Stjepan Verković | |
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 A photograph of Verković | |
| Born | March 5, 1821 |
| Died | December 30, 1893 |
Stefan or Stjepan Ilija Verković was a 19th-century Bosnian ethnographer and folklorist. Born to Bosnian Croat parents, he identified as South Slav and initially he supported the Serbian and later the Bulgarian national cause. [1]
Verković was born in Ugljara, Ottoman Empire on March 5, 1821. He passed his education in the Franciscan school of Tolisa (1830–1833), and then studied philosophy and theology in Zagreb University, where he was influenced by the ideas of the Illyrian movement. In 1843, he contacted the Serbian government and in the following years he served secret missions in parts of today Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia, then under Austrian or Ottoman rule. During his tours through the Balkan lands he searched for medieval Slavonic manuscripts, antique coins and various antiques, recorded folk songs and customs.
In 1848 he met in Belgrade Ilija Garašanin and adopted his pan-Serbian ideas. Subsequently, he refused a job in the Serbian state administration, and in 1850 he moved to Serres in the Ottoman Empire, where he spent nearly 20 years. In 1862 he agreed to become an agent of the Serbian government in the Ottoman Empire, and to study the regional Slavic folklore in Macedonia and Thrace. His secret mission was to help Macedonian Slavs to be considered Serb, rather than Greeks, and thus helping to resolve the Eastern Question. Since then, until 1875, Verkovic has regularly sent secret reports to the Serbian government. He regularly supplied also coins from the area to Copenhagen, Paris, London and the Hermitage. Verković became then also a member of SANU.
During the years he lived in Ottoman Empire, Verković proved to be a scientist in the field of folklore, ethnography and geography. He еstablished intensive contacts with dozens of Bulgarian national movement activists, becoming their associate. After 1868 his close ties with the local Slavic population led him to a progressive dissociation from the official position of Belgrade, that there lived a Serbs. Verković issued a collection called "Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians" in Belgrade in 1860. He noted in the introduction that the title was chosen, because the locals identified themselves as Bulgarian. [2] In addition, owing to his collector's zeal, Verkovich saved a great number of old manuscripts, coins, objects of art, etc. His main and largest work is "Veda Slovena" in two volumes, 1874 and 1881. [3] This sensational Slavic Veda contained “Bulgarian folk songs of the pre-historical and pre-Christian times, discovered in Thrace and Macedonia”. During the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78 he moved to Russia, where he lived till 1891. Nevertheless, the scarcity here urged him to sell some artifacts of his antique collection.
In 1891, Verkovic came to Bulgaria and for his merits to the Bulgarian people he was granted a pension for life from the National Assembly. He despaired at the increasing distrust on his life's work, "Veda Slovena", which many took to be a hoax. With the cooperation of government, he settled in Plovdiv. From here he undertook in 1892 - 1893, two trips among the Pomaks in the Western Rhodopes, trying to prove the authenticity of this Bulgarian folk songs collection. But his mission failed. He prepared a subsequent manuscript to publish also the third volume of "Veda Slovena". However, without financial support he deceased in Sofia several months later.
The Balkan Wars were a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defeated it, in the process stripping the Ottomans of their European provinces, leaving only Eastern Thrace under Ottoman control. In the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria fought against the other four original combatants of the first war. It also faced an attack from Romania from the north. The Ottoman Empire lost the bulk of its territory in Europe. Although not involved as a combatant, Austria-Hungary became relatively weaker as a much enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples. The war set the stage for the July crisis of 1914 and thus served as a prelude to the First World War.
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time; however, it came to be defined as the modern geographical region by the mid-19th century. Today the region is considered to include parts of six Balkan countries: all of North Macedonia, large parts of Greece and Bulgaria, and smaller parts of Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo. It covers approximately 67,000 square kilometres (25,869 sq mi) and has a population of around five million. Greek Macedonia comprises about half of Macedonia's area and population.
The League of the Balkans was a quadruple alliance formed by a series of bilateral treaties concluded in 1912 between the Eastern Orthodox kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, and directed against the Ottoman Empire, which at the time still controlled much of Southeastern Europe.
Marko Mrnjavčević was the de jure Serbian king from 1371 to 1395, while he was the de facto ruler of territory in western Macedonia centered on the town of Prilep. He is known as Prince Marko and King Marko in South Slavic oral tradition, in which he has become a major character during the period of Ottoman rule over the Balkans. Marko's father, King Vukašin, was co-ruler with Serbian Tsar Stefan Uroš V, whose reign was characterised by weakening central authority and the gradual disintegration of the Serbian Empire. Vukašin's holdings included lands in north-western Macedonia and Kosovo. In 1370 or 1371, he crowned Marko "young king"; this title included the possibility that Marko would succeed the childless Uroš on the Serbian throne.
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 Balkans and parts of this area may also be placed in Southeastern, Southern, Eastern Europe and Central Europe. The distinct identity and fragmentation of the Balkans owes much to its common and often turbulent history regarding centuries of Ottoman conquest and to its very mountainous geography.
Ilija Garašanin was a Serbian statesman who served as the prime minister of Serbia between 1852 and 1853 and again from 1861 to 1867.
Veda Slovena is an ethnographic collection of folk songs and legends of the Muslim Bulgarians; the subtitle of the book indicated that they were collected from the regions of Thrace and Macedonia. The first volume of which was printed in 1874 in Belgrade and the second in 1881 in Saint Petersburg under the authorship of Bosnian Croat Stjepan Verković.
The existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language is disputed in Bulgaria and the name of the language was disputed by Greece. By signing the Prespa Agreement, Greece accepted the name "Macedonian language" in reference to the official language of North Macedonia.
Hristofor Žefarović was an 18th-century painter, engraver, writer and poet and a notable proponent of early pan-South Slavism.
The Serbs are one of the constitutional ethnic groups of North Macedonia, numbering about 24,000 inhabitants.
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 during World War II when the Socialist Republic of Macedonia was created as part of Yugoslavia. Macedonian historiography has since established links between the ethnic Macedonians and various historical events and individual figures that occurred in and originated from Macedonia, which range 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.
Yugoslavia was a state concept among the South Slavic intelligentsia and later popular masses from the 19th to early 20th centuries that culminated in its realization after the 1918 collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. However, the kingdom was better known colloquially as Yugoslavia ; in 1929 it was formally renamed the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia".
The Association of Serbo-Macedonians, was a group founded by intellectuals from the region of Macedonia in 1886, and based in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire. The association propagated a kind of pro-Serbian Slav Macedonian identity, distinguished especially from the ethnic identity of the Bulgarians.
Bulgarian Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century.
Micko Krstić-Porečki, known as Vojvoda Micko, was a Serbian rebel and military leader active in the Poreče region.
Dejan Ajdačić, is a Serbian Slavist, philologist, folklorist, ethnolinguist, literary critic, translator and editor.
Ivan Gologanov was a Bulgarian folklorist and ethnographer.
Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians is an ethnographic collection of folk songs collected by Stefan Verković, considered to be his most valuable contribution in the field of Bulgarian folklore. It was published in Serbian in 1860, in Belgrade.
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