Category: А15 Странски изјави

Macedonians fought side-by-side with the Greeks during the long and bitter struggle for Grecian independence. When the Servians revolted, Macedonians swarmed through the mountain passes to render assistance; when the Bulgarian rebellion broke out, Macedonians hurried to stand side-by-side to fight, and, if necessary to die with men of an alien race having nothing in common with themselves but hatred…

The Macedonians, who have their own separate language and indisputable ethnic originality, do not have the right to be called Macedonians.

It happens that Macedonians who come to Bulgaria continue to call themselves Macedonians … In Bulgaria, whether they are descended from a Macedonian who travelled eastward in 1878, or whether they are quite recent emigrants, they call themselves Macedonians. p.627

The Slavophone population of Serbian Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say that they are Macedonians, and they speak the Macedonian dialect. • • • The inhabitants here [Aegean Macedonia] are no more than the Macedonians of Serbia – they speak Macedonian they call themselves Macedonians.  

Neither Greece nor Serbia is expected to give up Macedonian territory for a possible future Macedonia. … It is therefore improbable that the Macedonian question will be revived except through the possible cruelties of Greeks and Serbs in their treatment of the Macedonians.

You, Macedonian, do not listen to them because their words are deceptions. The Balkan monarchies know very well the price of your land. They are not fighting for your wellbeing or for your freedom; instead, they are fighting for the wealth of your land and your enslavement. … Stand under the flag of autonomy because only under this flag will…

The Macedonians and the Hellenes, or native Greeks, engage in constant reprisals which sometimes amount to border warfare.

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.’