The national revival of the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians and conditions for the development of Macedonian national consciousness

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Not only in the past but even today Bulgarian scholars like to claim that “the cradle of Bulgarianism” was in Macedonia and that “the Bulgarian revival” started here.

In order to understand better why this is a wrong assumption and also to understand the Macedonian revival, we shall briefly examine the revival of the Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians in connection and interdependence with which the Macedonian revival developed.

A general characteristic of all these neighbouring peoples (which were more or less in the same position as Macedonia was within the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire) was that cultural and national revival among all of them began and developed first in colonies outside Turkish (Ottoman) territory, where the necessary conditions had been created for the unimpeded progress of educational, cultural and spiritual life and the affirmation of national thought. As a result of the central position it occupied in European Turkey, the Macedonian people did not have that advantage. When it tried to establish such colonies in the neighbouring, already liberated, states new historical circumstances had been created there in which aggressive aspirations towards Macedonia were already strong and any expression of Macedonian national thought was most closely followed and nipped in the bud.

The Serbian revival and the Serbian nation appeared and developed not “in the then illiterate Serbia”, as Û. Jovanović says, but in what was then southern Hungary, or present-day Vojvodina, where the Serbs had almost complete cultural, spiritual and political autonomy. The towns there were highly developed both economically and culturally and, in the second half of the 18th century, some of them (Novi Sad, Sombor, Subotica, Timisoara) were proclaimed “free royal towns” with full rights to self-rule.

Even though there was a certain Serbian population in Vojvodina as early as the 13th and 14th centuries, it grew considerably in the 15th century, after the flight of many Orthodox Bosnian and Serbian feudal lords into the Hungarian Kingdom, and in particular with the great migration following the 1690 Austro-Turkish War, when some 60-70 thousand people fled there, mostof whom were craftsmen, merchants and priests, headed by the Serbian Patriarch Arsenie III Čarnojević. The ensuing Austro-Turkish wars in the period 1699-1739 fixed the Austro-Turkish frontier extending along the rivers Danube and Sava, and passing near the fortifications of Belgrade. The Serbian population in this territory developed in an entirely different way from the Serbian people under the Turks. Even Emperor Leopold I (1690-1691) issued special ‘Privileges’ for the Serbian settlers, according to which they were placed under the protection of the Emperor and enjoyed free confession of faith, church autonomy and the right to elect their own Orthodox metropolitan, who was in fact a political representative of the Serbs in Austria and who, among other things, acted as a judge in civilian lawsuits, punished those found guilty, confirmed the statutes of guilds, appointed Serbian officers, etc.

Greatly contributing to the national and political development of the Serbs in Vojvodina were also the popular-church councils which resolved important issues ranging from the election of a metropolitan, the opening of schools and organization of church administration, to protecting the people from the pressure of the authorities and feudal lords. Following the introduction of Maria Theresa’s reforms, after the establishment of the Illyrian Court Commission (1745) and the Illyrian Court Office (1747), as well as the Regulament (1770) and Declaratorium (1779), political autonomy was considerably restricted, but full rights of the people to autonomy in religion and schooling were retained, which helped the process of national revival and the affirmation of the Serbian nation. The popular uprisings of the Vojvodina Serbs, the actions of Pera Segedinac, etc., greatly contributed to the development of political consciousness and indirectly prepared for the Serbian Uprising of 1804, which led to the establishment of the free Serbian state and ultimately accomplished the process of Serbian cultural, social and economic revival. All this, however, took place outside that part of Serbia which came within the frontiers of Turkey.

Accordingly, the Serbian revival and the Serbian nation were conceived in the 18th century within the borders of Austria (and Hungary). The nation finally became established in the early 19th century in Serbia itself.

The evolution of the Greek revival was not essentially different. Greek education was directly controlled by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Phanariotes in the Turkish capital. In addition to Constantinople, there were Greek schools on Mount Athos, in Jannina (IoInnina) and other towns in the Balkans, where the Balkan ‘upper class’ studied the Greek language and proudly adopted Greek culture. There were also Greek schools supported by the free principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, in Bucharest and Jassy. Many Greek scholars and thinkers earned fame in the world, but neither Constantinople nor Jannina were to become the centre of Greek revival. In Greece, just as in the case of Serbia, the main characteristic of the revival was the introduction of the vernacular as a literary standard instead of the archaic Byzantine Greek standard. In the 1760s, Iosipos Myssiodakas (c. 1730-1800), influenced by the French Encyclopaedists, came out in favour of opening schools instead of churches (Dositej Obradović later promulgated the same ideology). The most glorified Greek learned man in the 18th century, Eugenios Voulgaris (1716-1806), founded the Mount Athos Academy, which became known throughout the Balkans and grew into a symbol of the struggle for education, although he was soon forced to leave Greece, finding support in Russia. AdamIntios Koras (1748-1833) takes a special place in the cultural and national revival of the Greeks; at first he looked to France to liberate the Greek people, and later he stood at the head of the popular educational movement which developed chiefly outside Greece — in Vienna, Bucharest and Jassy — and on some Greek islands.

Of crucial significance, however, for the development of the Greek revival and national awakening was the increasingly important role of Russia in the settlement of Balkan questions, as a result of which many Greeks were warmly accepted at the Russian Court as well as at the courts of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The political content of the Megali Idea was based on Catherine the Great’s idea of “the re-institution of the ancient Greek Empire”. The ideas of the French Revolution were most practically reflected in the activity of Rhigas Velestinlis (1757-1798). He wrote his Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Constitution of a Balkan Republic, and prepared a large historical “map of Hellas” which was in fact a map of the whole of the Balkans. Although he propagated liberty, fraternity and equality for all the peoples living in this territory, at the beginning of his Declaration, Velestinlis underlines that under this Balkan Republic he understands “the people, descendants of the Greeks, inhabiting Rumelia, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean islands, Wallachia-Moldavia and all others groaning under the most unbearable tyranny of the most abominable Ottoman despotism”.^[1]

This Megali Idea was also reflected in his ‘Combat March’ which became the ode of the Greek national liberation movement in the early 19th century. All his works mention only Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Vlachs, Armenians and Turks, and there are no Macedonians. This is understandable as the Greeks even then believed that the ancient Macedonians had been Greeks, and hence Macedonia was a Greek land.

The successful end of the Serbian Uprising (1804) and the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812) created conditions for the easier development of the national liberation movements of the peoples living in European Turkey, whose centres became Romania and Russia, where, among other things, armed units composed of various peoples were created, chiefly under Greek command.

Despite the fact that the Greek ethnic entity was mainly protected and developed through the church, which enjoyed uninterrupted evolution and hence had no problems in the process of development of the Greek nation, Greek national liberation thought was for the first time and most strongly expressed in the anonymous book entitled Lawful Rule, or Thoughts of Freedom, published in Italy in 1806. We should also mention that, as well as other national and liberation movements in the Balkans, the Greek movement was conceived and developed chiefly abroad, and not internally. As in the case of the Macedonians, the main role in the awakening of Greek national liberation thought was played by various societies founded abroad. The first to appear was The Hotel of Those Who Speak Greek, in 1809 in Paris; it was followed by the Greek-Dacian Literary Society founded in 1810/1811 in Bucharest, and 1813 saw the establishment of the Society of Lovers of the Muses, the first to develop such a cultural and educational activity inside Turkey. In addition, this process was aided by the publication of printed mouthpieces: Ermis o Logios appeared in Vienna in 1811, and three years later the daily Greek Telegraph began to be printed in the same city.

The great powers, however, still refused to recognize officially the Greek nation. The following example is highly illustrative. When at the 1814 Berlin Congress the prominent Greek leaders who lived in Russia, Kapodístrias and Ypsilanti, submitted a request for the liberation of Greece, the proposal was not even accepted for discussion, and von Metternich said: “[T]here is no Greek people and the Turkish state does not recognize any nationalities other than the Turkish one.”^[2]

This was precisely the reason for the foundation, in the same year, in Odessa, of the Philikí Etaireía (Philikê Hetairia) secret revolutionary organization, which successfully organized the Greeks in their colonies in Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and Greece itself; in 1821 it started the Greek Uprising in Wallachia and Moldavia, transferring it to Greece, and in 1827 ultimately succeeded in winning national freedom for its homeland.

Thus the Greek revival, too, developed outside Turkey, and one of the basic characteristics of its ideology was the Megali Idea, according to which the Macedonian people were considered “descendants of the Greeks”. Subsequently this idea was to be fully developed by the liberated state of Greece and used in the struggle against the development of Macedonian national thought.

Bulgarian national awakening took place considerably earlier than that of the Macedonians, owing not so much to economic development as to the unique geopolitical circumstances in which Bulgaria found itself in the 18th and 19th centuries. Of prime importance for the national awakening of the Bulgarian people were the Russian aspirations towards the Bosphorus. From the second half of the 18th century onwards, Russian troops crossed the Turkish frontier several times, establishing a Russo-Bulgarian military-administrative authority on the territory of Bulgaria. This was the crucial element instigating popular action whose ultimate aim was the liberation of the land from Ottoman domination. Moreover, after the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Bulgarian territory, hundreds of thousands of the most awakened and ardent Bulgarians crossed the Danube, settling in the border regions and enlarging the existing Bulgarian colonies founded by refugees fleeing from the ravages of the Turkish irregular soldiery. These Bulgarian colonies, which developed in full national and political freedom and among which Bulgarian patriotism was systematically encouraged for use in the imminent battles with Turkey, became the decisive military, moral, political and material force in the future struggle for political liberation and “national unification of the Bulgarian people” within the borders of Simeon’s mediaeval empire. The Bulgarians in Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia and Southern Russia had their own military (as part of the Russian army), their own system of schools and boarding schools, their own churches and monasteries, their own scholarly and literary societies, revolutionary committees and other national bodies that nourished national, political, educational and spiritual activities, generously supported by the Russian government.

Accordingly, the Bulgarian educational, cultural, national and political revival, too, started and developed outside Bulgaria, just as in the case of the Serbs and Greeks: the first books and newspapers in the Bulgarian language were printed abroad, financed mainly by external sources, and it was abroad again that the revolutionary detachments were formed; these were later fully armed and transferred to the territory of Bulgaria, with the purpose of preparing the ground for revolutionary activity. It is interesting to note here that, like the Greek Etaireía committees, in the subsequent years, Vasil Levski’s committees were intended only for the territory of Bulgaria, and not Macedonia!

It should also be noted that the elementary schools and boarding schools later received children sent from both Bulgaria and Macedonia. Over 200 students from Bulgaria, and also from Macedonia, were enrolled from 1854 to 1857 in various Russian schools and faculties through the Board of Odessa Bulgarians in Odessa alone. And how many were enrolled through the mediation of the Slavic Charitable Committee in Moscow from 1858 onwards?

Russian scholars and journalists took part in the awakening of the Bulgarian spirit by placing Macedonia at the centre of the Bulgarian ethnographic element and outlining the borders of the future San Stefano myth.^[3]

In 1829 in Moscow the first printed history of Bulgaria appeared, by Yuri Venelin, in which Macedonia was presented as the largestof the three parts of “Bulgaria”.^[4]

Aprilov and Palauzov were brought up as national activists using Venelin’s numerous books (published by the Russian Academy of Sciences) as a guide, and the most glorious figures of more recent Bulgarian history — Rakovski, Karavelov, Levski, Botev and Karadžata — grew in the spirit of the same ardent national romanticism. Macedo- nian intellectuals were also recruited in this environment on an ongoing basis; there they were brought up and instructed in the same spirit, and later became disseminators of conscious Bulgarianism among the masses of the people. We should also mention the activity of the powerful Bulgarian colony in Constantinople, which managed to exert a considerable influence on the local Macedonian migrant workers, and took ‘Bulgarian matters’ into their own hands, carrying out widespread legal national activity among the ‘Bulgarian’ people in Turkey, particularly with the help of its well-developed journalistic and publishing activity.^[5]

Accordingly, the Bulgarian revival and the Bulgarian nation, too, developed outside the borders of Bulgaria. But this development was considered a continuation of the past designated by the Bulgarian name; the national ideology was built on these foundations and was later consciously and persistently spread among the Bulgarian masses in Turkey. The books, textbooks and periodicals which were printed abroad became the basis for the education in the schools that began to be used in Bulgaria following 1835.

There is no doubt, however, that the various churches which were officially recognized by the Turkish authorities as Bulgarian also played an important part in the development of Bulgarian national consciousness. Thus, for example, as early as 1850 the Sultan recognized the Protestant Bulgarian Church in Constantinople, and 15 years later an individual Bulgarian Uniate Church, headed by Archbishop Josif (Joseph) Sokolski, was also instituted.^[6] Moreover, there was a pro-Bulgarian catholic mission which developed extensive activities in Bulgaria, but also exerted its influence in Macedonia. Nor should we overlook the protection which was offered to the adherents of the individual churches by the sponsors of religious propaganda, as in this way a millet was provided which guaranteed protection from Turkish violence and Greek self-will. We must also point to an extremely important moment which played a crucial role in the development of this “gathering of the Bulgarian people”: as early as 1847 the foundations were laid in Constantinople of the Bulgarian Church in Phener, instituted by the Bulgarian champions living in Constantinople, who inspired it with the Bulgarian national idea. In spite of some resistance it encountered in Macedonia, the Bulgarian Church gradually became a factor with which the Porte had to reckon, and it spread its influence in Macedonia as well, laying the foundations of the Bulgarian Exarchate which was recognized in 1870 and whose eparchies were considered to delineate, for both the Turkish authorities and foreign observers, the ‘ethnographic borders’ of the ‘Bulgarian people’. Furthermore, in addition to the numerous societies and committees abroad, various national institutions began to be established in Turkey as well, acquiring to a certain degree the character of authorities. Thus, for instance, even before the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Bulgarian Reading Club was founded in Constantinople (1866), which started the publication of its mouthpiece čitalijae (Reading Club), printing articles by many Macedonian activists as well. The Bulgarian Charitable Society Prosvejaenie (Education) was formed soon after (1868); its only task and goal was to direct the ‘Bulgarian cause’ in Macedonia and Thrace. The same role was later assigned to the Macedonian Society (1872), established as a counterpart to the Greek Macedonian associations, i.e. as an institution of the already fully established Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia.^[7]

As in Shariah Turkey faith was a substitute for ethnicity, the Bulgarian Exar- chate appeared as the most important implementer of this propaganda; it enjoyed all the legal rights to administer not only the churches and monasteries in the subordinate eparchies, but also the educational institutions: it appointed and dismissed teachers and opened and closed schools where the instruction was carried out in the Bulgarian language, using the Bulgarian name and the Bulgarian national ideology, as they were actually recognized by the Turkish authorities. In this way, Bulgaria (which was still not liberated) exerted its authority over the spiritual and educational life in Macedonia, especially if we bear in mind that the Exarchate gradually succeeded in taking over the majority of church-school communities, also exerting control over the administrative local authorities and thus acquiring the right to interfere in the Turkish councils, defending the interest of its adherents. Thus Bulgaria’s liberation by the Russian troops did not result in any important changes for Macedonia, except in creating new and efficient methods and means which helped the strengthening of Bulgarian propaganda. Its ‘trade agents’ and the School Department of the Exarchate constituted a real authority which acted almost independently of the Ottoman administrative and political authorities in Macedonia.

If we bear in mind the fact that at that period (up to 1878) only neighbouring Bulgaria and Macedonia remained within the frontiers of Turkey as entirely Orthodox Slavic territories (which, moreover, still had some unresolved historical problems), we can understand the relative success of the Bulgarian national idea in some circles of the Macedonian middle class, which also found economic interest in the advancement of that propaganda. This element alone is sufficient to explain the motives for the expansion of the national propaganda of the restof Macedonia’s neighbours; it was responsible for the paralysis of any thought of an independent national existence and development of the Macedonian people. From what has been described above we can see that (even though they stood higher, culturally and economically, than the Serbs and Bulgarians and not much lower than the Greeks) the Macedonians did not have the historical and geopolitical preconditions which had led the revival movements of their neighbours to ultimate national affirmation. Remaining in the central part of the Ottoman Empire, without organized colonies of its own abroad, and even without a single and definite regionally specific name for its people, Macedonia developed in an entirely different way from its neighbours. Theories on the ethnic character of the Macedonians began to be expounded outside Macedonia (without the participation of the Macedonians themselves) as late as the mid-19th century. Until then the Macedonian population was mainly designated as Bulgarian in the Orthodox world, increasingly as Macedonian in the Catholic world, and as far as Turkey was concerned it was described chiefly by its religious and social characteristics such as ‘Christian’, ‘heathen’, ‘Orthodox’, ‘raya’ and very rarely, ‘Slavic’.

As for the expansion of the Bulgarian name in the first half of the 19th century we cannot overlook the three very important arguments put forward by Misirkov in his journal Vardar (1905), which actually brought the Macedonian problem onto the international scene: “(1) the reform of the orthography and literary language among the Serbs; (2) the inquiry into the question of the homeland of the Old Slavonic language — the language of the translations of St Cyril and Methodius in connection with the development and study of the Slavic entity; (3) the travels across the Balkan Peninsula up to the last Russo-Turkish War, partly with scientific aims and partly with the aim of analysing the revival of the Slavs, which was ascribed to the activity of the Pan-Slavists, who were the cause of uneasiness for many in Europe.”^[8]

All this encouraged the Bulgarian aspirations to create ‘Bulgarians’ in Macedonia, which met with resistance on the part of the more awakened Macedonians, encouraging the process of the birth and affirmation of Macedonian national consciousness.

The Macedonian national awakening, however, coincided with the initial actions of external religious and national propaganda in Macedonia, which considerably postponed the completion of the process of Macedonian national revival.

What in fact constituted the Macedonian Revival?

The Macedonian Revival, just like the revival of many other peoples, can be divided into two periods: one involving the period of enlightenment and cultural growth, which could be called the cultural revival, beginning in the early 19th century and continuing up to the mid-century, and the second period, which started with the resistance of the Macedonian people against foreign encroachments in Macedonia, with clearly defined Macedonian national characteristics, starting towards the mid-19th century and lasting up to the establishment of the free state of the Macedonians.

We cannot speak of a true national revival until the emergence of a clearly defined ideology using the Macedonian name.

The large number of Macedonian activists up to the 1850s and 1860s, despite all their merits and the use of a ‘pure’ or ‘blended’ Macedonian language in their literature, remain above all cultural revivalists, as they appeared chiefly under the Bulgarian name and had no clearly defined and affirmed national programme of their own involving a national ideology. What is particularly important is that the revival of the Macedonians was not carried out on the basis of the former Slavic past, i.e. what had been born in the process of the formation of the Macedonian people was not ‘reborn’ (as there was a confusion surrounding its name), but our revival was founded on the past and the glory of ancient Macedonia and the ancient Macedonians, who were proclaimed “the oldest Slavs on the Balkan Peninsula”. For this reason we can find Alexander the Great (Alexander of Macedon) as the symbol of the Macedonian national struggle among all our early national revivalists.^[9]

The impossibility of proving the Slavic character of the ancient Macedonians actually complicated and prolonged the process of Macedonian national affirmation, but this process continued even after historical evidence had been studied, because a regionally specific name had already been chosen, a name which was different from all other surrounding peoples and which could secure national unity and win freedom for its people.

1. ↑ For more details in connection with Rhigas Velestinlis and his Declaration, his map and his march, see: A. Daskalakis, Les oeuvres de Rhigas Velestinlis, Paris, 1937; N. Botzaris, Visions Balkaniques dans la préparation de la Révolution grecque (1789-1821), Genève-Paris, 1962; G.A. Ar š , “K voprosu ob i dejanom vozdejastvi i Velikoja Francuzskoja revolucii na balkanskie narode (Neizvestnč ja t ekst konstituciii ,Voennogo gimna‘ Rigasa Velestinlisa)“, Francuzski ja ež egodni k, 1963, Moskva, 1964; Nikolaja Todorov, Filikieterija i bъlgarit e, BAN, Sofija, 1965, 108-120.
2. ↑ Nikola Todorov, op. cit., 42.
3. ↑ Blaže Ristovski, “Prilog kon makedonskata literaturna istorija, Makedonskiot jazik vo literaturna upotreba i literaturata na Makedoncite na tugji jazici“, Sovr emenost, 4, 1964, 404-405.
4. ↑ In addition to the two editions of his voluminous work Drevníe i nčneš níe Bol gare vъ političeskomъ, narodopisnomъ, istoričeskomъ i religíoznomъ i hъ ot nošeníi kъ Rossíjanamъ (1829 and 1856), Yuri Venelin published many other booklets in Moscow dealing with these problems. Of particular interest among them are the data he quotes in his publication entitled “O zarodčšõnovoja bolgarskoja literaturi, 1, 1838, where on page 7 the author writes that he managed to collect information that 750,000 Bulgarians lived in Bulgaria, 600,000 in Thrace, 195,000 in various other areas, whereas as many as 1,000,000 Bulgarians lived in Macedonia alone. The degree to which he and the general public were uninformed is best illustrated by his assumptions that Karlovci, Prizren, Koprivjaica, Kalofer, the Rila Monastery and other places were part of Macedonia.
5. ↑ Istorija na bъlgarskata literatura, 2. Literatura na vъzraždanet o, BAN, Sof i ja, 1966, 182-220; D-r Mancho Stojanov, Bъlgarska vъzroždenska knižnina. Analitičen repertoar na bъlgarskite knigi i periodični izdanija 1806-1878, I, 1957, II, 1959.
6. ↑ For more details on this matter see: Blaže Ristovski, “Unijatstvoto vo Makedonija“, Razgledi, II, 9, Skopje, 1960, 908-936; II, 10, 1005-1029; III, 1, 72-90 and III, 2, 158-189.
7. ↑ Blaže Ristovski, “Unijatstvoto vo Makedonija, III. Makedonističko-separatističkoto dvižewe od 1873/74 godina i natamošniot razvitok na unijatstvoto do deneska“, Razgledi, III, 1, 1960, 78-79.
8. ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, “Vardar“. Naučno-literaturno i opjaestveno-političko spisanie na K.P. Misirkov, “K. Misirkov“, Posebni izdanija, kn. 4, Skopje, 1966. Photographically reproduced issue of the journal Vardar, 12.
9. ↑ Dragan Taškovski , Ragjanjeto na makedonskata nacija, Skopje, 1966, 163-181.