And now let us see what happened only a month ago at the International Symposium on the life and heritage of K.P. Misirkov.
The symposium took place in Skopje, starting on 27 Nov. and ending on 29 Nov, 2003. On the following Internet address you can read an account (in Bulgarian) of the main discussions at this meeting:
http://www.geocities.com/mac_truth/misirkov-sobir.html
Now, Bulgarian is a mother tongue for most Fyromians and they do not need a translation. But for all the other curious souls who yearn to know more about the Fyromian idol Misirkov, here I present the relevant information translated in English. The narrator is a Bulgarian participant in the meeting: I am translating his words literally.
*Account of a participant: what was said about Misirkov*
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I thought that the emotions had run out of steam, bit yesterday, 29 Nov. 2003, a new scandal erupted quite surprisingly, despite the absence of Katardzhiev. After two rather obtuse presentations, it was the turn of Rostislav Terzioski to present the results of his latest research on Misirkov.
Terzioski is specialized on Russia and the USSR and is a very good expert on the historical Russian archives related to Balkan history. His talk was titled: About some opinions of Misirkov concerning the Macedonian question.
Terzioski said that he had found in Russia a file of about 80 pages, written by Misirkov during 1914, consisting mainly of documents, memorandums and appeals to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Russian institutions. All documents were related to the Macedonian question. Terzioski said that the documents had been known to very few people until now, and that they deserved to be published because of their importance.
The words of Rostislav Terzioski follow:
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Terzioski:
The content of these documents is in contradiction with some of the other writings of Misirkov, notably with his pamphlet "On the Macedonian Affairs". The documents do not confirm the established opinion of our historians about Misirkov. Is this a dilemma or is it a "so called" dilemma?
For example, in a letter to the Russian foreign affairs minister, Misirkov declares himself to be a Bulgarian, talks about the unquestionably Bulgarian population of Macedonia, about his own Bulgarian background, about the Bulgarian people of Macedonia.
Misirkov mourns for San-Stephano Bulgaria (which included all Macedonia), states that Macedonia is a staunchly Bulgarian land, talks about the suffering of the Bulgarian people in Macedonia under the Serbs, talks about the three main ethnic Bulgarian areas: North Bulgaria, Thrace and Macedonia.
Misirkov says that 2.5 million Bulgarians were enslaved by Serbs and Greeks. He accuses Russia for separating Macedonia from Bulgaria and states that the Bulgarian national rights on Macedonia were unquestionable. He expresses his desperation from the fact that Macedonia was torn away from Bulgaria.
Misirkov lashes out against the Serb propaganda which, according to him, was underway in Russia. He says that after the Bucharest treaty 2 million Bulgarians were enslaved by the Serbs. Misirkov demands united ethnic Bulgaria including all Macedonia, Dobrudzha, and Eastern Thrace. He states that the Serbs plundered lands that were ethnically purely Bulgarian, and that the Greeks stole Solun (Thessaloniki) from Bulgarians.
Misirkov also has some...how should I say...some racist opinions about the Serbs. He states that Serbs are nothing but Shumadian shepherds and swine herdsmen, that Serbia was created by the swine trader Karageorge, that Serbia was the main culprit for the suffering of the Macedonian Bulgarians. He talks about some characteristic feature of the Serb swine herdsmen as "King killers" and traitors, and says that Serbs were suppressing and destroying a thousand years old Bulgarian culture in Macedonia.
Misirkov says that the population of Macedonia is Bulgarian and as such it must live in a united Bulgarian land. He calls on the Russian government to stop the assimilation of the Macedonian Bulgarians by the Serbs.
He talks about the Bulgarian cultural superiority in comparison with the Serbs, expresses many times his conviction that Macedonia must be united with Bulgaria, and is worried that there was a danger of most of Bulgarians leaving Macedonia.
In other documents Misirkov argues against the theories of the Serb historian Cviich and his theses that the Slavic population of Macedonia was a "fluid mass of people without a national consciousness". Misirkov proves that the Macedonian population "is not a mass of pliable dough, as Cviich alleges, but rather a very thoroughly baked Bulgarian bread, which belongs to Bulgaria".
In one of his letters from 1914 Misirkov states that the term "Macedonians" means only Macedonian Bulgarians and can not mean anything else. He accuses the Russian ambassador Rostkovsky for giving in to Serb propaganda and accepting the Serb theory that Macedonians were only Slavs, but not Bulgarians. Misirkov says that this theory is a Serb lie and that the Russian ambassador was somehow tricked by the Serbs to accept it.
In all his letters Misirkov expresses his deep sorrow for the fate of Bulgaria, which was torn and plundered by her neighbors during the Balkan wars.
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(End of Terzioski citation. Narrator resumes his account)
Terzioski talked about all these things for more than 15 minutes. Most of the listeners looked as if they had suddenly frozen.
In the end Terzioski simply thanked for the attention, said that all these facts were not entirely new, that some people had written before on this topic. He referred in particular to the writings of Cyrnushanov, who "researched well all the zigzags of Misirkov's ideas". He said that such data exists in Macedonia too, but the official historians think that such data must not be published.
Without mentioning his name, he attacked Blazhe Ristovski, who had tried the previous day to dismiss the allusions of the Polish historian Jolanta Suiecka about Misirkov being a Bulgarian chauvinist. Ristovski had tried to brush away such thoughts by alleging that Misirkov expressed his Bulgarian nationalist ideas only after 1920, when he lived in Bulgaria: according to Ristovski at that time Misirkov was forced to conform to the political situation in Bulgaria, his articles were edited, etc. - All in all a heap of worthless artificial explanations.
So Terzioski reminded the audience about these explanations of Ristosvki, and rhetorically asked the question: Who forced Misirkov to write such things in 1914, when he did not live in Bulgaria, and there was no one to "force him to conform to the political situation"?
Without any applause, Terzioski left the stage and went to his seat. The audience had sunk in deep silence and gloom
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Istor
Solun or Thessaloniki?
Conflict about Macedonian name