What if Bulgaria started colonizing like the British?

[-]

PomegranateOk2600@reddit

Then macedonia would happen. Go and ask them what happened when Bulgaria got its hands on that territory

[-]

rintzscar@reddit

Go and ask them what happened when Bulgaria got its hands on that territory.

Golden Age happened. Other than Alexander and his very Greek empire, 99% of everything that North Macedonia is currently proud of happened when Bulgaria owned that territory. And it happened on the explicit orders of the Bulgarian tsar, I should add. Enlightenment, culture, literacy, architecture, Christianization, spirituality, monasteries, schools - this all happened during the peak of the two Bulgarian empires.

[-]

Unable-Stay-6478@reddit

Thank God and Yugoslavia stepped in.

[-]

erythrocytes235@reddit

And where is Yugoslavia now?

[-]

Unable-Stay-6478@reddit

Yugoslavia had multiple reappearances, don't you worry.

[-]

erythrocytes235@reddit

And luckily it’s staying in the imagination of Serbian nationalists this time for good.

[-]

Unable-Stay-6478@reddit

You mean like N. Macedonia is in Bulgarian nationalists' imaginations?

[-]

erythrocytes235@reddit

More like Montenegro and Kosovo in the minds of Serbia nationalists. Enjoy applying for a visa to go to the beach next year.

[-]

PomegranateOk2600@reddit

you forgot the last peak of the third failed Bulgarian empire when you ethnic cleansed them and forced bulgarization on the bulgarisation. I like how you only speak about the things you like from your history

[-]

RegionSignificant977@reddit

Bullshit. Read something about stojan novakovic and macedonization. 1/3 of Bulgarians today have at least some Macedonian ancestry. My Stip born great grandfather was part of ВМРО (IMRO) before Balkan and WWI wars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_statute_of_the_IMRO At the beginning only Bulgarians were accepted in the organization that fought Ottomans for Macedonia independence. It's like me saying that Moldovans aren't Romanian, including the ones that are in Romania.

[-]

PomegranateOk2600@reddit

I dint said I don’t consider them in fact bulgarians, just that you had an bulgarisation program in past in the region.

[-]

RegionSignificant977@reddit

How can you bulgarise Bulgarians?

Stojan Novaković was a prominent Serbian politician, scholar, and diplomat who is widely regarded by historians as one of the chief conceptual founders of "Macedonism" (or Macedonisation). In the late 19th century, Novaković formulated a strategic diplomatic and educational policy to promote a distinct Slavic Macedonian identity. His primary goal was to weaken the dominant Bulgarian ethnic influence in Ottoman Macedonia and clear a path for the gradual Serbianisation of the region's Slavic population.
He viewed nascent Macedonian regional separatism not as an end in itself, but as a transitional, tactical phase. By encouraging locals to identify as "Macedonian" rather than "Bulgarian", Serbia could neutralize Bulgarian influence and later guide the population toward complete assimilation into the Serbian national identity.

Bare in mind that this Bulgarian influence was present even before any part of Bulgaria was liberated from Ottoman rule so there wasn't any coordinated bulgarisation.
Parts of Serbia and Greece were already free, which led to both trying to expand in teritories of Ottoman Empire populated mainly with Bulgarians.

[-]

RegionSignificant977@reddit

But who are the Macedonians? You will find Bulgarians and Turks who call themselves Macedonians, you find Greek Macedonians, there are Servian Macedonians, and it is possible to find Roumanian Macedonians. You will NOT, however, find a single Christian Macedonian who is not a Servian, a Bulgarian, a Greek, or a Roumanian. They all curse the Turk, and they love Macedonia. But it is Greek Macedonia, or Bulgarian Macedonia, and their eyes flame with passion, whilst their fingers seek the triggers of their guns

Source:

“Pictures From The Balkans” by John Foster Fraser (published in 1906), page 5

You can also argue with Romanian historians:

În ciuda acestor interpretări istorice macedonene, Delcev se considera bulgar ca naționalitate și îi considera pe bulgari a fi compatrioții săi

From here, about the main figure of the liberation movement of Ottoman Macedonia. But who are the Macedonians? You will find Bulgarians and Turks who call themselves Macedonians, you find Greek Macedonians, there are Servian Macedonians, and it is possible to find Roumanian Macedonians. You will NOT, however, find a single Christian Macedonian who is not a Servian, a Bulgarian, a Greek, or a Roumanian. They all curse the Turk, and they love Macedonia. But it is Greek Macedonia, or Bulgarian Macedonia, and their eyes flame with passion, whilst their fingers seek the triggers of their gunsSource:“Pictures From The Balkans” by John Foster Fraser (published in 1906), page 5You can also argue with Romanian historians:În ciuda acestor interpretări istorice macedonene, Delcev se considera bulgar ca naționalitate și îi considera pe bulgari a fi compatrioții săiFrom here, about the main figure of the liberation movement of Ottoman Macedonia.

Why would non Bulgarians vote for independent Bulgarian Church in Ottoman Empire?

The Exarchate's borders went on to extend over present-day northern Bulgaria (Moesia), most of Thrace, as well as over north-eastern Macedonia. After the Christian population of the bishoprics of Skopje and Ohrid voted in 1874 overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate (Skopje by 91%, Ohrid by 97%)[4] the Bulgarian Exarchate became in control of the whole of Macedonia (Vardar and Pirin Macedonia). The Exarchate was also represented in the whole of Greek Macedonia and the Vilayet of Adrianople by vicars. Thus, the borders of the Exarchate included all Bulgarian districts in the Ottoman Empire.

[-]

PomegranateOk2600@reddit

I personally think Macedonians are in fact bulgarians in denial.

[-]

rintzscar@reddit

None of that is even close to true. Stop listening to absurd propaganda.

[-]

PomegranateOk2600@reddit

I know it is propaganda, jews exterminating palestineans, hitler genocide, stalin holodomor, mao ze dong the great leap forward and so on, are all just propaganda that never happened.

[-]

rintzscar@reddit

Okay, buddy.

[-]

freethenipple420@reddit

I remember... and it was based.

[-]

fogleth@reddit

I concur

[-]

Full-Rice-9287@reddit

Are you gonna start building railroads? If yes, can’t be much worse than what we already got.

[-]

mikey_tr3@reddit

Bulgaria became independent in 1908. Before that date, Bulgaria was autonomous. How can a non-independent state become a colonial power??

[-]

treba_dzemper@reddit

Been in Bulgaria. It will never happen.

Food is proper Balkan food, really good.

Women may not be as heartbreakingly beautiful as in some other Slavic and Balkan places -- but are easily in top five of them.

You do know HOW it came to be that British were the sailors that colonized the world?

[-]

pdonchev@reddit

Our ships need to pass through the Turkish straits, so there's that. Pretty long way to the Indies.

[-]

podivljali_vepar@reddit

Well, in WW2 Bulgarians reach even Bosnia, and tried to”colonized” Northern Greece, North Macedonia and idk if they did something to Romania?

For country that is ethnically only slightly bigger than Croats, quite huge tries :D

[-]

pdonchev@reddit

That's not what "colonization" means. Conquering adjacent territories with large, even if not majority, Bulgarian population is bad, but profoundly different in badness form conquering lands across the ocean, creating two tier society and extracting resources for generations without giving the locals the same rights and standard of living as in the imperial core.

[-]

ChurchClerk@reddit

Yeah and Serbia conveniently ignored a written agreement for the partition of Macedonia which was majority Bulgarian in the First Balkan War. Then proceeded to undermine their bulgarian identity. We have never reached Bosnia in our modern history and there has never been a state sponsored extermination effort unlike Serbia which has done that exact thing many times over.

> The important feature of this part is the agreement as to territorial divisions in the event of a victorious outcome of such a war. All lands were to be held in common until after the signing of peace. Following peace, territory north of the Shar Range, including the Sandjak of Novi Bazar and "Old Serbia," were to go to Serbia, and the territory south and east of the Rhodope Range and the Struma River to Bulgaria. Autonomy was to be given to the intermediate region. If, however, both parties should agree that autonomy for this region was not feasible, it was to be divided between them according to lines defined in the treaty, with the exception of a further intermediate region left undivided and to be subsequently apportioned through arbitration by the Czar of Russia. The territorial arrangements represent an attempt to reconcile the Serbian desire for partitions and access to the Adriatic with the Bulgarian plan for Macedonian autonomy. Finally the treaty provided that the Czar should be arbitrator in other questions that might arise from the treaty.

Serbian source: http://arhiviranisajt.msp.gov.rs/en/diplomatic-tradition/historical-diplomatic-papers/1289--1912-

[-]

Kooky_Appeal_6554@reddit

Perhaps, then, Ada Kaleh would not have been flooded—or else the islanders would have been given another Danube island as a home.

[-]

Township_Roller@reddit

We never had enough people, enough industry or enough weapons for that. In case we incented the wheel first, we could have procreated enough to invade. But basically we always had just enough people to fill in our territory.

Tsar Simeon allegedly had the ambition of untiing Bulgarians and Greeks under himself, becoming the Byzantine Emperor, as well as Bulgarian Tsar. However, modern historians agree this would have been a disaster for our nation.

[-]

PalpitationSlight752@reddit (OP)

lol imagine Serbian nationalism in Africa if Serbia colonized it...

I can only say God help us all.

[-]