In anticipation of negotiations on the accession of North Macedonia to the EU, the Bulgarian authorities decided to explain to Europe that the Macedonian people and language do not exist. According to Sofia, all this is a haze and a totalitarian communist legacy. Is this really so, and what does the Bulgarian “Maidan” have to do with it, the victim of which is the old enemy of Russia?
The Bulgarian-Macedonian question is similar to the Russian-Ukrainian issue in many ways, which makes it easy for Russians to put themselves in the shoes of their “brothers”.
But, if in all conscience, it is not necessary to root for them in this conflict.
“Everything has already been stolen before us”
Modern Bulgaria is a plague corner of the EU. The poorest state (the Romanians made good use of the Brussels money and fled forward), the most corrupt (for the third month already, protests against the merger of the government with the oligarchs have been taking place in the republic) and with the worst index of media freedom in the Union (the press is controlled by the very oligarchs). In general, it’s not fun to be Bulgarian.
But once they were also trotters: as early as 632, Khan Kurbat united the scattered tribes, creating Great Bulgaria.
In other words, Bulgaria is one of the most ancient states in Europe, which has survived to this day, which is well remembered there and loudly claims to be historic.
Young, small, problematic and even by Bulgarian standards, impoverished North Macedonia is difficult to claim historical greatness, but it is sincerely trying. This can be seen especially well in the capital – Skopje. It was first mentioned in the sources of the 1st century AD, but almost no one and almost never considered this deeply provincial city as a possible capital of an independent state, especially after the 1963 earthquake that destroyed 75% of its buildings.
However, it nevertheless became the state capital, and Macedonia was the only republic that left the SFRY without a war. Now this city is lined with hundreds of monuments to the “great Macedonians” and because of this it strongly resembles the buffet of an old lady who collects dust collectors.
In the very center are the statues of Alexander the Great and his father Philip II, that is, the historical claims of the Macedonians extend even to the great ancient empire, whose population had nothing to do with the Slavs. Because of this with the Macedonians the Greeks had a long litigationwho did not want to share their own heritage, in particular, blocked Skopje’s path to the EU and NATO.
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The Macedonians borrowed from the Bulgarians no less, and in a sense – much more. The concept of “Macedonism”, professed by the government, calls Macedonian the first Slavic state language, referring to the state of the Bulgarian king Samuel. At the same time, Bulgaria is in fact denied the role of “the cradle of Slavic culture”, since the inventor of the Cyrillic alphabet, a student of Cyril and Methodius, Clement Ohridsky lived in the city of Ohrid, a tourist pearl in the south-west of modern Macedonia. Of course, he also belongs to the Macedonians, despite belonging to the First Bulgarian Kingdom.
We see something very similar in our neighbors, where the ancient ukry dug the Black Sea, Kievan Rus was equated with Ukraine, and Russian historical figures from the Queen of France Anna Russian to the aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky were recorded as Ukrainians.
In Russia, this annoys many, and the Bulgarians are so irritated that it can be scary to look at them at historical conferences. From the point of view of the “brothers”, there are no Macedonians (and there are only spoiled Bulgarians, introduced into temptation), just as the Macedonian language does not exist – this is one of three variants of Bulgarian.
The modern Slavic statehood, with its capital in Skopje in Bulgarian Sofia, is accused, at best, of parasitizing on national history and culture, at worst, of the ethnocide of the Bulgarian population, which is already a crime against humanity.
By the way, Bulgarians have similar claims to Russia, VZGLYAD newspaper is about this. wrote earlier.
And the most beloved thesis of the Bulgarian radicals is that the whole Macedonian nation with all its attributes was invented by the communist dictatorship. And there really is some truth in this.
Under the flag of the UPA *
The first talk about the existence of a special Slavic Macedonian people, separate from the Bulgarians, although similar to them, arose among the local intelligentsia in the second half of the 19th century. At the very beginning of the 20th century, the philologist, historian and politician Krste Misirkov created the Macedonian literary language. But by the beginning of World War II, the overwhelming majority of the Slavs inhabiting present-day North Macedonia called themselves either Bulgarians, or simply Slavs, without frills.
Two of the three Macedonian Slavs were illiterate, and neighboring Bulgaria – not God knows what a rich country they perceived as a land of order, prosperity and prosperity. Therefore, the Bulgarian occupation was accepted by many with joy, since the nominal head of the aggressor state then was Tsar Boris III – a popular person in the Balkans, almost legendary and loved by the common people.
The return of Macedonian, as well as some Serbian and Greek lands in Bulgaria was part of the national idea, which ultimately led the country to an alliance with Hitler. Boris III repeatedly met with the Fuhrer, but was not a fan of his ideas, in addition, he was forced to take into account the Russophile sentiments among the people and part of the elites.
As a result, Sofia was part of the fascist bloc, as it were, at minimum wages. For example, she did not send soldiers to the eastern front and did not intervene in the war between Germany and Greece and Yugoslavia. More precisely, it did not intervene until Belgrade and Athens surrendered, after which the Bulgarian troops quickly occupied the lands of interest.
In Bulgarian historiography, this is presented as “liberation”, which has some logic: if Macedonia had not been occupied by the Bulgarians, it would have been occupied by the Germans. In the same way, in the USSR, they justified the rejection of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus from Poland, they say, we are taking ours under the protection of ours.
The Greeks were not at all reassured by this, and the Macedonians were generally pleased. True, this lasted only a few months, after which, to their surprise, the club of the people’s war fell on the heads of the Bulgarians, and yesterday’s “brothers-liberators” suddenly became synonymous with all the worst for the Macedonians.
In Sofia, they shyly attribute the change in Macedonian sentiment to the death of the popular Tsar Boris, but for the most part it is not about him.
First, Macedonia was flooded with Bulgarian officials – arrogant and corrupt. They treated the local population with arrogance and quickly turned it against themselves.
Secondly, a forced Bulgarianization was carried out, in particular, all schools were promptly transferred to the Bulgarian language standard, the same applied to all places of acceptance, and for everything Macedonian they began to shame and even punish. The old-timers could not endure such interference in their private life, and partisans began to boil in the republic.
As for the communists of Tito, the stake on the nationally oriented Macedonians as opposed to the Hitlerite allies, the Bulgarians became quite logical for them, moreover, they became familiar (in the same way, a separate nation of Boshnyaks was invented at the headquarters of Josip Broz). The Slavs, dissatisfied with the Bulgarian boors, formed the basis of the new government in the republic.
Interestingly, Germany also had a separate Macedonian project. The Nazi regime did not approve the incorporation of Macedonia into Bulgaria (the protectorate of Sofia over these lands was regarded as temporary) and cooperated with the VMRO – the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, or Macedonian nationalists. At first, they supported the Bulgarians, then, like other Macedonians, they became disillusioned with them, and in September 1944 they proclaimed the Independent Republic of Macedonia (NPR), which existed for two months. For Hitler, she was a lever of influence on Sofia, so that she would not dare to leave the Nazi bloc and go over to the side of the Allies.
By the way, the flag of VMRO and NRP is completely identical to the flag of the UPA, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
This is where the similarity with Ukraine ends. The Republic of Macedonia with the Macedonian state language is indeed a project of the communists, but the project is, above all, anti-Nazi. And the fact that he is also anti-Bulgarian, the Bulgarians themselves are to blame.
The villain’s last refuge
In July 2020, several activists led by former Minister of Justice Hristo Ivanov landed on a beach in the city of Burgas. They were quickly escorted out of there by the guards, to which they had no right – the land was in state ownership. Thus, the expedition fulfilled its mission: Ivanov wanted to check whether “ordinary Bulgarians” could have a rest on the beach, if there is also the residence of Ahmed Dogan, a businessman and politician of Turkish origin, who is called the “gray cardinal” of the Bulgarian government, who runs the country on shares with the prime minister – Minister Boyko Borisov and the oligarch-media magnate Delyan Peevski.
These events became the trigger for numerous protests, in which up to 400 thousand citizens of the country took part. The rallies continue to this day, demanding the resignation of Borisov and Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev. According to the opposition, together with Dogan and Peevski, they formed a criminal clique and plunged the country into a corruption swamp.
In early autumn, protesters even attempted to storm the parliament building, resulting in dozens of injuries and hundreds of arrests.
That is, it is the Maidan. In Russia, they do not like Maidans, but you need to look here not at the general background, but at the details.
Boyko Borisov is a national-conservative, Russophobe and absolutely pro-American figure, through whose efforts the Russian projects of South Stream and the Belene NPP were buried. And the protesters are supported by socialists, from old memory, focused on cooperation with Moscow, and the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, who with some advance is referred to as a politician pro-Russian.
However, Borisov has also had a disgusting image in the EU for some time now. European media outlets compare his government to a mafia clan and predict a crushing defeat for the ruling GERB party in elections scheduled for the spring.
In the meantime, there is time before them, Borisov is trying to do at least something, for example, to return to his side the nationalists who have gone over to the opposition contrary to the previous agreements. So was born memorandum, sent to European capitals, in which Sofia explains her position on the Macedonian issue: there are no Macedonians, there is no Macedonian language either, so the Bulgarians living in North Macedonia need to “break with the ideological legacy of communist Yugoslavia” before joining the EU.
This is a PR campaign in its purest form. Boyko will not have the courage to block the process of North Macedonia’s accession to the EU, because it was not for his sake that this country was broken through the knee and forced to change the name.
Not to mention the fact that the main voice against the EU enlargement into the Balkans now belongs to French President Emmanuel Macron – he does so for their own reasons and hardly interested in the opinion of the Bulgarians.
Denying the whole people the right to exist, Borisov wants to present himself as the defender of the Bulgarian historical heritage from the Macedonian “marauders”. From his point of view, this way he will remind the voters of the mafioso less, but from the point of view of the Macedonians he reminds the mafioso right now.
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