The emergence and development of the Macedonian people

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With no ambitions to cover all the aspects of this problem — bearing in mind that there are still no generally accepted theoretical models in scholarship concerning the constitution of a people as a social and historical category — we shall concentrate on certain questions which seem more important to us and which have without doubt aroused great interest. This is even more important in view of the fact that some of these questions have already been analysed by certain historians from neighbouring nations, utterly ignoring the ethnic and cultural identity of the Macedonians. We shall pay particular attention to the period from the 7th to the 11th centuries, the time when certain significant processes relevant to the forma- tion of the modern Macedonian people were completed or initiated.

Just like any other people, the Macedonian people was formed neither from a single tribe nor from a single ethnic entity in the broader sense of this term: during the centuries of development, it encompassed different ethnic groups that had lost their individuality, while leaving significant traces not only in history and archae- ology, but also in the living spiritual and material culture of Macedonia. To believe that we are ‘pure’ Slavs means to follow the road of blind racism. True, it is very likely that the large majority of the present-day Macedonian people are descen- dants of the Slavs, mostof whom are assumed to have reached this part of the Balkan Peninsula from the 5th to the early 7th century, but (in spite of all pogroms) they certainly did not find this region utterly uninhabited. By absorbing parts of the peoples living there (ancient Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, etc.), the Slavs also absorbed their culture, and in that amalgamation a people was gradually formed with perhaps predominantly Slavic ethnic elements, speaking a Slavonic language and with a Slavic-Byzantine culture.

Why, when and how has this people differentiated itself from the neighbouring Slav peoples?

An increasing number of Bulgarian scholars have been putting forward the thesis that the territory bordered by the Morava, the Danube, the Black Sea, Constantinople, the Aegean Sea, Central Greece and Albania up to the Šar Mountains was populated by a certain ‘Bulgarian group’ of Slav tribes,^[1] whose basic (and only!) characteristic was the language, and its “most characteristic feature” was the article!^[2] In his study entitled ‘The Bulgarian Nationality and the Work of Clement of Ohrid’ Prof. Dimit’r Angelov writes that all these Slav tribes, “regardless of some dialectal features, had a common language, and therefore they belong to one and the same group — the Bulgarian — in contrast to the tribes of the Serbo-Croatian group, which in the 7th century settled in the north-western regions of the Balkan Peninsula (parts of present-day Yugoslavia)”.^[3] Precisely because of the character of these Slavs, the entire period from the 7th to the 9th centuries was characterized “by a constant and increasingly strongly outlined tendency — namely the aspiration of the Bulgarian rulers gradually to include all the Slav tribes of the Bulgarian group within the territory of their own state”.^[4]Whether these and similar theories and assumptions have a serious basis can be seen from the following historical facts.

Firstly, even if we allow the retroactive meaning of a certain term which appeared considerably later, it is not true that there was a tribal unity of the Slavs that settled in this vast area (except if referring to the general unity of all Slavs). Before their arrival in the Balkans, the Slav tribes of the Slavini (Sclavini) and Antians (Antes) lived separately. According to Emperor Mauricius (6th century), they had “the same way of life and the same customs”,^[5] and yet they were distinct Slav tribes and during their settlement they inhabited different territories in the Balkans. Whereas the Slavini settled Macedonia and parts of present-day Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, the Antians settled mainly the territory of present-day Bulgaria. Even if we assume that the Slavinian (Sclavinian) and Antian tribes were of the very same stock, even if we neglect their subsequent historical fate in the Balkans, we shall have to admit that this ‘Bulgarian group’ must have involved the people living in a large part of what is today Serbia! In addition, it has to be underlined that the Bulgarian Slavs between the Danube and Mount Stara Planina mingled chiefly with the indigenous Thracians, Dacians, etc., and later with the newly-arrived Bulgars (a Turan-Mongol tribe that gave its name and state organization to the subsequently formed Bulgarian people).

Secondly, in the formation of peoples it is not the ethnic composition of the population which is primary, but the population’s historical development. The history of many European and non-European peoples can prove this. Likewise, this part of the Balkans saw the development of the Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian peoples.

Known facts on the Slav tribes in Bulgaria are more than scarce. Even though Bulgarian scholars speak of some tribal union which later concluded an alliance with the newly-arrived Bulgars, serious historical sources from that period do not confirm such assumptions. It is known with certainty that by 681 the Bulgars had already established a state organization controlling the Slavs from the Timok to the Black Sea and from the Danube to Stara Planina, which was recognized by the Byzantine Empire. It is also known, however, that as early as the late 6th century and the first half of the 7th century, on the territory between the rivers Volga and Dnieper there was an established tribal union of Turan-Mongol tribes calling themselves Bulgars, but that in 650 this state of Khan Kubrat broke down under the pressure of the Khazars, as a result of which Kubrat’s son Asparuh moved to the Balkans with a part of his people and there established his new state comprising (primarily) people of Slavic stock.^[6]

It must be noted, however, that this was not the only Bulgarian state at that time. Another Bulgarian tribe (the Kotrags) crossed the Don and arrived at the Volga where, together with the local tribes, they established another Bulgarian state which existed up to the 13th century, when it was destroyed by the Tartars. The fourth Bulgarian state (if we consider Kubrat’s Bulgaria as the firstone!) was founded by Kubrat’s eldest son, Batbayan, in the territory lying between the River Kuban and the Sea of Azov. Even though it was soon subjugated by the Khazars, its remains could be found for several centuries after that.

Trying to prove not only that the Bulgarian Slavs mingled with the Turan-Mongol tribe, but that Bulgars came also to Macedonia, leaving there their own blood and their own name and culture, Bulgarian historians very often underline the significance of a certain company of Asparuh’s brother Kuber, who came to the Bitola and Salonika regions and remained there. Yet there are still no reliable sources supporting this. It is true, Bulgars are mentioned in connection with the attacks against Salonika in the 7th century, but only as one of the many allies of the Macedonian Slav tribes, such as the Avars or Kumans, mostof which moved back. Even if we suppose that they remained in Macedonia, owing to their insignificant number they could not have changed the general ethnic character of the Macedonian people. There were also Bulgars across the Danube, even in some parts of Croatia, and it would really be difficult to put forward similar claims concerning the Bulgarian character of the people or territories there.

While the Bulgarian state of Asparuh and his heirs constantly expanded and grew stronger, gradually forming one people of the various ethnic elements of its population, as early as the beginning of the 7th century, i.e. before the foundation of the Bulgarian state, the Slavs in Macedonia had already established a tribal union and acted quite independently in the wars against the Byzantine Empire in the siege of Salonika. This tribal union, named Slavinia (Sclavinia), existed for about six decades and marked the beginning of the formation of the Macedonian people. But the military power of the Byzantine Empire, putting Macedonia under its control, prolonged the process of this formation, although individual Slav tribes continued their half-independent development.

It is important to note at this point that while the various ethnic groups in Bulgaria melted together under the name ‘Bulgars’, and that they are referred to in the sources only under that name, in Macedonia they blended using the name Slavini (Sclavini) or Slavs, and the older ethnic groups are not mentioned. The life and development in two states with different levels and characters of culture gradually differentiated the Macedonians from the Bulgarians. This situation continued for more than two and a half centuries, a period sufficient to bring about the formation of two ethnic individualities, which had absolutely no material or spiritual contacts during that period.

Thirdly, there were no aspirations — and there could not be any — on the part of the Bulgarian khans and princes towards the unification of “all Slav tribes of the Bulgarian group”, because for a long time those heading the Bulgarian state were non-Slav leaders who simply could not nourish aspirations for a Slavic-centred policy. Furthermore, it is well known from history that Bulgarian expansion took place to the north and the east rather than the south-west. It is interesting that the first territories to be conquered were those of present-day Romania, Serbia and parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and only later the territory of Macedonia, whose conquest lasted for nearly a century. How can these “aspirations” of the Bulgarian khans and princes be linked with the “Bulgarian Slavic group” only within the boundaries of “Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia” when it is a well-known fact that in the 9th and 10th centuries Bulgaria included the territories of Romania, parts of Ukraine and Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia (without Salonika) and parts of Bosnia and Croatia? These lands were not populated solely by Slavs, and they certainly cannot be included in the “Bulgarian group”. More- over, strong resistance is mentioned in the sources on the part of the Slavs against Bulgarian conquests; there were fierce conflicts, for instance, between Krum or Omurtag and the subjugated Slavs. Military alliances were also concluded be- tween Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire and the Franks against the Slavs, and bloody military campaigns were fought by the Bulgarian leaders against the Slavs in Paeonia, Moravia, Thrace and Macedonia.

Fourthly, and no less importantly, the language of the Slavs of that “Bulgarian group” was not particularly different from the language of the other Slavs at that time, nor can we speak of some article form in those centuries, as this was the result of the subsequent development of the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages in the Balkan environment. To confirm this it is sufficient to mention that the language of the Macedonian Slavs from the Salonika region, which Cyril and Methodius took as the literary standard in the 9th century, was also fully under- standable to the Greater-Moravian Slavs, and that the language or the written records, at least up to the 11th century, showed no article forms in either Macedonia or Bulgaria or Thrace. Attention must also be paid to the fact that the article form has never appeared (and will probably never appear) in the language of the Serbian Slavs who, however, were incorporated into the Bulgarian state much earlier and remained a part of it longer than Macedonia.

If one has to seek any differences between the Bulgarian and Macedonian peoples as early as that period, one should pay attention not only to the ethnic composition, but above all to the historical development as well as the individuality and character of the cultures of these lands. The independent life in two different environments (one pagan, the other Christian) created two different cultures: a Slavic-Bulgarian pagan culture in Bulgaria and a Macedonian-Slavic-Byzantine Christian culture in Macedonia. This is so in spite of the fact that even today the Macedonian language is the closest to Bulgarian, in the same way that Slovenian is the closest to Croatian, Slovak to Czech and Ukrainian or Belorussian to Russian.

1. ↑ Dimitъr Angelov, “Bъlgarskata narodnost i deloto na Kliment Ohridski “, Kliment Ohridski 916-1966. Sbornikot statii poslučaja 1050 godini ot smъrtta mu, BAN, Sofija, 1966, 7. These views are also expressed in other papers by this author. We should mention his article “Po vъprosa za naselenieto v Makedonija prez srednovekovnata epoha (oe II-HIoe v.)“ in the journal Iskustvo, HII, 4-5, Sofija, 1962, and they are expounded in greater detail in his book, published later, “Obrazuvane na bъlgarskata narodnost “ (Sofija, 1971), covering the period to the 11th century.
2. ↑ Dimitъr Angelov, “Bъlgarskata narodnost“, 12.
3. ↑ Ibid., 8.
4. ↑ Ibid., 7.
5. ↑ Prof . Aleksandъr K. Burmov i Doc. Petъr Hr. Petrov, Hristomatija po istorija na Bъlgarija, I. Ot najae stari vremena do sredata na 19 vek, Sofija, 1964, 67.
6. ↑ The view of the Russian historian, Academician Nikolay Derzhavin, seems a rather interesting one; it is presented in the ‘abridged shorthand minutes’ of the lecture he delivered at the 6th Plenum of the Pan-Slavic Committee in Moscow, on October 16 and 17, 1943. It deals with a number of questions which concern and elucidate our subject. Derzhavin pays special attention to the Antians, their movement to the south of the Balkans and their relations with the Proto-Bulgarians, but he also expresses his views on the composition of Asparuh’s company in moving to what is today Bulgaria, which may be relevant for further research (“Istoricheskite osnov russkogo i bolgarskogo narodov“, Slavjane, º 11, Moskva, 1943, 30-31).