Revocation of Canada's Recognition of the FYROM as the Republic of Macedonia

To: Parliament of Canada

To the Parliament of Canada,

The recognition of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as the Republic of Macedonia is a mistake for many reasons. Firstly, Macedonia is a province in the northern region of Greece, one which has been around for thousands of years. Recognizing FYROM as Macedonia only further promotes their attempts at confusing history and claiming the ancient Greek Macedonian history as their own.

"Occupying the bigger part of northern Greece, Macedonia first appears on the historical scene as a geographical-political unit in the 5th century BC, when it extended from the upper waters of the Haliakmon and Mount Olympus to the river Strymon. In the following century it reached the banks of the Nestos. The history of the Macedonians, however, may be said to commence somewhere around the beginning of the 7th century BC.

Although very little of the Macedonian tongue has survived, there is no doubt that it was a Greek dialect. This is clear from a whole series of indications and linguistic phenomena by which the koine of the region is "colored" which are not Attic but which can only have derived from a Greek dialect. For example: The vast majority of even the earliest names, whether dynastic names or not, are Greek, formed from Greek roots and according to Greek models: Hadista, Philista, Sostrata, Philotas, Perdikkas, Machatas and hundreds of others.

The inhabitants of Macedonia are descendants of the old Arian (Greek) settlers. Prehistorical data is very clear on this point. Since the dawn of history, the names of the people and the places in 'Macedonia are Greek (Karanos, Perdiccas, Amyntas, Aeropus, Alcetas, Kleitos, Emathia, Eidomene, Haliacmon, Echedorus, Dion, etc).

Alexander of Macedon I :

"Had I not greatly at heart the common welfare of Greece, I should not have come to tell you; but I am myself a Greek by descent, and I would not willingly see Greece exchange freedom for slavery. I am Alexander of Macedon."

Alexander of Macedon I states himself that he is Greek, but from the northern region of Macedonia.

The language of the Skopjians was and is a Bulgarian dialect. Beginning in the 1860 and 70s, the Bulgarian idiom was dubbed 'makedonski' by the first Macedonists, without success initially they attempted to promote the term among the wider Slavonic population of Macedonia. In 1903 whilst in Sofia, Krste Misirikov, (who indeed possessed of a strong Bulgarian conscience) was the first person to transform the idiom into a literary language by laying down the principles of the 'Makedonski' language in his book: ''Za Makedonckite Raboti'' (On Macedonian Matters). Come the Balkan wars, the Slavic idiom of the population of Vardar was still regarded by most Slavologists and foreign observers as a Bulgarian dialect, despite Serbian claims of it being an off-shoot of the Serbian language. In 1913 Yugoslavia undertook a policy of de-bulgarianization and Serbinization of the Slavic idiom of Vardarska. In 1945 a similar policy was adopted in terms of de-bulgarianising the dialect by the YCP (Yugoslav Communist Party) who codified the "Macedonian" alphabet and language. The codification of the idiom was based in part on the principles laid down by Misirkov.

Despite the Slavs of F.Y.R.O.M being under the rule of Belgrade for 75 years (monarchist rule from 1913 until communist rule from 1945), the so-called "Macedonian" language of F.Y.R.O.M is still mutually intelligible with standard Bulgarian and from a linguistic point is undeniably a Bulgarian dialect.

The 'Macedonian' language, as a self-contained Slav tongue, was completely unknown until the time of the Second World War. The language used by the Slav-speaking inhabitants of southern Yugoslavia and south-western Bulgaria was known to be an idiomatic form of Bulgarian.

After the foundation of the 'Socialist Republic of Macedonia ', attempts were made, for obvious political reasons, to break the linguistic bonds which joined the inhabitants of Yugoslav Macedonia with Bulgaria. For that reason, an army of philologists and scholars of literature was pressed into service to construct a separate written language.

Taking the Perlepes dialect as their starting-point and borrowing widely from Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian and other Slav languages, the 'Macedonian literary language' was created and recognized by the Yugoslav Constitution as one of the country's three official languages.

Countries are products of historical events, which is why they are born and die. Nations do not. Nations are entities that take a very arduous time to evolve.

The same thing is true for their appellation. Nations cannot be given birth and receive names whenever politicians wish by legislation, as it is the case of the FYROM. The present-day Hellenic nation is the result of social, civic and linguistic amalgamation of more than 230 tribes speaking more than 200 dialects that claimed descent from Helen, son of Deukalion. The Hellenic nation is blessed to espouse in its lengthy life great personalities such as politicians, educators, soldiers, philosophers and authors. They have all contributed in their own way to the molding of their nation. They are the result of natural maturity and a consequence of historical, social, civic, linguistic and political developments that have taken place in the last 4,000 years."

The word Macedonia is deeply embroiled in ancient Greek history and the attempts of the FYROM to create a liaison between the ancient Greek Macedonians, the ancient Greek Macedonian history and the Slavic “Macedonians” of the FYROM will only have negative effects for the future.

We look forward to your revoking the recognition of the FYROM as the Republic of Macedonia.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

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