Traveller
22-07-2005, 12:48
Hey, hey! Orthodoxals are Christians, too!
And here's an idea that might bring some peace and stability to this "hot land". Oh, btw, there's an attention sign - this is a satire! Just in case somebody doesn't have sense of humour:
Attention! Satire
How much does history weigh?
(two projects for a lasting improvement of neighbourly relations)
Our work stands for the rank "intellectual"!
(anonymous epigraph of a candidate dissertation, registered by Ivan Popov)
Most nations see themselves as fighting for peace and understanding. Whether this really is so, we won't comment here, so that we don't move away from the subject in the beginning itself. As an initial point this thesis has the advantage that in this fanatically democratic period, in which we live, no one would dare to express, at least openly, an opposing position.
And so, even we on the Balkans are for peace and understanding, especially between neighbours, who on the Balkans are at least as important as everywhere else. Indeed, our past is filled with events, that don't speak in favour of that thesis very much, but the same is valid for any point on the planet, so we are in a good company. Mainly the historians work with the past, but far not only them. After this is one of the things that burden our good neighbourly relations, it’s about time to clean it a bit. After all, we live in the present and from our behaviour in this present, not from what exactly is being learned in history classes, depends our future of several generations ahead.
History doesn’t belong to the precise science. Of course, there are indisputable facts delivered, for example, from the archaeology, but to the laic these facts by themselves don’t prove almost anything and they always need the interpretation of some professional historian, i.e. the product of this interpretation, as much as scientifically it is, is already bent through someone’s ideology or school. The same is valid for the historical legacy, left for us from known or unknown chroniclers – it also reflects the official at that time or someone’s personal point of view and in no case could be considered as objective.
The scientific worker genius, junior expert in the “Finance” department of MKHT, Ivan Popov, in his criticism of history as science is categorical and says: “As it is well-known, history is collective hallucination.” (quoted word by word, see: Iv. Popov, “HISTORY – ON THE COUNTER!"). Further he notices: “All small and newly-formed countries are very greedy for history. History, for them, is urgently needed in order to “strike the stake” of self-conscience of one nation, which decades ago just didn’t existed, but has the claims to exist in the future and therefore it claims it always existed in the past, but the insidious neighbours don’t want to admit it. This exactly is the case with Macedonia.” As we see, the cousins to the west of the Maleshev Mountain are mentioned by name. Ivan Popov suggests that the respective segments of history plus the copyright for their canonization in all scientific and popular publications to be sold to them. Later we’ll come back to this suggestion, but let’s first see:
For what, in particular, are we speaking of?
Periodically our strained relations with Macedonia are mainly due to moments of our and their, common or not, history and language not made completely clear. For the sake of brevity, we’ll stop on the two extreme positions on the two sides, accepting in a simplified model that all other opinions are somewhere between them.
The radical (patriotic, nationalistic, chauvinistic etc. call them as you like) opinions to the east of the Maleshev Mountain are comparatively clearly formulated and they say that:
* The Macedonian nation is no nation and the Macedonian language is no independent language. The Macedonians are pure Bulgarians and their language is a Bulgarian dialect.
* All diversions in the national (emotional) and historical (mostly emotional) self-determination are provoked by hostile political figures, whether they are own or foreign, acting in the past or in present.
* It is about time the people from the west of the border, which is a shame and disgrace for the nation (mainly the Bulgarian one, in this case there is none other) to become aware.
* And so on.
For those, following such or similar positions, the ideal decision would be one unification in one country, which they practically imagine as a (voluntary) joining of the current repoublic of Macedonia to the repoublic of Bulgaria. To every man, who is even vaguely familiar with the situation, it’s perfectly clear that for one such act there are lacking in the moment the needed desires and possibilities from both sides. And even if it happens by some way, among the directly concerned there would probably be more dissatisfied than satisfied. And everyone knows the results of all the attempts for this in the past.
The radical (patriotic, nationalistic, chauvinistic etc., call them as you like) opinions to the west of the Maleshev Mountain say that:
* The Macedonian nation (they hold on to the term “nation” very much) is a historical and ethnical descendant of ancient Macedonia of Philip II and Alexander the Great. Later some Slavic and eventually some other small and not so important elements were assimilated in it.
* The Bulgarian nation is in fact neither Bulgarian, nor nation, but a mess of Thracians, Slavs, Tatars, Turkic, Kumans, Pechenegs, Wlachs and so on. The Bulgarian history in fact isn’t Bulgarian, but stolen, mostly from the Macedonian one.
* The Macedonian nation and the Bulgarian non-nation have almost nothing in common, except some casual linguistic similarities, due to the fact that the Bulgarians in the course of time started little by little to speak Macedonian.
* The most glorious and historically undeniable persons from the so called Bulgarian history, especially kings and enlighteners, were in fact not Bulgarians, but Macedonians.
* The alphabet, called Cyrillic, which is used in the both lands and in a number of others, as its creators is not Bulgarian, but Macedonian.
* And so on.
The representatives of this group, in general, have exactly what they want, namely a sovereign country of Macedonia (“Macedonia to the Macedonians!”), but this isn’t enough for them and they also want to acquire the cream of the Bulgarian historical prominence, mostly the brothers Cyril and Methodius and Tzar Samuil. The deal is theoretically possible, as the already quoted Ivan Popov says. But for their (of the Macedonians) misfortune, even after the whole of our gained experience with the privatization, until now no politician or businessman has ever dared to form a serious offer, let alone a deal for such a transfer – obviously the risks surpass many times the profit and possibilities of any insurance institution.
We won’t stop on some contradictions of one or the other sides, as well as the multiple more moderate opinions on the matter. One logical and final proof for the rightness of one of the opinions, similar to the proofs known from the physics or mathematics, which would end these debates, one way or another could not be expected, simply because, as we mentioned earlier, history isn’t a precise science. So, the mentioned fighters on the historic and national front have all the chances to fight for a long more time in favour of their chosen cause.
What are the current perspectives?
For every European nationality, from the Gibraltar to the Ural, acknowledged as such or not, exists some cliché, reflecting in a simplified manner some of its characteristics. The Macedonians make no exception and are famed with a number of virtues, the most popular of which undoubtedly is the skill to make and consume “ruino (Ed. Note: strong?) wine and hot rakia”, glorified in a number of songs. As for their personal virtues, most of the connoisseurs of the Balkan life-existence would point out two characteristic things:
* The Macedonians are heroes (Ed. Note: younaks; brave, strong people) (please, spare us the necessity of the precise quote, we don’t have a command of this language/dialect)
* The Macedonians are tenacious (some would even say stubborn, but this isn’t the subject here)
The two, above mentioned, virtues give no hope for somewhere to the west of the Maleshev mountain to come some revision of opinions soon, even among the more moderate people from them. But in fact, things stand much worse, because their opponents from the east say that the nation is one, which logically leads to the thought that the mentioned personal virtues are not less typical for them (the opponents) also. With other words, from the eastern side of the mountain concessions of the strengthened positions also could not be expected. Even more, the more time passes, the more evidence in favour of one or another thesis are being “found”. So, a general decision of the conflict obviously needs a different approach.
We are prone to agree with the view of the colleague Iv. Popov about the history being a collective hallucination and we would even add that this hallucination on the Balkans, in particular, sometimes produces very wild fruits. At the same time we think that his commercial approach in this case isn’t the best decision. One selling of segments from our history to an interested country like Macedonia might bring a big profit, but first, the potential buyer is not famous with especially high rating on the international financial markets, so the payment would probably be formed as a credit, second, even if he’s capable to pay in cash and in green, at our current state management one God knows where will the agreed sum sink, and third, there is no guarantee that after the deal our relations with the buyer would get better for a larger period of time. And what if he wants also a guarantee term, service with subscription etc., something completely normal in the current market relations? Which company of ours, even with the help of the Academy of Sciences and the faculties of history, would be able to secure such a thing?
Project № 1
The defects of one deal with historical segment in this case could be avoided quite elegantly if the transfer is formed not as a sale, but as a donation (please, don’t throw stones at the lecturer; let him at least finish speaking). We’ll explain why, right away: A donation from such, literally, historical scale could not be ignored from anyone and even the mouths of the bitterest Bulgarophobes in the state-recipient would be efficiently silenced for a long time. We could easily say that such a gesture would be unique and a precedent in an international scale and it surely won’t be left unnoticed, even across the ocean. Our colleague Ivan Popov, himself, says in some other of his works that today’s age is the age of images. And a better foreign image than a “history donator” could hardly be made at our latitudes, which are famous to the west with the incorrigible aptitude for destructive patriotism. If some politician of ours is able to propose a greater demonstration of desire for establishment of good neighbourly relations – please, may he give us his proposal and we’ll check it with the greatest attention. And in the meantime we’ll stop on some difficulties, which would inevitably emerge.
The first, who, after such a donation, would have a lot of work, would be the academician historians. To them will fall the complicated task to explain the students from the junior high school classes, how could Tzar Samuil be Macedonian, while his cousin, for example, is a pure Bulgarian. The citizens from Western Europe, with their “close-relative” monarchies, would have no problems at all with this, but for our limited Balkan thinking this is a serious obstacle.
Some other things also don’t fit: If the brothers Cyril and Methodius were Macedonians, then undoubtedly this would be valid also for their students. Who forced those, speaking and writing on Macedonian, to seek refuge exactly at the Bulgarian king, while they didn’t went directly to his Macedonian colleague, independently of whoever he was?
Of course, we could say: What do we care, let the experts handle that; but this isn’t so. After all we’re speaking for an element of our educational system, i.e. something that concerns directly our children and grandchildren. And we have enough schizophrenic moments in our newest history, so we don’t need them also in the ancient one. Except that, such difficulties will probably emerge more than they’re seen on first sight and it isn’t clear at all if this wouldn’t cause even more argues than there are now.
Project № 1a
Because of this, let’s not be niggardly, if we’re going to be donators, let’s give them the history of the whole First Bulgarian kingdom, and so that there won’t be anymore speaking of how the dynasty of the Assens isn’t Bulgarian, but Kuman or Wlach, and that the Bulgarians in fact, one way or another, have no ancient history etc., all in all, before some bad-intentioned groups start all this nonsense once again, let’s add to the gift the Second Bulgarian kingdom.
The advantage of a donation of such a whole compact block of history is obvious: between this and the next period of current Bulgarian history are lying nearly 5 centuries of Turkish slavery, i.e. the historical continuity is, one way or another, irretrievably broken due to historical circumstances beyond our control. Practically, this means that Bulgaria would exist as a country from 1878 under the will of the Great powers, which by the way was exactly like that, and this is it. There are other European countries, which have emerged relatively soon on the political map, as examples we could give Belgium or Ireland. From another point of view, the given period is long enough, so that the incorrigible patriots among us could say with a clean conscience that their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers were Bulgarians, living in Bulgaria. The great jubilee of 1300 was, anyhow, already celebrated and till the next one – ha, the camel…
What’s so much?
Asparoukh and Krum, Cyril and Kliment etc., have they helped us with something in our joining in NATO? Do they have any attitude towards the attendance of our foreign debt? Could they serve as an argument in front of Verheugen if he mentions again the nuclear plant? With or without them, are we more Europeans, so that we join the EU? When a man gets to think deeper, it soon turns out that the periods of ancient history in question have no attitude for our actual worries.
We ask our respected fellow-countrymen to be understood right. For us, it’s not indifferent what was Tzar Assen and was he at all. But this worry of ours pales before the worry how to buy a new car, when our current one finally breaks. And, standing against the ruins of ancient Pliska or Trnovo, we feel the trill and breath of the native history, but this breath cannot compare in anything with the smell of a recently baked kozunak, be it baked by a Bulgarian or Macedonian recipe.
Let’s look at the things from the right perspective; this is all we want to say.
And this is far from the end, because if we take in question one newly appeared historical version, the really big perspectives start form here. This is from what it consists:
From when do we know each other?
Some time ago, one of our historians delved deep in search of the ancient homeland of the Proto-Bulgarians. The officially canonized theory at that time mentioned Turkic-Hunnish origin. Not that there weren’t doubts about its rightness before, but the contra arguments were relatively weak and consisted mainly of guesses.
Whoever searches, he finds; whoever delves – the same, sometimes more than he can carry. On the base of lingual comparison the ultimate spike of the Ancient-Bulgarian homeland was knocked at the northern slopes of the Hindokoush. We won’t comment here how much is this theory more rightful than the others. In all the cases, the history of this region enthusiastically starts to be digged over, layer by layer and century by century. And what could be expected to happen, happened – we came to Alexander the Macedonian, who at the time did quite some work in this region.
For Sashko (Ed. Note: diminutive name for Alexander) the Great, the historians don’t get miserly with allegedly proven facts. It is known that for his time he was a very modern colonizer – he strived by any means to export culture (today we would say “way of life“). And he did it very successfully, by encouraging and ordering mixed marriages of his warriors with the local lasses. We have to be interested in the thought, whether among the ladies in question there was some grandmother of the local Proto-Bulgarians.
If you ask us – it’s absolutely possible. At that time these simple things of life didn’t happened very differently from today. The warriors and officers of the phalanges were a good match; they had enough money looted through their campaigns; besides, they probably yearned for a longer rest after the fights, parades and the stupid garrison service. And when the wives became more and more sharp-tongued and they got tired of the family happiness, they said “Farewell, service calls!” and with a “Give the pitch for a march!” they got lost in the clouds of dust in the horizon. But because they were soldiers, according to the statute, for the farewell together with the purse of drahmas, or whatever currency they had at that time, they left their home address in the vicinities of Pella or Vergina, “just in case, if there’s something”.
Whether there “was something” later and what it was, we can’t know. But we do know that a few centuries later a pretty big part of the Proto-Bulgarians arose and moved to the west, exactly where the phalanges of Sashko the Great were from. So it isn’t impossible that among the personal staff of Kuber’s and Asparoukh’s army there might have been people, who went there quite intentionally, maybe to finish some unfinished matter on the legacy of their grandfather.
Does it sound beyond all belief? In our opinions – no; in all the cases, not more than all the other versions on the matter.
Above we already explained in what scale one donation of the First and Second Bulgarian kingdoms (in the name of peace) from our side could reflect positively on our international image and on the relations with today’s Macedonians. Taking in fact the theory for the ancient kinship it turns out that we give them something even more – a piece of history, which they, through carelessness, had lost somewhere on the roads of long passed centuries. Or maybe it would be more right that we ask from them a piece of our (common) history, which they so selfishly keep only for themselves?
Things here started to become very complicated, so we better hurry up to the end.
Project № 2
The strangest things in all these quarrels, which last for more than a decade, is that until now nobody proposed a serious alternative, which could satisfy to a large scale both sides. Exactly in this political niche is positioned our next proposal for the final decision on the matter. And it is amazingly simple: that we, the Bulgarians, join Macedonia (please, don’t throw stones at the lecturer; let him at least finish speaking).
What so much do we lose? Realistically seen – nothing, except the country name and symbols (flag, coat of arms etc.), which for the last century we changed ourselves not one time, without this hurting anyone. So, what’s so much to do it again? But we can win a lot. Let’s not forget what a deal could be formed from all of this.
In Europe for the last 15 years three countries broke to pieces and two united, so the Europeans won’t be shocked, when they here for the event. If our side approaches with the needed diplomatic insight, Brussels could be added as a sponsor in this act – there must be some kind of fund for such a matter. The veterans from the unification of the two Germanies could also be engaged, with the purpose to give some technical help. Too bad we don’t have a wall, like the Berlin one, which we could tear down; otherwise we could profitably sell the rights for some TV show. But if all this could be arranged with the initiative of the EU with the purpose of demonstration that – you see, there could be another way on the Balkans, not only with fight – then consider that the granted sums would exceed many times the profit of any other deal with history transfer. In our opinions, Brussels would take the challenge. If not for anything else, then at least to give the Yankees a piece of mind that not only Uncle Sam can play “Nation building”.
And if incidentally someone to the west of the Maleshev Mountain gets frightened from the scale of such an effort and starts to move backwards, we could tell him the following: Even if all the claims for the inheritance of the warriors from the phalanges get disputed, due to expired prescription, there are enough arguments from a newer date. During the last 100 years a lot of Macedonian refugees came within the limits of today’s Bulgaria and these people have a bunch of direct descendants, which by juridical perfect way (birth certificates, notarial acts etc.) can prove their origin. So, brothers and fellow-countrymen, your withdrawal from the project “Macedonia from Ohrid to the Black Sea” is on your expense. But the fact that you deny to accept YOUR OWN people in the limits of the country, Brussels would hardly forgive, so you’ll have for a long more time to look at the joining in the EU through a curved macaroni.
Well, there will be some more problems to decide later. For example, philologists and linguists would have to decide how to unify the new (Macedonian) alphabet, while the politicians would have to put much effort to calm down the wild spirits in Athens. But those are small worries as long as Brussels meets the expenses.
So, in the name of a future, filled with peace and understanding, let’s be ready to sacrifice some parts of the past, the whole past if it has to, or we just obtain a new nationality. Besides, due to the proverbial, since centuries, inconsistency of the fairer sex, it’s not clear at all, in what scale the questionable past and nationality are exactly “ours”.
Preparing the lecture: Oleg Airanov
2005
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