REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Milen MIHOV: Bulgaria and the Bulgarians in the Ideology of Yugoslav Communists 271
The establishment of communist Yugoslavia follows the state model of the Soviet
federation and reproduces the Bolshevist examples of artificially created nations. The
modeling of national consciousness is implemented under the conditions of communist
dictatorship which in the first years after the war follows closely Stalin’s government
model. The comprehensive system of political control and repressions imposed in Vardar
Macedonia is combined with broader policy of national building [2] [viii]. The
proclamation of Vardar Macedonia as a national state of the Macedonians demands the
construction of the historical past of the “Macedonian nation” through expedient
falsification of history [6] [ix] and with it the invention of “Macedonian” literary
language as a basis of the new cultural identity[4] [x].
The main edge of the ideologically formulated Macedonism is directed against Bulgaria
as a state and the Bulgarians as an ethnic notion. Throughout the period of the communist
government in Vardar Macedonia within the boundaries of Yugoslavia everything that is
Bulgarian is being marked as incompatible with the communist ideal. The term
“bugarash” which is used for the Bulgarians is a synonym of fascist and is the most
severe social stigma. In this sense the statement of the famous writer from Skopje Mladen
Sarbinovski is very eloquent: “the bad demon for us was Bulgaria and if it did not existed,
they would have invented it for us” [11] [xi].
The beginning of the constitution of Vardar Macedonia as a union republic in New
Yugoslavia was the Ant-fascist Meeting for National Liberation of Macedonia
(AMNLM) on August 2, 1944 in “St. Prohor Pcinjski” Monastery. The meeting is an
important step in the “Macedonian policy” of YCP aiming at predetermining the fate of
the contested zone and imposing the Yugoslav demands of Bulgaria and the allies from
the ant-Hitler coalition [9][xii].
The first session of AMNLM adopted seven decisions, Declaration for the rights of the
citizens of democratic Macedonia and Manifesto to the Macedonian nation, the
nationalities in Macedonia and the Macedonian emigration. One can observe that in all
documents the term “Bulgarians” is not used but the definitions “Bulgarian” are always
used with other pejorative forms. This is a clear confrontation between the Bulgarian,
which is a symbol of ultra conservatism and the Macedonian which is the reborn new.
Each manifestation of Bulgarian identity is defined as a betrayal to the “Macedonian
nation” and proof of collaboration with “fascist enslavers”. Despite the different
biographies and political fates the eminent Bulgarians Iv. Mihaylov, D. Chkatrov, Sp.
Kitinchec, D. Gyuzelev and K. Tsipushev are condemned as “traitors and enslavers”
[xiii].
Assuming the right of supreme legislative and executive authority AMNLM proclaims
the entry of Macedonia within the boundaries of Federal Yugoslavia. The goal pursued by
YCP requires historical arguments which being deprived of reality searches for its
grounds in intentional imagination. The ideas of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians declared in
the documents during the next decades become an ideological framework of state
propaganda including historiography. Semi-official publications in the new Yugoslav
republic must build the “scientific” arguments of political spells invented by the
communist functionaries during the World War II.
The need to forget turns into compulsory condition for political loyalty and public
realization in the coming decades. Full “passages” from the Macedonian history are
doomed to silent oblivion and dozens of persons and events have been turned into a
taboo. The new identity is based mainly on a part of the Bulgarian history. In the