"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.