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I will post a few examples now and update the list on the first post as more information is added. Anybody who wants to contribute, feel free. There are instances where people of Macedonia and Bulgaria worked together and were friendly towards each other. Nobody is denying that. But there are also many examples where that was not the case. This thread will demonstrate that.
1871 - The condescending article of Bulgarian publicist Petko Slaveikov regarding the Macedonians expressing their identity. A short excerpt below, the full article can be found here: http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...ight=slaveikov
1886 - Macedonians murder Bulgarian politicians. More here: http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...70&postcount=1
1903 - Bulgarian authorities taking measures against Macedonian revolutionaries, seizing their weapons and firing at them. More here: http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...12&postcount=3
1903 - Letter from the Bulgarian Exarch to the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Sofia regarding concerns over Macedonians obtaining their own church. More here: http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...8&postcount=26
2000 - The treatment of the indigenous Macedonian population in Bulgaria when they've attempted to establish a political party. More here: http://macedonianhr.org.au/contents/131
2011 - Bulgar NGO in Macedonia shamelessly mixing our historical figures with Bulgars and insisting that Macedonians declare as such in the census. More here: http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...ebels+bulgaria
1871 - The condescending article of Bulgarian publicist Petko Slaveikov regarding the Macedonians expressing their identity. A short excerpt below, the full article can be found here: http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...ight=slaveikov
We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians but Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, and we have always waited to hear some proofs of this, but we have never heard them. The Macedonists have never shown us the bases of their attitude. They insist on their Macedonian origin, which they cannot prove in any satisfactory way.
Occasional riots took place between Russian partisans and the supporters of the Bulgarian Government, but on the whole the elections passed off without any serious disturbance, except at Dubnitsa, where two deputies and a prefect were murdered by Macedonians.
Advices received here from Sofia say the Bulgarian Government is taking active measures against Macedonian bands and has seized a large quantity of their arms which were hidden in Sofia. Bulgarian gendarmes on the frontier near Dubnitsa have fired on insurgents who were attempting to smuggle guns into Turkey.
“...We need to bear in mind that in an autonomous Macedonia the survival of the Holy Bulgarian Exarchate would be called into question, even if it remains there as a religious institution. In any case the question will also arise about her name “Bulgarian Exarchate”, because as “Bulgarian” it can not be a base for the unification of the “Srbomans” and “Grkomans”, which is the basic aim of the “Internals” [VMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization)]. Thus, the Holy Bulgarian Exarchate will have to give up the holiest and to identify with another name, which will reflect the political government of autonomous Macedonia, in fact it will have to identify as “Macedonian”. We consider that this will not be the end of the transformation process. Turkey herself, if she consents to an autonomous Macedonia, will insist that the religious question be solved along the same basis, in that way to end future encroachment of the neighbouring Balkan states, in the first place the Principality, as the most dangerous to her. In that situation, the road leads towards the renewal of the Ohrid Archbishopric, an idea [ideal] which since long ago has been circulating in the heads of some “separatists”, among whom there are bishops, such as the likes of former Skopje bishop the Reverend Theodosius...”
At present the Bulgarian state does not recognise the existence of a distinct Macedonian ethnic group and has actively pursued policies to suppress individuals and organisations expressing such an identity. One such organisation is OMO "Ilinden" PIRIN, a political party founded on 28 February 1998 and based in south-west Bulgaria, in the Pirin region. On 29 February 2000 the Bulgarian Constitutional Court declared the party unconstitutional and dissolved it. However in 2005 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the ban was in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered the immediate re-registration of the party. Since that judgement, the party has tried on no less than three separate occasions to reconstitute itself, however all applications have been rejected by Bulgarian authorities.
The motto of the video, which features major Bulgarian historical figures from Macedonia such as St. Kliment Ohridski (author of the Cyrillic alphabet), medieval Bulgarian Tsar Samuil, Farther Paisiy Hilendarski (author of Bulgaria's first history), revolutionary Gotse Delchev, among others, as well as Bulgaria's Apostle of Freedom Vasil Levski, is "Ancestors' Memory Calling". The campaign further poses the question, "All of them were Bulgarians. What about you?"
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