Presentation of the book “Macedonia in European Ethnic Cartography (Mid-19th Century – End of the First World War 1918)”

The book “Macedonia in European Ethnic Cartography (Mid-19th century – the end of the First World War 1918)” (Македония в европейската етническа картография (Средата на XIX в. – края на Първата световна война 1918 г.) by Acad. Ivan Ilchev was presented on June 10 at the Prof. Marin Drinov Hall of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The publication includes 60 maps.

“This is a remarkable book, which on the one hand continues the tradition of publishing similar maps in Bulgaria, and on the other – of publishing sources for Macedonia. This is the most serious argument when we talk about Macedonia,” the director of the Institute for Historical Studies of BAS, Prof. Daniel Vachkov, who hosted the event said.

The Vice-President of BAS Prof. Emmanuel Moutafov welcomed the team and the publishers of the book-atlas. “The maps collected here, mostly by cartographers who were born and received their professional training outside the borders of our peninsula, show that knowledge of the Balkans appeared towards the middle of the 19th century. And because they were not working with the prejudices of their Balkan counterparts or the propaganda missions of their post-1913 successors, it is particularly gratifying to see that Europeans used to include cities such as Drama, Serres, Kostur, Kavala, Ohrid, Bitola, and Skopje in the ethnic map of the Bulgarian population in the Ottoman Empire. And this happened in an era when there was no prospect of national independence for the Bulgarians. Because of this, because of the inimitable manner of Acad. Ilchev to present facts without imposing or hyperinterpreting them, this atlas is a historical phenomenon, a research contribution but also a weapon against the propaganda of our North Macedonian neighbours that there had been a nation in Vardar Macedonia different from the Bulgarian one before the assimilationist policy of Serbia appeared there,” Prof. Moutafov said in his speech.

Acad. Georgi Markov presented the atlas and announced that many maps from different countries were collected in it and this made it a very valuable publication.

In the foyer of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, some of the maps included in the book-atlas were shown. In the publication, mainly widespread maps used in schools were printed, Acad. Ilchev said.

The book “Macedonia in European Ethnic Cartography (Mid-19th century – end of the First World War 1918)” has been published by the “Tangra” and “Zlatostroy” publishing houses.