NEWS

Rumen Radev: the Support for the Republic of North Macedonia’s European Integration Cannot be Offered at the Expense of the Bulgarian History and Language

The Head of State highly appreciated the contribution of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to defending the Bulgarian language by publishing the book “On the official language of the Republic of North Macedonia”

The support for the Republic of North Macedonia’s European integration cannot be offered at the expense of the Bulgarian history and language. This is what President Rumen Radev said at a meeting he held today at 2 Dondukov street with the President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) Academician Julian Revalski and the Vice-president of BAS Corresponding Member Professor Vassil Nikolov with regard to the published book “On the official language of the Republic of North Macedonia”. The Head of State highly appreciated the contribution of the scientific community to defending the Bulgarian language and historical truth.

The publication of BAS is a result of the work of authors including twelve linguists and historians, and also consultants, from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, the South-West University Neofit Rilski and the St. St Cyril and Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo. “The book examines the language used in our southwest neighbor in purely scientific, not political terms and does not treat the issue of the national self-identity of the nationals of the Republic of North Macedonia, because this is a deeply individual act of every person,” Prof. Vassil Nikolov emphasized.

The representatives of BAS said that the scientific norms categorically define the official language of the Republic of North Macedonia as a written regional norm of the Bulgarian language. The allegations about a “centuries-old continuity of the Macedonian language” are contrary to fact since the political decree adopted in August 1944 in the Prohor Pchinjsky Monastery, and also the reasons for creating it are a well-known public fact. Unacceptable are also the attempts to appropriate and falsify medieval Bulgarian monuments or the works of the representatives of the Bulgarian National Revival such as the Miladinov brothers, Kuzman Shapkarev, Grigor Parlichev and others, who wrote in Bulgarian and identified themselves as Bulgarians.

Given that the languages spoken by the nationals of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia are very close, the scholars called for not having the bilateral cultural and media exchange be a object of “intra-language translation” and the works of the representatives of the Bulgarian National Revival, writers and clerics from Macedonia be published without manipulation and in the original in the Republic of North Macedonia.