Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,

In the year when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of free, independent and sovereign Republic of Macedonia, we celebrate yet another important anniversary - 150 years of publishing the Collection of Folk Songs of brothers Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov from Struga.

I believe that these two events are tied by the idea and the desire of the Macedonian people for freedom. On September 8, 1991, we have reached the political freedom the Ilinden fighters and the Second World War and ASNOM fighters longed for. However, their dream for a free Macedonia has its roots in the Macedonian reformation that led to spiritual liberation of the Macedonian people.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Hegel showed that the history of the world means advancing of awareness for freedom. To be political, freedom must first be spiritual, achieved at the level of consciousness, through the will and desire for freedom. Goce Delchev on one occasion said: “Macedonians would stop slavery when they will stop being a slave in their souls".

At the time of Miladinovci, mid 19th century, Macedonia was under double oppression - political Ottoman and spiritual Phanariote slavery, and the Macedonian nation was subjected to assimilation and systematic hellenization. Macedonian intelligence was mostly educated in the Greek high schools and many of the later Macedonists at the beginning were hellenophiles. The only rays of light in the tunnel were the public schools opened in the churches and monasteries by the monks such as Joakim Krchovski and Kiril Pejchinovich. But what was needed was the language from the churches and monasteries to be expanded in the secular schools, which were managed by the Phanariotes.

Therefore, a real swing the revival experienced exactly with the brothers Dimitar and Konstantin, and also Naum, who fought for cultural and spiritual liberation of the Greek cultural and religious domination.

Distinguished guests,

All the secrets of the life of a community, of one nation, are in the language. It is a spiritual treasure and heritage which locks in printed words or voice signs all public thoughts, feelings and desires one nation has lived and lives with, which are taught as something sacred from one generation to another. Exactly the Macedonian language was the front where the battle with the Phanariotes was fought.

Dimitar on one occasion said: “They reproach our language and call it barbaric, yet, it is one of the oldest and richest languages! Greeks deny us. But this is an old song ... We should enrich ourselves with the thoughts and ideas of our language, and then learn other languages”.
Their revival ordeal began with a meeting between Dimitar Miladinov and the famous Russian Slavist Viktor Ivanovich Grigorovich in Ohrid. On May 8, 1845, Viktor Grigorovich visited Ohrid and attended the class where Dimitar Miladinov taught a lesson to students first in Greek and then he translated the lesson for them in their mother tongue - Macedonian. It left a strong impression on Grigorovich who encouraged him in the efforts and instigated Dimitar to begin to collect folk songs and other wisdom.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The folk songs patiently collected by the Struga brothers are an indication of the level of cultural development of the people and a mirror of its life. Miladinovci knew that people in the songs express their feelings, they glorify life and the ancient achievements, they find in the songs mental food and serenity. They well understood that the nation is eternal, that they are great singers and that the songs, if not written down, may fall into oblivion forever.

Konstantin Miladinov in the foreword to the Collection says that “the wealth of the songs is everlasting... writing down so many songs, one would think that he would exhaust the entire wealth, but when going to another neighborhood, there are so many other songs, as a new source”.

Therefore, the publication of the Collection in Gjakovo in 1861, with the assistance of the Croatian bishop Josip Juraj Shtrosmaer can be compared with a kind of a spiritual Declaration Of Independence of the Macedonian people from the stranger’s spiritual and cultural influence.

The published Collection sealed their fate. In that struggle, they created a powerful enemy. Slandered by the Greek clergy to the Turkish authorities that they were Russian, Serbian spies, they were imprisoned. When parting, Dimitar Miladinov said to his fellow fighters, disciples and followers: “I sow the seed, you should reap its fruits”.

Dear friends,

Eight days ago, on the day of independence, laying the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Macedonia in the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle I said that “never in history has a backward policy survived…The one who denies someone’s identity cannot defeat the one who preserves and promotes its own and shares it with others”.

Miladinovci did exactly this – by collecting folk songs and publishing them in the Collection, they have preserved and promoted forever what is theirs, and shared it with others.

Their death has awakened from the dream and mobilized their students and followers. Thus, Grigor Prlicev, finding out about their fate, wrote in his autobiography: “I remained immovable as a statue, frozen, but my heart cursed the Greek clergy ... I gathered all my belongings ... and dashed for a solid solution - to die or revenge Miladinovci ".

Their lives seized in Constantinople prisons, but the seed that they have sown, bore Macedonian reformers such as Partenija Zografski, the first Macedonian textbook writer, Kuzman Shapkarev, author of eight books written in Macedonian dialect for Macedonian schools. Also Rajko Zhinzifov from Veles emerged from the seeds sown, famous Macedonia reformer, publicist, writer and poet. However, their greatest follower in collecting folk songs was Marko Cepenkov from Prilep who kept the Collection of Folk Songs of Miladinovci in his home as the second Gospel.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Only five decades after the publication of the Collection, Krste Petkov Misirkov wrote: “the mercy for the language is our duty and our right. We are obliged to nurture our language because it is ours, as is our homeland”.

Therefore, on this solemn day, I can conclude that their work lives even today because Miladinovci with the seed sown draw the limits of our spiritual and cultural homeland. Homeland in which we live today, for which we are eternally grateful to them.

Thank you.