urks, her slavery, and her customs and hopes. Serbian
children know the names of the towns like Skoplje, Prilep, Ochrida, and
the heroes' names, Urosh, Stephen, Milutin, Dushan, Marko and Ugljesha,
before they learn in the school to write these names. Our national
poetry is our national education, our education is our soul. Macedonia
represents a great part of our poetry, which means that she forms a
great part of our soul. To say Macedonia does not belong to Serbia means
the same as to say, the Serbian soul does not belong to the Serbians.
Could you imagine England without Stratford, the birthplace of
Shakespeare? I don't think you could. So we cannot imagine a Serbia
without Prilep, the source, yea, the birthplace of our national poetry.
Every people must have some sacred soil in their country, a part more
sacred than other parts, which binds them more to their fatherland,
which excites their enthusiasm, and which obliges them to defend and to
die for it. I was born in Northern Serbia, in a town which has been very
important in our modern history. But I must tell you that it was not
Valve, my birthplace, which inspired me to be a Serb in soul, but rather
Prilep, Skoplje and Ochrida, the places where our spirit and our virtues
of old flourished, together with Kossovo, where our national body was
destroyed. Valevo has been very little mentioned in our national poetry,
Valevo and even Belgrade, in comparison with Macedonia. Northern Serbia
has been in our Middle Ages more a part of our body than of our soul.
But Macedonia.... A Bulgarian diplomat formerly in Rome once ironically
told a Serbian sculptor in a discussion about Macedonia: 'We Bulgars
know that King Marko of Prilep is a Serbian. Well, give us Prilep, that
is what we want, and keep King Marko for yourselves!' That is the true
Bulgarian spirit. The Greeks have understood us better. They have many
brothers of their own in Monastir and Ochrida, and still they recognised
the Serbian rights in the central and northern parts of Macedonia,
claiming for themselves only the southern part, and giving to the
Bulgars the eastern part of it. Yet they could claim Macedonia not with
less rights than the Bulgars did. Why? Because Macedonia never was the
centre of a Greek Empire, as it never was the centre of a Bulgarian
Empire. It was a provincial country of the old Byzantine Empire. It was
a country temporarily conquered by the Bulgars, the centre of the
Bulgarian kingdom bein