site.btaMacedonian Americans's Petition Calls to Stop US Congress Resolution, Restore Historical Truth

The Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO) in America and Canada has launched an online petition at thepetitionsite.com to stop the proposed House Resolution 741 of the 117th US Congress, expressing support for the designation of the month of September 2022 as "Macedonian American Heritage Month" and celebrating the Macedonian language, history, and culture of Macedonian Americans and their incredible contributions to the United States.

"This document is based on falsifications and manipulations and it aims at using the US Congress as a tool to re-write history and legitimize the claim that a 'Macedonian' ethnicity and language existed before 1944," the petition states. It argues further that adopting this resolution would be equivalent to an official approval by the United States of the policy of the USSR, the Communist International (Comintern) and Joseph Stalin personally to annihilate the millennia-old history and presence of Bulgarians in the geographic region of Macedonia and to create a "Macedonian" ethnic group out of the Bulgarians living in the geographic region of Macedonia.

"The real instigator of the resolution - the organization 'United Macedonian Diaspora' (UMD) - is a foreign agent organization, funded and directed from abroad with the aim of influencing the United States public opinion and institutions. The UMD skillfully uses the opportunities offered by the American democracy to peddle lies about the 'history' of the 'Macedonians', taking full advantage of the limited knowledge in the American society about the history of the geographic region of Macedonia. Actually, the UMD is trying to legitimize concepts and policies from the darkest times of the communist totalitarian regime, developed by the USSR under Joseph Stalin's leadership and enforced with reckless brutality by communist Yugoslavia. These policies cost the lives of tens of thousands of Bulgarians in the geographic region of Macedonia. Many more were compelled to leave their ancestral lands in order to save their lives.

"Now the UMD and its collaborators try to make the US Congress justify retroactively the results of the physical and cultural genocide of the ethnic Bulgarians that was carried out in the geographic region of Macedonia for the better part of the 20th century. This is morally unacceptable for millions of Bulgarians and for the Americans who are descendants of Bulgarians from Macedonia who immigrated to the United States in the search of a safe heaven. If the United States is to keep its moral high ground, it should be unacceptable for the US Congress too."

The petition also comments on "some of the bombastic historic falsifications contained in draft Resolution 741".

"Paragraph 3 of Resolution 741 states that after 1880 tens of thousands of 'Macedonians' fled to America. This deliberately fails to explain that until 1944 there were no ethnic 'Macedonians'. Until 1944, a 'Macedonian' meant somebody who came from the region of Macedonia, regardless of his or her ethnicity. A 'Macedonian' could be an ethnic Bulgarian, Turk, Greek, Albanian or Vlach. And it is an indisputable scientific fact that the biggest ethnic group in the multiethnic geographic region of Macedonia was the Bulgarian. This is easily verifiable in contemporary sources, including those originating in the United States.
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"One cannot omit the laughable claim that 'Macedonian presence' in the United States dates back to 1492. It is an easily verifiable historic fact that neither any Europeans reached the lands of today's United States in 1492, nor any ethnic 'Macedonians' existed prior to the start of the communist policy to create them in the 20th century, the petition says further.

"Furthermore, the majority of the 'prominent Macedonians' mentioned in Resolution 741, have unequivocally declared and demonstrated their Bulgarian ethnic origin during their lifetime. Changing posthumously the ethnicity of an individual is an unimaginable crime in a democracy but a routine practice in a communist dictatorship. The US Congress should not be associated with such Stalinist practices.

"There is no reference in the draft resolution to the oldest organization of people from the geographic region of Macedonia in the United States - the Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO), established in 1922 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since its foundation, the MPO defends the historic truth about the Bulgarian character of the majority of the population coming from the geographic region of Macedonia and opposes its forceful denationalization. From 1927 to this day, the MPO has published the Macedonian Tribune newspaper. Until 1992 the newspaper was published in the Bulgarian language. The MPO and its archives are the true history of the Americans from the geographic region of Macedonia, who are still very proud of their Bulgarian roots. These facts cannot be found in a document like draft Resolution 741, carefully prepared by foreign agents like UMD."

In conclusion, the document states that the signatories ask the House not to support draft Resolution 741 in the spirit of moral integrity, freedom, democracy, human rights, rule of law and historic truth.