"They call themselves Macedonians"

[makedonin]

My translation might not be 100% correct, if so please correct me.

The translation is correct. Daskale, you are German speaker as I see

Here is the part before the quote you have translated:

........, Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks could historically evenly legitimize their claims. That is why they looked into another legitimization of their claims, which is more contemporary:
the Nationality of the population. At first, it were Bulgaria and Greece who started the Propaganda in Macedonia to persuade the Christians of Macedonia (and the public in Europe) that they are Bulgarians
or Greecs. Beside the Churchs, they started building Schools. Also guerrilla penetrated the theritorry of Macedonia, that with gun force were pushing their National agenda. Not much longer, and the serbs joined the game as third power. Until 1875 the Serb interest was focusing on Bosnia and Hercegovina and it's Serb population. After the occupation of the province through double-monarchy (1878)
and specially after the annexion (1908) they focused on Macedonia. The Serbia followed the pattern. They opened schools and sent guerrila.

1912 the rivals came together and with together with Montenegro they fought the Ottomans and drive them away from the Balkans. This war was followed by another war to divide the pray.
the war was put to an end witht he Bukarest treaty on 10 August 1913, where they agreed to divide Macedonia between them. The borders which were agreed upon at the time are almost the same of today.
After the division, they had full juristdiction over their parts and theritorry, so that they could proceed with the assimilation of Slavic population, making them into Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians.
It happened that this assimilation did not went so good as they expected it to be. After decades of different indoctrinations specially at the peasant poplulation there was obvious confisuion
what they are in Nationa sense- if the even understood what that means, and if this aspect was still not confused with the Church affiliation.
Others have developed new conscience - a Macedonian conscience, which most probably had it's origin as answear to the neighbor propaganda: We are nothing from all that, what the others are claiming we are; we are the inhabitants of Macedonia, so we are Macedonians.
Early enought there were representatives similar to another national movments, who researched the Macedonian language and culture and it's tradition, who explicitly talked about "Macedonian Folk". The most explicite definition is found by gergi pulevsik (1838-1895), a mason and autodidact from galichnik in the mountanious west Macedonia, who got around far as work-emigrant. Pulevski actuated in the Phase A in typical national building manner as language researcher. He constituted a grammar of the Macedonian language and published in 1875 in Belgrad the "Dictionary of the three languages"(S.[lavic] Macedonian, Albanian [albanski] and Turkish).
In his mother tongue which he called "Macedonian" and sometimes "Slavo- Macedonian", he wrote:

"Folk(Nation) are people who belong to one race, who speak the same language, who live together and are friends, who cherish the same customs, who have the same music and festivity, this are called Folk(Nation), and the theritorry that this Folk(Nation) is living at is called Fatherland of this Folk(Nation). Therfore the Macedonians are also a Folk(Nation), and their theritorry is Macedonia".

This deffinition from Pulevski includes all the important Elements, that characterize one Nation, for example after the definition of Benedict Anderson. It is all about the presented limited (Descent-) comunity, with common language and culture, friendly relation between equals, and a theritorry. If the striving towards Statehood is part of Nationhood is controversial. Hroch argued that the newest theories about Nationalhood (Gellner, Hobsbawm, Brueilly) are connecting Nationalhood with political Statehood, while the empirical research is not confirming this.
The most of the movments of the 19 Century were striving towards Autonomy.

But the goal of this text is not to research the National building of the Macedonians. It tends to show that during the State building of Yugoslavia (1918) the self identification "Macedonians was already established within the Slavic population. There is abudance of evidence for that, specialy by foreighn observers.

Sorry for the bad english, but you will get the Idea.

The rest will follow.

[Bratot]

How is the translation from German advancing?


Meanwhile, to feed you with more of it:

"Macedonia will be independent and the Macedonians will remain Macedonians.
If Europe thinks otherwise, will be wrong? If the Bulgarians consider on the Bulgarisation of Macedonia, these are illusions. What the Macedonians want is the autonomy for their country, with the intervention of Europe in their favor. No division, no annexation to another state; Macedonia is unique and to the Macedonians. Who can oppose the creation of an autonomous Macedonia? Greeks, for example. Greeks have large claims, it is clear, but after the war of 1897 that they cause, they verified their military incompetence. Macedonians should be recognized and they should be helped to create their own autonomous state in the Balkans, safe and civilized. These people are talented people who would do great deeds. "

Source: Routier Gaston, "La Macеdoine et la question macеdonienne", Paris, 1903


The ereyer Dimitar from Krivopalanechko on his ethnic origin in 1848, he wrote:
"I was born a Macedonian ... It was written by God to my country to suffer from the Greeks, so they do not give us peace even today, although everyone knows that Macedonia was an older state of their empire."


"... To be known, when the villagers from my village Radibush Krivorechka Palanka, appointed me for a teacher in our village school, and for Rankovce and Krivi Kamen, for 1,800 pennies a year. I was born from my father priest Dimitar and mother Vaskresija as 7th child of twelve children, five males and seven females. The Slavic letter I learnt from my father, Dimitar Macedonian, who is called like that because we are Macedonians, not Greeks, and his father was called Joseph priest, and his grandfather Stojmen priest. I took his nickname Macedonian as well, not because of my father and my grandfather, but to know that we are Slavs of Macedonia. "
- (Ден Голема Богородица на 1846. Ѓорѓи Македонски, 15, т.Први, 282)


"... There are still those that today's inhabitants of Macedonia do not consider neither for Serbs or Bulgarians, but a separate ethnicity, probably descendants of the ancient Macedonians. ... "
- Slishkovikj Jakov, "Albania and Macedonia", Sarajevo 1904, pp. 160

[makedonin]

How is the translation from German advancing?

Page 16 right after the translation from the Daskalot:

In Prilep: "On the bridge young man are playing; one is not embarrassed when questioned. "I am Serb, but those "he points to the others" are Macedonians" - "Where are you from?" - "From Nish". And in Resen: "Swarms of boys around the car. "Well, what are you? "He looks up shy and uncomprehending. "He is a Turck", yelled the Chor. "Aha? and you (to the Chore)?"-"Macedonians!", streight out, like out of the gun." Also Edmond Bouchie de Belle stated in 1920, that, if a slavic Peasant from the region of Ostrovo (in Greece) or Monastir (Bitola) was questioned what he is, in nine of ten cases the answear was Makedon. His conclusion was: "Un observateur de bonne foi classera donc a part cette population a laquelle le non de "Slaves Macedoniens" ou simplement de "Macedoniens" parait le mieux convenir". (Translation: An honest observer will classify this population as "Slav Macedonians" or simply "Macedonians" as best suited.)

R.A. Gallop, the third Secretary of the britisch embassy in Belgrade spent one week in April 1926 in Vardar-Macedonia and wrote: "those of the later [Macedo-Slavs] that I ment were equally insistent on calling themselfs neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but Macedonians. [...] There seemed to be no love lost for Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their friends." Oliver C. Harvey from the britisch foreighn office visited the greek and yugoslav part of Macedonia on April and Mai 1926 and concluded: "Tha slavophone population of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themself as distinct from the Serbs. If asked their nationality they say they are "Macedonians", and they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identifiy themself with the Bulgars, although the later seem undoubtedly to be regarded as nearer relatives than the Serbs". To the slavic population in the nord-west of Greece he concluded: "These are of course constitute the much advertised "Serb mnority" [...] But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they speak Macedonian, and call themselfs Macedonians and sentimentally look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."

[Risto the Great]

Thanks Makedonin. Great stuff.
What a shame there were so few honest observers.

[makedonin]

Thanks Makedonin. Great stuff.

My pleasure, the rest will come soon enough.

What a shame there were so few honest observers.

That is what we get when political agena is in play, no honesty there. Understaning the actions or in such cases statements of someone presupposes to understand his motivation for the certain action or in that case statement.

That is the old trick.

Knowing that the political climate was against any Macedonian sentiment in those days, and that climate prevails to this day, it is more than clear that those above are honest and bold observations.

[Bratot]

I have counted like 5 sources on the page 16:



Next?

[TrueMacedonian]

You would figure with all the info gathered in this one topic ignorant Western scholars would finally get their (f)acts together and stop following the trendy line that is mainstream and "correct".

[Daskalot]

The translation is correct. Daskale, you are German speaker as I see

I do my best
Good to hear I translated it correctly.

Thank you Makedonin, for your brilliant translation of the rest of the text.


Bill I will adhere to your request and sticky this thread.

[makedonin]

Thank you Makedonin

My pleasure.

Here is the whole page 17 and the first third of 18:

Colonel A.C. Corfe, who was from New Zealand and President of the mixed commission of the League of Nations who were asisting the Greek-Bulgarian population exchange, has repored after his trip through the west Aegean-Macedonia (Greece), that the people there usualy were saying:"We are Macedonians, not Greeks or Bulgars. Give us a good father and we will be good children. We don't want bands of any sort coming to our villages. We want to be left in peace". Even a Greek army report from 1925 confirmed the self-identification of the large parts of the population as "Macedonians". The author have reported that the population in the area of Florina (Macedonian Lerin), are largely slavic and they could have been put in three groups: fanatic bulgarian followers (bulgarofrone), fanatic greek followers (elinofrones) and the ones who are "indifferent to nationality" and in first place want to live in peace. The last group , which constituted half till the three quarters of the population were calling them self Makedhones i.e Macedonians. One quarter till the half were Bulgarian followers, while only scattered families were found to have Greek consciousness. Here we see for the first time a national confession which does not fit in the predetermined pattern, which was not recognized and was classified as indifference.
A correspondent of the Neuen Zürricher Newspaper, Gerhard Christoph, from Februar 1931 has shed extraordinary light to the complex structure of the national question in Vardar-Macedonia, so that we will cover him here in extent . Christoph has put him self an objective to find out how the ordinary people were understanding them self. In a Hotel near the border with Albania, he got in a relaxed conversation with the hotel host, a peasant and asked him: "Tell me" he asked along the way, "what are you originally?" "I am a Pravoslav" was his answear. "But I did not ask you of your confession", I said. "I am now a Serb", he answeared. - i.e.since when the Serbs took this land over. "I was not interested in your Citizenship, but about your Nationality". Than the correspondent aksed him about what was he during the Ottoman times. The answear was: "We were here an Exarchists" Christoph wanted to know exactly and was chopping further: "So you were Bulgarian?" - "Yes we were working for the Begs- we were Bulgarians" But the Journalist was not satisfied, cause Bulgarian in this case meant dependent peasant, similar to Vlach "untill the introuction of the Romanian Propaganda" identified a nomadic herdsmen. So the correspondent changed his tactics and asked: "What is your language?" I asked the peasant. [...] "I am Macedonian" was his answear, " you know, the Serbs claim that our language is a serb dialect, the Bulgarians claim, we speak bulgarian. What can you do about that..." He seemed untouche from the whole thing. "Look at it" he continued, "do you see the hat on the wall, I wore that before. The serbs say it is a bulgarian hat, therefore I wear a serb cap now. Even the turks of today can't wear their Fes, cause the land now belongs to the Serbs. What can you do about it." The testemony of the host of the hotel is clear enough, even though from the beginning was thrown arround: he persieved him self as Macedonian, it was the others who wanted to make him to believe that he speak serb or bulgarian, and claimed that they can determine who he is, which kind of hat he ought to wear.

[Bratot]

Great!

Another one:



"Macedonian from village Berovo Malesh 1897"

[Bratot]

I think we should make English translation on this as well:







in Macedonian:

[Daskalot]

I have this book in my library but I have not scanned it yet, nice to see that you have posted it Bratot. Yes we do need to translate it also, it is very important and was published in 1913. A crucial year.

[George S.]

more proof that the macedonians do exist.Greek lies are futile !

[Pelister]

The passage highlighted in green is very telling.

It's readily apparent how certain people developed a Greek or Bulgarian conciousness, but, how does one who is described as "indifferent to nationality" develop a Macedonian conciousness?

The answer is...he doesn't because it was already present.

I was surprised when I read it El bre. What another eye opener. It has extra value for me because it is coming from a Greek in 1925 who says 'they called themselves Macedonians', and added to that these Macedonians 'constituted the majority' of population of the region. I am amazed by what everyone here has been posting in this thread. Some of the stuff all of you are coming up with has blown me away. The entire thread is full of home truths we have always known to be true. RTG, something you said in a previous post reminded me also that the idea that we were (and are) a qualitatively and quantitatively suspect people in every sense - is an idea that our invaders have been exporting for over a century now, and that on the ground Greek and Bulgarian nationalism in Macedonia "came later". Its an important point you made.

[George S.]

WE know that the greeks made blatant lies about the identity of the macedonians.Also the greeks told the truth when it suited them.People are saying whether or not the macedonian conciousness existed,well the macedonians have allways been there.They just came out ubtil they were ready,