Historiography in North Macedonia

Historiography in North Macedonia is the methodology of historical studies used by the historians of that country. It has been developed since 1945 when SR Macedonia became part of Yugoslavia. According to the German historian Stefan Troebst [de] it has preserved nearly the same agenda as the Marxist historiography from the times of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.^[4] The generation of Macedonian historians closely associated with the Yugoslav period who worked on the actual national myths of that time are still in charge of the institutions. In fact, in the field of historiography, Yugoslav communism and Macedonian nationalism are closely related.^[5] After the Fall of communism Macedonian historiography didn't revise profoundly its communist past, because the very Macedonian nation was a result of the communist policies.^[6]

The "Warrior on a horse" (Alexander the Great) monument in Skopje. Historically this area never became part of Ancient Macedonia.^[1]

Front cover of the Bulgarian Folk Songs collected by the Miladinov Brothers and published in 1861. In the early 2000s the Macedonian State Archive displayed a photocopy of the book, but with the upper part showing the word "Bulgarian" being cut off.^[2][3]

According to the Austrian historian Ulf Brunnbauer [de], modern Macedonian historiography is highly politicized, because the Macedonian nation-building process is still in development. Diverging approaches are discouraged and people who express alternative views risk economic limitations, failure of academic career and stigmatization as "national traitors".^[7] Troebst wrote already in 1983 that historical research in the SR Macedonia was not a humanist, civilizing end in itself, but was about direct political action.^[8] No such case of reciprocal dependence of historiography and politics has been observed in modern Europe.^[9] Because of the complexity of the case, the Macedonian historiography could be described as a state "ideology".^[10] Additionally, in North Macedonia, the discipline of archaeology has often been placed in the service of the state and used to legitimate nationalist claims to history, culture, and territory.^[11]

Although ethnic Macedonians do not appear in primary sources before 1870, the first generation of Macedonian historians after WWII traced the Macedonian ethnogenesis to the beginning of the 19th century.^[12][13] However medieval history was important for the traditions of modern Macedonian nationalism. Hence why after 1960 it is claimed there that Samuel of Bulgaria was Macedonian by nationality.^[14] After 2010, the Skopje 2014 project was started, which promoted the idea of continuity of the Macedonian nation from antiquity to modern times. .^[15] Some domestic and foreign scholars have criticized this agenda of a negationist historiography, whose goal is to affirm the continuous existence of a separate Macedonian nation throughout history.^[16] This controversial worldview is ahistorical, as it projects modern ethnic distinctions into the past.^[17] Such an enhanced, ethnocentric reading of history contributes to the distortion of the Macedonian national identity and degrades history as an academic discipline.^[18] Under such historiographies generations of students were educated in pseudo-history.^[19]

History

In 1892 Georgi Pulevski, the first Macedonian national activist, completed a "General History of the Macedonian Slavs", but his knowledge of history was very modest.^[20] 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 them, the Macedonian nation was forged through a differentiation from the earlier Bulgarian nation. The Macedonian awakening in the 19th century took place as part of the Bulgarian National Revival, but managed to evolve separately in the early 20th century.^[21] One of them — Vasil Ivanovski, declared for the first time that many Bulgarian historical figures were ethnic Macedonians.^[22] 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 recognized.

The glorification of the Yugoslav partisan movement became one of the main components of the post-war Yugoslav political propaganda. As a result, the leader of the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia – Lazar Koliševski, initially proclaimed that its history has begun with the start of the communist struggle during the Second World War, while early 20th century events and organizations as the Ilinden Uprising and the IMRO were mere Bulgarian conspiracies.^[23][24] In the same time, the first rector of the University of Skopje Kiril Miljovski admitted that the Macedonian revivalists defined themselves as Bulgarians, and later the Macedonian revolutionaries such as Gotse Delchev used the literary Bulgarian and in their rhetoric it is difficult to find a treatment of the Macedonian Slavs as something different from the other Bulgarian ethnographic groups.^[25] Following direct political instructions from Belgrade, those historical studies were expanded.^[26] New Macedonian historiography held, as a central principle, that Macedonian history was distinctively different from that of Bulgaria. Its primary goal was to create a separate Macedonian national consciousness, with an "anti-Bulgarian" or "de-Bulgarizing" trend, and to sever any ties with Bulgaria.^[27] 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.^[28]

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, during which, as it was believed then, was the beginning of the history of the Macedonian people. However, the personalities from the area included into the new narrative also played a significant role in the Bulgarian National Revival. This problem was solved by the Communist system with censorship, control on historical information, and manipulations.^[29] Numerous prominent activists with pro-Bulgarian sentiments from the 19th and the early 20th centuries were described as (ethnic) Macedonians. Due to the fact that in many documents of that period the local Slavic population is not referred to as "Macedonian" but as "Bulgarian", Macedonian historians argue that it was Macedonian, regardless of what is written in the records. They have also claimed that "Bulgarian" at that time was a term, not related to any ethnicity, but was used as a synonym for "Slavic", "Christian" or "peasant".^[30]

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 area who had lived in the last millennium as Samuel of Bulgaria, were described as people with a "Macedonian (Slavic) identity". When the historians from the Skopje University published in 1985 their collection of documents on the struggle of the Macedonian people, they included into the excerpts of the medieval chronicles a footnote for every use of the term Bulgarian.^[31] Almost all of the new historical agenda was traditionally claimed by the Bulgarian national historiography and till today it disputes the Macedonian historical readings.^[32]

Post-independence

 

The statute of the turn of the 20th century Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (later IMARO/IMRO).^[33] Its membership then was restricted only for Bulgarians.^[34] It was discovered by Ivan Katardžiev in Skopje, but its authenticity has been disputed by most Macedonian historians by obvious reasons.^[35][36]

The situation did not change significantly after the Republic of Macedonia gained independence in the late 20th century. The historiography did not revise much of the Yugoslav past, because almost all of its historical myths were constructed during the communist era.^[37] The reluctance for a thorough reevaluation of Yugoslav communist historiography was mainly caused by the fact that the very Macedonian nation, state and language were a result of Yugoslav communist policies, where this historiography had played a crucial role. For the mainstream local political establishment, an attitude against Communist Yugoslavia is seen as anti-Macedonism.^[38]

Macedonian historiography became important in the early 21st century in the face of an unsure reevaluation of the Yugoslav past and of an uneasy articulation of a new anticommunist narrative.^[39] It has sought a new horizon behind the mythological symbolism of ancient Macedon. For that purpose, the borders of the ancient state were extended towards the north, much further than 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 would be Macedonism. This new historical trend, called antiquization, made the Macedonian nationality a thousand years older.^[40] 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 the arriving early Slavic settlers in the late 6th century.^[41]

In 2009, the first Macedonian Encyclopedia was issued by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The issuance of the encyclopedia caused international and internal protest because of its content and its authors have been subjected to severe criticism.^[42] Even some Macedonian academics criticised the book as hastily prepared and politically motivated. Soon the scandalous encyclopedia was withdrawn from bookstores. In 2008, the Macedonian Canadian historian, Andrew Rossos, published the first professional English language overview of the history of Macedonia. However, Stefan Troebst suggests that his narrative is enough affected by the views in the R. Macedonia and thus is representing the latest developments in the Macedonian historiography as viewed in Skopje.^[43]

 

Volunteers from Debar in the Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps of Bulgarian Army in 1912. According to Macedonian historians, they were forcibly mobilized.^[44]

 

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.^[45][46]

Recently, the Macedonian side has been interested in a debate about the national historical narrative with Bulgaria and Greece. With respect to the Macedonian narrative, both Greek and Bulgarian historiographies have questioned the Macedonian historiography's factual basis, because it was constructed to come into conflict with the former two. Per Michael R. Palairet in the three-way dispute about Macedonia, the Bulgarian view is closer to the objective reality of history than either the Greek or Macedonian view, but the Macedonian historiographical version violates common sense and the historical record much more than either the Greek or Bulgarian ones.^[47]

The governments of Bulgaria and Macedonia signed a friendship treaty to bolster the complicated relations between the two Balkan states in August 2017. On its ground, a joint commission on historical and educational issues was formed in 2018. This intergovernmental commission is a forum where controversial historical issues will be raised and discussed, to resolve the problematic readings of history. In an interview given in 2019, the co-president of the joint historical commission with Bulgaria from the Macedonian side - prof. Dragi Gjorgiev, has appealed that it is necessary to acknowledge, that there have been forgeries made from the Macedonian side. Thus, instead of "Bulgarian" as in the original artifacts, in the Macedonian textbooks it was written "Macedonian". According to him, for many years the historiography in North Macedonia has been a function of the process of nation-building.^[48]

In early October 2019, Bulgaria has set a lot of tough terms for North Macedonia's EU progress. The Bulgarian government accepted an ultimate "Framework Position", where it has warned that Bulgaria will not allow the EU integration of North Macedonia to be accompanied by European legitimization of an anti-Bulgarian ideology, sponsored by North Macedonia's authorities. In the list, there are more than 20 demands and a timetable to fulfill them, during the process of North Macedonia's accession negotiations. It states 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. Bulgarian National Assembly voted on 10 October and approved this "Framework Position" put forward by the government on the EU accession of North Macedonia.^[49] As a result, in an interview with Bulgarian media in November 2020, the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev stated that, among other things, Bulgaria was not a fascist occupier during WWII and together with the Macedonian Partisans, participated in battles for driving away the Germans from the area in 1944.^[50] This sparked criticism and accusations by Macedonian public figures, politicians and historians of historical revisionism.^[51] The leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski stated that he was concerned that the negiotiation process with Bulgaria could threaten the Macedonian national identity.^[52] Protests arose demanding Zaev's resignation.^[53] According to the former Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski, those reactions were the result of ignorance, hypocrisy or politicking.^[54]

On November 17, 2020, Bulgaria blocked the official start of accession talks with North Macedonia.^[55] One of the main reasons provided by the Bulgarian side for the decision was an 'ongoing nation-building process' based on historical negationism of the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader region of Macedonia.^[56] 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.^[57] 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.^[58]

Alternative views

 

Memorial plaque of participiants 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.^[59]

After the fall of Communism, historical revisionists in the Republic of Macedonia questioned the narrative established in Communist Yugoslavia.^[60] 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.^{[61][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.^[62] Based on his opinions, Bulgarian sources maintain that similar views were also espoused by Ivan Katardžiev.^[63][64][65] 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 ethnonym Bulgarians in the 9th century.^[66] Milosavlevski and Crvenkovski challenged the myth of the significance of the communist partisan resistance movement against the Bulgarian Army during WW2.^[67] 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.^[68] According to Macedonian professor of pathology and then-MP Vesna Janevska, the conflict during WWII was a fratricidal or civil war.^[69] 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.^[70][71][72] 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.^[72]

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.^[73] 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.^[74] 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.^[75]

Foreign historiographic studies

 

The Rosetta Stone, dated 196 BC. During the 2000s two Macedonian researchers funded by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts promoted the view that the "Demotic Egyptian" script on it was written in a Slavic language close to modern Macedonian and that this was the language of the Ancient Macedonians.^[76][77][78]

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.^[79] 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.^[80] 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.^[81] John Van Antwerp Fine states that throughout the Middle Ages and Ottoman era modern Bulgarians and Macedonians comprised a single people.^[82] Per Bernard Lory the ethnic divergence between Bulgarians and Macedonians occurred mainly in the first half of the 20th century.^[83] Alexander Maxwell maintains that scarcely by the middle of that century, Macedonians began to see Macedonian and Bulgarian loyalties as mutually exclusive.^[84] 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.^[85] 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.^[86] 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.^[87]

Gallery

•  

  Bulgarian invasion in Vardar Banovina, April 1941. Bulgarians were greeted as liberators.^[88] 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.^[89]

•  

  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.^[90]

•  

  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.^[91][92] Though, similar atrocities were committed then in the old Bulgarian territories too.^[93]

•  

  Bulgarian forces entering Skopje in November 1944 after they ejected the Germans from the city.^[94] Macedonian sources claim no Bulgarian troops participated in the capture of the city, even as observers.^[95][96] Bulgarian sources maintain they seized the town.^[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.^[98][99] There is still silence about this court and its activity in North Macedonia.

•  

  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.^[100]

See also

• Macedonian Question
• Macedonian nationalism
• History of North Macedonia
• 2018 Macedonian referendum

References

1. Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930, Oxford Historical Monographs, Clarendon Press, 2006, ISBN 0191515558, p. 12.
2. . www.soros.org.mk. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2008.
3. 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. These Bulgarian arguments have strong 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, p. 323.
4. Stefan Troebst, Historical Politics and Historical 'Masterpieces' in Macedonia before and after 1991, New Balkan Politics, 2003.
5. Roumen Daskalov, Diana Mishkova as ed., Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Two: Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions, BRILL, 2013, ISBN 9004261915, p. 499.
6. 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.
7. Ulf Brunnbauer, "Serving the Nation: Historiography in the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) after Socialism", Historien, Vol. 4 (2003-4), pp. 174-175.
8. 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.
9. "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).
10. 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. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65832-8_11
11. Danforth, Loring M. (1995). The Macedonian conflict : ethnic nationalism in a transnational world. Princeton, N.J. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-691-22171-7. OCLC 1206364430.
12. Yosmaoğlu, İpek (2013). Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908. Cornell University Press. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-8014-6979-4.
13. 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
14. Elma Hasimbegovic and Darko Gavrilovic, 'Ethnogenesis Myths', in Vjekoslav Perica, Darko Gavrilović as ed., Political Myths in the Former Yugoslavia and Successor States: A Shared Narrative, Republic of Letters, 2011, ISBN 9089790667, p. 26.
15. Klaus Roth, Asker Kartarı as authors and ed., Cultures of Crisis in Southeast Europe, Volume 2, LIT Verlag Münster, 2017, ISBN 3643907915, p. 169.
16. 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, ISBN 0857739689.
17. Kyril Drezov, Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims in The New Macedonian Question with J. Pettifer as ed., Springer, 1999, ISBN 0230535798, p. 55.
18. 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.
19. 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, ISBN 1403997209, p. 89.
20. 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, ISBN 900439429X, p. 277.
21. Spyridon Sfetas, The Configuration of Slavomacedonian Identity. A Painful Evolution. Thessaloniki: Vanias, 2003. Balcanica XLVI, pp. 426-429. Reviewed by Athanasios Loupas.
22. Roumen Daskalov, Alexander Vezenkov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Three: Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies. BRILL, 2015, ISBN 9004290362, p. 449.
23. Мичев. Д. Македонският въпрос и българо-югославските отношения – 9 септември 1944–1949, Издателство: СУ Св. Кл. Охридски, 1992, стр. 91.
24. Катарџиев, Иван. Васил Ивановски – живот и дело, предговор кон: Ивановски, Васил. Зошто ние Македонците сме одделна нација, Избрани дела, Скопје, 1995, стр. 25-26.
25. Милен Михов, Политика в историята! Новата българска история и македонската историография 1944 - 2005 г., УИ „Св. св. Кирил и Методий”, Велико Търново, 2006, ISBN 9789545245329; стр. 40 - 41.
26. Stefan Troebst, "Die bulgarisch-jugoslawische Kontroverse um Makedonien 1967-1982". R. Oldenbourg, 1983, ISBN 3486515217, p. 15.
27. Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, pp. 6-7.
28. J. Pettifer ed., The New Macedonian Question, St Antony's Series, Springer, 1999, ISBN 0230535798, p. 75.
29. Dejan Djokićas ed., Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea, 1918-1992; Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2003, ISBN 1850656630, pp. 121-122.
30. Blaze Ristovski, Istorija na makedonskata nacija [History of the Macedonian Nation], Skopje, 1969, pp. 13-14.
31. Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 109.
32. 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.
33. 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 organisations 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, ISBN 0230535798, p. 55.
34. 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, ISBN 0914710559, p. 10.
35. Mishkova Diana as ed., We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776289, pp. 113-114.
36. 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.
37. 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.
38. Ulf Brunnbauer, "Pro-Serbians" vs. "Pro-Bulgarians": Revisionism in Post-Socialist Macedonian Historiography, first published on 21 December 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2005.00130.x
39. Janev, G. (2017). Burdensome past: Challenging the socialist heritage in Macedonia. Studia ethnologica Croatica, 29 (1), 149-169. https://doi.org/10.17234/SEC.29.8
40. 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),
41. 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.
42. "Macedonian Encyclopedia Sparks Balkan Ethnic Row". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
43. 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.
44. 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.
45. 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.
46. 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).
47. Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 1, From Ancient Times to the Ottoman Invasions), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, ISBN 1443888435, p. 16.
48. Проф. Драги Георгиев: Да признаем, че е имало и фалшифициране - вместо "българин" са писали "македонец"- това е истината. Factor.bg, 21 March 2020.
49. Sinisa Jakov Marusic, Bulgaria Sets Tough Terms for North Macedonia's EU Progress Skopje. BIRN; 10 October 2019.
50. 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.
51. An interview that North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev gave Bulgarian news agency BGNES, published on Wedensday – 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.
52. Мицкоски загрижен за македонскиот идентитет. ДТЗ /ДВ, 25.11.2020.
53. "Протест во 7 градови: "Оставка на Заев, слобода на народот"". www.slobodnaevropa.mk. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
54. 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.
55. Bulgaria blocks EU accession talks with North Macedonia. Nov 17, 2020, National post.
56. "Foreign Minister Zaharieva: Bulgaria Cannot Approve EU Negotiating Framework with North Macedonia, Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency". www.novinite.com. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
57. Paul Reef, Macedonian Monument Culture Beyond 'Skopje 2014'. From the journal Comparative Southeast European Studies. https://doi.org/10.1515/soeu-2018-0037
58. "Bulgarian-Macedonian Historical Commission: Tsar Samuil was a Ruler of the Bulgarian Kingdom, Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency". www.novinite.com.
59. Џабир Дерала и Кирстен Шонефелд, Соочување со реалноста, ЦИВИЛ-Центар за слобода, Скопје, 2014, ISBN 6086562954, p. 88.
60. Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 9781538119624, pp. 254-255.
61. . Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 11 October 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
62. Sinisa Jakov Marusic, New Statue Awakens Past Quarrels in Macedonia, in Balkan Transitional Justice - BIRN, 13 July 2012.
63. Академик Катарџиев, Иван. Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот, интервју за списание "Форум", 22 jули 2000, број 329.
64. Чавдар Маринов, Сто години Илинден или сто години Мисирков? История и политика в Република Македония през 2003 г. сп. Култура - Брой 20 (2587), 30 април 2004 г.
65. Стефан Дечев: Две държава, две истории, много „истини“ и една клета наука - трета част. Marginalia, 15.06.2018.
66. 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
67. "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.
68. Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996; Vol. 7 оf Nationalisms across the globe; Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, pp. 107-108.
69. Стенографски белешки от Тринаесеттото продолжение на Четиринаесеттата седница на Собранието на Република Македонија, одржана на 17 јануари 2007 година.
70. Колозова: Практично сите „окупатори“ биле наши луѓе, не може Бугарите да депортираат толку Евреи без локална помош. Македонски весник, 25/07/2022.
71. 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.
72. Katerina Kolozova, On the Macedonian-Bulgarian dispute and historical revisionism. 7 Dec 2020, Al Jazeera.
73. Ludomir R. Lozny (2011). Comparative Archaeologies: A Sociological View of the Science of the Past. Springer, ISBN 1441982248, p. 427.
74. Naoum Kaytchev, Being Macedonian: Different Types of Ethnic Identifications in the Contemporary Republic of Macedonia. – Politeja (Krakow, Poland), № 30 (2014), 122–131.
75. 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.
76. Vasiliki P. Neofotistos (2012) The Risk of War. Everyday Sociality in the Republic of Macedonia; University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 126. ISBN 9780812206562.
77. Tome Boshevski, Aristotel Tentov, Tracing the script of the Ancient Macedonians. This paper presents the results of research realized within the project "Deciphering the Middle Text of the Rosetta Stone", supported by Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2003 – 2005.
78. Comparative analysis of the results of deciphering the middle text on the Rosetta stone, Tome Boševski, Aristotel Tentov, MANU, Vol 31, No 1-2 (2010) DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20903/csnmbs.masa.2010.31.1-2.23
79. 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 .
80. "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).
81. Danforth, Loring M. (1997). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton, Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04356-6, p. 169.
82. John Van Antwerp Fine, "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century"; University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN 0472081497, pp. 36–37.
83. 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, ISBN 9052012970, pp. 165-193.
84. 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. ISBN 3825813878, pp. 127-154.
85. 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, ISBN 0520210298, p. 259.
86. Dichev, Ivaylo, Eros Identiteta, In: Dušan Bjelić, Obrad Savić (eds.), Balkan kao metafora: između globalizacije i fragmentacije. Beograd: Beogradski krug, 2003, pp. 269-284.
87. İpek Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908, Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN 0801469791, p. 16.
88. Raymond Detrez, The A to Z of Bulgaria, G - Reference, SCARECROW PRESS INC, 2010, ISBN 0810872021, p. 485.
89. Carl Skutsch as ed., Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities, Routledge, 2013, ISBN 1135193886, p. 766.
90. Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него, Коста Църнушанов, Унив. изд. "Св. Климент Охридски", София, 1992 г. стр. 206.
91. Македонска Енциклопедија, МАНУ, Скопје, 2009, Том I (А - Л), стр. 76.
92. Ташев, Т., „Българската войска 1941 – 1945 – енциклопедичен справочник“, София, 2008, „Военно издателство“, ISBN 978-954-509-407-1, стр. 9.
93. В Ястребино свирят куршуми - една забравена трагедия.
94. Crawford, Steve. The Eastern Front Day by Day, 1941-45: A Photographic Chronology, Potomac Books, 2006, ISBN 1597970107, p. 170: "November 13, 1944, ...The Bulgarian First Army ejects Army Group E from Skopje..."
95. Livanios, Dimitris, The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939-1949, Oxford University Publishing, 2008, ISBN 0191528722, pp. 134-135.
96. Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 2), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, ISBN 1443888494, p. 212.
97. 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).
98. 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, ISBN 1850655340, p. 118.
99. John Phillips, Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans. (2004) I.B. Tauris (publisher), ISBN 186064841X, p. 40.
100. 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. https://doi.org/10.1515/soeu-2018-0037