Maps and Politics: A Review of the Ethnographic Cartography of Macedonia is a book written by British academic Henry Robert Wilkinson and published in 1951 by the University of Liverpool Press. [1] [2] It is a detailed study of 216 ethnographic maps of the region of Macedonia dating from 1730 until 1949. [1] [2] [3] The book deals with the politicisation of Macedonia's geography during the era of nationalism. [4] It explores the development of theories based on ethnography and claims made on a national basis in relation to the region. [5] The study looks at ethnographers and their classification and distribution of local peoples in maps, their historical context, the criteria used for compiling maps and their quality, the role that either personal views or geopolitical considerations played in favouring one group over another, and knowledge (or lack thereof) of the region. [2]
In a book review published in the American Slavic and East European Review, Philip E. Mosely (1952) said that Wilkinson "performed a notable service in assembling and subjecting to painstaking analysis the numerous cartographic studies" regarding Macedonia. [1] Mosely wrote that the study "shows convincingly the complexities and uncertainties which beset even the most conscientious scholar, as well as the temptations which beckon to the politician." [1] Another book review published in The Geographical Journal, J. C. S. (1953) stated that it was "a well produced monograph on the ethnographic maps of Macedonia" and a "valuable addition" to "studies in Geography". [2]
John Brian Harley (1988) [6] wrote that Wilkinson's study was "an excellent discussion" that looked at the "difficulty" of "representation" in cartography related to "cultural or technical causes". [7] Loring M. Danforth (1997) stated that Wilkinson's study of the Macedonian Question "examined in detail" the significant role cartography played during its early stages. [8] Kyril Drezov (1999) described the cartographic study as a "painstaking analysis" and that Wilkinson's book is "indispensable reading for everyone who wants to orient himself in the web of mutually exclusive claims about Macedonia". [3] Leften Stavros Stavrianos (2000) regards Wilkinson's work as "a good introduction to the Macedonian question" and a "valuable study". [5] Dimitris Livanios (2008) considers the study by Wilkinson as a "rich collection" of content that covers "an interesting aspect" of the "paper warfare" and functionality of ethnological cartography regarding the region. [9]
Cartography is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
Eastern Rumelia was an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire with a total area of 32,978 km2, which was created in 1878 by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin and de facto ceased to exist in 1885, when it was united with the Principality of Bulgaria, also under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. It continued to be an Ottoman province de jure until 1908, when Bulgaria declared independence. Ethnic Bulgarians formed a majority of the population in Eastern Rumelia, but there were significant Turkish and Greek minorities. Its capital was Plovdiv. The official languages of Eastern Rumelia were Bulgarian, Greek and Ottoman Turkish.
Macedonians are a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group native to the region of Macedonia in Southeast Europe. They speak Macedonian, a South Slavic language. The large majority of Macedonians identify as Eastern Orthodox Christians, who speak a South Slavic language, and share a cultural and historical "Orthodox Byzantine–Slavic heritage" with their neighbours. About two-thirds of all ethnic Macedonians live in North Macedonia and there are also communities in a number of other countries.
The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.
Krste Petkov Misirkov was a philologist, journalist, historian and ethnographer from the region of Macedonia.
The Western (Bulgarian) Outlands is a term used in Bulgarian to denote several regions located in ex-Yugoslavia, today southeastern Serbia and southeastern North Macedonia, that were traditionally part of Bulgaria and which were predominantly inhabited by ethnic Bulgarians.
Torlakian, or Torlak is a group of Eastern South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund. According to UNESCO's list of endangered languages, Torlakian is vulnerable.
Serbianisation or Serbianization, also known as Serbification, and Serbisation or Serbization is the spread of Serbian culture, people, and language, either by social integration or by cultural or forced assimilation.
The name Macedonia is used in a number of competing or overlapping meanings to describe geographical, political and historical areas, languages and peoples in a part of south-eastern Europe. It has been a major source of political controversy since the early 20th century. The situation is complicated because different ethnic groups use different terminology for the same entity, or the same terminology for different entities, with different political connotations.
Old Serbia is a Serbian historiographical term that is used to describe the territory that according to the dominant school of Serbian historiography in the late 19th century formed the core of the Serbian Empire in 1346–71.
United Macedonia, or Greater Macedonia, is an irredentist concept among ethnic Macedonian nationalists that aims to unify the transnational region of Macedonia in Southeastern Europe into a single state that would be dominated by ethnic Macedonians. The proposed capital of such a United Macedonia is the city of Thessaloniki, the capital of Greek Macedonia, which ethnic Macedonians and the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito had planned to incorporate into their own states.
Macedonian nationalism is a general grouping of nationalist ideas and concepts among ethnic Macedonians that were first formed in the late 19th century among separatists seeking the autonomy of the region of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. The idea evolved during the early 20th century alongside the first expressions of ethnic nationalism among the Slavs of Macedonia. The separate Macedonian nation gained recognition after World War II when the "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" was created as part of Yugoslavia. Afterwards the Macedonian historiography has established links between the ethnic Macedonians and historical events and various individual figures from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century. Following the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in the late 20th century, issues of Macedonian national identity have become contested by the country's neighbours, as some adherents to aggressive Macedonian nationalism, called Macedonism, hold more extreme beliefs such as an unbroken continuity between ancient Macedonians, and modern ethnic Macedonians, and views connected to the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia, which involves territorial claims on a large portion of Greece and Bulgaria, along with smaller regions of Albania, Kosovo and Serbia.
Grecomans or Graecomans is a pejorative term used in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Romania, and Albania to characterize Albanian–, Aromanian–, and Slavic–speaking people, who self-identify as ethnic Greeks, because of their Orthodox affiliation. The term generally means "pretending to be a Greek" and implies a non-Greek origin. Another meaning of the term is fanatic Greek. The term is considered highly offensive to the Greek people. The "Grecomans" are regarded as ethnic Greeks in Greece, but as members of originally non-Greek, but subsequently Hellenized minorities, in the neighboring countries.
Critical cartography is a set of mapping practices and methods of analysis grounded in critical theory, specifically the thesis that maps reflect and perpetuate relations of power, typically in favor of a society's dominant group. Critical cartographers aim to reveal the “‘hidden agendas of cartography’ as tools of socio-spatial power”. While the term "critical cartography" often refers to a body of theoretical literature, critical cartographers also call for practical applications of critical cartographic theory, such as counter-mapping, participatory mapping, and neogeography.
(John) Brian Harley was a geographer, cartographer, and map historian at the universities of Birmingham, Liverpool, Exeter and Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He helped found the History of Cartography Project and was the founding co-editor of the resulting The History of Cartography. In recent years, Harley's work has gained broad prominence among geographers and social theorists, and it has contributed greatly to the emerging discipline of critical cartography.
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. Today, the larger part of this population is concentrated in Blagoevgrad Province but much is spread across the whole of Bulgaria and the diaspora.
The resolution of the Comintern of January 11, 1934, was an official political document, in which for the first time, an authoritative international organization has recognized the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and Macedonian language.
Eastern Party is a concept that has long been used by mainstream historians to define the reaction of a section of the population in the Third World countries against Westernization and the import of Western values in their societies. Rather than a specific political party, the term refers to a current in the public opinion of the said countries opposed to a "Western Party" of modernizers, who tend to accept Westernization as an inevitable phenomenon, which finally benefits the overall progress of Third World societies. Particularly in the history of Greece and Byzantium, this concept has been largely used by noted historians like Arnold J. Toynbee, Leften Stavrianos, Alexander Vasiliev and Nicolae Iorga, at the beginning of the 20th century and later by Dimitri Kitsikis.
Slavic-speakers inhabiting the Ottoman-ruled region of Macedonia had settled in the area since the Slavic migrations during the Middle Ages and formed a distinct ethnolinguistic group. While Greek was spoken in the urban centers and in a coastal zone in the south of the region, Slav-speakers were abundant in its rural hinterland and were predominantly occupied in agriculture. Habitually known and identifying as "Bulgarian" on account of their language, they also considered themselves as "Rum", members of the community of Orthodox Christians.
Macedonians as an obsolete terminology was used in regional and in ethnographic sense and had several meanings, different from these used mostly today. The name of Macedonia was revived on the Balkans during the early 19th century as result of the Western Europe-derived obsession with Ancient Greece. The designation Macedonian arose at the eve of the 20th century and was used beyond but its meanings have changed during the time, and some of them are rarely used anymore.