Re: [tied] Re: Indo-Iranian

From: george knysh
Message: 23574
Date: 2003-06-19

--- fortuna11111 <fortuna11111@...> wrote:
>
> .(GK) However, I don't think that
> > Macedonians and Bulgarians are the same people,
> > ethnically Bulgarian, and currently organized as
> > distinct states. I think (and so does Eva
> actually)
> > that they are different nationalities, even if
> closely
> > related at the level of language.*****
>
> George,
>
> I am not sure you got me right. I meant, it is not
> my business to
> say what ethnicity they are. Up to 1945 they had a
> predominantly
> Bulgarian national consciousness.

*****GK: So what happened in 1945? What caused this
switch? I gather that there is no "Bulgarian
liberation movement" in Macedonia?****

The Ottoman
> archives
> describe the population of Macedonia as ethnically
> Bulgarian to
> its larger part. For centuries they had been
> calling themselves
> Bulgarian (and everyone else called them so). But
> if something
> happens and they decide they are no longer
> Bulgarians, this is
> their business.

*****GK: I'm rather curious about this "something"...
Would you believe that it is possible they called
themselves "Bulgarians" earlier because they had quite
different perceptions of what it meant to be
"Bulgarian" than did your Bulgarians?******

I just don't want them to start
> rewriting my
> history, writing Macedonian instead of Bulgarian
> everywhere (I
> am sure Vaptsarov turned over in his grave when they
> called him
> a Macedonian). I understand the political reasons
> standing
> behind this, yet I find it is a lie and a wrong
> attitude to history.

*****GK: Why would you consider the history of the
territory of contemporary Macedonia to be Bulgarian
history just because of an earlier common use of the
term?*****
>
> Btw, nationality and ethnicity are not the same
> thing to me. They
> could be ethnically Bulgarian and call themselves
> Macedonians.
> Perfectly okay with me.
>
> Eva
>
>


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