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Many travelers, journalists and politicians foreign to Macedonia were misinformed by the various mouthpieces of propaganda operating from the 19th century onwards, and much unreliable data exists from this period about the Macedonian people. Were it not for the high amount of propaganda emanating from the neighboring states during that era the sources and accounts of the population would have been more accurate, uniform and trustworthy. Modern antagonists against the Macedonian people, mostly Greeks and Bulgarians, routinely continue their re-born propaganda by using sources of this nature, and present unsuspecting observers with a false picture and manipulated information in their attempts to claim that the Macedonian people were “invisible” until the 20th century.
However, despite the setback of lies and propaganda, reports can still be found of Macedonian existence which was recorded by foreigners. Even those that harboured an obvious grudge or denial against the Macedonian identity could not escape revealing important details which demonstrate the existence of the Macedonian people. The below sources show that the Macedonian people were not invisible, and despite the various forces trying to tear the nation apart, their existence was still recognized and acknowledged by various foreigners, antagonists included. Furthermore, the fact that the Macedonian people have their own history is appreciated, along with the Macedonian language and identity being the most natural to the people.
Regardless of what any Bulgarian, Greek or Serb produces as measly 'evidence' to deny the existence of another people (Macedonians), the testimony of several non-Macedonians says otherwise, and our existence today closes the book on any argument of whether or not a Macedonian nation exists.
However, despite the setback of lies and propaganda, reports can still be found of Macedonian existence which was recorded by foreigners. Even those that harboured an obvious grudge or denial against the Macedonian identity could not escape revealing important details which demonstrate the existence of the Macedonian people. The below sources show that the Macedonian people were not invisible, and despite the various forces trying to tear the nation apart, their existence was still recognized and acknowledged by various foreigners, antagonists included. Furthermore, the fact that the Macedonian people have their own history is appreciated, along with the Macedonian language and identity being the most natural to the people.
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….
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.
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…………
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?
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……….
Pavlos Melas (Greek, soldier, 1904): Kotas (Konstantin Hristov) speaks Macedonian………..
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.
Rene Picard (French, 1916): There is and, in fact, there has always been a Macedonian spirit in Macedonia.
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…………
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…….
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………..
Henri Barbusse (French, writer, 1930): The Macedonians, who have their own separate language and indisputable ethnic originality…..
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.
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.
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..........
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……………
Regardless of what any Bulgarian, Greek or Serb produces as measly 'evidence' to deny the existence of another people (Macedonians), the testimony of several non-Macedonians says otherwise, and our existence today closes the book on any argument of whether or not a Macedonian nation exists.
... I honestly cannot see the confusion. Macedonians call themselves Macedonian. Greeks who wish to have some connection to Macedonia call themselves Greek Macedonians. Same tired bullshit from apologists like you. I note you do not have a place called Macedonia in Greece ... there is another thread on this. Do you have East Macedonian Greeks? Are we really talking about modern disputes here or are you still struggling with issues of antiquity here? Stupid Greek people playing stupid games.
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