Spas Tashev - Preface

"Tell me, please, what would England do, if just like
Bulgaria had population not bigger than six million
and if the Channel was not broader than the Danube?"

Mr. Earl, American Minister in Sofia to Mr. Rendel,
the English Minister on the occasion of Mr. Rendel's
accusation to the Bulgarian alliance with Germany.

The events in the Balkans, connected with the German invasion of 6 April 1941 and the subsequent collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had been barely treated objectively and impartially. People who were interested in this problem were compelled to draw their conclusions on the basis of ideologically biased Cold War Eastern and Western publications. Due to the shortage of previous objective analyses in early 1990s the world public opinion was unprepared to understand the nature of the "sudden" break-up of bitter intra-Yugoslavian conflicts . In general it failed to react promptly to the erupted violence in Bosnia and some Serbian-claimed parts of Croatia not the least because of the misleading and bias generated and successfully spread by the exceptionally active Serbo-Yugoslavian propaganda abroad. Yet presently there is a growing interest in South-East European affairs, demonstrated by the increasing number of publications on the region.

The books and articles by the Amnesty International investigator Hugh Poulton on the Macedonian question could be singled out as the indicative example of the recent tendencies. In 1991 he wrote: "Pro-Bulgarian sentiment had meant that the partisans, the Yugoslav … [Communist resistance movement lead by Tito, initially had some difficulties in spreading to Macedonia, but the situation changed after the visit in Skopje of the Tito's assistant Vukmanovich-Tempo, and after te end of 1943 the partisans increased their popularity because of the Bulgarian repressions which allienated the population. In 1944 the Bulgarian troops began to retreat before the partisans, and in the September 1944 Bulgaria changed the system and joined the victorious states. The Bulgarian occupation of 1941-1944 destroyed the illusions of many, but] not most Yugoslav Macedonians, but there remained a residual pro-Bulgarian sentiment" [1]. However, even this objective analysis was to a certain extent influenced by the Yugoslavian literature spread in the West (and by the deficiency of the available Bulgarian sources): the introduction of his book was written by the famous former Yugoslavian communist - Milovan Gilas. Hence, the careful and informed reader would be hardly surprised not to find a singe line on the post-1945 fate of the people with Bulgarian ethnic consciousness in the Yugoslavian region that was labelled as the "Socialist Republic of Macedonia". Four years later Poulton wrote a second book - "Who are the Macedonians ?" Now he had consulted not only Yugoslavian but also Bulgarian literature, published after the democratic changes of 1989. Therefore he was able to present more objective and balanced analysis of the Macedonian question; e.g. the post-1945 repression against people with Bulgarian consciousness was illuminated. [2]

Hence, this publication should be understood as part of the outlined tendency. It is aimed to expound an aspect of recent history which was either unknown or treated in line with the Skopie-Belgrade history writers and their distorted Serb-Macedonist version. The following pages are supposed to inform the general reader interested in Balkan affairs and contribute to a more balanced views and opinions on questions that are - paradoxically enough - both controversial and unknown.

1. Hugh Poulton, The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict, London 1991, p. 48-49.