THE SLAVIC MIGRATION
SLAVIC APPEARANCE IN GREECE
First Appearance
The first written appearance of the Slavic Tribes at the Balkan was in the 5th century. The sources speak of many disunited tribes divided into two groups north of the Danube the Antes and the Slaveni. At the same time followed the same path we had the appearance of a large number of Turkic people including Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Cumans and Pechenegs.
Most of the Balkans was settled by Slavs of one of two types (excluding the smaller groups of Slavic Slovenes and Turkic Avars in the Western Balkans). Each of these two main Slavic groups was to be named for a second conquering group who appeared later in the 7th century. Were the Danubian Bulgars. The exact ethnic origin of them is controversial. It is in any case most probable that they had enveloped groupings of diverse origins during their migration westwards across the Eurasian steppes, and they undoubtedly spoke a form of Turkic as their main language.
This groups, the Danubian Bulgars, whose Slavic component according Bulgarian historian Zlatarski called them as Bulgarian-Macedonian derives from the Antes. They were conquered in the late 7th century by the Turkic Bulgars or the Slavs eventually assimilated them, but the Bulgars name survived. It denoted this Slavic group from the 9th century through the rest of the medieval period into modern days. Until the late 19th century both outside observers and those Bulgaro-macedonians who had ethnic consiousness believed that their group, which is now two separate nationalities, comprised a single people, the Bulgarians. Thus the reader should ignore references to ethnic Macedonians in the Middle Ages which appear in some modern works. In the Middle Ages and into the 19th century the Macedonian Term was used entirely in reference to a geographical region (as also the Thracian,Moesian e.t.c.) Anyone who lived within its confines, regardless of nationality could called as a Macedonian .
Neverthless, the absence of a national counsiousness in the past is no grounds to reject the Slav-macedonians of the FYROM as a nationality today with the obligation of course to be a severe and direct demarcation with the others Macedonians that consider themselfs as Greeks, Bulgarians, Vlachs, e.t.c.
For the story the second Slavic group was the Serbo-Croatian that according Zlatarski derives from the Slaveni. These Slavs came to be dominated by two diffrent but similar tribals peoples called Serbs and Croats in the 2nd quarter of the 7th century
References:
1-Ancient Medieval Cambringe History
2-The Making Of the Slavs, Kurta
3-The Macedonian Question,Dimiter Minchev
4-Medieval Balkan History, Finne
Ethnic and Historical Origins of F.Y.R.O.M - Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Overview
This Page is reserved to highlight the historic and ethnic origins of the Slavs of fyrom and the historical circumstances under which the first emergence of the ethnically artificial 'Macedonism' occured during the 19th century. These Macedonists were defined as a group favouring an autonomous or independent Macedonian state. As an extension of this they favoured, in differing degrees, the complete or partial seperation from the Slavo-Bulgarian consciousness in the region of a Slavic 'Macedonian ethnicity' and hence also a 'Macedonian' conciousness and language. The ideology drew on the historical legacy of the region with an implied sense of ethnicity in order to draw support to its cause. It was an ideology which then later found its fruition, having initially been adopted before WW2 by Balkan party commiterns under Soviet supervision, when it was formally adopted, subsumed and exploited by Yugoslavia under Partisan leader Tito in the aftermath of WW2. The situation exists today in the form where the Slavs of F.Y.R.O.M (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) have a 'Macedonian' nationality, a nationality having been constructed, with multiple factors contributing for over a century. Primary and secondary sources following will illustrate this point.
Overview of Slavic Migratory history in the Balkans and Macedonia
Slavs had arrived in the region after crossing the Danube during the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The inhabitants of Macedonia of significant numbers prior to the large Slavic migrations, were the Greeks, the Vlachs (A Romanized people), Albanians (North West). Smaller settlements of Turkish inhabitants came with the advent of Ottoman rule as well as a small percentage of Gypsy Roma who inhabited the area. Come the Slavic migrations, the bulk of the Vardar (FYROM) region's Slavs were recorded as being ethnic Bulgarians; and as well in the North around Skopje there was an encroaching Serbian influence.
Note* The fact that Slavic Migrations occured over 1000 years after the time of the ancient kingdom of Macedon in the 6th and 7th centuries, is obviously ignored by Skopjian revisionist historians who claim that a Slavonic Macedonian ethnicity has existed for 2000 years with a continuation of Ancient Macedon. Nevertheless we will not dwell on that fact as this page is specifically designed to describe the historic origins of F.Y.R.O.M and its 'Macedonian' ethnogenosis, an ethnogenosis which occured over a millenia after the first Slavic migrations to the area. For further information and sources visit the Slavic History and Slavic Migration pages
Introduction - Ethnogenesis
It is a fact that the Slavs of FYROM now have an artificial 'ethnic Macedonian' conscience and owe this to various historical and political circumstances. This political turmoil involved the forcefully competing interets in Macedonia of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires as well as the emerging nation states; Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. The first origins of this 'Macedonism' are found in the mid-to-latter stage of the 19th century as an ideology with little influence on the Slavic population of Macedonia initially. The outcome of these circumstances is the Macedonian issue in the form of FYROM's historical revisionism we are opposed to here today.
These historical circumstances, under which the Slavic Macedonist ideology was constructed, climaxed in 1944. It was during this time, the aftermath of WW2, that the situation took a radical turn in terms of the completion of the construction of a seperate "Macedonian ethnicity". True to the policy decided upon by the various interconnected commiterns of the Balkans at assemblies in the years before WW2, wartime Partisan leader Tito adopted the 'Macedonism' for his own political and expansionist reasons; notably Belgrade and Moscow's objectives were control of Greek Macedonia and the warm water port of Salonika on the Aegean. The first measures to codify a "Macedonian nation" taken by the CPY (Communist Party of Yugoslavia) following its take over of Yugoslavia (including modern FYROM) after WW2 was rename the Vardar region the 'Socialist Republic of Macedonia' and delegate a puppet Macedonian government in Skopje in 1944. An example of the first stages of ethnogenisis in 1888:
In a letter to Prof. Marin Drinov of May 25, 1888 Kuzman Shapkarev writes:
"But even stranger is the name Macedonians, which was imposed on us only 10 to 15 years ago by outsiders, and not as something by our own intellectuals... Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name, reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: "Bugari", although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians. You can find more about this in the introduction to the booklets I am sending you. They call their own Macedono-Bulgarian dialect the "Bugarski language", while the rest of the Bulgarian dialects they refer to as the "Shopski language". (Makedonski pregled, IX, 2, 1934, p. 55; the original letter is kept in the Marin Drinov Museum in Sofia, and it is available for examination and study)
the original In Bulgarian:
"No pochudno e imeto Makedonci, koeto naskoro, edvay predi 10-15 godini, ni natrapiha i to otvqn, a ne kakto nyakoi mislyat ot samata nasha inteligenciya... Narodqt obache v Makedoniya ne znae nishto za tova arhaichesko, a dnes, s lukava cel ot edna strana, s glupeshka ot druga, podnoveno prozvishte; toy si znae postaroto: Bugari, makar i nepravilno proiznasyano, daje osvoyava si go kato sobstveno i preimushtestveno svoe, nejeli za drugite Bqlgari. Za tova shte vidite i v predgovora na izpratenite mi knijici. Toy naricha Bugarski ezik svoeto Makaedono-bqlgarsko narechie, kogato drugite bqlgarski narechiya naricha Shopski."
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Macedonism - the ideology's first emergence in the 19th century and the ground it gained up until 1945
Emerging in the middle to later stages of the 1800s, without ethnic/ historic reality, this Macedonist phenomena was never prolific enough to eventuate on its own and never consituted a fully fledged ethnicity. All foreign examinations attest to this, never deeming such Macedonism neither significant to constitute being mentioned as an ethnicity in official maps, censuses etc. The 'codification' of this artificial ethnisism occured in post-war Yugoslavia with the creation of the 'Socialist Republic of Macedonia', the "Macedonian language" as well as the "Macedonian Orthodox Church" in 1968 by the Yugoslav communist party.
In the years before WWII, the "Macedonists", as the Bulgarians called them, were clearly a minority, especially amongst the uneducated peasant masses of Macedonia. Yet their views were gaining ground; if only a little. The Macedonists are recorded as having told the peasants they were descendants of the glorious ancient Macedonians, that they civilised all the Slavs through St Cyril and Methodius and they looked down on the rest of Bulgarians. With the advent of Yugoslav rule and the forceful policies of Serbinization and de-Bulgarianization which occured on them, the Macedonists did gain ground however with the idea of an autonomous Macedonia gaining favour.
During WW2 Tito enjoyed the support of the leftist Slav partisans in Vardar who favoured 'Macedonism' as an alternative to the forceful nature of the Bulgarian fascist occupation. Yet at the same time much of the population welcomed the Bulgarians as liberators, despite having been under Yugoslav/ Serb rule since 1913 and being subject to Serbinization policies since that time. In some ways however, a German invasion and subsequent fascist Bulgarian occupation again gained more ground in popularity for the Macedonists and seperatism from Bulgaria in terms of conscience.
Tito capitalised in the growing support for an independent/ autonomous Macedonia eminatting from the leftist spectrum of Vardar, espcially through leftist groups such as SNOF, a group made up of Slav partisans taking its orders through Belgrade as a sub-branch of the Yugoslav Partisan movement. More on the collusion of the various communist forces of the region, Greek, Bulgarian and Vardarskan with Belgrade and Moscow and their contribution to the Macedonian affair can be found later on in this article.
Artificial ethnogenosis - an ideology in the minority and its struggle to materialise
This quote from the 1950s after 5 years of Yugoslav Communist rule gives an idea of the ground still needed to be gained:
"In regard to their own national feelings, all that can safely be said is that during the last eighty years many more Slav Macedonians seem to have considered themselves Bulgarian, or closely linked to Bulgaria, than have considered themselves Serbian, or closely linked to Serbia (or Yugoslavia). Only the people of the Skoplje region, in the north west, have ever shown much tendency to regard themselves as Serbs. The feeling of being Macedonians, and nothig but Macedonians, seems to be a sentiment of fairly recent growth, and even today is not very deep-rooted."
Elisabeth Barker, "Macedonia, its place in Balkan power politics", (originally published in 1950 by the Royal Institute of International Affairs), p.10
"Since they were closely related to both Bulgars and Serbs and had, moreover, in the past been usually incorporated in either the Bulgar or Serb state, they inevitably became the object of both Bulgar and Serb aspirations and an apple of discord between these rival nationalities. As an oppressed people on an exceedingly primitive level, the Macedonian Slavs had as late as the congress of Berlin exhibited no perceptible national consciousness of their own. It was therefore impossible to foretell in what direction they would lean when their awakening came; in fact, so indeterminate was the situation that under favorable circumstances they might even develop ther own peculiar Macedonian consciousness."
[Ferdinand Schevill, "A History of the Balkans", p.432]
Krste Misirkov
Krste Misirkov is an example of the struggle of the Macedonist philosophy to materialise initially. He is also prime example of the often fluxuating ethnic conscience of some of the early Macedonists at the turn of the century. Many intellectuals were having to decide whether they favoured annexation by Bulgaria, or an autonomous Macedonia. While Misirkov is curiously heralded by Skopjians as one of the "founders of the Macedonian nation", he is also wrote that the Slavs of Macedonia "are more Bulgarian than those in Bulgaria!".
He was the first person to transform "Macedonian" as a literary language. While in Sofia in 1903, he published the book Za Makedonckite Raboti ('On Macedonian Matters') in which he laid down the principles of the 'Macedonian' language. According to this book, the language should be based on the central dialects of Vardar. He also used those dialects to write the book itself. Misirkov died in 1926. Decades after his death with the communist takeover of Yugoslavia, Misirkov's principles were used by the Yugoslav committees for the codification of the Macedonian language.
It appears that at one point in his life, under Russian sponsership, he favoured his own brand of Macedonism and this is when he published his book on the 'Macedonian language. Later he adopted a vehemently Bulgarian nationalist stance and abandoned his Macedonism, apparently beleiving it would never materialise as an ideology; though it ironically it did, long after his death after WW2.
In his book, The national identity of the Macedonians, which he wrote in 1924, two years before he died, he uncompromisingly defends the Bulgarian character of the population of Macedonia saying "We [Macedonian Slavs] are more Bulgarian than those in Bulgaria!". He completley retracts everything he wrote in his book Za Makedonckite Raboti about the Macedonian language, with the explanation that "I wrote it as a politician". The book is considerably pro-Bulgarian, describing himself as a Bulgarian, nationalistically so.
Krste Misirkov National Identity of the Macedonians. 1924 γ:
Misirkov wrote:
1. We speak Bulgarian language and we believed with Bulgarians is our strong power.
2. The Bulgarians in Macedonia. The future of Macedonia is spiritual union of the Bulgarians in Macedonia.
3. The Macedonian Slavs are called Bulgarians.
4. The biggest part of the population are called Bulgarians.
5. All spoke that Macedonians are Bulgarians. Until 1978 all including Russian Government spoke the Macedonians are Bulgarians. But after the Berlin Congress the Serbs came with pretension to have Macedonia. They try to change the European opinion that in Macedonia there are Serbian too.
6. If Ilinden uprising win we will be thankful to Bulgarians, but Serbians try to compete with Bulgarians and spend a lot of money and propaganda. If Macedonia is autonomic there will be no space for propaganda and the Serbs have to leave Bulgarian in peace.
7. The Ilinden Uprising Committee is Bulgarian.
8. Bulgarian Language and Bulgarian name. The Committee is ready to give guarantee to Europe that Macedonia will not unify with Bulgaria, but they can't take the Bulgarian name and language from Macedonia!
9. Unification between Turks and Bulgarians in Macedonia. Serbia and Greece do not want to give us autonomous and independent Macedonia, because they see this as a fist step to unification. In Macedonia have only pure Bulgarian population, which can't be unified with the Turks.
10. Serbia is against autonomous Macedonia. Serbia is afraid because Macedonia with the Bulgarian population will have tendency to united with Bulgaria and for this reason Serbia will not allow this.
11. They divided us and now they do not allow us to unify. We are living now 25 years divided from Bulgaria and they do not allow us to unify? We call ourselves Bulgarians or Macedonians and see us as separate and radically different from the Serbs with Bulgarian national consciousness.
12. Our Grandfathers call themselves Bulgarians. They never thing that we will be having such a problem to call ourselves so.
13. Bulgarian Literally Language. We the Macedonians voluntarily choose one and the same language with Bulgarians long before the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkey. The prohibition from the Serbs to use our literally language, which is the only one connection between us and Bulgarians is significant violation of our human rights. .. and further.. when they forbid us to call ourselves Bulgarians, to learn Bulgarian history and to be ashamed from everything which connect us with Bulgarians. It is enough to learn our Macedonian culture and history to understand that we are very different from Serbian nationality.
14. There no difference between Bulgarian and Macedonian Slav. The Greeks in 1804 long before Bulgarian exarchate do not make any difference between Bulgarian and West Macedonian dialect.
15. Bulgarian national name of Macedonians. In the IX century in the first Bulgarian kingdom we do not have anything against this Bulgarian national name for us and for the rest of Bulgarians in Bulgaria.
16. We Macedonian Bulgarians (Macedonians) like Bulgarian state as our own.
17. The Serbs are much inferior than we are. We demand freedom for all of us and not to be material for assimilation experiments of the Serbs, which stand much inferior from us in spiritual narrow-mindedness and chauvinism.
18. The Serbs come to the idea of the Macedonian nationality. The Serbs develop the concept for special Macedonian Nation, which they put in the south Macedonia. They declare north Macedonia as a pure Serbian land. Middle Macedonia as a transition between Serbian and Macedonian language.
19. The population of Skopje is pure Bulgarian. Bulgaria make a big error when recognize the territory for "neutral". It is pure Bulgarian and the population in Skopje and surrounding area is pure Bulgarian.
20. Why the Serbs want Macedonia? What Serbian you can find in this pure Bulgarian land, which is since 6 century till today Bulgarian, despite of all vicissitude of the historical destiny.
21. Serbian-Greek attempt on the Bulgarians in Macedonia. Because of the treaty between Serbia and Greece Bulgaria was robed and 2 Millions Bulgarians where conquered from Serbia and Greece. Yes! To many damage did the Serbs on Bulgaria, Macedonia and Dobrudja and with this they do not stop! They filled that their vicious work will be discovered and to be prosecuted by the Slavic consciousness because of the freedom of 1/3 of Bulgarians - the Bulgarians in Macedonia.
22. The lies about Bulgarian and Bulgaria. Restoration of the human rights of the Bulgarians in Macedonia and Dobrudja, despite of the lies spread for Bulgaria and Bulgarians! Who is against Great Bulgaria, he is against the Slavs!
23. Krali Marko songs in Macedonia are from Bulgarian origin. The songs of Krali Marko in Macedonia are from Bulgarian origin and speak for the Bulgarian influence over the Serbs and not the opposite.
24. The Serbs will coarse many wars, if the "Dushan empire" will not disappear. In the last quarter of the XIX century the Serbs start to dream to restore this abandon from Serbs it selves empire. With intrigues and and allies they conquer big part of Bulgarian Macedonia. But this Serbian advantages of 1912 coarse the war in 1913 and they coarse the war in 1915-1918 and will coarse many more wars, unless "Dushan empire" get liquidate in the same way as in XIV century on the principal of the self-determination of the nations.
25. Serbs falsify the history. In Bulgaria Macedonians have all personal rights, freedom of expression and self-determination in Bulgaria. The Serbs try to destroy the soul of the Macedonians and for that reason the falsify the hole history. In this Serbian logic and Serbian fillings there are something abnormal, which is prove of the failure of the Serbian state. They are afraid from the Macedonians in Macedonia and also this living outside.
26. The Macedonian population is against Serbs. You have to know that because your Serbian politics against Macedonians you have against you all past present and future Balkan governments and the Macedonian population.
27. The Bulgarians are our fellow citizens. The European recognize that only independent sate will put an end of the competition conquer and hegemony on the Balkan. An will end once forever violence of the new conquer. And everlasting peace on the Balkan and in Europe will rise. Greece and Serbia will loose territorially and les Bulgaria and will win all Macedonians.
28. The Serbs forbid us to celebrate all Bulgarian holidays. We are forced to celebrate St. Sava and forbid to celebrate St. Cyril and St. Methodius and Ilinden Uprising.
29. Our souls are in Bulgaria. Serbia conquer the land and the body of Macedonians, the souls are in Bulgaria and with Bulgaria.
30. Krste Petkov Misirkov defines himself as a Bulgarian. 1897 I was accepted in Petersburg University in Russia and five years I was Bulgarian student community as Bulgarian.
31. Self appreciation of the statement in the book "For Macedonian matters". The readers of this article will be very surprised of the big controversy opinion, which they will meet here in comparison with the article "For Macedonian matters". To understand this contradiction I will remember you, that I wrote as an improvised politicians
http://nka.com.mk/misirkov/can_macedonia.htm
Foreign Evaluation of the ethnic make-up of Macedonia around the time of the Balkan wars
Macedonia was a geographical label, not ethnic. For outside/ foreign observers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the first stages of Macedonist ethnogenosis had taken place, there was simply not sufficient evidence to distinguish the Vardar Slavs from the Bulgarians. Indeed there was simply no historic reality to a "Macedonian" race existing for thousands of years in the region. This is reflected through the fact that foreign records did not take into consideration the small faction of Macedonists when considering the pressing Macedonian Problem, its ethnic make-up and future in light of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
Needless to say not one foreign record, map or census: be it Ottoman, English, French or anyother ever mentioned a seperate "Macedonian ethnicity" or real "Macedonian language" (see numerous maps and censuses below).
None of the following censuses identified any "Macedonian" language/ conscience/ ethnicity; only Greek, Bulgarian, Vlach, Turk, Albanian, Roma or Serb:
-The League of Nations (forerunner to UN set up after WWI) never mentions any Macedonian race/ ethnicity.
-Journal "Le Temps" Paris 1905 (Gave a total population of 2,782,000 inhabitants and no "macedonian" race)
-Prof. G. Wiegland - Die Nationalen Bestrebungen der Balkansvölker. Leipzig 1898 (Gave a total population of 2,275,000 inhabitants and no "macedonian" race)
-1904 Turkish census of Hilmi Pasha for Thessaloniki, Monastiri, Scopje
-1906 Turkish census of Hilmi Pasha for the area of Macedonia.
-Official Turkish Statistic Ethnicity of Macedonia Philippopoli 1881
-Vassil Kantcheff - Macedonia Ethnicity and Statistic - 1900
-Leon Dominian - The frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe. Published for the American Geographical Society of New York 1917
-Richard von Mach - Der Machtbereich des bulgarischen Exarchats in der Türkei. Leipzig - Neuchatel, 1906
-Prinz Tcherkasky ethnographie 1877
Lingustically there is no doubting that the so called "Macedonian language" of today is a Bulgarian dialect. The Slavs of Vardar were traditionally described as Bulgarian by foreign obsevers and the Macedonists first dubbed their Bugarski dialect 'Makedonski' in the 19th century (As was described earlier in the page by Shapkarev in 1888). For more information on the Skopjian language and the history of its transformation from a Bulgarian idiom to a "Macedonian" language visit the page: Linguistic origins - From Bulgarian dialect to "Macedonian" language
According to this 1899 edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica considering the respective Serb and Bulgarian for the Slavonic population: "Almost all independent authorities, however, agree that the bulk of the Slavonic population of Macedonia is Bulgarian"
1903 London Times article outlining the Macedonian problem. Evidently the article does not consider Macedonism significant enough, or any revisionist claims of a "Macedonian ethnicity" a reality . The only ethnic groups mentioned are Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Rumanians, Greeks, Servian and Bulgarian.
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