Bulgaria claims that the Macedonian language is a dialect of the Bulgarian language, and the history of Macedonia is a part and parcel of the history of Bulgaria. According to the Bulgarian view of the Macedonian Question, there are no "Macedonians" or "Thracians", for there are no "Macedonian" or "Thracian" individual nations, but only Slavo-Bulgarians - in short, there is "only one Bulgarian people and one Bulgarian language" in the region including Bulgaria proper, all three parts of Macedonia and even Thrace.32

The current position of Bulgaria with regard to the Macedonian Question was established in 1968. According to the Bulgarian thesis, there is no Macedonian nation, and "the Macedonian Question is nothing but a repercussion of the intrigues of imperialist powers in the Balkans". This thesis, expounded by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in a document in November 1968, is mostly still held today with the exception of its Bulgarian Communist Party wording. According to that document:

"A separate Macedonian nation does not exist. The Macedonians are a part of the Bulgarian nation. Not only the people of Pirin Macedonia, but also the people of Vardar Macedonia are of Bulgarian origin. Macedonia is not an ethnic, but a geographical concept. The Serbian bourgeoisie, when they failed to Serbianize the Bulgarian people in Macedonia, put forward the thesis that Macedonians were neither Serbian nor Bulgarian but "Macedon". The Communist Party of Yugoslavia stood as the follower of the same thesis. There is not a Macedonian minority within the borders of Bulgaria, and there is not a Macedonian language. What is spoken in the Republic of Macedonia is a Bulgarian dialect influenced somewhat from the Serbian language."

However, this statement came over 20 years after the 10th Plenum of the Bulgarian Communist Party had decided, among other things, that Pirin Macedonia would be tied to Vardar Macedonia in a Balkan Socialist Federal Republic scheme, and the Macedonian language, literature and history be taught in Pirin Macedonia. Even the development of Macedonian consciousness in the people living in that region had been encouraged for nearly a decade.

Within the framework of these decisions, the Bulgarian government had sent 135 teachers to the language and history courses opened in the Federal Republic of Macedonia and 93 Macedonian teachers came to Pirin Macedonia. However, after Tito's break with Stalin, the Bulgarian-Yugoslavian friendship carne to an end, and all the Macedonian schools in the Pirin region were closed and the Macedonian teachers were sent back.

The Macedonians in Bulgaria and their present situation

Bulgarian policy has aimed at slowly assimilating the Macedonian minority. Before Bulgarian law, public acknowledgment of Macedonian identity was forbidden and subject to punishment. The Bulgarian Communist Party exerted great efforts to inculcate Bulgarian national consciousness in the Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia. Although in January 1992 Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, it did not recognize the Macedonian nation.

However, Bulgaria had previously recognized a distinct Macedonian nationality in the census of 1946, which recorded that 70 per cent of the people in Pirin Macedonia were Macedonians. The December 1956 census recorded that there were 187,789 Macedonians in Bulgaria, and Macedonians constituted 63.7 per cent of the population of Pirin Macedonia, and 2.46 per cent of the population of all Bulgaria.

The December 1965 census officially declared there were only 9,632 Macedonians in Bulgaria, constituting 0.12 per cent of the population. This was the last Bulgarian census providing information on the number of Macedonians in Bulgaria. In the last census of 1985, in line with the policy of creating a "uniform Bulgarian nation", the Macedonians, like Turks and other minorities in Bulgaria, were recorded as Bulgarian.

The Macedonians in Bulgaria are located in the south-western corner of Bulgaria, in the Pirin region (Blagoevgrad District). Their population is estimated at around 230,000 to 250,000. This estimate is the result of the declaration of Macedonian national awareness during the two official censuses in Bulgaria after World War II.

In the census of 1985, in which "ethnic origin" information was not included, the total number of inhabitants in the District of Blagoevgrad, ie "Pirin Macedonia", was stated to be 345,942.33

According to the information given by the Independent Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Sofia:

"After the ouster of Jivkov from power in November 1989 and the following free elections in Bulgaria, though substantial steps were taken towards democratization, Macedonian organizations which are not in line with the official Bulgarian policy on the Macedonian issue continued to be subject to suppression."

"Stoyan Georgiev, the President of the OMO-Ilinden, has had no right to travel abroad since October 1990 when his passport was confiscated. He [had] attended the CSCE Human Dimension meeting in Copenhagen in 1990. The participants of the CSCE Moscow meeting in September 1991 were treated in the same way. The main independent Macedonian organizations, OMO-Ilinden and IMRO-Independent, remain unregistered by the court, and are in fact illegal despite the fact that there are no anti-constitutional articles in their documents. Active members of OMO-Ilinden are dismissed because of their membership and are unemployed for long periods, for example Todor Bykov from the village Samuilovo, Petrich District."

"Macedonian celebrations on historical dates are regularly blocked by the official authorities, if necessary with security and military forces. On 22 April 1991, OMO-Ilinden tried to commemorate the date of the murder of Yane Sandanski near the Rojen monastery. Guests were invited from Macedonian organizations in USA and Canada. The representative of the then Macedonian vice-president Ljupcho Georgievski also attended the celebration. They were denied access to electric power and all videotapes of the event were confiscated from the foreign guests without civilized explanation. At the same time, inspired by the Bulgarian State Security, pro-Bulgarian "Macedonian" organizations are totally facilitated by the authorities and favoured in the media."

"On 2 August 1991 near the town of Bansko, Macedonian organizations tried to celebrate the Ilinden Revolt (1903). All vehicles carrying the Macedonians who wished to participate in the celebration were stopped by security and military troops which surrounded the area and blocked all the ways to the place of the event."

"Macedonians are denied the right to learn the Macedonian language in schools, which they claim to be different from the Bulgarian."

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