Category: А15 Странски изјави

In English, Slavish and Macedonian languages that fact will be proclaimed throughout Steelton today.

For long years past the Macedonians have strived for an independent Macedonia, but this was made impossible by the policies of the great powers interested. They were, however, on the verge of achieving this ideal after the First Balkan War, when the interference of Austria in Albania caused Serbia and Greece to demand a revision of the treaty which had…

Finally, there is one more phenomenon that cannot be ignored. This is the aspiration of the Macedonians to remain by themselves, which they are trying to attain…And this striving began to be aroused, especially as a result of the contrasts between the Bulgarian and the Macedonian tongues, and between the Bulgarian and the Macedonian characters, since the time when Bulgarian…

‘You are certainly a Serb?’ I asked one of the litigants in court. ‘Well, that’s how it is now. When the Bulgarians were here I was a ‘Bulgarian’. The Serbs arrived, I am now ‘Serb’, but I am a Christian. ‘You want to be closer to the Greeks.’ ‘No, Greek is something else, I’m a Macedonian.’

Alexandroff also stated that, if only his demands were granted, the Macedonians would lay down their arms and recognize the Serbian Kingdom, subject, of course, to it being reconstructed as a Federal State in which Macedonia would enter on equal rights with the other members of the Yugoslav Federation.  

Macedonia, as a completely geographical and ethnographic unit, which is fully located in the Ottoman Empire, and occupies approximately the same area as the territories of the free Balkan countries – Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria – with its two convenient ports on the Aegean Sea, has the right to exist and can exist as an independent political entity.

The 24th, being the feast of the Macedonian Saints Cyril and Method, is one of the great holidays of the year, when school feasts, ‘kerinesses,’ &c., take place amid general rejoicing.

• 1932.08 • United Front of the Workers and Peasants declares that the struggle for support of the oppressed nationalities: the Macedonians, Turks and Armenians is a general task of all the working population in Greece. This struggle should be directed against spiritual, political and economic oppression and against the forcible Hellenization practiced in schools. • 1934.04.06 • The whole…

And the facts say that a great part of the Macedonian population has more a Macedonian than a Macedo-Bulgarian consciousness. According to reliable facts, supplied by our competent comrades of Macedonia itself, the Macedonian consciousness has penetrated quite deeply, especially among the younger generation, which was not exposed to Exarchistic propaganda. According to these comrades, who are fully acquainted with…

Therefore, in regard to the question whether the Macedonian dialects are Serbian or Bulgarian, I would answer that they are not entirely either Serbian or Bulgarian, but that most of them belong to an individual dialect type (which may be called the Macedonian language).

• Pg. 13 • Do not say the Greeks and the Bulgarians; say the Macedonians. • Pg. 33 • The three vilayets or provinces – a term which is still officially applied to the reform area…happens to correspond with the limits assigned by travelers and geographers to Macedonia. There have been, and there still may be living, persons who deny…

• Pg. 20 • The Turk hates the Bulgar, the Serb hates the Austrian, the Roumanian hates the Greek, the Albanian hates the Montenegrin, the Bosnian hates the Turk, while the Macedonian hates everybody all around. • • • Indeed, no nation in the Balkan Peninsula had shown such a power of organization, such sacrificing spirit, and such fighting qualities…

Yet in Southern Macedonia there was at first no enmity between the purely Greek villages and those speaking the Macedonian dialect. … Being neither Turkish nor Greek, we called them Bulgarian, but their language is not Bulgarian, but the Macedonian dialect, and I found lovable people among them, honest, hospitable, and kind. … It was difficult for a boy to…

These hostile Churches were the cause of the recent disturbances in Macedonia. Greeks and Bulgarians especially converted the villages with fire and sword, and in Macedonia and all along the Albanian frontier it must never be forgotten, in dealing with the boundary question, that Greek, Bulgarian and Servian means the adherence of the Orthodox Church in those countries, and not…

These Macedonians have a character and a dialect of their own, such as would justify their being considered one of the many distinct Yugo-Slav types.