THE VIEWS OF BLAZE RISTOVSKI

DELCHEV, GRUEV & PETROV - TRAITORS TO MACEDONIA

I sat in front of the TV to watch a telecast from Skopje featuring a speech by Blaze Ristovski, President of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences. As he has a reputation as a renown academic, perhaps I could learn something from him. However what I did hear were some quite bizarre remarks. The academic proposed a campaign be implemented against ... Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev and Giorche Petrov! And why?

"It is indisputable that all the revolutionaries, who were leaders of IMRO and the Ilinden Uprising, openly declared a Bulgarian national consciousness. With this affirmation they have caused immense harm to Macedonian history, thus a campaign should be initiated against them"

Until now I have not read or heard greater historic foolishness. The Skopje Macedonists actually want these heroes of Macedonian history to be re- evaluated before the "Macedonian Academy of Sciences" and found guilty for damage caused to Macedonist propaganda and the "Macedonian nation". MACEDONIAN REVOLUTIONARIES - "EXARCHIST CLERKS"

After that, Blazhe Ristovski appeared and openly accused the Internal organization of not supporting at all the idea of a separate Macedonian people (narod - actually in the sense of ethnie), Macedonian language and Church. He blamed the Macedonian revolutionaries as "Exarchist clerks". Followed a direct argument between Ristovski (on the rostrum) and Katardzhiev (in the audience) on number of issues: the famous article of Petko Slavejkov on the "Macedonsits", the case of Partenij Zografski, Neofit Rilski, Chupovski and "Makedonskij golos" etc. The discussion clearly degenerated and Ristovski appealed the Institute for National History-Skopje to condemn Katarzhiev who, also in the new edition of the "History of the Macedonian People", promoted the idea that the "Macedonian consciousness" appeared only after the WWI. Katardzhiev tried to reply but the session was finally closed by Stardelov.

THE FOLKLORIST

According to Ristovski, Goce Delchev, Dame Gruev (although not clearly listed with their names) and their fellow fighters should be proclaimed guilty of not propagating the positions of the Macedonian national identity, in a time when, according to Banac, there was no such identity.

These accusations for those that gave their lives for the Macedonian freedom come from a person alleged to had been collaborating, under the codename "Folklorist", in the past system with the "former" National Security Service in Macedonia. This was testified in "Makedonsko Delo" magazine 10 years ago by a man who identified himself with his first and last names and claimed to have been the go-between in the interaction between the Service and "Folklorist"