Hi, Scott, I am writing to you directly as I want to avoid the (almost) propaganda atmosphere of the Usenet newsgroups. I also did not want to comment on your recent remarks in public as I do not know the exact context in which they were used (I hope, I can clarify it in a personal exchange). The reason for that is that I have been very busy recently finishing up my dissertation and followed, although inconsistently, very few threads (only those in which I have more serious interest). To the best of my understanding, your conflict with some members of the s.c.b. Usenet newsgroup started about the use of the word "Bulgarian" to denote homosexuals. I personally have no problem with that. In fact, I was just curious to first see such use of the word in a work by Voltaire (sp?) a year or so ago. In general, I believe in the right of people to self-identify as whatever they want as far as the context in which a word is used clearly resolves any possible misunderstandings. I believe, this is the case with your WWW page. So much about my position on this "issue" (not a big one to me). I have noticed, though, a couple of postings of yours as of recently on subjects in which I was more interested. In those postings (again, I have not seen the development of the whole story) I saw you making sweeping generalizations. You claim Bulgarians (and that's Bulgarians in general) are historical revisionists. I believe, this is a racist and untrue statement and it defeats the purpose of better supporting your position. You try to illustrate that statement with the fate of the Bulgarian Jews during WW II: Scott A. Safier wrote: > In article , > gkaradov@idirect.com (George Karadov) wrote: > > ! Scott A. Safier (corwin+@cmu.edu) wrote: > ! : Do you mean like Bulgarians who revise Bulgarian history to ignore the > ! : 11,000 Jews deported by the Bulgarian Government from Macedonia and Thames > ! : during WWII? As a matter of fact, I created a WWW page where I tried to collect as much documents as I could about the fate of Bulgarian Jews during WW II. Some of those documents clearly talk about the 11-12,000 Jews from (parts of) Macedonia and Thrace deported to Germany. See: http://ASUdesign.eas.asu.edu/places/Bulgaria/Jewish/ > As I have posted, the historical documentation shows that it was the > Bulgarian government that negotiated and ordered the deportations. A > high-level Bulgarian official that intervened to save 8,000 or so Jews > from "old Bulgaria" was forced to resign his high office after securing > their safety. The above is a completely wrong statement. First, it was about 49,000 Jews from "Bulgaria proper" whose life was saved. Your source must be completely off the mark to allow such a big discrepancy in the numbers. Second, it was not a single "high-level Bulgarian official", but a mass movement of Bulgarians - from members of the Bulgarian parliament to the King, to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, to even the illegal Bulgarian communist party (although I personally doubt the motive and effect of the actions of the latter). The Bulgarian nationalist IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) threatened terrorist actions if Jews were deported. BTW, the same IMRO is nowadays branded "fascist" by the official historiography in the Republic of Macedonia. Saving Jewish lives and fascism don't mix in my mind. So much about revisionism. I saw you also mentioned Macedonia and the Macedonian question (another issue of interest to me). I did not get your point, though, and would like to clarify it. Best wishes, -- Plamen Internet E-mail: Plamen.Bliznakov@ASU.edu WWW: http://ASUdesign.eas.asu.edu/Plamen.Bliznakov/