Macedonian State-National Concepts and ... - Makedonika

Americans “with our ethnic and historical rights”, i.e. “with our ethnographic
borders and our goals in this bloody struggle”. The following instructions were
given:
14.
With the purpose of making it possible, at least from now on, for our writers and
journalists as well as ordinary citizens to have consistent and definite views in private
conversations of the ethnographic borders of our people, and also of our other
ethnographic, ethnic and national questions, it is my honour, Mr Envoy, to invite
the professors of our university, Dr CvijiÚ, Dr BeliÚ, Dr ÛeriÚ, Dr RadonjiÚ and
Dr StanojeviÚ, and request them together to draw up the ethnographic borders of
our three-named people in all the regions, paying special attention to the borderline
with the Bulgarians and Greeks, where the most frequent errors are being made.
Yet more and more information arrived concerning the opinion of the Macedonians
themselves about their future following the war. Serbian representatives
could also feel this. It was not by chance that as early as the spring of 1918 the
allies started once more to use the ‘Macedonian question’ and Bulgaria’s aspirations
on the approaching end of the war. As a result, on March 2, 1918, the Serbian
diplomatic representative in London, Jovan JovanoviÚ, proposed to his government
that it should not only leave nothing to Bulgaria under any condition, but that it
should accept the border line of 1912 and demand that the people from the
“disputed zone” vote in a referendum whether they wanted to go with the Serbs or
Bulgarians. What is particularly interesting, JovanoviÚ suggested that “autonomy
be proposed for Macedonia (the old vilayets — Bitola and Salonika — the latter
without the Veles district)”, and that “the question be put before scholarly arbitration
or before a mixed special commission”.
It is interesting that as early as 1917, in the negotiations with the Entente
concerning a separate peace with Bulgaria through the mediation of the Exarchate
metropolitan Stephen, it was agreed that “Macedonia should be proclaimed an
autonomous region with Salonika as its capital, under the protectorship of America”.
A similar proposal was made by the Macedonian Bombolov in London, in
July 1918, for the autonomy of Macedonia, and the idea was accepted favourably
by the British as well.
In August 1918, special representatives of the American president Wilson
arrived in Bitola to become acquainted with the ethnography of the population on
the spot. Here we must take into account the claims of Greece which were
expressed through several concrete actions in Macedonia. PašiÚ’s minimal and
maximal claims to Macedonia from April that year seemed to be called into
question. Coming out against “the public discussion of the Macedonian question”,
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