is a marble slab with Cyrillic letters of
Ivan Vladislav from 1016. The text reports that he was
Tsar of Bulgaria and Bulgarian by birth, and his subjects were Bulgarians. who reigned as the
tsar of Bulgaria (1257–1277) , 1882 after the
Second Balkan War greeting the
IMRO revolutionary
Kosta Tsipushev by his return, after the Bulgarian annexation of
Vardar Macedonia in 1941
Ottoman period from
Ohrid with
Bulgarian flag on it and the inscription
Свобода или смърть. The insurgents flew Bulgarian flags everywhere. Per
Apostolos Vacalopoulos, from the beginning of the 18th century, there is mention only of Bulgarians by the travellers in the area, which reveals they formed the largest Slavic community and gradually absorbed the sparse Serbian element here. In the 19th
Slavs in Ottoman Macedonia began to acquire a mainly Bulgarian national identity, since until then, despite being known as Bulgarian
by name, they were an amorphous mass in terms of ethnic consciousness. Although the word Bulgarian, rather than ethnic, generally had a
social connotation of poor, Slav-speaking peasant, since most of the Slavic population lived in the rural parts of Macedonia and were mainly
chiflik labourers. In this way, in the struggle for recognition of a separate
national Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created, and the religious affiliation became a consequence of national allegiance. The semi-official term
Bulgarian Millet, was used by the Ottoman Sultan for the first time in 1847, and was his tacit consent to a more ethno-linguistic definition of the Bulgarians as a separate ethnic group. Officially as a separate
Millet were recognized the
Bulgarian Uniates in 1860, and then in 1870 the
Bulgarian Exarchists. In the second half of the 19th century, rival Bulgarian, Greek and Serb nationalism used religious and educational institutions to "persuade" Macedonia's population that they are part of their respective nation. The establishment of the
Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 indicated a period of intense antagonism in Macedonia, mainly seen as expression of "national" consciousness of Macedonian Bulgarians. Unsurprisingly the majority of the Slavic population affiliated with the Slavic (Bulgarian) Church over the non-Slavic
Greek one. Furthermore, opting for the Exarchate was far from being defined as nationally motivated, and with that as allegiance to the Bulgarian national cause. The functioning of the
Bulgarian Exarchate then aimed specifically at differentiating the Bulgarian from the
Greek and
Serbian populations on an ethnic and linguistic basis, providing the open assertion of a Bulgarian
national identity. However one basic distinction between the political agendas of local intelligentsias was clear. The
Macedonian Greeks and Serbs followed, in general, the directives coming from their respective centers of national agitation, while by the Bulgarians the term
Macedonian was acquiring the significance of a certain political loyalty, that progressively constructed a particular spirit of
regional identity. Contemporary travellers, ethnographers and linguists, including Slovak philologist
Pavel Jozef Šafárik (1842), French geologist
Ami Boué (1847, 1854), French ethnographer
Guillaume Lejean (1861), English travel writers
Georgina Muir Mackenzie and
Paulina Irby (1867), Russian ethnographer
Mikhail Mirkovich (1867), Czech folklorist
Karel Jaromír Erben (1868), German cartographer
August Heinrich Petermann (1869), German geographer
Heinrich Kiepert (1876), Austrian diplomat Karl Sax (1877), etc. clearly identified the Slavs living in the part of
Rumelia currently known as
Kosovo as
Serbs and only referred to the Slavs living in the
Macedonia as
Bulgarians. All of them also established the ethnographic boundary between Serbs and Bulgarians along the
Šar Mountains. According to
Encyclopædia Britannica, at the beginning of the 20th century the Macedonian Bulgarians constituted the majority of the population in the whole region of Macedonia, then part of the
Ottoman Empire. Although wearing the mantle of national ideology, the alignment of Macedonian Slavs to different national camps was not indeed belonging to an ethnic group, but rather political and flexible option. Contemporary observers used "party", "side" and "wing" when they wanted to denote different camps. Thus, this notion had not yet developed into a clear national identity in some non-Greek speaking parts of Macedonia. Furthermore, any expression of national identity among the majority of Macedonian Slavs was very superficial and was imposed by the
educational and religious propaganda or by
terrorism from armed bands. Many foreign observers who visited Macedonia assumed that the local Slavs speak Bulgarian, however more astute observers concluded that Macedonian Slavs linguistically were not Bulgarians nor Serbs. Per
John Van Antwerp Fine during the 19th century, Macedonian was merely a
regional term, while the Slavic Macedonians who had a clear ethnic identity, believed they were Bulgarians. However, ethnic identity existed among small number of educated people, while the peasantry lacked any strong identity and national debates were meaningless to their concern. Per
Barbara Jelavich, an argument can be made that Macedonian Slavs were neither Bulgarians or Serbs, but the idea that they form a unique nationality of their own became significant after World War II. In the
Principality of Bulgaria the ethnic Bulgarian identification developed into a national ideology meanwhile between Macedonian Slavs the meaning remained vague, which made the divergence grow, especially in
Vardar Macedonia after 1913.
After the Balkan wars a notorious Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary. The
Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and
World War I (1914–1918) left Ottoman Macedonia divided between
Greece,
Serbia and
Bulgaria and resulted in significant changes in its ethnic composition. All of the countries pursued a policy of trying to assimilate the inherited population. As a consequence a sizable part of the Slavic population of
Greek and Serbian (later Yugoslav Macedonia), fled to Bulgaria or was resettled there by virtue of a population exchange agreements (
Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine,
Politis-Kalfov Protocol). Within Greece, the Macedonian Slavs were designated "Slavophone Greeks", while within Serbia (later within
Yugoslavia) they were officially treated as "South Serbs". In both countries, schools and the media were used to disseminate the national ideologies and identities, and also the languages, of the new ruling nations, the Greeks and the Serbs. These cultural measures were reinforced by steps to alter the composition of the population: Serb colonists were implanted in Yugoslav Macedonia, while in Greek Macedonia, the mass settlement of
Greek refugees from
Anatolia definitively reduced the Slav population to minority status. In
Serbian Macedonia any manifestations of Bulgarian nationhood were suppressed. Even in the so-called
Western Outlands ceded by
Bulgaria in 1920 Bulgarian identification was prohibited. The Bulgarian notes to the
League of Nations, consented to recognize a Bulgarian minority in Yugoslavia were rejected. The members of the Council of the League assumed that the existence of some Bulgarian minority there was possible, however, they were determined to keep Yugoslavia and were aware that any exercise of revisionism, would open an uncontrollable wave of demands, turning the Balkans into a battlefield. Belgrade was suspicious of the recognition of any Bulgarian minority and was annoyed this would hinder its policy of forced "
Serbianisation". It blocked such recognition in neighboring Greece and Albania, through the failed ratifications of the
Politis–Kalfov Protocol in 1924 and the
Albanian-Bulgarian Protocol (1932). During the
interwar period the foreign observers proceeded with describing the Macedonian Slavs as a nationally oblivious peasantry. However, in Vardar Macedonia a
Macedonian national identity started growing.
Formation of a separate Macedonian identity Some researchers agree that the bulk of the Slavs in the region could not identify what they are, although certainly they were resentful to a Serbian identification, As a whole the existence of an appreciable Macedonian national consciousness prior to the 1940s is arguable. When the
Bulgarian troops occupied most of the area, they were greeted as liberators, pro-Bulgarian feelings among the local Slavic population prevailed in Greece and
Yugoslavia. Although in Yugoslavia this was an effect from the
previous suffering rule which had negative impact on the majority of the population. Also, in Greece afterwards efforts were undertaken by the Bulgarian authorities to instill in them a Bulgarian national identity. In
Yugoslav Macedonia the Slavs were seen as "backward Bulgarians" and in an
attempt to assimilate them an oppressive regime was established which as backlash stimulated the further development of a Macedonian national consciousness. According to political scientist Mirjana Maleska, the nation-building process was reinforced by strong
Bulgarophobia, partly influenced by past hardships that Macedonians experienced as a result of certain nationalist and chauvinistic circles in Bulgaria. The new authorities began a policy of removing of any Bulgarian influence and supporting a distinct Macedonian national consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. The overwhelming majority of the Slavic population in Macedonia accepted the emerging Macedonian national identity without a problem, and the establishment of the
Macedonian republic fostered strong loyalty to the Yugoslav federation among the Macedonians. It has been claimed that from 1944 till the end of the 1940s people espousing pro-Bulgarian views had been oppressed. According to Bulgarian sources more than 100,000 men were imprisoned and some 1,200 prominent Bulgarians were sentenced to death. A few years later, a complete turnaround occurred and the
Bulgarian Communist Party began denying the existence of a Macedonian nationality. Therefore, the number of Macedonians decreased to below 10,000 in 1965 and eventually, in a assimilation gesture, they were erased from the statistical data. As a result the rest of Macedonian Slavs, with exception of
Bulgarian Macedonia, proceeded to identify as ethnic Macedonians or were
Hellenized. Nevertheless, people with Bulgarian consciousness or
Bulgarophile sentiments still live in
North Macedonia and
Greece. After the
European Union membership of
Bulgaria, more than 50,000
Macedonians applied for
Bulgarian citizenship. In order to obtain it they must sign a statement declaring they are
Bulgarians by origin. More than 120,000 Macedonian nationals have already received Bulgarian citizenship. However, this phenomenon is primarily caused by economic reasons because the
Bulgarian passport, contrary to the
Macedonian one, allows free entry to
EU states and the right to seek employment. The passports are issued at a cost of several hundred
Euros and also provide the Macedonian
notaries an opportunity for corrupt earnings as they submit false declarations on their clients behalf in which they declare Bulgarian origin of their parents. ==See also==