マケドニア　ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑコミュのマケドニアの民族について

「マケドニアのスラブ」という用語が、最初に現れたのは１８８０年代末から１８９０年代初期である。セルビアのプロパガンダは、マケドニアに住む民族がブルガリア人だけではないことを示したが、この民族がセルビア人であることを示すことができなかった。１９世紀末まで、「ブルガリア人」と比べたら、「マケドニアのスラブ人」という用語がマケドニアの民族を定義するより、それを隠すためにつかわれていた。普段、学者がセルビアの弾圧を受けて、その用語を使い、また、マケドニアに住むスラブ系民族を示すために使っていた。Ｓｔｏjan Novakoｖｉｃというセルビア人の政治家が、１８８７年、ブルガリアの影響を減殺するために、マケドニアアイデンティティをはやらせたることを提案し、そうすれば、セルビアの権利がマケドニア地域で進むからである。

（つづき）

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. 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 lied with the Bulgarian cause and the Bulgarians and classified them as such. Even in 1914 the Carnegie Commission report states that the Serbs classified the Slavs of Macedonia as a distinct group "Slav-Macedonians" for political purposes and this term is "political euphemism designed to conceal the existance of Bulgarians in Macedonia". [7]

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 else but Bulgarians. The ultimate victory of the Allies in 1918 led to the victory of the vision of the Slavic population of Macedonia as of 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 for 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 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)’.

The missing national consciousness

What stood behind the difficulties to properly define the nationality of the Slavic population of Macedonia was the apparent levity with which this population regarded it. The existence of a separate Macedonian national consciousness prior to the 1940s is disputed.[8][9] This confusion is illustrated by Robert Newman in 1935, who recounts discovering in a village in Vardar Macedonia[10] two brothers, one who considered himself a Serb, and the other considered himself a Bulgarian. In another village he met a man who had been, "a Macedonian peasant all his life", but who had varyingly been called a Turk, a Serb and a Bulgarian.[11] However anti-Serban and pro-Bulgarian feelings among the local population at this period prevailed.[12]

Nationality in early 20th century Macedonia was a matter of political convictions and financial benefits, of what was considered politically correct at the specific time and of which armed guerrilla group happened to visit the respondent's home last. The process of Hellenization at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century affected only a limited stratum of the population, the Bulgarian Revival in the middle of the 19th century was too short to form a solid Bulgarian consciousness, the financial benefits given by the Serbian propaganda were too tempting to be declined. It was not a rare occurrence for whole villages to switch their nationality from Greek to Bulgarian and then to Serbian within a few years or to be Bulgarian in the presence of a Bulgarian commercial agent and Serbian in the presence of a Serbian consul. On several occasions peasants were reported to have answered in the affirmative when asked if they were Bulgarians and again in the affirmative when asked if they were Serbs. Though this certainly cannot be valid for the whole population, many Russian and Western diplomats and travelers defined Macedonians as lacking a "proper" national consciousness.

Modern times

The Republic of Macedonia officially celebrates 1991 with regard to the referendum endorsing independence from Yugoslavia, albeit legalizing participation in "future union of the former states of Yugoslavia". The Macedonian Slavs of the Republic of Macedonia have demonstrated without any exception a strong and even aggressive at times Macedonian consciousness.[67] Any ties with the Bulgarians have been denounced. During this period it has been claimed by Macedonian scholars that there exist large and oppressed ethnic Macedonian minorities in the region of Macedonia, located in neighboring states. Because of those claims, irredentist proposals are being made calling for the expansion of the borders of the Republic of Macedonia to encompass the territories allegedly populated with ethnic Macedonians. The population of the neighboring regions is presented as "subdued" to the propaganda of the governments of those neighbouring countries, and in need their incorporation into a United Macedonia. The supporters of these ideas, so called Macedonists generally ignore censi conducted in Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, which show minimal presence of ethnic Macedonians. They consider those censi flawed, without presenting evidence in support, and accusing the governments of neighboring countries of continued propaganda. By the time the Republic of Macedonia proclaimed its independence those who continued to look to Bulgaria were very few.[68] Some 3,000 - 4,000 people that stuck to their Bulgarian identity met great hostility among the authorities and the rest of the population. Occasional trials against Bulgarophiles have continued until today.[69][70] The Constitutional Court of Republic of Macedonia banned the organization of the Bulgarians in the Republic of Macedonia-Radko as "promoting racial and religious hate and intolerance".[71] In 2009 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, condemned Republic of Macedonia because of violations of the European Convention of Human Rights in this case.[72] Nevertheless during the last few years there has been around 60,000 Macedonians applying and waiting for Bulgarian citizenship and some 14,000 Macedonian nationals have already obtained Bulgarian passports. Bulgaria’s admission to the European Union is evidently a powerful motivation factor. In order to obtain it they must sign a statement declaring they are Bulgarian by origin, effectively not recognising their rights as a minority.[73] The Bulgariаn governments justifies this policy because they regard Macedonians as ethnopolitically disoriented Bulgarians.[74]