Ljupco Zikov, director in the failing state owned energy company MEPSO who is fast becoming one of the main public faces of the Zaev regime, came out with a call to Macedonians to thoroughly rewrite their history in exchange for getting Bulgaria to open our EU accession talks. In a TV interview Zikov, who is an ethnic Vlach, went after some of the best known Macedonian historic narratives, disparaging them as made up myths.

One of them is the fable of the kidnapping of a girl, Cveta, by a local Turkish lord, which was immemorialized in Vojdan Cernodrinski’s play “Macedonian Bloody Wedding”. Zikov also went after the 1903 Ilinden Uprising which created the short-lived Krusevo Republic.

We are hostages to historic myths. take the “Macedonian Bloody Wedding” for example, we still believe that the Turkish bey kidnapped Cveta, and don’t consider that she may have gone willingly to him. Let’s not go into how the Krusevo Republic collapsed after 12 days, it’s the time it took to the Turks to get to Krusevo, Zikov said, insisting that doing away with the historic narratives is part of progressive European policies.

A constant feature of Zaev’s rule is to disrupt and rewrite the historic narrative to appease the demands of Macedonian neighbors, first Greece, now Bulgaria and frequently the Albanian narrative. This allowed Macedonia to join NATO, but did not lead to the promised opening of EU accession talks, and actually created ever more intrusive demands, especially from Bulgaria, which reacts to Zaev’s appeasement with additional claims. The frequent claims from Zaev’s camp that their policies are progressive and Europe oriented have at the same time emboldened nationalist narratives and myths in the neighboring countries, who see Macedonia as ripe for picking.

Particularly the Krusevo Republic is a point of joint pride between Macedonians and Vlachs, considering how Krusevo has a large Vlach community and one of the main heroes of the Ilinden Uprising is Pitu Guli, a Vlach commander.