– Mr. Chuchkov, why do you pay so much attention to the dialects of the Bulgarian language?
– I believe that everything we have done in our lives and continue to do to integrate the new Macedonians into the Bulgarian language, including by popularizing Bulgarian history and disseminating our ancestral memory, will ultimately be in vain if the long-existing language gap is not narrowed. Our state must stop the arrogant neglect of the southwestern Bulgarian forms of speech.
It is extremely necessary to take action to introduce organized study of the dialects of the Bulgarian language in secondary schools and universities in our country. Because, if we do not achieve with joint efforts such an inclusion of the Macedonian dialect in the Bulgarian curricula, accompanied by measures against the epidemic of xenophobia and globalist kinshiplessness that is sweeping Bulgaria, our descendants will not be able to understand each other without an interpreter. And they will communicate with each other in... English, as there are already many cases. And today's Bulgarian Euro-Atlantic “nation” will become a world record holder in denationalization and self-destruction.
– There will be people who will tell you that the English language is entering the Bulgarian dictionary, and you want to study dialects so that we can get closer to the Bulgarians in Macedonia.
– The wealth of a language is its dialects. And not the Anglo-American vocabulary, from which today's Bulgaria draws by the handful, and every day, before the approving gaze of the Institute of Bulgarian Language, which subsequently willingly “legitimizes” this vocabulary and includes it in the latest newly published “Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language”... This leads to the de facto transformation of the Bulgarian language into Anglo-Bulgarian, to national depersonalization and to the affirmation of Bulgarian linguistic and historical fragmentation. Dialects are not something shameful or vulgar, but are a treasure trove, the study of which, inclusion and use will help restore Bulgarian spiritual integrity.
– We conducted an extensive interview with you about your great-grandfather Efrem Chuchkov – the almost forgotten apostle of the liberation epic of the Macedonian Bulgarians, called by his contemporaries the “colossus of the revolutionary cause”, “legendary voivode, one of the notable leaders of VMORO/VMRO” and “unwavering defender of the founding principles of the Organization, who preserved his name unblemished”. Is it because of him that you love the Bulgarian language so much?
– Efrem Chuchkov is a very apt example of today's revival of Bulgaria and the fading of historical memory. On this occasion, the prominent Bulgarian writer, translator and researcher Rumen Stoyanov stated the following in his famous essay “Bulgaria, Efrem Chuchkov and Macedonia”:
“... because of our own sloppiness, it turns out that in the RS of Macedonia people know more about Efrem Chuchkov, who bravely fought for his cherished Pan-Bulgarianism, than we do in Bulgaria... Are we acting as treacherously towards Efrem as we did towards Gotse, whose bones we gave to Bulgarian-hating slanderers? Prime Ministers, ministries, parliamentary committees, protocol chiefs of the ceremonial inspections, publishing houses, which, like Pontius Pilate, are conveniently entrusted with the compilation of today's Bulgarian textbooks, are all silent and do not respond to the Appeal of our military historians sent to them long ago to pay due all-Bulgarian tribute to this apostle and martyr of the revolutionary struggles of the Macedonian Bulgarians, they do not care about the duduk for some hero of the wars for national unification Efrem Chuchkov, although he worthily headed the VMRO!”
And in his amazing book “Let Us Remember” another valiant national awakening figure – Rosen Petrov, asked a number of painful questions:
”Why is this great hero not written about in Bulgarian textbooks? Why have we traditionally let the RSM “appropriate” him? Why don't we at least honor him? Why, after the chaos of the 90s, is his name no longer even mentioned during the dawn inspections? Why isn't there at least one bust-monument?... His opponents valued him, it remains for our state to start doing so too. May the ashes of time not cover the fiery Ephraim, burned in the flames of the struggle for the Bulgarian name. And it depends on us.”
Similar calls for paying due national tribute to the hero Ephraim Chuchkov, who devoted over 30 years of his total 52-year life to the holy cause of the liberation of Macedonia and its unification with Bulgaria, were accepted and published back in 2023 by the scholars of the Bulgarian National Commission for Military History – member of the International Commission on Military History at UNESCO, supported by participants in a scientific conference and by 6 organizations and institutes.
However, our state institutions have so far not taken any action in response to the calls to restore the memory of this key historical figure. I receive only kind letters from the institutions, but no real action.
The revolutionary and voivode Efrem Chuchkov, declared by Turkish military intelligence to be the “most wanted Bulgarian commie in Macedonia”, fought countless battles against the Ottoman army and gendarmerie, and later – against the Serbian occupiers. Sometimes entire towns and villages were surrounded in order to capture or kill Chuchkov and his chetniks. At certain periods, he was also a teacher of Bulgarian language, literature and history, although most often under a false name. The ideal of Efrem Chuchkov, passed down from generation to generation, was: achieving freedom and social justice for Macedonia and preserving the Bulgarian language through an unyielding struggle against the Turkish enslavers and against the later Serbian occupation and propaganda. And also: cultivating intolerance towards xenophobia and kinshiplessness and preserving the richness of the Bulgarian language through universal respect, study and popularization of its Macedonian and other folk dialects.
– Is that why you think we should save the Macedonian dialect in the Bulgarian language?
– Language, the joint community of eloquence is the most important factor for the unity of any people. Our state must proceed to adopt in modern literary Bulgarian all words, forms, word combinations and word order features that do not contradict the Bulgarian tradition, which are used by the Macedonian system, in order to reduce the current distance between the literary and southwestern Bulgarian languages. Otherwise, we will have to abandon the concepts of "Macedonian dialect of the Bulgarian language" and "Macedonian" in the sense of a Bulgarian from the geographical region of Macedonia, as well as abandon the Bulgarian national identity and the historical rights of the huge number of Macedonians in Bulgaria.
I remember my grandfather and grandmother's close friend Dimitar Talev, who, when he came to our country, spontaneously expressed his anger at the direction of development of the literary language and the de facto rejection of the group of Macedonian dialects of the Bulgarian language.
– How can the opposition between the population of Bulgaria and North Macedonia regarding identity be overcome? What recommendations would you make to our leading and governing officials regarding the position that Bulgaria should uphold in its relations with the Macedonian state?
– I am Macedonian, because my entire family is from Vardar Macedonia – Macedonian in the old sense, of course, that is, a Bulgarian from Macedonia, as was my great-grandfather Efrem Chuchkov. “Macedonian” has always previously been a geographical concept and a toponym of ancient Greek origin, and not an ethnonym indicating ethnic affiliation.
Today, there are a large number of Macedonianists in Vardar Macedonia. Our politicians and media should call them “New Macedonians”, not “Macedonians”, because otherwise it turns out that the hundreds of thousands of Macedonians in Bulgaria, descendants of refugees from Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, are not Bulgarians. The same applies to our neighboring country, whose official name for Bulgaria should not be “Republic of North Macedonia”, but “Republic of New Macedonia”. The use of this name would prevent confusion among young people and would make it easier for them to make the necessary distinction between us, the traditional Macedonians (that is, the Bulgarians from the geographical area of Macedonia, who should also have rights), and the Macedonianists in the face of the New Macedonians.
Furthermore, if the Bulgarian media and state authorities continue to oppose the concept of “Bulgarians” of the geographical name "Macedonians", this artificial distinction will lead to an even greater alienation from Bulgaria of the Macedonian Bulgarian population, since most Bulgarians in Macedonia have long been accustomed to using for themselves the already traditional toponym "Macedonians", although without putting any ethnic meaning into this name. Naturally, I do not mean the ancient tribe "Macedonians", who gave their name to the region of Macedonia. The difference between the ancient Macedonians and Macedonians is like that between the Thracians and the Thracians. We, Macedonians, have nothing in common with the ancient Macedonians, because they migrated more than 2000 years ago to the east - to Eastern Thrace, to Asia Minor, to Persia, and some - even to present-day Pakistan. This distinction is made abroad, including, for example, in English-speaking countries, where the ancient Macedonians are “Macedons” and the Macedonians – “Macedonians”.
In addition to shortening the current gap between the literary and southwestern Bulgarian languages and ending the opposition practiced by contemporary Bulgarian politicians and media between the name "Bulgarians" and the name "Macedonians", in order to restore Bulgarian spiritual integrity and to prevent de-Bulgarization, it is imperative to sharply increase efforts to preserve and protect historical memory and not make any compromises in this regard. For example, it is unacceptable for the Bulgarian state to remain silent when the authorities in Skopje publish entire books and broadcast films about Efrem Chuchkov, which do not even mention that he is a Bulgarian and a Bulgarian hero from Macedonia. It is unthinkable that Bulgaria would allow such a blunder.
The fact is that in the RSM the topics related to the fabrication of an unreal national history are a matter of state policy, while in our country the real heroes of the Bulgarian national liberation movement in Macedonia are “regionalized” and literally ignored. It is also absurd that in our country only the April Uprising is celebrated on a national level, and the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie is not - including considering that the April Uprising broke out in only one region of Bulgaria and was even called the “Srednogorsko ustanie” at the time...
– Mr. Chuchkov, thank you for this interview!