Dimitar Rizov speaks about his Macedonian nationality, 1912

1912

Bulgarian statesman Dimitar Rizov on his nationality

…In the golden months of the successful beginning of the war against the Turks, he spoke to me as a convinced Yugoslav (South Slav). He explained to me, I being a Croat, the real situation of matters in Macedonia and said that it was shame that the first free Slav state had not been founded in Macedonia, which would equally attract to union the Bulgarians and the Serbs, and would be a bond and not a cause of discord between the Serbs and the Bulgarians…He told me that the Macedonians, to tell the objective truth, were neither Bulgarians nor Serbs, but Macedonian Slavs who spoke in their own individual Macedonian language or dialect. …”Our people”, he said, “were only ‘Macedonian Christians,’ and then, when Greek propaganda developed they become ‘Macedonian Christian Slavs’. It was all the same to us which Christian country would help us to free ourselves from the Turks. I was born in Bitola. There were several grammar-schools in Bitola: Turkish, Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian. It was all the same to us, the Slavs, which Slav grammar-school we attended. For example, alongside many of my friends who later became Bulgarians, I attended the Serbian grammar-school. It is true that the teachers in the grammar-school told we were Serbs, just as those in the Bulgarian grammar-school were told that we were Bulgarians, but we kept our own counsel, and that was what our parents told us at home: it does not matter, let them talk, but we are Macedonian Christian Slavs…”

Taken from Ivan Meshtrovic, famous Croatian sculptor, Uspomene na politichke ljude i dogagjaje. Zagreb 1969, pages 25-26 and 39.