present an interesting picture of the traditions and fancies prevailing among the mass of the Bulgarian people…" The collection compiled by the Miladinov brothers also played a great role in the development of the modern Bulgarian literature, because its songs as poetic models for the outstanding Bulgarian poets – Ivan Vazov, Pencho Slaveikov, Kiril Hristov, Peyo Yavorov, etc. Controversy The Miladinov brothers were fervent proponents of the Bulgarian national idea in Macedonia and unequivocally identified as Bulgarians, referring to their language and culture exclusively as Bulgarian. Miladinov and other educated Macedonian Slavs then in fact worried that use of the designation Macedonian would imply an identification with the Greek nation. Nevertheless, their ethnicity, language, and legacy are a contentious political issue between Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Per Alexis Heraclides, the Miladinov brothers were among "the earliest pioneers of a sense of Macedonian identity, as least as conceived by contemporary Macedonian historians and other scholars". The official view in North Macedonia is that the Miladinov brothers were in fact Macedonians who spoke Macedonian and contributed to Macedonian literature. However, the Miladinov brothers deliberately avoided using the term Macedonian in reference to the region, arguing that it presents a threat to the Bulgarian character of the population, and proposed the name Western Bulgaria instead. After the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans, the name Macedonia disappeared as a designation for several centuries. Names such as "Lower Moesia" and "Lower Bulgaria" were used interchangeably by the region's Slavic population which had a clear Bulgarian ethnic consciousness. The name Macedonia was revived in the early 19th century with the new Greek state and was affirmed in the modern area as a result of Hellenic religious and school propaganda. In a private letter to Georgi Rakovski, Konstantin Miladinov expressed concern over the use of the name Macedonia as it may be used to justify Greek claims to the region and the local Bulgarian population, so he suggested that the region should be called Western Bulgaria instead. In post-war Yugoslav Macedonia, the Miladinov brothers were appropriated by the historians as part of the Macedonian National Revival and their original works were hidden from the general public. Their works were claimed to be Macedonian, despite them stating in their works that they were Bulgarians. Today in North Macedonia there are schools named after the Miladinov Brothers, but the pupils there do not have the access to