Macedonian language: Encyclopedia II - Macedonian language - Different political views on the language

Macedonian language - Different political views on the language

Macedonian language - Macedonian view

According to the Macedonian view, now prevalent and official in the books in Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian was the first official language of the Slavs, thanks to the St. Cyril and St. Methodius's introduction of Slavic literacy language through the Glagolitic script, that was based on Southern Macedonian dialect from the neighbourhood of Thessaloniki (Solun), the home of the two saints. Later on, Macedonia fell under the reign of Bulgarians, and the Byzantines regarded all Slavic Macedonians as Bulgarians. Samuil's realm in the early Middle Ages was the first Macedonian Slavic state. During the Serbian Empire, the Macedonians embraced the Slavic rule and did not oppose the fact that they were called Serbs, and even started using the name "Serb" among themselves. The Serbian aristocracy was given land in Macedonia, so even the greatest Serbian epic hero, Prince Marko (in Serbian: Kraljević Marko), became king of an independent Macedonia, known as Krale Marko, the greatest epic hero of Macedonians, too. The Turkish rule led to the ban and later dropping of the Serbian name, so the Macedonians once again started to call themselves "Christians" ("Risjani") or "Macedonian Slavs". The Ohrid Archbishops, controlled by the Phanariotic Greek movement, put much efforts to hellenize all the Macedonian Slavs, which almost completely succeded in Aegean Macedonia, where the assimilated Slavs after 1912 became fierce Greek nationalists. The formation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 spread the Bulgarian propaganda in Eastern Serbia and the whole of Macedonia, and the Bulgarian schools and libraries ("chitalishtes") were open all across Macedonia, forcing the idea of Bulgarian ethnicity of Macedonians and Eastern Serbians. Before the Balkan wars, the situation changed, and Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian propaganda started to prepare the Macedonians to the Partition of Macedonia in 1912-13. After that, thousands of Macedonians fled from Greece to Serbia and Bulgaria, in an attempt not to be hellenized. The assimilation of Macedonians was almost finished in Bulgaria, and the Greek government expelled hundreds of thousands of Slavs from Macedonia, who settled finally in Vardar Macedonia under Yugoslav control, where in 1945, the local language became official, according to the decision made in 1944. Approximately 1/3 of the present inhabitants of Macedonia are the descendents of the Aegean Macedonian refugees. (All references by Krste Misirkov, Za Makedonckite Raboti, 1903). The macedonian point of view also emphasises that assimilated Macedonians live in Pirin Macedonia (Bulgaria) and Aegean Macedonia (Greece) where they have no rights to use their own language. Also, some of the Macedonian nationalists think that the inhabitants of Gora and Kačanik (Serbian province of Kosovo) and Vranje (Central Serbia) should be called Macedonians too. The everyday Macedonian life is full of reminescences to the painful partition of Macedonia in 1912, and a big portion of the population frequently keeps repeating that "Macedonians are Slavs, and Bulgarians are Tataro-Asiatic by origin, so that they have no ethnic connections", which is not entirely corect, having in mind that the relatively small number of Proto-Bulgarians had been assimilated by more numerous Slavs.

Macedonian language - Bulgarian view

The Bulgarian insistence on the non-existence of a separate 'Macedonian' language is rooted in their daily experiences. Bulgarians point out that there is no language barrier or room for linguistic misunderstanding when citizens and politicians of the two countries speak to each other - be it colloquially or at academic level. Although it was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, Sofia has refused to recognize the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and a separate Macedonian language. Bulgaria argues that the differences are so minor, they can be explained as regional variations and, therefore, that the language of the Macedonians should be regarded as a Bulgarian dialect. According to Bulgarian academics, the contemporary literary language of Macedonia was created after 1945 by Yugoslav linguists who wanted to create a separate Macedonian nationality within the federal republic and thus divide Macedonian Bulgarians from those in Bulgaria. After almost a century of futile attempts to eradicate its perceived Bulgarian character and to Serbianize Macedonia, Yugoslavia had apparently decided to apply the tried Roman maxim "divide and conquer" instead. In codifying the new language, the Yugoslav communists introduced a slight variation of the Cyrillic alphabet and a large number of Serbian lexis; they also did everything possible to create grammatical differences from literary Bulgarian,which is historically and linguistically not accurate.

Bulgaria also considers that contemporary Macedonian linguists resort to falsifications and deliberate misinterpretations of history and documents in order to further the opinion that there was a consciousness of a separate Macedonian language before that time. The publication in the Republic of Macedonia of the folk song collections Bulgarian Folk Songs by the Miladinov Brothers and Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians by Serbian archaelogist Verkovic under the "politically correct" titles Collection and Macedonian Folk Songs are some of the examples quoted by the Bulgarians.

Apart from such historical arguments, the supporters of the Bulgarian view often state that the differences between Bulgarian and Macedonian, from an everyday and/or linguistic point of view, are insufficient to justify the recognition of the latter as a separate language. They also argue over about half a million refugees from the region of Macedonia that emigrated to free Bulgaria in the period 1879 to 1944 integrated with minimum effort in Bulgarian society and are indistinguishable from other Bulgarians; in fact, many Bulgarians take pride in having a Macedonian ancestor, the number of people with Macedonian lineage is especially great in the capital (Sofia).

Macedonian language - Serbian view

The Serbian view on the Macedonian language changed over time, according to political climate. In the past, it was essentially the same as the Bulgarian view, just with the terms "Bulgarian" and "Serbian" interchanged. However, with the recognition of Macedonian nation and the breakup of Yugoslavia, the majority of Serbs accepted Macedonian language and national identity as separate from Serbian, and two peoples maintain generally good relations (with the exception of church conflict). A considerable number of linguists sees the Macedonian language as a continuation of Timok-Prizren Serbian dialects (Torlakian dialect) which stretch from the Romanian-Serbian border to the Albanian-Serbian border. By a nationalist extension to this point of view, Macedonian is the southernmost dialect of Serbian. It is indeed very similar to the Serbian dialects of Kosovo, Niš, Vranje or Leskovac, and those dialects share the basic features with Macedonian – the lack of cases, the same vocal system, and are mutually comprehensible. The general point of view in Serbia found among the common people is that "Macedonian is merely Serbian with no cases used" (although the majority recognizes the Macedonian separate identity, which is an apparent paradox), and it expression is used sometimes as a joke (as a "quick model" for learning Macedonian"), and sometimes as a "true fact". To the Bulgarian argument of half a million refugees from Macedonia easily incorporated into Bulgaria, the Serbs usually say that the Great Migration of Serbs from 1690 (led by Partiarch Arsenije Čarnojević) from Kosovo and Macedonia to present-day Vojvodina was in fact the migration of (mostly) Macedonians, who with no effort have been incorporated into the Serbian nation. The number of Serbs in Vojvodina and Northern Serbia (Belgrade, Smederevo, Šabac and Šumadija regions) with Macedonian lineage is, according to the Serbian Orthodox Church birth notes from the 17th century, about 50%.

Macedonian language - Greek view

The name of the language is considered offensive by many Greeks, who assert that the ancient Macedonian language is the only "Macedonian language" and that it was a northern Greek dialect. They further argue that, since Slavic immigration to the region did not begin until around 900 years after the decline of the Macedonian Empire, it is historically inaccurate to refer to a Slavic language as Macedonian. In some respects, the arguments correspond to the Bulgarian view, namely that the name 'Macedonian' was created for political reasons after the end of WWII by Tito, in order to consolidate a separate identity for the southernmost Yugoslav Republic and to lay claim over areas of Greek Macedonia and Bulgaria. Most Greeks in Greek Macedonia tend to refer to the language either as ντόπια (dopia = local tongue in Greek) or as "Slavomacedonian" in order to highlight the Slavic nature of the language. There is hardly any reference to a 'Macedonian' language before the 20th century; the Slavic idiom spoken in northern Greece and in geographical Macedonia was referred to as merely "Slavic", from the Slavic settlement until the rise of Bulgarian Empire, then Bulgarian, until the end of the Bulgarian and the rise of the Serbian Empire in the 14th century, when it changed the name into "Serbian". It lasted for some 150 years (Krste Misirkov, Za Makedonckite Raboti), until the end of 15th century and the fall of Stefan Dušan's Empire. The name "Serbian" then fell into oblivion, and the language was once again being called only "Slavic" until the 19th Century, when three groups of linguists appeared, using terms "Bulgarian", "Serbian" or "Macedonian" to describe their political ambitions (according to the historian Krste Misirkov, in 1903 and his book Za Makedonckite Raboti). The name of the language depended on its speakers and their political attitude, but the formation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 led some foreign travellers and Greeks to consider all the Macedonians (and a good portion of Serbs) as Bulgarians. Approximately then, the word "Macedonian" was used for the first time for the language.

Outside of Greece, most international news organizations and language scholars refer to the language as "Macedonian". See Republic of Macedonia for more on the related naming dispute.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Different political views on the language", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki