read: “Everybody has to know that today Macedonia is not lost for Bulgaria, but on the contrary, there exists a healthy Bulgarian spirit more than ever. Some call themselves Macedonians, but this is due to the terrible reaction which the name Bulgarian provokes in the Serbians. It is well known that all injustices, robbery and violence create reaction and disgust. This is exactly what the Serbians have achieved in Macedonia. When they came to Macedonia they knew that Bulgarians lived in this country. That is why they thought, by crude measures and lawlessness, to frighten the people and to win them over for the Serbian cause. But all was in vain. And now they are surprised at the anti-Serbian feelings in the hearts of the majority of people. The common wish of the people is : Let Gypsy come, only let this one, the Serbian, go away. Anathema to any Bulgarian who will forget his own brothers.”.
The war and its aftermath did away with the Pan-Serbian military-bourgeois monarchy. Overboard went what Marxists call Bourgeois nationalism and chauvinism. But let no man be deceived that the substitution of the old order by the dictatorship of a Communist party and its leader spelt the disappearance of an expansionist Greater Serbian nationalism. Had the means employed between 1912 and 1940 been crude and brutal, and therefore in the end unsuccessful, new devices had to be invented, this time more clever, more insidious, in order to attain the same goal. This time under the banner of a Yugoslav Communist Revolution! If we have failed so far wean away the Macedonians from their Bulgarianism, because we tried so hard to make them into Serbians, well, then let us now try to insinuate that they arc neither Serbians nor Bulgarians, but a separate national entity, for instance, Macedonians with their own history, language and culture; but let us also make it perfectly clear to them that only we here in Belgrade are willing and able to guarantee this artificial nationality concocted in the test tubes of Serbian Communists and their non-Communist predecessors. The whole Macedonian nation and the so called language -this I wish to affirm here before you- is not a philologicum, but a polilicum designed according to the well tried maxim of old: divide et impcra – divide and rule. History teaches that a ruler, a parly or a leading group which enjoys unlimited power and has the will to use this power ruthlessly for the attainment of its goal, has always found partisans, advocates and adherents prepared to do the bidding of those at the helm of the state, sometimes against their own belter knowledge. Wasn’t it one of the great cynics on the throne. Henry the VIII of England, who said when planning something particularly outrageous and arbitrary “let me first carry out this measure, afterwards I shall always find professors at Oxford to justify it”. So it is no wonder that in Skopie and elsewhere the Belgrade government should have found learned collaborators who fell for their line. I think that under the circumstances prevailing one should not judge them and their zealous efforts too harshly. But it is deplorable that scholars abroad with solid academic reputations and achievements, who are not exposed to the pressures of the intellectual under totalitarian regimes, should also swallow this latest Belgrade bait hook, line and sinker. Can they really accept the thesis that, contrary to their own testimony and conviction, people like the Miladinoff brothers, Gregory Perlicerr, Alexander Todoroff, Damjan Gruev, Gotse Delceff, Peju Javoroff, Anion Strashimirof, Dimitr Taleff are Macedonians in the sense of the word bestowed upon it with the blessings of the Belgrade party bosses? And what about men who figure so prominently in the Pantheon of Bulgarian letters like Ivan Vazoff and Teodor Trajanoff who lived and worked in Bulgaria proper, but whose family background is Macedonian, Bulgaro-Macedonian that is. What about such a significant figure of the Bulgarian Renaissance like Raiko Zhinzifoff from Veles, who declared in 1963 in his Novobulgarska sbirka – or did he, perhaps, call it Novo-Makedonska sbirka? “As Bulgarian language we regard that language which is spoken in all Macedonia, Thrace and Bulgaria proper. The differences between the dialects are negligible. Every Bulgarian who does not suffer from nearsighteness cannot designate a certain expression as “Macedonian” or “Thracian”., for there are no “Macedonians” or “Thracians” as individual nations, but only Slavo-Bulgarians – in short, one Bulgarian people and one Bulgarian language”.
One could object here that this is a voice from the long forgotten depth of the 19th century. One could also maintain that Zhinzifoff, with all his linguistic and folklore erudition, was not up to par with regard to the achievements of philological science, that is that we in the 20th century know better now. Let us then examine a few testimonies belonging to our century.
Let us first listen to the voice of practical common sense, the voice of a man who would never lay claim to the reputation of a learned academic linguist. The opinions of this man, however, deserve to be listened to attentively and carefully because they are based on the profound national experience of a statesman and a leader of his people, Ivan Mihailoff.In his book, Makedonia: A Switzerland of the Balkans, edited and translated by Christ Anastasoff, he makes the following observations pertinent to the linguistic problem: “Like the scholars of different countries who were familiar with Macedonia, so also did the Turkish authorities and all the rest of the objective observers consider the Macedonian Slavs as Bulgarians. This was not only upon the basis of the logically had introduced in their schools, but on the basis of all other ethnic features by which a given nationality is judged. The local dialects of the Macedonian Slavs arc basically considered by all as Bulgarian language. Every nationality employs its own common literary language, while in every nationality meets different dialects. As far as the Bulgarian dialects in Macedonia arc concirned they do not vary very much from the rest of the Bulgarian dialects as, for instance, do dialects among the Germans, Italians and other nationalities. The dialects of the Germans in Switzerland is, perhaps, the most difficult for all the rest of the Germans.
But that did not prevent the Swiss of German origin to consider as their own the common German literary language. Precisely so, before the appearance of the regimes of national oppression in Macedonia after 1912, the native Bulgarians officially used that literary language which is common for all the Bulgarians of the world and to the formation of which the cultural workers of Macedonia have contributed a great deal.” This point of view deserves to be firmly kept in mind, especially in view of the artificial construction of a new “Macedonian” nation and language as commanded from above. For this purpose the chief perpetrators of this dubious enterprise now take great pains to smuggle into this newfangled synthetic idiom all sorts of Serbanianist and other foreign ingredients so as to alienate the Macedo-Bulgarians from their historical, cultural and linguistic matrix.
But what has the linguistic science of the 20-th century to say about these attempts to deny the Bulgarian character of the Slavic idiom spoken in Macedonia? Here I cannot go into the details of the lingiustic argument adduced by international scholars, to refute the claims. To note that Professor A.M.Selishchev, the eminent Russian philologist, in his article entitled “Macedonian Dialectology and Serbian Linguistics” already in 1935 destroyed the claims of Serbian scholars like Velich, Djordjevich, Pavlovich and others that the idiom spoken in Macedonia is closer to Serbian than to Bulgaria should be enough. This task he performed in a thorough scholary way, basing himself upon the findings and achievements of modern linguistic research in the field of Slavic philology. Whoever is interested in the course of his irrefutable reasonic can study this article in a volume recently published by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences under the title L’histoire Bulgare dans les Ouvrages des Savants Europeens. Professor Selishchev cannot be suspected of any sort of polilicing. He has worked in Russia under the old as well as the new regime; following nothing, to the best of his abilities, but the dictates of his scientific conscience. It is remarkable to see how to this pure scholar and cabinet savant, far as he was from the passionate turmoil of the political motives behind the scientific smokescreen spread by the named Serbian scholars. He said: “The aim of all these books is the same: namely, to furnish an historical, ethnographic and linguistic justification for Serbian domination in Macedonia – to furnish this justification by means of true scholarship. The arrogance in the style, the irony with which the Bulgarian people are treated is another common feature of the books of Belgrade professors. In the case of Professor Georgevich this irony borders upon downright rudeness. On the other hand, everything Serbian is idealized. The attempts of the authors of such books to clothe their products in a science-like garb must be unmasked. The true character of their content, harmful to all science, must be demonstrated”.
The results of the linguistic and ethnographic research in the field of Macedo-Bulgarian studies undertaken by Professor Selishchev not so long ago match the findings not only of the Bulgaro-Macedonian philologist Krusle Misirkoff, which he published in 1910-1911, but also of a number of 19th century Serbian scholars like Stefan Verkovich, Tuminski, A.Hadzic, Vasa Peladic and others. That authors like Selishchev, Misirkoff and Verkovic working at different times and under completely different circumstances should have arrived at the same results, with regard to the Bulgarian character of the dialects spoken in Macedonia and their geographic extensions points to two noteworthy qualities of their research Its exactitude and its factual and logical consistency, in view of which all the counter-arguments of Serbian and Pseudo-Macedonian opponents take on the suspect colouring of sophisty and political expediency. More proof was recently given for the Bulgarianism of the Macedonian dialects by the Bulgarian philologist Blagoi Shklifoff in a paper about the idiom spoken in the area of Kostur. From the evidence he is able to muster, it becomes perfectly clear that the Kostur dialect cannot be used to buttress the hypothetical existence of a separate and individual Slavic language called Macedonian, but that here, as elsewhere, we deal with but another variant of the Bulgarian language as spoken by the Western half of the nation.If indeed, this is the conclusion at which Mr.Shklifoff arrives, the dialects in Macedonia are by their character intrinsically different from those spoken in Moesia and Thrace, then these differences would have to show more than anywhere else in the dialect of Kostur, the area of which borders on two non-Slavic linguistic regions, located geographically distant from the other Bulgarian dialects. A strictly scholary approach to this idiom, however, cannot but establish its basically Bulgarian character. The paper by Mr.Blagoi Shklifoff was published in 1968. Sclishches’s analysis and demolition of the claims raised in 1935. But the same position and results are visible in the book about Macedonia by the Czech Balkaniologic Vladimir Sis which was printed in Prague in 1914 and came out in Zurich, Switzerland in 1981 in a German translation. After Sis enumerates all the factors which effect the closest mutual correspondence between Old Bulgarian and the Modem Bulgarian language as spoken also in Macedonia, he points to certain philological peculiarities by means of which the Bulgarian language is distinguished from all other Slavic language, Serbian included. After a painstaking comparison between the Bulgarian standard literary language and various dialects spoken in Macedonia, he arrives at the following conclusion which I shall quote here verbatim “Whoever is familiar with the basic structural principles of the two neighboring languages must, even though he may not be a philologist, arrive, on the basis of the examples cited here, at the same conclusion to which also the French slavicist, Louis Leger, came, and I repeat his words: The Macedonian Slavs are Bulgarians and speak a Bulgarian dialect. Indeed, even the Serbian Vuk Karadzic, who was the first to publish some Macedonian folksongs, selected them in order to determine with their help the basic characteristics of the Bulgarian language. That there occur Serbanianisms in some North Macedonian dialects does not prove anything. It is inevitable that in border areas between two linguistically kindred groups a certain inlcrminigling of vocabulary lakes place. If the fin Serbianisms in the regions of Tetovo or Kumanovo, we also find Bulgarianisms in the Prizren dialect behind the Shar Planina, a purely Serbian area. The Russian scholar Hilferding says in his book An Excursion Into Hersegovina And Old Serbia:” In the language of the Serbians around Prizren it is clearly noticeable how much it tends to resemble the Bulgarian dialects. It would be interesting to investigate how this blend of the Serbian language with the Macedo-Bulgarian has come about. “That authorities marshalled here in such an imposing array would be sufficient to support and prove the point I wish make here, namely, that the language spoken by the Slavs between Skopie and Salonica, Kostur and Kustandil is neither Serbian nor “Macedonian”, but Bulgarian. Please allow me to invite one more witness to make his deposition. The man and scholar I am refering to is a former countryman. Professor Guslav Wcigand, the eminent German Balkanologist, cthnographer, linguist and lexicographer. Wcigang ordinarily was no Slavist. When he began his career, his research interests were centered in Rumania and Albania. He is one of the very few Western Scholars to give the world a grammar and reader of the Albanian languagc. But in the course of his studies he became convinced that he would have to embrace with his research also the Slavic groups settling in this, as Christ Atanasoff has called it, tragic peninsula. This extension of his studies had the effect that Wcigang became also a linguistic expert in the Modern Bulgarian language, a field in which again he proved himself as grammarian and lexicographer. In 1924, he published in Leipzig his fundamental work Ethnographic von Maccdonicn, a chapter of which is devoted under the headline “The Bulgarian Language As Spoken In Macedonia” (Das Makedonische Bulgarisch) to linguistic issues. The result of Weigand’s meticulous observations do not essentially diverge from the findings of the other students of these affairs, quoted in this context. But in one point, at least as far as I can sec on the basis of the limited number of documents available to me, Weigang had an intuition which had not occured, at least in so many words, to other scholars. He was , of course, fully aware of what was going on at that time in Macedonia, a period which Ivan Michailov, as we have seen, so aptly called “The Regimes Of National Oppression”. He must have speculated which devices, apart from brute force, the oppressors might yet use to achieve their goal – the denationalization of the Macedo-Bulgarians. As a well-trained experienced linguist and ethnographcr it was, in all probability, clear to him that all the attempts at Serbanization would end in futility and frustration. But then – what other means could the enemy of the Bulgarian nationality propose to undermine and destroy Macedonian Bugarianism? And here he hit intuilively what was to happen 20 years later. The artificial, test tube creation of a separate Macedonian History, literary language and nation. Here are the conclusions at which Weigang arrived after a conscientious examination of the linguistic and ethnographic facts: “Whatever segment of this language we analyze, again and again it becomes evident that we deal here not with the Serbian, but the Bulgarian language. All attempts of Serbian chauvinists to design the Bulgarian language as spoken in Macedonia as a Serbian dialect or as a mixed language of indefinite character will therefore end in failure. One could pose the question whether, perhaps, the Macedonian Slavs haven’t their own language, something in between Serbian and Bulgarian. Such an assumption, however, would be absolutely unjustified, for, as we have seen, in phonology, morphology and syntax Macedonian Bulgarian and Bulgarian proper harmonize in every respect. Certain exclusively Macedonian peculiarities cannot essentially change this picture. In the lexicon there occurs a number of words of Greek or Turkish origin which do not exist in the Serbian or Bulgarian vocabulary. In proportion to the overall lexicon, however, their number is quite insignificant, as can be seen from the linguistic samples adduced here, which clearly demonstrate that Macedonian can only be considered a Bulgarian Dialect”.
In the 1926, the Russian journalist L.Nemanov, a representative of the respectable emigre newspaper Poslednie Novosti, edited in Paris, travelled in what then was officially called “Southern Serbia”. He published a report about his impressions and experiences under the title, “What I Saw in Macedonia”. His findings are those of a man who was probably a good practical linguist, but certainly not a learned professor of linguistics. They felicitously supplement the results of strict academic research, in his own trend of observant impressionism, he relates: “The Serbian authorities insist that the language spoken by the population in Macedonia is not Bulgarian, but a Macedonian dialect of the Serbian language. This reminds me of a case when a Serbian man of science was trying to prove to me that in general there was no Bulgarian language, but that it was a Shop dialect of the Serbian, to which I seriously retorted that Russian as an independent language was nonexistent to except as a Moscow dialect of the Serbian language. That is why whatever the Serbian politicians cail the language in Macedonia, it is a fact that this local language is comprehensible to me, a man knowing a bit of Bulgarian, while it is difficult for me to understand Serbian”. This statement, not devoid of humor as it is, may furnish some comic relief after all the dry seriousness of philological research and linguistic inquiry. But one should not forget that it is the question of depriving a people of its national identity, the first blows are invariably directed at its language, because a common language, a common heritage and a common destiny are the chief characteristics of historical nationality. And the pride in just this heritage and the hopes and aspirations of a common destiny, in rcturn,arc expressed in just this common language. So the best way to emasculate a national group is to rob it of its native tongue or to corrupt it. If it should turn oul impossible to extirpate the language of a group one desires to oppress and destroy – well, then let’s try to persuade them and the world that their language docs not exist at all, that in reality it is quite another language they arc speaking, a language of whose existence they had not even dreamed before, which, however, exists because we tell them so. You do not speak Bulgarian, you have never spoken Bulgarian, neither have St.Cyril, St.Methodius, St-Clemens, Tsar Simeon or Tsar Samuel. They have all spoken Macedonian only, ignorant and unenlightened as they were, they didn’t notice. The same is true of the Miladinoff, Gotse Delchev, Peju Javoroff or Teodor Trajanoff. They did not know, but now they are better informed because we tell them so.

A nation which will not surrender its own national identity and national heritage, will not give up its native tongue, the treasure house of all its achievements and aspirations. When the Israelis and the Irish succeeded in re-establishing their own state, it was the first legitimate, and natural endeavor of their leading minds to recapture their lost or half-lost native idioms and restore them to their rightful glory. When, before the First World War, the Prussian government undertook to ban instruction in Polish in the schools in the eastern provinces of Prussia these decrees were bitterly and resolutely resisted by the Polish minority. In the end, all these measures proved futile, but they have contributed to poisoning the atmosphere between Germans and Poles down to our own day. The press tells us what undesirable things happened in the Southern Tyrol where the Italian government shows but scant regard for the cultural rights of the German-speaking minority. Alas, these examples, spread all over the globe, could be multiplied ad infinitum. It also shows that even at a lime when many of the more advanced nations are making great moral efforts to overcome a narrow-minded, self-centered and often aggressive nationalism there persists the feeling that questions of language and national identity cannot and must not be resolved by cither brute force or cunning persuasion, or by distortion and falsification of the historical and statistical facts. In his attempts to explain the origins of human language, the great German humanist, statesman and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt once declared that all research in this problem leads to a point where further explanation avails nothing, where even the keenest, most critical intelligence will have lo admit that human language in its deepest well-springs is a divine miracle. From the limes of the ancient Helenes on, the nations have delighted in their own languages, have recorded them not only with the intelligent curiosity of science and scholarship, but also with a sense of awe and wonder. At bottom, their languages have always appeared to them as a precious vessel, a national possession cherished above all other things, a sacred covenant with their inscrutable destiny. As long as there is one living soul also among the Macedo-Bulgarians who remembers this deep in his heart and acts accordingly, the Macedo-Bulgarian cause is not lost. Keep the banner of your language flying, then the hope for a free Macedonia for the Macedo-Bulgarians will be resurrected again and again, and in the end, if Heaven wills it so, Macedonia’s goal will be fulfilled.

http://vmro.net/

H. Delehaye, Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae. Propylaeum ad ASS. Novembris, Bruxelles, 1902, col 255-256; the original is in Greek.

* Clement – disciple of Cyril and Methodius, one of the most eminent enlighteners of the Bulgarian people

** the day of Clement of Ochrida is celebrated today on the 8th of December

10th – 11th c. – From the communication of the Byzantine historian Leo Grammaticus it is clear that the inhabitants of Adrianople, who were not Slavs, were called by the territorial name of “Macedonians” because in the Middle Ages part of Thrace was denoted by the name “Macedonia”.
“After Kroum had seized Adrianople*, he brought across the Danube and settled by the river many noble Macedonians and extremely large numbers of people… Setting out for Adrianople, he captured it and transferred from there 12,000 men, without counting the women and children, and settled them along the Danube… The people together with the women and children decided to pass over into Romania**… And so the Macedonians despaired, made Tsants and Cordillas their leaders and, engaging in battle, killed many and took some in captivity. The Bulgarians who could not pass over, resorted to the Ugri***. informing them of everything about the Macedonians… The next day, when they wanted to set out, the Huns**** again appeared to fight against them. Then another Macedonian by the name of Leo of the family of the Gimostes, who afterwards became Heteriarch, rose up in arms as well as other prominent Macedonians. They put them to fight and chased them away. Returning, they came on board the ships and fled to the Emperor. They were favoured by him and returned to their country Macedonia*****.”

Leonis Grammatici Chronographia, ed. Bonn, 1842, pp.208, 231-233; cf. GSBH, V, pp.155-156; the original is in Greek.

* Adrianople was seized in 813

** Under Romania here are designated the European parts of Byzantium, i.e. Thrace

*** Ugri- the Hungarians

**** Huns – the Hungarians

***** Macedonia – Thrace with Adrianople as its centre

10th – 11th c. – The same Byzantine historian Leo Grammaticus reports that Emperor Basil I* was born in Macedonia, in a village near Adrianople.
“We deemed it necessary to relate how this same Basil was brought up and from where he descended. He was born in Macedonia, in a village near Adrianople, during the reign of Michael Rhangabe**”

Ibidem, p. 228; cf. GSBH, V, p. 155; the original is in Greek.

* Basil I – Emperor of Byzantium (867 – 886)

** Michael Rhangabe – Emperor of Byzantium (811 – 813)

11th c. – The Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Vladislav* puts a tablet on the fortress wall of Bitolya, in which he is called “autocrator of the Bulgarians” and there is an emphasis on the fact that he is “Bulgarian”
“[In the year 6523 (=1015) of the creation of the world was this fortress erected] built and made by Ivan autocrator of the Bulgarians with the help and prayers of Our Souvereign, the Holy Mother of God, and the intercession of twelve and of [the two] supreme apostles. This fortress was made [as] a sanc[tuary], for the salvation and the life of the Bulgarians. The Bitolya fortress was begun in the month . . . at the end . . . was Bulgarian by birth . . .”

Yordan Zaimov, The Bitolya Inscription – in manuscript; Vl. Moshin, The Bitolya Plaque of 1018, magazine “Makedonski jazik”, XVII, 1966, pp. 51 – 61; the original is in Old Bulgarian.

* Ivan Vladislav – Bulgarian Tsar (1015 – 1018)

11th c. – The Byzantine writer Cecaumenus* reports that the Slavs in Macedonia speak Bulgarian, that Basil II** captured 14,000 Bulgarians, that Alusianus, the son of Ivan-Vladislav, with many Bulgarians attacked Thessalonica, that Wallachians and Bulgarians live in Thessaly.
“. . . In everything help the needy. And truly, the rich is god for the poor because he favours him. It is for this reason that the Bulgarians call the wealthy b o g a t (rich), which means b o g o p o d o b e n (god-like)…”
“Demetrias is a sea town in Hellas, protected from the sea and from the adjacent marshes. Delyan (a bulgarian toparchos) conquered it. After seizing the town, he sent there the old warrior Litovoy of Devol, experienced in military matters (in the language of the Bulgarians the strategus is called chelnik) and provided him with troops for the protection of the fortress . . .”
“If the enemy remains in the fortress and does not come out, and you do not know what the troops are like, take it from me that he is not numerous and that he lacks strength. Yet, in spite of this you should not underrate him but if you have troops do not allow him to relax but send light horsemen to find a way through which troops can sweep over him . . . And when you find a road do not come out to the open but stay opposite to him and send troops to penetrate through the way discovered by you. Let them have an able man as a guide. When they get in, let them make a fire, if it is during the night but if they get in during day-time, let them make smoke. And watch out! When you see that they are perplexed and confused, you should pounce on them. It was in this way that in the gorge Zagore the porphyrogenitus Emperor Sire Basil captured fourteen thousand Bulgarians, headed by the excellent warrior Samuil.”
“If you set out to fight against some people or some fortress, first of all, after you have settled and built up a camp, arrange the troops in the camp – each in his unit. Do not set up your camp very near lest you will be observed by them. When you have put up your troops and have rested, if you wish, begin the battle either against the population or against the fortress. Listen in point of fact how badly fared those who did not observe this rule. Thessalonica is a town. . . populous . . . [Alusianus*** setting out] with a great multitude of Bulgarians, so as to conquer it, did not put up his tent first, and did not settle his troops in a suitable place, but, as he was proceeding with the supply-column, approached the town walls and started the assault. His troops were exhausted from fatigue and the difficulties because even those who are distinguished by force and bodily strength may slacken off and become inactive, wearied from the long journey. And since he did not put them up in a camp, as I have mentioned, they scattered about, some wanting to drink water, others to give their horses some rest, and still others to recover themselves from fatigue. When those inside the fortress saw them loitering in a disorderly manner, they came out all of a sudden, attacked the Bulgarians and inflicted a great defeat upon them. . .”
“While my late grandfather Cecaumenus was in Larissa as governor of Hellos, the Bulgarian ruler Samuil often tried either by war or by stratagem to capture Larissa and failed but was repulsed and outwitted by him. . .”
“Pliris is a river with a wide valley spreading on both sides of its banks. It flows across the land of the Wallachians, dividing it into two. Nikolitsa set up his camp there, gathered the Wallachians and the Bulgarians, living nearby, and so he collected numerous troops.”

Strategicon et Incerti scriptoris de officiis reglis, ed. B. Wassiliewsky – V. Jernstedt, Petropoli, 1896; the original is in Greek.

*Byzantine writer. His grandfather on his mother’s side was an eminent nobleman at the court of Samuil. Cecaumenus lived for a long time in the western parts of Bulgaria and knew Bulgarians well.

**Basil II called Killer of Bulgarians (Bulgaroctonus), Byzantine emperor (976-1025) who in 1018 conquered Bulgaria

***Son of Ivan-Vladislav

11th c. – Charters of Basil II (1019, 1020) testifying that Samuil was at the head of the Bulgarian State; they confirm the right of the Bulgarian Church under Tsar Peter also.
“F i r s t c h a r t e r
Many and great are the favours which man-loving God has at different times conferred upon our Empire and which surpass any number; the greatest of them is that the Byzantine State expanded and that the State of the Bulgarians passed under one yoke (with it).
Therefore on account of this we confirm the most pious monk loan* to the Archbishop of Bulgaria and to be in charge of the matters relating to the archbishopric.
And since he asked for the kleroikoi and paroikoi nominated to work for the churches of his diocese, as well as for the bishops subordinate to him, to be determined in writing, we gave him the present sigilium of our Majesty by which we order:
The Archbishop himself shall have, in the towns of his diocese, i. e. in Ochrida, Prespa, Mokro and in Kichevo, 40 kleroikoi and 30 paroikoi**.

S e c o n d c h a r t e r
Since after issuing this sigilium referring to the scope of each Bulgarian episcopate, the holiest Archbishop of Bulgaria asked our Majesty to issue another sigilium concerning his other bishoprics not listed in the first sigilium and the other bishoprics subordinate to him, because the neighbouring metropolitans had seized them from the Bulgarian region and had misappropriated them, and since our Majesty does not allow any one of them or of their people to make even one step into the boundaries of the Bulgarian region, we therefore lay down that the present holiest Archbishop shall possess and govern all the Bulgarian bishoprics, as well as all other towns which were under the power of Tsar Peter and Samuil and were also held by the archbishops of that time. Because it was not without blood, labour or sweat, but by years’ long persistence and with God’s help that this country was granted in subordination to us by God, whose goodness clearly helped us, blending into one the divided parts and putting under one yoke the boundaries, without in any way infringing the rules well established by those reigning prior to us . Because although we became the possessor of the land we yet preserved its rights intact, reaffirming them by our royal decrees and sigilia. We also lay down that the present holiest Archbishop of Bulgaria shall have as large a diocese as that under under Tsar Peter, and that he shall possess and govern all bishoprics of Bulgaria, i. e. not only those mentioned in the first sigilium but also those omitted and not indicated together with the others and which through the present sigilia are announced and listed by name. To them, as to the others, we present kleroikoi and paroikoi.
We, therefore, decree that the Bishop of Dristra*** shall have in the towns of his bishopric and in the other towns around it 40 kleroikoi and 40 paroikoi. Because during the reign of Peter in Bulgaria this (bishopric) shone in archbishop’s dignity and then the archbishops (of it) moved from one place to another, one to Triaditsa,**** the other to Vodena and Moglena, and after this we found the present Archbishop in Ochrida. For this reason (we order) Ochrida to have an archbishop, and another bishop to be ordained for Dristra.
We decree that the holiest Archbishop of Bulgaria shall possess not only the bishoprics mentioned by names but if there are some others situated in Bulgarian lands and forgotten to be mentioned, we decree that he shall possess and govern them as well. Whatever other towns missed to be mentioned in the charters of our Majesty, shall be possessed by the same holiest Archbishop and he shall collect canonicon from them all as well as from the Wallachians throughout Bulgaria and from the Turks around the Vardar in so far as they are within the Bulgarian boundaries.
And all strategs in Bulgaria and the other officials and archonts shall hold him in great respect and listen to his word and precepts, shall not interfere in the affairs either of a Bulgarian monastery, a chirch or any ecclesiastical matter and shall not obstruct either him or his subordinate God-tearing bishops and shall not be in their way lest such people draw upon themselves the great and merciless wrath of our Majesty.
For this reason and as a matter of information to the Emperors after us, we drew up this sigilium and gave it to the holiest Archbishop, stamping it with the the molybdovol of our Kingdom in the month of May, indiction 3, year 6528 (1020).”

Yordan Ivanov, Bulgarian antiquities in Macedonia), Sofia, 1931, pp. 547-562; cf. GSBH, VI, pp. 40-41, 44-47; the original is in Greek

*Bulgarian patriarch acknowledged by Basil II for Archbishop of entire Bulgaria. Probably he was a Bulgarian from Debur

**Kleroikoi and paroikoi were dependent

***Silistra at present

****Sofia at present

11th-12th c. – Theophylactus, Archbishop of Bulgaria, of Greek nationality, witnesses that the language of the Slav population in Macedonia is called Bulgarian.
“. . . * And so, while glorifying and giving praise to God they arrived to Bregalnitsa . . . and to the shrine of God was appointed a clergyman, trained in the Bulgarian language, to stay there and to sing the sacred songs all the time”

Theophilacti Bulgariae archiepiscopi Historia martyrii XV martyrum, PGr. CXXVI, col. 208; the original is in Greek

* In the missing text of the work of Theophylactus of Ochrida “The Sufferings of the Martyrs from Tiberlopol” there is a story of how the Bulgarian Tsar Boris I is the IXth c. ordered for a new church to be built in Bregovitsa where the relics of the saints from Stroumitsa were transferred. In the passages submitted here Theophylactus mentions about the transfer of these relics.

11th-12th c. – The same Theophylactus of Ochrida reports about how the Bulgarians settled as true inhabitants in Old Macedonia up to Thessalonica.
“. . . When the people (the Avars) withdrew, another people still more lawless and fierce, the so-called Bulgarians, came from the Scythian lands; crossing the river called Istros (Danube), they came as a heavy scourge, sent by God to the western parts. They did not know Christ’s name and in their Scythian ignorance worshiped the Sun, the Moon and the stars. There were such as offered sacrifices to the dogs. Their minds were so muddled that they respected the creatures instead of their creator. And since they had conquered the entire Ilyric country, Old Macedonia up to the town of Thessalonica and part of Old Thrace, namely around Boruy*, I say Phillippopolis too, as well as the mountainous localities next to them, they settled as true inhabitants of the lower towns they resettled in the upper, and those of the latter in the lower towns.”

Ibidem, col. 189; cf Yordan Ivanov, opus cit., p. 121; the original is in Greek.

*Today’s Ber.

11th-12th c. – The same Theophylactus of Ochrida writes that the inhabitants of Ochrida are Bulgarians and the local language is Bulgarian.
(a) from a letter to Anem:*
“By saying that you have thoroughly become a barbarian among the Bulgarians, you, dearest, say what I dream (in my sleep). Because, think of it, how much I have drunk from the cup of vulgarity, being so far away from the countries of wisdom and how much I have drunk from the lack of culture . . . Since we have been living for a long time in the land of the Bulgarians, vulgarity has become our close companion and mate.”

Gr. CXXVI, Theophylactui epistola XXI ed. Meursio; cf. Letters of Theophylactus of Ochrida, translated by metropolitan Symeon from Greek, Reg. BAS, vol. XXVII, Hist.-Philol. nad Philos.-Polit. Branch, 15, Sofia, 1931, pp. 71-72; the original is in Greek.

*Friend of Theophylactus of Ochrida who among other complaints says that he has to live among the simple Bulgarians.

(b) from a letter to Empress Maria:*
“Since I went from Ochrida to the Queen of Towns**, my holy Lady, I have come across many sorrows because of my numerous sins. . . . And so I come to the Bulgarians, I, the true man of Constantinople, a Bulgarian by miracle, who smells of rot, as they smell of hide.”

Ibidem, ep. 1, ed. Lamio; cf. Letters, op. cit., pp. 180-181; the original is in Greek.

*This is the former queen Maria, wife of Nicephorus III Botaneiates (1078-1081)

**I. e. Constantinople

(c) from a letter to the great domesticus:
“There is some difference, however, that I am a slave not of a queen,* pure and beautiful and of a golden Aphrodite, but of slaves, barbarians, unclean, smelling of hide . . .”

Ibidem ep. II, ed. Lamio; cf. Letters, op. cit., p. 188; the original is in Greek.

*In the previous text Theophylactus says that according to the mythology Hercules was a serf to to the lovely Lydian queen Omphala

(d) from a letter to the Bishop of Vidin:
“And so do not lose heart, as if you were the only to suffer . . . Are there Cumans invading your land? What are they, however, in comparison with the people of Ochrida who come from the city to attack us? . . . Have you got cunning citizens? They are children in comparison with our citizens – Bulgarians . . .”

Ibidem, ep. XVI, ed. Finetti; cf. Letters, op. cit., p. 18; the original is in Greek.

(e) from a letter to the royal son-in-law Briennius:*
“Because the clerics paid for the mills twice as much as the laymen, and for the strugi, as they are called in Bulgarian, which the Hellenes would call brooklets and facilitate fishing, and for them the kleroikoi were subjected to much greater damage than the others . . .
Allergedly so as not to put to shame my high order,** from me personally he collected do much that for mills which have long since been destroyed he asked the full price and for those in good condition twice as much as from the Bulgarians.”

Ibidem, ep. XLI, ed. Finetti; cf. Letters, op. cit., p. 128; original is in Greek

*Briennius was the husband of Anna Comnena.

**This was the state tax collector pestering Theophylactus.

11th-12th c. – The same Theophylactus of Ochrida in the Long Life story of St. Clement of Ochrida testifies that the Slav language in Macedonia is Bulgarian and calls the Slavs there Bulgarians
“4. You probably want to know who these saints are? – Mathodius who crowned the Pannonian diocese by becoming Archbishop of Moravia, and Cyril,* who was great in pagan philosophy and still greater in the Christian one . . .
5. Because the Slav or Bulgarian people did not understand the scripture in the Greek language, the saints considered this as the greatest loss and found grounds for their inconsolable sorrow in the fact that the lamp of the Scripture was not lit in the dark country of the Bulgarians. They grieved, suffered and renounced life.
6. And so what did they do? They turned to the consoler whose first gifts are the tongues and the words. They obtained from him the grace and invented the alphabet that corresponds to the coarseness of the Bulgarian language and enabled them to translate the Holy Scriptures into the language of the people. And indeed, by devoting themselves to strict fasting and continuous prayer to weaken the body and humiliate their soul, they achieved what they desired . . .
7. . . . After having obtained this desired gift, they invented the Slav alphabet, translated the God-inspired Scripture from the Greek into the Bulgarian language and took care to pass on the divine knowledge to the more talented among their disciples . . .
62. After this, having conferred with the more judicious men of his attendance, who were all favourably disposed towards Clement as if he were their own father, . . . , he (Tsar Symeon) appointed him Bishop of Drembitsa or Velika and so Clement became the First Bishop in the Bulgarian language.
66. . . . He (Clement) made up simple and clear sermons for all holidays, which do not contain anything profound and wise but are understandable even for the simplest Bulgarian. It was with them that he nourished the souls of the plainer Bulgarians . . .
67. . . . In every way he tried to overcome the indifference of the Bulgarians towards divine matters to get them together, attracted by the beauty of the buildings (of the shrines) and particularly to soften the cruelty, harshness and coarseness of their hearts by their coming to know God. . . .”

Al. Milev, Greek Life Stories of Clement of Ochrida, Sofia, 1966, pp. 79, 81, 129, 133, 135; the original is in Greek.

*Theophylactus refers to the brothers from Salonica, Cyril and Methodius

c. 1190 – Two scribes from Macedonia refer to the Bulgarian tsar Assen as their king, although their lands were in Byzantium at that time.
Remember also your slave Josif [Joseph] and Tihota who wrote this book with the help of our Lord and of the Holy Mother of God Virgin Mary. It was written in the town of Ohrid, in the village called Ravna, in the time of tsar Assen of Bulgaria.*

The Bologna Psalter

* The fact that the authors indicate the time of the compiling of the book with the reign of the Bulgarian tsar although they were subjects of Byzantium testifies to their patriotic feeling.

1326 – The Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras travelling to Strumitsa and Skopje, finds Bulgarians between Struma and Strumitsa.
We were in foreign places and among people who did not know our language. Most of the old inhabitants here are of the Moesians*, that are our neighbours; their customs have mixed with the customs of the people of our tribe. But when later they greeted us in their own tongue good-naturedly and smiling, we cheered up and relaxed and we did not see anything wrong with them.

Nic. Gregorae, Historia Byzantina, ed. Bonn., pp. 375-379

*The Byzantine authors of the periob refer to the Bulgarians as “Moesians” after the name of a tribe that inhabited the Danube plain in antiquity.

http://www.bulgaria.com/VMRO/documen2.htm

“I happen to know, and will demonstrate in a subsequent chapter of this history, that these descendants of Perdiccas [the Macedonians] are, as they themselves claim, of Greek nationality. This was, moreover, recognized by the managers of the Olympic games, on the occasion when Alexander [I Philhellenes] wished to compete and his Greek competiotors tried to exclude him on the ground that foreigners were not allowed to take part. Alexander, however, proved his Argive descent, and so was accepted as a Greek and allowed to enter for the footrace. He came in equal first.”

From Thukidides, “History of the Peloponessian War”:

“…to the Macedonians, in fact, belong also the Linkestes, the Elymiots, and other tribes upwards, who are allies or subjects of the Macedonians but have their own kings. Nowaday coastal Macedonia was first acquired by Alexander [Alexander II of Macedonia], father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, the Temenids, who came from Argos; they reigned after they drove out by force from Pieria the Pieres, who inhabited Phagretus and other localities under Pangaeus beyond Strymon (even now the place under Pangaeus from the sea is called Pierian Gulf). From the so called Botia they also drove out the Botieans, who now live by the Chalcidians. From Paeonia they gained by the Axios a narrow strip, which streches to Pella and the sea; beyond Axios to Strymon they rule the so called Migdonia, from where they drove out the Edones. From nowaday Eordia they pushed out the Eordes from who most perished and a small part have settled by Phisca; from Almopia they chased out the Almopes. Those Macedonians conquered also other tribes over which they rule to this day, as well as Antemunt, Crestonia, Bisaltia and a large portion of the land of the true Macedones. This is all called Macedonia and when Sitalcus attacked it, there reigned Perdiccas, the son of Alexander.”