A time of Macedonization of Macedonia by the creation of Macedonian regional feelings, which after the WWII became transformed into the ethnonational consciousness, was also a time of the struggle over Macedonia between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia from 1870 to 1913. This struggle started with the establishment of an independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Exarchate) in 1870 and finished by the division of the territory of historical-geographical Macedonia between them after the Second Balkan War in 1913 [...]
As a matter of historical fact, a separate Macedonian ethnonational identity did not exist until the second half of the 19th century. This is partly due to the fact that Macedonia was ruled by Ottoman Empire for a longer period of time: from 1371 to 1912. It is known that Ottoman authorities did not recognize any kind of ethnonational or ethnolinguistic identities but rather only the confessional (millet-system). Therefore, the Christians of Macedonia were not differentiated between themselves on the ethnic bases. Furthermore, Macedonian territories were inhabited by different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups (Slavic- and Greek-speaking Christians, Turkish- and Albanian-speaking Muslims, Vlachs, Jews, and Gypsies). Ottoman authorities, however, divided the population of the empire into the groups based on religion (“millets”), rather than on language, ethnicity or nationality.[1] The majority of Slavs living in Macedonia in the mid-19th century had no strong ethnic or national consciousness. Most of them called themselves just as Christians, essentially meaning to be non-Muslim but nothing more. However, some of them would accept a Greek identity, others Serbian or Bulgarian but very rare Macedonian.[2]
During the first half of the 19th century, no clear distinction could be made between Bulgarian and Macedonian intelligentsia as the majority of Slavic writers of that period were united in their opposition to Greek religious and cultural supremacy. The fact was that Greeks had the hegemony over Orthodox Christian millet in the Balkan provinces of Ottoman Empire as there was only recognized a Greek Orthodox church. However, in the first half of the 19th century firstly Serbian autonomous Orthodox church was recognized as separate from Greek and later in 1870, an independent Bulgarian Exarchate became established by Ottoman sultan.[3] Subsequently, the year of 1870 became a breaking-point in regard to the struggle for Macedonia between Bulgaria and Greece to be accompanied by Serbia after the Berlin Congress in 1878.
From the 1870s Bulgaria’s elites and Macedonia’s intellectuals started gradually more and more to grow apart and, as a result, a separate Macedonian identity started to be formed very much based on Bulgarian policy of promoting Macedonian regional identity as a separate from Greek ethnonational one. This differentiation took a technical form in a slightly different standardization of their linguistic medium as Macedonians insisted to use a separate book language from standardized Bulgarian one and, therefore, started to publish books in their own linguistic medium. Оn the political field, Sofia after 1878 strove to develop regional Macedonian revolutionary organizations for the liberation from Ottoman administration with the final aim to annex whole Macedonia according to the example of East Rumelia in 1885. Therefore, the first “committees” for the liberation of Macedonia were established in Sofia in the 1880s. Their functions included educational, religious and military activities and were concentrated on a political agitation on both the local and European levels. In 1893 the revolutionary organization for the liberation of Macedonia and Adrianople’s region was established in Thessaloniki under the official and full name – Internal Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organisation, (IMARO). The 1905 IMARO’s Constitution was clearly written in the Bulgarian language. The organization had an aggressive and even violent agenda of national agitation and organized an anti-Ottoman rebellion in Krushevo for the liberation of Macedonia on August 2nd, 1903 (Ilinden Uprising)[4] when a formal Macedonian independence was declared in a form of proclaimed “Republic of Krushevo” which existed for ten days. Nevertheless, IMARO was, in practice, creating a strong Macedonian identity, albeit initially a non-ethnic one, among a Slavonic population of historical-geographical Macedonia. Such politics inevitably facilitated the process of Macedonization and deBulgarization of Macedonian Slavs. Therefore, as a result, a majority of Yugoslav Macedonia’ Slavs (today FYROM) and the post-WWII Slavic diaspora from both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia nowadays consider themselves ethnic Macedonians rather than ethnic Bulgarians.
A time of Macedonization of Macedonia by the creation of Macedonian regional feelings, which after the WWII became transformed into the ethnonational consciousness, was also a time of the struggle over Macedonia between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia from 1870 to 1913. This struggle started with the establishment of an independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Exarchate) in 1870 and finished by the division of the territory of historical-geographical Macedonia between them after the Second Balkan War in 1913. Until 1870 Greeks had a hegemony over the Orthodox Christian millet in the European part of Ottoman Empire as only a Greek Orthodox Church (Patriarchate) existed up to 1870 when an autonomous Bulgarian Orthodox Church was established. Subsequently, Christian Orthodox communities in Macedonia had a choice after 1870 to affiliate themselves either with Greek or with Bulgarian church.[5] An actual cultural-national struggle for the allegiance of the population of Macedonia went on between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia as, for instance, Serbian and Greek schools and churches were established in the territory of Macedonia in order to encourage a particular ethnolinguistic and religious identity.[6] By the 1890s even guerrilla groups, sent out by Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia to fight Ottoman authorities, terrorized the local population and tried to convince them of their true ethnonational identity. A struggle between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia for Macedonia was continuing in the following years and reached a climax during the Balkan Wars in 1912−1913. The struggle was finally ended by the partition of a historical-geographical territory of Macedonia between Bulgaria (annexed Pirin Macedonia), Greece (annexed Aegean Macedonia) and Serbia (annexed Vardar Macedonia).[7]
[1] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.
[2] Victor Roudometof, “Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question”, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1996, 253−301.
[3] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.
[4] Anastasia Karakasidou, “The Burden of the Balkans”, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 3, 2002, 575−589.
[5] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.
[6] James Pettifer, “The New Macedonian Question”, International Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 3, 1992, 475−485.
[7] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!
Donate to Support Us
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.
IntroductionThe goals of this article are: 1) to investigate the role of the revived Patriarchate of Peć in Serbian and Balkan history?; and 2) to explore and present the results of investigation of the problems with respect to: a) the role of the Serbian Church during the first decades of the Ottoman occupation of Serbian lands in the process of the creation of a Serbian national identity; b) Serbian-Turkish relations in the second half of the 16th century; and c) the reasons for Serbian disloyalty towards the Ottoman government at the turn of the 17th century.The article addresses the reasons ...
The presidential campaign has mortified millions of Americans in part because the presidency has become far more dangerous in recent times. Since 9/11, we have lived in a perpetual emergency which supposedly justifies trampling the law and Constitution. And the illegalities will not end after Tuesday’s vote count. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have signaled that they will perpetuate power grabs in the next four years.For generations, politicians have touted voting as a magical process which almost automatically protects the rights of everyone within a 50 mile radius of the polling booth. But the ballots Americans have cast in ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
The German occupation forces were those who have been the first to create and recognize a short-lived state’s independence of Ukraine in January 1918 during the time of their-own inspired and supported anti-Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917−1921. As reoccupied by the Bolshevik Red Army, the eastern and southern parts of the present-day territory of (a Greater) Ukraine joined in 1922 the USSR as a separate Soviet Socialist Republic (without Crimea). According to the 1926 Soviet census of Crimea, the majority of its population were the Russians (382.645). The second-largest ethnic group were the Tartars (179.094). Therefore, a Jew V. I. ...
“Now that the global circumstances have changed, and when the United States and NATO are losing their influence, and while the powers that are in favor of preserving Kosovo and Metohija – such as Russia and China – are strengthening, we are nevertheless pursuing a policy of complete surrender.”The aim of the internal dialogue conducted by the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, should be to distribute responsibilities and to be the cover for the final surrender of Kosovo and Metohija.The government constantly assures us that it will never recognize Kosovo as an independent State, but here we must point out the ...
For decades former Nazis and German war criminals served at the highest echelons of NATO.Most of them were highly decorated Nazis, who later served in top positions in the Western German army, and were later promoted to serve as Commander and Chief of all NATO forces in Europe.This was not a unique event, but a very common phenomenon in post-WW2 Western Europe and especially in Western Germany.Nazi war criminals and people who supported and helped Hitler to carry out the holocaust and other war crimes, genocides, and crimes against Humanity were almost never put on trial for their crimes against ...
On the occasion of 20th anniversary of the aggression of NATO Alliance against Serbia (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the FRY), on 22nd and 23rd March 2019 Belgrade was the venue of the International Conference under slogan NEVER TO FORGET, and title “Peace and Progress instead of Wars and Poverty”. The organisers of the Conference are the Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals, the Federation of Associations of Veterans of the National Liberation War of Serbia, the Serbian Generals and Admirals Club, the Society of the Serbian Hosts, in cooperation with the World Peace Council. Besides the participants from Serbia, the Conference ...
The United States, Germany, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom launched "Operation Jericho"Once again, the Obama administration has tried to force the change of a political regime that resists it. On February 12, an Academi (formerly Blackwater) plane disguised as an aircraft of the Venezuelan army was supposed to bomb the presidential palace and kill President Nicolas Maduro. The plotters had planned to place former MP María Corina Machado in power and have her immediately acclaimed by former Latin American presidents. President Obama had given a warning. In his new doctrine of Defence (National Security Strategy), he wrote: "We ...
In April-May of 1944, the Crimean Tatar battalions took part in battles against the Red Army in the Crimea. The units that were evacuated from the Crimea in June 1944, were compiled into the Tatar mountain-Jaeger three-battalion SS Regiment. A month later, the group became the first Tatar-mountain-Jaeger SS Brigade (2,500 troops) under the command of SS Standartenführer Fortenbah. On 31 December 1944, the unit was disbanded to become a part of the East Turkic branch of SS as the Crimea battle group: two infantry battalions and one hundred horses.German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein testified: "Most of the Crimean ...
Well, once again, Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu astounds. One would think that there must be some limit to the bizarre statements that issue from his mouth, but no, we learn again and again that he is willing to push the bizarreness envelope to places where, like the crew of Star Trek’s Enterprise, no one has ever before ventured.His latest flight of fancy even seems to have astonished his worshipful U.S. government, which characterized his statements as ‘inappropriate and unhelpful’, harsh criticism indeed from that bastion of Israeli love. And what is it that Mr. Netanyahu has said? This writer ...
The WarmongersThe war, which began in August 1914 – to contemporaries the Great War, to posterity the First World War – marked the end of one period of history and the beginning of another. Starting as a European war, it turned in 1917, with the entrance of the US into a world war. The spark that triggered it off was the assassination of the Austrian heir-presumptive, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1864−1914), by a Bosnian nationalist of Serb origin – Gavrilo Princip[1], a member of the Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna) movement, in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914 on his official visit to ...
A now-notorious list of ostensibly “fake” news sites — created by a liberal professor, seemingly out of thin air — spread like wildfire online in the past two days and was eagerly reprinted by corporate media presstitutes hoping to vindicate their own failed reporting on the 2016 election.But branding perfectly legitimate outlets with the same scarlet letter as those devoid of integrity deemed the professor’s list a spurious attempt to defame alternative and independent media — anyone dissenting from the left’s mainstream narrative — as a whole.This is, in no uncertain terms, a hit list — or, at least, a laughable attempt — and ...
The most useful parable about progressives is that offered by Bernard Sanders, self-styled “socialist-progressive-independent” rep from Vermont. Sanders owes his political career to rage against the Vietnam War among radicals, many of whom moved into the state in the early 1970s. They forthwith planned a long-term, carefully organized, assault on Vermont’s two-party structure. Sanders linked his political ambitions to this effort to organize a third force, the Progressive Alliance. He became mayor of Burlington and, later, congressman.At a rapid clip the emphasis moved from party-building to Sanders-building. By 1994, it was apparent that the only movement B. Sanders was interested in ...
The ‘mainstream’ Western media is, almost by definition, the last place to consult for honest reporting of Western crimes. Consider the appalling case of Yemen which is consumed by war and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.Since March 2015, a ‘coalition’ of Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, and supported by the US, Britain and France, has been dropping bombs on neighbouring Yemen. The scale of the bombing is indicated in a recent article by Felicity Arbuthnot – in one year, 330,000 homes, 648 mosques, 630 schools and institutes, and 250 health facilities were destroyed or damaged. The stated aim of ...
Strange things happen in civil wars: During the Russian Civil War in 1919, 13,000 U.S. troops were dispatched by President Woodrow Wilson to occupy the cities of Archangelsk in the Arctic and Vladivostok on the Pacific.Half a century earlier, thousands of Imperial Russian Navy sailors and their officers flooded the cities of San Francisco and New York. But the circumstances were very different. They were there to defend the United States from foreign invasion – not to threaten it and they brilliantly succeeded in their tasks.The incredible story is well told in “Friends in Peace and War: The Russian Navy’s ...
Russian literature fans will recall a moving spectacle from Dostoevsky’s novel “The House of the Dead”. As political prisoners are marched off under guard to Siberia, village folk are handing them food and other provisions that they will need on their long journey. The poor villagers are probably scraping the bottom of their own barrel in order to show Christian Orthodox compassion to those unfortunates. The allegedly nasty czarist guards do nothing to thwart these poignant expressions of humanity. Chances are (and Dostoevsky strongly suggests it) that they themselves feel considerable sympathy for their pitiful charges. Now, fast forward.Albeit depicted ...
The Great Financial Crisis, the Occupy Wall Street rising, Wikileaks and Snowden exposure, imperialist interventions in Iraq-Libya-Syria, the economic-political developments in Greece, and the on-going string of revelations in the US politics take away all ambiguities related to democracy, development and state. With broad and fundamental connections and character the incidents and processes – parts of democracy and development – being witnessed by the contemporary world are significant with far-reaching implications, and helpful to comprehend issues of democracy, development and state.No ambiguity: Ambiguous and confusing narratives of democracy and development are vigorously sold in markets despite the reality of repeated ...
Ema Miljkovic-Bojanic, M. A.Institute of History ofSerbian Academy of Sciences and ArtsBelgrade, 2000Malcolm’s Apology of the “Pax Ottomana” (Ab)using of historiography and historical facts for political ends is not a novelty introduced towards the end of the twentieth century. Its instances have been known throughout history, so that “practically there is not a single epoch of human history that was not controlled – by the Church, state, nation, party, leadership…” But precisely at a time when historiography seemed to be getting rid, at least partly, of the grip of “supervision” and when a critical approach was getting the upper hand, the ...
A good tradition of the British and the West European colonialismOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Join the debate on our Twitter feed: @OvsishteRead our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Belgian Congo
In nineties, Srebrenica was the center of terrorist activities – « Jihad », the Muslim 28th Division under the command of Naser Oric Monster, with the participation of mujahedeens operated here, covered by UN and US forces. In 1993, The Embassy of Bosnia & Herzegovina, in Vienna, even issued the Bosnian passport to Osama bin Laden! Thus, Bin Laden became honored Bosnian citizen, under blessings of the Bill Clinton administration.The US diplomacy is still supporting the pro-Muslims’ politics in the Balkans. Bil Laden was killed, but his mujaheedins can still freely work in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia. How is that ...
During the first half of the 19th century, no clear distinction could be made between Bulgarian and Macedonian intelligentsia as the majority of Slavic writers of that period were united in their opposition to Greek religious and cultural supremacy. The fact was that Greeks had the hegemony over Orthodox Christian millet in the Balkan provinces of Ottoman Empire as there was only recognized a Greek Orthodox church. However, in the first half of the 19th century firstly Serbian autonomous Orthodox church was recognized as separate from Greek and later in 1870, an independent Bulgarian Exarchate became established by Ottoman sultan.[3] Subsequently, the year of 1870 became a breaking-point in regard to the struggle for Macedonia between Bulgaria and Greece to be accompanied by Serbia after the Berlin Congress in 1878.
A time of Macedonization of Macedonia by the creation of Macedonian regional feelings, which after the WWII became transformed into the ethnonational consciousness, was also a time of the struggle over Macedonia between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia from 1870 to 1913. This struggle started with the establishment of an independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Exarchate) in 1870 and finished by the division of the territory of historical-geographical Macedonia between them after the Second Balkan War in 1913. Until 1870 Greeks had a hegemony over the Orthodox Christian millet in the European part of Ottoman Empire as only a Greek Orthodox Church (Patriarchate) existed up to 1870 when an autonomous Bulgarian Orthodox Church was established. Subsequently, Christian Orthodox communities in Macedonia had a choice after 1870 to affiliate themselves either with Greek or with Bulgarian church.[5] An actual cultural-national struggle for the allegiance of the population of Macedonia went on between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia as, for instance, Serbian and Greek schools and churches were established in the territory of Macedonia in order to encourage a particular ethnolinguistic and religious identity.[6] By the 1890s even guerrilla groups, sent out by Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia to fight Ottoman authorities, terrorized the local population and tried to convince them of their true ethnonational identity. A struggle between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia for Macedonia was continuing in the following years and reached a climax during the Balkan Wars in 1912−1913. The struggle was finally ended by the partition of a historical-geographical territory of Macedonia between Bulgaria (annexed Pirin Macedonia), Greece (annexed Aegean Macedonia) and Serbia (annexed Vardar Macedonia).[7]
Prof. Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
