Macedonia for the Macedonians

The slogan was raised by the British politician William Ewart Gladstone in 1897, in an often misquoted 1897 citation,[2] when he promoted the idea on some kind of mini-Balkan Federation in this region.

[3][4] Gladstone appealed for the right of self-determination of the peoples who resided in the region, while Britain regarded the creation of an autonomous Macedonia with a Christian governor as a possible solution of the Macedonian issue.

[5] On that occasion, the British journalist G. W. Steevens also noted in the preface of the broshure containing the letter of Gladstone, that he has used "Macedonians" as a collective name of the diverse population of the region.

[20] The Organization gave a guarantee for the preservation of all national communities there, and insisted that the Bulgarians could be proud of their tolerance, in opposition to Romanians, Serbs and Greeks.

In the same year the Organization changed its exclusively Bulgarian character,[21] and opened it to all Macedonians and Thracians regardless of nationality, who wished to participate in the anti-Ottoman movement.

[22] Those revolutionaries saw the future autonomous Macedonia as a multinational polity, and "Macedonian" was an umbrella term covering Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians, Albanians, Serbs, etc.

As the region was ethnically diverse, an autonomous, neutral, cantonized by Swiss model state was proposed, where all nationalities will preserve their mother tongues and religions, enjoying the same democratic political rights.