Russian Defence Minister Condemns Israel's ''Dirty War''
Viktor Olevich
Russia sharply condemned Israel's military action near the Cathedral
of the Nativity in Bethlehem. ''Russia definitely condemns these
actions,'' Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters in
Athens on Thursday. ''A dirty war is going on in the holy land of
Bethlehem, and Christians are enraged by this war,'' the minister
said. ''The degree of conflict escalation in the region has reached a
point beyond which the situation can get out of control,'' Ivanov
said. //Interfax
R.V. Gronoff
"Viktor Olevich" <vikol...@aol.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
6b2506b9.02040...@posting.google.com...
> 16:57 Russian Defence Minister Condemns Israel's ''Dirty War''
>
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++
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000024141apr04.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dworld
THE WORLD
Despite Peace, Ethnic Hatred Still Splits Macedonia
Balkans: Western diplomacy ended war, but the division within the country
is more entrenched
than ever.
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
TIMES STAFF WRITER
April 4 2002
TETOVO, Macedonia -- At first glance, this small Balkan city seems
completely recovered from
last summer's combat that emptied its broad boulevards and brought police
checkpoints to placid
neighborhoods.
Just a little more than a year after the first shots were fired here,
shoppers throng the
streets, the fruit stands brim with produce and the cafes are full again.
But a pall remains beneath the busyness, reinforcing for the West the
lesson that seems to have
recurred with each recent Balkan war: Diplomacy and intervention can stop
the fighting but
cannot heal the ethnic hatreds that fissure this region. These divisions
are even more
entrenched now than they were a year ago. A recent visit to this
northwestern city where ethnic
Macedonians and Albanians lived side by side before the conflict suggests
the depth of the
schism afflicting the country.
Albanian flags, symbols of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas, still hang
from houses in the city's
Albanian-dominated areas, a reminder of the residents' sense of a
separate identity. Ethnic
Macedonian high school students who used to sit in classes next to
Albanians now take their
lessons a mile away at a primary school.
"How can we live anymore with Albanians here? We hate each other," said
Irina Nestoroska, 18,
an ethnic Macedonian. "They did everything to us; we didn't want this."
Not surprisingly, ethnic Albanians blame the Macedonians, especially
citing abuse by the
police. "We have no trust in the Macedonians, and we won't trust them for
a very long time,"
said Veli Pajaziti, 40, president of an Albanian neighborhood.
Macedonia, the southernmost republic of the former Yugoslav federation,
has about 2 million
people. At least 25% are ethnic Albanians, concentrated here in the
northwestern part of the
country. Unlike other Balkan nations that broke away from Yugoslavia in
the 1990s, Macedonia
split peacefully and, until last year, had avoided almost altogether the
ethnic violence that
racked the region.
After a vicious and bloody war, nearby Bosnia-Herzegovina split into an
area controlled jointly
by ethnic Croats and Muslims and another controlled by Bosnian Serbs.
Even in towns where
Croats and Muslims nominally live together, they tend to divide into
different neighborhoods.
In Kosovo, a province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, ethnic
animosities led in 1999 to
warfare, U.N. control and the virtual segregation of Serbs and ethnic
Albanians.
Observers see the same pattern here.
"Macedonia will be split into cantons--it's really happened already, just
like Kosovo and
Bosnia," said Slavko Mangovski, an ethnic Macedonian and editor of the
weekly magazine
Macedonian Sun. "People are resigned to it."
Kim Mehmeti, an influential ethnic Albanian writer, agreed.
"The process of division has already started in Macedonia," he said.
"This year, Macedonia
writes a double history, and the people to blame are the political
elite."
Mehmeti and others say that undercutting any rapprochement is a growing
distrust of government.
That is fueled by a steady stream of information suggesting that
political parties--both ethnic
Macedonian and ethnic Albanian--are corrupt and interested only in their
own gain.
Government 'Like a Protection Racket'
"We're not talking about ordinary corruption--that the money that is
supposed to be used to
build houses is going to finance a villa. We're talking about a
government that functions like
a racket," said Edward P. Joseph, director of the International Crisis
Group's Macedonia
office. "Every opportunity is used to shake down citizens for whatever
they need--a license, a
permit. It's like a protection racket."
ICG, a Brussels-based nonprofit organization, lobbied hard but with few
results to get Western
countries to put strings on nearly $270 million dollars recently pledged
to help Macedonia
recover from the damage of last year's fighting. An additional $237
million was pledged in
general economic aid.
Most worrisome for the West: The Balkans is a major transit point for
smuggling guns and
illegal immigrants, many of whom come from the Arab world. Although the
vast majority of
refugees are almost certainly escaping bad economic conditions, it is
impossible to determine
whether their ranks also include some who have terrorist connections.
It is not a small matter to stop fighting in the Balkans, and Western
diplomats are proud that
seven months of skirmishes, which ended in September, did not explode
into a cycle of war in
Macedonia. There remains the larger question, however, of whether such
efforts can do more than
delay the fracturing of the region into ever tinier countries, each with
a single ethnic
identity. Most policymakers agree that such an outcome is neither
economically viable nor
diplomatically desirable.
"I remain optimistic; step by step this is going in the right direction.
But there's still
fragility and still lots of weapons," said Alain Le Roy, the European
Union's special envoy to
Macedonia, who is monitoring the peace process. "We need more discussions
between the
Macedonian and Albanian parties."
But can such discussions--which Western diplomats can mandate by
threatening to reduce
aid--have much effect at the grass-roots level, where citizens from the
two ethnic groups
already appear to have reached firm opinions about each other?
On a recent afternoon in Tetovo, the future looked grim at classes
attended exclusively by
ethnic Macedonians, who are in the minority here.
Before last year's fighting, ethnic Albanian and Macedonian children
played on sports teams
together, walked home together or took school buses that headed up into
the mountain villages.
The two groups rarely lived in the same communities, but the mountain
hamlets often are divided
by only a field. The Albanian children would get off the bus at one
village, and five minutes
later the ethnic Macedonians would get off at the next one.
Ethnic Macedonians Shun a High School
Now not a single ethnic Macedonian student is left at Kiril Pejcinovic,
the main high school.
Instead, they meet at a primary school from 2 to 7 p.m. after the younger
children have gone
home.
"Definitely we will not go back to the other school; our lives are not
safe there. We are
afraid of the Albanians," said Sonia Stevcevska, 17, a Tetovo native.
Although she has never been assaulted by ethnic Albanian peers,
Stevcevska, like several
friends with her, said she felt rejected and out of place. Any good jobs
in Tetovo go to
Albanians, she said. She has not spoken with Albanian friends she had as
a child for several
years and can't imagine what she would say to them now.
"I don't want to live here," she said. "There are no possibilities for
success for me here. I
will leave as soon as I can."
One of the more chilling aspects of last year's struggle was the
kidnapping of ethnic
Macedonians by guerrillas from the National Liberation Army. The number
of people killed in the
fighting was less than 100 and about 400 houses were severely damaged,
according to
international aid groups, but the kidnappings by the ethnic Albanian
group cast a long shadow.
In some villages, young men were snatched and held for months. On several
occasions, school
buses were stopped and boarded by guerrillas. Although only a few youths
were held for any
period of time and the buses were detained for only an hour, the effect
on the children was
severe, said Natasa Janevska, the 33-year-old principal of the primary
school.
An added trauma was the nightly gunfire, which resulted in few deaths but
made parents afraid
to allow their children outside.
"I think of them all as my children, and I see a bad effect for all of
them," said Janevska, an
ethnic Macedonian. "The children were more full of life before; now they
are quieter. If a door
slams, they are startled, and they wet their beds if they are going to be
away from home for
the night on a school trip."
The number of students at the primary school has shrunk from 900 before
the fighting to 738
now, as some ethnic Macedonian families have left Tetovo for cities in
the center of the
country, Janevska said.
Such difficulties hardly surprise longtime Balkan watchers. The
Macedonian peace accord was
brokered by the West, which all but physically dragged political leaders
to the bargaining
table at a lakeside resort.
"The agreement was not worked out by Macedonians and Albanians; the
agreement was drafted and
brought to Lake Ohrid, and both sides were made to sign it," saidAlex
Grigorev, a program
officer at the Project on Ethnic Relations in Princeton, N.J.
"Before, you could have said that they would have made it, an
Leonid S
представляющийся как vikol...@aol.com (Viktor Olevich) изрёк &я узрел в
relcom.politics:
> 16:57 Russian Defence Minister Condemns Israel's ''Dirty War''
>
>
> Russia sharply condemned Israel's military action near the Cathedral
By mouth of its Defense minister's ? ;=)
> of the Nativity in Bethlehem. ''Russia definitely condemns these
> actions,'' Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters in
> Athens on Thursday. ''A dirty war is going on in the holy land of
Definitely, holy caw;) Is he - religious? ;)
> Bethlehem, and Christians are enraged by this war,'' the minister
> said. ''The degree of conflict escalation in the region has reached a
> point beyond which the situation can get out of control,'' Ivanov
0ut of whose control, Alien's (World Gov;), just curious?
> said. //Interfax
Could you give more exact reference to the source of it, so readers can see
these sayings for EM-selves, in context, not just your /although FREE will
CONSTRUCTED indeed;/ extraction?
BTW, could war be - a clean one? And are there - untouchables (whatever they
do, by unspoken MANDAtes;) - like in India - as faR - as this topic is
concerned?
Clarification for stupid: By above, i do not approve, nor disapprove actions
of "light bearing and just" pople Israeli Army, just asking common questions.
And - free MAsons - "sur"ely? know answers?! ;-==-)
PS:
I would surely ignore this thread (as not lying in the area of my interests),
if not yet another (in 0rder) transmitted to me this night "dream" - with lot
of sandy/construction dirt in it and miliTary privates (brave cosa.ks /from
"Tihiy Don" almost;-/). Was this dream transmitted to me by Russian Ministry
of defense, or by Mr. Ivanov (and/for Malta 0rder ;) in particular? ;-)
Anyway, i "was walking" around (in this "dream") in the dirty/sandy area
(kind of "Point 0utlook" LI, but much dirtier, and no sea around;) in the
state of euforia (or nirvana, /in Ramat Gan?;/), almost, like from HillaRiOus
effect, that could be produced by antypsyChotic drugs (sorry Mr. Clinton,
unhappy and old-fasioned i, i never _knowingly_ /wanted/ tried - cocaine;)..
There in a deserted area i met couple of military-(c/k)ooks and exchanged a
few words with EM.
They blabbed about what they do as their work duty, and boasted, how each of
EM (allegedly) took part in real fire-armed battle (near their kitchens;),
and won / captrured enemies ;)
So that was about my "Happy" "Sar-El" this night ;) May be Larisa Pugacheva
may hel^p clarify this one for me, please ?:) as i seem to not be on active
duty even in Russian Army (although, am not a "vegetable":)
--
19я заповедь военного/игрока ;-): `не думай - враг /друг;-/ будет знать!`
Я (сам;) ~ мои 'Юзенет' постинги: http://nux.h1.ru/doc00.htm
plce for "nurse/soc. worKer" MarGoLit's (from AVArbanel loony bin;), drug
prescription 0rder (of Malta ;) - below. Take you time, deer bitch (i hope -
no conn. here with Russia ?:) just with "caring" comrades here? Then, they
May, be taken care about as well, never mind Mr. Tramp support, i think ;-)
Hill yourself, HillAry! ;)
.<- point lookout` ;) Is that a Connecticut Avenue Already, pople? ;-) BTW,
how is this Georgian dip., who overrun a girl there (7 years ago?), doing ?;)
June R Harton
"++" <arch...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3CAD7785...@erols.com...
>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000024141apr04.story?coll=l
a%2Dheadlines%2Dworld
> THE WORLD
> Despite Peace, Ethnic Hatred Still Splits Macedonia
FYROM, Gail. Macedonia is only in northern Greece.
> "How can we live anymore with Albanians here? We hate each other," said
> Irina Nestoroska, 18,
> an ethnic Macedonian.
West Bulgarian, Gail.
For fair use only
http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/knigi_en/other/mkslavs.html
(link undermined)
WHAT IS THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE MACEDONIAN SLAVS
(Prof. Heinrich A.Stammler , IMRO - Union of The Macedonian Brotherhoods in
Bulgaria, Sofia, 1991)
This is the first issue in the series of "Macedonia: and the Macedonian
Question".
Throughout the series, we will be inviting emminent academics and political
figures from around the world to view, examine and comment on this most
difficult of socio-political problems.
The series will deal at length with all aspects of the question, from the
ancient movements and settlements of peoples to the most up-to-date polls
and censuses; from the manipulation of people by the use of force and terror
to the more insidious techniques of modern propaganda; and from the
development of early slavic languages to the present, unprecedented
accusations of the creation of a new, "literary standard language", all of
which have been used to convince a people of who they are and what
they are not!
Ultimately, this publication hopes to help the efforts being made to set
straight the problems within the region known as Macedonia and to
disentangle the knot of misinformation, hidden facts and lies, all of which
has resulted in particular interpretations (or misinterpretations) of
history. This is the legacy of many periods of instability, dating back to
the 1877 - 78 Russo-Turkish War and the Bulgarian liberation, the Berlin
Treaty of 1879 and decades of Serbianization and of the far more protracted
and subtle Hellenization of the Southsrn region of Macedonia. Of course, the
last 45 years of totalitarian rule has done more to bury the truth than any
other single force, but this series will endeavour to confront the
expantionist nationalism that presently seeks to continue its history of
falsification and oppression of the Bulgarian character of Macedonia.
By presenting the views of outside observers and "innocent bystanders", we
feel sure that this series will help to give the clearest and most objective
view of the problems and their best solutions and will serve as an essential
companion to the other publications, concerning this problem, which have
more "involved" contributors.
We are certain that, in the end, by careful work and study, the truth will
out and real and, above all, just solutions will be found and adopted.
Andy Barrett
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. President, Dear friends. Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all please allow me to express my sinccrcsl gratitude to the
President of this Organization and to the Committee for having afforded me
the precious opportunity of addressing this Conference. Time is short and I
do not want to claim your attention longer than is absolutely necessary. I
honestly feel that perhaps my justification for speaking to you about the
problems of Macedonia is somewhat flimsy. What are my credentials? It is
true, I am a professor of Slavic and East European Studies, but as far as my
teaching and writing is concerned, Russia and, more recently, Poland have
come more closely under my observation. I hope , nevertheless, that you
might forgive me my boldness to appear here before you when I refer to a
point of saving grace in my favour: I love the Southeast of Europe, and five
wonderful years of my life were spent in Bulgaria in the capacities of an
academic teacher and a public servant. There I had the opportunity of
meeting people from all walks of life, of making myself familiar with the
history, the culture and living conditions of the country and last but not
least, of striking up close and firm friendships, some of which have
survived the trials and tribulations of the catastrophic events which living
through has been our common lot. I also availed myself of the possibility of
making a trip to Macedonia and, although the journey was short, places like
Kratovo, Skopic, Veles, Shtip and Goma Dzumaya are for me not merely names,
geographic nomenclature or statistical data, but I can say: I was there; I
saw, I listened and heard; I have not forgotten!
I will not go into a presentation of the manifold facts of history,
ethnography, linguistics, folklore and statistics which bear testimony - and
I think this testimony is incontrovertible - of the Bulgarian character of
the Slavic-speaking population settled in Macedonia. Whole libraries, have
been written to establish the Bulgarianism of the Macedonian Slavs and I
believe that many of you are much more intimately familiar with this vast
literature than I could ever be. And, Indeed, it would be absurd if I, a
mere outside observer, and only an occasional one at that, would presume to
teach you things which you not only know, but live.
Let me, however, point out one circumstance which in my eyes, has profoundly
changed the whole situation. Up to the Second World War the Bulgarian
Macedonians, after the retreat of Turkey from Europe, had to struggle
incessantly for the preservation of their heritage against the encroachment
and machinations of the Pan-Serbian circles, carried under the slogan that
Macedonia is nothing but Southern Serbia; and on the other hand they had to
fight the absurd notion propounded by Athens, that the Bulgarian-speaking
Macedonians are but "Slavophone Greeks". That would be the same as if the
English would assert that the French-Canadians are but "Francophone" English
people! Recent events have taught us what reactions to expect from the
French-Canadians if such insinuations were to be made.
I believe, however, that it was easier to counter the Pan-Serbian claims,
even though they were dressed in the political scholarship of men like
A.Belie and Jovan Cvijic, because here was only the matter of a spirited and
well-reasoned defense against the illegitimate ambitions of expansionists,
which was, at bottom, still old fashioned nationalism. And this is still the
situation in which the Macedo-Bulgarians find themselves under Greek rule.
I wish,however, to call your attention to a much more sinister device
concocted in Belgrade under the sign of the Red Star, the Hammer and the
Sickle. That the invention of a separate Macedonian nation, a Macedonian
literary language and even a Macedonian history, is divorced from all the
evidences of historical research and scholarship. By sophistry and the
distortion of the historical facts it is said, for example, that St.Clement
of Ochrid was a member of some separate Macedonian people which has never
exited, and that the language used by the apostles and teachers of the Slavs
for the christianization and the enlightenment of the Slavonic world was a
separate Macedonian idiom, which has nothing or only very little to do with
the Bulgarian language as such. In order to find some historical foundation
for these unproven and undemonslrable allegations, historians of this school
have even restyled the West-Bulgarian Kingdom of Tsar Samuel as a state run
for the benefit of the mythical separate Macedonian people. Let me quote
only one authority, the eminent Russian byzaniologist, A. A. Vassilijev,
whose monumcnted history of the Byzantine Empire is generally considered a
standard work in this field. What has he to say about the national character
of Samuels Kingdom?"Afler the death of John Tzimisoes the Bulgarians took
advantage of the internal complications in the Empire and rebelled against
Byzantine domination. The outstanding leader of this period was Samuel, the
energetic ruler of Western independent Bulgaria, and probably the founder of
a new dynasty, one of the most prominent rulers of the First Bulgarian
Empire." In the entire passage dealing with this heroic, as well as tragic
episode in Bulgarian history, Vassiljev consistently uses the term
"Bulgaria". In a footnote, it is true, he mentions the hypothesis put
forward by the Serbian historian D.Anastasijevich that Samuel's Kingdom was
not lawfully Bulgarian, but a "Sloveno-macedonian Empire". But quite
obviously he does not make this hypothesis his own. I think that in the
market of international historical scholarship the authority of Professor
Vassiljev rates considerably higher than that of Mr.Anaslasijevich. Another
noteworthy fact that is such attempts to deprive the Bulgarians of their
history and heritage by declaring that they were not Bulgarians at all, had
already been made in the years soon after the First World War. This shows
that the recent creation of a separate non-Bulgarian Macedonian nation,
complete with history, literary language, folklore, etc., by fiat from
above, does have its precedent.
It goes without saying that the endeavors to divest the Macedo-Bulgarians of
their national identity were accompanied in recent times by violent measures
designed to lend force to the arguments set forth by Pan-Serbian propaganda,
no matter whether this propaganda appeared disguised as scholarship or
downright indoctrination. Let me quote from a symposium entitled," The case
for an Autonomous Macedonia" compiled and edited in 1945 by Mr.Christ
Atanasoff. One of the crown witnesses summoned to testify was the well-known
British Balkan expert. Miss Edith Durham. In 1931, she wrote the following
in the paper La Macedonian, published in Geneva: "During the Balkan War
there was a Serbian schoolmaster - an Austrian subject - at Cetinje, who
taught German in the boy's school. He rejoiced greatly over the conquest the
Serbian army was making in Macedonia. It would add much valuable land to
Serbia. An Englishman said to him: "Oh, but Serbia cannot annex these
places, they are all Bulgar". The inhabitants put the article after the
noun. This is well known as a Bulgar peculiarity. The Serb replied: "That
does not matter. When our army has been there for two years, you will find
no articles after nouns there, I can assure you". But, in spite of torture,
murder, imprisonment, the Bulgai article still lives on at the end of the
noun."
Since it was not possible to do away with that stubborn post posited article
by administrative matters, comprising the whole gamut from violent
suppression to persistent persuasion and bribery, a new tack had to be
tried. The article was declared not to be a peculiarity of the Bulgarian
language, but also a characteristic of a hitherto non-existent separate
Macedonian language.
In parenthesis let me say this: Since the disappearance of the classical,
semi-Hellenic Macedonian Kingdom of Philip, Alexander and Perseus in Roman
limes, the terms "Macedonian" and the "Macedonia" have been used as
geographic terms for that area in Southeastern Europe, which is still known
under this name. Since the middle ages it has been inhabited predominantly
by Slavo-Bulgarians and by minorities of Albanians, Valachians, Turks,
Greeks, Gypsies, Jews and, as the statistics of the 19th and 20th Centuries
show, surprisingly few Serbians. For more than a thousand years the Slavs
living in this area have been considered Bulgarians, or to be more precise.
Western Bulgarians whose idiom is distinguished by certain dialectical
peculiarities, without thereby losing its general Bulgarian character. This
clearly recognized fact, incidentally, caused the great 19th century
philologists, who laid the groundwork for a systematic study of this
language to call it, in the early stages of its development, Old Bulgarian.
The language employed by Sts.Cyril and Metodi, St.Klement and St.Naum and a
host of other medieval writers and teachers is an old Bulgarian idiom.
Please allow me to make a personal remark in this context. When I, in the
spring "of 1931, began to study Slavic philology at the University of
Munich, we used the famous handbooks and grammar of this language written by
the celebrated German Slavist, August Leskich. These books described and
analyzed the phonology, morphology, vocabulary syntax of a language which
unequivocally was designated as Old Bulgarian :Handbuch or Grammatik der
Altbulgarichen Sprache. It is also true that the term "Old Church Slavonic",
most frequently used nowadays,was sometimes applied to this language, but
one should keep in mind that this term is basically meaningless, at least up
to the times of Peter the Great. In the course of his secularizing
transformations and reforms, Peter favored the introduction of the Russian
vernacular into common usage, relegating the then library language of the
Muscovite Tsardom, still based as it were on Old Bulgarian, to purely
liturgical and ecclesiastical purposes. This practice was later followed by
other awakening Slavic nations, especially those of the Orthodox
faith.profoundly. Nevertheless may it be said here, in parenthesis only,
that the Old Bulgarian imprint on the native language of the Russians was so
strong that even nowadays authoritative scholars in the field of Slavic
linguistics and philology, such as Boris Unbegaun, speak with good reason
about the partially Old Bulgarian character of the Russian standard literary
language.
Thus, the fiction of Macedonia as "Southern Serbia" could not be maintained
in the long run because it really held no water. Even responsible Serbian
leaders could not close their eyes to this fact. Even the Yugoslav
Ambassador in Sofia, Mr.Milanovich, in a moment of deep crisis for the
Yugoslav State, that is in the summer of 1940, saw fit to forward to his
master in Belgrade the Prime Minister Slojadinovich, a statement from
Macedonia received in Bulgaria on the situation in this region. Here we
read: "Everybody has to know that today Macedonia is not lost for Bulgaria,
but on the contrary, there exists a healthy Bulgarian spirit more than ever.
Some call themselves Macedonians, but this is due to the terrible reaction
which the name Bulgarian provokes in the Serbians. It is well known that all
injustices, robbery and violence create reaction and disgust. This is
exactly what the Serbians have achieved in Macedonia. When they came to
Macedonia they knew that Bulgarians lived in this country. That is why they
thought, by crude measures and lawlessness, to frighten the people and to
win them over for the Serbian cause. But all was in vain. And now they are
surprised at the anti-Serbian feelings in the hearts of the majority of
people. The common wish of the people is : Let Gypsy come, only let this
one, the Serbian, go away. Anathema to any Bulgarian who will forget his own
brothers.".
The war and its aftermath did away with the Pan-Serbian military-bourgeois
monarchy. Overboard went what Marxists call Bourgeois nationalism and
chauvinism. But let no man be deceived that the substitution of the old
order by the dictatorship of a Communist party and its leader spelt the
disappearance of an expansionist Greater Serbian nationalism. Had the means
employed between 1912 and 1940 been crude and brutal, and therefore in the
end unsuccessful, new devices had to be invented, this time more clever,
more insidious, in order to attain the same goal. This time under the banner
of a Yugoslav Communist Revolution! If we have failed so far wean away the
Macedonians from their Bulgarianism, because we tried so hard to make them
into Serbians, well, then let us now try to insinuate that they arc neither
Serbians nor Bulgarians, but a separate national entity, for instance,
Macedonians with their own history, language and culture; but let us also
make it perfectly clear to them that only we here in Belgrade are willing
and able to guarantee this artificial nationality concocted in the test
tubes of Serbian Communists and their non-Communist predecessors. The whole
Macedonian nation and the so called language -this I wish to affirm here
before you- is not a philologicum, but a polilicum designed according to the
well tried maxim of old: divide et impcra - divide and rule. History teaches
that a ruler, a parly or a leading group which enjoys unlimited power and
has the will to use this power ruthlessly for the attainment of its goal,
has always found partisans, advocates and adherents prepared to do the
bidding of those at the helm of the state, sometimes against their own
belter knowledge. Wasn't it one of the great cynics on the throne. Henry the
VIII of England, who said when planning something particularly outrageous
and arbitrary "let me first carry out this measure, afterwards I shall
always find professors at Oxford to justify it". So it is no wonder that in
Skopie and elsewhere the Belgrade government should have found learned
collaborators who fell for their line. I think that under the circumstances
prevailing one should not judge them and their zealous efforts too harshly.
But it is deplorable that scholars abroad with solid academic reputations
and achievements, who are not exposed to the pressures of the intellectual
under totalitarian regimes, should also swallow this latest Belgrade bait
hook, line and sinker. Can they really accept the thesis that, contrary to
their own testimony and conviction, people like the Miladinoff brothers,
Gregory Perlicerr, Alexander Todoroff, Damjan Gruev, Gotse Delceff, Peju
Javoroff, Anion Strashimirof, Dimitr Taleff are Macedonians in the sense of
the word bestowed upon it with the blessings of the Belgrade party bosses?
And what about men who figure so prominently in the Pantheon of Bulgarian
letters like Ivan Vazoff and Teodor Trajanoff who lived and worked in
Bulgaria proper, but whose family background is Macedonian,
Bulgaro-Macedonian that is. What about such a significant figure of the
Bulgarian Renaissance like Raiko Zhinzifoff from Veles, who declared in 1963
in his Novobulgarska sbirka - or did he, perhaps, call it Novo-Makedonska
sbirka? "As Bulgarian language we regard that language which is spoken in
all Macedonia, Thrace and Bulgaria proper. The differences between the
dialects are negligible. Every Bulgarian who does not suffer from
nearsighteness cannot designate a certain expression as "Macedonian" or
"Thracian"., for there are no "Macedonians" or "Thracians" as individual
nations, but only Slavo-Bulgarians - in short, one Bulgarian people and one
Bulgarian language".
One could object here that this is a voice from the long forgotten depth of
the 19th century. One could also maintain that Zhinzifoff, with all his
linguistic and folklore erudition, was not up to par with regard to the
achievements of philological science, that is that we in the 20th century
know better now. Let us then examine a few testimonies belonging to our
century.
Let us first listen to the voice of practical common sense, the voice of a
man who would never lay claim to the reputation of a learned academic
linguist. The opinions of this man, however, deserve to be listened to
attentively and carefully because they are based on the profound national
experience of a statesman and a leader of his people, Ivan Mihailoff.In his
book, Makedonia: A Switzerland of the Balkans, edited and translated by
Christ Anastasoff, he makes the following observations pertinent to the
linguistic problem: "Like the scholars of different countries who were
familiar with Macedonia, so also did the Turkish authorities and all the
rest of the objective observers consider the Macedonian Slavs as Bulgarians.
This was not only upon the basis of the logically had introduced in their
schools, but on the basis of all other ethnic features by which a given
nationality is judged. The local dialects of the Macedonian Slavs arc
basically considered by all as Bulgarian language. Every nationality employs
its own common literary language, while in every nationality meets different
dialects. As far as the Bulgarian dialects in Macedonia arc concirned they
do not vary very much from the rest of the Bulgarian dialects as, for
instance, do dialects among the Germans, Italians and other nationalities.
The dialects of the Germans in Switzerland is, perhaps, the most difficult
for all the rest of the Germans.
But that did not prevent the Swiss of German origin to consider as their own
the common German literary language. Precisely so, before the appearance of
the regimes of national oppression in Macedonia after 1912, the native
Bulgarians officially used that literary language which is common for all
the Bulgarians of the world and to the formation of which the cultural
workers of Macedonia have contributed a great deal." This point of view
deserves to be firmly kept in mind, especially in view of the artificial
construction of a new "Macedonian" nation and language as commanded from
above. For this purpose the chief perpetrators of this dubious enterprise
now take great pains to smuggle into this newfangled synthetic idiom all
sorts of Serbanianist and other foreign ingredients so as to alienate the
Macedo-Bulgarians from their historical, cultural and linguistic matrix.
But what has the linguistic science of the 20-th century to say about these
attempts to deny the Bulgarian character of the Slavic idiom spoken in
Macedonia? Here I cannot go into the details of the lingiustic argument
adduced by international scholars, to refute the claims. To note that
Professor A.M.Selishchev, the eminent Russian philologist, in his article
entitled "Macedonian Dialectology and Serbian Linguistics" already in 1935
destroyed the claims of Serbian scholars like Velich, Djordjevich, Pavlovich
and others that the idiom spoken in Macedonia is closer to Serbian than to
Bulgaria should be enough. This task he performed in a thorough scholary
way, basing himself upon the findings and achievements of modern linguistic
research in the field of Slavic philology. Whoever is interested in the
course of his irrefutable reasonic can study this article in a volume
recently published by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences under the title
L'histoire Bulgare dans les Ouvrages des Savants Europeens. Professor
Selishchev cannot be suspected of any sort of polilicing. He has worked in
Russia under the old as well as the new regime; following nothing, to the
best of his abilities, but the dictates of his scientific conscience. It is
remarkable to see how to this pure scholar and cabinet savant, far as he was
from the passionate turmoil of the political motives behind the scientific
smokescreen spread by the named Serbian scholars. He said: "The aim of all
these books is the same: namely, to furnish an historical, ethnographic and
linguistic justification for Serbian domination in Macedonia - to furnish
this justification by means of true scholarship. The arrogance in the style,
the irony with which the Bulgarian people are treated is another common
feature of the books of Belgrade professors. In the case of Professor
Georgevich this irony borders upon downright rudeness. On the other hand,
everything Serbian is idealized. The attempts of the authors of such books
to clothe their products in a science-like garb must be unmasked. The true
character of their content, harmful to all science, must be demonstrated".
The results of the linguistic and ethnographic research in the field of
Macedo-Bulgarian studies undertaken by Professor Selishchev not so long ago
match the findings not only of the Bulgaro-Macedonian philologist Krusle
Misirkoff, which he published in 1910-1911, but also of a number of 19th
century Serbian scholars like Stefan Verkovich, Tuminski, A.Hadzic, Vasa
Peladic and others. That authors like Selishchev, Misirkoff and Verkovic
working at different times and under completely different circumstances
should have arrived at the same results, with regard to the Bulgarian
character of the dialects spoken in Macedonia and their geographic
extensions points to two noteworthy qualities of their research Its
exactitude and its factual and logical consistency, in view of which all the
counter-arguments of Serbian and Pseudo-Macedonian opponents take on the
suspect colouring of sophisty and political expediency. More proof was
recently given for the Bulgarianism of the Macedonian dialects by the
Bulgarian philologist Blagoi Shklifoff in a paper about the idiom spoken in
the area of Kostur. From the evidence he is able to muster, it becomes
perfectly clear that the Kostur dialect cannot be used to buttress the
hypothetical existence of a separate and individual Slavic language called
Macedonian, but that here, as elsewhere, we deal with but another variant of
the Bulgarian language as spoken by the Western half of the nation.If
indeed, this is the conclusion at which Mr.Shklifoff arrives, the dialects
in Macedonia are by their character intrinsically different from those
spoken in Moesia and Thrace, then these differences would have to show more
than anywhere else in the dialect of Kostur, the area of which borders on
two non-Slavic linguistic regions, located geographically distant from the
other Bulgarian dialects. A strictly scholary approach to this idiom,
however, cannot but establish its basically Bulgarian character. The paper
by Mr.Blagoi Shklifoff was published in 1968. Sclishches's analysis and
demolition of the claims raised in 1935. But the same position and results
are visible in the book about Macedonia by the Czech Balkaniologic Vladimir
Sis which was printed in Prague in 1914 and came out in Zurich, Switzerland
in 1981 in a German translation. After Sis enumerates all the factors which
effect the closest mutual correspondence between Old Bulgarian and the Modem
Bulgarian language as spoken also in Macedonia, he points to certain
philological peculiarities by means of which the Bulgarian language is
distinguished from all other Slavic language, Serbian included. After a
painstaking comparison between the Bulgarian standard literary language and
various dialects spoken in Macedonia, he arrives at the following conclusion
which I shall quote here verbatim "Whoever is familiar with the basic
structural principles of the two neighboring languages must, even though he
may not be a philologist, arrive, on the basis of the examples cited here,
at the same conclusion to which also the French slavicist, Louis Leger,
came, and I repeat his words: The Macedonian Slavs are Bulgarians and speak
a Bulgarian dialect. Indeed, even the Serbian Vuk Karadzic, who was the
first to publish some Macedonian folksongs, selected them in order to
determine with their help the basic characteristics of the Bulgarian
language. That there occur Serbanianisms in some North Macedonian dialects
does not prove anything. It is inevitable that in border areas between two
linguistically kindred groups a certain inlcrminigling of vocabulary lakes
place. If the fin Serbianisms in the regions of Tetovo or Kumanovo, we also
find Bulgarianisms in the Prizren dialect behind the Shar Planina, a purely
Serbian area. The Russian scholar Hilferding says in his book An Excursion
Into Hersegovina And Old Serbia:" In the language of the Serbians around
Prizren it is clearly noticeable how much it tends to resemble the Bulgarian
dialects. It would be interesting to investigate how this blend of the
Serbian language with the Macedo-Bulgarian has come about. "That authorities
marshalled here in such an imposing array would be sufficient to support and
prove the point I wish make here, namely, that the language spoken by the
Slavs between Skopie and Salonica, Kostur and Kustandil is neither Serbian
nor "Macedonian", but Bulgarian. Please allow me to invite one more witness
to make his deposition. The man and scholar I am refering to is a former
countryman. Professor Guslav Wcigand, the eminent German Balkanologist,
cthnographer, linguist and lexicographer. Wcigang ordinarily was no Slavist.
When he began his career, his research interests were centered in Rumania
and Albania. He is one of the very few Western Scholars to give the world a
grammar and reader of the Albanian languagc. But in the course of his
studies he became convinced that he would have to embrace with his research
also the Slavic groups settling in this, as Christ Atanasoff has called it,
tragic peninsula. This extension of his studies had the effect that Wcigang
became also a linguistic expert in the Modern Bulgarian language, a field in
which again he proved himself as grammarian and lexicographer. In 1924, he
published in Leipzig his fundamental work Ethnographic von Maccdonicn, a
chapter of which is devoted under the headline "The Bulgarian Language As
Spoken In Macedonia" (Das Makedonische Bulgarisch) to linguistic issues. The
result of Weigand's meticulous observations do not essentially diverge from
the findings of the other students of these affairs, quoted in this context.
But in one point, at least as far as I can sec on the basis of the limited
number of documents available to me, Weigang had an intuition which had not
occured, at least in so many words, to other scholars. He was , of course,
fully aware of what was going on at that time in Macedonia, a period which
Ivan Michailov, as we have seen, so aptly called "The Regimes Of National
Oppression". He must have speculated which devices, apart from brute force,
the oppressors might yet use to achieve their goal - the denationalization
of the Macedo-Bulgarians. As a well-trained experienced linguist and
ethnographcr it was, in all probability, clear to him that all the attempts
at Serbanization would end in futility and frustration. But then - what
other means could the enemy of the Bulgarian nationality propose to
undermine and destroy Macedonian Bugarianism? And here he hit intuilively
what was to happen 20 years later. The artificial, test tube creation of a
separate Macedonian History, literary language and nation. Here are the
conclusions at which Weigang arrived after a conscientious examination of
the linguistic and ethnographic facts: "Whatever segment of this language we
analyze, again and again it becomes evident that we deal here not with the
Serbian, but the Bulgarian language. All attempts of Serbian chauvinists to
design the Bulgarian language as spoken in Macedonia as a Serbian dialect or
as a mixed language of indefinite character will therefore end in failure.
One could pose the question whether, perhaps, the Macedonian Slavs haven't
their own language, something in between Serbian and Bulgarian. Such an
assumption, however, would be absolutely unjustified, for, as we have seen,
in phonology, morphology and syntax Macedonian Bulgarian and Bulgarian
proper harmonize in every respect. Certain exclusively Macedonian
peculiarities cannot essentially change this picture. In the lexicon there
occurs a number of words of Greek or Turkish origin which do not exist in
the Serbian or Bulgarian vocabulary. In proportion to the overall lexicon,
however, their number is quite insignificant, as can be seen from the
linguistic samples adduced here, which clearly demonstrate that Macedonian
can only be considered a Bulgarian Dialect".
In the 1926, the Russian journalist L.Nemanov, a representative of the
respectable emigre newspaper Poslednie Novosti, edited in Paris, travelled
in what then was officially called "Southern Serbia". He published a report
about his impressions and experiences under the title, "What I Saw in
Macedonia". His findings are those of a man who was probably a good
practical linguist, but certainly not a learned professor of linguistics.
They felicitously supplement the results of strict academic research, in his
own trend of observant impressionism, he relates: "The Serbian authorities
insist that the language spoken by the population in Macedonia is not
Bulgarian, but a Macedonian dialect of the Serbian language. This reminds me
of a case when a Serbian man of science was trying to prove to me that in
general there was no Bulgarian language, but that it was a Shop dialect of
the Serbian, to which I seriously retorted that Russian as an independent
language was nonexistent to except as a Moscow dialect of the Serbian
language. That is why whatever the Serbian politicians cail the language in
Macedonia, it is a fact that this local language is comprehensible to me, a
man knowing a bit of Bulgarian, while it is difficult for me to understand
Serbian". This statement, not devoid of humor as it is, may furnish some
comic relief after all the dry seriousness of philological research and
linguistic inquiry. But one should not forget that it is the question of
depriving a people of its national identity, the first blows are invariably
directed at its language, because a common language, a common heritage and a
common destiny are the chief characteristics of historical nationality. And
the pride in just this heritage and the hopes and aspirations of a common
destiny, in rcturn,arc expressed in just this common language. So the best
way to emasculate a national group is to rob it of its native tongue or to
corrupt it. If it should turn oul impossible to extirpate the language of a
group one desires to oppress and destroy - well, then let's try to persuade
them and the world that their language docs not exist at all, that in
reality it is quite another language they arc speaking, a language of whose
existence they had not even dreamed before, which, however, exists because
we tell them so. You do not speak Bulgarian, you have never spoken
Bulgarian, neither have St.Cyril, St.Methodius, St-Clemens, Tsar Simeon or
Tsar Samuel. They have all spoken Macedonian only, ignorant and
unenlightened as they were, they didn't notice. The same is true of the
Miladinoff, Gotse Delchev, Peju Javoroff or Teodor Trajanoff. They did not
know, but now they are better informed because we tell them so.
A nation which will not surrender its own national identity and national
heritage, will not give up its native tongue, the treasure house of all its
achievements and aspirations. When the Israelis and the Irish succeeded in
re-establishing their own state, it was the first legitimate, and natural
endeavor of their leading minds to recapture their lost or half-lost native
idioms and restore them to their rightful glory. When, before the First
World War, the Prussian government undertook to ban instruction in Polish in
the schools in the eastern provinces of Prussia these decrees were bitterly
and resolutely resisted by the Polish minority. In the end, all these
measures proved futile, but they have contributed to poisoning the
atmosphere between Germans and Poles down to our own day. The press tells us
what undesirable things happened in the Southern Tyrol where the Italian
government shows but scant regard for the cultural rights of the
German-speaking minority. Alas, these examples, spread all over the globe,
could be multiplied ad infinitum. It also shows that even at a lime when
many of the more advanced nations are making great moral efforts to overcome
a narrow-minded, self-centered and often aggressive nationalism there
persists the feeling that questions of language and national identity cannot
and must not be resolved by cither brute force or cunning persuasion, or by
distortion and falsification of the historical and statistical facts. In his
attempts to explain the origins of human language, the great German
humanist, statesman and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt once declared that all
research in this problem leads to a point where further explanation avails
nothing, where even the keenest, most critical intelligence will have lo
admit that human language in its deepest well-springs is a divine miracle.
From the limes of the ancient Helenes on, the nations have delighted in
their own languages, have recorded them not only with the intelligent
curiosity of science and scholarship, but also with a sense of awe and
wonder. At bottom, their languages have always appeared to them as a
precious vessel, a national possession cherished above all other things, a
sacred covenant with their inscrutable destiny. As long as there is one
living soul also among the Macedo-Bulgarians who remembers this deep in his
heart and acts accordingly, the Macedo-Bulgarian cause is not lost.
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from: Spirit of Truth
(using June's e-mail to communicate to you)!