Bulgaria, Macedonia, Sign Historic Friendship Treaty
By Sinisa Jakov Marusic
Neighbours Macedonia and Bulgarian on Tuesday signed a landmark friendship treaty that aims to turn their long-ambiguous relationship into a close, EU-oriented partnership.
The treaty signed in Skopje on Tuesday by Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his visiting Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borissov, envisages Bulgarian support for Macedonia’s bid to join the NATO and EU, the improvement of trade and transport infrastructure and the easing of customs and border formalities.
The deal recognises both countries’ territorial integrity, envisages the establishment of a commission that will try to resolve their differing views of history, and contains a pledge to protect the rights of the other country’s nationals living on their soil – but not to interfere in the other’s domestic affairs.
“The treaty is a historic step forward for Macedonia and Bulgaria that shows that the past can be a basis for future cooperation,” Zaev told media after the signing ceremony.
Borissov, who was given the highest-level state and military reception, told journalists that the treaty shows that even in the turbulent Balkans, “problems can be solved through agreements and without foreign mediators” – an outcome which he said deserves high praise from Brussels.
It all started with the uneducated goat herder writing poetry about his village. Georgi Pulevski claimed that he was a direct decendent of Alexander the Great. I tend to think he was a decendent of Alexander the Goat. Like Ljubčo Georgievski he had an about face and claimed to be Bulgarian. In fact he stated he regretted not being able to execute the unification of Bulgaria and Ottoman Macedonia. Antiquization was replaced by a pan Slavic united Bulgaria. Georgi Pulevski went from being a goat herder to a stonemason to a founder of Macedonism to a Bulgaphile upon his death. Goergievski and Pulevski are similar in this regard. They both renounced their new found religion and came to their senses. With the death of the uneducated stonemason the Bulgarians of Vardar Macedonia were cured until the unimaginable happened – TITO. A half caste Croat/Slovene redefines the Bulgarians of Vardar Banovina as Macedonians. The Diaspora left their little villages with a suitcase and a story. Tito’s story. Just when it couldn’t get any worse Todov and his deluded intellectuals addicted to Pulevski poetry brainwash their population. FYROM is born. Gruevski is the second coming of Pulevski.
The ethnic Bulgarian will always be the ethnic Bulgarian. The ethnic Greek will always be an ethnic Greek. Language defines both of us. The Antiquization story is flawed. This why FYROM today has failed. Let’s not nation build on an uneducated stonemason. Read his work as a literary piece rather than a historical piece. Be proud of your Bulgarian ethnicity and don’t allow historical distortions. You are what you speak and the FYROMIAN Slavs speak Bulgarian.