• 1871.01.18 – ‘Македонија’ – Македонски в’прос •
Многу пати имаме слушано од Македонистите, дека тие не се Бугари, туку Македонци, потомци на древните Македонци и секогаш чекавме доказ од нив, но никогаш не го добивме. Македонците никогаш не ни покажале основа за таквото мислење. Ни се спротивставуваат нам гледајќи се како Македонци, што тие воопшто не можат да го докажат. Ние исто така имаме слушнато други тврдења. Некои Македонци се делат од нас со причината: дека тие се чисти Славјани, а Бугарите биле Татари, или не знам што ние би биле
We have often heard from the Macedonians that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians, descendants of the ancient Macedonians, and we have always waited for evidence of this, but we never got it. The Macedonians have never shown us the basis of such an opinion. They oppose us by seeing themselves as Macedonians, which they cannot prove at all. We have also heard other claims. Some Macedonians are separated from us by the reason: that they are pure Slavs and the Bulgarians were Tatars, or what I don’t know what we would be.
• 1989 – Tsocho Bilyarski – Iliya Paskov, Pisma na Petko Rachev Slaveĭkov po uniyata v Makedoniya prez 1874g., “Vekove”, XVIII, 1, Sofia, 1989, p. 73-74 •
The cunning and unscrupulous sermons of Monsignor Neil, the foolish perseverance of the local Orthodox man, the schism, the uncluttered sentences (preachers) are the levers of the movement; but the most dangerous enemy is this: To the few small ambitious Bulgarians from Macedonia who, out of close love for their homeland and an incomprehensible preference for their native language, which seduced them to work for its supremacy, have recently been joined by Serbian propaganda and Greek propaganda. who, without showing the population their second thoughts, suggest to them very pernicious ideas: e.g. that they are not Bulgarians, but Macedonians, ie. something higher than the other Bulgarians (Alexander’s descendants!) that they can and should be leaders of the Bulgarian people, because the Bulgarian hierarchy was and is theirs, with such sermons of foreigners, supported by our fools, irritating the population, they have arrived to spread these thoughts contentedly and to set them on the perilous path of separation, and the first fruits of these sermons are: the distrust of the Exarchate and the secret opposition to its efforts to unite them in ecclesiastical terms.
The litter of this nasty and pernicious thought is today for today Veles, from where I made very heavy and sad impressions. They want the type and character of the place where their city lies. Proud, steep and high-minded like the rocks, sublime that surrounds them, but like them and barren and inaccessible, limited and short-sighted as the horizon in their place, and violent as the current of the Vardar, as foaming and pushing to break through and push their ideas…
