Macedonian State-National Concepts and ... - Makedonika

Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, and building the vision of the future
of this people and their homeland upon concepts and programmes of their own.
The intelligentsia among the Macedonians abroad can also be divided into two
basic types: those who were brought up in neighbouring countries, which
aspired to the legacy remaining after the disintegration of Turkey in the Balkans,
and those who lived and worked in other European and non-European
countries, where they had better opportunities and greater freedom to develop
their ideas and actions concerning Macedonian national liberation.
Owing to all these circumstances, it is difficult to speak of the Macedonian
intelligentsia as a homogeneous class in Macedonian society, and even less as a
united national-political section of the people with a joint ideological and national
liberation platform.
The stratification in the united body of the Macedonian people could especially
be felt following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Congress of Berlin,
and following the unsuccessful Kresna Uprising and the quenching of the hopes
aroused in the liberation mission of the Russian army. Religious division of the
people also encouraged ethnic confrontation, strongly instigated by the propaganda
machines and tolerated by the Turks. Hence of particular significance were
the manifestations of Macedonian consciousness expressed through the activity
of various societies, committees and circles in Macedonia in the 1880s and 1890s,
and especially among the émigrés, where a large number of Macedonian associations
were founded, trying to help and be of service to their homeland and their
people.
1.
Macedonian national thought emerged in the 1840s, and in the 1870s the main
points of the national programme of the Macedonians were already formulated.
Even though it tried to base its concept on the ancient Macedonian state-constitutional
tradition and culture, the Macedonian movement could not but rely on Slavic
history and envisaged its prospects as part of the Slavic world. Hence the strong
anti-Hellenic disposition in Macedonia and the interest in the Slavophile tendencies
launched by Russia.
Slavic thought in Macedonia had a long tradition and was connected with the
Slavonic and Orthodox Middle Ages, with the Archbishopric of Ohrid and in
particular with Mount Athos, as well as with the permanent strengthening of the
power and influence of Orthodox and Slavic Russia, which directed its interests
towards the Bosphorus and the Balkans. This orientation was further intensified
after the liberation of Serbia, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria (with the invariable
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