History of The Macedonian Language - Balkan Nationalism

Balkan Nationalism

During the increase of national consciousness in the Balkans, standards for the languages of Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian were created. As Turkish influence in Macedonia waned, schools were opened up that taught the Bulgarian standard language.

Although literature had, as mentioned, been written in the dialects of Macedonia before, arguably the most important book published in relation to the Macedonian language was On Macedonian Matters by Krste Misirkov, a native of Thessaloníki. In his book, published in 1903, Misirkov argued for the creation of a standard literary Macedonian language from the central dialects of Macedonia which would use a phonetic orthography. Krste Misirkov outlined the principles of the Macedonian language based on the Veles-Prilep-Bitola dialect group of the west central region. This dialect group featured the dialects which were the most distant from both Bulgarian and Serbian standards.

After the first two Balkan wars, the region of Macedonia was split between Greece, Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbia. After the World War I the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed into Yugoslavia was formed and the territory of Macedonia, which was part of the Kingdom of Serbia, was incorporated in. During the period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the area that is currently the Republic of Macedonia was incorporeted into the Kingdom as "Southern Serbia". During this time, the language used publicly, in education and the church was Serbo-Croatian, the dialects spoken by the local population were described as dialects of Serbo-Croatian, although limited literature, mostly of a folkloric character was permitted to be published. Friedman writes that:

"Forcing Macedonians to attend Serbian schools had the effect of increasing Macedonian self-awareness and unity by bringing together Macedonians from different parts of the country and compelling them to learn a language which was obviously different from their native one."

In the other two states, Greece and Bulgaria, and in the regions they held, the respective national languages were imposed by the authorities, in Bulgaria, the local dialects were described as dialects of Bulgarian.

There was a limited literary activity between the two World wars as attested in the dramas by Vasil Iljoski, Anton Panov and Risto Krle and the poetry of Koco Racin and Kole Nedelkovski.