Despite the Bulgarian attempts to present the Macedonians living in Albania as Bulgarians, there are historical documents that refute these quasi-historical claims, Nova Makedonija wrote.

“There are a large number of documents in the Albanian and the Italian archives on this issue, but the most interesting is the 1923 report by the Italian General Enrico Tellini, which, among other things, reads that, “whenever I would ask the local population about their ethnicity, if they are Bulgarians, they answered without exception that they are Macedonians”, Nova Makedonija wrote.

The Italian general was a chairperson of the International Commission to Establish the Borders between Albania, the Kingdom of SCS, and Greece in 1923.

General Enrico Tellini’s claims were also corroborated by the then-Bulgarian Ambassador to Istanbul, Todor Markov. Reporting on the situation in the villages of Alania inhabited by ethnic Macedonians, the Bulgarian diplomat on September 15, 1923, informed the Bulgarian MoFA about General Tellini’s report.