Demographic History of Macedonia - Macedonian Question - Development of The Name "Macedonian Slavs"

Development of The Name "Macedonian Slavs"

The name "Macedonian Slavs" started to appear in publications at the end of the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s. Though the successes of the Serbian propaganda effort had proved that the Slavic population of Macedonia was not only Bulgarian, they still failed to convince that this population was, in fact, Serbian. Rarely used until the end of the 19th century compared to ‘Bulgarians’, the term ‘Macedonian Slavs’ served more to conceal rather than define the national character of the population of Macedonia. Scholars resorted to it usually as a result of Serbian pressure or used it as a general term for the Slavs inhabiting Macedonia regardless of their ethnic affinities. The Serbian politician Stojan Novaković proposed in 1887 employing the Macedonistic ideas as they means to counteract the Bulgarian influence in Macedonia, thereby promoting Serbian interests in the region.

However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the continued Serbian propaganda effort and especially the work of Cvijic had managed to firmly entrench the concept of the Macedonian Slavs in European public opinion, and the name was used almost as frequently as ‘Bulgarians’. Even pro-Bulgarian researchers such as H. Henry Brailsford and N. Forbes argued that the Macedonian Slavs differed from both Bulgarians and Serbs. Practically all scholars before 1915, however, including strongly pro-Serbian ones such as Robert William Seton-Watson, admitted that the affinities of the majority of them lay with the Bulgarian cause and the Bulgarians and classified them as such. Even in 1914 the Carnegie Commission report states that the Serbs and Greeks classified the Slavs of Macedonia as a distinct group "Slav-Macedonians" for political purposes and this term is "political euphemism designed to conceal the existence of Bulgarians in Macedonia".

Bulgaria's entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers signified a dramatic shift in the way European public opinion viewed the Slavic population of Macedonia. For the Central Powers the Slavs of Macedonia became nothing but Bulgarians, whereas for the Allies they turned into anything other than Bulgarians. The ultimate victory of the Allies in 1918 led to the victory of the vision of the Slavic population of Macedonia as Macedonian Slavs, an amorphous Slavic mass without a developed national consciousness.

During the 1920s the Comintern developed a new policy for the Balkans, about collaboration between the communists and the Macedonian movement, and the creation of a united Macedonian movement. The idea for a new unified organization was supported by the Soviet Union, which saw a chance of using this well developed revolutionary movement to spread revolution in the Balkans and destabilize the Balkan monarchies. In the so-called May Manifesto of 6 May 1924, for the first time the objectives of the unified Slav Macedonian liberation movement were presented: independence and unification of partitioned Macedonia, fighting all the neighbouring Balkan monarchies, forming a Balkan Communist Federation and cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Later the Comintern published a resolution about the recognition of Macedonian ethnicity. The text of this document was prepared in the period December 20, 1933 – January 7, 1934, by the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern. It was accepted by the Political Secretariat in Moscow on January 11, 1934, and approved by the Executive Committee of the Comintern. The Resolution was published for the first time in the April issue of Makedonsko Delo under the title ‘The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of IMRO (United)’.