"Being Bulgarian in Macedonia"

Since 1991 the former Yugoslavia has undergone many changes. It broke to seven different states - Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Republic of Macedonia as a part of Yugoslavia and as an independent country was based on the illusion that the people of Macedonia are Macedonians who speak Macedonian language and are ancestors of the ancient Macedonians. It is one more Yugoslav lie that soon will collapse just like Yugoslavia itself.

The Macedonian nation was artificially created in 1945 by the communist government of Yugoslavia which sought to separate forever Macedonia from Bulgaria, because Serbs were aware that Macedonia and its people were Bulgarians and if they did not acquire some other ethnicity, they might rejoin Bulgaria at some point in the future. The Serbian propaganda that Bulgarians in Macedonia were not Bulgarians but Macedonians was quite successful during the communism, but since its collapse, it has become very hard for the Macedonian government to keep the illusion and hide the truth about the true ethnicity of Macedonia's citizens. More and more people in Macedonia return to their real Bulgarian identity.

However, as the documentary film Being Bulgarian in Macedonia shows, it is quite difficult to live as a Bulgarian in pro-Yugoslav Macedonia, which government is unofficially backed up by Belgrade. The film was shot by the journalist Ivan Kulekov in May, 2008; and it was aired the same month on a private Bulgarian national television owned by Rupert Murdoch. The fact that there are Macedonian citizens who define themselves as Bulgarians is not enough for the Macedonian government to recognize a Bulgarian minority in Macedonia.

On the contrary, the Macedonian government wants Bulgaria to recognize a Macedonian minority in Pirin Macedonia (Southwestern Bulgaria). I have never heard of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and I have never met a person, born in Bulgaria, who defines himself or herself as such. Out of 35 Bulgarian students at Ramapo College, 2 are from the region of Pirin Macedonia in Bulgaria and none of them identifies as Macedonian. They have also never heard of Macedonians living in Southwestern Bulgaria. Apparently the pro-Yugoslav lies of Macedonia are endless, but fortunately less and less people believe them.

BG vs. FYROM - The Truth about Macedonia

The conflict between Greece and Macedonia is known worldwide. The conflict comes from the fact that Greece states that Republic of Macedonia stole the name Macedonia which belongs historically to Greece. Therefore, internationally Macedonia is recognized as FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). Greece is also upset because Macedonian citizens claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonians. These are the two issues that create the conflict between Greece and FYROM. Even though, they are much unpopular, the issues that create conflicts between FYROM and Bulgaria are countless.

The official FYROM history states that the inventors of the Glagolithic Alphabet St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher and St. Methodius, and the inventor of the Cyrillic Alphabet St. Clement of Ohrid were Macedonians. According to FYROM, the medieval Tsar Samuil, the freedom fighters Georgi Delchev, Damyan Gruev, Yane Sandanski, and many others were Macedonians. But all Byzantine, Armenian, German, English, French, Russian, Greek, Ottoman, and Bulgarian sources state that these persons were Bulgarians.

Prior to 1945, no one in Europe talked or knew about Macedonians, Macedonian nation, or Macedonian language. In 1878, after the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878, Bulgaria was liberated in its ethnical boundaries including the territory of today's FYROM. This made Bulgaria the largest and strongest nation on the Balkan Peninsula, something that the Great Powers could not allow and as a result, FYROM's territory was included in the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. After the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, FYROM's territory was given to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes which later became Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia ruled today's FYROM from 1913 until 1941 when FYROM was occupied by the Germans and returned to Bulgaria. In the years between 1913 and 1941 the Yugoslavian government was trying to impose on the Bulgarians in the FYROM's territory that they were actually Serbs, not Bulgarians. This tactic was very unsuccessful; the locals knew they were not Serbs. At the end of World War II, FYROM's territory was once again included in the boundaries of Yugoslavia.

Serbs knew it is impossible to make the people of FYROM Serbs, therefore they remembered the words of the Serbian scholar Stojan Novakovic who had said that the only way to separate FYROM's territory from Bulgaria was to create a new nation. Novakovic had seen such nation in the Macedonism. As a result, the Macedonian nation was invented by stealing Greek and Bulgarian history and historical persons such as Alexander the Great and Tsar Samuil. The local dialect was introduced as a separate language from the Bulgarian and a new nation was born - the Macedonian one. Generations passed, people learned the fake Macedonian history and as adults they cannot accept the truth about who they really are.

In the globosphere there are many conflicts between Bulgarians and Macedonians. A strong argument for the "Macedonians" is the fact that the majority of the people who migrated to Australia from FYROM think of themselves as Macedonians, not as Bulgarians. The anthropologist Loring Danforth, author of the book The Macedonian Conflict, made a study case of the migrants from Macedonia to Australia. He states that those people define themselves as Macedonians. But he also says that the majority of the people who migrated to Australia prior to 1945 define themselves as Bulgarians. Guess why!

Yes, there is a Macedonian nation, but it is an artificial one. Today's "Macedonians" are still Bulgarians, because if a cat gives a birth in a stable the little ones are still kittens, not horses, aren't they?

Assign. # 6 The Lack of Free Media in Russia

The Russian court acquitted the suspects of Ana Politkovskaya's murder. However the presiding judge Yevgeni Zubov ordered the case to be reopened. He said that he would give investigators material evidences. It is interesting how a day after the suspects were released, all of a sudden the presiding judge has material evidences. This is an indicator, one of many, that something in the Russian judicial system is rotten. What excuses Russia, however, is the fact that all post communist countries in Eastern Europe experience difficulties in the same sphere. What is much more troublesome in Russia is the lack of freedom of speech and the lack of free press and media.

In the 1990s, during the Yeltsin period, journalists and regular people could exercise and enjoy the right to do and say whatever they please. Since 2000, when Putin became a president, that is no longer the case. The Yeltsin period might have been chaotic and unstable but at least the journalists could practice their jobs freely without the fear that they may be arrested or killed. As the New York Times newspaper mentions, since the year 2000, 16 journalists in the Russian Federation have been killed. It does not take a genius to guess that all of them touched upon some political matter or crossed the interests of Mother Russia, which is equal to crossing the interests of Putin.

Ana Politkovskaya was trying to cover the Chechen War's impact on the civilians. She found some disturbing facts about the way the Russian soldiers treated the local population. As a result, she was forced to leave Chechnya. However, she did not stop dealing with the issue and she was finally killed in 2006. Some might say that she was dangerous because she could discover facts that could possibly endanger the national security of the Russian Federation.

But what about the other 15 murdered journalists in Russia? What about the case of Grigory Nekhorsov and Moskovsky Korrespondent newspaper? The newspaper published an article stating that Putin would divorce his wife and marry the much younger rhythmic gymnastic Alina Kabaeva. Putin announced that this was not true and as a result the newspaper's editor Nekhorsov was fired and the newspaper was shut down on April 19, 2008. So one could see that Putin used and still uses his powers to control the media, not only in regards of political issues, but also when it comes to his personal life. If we have to judge Russia's level of democracy by its free press, it is down to zero.