19th and early 20th century quotes on Macedonians

[Crn Volk]

Quote:
Karl Hron (Austrian, publicist, 1890): It may be shown, from their history as well as from their language, that the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but rather a separate ethnic group….

Quote:
Georgi Bakalov (Bulgarian, 1890): In the villages of Macedonia, one meets peasants of a single nationality speaking a Slavic language and belonging to the Eastern Orthodox faith. Nine out of ten of these people, despite their being the subject of dispute between three adjoining countries, would reply in response to the question as go their nationality, that they were Macedonian.

Quote:
Paul Argyriades (French, socialst, 1896): The Macedonians do not want the kind of caresses which may strangle them. They want to remain Macedonians without any other epithet, guarding for themselves their beautiful Macedonia…………

Quote:
William Gladstone (British, prime minister, 1897): Why not Macedonia for the Macedonians, as well as Bulgaria for the Bulgarians and is Servia for the Servians?

Quote:
Regina Wyon (British, traveler-writer, 1903): We were a cosmopolitan gathering. There was Dr. S., a Roumanian, an Austrian ornithologist, a Scotchman, our innkeeper was a Macedonian, and two or three Montenegrins……… Macedonians, Greeks, and even pure-blooded Turks……….

Quote:
Pavlos Melas (Greek, soldier, 1904): Kotas (Konstantin Hristov) speaks Macedonian………..

Quote:
Spiros Melas (Greek, soldier, 1913): Occasionally, all of a sudden a village woman would step out and start swearing in her own difficult Macedonian language, then, our soldiers would surround her and offering her money would demand bread, wine, brandy or oil.

Quote:
Rene Picard (French, 1916): There is and, in fact, there has always been a Macedonian spirit in Macedonia.

Quote:
R.A Reiss (French, 1918): It is a fact that the Macedonian language is spoken neither in Sofia nor in Belgrade. It is an individual Slav language…………

Quote:
Sister Augustine Bewicke (British, st paul’s hospital, salonika, 1919): The Greeks will not admit the Slav language in Churches or schools; 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…….

Quote:
Antoine Meillet (French, linguist, 1928): Their dialects, differing among themselves, are not truly Serbian nor truly Bulgarian, especially if one is thinking of written Bulgarian, which is based on dialects quite far removed from the Macedonian dialects…..In reality these dialects do not properly belong to either the one or the other of the two groups under dispute………..

Quote:
Henri Barbusse (French, writer, 1930): The Macedonians, who have their own separate language and indisputable ethnic originality…..

Quote:
Penelope Delta (Greek, writer, 1937): Their language was the same, Macedonian, also a blend of Slav and Greek, mixed with Turkish words. As in the Byzantine era, the populations were so mixed that it was difficult to tell apart a Greek from a Bulgarian - the two dominant races. Their only national consciousness was the Macedonian one.

Quote:
H.D Harrison (British, writer, 1938): The majority were Slav by origin, possibly belonging to a separate race akin to both Serbs and Bulgars but identical to neither ………..So intense was this propaganda that the three sons of one man, who had each been to a different school, actually claimed each a different nationality – one Serb, one Bulgar and one Greek – while the father himself claimed to be “Macedonian”………. ……………. There was a strong element in Macedonia which wanted autonomy for that province. They considered that they were neither Serbs nor Bulgars, but an independent Slav race with different traits from either of those two peoples, their own language, literature, and traditions.

Quote:
Andre Vaillant (French, slavicist, 1938): The concept of "Macedonian Slavic" is confusing only for those who want it to be. Macedonian Slavic is to such an extent a reality that there existed in the nineteenth century a Macedonian literary language, the language of a quite limited scholarly literature but of a voluminous popular literature..........

Quote:
Georgi Canev (Bulgarian, literary historian, 1946): Today the fatherland of the Miladinov brothers is a free and equal member of Tito's Federal Yugoslavia. The Macedonian nation is in confident control of its own fate, speaks and studies in the Macedonian language, is building up its own culture. It has already all the social, political and cultural conditions which Goce Delcev, Jane Sandanski, Dimo Hadz'i Di mov and many other sons of Macedonia dreamed of and fought for……………

[Crn Volk]

"The Nationality of the Macedonian Slavs" - Karl Hron, Wien 1890

"Das Volksthum der Slaven Makedoniens" - Karl Hron, Wien 1890

"...From my own studies of the Serbo-Bulgarian dispute I came to the conviction that the Macedonians are an individual nation, both by their history and their language; thus, they are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians..."

*****************

Mr Dmitri Marinko
Titanic Victims » 3rd Class Passengers

Mr Marinko Demetri [1], 23, from Makedonia, (Austria-Hungary [2]) boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a third class passenger (ticket number 349238, £7 17s 11d). His destination is unknown.

Demetri died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Notes
1. His name is sometimes listed as "Dmitri Marinko".
2. "Marriages Births and Deaths ..." lists him as a Macedonian from Austria, the Southampton passenger list lists him as being from Turkey.

References
Contract Ticket List, White Star Line 1912 (National Archives, New York; NRAN-21-SDNYCIVCAS-55[279])
Marriages, births, deaths and injuries that have occurred on board during the voyage (PRO London, BT 100/259-260)
Names and Descriptions of Alien Passengers Embarked at the Port of Southampton, 10 April 1912 (PRO London, BT 27/780B).


**************

Neither Bulgar nor Serb,” said one such old woman, defiantly, when we left the Monastir road at Dobraveni. “I am Macedonian only and I am sick of war.”

Taken from The National Geographic Magazine, “On the Monastir Road”, May 1917, page 388.



*************

January 4, 1919
Sister Augustine Bewicke on the Macedonian autonomy
St. Paul's Hospital, Salonika
Dear Sir,
Please excuse the liberty I take in writing you, it is
because the final settlement in the Balkans is of vital
interest to the Catholics in these countries. - I have been
33 years in this Mission, the Uniate Catholic Mission, which
at the beginning of the Second Balkan War counted about
10,000 Catholics.
The Treaty of Bucharest, which divided Macedonia
without any regard to justice, was the cause of these poor
people being dispersed on account of their Slav language,
which was forbidden in Churches and schools. - The Bishop
had his residence in Salonika, he has now been in exile more
then 3 years, his priests are dispersed, his flock is indeed
without pastors, nor do we have any hope of his return to
any place under Greek or Serbian rule. - The Greeks will not
admit the Slav language in Churches or schools; 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. - In whatever way Macedonia might be
divided, the people would be always discontented, and would
fight again as soon as possible. The only hope I can foresee
is in strong autonomy, which neither Greeks nor Bulgars nor
Serbs would dare attack; then the Macedonians, who are
really intelligent and docile when they are well treated,
would peacefully develop this beautiful fertile country...
Surely Europe will not leave Macedonia under people whom the
Macedonians hate, and whom they will continually fight...
Public Record Office (London)
FO 608/44. Peace Conference (British delegation), 1919.

[Novi Pazar]

^ Sokol, l'm glad there are quotes counteracting the Bulgarian ones post 1872

[Contra Mundum]

So Greeks and Bulgarians do not recognize the Macedonians as a separate and distinct ethnic group?

[Vojnik]

So Greeks and Bulgarians do not recognize the Macedonians as a separate and distinct ethnic group?

No they don't, they both see us as Bulgarians by ethnicity.

Btw, great thread, Sokol. When I get a chance I will add to it some other quotes.

[forsaken]

Btw, great thread, Sokol.

Great? This is a rather simplistic compilation of poorly cited and largely misdirected quotes.

It would be highly advantageous for all of us to remember that the 'Macedonian' identity started off as a regional identity. All those from the region of Macedonia, were 'Macedonians' regardless of their ethnic identity.

I am Macedonian only and I am sick of war.

The quote above is not representative of an ethnic 'Macedonian' identity. It is representative of people who feared for the well being of their families, their property, and their own lives. A self identification of being Bulgarian in both Serb and Greek dominated Macedonia brought along with it brutal, severe, and even fatal punishment. Hence why the old woman ends her statement with: "I am sick of war."

But fear not for there's a simple remedy for your misguided out-of-context quotes and it's called 'extensive background reading of neutral sources'.

[morski]

Quote:


Quote:
Georgi Canev (Bulgarian, literary historian, 1946): Today the fatherland of the Miladinov brothers is a free and equal member of Tito's Federal Yugoslavia. The Macedonian nation is in confident control of its own fate, speaks and studies in the Macedonian language, is building up its own culture. It has already all the social, political and cultural conditions which Goce Delcev, Jane Sandanski, Dimo Hadz'i Di mov and many other sons of Macedonia dreamed of and fought for……………

That one is priceless.

As if we do not know that the Macedonian nation is largely a communist creation and that Bulgarian communists were Stalinist puppets and bloody traitors.

[Crn Volk]

Great? This is a rather simplistic compilation of poorly cited and largely misdirected quotes.

It would be highly advantageous for all of us to remember that the 'Macedonian' identity started off as a regional identity. All those from the region of Macedonia, were 'Macedonians' regardless of their ethnic identity.


The quote above is not representative of an ethnic 'Macedonian' identity. It is representative of people who feared for the well being of their families, their property, and their own lives. A self identification of being Bulgarian in both Serb and Greek dominated Macedonia brought along with it brutal, severe, and even fatal punishment. Hence why the old woman ends her statement with: "I am sick of war."

But fear not for there's a simple remedy for your misguided out-of-context quotes and it's called 'extensive background reading of neutral sources'.

Yes, spin it any way you like. I know it hurts you Bulgars and Greeks that we exist and we have our own state. I'll also be adding some more to this thread, which directly challenges your propaganda that Macedonians were created by Tito.

[Crn Volk]

[Crn Volk]