Political views on the Macedonian language

Last updated

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.

Contents

Macedonian dialects form a continuum with Bulgarian dialects forming the Eastern South Slavic sub-group; they in turn form a broader continuum with Serbo-Croatian through the transitional Torlakian dialects. Throughout history Macedonian has been often referred to as a variant of Bulgarian. It was standardized in Yugoslavia in 1945 based on the central-western dialects of the region of Macedonia. [1] Macedonian was recognized as a minority language in Bulgaria from 1946 to 1948. Though, it was subsequently described in Bulgaria again as a dialect or regional norm of Bulgarian. [2]

Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991, most of its academics, as well as the general public, continue to regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian. However, after years of diplomatic impasse caused by this academic dispute, in 1999 the Bulgarian government settled the language issue by signing a Joint Declaration which used the euphemistic formulation: in Macedonian, pursuant to Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, and in Bulgarian, pursuant the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria. [3] Nevertheless, the Bulgarian government continues to deny Macedonian as a separate language. [4] This issue was one of the main reasons for which the Bulgarian government has hindered accession of North Macedonia to the European Union.

Overview of issues

Recognition

The front page of the Abecedar, a school book published by the Greek government in 1925. Attempts to use Macedonian-language books in the Greek educational system were largely unsuccessful. Abecedar 1925 frontpage.jpg
The front page of the Abecedar, a school book published by the Greek government in 1925. Attempts to use Macedonian-language books in the Greek educational system were largely unsuccessful.

Politicians and scholars from North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece often have opposing views about the existence and distinctiveness of Macedonian. Through history and especially before its codification, Macedonian has been variously referred to as a variant of Bulgarian, [6] Serbian [7] or a distinct language of its own. [8] [9] Historically, after its codification, the use of the language has been a subject of different views in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. In the interwar period, Macedonian was treated as a South Serbian dialect in Yugoslavia, in accordance with claims made in the 19th century. The government permitted its use in dialectal literature. [10] The 1940s saw opposing views on Macedonian in Bulgaria; while its existence was recognized in 1946-47 and allowed as the language of instruction in schools in Pirin Macedonia, the period after 1948 saw its rejection and restricted domestic use. [5]

Until 1999, Macedonian had never been recognized as a minority language in Greece, and attempts to have Macedonian-language books introduced in education have failed. [5] For instance, a Macedonian primer Abecedar was published in 1925 in Athens, but was never used and eventually most copies were destroyed. [10] Professor Christina Kramer argues that Greek policies have largely been based on denying connection between the Macedonian codified standard and that of the Slavophone minority in the country and sees it as "clearly directed towards the elimination of Macedonian". [5] The number of speakers of Macedonian in Greece has been difficult to establish since part of the Slavophone Greek population is also considered speakers of Bulgarian by Bulgarian linguists. [6] [11] [12] In recent years, there have been attempts to have the language recognized as a minority language in Greece. [13] In Albania, Macedonian was recognized after 1946 and mother-tongue instructions were offered in some village schools until grade four. [5]

Autonomous language dispute

Bulgarian scholars have and continue to widely consider Macedonian part of the Bulgarian dialect area. In many Bulgarian and international sources before the World War II, the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum covering the area of today's North Macedonia and Northern Greece was referred to as a group of Bulgarian dialects. Some scholars argue that the idea of linguistic separatism emerged in the late 19th century with the advent of Macedonian nationalism and the need for a separate Macedonian standard language subsequently appeared in the early 20th century. [14] [15] Local variants used to name the language were also balgàrtzki, bùgarski or bugàrski; i.e. Bulgarian. [16]

Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, regarded the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian. Dialect experts of the Bulgarian refer to Macedonian as македонска езикова форма i.e. Macedonian linguistic norm of the Bulgarian language. [17] During Communist era Macedonian was recognized as a minority language in Bulgaria from 1946 to 1948, though, it was subsequently described again as a dialect or regional norm of Bulgarian. [18] Bulgarian government signed in 1956 an Agreement with Yugoslavia for mutual legal defense, where Macedonian is named along with Bulgarian, Serbo-Croat, and Slovene as one of the languages to be used officially for legal matters. [19] Nevertheless in the same year Bulgaria revoked finally its recognition of Macedonian nationhood and language and resumed implicitly its prewar position. [20] In 1999 the government in Sofia signed a Joint Declaration in the official languages of the two countries, marking the first time it agreed to sign a bilateral agreement written in Macedonian. [5] As of 2019, disputes regarding the language and its origins are ongoing in academic and political circles in the countries. Macedonian is still widely regarded as a dialect by Bulgarian scholars, historians and politicians alike including the Government of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which denies the existence of a separate Macedonian language and declares it a written regional form of the Bulgarian language. [21] [22] Similar sentiments are also expressed by the majority of the Bulgarian population. [23] The current international consensus outside of Bulgaria is that Macedonian is an autonomous language within the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum. [17] [24] As such, the language is recognized by 138 member states of the United Nations. [25]

Naming dispute

The Greek scientific and local community was opposed to using the denomination Macedonian to refer to the language in light of the Greek-Macedonian naming dispute. The term is often avoided in the Greek context, and vehemently rejected by most Greeks, for whom Macedonian has very different connotations. Instead, the language is often called simply "Slavic" or "Slavomacedonian" (translated to "Macedonian Slavic" in English). Speakers themselves variously refer to their language as makedonski, makedoniski ("Macedonian"), [26] slaviká (Greek : σλαβικά, "Slavic"), dópia or entópia (Greek : εντόπια, "local/indigenous [language]"), [27] balgàrtzki (Bulgarian) or "Macedonian" in some parts of the region of Kastoria, [28] bògartski ("Bulgarian") in some parts of Dolna Prespa [16] along with naši ("our own") and stariski ("old"). [29] With the Prespa agreement signed in 2018 between the Government of North Macedonia and the Government of Greece, the latter country accepted the use of the adjective Macedonian to refer to the language using a footnote to describe it as Slavic. [30]

Historical overview

Marko Teodorrovich's Primer, 1792 TeodorovichBukvar.jpg
Marko Teodorrovich's Primer, 1792
Ioakim Karchovski's vernacular book, 1814 HadjiJoakim.jpg
Ioakim Karchovski's vernacular book, 1814
Konikovo Gospel, 1852 KonikovoGospel.jpg
Konikovo Gospel, 1852
Kulakia Gospel, 1863 KulakiaGospel.jpg
Kulakia Gospel, 1863

Bulgarian ethnos in Macedonia existed long before the earliest articulations of the idea that Macedonian Slavs might form a separate ethnic group from the Bulgarians in Danubian Bulgaria and Thrace. Throughout the period of Ottoman rule, the Slav-speaking people of the geographic regions of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia referred to their language as Bulgarian and called themselves Bulgarians. [31] [32] For instance, the Croatian Bosnian researcher Stjepan Verković who was a long-term teacher in Macedonia sent by the Serbian government with a special assimilatory mission wrote in the preface of his collection of Bulgarian folk songs: "I named these songs Bulgarian, and not Slavic because today when you ask any Macedonian Slav: Who are you? he immediately answers: I am Bulgarian and call my language Bulgarian…" [33] The name "Bulgarian" for various Macedonian dialects can be seen from early vernacular texts such as the four-language dictionary of Daniil of Moschopole, the early works of Kiril Pejchinovich and Ioakim Kurchovski and some vernacular gospels written in the Greek alphabet. These written works influenced by or completely written in the Bulgarian vernacular were registered in Macedonia in the 18th and beginning of the 19th century and their authors referred to their language as Bulgarian. [34] The first samples of Bulgarian speech and the first grammar of the modern Bulgarian language were written by the leading Serbian literator Vuk Karadžić on the basis of the Macedonian Razlog dialect. [35] In those early years the re-emerging Bulgarian written language was still heavily influenced by Church Slavonic forms so dialectical differences were not very prominent between the Eastern and Western regions. Indeed, in those early years many Bulgarian activists sometimes even communicated in Greek in their writing.

When the Bulgarian national movement got underway in the second quarter of the 19th century some cities in Macedonia were among the first to demand education in Bulgarian and Bulgarian-speaking clerics for their churches. [36] By the 1860s however, it was clear that the Central Balkan regions of Bulgaria were assuming leadership in linguistic and literary affairs. This was to a large extent due to the fact that the wealthy towns on both sides of the Central Balkan range were able to produce more intellectuals educated in Europe than the relatively less developed other Bulgarian regions. Consequently, when the idea that the vernacular rather than Church Slavonic should be represented in the written language gained preponderance, it was the dialects of the Central Balkan region between Veliko Tarnovo and Plovdiv that were most represented. [37]

Some prominent Bulgarian educators from Macedonia like Parteniy Zografski and Kuzman Shapkarev called for a stronger representation of Macedonian dialects in the Bulgarian literary language but their advice was not heeded at the time and sometimes met with hostility. [37] In the article The Macedonian Question by Petko Rachev Slaveykov, published on 18 January 1871 in the Makedoniya newspaper in Constantinople, Macedonism was criticized, his adherents were named Macedonists, and this is the earliest surviving indirect reference to it, although Slaveykov never used the word Macedonism.The term's first recorded use is from 1887 by Stojan Novaković to describe Macedonism as a potential ally for the Serbian strategy to expand its territory toward Macedonia, whose population was regarded by almost all neutral sources as Bulgarian at the time. The consternation of certain Macedonians with what they saw as the domineering attitude of Northern Bulgarians towards their vernacular was later deftly exploited by the Serbian state, which had begun to fear the rise of Bulgarian nationalism in Macedonia.

Up until 1912/18 it was the standard Bulgarian language that most Macedonians learned (and taught) in the Exarchate schools. All activists and leaders of the Macedonian movement, including those of the left, used standard Bulgarian in documents, press publications, correspondence and memoirs and nothing indicates they viewed it as a foreign language. [38] This is characteristic even of the members of IMRO (United) well into the 1920s and 1930s, when the idea of a distinct Macedonian nation was taking shape. [39]

From the 1930s onwards the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Comintern sought to foster a separate Macedonian nationality and language as a means of achieving autonomy for Macedonia within a Balkan federation. Consequently, it was Bulgarian-educated Macedonians who were the first to develop a distinct Macedonian language, culture and literature. [40] [41] When Socialist Macedonia was formed as part of Federal Yugoslavia, these Bulgarian-trained cadres got into a conflict over the language with the more Serbian-leaning activists, who had been working within the Yugoslav Communist Party. Since the latter held most of the political power, they managed to impose their views on the direction the new language was to follow, much to the dismay of the former group. [42] Dennis P. Hupchick, American professor of history, states that "the obviously plagiarized historical argument of the Macedonian nationalists for a separate Macedonian ethnicity could be supported only by linguistic reality, and that worked against them until the 1940s. Until a modern Macedonian literary language was mandated by the socialist-led partisan movement from Macedonia in 1944, most outside observers and linguists agreed with the Bulgarians in considering the vernacular spoken by the Macedonian Slavs as a western dialect of Bulgarian". [43]

After 1944 the communist-dominated government sought to create a Bulgarian-Yugoslav Balkan Communist Federation and part of this entailed giving "cultural autonomy" to the Pirin region. Consequently, Bulgarian communists recognised Macedonian as distinct from Bulgarian on 2nd Nov 1944 with a letter from the Bulgarian Workers' Party (communists) to Marshal Tito and CPY. [44] From January 1945 the regional newspaper Pirinsko Delo printed in Bulgaria started to publish a page in Macedonian. [45] [46] After the Tito–Stalin split in 1948, those plans were abandoned. This date also coincided with the first claims of Bulgarian linguists as to the Serbianisation of the Macedonian. [47] Officially Bulgaria continued to support the idea of a Macedonian unification and a Macedonian nation but within the framework of a Balkan Federation and not within Yugoslavia. [48] However, a reversal in the Macedonisation policy was already announced in the secret April plenum of the BCP in 1956 and openly proclaimed in the plenum of 1963. 1958 was the first time that a "serious challenge" to the Macedonian position was launched by Bulgaria. [49] These developments led to violent polemics between Yugoslav and Bulgarian scholars and sometimes reflected on the bilateral relations of the two countries. [46]

Macedonian views

According to the now-prevalent and official Macedonian view in the books in the Republic of North Macedonia,[ citation needed ] Macedonian was the first official language of the Slavs[ citation needed ], thanks to the St. Cyril and St. Methodius's introduction of Slavic literacy language through the Glagolitic script, that was based on Southern Macedonian dialect from the neighbourhood[ citation needed ] of Thessaloniki, the home of the two saints. [50] Later on, Macedonia fell under the rule of Bulgarians, and the Byzantines regarded all Slavic Macedonians as Bulgarians. However, Krste Misirkov, who allegedly set the principles of the Macedonian literary language in the late 19th century, stated: "We speak a Bulgarian language and we believed with Bulgaria is our strong power." [51]

During the time of the Ottoman Empire, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece were all under Ottoman reign. During the nineteenth century, the primary source of identity was religion. [52] Because Slavs in the geographical regions of Macedonia and Bulgaria were both Orthodox Christian and the Greek Orthodox Church was attempting to Hellenize the population, Macedonian and Bulgarian intellectuals banded together to establish a Slavic literary language in opposition to Greek. [52] Two competing centers of literacy rose at the beginning of the nineteenth century: southwestern Macedonia and northeastern Bulgaria. [52] These centers were different enough at every linguistic level to be competing to become the literary language. When the Bulgarian Exarchate was recognized as a millet on par with the Greek millet (on religious grounds), the designation Bulgarian was still a religious term, in opposition to Greek, and the language began to be standardized on the basis of the Bulgarian center of literacy. [52] Intellectuals from the Macedonian center of literacy felt that their dialects were being excluded from the literary Bulgarian language. [52] By the time the Bulgarian state gained independence in 1878, the population of Macedonia and Bulgaria was subjected to conflicting claims from the Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek states and churches, which provided education, and a distinct Macedonian national identity was written about in print. [52] By 1903, a separate Macedonian identity and language is solidified in the works of Krste Petkov Misirkov, who advocates for a distinct Macedonian literary language. [52]

Bulgarian views

A page from Slavonic-Bulgarian History, written in 1762 by Macedonia-born Saint Paisius of Hilendar. Istoria-slavianobolgarskaia.jpg
A page from Slavonic-Bulgarian History, written in 1762 by Macedonia-born Saint Paisius of Hilendar.

In 1946 Elections for a constituent assembly in October gave the Communists a majority. The new authorities officially recognized Macedonian, but it lasted only until the Tito–Stalin split in 1948. However, from 1948 to 1963 some Bulgarian linguists still continued to recognize Macedonian as a separate Slavic language. [53] The first big "language scandal" between Bulgaria and Macedonia happened in November 1966 when the president of the Bulgarian Association of Writers Georgi Dzagarov refused to sign an agreement for friendship and cooperation that was prepared in both Bulgarian and Macedonian. [45] In 1993 the Bulgarian government refused to sign the first bilateral agreement with the Republic of Macedonia because the Macedonian language was mentioned in the agreement in the last clause: "This agreement is written and signed in Bulgarian and Macedonian". That started a dispute that was resolved in February 1999 when the governments of Bulgaria and Macedonia signed a Joint Declaration where in the last paragraph both governments signed the declaration in: "Bulgarian according to the constitution of Bulgaria and in Macedonian according to the constitution of Macedonia." The denial to recognize Macedonian though persisted in Bulgarian society, so in August 2017 both governments signed another Agreement for Friendship with a clause that mentions the Macedonian language again. In the Bulgarian society there still exists a perception that Bulgaria did not and does not recognize Macedonian as a distinct language.

Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian. [46] However, after years of diplomatic impasse caused by an academic dispute, in 1999 the government in Sofia solved the problem with the Macedonian language under the formula: "the official language of the country (Republic of Macedonia) in accordance with its constitution". [54]

Most Bulgarian linguists consider the Slavic dialects spoken in the region of Macedonia as a part of the Bulgarian dialect area [55] [56] which form a dialect continuum. Numerous shared features of these dialects with Bulgarian are cited as proof. [55] Bulgarian scholars also claim that the overwhelming majority of the Macedonian population had no consciousness of a Macedonian language separate from Bulgarian prior to 1945. Russian scholars cite the early references to the language in Slavic literature from the middle of the 10th century to the end of the 19th century as "bulgarski" or "bolgarski" as proof of that claim. [37] From that, the conclusion is drawn that modern standard Macedonian is not a language separate from Bulgarian either but just another written "norm" based on a set of Bulgarian dialects.

Moreover, Bulgarian linguists assert that the Macedonian and Yugoslav linguists who were involved in codifying the new language artificially introduced differences from literary Bulgarian to bring it closer to Serbian. [57] They are also said to have resorted to falsifications and deliberate misinterpretations of history and documents in order to further the claim that there was a consciousness of a separate Macedonian ethnicity before 1944. [58] Although the original aim of the codifiers of Macedonian was to distance it from both Bulgarian and Serbian[ citation needed ], Bulgarians today view standard Macedonian as heavily Serbianised, especially with regards to its vocabulary. [59] Bulgarian scholars such as Kosta Tsrnushanov claim there are several ways in which standard Macedonian was influenced by Serbian. [60] Venko Markovski, writer, poet and Communist politician from the region of Macedonia, who in 1945 participated in the Commission for the Creation of the Macedonian Alphabet and once wrote in Macedonian and published what was the first contemporary book written in standardized Macedonian, stated in an interview for Bulgarian National Television only seven days prior to his death, that ethnic Macedonians and the Macedonian language do not exist and that they were a result of Comintern manipulation. [61] Part of the Bulgarian scholars and people hold the view that Macedonian is one of three "norms" of the Bulgarian language, the other two being standard Bulgarian and the language of the Banat Bulgarians. This formulation was detailed in 1978 in a document of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences entitled "The Unity of the Bulgarian Language Today and in the Past". [46] Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, it has not recognized Macedonian as a unique language [62] since it reversed its recognition of the language and ethnic group in the late 1950s. [63] [64] This was a major obstacle to the development of diplomatic relations between the two countries until a compromise solution was worked out in 1999.[ clarification needed ][ citation needed ]

Greek views

The "A Dictionary of Three languages" (1875) - "Slavo-Macedonian" - Albanian - Turkish Trijazichnik, Gjorgjiia Pulevski.pdf
The "A Dictionary of Three languages" (1875) - "Slavo-Macedonian" - Albanian - Turkish

From the Greek point of view, there is only one true meaning for the term Macedonia, and that is in reference to ancient Macedon and the modern Greek region of Macedonia. [65] Therefore Greeks were objecting to the use of the "Macedonian" name in reference to the modern Slavic language, calling it "Slavomacedonian" (Greek : σλαβομακεδονική γλώσσα), a term coined by some members of the Slavic-speaking community of northern Greece itself and used by Georgi Pulevski in his book "A Dictionary of Three languages". [66]

Demetrius Andreas Floudas, Senior Associate of Hughes Hall, Cambridge, explains that it was only in 1944 that Josip Broz Tito, in order to increase his regional influence, gave to the southernmost province of Yugoslavia (officially known as Vardarska banovina under the banate regional nomenclature) the new name of People's Republic of Macedonia. At the same time, in a "political master-stroke", [67] the local language - which was until then held to be a western Bulgarian dialect - was unilaterally christened "Macedonian" and became one of Yugoslavia's official languages. [68] Greece similarly rejects the former name "Republic of Macedonia", seeing it as an implicit territorial claim on the whole of the region.

Books have been published in Greece which purport to expose the alleged artificial character of Macedonian. [69]

On 3 June 2018, the Greek Minister of Shipping and Island Policy Panagiotis Kouroublis, acknowledged that Greece had fully recognized the term "Macedonian language" for the modern Slavic language, since the 1977 UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, [70] a fact confirmed on 6 June by the Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, who stated that the language was recognized by the New Democracy-led government of that time. Kotzias also revealed classified documents confirming the use of the term "Macedonian Language" by the past governments of Greece, as well as pointing out to official statements of the Greek Prime Minister Evangelos Averoff who in 1954 and 1959 used the term "Macedonian language" to refer to the South Slavic language. [71] [72] New Democracy denied these claims, noting that the 1977 UN document states clearly that the terminology used thereof (i.e. the characterization of the languages) does not imply any opinion of the General Secretariat of the UN regarding the legal status of any country, territory, borders etc. Further, New Democracy stated that in 2007 and 2012, as governing party, included Greece's objections in the relevant UN documents. [73]

On 12 June 2018, North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, announced that the recognition of Macedonian by Greece is reaffirmed in the Prespa agreement. [74] Within Greece itself however, the term "Slavomacedonian" (Σλαβομακεδονικα) is most commonly used. [75]

Serbian views

Serbia officially recognises Macedonian as a separate language from Bulgarian. In the 2002 census c.26,000 people declared themselves as Macedonians. [76]

Views of linguists

The Eastern South Slavic dialectal area.
.mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{}
Torlakian dialects
Northern Macedonian dialects
Western Macedonian
Central Macedonian
Southeastern Macedonian dialects
Southwestern Bulgarian dialects (or Eastern Macedonian dialects)
Northwestern Bulgarian dialects
Rup dialects
Balkan dialects
Moesian dialects
Standard Bulgarian is based on the Rup, Balkan and Moesian ("Eastern Bulgarian") dialects.
Standard Macedonian is based on the Western Macedonian dialects, consisting of the 'Western' and 'Central Macedonian' subgroups. Balkan Slavic linguistic area.png
The Eastern South Slavic dialectal area.
  Western Macedonian
  Central Macedonian
   Southwestern Bulgarian dialects (or Eastern Macedonian dialects)
Standard Bulgarian is based on the Rup, Balkan and Moesian ("Eastern Bulgarian") dialects.
Standard Macedonian is based on the Western Macedonian dialects, consisting of the 'Western' and 'Central Macedonian' subgroups.

Horace Lunt wrote: "Bulgarian scholars, who argue that the concept of a Macedonian language was unknown before World War II, or who continue to claim that a Macedonian language does not exist look not only dishonest, but silly, while Greek scholars who make similar claims are displaying arrogant ignorance of their Slavic neighbours". [77] Loring Danforth, a professor of anthropology, addresses the stance of linguists, who attribute the origin of the Macedonian language to their will, stressing that all languages in the standardisation process have a certain political and historical context to them and the fact that the Macedonian language had a political context in which it was standardised does not mean it is not a language. [78]

Vittore Pisani stated "the Macedonian language is actually an artifact produced for primarily political reasons". [79] German linguist Friedrich Scholz argues that the Macedonian national consciousness and from that conscientious promotion of Macedonian as a written language first appears just in the beginning of the twentieth century and is strengthened particularly during the years between the two world wars. [80] Austrian linguist Otto Kronsteiner states that the Macedonian linguists artificially introduced differences from the literary Bulgarian language to bring Macedonian closer to Serbian, jesting that the Macedonian language is a Bulgarian one, but written on a Serbian typewriter. [81] According to the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (ed. linguist Ronald E. Asher), Macedonian can be called a Bulgarian dialect, as structurally it is most similar to Bulgarian. [82]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macedonian language</span> South Slavic language spoken in North Macedonia

Macedonian is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken as a first language by around 1.6 million people, it serves as the official language of North Macedonia. Most speakers can be found in the country and its diaspora, with a smaller number of speakers throughout the transnational region of Macedonia. Macedonian is also a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia and it is spoken by emigrant communities predominantly in Australia, Canada and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macedonians (ethnic group)</span> South Slavic ethnic group

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 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographic history of Macedonia</span> Historical overview of Macedonias demographics

The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krste Misirkov</span> Philologist, journalist, historian and ethnographer

Krste Petkov Misirkov was a philologist, journalist, historian and ethnographer from the region of Macedonia.

The orthography of the Macedonian language includes an alphabet consisting of 31 letters, which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torlakian dialects</span> Group of South Slavic dialects

Torlakian, or Torlak, is a group of transitional 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgi Pulevski</span> Mijak writer (1817–1893)

Georgi Pulevski, sometimes also Gjorgji, Gjorgjija Pulevski or Đorđe Puljevski was a Mijak writer and revolutionary. Pulevski was born in 1817 in Galičnik, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and died in 1895 in Sofia, Principality of Bulgaria. Trained as a stonemason, he became a self-taught writer in matters relating to the Macedonian language and culture. He is known today as the first author to express publicly the idea of a Macedonian nation distinct from Bulgarian, as well as the idea of a separate Macedonian language. Despite Pulevski being an early adherent of Macedonism, because of his pro-Bulgarian military activity, in Bulgaria he is regarded as a Bulgarian.

The history of the Macedonian language refers to the developmental periods of current-day Macedonian, an Eastern South Slavic language spoken on the territory of North Macedonia. The Macedonian language developed during the Middle Ages from the Old Church Slavonic, the common language spoken by Slavic people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavic dialects of Greece</span> Dialects of Macedonian and Bulgarian

The Slavic dialects of Greece are the Eastern South Slavic dialects of Macedonian and Bulgarian spoken by minority groups in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece. Usually, dialects in Thrace are classified as Bulgarian, while the dialects in Macedonia are classified as Macedonian, with the exception of some eastern dialects which can also be classified as Bulgarian. Before World War II, most linguists considered all of these dialects to be Bulgarian dialects. However, other linguists opposed this view and considered Macedonian dialects as comprising an independent language distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macedonian nationalism</span> Social movement since the 19th and 20th century

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.

<i>Abecedar</i> School book in Greece

The Abecedar was a school book first published in Athens, Greece, in 1925. The book became the subject of controversy with Bulgaria and Serbia when cited by Greece as proof it had fulfilled its international obligations towards its Slavic-speaking minority, because it had been printed in the Latin alphabet rather than the Cyrillic used by the Slavic languages of the southern Balkans. The book was initially published for the Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia in the Lerin dialect, and today it is published in Standard Macedonian, Standard Greek and Standard English.

The dialects of Macedonian comprise the Slavic dialects spoken in the Republic of North Macedonia as well as some varieties spoken in the wider geographic region of Macedonia. They are part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages that joins Macedonian with Bulgarian to the east and Torlakian to the north into the group of the Eastern South Slavic languages. The precise delimitation between these languages is fleeting and controversial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographical distribution of Macedonian speakers</span>

The geographical distribution of speakers of Macedonian refers to the total number of native speakers of Macedonian, an East South Slavic language that serves as the official language of North Macedonia. Estimates of the number of native and second language speakers of Macedonian varies; the number of native speakers in the country ranges from 1,344,815 according to the 2002 census in North Macedonia to 1,476,500 per linguistic database Ethnologue in 2016. Estimates of the total number of speakers in the world include 3.5 million people. Macedonian is studied and spoken as a second language by all ethnic minorities in the country.

Slavic speakers are a minority population in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, who are mostly concentrated in certain parts of the peripheries of West and Central Macedonia, adjacent to the territory of the state of North Macedonia. Their dialects are called today "Slavic" in Greece, while generally they are considered Macedonian. Some members have formed their own emigrant communities in neighbouring countries, as well as further abroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macedonian Bulgarians</span> Bulgarians from the geographic region of Macedonia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian question</span> European political document

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.

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.

The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which encompasses the southeastern part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulgarian Folk Songs</span>

Bulgarian Folk Songs is a collection of folk songs and traditions from the then Ottoman Empire, especially from the region of Macedonia, but also from Shopluk and Srednogorie, published in 1861 by the Miladinov brothers. The Miladinovs' collection remains one of the greatest single works in the history of Bulgarian folklore studies and has been republished many times. The collection is considered also to have played an important role by the historiography in North Macedonia.

<i>Macedonian Blood Wedding</i>

Macedonian Blood Wedding is a play by the Bulgarian publicist, Voydan Chernodrinski. It was first published and shown in theaters in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1900. The drama was written in the Macedonian Debar dialect and in standard Bulgarian, making it one of the first books written mostly in a Macedonian dialect.

References

  1. Matthew H. Ciscel, Multilingualism and the disputed standardizations of Macedonian and Moldovan, pp. 309–328; in Matthias Hüning, Ulrike Vogl, Olivier Moliner as ed., Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History, John Benjamins Publishing, 2012, ISBN   902727391X, p. 314.
  2. Ranko Bugarski, Celia Hawkesworth as editors, Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands, Slavica Publishers, 2004, ISBN   0893572985, p. 201.
  3. "1999/02/22 23:50 Bulgaria Recognizes Macedonian Language". Aimpress.ch. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  4. Wayne C. Thompson, Nordic, Central, and Southeastern Europe 2018-2019, Edition 18, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, ISBN   1475841523, p. 584.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kramer 1999 , p. ?
  6. 1 2 Institute of Bulgarian Language (1978). Единството на българския език в миналото и днес[The unity of the Bulgarian language in the past and today] (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. p. 4. OCLC   6430481.
  7. Comrie & Corbett 2002 , p. 251
  8. Max K. Adler. Marxist Linguistic Theory and Communist Practice: A Sociolinguistic Study; Buske Verlag (1980), p.215
  9. Seriot 1997 , pp. 270–271
  10. 1 2 Friedman 2001 , p. 436
  11. Shklifov, Blagoy (1995). Проблеми на българската диалектна и историческа фонетика с оглед на македонските говори (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Kacharmazov. p. 14.
  12. Shklifov, Blagoy (1977). Речник на костурския говор, Българска диалектология (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Book VIII. pp. 201–205.
  13. "Report of the independent expert on minority issues, Gay McDougall Mission to Greece 8–16 September 2008" (PDF). Greek Helsinki Monitor . United Nations Human Rights Council. 2009-02-18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-17.
  14. Fishman, Joshua A.; de Gruyter, Walter (1993). The Earliest Stage of Language Planning: The "First Congress" Phenomenon. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 161–162. ISBN   3-11-013530-2 . Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  15. Danforth, Loring M. (1995). The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world. Princeton University Press. p. 67. ISBN   0-691-04356-6 . Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  16. 1 2 Shklifov, Blagoy; Shklifova, Ekaterina (2003). Български деалектни текстове от Егейска Македония[Bulgarian dialect texts from Aegean Macedonia] (in Bulgarian). Sofia. pp. 28–36.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. 1 2 Reimann, Daniel (2014). Kontrastive Linguistik und Fremdsprachendidaktik Iberoromanisch (in German). Gunter Narr Verlag. ISBN   978-3823368250.
  18. Ranko Bugarski, Celia Hawkesworth as editors, Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands, Slavica Publishers, 2004, ISBN   0893572985, p. 201.
  19. "Agreement between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia for mutual legal defense". Държавен вестник No 16. February 22, 1967. Retrieved January 13, 2020.
  20. Raymond Detrez, (2010) The A to Z of Bulgaria, Issue 223 of A to Z Guides, Edition 2, Scarecrow Press, 2010, ISBN   0810872021.
  21. "Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is firm that "Macedonian language" is Bulgarian dialect". Bulgarian National Radio. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  22. Jakov Marusic, Sinisa (10 October 2019). "Bulgaria Sets Tough Terms for North Macedonia's EU Progress". Balkan Insights. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  23. Nihtinen 1999 , p. ?
  24. Trudgill 1992 , p. ?
  25. "Повелба за македонскиот јазик" [Charter for the Macedonian language](PDF) (in Macedonian). Skopje: Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. 3 December 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  26. Lois Whitman (1994): Denying ethnic identity: The Macedonians of Greece Helsinki Human Rights Watch. p.39 at Google Books
  27. "Greek Helsinki Monitor – Report about Compliance with the Principles of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities". Archived from the original on 2003-05-23. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  28. Danforth, Loring M. The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. p. 62. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  29. Whitman, Lois (1994). Denying ethnic identity: The Macedonians of Greece. Helsinki Human Rights Watch. p. 37. ISBN   1564321320.
  30. "Republic of North Macedonia with Macedonian language and identity, says Greek media". Meta.mk. Meta. 12 June 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  31. Verković, Stjepan Narodne pesme makedonski bugara (Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians). Beograd, 1860.
  32. Miladinov, D. and Miladinov, K. Bulgarian Folk Songs (Български народни песни). Zagreb, 1861.
  33. "Но ја сам ове песме назвао бугарскима, а не словенскима, због тога, јер данас кад би когод македонског Славенина запитао: што си ти? с места би му отговорно: я сам болгарин, а свој језик зову болгарским...", p. 13
  34. Prof. Dr. Gustav Weigand, ETHNOGRAPHIE VON MAKEDONIEN, Geschichtlich-nationaler, spraechlich-statistischer Teil, Leipzig, Friedrich Brandstetter, 1924.
  35. Vuk Karadjić. Dodatak k sanktpeterburgskim sravniteljnim rječnicima sviju jezika i narječja sa osobitim ogledom Bugarskog језика. Vienna, 1822.
  36. F. A. K. Yasamee "NATIONALITY IN THE BALKANS: THE CASE OF THE MACEDONIANS" in Balkans: A Mirror of the New World Order, Istanbul: EREN, 1995; pp. 121-132.
  37. 1 2 3 Струкова, К. П. Общественно-политическое развитие Македонии в 50-70-е гг XIX века, Российская Академия наук, Москва 2004, стр. 85-136. ISBN   5-7576-0163-9
  38. Как пишеха народните будители и герои, Иван Михайлов
  39. Димитър Влахов Борбите на македонския народ за освобождение, Библиотека Балканска Федерация, № 1, Виена; Dimitar Vlahov, "The liberation struggle of the Macedonian people"
  40. Доц. д-р Петър Галчин "МАКЕДОНСКИ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕН КРЪЖОК (1938–1941 г.)" ,Македонски Преглед, София, бр. 1 & 2, 2002
  41. Юлия Митева, "Идеята за езика в Македонския литературен кръжок - естетически и идеологически аспекти"
  42. Palmer, S. and R. King, Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian Question, Archon Books, 1971, p. 137. ISBN   0-208-00821-7
  43. Dennis P. Hupchick, Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995, p. 143
  44. "Especially in view of the establishment of a free Macedonian state within the framework of a federal Yugoslavia, making the first appropriate step for the realization of the Macedonian ideal of emancipation, a united Macedonia, we would like to inform you that our Party and our people most sincerely welcome the new Macedonian state." The full text of the letter:A letter from the Centarl Committee of the Bulgarian Workers' Party to Tito
  45. 1 2 "От "интернационализъм" към национализъм – част 1". 29 July 2013.
  46. 1 2 3 4 Mahon, M. (1998) "The Macedonian question in Bulgaria" in Nations and Nationalism . Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 389-407
  47. Friedman, V. (1998) "The implementation of standard Macedonian: problems and results" in International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Issue 131. pp. 31-57
  48. Palmer and King, p. 126
  49. Palmer and King, p. 163.
  50. Encyclopædia Britannica - Old Church Slavonic language Archived 2007-12-21 at the Wayback Machine
  51. Misirkov, K. "On the Macedonian Matters", Sofia 1903
  52. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Friedman, Victor. "Linguistic Emblems and Emblematic Languages: On Language as Flag in the Balkans" (PDF). Department of Slavic and East European Languages, The Ohio State University.
  53. Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, Elsevier, 2010, ISBN   0080877753, p. 664.
  54. "1999/02/22 23:50 Bulgaria Recognises Macedonian Language". www.aimpress.ch. Retrieved 2022-02-27.
  55. 1 2 Institute of Bulgarian Language (1978). Единството на българския език в миналото и днес (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. p. 4. OCLC   6430481.
  56. Стойков (Stoykov), Стойко (2002) [1962]. Българска диалектология (Bulgarian dialectology) (in Bulgarian). София: Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов". ISBN   954-430-846-6. OCLC   53429452.
  57. Ив. Кочев и Ив. Александров, ДОКУМЕНТИ ЗА СЪЧИНЯВАНЕТО НА МАКЕДОНСКИЯ КНИЖОВЕН ЕЗИК (in Bulgarian)
  58. Коста Църнушанов, Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него, Унив. изд. "Св. Климент Охридски", София, 1992
  59. Europe since 1945: an encyclopedia, Author Bernard A. Cook, Publisher Taylor & Francis, 2001, ISBN   0-8153-4058-3, p 187.
  60. "Makedonski Pregled - 1991 No 1 - K. Tsyrnushanov". www.promacedonia.org. Retrieved 2022-02-27.
  61. Mitewa, Yulia (2001). ИДЕЯТА ЗА ЕЗИКА В МАКЕДОНСКИЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕН КРЪЖОК – ЕСТЕТИЧЕСКИ И ИДЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИ АСПЕКТИ. Veliko Tarnovo: Litera.
  62. Synovitz, Ron (16 December 2018). "Skopje, Sofia Not Speaking Same Language When It Comes To Macedonian". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  63. Shoup, Paul (1968). Communism and the Yugoslav National Question, (New - York: Columbia University Press).
  64. War Report, Sofia, Skopje, and the Macedonian Question, No.35, July/August - 1995.
  65. Danforth, L. (1997) The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton : Princeton University Press) ISBN   0-691-04356-6
  66. Although acceptable in the past, current use of this name in reference to both the ethnic group and the language can be considered pejorative and offensive by ethnic Macedonians. In the past, the Macedonian Slavs in Greece seemed relieved to be acknowledged as Slavomacedonians. Pavlos Koufis, a native of Greek Macedonia, pioneer of ethnic Macedonian schools in the region and local historian, says in Laografika Florinas kai Kastorias (Folklore of Florina and Kastoria), Athens 1996:
    "[During its Panhellenic Meeting in September 1942, the KKE mentioned that it recognises the equality of the ethnic minorities in Greece] the KKE recognised that the Slavophone population was ethnic minority of Slavomacedonians. This was a term, which the inhabitants of the region accepted with relief. [Because] Slavomacedonians = Slavs+Macedonians. The first section of the term determined their origin and classified them in the great family of the Slav peoples."
    The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports:
    "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness. Unfortunately, according to members of the community, this term was later used by the Greek authorities in a pejorative, discriminatory way; hence the reluctance if not hostility of modern-day Macedonians of Greece (i.e. people with a Macedonian national identity) to accept it."
  67. Floudas, Demetrius Andreas. "Pardon? A Name for a Conflict? FYROM's Dispute with Greece Revisited" (PDF). in: Kourvetaris et al. (eds.), The New Balkans, East European Monographs: Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 85.
  68. Floudas, Demetrius Andreas. "'Macedonia Nostra'" (PDF). ResearchGate. LSE Conference Paper; Greece: Prospects for Modernisation, London, 1994.
  69. Roudometof, V. (1996) "Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question" in Journal of Modern Greek Studies Vol. 14, pp. 253–302.
  70. "Kouroublis: In 1977, Greece recognized "Macedonian language" (original: Κουρουμπλής: To 1977 η Ελλάδα αναγνώρισε "μακεδονική γλώσσα")". Skai Channel. 3 June 2018. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
  71. Τα απόρρητα έγγραφα που κατέθεσε ο Κοτζιάς για ΠΓΔΜ) [The classified documents submitted by Kotzias about the Republic of Macedonia]. thepressproject.gr (in Greek). The Press Project. 6 June 2018. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  72. Τα απόρρητα αρχεία που κατέθεσε στη Βουλή ο Νίκος Κοτζιάς (pics) [The classified files submitted by Nikos Kotzias in the Parliament (pics)]. www.cnn.gr (in Greek). CNN. 18 June 2018. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  73. "Η ΝΔ καταρρίπτει τις κατηγορίες πως είχε αναγνωρίσει «μακεδονική» γλώσσα από το 1977". ProtoThema (in Greek). 2018-06-08. Retrieved 2022-02-27.
  74. "Zaev:We made a deal - Republic of North Macedonia, with Macedonian language and Macedonian identity". kajgana.com (in Macedonian). Кајгана. 12 June 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  75. "Μάθετε τις πιο σημαντικές λέξεις στα σλαβομακεδονικά!". www.17-minute-world-languages.com. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  76. SN31 [ permanent dead link ]
  77. Loring M. Danforth (6 April 1997). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press. p. 67. ISBN   9780691043562.
  78. Danforth, Loring (April 12, 2008). "Macedonia and the language of nationalism" (radio debate). Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Retrieved Nov 8, 2008.
  79. Pisani, V. "Il Macedonico, Paideia, Rivista Letteraria di informazione bibliografica", vol. 12, p. 250, 1957
  80. Friedrich Scholz, Slavische Etymologie, Harrassowitz, 1966
  81. Der Zerfall Jugoslawiens und die Zukunft der makedonischen Literatursprache: Der späte Fall von Glottotomie? Autor Kronsteiner, Otto, Herausgeber Schriftenreihe Die slawischen Sprachen, Erscheinungsjahr 1992, Seiten 142-171.
  82. Asher, Ronald E., ed. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1. Pergamon. p. 429.

Works cited