Through the Bulgarian-Macedonian Historiographical Disputes in the second half of the 20th century: The “Slavko Dimevski Case”. A Historical Investigation

Abstract

In the early 1980s Bulgarian and Macedonian historiography engaged in a serious clash  that undermined the prestige of history as a science. As a casus belli served the "Rules of the Macedonian Insurgent Committee", published by Archpriest Dr. Slavko Dimevski. According to his statements it was about an original document of the Kresna-Razlog (Macedonian) Uprising of 1878-1879 kept in the personal archive of the Bulgarian Patriarch Cyril, to which Sl. Dimevski has had access in the 1960s. In 1980 (nine years after the death of the Bulgarian Patriarch) in Skopje came out a collection of studies of Macedonian historians dedicated to the "document" and its importance for the history of the liberation struggles of Macedonia. Bulgarian historiography reacted vigorously to this documentary mystification. On the basis of research in the archive of Patriarch Cyril and the correspondence between him and Sl. Dimevski this article makes the conclusion that there is no such "document" and it has never existed. It was also found that the Macedonian churchman and historian has abused historical truth and scientific morality also on other similar occasions