KRSTE MISIRKOV
"MIR" - SOFIA, 30 APR 1924
If the question of racial similarity and difference between Bulgarians and
Macedonians comes to be resolved on the basis of the national name, language
and history, there is no doubt that we should resolve it as a Greek priest
did in 1804; author of a four-language dictionary Greek, Bulgarian, Rumanian
and Albanian and who regarded as Bulgarian the Western Macedonian dialect.
Therefore when in Macedonia and Bulgaria there was no mention of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Greeks, obviously well acquainted with the Balkan nationalities, do not make any distinction between a Bulgarian, a Macedonian and a Macedonian Slav. We the Macedonians, cannot, and have no reason to ignore this and similar facts, which can be quoted by the hundreds. We cannot ignore them because to do so means to distort our history, to hide the truth and to deceive ourselves. The Archbishopric of Ohrid for the whole of Bulgaria is ours, it is our historic inheritance and ideal for the religious freedom from the hateful Serbian slavery of St Sava. Against the Bulgarian name, as our national name, by which we have been christened by the Greeks even before we entered the boundaries of the Bulgarian state for the fist time in the beginning of the 9th century; a name given to us by the Greeks for the racial union of the Slavs of Bulgaria, we, Macedonians have nothing and this national name of ours is no less respected by us than the Bulgarians of Bulgaria.
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