Alexander the Great: how Slavic was he?

27 January 2009

The real question is not whether Alexandre trhe Great was Greek or not. He has. The real question is whether the Slavic invaders to the Balkans during the 7th century AD, more than one thousand years after Alexandre, can claim today any other nationality than Slavic and have the right to hold any other passport than Bulgarian. And the answer is simply NO.

by Prof. Paul Cartledge, Cambridge University

Nation-state building in its most urgent form was a particularly prominent 19th-century phenomenon. Small proto-states then were seeking to get out from under the stifling embrace of the big empires of the day - whether British, Turkish, French or Russian. But that process of political emancipation was not confined by any means to the 19th century; indeed, it continues, in places very strongly or even violently, to this day. And new nation-states that choose to base their essential identity on ethnicity, in order to determine who ‘the people’ are, tend to need heroes. Not least, they feel the need for founding-father type heroes from the past who can be seamlessly re-appropriated (and of course made over) as the nation’s living ancestors.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - or just plain ‘Macedonia’, as it is known officially to its inhabitants and, more surprisingly, to George Bush’s United States of America - is exactly one such emergent ethnic nation-state of today in search of retrospective founding-father ancestors. Unfortunately, one of its ‘ancestors’ of choice, Alexander the Great, is already very well spoken for - in fact, most vigorously claimed and appropriated - by the neighbouring state of Greece. Though Greece began the process of independent nation-state building as early as the 1820s, it did not achieve its present geopolitical configuration until the 1940s, well within the living memory of its oldest generations. Hence it too is still not a little sensitive about its founding-father ancestors; and though it has a far huger pool to choose from than does FYROM, it too chooses to make a song and dance about Alexander as a true-blue Hellene, because the area of northern Greece centred on Greek Macedonia with its capital at Thessaloniki is the most ethnically diverse and the most ethnically contested in all the present-day Greek state. Therein lie the source, and the cause of its intensity, of the conflict between Greece and FYROM over the question of Alexander’s true ethnicity - a fundamentally historical question, but one that has become twisted out of all recognition by politics: just how Greek or Hellenic was he, really?

It’s very difficult today to classify precisely the language of the ancient Macedonians, because so few examples of it have been preserved. But two things about it are reasonably certain, or at least agreed among the experts. It was basically a dialect of Greek, but so interlarded with words of non-Greek, mainly Thracian origin that not just because of accent but also because of vocabulary it could be incomprehensible to speakers of ’standard’ Greek dialects. For example, Alexander himself when under the stress of huge emotion is recorded as speaking ‘in Macedonian’. The issue of difference of customs is also complex, but two features may be salient. Unlike Greeks elsewhere, both in mainland Greece and in the diaspora, the Macedonians had not developed a civilisation based on cities (poleis), and correspondingly they had not developed a strong political notion of citizenship. To try to convey an idea of this difference, scholars speak - however misleadingly - of Macedonian tribalism, even feudalism. That traditional way of doing politics was not significantly altered until only a couple of generations before Alexander the Great, in the late 5th century BCE.

Apart from the lack of citification, what would have astonished all other Greeks - except the Spartans perhaps - was the practice of royal polygamy. King Philip II, Alexander the Great’s father, amassed a collection of seven wives in all, only two of whom were Macedonian Greeks. Alexander’s own mother Olympias was a Greek Greek, as it were, a royal princess from Epirus. Elsewhere, monogamy was not just required for all Greeks - but also regarded as a defining feature of Greek as opposed to barbarian culture.

These linguistic and cultural differences could be exploited politically, then as now. Demosthenes of Athens complained you used not even to be able to buy a decent slave from Macedonia (implying it was a barbarian territory) whereas now Macedonia under Philip II lorded it over the rest of mainland Greece including Athens as if its subjects were barbarian slaves themselves. At the battle of Issus in Asia Minor in 333, Alexander’s difficulties in fighting the forces of the Persian king Darius III were compounded by the fact that many Greeks had enlisted as mercenaries on the side of Darius precisely because they hated Macedonians so.

My point in reminding readers of these ancient contentions over the ethnicity and meaning of ‘Macedonian’ is to emphasise how far the disputes were manufactured and exploited for political reasons, rather than based on scientific historical knowledge and understanding of the facts (such as they are and were). The same seems to me true today. On October the 28th 2007 the United Macedonian Diaspora organised a protest outside Parliament House in Canberra against FYROM’s assertion that Alexander was a (non-Greek) Macedonian. It is vital, I believe, that the Greek-Australian community’s response is measured, well articulated and clear. It is my view that neo-nationalist perspectives on ancient history do little to generate cohesion or cross-cultural harmony - particularly in immigrant nations such as Australia. I am also of the view that it is somewhat irrelevant whether Alexander was Greek or Macedonian according to any modern, retrospective, reappropriating notion of those terms. What matters is that he was a hugely significant leader, imbued with Hellenic values, but blessed also with a global and no less importantly multicultural perspective on the world.

I say ‘Greek or Hellenic’, because in English the very term ‘Greek’ is itself the result of ethnocentrism, a very ancient ethnocentrism admittedly, since it goes back to the ancient Romans, the Americans of their day. The Graikoi were indeed Greek - or Hellenic, as the Greeks themselves would have put it. They lived in Thessaly, the region immediately adjoining Greek Macedonia on the south. But they were small fry, bit-part players in the major ancient dramas. The ancient Greeks as a whole, who called themselves collectively ‘Hellenes’, would no more have considered calling themselves all ‘Graikoi’ than all Australians would today consider calling themselves Darwinites. Perhaps that’s another, historically conditioned reason why Greeks today or people of Greek descent, when speaking Greek insist so strongly that Macedonia is, was and always has been Greek, I mean Hellenic.

Yet, thereby hangs another irony, and another ancient one. Because even in ancient times there was a debate in Greece over the ethnicity of the Macedonians, that is over whether they were - or all of them were, and had always been - Greek (Hellenic Greek). This debate surfaces in Herodotus, at a critical moment in his account of the Graeco-Persian Wars. Ancient Macedonia, including a part of what is today FYROM, was then a subject province of the Persian empire, that empire’s European toehold or bridgehead. That was embarrassing enough for patriotic Greeks - but perhaps their consciences could be salved by saying that the Macedonians weren’t ‘really’ Hellenes? Herodotus was on the case, though only in retrospect of course. His enquiries led him to confirm the report he was given by the Macedonians themselves - that they were indeed Greek.

However - and it is a big ‘however’ - honesty compelled Herodotus to add that, when the Macedonian king of the day, another Alexander (Alexander the First), had applied to compete in the all-Greek and only-Greek Olympic Games, his fellow- competitors had objected that he was a ‘barbarian’ (non-Greek). But the judges of the Games, who were known as Hellenodikai or ‘Judges of the Hellenes’, had decided in his favour - on grounds of descent, as follows. The royal family to which Alexander belonged called themselves Argeadai, descendants of Argeas, and their family tradition held that Argeas, the ultimate founding father of their family line, took his name from Argos in the Peloponnese - indeed that he had originally emigrated from Argos to Macedonia to found the line. The Olympic Judges accepted that tradition as true. But - and again, it is a big ‘but’ - they did not then go on to declare that henceforth all Macedonians were entitled, as Hellenes, to compete in the Olympics. Entitlement was extended only to the royal Aegead family, not to all other Macedonians as well ….

Why so? Put it another way, why was there such dispute and discord, even among ancient Greeks, over the Hellenic identity and authenticity of the Macedonians? Even though, it has to be added, this dispute and discord flew in the face of very ancient Hellenic mythic genealogy, according to which Makedon, the eponymous forefather of all Macedonians, occupied an exalted position high up in the family-tree agreed on by all Hellenes. There were I think two main reasons. First, language, and second, customs - remembering that Herodotus, when he placed a definition of Greekness in the mouths of the Athenians, singled out precisely those two factors as crucially definitional.

Paul Cartledge is a Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University, and a fellow of Clare College. A world expert on Athens and Sparta in the Classical Age he has been described as a Laconophile. He was chief historical consultant for the BBC TV series The Greeks and the Channel 4 series The Spartans, presented by Bettany Hughes.
He has published The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others (2nd ed, 2002), the product of research into Greek self-definition; Kosmos: essays in Order, Conflict and Community in Classical Athens (coauthor Millet, Paul.) (2002) Cambridge University Press; The Spartans: An Epic History (2nd ed, 2003); Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (2004) Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures (2004) Center for Hellenic Studies.; Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (2006). The Overlook Press.

source: hellenesonline.com

Was Alexander the Great a Slav?

This is a row I really don't get. Over the last few years FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) has been investing heavily in Alexander the Great. FYROM's main airport is now called "Alexander the Great Airport" (better than "John Lennon" or "Bob Hope" airports, you might think). A vast statue of Alexander (eight storeys high, apparently) is planned for the centre of Skopje. And the word on the street is that Alexander was a Slav.

This seems to me to be at best rather touching. It's nice to think that there is still enough symbolic life in this drunken juvenile thug that someone wants him for their nation. At worst, it is faintly silly. The antecedents of Alexander are a bit murky, but in truth there isn't a cat in hell's chance that he was a Slav. I can see also that it could be a bit annoying to some Greeks who might want to try to claim Alexander for themselves (this is a better claim than the Slavic one, but not exactly cast iron).

But what on earth has persuaded over 300 classical scholars (several of whom are good friends of mine) to sign a letter to President Obama (copy to Mrs Clinton et al.) asking him to intervene personally to clear up this FYROM historical travesty.

I hope Obama has got some more important wrongs to right. But supposing that he has had a minute to look at this missive, I trust that he won't be won over by the outraged arguments.

The territory of FYROM, they point out, is more strictly that of ancient Paionia, not Macedonia (fair enough, but so what -- we dont stop Northern Ireland calling itself part of Great Britain, even though it wasn't part of ancient Britannia). The other arguments in the letter are decidedly dodgier, and not the kid of thing that the learned signatories would (I hope) give high marks to in an undergraduate essay.

There is the usual stuff about how Alexander's ancestors must have been Greek as they competed in the Olympic Games (in fact there was originally some dispute at the time about whether they were, or were not, Greek enough to qualify). But the worst argument is the claim that 'the Macedonians traced their ancestry to Argos", and so were bona fide, not FYROM-style, Greeks. Well of course the Macedonians said that. It was a convenient and self-serving MYTH, no truer than the Athenians' claim that they were born from the soil of Athens.

By putting their names to this rubbish, I cant help feeling that my friends are stooping to exactly the kind of nationalsm that they are trying to oppose. If you really wanted to undermine the Macedonian claims, wouldn't it be better (and academically more credible) simply to laugh at them and just refuse to take them seriously?

by Mary Beard on July 03, 2009 at 12:16 AM
timesonline

A reader(iconoclast) answer to FYROM President claims

The Spiegel Online article is frought with misinformation and out right lies. Unfortunately, it seems that the reporter Renate Flottau does is not well versed with the subject that she is attempting to tackle, leading to Ivanov making false statements that she allows him to get away with without challenging him in anyway.

Ivanov is a blatent lier.

He says:

"Does anybody really believe that we would attack Greece and demand a union with "Macedonians" who have been living in Greece since 1913"

Greece has not stated that they see the instability manifest itself in the absurd notion that Ivanov is putting forward, but rather the propaganda that eminates from Skopje is creating instability, right now. This is not some sort of dream we are living. There are no "Macedonian" people living in Greece since 1913, these people are bi-lingual citizens of Greece. They chose to remain in Greece during population exchange that occured after the 1912-13 Balkan War, and thus asserting their choice to be Greek citizens. What Ivanov is asserting is his twisted propaganda, once again.

Ivanov says:

"These maps of the ethnic "Macedonians" from the 19th century, when all "Macedonians" lived together in one state."

What a load of absolute garbage. These people that Ivanov refers to "Macedonians" were Slavs who lived in the region of Macedonia that was a part of the Ottoman Empire, there was no such state of "Macedonia" that he is attempting to manufacture. Such a state, in the sense of a nation did not exist, but only in his delusional mind and in the delusional mind of the Slavs of the newly created nation state of the FYROM. In the geographical region of Macedonia, there was a "La Salade Macedeoineis" of ethnicities, Turks, Albainians, Bulgars, Serbs, Roma and Greeks. These Slavs of the FYROM had at that time an ethnic conscience of being Bulgar. So this rubbish Ivanov is espousing is just that rubbish.

He says:

"Many "Macedonians" who were forced to flee Greece, had to leave behind everything they had"

Yes, Mr. Ivanov but these individuals also were considered traitors of the Greek state. They were not forced to flee, they fled due to their prior traitorous actions against the Greek state that led them to flee on their own volition. If they had stayed they would have been charged as enemy combatants and traitors, and at that time, would have been put up against a firing squad and shot. So they fled to save their own skin!

Ivanov says:

"They were brought by the emigrants. As opponents of the communists, they were expelled and they returned after the communist regime fell."

These people fled on their own violition because they chose to fight with the communists and against the Greek state, not the rubbish that Ivanov tries to put forward, that they were "opponents of the communists." What a joke this guy is! These people, who were Greek citizens were traitors to the Greek state.

Ivanov says:

"Our constitution, because of pressure from Greece, prohibits us from doing that. But as a member of the EU, Greece must accept that European principles must be adhered to across Europe -- also when it comes to its minorities."

Which minorities is he refering to? He is attempting to create something that does not exist. There are bi-lingual Greek citizens that live in Greece, no one is denying this. Rather, Ivanov is with his acolytes attempting, to create a dynamic which results in social instability. This is what his failed propaganda is attempting to do. These people are simply delusional.

Ivanov says:

"It wasn't Macedonia, but rather Greece that evoked antiquity in order to prove its authenticity."

No, Mr. Ivanov it has been your nations state sponsored propaganda that has been attempting to establish a direct link to the Greek speaking Ancient Macedonians, who by themselves, considered themselves Greek. Your state sponsored psuedo-history is attempting to assert that the Ancient Macedonians were your ancestors. The Greek people are fully in their right to protest and protect and cherrish their history. One need only open their eyes to your actions, rather than to your words to see the reality. You Mr. Ivanov are a propagandist and a delusional lier.

Ivanov says:

"We fulfilled every reform, our people planned for the future, foreign investments were announced. Worst of all is the fact that up to today not a single NATO official has found it necessary to discuss it with us or to offer the prospect of a solution. My God, we have been treated unfairly."

No Mr. Ivanov, you have been treated fairly. You have not fulfilled every reform. The NATO was fully within its right to deny your nation an invitation to join the NATO. You were denied admittance for very legitimate reasons put forward by one of its members, Greece, in which the NATO thoughtfully considered, and agreed with Greece's position.

Maybe Mr. Ivanov, rather than acting like an immature child that spits its dummy when it doesn't get what it wants, which exactly what you have recently demonstrated by erecting all manner of ancient Greek statues, renaming your streets, buldings and anything else you could think of to names of ancient Greeks, you might want to be somewhat introspective, grow up, act mature, and take actions that demonstrates that you deserve to enter the NATO. Right now, the NATO itself doesn't think you are ready. It's really quite simple Mr. Ivanov, really, truly.

Ivanov says:

"If a train is standing on the tracks, the tracks will determine the direction. "

Yes, Mr. Ivanov your analogy is poignant, the one significant point in your analogy you seem to have taken for granted, is that the train is stopping at your station. This is not a given, which you do not appear to have understood. Mr. Ivanov, you can catch a cold standing at a train platform for too long, waiting for a train that never stops.

Ivanov says:

"The new general secretary of NATO will also be more creative -- NATO could even review its own decision again and could accept us as part of the alliance despite Greece's veto."

I don't think so Mr. Ivanov. This is what the current general secretary of the NATO said:

" QUESTION: Skopje New Information Agency. Secretary General, I must ask you, Skopje, as you know, has done a lot with the reforms to join NATO. We have our peace troops in Afghanistan and for the next year we’re going to enlarge the Skopjan soldiers. Don’t you think that in your mandate, you didn’t give us enough support to become a member of NATO, together with Albania and Croatia?

JAAP DE HOOP SCHEFFER: No, I don’t think so because I think I’ve done everything which was in my power to bring that about and I’m telling you no news if I say that the decision at the Bucharest Summit a year ago was crystal clear, that the solution has to be found for the name issue. And I hope that there will be some more flexibility in Skopje than I’ve seen up until now.

Let me answer you openly, frankly and directly. I would like to see your nation in NATO. I’ve never made any, I’ve never concealed my own ambition and I’ve been to Skopje many times. But it also means quite honestly that I have to see flexibility and I think more than I have seen up until now. So the answer to your question is no, I do not agree if you say, Secretary General, have you done enough? I think I have done enough. My successor will also invest. I have invested in the relationship with Skopje. So will my successor.

So that is my answer to your question."
(see http://history-of-macedonia.com/wordpress/2009/06/26/secretary-general-of-nato-i-hope-that-there-will-be-more-flexibility-in-skopje-than-i-have-seen-up-until-now/)

Mr Ivaonv says:

"I am an optimist. US President Barack Obama just clearly stated that Macedonia must become a member of NATO."

Yes, Mr. Ivanov the POTUS Obama may have said this, but you must understand that this is not without you taking the required steps, unless you want to see your good selves once again leaving empty handed.

Ivanov says:

"It takes two to tango."

It seems Mr. Ivanov you have been reading my previous post, where I said "It takes two to tango, Greece is on the dance floor, but her partner has stood her up!"

by iconoclast

====================================================

In this link you can read FYROM President Gjorgje Ivanov interview

FYROM President Ivanov dreams the "Greater Macedonia"

FYROM’s irredentist policy towards Greece from 1944 to the present, a policy that is in flagrant breach of the Interim Agreement signed by the two parties in 1995 expressly calling on them to put an end to any mutual expressions of irredentism. The irredentist propaganda of FYROM, by which it essentially disputes Greece’s sovereignty over the northern part of the country, will be promoted with a barrage of advertisements on the American and European media

The last hit came from the FYROM President Gjorgje Ivanov with a delirium of Irredentism has expressed the real feeling as regards the FYROM State

This is the abstract from the interview in spiegel.de that shows clearly the FYROM Irredentism....


The historical dogma, taking shape in FYROM, backtracks the origins of this modern Slavmacedonians—the Makedonci— a full millennium to include the ancient Macedonians (5th century BC). This revisionist historical dogma, is not limited to encroaching upon the identity of a Hellenic people of the classical times.
It aims at expanding the boundaries of the historical “taktovina” (fatherland) of the “Makedonci” to include wide regions of Greece and Bulgaria. It is well known, that for decades the classrooms and school textbooks of history in FYROM have been adorned with maps portraying Macedonia’s “geographic and ethnic”, i.e. Slavic boundaries extending all the way to Mount Olympus and Chalkidiki, in Greek Macedonia as well as to the Pirin district of Bulgaria.
FYROM main headings were, are and will be...

-Renaming Greek Macedonia as ‘Aegean Macedonia’, and representing it as terra irredenta, as an integral part of FYROM.

-Claiming the existence of an oppressed ‘Macedonian minority’ within Greece.

-Appropriating emblems and symbols, and the Greek cultural legacy in general (with Ancient Macedonia as the focal point).

With the irredentist aspirations which Ivanov promotes with Nikola Gruevski (known as “trouble maker of the Balkans”), and this will have consequences for both himself and his country. The stigma of the dangerous nationalist does not disappear easily in the Balkans. This was a painful discovery for the Serbians who lived through the dismemberment of their country because Slobodan Milosevic started to play the nationalist card in 1989.

Ivanov as member of the extreme nationalist partie VMRO also stated that Serbs dream of a Greater Serbia but he forget to tell what the result of this dream was. Ivanov is trying to become a “hero” internally in his country without being concerned about the fact that externally he is beginning to be viewed as a pariah. Such irredentist statements are dangerous for "regional cooperation and stability in the fragile region of the Balkans". These statements are extremely provocative and totally unacceptable, and proved

-the correctness of the Greek arguments, stance and policy, which insists on the need for resolving the name problem

-that as long as the problem remains unsolved, it will serve as the tool and vehicle of an outdated and historically unfounded irredentism that is dangerous for regional cooperation and stability of the fragile region of the Balkans

-that the neighbouring country (FYROM), so long as it remains captive to irredentist rationales of the past, cannot look forward to a European and Euro-Atlantic future.

Aleksovska's False Claims

June 25, 2009

Alexandra Aleksovska's American Chronicle piece published on June 1st 2009 is fraught with historical inaccuracies (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/104453)

In her article Aleksovska attempted to lambaste Prof. Stephen G. Miller over a letter that he wrote to President Obama. In the letter Prof. Miller outlined several historical inaccuracies being perpetuated by The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.M) in order to lay claim to the legacy of the Macedonian region, including Alexander the Great. By attacking Miller's position with regards to F.Y.R.O.M's state sponsored historiography Aleksovska is effectually defending the notion that the Slavic population of F.Y.R.O.M is linked to Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonians. Unfortuately for Aleksovska no credible and objective authority in the fields of Antrhopology, Sociology or Balkan History will lend any credence to a relationship between F.Y.R.O.M and ancient Macedonia. This is further bolstered by the fact that over 300 world class international Classical Scholars (Historians and Archaeologists), to date, have signed Miller's letter. (See http://macedonia-evidence.org/ for more details)

There are numerous points in Aleksovska's American Chronicle piece that perplex me. To begin with, I find it astounding that nationalists from F.Y.R.O.M and her diaspora insist on citing the historians Ernst Badian and Eugene Borza as being "supportive" of their "cause". In this case Aleksovska asks why "the most respected" scholars of ancient Macedonia, Badian and Borza, haven't signed Miller's letter with the implication that Borza and Badian somehow support her nationalist historiography:

"....Where on the list are respected scholars like Eugene Borza, Ernst Badian or Peter Green, who have written the most respected books on Ancient Macedonia...."

Evidently Aleksovska is not familiar with the published views of Badian and Borza. If she was familiar with their work she would know that much of what they have published is far more devastating to her cause than any statements in Prof. Miller's letter. As a matter of fact Borza made a point of stating that modern "ethnic Macedonians" have no relationship to ancient Macedonia. It seems that the misinformed nationalists from F.Y.R.O.M and her diaspora cannot see beyond Badian's and Borza's views of 4th century BC Macedonia and have taken to blindly citing them ad infinitum in any situation that they think suits their cause.

The following are some of the published positions of Badian and Borza. Perhaps Aleksovska should familiarize herself with their work instead of blindly promoting them as substantiators of her cause:

1. Borza claimed that the Royal house was regarded as Greek and regarded itself as Greek:

"There is NO DOUBT that this tradition of a superimposed Greek house was WIDELY BELIEVED by the Macedonians."- E. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. pg 80

"There was a PERSISTENT, WELL ATTESTED tradition in antiquity that told of a group of Greeks from Argos-descendants of Temenus, kinsman of Heracles-who came to Macedonia and established their rule over the Makedones, unifying them and providing a royal house."- E. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. pg 80

"There is NO reason to deny the Macedonians' own traditions about their early kings and the migration of the Macedones. [..] The basic story as provided by Herodotus and Thucydides, minus the interpoloation of the Temenid connections, UNDOUBTEDLY relfects the Macedonians' own traditions about their early history." - E.Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. pg 84

2. Badian concluded that the Macedonians were regarded as Northern Greeks by Roman times. If we are to use Badian as an ultimate authority, as "Aleksovska" suggests, then we must conclude that regardless of what the perceptions of the Macedonians were in the 4th century BC the Macedonians were regarded as Greeks by other Greeks by Roman times:

"We have now become accustomed to regarding MACEDONIANS as northern GREEKS and, in extreme cases, to hearing Alexander's conquests described as in essence GREEK CONQUESTS. The former CERTAINLY became TRUE, in Greek consciousness in the course of the Hellenistic age; the latter may be argued to be true`ex post facto'." But it is an important question whether these assertions should properly be made in a fourth century B.C context." - E.Badian, Greeks and Macedonians (Studies in the History of Art)

Aleksovska should also acquaint herself with Borza's positions regarding F.Y.R.O.M's modern history before she implicitly associates Borza as a defender of her nationalist historiography. These are Borza's published views on F.Y.R.O.M's modern history and they are far more damaging to Aleksovska's political agenda and nationalist historiography than Prof. Miller's letter!

1. Borza asserts that the Slavic populace of F.Y.R.O.M have no relationship to ancient Macedonia:

"If the claim is based on ethnicity, it is an issue of a different order. Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, CANNOT establish a link with anitquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. ONLY THE MOST RADICAL SLAVIC FACTIONS- mostly emigres in the United States, Canada, and Australia- EVEN ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A CONNECTION TO ANTIQUITY." - E. Borza, Macedonian Redux(The Eye Expanded- Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity). pg 255.

2. Borza asserts that the Macedonian ethno/national identity is a relatively recent social construct and implies that history is being constructed in order to lend the new "Macedonian" nation a historical legitimacy:

"On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish a singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians." - E. Borza, Macedonian Redux(The Eye Expanded- Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity).

"Their own so-called Macedonian ethnicity had evolved for more than a century, and thus it seemed natural and appropriate for them to call the new nation "Macedonia" and to attempt to provide some cultural references to bolster ethnic survival." - E. Borza, Macedonian Redux(The Eye Expanded- Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity).

Furthermore Aleksovska blatently lied to the readers by stating:

"..The ´elephant in the room´ in this argument has always been the fact that Modern Greece stole Macedonia from the Macedonians in 1913..."

Perhaps Aleksovska can explain how land that formerly belonged to the Ottoman empire for several centuries was stolen from "the Macedonians" by Greece? The geographic region of Macedonia never belonged to a "Macedonian ethnicity", never was a part of a "Macedonian" country and never was under the political control of a "Macedonian nation". The geographic name "Macedonia" had no more of an ethnic significance prior to the 20th century than the geographic name "Balkans" does today. The region was incorporated into the Greek state as a result of the Balkan Wars in which Ottoman territory was won by Greece. Perhaps Aleksovska can explain where all of the "ethnic Macedonians" were during this conflict and why the 1914 International Carnegie Commission did not record any "ethnic Macedonian" population in their detailed report.

Aleksovska also made the absurd and unsubstantiated claim that there were no Greeks in Macedonia prior to the Balkan Wars:

"..Prior to this there was not a single part of Macedonia that was Greek – ever.."

This is a very amusing statement in light of the fact that the 1914 Carnegie Commission report on the Balkan wars described Greek populations and made no mention of "ethnic Macedonians". The 1914 Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars was authored by a team of investigators who went to the region to examine the conduct of the various combatants. How does Aleksovska propose that an international commission did not record any "ethnic Macedonians" in a region in which she would claim they formed the vast majority?

As a matter of fact a large number of contemporary writers from the 19th century, and before, recorded vast Greek populations in Macedonia while making absolutely no mention of "ethnic Macedonians". One such writer was George Finlay who spent time in the region during the Greek war of independence. Finlay, unlike Aleksovska, was in the region during the early 19th century. Aside from making no mention of "ethnic Macedonians" in his detailed accounts, he stated that Greeks formed the majority in the Pashalik of Thessalonika.

by Chris Philipou
american chronicle.com

Macedonian* self-identification

Ancient Macedonia was a Greek kingdom situated in the north end of Greece. It became the most powerful Greek state during the 4th century bc after the decline of ancient Athens and ancient Sparta. Under the leadership of King Philippos II and his son Alexandros III (known as Alexander the Great) the Macedonian army conquered most of the world and created the world's largest empire ever, including South-East Europe, most of Asia and North Africa. After the death of Alexander, Macedonia followed the fate of the rest of Greece. It became a Roman province, later a Byzantine province, it was occupied by the Ottoman empire and finally it became part of the indepented Greek state in 1912. Today the Slavmacedonia nation of the FYROM attempts to adopt the history and culture of Macedonia as their own and present themselves to the world as "ethnic Macedonians" and "descedants of ancient Macedonians".

This is a blatant attack against Greece and her Macedonian self-identification and its world wide respected history.

Slavmacedonians of the FYROM who claim to be "Macedonians" have no historical, cultural or linguistic relation with ancient Macedonia. They descended into the region not before the 6th cent. A.D. long after ancient Macedonia was homogenized with the rest of Greece. Their 'Republic of Macedonia' occupies less than 10% of ancient Macedonia. Therefore their claim on ancient Macedonia's name, history, culture and symbols can not be justified.

The real question is how you segregate a Greek Macedonian identity with a Slavmacedonian one?

Self-identification should be neither arbitrary nor at the expense of the right of self-identification of other groups. The existence of objective criteria as well as the historical and other special ircumstances of each ase are also taken into consideration when determining the existence of such groups. Antony D. Smith [NationaL Identity, Oxford,1991] remarks that there are two main kinds of ethnic extinction in the full sense: genocide and ethnocide, which is sometimes - at times misleadingly — called «cultural genocide». In one sense genocide is a rare and probably modern phenomenon. It includes those cases where we know that mass death of a cultural group was premeditated and the basis of that targeting was exclusively the existence and membership of that cultural group.

Greece does not recognise that a distinct ethnic or linguistic minority exists in Greece by the name ‘’Macedonian’’, since the name Macedonian(Makedonas) is used in the cultural and regional sense by Greek Macedonians living in the region. Thus, the use of the term ‘’Macedonian’’ to denote such an identity in Greece, not only fails to respect the Hellenic cultural heritage and the identity of the 2,5 million Greek Macedonians living there, but also threatens to create a serious confusion or even a potential clash over identities in the whole region.

Of course, Greek State fully respects the individual rights of those claiming to belong to a "’Macedonian ethnic minority", including their freedom of association. The non-registration by the Courts of one association using the name "Macedonia’" is now pending before the Greek justice. However, the use of the name ‘’Macedonian’’, without a qualifier which would denote that its founders are Slav oriented, creates confusion with hundreds of other associations formed by Greek Macedonians and using the same term, that is “Macedonian”. These references should not be interpreted as implying a determination that such a minority or language exists in Greece but as claims emanating from the individuals concerned.

Let me add that the political party (‘’Rainbow/Vinozhito’’), which claims to represent the so-called "Macedonian minority", obtained in the Europarlimentary elections of 2009 took in Macedonia only 2.500 votes . These citizens are free to manifest their traditions and culture. Festivities and cultural events are regularly held in the region of Florina. One from the head also is public employee.

326 world scholars in an letter [http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html] asked from US President Obama "to help the FYROM government in Skopje to understand that it cannot build a national identity at the expense of historic truth. Our common international society cannot survive when history is ignored, much less when history is fabricated."

Let's following theirs advice. Slav Macedonians need to realize that their newly conceived ethnogenetic dogma, extending to classical antiquity, encroaches upon the Greek cultural heritage and the identity of their Greek neighbours to the south. As such, it threatens to ignite a clash of identities in the region as a whole.

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*A Macedonian according to several sources[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Macedonian][http://www.thefreedictionary.com/macedonian] is a native or inhabitant of the (Ancient or Modern) Macedonian region.

A question to professors Dan Tompkins and Victor Friedman.

Dear Professors

All these days you have posted articles and written to the academic community as regards the right of the “Macedonians of the Republic of Macedonia” as you called them, to express freely theirs name determination(ethnically and linguistically).

By reading all these attempts I notice one thing as regards your positions. You didn’t say anything as regards the connection of the “Macedonians of the Republic of Macedonia” with the ancient Macedonians. Eugene Borza and great supporter of the same view wrote in an article (Macedonia Redux) and make a clear thesis that the

Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions—mostly émigrés in the United States, Canada, and Australia—even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity.

My question is…..
Why avoid making a similar comment as regards this “link” in order to make clear your thesis if the “Macedonians of the Republic of Macedonia” have any kind of connection with antiquity?