Krste Misirkov

“The Macedonian national feeling and national awareness are as old as the Bulgarian and the Serbian are.”

“We will be Macedonians rather than Bulgarians, but Macedonians with a self-consciousness other than your Serbian-national one, with a historical past of our own, with a literary language of our own, alongside the Bulgarian one, with a Macedonian-Bulgarian national school of our own, with a national church of our own, in which the national and religious sentiment of Macedonia is not offended by the face and spirit of Serbian saints such as 'St. Sava'.”

“We have hitherto been called Bulgarians, this is what we are called today and what we want to be called in future.”

“The Macedonian national revival ... is basically the result of the competition between Bulgaria and Serbia over the Macedonian question.”

“Finally, many people will point out that our greatest misfortune is that we have no local Macedonian patriotism. If there were patriotism in Macedonia, we would think and work only for Macedonia. But now some of us still consider ourselves Bulgarian and link our interests with those of Bulgaria instead of studying our own country, Macedonia ...”

“If it is officially acknowledged that there are not several Slav nationalities in Macedonia, but only one, which is neither Bulgarian nor Serbian, and if Macedonia secedes as an independent Bishopric, Turkey will be immediately freed from interference in Macedonian affairs by the three neighboring states.”

“What sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians? ... Macedonian as a nationality has never existed, they will say, and it does not exist now. There have always been two south Slav nationalities in Macedonia: Bulgarian and Serbian. So, any kind of Macedonian Slav revival is simply the empty concern of a number of fanatics who have no concept of South Slav history.”

“From the Macedonian point of view, the unification of all Macedonia with Bulgaria, Serbia or Greece is not desirable, but neither is it particularly frightening.”

“We Macedonians are Turkish subjects and interested in maintaining the unity of Turkey ... the Macedonian intelligentsia, if they examine their own interests, should for their own sake and the sake of their people devote all their moral strength to the prime task of maintaining the unity of Turkey.”

“I am a Macedonian. I write in the central Macedonian dialect, which from now on I shall always consider the Macedonian literary language.”

“I have no intention of politicizing in the Bulgarian fashion. I am a Macedonian and this is how I see the position of my country: it is not Russia or Austria-Hungary that are the enemies of Macedonia, but Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia. Our country can be saved from ruin only by struggling fiercely against these states.”