Ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria
Encyclopedia
Ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria are a group in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
concentrated within Blagoevgrad province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
and the capital Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
. In the 2011 Bulgarian census, 1,654 people officially declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians. They are not currently recognized officially as an ethnic minority but were recognized as such between 1947 and 1958. During this period there was a surge of Macedonistic policies, the government went as far as to declare Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
an official language of the Pirin region. The Bulgarian Communist Party
Bulgarian Communist Party
The Bulgarian Communist Party was the communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when the country ceased to be a communist state...
was compelled by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
to accept the formation of Macedonian, Thracian
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
n nations in order to include those new separate states in a Balkan Communist Federation
Balkan Communist Federation
The Balkan Federation was a project about the creation of a Balkan federation or confederation, based mainly on left political ideas.The concept of a Balkan federation emerged at the late 19th century from among left political forces in the region...
. There are strong indications that the majority of the population from Blagoevgrad province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
was listed as ethnic Macedonians against their will in the 1946 census.
Background
Until 1913 the majority of the Slav population of all three parts of Macedonia had Bulgarian identity. During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, most parts of Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia were annexed by Bulgaria, and the local Slavic-speakers were regarded and self-identified as Macedonian Bulgarians. Not until much later did the process of Macedonian national identity formation gain momentum. After 1944 Communist Bulgaria and Communist Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia a connecting link for the establishment of new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating there a development of distinct Slav Macedonian consciousness. The Greek communists as well as its fraternal parties in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, had already been influenced by the Comintern and it was the only political party in Greece to recognize Macedonian national identity. The region of Vardar Macedonia received the status of a constituent republic within Yugoslavia and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
was codified. The population was promulgated ethnic Macedonian, a nationality different from both Serbs and Bulgarians.
Recognition of the minority
The number of Macedonians in the Pirin region(Blagoevgrad provinceBlagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
) has varied greatly over the past 50 years.
For a period of some years after the war, the Yugoslav and Bulgarian leaders Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...
worked on a project to merge their two countries into a Balkan Federative Republic according to the projects of Balkan Communist Federation
Balkan Communist Federation
The Balkan Federation was a project about the creation of a Balkan federation or confederation, based mainly on left political ideas.The concept of a Balkan federation emerged at the late 19th century from among left political forces in the region...
. As a concession to the Yugoslavian side, Bulgarian authorities agreed to the recognition of a distinct Macedonian ethnicity and language as part of their own population in the Bulgarian part of geographical Macedonia. This was one of the conditions of the Bled Agreement
Bled agreement
The Bled agreement was an agreement signed on the 1st August, 1947 in Bled, Slovenia. The agreement was signed between Bulgaria under Georgi Dimitrov and Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito which paved the way for future unification between the states in a new Balkan Federative Republic...
, signed between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria on 1 August 1947. In November 1947, pressured by both the Yugoslavs and the Soviets, Bulgaria also signed a treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia, and teachers were sent from the Socialist Republic of Macedonia to Blagoevgrad province to teach the Macedonian language. The Bulgarian president Georgi Dimitrov was sympathetic to the Macedonian Question. The Bulgarian government Communist party was compelled once again to adapt its stand to Soviet interests in the Balkans. The same process started regarding the populations in Dobrudja and Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
. At the same time, the organisation of the old nationalist movement the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in Bulgaria was suppressed by the Bulgarian communist authorities.
Reversal of recognition
A change of policy came in 1958. At the plenum of the Bulgarian Communist Party held the same year, the decision was made that the Macedonian nation and language did not exist. Afterwards, the teaching of the Macedonian language was discontinued and the Macedonian teachers from Yugoslavia were expelled. Since 1958, Bulgaria has not recognized a Macedonian minority in the Pirin region. Within ten years the 178,862 strong Macedonian minority fell to just 8,700 individuals.Census results
From 20 to 31 December 1946, the People's Republic of Bulgaria conducted a censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
which included both the questions; of ethnicity and of mother language
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
. During the census, on December 27 the governor of Blagoevgrad districts sent a telegram with an order all Bulgarians (excluding the ones migrated from other regions of Bulgaria) in the region to be counted as ethnic Macedonians, including the Bulgarian Muslims
Bulgarian Muslims
The Bulgarian Muslims or Muslim Bulgarians are Bulgarians of the Islamic faith. They are generally thought to be the descendents of Slavs who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule...
. According to the census results 169,544 people of Bulgaria declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians. Of the total 252,908 inhabitants of Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
160,541 or roughly 64% of the population declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians. Other areas of Macedonian declaration was 2638 in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
, 2589 in Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
, 1825 in Burgas
Burgas
-History:During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, Debeltum was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian. In the Middle Ages, a small fortress called Pyrgos was erected where Burgas is today and was most probably used as a watchtower...
and a further 1851 were scattered throughout Bulgaria.
The forcible change of the ethnicity of the population was confirmed by the leader of the opposition party BZNS "Nikola Petkov" who on December 30, 1946 stated that "The population is disgusted by this outrageous violation of conscience." This issue was confirmed by the ex-president of the Republic of Bulgaria Petar Stoyanov
Petar Stoyanov
Petar Stefanov Stoyanov is a former President of Bulgaria from 1997 until 2002. He was elected as a candidate of the Union of Democratic Forces...
and Veselin Angelov (аssoc scientist, Ph.D. in history), from the Regional Historical Museum of Blagoevgrad - where the document with the order is kept.
| Ethnic Groups in BGD province Blagoevgrad Province Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns... (1946 Census) |
Nevrokop Gotse Delchev Georgi Nikolov Delchev was an important revolutionary figure in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Thrace at the turn of the 20th century... |
% | Gorna Dzumaya Blagoevgrad Blagoevgrad is а city in southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Province, with a population of about 74,302 . It lies on the banks of the Blagoevgradska Bistritsa River.... |
% | Sveti Vrach Sandanski -Municipality:Sandanski is the seat of Sandanski municipality , which includes the following 54 places:-Honour:Sandanski Point on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after the town of Sandanski.... |
% | Petrich Petrich Petrich is a town in Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria, located at the foot of the Belasica Mountains in the Strumeshnitsa Valley. , the town has 29920 inhabitants.Petrich is located close to the borders with Greece and the Republic of Macedonia... |
% | Razlog Razlog Razlog is a town and ski resort in Razlog Municipality, Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria. It is situated in the Razlog Valley and was first mentioned during the reign of Byzantine emperor Basil II.... |
% | Total | % |
| Ethnic Macedonians | 29 251 | 45,1% | 24 169 | 47% | 41 247 | 82,5% | 42 047 | 91% | 23 837 | 60% | 160 541 | 63,64% |
| Bulgarians | 14 007 | 21,5% | 24 825 | 48,3% | 7 600 | 15,1% | 2 927 | 6,4% | 5 066 | 12,8% | 54 425 | 21,5% |
| Macedonian or Bulgarian Muslims | 18 174 | 27,9% | 874 | 1,7% | 55 | 0,% | 35 | 0,1% | 9 786 | 24,6% | 28 924 | 3,03% |
There are strong indications that the majority of the population from Blagoevgrad province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
was listed as ethnic Macedonians against their will in the 1946 and 1956 census.
In 1956, 187,789 people of Bulgaria declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians. Of the 281,015 inhabitants of Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
, 178,862 people declared themselves to be Macedonians; a rate which stayed the same at roughly 64% of the population. Other areas of Macedonian declaration consisted of: 4046 from Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
, 1955 from Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
and the remaining 2926 were scattered throughout Bulgaria.
Under strong pressure of the Bulgarian Communist Party, the 1956 census results were falsified again as the previous 1946 census and the Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n population in Blagoevgrad province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
was forced to declare as ethnic Macedonian, the change in the population came in 1965 census, when the people in the province declared free as Bulgarians, within ten years the 187,789 strong Macedonian minority fell to just 9,632 individuals.
The 1965 census counted only 9,632 people declaring themselves to be Macedonians. Of them, 1732 came from the Blagoevgrad Province while 8195 were from the other regions of Bulgaria.
In the 1992 census, 10,803 people declared themselves to be Macedonian. Of them, 3,500 registered Macedonian as their mother tongue . According to the President of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee Krasimir Kanev, the real number of Macedonians in Bulgaria varies from 15,000 to 25,000.
Results of the 2001 census in the Blagoevgrad region of Bulgaria.
| Ethnic Groups in BGD province Blagoevgrad Province Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns... (2001 Census) |
Total | % |
| Bulgarians | 286,491 | 83.97% |
| Ethnic Macedonians | 3117 | 0.91% |
| Others | 51,565 | 15.12% |
| Total | 341,173 |
As regards self-identification, a total of 1,654 people officially declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians in the latest Bulgarian census in 2011 (0,02%) and 561 of them are in Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
(0,2%).. There are 1,091 Macedonian citizens, who are permanent residents in Bulgaria.
Macedonians since 1958
In 1964 four people were tried for writing :"We are Macedonians" and "Long live the Macedonian Nation" on a restaurant wall. It has to be noted, though, that the Communist regime took similar measures against any manifestation of nationalist feelings (including Bulgarian). Since the fall of communismCommunism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in the early 1990s various associations have been set up to represent the minority, these include United Macedonian Organisation: Ilinden–Pirin (UMO Ilinden-Pirin) and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation - Independent (IMRO-I) . These organizations have called for the restoration of rights granted to Macedonians during the 1940s and 1950s. Republic of Bulgaria has not recognized the Macedonian language. However in 1999 the linguistic controversy between the two countries was solved with the help of the phrase: "the official language of the country in accordance with its constitution". Since the early 1990s there has been much speculation as to the size of the minority. The Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
World Factbook for the years 1991 - 1998 gave estimates between c.221,800 – 206,000 or roughly 2.5% of the total population. No information is provided however as to how the data was acquired. Later editions, for example, the 2008 edition have not given a percentage for the Macedonians but have instead included them in the "Others" group, which comprises 2% of the population and includes, among others, Armenians, Tatars and Circassians.
In 2006, according to personal evaluation of a leading local ethnic Macedonian political activist, Stoyko Stoykov
Stoyko Stoykov
Stoyko Ivanov Stoykov was a Bulgarian linguist.- Biography :Graduated Slavic Philology at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", . Specialized phonetics, dialectology and Slavic linguistics in Prague, Czech Republic . Was granted Ph.D. by the Univerzita Karlova...
, the present number of Bulgarian citizens with ethnic Macedonian self-consciousness is between 5,000 and 10,000. He has claimed that the result of the 2011 Census, which counted only 1,654 Macedonians is a consequence of manipulation. Stoykov has explained that from this figure, even about 1,000 people were registered as Macedonia citizens. According to the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the vast majority of the population in Pirin Macedonia has a Bulgarian national self-consciousness and a regional Macedonian identity similar to the Macedonian regional identity in Greek Macedonia. Moreover, the majority of Bulgarians believe that most of the population of Macedonia is Bulgarian.
Meanwhile, in 1999, Ivan Kostov
Ivan Kostov
Ivan Yordanov Kostov was Prime Minister of Bulgaria from May 1997 to July 2001 and leader of the Union of Democratic Forces between December 1994 and July 2001....
and Lyubcho Georgievski, the Prime-ministers of Bulgaria and Macedonia respectively, signed a common declaration, which has proclaimed no Macedonian minority exists within Bulgaria.
Political representation
The UMO Ilinden-Pirin party claims to represent the ethnic Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. In 2007 it was accepted as member of the European Free AllianceEuropean Free Alliance
The European Free Alliance is a European political party. It consists of various national-level political parties in Europe which advocate either full political independence , or some form of devolution or self-governance for their country or region...
. On February 29, 2000, by decision of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court , UMO Ilinden–Pirin was expelled from the Bulgarian political system, as a separatist
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...
party http://www.constcourt.bg/re1_2000.htm. According to the Bulgarian Constitution parties on ethnic and religious grounds are forbidden. On November 25, the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, condemned Bulgaria because of violations of the OMO Ilinden–Pirin's freedom of organizing meetings. The court stated that Bulgaria had violated Act 11 from the European Convention of Human Rights. Bulgarians on the other hand have accused UMO-Ilinden of being funded by the Skopie government. which was confirmed by members of the party itself .
Many other Macedonian organizations have been set up since the fall of communism they include; Independent Macedonian Association – Ilinden, Traditional Macedonian Organization — TMO, Union for the Prosperity of Pirin Macedonia, Committee on the Repression of Macedonians in the Pirin part of Macedonia, Solidarity and Struggle Committee of Pirin Macedonia, The Union for the Prosperity of Pirin Macedonia, The Macedonian Democratic Party and The People’s Academy of Pirin Macedonia.
Macedonian media
In 1947 the newspaper 'Pirinski Vestnik' (Pirin Paper) was established and a “Macedonian Book” publishing company were set up. These were part of the measures to promote the Macedonian language and consciousness and were subsequently shut down in 1958. In the early 1990s a new newspaper was established for the ethnic Macedonian minority in Blagoevgrad Province, it is called Narodna Volja and its main office is in BlagoevgradBlagoevgrad
Blagoevgrad is а city in southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Province, with a population of about 74,302 . It lies on the banks of the Blagoevgradska Bistritsa River....
.
External links
- OMO Ilinden-Pirin - The site of the banned ethnic Macedonian party in Bulgaria.
- Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe-Southeast Europe - Comprehensive study done by the Greek Helsinki Monitor on the Macedonians in Bulgaria.
- Narodna Volja - Macedonian Newspaper for Theory, History, Culture and the Arts.
- Bulgarian Subject Files - Social Issues: Minorities: Macedonians Open Society Archives, Budapest