Scientific and intellectual fela in France – counterbalance to Macron’s (French) proposal and Bulgarian ultimatums
- The current French President Emmanuel Macron directly contributed to the adoption of the French proposal. Macron once emphasized that “justice for Bulgarian demands” is needed. But he and his “advocacy” for “justice for the Bulgarian demands” to turn the Macedonians into Bulgarians, and the Macedonian language into Bulgarian, are in fierce contrast with the unceasing deep scientific and intellectual tradition of his home country France, which for more than a century and a half has recognized, researched and affirmed in broad international frameworks the national and identity identity of the Macedonian people, their language, culture and history
- The “French Manifesto of Macedonianism” by the French and European writer and intellectual Henri Barbis has been radiating the truth about the uniqueness of the Macedonian people, identity and language in the middle of Europe and around the world for a whole hundred years. He concluded on a scientific research basis that Macedonians are really a nation. A nation that has its own original ethnic character, its own traditions, its own aspirations, its own unique and specific personality, wrote Barbis in his famous article “Is the Macedonian question really so complex?”, published on November 1, 1926.
On May 21, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova-Chamova, answering a parliamentary question in the Bulgarian parliament, categorically stated that Bulgaria will not allow renegotiation or circumvention of the negotiating framework and conditions contained in the French proposal of July 2022. Petrova-Chamova emphasized that “the progress of Skopje depends exclusively on the fulfillment of the obligations already undertaken and the European consensus reached”. The basic thesis in that French proposal and that negotiating framework is that neither a separate Macedonian language nor a separate Macedonian nation existed before 1944/1945, but that that nation and language are “contemporary”, that is, invented and newly created based on “Bulgarian foundations and roots”. Such falsifications and negative theses are based on the Bulgarian National Doctrine for the 21st Century, a strategic document from 1997/1998 of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN) and state institutions, which represents Bulgaria as the “spiritual center of all Bulgarians in the world” and which rejects any thought of the existence of Macedonians and the Macedonian language and identity, different from the Bulgarians, the Bulgarian language and identity.
The current French President Emmanuel Macron contributed to the adoption of the French proposal. Macron once emphasized that “justice for Bulgarian demands” is needed. But he and his “advocacy” for “justice for the Bulgarian demands” to turn the Macedonians into Bulgarians, and the Macedonian language into Bulgarian, are in fierce contrast with the unceasing deep scientific and intellectual tradition of his home country France, which for more than a century and a half has recognized, researched and affirmed in broad international frameworks the national and identity identity of the Macedonian people, their language, culture and history.
French scientific and intellectual doctrine highlights the existence of
authentic and indisputable Macedonian ethnic, identity, linguistic and historical separateness
Emmanuel Macron and the Bulgarian national doctrine for the 21st century against Macedonia and its identity features are opposed by a kind of French scientific and intellectual doctrine about the existence of an authentic and indisputable Macedonian ethnic, identity, linguistic and historical separateness. They are opposed by the French Manifesto of Macedonianism by the French and European writer and intellectual Henri Barbis, whose work has been radiating the truth about the uniqueness of the Macedonian people, identity and language in the middle of Europe and around the world for a hundred years.
– It is really about a nation. A nation that has its own original ethnic character, its own traditions, its own aspirations, its own unique and specific personality – wrote Barbis in his famous article “Is the Macedonian question really so complex?”, published on November 1, 1926.
In it, Barbis emphasized that the Macedonian population was historically rooted in Macedonia, but they were deprived of their basic national rights. Today, the Bulgarians falsely claim that the Macedonians are “a people without historical roots”, and Barbis clearly said the opposite a century ago. A hundred years ago, he spoke explicitly about the Macedonians as a separate nation, and not as part of another Balkan nation.
The head of Bulgarian diplomacy, Velislava Petrova-Chamova, spoke about the French proposal, the negotiating framework and the second protocol, according to which Macedonians do not have the right to call themselves Macedonians, thanks to Macron. On the other hand, on June 28, 1930, in the article “Enslaved People”, Henri Barbis wrote: “Macedonians, who have their own authentic special language and their own indisputable ethnic originality, do not even have the right to call themselves Macedonians.”
The work and views of the great French writer Henri Barbis radiate perhaps even more strongly today in the heart of political Europe, embodied in the EU, as a kind of French manifesto of Macedonianism against Bulgarian falsifications and denials, “concreting” the Macedonian truth about Macedonia, about the self-importance of the Macedonian people, Macedonian identity, language, culture and history. It would be very necessary and useful for Emmanuel Macron to get to know what his compatriot Barbis wrote and said a hundred years ago about Macedonia, Macedonians and the Macedonian language…
In the 19th century, the scientific, cultural and intellectual interest of France in the Macedonian people and its language-identity marks intensified.
But it is not only Henri Barbis who makes up the pro-Macedonian scientific and intellectual current in France: through the French travel writers, geographers and philologists in the 19th century, scientific, cultural and intellectual France’s interest in the Macedonian people and their language-identity marks, different from the marks of other Balkan and European nations, began to manifest and intensify. That interest, concretized in in-depth scientific research and published scientific studies and monographs, intensified in the period between the two world wars through distinguished Slavists and reached its peak after the Second World War with the official entry and establishment of Macedonian studies at the top French universities.
– The Slavic Macedonian language is a reality to such an extent that in the 19th century there existed a Macedonian literary language, a language of very little scholarly literature, but of abundant folk literature. There was no time to unify this literary language, based on speeches, which naturally differ a little from each other. However, its centers were Skopje, Tetovo, Ohrid, Bitola (Manastir), Voden, etc. – the French linguist and Macedonianist Andre Vajan wrote in 1938 in the study “The Problem of the Macedonian Slavs” regarding the existence and separateness of the Macedonian language, he also with arguments refuting all Bulgarian and everyone else’s claims that the Macedonian language was invented by Tito in 1944/1945.
One of the fiercest arguments of this top French and European linguist against such negative theses is the Macedonian dictionary from the 16th century, which he published together with Kyro Gjaneli, a professor at the University of Rome, Italy – a dictionary with more than 300 original Macedonian words and phrases, written in the 16th century by an unknown author, and published in 1958. The texts presented for analysis in this edition were produced by the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Paris in 1958. It is one of the earliest manuscripts written in the purely Macedonian vernacular, and its contents were collected from the village of Bogatsko, which is located in the region of the Kostur District, in southwestern Macedonia, today in Greece.
Macedonian words in the Macedonian dictionary from the 16th century
The French Slavist Andre Mazon, professor at the Collège de France and one of the greatest European Slavists of the 20th century, through his studies of Macedonian dialectology in the 1920s and 1930s, confirmed and testified to the European scientific public the uniqueness of the Macedonian dialects within the system of the Macedonian language. Mazon has several key scientific papers about Macedonia and the Macedonian language, in which he talks about “Slavic speeches, dialects” and not “Bulgarian speeches, dialects”, about “Slavic songs” and not about “Bulgarian songs”, as well as about “Slavic stories” and not about “Bulgarian stories”.
Mazon’s works are: (1) “Slavic stories from Southwestern Macedonia” – a study from 1923, dedicated to the speeches in Lerinsko and Kostursko (Greece), where he made a precise linguistic description of folklore texts, (2) “Documents, stories and Slavic songs from southern Albania” – a capital work from 1936, in which he investigates in detail the isolated and archaic Macedonian speeches in southern Albania, specifically in the villages of Boboshchitsa and Drenoveni, (3) “Kulaki Gospel, Slavic Dialect of Dolnovardarje” – a study written in 1938 in collaboration with Andre Wayan, in which he analyzes the “Kulaki Gospel” and describes the Dolnovardar Thessaloniki speech. The “Kulaki Gospel” is an extremely significant handwritten monument in the Macedonian vernacular written in 1863 in the town of Kulakia (today Halastra), Thessaloniki. It is written in the Greek alphabet (with Greek script), but linguistically it reflects the authentic Dolnovardar Macedonian speech from the Thessaloniki region.
Macedonian words in the Macedonian dictionary from the 16th century – four centuries before the political and pseudoscientific Sofia claimed that “Macedonian words are Bulgarian words”, because “the Macedonian language is a regional norm, a regional dialect of the Bulgarian language”!
French and Francophone scholars, historians, Balkanologists and linguists
they explicitly treat the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language as
separate historical, cultural and linguistic entity
Today, the peculiar French “Macedonian School” consists of French and Francophone scientists, historians, Balkanologists and linguists, who explicitly treat the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language as a separate historical, cultural and linguistic entity. Some of them do it directly, and some through academic analyzes of the Balkans, national identities and language policies. In March 2023, speaking at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Macedonian Language Lectureship in Paris, which functions within the prestigious National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO), Professor Dr. Vesna Mojsova-Chepishevska, then in her capacity as director of the International Seminar on Macedonian Language, Literature and Culture, pointed to the researches and published articles of French philologists on the Macedonian language from the period between the two world wars, before his codification.
– In the foundations of this Macedonian lectureship is also a previous, extremely significant, uninterrupted scientific interest in the Macedonian language in French philology. It was that lectureship that became the starting point of the new presence of the Macedonian language, literature and culture in France – stressed Dr. Mojsova-Chepishevska.
Saint Toevski
