Pyotr Draganov

Pyotr Danilovich Draganov (Пётр Данилович Драганов; Петър Драганов; Петар Драганов; February 13 1857 – February 7, 1928) was a Russian philologist and slavist.

Biography
Draganov was born in Komrat, Russian Empire in 1857. He was a Bessarabian Bulgarian. Draganov studied history and philology at the University of Saint Petersburg. From 1885 to 1887 he was working as a teacher in a Thessaloniki high school after he was invited by the Bulgarian Exarchate.

He came to Thessaloniki with the claim that the Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia are Bulgarians. However, after the huge research that he has done in Macedonia he came up with his own scientific opinion about them. In other words, Draganov supported the idea that the Macedonians are a distinct Slavic ethnic group and the Macedonian dialects form a separate language. As a result of this claim and his personal beliefs, he was sent back to Russia, where he set the foundations of Macedonian studies.

Quotes
"Should the Russians be happy or sad about the fact that in Macedonia the indigenous population is raising its voice, calling itself the ancient name Macedonians?" In our personal opinion, it would be fair, at least morally, to support this numerous tribe that speaks a special Slavic dialect and has its own old history, no less interesting than the history of the Bulgarians and the Serbs"

"Among The Macedonians there are desperate Bulgarians and desperate Serbs, but there are also so-called autonomists and autochthonists who say that [Macedonians] are in no way part of the great ideas of Simeon the Bulgarian and Dusan the Serb ."