THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW MACEDONIAN

NATIONAL IDENTITY AND STATEHOOD

Unfortunate as it may be, this region would never again see the glory our predecessors achieved in Antiquity.

The consolidation of state and creating a well established and experienced army by Phillip the II, as well as Alexander’s military conquests and expansion into a global empire that would dominate the then known world always seemed like a very hard act to follow.

Their legacy was a result of true brilliance of two extraordinarily intelligent men, a father and a son who were equally dedicated and inspired to their dream.

Sadly enough there was no one left to follow in their footsteps.

Alexander died a young man, his life terminating at tender age of 36, he did not have enough time to develop and create enough infrastructure and enthusiasm among his men to continue his legacy.

After his death, the power of the empire declined as result of it being divided among many generals who resumed consolidating power on a regional level.

The once known global empire was no longer needed, all of the sudden it seemed obsolete.

There was no enthusiasm left for globalisation, once again the generals who inherited the empire, each one of them their own region of power and control, were not too eager to sustain the idea of the world becoming one big village.

As differences in opinion became too apparent and each general had his own belief on how to continue to rule in his region of control, the empire that once was collapsed at the indifference of the reluctant and complacent generals too ignorant to work hard to achieve a common goal.

The power vacuum created with Alexander’s departure was quickly filled by carving out the empire into spheres of influence dominated by his generals.

The once biggest empire known to the civilised man collapsed and disintegrated under lack of pressure and firm belief it should continue to exist.

Now with each region becoming a separate political entity, the empire was no longer to be, and it became ripe for further disintegration under constant attacks from outside.

Macedonia was no longer a sit of power and control over a global empire and became a victim of political struggles over the remaining Alexander had left behind.

This way, the region was ripe to be absorbed into the expansion of a new emerging power coming from Rome, and the entire region of Macedonia was swiftly merged into the new expanding Roman Empire.

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However, as the Greek element and Hellenism formed the backbone for the development of Roman culture, the region prevailed and was not assimilated into the Roman Empire.

This adequately reflects in Horace’s famous statement:

“Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit”

-Greece ,although captured, took its wild conqueror captive!

Having very strong infrastructure the region enjoyed an element of autonomy and was slowly becoming once again a regional centre of power with a distinct post Antiquity Hellenic and Pro Greek element.

With the West Roman Empire’s decline of power and subsequent collapse into the Dark ages, Greece once again emerged as the most prominent cultural hub and power centre of Europe that resumed and consolidated around the ancient city of Byzantium.

As the reminder of Europe declined further and the deterioration brought about the collapse of Rome under constant strain and Barbaric attacks from Germanic tribes, the Byzantine Empire progressed and flourished becoming a modern day superpower.

Parts of Macedonia were swiftly integrated into Byzantium, however not the entire region shared the same destiny.

Once Again, Greek prominence pushed the envelope of human achievement and Hellenism set the standard and raised the bar that became a measure of success.

It is a strong belief among historians that the fourth and fifth century AD saw an enormous depopulation of the local area and most of the native Macedonians departed further south at the savage and hostile attacks from Goths, Visigoths and Huns.

Some indigenous Macedonians it is believed however to have withdrawn and retrieved into the mountains populating the highlands to resist hostile attacks.

After all, the ancient Macedonians named their country after the highlands in the northern part of the region that now belongs to the Republic of Macedonia.

Macedonia, it is believed, to have meant “The Highlands” in the language spoken by the native Macedonians at the time.

It is believed as well that these Macedonians did indeed originate from ancient tribes from a highlander stock.

Much has been written about the genesis and the origin of the ancient Macedonians and huge body of the work contradicts one other depending on the scholar, the level of research as well as of the period in which it has been conducted.

However, an increasing number of historians dedicated to the subject are becoming fond of the leads and evidence that suggests ancient Macedonians were of a cosmopolitan and multiethnic stock.

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One among them, George Rawlinson MA, once a professor at Oxford’s Trinity, and one of the greatest connoisseurs on the subject matter, categorically declines any Hellenic background included in the genetic code of the Macedonians.

He believes that the ancient Macedonians prior to Phillip had no Hellenic influence, no Greek background of any kind at all.

It is an Illyrian stock that he believes ancient Macedonians to have been generated from.

Anyway, this allegation is in no way at all contradicting to the huge Hellenic influence on the Macedonians post Phillip the II, whom he believes and credits to have started expressing in ancient Greek and introduced his kingdom to the rich Greek cultural heritage.

However, various sources have completely different interpretations of what actually happened between the Antic Macedonians at the arrival of the Slavs from the North and the amount of interaction as well as the level of integration and assimilation of one tribe into another.

This detail has been well speculated by the current Greek government, that claims, among other, Macedonia is only the region that belongs to and has been integrated into the State of Greece since 1913 conference in Bucharest.

This is obviously rendered obsolete by the very meaning of the name of the country, as fact of the matter is the part of Macedonia that has been incorporated into Greece is mostly sea level low land.

There’s absolutely no doubt about the fact that Macedonia has always been a much larger region than the part incorporated into Republic of Greece.

This territory was indeed consolidated and incorporated into the kingdom of Macedonia by Phillip the II.

Macedonia is not a name that has been invented by the people of the Republic of Macedonia.

The region has been called this way for two and a half millennia and its name is only a part of the rich cultural inheritance.

In the language of the Dorian Greeks, Macedonia is “The Highlands”.

The allegations that the land which today incorporates the republic of Macedonia has only been called Macedonia twenty years are pure propaganda.

However, it is worth mentioning that this part of history has been well speculated from various different sources from all sorts of backgrounds for all kinds of different reasons and a range of different political agenda over a period of few millennia.

Alexander the Great has been an inspiring source of conspiracy theories, legends and myths all with a different level of credibility, authencity and merits.

On this note, no side has been loyal to true historical facts and has followed evidence to the best and most honest of means.

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Having said all this, to go back to the arrival of the Slavs, there’s absolutely no evidence of genocide, ethnic cleansing, total assimilation or hostility between the two communities of any kind.

Whatever happened has been a source of tremendous political propaganda and subjective interpretations of individual parties for political gain.

Greek as well as Serb Historians have both manipulated and deliberately asserted wrong and insinuated historical allegations to change the course of history to be able to make a claim on a relationship with the past local population as well as to serve their irredentist ambitions.

Whatever happened, fact remains that the new coming community inherited a land with rich and long history that up to today remains a part of the cultural heritage of everyone who lives in Macedonia.

Around the sixth century of our era, the Slav tribes started arriving into the northern parts of Macedonia, leaving their ancestral home behind the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, modern day Romania.

Along with them came a small community of Vlachs, who always enjoyed a good relationship with the Slavic tribes.

Being under constant attack from war like equestrian tribes coming from central Asia, two Volga Bulgar tribes under the command of two brothers came into the region of Macedonia.

The arrival of the two Tatar brothers from Turkic origin, even do well documented remains to be the most manipulated and most opportunely used detail in the local history of the region.

Twenty century Serb official foreign policy would carefully be developed around this event, and history would be well altered for propaganda purposes to insinuate that the contemporary Bulgarian Nation is purely descended from the Tatars.

Prime school history books as well as more sophisticated works of specialist literature on regional history would be surgically modified to deny the Bulgarians any Slav heritage and origin at all.

This is the extent to which history was manipulated to alienate the local Slav Macedonian population from its roots and background.

Anyway, The Volga Bulgars had recently lost their country up north along the shores where the Volga River flows into the Black sea.

Volga Bulgaria was divided among six brothers each one of them going their own separate ways, despite their father’s death bed wish to stay together.

When Khan Khubrat died, he made one last plea to his six sons to stay together in order to consolidate his state acquisitions and to resume power.

There’s a wonderful legend about how the old Khubrat gathered his sons and took six small tree branches and tried to break them by holding them together.

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As he could not break them by holding them together, he took each branch individually crushing them all separately one by one.

“Unity makes strength” up to this day, remains the slogan written on the official state flag of Republic of Bulgaria.

No doubt, Volga Bulgaria remains an ancestral part of our history as consequence of the achievement of the Khans to consolidate statehood in a military alliance with all the Slavic and Vlach tribes settled in the region.

Anyway, despite their father’s plea to rule together, all six brothers went their own separate way, as it was with Asparukh and Kuber, believed to be the unnamed sixth son, who settled in today’s Pelagonia, part of the modern Republic of Macedonia.

Following policy developed by Alexander the Great, the Volga Bulgars did not fight the Slavs, instead a military alliance was forged which blossomed into the formation of the First Slav-Bulgar State.

This statehood gave its first big victim in one of the early conflicts, when the younger brother Kuber who had arrived around the Vardar valley territory died in battle against the then Byzantine emperor in the suburbs of Thessaloniki.

After such a substantial loss, Khan Asparukh, the older brother, consolidated power among the tribes under his dead brother’s control, and finally emerged as a leader of the First Bulgarian Empire.

Having been overwhelmingly outnumbered by the Slavs anyway, the Volga Bulgars assimilated very well into the reminder of the Slav population by entering into marriages to strengthen the alliance.

No doubt, this coalition was formed to strengthen and balance the overwhelming disproportion among Slavs and Bulgars, who only arrived in few tribes among the two brothers amounting to fifty thousand people.

This is among the reasons why the Slav element is dominant in the Bulgarian identity.

Contrary to this relatively small figure, it is believed by scholars and researchers of this part of the region’s history, the Slavs outnumbered the Bulgars by 20 to 1, hence domination and prevailing of the Slav element.

In just over a couple of generations, the Bulgars were firmly assimilated, which was a peaceful and smooth process, leaving only the Name as a legacy.

In intellectual circles of historic scholars who specialize in the region of that time, it is thought that

The Bulgars brought statehood and institutional as well as military wisdom, but as they were overwhelmingly outnumbered, only the Slavic cultural element prevailed, even do in the beginning the first two generations had a distinct Bulgar element especially among the Aristocracy and land owners as well as members of the court.

The Slavs at the time were living in a very laid back village communities forged by blood ties and close family members and the oldest person or people in the tribe were the elders or the community leaders.

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Arriving as pagan polytheists and idol worshippers just as well as the Vlachs and the Bulgars they in fact had few things in common.

By the time of Boris the Ist who established Orthodox Christianity as the official state religion a distinct Slav Bulgarian identity was formed.

The Vlachs maintained their cultural identity but were well integrated into society and also became Christian as well.

The Volga Bulgars as well arrived in Macedonia as pagan idol worshippers and had one distinct supreme god called Tangra!

With the arrival of the two brothers from Thessaloniki, Kiril and Method and the establishment of the Ohrid Archbisophoric, parts of Macedonia were firmly integrated into the first Bulgarian Tzardom.

The two were sons of a Greek Byzantine tax collector and a Slav Bulgarian mother called Maria.

At the time the Slav Bulgarian State was the only credible threat to Byzantine domination in the region.

The Slav Bulgarian Orthodox State became the pillar of Slav literacy as well as cradle of Christianity.

Ohrid became a regional spiritual and educational centre as well as sit of all the institutions of Slav culture.

A very strong university was formed along the shores of Ohrid Lake and the Slavs successfully transitioned from Glagolic into Cyrillic literacy.

With this a distinct Slav identity was formed well apart from Greek Byzantine ambition to assimilate everyone into the Greek majority across the border.

To understand this may well be the key issue of all the ethnic conflicts in the Macedonian region from the Twentieth century.

It was Greek Byzantine Priests and their state administration that went back on the legacy of Alexander the Great.

Since the affirmation of the Bulgarian state, Byzantium executed a foreign policy of anti Slav rhetoric.

This in part explains the conflict between the Balkan states that resulted in two regional wars at the beginning of the Twentieth century.

And of course, as soon as the multiethnic and multicultural character of the region is disputed, Macedonia falls into subsequent decline and recession.

The wars between the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria have shaped medieval history of the region.

As Serbia emerged as a new local power north of Macedonia, it also had ambitions on regional expansion into the south.

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Prince Marko is one of the first Serb rulers to have expanded his territory south and in actual fact established his capital in Prilep.

The fortress towers above the hills of this beautiful town still dominate the skyline and stay as a beautiful reminder of a noble young prince who was among the first to resist Ottoman advance and expansion further into mainland Europe.

Krali Marko, as he was popularly known among the locals, was a brave leader and one big contributor to the rich Macedonian multi ethnic heritage and legacy.

Marko is Popular still up to this day both among Serbs and Macedonians.

He became a legend of all local Christians in the area of anti Turkish resistance.

No doubt at all, Marko was an ethnic Serb, but one big Macedonian just as well, as he established his small dukedom in Vardar Macedonia.

His subjects were all native Macedonians from Bulgarians and Vlachs to Illyrians and Serbs who settled there along with him.

This period marks the beginning of mixed rule, when both Bulgaria and Serbia have cross influence and dominate different areas of the region.

From this moment on these two Slav countries would fight for centuries becoming arch enemies for Slav domination in the region of Macedonia.

This also is partly a reason why they were both resented by the indigenous Macedonians, who were the biggest victims of their regional power struggle for centuries.

As the region changed hands between the two on regular basis, the native Macedonians were severely victimised in a relentless effort to assimilate them into one or the other.

This fact alone contributed to a range of various influences from all the neighbouring power centres in the region participating in the formation of a distinct Macedonian identity.

But this authentic Ethnicum was not formed over night; it has evolved progressively and changed over two and half millennia.

Of course, the Macedonian from Antiquity would not even recognize a family relative from Medieval Macedonia, the reason being all the different factors and influences absorbed into Macedonia thru time.

Naturally, people, families and communities have pledged loyalty and identified with different Ethnicities over the course of few millennia.

Who could possible decide for the other weather one should feel more this and less of the other?

As the different power centres from the neighbourhood entered an open competition to win minds and hearts, Macedonians were traditionally bound to gravitate around other cities in the region for education, work, trade and commerce.

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The propaganda and assimilation effort of the Serbs was well documented and relentless attempts were made to reduce the cultural influence from the other, notably the Bulgarians, whom most Slav Orthodox Macedonians identified with.

Let there be no mistake, during Serb occupation of parts of Macedonia, Bulgarian sentiment was simply illegal and most honestly suicidal.

To put things in a perspective, General Prelic remains one of the most resented administrators of occupied Vardar Macedonia in the history of the area.

Traditional Slav Macedonian Family names were changed by force, and to even consider progressing and a prosperous career in local politics adopting a Serb family name was mandatory.

Bulgarian sentiment was openly prosecuted and the occupying administration forcefully relentlessly pursued anyone they taught shelters Bulgarian sympathies.

This was happening in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia well into the nineties of the previous century.

However, Macedonia entered the post World War Two Era on the political scene in a federation of states between the south Slavs where the Serb influence was dominant, especially along the corridors of power, namely the military and the Communist Party.

Whole chapters of history were rewritten and identities of nations changed in an effort to de burglarize the native orthodox Slav population in the then Socialist republic of Macedonia.

The last sentences for pro Bulgarian espionage were passed on in the early nineties and innocent civilians and ordinary members of the public were deliberately framed and incriminated in an endless game of political intrigue and abuse of power.

For the outrage to grow bigger, now this current government in post socialist Macedonia is under political pressure to pursue and lustrate all people who once were a part of the communist political apparatus that terminated the lives of thousands, as many ended up in execution for being political prisoners and enemies of the pro Serbian communist State.

The biggest victim of all these communist purges, pogroms and genocides have always been the native Macedonians themselves, always been caught between two opposed centres of power fighting over who would dominate the region.

To add insult to injury, none of these Nations, neither the Bulgarians, or Greeks, nor the Serbs had some kind of Birth right to dominate parts of Macedonia; it was simply an ambition for territorial expansion and maritime access to the warm waters of the Aegean Sea that drove them into inspiration.

After all, every single conflict took its toll on the natives to such an extent, the indigenous Macedonians were victimised and with that resentment for outside occupation only grew bigger and even the well established sympathies disappeared among the most loyal.

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One of the biggest reasons why the Macedonian today feels and it is substantially different from each one of the nationalities from the neighbourhood, is exactly because of the aggressive use of force to destroy the influence of the other.

It was the people who had lived their lives in the region for generations who were turned into collateral victims of each conflict.

No occupying force for that matter was different from the other.

After the Second World War, the Greeks in the part of Macedonia under their control expelled almost half a million Slav Macedonians from their homes, never to allow them to return.

Some of the people who at the time of the exodus were only children, now well in their seventies, are still not allowed to repatriate, neither will they be allowed in their lifetime.

And all this is contra to the heritage and legacy left behind from the Father and Son, Phillip and Alexander.

To return to one of the most controversial parts of Macedonian history, that has brought more recent dispute than any other, we must go back to the arrival of the Slavs.

The region has always been largely mixed and multicultural as well as very religion tolerant.

Official Greek history has been categorical about the insertion that no assimilation or integration of any kind, that no mixing at all took part between the then native Macedonians and the new coming settlers, the Slavs who had arrived from behind the Carpathian mountains.

That would immediately imply that the Slav tribes along with the Bulgars as well as the Vlachs arrived at a vacant or a deserted empty land, or there would have been evidence to another explanation through history such as perhaps genocide, or ethnic cleansing of the native population.

However, knowing the pacifist and peaceful character of the Slavs as well as that every bit of history contradicts this, one must come up with another conclusion.

Mind you, this is by far the most controversial and contradicting bit of local regional history.

One could only compare two different history books from various two regional sources to conclude and resume that this period has heavily been manipulated in specialist literature from the period.

In fact, Serb influenced post war Socialist republic of Macedonia was indeed indoctrinated with such Bulgarophobia, the extent of which damage is seen in the mindset of the contemporary Macedonian today.

The life work as well as biography of some of the most prominent Macedonians who were in actual fact self declared ethnic Bulgarians was deliberately fabricated so drastically to portray them as Anti Bulgarians.

One does not have to be smart enough to see the propaganda orchestrated biography of Goce Delcev to realize and become aware of the serious attempts of Belgrade to eliminate and erase the rich Bulgarian heritage of the native Slav Macedonians.

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Despite this Goce Delcev remains one of the principal pro Macedonian revolutionary leaders in Ottoman Macedonia.

Having been fully aware of the prevailing multi ethnic and multi religious cultural element of Macedonia, Goce Delcev was aware that this sets it well apart from Bulgaria and that any future Macedonian state would have to be a coalition of all Macedonian ethnicities brought together.

“I envision the World as a peaceful field for cultural development and intellectual competition between all Nations.”

This sentence, sounding still all powerful and contemporary is a noble milestone of Goce Delcev’s literary work as a popular regional thinker up to this day.

One could not dispute his pro left republican influence generated from the reading of literature from Karl Marx as well, which also made him somewhat unpopular among court circles in Bulgaria.

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