The ethnic Macedonian ideology during the second half of the 19th century was at its inception. One of the first preserved accounts is an article by Petko Slaveykov, published on 18 January 1871 in the "Macedonia" newspaper in Constantinople. In this article Petko Slaveykov writes: "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians, but they are rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians". In a letter written to the Bulgarian Exarch in February 1874 Petko Slaveykov reports that discontentment with the current situation "has given birth among local patriots to the disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their own local dialect and what’s more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership."