Greek people is under occupation. Merkel Germany, EC, ECB and IMF try to kill the Greek people by force them in internal default. In order to doing this, they kill the Liberal Democracy. As Pr. Krugman remark: "They now looking at a scenario in which Greece is forced into killing levels of austerity to pay its foreign creditors, with no real light at the end of the tunnel. This is just not going to work."
Monday, July 11, 2011
FYROM Statues: From ethno-cultural nationalism to National Chauvinism
The extreme nationalist hysteria that exists on these days between the Slavmacedonians, because of the erection of two statues (one is giant) at the center of Skopje is a typical example. The far-right Prime Minister Gruevski, continuing the "antiquisation policy" of the Slavic population, made the next step and the Slavmacedonism enfold the "national chauvinism".
National chauvinism breeds from a feeling of intense, even hysterical nationalist enthusiasm. The individual as a separate, rational being is swept away on a tide of patriotic emotion, expressed in the desire for aggression, expansion and war. The right-wing French nationalist Charles Maurras (1868-1952) called such intense patriotism “integral nationalism”: individuals and independent groups lose their identity within an all-powerful 'nation', which has an existence and meaning beyond the life of any single individual. (Heynwood:165) Such militant nationalism is often accompanied by...
Friday, March 25, 2011
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(FYROM)’S VIOLATIONS OF THE INTERIM ACCORD
The parts of this summary are:
I. RECENT EXAMPLES OF THE FYROM’S FAILURE TO CONDUCT GOOD FAITH NEGOTIATIONS
II. THE FYROM’S INTERVENTION IN GREECE’S INTERNAL AFFAIRS
III. THE FYROM’S HOSTILE ACTIVITIES AND PROPAGANDA AGAINST GREECE
IV. THE FYROM’S CONTINUED USE OF THE SUN OF VERGINA
A. Hostile Propaganda against Greece by Public Authorities and State-controlled Agencies of the FYROM
B. Activities by Private Entities and Persons Inciting Hostility against Greece Financed and/or Supported by the FYROM
C. Persistent Harassment against the Premises of the Greek Liaison Office and its Personnel in Skopje
V. THE FYROM’S APPROPRIATION OF OTHER GREEK HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS
VI. THE FYROM’S BEHAVIOUR BEFORE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
VII. GREECE’S REACTIONS TO THE FYROM’S BEHAVIOUR PRIOR TO THE BUCHAREST SUMMIT
VIII. CONCLUSION
Friday, December 04, 2009
Intimidating Greek bloggers, covering insults against Greek politicians
Hello Black Manlis,May 13, 2009. “Ta xalia” (pronounced “ta halia”, meaning “the mess”), a greek blog from Thessaloniki, Macedonia, addresses the matter. “Costas Karamanlis, you’re a barbarian Turk, because a Turk soldier raped your grandmother”, says the post title. “Who says these bullshit?”, protests the angered editor.
This is how your last name in the Macedonian language translates.
Let me ask You, even though I know my questions wont reach your ears: With what right do you insist of being Macedonian, when in your Turko-Greek language you are Karamanlis?
If you start digging a little bit in your roots, there is a great possibility of meeting a Turk who perhaps out of love, though more likely forced himself on your grandma or great-grandma, as it is usually done by occupational armies.
Have you ever wondered why you have KARA as your starting prefix?
Say hello to your Turkish compatriot Karajaferis, and ask him the very same question I asked You.
How do you ask for monopoly on history? No one is allowed to look back in history, apart from You, and your “Greeks”.
Will you ever be able to find some strength and dignity and admit that the prehistoric citizens of Athens, Sparta … referred to the Macedonians as barbarians?
With your quenching thirst today to all of a sudden become Macedonian, aren’t you jumping in your own deathtrap: that you are barbarian.
How else to describe, or explain the efforts of the Greek Government to destroy the Macedonians, their villages, cities, language, rivers, homes, names, graves… unless it is a barbaric move?
In the history books, only the barbarians committed such heinous crimes and unpunished (yet) methods of genocide.
But that was then when civilian criterias weren’t at satisfactory levels, or maybe I am wrong, I am awaiting your answer.
Are today’s barbarians wearing white shirts and ties instead of skins from killed animals?
If you know the answer, write to Milan.adzievski@forum.com.mk
PS: Do you know who was Arhimed? He ran naked through out Athens yelling “Eureka” because he found out that every body submerged in water, pushes out as much water as the volume of the body.
In your greek case, this law would be: Every fascist move submerged in nationalism, pushes out as much stupidity as the volume of the fascist.
What is your weight, Black Manlis?
An hour later, the blog returns with a new post, titled.......
Thursday, October 29, 2009
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYROM) Nikola Gruevski has made irredentist claims against Greece and Bulgaria
The Prime Minister of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYROM), Nikola Gruevski has made irredentist claims against Greece and Bulgaria during a speech to the the Skopjan community in Sydney.
According to a report from fYROM's news agency MINA. Mr Gruevski urged the Skopjan community in Australia to be united.
"Macedonians in Australia enjoy a unique opportunity to live together with their Aegean, Pirin compatriots, which is not the case in their native country, Gruevski said, calling them to not divide on these grounds as there are no Vardar, Aegean, Pirin Macedonians, but only Macedonians," Mr Gruevski is quoted as saying in the MINA report.
Mr Gruevski also asked from the Diaspora to remain united on the issue of the name dispute with Greece.
He noted that the negotiations with Greece are due to resume to find a compromise solution that he promised will not harm "Macedonian national interests, language, nation, culture, integrity, identity, pride and dignity, and will become valid only if embraced by citizens at a referendum."
The response from the Greek deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Dimitris Droutsas to Mr Gruevski's reference to "Aegean Macedonians" was clear cut.
"We will not enter into any form of dialogue with Mr Gruevski or Skopje about nonexistent issues, " Mr Droutsas said. "Greece sees its relations with Skopje with an open mind and always constructively. Skopje's leadership has to realise that it is up to them to choose between the usual aggressive, nationalistic and irreedentist rhetoric or to invest into a constructive, honest and essential dialogue to resolve the name dispute issue."
He reiterated Greece's position that the only solution is a definitive composite name with geographical qualification of the term Macedonia, for all purposes (erga omnes) and for all uses.
http://www.neoskosmos.com/news/en/gruevski-claims-mina
Stern warning to Skopje from Parvanov over 'minority' claim
An announcement released by the Bulgarian presidency's press office on Thursday quotes Parvanov's stern reaction to a statement made by FYROM Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski - who referred to "Macedonians of Vardar, the Aegean and Pirin" - and his warning that Sofia's support for FYROM's EU accession was not "unconditional".
"I am bewildered by the position that has been expressed by the Prime Minister of neighbouring [FYROM]. I see it as unacceptable, as an expression of territorial claims. It is all the more unacceptable as [FYROM] aspires to become a member of the EU,” Parvanov said on Thursday, during an official visit to Australia.
Bulgaria's president stressed that Sofia's support for its neighbour's EU entry was largely dependent on that country's behaviour and he urged Skopje to immediately withdraw similar claims.
Parvanov also underlined that Skopje must fulfill the criteria for EU membership, which included that of cultivating good relations with its members.
Bulgaria's Deputy Foreign Minister Marin Raykov, who accompanied Parvanov on the trip to Australia, noted that FYROM would receive a date for the start of accession negotiations with the EU as soon as as it resolved the problems with its neighbours.
Skopje's government claims the existence of ethnic 'Macedonian' minorities in northern Greece and southwest Bulgaria; claims disputed by the governments in both those countries. It is also in a dispute with Greece over the use of the name 'Macedonia', which Athens construes as an attempt to make territorial claims against a northern Greek province with the same name.
According to the Greek argument, the name Macedonia actually describes a much broader geographic area, which spans parts of Greece, Bulgaria and also FYROM itself.
http://www.ana-mpa.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=8092765&service=142
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Trouble with Knowledge
Like an earthquake, the new Macedonian encyclopedia published in Skopje has shaken and undermined imperialist political architecture on the Balkan Peninsula. The imperialist conquest and gains in the Balkans were founded on “new thinking” or better still, no thinking at all. The new thinking was supposed to lead to new prosperity and the peoples and nationalities in the region were led to believe that embracing European and American imperialism must be accompanied by wholesale denial of people’s historical experiences. In other words, the smaller peoples in the Balkans were asked to adopt “new identity”, “foreign mentality” and to institute a regime of self denial in exchange for promised prosperity. Insecure in their post socialist neighbourhood, peoples like the Macedonians sought safety under the skirt of imperialism. However, there are two inherent problems with that strategy. First, all their ancient enemies are already under the same skirt and nobody was ever allowed to shout: “Imperialism stinks, I want out”.
The formula is simple; everyone abandons his own self interest for the sake of U.S. imperialism, which then defines everyone else’s interests. And since imperialist needs and strategies shift with time, some nations become less or more valuable than others. This has happened to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Macedonia was very important for the breakup of Yugoslavia and now it is practically worthless. It is a captive nation with a gun to its head. At the end of the process, Macedonia is an economic basket case, internally divided and unable to do much about it. The promised prosperity, for which Macedonians did all the silly things, is nowhere on the horizon and Macedonians dream of prosperity and stability they once had in Yugoslavia.
Skopje, the capital of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has become the largest C.I.A. operational base for American espionage and manipulation in the Balkans. The Americans feel there more secure than anywhere else in the region. And now, when the Macedonians are expected to parrot imperialist falsehoods, there comes the new Macedonian Encyclopedia leaking forbidden knowledge. Just when the imperialists thought that they have supplanted truth with their self serving rhetoric, the encyclopedia speaks what the Macedonian Government does not dare to say. This is not an insignificant thing, as the encyclopedia was issued under the auspices of the Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts (MANU).
What did the Macedonian Encyclopedia say that is so heretical? For one thing, the encyclopedia declares that the Macedonians are Slavs, which undermines the imperialist scheme of inventing new nations on the territory of former Yugoslavia. The encyclopedia further reveals that the Albanian inhabitants of Macedonia are not indigenous to that land and that they forcibly settled there in the sixteenth century, displacing the Macedonians. There is another more contemporary aspect in which once top secret information is revealed. The 2001 Albanian terrorist separatist plotters against Macedonia were trained by British SAS and American Special Forces in Albania and in the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo. On the one hand, the Americans have trained and supported the Albanian terrorist organization ONA for mischief and mayhem in Macedonia and on the other, they have designated the same organization as “terrorist”.
This duplicitous American game is only possible because all the client states of the region have one and the same supreme master who promises the same land to two inimical peoples. While it is absurd that Americans should promise Macedonia to the Macedonians, it is even more despicable to promise parts of Macedonia to the Albanians and set them on the path of murder and terrorism as they did in Kosovo. However, this is imperialism’s modus operandi. Those who provide greater and more valuable services to the master reap greater rewards, (maybe and sometimes), for imperialism is selfish and immoral. In this case, the Albanians are more useful than the numerically insignificant and land locked Macedonians.
The outcry against the Macedonian Encyclopedia and its authors and editors is nothing other than the cacophony of American, British and Albanian voices with veiled threats and demands that the Macedonians realize and correct their own mistakes. The embassies of all three countries have been active in threatening the Macedonians, demanding firing of people responsible for this publication, especially Blaža Ristovski. They claim the encyclopedia is “scandalous” and needs to be withdrawn from circulation.
To understand how much pressure Macedonia is under, one only needs to look at Serbia where the EU already censors that country’s school textbooks, removing what it does not like and forcing the Serbs to publish what they do not like. Even the new Constitution of Serbia was co-authored by the former NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, who had presided over that notorious organization during its savage bombing of Yugoslavia.
In its relatively short period of independent existence, Macedonia has managed to intimidate its neighbours, Greece and Bulgaria and ally itself with its own historical enemy, Turkey. Turkey at the same time backs Albanian expansionism against all the Balkan states, including Macedonia. The imperialist powers have their own misgivings about the Macedonians who sympathize with and admire the Serbs and had staged massive protests against NATO during its bombing of Yugoslavia. Some British soldiers were even beaten up in Macedonia during that time. When it comes to the question of Kosovo, the Macedonian people are unequivocally on the side of Serbia’s right to her own province. As victims of Albanian terrorism themselves, the Macedonians feel that American interpretation of things there is cooked up for the consumption of more distant and naïve peoples. But Macedonian – Serb relations have also had their strains when Serb Orthodox Bishop Jovan was jailed 18 months for his religious conviction and for distributing Serbian Orthodox church calendars and pamphlets in his parish. Both Serbs and Macedonians share the same Orthodox religion but have separate religious hierarchies.
Today, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has a government which aims to bring the country into NATO strictures and the European Union, as panacea for the plague of poverty (22%) and unemployment (37.2%). Ethnic instability and corruption do not readily attract foreign investment to Macedonia where Macedonians boast 64% of the population. While the subservient Macedonian Government dares not say what its academics reveal, the story would be even more shocking if the ordinary Macedonians’ lament were put to paper.
Source: Pravda.Ru
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Is there a Rift between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of "Macedonia" on Alexander? (answer to Washington Post)

americanchronicle.com
On a Washington Post article, ("Another Rift Between Greece, Macedonia, Both Lay Claim to Alexander the Great", July 28, 2009) Craig Whitlock is intend on sending us scrambling back to our History books. Should we be talking about Alexandros o Megas /ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ o ΜΕΓΑΣ or Aleksandar Veliki / Александар Велики? Was he Greek or was he Slavic? I will let the reader do their own reading and research. Any encyclopaedia, in any language, anywhere in the world, except for the ones published in the former Yugoslav republic will be fine.
Mr. Whitlock is correctly pointing out that Alexander's "cult of personality is just starting to grip this tiny Balkan country", speaking of FYROM, informing us that among other childish actions that the government in Skopje is doing to annoy the Greeks is the erection of "a 72-foot-tall marble colossus of Alexander astride his favorite warhorse, Bucephalus, which will dominate the skyline of the capital, Skopje". Our information is that it is actually a bronze statue, not marble, but the rest is correct: Greeks are understandably annoyed by the ethno-religious cult that has hijacked the political debate of their neighbor. Why did I say "childish"? Because only little children do things to annoy others...not governments, not nations. Someone who getting "annoyed" will become hardened and less willing to give in. This is something that FYROM's "diplomats in training" have yet to grasp. When they try to "annoy" the Greek government, what they essentially end up achieving is is aggravate the Greek electorate, especially the Greek Macedonian (of Historic Macedonia, in Nothern Greece, not FYROM) into demanding a tougher stance from Athens against the "Skopianoi". The article is correctly pointing out that "this glorification of Alexander and other ancient heroes" is derided by critics in Skopje as "antiquization." I have also heard the term Bukefalism (Bucephalism), a more sarcastic term by rightfully embarrassed intellectuals in FYROM.
The issue, as presented in Mr. Whitlock's article, is stated as follows: Does a country have the right to be call itself what it wants? A second issue, but more important is this issue's "potential to destabilize a region still trying to recover from the Balkan wars of the 1990s".
Let us start with the name issue itself. If the reader goes to any encyclopaedia, he or she will quickly find out who Alexander was, who the Macedonians were and what language the ancient Macedonians spoke. For the reader who would want to read further on this, then another article would be more appropriate: "The alleged differences between the Macedonians and the other ancient Greeks", (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/101463).
The name Macedonia itself is Greek, meaning the "high lands", and Makednoi/Μακεδνοί or Makedones/Μακεδόνες are the highlanders. "Hesiod first mentioned 'Makedon', the eponym of the people and the country, as a son of Zeus, a grandson of Deukalion, and so a first cousin of Aeolus, Dorus, and Xuthus; in other words he considered the 'Makedones' to be an outlying branch of the Greek-speaking tribes, with a distinctive dialect of their own, 'Macedonian', is what we read in the "Oxford Classical Dictionary", 3rd ed. (1996), pp.904,905.
There are about a half a million marble inscriptions that have been found in Macedonia, all written in Greek, with the occasional Latin one, after the Roman conquest, but then still in the small minority. None has been found in any other language.
Finally, we have the strongest indication on the ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians, in their Greek language: This is precisely the language that Alexander and his victorious Macedonians spread throughout the Asian lands they took over, including the dominion of Egypt in Africa. The Slavs whose descendants now claim exclusivity over the use of the name Macedonia, appeared in the Balkan peninsula more than a thousand years AFTER Alexander. Hence the irritation of the Greeks when others try to claim their ancient history. When someone claims your history, what they also claim is your land. If someone claims the title to your house, he is not simply claiming a piece of paper to hang on a wall as a souvenir: he is actually claiming your house, land, walls and roof.
Craig Whitlock seems to be siding with "Macedonian officials" who "said they cannot understand why Greece sees their country's name as a threat or thinks they have a secret plan to annex northern Greece. "It's laughable," said Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki, noting that the Macedonian military consists of 8,000 troops and a fleet of eight helicopters.
I would beg to differ with Mr. Whitlock's seeming naivete, for I cannot imagine that he has not read the 20th century history of the land that is Macedonia, before he wrote what he wrote. I am very certain that he knows that two Balkan wars have been fought over the control of Macedonia, the land. Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and later Yugoslavia, along with numerous other players, including Austrians, Germans, Italians and Albanians fought in two world wars in their attempt to become masters of Macedonia. Yugoslavia and Greece almost came to a clash right after WWII, when Tito made a thinly veiled attempt to carve parts of Macedonia from Greece and incorporate them into Yugoslavia, but actively joining one side in the Greek civil war of the 1940's. His reasons were far from ideological, it was purely a land grab. You may read some of the background in another, related article: "A brief overview of the Macedonian name issue" (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/109817).
As for Anton Milososki, FYROM's foreign minister, he may try to appear laughing at the suggestion of the threat his country is posing to Greece, but his boss's trips to Ankara and the rousing welcome the Turkish Political-Military establishment prepared for Nikola Gruevski there, did not go unnoticed in Athens. As for FYROM's eight helicopters, lined up against Greece's formidable air force, we know that Greece is not arming itself against FYROM, it is an attack from Turkey that it is always prepared to confront. In such a confrontation, FYROM can easily become the straw that will break the camel's back. Alternatively, we need to remember that only a few years ago, the Kosovar Albanians "defeated" the all powerful Serbian army, without firing a winning shot: others, Americans and Western Europeans, even Turks did the fighting for them. In history, you cannot pretend to play naive. You can always expect the worse case scenario. When Bulgaria entered the second Balkan war, all it had against it was the Greek and the Serbian armies, and the Bulgarian army was larger than the other two combined. It expected a quick victory in two weeks' time, long enough for the Great powers to intervene. Things did not go as planned, the Greeks and Serbs started winning, and then hell broke loose: Turks and Romanians joined the war against Bulgaria, and Bulgaria from formidable attacker ended up the defender, fighting for its existence. Moral of the story: If someone has land claims on your home, you do not simply shrug your shoulders and walk away. You confront the issue, until there is a resolution.
The former Yugoslav republic, under the 1995 agreement agreed to change its flag (which hitherto had used a Greek Macedonian Symbol). It also agreed "to rewrite its constitution to include a promise never to violate Greek territory or interfere in Greece's internal affairs". This basically means that the original constitution had made explicit references to a United Makedonija/Обединета Македонија/Obedineta Makedonija, the old Bulgarian and later Yugoslav slogan which was a war cry for land grab of historic Macedonia, from Northern Greece. Obviously they had to change it. They felt humiliated in the process, that is probably true. On the other hand, any little boy that senselessly tries to bully a stronger classmate in school and ends up getting slapped around, feels rightfully humiliated. The 30 year old amateur diplomats who have been running the little country's foreign policy for the last eighteen years are good at creating peaks of crises with bravado and hullabaloo, only to smash their heads on the wall, bringing unnecessary disappointment to their own people. This is precisely what they did in last year's NATO conference in Romania, when, with G.W.Bush's full support they tried to slip into NATO, bypassing the name issue, with champagne bottles ready to pop. When disaster struck, they did not know what to do and they were crying in front of the TV cameras, talking of a national catastrophe.
Mr. Whitlock's tells his readers that "Leaders in Macedonia, a poor, landlocked country about the size of New Hampshire, warned they may have trouble holding the nation together if Greece does not relent soon. Internal unrest, they said, could easily spread to other fragile nations in the Balkans...". let us take this argument and consider its opposite side: Greeks have been warning FYROM's politicians that may have trouble holding their nation together if the governing clique in Skopje does not relent soon and stop playing with Balkan fire.
Why is this line of arguments more correct? For several reasons. First of all, it was not Greece that started this whole mess, it was the Ultra-nationalist hotheads in Skopje. they are the ones who started and they are the ones who can instantly stop it. They adopted for themselves the name Macedonian, as if this name was existing in vacuum as a "freeware". Not so, since a province of Macedonia exists since 1913 in Greece.
While the name Macedonia was Greek in antiquity, by the early 20th century a multiple of people were considered geographically "Macedonians", for being inhabitants of Macedonia, in the same way people who lived in Bosnia Herzegovina were all Bosnians Herzegovinans but others were catholic, others Orthodox yet others Muslim. Macedonia was even more complex: people of a multiple linguistic, ethnic and religious affiliations made up its multiethnic mix. Everyone was a Macedonian, BUT NONE was an ethnic "Macedonian". This had to wait until 1943, when the Communist Party of Yugoslavia established a Communist Party of "Makedonija" and became determined to turn its Serbian, Bulgarian and other (Slavic and not only) inhabitants into full-bloodied "Makedonci".
Since the 2.6 million Greeks of Macedonia have a cultural Macedonian identity, they cannot forgo their own identity just because half as many Slavs north of their land decided to usurp the name Macedonian and try to make it an "ethnic" name. This needs to be understood. I will repeat it. When there is a shared name, a shared geographic identity, you cannot have one of them claim that THEY are the ones, the REAL ones, the TRUE ones and that the others now have to change into something else. Nothing aggravated a Macedonian Greek more than someone telling him "...so are you a Greek or a Macedonian?".
To a Greek this sounds like..."are you an American or a Californian?". If Baja California at some point in its future decides to become an independent state, cutting itself off from Mexico and calls itself California, will this give the Bajan Californians the right to be called the "ethnic" Californians subsequently refusing persons from San Francisco or Los Angeles their right to have a "Californian" identity?
Now, let's see again how it sounds: "Oh, you are from Los Angeles?...So, are you an American or a Californian? Do you speak Californian (which is of course perfectly Spanish, just the Mexican dialect of Baja California Spanish, now renamed "Californian") or you speak American"? It will not sound too convincing to many Californians, will it? Well, this is precisely what the Greeks have to deal with, for the last eighteen years. The Bulgarian and Serbian speaking Slavic population decides to change the name of their land and call it Makedonija. Then they decide to rename their Bulgarian dialect "Makedonski" and now they demand that the Greeks of Macedonia forgo their cultural and geographic identity as Macedonians. This is not going to happen, no matter how much the governments in Athens decide to "cooperate" and give in to seem cooperative.
But, "The problem is threatening the fabric of our society," Gjorge Ivanov, the president of Macedonia, said in an interview. "The pressure that Greece is making is destabilizing the whole region." is that so? And who told you to base your ethnic identity on a BIG LIE? If you have been lying to your own people for two generations about their true identity, is this now OUR problem? the Greeks of Macedonia can counter. And who is destabilizing "the whole region"? Who has been screaming about "United Makedonija!", who is polluting the internet with screams of "Solun" (the capital of Greek Macedonia, the one million strong city of Thessaloniki) "is the capital of United Makedonija!", who is being 19th century style irredentist?
Who is refusing to see reality in the eyes and tries to dig up ancient Greek Kings and adopt them as their own, refuting the true Slavic identity of their own people? Who is publishing State-sanctioned History books (the latest one came out a month ago), declaring that the Makedonci are not a Slavic nation! Is it the Greeks? The Serbs, The Bulgarians? No, it is people like this very same President Mr. Ivanov, and his boss, Nikola Gruevski.
Lincoln said it very eloquently that you cannot lie to ALL the people ALL the time. The BIG LIE will eventually catch up with you, at some point or another! It surely caught about with more than a hundred thousand Skopjan citizens to date who, fed up with the 35% unemployment, and unable to cash Alexander the Great's 72ft tall bronze statue for food stamps, have opted to go to the Bulgarian embassy in Skopje and declare themselves "ethnic Bulgarians". How many of them in reality feel Bulgarian is difficult to say, and at the end of the day it will not make any difference. For sure, every single one of them greatly appreciates the brand new red EU passport that allows them to find a job anywhere in Europe! The Slavs leave, the Albanians stay...the future Kosovo-style crises is beginning to brew...and whose fault it this?
This, Mr. Ivanov should be told, is the dynamite under the foundations of your multi-ethnic country: while you are busy creating and defending THE BIG LIE, you seem to have forgotten the big lessons of the collapse of Yugoslavia: "It's the Economy, Stupid!" Once people start going hungry, no lies will stand in front of their children's future and their family's survival!
In the same article we see mention of the Albanian minority and some of its concerns, which led in 1991 to an armed uprising. I would dare suggest that maybe the anti-Albanian riots in Monastir/Bitola and extreme pseudo-Makedonism is what led the Albanians to feel as second rate citizens in a "Macedonian state". Maybe I am wrong, but I will need to see some strong proof, because arguments like that "the assumption that Macedonia would join NATO" was going to act as a "guarantee of internal stability", sounds to me like empty talk. "It would give us medicine for our hot heads," said Menduh Tachi, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians." we read in the article. That is a remote possibility, I suppose, but we need to distinguish between what the leader of a political Party says, and what his constituents in the street say. The Albanian in the street needs a job, he needs a police that is not engaged in ethnic brutality and he needs a future, for him, for his family. People do not simply get to the guns and start a revolt unless they feel desperate that their future is taken from them. What does NATO have to do with the INTERNAL stability of FYROM and the Albanian issue? An argument can be convincingly be made for the EXTERNAL stability, but not the internal
In Mr. Whitlock's article we are told that "Macedonians say the name of the country is crucial to developing their still wobbly national identity." This is interesting. Greeks do not have a "wobbly" national identity, Serbs or Albanians do not either. They know who they are. Is it maybe because the so called "Macedonian" have been given a fake identity, for the last sixty-odd years, a make-believe identity that has not stuck well with them? And why is it so important to sweep all the half baked inventions of Yugolavia's Titoism under a NATO woven rug of convenience, and have the neighbors deal with the INEVITABLY ugly aftermath, whenever (not if...) that comes? No...while FYROM's Titoist rebaptized nomenclatura may be just jolly and fine with the perpetuation of pseudo-Makedonism's BIG LIE; a BIG LIE from which they can keep their stranglehold on this poor country and its resources, and the future EU funds, ready for VMRO corruption and plunder, the people of the area deserve a better future than that: THEY DEMAND A FINAL RESOLUTION OF THIS BAD JOKE OF AN ISSUE!
Craig Whitlock informs us that "Ethnic Albanians say they would revolt if the Slavic Republic of Macedonia was the new name because they are not Slavs". I honestly wonder, whom is he trying to convince? Where is the logic in his argument? First of all Greeks never said they want a Slavic Republic of "Macedonia", they suggested Slavomacedonia, which includes the word Macedonia in a "syn-thetic" name. If the "Makedonci" claim to be "ethnic Macedonians", and they want to call their name "Macedonia", their supposed name, then where do the Albanians fit into this? By the "Ethnic Macedonian" formula, the Albanians are NOT considered Macedonians, so, then, if it is called Slavomacedonia, what difference will it make to the Albanians? Call it Japanese Macedonia, Chinese Macedonia if you like, it still does not make any difference to the Albanians. If anything, the so called "Albanian" argument against Slavomacedonia, inevitably leads to a PURELY GEOGRAPHIC, purely non-ethnic, neutral name, that excludes nobody! Yes or no? If we try to be logical, we need to start making sense after some point, and not simply regurgitate arguments thrown arround by others with greater interests and bigger knifes to grind.
Towards the end we are given the argument of a hard liner Slavmacedonian big hat, a certain "Todor Petrov, president of the World Macedonian Congress" obviously some ultra-nationalist emigre', who "said the country should stop kowtowing to Greece and just call itself the Republic of Macedonia, regardless of how badly it wants to join NATO or the European Union." Perfect...and why should this gentleman give a hoot about whether "his" country joins the European Union and sees untold amounts of investment flow in that will create jobs for his "co-patriots"? Simply because, technically, I assume, he is not even THEIR compatriot. he does not live their misery and poverty. He is probably sitting in his office somewhere in Toronto, Sydney or Indianapolis, and he makes a comfortable living away from them. All he cares about is HIS identity as an emigre, which is light years away from the identity of the person on the ground in FYROM, the average unemployed SlavoMacedonian man who sells his family's "Makedonskata" identity for a EU passport that says EUROPEAN UNION outside in golden letter over red.
Then, and here the article becomes suspect of being more like a paid lobbyists stroke of genius rather than genuine journalism, we are quoted the same gentleman, Todor Petrov who "In an interview, he accused Greece of "practicing ethnic cleansing and genocide on the Macedonian nation" for the past 100 years. "They're denying our nationality and culture and church and history and our borders," he said." Really, now? I have seen photographs of Jews in crematoria and piles of corpses in Nazi concentration camps. I have seen pictures of beheaded Armenians, men women and children, in Turkey, during WWI, but I have still to see a photo of Greek Genocide against the "Macedonian" "nation".
Journalism, I would expect, demands fairness and balance. How can the rumblings of an ultra-nationalist emigre be given space to defame the Greeks through an imaginary BIG LIE, (which by the way is a very recent invention, they have come up witht hsi "genocide theory" post 2000) without allowing the reader the chance to hear so much as even a question mark on this? But lest I forget, did anyone notice what this Titoist nationalist just say at the end of his sentence? Let us revisit his uttering:
"They're denying our nationality and culture and church and history and our borders," he said." Your borders? Which borders? The United Macedonia borders? Where do your borders start and where do they end? Is the so called "Aegean Macedonia" (they will never be caught alive saying Greek Macedonia, so they invented the misnomer :"Aegean Macedonia") part of the borders you feel the Greeks are denying you?
Then the juicy fruits start coming one by one: "It is not just Macedonia's national identity that is at stake. The Greek government does not recognize ethnic minorities within its own borders, including Macedonian-speaking residents of northern Greece."
We are even offered the distinguished opinion of a very important gentleman: "Pavle Voskopoulos, a Greek citizen who leads the Rainbow Party, a group of ethnic Macedonians in northern Greece, said the country subscribes to a myth of a "pure" Greek people who are directly descended from Alexander and others from his era. "This is all about modern Greek identity," he said. "If there is a Macedonia as an independent state, this is a great threat against Greek policy and Greek ideology."
I grew up in Greece and went through most of my formative years there and that included even the years under the ludicrous colonels' Junta. I do not recall anyone teaching me about a "pure" Greek nation, yet I see our friends from Skopje repeatedly accusing Greeks of this very same myth. Greeks since antiquity know that it is not blood lines that make a nation, but common living, commonality in culture and common interests. though it sounds like a puzzle to others from outside, Americans do constitute a nation, and so do Australians and Canadians. There are subgroups that is for sure, but there is unity in diversity. Greek are the same.
Ancient Greeks were a dynamic mix of local Pelasgians, and other local tribes, Indo-European speaking Greeks, who arrived in Greece around 2000 BC, and as time went by they mixed with slaves, and others who came as a result of Alexander's expeditions in Asia, and later with Romans, Thracians, etc. Greek culture has been evolving the last 4000 years and it is the language that more than anything (religion too, to a smaller of greater degree, depending on the historic frame) that makes their nation. Who ever talked about racial purity? Only Dog breeders and Nazis are thinking in these terms. As for Pavlos Voskopoulos, the leader of the Party of the Ethnic Macedonians of Greece, I will ask the readers permission to copy here what I recently wrote in another recent article on this issue, about the political Party Mr Voskopoulos leads:
"When Ouranio Toxo/Ουράνιο Τόξο - Vinozhito (Raibow) a political Party representing the "ethnic Macedonians" slated candidates under the banners of the European Free Alliance (Eyropaiki Eleytheri Symmachia – Ouranio Toxo) for the in June 2009 Europarliament, the total votes tally they were able to receive in the districts of Macedonia were two thousand five hundred ninety four votes (2594), out of a population of 2.5 million Greek Macedonians
( http://ekloges-prev.singularlogic.eu/e2009/pages/index.html?lang=en ).
This is hardly making a case for allowing one third of Greece, Macedonia, to be split and given as a land grant to the FYROM ultra-nationalists in Skopje.
By comparison, the Komma Ellinon Kynigon (Fysi - Kynigi - Psarema - Paradosi)/Party of Greek Hunters (Nature -Hunting - Fishing - Tradition), the quintessential joke of a party in Greece, in the very same districts (Districts of Drama, Kavala, A' Thessalonikis, B' Thessalonikis, Serres, Chalkidiki, Kilkis, Pella, Imathia, Pieria, Florina, Kozani, Kastoria and Grevena) received 5900 votes, twice as many as Eyropaiki Eleytheri Symmachia – Ouranio Toxo / Vinozhito.
( http://ekloges-prev.singularlogic.eu/e2009/pages/index.html?lang=en ).
We are given here the opinion of the leader of a Party that was able to gather less than one vote per thousand people in Greek Macedonia supporting their cause, although they had tv time, and freedom to say whatever they wanted, yet they managed to gather half the votes of the hunter's party! What minority are we talking about then? the best statistics may be talking of some fifty thousand bilingual people who speak Slavic ALSO, besides Greek. And that is true especially of the older generations, but that again makes no difference: it is identity that counts, not language not blood, not anything else. Several, though not all, Muslim Slavs in Greece (Pomaks) consider themselves to be Turkish though they speak no word in Turkish. And Many Jews worldwide think of themselves as Jews though they speak no Hebrew. These are instances where one part of the identity, the religious one, overcomes language and other aspects of culture. I have met not a few Americans who are Greek Orthodox in religion and Greek in culture and identity, though they speak no word in Greek, and they revel in their double identity as both Americans and Greeks. It is self identity that counts. It is who and what you want to be. A huge part of identity, sometimes even primary, is of course language, but not the only one. A bilingual person can always chose the identity he prefers. Many families in pre-war Macedonia were split in half when one brother would decide to "became" a Bulgarian ("ethnic Macedonians" had not been invented yet) and another to "became" a Greek. A bilingual of Macedonia who speaks both Greek and Slavic, but considers himself to be a Greek and derogatorily calls the people across the frontiers "Yugoslavs", cannot be counted as one of Mr. Voskopoulos's voters or "ethnic minority" supporters. A Cuban-American in Miami, is typically a fully bilingual Spanish and English speaking, and while he has a strong Spanich/Cuban identity is also at the same time very much an American.
The Washington Post article continues by informing us that FYROM "has renamed its national stadium for King Philip II, Alexander's father, and organized dozens of archaeological digs." It is not what you dig out that matters to Greeks, but the language found written in the artifacts, and the culture that created these artifacts. Claiming for example prehistoric stone-age artifacts as "proof" of an age-long continuum of (Slavo)"Macedonian" culture is as ludicrous as naming Greek funerary, religious and political Greek inscriptions "ancient-Macedonian" epigraphy. The Zenith of "Fyromian-antiquization" kitsch is displayed in the governing Palace in Skopje, where a series of priceless ancient Greek statues have been arranged with total disregard to their care, on the sidewalk, as proof of "ancient Macedonian" art. Similarly, a huge Greek inscription which mentions the Makedonarchs (leaders of Macedonia) has been hauled from the Archaeological site and taken to decorate the entry to Mr. Gruevski's Gubernatorial building.
"Officials", we are reminded, "also like to needle Greeks that the philosopher Aristotle, who tutored the teenage Alexander, was from the kingdom of Macedonia, not Athens". This is a true statement: Athens was not Greece, Athens was IN Greece. Macedonia was in Greece too. The fact that someone was from Macedonia, like Aristotle, does not make him any less a Greek than someone from Athens as someone from Sparta or Hellenistic Egypt or Syracuse in southern Italy. the fact that Eratosthenes was from Egypt does not make him an Arab, since Arabs came into Egypt seven Hundred years after him. He was Greek. The fact that Archimedes was from Syracuse, does not make him a Roman, he was a Greek who was in fact killed by a Roman during the capture of his country, his city state by the Romans. And after all, Aristotle is not known for simply being Alexander's tutor...he is the man that established the scientific method and one of the two pillars, along with Plato, of ancient Greek Philosophy. And there is no question as to what language he wrote in. If he was a "Slavo-Makedonski" Macedonian, why did he not write in Slavic? The Romans were brutes and uneducated in the beginning yet when they started writing they wrote in their own language, Latin. Where is that elusive language of the Macedonians, the ancient conquerors of the known world, the language of Alexander, Philip II and Aristotle, if it was not the Greek they left us in their incriptions?
The fact that there are plenty of pseudo-scientists in FYROM, like the Archaeologist "Pasko Kuzman, the government's director of cultural heritage" who prostitute their allegiance to science for the sake of pseudo-scientific political ends, is not surprising. Hitler found doctors who killed their fellow humans in order to execute SS-ordered human "experiments". I would never call Pasko Kuzman an SS officer, far from it (though I have no problem describing some of his political bosses in VMRO as such). No, his description "as a cross between Indiana Jones and Santa Claus" goes along way to create a good picture of him, but I would definitely add a bit of Goebbels into the mix: it is the BIG LIE "thing"...with which he has been raised, in Tito's Yugoslavia and from which, like a second skin, he cannot get out of.
Someone could easily claim that Greeks are too emotionally involved to be credible, when speaking of ancient Macedonia. I can say that this might be correct with some. On the other hand, the facts are facts and nobody can escape from them, not even FYROM government's own "director of cultural heritage". Then, who would be the best to expose the falacy and fakeness of pseudoMacedonist theories? None other than the ex prime minister of the country, i suppoze, Ljupco Georgievski, who abandoned Pseudomakedonism and went to maika Bulgaria and got a Bulgarian passport, remembering that his grandparents were all Bulgarian, after all. This is how the ex-Prime Minister countered Pasko Kuzman's nebulous theories, logically and point to point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HvKPiLYZCI&NR=1
But in Craig Whitlock's interview, the professor had other things to say:
"The Greeks are sorry that they are called Greece and not Macedonia," he said. "What else can I tell you?"
Don't say anything professor...polla eipas/πολλά είπας and, as Aristotle, that timeless Macedonian philosopher said: "ouk en to pollo to eu"/"ούκ εν τώ πολλώ τό εύ"!...I do not need to translate what he said, you are eis Makedon/είς Μακεδών/a Macedonian, as you claim; I am sure you can read Aristotle in the original...
Then, after you finish Aristotle, please go and read what 350 Classics professors world wide are saying, on the Macedonia issue, in their Open Letter to President Obama:
http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html
What was Pasko Kuzman's reply to that letter?
It is right here, on national tv:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCgTJsRuW8
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Name Game....The future of EU expansion? It all depends on what the meaning of the word "Macedonia" is.

BY THOMAS MEANEY, HARRIS MYLONAS
source: foreignpolicy.com
The European Union is a club with a long line out the door. Just ask Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, or Turkey. But for one Balkan country, the biggest problem is showing the right ID at the velvet rope. Seven former communist countries were able to enter both NATO and the EU by the end of the Bush years. But last year the Greek government blocked the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia from joining NATO, citing bad neighborly relations, and is determined to torpedo its EU bid as well. The reason? It's all in a name.
FYROM, perhaps due to the unwieldiness of its acronym, has tried to enter as just "Macedonia," the name of the ancient empire of Alexander the Great. But Greece also has a northern province called "Macedonia" and worries that Skopje has expansionist ambitions.
The United States supports the eastward expansion of NATO in an effort to shrink the Russian sphere of influence and -- the name issue notwithstanding -- FYROM would seem to be a perfect candidate for membership. The Obama administration can help the United Nations solve the dispute by abandoning the Bush administration policy of stubbornly backing the "Macedonians" and talk its fledgling friend into a compromise that will push it over the Balkan hump.
But doing so won't be easy. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia understandably doesn't like to be known by its cumbersome post-Titoist tag. "Don't You FYROM Me!" is a favorite bumper sticker on the streets of Skopje. In the 1990s, foreign observers doubted the viability of this landlocked country with an explosive cultural makeup and powerful neighbors. Ethnic Albanians, Turks, Roma, Serbians, Bulgarians, and Greeks are all packed together in a state the size of Vermont. It's not surprising that such a fragile country would want to cling its oldest and most respectable heritage.
The largest minority in FYROM are Albanians, who desperately want to become members of the EU and NATO. Besides the obvious economic benefits, membership would ultimately allow these Albanians closer ties with their coethnics in the western Balkans. They are growing impatient with the recent surge in "Alexandermania" backed by the Slav majority that promotes an exclusively "Macedonian" identity for the country. Last month, the government unveiled plans to erect an $8 million, 72-foot statue of Alexander the Great atop his horse, Bucephalus, in the capital square. Never mind that the historical Alexander's actual capital was located inside modern Greece.
More troubling are the maps in "Macedonian" textbooks that show their ancestral homeland stretching far into present-day Greece (as well as Bulgaria and Albania) and describe Thessaloniki, the capital of the northern province of Greece, as occupied territory. These are irredentist claims that justifiably worry the Greeks.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
FYROM President Ivanov dreams the "Greater Macedonia"
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.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Historical revisionism in the school books of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Part 1: The reinvention of ancient Macedonia.
Schoolbooks in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia consistently represent Macedonia as encompassing a region that consists of FYROM, the Greek administrative district of Macedonia and parts of other countries. An astonishing fabrication of history teaches schoolchildren that these borders of "Macedonia" existed from antiquity and that their country was "dismembered" and Macedonians underwent a genocide by the Greeks.
Indeed, young children in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are taught through their schoolbooks that Macedonians were a non-Greek people that have inhabited the land of Macedonia continuously. They are taught that this exact land as shown in the maps of Greater FYROM, was exactly the same as that inhabited by the ancient Macedonians. The boundaries are shown again and again in their schoolbook maps to have remained the same from antiquity! These schoolchildren are taught that the Greeks expelled the "Macedonians" from the "Aegean" part of this country in the middle of the 20th century. Generations of poisoned minds have since the days of Tito and again since 1998 been taught to believe that Greeks expelled their "Macedonian" but Slav speaking forefathers from their ancestral lands in some kind of genocide – that mysteriously no international organisation ever recorded. Raised with this kind of modern myth, it is no surprise Greece is faced with an insistence that their country (FYROM) should be named Macedonia and that no other name would be acceptable to them.
It is sad but true. Furnished with this kind of evidence, one is convinced that people can be raised in schools to believe in anything whatsoever, and to be poisoned as children to hate a people for imagined reasons. Unfortunately, this tactic of the FYROM government also revives the expansionist policies of Tito against historic Macedonia (in Greece). It reveals a sinister side in the claims of FYROM on Macedonian history and heritage despite assurances made to the United Nations prior to the Interim Agreement. These aggressive policies are carried out at a time when FYROM paradoxically wants to join the European Union and NATO - of which the invented enemy Greece is a member. Even more ironically, the current FYROM government claims and says to NATO that this policy of inciting ethnic hatred against Greece (and suitably inventing history schoolbooks for this purpose) is in the interests of peace in the region.
In the school books, there is again and again a map of Macedonia with fixed borders. It includes not only FYROM but also the present administrative region of Macedonia in Greece and parts of Bulgaria and Albania. This "Macedonia" is shown unaltered from times immemorial. Something like this type of map appeared for the first time in an ethnological description in 1899 by a Greek named C. Nicolaides and had formed the Greek view for the 1913 Bucharest Treaty discussions regarding the ethnicities in the region.

It was an attempt at depicting the ethnic constitution of a part of the Balkans. It did not represent of course a country. The region shown was part of a larger area under Turkish rule. It was not a map of a country. Such a "country" did not exist in 1899. A country with such boundaries had never existed before.
Below are three maps of the Ottoman vilayets of Salonik, Manastir and Kosova. FYROM mostly consists of parts of the later two.

Vilayet of Selanik

Vilayet of Manastir

Vilayet of Kosova
Nowhere in the Turkish maps is there any indication of a Macedonia. No such map can be seen either. Yet such a Macedonia, belonging to the FYROM schoolbooks was allegedly partitioned or dismembered by the Balkan nations during the Balkan wars! It is surprising that the level of miseducation and the hatred it has engendered stop people in FYROM from looking at this paradox and realise they are applying WWII propaganda as historical truth backwards to 1912 and beyond.
The ethnological map of Nicolaides moreover made no reference to a Macedonian ethnicity. The ethnicities were clearly labelled as Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian and Turkish or Muslim (as in the Turkish censuses of around the same time). The FYROM propaganda kept the map as a map of "Macedonia" in the schoolbooks, but changed all ethnic groups into one: the Macedonians. These are now claimed to have existed from time immemorial unchanged, although quite paradoxically the Slav Macedonians of FYROM are Slavic speaking and have no established cultural, religious or other connections to the ancient Macedonians. Then in the mid-20th century a completely unreported genocide apparently took place that wiped out these ancient FYROMacedonians from Macedonia in Greece.
Let us have a look at some of the unhistorical claims made by the FYROM schoolbooks (mainly from 1997-2006, still being used at least as late as 2007).
PRE-HISTORIC MACEDONIA
The first map shows the arbitrary map of a Greater FYROM closely modelled on the Nicolaides ethnological plan. It contains exactly modern Macedonia (in Greece), the former Blagoevegrad district in Bulgaria and FYROM. These boundaries were only fixed and recorded for the first time at around the time of the first world war.

If you thought this is a map from the first world war or an irrendentist map of Greater FYROM, it is not. Rather it is supposed to be a schoolbook map of prehistoric Macedonia! Nothing has changed. In another almost identical map we see even the names of the ancient prehistoric cities, all in Slavic, including Solun (the Slavic name of Thessaloniki):

"Greater FYROM" appears as a distinct geographical unit in prehistoric times with Slavic cities. This unhistorical map is from the «Istoriski Atlas», Skopje 1998, pg. 10 and the «Istoriski Atlas», Skopje 2006, pg. 10. This Istoriski Atlas is used in schools in FYROM to educate children on how to hate their neighbours.
ANCIENT MACEDONIA
The next schoolbook map is of Greece from the period around 6-5th C BC. It describes the colonies of Greeks and Phoenicians. Macedonia is labelled in pink as a part of Greece and encircled correctly. The map is from Istoriski Atlas, Skopje from the year 1992 (page 8).

More recent maps have Macedonia outside Greece and the word "Macedonia" actually outside Macedonia. It is instead written suitably over the region of the central Balkans! Below is such a map from the 5th Grade Primary School History book in FYROM by Kosta Adžievski, Darinka Petreska, Violeta Ačkoska, Naum Dimovski and Vančo Gjorgjiev, Istorija za petto oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 37.

The map is entitled "The Colonies of the Greeks". In this map "Macedonia" is written outside Macedonia, in a void in the middle of the Balkan peninsula. Paradoxically, the historical region of ancient Macedonia, where the Macedonians actually lived, is here correctly labeled in pink along with the other Greek areas and colonies – but is not called Macedonia!

The appearance is like intending to say "go back to Greece, the pink area". FYROM propagandists often claim that Greece stops in Thessaly, this is the clear effect maps such as this have in the mind-frame of children in FYROM.
A map from the Roman period also from the 5th Grade Primary School History book (Kosta Adžievski, Darinka Petreska, Violeta Ačkoska, Naum Dimovski and Vančo Gjorgjiev, Istorija za petto oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 79), in its section on "The Roman State during the 1st century A.D." is showing Macedonia and Greece as separate Roman provinces.

Though factually correct, this echoes the FYROM dogma of two separate countries with different people. They were actually separate Roman provinces and indeed the Romans had incited constant wars between Macedonia and some of the other Greek states in an effort to weaken and conquer all the Greeks. It was the very tactic that led to the proverb "Divide et impera" (divide and conquer). For modern FYROM propaganda it is evidence that the Greeks were different from the Macedonians - even though the inscriptions, city names, peoples´ names, customs, religion and festivals were everywhere Greek.
BYZANTINE PERIOD
It is not clear what continuity is envisaged between the prehistoric and ancient Macedonians and the Slavs. The following map shows the Slavic settlement in Greater FYROM. It is another school map from the Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 1997, pg. 33 that describes "The settlement of the Slavic tribes in Macedonia".

The Slavs and Huns ransacked most of the European side of the Byzantine Empire, until they were repelled to the regions beyond the Ceraunian mountains and settled the area known as Illyricum (part of modern Yugoslavia). Byzantine Greeks from the eastern dominions were settled in the depopulated areas after Byzantine rule was re-established. What do these Slavs who were for the most part cast out of the empire have to do with the Macedonians? They murdered and pillaged the inhabitants of Macedonia for sure. Did that make them Macedonian? What is the connection? The unhistorical map of this fictitious "Macedonia" of the Slavs of the 6th century AD is again exactly the same as the modern maps of Greater FYROM.
This revisionism is recent, appearing after the Interim Agreement. Instead, in 1992, a Historical Atlas from FYROM described "the places where the first State entities of the Southern Slavs were established" (Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 1992, pg. 26) very differently:

This map had the word Macedonia very far outside the actual region of Macedonia (see for example the article European maps of Macedonia before the 19th century http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/98614). However, to the credit of the mapmakers it did not make claims that the region of FYROM has some unredeemed territories elsewhere in the Balkans. More recent maps since 1998 and under the Gruevski government have revised it to this:

This schoolbook map shows the "The intrusion of the Normans and the Crusaders into the Balkans and Macedonia" (Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 1998, pg. 63. Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 2006, pg. 71). Macedonia is shown as a Slavic country with Slavic place names, covering the entire area of Greater FYROM down to Mt Olympus. The Normans in fact fought Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, referred by them as Imperator Graecorum. Nevertheless, here they are shown invading presumably not Byzantium but medieval Slavic Greater FYROM. A subsequent map has the name Macedonia written over the region of FYROM.

It is a map of the subsequent historical period entitled: "The independent feudal lords of Macedonia in the 12th and 13th centuries" (Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 1998, pg. 66 and Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 2006, pg. 74). There is not a shred of evidence that any feudal lords of the time referred to themselves as Macedonians, whether they were Normans, Francs, Venetians or Slavs. Yet here we have a statement about independent Macedonian feudal lords in an unhistorical atlas of Macedonia. The word "Macedonia" is shown outside Macedonia, over the region of FYROM. The location does not conform whatsoever to the Byzantine administrative district with that name, that was further east and only existed up to the 11th century as a Byzantine administrative district. It had the same administration as the rest of the Byzantine Empire and the language was Greek. The Byzantine administrative district of Macedonia was founded by Constantinos Porphyrogenitus, together with the other Themata of the empire. He chose the name of Macedonia in reference to the ancient Greek hero Macedon:
"The district Macedonia took its name from Macedon the son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion's daughter, as Hesiod says: `And she conceived and bare to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus ((lacuna)) . . . And Magnes again (begot) Dictys and godlike Polydectes."
Byzantine Emperor Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, 2 de Them. 2 p. 48B
But in the map from the unhistorical FYROM school atlas we have Macedonia neatly in the location of modern FYROM and if one traces the black line around this "Macedonia", it can be seen that it perfectly conforms to the other revisionist maps. Perfect fiction inciting racial and ethnic hatred against Greece and Greeks. Despite the repeated claims of FYROM schoolbooks, no such country contour can be found in any historical European map. The distinctive contours of Greater FYROM are found as a country for the first time in a map of Greater Macedonia envisaged by fascist Bulgaria in 1941:

This is the actual source of all these revisionist maps of ancient and medieval "Macedonia" in the FYROM schoolbooks. It is the actual origin of all the maps of Greater FYROM and the only truly historical example, but unsurprisingly it does not appear in the schoolbooks. That all the other maps showing Greater FYROM are fictitious and the last map is the actual original can easily be proven since no real historical maps show anything like it and the Nicolaides map does not refer to Macedonians as an ethnicity or Macedonia as a country. The fascist map above the portraits of Adolf Hitler and King Boris of Bulgaria is the inspiration for the endeavor by the Bulgarians, later by Tito and now eventually by FYROM schoolteachers to rewrite history and national boundaries.
We normally regard education as liberating and a means of learning and transmitting knowledge freely. We consider education a civil right. Sadly there are examples, especially in former communist countries, were education simply meant the indoctrination of the population to a new version of history where truth was what the party wished it to be. This is no way of facing the future. Are the political leaders and miseducators responsible for this poisoning of children´s minds really prepared to face the challenge of entering Europe? Of entering NATO? Can they face the judgement of future historians?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Classical Scholars from around the world sent a Letter to President Barack Obama as regards the Macedonian History and FYROM irredentism
On May 18th, 201 Classical Scholars from around the world, sent a letter to the President of the United States of America, Barak Obama.
Since then, the list of cosigners has grown to 254, see Addenda
Here is the Documentation that accompanies the letter.
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ancient-scholars@macedonia-evidence.org
May 18, 2009
The Honorable Barack Obama
President, United States of America
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama,
We, the undersigned scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity, respectfully request that you intervene to clean up some of the historical debris left in southeast Europe by the previous U.S. administration.
On November 4, 2004, two days after the re-election of President George W. Bush, his administration unilaterally recognized the “Republic of Macedonia.” This action not only abrogated geographic and historic fact, but it also has unleashed a dangerous epidemic of historical revisionism, of which the most obvious symptom is the misappropriation by the government in Skopje of the most famous of Macedonians, Alexander the Great.
We believe that this silliness has gone too far, and that the U.S.A. has no business in supporting the subversion of history. Let us review facts. (The documentation for these facts [here in boldface] can be found attached and at: http://macedonia-evidence.org/documentation.html)
The land in question, with its modern capital at Skopje, was called Paionia in antiquity. Mts. Barnous and Orbelos (which form today the northern limits of Greece) provide a natural barrier that separated, and separates, Macedonia from its northern neighbor. The only real connection is along the Axios/Vardar River and even this valley “does not form a line of communication because it is divided by gorges.”
While it is true that the Paionians were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 358 B.C. they were not Macedonians and did not live in Macedonia. Likewise, for example, the Egyptians, who were subdued by Alexander, may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia.
Rather, Macedonia and Macedonian Greeks have been located for at least 2,500 years just where the modern Greek province of Macedonia is. Exactly this same relationship is true for Attica and Athenian Greeks, Argos and Argive Greeks, Corinth and Corinthian Greeks, etc.
We do not understand how the modern inhabitants of ancient Paionia, who speak Slavic – a language introduced into the Balkans about a millennium after the death of Alexander – can claim him as their national hero. Alexander the Great was thoroughly and indisputably Greek. His great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I, competed in the Olympic Games where participation was limited to Greeks.
Even before Alexander I, the Macedonians traced their ancestry to Argos, and many of their kings used the head of Herakles - the quintessential Greek hero - on their coins.
Euripides – who died and was buried in Macedonia– wrote his play Archelaos in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, and in Greek. While in Macedonia, Euripides also wrote the Bacchai, again in Greek. Presumably the Macedonian audience could understand what he wrote and what they heard.
Alexander’s father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi, the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete. Even more significantly, Philip was appointed to conduct the Pythian Games at Delphi in 346 B.C. In other words, Alexander the Great’s father and his ancestors were thoroughly Greek. Greek was the language used by Demosthenes and his delegation from Athens when they paid visits to Philip, also in 346 B.C. Another northern Greek, Aristotle, went off to study for nearly 20 years in the Academy of Plato. Aristotle subsequently returned to Macedonia and became the tutor of Alexander III. They used Greek in their classroom which can still be seen near Naoussa in Macedonia.
Alexander carried with him throughout his conquests Aristotle’s edition of Homer’s Iliad. Alexander also spread Greek language and culture throughout his empire, founding cities and establishing centers of learning. Hence inscriptions concerning such typical Greek institutions as the gymnasium are found as far away as Afghanistan. They are all written in Greek.
The questions follow: Why was Greek the lingua franca all over Alexander’s empire if he was a “Macedonian”? Why was the New Testament, for example, written in Greek?
The answers are clear: Alexander the Great was Greek, not Slavic, and Slavs and their language were nowhere near Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years later. This brings us back to the geographic area known in antiquity as Paionia. Why would the people who live there now call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia? Why would they abduct a completely Greek figure and make him their national hero?
The ancient Paionians may or may not have been Greek, but they certainly became Greekish, and they were never Slavs. They were also not Macedonians. Ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian Empire. So were Ionia and Syria and Palestine and Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Bactria and many more. They may thus have become “Macedonian” temporarily, but none was ever “Macedonia”. The theft of Philip and Alexander by a land that was never Macedonia cannot be justified.
The traditions of ancient Paionia could be adopted by the current residents of that geographical area with considerable justification. But the extension of the geographic term “Macedonia” to cover southern Yugoslavia cannot. Even in the late 19th century, this misuse implied unhealthy territorial aspirations.
The same motivation is to be seen in school maps that show the pseudo-greater Macedonia, stretching from Skopje to Mt. Olympus and labeled in Slavic. The same map and its claims are in calendars, bumper stickers, bank notes, etc., that have been circulating in the new state ever since it declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Why would a poor land-locked new state attempt such historical nonsense? Why would it brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor?
However one might like to characterize such behavior, it is clearly not a force for historical accuracy, nor for stability in the Balkans. It is sad that the United States of America has abetted and encouraged such behavior.
We call upon you, Mr. President, to help - in whatever ways you deem appropriate - the 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.
Sincerely,
| NAME | TITLE | INSTITUTION |
Harry C. Avery, Professor of Classics, University of Pittsburgh (USA)
Dr. Dirk Backendorf. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (Germany)
Elizabeth C. Banks, Associate Professor of Classics (ret.), University of Kansas (USA)
Luigi Beschi, professore emerito di Archeologia Classica, Università di Firenze (Italy)
Josine H. Blok, professor of Ancient History and Classical Civilization, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)
Alan Boegehold, Emeritus Professor of Classics, Brown University (USA)
Efrosyni Boutsikas, Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Kent (UK)
Keith Bradley, Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of Classics, Concurrent Professor of History, University of Notre Dame (USA)
Stanley M. Burstein, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles (USA)
Francis Cairns, Professor of Classical Languages, The Florida State University (USA)
John McK. Camp II, Agora Excavations and Professor of Archaeology, ASCSA, Athens (Greece)
Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge (UK)
Paavo Castrén, Professor of Classical Philology Emeritus, University of Helsinki (Finland)
William Cavanagh, Professor of Aegean Prehistory, University of Nottingham (UK)
Angelos Chaniotis, Professor, Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (UK)
Paul Christesen, Professor of Ancient Greek History, Dartmouth College (USA)
Ada Cohen, Associate Professor of Art History, Dartmouth College (USA)
Randall M. Colaizzi, Lecturer in Classical Studies, University of Massachusetts-Boston (USA)
Kathleen M. Coleman, Professor of Latin, Harvard University (USA)
Michael B. Cosmopoulos, Ph.D., Professor and Endowed Chair in Greek Archaeology, University of Missouri-St. Louis (USA)
Kevin F. Daly, Assistant Professor of Classics, Bucknell University (USA)
Wolfgang Decker, Professor emeritus of sport history, Deutsche Sporthochschule, Köln (Germany)
Luc Deitz, Ausserplanmässiger Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin, University of Trier (Germany), and Curator of manuscripts and rare books, National Library of Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
Michael Dewar, Professor of Classics, University of Toronto (Canada)
John D. Dillery, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA)
Sheila Dillon, Associate Professor, Depts. of Art, Art History & Visual Studies and Classical Studies, Duke University (USA)
Douglas Domingo-Forasté, Professor of Classics, California State University, Long Beach (USA)
Pierre Ducrey, professeur honoraire, Université de Lausanne (Switzerland)
Roger Dunkle, Professor of Classics Emeritus, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (USA)
Michael M. Eisman, Associate Professor Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, Department of History, Temple University (USA)
Mostafa El-Abbadi, Professor Emeritus, University of Alexandria (Egypt)
R. Malcolm Errington, Professor für Alte Geschichte (Emeritus) Philipps-Universität, Marburg (Germany)
Panagiotis Faklaris, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Denis Feeney, Giger Professor of Latin, Princeton University (USA)
Elizabeth A. Fisher, Professor of Classics and Art History, Randolph-Macon College (USA)
Nick Fisher, Professor of Ancient History, Cardiff University (UK)
R. Leon Fitts, Asbury J Clarke Professor of Classical Studies, Emeritus, FSA, Scot., Dickinson Colllege (USA)
John M. Fossey FRSC, FSA, Emeritus Professor of Art History (and Archaeology), McGill Univertsity, Montreal, and Curator of Archaeology, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada)
Robin Lane Fox, University Reader in Ancient History, New College, Oxford (UK)
Rainer Friedrich, Professor of Classics Emeritus, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. (Canada)
Heide Froning, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Marburg (Germany)
Peter Funke, Professor of Ancient History, University of Muenster (Germany)
Traianos Gagos, Professor of Greek and Papyrology, University of Michigan (USA)
Robert Garland, Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the Classics, Colgate University, Hamilton NY (USA)
Douglas E. Gerber, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Western Ontario (Canada)
Hans R. Goette, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Giessen (Germany); German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany)
Sander M. Goldberg, Professor of Classics, UCLA (USA)
Erich S. Gruen, Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Christian Habicht, Professor of Ancient History, Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (USA)
Donald C. Haggis, Nicholas A. Cassas Term Professor of Greek Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Judith P. Hallett, Professor of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD (USA)
Prof. Paul B. Harvey, Jr. Head, Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, The Pennsylvania State University (USA)
Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Arizona (USA)
Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos, Director, Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity, National Research Foundation, Athens (Greece)
Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, Prof. Dr., Freie Universität Berlin und Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Germany)
Steven W. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Classics and History, Tufts University (USA)
Karl-J. Hölkeskamp, Professor of Ancient History, University of Cologne (Germany)
Frank L. Holt, Professor of Ancient History, University of Houston (USA)
Dan Hooley, Professor of Classics, University of Missouri (USA)
Meredith C. Hoppin, Gagliardi Professor of Classical Languages, Williams College, Williamstown, MA (USA)
Caroline M. Houser, Professor of Art History Emerita, Smith College (USA) and Affiliated Professor, University of Washington (USA)
Georgia Kafka, Visiting Professor of Modern Greek Language, Literature and History, University of New Brunswick (Canada)
Anthony Kaldellis, Professor of Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University (USA)
Andromache Karanika, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of California, Irvine (USA)
Robert A. Kaster, Professor of Classics and Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin, Princeton University (USA)
Vassiliki Kekela, Adjunct Professor of Greek Studies, Classics Department, Hunter College, City University of New York (USA)
Dietmar Kienast, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, University of Duesseldorf (Germany)
Karl Kilinski II, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, Southern Methodist University (USA)
Dr. Florian Knauss, associate director, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek Muenchen (Germany)
Denis Knoepfler, Professor of Greek Epigraphy and History, Collège de France (Paris)
Ortwin Knorr, Associate Professor of Classics, Willamette University (USA)
Robert B. Koehl, Professor of Archaeology, Department of Classical and Oriental Studies Hunter College, City University of New York (USA)
Georgia Kokkorou-Alevras, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Classical Studies, Brandeis University (USA)
Eric J. Kondratieff, Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient History, Department of Greek & Roman Classics, Temple University
Haritini Kotsidu, Apl. Prof. Dr. für Klassische Archäologie, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt/M. (Germany)
Lambrini Koutoussaki, Dr., Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Zürich (Switzerland)
David Kovacs, Hugh H. Obear Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA)
Peter Krentz, W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History, Davidson College (USA)
Friedrich Krinzinger, Professor of Classical Archaeology Emeritus, University of Vienna (Austria)
Michael Kumpf, Professor of Classics, Valparaiso University (USA)
Donald G. Kyle, Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington (USA)
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Helmut Kyrieleis, former president of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany)
Gerald V. Lalonde, Benedict Professor of Classics, Grinnell College (USA)
Steven Lattimore, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of California, Los Angeles (USA)
Francis M. Lazarus, President, University of Dallas (USA)
Mary R. Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, Wellesley College (USA)
Iphigeneia Leventi, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
Daniel B. Levine, Professor of Classical Studies, University of Arkansas (USA)
Christina Leypold, Dr. phil., Archaeological Institute, University of Zurich (Switzerland)
Vayos Liapis, Associate Professor of Greek, Centre d’Études Classiques & Département de Philosophie, Université de Montréal (Canada)
Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Professor of Greek Emeritus, University of Oxford (UK)
Yannis Lolos, Assistant Professor, History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
Stanley Lombardo, Professor of Classics, University of Kansas, USA
Anthony Long, Professor of Classics and Irving G. Stone Professor of Literature, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Julia Lougovaya, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, Columbia University (USA)
A.D. Macro, Hobart Professor of Classical Languages emeritus, Trinity College (USA)
John Magee, Professor, Department of Classics, Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto (Canada)
Dr. Christofilis Maggidis, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Dickinson College (USA)
Jeannette Marchand, Assistant Professor of Classics, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio (USA)
Richard P. Martin, Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor in Classics, Stanford University
Maria Mavroudi, Professor of Byzantine History, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Alexander Mazarakis Ainian, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
James R. McCredie, Sherman Fairchild Professor emeritus; Director, Excavations in Samothrace Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (USA)
James C. McKeown, Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA)
Robert A. Mechikoff, Professor and Life Member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, San Diego State University (USA)
Andreas Mehl, Professor of Ancient History, Universitaet Halle-Wittenberg (Germany)
Harald Mielsch, Professor of Classical Archeology, University of Bonn (Germany)
Stephen G. Miller, Professor of Classical Archaeology Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Phillip Mitsis, A.S. Onassis Professor of Classics and Philosophy, New York University (USA)
Peter Franz Mittag, Professor für Alte Geschichte, Universität zu Köln (Germany)
David Gordon Mitten, James Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, Harvard University (USA)
Margaret S. Mook, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Iowa State University (USA)
Anatole Mori, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, University of Missouri- Columbia (USA)
Jennifer Sheridan Moss, Associate Professor, Wayne State University (USA)
Ioannis Mylonopoulos, Assistant Professor of Greek Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York (USA).
Richard Neudecker, PD of Classical Archaeology, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Rom (Italy)
James M.L. Newhard, Associate Professor of Classics, College of Charleston (USA)
Carole E. Newlands, Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA)
John Maxwell O'Brien, Professor of History, Queens College, City University of New York (USA)
James J. O'Hara, Paddison Professor of Latin, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA)
Martin Ostwald, Professor of Classics (ret.), Swarthmore College and Professor of Classical Studies (ret.), University of Pennsylvania (USA)
Olga Palagia, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Vassiliki Panoussi, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, The College of William and Mary (USA)
Maria C. Pantelia, Professor of Classics, University of California, Irvine (USA)
Pantos A.Pantos, Adjunct Faculty, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
Anthony J. Papalas, Professor of Ancient History, East Carolina University (USA)
Nassos Papalexandrou, Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin (USA)
Polyvia Parara, Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek Language and Civilization, Department of Classics, Georgetown University (USA)
Richard W. Parker, Associate Professor of Classics, Brock University (Canada)
Robert Parker, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, New College, Oxford (UK)
Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Associate Professor of Classics, Stanford University (USA)
Jacques Perreault, Professor of Greek archaeology, Université de Montréal, Québec (Canada)
Yanis Pikoulas, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek History, University of Thessaly (Greece)
John Pollini, Professor of Classical Art & Archaeology, University of Southern California (USA)
David Potter, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Greek and Latin. The University of Michigan (USA)
Robert L. Pounder, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Vassar College (USA)
Nikolaos Poulopoulos, Assistant Professor in History and Chair in Modern Greek Studies, McGill University (Canada)
William H. Race, George L. Paddison Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
John T. Ramsey, Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Chicago (USA)
Karl Reber, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Lausanne (Switzerland)
Rush Rehm, Professor of Classics and Drama, Stanford University (USA)
Werner Riess, Associate Professor of Classics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Robert H. Rivkin, Ancient Studies Department, University of Maryland Baltimore County (USA)
Barbara Saylor Rodgers, Professor of Classics, The University of Vermont (USA)
Robert H. Rodgers. Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, University of Vermont (USA)
Nathan Rosenstein, Professor of Ancient History, The Ohio State University (USA)
John C. Rouman, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of New Hampshire, (USA)
Dr. James Roy, Reader in Greek History (retired), University of Nottingham (UK)
Steven H. Rutledge, Associate Professor of Classics, Department of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park (USA)
Christina A. Salowey, Associate Professor of Classics, Hollins University (USA)
Guy D. R. Sanders, Resident Director of Corinth Excavations, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Greece)
Theodore Scaltsas, Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy, University of Edinburgh (UK)
Thomas F. Scanlon, Professor of Classics, University of California, Riverside (USA)
Bernhard Schmaltz, Prof. Dr. Archäologisches Institut der CAU, Kiel (Germany)
Rolf M. Schneider, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität München (Germany)
Peter Scholz, Professor of Ancient History and Culture, University of Stuttgart (Germany)
Christof Schuler, director, Commission for Ancient History and Epigraphy of the German Archaeological Institute, Munich (Germany)
Paul D. Scotton, Assoociate Professor Classical Archaeology and Classics, California State University Long Beach (USA)
Danuta Shanzer, Professor of Classics and Medieval Studies, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (USA)
James P. Sickinger, Associate Professor of Classics, Florida State University (USA)
Marilyn B. Skinner
Professor of Classics,
University of Arizona (USA)
Niall W. Slater, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Latin and Greek, Emory University (USA)
Peter M. Smith, Associate Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Dr. Philip J. Smith, Research Associate in Classical Studies, McGill University (Canada)
Susan Kirkpatrick Smith Assistant Professor of Anthropology Kennesaw State University (USA)
Antony Snodgrass, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge (UK)
Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece).
Andrew Stewart, Nicholas C. Petris Professor of Greek Studies, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Oliver Stoll, Univ.-Prof. Dr., Alte Geschichte/ Ancient History,Universität Passau (Germany)
Richard Stoneman, Honorary Fellow, University of Exeter (England)
Ronald Stroud, Klio Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Sarah Culpepper Stroup, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Washington (USA)
Nancy Sultan, Professor and Director, Greek & Roman Studies, Illinois Wesleyan University (USA)
David W. Tandy, Professor of Classics, University of Tennessee (USA)
James Tatum, Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics, Dartmouth College
Martha C. Taylor, Associate Professor of Classics, Loyola College in Maryland
Petros Themelis, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, Athens (Greece)
Eberhard Thomas, Priv.-Doz. Dr.,Archäologisches Institut der Universität zu Köln (Germany)
Michalis Tiverios, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Michael K. Toumazou, Professor of Classics, Davidson College (USA)
Stephen V. Tracy, Professor of Greek and Latin Emeritus, Ohio State University (USA)
Prof. Dr. Erich Trapp, Austrian Academy of Sciences/Vienna resp. University of Bonn (Germany)
Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Associate Professor of Classics, University of New Hampshire (USA)
Vasiliki Tsamakda, Professor of Christian Archaeology and Byzantine History of Art, University of Mainz (Germany)
Christopher Tuplin, Professor of Ancient History, University of Liverpool (UK)
Gretchen Umholtz, Lecturer, Classics and Art History, University of Massachusetts, Boston (USA)
Panos Valavanis, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Athanassios Vergados, Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
Christina Vester, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Waterloo (Canada)
Emmanuel Voutiras, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Speros Vryonis, Jr., Alexander S. Onassis Professor (Emeritus) of Hellenic Civilization and Culture, New York University (USA)
Michael B. Walbank, Professor Emeritus of Greek, Latin & Ancient History, The University of Calgary (Canada)
Bonna D. Wescoat, Associate Professor, Art History and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Emory University (USA)
E. Hector Williams, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of British Columbia (Canada)
Roger J. A. Wilson, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire, and Director, Centre for the Study of Ancient Sicily, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada)
Engelbert Winter, Professor for Ancient History, University of Münster (Germany)
Timothy F. Winters, Ph.D. Alumni Assn. Distinguished Professor of Classics, Austin Peay State University (USA)
Ian Worthington, Frederick A. Middlebush Professor of History, University of Missouri-Columbia (USA)
Michael Zahrnt, Professor für Alte Geschichte, Universität zu Köln (Germany)
Paul Zanker, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Munich (Germany)
201 signatures as of May 18th 2009.
For the growing list of scholars, please go to the Addenda.
cc: J. Biden, Vice President, USA
H. Clinton, Secretary of State USA
P. Gordon, Asst. Secretary-designate, European and Eurasian Affairs
H.L Berman, Chair, House Committee on Foreign Affairs
I. Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs
J. Kerry, Chair, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
R.G. Lugar, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
R. Mendenez, United States Senator from New Jersey.
Addenda
12 Scholars added on May 19th 2009:
Mariana Anagnostopoulos, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno (USA)
John P. Anton, Distinguished Professor of Greek Philosophy and Culture University of South Florida (USA)
Effie F. Athanassopoulos, Associate Professor
Anthropology and Classics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA)
Leonidas Bargeliotes, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Athens, President of the Olympic Center for Philosophy and Culture (Greece)
Joseph W. Day, Professor of Classics, Wabash College (USA)
Christos C. Evangeliou, Professor of Ancient Hellenic Philosophy, Towson University, Maryland, Honorary President of International Association for Greek Philosophy (USA)
Eleni Kalokairinou, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Secretary of the Olympic Center of Philosophy and Culture (Cyprus)
Lilian Karali, Professor of Prehistoric and Environmental Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Anna Marmodoro, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford (UK)
Marion Meyer, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna (Austria)
Jessica L. Nitschke, Assistant Professor of Classics, Georgetown University (USA)
David C.Young, Professor of Classics Emeritus, University of Florida (USA)
10 Scholars added on May 20th 2009:
Maria Ypsilanti, Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Literature, University of Cyprus
Christos Panayides, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Nicosia (Cyprus)
Anagnostis P. Agelarakis, Professor of Anthropology, Adelphi University (USA)
Dr. Irma Wehgartner, Curator of the Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg (Germany)
Dr. Ioannis Georganas, Researcher, Department of History and Archaeology, Foundation of the Hellenic World (Greece)
Maria Papaioannou, Assistant Professor in Classical Archaeology, University of New Brunswick (Canada)
Chryssa Maltezou, Professor emeritus, University of Athens, Director of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies in Venice (Italy)
Myrto Dragona-Monachou, Professor emerita of Philosophy, University of Athens (Greece)
David L. Berkey, Assistant Professor of History, California State University, Fresno (USA)
Stephan Heilen, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA)
3 Scholars added on May 21st 2009:
Rosalia Hatzilambrou, Researcher, Academy of Athens (Greece)
Athanasios Sideris, Ph.D., Head of the History and Archaeology Department, Foundation of the Hellenic World, Athens (Greece)
Rev. Dr. Demetrios J Constantelos, Charles Cooper Townsend Professor of Ancient and Byzantine history, Emeritus; Distinguished Research Scholar in Residence at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (USA)
3 Scholars added on May 22nd 2009:
Ioannis M. Akamatis, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Lefteris Platon, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Lucia Athanassaki, Associate Professor of Classical Philology, University of Crete (Greece)
5 Scholars added on May 23rd 2009:
Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Professor of Philosophy, University of California-San Diego (USA)
Ioannes G. Leontiades, Assistant Professor of Byzantine History, Aristotle University of Thessalonike (Greece)
Ewen Bowie, Emeritus Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford (UK)
Mika Kajava, Professor of Greek Language and Literature; Head of the Department of Classical Studies, University of Helsinki (Finland)
Christian R. Raschle, Assistant Professor of Roman History, Centre d’Études Classiques & Département d'Histoire, Université de Montréal (Canada)
4 Scholars added on May 25th 2009:
Selene Psoma, Senior Lecturer of Ancient History, University of Athens (Greece)
G. M. Sifakis, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki & New York University (Greece & USA)
Kostas Buraselis, Professor of Ancient History, University of Athens (Greece)
Michael Ferejohn, Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Duke University (USA)
5 Scholars added on May 26th 2009:
Ioannis Xydopoulos, Assistant Professor in Ancient History, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Stella Drougou, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Heather L. Reid, Professor of Philosophy, Morningside College (USA)
Thomas A. Suits, Emeritus Professor of Classical Languages, University of Connecticut (USA)
Dr Thomas Johansen, Reader in Ancient Philosophy, University of Oxford (UK)
6 Scholars added on May 27th 2009:
Frösén Jaakko, Professor of Greek philology, University of Helsinki (Finland)
John F. Kenfield, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Rutgers University (USA)
Dr. Aristotle Michopoulos, Professor & Chair, Greek Studies Dept., Hellenic College (Brookline, MA, USA)
Guy MacLean Rogers, Kemper Professor of Classics and History, Wellesley College (USA)
Stavros Frangoulidis, Associate Professor of Latin. Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Yannis Tzifopoulos, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek and Epigraphy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
1 Scholar added on May 29th 2009:
Christos Simelidis, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Lincoln College, University of Oxford (UK)
3 Scholars added on June 2nd 2009:
Dr. Peter Grossmann, Member emeritus, German Archaeological Institute, Cairo (Egypt)
Eleni Papaefthymiou, Curator of the Numismatic Collection of the Foundation of the Hellenic World (Greece)
Evangeline Markou, Adjunct Lecturer in Greek History, Open University of Cyprus (Cyprus)
2 Scholars added on June 3rd 2009:
Aliki Moustaka, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
François de Callataÿ, Professor of Monetary and Financial history of the Greek world, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris/Sorbonne) and Professor of Financial history of the Greco-Roman world, Université libre de Bruxelles (France and Brussels)

