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Macedonia for the Macedonians

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Macedonian-Bulgarian political slogan
A postcard containing the motto with a demographic map of Macedonia, issued by the Union of Macedonian Students in Vienna during the 1920s. According to the map, the ethnic composition of the population included Bulgarians, Bulgarian Muslims (Pomaks) Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Gagauzes and "Vlachs" (Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians).
1912 Aromanian memoir (in its 1917 Ido edition), called Macedonia for the Macedonians, which insists on an autonomous Macedonia based on the Swiss model because the area is ethnically diverse.

Macedonia for the Macedonians (Bulgarian: Македония за македонците, romanized: Makedoniya za makedontsite; Greek: Μακεδονία για τους Μακεδόνες, romanized: Makedonía gia tous Makedónes; Macedonian: Македонија на Македонците, romanized: Makedonija na Makedoncite) is a slogan and political concept used during the first half of the 20th century in the region of Macedonia. It aimed to encompass all the nationalities in the area, into a separate supranational entity.

History

William Gladstone and contemporaries

See also: Macedonians (obsolete terminology)

The slogan was raised by the British politician William Ewart Gladstone in 1897, in an often misquoted 1897 citation, when he promoted the idea on some kind of mini-Balkan Federation in this region. Gladstone appealed for the right of self-determination of the peoples who resided in the region, while Britain regarded the creation of an autonomous Macedonia with a Christian governor as a possible solution of the Macedonian issue. On that occasion, the British journalist G. W. Steevens also noted in the preface of the broshure containing the letter of Gladstone, that he has used "Macedonians" as a collective name of the diverse population of the region. Steevens explained that there were at least six different kind of Macedonians at that time. Once Gladstone launched the motto, this maxim became widely known. In 1898, the historian William Miller argued about Gladstone's proclamation and his motto, that this idea is not practical because there was no Macedonian nation and the whole difficulty in this country is that it is a mixture of different warring nationalities. By that reason per Allen Upward that phrase could not have been used by anybody, who had a first hand knowledge of that country. In fact a few accepted then the idea that there might be a separate Macedonian nation.


Modern authors

By the term "Macedonians", different modern authors also believe Gladstone had in mind the various ethnic groups residing in Macedonia, such as Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, Turks, Aromanians and Albanians; not an imagined "Macedonian" ethnic group. Marin V. Pundeff summarizes that "Macedonia, in Gladstone's phrase, was for the Macedonians, that is, not only for the Bulgarian element... but for all the other ethnic elements residing in it as well".

Other modern authors interpret Gladstone's statement as acknowledging the Macedonians as a separate nationality,

A poster from the 1930s, issued by the Struga fraternity in Sofia, containing the motto.

Organizations

The motto was adopted by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) and by the Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society (MRCS), in the early 20th century. At that time, according to Vasil Kanchov the local Bulgarians and Aromanians called themselves Macedonians, and the surrounding nations called them so.

Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization

In an article published in June, 1902, the IMARO revolutionaries promoted the idea of autonomy and the slogans "Macedonia for the Macedonians". The Organization gave a guarantee for the preservation of all national communities there, and insisted that the Bulgarians could be proud of their tolerance, in opposition to Romanians, Serbs and Greeks. They also planned that the administration of the future autonomous Macedonia will rely on the Bulgarian majority. In the same year the Organization changed its exclusively Bulgarian character, and opened it to all Macedonians and Thracians regardless of nationality, who wished to participate in the anti-Ottoman movement. Those revolutionaries saw the future autonomous Macedonia as a multinational polity, and "Macedonian" was an umbrella term covering Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians, Albanians, Serbs, etc. Nevertheless, the British Consul in Skopje Raphael Fontana wrote on the occasion of the Ilinden uprising in 1903 that the revolutionaries were working for a general Bulgarian uprising in order to reach their goal of "Macedonia for the Macedonians", understood to mean "Macedonia for the Bulgarians". According to the prevailing view in the Bulgarian historical science, the idea of autonomy represented only a tactics aiming at the eventual unification with Bulgaria. Some independent researchers suggest that behind the slogan "Macedonia for the Macedonians" there was a backup plan for the incorporation of Macedonia into the Bulgarian state.

In 1902, Boris Sarafov tried to gain Serbian support for a "Macedonia for Macedonians", arguing that it was the only way to oppose Bulgarian annexationism. However one year later he changed his position, seeking a military intervention from Bulgaria in order to aid the Ilinden Uprising.

MPO and IMRO

The Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and World War I (1914–1918) left the area divided mainly between Greece and Serbia (later Yugoslavia), which resulted in significant changes in its ethnic composition. The Bulgarian community was reduced, either by population exchanges or by forcible change of communities' ethnic identity. In this way the motto began to lose its authenthic character. Macedonian immigrants in the United States and Canada founded in 1922 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Macedonian Patriotic Organization. The founders of the MPO in their aspirations for a free and independent Macedonia also accepted the slogan "Macedonia for the Macedonians". The use of "Macedonians" and "Macedonian emigrants" then equally applied to all ethnic groups in Macedonia - Bulgarians, Wallachians, Turks, Albanians, Greeks and others. During the 1920s the descendant of the IMARO - IMRO followed also the idea about an independent United Macedonian multiethnic state with prevailing Bulgarian element, something as "Switzerland on the Balkans" and kept the slogan Macedonia for the Macedonians until its defunction in 1934.

Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society

The Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society had as its members the acting Prime and Foreign Ministers, as well as the Head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and the elite of the Romanian political class. In 1912 an Aromanian memoir was published in Bucharest, after the outbreak of the Balkan War. The memoir was signed by five prominent Romanian and Aromanian public figures, members of the society. In it, the Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society, using the slogan Macedonia for the Macedonians, stated that Macedonia's autonomy is the best solution of the Macedonian question. As the region was ethnically diverse, an autonomous, neutral, cantonized by Swiss model state was proposed, where all nationalities will preserve their mother tongues and religions, enjoying the same democratic political rights. In 1917, during the First World War, the memoir was translated into Esperanto and was published in Stockholm. The memoir was presented to the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919.

See also

Notes

  1. Makedonia Al Makedoniani: expozo da La Kulturala Societo Makedonian-Rumaniana (PDF). Stockholm: Wilhelmssons Förlag. 1917. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
  2. Bell, Imogen (2002). Central and South-Eastern Europe 2003. Psychology Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-85743-136-0. The economic integrity of the region was clear, but the challenge of bringing into being an internally heterogeneous and externally coveted state — in the British Prime Minister William Gladstone's often misquoted 1897 phrase, a 'Macedonia for Macedonians'...
  3. The hopelessness of the Turkish Government should make me witness with delight its being swept out of the countries which it tortures. Next to the Ottoman Government nothing can be more deplorable and blameworthy than jealousies between Greek and Slav and plans by the States already existing for appropriating other territory. Why not Macedonia for the Macedonians as well as Bulgaria for the Bulgarians and Serbia for the Serbians? Letter quoted in Mr. Gladstone and The Balkan Confederation in The Times (6 February 1897).
  4. Keith Brown, Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedoni, Indiana University Press, 2013, ISBN 0253008476, pp. 15-16.
  5. Vlasis Vlasidis, “Macedonia and the Great Powers”, p. 333.
  6. Пантев, Андрей, Генов, Румен, „Уилям Гладстон и българите Политика на праведна страст“, ТАНГРА ТанНакРа, София, 1999, стр. 166.
  7. Lieberman, Benjamin (16 December 2013). Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-3038-5., p. 56.
  8. Miller, William (1898). Travels and Politics in the Near East. p. 388. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
  9. Allen Upward, The East End of Europe, 1908: The Report of an Unofficial Mission to the European Provinces of Turkey on the Eve of the Revolution, pp. pp. 25-27.
  10. ^ Singleton, Fred (1985). A short history of the Yugoslav peoples. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521274852. Few accepted the idea that there might be a separate Macedonian nation, although Gladstone had raised the slogan 'Macedonia for the Macedonians' during the Midlothian campaign of 1879-80.
  11. "The Macedonian Question Before European Diplomacy". Balkania Volumes 1-2. Balkania Publishing Company. 1967. p. 10. By the term of "Macedonians" Gladstone had in mind the various ethnic groups who had settled and lived for centuries in Macedonia, such as: Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Romanians, and others.
  12. Szajkowski, Bogdan; Gow, James (1993). Encyclopaedia of Conflicts, Disputes, and Flashpoints in Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Successor States. Longman Group. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-582-21002-8. Gladstone's much quoted phrase, Macedonia to the Macedonians, clearly referred to all the inhabitants of Macedonia irrespective of creed or ethnic origin, not to an imagined Macedonian ethnic group.
  13. Blinkhorn, Martin; Veremēs, Thanos (1990). Modern Greece: Nationalism & Nationality. Sage-Eliamep. p. 112. ISBN 978-960-7061-00-3. Gladstone's much - quoted phrase, Macedonia to the Macedonians, clearly referred to all the inhabitants of Macedonia irrespective of creed or ethnic origin, not to an imagined Macedonian ethnic group.
  14. Pundeff, Marin V. (1994). Bulgaria in American Perspective: Political and Cultural Issues. East European Monographs. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-88033-295-8.
  15. De Jong, Jutta (1984). Jugoslawien. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525273159. mit dieser ebenso einfachen wie genialen Frage verblueffte der englische Staatsmann Gladstone Anfang 1897 die europaeische Oeffentlichkeit. Seine Rethorik verwies nitch nur die schaerfsten Konkurrenten um den Zankapfel Makedonien, Serbien und Bulgarien, in ihre Grenzen. Es musste auch so scheinen, als haette er mit einem Federstrich eine Nationalitaet aus der Taufe gehoben, die sich allein ueber den Namen ihres Siedlungsgebietes definierte, die Makedonier. Dies wirkte um so befremdlicher, als eigenstaendige Interessen der Bewohner des umstrittenen Raumes bis dahin weder wahrgenommen worden waren, geschweige denn zur Debatte gestanden haetten. Ihre Interessen waren berets von Serbien, Bulgarien, und Griechenland festgelegt - wenn auch divergent. Entsprechend war die "makedonische Frage" ausschliesslich unter dem Aspekt diskutiert worden, welcher dieser drei Nachbarstaaten die zentrale Balkanregion zugebilligt werden koennte, ohne das labile politische Gleichgewicht auf dem Balkan zu gefaehrden.
  16. Shea, John (1997). Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9781476621760. By the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the European powers were well aware of a spirit of national consciousness, based on ethnic and language differences from other Balkan areas, within Macedonia. The slogan "Macedonia for the Macedonians" was adopted by the English politician Gladstone in this period.
  17. Стружко културно-просветно братство "Братя Миладинови" - "Братя Миладинови Димитър 1810 и Константин 1830 - за памет на 75 години от мъченишката им смърт (1862 януарий 1937)"; София, 1937 година.
  18. According to Vasil Kanchov: "The local Bulgarians and Kucovlachs who live in the area of Macedonia call themselves Macedonians, and the surrounding nations also call them so. Turks and Arnauts from Macedonia do not call themselves Macedonians, but when asked where they are from, they respond: from Macedonia. Arnauts from the north and north west limits of the area, who also call their country Anautluk, and Greeks who live in the southern areas, do not call themselves Macedonians, hence the borders in these areas according to the peoples’ perception are not clearly defined." For more see: E. Damianopoulos, The Macedonians: Their Past and Present, Springer, 2012, ISBN 1137011904, p. 185.
  19. For more see: Tchavdar Marinov, We, the Macedonians, The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912) in: Mishkova Diana ed., 2009, We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Central European University Press, ISBN 9639776289, pp. 117-120.
  20. Initially the membership in the IMRO was restricted only for Bulgarians. Its first name was "Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees", which was later changed several times. IMRO was active not only in Macedonia but also in Thrace (the Vilayet of Adrianople). Since its early name emphasized the Bulgarian nature of the organization by linking the inhabitants of Thrace and Macedonia to Bulgaria, these facts are still difficult to be explained from the Macedonian historiography. They suggest that IMRO revolutionaries in the Ottoman period did not differentiate between ‘Macedonians’ and ‘Bulgarians’. Moreover, as their own writings attest, they often saw themselves and their compatriots as ‘Bulgarians’. All of them wrote in standard Bulgarian language. For more see: Brunnbauer, Ulf (2004) Historiography, Myths and the Nation in the Republic of Macedonia. In: Brunnbauer, Ulf, (ed.) (Re)Writing History. Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism. Studies on South East Europe, vol. 4. LIT, Münster, pp. 165-200 ISBN 382587365X.
  21. Ivo Banac. (1984). The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. p. 315. ISBN 978-0801494932. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  22. Bechev, Dimitar. Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, Introduction.
  23. Nikolaos K. Martēs, Deborah Whitehouse, The Macedonians and their contribution to Western civilization, Edition 2, Diachronikes Ekdoseis, 2002, ISBN 9608172055, p 116.
  24. Димитър Гоцев, Идеята за автономия като тактика в програмите на национално-освободителното движение в Македония и Одринско 1893-1941, Изд. на БАН, София, 1983 г.
  25. Anastasia Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990, University of Chicago Press, 2009, ISBN 0226424995, p. 100.
  26. İpek Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908, Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN 0801469791, p. 16.
  27. Keith Brown (2004). "Villains and Symbolic Pollution in the Narratives of Nations". In Maria Todorova (ed.). Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. New York University Press. p. 244. Sarafov himself reports a visit to Belgrade in 1902, where he tried to win Serbian backing for the project of 'Macedonia for Macedonians', pointing out that only by this means could they oppose the annexationists among Macedonian circles who were effectively agents of Bulgarian policy
  28. Mercia MacDermott, Freedom or Death, The Life of Gotsé Delchev, Journeyman Press, London & West Nyack, 1978, p. 379.
  29. "At the end of the World War I there were very few historians or ethnographers, who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed... Of those Macedonian Slavs who had developed then some sense of national identity, the majority probably considered themselves to be Bulgarians, although they were aware of differences between themselves and the inhabitants of Bulgaria... The question as of whether a Macedonian nation actually existed in the 1940s when a Communist Yugoslavia decided to recognize one is difficult to answer. Some observers argue that even at this time it was doubtful whether the Slavs from Macedonia considered themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians." The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Loring M. Danforth, Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-691-04356-6, pp. 65-66.
  30. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, 1988, ISBN 0801494931, p. 33
  31. "Note" to Article 28 in the first chart of MPO.
  32. Victor Roudometof, "Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 0275976483, p. 99.
  33. Tanașoca, Anca; Tanașoca, Nicolae Șerban. Unitate romanică și diversitate balcanică. Editura Fundației PRO, 2004. p. 156.
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