Gjorgi Pulevski

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Gjorgi Pulevski (Macedonian: Георги [Ѓорѓи] Пулевски) was a Macedonian textbook writer, lexicographer, historian and military leader. He was born in 1838, in the western Macedonian village of Galičnik and died in Sofia in 1895.

In 1862 he participated in breaking of the Turkish siege of Belgrade. Although he had no formal education, Pulevski published several books, including two dictionaries, and a collection of Macedonian songs, customs, and holidays. In the early seventies, he published in Belgrade his two text-books: "Dictionary of Four Languages - 1. Serbian-Albanian. 2. Albanian. 3. Turkish. 4. Greek" (in 1872) and "A Dictionary of Three languages - Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish" (in 1875).

Afterwards Pulevski took part in the famous Battle of Shipka Pass leading a squad of Macedonian volunteers gathered together by him in the course of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878. He distinguished himself there by his bravery and was honored by the Russians. In 1879 in Sofia, which had just been liberated, Pulevski issued his “Macedonian Song Book” in two parts, where, side by side with a few folk songs, there are also songs compiled by him on the living themes of the time. His “Macedonian grammar” appeared in the following year. He also wrote the first “Slavjanomakedonska opšta istorija” (General History of the Macedonian Slavs) in Macedonian, completed in 1892, a large manuscript with over 1700 pages.

He died in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he was considered a "Serbian agent"^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Macedonian patriotism

Pulevski frequently expressed the independent national consciousness of the Macedonian people. In his “Dictionary of Three Languages” he laid claims to Alexander the Macedonian: “Macedonia was praised,” he says, “in the time of the great tsar Alexander" (p.67). Next, Pulevski mentions with pride that the first books of the brothers Cyril and Methodius were in our language: “... The Macedonian language is the one which is the closest to Church Slavonic books and it is Old Slavonic” (p. 40) “We are called Slavs because when Cyril and Methodius translated the church books from Greek into Slavonic, they found it would be good to write in Old Slavonic and the Old Slavs lived in Macedonia” (p.42).

In the same book he devoted one section to Macedonia where he spoke of its frontiers, towns and fairs and of the ethnic and dialectal differences among the Macedonian people. His dictionary is written in the form of questions and answers in a long practiced style. To the question “What do we call a nation”? (p.48) Pulevski answers “People who are of the same origin and who speak the same words and who live and make friends of each other, who have the same customs and songs and entertainment are what we call a nation, and the place where that people lives is called the people's country. Thus the Macedonians also are a nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia” (p.49).