The Russian Embassy in North Macedonia is marking the anniversaries of Macedonian historical figures on their social media platforms. This comes off as highly unusual and inappropriate for two reasons. Firstly, it is the Embassy’s job to promote its own country, not ours. Secondly, Russia has helped not helped any of those historical figures in any way. The Russian Embassy’s goal is to manipulate Macedonians. Unfortunately, some Macedonians fall for their manipulations and then further spread the narratives. The narratives reach the point of pseudohistory by connecting things that cannot be linked, such as Goce Delcev and Russia, creating a false impression that there was some level of cooperation between them. The Russian Ambassador even stated that the Russians “liberated the Macedonian land” in World War I, which is blatant pseudohistory, among other examples of similar falsehoods, writes Truthmeter.mk.
Under the content-sharing agreement between Truthmeter.mk and Meta.mk, we republish the text in full below:
The Russian Embassy exploits Macedonian historical trauma by marking the anniversaries of the births and deaths of our historical figures such as: Goce Delcev, Nikola Karev, Dame Gruev, Gjorce Petrov and Nikola Rusinski, which is extremely bizarre, even inappropriate.
It is common practice for an Embassy to commemorate a national holiday of its host-country or to mention a historical figure that connects both countries, but that is not the case here. The point of an embassy is to present the history and culture of its own country, not those of the host-country. Thus, these posts seem nonsensical, but they are not without purpose – they intend to manipulate Macedonians into thinking Russia cares about and supports them. In reality, Russia has done nothing to aid the struggle of these national heroes, who are entirely unknown in Russia.
Bearing that in mind, it is hard to believe that these posts were written by a Russian, which raises the possibility the Embassy hired some local author. The tone of these posts also contributes to this impression, with one even declaring:
Eternal glory to the hero who gave his life for his people!
It is not quite clear how our heroes have earned such a treatment from Russia – as though they were Russian heroes. In reality, Russia was not friendly towards them. Many of them even had negative opinions for Russian politics which can be seen from Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian and other sources. Despite their differences, all these sources agree that the relations between VMORO and Russia were bad.
Our renownеd historian Hristo Andonov-Poljanski and his peer Vlado Popovski (who has published a book on the topic), and journalist Blaze Minevski have all explroed this topic. According to their research Russia led an actual diplomatic war against VMORO. Prominent Russian figures involved in this conflict include: Vladimir Lamsdorf (1845 – 1907), Russian Foreign Affairs Minister; Dmitry Kapnist (1837 – 1904), Director of the Asian Department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Pjotr Kapnist (1839 – 1904), Ambassador to Vienna; Viktor Mashkov (1867 – 1932), Consul in Skopje; Ivan Zinovyev (1835-1917), Ambassador in Istanbul; and others.
During his visit of Sofia, in 1902, Lamsdorf met our revolutionaries Hristo Tatarchev and Hristo Matov, who presented the problems in Macedonia to him. However, he rudely responded that he had not come to seek advice, but to instead provide advice to them in the name of the Czar. He discouraged them from uprising and insisted that the problems be resolved through reforms, as Russia was then in favor of the status quo in the Balkans and was against destabilizing Turkey. After the Ilinden Uprising was nonetheless launched, Lamzdorf recommended that the most severe measures be applied against the insurgents. He at least pled that innocent civilians not be disturbed, although this was not heeded.
Delchev did not like Russia’s imperial absolutism and expected nothing good from the Empire, as seen in his letter to his comrade Efrem Karanov (1853 – 1927) dated 17.10.1895. This letter can be found on page 273 of the Collected Letters of Delcev, collected by Kukush-native Dino Kjosev (1901 – 1977). In the letter, Delcev criticizes some of his comrades who hoped for assistance from Russia and “Russian tyrant” – as Delcev put it at the time, likely referring to the Russian Tsar.
In 1897, Delcev visited Odesa then under the rule of the Russian Empire, but he did not cooperate with the Empire. On the contrary, it was then that he began collaborating with the Armenian revolutionaries Hristofor Mikaelyan (1859 – 1905) and Stepan Zorian-Rostom (1867 – 1919), who were persecuted by the Russian Empire as state enemies and national-minded socialists.
Additionally, Ilinden revolutionary Hristo Shaldev (1876 – 1962) associated with people persecuted by the Russian authorities, such as the Ukrainian revolutionaries under Simon Petlyura (1879 – 1926), who were his classmates at the Poltavа seminarѕ, and whom he met while acting for VMORO.
There was no desire on the Russian side to support the Macedonian revolutionary movement, as evidenced by Boris Sarafov in his book Memories on page 147. In 1900, he visited the Russian general Aleksey Kuropatkin (1848 – 1925) requesting military assistance, but was coldly received and was not even offered a seat. Kuropatkin warned the rebels “to stop being foolish” because “Turkey will crush them” and that Russia would not help them because it had its own problems in the Far East (possibly the Boxer Rebellion in China or the impending Russo-Japanese War). Sarafov left without saying goodbye. Kuropatkin began inquiring common acquaintances about Sarafov. Once those same acquaintances informed Sarafov about Kuropatkin’s inquiries, Sarafov fled Russia, fearing arrest.
The Russian Consul in Bitola, Aleksandar Rostkovsky (1860 – 1903), showed some sympathy for the suffering of the Macedonian population. Krste Misirkov was also a teacher to his children, which led many to believe that the consul supported our struggle for freedom. while Krste Misirkov was teacher to his children leaving the impression that the Consul was supporting our fight for liberty However, in reality, he considered IMRO to be bandits and believed they wanted to kidnap him for ransom—an assertion supported by the Ilinden revolutionary Georgi Pop Hristov (1876–1962).
Russia provided no support for the Ilinden Uprising, but when Rostkovsky was killed in Bitola on August 8, 1903, Russia sent an entire fleet of 14 ships to Turkey. Terrified by this, the Sultan apologized for the killing, the murderer was hanged, the Bitola vali was removed and imprisoned in Libya, and a generous compensation was offered. The fleet withdrew as if nothing had happened. This cynicism is described by Henry Noel Brailsford in his book Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future. He was shocked that the Russians did not provide any support to the Ilinden insurgents but sent an entire fleet for a consul who was actually killed over a quarrel and his own vanity.
What happened was that the Consul had passed by a Turkish guard on a carriage, who was supposed to salute him according to protocol, but did not. Rostkovsky then got off the carriage and angrily asked for the guard’s name (and reportedly struck him with his whip, which he often did during disputes). The guard (an Albanian in Turkish service) eventually shot him. While there might have been political motives in this case, they are minor compared to the large-scale uprising with immense casualties and destruction, which Russia simply ignored. Now, Russia uses these insurgents, whom it left to their fate at the time – an unspeakably cynical gesture.
Russian ambassador Sergey Bazdnikin even went so far as to claim that the Russians “liberated Macedonian lands” during World War I, which is complete pseudo-history. In reality, Russia (like other Entente members such as Britain and France) was allied with Serbia, which at the time included Vardar Macedonia within its borders. The war was ignited after the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip killed the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, leading Austria-Hungary to accuse Serbia of involvement, eventually leading to an ultimatum and then a declaration of war. From the Entente’s perspective, the war’s purpose was to protect Serbia, with no real liberation of Macedonia in mind, at least not as it is understood today.
At the same time, VMRO members such as Hristo Matov, Todor Aleksandrov, Aleksandar Protogerov and Petre Chaule primarily within the 11th Macedonian Infantry Division of the Bulgarian Army, which fought alongside the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Turkey) This is detailed in Balkan Wars and the First World War, written by Prof. Dr. Oliver Cackov and Asso. Prof. Dr. Anita Ilieva Nikolovska. Unfortunately, our citizens seem to not read very much.
Most probably that is the reason why such a pseudohistorical statement of the Russian Ambassador “earned” even 231 likes on Facebook from our co-citizens, which is an indicator that they do not know their own history and that is a pity. Unfortunately, exactly the lack of reading is the reason why they are susceptible to pseudohistorical manipulations.
And finally, Truthmeter does not wish to intend to spread any hatred towards the Russian people and acknowledges that our history includes some interactions with them (such as the cases of the Miladinov brothers, Misirkov, Chupovski, and others). Still, these interactions were neither as widespread nor at such a high level as in neighboring countries like Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, or Bulgaria.
Regarding all of these issues, Truthmeter recently published an analysis titled “Inconsistency and hypocrisy of Russian foreign policy towards Macedonians.”
Written by Vangel Bashevski
