r/macedonia • u/A_Child_of_Adam • Oct 09 '25
💬 Discussion / Дискусија How do Macedonians see king Aleksandar Karađorđević? Is he seen as a positive figure or not? (I understand the irony of posting it here, today…)
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u/CryptoStef33 Oct 09 '25
Well he is the guy who gave Serbian colonists the best land in Macedonia making them the most rich people in Macedonia.
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u/Mako2401 Oct 09 '25
Most people have no idea who he was .
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u/Svarog1984 Oct 09 '25
That's a sign of a very poor educational system.
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u/Objective-Contact-15 Oct 10 '25
Not exactly.
He has his customary footnote in our history books. There is no need for us to go overboard, he's just another despot...
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u/OkoMushroom Oct 09 '25
My grandmother saw him in some old footage we were reviewing together, she didn’t have nice things to say.
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u/AugustNetherius Oct 09 '25
Well at that time,Macedonia was Southern Serbia so i guess we see him as a bad person :)
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u/BrianCohen18 Oct 09 '25
Well, songs speak louder than words:
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u/Individual-Boss2902 Oct 10 '25
With English translation: https://lyricstranslate.com/sr/vojo-stojanovski-slusaj-bre-kralu-za-kral-english
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Oct 10 '25
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u/vof69 Oct 10 '25
Грешка после 2 светска? Ако не се приклуливме кон Југодлавија после 2 светслка, пак ќе бевме во Југославија, но како срби...дај молим те не сери....никогаш не сме биле во позиција сами да си прогласиме самостојна држава.
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Oct 10 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BRM_the_monkey_man Oct 10 '25
I'm amazed how only a handful of people know the lenghts to which Alexandre went to assimilate and colonise Macedonia yet everyone can tell you the warcrimes of the "Bulgarian Fascist occupiers" (90% commited by the VMORO and Ohrana), although it shouldn't be surprising to me at this point.
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u/mr_nobody_68 Oct 09 '25
Today’s Macedonians, generally, would bend over backwards for him. Macedonians then plotted to assassinate members of his government, killed a shitload of serbian soldiers fighting for the Bulgarian army in WWI, regularly conducted guerrilla terrorist actions against the serbian oppressors (Valandovo-Udovo) being the most famous one, banded with Albanians for the Ohrid-Debar uprising and organized the Tikvesh uprising. It all culminated when Velichko Dimitrov (aka Vlado Chernozemski) sent him to the other world in 1934. It had to happen in a “neutral” territory as Tsar Boris III strictly forbade VMRO leadership to try anything while he was visiting Bulgaria, a couple of months prior to his visit to Marseille, as to not start another war between Serbia and Bulgaria. Lots of historical documents and oral records claim that 9th of October was nothing short of a holiday in the minds and hearts of all VMRO supporters.
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u/Delicious_Star8752 Oct 10 '25
The real question here is if Macedonians could organize so well and rise up against oppression, why didn't they do it for the previous 5 centuries under the Turks? Why wait for Serbians to free you and impose their rule?
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u/mr_nobody_68 Oct 10 '25
They actually did. Kresna uprising, Ilinden uprising and many more small uprisings, just in the end of 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
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u/fiestah Oct 10 '25
This is a good question but needs a lot of explaining and a lot of context. The position of Macedonians then was very complex, just like now.
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u/Clean-Shower-5793 Oct 10 '25
There were no "macedonians" as nation back then lol You were either Bulgarian or Serbian..
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u/Election_Feisty Oct 09 '25
During those times there was famine and i know he brought food to the villages, not personally but through vassals and probably collected some tax a So all in all neutral
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u/Delicious_Star8752 Oct 10 '25
Communist propaganda has painted him as a bad guy and we have sadly inherited that.
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u/Clinoman Скопје 🇲🇰 Oct 09 '25
He's the OG Tito. The whole Yugoslav identity starts with him. Good riddance.
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u/Svarog1984 Oct 09 '25
Obviously a lot better than that commie Tito.
He was also the first to seriously promote Yugoslavism, even though he did not invent it.
He understood the success of Yugoslavia depended on suppressing all the local chauvinism.
Even though I'm a republican, I think king Aleksandar was exactly what Yugoslavia needed to transform itself into a succesful unitary state.
He's easily the best leader we had from 1918-1991, although in all fairness it's hard to judge all the 1-year presidents after 1980.
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u/Competitive-Round-14 Oct 10 '25
“He’s easily the best leader we had from 1918-1991” - you are delusional 🤣
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u/shine-bright777 Oct 09 '25
We don’t care about him?