Historiography in North Macedonia is the methodology of historical studies developed and employed by Macedonian historians. It traces its origins to 1945, when SR Macedonia became part of Yugoslavia. According to German historian Stefan Troebst[de], it has preserved nearly the same agenda as Marxist historiography from the times of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[5] The generation of Macedonian historians closely associated with the Yugoslav period, who were instrumental in establishing national historical narratives, still exerts an influence on modern-day institutions. In the field of historiography, communism and Macedonian nationalism are closely related.[6] After the Fall of communism, Macedonian historiography did not significantly revise its communist past, because of the key role played by communist policies in establishing a distinct Macedonian nation.[7]
According to Austrian historian Ulf Brunnbauer[de], modern Macedonian historiography is highly politicized, because the Macedonian nation-building process is still ongoing. Diverging approaches are discouraged, and people who express alternative views risk economic limitations, academic career obstacles and stigmatization as "national traitors".[8] Troebst wrote in 1983 that historical research in SR Macedonia was primarily about direct political action.[9] He would go on to characterize this reciprocal dependence of historiography and politics as being more pronounced than what had been observed in Eastern and Southeast Europe.[10] Because of the complexity of the case, Macedonian historiography could be described as a state "ideology".[11] Moreover, in North Macedonia, archaeology has often been placed at the service of the state, and used to legitimize nationalist claims to history, culture, and territory.[12]
Some domestic and foreign scholars have criticized this agenda of negationist historiography, whose apparent goal is to affirm the continuous existence of a separate Macedonian nation throughout history.[17] This controversial view is ahistorical, as it projects modern ethnic distinctions onto the past.[18] Such a reading of history contributes to the distortion of Macedonian national identity, and does harm to the academic integrity of history as a discipline.[19] Via the medium of education, unsubstantiated historical claims have been transmitted to generations of students in the country, to conceal that many prominent Macedonians had viewed themselves as Bulgarians.[20] The Skopje 2014 project, for example, promoted the idea of continuity of the Macedonian nation from antiquity until modern times.[21] The debates in North Macedonia concerning its relationships with Bulgaria and Greece have had significant impact on historiographic narrative in the country, introducing a new revisionist interpretation of the past.[22]
History
In 1892, Georgi Pulevski, one of the first Macedonian national activists, completed a "General History of the Macedonian Slavs", although his knowledge of history may have been somewhat limited.[23] However, the contemporary Macedonian historical narrative is rooted in communist groups active during the Interwar period, especially in the 1930s, when the Comintern issued a special resolution in their support. According to activists from those groups, the Macedonian nation was forged through a differentiation from the earlier Bulgarian nation. In that framework, the Macedonian awakening in the 19th century took place as part of the Bulgarian National Revival, but managed to evolve separately from it in the early 20th century.[24] One of them — Vasil Ivanovski, declared for the first time that many Bulgarian historical figures were, in fact, ethnic Macedonians.[25] It was only after the Second World War, however, that those writings were widely appreciated, as prior to the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia, the existence of a separate Macedonian nation was still not widely recognized.
The glorification of the Yugoslav partisan movement became one of the main components of post-war Yugoslav political propaganda. As a result, the leader of the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia – Lazar Koliševski, initially proclaimed that the Republic's history had begun with the communist struggle during the Second World War, whereas early 20th century events such as the Ilinden Uprising, or organizations such as the IMRO, were mere Bulgarian conspiracies.[26][27] At the same time, the first rector of the University of Skopje - Kiril Miljovski - admitted that early Macedonian revivalists and revolutionaries identified as Bulgarians.[28] With explicit state support from the Yugoslav government, historical studies emphasizing the distinctness of Macedonian nationhood were expanded.[29] New Macedonian historiography held, as a central principle, that Macedonian history was separate from Bulgarian history. Its primary goal was to foster an independent Macedonian national consciousness, with an "anti-Bulgarian" or "de-Bulgarizing" trend, and to sever any ties with Bulgaria.[30] This distinct Slavic consciousness would inspire identification with Yugoslavia.
The Bitola inscription from 1016/1017. Originally exhibited in the local museum, it was locked away when Bulgarian scientists became aware of its content, confirming the Cometopuli considered their state Bulgarian.[31]
The first national scientific institution in this field – the Institute for National History of the PR Macedonia - was established in 1948. The historiographic narrative in the first two decades afterwards was expanded to the early 19th century, which was believed at the time to mark the beginning of the history of the Macedonian people. However, some people from the region who were included in the new narrative had also played a significant role in the Bulgarian National Revival. This apparent problem was solved by the Communist system using censorship, control of historical information, and manipulation.[32] Numerous prominent activists with pro-Bulgarian sentiment from the 19th and the early 20th centuries were described as (ethnic) Macedonians. Despite the fact that in many documents of that period, the local Slavic population was not referred to as "Macedonian", but rather as "Bulgarian", Macedonian historians argued that it was Macedonian anyway. They also claimed that the term "Bulgarian" did not refer to any specific ethnicity at the time, but was rather used as a synonym for "Slavic", "Christian" or "peasant".[33] Bulgarian historians view this as part of a systematic trend of denigrating and reviling the ethnonym "Bulgarian".[34]
Since the late 1960s, efforts have been made to expand the narrative into the Middle Ages. In 1969, the first academic "History of the Macedonian Nation" was published, where many historical figures from the region who had lived in the previous millennium, such as Samuel of Bulgaria, were described as people with a "Macedonian (Slavic) identity". When historians from Skopje University published in 1985 their collection of documents on the struggle of the Macedonian people, they included into the excerpts of medieval chronicles a footnote for every use of the term Bulgarian.[35] This is seen as historical revisionism by Bulgarian historians, who continue to dispute the Macedonian interpretation of events up until the present day.[36]
During the aforementioned period, Macedonian and Yugoslav scholars typically referred to the ancient local tribes of the Central Balkan region as Daco-Moesian. Initially, Daco-Moesian tribes were identified via linguistic research. Later, Yugoslav archaeologists and historians came to an agreement that Daco-Moesians would have been located in the area of modern-day Serbia and North Macedonia. The most popular Daco-Moesian tribes described in Yugoslav literature were the Triballians, the Dardanians and the Paeonians.[37] The leading research goal in SR Macedonia during Yugoslav times was the establishment of some kind of Paionian identity, and to separate it from the western "Illyrian" and the eastern "Thracian" entities. The idea of a Paionian identity was intended to demonstrate that Vardar Macedonia was neither Illyrian nor Thracian, favouring a more complex division. That view was contrary to scientific claims about strict Thraco-Illyrian Balkan separation from neighbouring Bulgaria and Albania. Yugoslav Macedonian historians also argued that any plausible link between Slav Macedonians and their ancient namesakes was, at best, accidental.[38]
The situation did not change significantly after the Republic of Macedonia achieved independence in the late 20th century. Historiography remained consistent with that from the Yugoslav period, because almost all ideas of historical revisionist nature originated during the communist era.[43] The reluctance towards a thorough reexamination of Yugoslav communist historiography was fueled by the fact that the very notions of Macedonian nationhood, statehood and language were a product of Yugoslav communist policies. To the mainstream political establishment, an attitude against Communist Yugoslavia was tantamount to anti-Macedonism.[44]
Macedonian historiography has become important since the early 21st century in the face of an unsure reevaluation of the Yugoslav past, and an uneasy articulation of a new anticommunist narrative.[45] It has sought a new horizon behind the mythological symbolism of ancient Macedon. For that purpose, the borders of the ancient state have been extended to the north, beyond its actual historical extent. According to this new narrative, most of the cultural achievements of the Ancient Macedonians were actually (ethnic) Macedonian and therefore, Hellenism's true name ought to be Macedonism. This new historical trend, called antiquization, has made the Macedonian nation a thousand years older.[46] In this view, Ancient Macedonians were not Ancient Greek people, and a separate existence of Ancient Macedonians in the Early Middle Ages is maintained, 800 years after the fall of their kingdom, as well as their admixture in the Byzantine Empire with early Slavic settlers arriving in the late 6th century.[47]
In 2009, the first Macedonian Encyclopedia was published by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The publication caused international and domestic protests because of its content, and its authors have been subject to intense criticism.[48] Even some Macedonian academics criticised the book as hastily prepared and politically motivated. Soon thereafter, the controversial encyclopedia was withdrawn from bookstores. In 2008, Macedonian Canadian historian Andrew Rossos published the first professional English language overview of the history of Macedonia. However, Stefan Troebst had suggested that his narrative was influenced by the dominant views in the Republic of Macedonia, thus reflecting the latest developments in official Macedonian historiography.[49]
Volunteers from Debar in the Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps of Bulgarian Army in 1912. According to Macedonian historians, they were forcibly mobilized.[50]Procession during WWI Bulgarian occupation of then Serbia, in which surviving participants of the Ilinden Uprising took part in marking its anniversary in Kruševo. According to Macedonian historians, the locals suffered under Bulgarian occupation.[51][52]
Recently, there has been interest on the Macedonian side in engaging in a debate about the national historical narrative with Bulgaria and Greece. With respect to the Macedonian narrative, both Greek and Bulgarian historiographers have questioned Macedonian historiography's factual basis. Per Michael R. Palairet, in the three-way dispute about Macedonia, the Bulgarian view is closer to objective historical reality than either the Greek or Macedonian view, but the Macedonian historiographical version departs from common sense and the historical record much more than either the Greek or the Bulgarian ones.[53]
The governments of Bulgaria and Macedonia signed a friendship treaty to bolster the complicated relations between the two Balkan states in August 2017. As a provision of the treaty, a joint commission on historical and educational issues was formed in 2018. This intergovernmental commission is a forum where controversial historical issues are to be raised and discussed, to resolve problematic readings of history. In an interview given in 2019, the Macedonian co-president of the joint historical commission - prof. Dragi Gjorgiev - indicated that it was necessary to acknowledge there had been forgeries made on the Macedonian side. An example provided was the replacement of "Bulgarian" with "Macedonian" in certain historical artifacts, seen in Macedonian textbooks. According to Gjorgiev, historiography in North Macedonia had been a function of the process of nation-building for many years.[54]
In early October 2019, Bulgaria set a lot of tough terms for North Macedonia's EU progress. The Bulgarian government accepted an ultimate "Framework Position", warning that Bulgaria would not let the EU integration of North Macedonia be accompanied by European legitimization of an anti-Bulgarian ideology. In the list, there were more than 20 demands and a timetable to fulfill them, during the process of North Macedonia's accession negotiations. It stated that the rewriting of the history of part of the Bulgarian people after 1944 was one of the pillars of the bulgarophobic agenda of then-Yugoslav communism. The "Framework Position" was approved by a parliamentary vote on 10 October.[55] As a result, in an interview with Bulgarian media in November 2020, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev conceded that, among other things, Bulgaria was not a fascist occupier during WWII, and had in fact joined Macedonian Partisans in battles to repel Germans from the area in 1944.[56] This sparked criticism and accusations by Macedonian public figures, politicians and historians of historical revisionism.[57] The leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski stated that he was concerned that the negotiation process with Bulgaria could threaten Macedonian national identity.[58] Protests broke out demanding Zaev's resignation.[59] According to former Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski, those reactions were the result of ignorance, hypocrisy or politicking.[60]
On November 17, 2020, Bulgaria blocked the official start of North Macedonia's EU accession negotiations.[61] One of the main reasons provided was an "ongoing nation-building process" based on historical negationism of Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader region of Macedonia.[62] The acknowledgement of Bulgarian influence on Macedonian history is highly problematic, because it clashes with the post-WWII Yugoslav Macedonian nation-building narrative, based on an anti-Bulgarian stance.[63] In August 2022, the joint historical commission reached an agreement and recommended the joint commemoration of historical figures like Cyril and Methodius, Clement of Ohrid, Saint Naum and Tsar Samuel.[64]
Alternative views
Memorial plaque of participants in the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in Malko Tarnovo. In the list are also names of revolutionaries born in Ottoman Macedonia. This part of the uprising, because it occurred on the territory of present-day Eastern Bulgaria, is denied by the historians in North Macedonia.[65]
After the fall of Communism, historical revisionists in the Republic of Macedonia questioned the narrative established in Communist Yugoslavia.[66] Some of them include Zoran Todorovski, Stojan Kiselinovski, Violeta Ačkoska and Stojan Risteski, who have been ideologically aligned with VMRO-DPMNE. After 1945 the Yugoslav authorities rehabilitated only certain IMRO revolutionaries, who were not associated with the idea of union of Macedonia with Bulgaria, while other IMRO figures remained neglected because of their strong pro-Bulgarian stands. Todorovski has tried to rehabilitate figures regarded as controversial pro-Bulgarians in the historiography such as Todor Aleksandrov and Ivan Mihailov. He has also argued that all Macedonian revolutionaries from the early 20th century and beyond identified themselves as Bulgarians.[67][non-primary source needed] On the other hand, Todor Čepreganov insisted that almost all Macedonian revolutionaries sometimes took pro-Bulgarian stands or identified themselves as Bulgarians.[68] Based on his opinions, Bulgarian sources maintain that similar views were also espoused by Ivan Katardžiev.[69][70][71] Kiselinovski on the other hand has re-evaluated the standardization of the Macedonian language and the role that Blaže Koneski played in it. Ačkoska and Risteski have written about the repressions against the opponents of the communist regime.
People such as Ivan Mikulčić, Krste Crvenkovski and Slavko Milosavlevski tried to openly oppose the popular historical myths in the Republic of Macedonia. Mikulčić, for example, proved through archaeological evidence that there weren't any ancient Macedonians when the Early Slavs arrived in Macedonia. He also found several Bulgar settlements on the territory of the modern republic and argued the Slavs in Macedonia adopted the ethnonymBulgarians in the 9th century.[72] Milosavlevski and Crvenkovski challenged the myth of the significance of the communist partisan resistance movement against the Bulgarian Army during WW2.[73] Such studies became the only exception to the new Macedonian historiography, with most historians staying loyal to the political elite, writing publications appropriating the Hellenistic part of the Macedonian past, the medieval Bulgarian Empire and the Bulgarian national revival from the Ottoman period.[74] According to Macedonian professor of pathology and then-MP Vesna Janevska, the conflict during WWII was a fratricidal or civil war.[75] Per Macedonian philosopher Katerina Kolozova, the term Bulgarian fascist occupiers is dubious, because significant part of them were practically local collaborators of the Bulgarian authorities.[76][77][78] According to her, the connection of modern Macedonian identity with the Yugoslav partisans' activity has been so deeply rooted in the society, that any historical revision of that issue is unimaginable.[78]
Thе policy of claiming ethnic Macedonian past during Ancient, Medieval and Ottoman times is facing criticism by other leading intellectuals, academics and politicians in the country itself, such as Denko Maleski, Miroslav Grčev, Ljubčo Georgievski and others. It demonstrates feebleness of archaeology and historiography, as well as some kind of ethnic marginalization.[79] These intellectuals from the Macedonian elite admit that the distinct Macedonian nation is a recent phenomenon that developed in the years around the Second World War. Such views are spread among well educated citizens that search for the scientific resolution of the nation-building process. Despite significant parts of the leading establishment strongly opposing the articulation of such views, some prominent members of the elite disclose their rational views.[80] At the end of 2015, the film director Darko Mitrevski, published a nine-part article in the newspaper "Nova Makedonija" entitled "Our big forgery", espousing sharp criticism of Macedonian historical narrative. According to him, if Macedonians do not accept their real history, they will be a nation with historical complexes. They will remain at loggerheads with their neighbors if they continue to build out a fictional history of styrofoam. According to him, such a nation does not need a history, but psychiatry.[81]
Foreign historiographic studies
The mainstream European historiography maintains that the idea of a separate Macedonian nation was developed mainly during the Second World War and was adopted en masse immediately after it.[82] Per Carsten Wieland, Stefan Troebst sees the Macedonian nation building as an ideal example of Gellner's theory of nationalism. Since the creation of the Yugoslav Macedonia it was realized immediately.[83] Whether in Antiquity the Ancient Macedonians were originally a Greek tribe or not is ultimately a redundant question according to professor of anthropology Loring Danforth.[84]John Van Antwerp Fine states that throughout the Middle Ages and Ottoman era modern Bulgarians and Macedonians comprised a single people.[85] Per Bernard Lory the ethnic divergence between Bulgarians and Macedonians occurred mainly in the first half of the 20th century.[86]Alexander Maxwell maintains that scarcely by the middle of that century, Macedonians began to see Macedonian and Bulgarian loyalties as mutually exclusive.[87] According to historian Eugene N. Borza, the Macedonians, who are a recently emergent people and have had no history, are in search of their past. This search is an attempt to help legitimize their unsure present, surviving in the disorder of Balkan politics.[88] Anthropologist Ivaylo Dichev claims that the Macedonian historiography has the impossible task of filling in the huge gaps between the ancient kingdom of Macedon that collapsed in the 2nd century BC, the 10th-11th century state of the Cometopuli, and Yugoslav Macedonia, established in the middle of the 20th century.[89] Despite the myths of national purity and continuity that came to dominate the official Macedonian historiography, something not unusual for the Balkan region, Ipek Yosmaoglu affirms there is not much to be gained from a search for a Macedonian national lineage, because the Macedonian nationhood was shaped mainly in the decades following World War II.[90] There is a thesis supported by the social psychologist Georgi Stankov that today the historiography of North Macedonia is based on the postmodernist approach, which erases the distinctions between "fact" and "value" and "reality" and "perception."[91]
Gallery
Bulgarian invasion in Vardar Banovina, April 1941. Bulgarians were greeted as liberators.[92] The local communists then joined the BCP and refused any military actions against the Bulgarians. After the war, the Yugoslav communist historiography did a lot to equate the term Bulgarian with fascist occupier.[93]
The former Bulgarian police station in Prilep was attacked by Partisan detachment on 11 October 1941. Today the object is memorial museum. In fact the only victim of the attack, celebrated as the day of the Macedonian Uprising against Bulgarian fascists, was a local man conscripted in the Bulgarian police.[94]
Macedonian historians have accused the Bulgarian forces of several atrocities, as the massacre of 12 young civilians at the village of Vataša. However except part of the participating soldiers, the commanding officer was also local.[95][96] Though, similar atrocities were committed then in the old Bulgarian territories too.[97]
Bulgarian forces entering Skopje in November 1944 after they ejected the Germans from the city.[98] Macedonian sources claim no Bulgarian troops participated in the capture of the city, even as observers.[99][100] Bulgarian sources maintain they seized the town.[101]
The last leader of the IMRO Ivan Mihailov (to the left) with the former IMRO activist Pandeli Stoyanov in Rome (1969). He is considered a bulgarophile and fascist from Macedonian historiography, while the organisation he led between 1924 and 1934 is also seen as a pro-Bulgarian.[104]
Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930, Oxford Historical Monographs, Clarendon Press, 2006, ISBN0-19-151555-8, p. 12.
"The dispute about their origins had reached the phase in which the Bulgarian scholars accused their Macedonian colleagues of forging the archival editions of the work of the Miladinovis by deliberately deleting the word “Bulgarian” from the front covers and their refusal to display them in museums. On the other hand, Macedonians insist that the word “Bulgarian” was inserted on the facsimiles of the first editions of the Miladinovs’ works by the Bulgarian nationalists and that the copies displayed in the Macedonian museums are original. (...) However, it appears that the Bulgarian argument has much stronger support in international academic circles." For more see: Dragana Lazarević, The Politics of Heritage in the West Balkans: The Evolution of Nation-building and the Invention of National Narratives as a Consequence of Political Changes, Cardiff University, 2015, pp. 323–324.
However, the polemics about the instigation of the Miladinov brothers’ miscellany have continued in the 20th century, since the 1983 Macedonian edition as the Collection of the Miladinov Brothers, reprinted in Skopje, removed every single “Bulgarian” reference therefrom. A republishing of the original in the year 2000 tried to restrain the passions but only triggered a vigorous protest by the Macedonian historians. Eventually, the Macedonian State Archive, financed by the Soros Foundation, displayed a copy thereof, having previously meticulously cut off the adjective “Bulgarian,” so the cover page simple read Folk Songs. For more see: Živić, T., Vranješ, A. (2017). Josip Juraj Strossmayer: A Statesman of Culture. Култура/Culture, 6 (14), pp. 136-144; ISSN1857-7725.
Roumen Daskalov, Diana Mishkova as ed., Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Two: Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions, BRILL, 2013, ISBN90-04-26191-5, p. 499.
Brunnbauer, Ulf. (2005). Pro-Serbians vs. Pro-Bulgarians: Revisionism in Post-Socialist Macedonian Historiography. History Compass. 3. 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2005.00130.x.
Morten Dehli Andreassen, June 2011; "If you don't vote VMRO you're not Macedonian". A study of Macedonian identity and national discourse in Skopje. Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of Master of Arts Degree. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, p. 81.
"At any rate, the beginning of the active national-historical direction with the historical "masterpieces", which was for the first time possible in 1944, developed in Macedonia much harder than was the case with the creation of the neighbouring nations of the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians and others in the 19th century. These neighbours almost completely "plundered" the historical events and characters from the land, and there was only debris left for the belated nation. A consequence of this was that first that parts of the "plundered history" were returned, and a second was that an attempt was made to make the debris become a fundamental part of an autochthonous history. This resulted in a long phase of experimenting and revising, during which the influence of non-scientific instances increased. This specific link of politics with historiography in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia... was that this was a case of mutual dependence, i.e. influence between politics and historical science, where historians do not simply have the role of registrars obedient to orders. For their significant political influence, they had to pay the price for the rigidity of the science... There is no similar case of mutual dependence of historiography and politics on such a level in Eastern or Southeast Europe." For more see: Stefan Trobest, "Historical Politics and Histrocial 'Masterpieces' in Macedonia before and after 1991", New Balkan Politics, 6 (2003).
This analyses tries to map out a methodological pluralism and define the complex notion of the politicization of history, at least in its philosophical, political, and epistemological multidisciplinarity. This approach relativizes the traditional and evaluates the politicization of history as an exclusively negative social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Because of its complexity and what is colloquially understood by the term “politicization,” it could be more precise to use the more general notion of “ideology.” Further this analysis seeks to chronicle the development of the Macedonian collective political and cultural identity, which is currently disputed. This brief review focuses only on the modern and contemporary period of the emergence of the Macedonian nation, that is from 1941 to 2018, key years in which latent tendencies to finalize these historical processes in the form of a differentiated political identity—a modern Macedonian state—are most explicitly manifested. For more see: Skalovski, D. (2021). The Politicization of History in North Macedonia (1941–2018). In: Ognjenovic, G., Jozelic, J. (eds) Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the Former Yugoslavia. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-65832-8_11
Ulf Brunnbauer, “Historiography, Myths and Nation in the Republic of Macedonia,” in (Re)Writing History. Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism, ed. Ulf Brunnbauer (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004), 165–200
Sinisa Jakov Marusic, New Statue Awakens Past Quarrels in Macedonia. BalkanInsight, 13 July 2012, cited in War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy before World War I by James Pettifer, I.B.Tauris, 2015, ISBN0-85773-968-9.
Kyril Drezov, Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims in The New Macedonian Question with J. Pettifer as ed., Springer, 1999, ISBN0-230-53579-8, p. 55.
Irena Stefoska, Nation, Education and Historiographic Narratives: the Case of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (1944-1990); Introduction In discussions of identities (ethnic, national, religious, gender, etc.), Fragments of the History of Macedonian Nationalism: An Introduction to the Research Problem, pp. 34-35.
The past was systematically falsified to conceal the fact that many prominent 'Macedonians' had supposed themselves to be Bulgarian, and generations of students were taught the "pseudo-history" of the 'Macedonian nation." For more see: Michael L. Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History, Edition 2, Springer, 2003, ISBN1-4039-9720-9, p. 89.
Mitko B. Panov, The Blinded State: Historiographic Debates about Samuel Cometopoulos and His State (10th-11th Century)
East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, BRILL, 2019, ISBN90-04-39429-X, p. 277.
Spyridon Sfetas, The Configuration of Slavomacedonian Identity. A Painful Evolution. Thessaloniki: Vanias, 2003. Balcanica XLVI, pp. 426-429. Reviewed by Athanasios Loupas.
Катарџиев, Иван. Васил Ивановски – живот и дело, предговор кон: Ивановски, Васил. Зошто ние Македонците сме одделна нација, Избрани дела, Скопје, 1995, стр. 25-26.
Милен Михов, Политика в историята! Новата българска история и македонската историография 1944 - 2005 г., УИ „Св. св. Кирил и Методий”, Велико Търново, 2006, ISBN978-954-524-532-9; стр. 40 - 41.
Tchavdar Marinov, Historiographical Revisionism and Re-Articulation of Memory in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Sociétés politiques comparées, issue 25, May 2010, p. 3.
'Kuzmanovic Z, Vranic I, 2013: On the reflexive nature of archaeologies of the Western Balkan Iron Age: a case study of the "Illyrian argument". Anthropologie (Brno) 51, 2: 249–259, International Journal of Human Diversity and Evolution, ISSN0323-1119,p. 6.
The dogma of Macedonian historiography is that it was an 'ethnic Macedonian' organisation and the acronym IMARO has been routinely abbreviated in Macedonian historiography to IMRO to avoid difficult questions about the presence in the same organizations of people nowadays described as 'ethnic Macedonians' from geographic Macedonia – together with 'ethnic Bulgarians' from the Vilajet of Adrianople. In these cases, a present-day reality is projected wholesale into the past. For more see: Kyril Drezov, Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims in The New Macedonian Question with J. Pettifer as ed., Springer, 1999, ISBN0-230-53579-8, p. 55.
The revolutionary committee dedicated itself to fight for "full political autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople." Since they sought autonomy only for those areas inhabited by Bulgarians, they denied other nationalities membership in IMRO. According to Article 3 of the statutes, "any Bulgarian could become a member". For more see: Laura Beth Sherman, Fires on the mountain: the Macedonian revolutionary movement and the kidnapping of Ellen Stone, Volume 62, East European Monographs, 1980, ISBN0-914710-55-9, p. 10.
Mishkova Diana as ed., We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN963-9776-28-9, pp. 113-114.
Иван Катарџиев, Некои прашања за уставите и правилниците на ВМРО до Илинденското востание. Гласник на Институтот за национална Историја, Скопје, 1961, бр. No 1, стр. 149-164.
Stefoska, Irena & Stojanov, Darko. (2016). Remembering and forgetting the SFR Yugoslavia. Historiography and history textbooks in the Republic of Macedonia. Südosteuropa. 64. 10.1515/soeu-2016-0016.
Ulf Brunnbauer, "Pro-Serbians" vs. "Pro-Bulgarians": Revisionism in Post-Socialist Macedonian Historiography, first published on 21 December 2005 doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2005.00130.x
Janev, G. (2017). Burdensome past: Challenging the socialist heritage in Macedonia. Studia ethnologica Croatica, 29 (1), 149-169. doi:10.17234/SEC.29.8
Vangeli, Anastas (2011): Nation-building ancient Macedonian style: the origins and the effects of the so-called antiquization in Macedonia. In Nationalities Papers 39 (1),
Vangeli, Anastas. 2011: 20: "For instance, the newest official "History of the Macedonian People" published by the Institute for National History in 2009, argues that during the interaction of the immigrant Slavs and the native Ancient Macedonians, the ancient features prevailed and defined the development of the region (Ĉepreganov et al.). This resembles a major revision of the Institute's position, which since its foundation, had argued that after the Great Migration, Slavs imposed their culture in the new lands, thus Macedonian culture was Slavic. Mitko Panov, the major author of the chapters on ancient and medieval history, has published a series of articles ("Antiĉkite Makedonci"; "Vizantiskiot kontinuitet") stating that Ancient Macedonians "kept on existing as a people, preserving its ethnic hallmarks and traditions" even in the period of the Great Migration, which influenced the "self-identification" of the immigrant Slavs, even the whole Byzantine culture. He has argued that the political "tendency of the historiography in SFRY based (. . .) on the relations between Belgrade and Athens" has produced ignorance towards the obvious continuity of Ancient Macedonians (Панов, Митко Б. 2008, „Античките Македонци во рана Византија (4-6 век). Потврден континуитет“, во: зборник на трудови од научниот симпозиум "Македонија помеѓу Византискиот комонвелт и Европската Унија", уред. од Ј. Донев, М. Б Панов и З. Стефковски, Скопје, ЕвроБалкан. стр. 33-44.
Canadian-Macedonian historian Andrew Rossos is credited as having published 'the first professional English language overview of the history of Macedonia, although the historian Stefan Troebst suggests that his 'teleologic portrayal is negatively affected by the Skopjan view of history' and thus is considered a pro-Macedonian nationalist account, representing the latest developments in Macedonian historiography. For more see: The Historical Association, Teaching history journal, March 2015, The Democratisation of the Macedonian Question, Adrienne Wright Smith's Hill High School Wollongong, HTA extension essay price 2014 – 1st place.p. 49.
As in the Balkan Wars, so later, during the First World War, from its very beginning, Macedonians were forcibly mobilized by the authorities who occupied the territories determined as state, as a consequence of the Bucharest Peace Agreement. Many of these military units composed of Macedonians were referred to as "volunteer" units, and flags were made for them in the warring countries. For more see: Виктор Габер „Од објект до субјект – Македонија во меѓународните односи“, „Фридрих Еберт“ 2017, стр. 96.
The Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia during the Balkan Wars and especially during the First World War was used with iron and fire to achieve what the Bulgarian state had previously failed to do. For more see: Lazar Mojsov, Pogledi vo minatoto blisko i dalečno, Politička biblioteka, Naša kniga, 1977, str. 43.
An important source for the enrichment of the Bulgarian bourgeoisie was the robbery of the population from the occupied territories of Macedonia and Pomoravlje. A brutal terrorist regime was introduced in those areas, which allowed the local population to be robbed by the Bulgarian bourgeoisie and military personnel, without collecting funds.. Апостолов, Александар (1962). Вардарска Македонија од Првата светска војна до изборите за Конституантата - 28 ноември 1920. стр. 30. Во Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет № 13, стр. 27–90. (in Macedonian).
Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 1, From Ancient Times to the Ottoman Invasions), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, ISBN1-4438-8843-5, p. 16.
We need to change that. We have already changed more than 20 plates in the country where "Bulgarian fascist occupier" was written. This is not so - Bulgaria is not fascism, Bulgaria is our friend... There was once an administration at this moment, at the beginning. After that, Bulgaria rises together with anti-fascism, fights for freedom, for democracy and is undoubtedly part of the anti-fascist front. Bulgarian and Macedonian troops were liberating territories - Kriva Palanka, Kumanovo, the whole region, Skopje and this whole part. For more see: Зоран Заев: Договорът с България ще бъде закон. Меdiapool публикува интервюто на Любчо Нешков, собственик на информационната агенция БГНЕС. 25 November, 2020; Mediapool.bg.
An interview that North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev gave Bulgarian news agency BGNES, published on Wednesday – in which he suggested that Bulgaria had not been occupying force in today's North Macedonia during World War II, has hit raw nerve in his own country. His remarks have drawn criticism from historians, public figures, as well as politicians, even from his own ruling Social Democratic Party, accusing him of historical revisionism. The opposition called for protests. For more see: Sinisa Jakov Marusic, North Macedonia PM's Remarks About History Hit a Nerve. BIRN, November 26, 2020.
Historians have shrunk into the shells of the former Yugoslav schemes and are not coming out of them. Historians do not reveal the truth about Yugoslavia... An ambassador from Brussels, whose father was not only a Bulgarian-phile, but also by definition a Macedonian-Bulgarian - and he is now coming out with some philosophical interpretations. Well, is it possible for such hypocrisy to exist in Macedonia?“ For more see: Любчо Георгиевски: Хората са шокирани от Заев, защото не познават миналото. Епицентър, 28 ноем. 2020.
After the bordering Byzantine lands were conquered, the military concept was also changed from the time of Simeon. A symbiosis was established between the small Asian Proto-Bulgarians and the numerous Slavic tribes who, in the wide area from the Danube in the north, to the Aegean in the south and from the Adriatic in the west, to the Black Sea in the east, accepted the common ethnicity "Bulgarians". The Slavic language became common to all the inhabitants of that area. The Proto-Bulgarians melted and disappeared into the Slavic masses, and with them the model of nomadic war hordes living in aulis. Иван Микулчиќ, Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија. (Македонска академија на науките и уметностите — Скопје, 1996) стр. 72
"Some reasonable scholars, such as Ivan Mikulčik, Krste Crvenkovski and Slavko Milosavlevski challenged the popular historical myths in Macedonia with solid historical evidence... Crvenkovski and Milosavlevski, meanwhile, challenged the myth of the heroic partisan resistance during the Second World War against the Bulgarian army. They also shook the belief in the significant role of Lazar Koliševski in organizing the communist resistance." For more see: Kostov, Chris. Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, pp. 107-108.
Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996; Vol. 7 оf Nationalisms across the globe; Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN3-0343-0196-0, pp. 107-108.
Проф. Катерина Колозова: Потомците на партизаните в Македония претендират, че са нация, създадена от "чиста тъкан". Антифашизмът e лицето на техния фашизъм. Faktor.bg, 25 March, 2021.
Naoum Kaytchev, Being Macedonian: Different Types of Ethnic Identifications in the Contemporary Republic of Macedonia. – Politeja (Krakow, Poland), № 30 (2014), 122–131.
Дарко Митревски, пред „Нова Македонија”: Охрид няма да стане български град, ако признаем, че цар Самуил е носел българска корона. 28 декември 2015 г. Pan.bg. 29 дек 2015.
Naoum Kaytschev, Being Macedonian: different types of ethnic identifications in the contemporary Republic of Macedonia. No. 30, Macedonia in 20th and 21st century (2014), pp. 123-132, Księgarnia Akademicka, URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24919720 .
"National language, national literature, national history and national church were not available in 1944, but they were accomplished in a short time. The south-east-Slavic regional idiom of the area of Prilep-Veles was codified as the script, normed orthographically by means of the Cyrillic Alphabet, and taken over immediately by the newly created media. And the people have been patching up the national history ever since. Thus, they are forming more of an "ethnic" than a political concept of nation. For more, see: One Macedonia With Three Faces: Domestic Debates and Nation Concepts, in Intermarium; Columbia University; Volume 4, No. 3 (2000–2001).
Danforth, Loring M. (1997). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton, Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-04356-6, p. 169.
John Van Antwerp Fine, "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century"; University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN0-472-08149-7, pp. 36–37.
Bernard Lory, The Bulgarian-Macedonian Divergence, An Attempted Elucidation, INALCO, Paris in Developing Cultural Identity in the Balkans: Convergence Vs. Divergence with Raymond Detrez and Pieter Plas as ed., Peter Lang, 2005, ISBN90-5201-297-0, pp. 165-193.
Alexander Maxwell, Slavic Macedonian Nationalism: From "Regional" to "Ethnic"' in Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Part 1. with Klaus Roth and Ulf Brunnbauer as ed., LIT, Münster, 2008. ISBN3-8258-1387-8, pp. 127-154.
Eugene N. Borza, Macedonia Redux in The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity with Frances B. Titchener, and Richard F. Moorton as ed. University of California Press, 1999, ISBN0-520-21029-8, p. 259.
Dichev, Ivaylo, Eros Identiteta, In: Dušan Bjelić, Obrad Savić (eds.), Balkan kao metafora: između globalizacije i fragmentacije. Beograd: Beogradski krug, 2003, pp. 269-284.
İpek Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908, Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN0-8014-6979-1, p. 16.
Станков. Г. (2021). Тврдења без докази: македонската историография като постмодернистки проект. В Сборник с научни трудове от международна научна конференция, "Кризи и сигурност - корелации и предизвикателства". Нов Български Университет, Том 1. Кризи и сигурност на международно и регионално ниво, ISBN978-619-7383-22-5; стр. 138-146.
Crawford, Steve. The Eastern Front Day by Day, 1941-45: A Photographic Chronology, Potomac Books, 2006, ISBN1-59797-010-7, p. 170: "November 13, 1944, ...The Bulgarian First Army ejects Army Group E from Skopje..."
Livanios, Dimitris, The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939-1949, Oxford University Publishing, 2008, ISBN0-19-152872-2, pp. 134-135.
The first unit, which entered at 6.30pm Skopje, already left from the Germans under the pressure of the Bulgarian army, was the reconnaissance platoon of the Second infantry division of the 4th Bulgarian army. For the liberation of Skopje contributed also detachments of the Second infantry division of the First Bulgarian Army. They forced the withdrawing Nazi detachments to retreat the city and on November 13th at 11pm took under their control the southern and the southeastern areas of the city. At the midnight they seized also its center. Georgi Daskalov, Bulgarian-Yugoslav political relations, 1944-1945, Kliment Ohridski University Press, 1989, p. 113; (in Bulgarian).
Bulgarian sources assert that thousands lost their lives due to this cause after 1944, and that more than 100,000 people were imprisoned under the law for the protection of Macedonian national honour 'for opposing the new ethnogenesis'. 1,260 leading Bulgarians were allegedly killed in Skopje, Veles, Kumanovo, Prilep, Bitola and Stip... For more see: Hugh Poulton, Who are the Macedonians? C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN1-85065-534-0, p. 118.
In Macedonia, the interwar VMRO has traditionally been portrayed as Bulgarian, and as a champion of the ideal of a ‘Greater Bulgaria’ that included Macedonia. In turn, thus, SDSM politicians and mainstream historians have accused the VMRO-DPMNE of falsifying history and of taking a pro-Bulgarian stance. The acknowledgement of Bulgarian influence on Macedonian history is highly problematic to many Macedonians because it clashes with the Yugo-Macedonian narratives. Especially after the Tito–Stalin split of 1948, the cornerstone of Macedonian national identity and historiography had been the notion of a distinct, non-Bulgarian, Macedonian national consciousness, leading to a profoundly anti-Bulgarian stance in politics and historiography. For more see: Paul Reef (2018) Macedonian Monument Culture Beyond 'Skopje 2014'. From the journal Comparative Southeast European Studies. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. doi:10.1515/soeu-2018-0037
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Bulgarian invasion in Vardar Banovina, April 1941. Bulgarians were greeted as liberators.[92] The local communists then joined the BCP and refused any military actions against the Bulgarians. After the war, the Yugoslav communist historiography did a lot to equate the term Bulgarian with fascist occupier.[93]
The former Bulgarian police station in Prilep was attacked by Partisan detachment on 11 October 1941. Today the object is memorial museum. In fact the only victim of the attack, celebrated as the day of the Macedonian Uprising against Bulgarian fascists, was a local man conscripted in the Bulgarian police.[94]
Macedonian historians have accused the Bulgarian forces of several atrocities, as the massacre of 12 young civilians at the village of Vataša. However except part of the participating soldiers, the commanding officer was also local.[95][96] Though, similar atrocities were committed then in the old Bulgarian territories too.[97]
Statute of the Court for the Protection of Macedonian National Honour from January 1945. Tens of thousands pro-Bulgarian elements were imprisoned, persecuted, repressed, etc. for violations of that Law, and over 1,000 were killed in 1945.[102][103]
The last leader of the IMRO Ivan Mihailov (to the left) with the former IMRO activist Pandeli Stoyanov in Rome (1969). He is considered a bulgarophile and fascist from Macedonian historiography, while the organisation he led between 1924 and 1934 is also seen as a pro-Bulgarian.[104]
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