The Invisible and Forgotten Field Trip Expeditions in Serbian and Greek Macedonia during the First World War (1916-1917)
Abstract
This chapter deals with several ethnographic expeditions undertaken by Bulgarian and foreign scholars to Serbian and Greek Macedonia, respectively, during the First World War. These research trips had remained for more than half a century overlooked, "invisible" and forgotten for the scholars and wide public.
The Bulgarian scientific expedition in 1916 in Serbian Macedonia and in the region of Pomoravie had not only purely scientific aims, but was conducted for political purposes. The result of the work of Bulgarian scholars was an enormous collection of knowledge about history, ethnography, cultural traditions, economic development, and natural resources of Macedonia and neighbouring Albanian territories.
Nevertheless, this enormous research work was a contribution to the Bulgarian science. So were the expeditions of foreign scholars undertaken to Serbian and Greek Macedonia in 1917, but these were object of controversial assessment by contemporaries as well.