One of the most outstanding names in the recent history of
Macedonian culture is undoubtedly that of Krste Petkov Misirkov,
whose work was a valuable contribution to European culture
and also to European science. But, owing to the perverse fortunes
of the Macedonian people's history the most important work
of the new history of Macedonian culture, Misirkov's Za makedonskite
raboti ("About Macedonian Matters"), published in
1903, was not recognized at its proper worth until 20 years
after his death. During his lifetime, this work was regarded
as the greatest threat to the realization of the plans of
those who aimed at keeping Macedonia under subjugation. For
this very reason, he was forced to spend his life in exile,
as he relates in his "Memories and Impressions,"
"a wanderer in other lands, from which I tried to be
of use to my oppressed country." He died in poverty in
Sofia on 26th July 1926.
Tracing the unhappy wanderings of Misirkov's eventful life
means at the same time relating the thorny path followed by
the Macedonian people from the last quarter of the last century
up to the Balkan wars. Misirkov was the founder of the modern
Macedonian literary language and orthography, and the editor
and publisher of the first scientific, literary and political
journal to appear in the Macedonian language. For the 30 years
that are considered the stormiest period of Macedonian history
because the national revolutionary struggles were going on
then, Misirkov served his country with unflagging zeal and
won for himself an immortal name in her annals.
Misirkov began life during the most troubled period in the
Balkans. He was born in 1874 at Postol, the former capital
of Alexander the Great, in the part of Macedonia under Greek
rule. When he had completed the second grade of the Greek
pre-grammar school, he began to feel a bitter resentment against
the unscrupulous methods of Greek propaganda. Being without
money to continue his studies, he worked in the fields with
his father; but when Serbian propaganda began to preach its
variant of "Macedonianism," and to recruit young
people throughout Macedonia (which was then under Turkish
rule) in order to "Serbianize" them, Misirkov left
for Belgrade, full of joy and hope, where his odyssey began.
When Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek nationalistic propaganda
were coming into violent collision on Macedonian soil, and
Macedonian students were going from one school to another
and from one church to another, a new ferment began among
the students in Belgrade who had fled from Bulgarian and Greek
schools in Macedonia. They realized that they had been deceived
because they were forced to declare themselves Serbs and their
language was treated as Serbian. But the students, who had
only just arrived in Belgrade, insisted on the recognition
of their nationality. When this was refused, they left Belgrade
en masse as a demonstration of protest and went to Sofia.
Misirkov was one of these students. This was his second flight,
and he found himself caught up in the toils of the third propaganda
in Macedonia.
This protest by the students was a real blow to Serbian propaganda
and policy, and it caused a serious conflict between the Serbs
and Bulgarians. But the triumph of the Bulgarian authorities
was short-lived. Once across the Bulgarian frontier, the students
realized they had been deceived again and were pawns in a
new struggle for power at their expense. Accordingly, they
had to extract themselves from a regrettable situation as
best they could. Some of them wished to return to Belgrade,
and those who remained in Sofia were subjected to a special
regime. Most of them were sent to various colleges in the
interior of Bulgaria.
In spite of all the precautions taken, most of the refugees
returned to Serbia; among them was Misirkov, who was admitted
as a student in the third grade of a grammar school in Belgrade.
He did not stay there long, however since he was admitted
as a student in the first grade of a theological college where
young Macedonians were studying. In this semi-military college,
future Serbian priests and teachers were trained for propaganda
in Macedonia, as well as military cadres which were to serve
as the basis for the forthcoming subjugation of this province
of the Turkish Empire.
The circumstances which brought Misirkov from Salonica to
Belgrade and Sofia and then back to Belgrade showed him clearly
that Macedonians could no longer allow themselves to be pawns
in their neighbours' struggles for power, and that it was
no longer possible for them to be treated as Greeks in one
place, Serbs in another place, and Bulgarians in a third place,
while they regarded themselves only as Macedonians.
At the end of the academic year the students went on a tour
of the Kingdom of Serbia. This gave Misirkov the opportunity
to study on the spot the various Serbian dialects and compare
them with the Serbian literary language, and, having done
this, to compare them with the spoken language of the Macedonians
and of the Bulgarians. All this later served as material for
his scientific researches into the Macedonian language. When
the time came for them to enroll in the second grade of the
grammar school, a group of Macedonian students rebelled against
the assimilating policy and military regime of the Serbs.
Misirkov was one of the group. As a result of the uproar,
the Serbian Foreign Minister closed the schools and the students
were scattered among the various towns of Serbia. After this
rebellion, Misirkov continued his studies at Shabats, a small
town not far from Belgrade. Not long after he was back in
the Serbian capital.
In 1892, some friends and fellow students of Misirkov's founded
a literary society and began to bring out their own publication:
Loza (Vineyard - one of the most difficult plants to uproot,
as a symbol of the Macedonians). At that time a campaign was
launched in the Bulgarian press against the national ideology
of the Lozars (those who were associated with the publication
Loza). Then everything possible was done to neutralize the
action of Bishop Teodossie of Skopje, who aimed at separating
the Macedonian Church from the Bulgarian Exarchate and even
at entering into communion with the Holy See of Rome. The
young Macedonian intellectuals Petar Pop Arsov, Dame Gruev,
Gotse Delchev, Gjorche Petrov, Georgi Balashchev, and others
took an active part in all those movements.
All this had repercussions on the Macedonian students in
Belgrade, who, in 1893, founded their own student society
-- Vardar. Its charter included, among other things, the aim
of studying and spreading a knowledge of their country as
regards its geographical, ethnographic and historical aspects.
The founder of this society was Misirkov. A cardinal principle
of its program was that Macedonia should belong to the Macedonians.
The Serbs were opposed to this thesis of the young Macedonians,
so their society did not last very long: it was disbanded
in 1895. The Serbs, not trusting the Macedonians, began to
send real Serbian priests and teachers to Macedonia. In these
circumstances it is not surprising that Misirkov, after completing
his studies at the Belgrade teachers' training college, refused
to go to Prishtina, where, having been the best student of
his class, he was appointed as a Serbian teacher. Instead,
he left secretly for Odessa in order to continue his studies
for the benefit of his country.
His academic qualifications obtained in Belgrade were not
recognized in Russia, so he had to study for a further two
years in the Seminary at Poltava, and then in 1897 he was
able to enter the Faculty of Philological and Historical Studies
at the University of St. Petersburg. When he enrolled at this
university, Misirkov did not state that he was Bulgarian,
Greek or Serbian, as Macedonian intellectuals of that time
usually did when declaring what studies they had completed.
He stated that he was a Macedonian Slav. Thanks to the research
on the ethnography and history of the Balkan Peninsula he
had carried out during his stay in Serbia, Misirkov was able
to give his first scholarly lecture before the members of
the Russian Imperial Geographical Society. This first scholarly
work shows with what keen interest the young student had addressed
himself to the studies he would specialize in for the next
thirty years. Still as a student, Misirkov gave lectures on
various subjects including, among others: "Marko Krale
as a national hero" and "The ethnic pattern of the
population in Macedonia." In 1901, for reasons of health,
he removed to the University of Odessa, where he worked on
his degree thesis: "The problem of nationality and the
reasons fm the popularity of the Macedonian Marko Krale."
Of great importance in the work done by Misirkov for his
beloved country was the founding of the secret Macedonian
Society at St. Petersburg. The aim of this was to give moral
and material aid to the Macedonian cause, and to follow its
development. Misirkov soon became president and an active
member of this society. Since this society was a branch of
the Macedonian Secret Organization, Misirkov corresponded
with the other two committees of the Organization: the Supreme
Committee at Sofia and the other at Salonica. He was thus
kept informed about events in Macedonia and in the lives of
Macedonian emigrants. As president of this society, Misirkov
had fruitful contacts with eminent men in Russian political,
cultural and scientific circles, and so was able to obtain
adequate aid from the Slav Charitable Society for the Macedonian
refugees.
When the new Macedonian Society recently founded in Belgrade
began publication of the journal Balkanski glasnik (The Voice
of the Balkans), in which the fundamental principles of the
Macedonian literary language and orthography were set forth,
Misirkov was able to take part in the struggle for Macedonian
national independence by getting in touch with Macedonians
residing in Belgrade. But soon after, the Macedonian Society
in Belgrade was closed, the journal was suppressed and the
editors were disbanded. Then Stefan Jakimov Dedov and Diamandi
Tirpkov Mishaikov, who were the chief founders of this Society,
left for the Russian capital. There, together with Misirkov,
Chupovski, Konstantinovich and others, on the 28th of October
1902 they founded the Society of Macedonian Students, afterwards
called the "St. Clement's Macedonian Scientific and Literary
Society," which became the most important Macedonian
national institution abroad. In the same year this Society
sent a Special Memorandum to the Great Powers, in which the
Macedonian problem was examined at length from the national
point of view, and the problem of the Macedonian language
was solved by making it the Macedonian literary language.
The question was also examined of establishing a Macedonian
national Church under the Bishopric of Ohrid. The aim of this
Memorandum was that the Macedonians should be recognized as
a separate nation and that Macedonia should be granted full
autonomy within the Turkish Empire.
In the expectation that freedom would be granted to Macedonia,
Misirkov abandoned his university studies and left for Bitola,
where he was appointed assistant master at the classical academy.
There he became friendly with the Russian consul Rostkovski,
who made him tutor to his children. This post gave him the
opportunity to enter into friendly relations with various
representatives of the diplomatic corps, which enabled him
to follow closely Balkan and European politics regarding Macedonia.
With some of his friends he began to pave the way for opening
Macedonian schools also for publishing textbooks in the Macedonian
language. But the Ilinden Uprising (1903) and the assassination
of the Russian Consul in his presence changed everything for
the worse for Misirkov. Life in Macedonia became so unbearable
for him that he felt obliged to leave his native land and
return to Russia. There he published a great many articles
informing the general public of the causes of the Ilinden
Uprising and the reasons why the Russian Consul was assassinated.
Misirkov soon resumed his activity in the "St. Clement's
Society," giving various lectures and writing his book
"For the Macedonian Cause." This book, written in
the Macedonian language, was published in Sofia, where he
later founded a new society of Macedonian emigrant intellectuals.
In 1905, because his life was in jeopardy, he left for Berdiansk
in Southern Russia, where he was given a post as assistant
master in a grammar school. There he resumed publication of
the Macedonian journal Vardar. As a result of this activity,
he received threats warning him to give up his struggle for
Macedonia, but he ignored them and continued his patriotic
work with undaunted zeal.
When the first Balkan war was declared, Macedonians flocked
home from all parts of the world to take part in the struggle
for liberation from the Turkish yoke. Misirkov was in Macedonia
then as a Russian war correspondent so that he could follow
the military operations on the spot. He suffered another disappointment
in Macedonia when he found that the "liberators,"
the various Balkan monarchies, were each aiming to gain possession
of a large part of Macedonian territory. Accordingly, he published
a series of articles in the Russian press pointing out the
cruel destiny of the Macedonian people as a result of the
tripartition of Macedonia; he also wrote some violent articles
demanding that the Turks should be driven out of Macedonian
territory.
In 1913, on the initiative of the Macedonian colony in Petersburg,
of which Misirkov was a member, the journal Makedonski glas
(The Voice of Macedonia) was founded, which was published
in Russian and Macedonian. This journal dealt openly and courageously
with the most important problems connected with the destiny
of Macedonia. The Macedonian colony in the Russian capital
sent a series of memoranda to the London Conference and the
Balkan Governments; it also addressed appeals to the Russian
and Macedonian peoples pointing out the troubled history of
this small but heroic people, which, after five centuries
of oppression, instead of gaining its freedom was now subject
to a new domination; the tripartite domination of the Bulgarians,
Serbs and Greeks, which made its situation even worse. In
an article which appeared in 1914 in the journal Slavianskia
izvestia, Misirkov cleared up the question of the participation
of Macedonian regiments in the struggle against Turkey in
1912, stating that four armies, Serbian, Greek, Macedonian
and Montenegrin, had fought, in Macedonia, and two, Bulgarian
and Macedonian, had fought in Thrace. All these armies except
the Macedonian were subsidized.
In this article Misirkov wrote: "The Russian public forgot Macedonia, but although
she is in a disastrous plight, she is still alive. She suffered
the tremendous oppression of the Turkish yoke for five centuries,
and yet kept her national spirit. If Malorussia was able to
bear the Polish yoke in the 16th and 17th centuries, Macedonia,
too, will be able to survive the sufferings, of 1913. The
Slavs freed themselves from their misfortunes, overcoming
the bitterest disappointments, and began to heal their wounds
and lay the foundations of a lasting peace in the Balkans
in virtue of the national independence of all the Balkan peoples.
So Macedonia, too, will be able to obtain what is her due."
In order to be able to say what he thought with absolute
freedom, Misirkov began to write articles under the pseudonym
of K. Rilski. These articles appeared in the Makedonski glas
and were marked by their combative spirit. In them Misirkov
defended the Macedonian national ideals, which were in contrast
to those of the Bulgarians, and emphasized the struggle for
the independence of Macedonia during the course of history.
In these stormy days of 1913 when attempts were being made
in the Balkans to prove that the Macedonians were Serbs, Bulgarians
or Greeks, Misirkov declared:
"The time has come for all the world to know that
the people living in Macedonia are Macedonians and not Serbs,
or Bulgarians or Greeks; and that the Macedonian people has
its own history, its own national dignity, and its own important
contributions to the cultural history of the Slavs... Macedonia
is a land of old Slavonic culture, and no one will succeed
in rooting out this old Slavonic culture... Macedonia will
survive all misfortunes because the giants of Macedonia are
not yet dead. The figures of SS. Cyril and Methodius, and
St. Clement and St. Naum of Ochrid are shining examples to
the sons of Macedonia, whom a glorious future awaits on the
day that Macedonia, united and free, takes her place as a
member with equal rights of the family of the Balkan peoples."
When he returned from the Balkan front, Misirkov gave up
his post at Odessa and was appointed assistant master of the
grammar school at Kishinev. At that time Bessarabia became
a republic, and he was elected the first member of its Parliament.
However, the pro-Rumanian party was dominant and the Rumanian
army brought strong pressure to bear on the young republic
so that the Parliament was forced to declare the annexation
of Bessarabia to Rumania in November 1918. Then Misirkov was
expelled and, not being able to return to Macedonia, he went
to Sofia. Misirkov's arrival in Sofia coincided with the serious
disorders that broke out immediately after the First World
War over the Macedonian question, and every Macedonian emigrant
was compelled to sign the various resolutions and petitions
in favor of the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. In this state
of affairs, Misirkov was distrusted by the Bulgarians because
of his ardent defense of Macedonian nationhood.
After working for a year at the Ethnographic Museum in Sofia,
Misirkov was appointed assistant master of the grammar school
at Karlovo, where he was always suspected on account of his
fervent Macedonian nationalism.
In 1921 Misirkov wrote a letter to the Serbian Minister Plenipotentiary
at Sofia asking him to use his influence to secure his appointment
to a teaching post at the grammar school in Skopje, or else
in some other Macedonian town, or failing that in Belgrade
or Zagreb. After being kept waiting for two years, he was
informed that his application had been rejected and he realized
he would have to stay in Bulgaria indefinitely. Accordingly,
he resumed his journalistic activity and published articles
on the Macedonian question in the Bulgarian press. In all,
he wrote some thirty important articles, which will remain
as his testament for future generations of Macedonians. In
one of his articles published at that time, he affirmed:
"There are no solid grounds for pessimism for us
or for optimism for our oppressors... Are we Macedonians a
people without a class of intellectuals, without glorious
traditions, without strong energy, without national ideals,
without a literature, and in general without culture."
On the contrary, "a real, original Macedonian culture
has always existed, and has been the most powerful weapon
of the Macedonians for preserving their cultural identity
and for enduring all the vicissitudes of their country's history:
neither Byzantium, nor Bulgaria, nor Serbia, nor Turkey were
able to change the character of the Macedonians so as to separate
them from their Slav forbears." Misirkov declared
that the new oppressors would obtain nothing by terror:
"Terror can only create martyrs for an idea; it can never
obtain the victory of lies and oppression. Our work is sacred,
and therefore it will obtain the support of the civilized
peoples of Europe, particularly of the Italians."
Misirkov's assertion of the existence of a separate Macedonian
culture aroused a storm of angry comment. In one of the many
articles he wrote on the subject, he did not hesitate to say:
"Yes, Macedonian culture and history are quite separate
from Bulgarian and Serbian culture and history; they have
never been the object of an impartial and detailed study.
The Serbs and the Bulgarians most unfairly took from Macedonian
culture only what they could make use of for the glory of
their own national names; ignoring facts of capital importance
either because they did not concern them, or because they
contradicted their own national aspirations. Unfortunately,
the Macedonians themselves are only now beginning to study
Macedonian history, having realized, towards the end of last
century, that they could no longer trust the historians of
Belgrade or Sofia..."
In articles written at that time, Misirkov frequently dealt
with the situation of the Macedonians in the Yugoslav Kingdom,
and was profoundly convinced that the Macedonian minority
in that kingdom was the most unjustly treated of all the minorities.
He also said that the kingdom was the Austria of the Balkan
Peninsula, and concluded:
"Only by the unification of all the Macedonians and
a common program for the creation of Macedonia in a Balkan
Switzerland will it be possible to end rivalry within the
Balkans and in Europe for the hegemony of the Balkans."
He also wrote: "Only Serbian and Bulgarian shortsightedness
is responsible for the unhappy plight of the Macedonians and
therefore of their serious international situation."
In this connection, Misirkov painted out that "the
Serbs and the Bulgarians must know that we Macedonians have
suffered, and still suffer, more than anyone else as a result
of the disagreement between them and for this reason we, more
than anyone else, could con- tribute to a reconciliation between
them and to the prosperity of all the Southern Slav peoples."
What, according to Misirkov, did the Macedonians want from
their oppressors? "Give us our rights and our freedom,"
he declared, "so that we can respect our language
and our past as you respect your past and your present, and
we will build a firm bridge between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria."
After the tripartition of Macedonia, in a message to his people
Misirkov wrote: "Macedonians are tested by struggle
and, if to armed struggle is added that for a real Macedonian
culture and science, and if these are intensified, Macedonia
will not be lost and Macedonians will accomplish their historic
mission..." The agreements with Greece for the emigration
of Macedonians from Aegean Macedonia, as well as the agreements
between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, were strongly condemned by
Misirkov for the harm they did to the Macedonian people.
He wrote: "I hope I may be forgiven but, as a Macedonian,
I put the interests of my country and my compatriots first
and then those of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. I am a Macedonian
with a Macedonian conscience, and as such I have my opinion
about the past, present and future of my country and of the
Southern Slavs; I therefore demand that we Macedonians should
be consulted on all questions concerning ourselves and our
neighbors, and that agreements should not be made between
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia about us over our heads. They may
be sure that Macedonia will show the necessary tact, the necessary
insight and spirit of self-sacrifice for the achievement of
a general improvement in the Balkans, provided their personal
and national dignity are respected."
In his article entitled "Macedonian Nationalism,"
Misirkov explains what he means by this: "A boundless
and unalterable love for Macedonia, continual thought and
toil for the interests of Macedonia, and an absolute manifestation
of the Macedonian national spirit: the language, poetry, life
and customs of the people - here in broad outline is what
I mean by Macedonian nationalism..." All these articles,
published in the Bulgarian press, aroused a storm of opposition
to Misirkov, and in September 1925 he was removed from Karlovo
and sent to Koprivchitsa, threatened with death if he continued
to write articles of this kind. Furthermore, the publishers
and editors of the papers Mir and Ilinden, in which his articles
appeared, were formally warned to cease publishing them. This
was the end of the public life of a great Macedonian patriot.
Soon after he fell ill, and his physical life, too, came to
an end in a hospital in the Bulgarian capital.
One of the most important points constantly maintained by
Misirkov was that the Macedonians, as a Slav people who for
centuries had shared the fate of all other neighboring Slav
peoples, had their own national history and a rich, essentially
national culture. For the achievement of their independence,
Macedonians had to get rid of foreign names, introduced by
various propaganda campaigns and pseudo-histories at Macedonia's
expense, and restore the Macedonian national names. Politically,
Misirkov preferred that Macedonia should remain within the
Ottoman Empire when she was under Turkish rule, and later,
when this was ended, he wanted a free and independent Macedonia.
Misirkov was a Slavonic scholar of broad views who had tackled
the most difficult philological, linguistic, ethnographic,
historical and other problems of Macedonia and the Balkans.
He was a student of folklore who had collected and studied
the epos of the Southern Slavs; be had also made a careful
study of past and contemporary ethnography, and compiled the
first ethnographic statistics, in which the Macedonians appear
under their national name. As a publicist, Misirkov expounded
the ideas that he believed should govern Macedonian national
development and the organization of the struggle fm the national
and political independence of Macedonia. As a philologist,
Misirkov was the founder of the modern Macedonian language
and orthography, which he gave the status of a literary language,
separate from the Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek languages,
which the Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks had tried to impose
on the Macedonian people.
Giorgio Nurigianni- "The Macedonian Genius Through
The Centuries", 1972 David Harvey Publishers, London
Pages 160-175
