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BLAZHE KONESKI'S FALSIFICATION
OF THE MILADINOVS' FOLK SONGS

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In addition to a great mass of documentary evidence for the ethnic self-identification of the Macedonian Slavs of a century ago, there exists another kind of evidence which is very seldom brought to light. You might not believe me, but the person who drew my attention to it was Blazhe Koneski. In an article in "Nova Makedonija" in 1961, on the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Miladinovs' "Bulgarian Folk Songs", Mr Koneski misquoted one of the songs in the brothers' collection as

Biljana platna beleshe vo rekava, vo Vardarot...
[Biljana was bleaching cloth in the river, in the Vardar]

while the original text was

Biljana platna beleshe na tihi, beli Dunava...
[Biljana was bleaching cloth in the quiet, white Danube]

At first, I could not grasp the reason for such a distortion; I even thought that this was another example of the old habit of "fake for the sake of it". And then it dawned on me that geographic references in the oral folklore are important delimiters of the ethnic boundaries of a people, so Mr Blazhe knew what he was doing!

I have in front of me a very rare book, quite difficult to find even in larger libraries: "Narodne Pesme Makedonski Bugara", Skupio Stefan N. Verkovich. Knjiga prva. Zhenske pesme. U Beogradu. Pravitelstvenom Knjigopechatnjom. 1860. From the preface and dedication to

"Nenoj Svetlosti premilostivoj gospoii knjaginji Julii Mihaila Obrenovicha, rodjenoj grofinji Hunjadi, revnostnoj pokroviteljici narodnog obrazovanja i napredka" we learn that the Serbian royal family subsidized the publication of the book.
[To Her Majesty, most gracious lady of Mihail Obrenovich, Princess Julia born Countess Hunyadi, zealous patron of the education and advancement of the people]

In his preface the collector of the songs, the Bosnian Serb Stefan Verkovich, wrote to the Serbian Princess:

"No ja sam ove pesme nazvao bugarskima, a ne slovenskima, zbog toga. er danas kad bi kogod makedonskog Slovenina zapitao: sto si ti? s mesta bi mu odgovorio: ja sam Bolgarin, i svoj ezik zovu bolgarskim.."
["But I called these songs Bulgarian rather than Slavic, because if one were to ask today a Macedonian Slav: 'What are you?', he would answer at once: 'I am a Bulgarian, and I call my language Bulgarian...'] (p. xiii)

The book "Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians" contains 322 women's songs, mostly from the village of Prosenik near Seres, but there are also ten songs from villages around Veles, two from Debar and one from Krushevo near Prilep. I would not bore you with numerous quotes of the kind "ubava Jana - bugarka", or the recurring motif of three-way competition among "...prvata e bugarka, vtorata e vlahinka, trekjata e grkinka..." But quite amazing is the fact that the nationality of the singers was not only repeatedly stated as being Bulgarian in the local dialects, "bugarki", but even stated in Turkish, "Bulgar kazi" , as in Song 266, in which a Turk, Ali, asks the "Bulgarian girl" Gina to accept Islam and the Muslim name Aisha so he can marry her:

"Gino more, Gino Bulgar kazi!
Poturchi se da te zemam,
da ti kladem tursko ime,
meni Alija, tebe Ajsheja..."

Instead, I would rather submit geographic references, in this collection, to territorial markers of the Bulgarian ethnos as of 135 years ago in the spiritual world of some illiterate women singing these songs in a village near Seres (in today's Greek Macedonia).

In the geographic world of the singers, only three mountains are mentioned: Shar Planina, Pirin and Stara Planina (the Balkan Mountains):

"Mojte brakja ne su tuva,
te otishle nadaleko,
nadaleko - Shar planina."
(Song 312)

And here is a song about the two major Bulgarian mountains, Pirin and the Balkan. The Balkan Mountains complain to Pirin that "buljuk ajduci" [bands of hayduks - freedom fighters] trample over their green grasses, muddy their clear waters, break down their green forest, and bloody their white stones.

Zaplakala Stara planina,
dochula ja Perin planina,
odgovorila Perin planina:
" - Zashto mi plachesh, Stara planina?... "

And these "buljuk ajduci" who hide in the Balkan Mountains are from the Macedonian towns of Melnik, Petrich, Strumica, Tikvesh, Prilep, Kuchane, Djumaja:

"Eden mi buljuk melenichane,
vtori buljuk petrichane,
trekjio buljuk strumnichane
chetvrti buljuk tikveshane,
peti buljuk prilepchane,
shesti buljuk kuchanchane,
sedmi buljuk djumalidjane..."
(Song 280)

To the women of the village near Seres, the Black Sea is their - Bulgarian - sea. The Black Sea is just around the corner; the young girls go there to hear how the rocks and the marble cliffs sing in the wind:

"Joj Jano, ubava Jano!
Ajde nie da ideme kraj Crno more,
belki kje chuem kamen kak sviri,
kamen kak sviri, mramor kak pee..."
(Song 226)

The singers don't distinguish between Macedonian and Thracian women, they are of the same people, as we see in a song where a girl from the region of Odrin (Adrianopolis) is being addressed:

"More divojko, drinopoljanke!
More ne si chula, chula razbrala,
de se sobrali trista divojke,
trista divojke i tri neveste
cvekje da berat kraj Crno more?"
(Song 184)

They tell of a disaster when in the middle of the summer nine ships with all aboard perished:

"Joj, Jano, Jano, ubava Jano!
More ne si chula, chula, razbrala,
kaj zamrznalo Crnoto more
nasredu leto, Petrovi posti!"
(Song 27)

Just as in the Miladinovs' song about Biljana, the Danube is viewed as theirs - the Bulgarian - river, running somewhere in the neighborhood where a young girl, Despa, could go to tell it her sorrows while embroidering her dowry:

"Sednala e Despa, sednala
pokraj mi to bel Dunav,
sharen mi gergev pred neja,
na gergev veze i plache,
na Dunav ljuto se klne..."
(Song 232)

The Danube is even "walking" distance from the Vardar, as we see in the following song about Petkana of the Vardar region who goes to the Danube to fetch drinking water:

"Petkano, bela vardarko!
Rano ranila Petkana
na beli Dunav na voda.
Petkana Dunav prashashe:
- Dunave, bratko Dunave!
Dali go vide Stojana?"...
(Song 322)

Or the song about Todora, who being kidnapped by Turks - together with a Vlach and a Greek girl - throws locks of her blond hair into the Danube so that the river will bring them to her parents' house and they will learn what has happened to their Todora:

Nej more, more, Todoro!
Videla li si, videla
kakvi sa turci minali?
Te sa karali, karali
do tri mi roba-robinki,
te sa karali, karali.
Ednata e bila vlahinka,
drugata beshe grkinka,
tretata beshe bugarka.
Rusi si kosi mknashe,
po bel gi Dunav frleshe,
na Dunav veli, govori:
- Nosi gi, nosi, bel Dunav,
na majchini mi dvorove,
na bashtini mi tremove,
belki se majka doseti,
che e Todora plenena."
(Song 216)

Truly touching is Song 229. Here the River Danube is not the northern borderline of the Bulgarian ethnos; the women of Macedonia who sang these songs did not know exactly where the Danube flows, but knew that there were other Bulgarians living across that river: handsome, strong, broad-shouldered men (as poetically said, "men who wear large shirts") whom they would like to marry:

"- Karafilo, kara li te majka?
- Neto me kara, neto mi progovorova,
lju me pushta u Dunav za joda,
jazi Dunav ne znaja deka teche. -
Na bogom se verno moli:
- Joj bozhe li, mili bozhe!
Ja chini me pile sokolovo,
da priletnam toj bel Dunav...
...Ta si stana pile sokolovo,
ta priletna toj bel Dunav,
ta si najde junak sproti neja,
shtoto nosi shiroka koshulja..."
(Song 229)

And all the geographic references come together in a song about the good-luck veil ("sajata maskalenata") for a girl's hat - the yarn was spun in Petrich, woven in Sofia and bleached on the Danube:

"Devojche milo, ubavo!
More od boga da najdesh,
po pile aber da pusnesh,
da ti dopustnam kepeto,
da si zaviesh sajata,
sajata maskalena.
Na Petrich e predena,
na Sofija mi e tkajana,
na bel mi Dunav belena."
(Song 34)

So, we see that the people of Turnovo (and the rest of Bulgaria) felt a historical responsibility for all those other people who sang songs about the Bulgarian mountains, the Bulgarian rivers and the Bulgarian sea (the Black Sea), and called themselves "bugari" or even "Bulgar kazi". I will quote for you from the letter of a famous primary school teacher in Ohrid, dated November 13, 1856, to the Bulgarian Benevolent Society in Odessa, Russia, with an urgent request for money for school needs in Vardar Macedonia ("Dolnata Zemja", as the author of this letter calls it):

"Znaeno e na Vashe rodoljubivo nastojatelstvo, oti sekoj rod sade so svojot jazik mozhit poborgo da se prosvetit, i da se sestit od drugite rodove. Znajte ushte kolku nashata strana izgubi svojot jazik, i kolku kje ostanit nazad od Gorna Bugaria na uchenieto, ako ne zavatit da se uchit na Bugarskiot jazik..."
[You know, members of this patriotic board, that each nation can faster educate itself only in its own language and distinguish itself from other peoples. You also know how much our region has lost its language, and how far behind Upper Bulgaria it will fall in education if we do not get started studying the Bulgarian language...] Signed: Kostadin Miladinov od Ohrit (!) ("Periodichesko spisanie", v. 63 (1902-03), p. 574)

In the late 60's I visited a village near Kastoria and asked older women if they knew some of the songs from the Verkovich collection. They didn't. As a matter of fact, they knew very few of the old songs because for a long time they had been afraid that if some neighbors heard them singing such songs they might be deported to a rocky island in the Aegean. But they were still able to whisper for me the words of "Mama mi uplela shareni chorapi" and showed me inside the house the steps of this "oro". And they whispered some of the words from another old song of the time of revolutions and wars, "Koj ushi bajrako, i mu klaji znako? Rajna od Panagjurishche". I asked them who Rajna was but they didn't know, and, apparently, didn't care, because they knew she was one of them. We whispered to each other without a translator or pocket dictionaries; I understood them and they understood me, and we knew that we were of the same people.