THE SLOW DISCOVERY OF THE MACEDONIANS

Abstract

The constant claim, even in the 21st century, that Macedonians are a nation invented
by the Comintern and Tito's Yugoslavia requires research to show that the formation
of the Macedonian nation was not at all a solution of an international leftist organisation,
but a natural process, similar as with other nations in the region. The proximity
of the Macedonian with the Bulgarian language, and partly with the Serbian language,
is not at all an argument for denying the existence of the Macedonian language
as a separate South Slavic language. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th
century, the struggle led by the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation for the creation
of an autonomous Macedonian state aroused great interest among diplomats, politicians,
journalists and intellectuals in Europe and the United States. As a result of
that interest, many studies and pamphlets related to Macedonia and the possible solution
of the Macedonian issue emerged. While seemingly the theses of the sciences from
some neighbouring countries are in their favour, careful researches show something
quite opposite. Namely, many perceived that the Macedonian Slavic population was
neither Bulgarian nor Serbian, but separate South Slavic people appropriated by the
neighbours. Moreover, in the United States, for example, where there was a right to
free expression of national feeling, some Macedonian emigrants declared themselves as
they felt, that is, as Macedonians.