Country: North Macedonia
Group: Bulgarians
Date Finalized:
Team: Rayna Castillo (lead), Colleen Clauss, Jayline Martin, Payton Thompson
Content Warning: homicide
Approximate Time Period: 1940-1950
The small Bulgarian population of North Macedonia appears to have been the target of lethal violence in the 1940s. This violence was the result of nationalist sentiments in Macedonia, whose leaders aimed to create a distinct national consciousness (Poulton, 2000). In order to fulfill this agenda, the Macedonian Communist Party targeted popular Bulgarian figures and those who held pro-Bulgarian sympathies (Poulton, 2000; Roudometof, 2002). According to some sources, thousands were killed, including 1,260 Bulgarian leaders[1], and an additional 100,000 were imprisoned for violating the “protection of Macedonian national honor” (Poulton, 2000; Roudometof, 2002). However, it is unclear what proportion of these imprisonments were Bulgarian individuals. Given these examples, this would be an appropriate classification of targeted lethal violence for the Bulgarian ethnic group in North Macedonia. This information was found in two well-researched and reliable sources, which results in a data quality score of a 3.
Sources
- Roudometof, Victor. Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pg 104.
- Poulton, H. (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. Indiana University Press. Pg 118.
[1] One source claims these 1,260 individuals were Bulgarian sympathizers.