I would not be
revealing anything new if I remind you of the fact that Gotse Delchev,
and Dame Gruev, and Pere Toshev, and Giorche Petrov - must I continue
to mention all of them - were Exarchist teachers in Macedonia, paid by
and carrying out its educational program. I am not revealing any
secret if I say that our Ilinden heroes and the mass of the
revolutionary organisation was recruited only from the Exarchist part
of the Macedonian people.
According to historic sources, both the Vrhovists and Centralists
ignored any language question, and simply accepted the beliefs of the
Macedonian revivalist leaders. Thus if we must apportion "guilt"
because some of them spoke in "Bulgarian" or wrote in "Bulgarian", the
"guilt" should be undoubtedly assigned to those figures for who today
we make no "comments", but simply recognise them as the most sacred,
outstanding characters of Macedonian history. And when we examine
their works closely, reading them without the deletions and additions,
or even just glancing at their major works, we uncover an important
truth, namely that Parteni Zografsky, Kiril Peichinovich, Teodosig
Sinaitsky, the Miladinov Brothers, Grigor Prlichev, Kuzman Shapkarev,
Marko Tsepenkov and many more, whenever they wrote for their mother
tongue or about the revision of this language, they only declared for
a Bulgarian language. And so again we return to Mihailov and
Alexandrov. Why do we "accuse" them of things of which they are not
guilty? Instead, is it not "scandalous" for Macedonian history that
the two great awakeners, the Miladinov Brothers, proclaimed themselves
everywhere as Bulgarians and their language as Bulgarian?
Gotse Delchev, undoubtedly the greatest and most prominent son of the
Macedonian Liberation struggle, within his plans reasons, as a final
solution, the concept of an autonomous Macedonia. The idea for an
independent Macedonian state and its adherence within the framework of
the historic VMRO appears in the time of Todor Alexandrov and is
confirmed by Vancho Mihailov. I'll mention only a few facts from the
life of Gotse: All his education is entrusted to the Bulgarian Exarchy
by his parents. After he completes primary school his father sends
him to the Bulgarian "Salonica Men's Gymnasium" and thereafter he
travels to Bulgaria to become a Bulgarian military officer;
discontinuing his studies he returns to Macedonia as a Bulgarian
Exarchist teacher, a role, where amongst other duties, he teaches the
Bulgarian language to his pupils as their mother tongue. In 1893 or
1894 he joins an organisation called the "Bulgarian-
Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee" and in a short time
becomes one of its main leaders. Later he is assigned to act as the
foreign VMRO representative stationed in Sofia, where he regularly
attends the Supreme Committee (Vrhovists) meetings, and together with
Giorche Petrov organises Boris Sarafov's election as its president.
Assuredly, if Gotse Delchev was still alive in 1945 when the
Serbo-communists left Macedonia in Yugoslavia, he would have found
himself in "Idrizovo".
The brutal campaign being waged against VMRO-DPMNE, aimed at diverting
attention from the total cultural, then political assimilation by the
Serbian side, as well as the cruel exploitation of the Macedonian
people, establishes a new tragic scenario in our land which compels me
to describe so frankly the Macedonian position, and to elaborate on
some truth and lies, with which we should familiarise ourselves as
quickly as possible, if we are to progress. Otherwise we are destined
to sink further into the quicksand, in which we are already up to our
necks. Every vacillation causes us to sink deeper and deeper into
this quagmire.
I'll give you an example. Recently in Sofia, due to an American
initiative, the anniversary was celebrated of the "Carnegie Report's"
publication, a document describing the conduct of the Balkan Wars.
Many historians, intellectuals and politicians from all over the globe
participated in this event which was chaired by the American State
department official Zbeignev Bzhezhinsky. The Macedonian bureaucratic
intelligentsia however declared the event a new conspiracy against
Macedonia. But what does this report actually contain? Prepared in
1914 by ten or so prominent historians and politicians from Europe and
America in the immediate aftermath of the two Balkan Wars it only
depicts the evidence accumulated by the International Commission
detailing all the atrocities committed against the Macedonian people
during the Balkan Wars. This is an important document which we should
make available, free of charge, to all European countries and to every
important politician. However the quicksand in which we continue to
sink, causes us to criticise, and even burn this document, thereby
rejecting it and thereby destroying the only internationally
acknowledged document concerning the Balkan Wars and the partition of
Macedonia.
Why I ask? Why do we flee from that which we should confront? Just
because the International Commission in its report only speaks of
Macedonian-Bulgarians in Macedonia? It is fortunate that neither the
Alexandrovists or Mihailovists were prominent in 1914, otherwise it is
certain we would have accused them of bribing the International
observers.
Finally, as regards national reconciliation, I must once again advance
the position that in Macedonia national reconciliation between the
present living and the past dead is more than essential. National
reconciliation within any country arises from circumstances where
there existed prior fighting and bloodshed between two factions.
There is no national reconciliation necessary in the absence of
killing. Importantly we need this if we hope to support the concept
of an independent Macedonia, Macedonian Nation, and Macedonian Church.
This is absolutely what we have to do if we posses the courage to
unflinchingly face some undeniable historic truths without seeking to
assign "guilt" to just two or three historic personalities so that we
may manufacture a false ideology.
This is the only way we can escape from the 'dead-end street' in which we
currently find ourselves.
V M R O
