Category: А15 Странски изјави

In the district of Ostrovo/Bitola, nine times out of ten these people, despite being the subject of dispute by three adjoining countries – Serbia, Bulgarian and Greece – would reply in response to the question as to their nationality that they were Macedonians. „… Во подрачјето на Острво/Битола девет од десет од овие луѓе кои и покрај што биле предмет…

Gloomy and grave, the Macedonian peasant has none of the braggadocio and trifling spirit of the Hellenic peasant. The women, beautiful and chaste, work in the fields like the men…They are a good, strong race, laborious, sedentary, loving their country, and full of promise for their future.

• 1926.04.19 • The Macedonian Slavs considered and called themselves ‘Makedonci’. • 1926.04.26 • Those people whom I had met were insistent on calling themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians. There seemed to be no love lost for the Bulgarians.

The inhabitants of Macedonia are in the great majority Slavs; they call themselves Macedonians, and what they desire and what we ardently desire for them is an autonomy under European control.

We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians.

I asked him if he was a Bulgarian? ‘I’m not.’ I asked him if he was a Serb, Greek, or perhaps even a Tsintsar. ‘No, I am not. I am a Macedonian from Veles.’