The collection of the Miladinov Brothers “Bulgarian folk songs” – an indisputable part of the Bulgarian cultural heritage

The collection of the Miladinov Brothers “Bulgarian Folk Songs” has always been the subject of special research attention in Bulgarian folklore. 

Leading scholars of different generations such as Ivan Shishmanov, Mikhail Arnaudov, Petar Dinekov, Todor Ivanov Zhivkov write about the great contribution of the Miladinov Brothers and especially about the place of their collection in the development not only of folklore and ethnological knowledge but also its place in cultural history of Bulgaria. 

However, the text clearly shows with examples how the collection of the Miladinov Brothers “Bulgarian Folk Songs” is still presented in the Republic of Northern Macedonia. The article focuses on the foreword to the phototype edition (published for the first time in Skopje), written by Marko Kitevski. 

The author criticizes some of Kitevski’s false statements, written in the spirit of the continuing, even so far, conjunctural practice of denying the Bulgarian cultural heritage in the Republic of Northern Macedonia.