Some basic components of the culture of the Macedonian Slavs
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Krste P. Misirkov was the first to pose the question of the independent Macedonian culture as early as 1903, but 20 years later, in 1923, when Macedonia’s subjugators used all methods and means for genocide and denationalization[1] of the Macedonian people, Misirkov once again felt responsible to declare before the whole world:
There used to be and there still is an independent Macedonian culture, and it has been the strongest weapon in helping the Macedonians to preserve their present-day cultural matrix and survive all the reversals in the history of their fatherland: not Byzantium nor Bulgaria nor Serbia, nor Turkey, could make changes in the character of the Macedonians of such a nature as to destroy their individuality and estrange them from their Slavic forefathers. [2]
And since these claims were refuted by both Sofia and Belgrade, Krste Misirkov offered a more elaborate answer to the question “Is there indeed a Macedonian national culture and Macedonian national history?” He wrote:
Fortunately enough, we can give an affirmative answer: yes, there is a Macedonian culture and Macedonian national history, distinct from those of the Serbs and Bulgarians, even though they have so far not been the object of extensive and impartial study: the Serbs and Bulgarians have one-sidedly and with a strong bias chosen from Macedonian culture what glorifies their own national name, ignoring questions of capital importance only because they do not concern them or contradict the national aspirations of the choosers and their compatriots.
Unfortunately, the independent study of Macedonian history is only beginning now, [carried out] by those same Macedonians who towards the end of the past century started disbelieving Belgrade and Sofia scholars, who had almost unani- mously declared that during the Middle Ages the Slavs were a disorganized people, without national [sic!] consciousness, who were saved from Greek assimilation only thanks to the establishment of the state of the Turan Bulgars, and later of the state of the Nemanja dynasty.
We, Macedonians, believe this to be an erroneous idea as a result of which the Bulgarians and Serbs have wrongly understood not only the history of the Macedonians and Macedonia in the Middle Ages, but also the very history of the Serbs and Bulgarians.
Offering an answer to the question of the significance of Macedonian national culture and Macedonian national history, Misirkov concluded:
The sum total of the centuries-long efforts towards cultural growth and national self-preservation of the Macedonians, starting 400-500 years prior to the emergence of the Serbian state of the Nemanja dynasty and continuing during its rise and decline, together with the similar efforts on our part to win church and political freedom in the 19th century, constitutes our Macedonian national culture, our Macedonian history.[3]
With justified reason Misirkov concentrates on those “saints” and heroes, Macedonians “by birth and deeds”, such as Cyril and Methodius, Clement and Naum, Tsar Samuel, Strez, King Volkašin and King Mark, as well as on the Archbishopric of Ohrid, on “the pleiad of Macedonian writers in the Middle Ages and in the 19th century” and on the pleiad of legendary heroes killed in the struggle for freedom in the past 30 years. Accepting this basic idea of Misirkov’s, we believe that the formation of the Macedonian people cannot be understood if we do not consider some of the basic components of Macedonian culture since the mediaeval period which has been either usurped or obscured up to the present day.
- ↑ The terms denationalization and denationalize are used throughout this book with the meaning of ‘obliterating the national (i.e. ethnic) character of a people with the purpose of assimilation’ (translator’s note).
- ↑ K. Misirkov , “Makedonska kultura“, Pirin, I, 2, Sofija, 21.3.1923, 2.
- ↑ K. Misirkov, “Makedonska kultura“, Mirъ , III, 7155, Sofija, 19.4.1924, 1.
