Railway construction in Macedonia during the Bulgarian Unification (1941-1944)

by Dr. Angel Dzhonev, Ph.D

Work along Kumanovo-Gyueshevo track

Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact on March 1, 1941. The rapid defeat of Yugoslavia and Greece by the Wehrmacht forces in April 1941 was followed by the provisional annexation to the Bulgarian Tsardom of territories in Western Thrace, south-eastern Macedonia, the islands of Thassos and Samothrace, collectively called the Aegean, Vardar Macedonia, Kosovo and Morava region together with the Western Borderlands, with a total area of ​​39,765.6 square kilometers.

Historical Kosovo

The main interior of the unrealised Vidovdan temple.

Morava Bulgarians in Serbian literature

Literature is a reflection of real life, language, morals, customs, and temperament of a people. In this sense it is, so to speak, a material evidence of its whole spiritual life. The realistic Serbian literature at the turn of 19th c. documented the Bulgarian character of the population along Morava and Nišava.

Transitional dialects

Transitional dialects are spread about the two sides of today's Bulgarian-Serb border and are a gradual transition between Bulgarian and Serbian languages. Bulgarian are those dialects that were spoken inside the borders of Bulgaria before 1918, namely the dialects around Belogradchik, western of Berkovitsa, around Tsaribrod, Trən, Breznik, and Bosilegrad, known as Belogradchik-Trən dialect. Serbian are the dialects west of the border around Knjaževac, Pirot, Leskovac, and Vranja.

Bulgar toponyms

"During the reign of Anastasius, Bulgars started to conquer this land, they passed to Bъdyne [Vidin] and firstly begun to conquer the Lower land of Ohrid and later all of it."
--Bulgarian translation of the Manasios Chronicle made during the reign of John-Alexander, 14th c.

According to early historical sources, Bulgars settled permanently in Srem and Singindunum (Belgrade) since the 5-6th century AD. Consequently, soon after that, Bulgars settled the territory of old Macedonia – dolna zemya ohridska [the Lower Land of Ohrid]. According to scripts left by the Turnovo kings, Bulgars settled Macedonia at the beginning of the 6th century, at the time of Emperor Anastasios.

Accent in Bulgarian dialects

Prof. Benyo Tsonev
(1863-1926)

Bulgarian dialects are a colourful mosaic with respect to accent, not less so as respecting any other trait. Oddly enough, one finds accent variations that deeply affect the classifi­cation basis which are lacking in other Slavic languages. For example, Polish and Czech have well established accents which are the same in all their dialects. Russian dialects, although possess­ing some accent variety, on the whole are homogenous through­out the Russian dialect area with the exception of dialects adjacent to Polish ones, such as Galician dialects, in which Polish influence dominates [1].