Macedono-Bulgarians

Macedonians or Macedonian Bulgarians (), sometimes also referred to as Macedono-Bulgarians, Macedo-Bulgarians, or Bulgaro-Macedonians are a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic Bulgarians, inhabiting or originating from the region of Macedonia. This is how the majority of Slavic-speaking population of Macedonia had been referred to by most of the national conscious minority among them and by outside observers, from the 10th century in a sense of a demonym at first, and from the 19th until the early 20th century in a national sense. Since 1913, the Macedonian Bulgarian population is largely concentrated in Pirin Macedonia but much is spread across the whole of Bulgaria and the diaspora.

History

Ottoman period

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 villagers here. As a result, during the 19th century, the Slavic-speakers in Ottoman Macedonia, who were already Bulgarian ''by name'', began to acquire mainly Bulgarian national identity. Although, the word Bulgarian before the 1870s had a connotation of poor, Slav-speaking peasant, since most of the Slavic population lived in the rural parts of Macedonia and were mainly chiflik labourers.

With the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire during 19th century, rival Bulgarian, Greek and Serb nationalism used religious and educational institutions to tie Macedonia's population to their respective national cause. The classical Ottoman millet system began to degrade with the continuous identification of the religious creed with ethnic identity. 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.

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. However, opting for the Exarchate was far from being defined as nationally motivated, and with that as allegiance to the Bulgarian national cause.Dimitris Livanios (2008). The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939-1949, Oxford University Press, , pp. 9-10. After the Russo-Turkish War, with the Treaty of San Stefano a Greater Bulgaria was created, including most of Macedonia in it. This decision was protested by Greece and Serbia, supported by Austro-Hungary and the United Kingdom, who were fearful of Russian influence spreading in the region through Bulgaria. Therefore, a new Treaty of Berlin was created and Macedonia was returned to the Ottomans. As a result, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia in order to validate the territorial claims, started to compete for the allegiance of the Christian population of Macedonia, most of whom was without national consciousness, by implanting in them the "proper" national sense through the churches and schools. The absence of collective ethnic identity amongst the Macedonian Slavs meant that the different national movements were able to manipulate data and information in order to pursue their nationalist agendas. 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 a 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 some 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. 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

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. The immediate effect of the partition of Ottoman Macedonia were the nationalistic campaigns in areas under Greek and Serbian administration, which expelled Bulgarian churchmen and teachers and closed Bulgarian schools and churches. 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. On the other hand, the political organization by the Slavic immigrants from the region of Macedonia, the Macedonian Patriotic Organization promoted the idea of Macedonian Slavs being Bulgarians.

Formation of a separate Macedonian identity in Yugoslavia

Most 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, while some claim that they had a Bulgarian national identity until the early 1940s. As a whole the existence of an appreciable Macedonian national consciousness prior to the 1940s is questionable. 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 a attempt to assimilate them an oppressive regime was established which as backlash stimulated the further development of a Macedonian national consciousness. After the Second World War and Bulgarian withdrawal, a Macedonian nation-building started within the newly formed Socialist Republic of Macedonia.Europe since 1945
Encyclopedia by Bernard Anthony Cook. , p. 808. The nation-building process was reinforced by strong ''Bulgarophobia'' and Yugoslavism. The new authorities began a policy of removing of any Bulgarian influence and creating a distinct Slavic consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. There were measures taken that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among the population. It has been claimed that from 1944 till the end of the 1940s people espousing a Bulgarian ethnic identity had been oppressed. According to Bulgarian sources more than 100,000 men were imprisoned and some 1,200 prominent Bulgarians were sentenced to death. In addition, the inconsistent policy towards the Macedonian Bulgarians followed by Communist Bulgaria at that time has thrown most independent observers ever since into a state of confusion, as to the real ethnicity of the population even in Bulgarian Macedonia. Practically as a consequence the rest of this people, with exception of Bulgaria proper, were eventually Macedonized or Hellenized.

Nevertheless, people with Bulgarian consciousness or Bulgarophile sentiments still live in North Macedonia and Greece. During the last years the EU membership of Bulgaria has seen more than 50,000 Macedonians applying for Bulgarian citizenship. In order to obtain it they must sign a statement declaring they are ''Bulgarians by origin''. More than 100,000 Macedonian nationals have already received Bulgarian citizenship. However, this phenomenon can not give precise information about how many Macedonian nationals consider themselves Bulgarians in ethnic sense, because it is widely believed that this phenomenon is caused primarily for economic reasons.Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 2, From the Fifteenth Century to the Present), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, , p. 347.

Historical Demographics

In the Ottoman General Census of 1881/82, the Orthodox Christian population of the kazas currently falling within the borders of the Republic of North Macedonia identified, as follows:

See also

*List of Macedonian Bulgarians
*Bulgarians in Albania
*Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
*Macedonia (terminology)

References

{{Greek Macedonia

Ethnic groups in Macedonia (region)
History of Macedonia (region)
20th century in Bulgaria
Bulgaria–North Macedonia relations
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People from Blagoevgrad Province
Ethnic groups in Greece
Demographics of the Ottoman Empire
Slavic ethnic groups
Macedonian people of Bulgarian descent
South Slavs
Bulgarians from the Ottoman Empire