Originally Posted by Ljubomir
Bulgarians who lived in that area identified themselves as Macedonians long before Tito. It was considered a sub-ethnos, just like some people from, say, Ludogorieto may consider themselves Ludogorian Bulgarians.
That's absolutely the truth. The people in Macedonia considered themselves as Macedonian Bulgarians. Now they are just Macedonians and they are really different from the Bulgarians. Their biggest problem is the identity. They can not recognize that Macedonian nation's history starts in 1944. So they created their history at the expense of Bulgaria and Greece. For me the case of Macedonia is just like Germany and Austria, Greece and Cyprus, Romania and Moldova and etc. Austrians, Moldovians and Cypriots know they are just political nations. Cypriots are now different from the Greeks but they do not create knew Cypriot history.
So the idea of a political nation on the Balkans can not be applied obviously.
And about the people who claimed to be Macedonians in Bulgaria, you are absolutely right. In 1948 Tito and his Bulgarian commie friend Georgi Dimitrov were considering the idea of Balkan Federation, including Bulgaria. So the Pirin Makedonia should go into Macedonia. So in the 1948 census thousands of Bulgarians from Pirin Macedonia were written as Macedonians. But the next census in 1960, after Dimitrov's death reports all of the people from Pirin Macedonia as Bulgarians
And if we are talking about "minorities" (it's a funny word in that case) what can you tell me about the 100 000 Macedonians who have "бугарски пасош"(bulgarian passport)? And don't tell me it's just because they want to travel in Europe, because taking бугарски пасош is a very long and hard bureaucratic process.
I remeber a part of a speech of a Greek political leader. I think he was Karamanlis, but I'm not sure. So he said :"I and 2 500 000 my compatriots are Macedonians. But first of all we are Greek" Think about it
