80 years from the Macedonian Bloody Christmas [In Bulgarian]

In our history, Christmas of 1945 remains under the name of the Macedonian Bloody Christmas. This name became a symbol of violence and mass murder, analogous to the St. Bartholomew’s Night in medieval France or the Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany. The communist machine of terror and murder was activated with the withdrawal ofthe Bulgarian authorities in September 1944 and manifested itself in mass shootings without trial and conviction of the so-called “helpers of the occupier”. In fact, communists also fell under the terror of the Yugoslav partisans, whose only offense was that they were Bulgarians and had supported the political line of unity with the communist party in Bulgaria. The mass mobilization of the male population and the plans to send the army to the Srem Front caused riots in the military garrisons in Skopje and Shtip. The crackdown on the mutinous soldiers was accompanied by mass executions of civilians without trial or conviction. The closed archives in Skopje and Belgrade still keep the secret of the Macedonian Bloody Christmas, while the officious historiography of North Macedonia shapes politically correct notions on the past. The mutiny in the army formations in Skopje and Shtip, the subsequent repressions and the mass tortures and shootings in various cities of Vardar Macedonia are only part of a long series of repressions against people who were guilty because they are Bulgarians.