The Macedonian Knot

The Macedonian Knot

Pay attention that this is from 1900.

(Pages 101 to 103 from the book “The Macedonian Knot” by Hans Lothar-Steppan)

A Bulgarian document dated 1900 was discovered in Germany which is of immense importance for Macedonia.

According to Hans Lothar-Steppan, in December 1909 the German Ambassador to Serbia came across a document which he forwarded to his Department of Foreign Affairs. The document, dated 1900, was a report the Bulgarian Government had sent to their Bulgarian representative in Belgrade, Serbia. The report detailed Serbian activities with regard to disseminating “stimulation for division” information in the Serbian sphere on influence inside Macedonia. In other words, the Bulgarians were concerned about Serbia’s approach to informing the Macedonian people regarding the partitioning their country.

In part, the report reads as follows:

“We have indisputable evidence from events that have occurred in the last few years that a vast majority of the Christian population in Macedonia will greet the division of Macedonia with hostility. Their own desires are very simple, they want:

1. Guarantees for their personal security,
2. Private property rights,
3. The right of freedom so that they can live in peace and run their own affairs in peace, and
4. Enjoy their rights as equal citizens of the Ottoman State in accordance with international treaties and the laws of the Ottoman Empire.

Any attempt at division will cause great dissatisfaction among the Macedonians which will not only bring diplomatically damaging repercussions for us inside Macedonia but will disturb the entire peace in the Balkans and may provoke conflicts that will spill over into Bulgaria as well as into Serbia.
A few years ago, when we posed the question of division in our sphere of influence, we experienced protests and hostilities from the Macedonian people. They adamantly fought against any division of Macedonia and insisted that they did not want to be under anyone’s guardianship or tutelage.
The idea of self-determination in a separate state has become very popular very quickly among the Macedonian people and any attempts for kinship with other Balkan States will be met with resistance.”
This is a rare text which has preserved the idea that the Macedonian people were not just simply victims of their aggressive neighbors but hints that there was a certain negotiation between them.
We are left with the impression that the Macedonian people were simply the object of imperial greed, victims of their Christian neighbors, a tragedy of history, but seventy-eight years later, after their county was partitioned, even as a small part of what they were, they again appear as Macedonians.

Every sentence in the above text expresses the Macedonian sentiment of the time:

1. The hostility of the Macedonian people against any division,
2. The desire for self-determination under the name Macedonia was manifested even before 1900,
3. Any attempts at dividing Macedonia would provoke the greatest dissatisfaction and conflict,
4. No peace and stability for Bulgaria or Serbia, and
5. The refusal of Macedonians into any kind of kinship with any of the Balkan States.

This document, without a doubt, is clear evidence of Macedonian desire for self- determination.

NOTES of interest:

1. Even though it was well known to all the Balkan nations that the Macedonians harbored desires for independence and had no desires to be annexed by Greece, Bulgaria or Serbia, their Christian brothers the Greeks, Bulgarian and Serbians took them from one servitude to another. It was their plan all along to liberate them from the Ottomans and subjugate them, forcing them to vanish from history.
What is worse is that they almost succeeded were it not for the “spirit of time” and that the world no longer lives in “imperial times” but in times of human and minority rights. Unfortunately, the same States who didn’t hesitate to partition Macedonia in the first place still follow the Turkish Rules of deception which they learned very well and to this day are practicing them on European Governments and World institutions.
Case and point: Greece is well versed with history yet it doesn’t hesitate to play the role of a victim when it comes to the Macedonian question, accusing the Macedonians of stealing their State, State name, and State symbols!
Even in the 21st century, the same actors, to this day, still tell the same lies plotting and scheming against the Macedonians. They do this with contempt for international law which demonstrates to the democratic powers in the West, specifically the United Nations and the European Union of how weak their executive power is, when it comes to enforcing western standards and values. Isn’t it time they put an end to this?

2. People born from such a disadvantage feel tragically powerless; beaten down by history and robbed of their quality and innocence.
Imagine if this Bulgarian document became available to the world not in 1909 but in 1900 when it was written and if the world knew the Macedonian peoples’ desire for freedom and independence. Would the West, Europe and Russia have reacted differently? Would the Illinden uprising of 1903 been supported and would it have succeeded?
Most certainly the Macedonian people would have risen and regained their ethnic territory with its old ethnic borders in which they lived for at least fourteen hundred years. The Macedonian question would have been settled peacefully. The Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 with all their injustices would not have taken place and would not have provoked new injustices. The Macedonian people would have achieved their total independence much earlier and would not have had to wait until 1989/90 to achieve only partial independence.
Unfortunately, this history cares not for rights and laws much less for Justice.
Bulgarians, Greeks and Albanians have written history in their own nationalistic and egoistic interests, which is not right. Only through Western Power intervention can the falsification of history be rectified and the damage done be repaired.

3. The words, as they were written in the Bulgarian document in 1900, hold true today as they did then and that is Macedonians want:

1. Guarantees for their personal security,
2. Private property rights,
3. The right of freedom so that they can live in peace and run their own affairs in peace, and
4. Enjoy their rights as equal citizens in their own State in accordance with international treaties and the world laws.

Macedonians of the early 20th century possessed the wisdom to desire peace, not conquest, and to live free in their own homeland. Today’s Macedonians, in the author’s opinion still want the same things.
The Macedonians are the only people in the Balkans who have learned their lessons from centuries of servitude to power-thirsty imperialists and who have no intention of repeating 19th and 20th century practices in the 21st century.
Should the Balkan experts wish to correct the problems in the Balkans they must first start by righting the past wrongs. They must give the Macedonians consideration for what they stand for and for their high moral qualities.
In response to the statement that Macedonians hate the Moslems for the five-hundred years of Ottoman occupation, which some believe ignited the war in Bosnia, Chris Voss writes, in his opinion this hate “is present less in Macedonia because of the long tradition of ethnic tolerance and because of the apparently lower ‘ecumenical identity’ than with Orthodox neighbors Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria.”
Macedonian tolerance was the same then as it is now in the 21st century both inside and outside of the Republic of Macedonia.
As the old saying goes; even the best behaved man cannot live in peace if his neighbor is evil.
So the real question is; should the European Union continue to turn a blind eye to untruths and injustices or do something about it to remove them?