Around Ilinden (July 20 according to the new style or August 2 according to the old style) there will be talk again about the relations (or lack thereof) between Bulgaria and the Republic of Northern Macedonia. Both because of the Ilinden-Preobrazhen Uprising (from 1903), which is raging in both countries, and in our neighbor it is the national holiday of the country, and because of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, signed on 1 August 2017 between then Prime Ministers Boyko Borisov and Zoran Zaev in Skopje.
This comments on "Labour" Natalia Kiselova.
Today, the Prime Ministers are different and “relations between Bulgaria and North Macedonia are calm, coordinated, both countries are partners in NATO, but “on some issues” they have different positions", believes the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Hristiyan Mickoski.
In the recent past, the dispute over the name of the newly created Macedonian state after the breakup of the Federation of Yugoslavia was particularly sharp and prolonged. In 1991, the former South Republic of Macedonia declared its independence and named itself the Republic of Macedonia and its official language Macedonian. This, however, provoked the sharp reaction of neighboring Greece, which refused to recognize the Republic of Macedonia under this name, arguing that in this way the young country was appropriating the Greek cultural and historical heritage. Through its right of veto, Greece did not allow the name “Macedonia” to be internationally recognized. of the new Balkan state. The United Nations, the European Union and other international organizations have recognized the state using the “temporary“ - Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The dispute with Greece is turning into a stumbling block on the new country's path to NATO and the EU. After more than 10 years of negotiations and quiet diplomacy, the Prespa Agreement was reached (June 17, 2018), when the dispute was resolved with both sides accepting the name Republic of North Macedonia. Thus, Greece supported the NATO and EU membership of the former southern republic. This bilateral dispute, however, is only a small part of the overall “problem” for “Macedonia“.
The term “Macedonia“ appeared for the first time in Antiquity. It is associated with the emergence of the ancient Macedonian state, as the first testimony in which the ancient Macedonians are mentioned is from the poet Hesiod from the 7th century BC. According to him, the name comes from the son of Zeus - Macedon, who lived together with his brother A magnet around Mount Olympus. In Antiquity with the concept of “Macedonia“ meant the lands inhabited by Macedonians (not to be confused with Hellenes), and during the Roman and early Byzantine Empires, Macedonia ceased to be a concept related to a certain ethnic group (the ancient Macedonians) and their state, and acquired the meaning of administrative- a military unit (Byzantine theme “Macedonia“) that often changes its borders. The extent of the territory that was called Macedonia in Antiquity and the early Middle Ages reached the island of Crete, the rivers Danube and Sava, and from the Adriatic to the Black and Marmara seas. As an administrative term “Macedonia“ goes far beyond the boundaries of the old Macedonian state and has almost nothing to do with its ethnicity.
During the period of the medieval Bulgarian state, there is not a single written document in which the name “Macedonia“ for the ancient u territory. The Bulgarian state has three “constituent“ parts that are in view of the sequence of conquest and expansion of the medieval Bulgarian state. Saint Kliment Ohridski, for example, should “supervise the third part of the Bulgarian kingdom, from Thessaloniki to Jericho and Kanina and Tassipiat“ ("List of Bulgarian archbishops" from the 12th century).
After the conquest of the fragmented states by the Ottomans, the lands in the European part of the Ottoman Empire were united in the Beylerbey of Rumelia. Sultan Murad I created the great administrative division of the sultanate into two beylerbeys in Rumelia and Anatolia (Asia Minor) around 1365. The center of Rumelia was initially Edirne (1365-1530), then Sofia (1530-1836), and then Bitola (1836 -1867). This administrative-territorial division existed for more than five centuries (from 1365 to 1867), when the Ottoman Empire unified its administrative division with the use of vilayets.
Within the Ottoman Empire, the name “Macedonia“ in the lands of the old ancient territory, it began to be used by the Phanariots and the Greek Patriarchate in the 19th century (“Megali idea”). In 1866, in Constantinople, Petko Slaveykov started publishing the newspaper “Macedonia”. The newspaper played a huge role in winning Bulgarian church independence. The name of the newspaper was not chosen by chance, but was given as a nickname for the third district, inhabited by Bulgarians. And the Bulgarians from Macedonia became the engine of church independence, the Bulgarian national ideal and national unification.
The brief historical-geographical overview shows that the name “Macedonia“ after the Balkan Wars and the division of the three parts of Macedonia (Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian) it is used only as a geographical term. After the First World War, the concept is also found in an ethnic sense.
Today, North Macedonia is a member of NATO, applied for EU membership in March 2004, and received the status of a candidate country in December 2005. Regarding North Macedonia's path to EU membership, the Council recalls in the Conclusions on the enlargement with North Macedonia from 18 July 2022, that it is important to achieve tangible results and to implement bilateral agreements in good faith, including the Prespa Agreement with Greece and the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation with Bulgaria. A key point of the Conclusions is giving “the opportunity to strengthen the equal rights of persons belonging to minorities and communities in North Macedonia, and thus will contribute to the observance of the Copenhagen political criteria. In this regard, the Council welcomes the intention of North Macedonia to initiate and carry out as a matter of priority the relevant constitutional changes with a view to the inclusion in the Constitution of citizens who live within the borders of the state and who are part of other peoples, such as the Bulgarians” (aspect of the so-called French proposal).
Instead of North Macedonia fulfilling its commitment to the EU, last week at the summit in Washington (July 9), Prime Minister Mickoski talked about recognizing the “Macedonian minority” in Bulgaria, referring to 14 judgments [pronounced by the ECtHR] which “prove that the rights of Macedonians in Bulgaria are violated”. First, the cases are not 14, but 8. Second, the ECtHR does not issue verdicts, but convictions, and thirdly, it is not about a request for recognition of a minority, but about the refusal to register a political party that sets an unconstitutional goal. and for refusal to register the association by a court. The statement is in violation of international public law and of Art. 11, item 5 of the Good Neighbor Agreement, according to which nothing in the Constitution of North Macedonia has any relation to persons in Bulgaria who are not citizens of Macedonia.
There is no adequate response from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and until then - the provocations from the Macedonian side will continue at least until... Our National Assembly elects a regular government (according to Mickoski).