Miladinovi's collection and its evaluation in the Bulgarian Renaissance periodical press.

Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov, as teachers, writers and public figures, were the first advocates for preserving and strengthening the national self-consciousness of the population of Macedonia, threatened during the Turkish rule by the assimilationist offensive of the Phanariotes. The Hellenizing policy of the Greek Patriarchate caused D. Miladinov, as early as 1852, when he himself was leading school education in Greek, to turn anxiously to Alexander the Exarch: "The six-eighths of Macedonia, which are populated by monolingual Bulgarians - he wrote to him - are all learning the Hellenic script and are called Hellenes by the Hellenes, except for the northern Slovenes, who are advancing in the Slovenian (language)", 1 Therefore, after the Crimean War, when the movement for the political and spiritual liberation of the Bulgarian people entered its decisive stage, Miladinov became one of the pioneers of the national awakening of Macedonia. As a teacher, with the active assistance of his younger brother Konstantin, Rayko Zhinzifov and other of his students and followers, he was the first to lead the struggle for the introduction of the Bulgarian language, which had been overthrown by the Phanariotes, into the school and the church, and with his exceptional activity against the denationalizing advances of the patriarchate, he established himself as a universally recognized figure in the Bulgarian revival. That is why, when in the January days of 1862 the news of the martyrdom of the two brothers was brought from Constantinople, it disturbed their compatriots from all corners of Bulgaria, and a number of Slavic periodicals, appreciating the value of their great work, widely popularized their names. Having received a solid education for their time in Greek educational institutions, which Konstantin subsequently enriched at the Faculty of Philology in Moscow, the Miladinovs perceptively understood the role of culture for the national revival of every nation. The rich literature of Greece, which excitingly reflected the life of ancient Hellas and the flowering of its civilization, not only does not disturb their national consciousness, but makes them look at the preserved material and spiritual values ​​of their people in order to document through them their historical past, the stability of their way of life and character. And if the Bulgarian literature of that time, whose development was hindered by the conditions of political and spiritual oppression, could only partially respond to this patriotic need, in the folk poetic work of Dimitar Konstantin Miladinovi discovered both the past, the present, and the future of his people. The collection of samples of folklore and their publication in the collection “Bulgarian Folk Songs” strengthened, enriched, and exalted their patriotic and democratic work.