A PEASANT’S ANSWER.
As illustrating the popular feeling in Bulgaria the following letter from a peasant to Mr. Maringovich appeared in the official organ of the Bulgarian Government, Echo de Bulgarie, published in French:
Your Excellency: I am a plain peasant from the Danube country. While born on the shores of the beautiful blue Lake of Ochrida, and really, I cannot understand what is the meaning of your factum, (sic.) What have you come to do among us? Nobody knows you any more in Sofia. You are Servian and consequently a foreigner to us Bulgarians. There are certain pains that nothing can alleviate, nor heal, and there are wounds that nothing can cicatrize.
Since your entry in Ochrida, in my father's house, you, the Servian Army, behaved like enemies. You profaned the church, that Bulgarian church where I took my first communion. You have despoiled the archives and burned our libraries; you ordered closed our national school where I learned to mumble the alphabet of my mother tongue.
I have seen the epic struggle of my compatriots against Greeks and Turks, and I took part with them in order to obtain these national institutions. And did you come there in Ochrida, and everywhere in Macedonia protected by our valiant army of Lulé Bourgas and Chataldja, to perform the duty of allies—of Slav brethren?
You established yourselves as conquerors of the country, as vandals, with the manifest purpose of extinguishing every vestige of our national culture. You associated yourselves with the non-Slavs (Rumanians and Greeks) against us, your allies, in order to reach your end. Why, then, do you call us Slavs? We were called Tartars until just before you arrived in Sofia.
You treated as villains our Bishops, whom the Turks and the Greeks were forced to restore us after a struggle of seventy-five years. You burned our Bulgarian books, and you forbade, under penalty of death, our people from calling themselves Bulgars. You tortured my parents with all the refinements of torture that you have invented.
Why, I beg of you? Because you were Servians? I will not go so far as to injure you with the belief that the Servians are capable of crimes against nature. Then, because we were Bulgarians; because those poor people, taking you for their brethren, for Christians, for Slavs, at least had the courage to say they were Bulgarians and to think themselves such.
And this continues today with increased intensity. Ah, Mr. Maringovich! You have committed there and you persist in committing a crime against humanity that nothing will ever efface. You stabbed us to the heart, with premeditation, and the wound is still bleeding; you killed our faith in the Slav brotherhood. You morally assassinated us.
In the face of these crimes, Bregainitza and Slivnitza are pale figures. These odious crimes will not be left unpunished. The day of chastisement will come whether you look for it or not.
Your Excellency, I permit myself to repeat the question: What have you come to do among us?
Really you must have a good cheek—permit me this undiplomatic expression—and a Servian cheek, in order to have the audacity to come here and tell us tales. It is not only this; but you make sport of our sacredest and deepest sentiments, you reopen our wounds, and you purely and simply abuse us. You ought to have thought of all this before you set out for Sofia. Today there is an abyss dividing Serbs and Bulgars. It is an open precipice which will serve for you as a grave. You wish to fill it? To succeed you must employ other means than words.
Sir: You are a foreigner to us; there is not an honest man in all Bulgaria who can consider you a welcome guest. Nobody knows you. For every Bulgar there is only one word and one gesture for you. We stake our liberty in giving you the answer and in making the gesture.
Sir: You may take the train which brought you here from Nish. There is the depot. Farewell! Kindly accept the assurance of my consideration for your person, whom I had not the advantage to know.