The snow fell lightly but accumulation was evident on the elevated border of Macedonia and Bulgaria last weekend. Up out of the valleys and heading toward the higher climes of western Bulgaria, the roads were icy and snow half of foot thick sat on pine tree branches. It was my first time seeing snow this season. We wound down into the country through no highway of any kind, but a meandering road that after a couple of hours had us in the suburbs of the capital, Sofia. I hadn’t actually been to Sofia in five years, so going back was exhilarating for me. I recall my first allowed exit out of Macedonia as a PCV with five friends in 2003. We came to Sofia and were, after isolation in small villages and towns for six months, thrilled to see a grand city. Not to mention the Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Pizza Hut…I was back on a couple of occasions after that, the last being New Year’s Eve 2004.
Entering Sofia on a wintry Saturday night by bus I saw the lights of the city on and people about. The large communist built apartment blocks looked more friendly than usual and I was admittedly pleased to see a “Makedonska Skara (Grill)” with the Sun of Vergina as we made our way to the center. Having had a nearly five hour bus ride and upon checking into my hotel, I went for a much needed stroll. In restaurants and bars there was a bustle, but the streets were serene in the center and I wandered around the government buildings, admiring and comparing them to Skopje. Seeing the “Narodno Sobranie”, administrative, and court buildings, one truly feels they’re in a capital city. These buildings pre-date communism, so they have a character unseen in Skopje, which lost most of its pre-SFRY architecture in the great earthquake of 1963. Though it was never such a big city as Sofia to begin with.
Hearing the Bulgarian tongue though reminds me of the Slavic linguistic continuum that is SE Europe. I understand a decent deal, in fact, because I was a PCV in eastern Macedonia, on the border with Bulgaria, and where the dialect sounds much more like what’s spoken in Sofia than Skopje. “Moga” instead of “moze”, “dobre” instead of “dobro”, “tuh-ka” instead of “ta-ka”, “vonka” instead of “nadvor”. It also all reminds me how relevant politics are to demarcating borders, political & cultural. For while people in E. Macedonia may speak similar to Bulgarians, I never heard anyone there claim to be Bulgarian. Although some may have been a century ago, strong assimilation efforts by both Soviet-led Bulgaria and Yugoslav Macedonia sought to separate these peoples and give them a new national identity.
Yet that legacy lives on. As my colleague and I made our way to Plovdiv earlier this week, we had plenty of time in the car to talk. We were speaking about the name issue in Macedonia, which as I’ve written about, is big and ongoing news. With the EU giving the country the yellow light to begin accession talks, they’ll only get the green once they settle the name dispute with Greece. My take has always been that Macedonia has the right to call itself whatever it wants—they’re entitled to self-determination. History may be another story, but the present is what should matter most. Yet I gathered from the conversation last night that Bulgarians have a different take on things, and while maybe not siding with the Greeks, have ongoing issues of their own with Macedonia. Although the latter a century back was more of a geographical region inhabited by people who called themselves Bulgarians, Serbs, and so on (though that's not to say there was no sense of Macedonian identity), Yugoslav nationalism created the Macedonian ethnicity that characterizes the country today. Many Macedonians may have in recent years gotten Bulgarian passports for the advantages they offer, but I reckon few would say they’re actually Bulgarian. Regardless, while it’s been an obvious ploy to get Macedonians back on the Bulgarian side, I never heard the Bulgarian take on it until this week. And what I heard was that it’s hypocrisy for people to take the passports but not call themselves Bulgarian—which is exactly what the Bulgarian government wants to see, I’m sure.
We also broached on the topic of the famous “Macedonian revolutionary” Goce Delchev (I lived as a Peace Corps volunteer in a town re-named after him—Delchevo). What I learned though was that he’s not seen as Macedonian here, but a Bulgarian who fought against the Turks to liberate these South Slavic lands. (A Greek in Thessaloniki told me the same in a quarrel I had many years ago at the “Museum of Macedonia” there). Indeed, Delchev was from the Pirin part of Macedonia in SW Bulgaria, and while he was initially entombed in Sofia after his death, his body was moved in 1946 to Skopje to help Tito foster the Macedonian national identity.
Yet the fact of the matter is that Bulgaria does have some issues with Macedonia, though some fair points. As far as the former, they pretty much consider the Macedonian language to be Bulgarian (and given that I can converse in the two lends credence to their similarity, though I again attest to the region begin better characterised as a continuum than just two languages), and that they amusingly comment that any differences in Macedonian are the result of Serbian or “dialekt”. There does seems to be a continual joking about this and other geographical aspects of the region though that really makes me realize that Macedonia is seen in very different eyes here than in say, Serbia. For in Serbia, they may have lorded over Macedonia for most of the 20th century, but the language is quite different and Macedonians tend to be looked down upon as poorer, agricultural folk. Bulgarians seem to have this proprietary notion of the language though. Nonetheless, the customs and character of Macedonians is much more in line with Serbs than Bulgarians, likely as a legacy of Yugoslavia. I’m indeed fascinated by the behavior I’ve witnessed this week. Bulgarians are just far more to themselves—less talkative and gregarious, and more serious. We had one teacher just walk into the room we were using for interviews today and sit down, saying she had work to do. We tried to explain to her what we were doing, but it fell on deaf ears. Only the director’s order dislodged her. Others have been friendly, but not nearly so much as in Macedonia and the former Yugoslavia.
It is perhaps, as one professor at IU (Randall Baker) who’s a Bulgarophile said, a country characterized by a Cassandrian attitude—that the world can’t possibly get any worse, and the next day will likely be worse than today. But this means people live life to its fullest and seek out opportunities in any way they can. Indeed, Bulgarians seem opportunistic and successful at home and abroad, with large diasporas in the UK, Spain, Germany, and US. Yet whether any of these people intend to return, as in the Western Balkans, I’m not sure. The country’s population is shrinking and remittances from the diaspora less, as I understand. Is it all the legacy of Soviet, Todor Zhivkov led Communism I wonder? Something certainly sets Bulgaria and Bulgarians apart.
That said, I’ve been on the road all week, and I spent three nights in Plovdiv in an over-heated room. Although the days are short I also try to enjoy, and managed to stroll through (and get lost in) the old town a couple of times. Built on a ridge of three hills, it’s been inhabited or used for millennia. Today it is a preserved area with homes built during the Bulgarian national revival period. A century back, this period was perhaps a backlash to the centuries of Ottoman rule that were violently overthrown with the great help of Russia (the Russian-Turkish War, it’s called). There are several churches and monuments throughout the country that commemorate this, the largest being Aleksandar Nevski in Sofia. Point being: Bulgaria has been supported by Russia for quite some time, and this may help to differentiate it.
To note, Plovdiv’s old town houses were really lovely. Hanging over the streets, with 2nd and 3rd floors larger than the 1st at street-level, they’re only seen in Macedonia in Ohrid and some old neighborhoods of smaller towns. But none there with so much color, design, and character as those in Plovdiv. The center of town was also a lively place, with the long pedestrian zone—its shops, stands, and cafes. After eyeing the Belgian waffle and crepe stands, I found a “Nemski” (German) one that sold bratwurst—a rare treat in this part of the world. I had two and a Beck’s, and sat at the outdoor table to watch to the world go by. Young couples in bumper cars 30 feet away, and teens crossing the plaza, probably on their way home from the 2nd shift at the local high school, entertained me. But the conversation I struck up was with the woman working in the bratwurst stand. Her mother was born in the Macedonian city of Gevgelija, and she took me as a Macedonian. So it goes.
We had the day off to travel though yesterday, needing time and rest to make our way to where we are now, in Ruse. Ruse is the 5th largest city in the country, an hour south of Bucharest, Romania, and sitting on the Danube—a historical trade center and the most European city in Bulgaria, I’m told. However, the winter weather that hit north-eastern Europe this week has made its way here—it’s now cold, windy, and snowy. Yet the drive yesterday yielded some further insight for me into this country. For Bulgaria to me is what I hope to see Macedonia be in 10-15 years. It is more modern, cleaner, wealthier, and the people seem more independent in their gestures, thinking, speaking. I don’t think I would ever experience the conversation I had yesterday here in Macedonia, whereby our driver—a big middle-aged Bulgarian chap—pulled out his mobile phone over coffee to show us a picture of a cat he’d wanted to adopt. Unusual, but sincere. Further, students we interview express much more independent activities and thinking—karate, acting, music, drawing, poetry, mountain climbing.
Therefore, Bulgaria fascinates me because it is similar to Macedonia in language and how people look, but very different otherwise. But no doubt having been under Soviet rule, having had no visa regime since 1997, no post-communist conflict, and being a member of the EU for two years now, has set it apart but ahead. For Macedonia will be liberated from it’s Schengen visa regime only tomorrow—a huge day no doubt—and is only entertained by the prospect of NATO and EU entry in coming years. Indeed, being here makes me realize how Macedonia lags behind, and seems stifled by ethnic and nationalist factors that can't be extinguished. Although I return to Skopje tomorrow, I hope to certainly return here in the future, and to see then a Bulgaria that has meshed again with Macedonia, and for the betterment of both.
