http://makedon.mtx.net/rev0.htm ---------------------------------------- Macedonian Day of Disgrace Ljubisa Tancevski [ltancevs@celece.ucsd.edu] once attempted to enlighten us all regarding this auspicious date: "In order to attract the Macedonian population for their causes they [Tito's Communists] promised independent Macedonian Republic within the Yugoslavia. That is why the population supported the revolution and the partisans. To refresh your memory the revolution started on the 9th of October 1941 in Prilep in Kumanovo. Attacked (and killed) were Bulgarian soldiers..." Here is the glorious event in Prilep to which Ljubisha refers as the beginning of the Revolution (it actually took place on October 11th, 1941) A crazy man from Prilep with an unprintable nickname received an order from the Tito's command to kill a Bulgarian soldier, so as to prove that the Bulgarians were occupiers - not liberators - of Macedonia. Late in the evening of this October day he approached a soldier on guard duty and started a small talk with him (and no translator needed!). Then he asked him for a match to light a cigarette. The soldier reached in his pockets for matches, and that is when the crazy guy stabbed him. As it became known to all later (and this includes Ljubisha) this poor soldier boy was a Macedonian, son of refugees from a village near Lerin, as most of the Bulgarian soldiers in Vardar Macedonia in 1941-44 were volunteers, mainly - children of Macedonian families. This was apparently the ONLY political killing in Macedonia by the much-sung N.O.B. (People's Liberation Struggle). If it wasn't, the Titoist regime in FYROM wouldn't have made this Day of Disgrace, Oct. 11, into a national holiday for the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, would they? And yet, the story about the killing of the soldier boy from Lerin hasn't ended yet. The man who identified the killer to the Bulgarian military authorities is still alive and in good health, in Prilep. It is said that everyone knows who he is and no one in the past 50 years has stepped forward to point him out to the government. Doesn't that say something about where deep loyalties lie, dear Ljubisha? [I personally feel that Bulgaria's involvement in the war in 1941 was by itself not only a failure of the political system in the country but also a national disgrace. But this is a different topic.] but Ljubisha has even more words of wisdom for us "Do you, likewise, imply that the 20 German Panzir divisions were expelled from Macedonia by the thought that Bulgarians might attack them? You were never able to liberate yourself from anyone, let alone liberate other from someone, and especially from the Germans. The truth is that all they wanted was to hastily move northwards for Balkans was of no strategic meaning to them anymore. Do you likewise imply that they were fleeing Greece because of the great fear Greeks might kill them?.. Germans were defeated by the Bulgarian Army!!! Good God, you are incredible." Well, Ljubisha, as you have put it, you might be right: the Germans were NOT defeated by the Bulgarian Army. However, in the fall of 1944, units of the Bulgarian Army expelled the retreating Germans from Vardar Macedonia and continued north to liberate Belgrade. I would not bother you with extensive bibliography from the history of the war. Here is a small excerpt from a reputable military encyclopedia: "1944, October 20 - December 31. The Balkans. Russian efforts to block movement of General von Weichs' Army Group F, moving from Greece into Yugoslavia to bolster the German right, were nearly successful. Tolbukhin's Third Ukrainian Front, with a Bulgarian army assisting on its left, took Belgrade (October 20), with Tito's (Josip Broz's) partisans fighting beside them..." Dupuy, R. Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy, "The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History From 3500 B.C. to the Present", 4th Edition, 1993, p.1221 Of course, this is a very, very brief account. However, within the framework of military history spanning close to 5,500 years the authors saw fit to mention the participation of the Bulgarian Army in the liberation of Belgrade, and characterizes Tito's partisans as auxiliaries "fighting beside" the Soviet and Bulgarian forces. Note that, coming from the east, the Bulgarian Army was to the left of Tolbukhin's main force, which puts it squarely in Vardar Macedonia. By the way, the word "Macedonia" appears exactly twice in this military encyclopedia: first in connection with Philip of Macedon, and then in connection with the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. So you see, it is not the western historians who have never heard of Bulgaria's role in the liberation of Yugoslavia, but the Yugo-Macedonian "istorichari" - the same ones who don't like to go to international conferences. However, you should not limit your universe to the areas illuminated by them. You are floating in a sea of books, so Reach Out and Touch Reality.