On Macedonian Matters

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On Macedonian Matters
Za makedonckite raboti.jpg
Author Krste Misirkov
Original titleЗа македонцките работи
Genrelinguistics, history, ethnography, politics, analytics
Publication date
1903
Publication place Bulgaria
Media typeprinted

On Macedonian Matters (Cyrillic : За македонцките работи; Za makedonckite raboti) is a book written by Krste Misirkov and published in 1903 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The book presents the author's views towards the Macedonian Question, and explores the sense of national belonging and nеed for affirmation of the Macedonians as a separate people. The book marked the first complete outline of Macedonian as a separate language and proposed the need for its codification. The book also covers the rules of the standard language, its orthography and alphabet.

Contents

History

Background

In the early 1900s, Misirkov was student in St. Petersburg where he joined a pro-Bulgarian Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Circle. The main objective of the circle was the political autonomy of the Macedonia and Thrace, declared by IMRO. [1] [2] He graduated in 1902, and later left for Ottoman Macedonia.There Misirkov accepted the proposal of the Bulgarian Exarchate to be appointed a teacher in the Bulgarian men's high school of Bitola. In Bitola he befriended the Russian consul Aleksandr Rostkovsky. The Ilinden Uprising and the assassination of Rostkovsky in the Summer of 1903 forced Misirkov to move back to Russia. In the autumn of 1903, he arrived in St. Petersburg, where he became active in the Slavic-Macedonian Scientific Literary Society. At the same time he wrote the pamphlet On Macedonian Matters. In November 1903, he came to Sofia with the aim to print "On the Macedonian Matters". [3] [4]

Content

Za makedonckite raboti marked the first attempt to formalize a separate Macedonian literary language. [5] With the book, Misirkov outlined an overview of the Macedonian grammar and expressed the ultimate goal of codifying the language and using it as the language of instruction in the education system. The author proposed to use the west-central Macedonian dialects (Prilep-Bitola) as a dialectal basis for the formation of the Macedonian standard language. His ideas however were not adopted until the 1940s. [6] [7] Misirkov appealed to the Ottoman authorities for eventual recognition of a separate Macedonian nation. However, he admitted there was not such one, as most of the Macedonian Slavs have been called and called themselves Bulgarians, but it should be created, when the necessary historical circumstances would arise. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Misirkov described the emergence of the Macedonians as a separate Slavic people as a "perfectly normal historical process", comparable to the way the Bulgarian, Croatian, and Serbian peoples had developed out of the broader South Slavic group. [14] He also claimed that the Byzantine Greeks renamed the Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs into "Bulgarians" because of their alliance with the Bulgars, during the incessant Byzantine–Bulgarian conflict, which in the eyes of the Byzantines eventually forged Slavs and Bulgars into one people with a Bulgarian name and a Slavonic language, then preserved by the Archbishopric of Ohrid and later the Macedonians adopted the term "Bulgarian" to differentiate from Greeks. [15] [16] According to him, using the name "Bulgarian" in relation to Macedonian was "a historical misunderstanding". [17] He saw the Bulgarian feeling in the Macedonians as biggest threat to the project, [18] describing it as biggest disaster and that Bulgaria was "the evil demon" of Macedonia. [19] Misirkov also stated in his brochure on the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization that these “Bulgarian committees” were led by "Bulgarian clerks", who aimed the creation of “Bulgarian Macedonia", [20] and he attacked both the Bulgarian Exarchate and the IMRO, viewing them as exponents of Bulgarian interests in Macedonia. [21] He also acknowledged the impact of Serbian propaganda, noting that the Serbs have not succeeded in turning the Macedonians into Serbs, but succeeded in convincing Europe that there are Serbs in Macedonia. Although he opposed the Serbian position, he nevertheless recognized its influence, writing that "the Macedonian national revival is basically the result of the competition between Bulgaria and Serbia over the Macedonian question". [18] Misirkov argued that one of the primary goals of the Macedonian intelligentsia should be to drive out the national and religious Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek propaganda from Macedonia, otherwise they would eventually lead to its partition. He wrote that only an energetic fight against Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria could save Macedonia from annihilation, and only a separate Macedonian national self-awareness can give the moral right to fight against the partition. [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]

Aftermath and legacy

The pamphlet was published at the end of 1903 in Sofia. The book argued for a distinct Macedonian identity and language. Because of its content, the Bulgarian police confiscated the book, destroyed most of the copies, and expelled Misirkov. [27] [28] [29] It is also believed that Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) activists destroyed a number of copies. [21] Because of this at his own time, the book had little or no impact and did not become popular until the middle of the 1940s. [18] Misirkov arrived in Belgrade in December, where he met with Stojan Novaković, at that time a Serbian foreign minister. [30] Novaković was the first politician to decide to use the Macedonian nationalism as an ideology, in order to oppose the Bulgarian positions in Macedonia and as a transitional stage towards the complete Serbization of the Macedonian Slavs. [31] From this book, Novaković ordered the purchase of 50 pieces by the Serbian Diplomatic Agency in Sofia. [32] The purchased exemplars were shipped through Serbian diplomatic channels to Ottoman Macedonia.

In 1905, Misirkov returned to a pro-Bulgarian stance and renounced the positions he espoused in On Macedonian Matters. [33] [34] Also, he published a series of articles in the IMARO press written from a Bulgarian nationalist perspective, [21] claiming Bulgarian identity for himself and the Macedonian Slavs. [35] [36] In 1907, in the introduction to his article "Notes on South Slavic Philology and History", Misirkov rejected categorically the ideas of his 1903 book. He would return to the Macedonian national ideas especially in the 1920s, at a time that was bound to receive a much more favorable reaction by the public. [33] [21] However, at the very end of his life, Misirkov advocated again Bulgarian identity for the Macedonian Slavs as a choice preferable to Serbian. [37] [38]

Although the language planners involved in the codification of standard literary Macedonian in 1944 were not familiar of Misirkov's book, since most of the copies of it were destroyed, they were familiar with Misirkov's historical legacy. Hence, the west-central Macedonian dialectal basis proposed by Misirkov is the same to that of the present-day standard Macedonian. [39] [40]

The book was reprinted in 1946, from a copy found by Kole Nedelkovski in the Sofia public library, and it became permanently cited by the Macedonian historians as an indication of the existence of a separate Macedonian ethnicity at Misirkov's time. [41] [18]

Notes

  1. ↑ Записки за България и Руско-Българските отношения: бележки за събитията на деня (5 юли-30 август 1913 г.), Крсте Петков Мисирков, Редактор Цочо Билярски, Издателство „Анико“, 2011, ISBN   9789548247160; стр. 14
  2. ↑ "НБКМ-БИА, ф. 224, Върховен македоно-одрински комитет, София, а.е. 23, л. 397 За (SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library-Bulgarian historical archive, facsimile 224, Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee, Sofia, а.е 23, sheet 397 3a)". Archived from the original on 28 April 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
  3. ↑ Heraclides, Alexis (2021). The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge. p. 71. ISBN   9780367218263.
  4. ↑ Hugh Poulton (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 58. ISBN   978-1-85065-534-3.
  5. ↑ Kramer 1999 , p. 236
  6. ↑ Friedman & Garry 2001 , p. 436
  7. ↑ Usikova 2005 , p. 106
  8. ↑ The term 'project' tackles likewise the specific temporal orientation of the initial stage of formation of Macedonian ethnic nationalism: the Macedonian self-determination is seen by Misirkov as a future ideal and his national manifesto on the Macedonian Matters (Sofia, 1903) recognizes the lack of actual correlation between the concept of Macedonian Slavic ethnicity and the real self-identifications of the majority of Macedonian Slavs. In a rather demiurgical way, Misirkov is the first who exposes the basic 'ethnographic' characteristics of what he regards as 'inexistent' but 'possible' and 'necessary' Macedonian Slavic ethnicity... Tchavdar Marinov, "Between Political Autonomism and Ethnic Nationalism: Competing Constructions of Modern Macedonian National Ideology (1878–1913)", p. 3.
  9. ↑ Misirkov lamented that "no local Macedonian patriotism" existed and would have to be created. He anticipated that Macedonians would respond to his proposal with a series of baffled questions: "What sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we, and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?...Macedonian as a nationality has never existed, and it does not exist now"... Misirkov answered by observing that national loyalties change with time: "What has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise... Misirkov in short wanted, the Ottoman state to promote Macedonian nation-building, calling for "official recognition". Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2008, ISBN   3825813878, p. 138.
  10. ↑ The idea of a separate (Slavic) Macedonian nationhood most certainly had its antecedents before the 1930s – nor is that surprising, considering the political history of the area. Krste Misirkov, the "first creator of a clear and rounded representation, of argued and systematic conception about the national essence of Macedonian people," brought arguments in favor of Macedonian "national separatism" in his on Macedonian matters, but still considered the Macedonian question a part of a larger Bulgarian complex, if for no other reason than linguistic. Misirkov's pan-Bulgarian patriotism was based largely on the kinship of language, and his pan-Bulgarian positions, which he used, moreover frontally, against the Serbs and Greeks.The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Ivo Banac, Cornell University Press, 1988, ISBN   0801494931, p. 327.
  11. ↑ Misirkov speaks, for instance, of the relations between "the Macedonian peoples" [makedonckite narodi], of the "convergence of interests of all Macedonian peoples." The term "nation" appears rarely and is contrasted to the term "nationality": e.g., Misirkov suggests that, in Macedonia, there are many "nationalities" [nacionalnosti], while "a distinct Macedonian Slavic nation [naciia]" does not yet exist (p. 46). This usage actually implies that the "nation" is seen as a political phenomenon of a "higher" degree, transcending a multiplicity of actual ethnic and/or confessional particularities. We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Diana Mishkova, European University Press, 2009, ISBN   9639776289, p. 133.
  12. ↑ Misirkov accepted that his project for Macedonian particularist nationalism broke with considerable Bulgarian sentiment. He admitted both that there was "no local Macedonian patriotism", and that ordinary Macedonians would see Macedonian particularism as a novelty: "What sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?” Responding to these arguments, Misirkov showed a surprising acceptance that national communities evolve in response to events: "what has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise". Misirkov thus tried to create the appropriate historical circumstances. Sundry Macedonias, Alexander Mark Maxwell, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1998, pp. 50–51.
  13. ↑ Many people will want to know what sort of national separatism we are concerned with; they will ask if we are not thinking of creating a new Macedonian nation. Such a thing would be artificial and short-lived. And, anyway? What sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we, and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?...One of the first questions which will be posed by the opponents of national unification and of the revival movement in Macedonia will be: what is the Macedonian Slav nation? Macedonian as a nationality has never existed, they will say, and it does not exist now.... The first objection – that a Macedonian Slav nationality has never existed – may be very simply answered as follows: what has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise... On Macedonian Matters. (1903) by Krste Misirkov.
  14. ↑ M. Danforth, Loring (2010). "Ancient Macedonia, Alexander the Great and the Star or Sun of Vergina: National Symbols and the Conflict between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia". In Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (eds.). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 575. ISBN   9781405179362.
  15. ↑ Rossos, Andrew (2008). Macedonia and Macedonians. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University. p. 84.
  16. ↑ Misirkov, Krste (1903). За македонцките работи [On Macedonian Matters](PDF). Sofia: Liberalii Club. p. 114-126. Бугарцката држаа беше поеке со словенцко жител'ство, но со името на неiните образуачи т. е. монголците бугари. Словените од Бугариiа и Македониiа наi напред беа само соiузници на бугарите во воiните со Византиiа. Но соiузните со бугарите словенцки полчишча беа во очите на неприiателите т.е. византиiците пак бугарцки. Значит византиiците зафатиiа да прекрстуват словените ушче од времето на Аспарухоата орда. Постоiанната борба рамо за рамо со бугарите ѝ направи ниф iеден народ со бугарцко име, но со словенцки iазик. Бугарцкото име мег'у словените беше попул'аризирано од грците, и оно, прво, означааше само бугарите — монголите, после нивните воени соiузници, после бугарцките поданици и наi после стана етнографцки термин за бугарцките словени. Но тоа име во очите и устата на грците имаше ушче специално значеiн'е: наi ненавистни за ниф варвари, л'уг'е не образоани, груби, коiи граничаат со звероите. За грците се словенцко беше грубо и бугарцко. Со името бугари не крстиiа грците и нас македонците.[The Bulgarian state had a larger Slavic population, but with the name of its founders, that is, the Mongol Bulgars. At first, the Slavs in Bulgaria and Macedonia were only allies of the Bulgars in the wars against Byzantium. Hоwever, due to the alliance with the Bulgars, the Slavic hordes appeared in the eyes of the adversary, i.e. the Byzantines, to be Bulgars too. So the Byzantines renamed the Slavs as early as the time of Asparuh's horde. Our constant fight side by side with the Bulgars made us into one people with a Bulgarian name but Slavonic language. The name Bulgarian among the Slavs was popularized by the Greeks, and it, at first, denoted only the Bulgars — the Mongols, then their military allies, then the Bulgarian subjects, and finally became an ethnographic term for the Bulgarian Slavs. But that name in the eyes and mouths of the Greeks had a special meaning: the most hateful to them barbarians, uneducated people, rude, bordering with beasts. For the Greeks, everything Slavic was rude and Bulgarian.]
  17. ↑ Trencsényi, Balázs; Janowski, Maciej; Baár, Monika; Falina, Maria; Kopeček, Michal (2016). A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe. Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century'. Oxford University Press. p. 509. ISBN   9780198737148.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Klaus Roth; Ulf Brunnbauer (2008). Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 139. ISBN   978-3-8258-1387-1.
  19. ↑ Heraclides, Alexis (2021). The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge. p. 72. ISBN   9780367218263.
  20. ↑ Marinov, Tchavdar (2013). "Famous Macedonia, the Land of Alexander: Macedonian Identity at the Crossroads of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian Nationalism". In Daskalov, Roumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (eds.). Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume 1: National Ideologies and Language Policies. Brill. p. 320. ISBN   9789004250765.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Dimitar Bechev (2009). Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia. Scarecrow Press. p. 152-153. ISBN   978-0-8108-6295-1.
  22. ↑ Misirkov, Krste (1903). "За македонцките работи" [On Macedonian Matters]. Sofia. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. But our enemies from the free states would take advantage of the blood we had shed and the losses we had suffered to step up their religious and nationalist propaganda, thus splitting us into hostile opposition camps: Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians. After the fight in the field of battle comes the fight in the field of culture, but when this time comes, instead of reaping the rewards for the blood we have shed and at last being able to develop culturally, we will find ourselves then, just as we are now, serving the interests of the Serbs or the Greeks or the Bulgarians. As long as there exists this kind of national dividedness, together with utter economic powerlessness, nothing can be achieved by any conferences, reforms or attempts at intervention because everything will lead to the inevitable partition of Macedonia
  23. ↑ Misirkov, Krste (1903). "За македонцките работи" [On Macedonian Matters]. Sofia. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. The first task of the Macedonian intelligentsia, then, will be to clear away the mistrust that exists between the intellectuals and the various national and religious groups and to unite the intelligentsia both within Macedonia and abroad, to assess the general interests of the Macedonians by getting down to grass roots, to dispel national and religious hatred, to educate the Macedonian Slavs in the pure Macedonian national spirit, to make determined efforts to see that the Macedonian language is widely taught and to maintain contact with schools in the towns with a Slav population as well as to teach the language in village schools attended by Slavs. In the Slav villages they should ensure that church services are held in Macedonian. If these efforts meet with resistance from any of the foreign propagandists they should call upon the Turkish government and the Great Powers to remove these demoralizing forces from Macedonia and to set up an Archbishopric in Ohrid which would be responsible for the church schooling of Christians of all nationalities in Macedonia
  24. ↑ Misirkov, Krste (1903). "За македонцките работи" [On Macedonian Matters]. Sofia. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. The uprising prevented Macedonia from being partitioned, and this is one of its more worthwhile results. But partition was luckily avoided thanks really to the fact that our enemies happened to be inept and inexperienced. If Bulgaria wanted to threaten us even more seriously in the future, when our enemies were more experienced, she might enter into an agreement with Serbia concerning the partition of Macedonia between the spheres of influence. This agreement between the spheres of influence would unfailingly lead to the partition of Macedonia. This is why one of the prime duties of the Macedonian intelligentsia is once and for all to drive Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda out of Macedonia so that Macedonia can establish its own spiritual centre, and free the Macedonians from this give and take relation with the neighboring Balkan states and peoples. Hence the need to forestall the partition of Macedonia and retain it as a province of Turkey
  25. ↑ Misirkov, Krste (1903). За македонцките работи [On Macedonian Matters](PDF). Sofia: Liberalii Club. pp. 28–44.
  26. ↑ Misirkov, Krste Petkov. “On Macedonian Matters”. Modernism: Representations of National Culture, translated by Nikola Iordanovski, Central European University Press, 2010, pp. 355-356.
  27. ↑ Heraclides, Alexis (2021). The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge. p. 71. ISBN   9780367218263.
  28. ↑ Hugh Poulton (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 58. ISBN   978-1-85065-534-3.
  29. ↑ Loring M. Danforth (1997). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press. p. 64. ISBN   0-691-04356-6.
  30. ↑ Веселин Трайков, Кръсте Мисирков и за българските работи в Македония, 2000, София, изд. Знание, ISBN   954-621-177-X стр. 8.
  31. ↑ Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Chris Kostov, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN   3034301960, p. 65.
  32. ↑ Крсте Мисирков, Записки за България и Руско-Българските отношения, ред. Цочо Билярски, изд. "Анико", 2001, ISBN   9789548247160, стр. 12.
  33. 1 2 Victor Roudometof (2002). Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 112. ISBN   978-0-275-97648-4.
  34. ↑ "Проф. д-р Веселин Трайков – "Кръсте П. Мисирков и за българските работи в Македония", София, 2000, Издателство "Знание"". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  35. ↑ Misirkovs book will be widely cited in the 20th and the 21st centuries by all historians in the R. Macedonia as a clear indication of the existence of a separate Macedonian ethnicity. However, they ignored the fact that Misirkov abandoned his ideas and in 1910 in the Bulgarian Almanac, as well as in his memoirs, he clearly indicated his Bulgarian ethnic identity. Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996, Chris Kostov, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN   3034301960, pp. 66–67.
  36. ↑ The eminent Macedonian literary historian Blazhe Ristovski’s History of the Macedonian Nation describes the "awakening" and formation of the Macedonian nation by various intellectuals in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ristovski aims to prove the Macedonian nature of writers, poets, and other intellectuals who can be said to have been champions of the Macedonian cause. If these persons declared themselves, at one time or another, "Bulgarians", then Ristovski goes to great length to point out that they cannot have meant it quite like that. For example, in the case of Krste Misirkov – "the most eminent, most significant and most versatile Macedonian cultural and national worker before liberation" – Ristovski states that Misirkov’s support for the annexation of Macedonia by Bulgaria did not reflect "his genuine beliefs and sentiments" but was "dictated by the conditions of the time". Serving the Nation: Historiography in the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) After Socialism, Historein, vol. 4 (2003–4) Ulf Brunnbauer.
  37. ↑ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita; Johanna DeStefano (2003). When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence. Ohio State University Press. p. 264. ISBN   978-0-8142-0913-4.
  38. ↑ Nihtinen, Atina (1995) Comments on Contradictions in the Life and Work of Kr. P. Misirkov. In: Studia Slavica Finlandensia issue 12, Helsinki, pp. 96–103.
  39. ↑ Danforth, Loring M. (1997). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press. p. 67. ISBN   0-691-04356-6 . Retrieved 14 November 2011.
  40. ↑ Roumen Dontchev Daskalov; Tchavdar Marinov (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. p. 454. ISBN   9789004250765.
  41. ↑ Victor A. Friedman: Macedonian language and nationalism during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Balcanistica 2 (1975): 83–98. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 September 2006. Retrieved 6 August 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

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