[ Greece and The Macedonian Question,Etairia Makedonikon Spoudon]
Nonetheless the Slavo-Macedonians, with the backing of the newly- formed Tito regime in Yugoslavia, kept up their efforts. Just a few days after the Varkiza agreement, Slavo-Macedonian èmigrès from Greece formed an organisation named NOF (National Liberation Front) in Skopje, and sent armed guerrilla bands back to the border areas of Greek Macedonia. The activities of these bands attracted the criticism of the KKE, since they were in conflict with the terms of the Varkiza agreement and gave the government forces an excuse for applying severe measures to suppress them.
However, when the Civil War began in 1946, the Slavo-Macedonians, returned to Greek Macedonia in great numbers and joined the Greek Communist movement, while still retaining their own organisation, the NOF. To judge from the various collections of documents and memoirs which have been published in Skopje, the Slavo-Macedonians — that is, the part of the Slavic-speaking population whose national consciousness was Slavic — were fighting what they saw at this time as a "national liberation struggle for the Macedonians of the Aegean" in order to win their national rights. These rights were none other than the policy which Yugoslavia was officially pursuing at this time and which was intended to incorporate the Macedonian territories of both Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
In the meantime, and while the outcome of the civil war in Greece still hung in the balance, the Yugoslavs exerted unbearable pressure on their Bulgarian comrades in order to blackmail them into ceding Bulgarian Macedonia to Yugoslavia. In the end, by the Bled accords of 1947, Dimitrov agreed, in return for minor concessions, to acknowledge the inhabitants of Bulgarian Macedonia (Pirin) as "Macedonians" and to pave the way for the incorporation of the province of Pirin into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The incorporation of Greek Macedonia would await the outcome of the civil war.
The split between Stalin and Tito, which occurred suddenly in the summer of 1948, upset all the Yugoslav calculations about playing a leading role in the Balkans using the Macedonian question as the central lever. Bulgaria seized the opportunity to release itself from the concessions it had made over the Macedonian question. It repudiated the theory of the "Macedonian nation" and drove the commissars from Skopje off its territory. It then attempted to exploit the difficulties which the Yugoslavs were facing in order to advance once more the pre-war slogan of an "independent and united Macedonia ". This slogan also served to increase the more general political pressure which the Soviet Union was at that time exerting on Tito.
The Moscow-Belgrade split, however, also had dramatic repercussions for Greek Macedonia. The leadership of the KKE judged it to be expedient to fall into line with the Soviet Union in attacking Tito and at the same time adopt its new policy towards Macedonia. Thus, by decision of the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee, in January 1949, the KKE revived the old pro-Bulgarian slogan of the "independent and united Macedonia" in the framework of a future Balkan Communist Federation.
This shift of policy had grave consequences for the course of military operations, since the Yugoslavs, in order to protect their own rear, closed the border with Greece, which until that time had been the main channel through which supplies had flowed to the Communist forces in Greece. Some of the NOF supporters fled to Yugoslav Macedonia, where they settled. Later, when the armed conflict ended in August 1949, the remaining masses of NOF supporters followed the other Greek political refugees into exile in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union.
The final outcome of those five tragic years was that those Slavic- speakers who had originally joined forces with the Bulgarians during the occupation and later identified with Skopje's Slavo-Macedonians left Greece. This was the last exodus from Greek Macedonia of people who felt themselves to be Slavs or had pro-Slav sentiments. Certainly, in the maelstrom of the fighting and the events of the time injustices must have been done, and consequently there later occurred a kind of selective repatriation of Slavic-speakers with Greek national consciousness. Those Slavic-speak ers with Greek national consciousness who had been fighting to keep Greece free and Macedonia Greek ever since the Macedonian Straggle remained in Greece . It was these frontier fighters who, even in the most difficult times, refused to become instruments of the Bulgarians' occupation forces or of Tito's SNOF and NOF. Yugoslavia , faced with the nightmarish prospect of a Soviet invasion, sought support in the West, which opened up the way for the normalisation of relations with Greece and the signing, in 1954, of a tripartite Balkan pact of defensive alliance, of which Turkey also was a member.
The new circumstances led Yugoslavia to drop the territorial demands it had been putting forward and to restrict itself to formal claims for the recognition of "Macedonian" minorities. These claims were, however, to tally insubstantiated, since the objective conditions to justify them no longer existed. The KKE, on its part, soon realised the enormous political cost of the decision taken by the 5th Plenum and reversed it with a theoretical position involving "the equality of the Slavo-Macedonians". However, since the Slavo-Macedonians concerned were no longer in Greece , this position gradually lost force and was officially abandoned with the categorical statement by General Secretary Harilaos Florakis in Thessaloniki in September 1988 that "for the KKE, there is no Macedonian minority in Greece".
Lastly, Bulgaria too dropped the slogan of a united Macedonia after the death of Stalin in 1953. After a considerable amount of vacillation — directly connected to the state of Soviet-Yugoslav relations at any given time — Bulgaria also adopted the position that there is no "Macedonian nation" and that consequently there can be no "Macedonian" minority in Bulgaria.
As a conclusion, after the upheavals of the period 1940-50, the three sections of Macedonia went over to licking their wounds and have since followed, peacefully, the political, economic and social development of the countries to which they belong.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
FYROM airports, statues and the Bible
A new dish of Macedonian saladby Evangelos Kofos†
(This is an edited version of an op. ed. published in the Athens daily “Kathimerini”, 3 February 2007)
The renaming of the airports of Skopje and Ohrid to “Alexander the Great” and “St. Paul”, respectively, has triggered an emotional reaction among a segment of the Greek public. Some reacted scornfully considering this initiative by FYROM’s authorities as rather “absurd”, a gift to cartoonists. Others felt annoyed by the falsification and appropriation of what they considered as their cherished Greek Macedonian identity and cultural heritage. These feelings were accentuated by the fact that over the past few years statues of Alexander the Great have been erected in certain towns of the neighbouring country (Shtip, Prilep), as well as at the news that a series of new monuments are in line to commemorate king Philip II, Alexander’s father, and even the Macedonian born philosopher, Aristotle, Alexander’s tutor.
Following an unmistakable public expression of dissatisfaction by Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis as well as Deputy Ministers I. Valinakis and E. Stylianides, the once stagnant issue over FYROM’s state name between Athens and Skopje has resurfaced.
It would be clumsy and trivial to start a dialogue over a hint of jitteriness of certain nationalistic circles in FYROM. More important is for the Greek public to comprehend and deliberate over the reasons of this “provocative” action – as assessed by the EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.
Certain sceptics contend that this provocation is nothing more than an addendum to a costless—for Skopje—diplomatic bargaining deal, to be bartered at some future date for Athens’ “capitulation” on the name issue. This is hardly the case. The causes are deep-seated and linked directly to a long-going process in FYROM, especially after its declaration as an independent country in 1991: they aim at reshaping and expanding the historical myth of the ethnogenesis of the “Macedonian nation”.
The traditional theory, shaped in former Yugoslavia since the 1940s, placed the onset of the identity of the Macedonian Slavs—the Makedonci—to the descent of the early Slav tribes to Macedonia (6th century AD). The historical dogma, currently taking shape in FYROM, backtracks the origins of this modern Slav Macedonian nation 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. Now, by claiming the patrimony of the Ancient Macedonians, the boundaries of “Greater Macedonia” assume a much wider historical and cultural dimension in time.
This “improved”, triplex revision, redefining the fatherland’s identity, the time span of the ethnogenesis process of its people, and the historical heritage of land and peoples, consists of two equally important dimensions:
First, it provides the emerged Macedonian independent state with enlarged “ancestral” lands (regardless of the fact that these lands are integral parts of Greece and Bulgaria). Second, it enriches the Makedonski nation with a plethora of renowned historical figures and events. The expanded historical pantheon seeks to include Alexander the Great, King Philip II, Aristotle, (4th century BC), and the first European Christians who accepted the preaching of St. Paul during his visit to the Macedonian cities of Philippi, Thessaloniki, and Beroea, (lst century AD). Similarly, medieval historical figures fall pray to the ongoing “macedonization” process.
Among them, a recent addition to the list of eminent “ancestors”, is the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, the “Macedonian” (known also as “Basil the Bulgar- Slayer”), along with the other “Macedonian”, though of a different lineage, Czar Samuel, Emperor of the Bulgarians (10th century AD).This undertaking, however, does not aim to serve historical accuracy.
Instead, it aspires to the formation of a libro d’oro, a respectable passport for the country’s eventual entry into the European Union of 27.
Let’s now address the timely issue of what appears a sudden “epidemic” manifesting itself through the erection of monuments, the renaming of streets, airports, etc., with names of Ancient Greek historical origin. Judging by the recent publications in the European press, dozens of foreign correspondents are invited to FYROM, where besides the generous hospitality they can enjoy, they receive a satisfactory dose of brainwashing about this novel ethnogenetic doctrine.
The reasons behind the renaming of the Ohrid airport to St. Paul were less—if at all—discernible to the Greeks. No one, of course, is contending for the identity of the Apostle, hence the proclamation made by Skopje that the name change pays homage to the ‘Apostle of the Nations.’ Behind this act, however, remain hardly hidden dimensions of the continuous expansion of our neighbours’ historical doctrine.
Over the last years, the historical assertions of “Republika Makedonija” portray the “Macedonskii taktovina” as a country of the Bible, and, specifically, as the first European territory where Christian churches were established. It is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles that while at Troja, Paul witnessed a vision of a Macedonian calling him to come to Macedonia and help his people. He responded, crossed Chryssopoli (present day Kavala) and before arriving in Athens and Corinth preached Christ’s teachings to the cities of Philippi, Thessaloniki and Beroea, where he became accepted by “Judaeans” and “Greeks” alike. (New Testament, Acts, chapters 16, paras 9,12 and 17, para. 4).
Therefore, the name of the Ohrid airport is not so “innocent” after all. Nor can it be considered as an expression of Christian devoutness, in a region mostly surrounded by a Muslim/Albanian population. Notwithstanding that Paul never set foot on the lands of the modern FYROM, the state propagandists in Skopje, by giving the Apostle’s name to the Ohrid airport, attempt to convey two messages:
First, that St. Paul’s mission is a cherished religious and cultural component of “their” nation’s patrimony, thus justifying its appropriation for the promotion of their tourist industry.
Second, in an indirect way, it provides attractive elements to propagate, shamelessly, their territorial fantasies over the Greek Macedonian regions, visited by St. Paul.
Claiming Philippi, Thessaloniki and Beroea as sections of their homeland from the first century AD (that is, five centuries prior to the gradual descent of Slavic tribes towards the south), they aim in what is now a classic equation: If Paul was invited by a vision of a Macedonian to preach the Christian faith in three Macedonian cities, and if Skopje has a constitutional monopoly over the unscathed Macedonian name, then the territory, the citizens and the history of Macedonia through the ages, belong exclusively to them...In a few words, this is precisely the message conveyed by this new dish of “salade Macedoine”. And, in an indirect way, it reveals the core to the long-standing name dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
*****
Article 7 of the Interim Accord between Greece and FYROM (1995) states the following:
“If either Party believes one or more symbols constituting part of its historic or cultural patrimony is being used by the other Party, it shall bring such alleged use to the attention of the other Party, and the other Party shall take appropriate corrective action or indicate why it does not consider it necessary to do so.”
The Greek people, in general, and our Macedonians, in particular, wish to know the steps taken by the Greek government toward FYROM, and, more importantly, how the latter responded. Yet, irrespective of the response, it would be worthwhile to place it in the Greek delegation’s files when the EU embarks on accession talks with Greece’s northern neighbour.
Below you can read the Greek Edition
http://akritas-history-of-makedonia.blogspot.com/2007/02/blog-post_03.html
† Dr. Evangelos Kofos is currently Senior Advisor-Balkan Area of ELIAMEP and member of the Board of the Research Centre for Macedonian History and Documentation, Museum of the Macedonian Struggle.
(This is an edited version of an op. ed. published in the Athens daily “Kathimerini”, 3 February 2007)
The renaming of the airports of Skopje and Ohrid to “Alexander the Great” and “St. Paul”, respectively, has triggered an emotional reaction among a segment of the Greek public. Some reacted scornfully considering this initiative by FYROM’s authorities as rather “absurd”, a gift to cartoonists. Others felt annoyed by the falsification and appropriation of what they considered as their cherished Greek Macedonian identity and cultural heritage. These feelings were accentuated by the fact that over the past few years statues of Alexander the Great have been erected in certain towns of the neighbouring country (Shtip, Prilep), as well as at the news that a series of new monuments are in line to commemorate king Philip II, Alexander’s father, and even the Macedonian born philosopher, Aristotle, Alexander’s tutor.
Following an unmistakable public expression of dissatisfaction by Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis as well as Deputy Ministers I. Valinakis and E. Stylianides, the once stagnant issue over FYROM’s state name between Athens and Skopje has resurfaced.
It would be clumsy and trivial to start a dialogue over a hint of jitteriness of certain nationalistic circles in FYROM. More important is for the Greek public to comprehend and deliberate over the reasons of this “provocative” action – as assessed by the EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.
Certain sceptics contend that this provocation is nothing more than an addendum to a costless—for Skopje—diplomatic bargaining deal, to be bartered at some future date for Athens’ “capitulation” on the name issue. This is hardly the case. The causes are deep-seated and linked directly to a long-going process in FYROM, especially after its declaration as an independent country in 1991: they aim at reshaping and expanding the historical myth of the ethnogenesis of the “Macedonian nation”.
The traditional theory, shaped in former Yugoslavia since the 1940s, placed the onset of the identity of the Macedonian Slavs—the Makedonci—to the descent of the early Slav tribes to Macedonia (6th century AD). The historical dogma, currently taking shape in FYROM, backtracks the origins of this modern Slav Macedonian nation 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. Now, by claiming the patrimony of the Ancient Macedonians, the boundaries of “Greater Macedonia” assume a much wider historical and cultural dimension in time.
This “improved”, triplex revision, redefining the fatherland’s identity, the time span of the ethnogenesis process of its people, and the historical heritage of land and peoples, consists of two equally important dimensions:
First, it provides the emerged Macedonian independent state with enlarged “ancestral” lands (regardless of the fact that these lands are integral parts of Greece and Bulgaria). Second, it enriches the Makedonski nation with a plethora of renowned historical figures and events. The expanded historical pantheon seeks to include Alexander the Great, King Philip II, Aristotle, (4th century BC), and the first European Christians who accepted the preaching of St. Paul during his visit to the Macedonian cities of Philippi, Thessaloniki, and Beroea, (lst century AD). Similarly, medieval historical figures fall pray to the ongoing “macedonization” process.
Among them, a recent addition to the list of eminent “ancestors”, is the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, the “Macedonian” (known also as “Basil the Bulgar- Slayer”), along with the other “Macedonian”, though of a different lineage, Czar Samuel, Emperor of the Bulgarians (10th century AD).This undertaking, however, does not aim to serve historical accuracy.
Instead, it aspires to the formation of a libro d’oro, a respectable passport for the country’s eventual entry into the European Union of 27.
Let’s now address the timely issue of what appears a sudden “epidemic” manifesting itself through the erection of monuments, the renaming of streets, airports, etc., with names of Ancient Greek historical origin. Judging by the recent publications in the European press, dozens of foreign correspondents are invited to FYROM, where besides the generous hospitality they can enjoy, they receive a satisfactory dose of brainwashing about this novel ethnogenetic doctrine.
The reasons behind the renaming of the Ohrid airport to St. Paul were less—if at all—discernible to the Greeks. No one, of course, is contending for the identity of the Apostle, hence the proclamation made by Skopje that the name change pays homage to the ‘Apostle of the Nations.’ Behind this act, however, remain hardly hidden dimensions of the continuous expansion of our neighbours’ historical doctrine.
Over the last years, the historical assertions of “Republika Makedonija” portray the “Macedonskii taktovina” as a country of the Bible, and, specifically, as the first European territory where Christian churches were established. It is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles that while at Troja, Paul witnessed a vision of a Macedonian calling him to come to Macedonia and help his people. He responded, crossed Chryssopoli (present day Kavala) and before arriving in Athens and Corinth preached Christ’s teachings to the cities of Philippi, Thessaloniki and Beroea, where he became accepted by “Judaeans” and “Greeks” alike. (New Testament, Acts, chapters 16, paras 9,12 and 17, para. 4).
Therefore, the name of the Ohrid airport is not so “innocent” after all. Nor can it be considered as an expression of Christian devoutness, in a region mostly surrounded by a Muslim/Albanian population. Notwithstanding that Paul never set foot on the lands of the modern FYROM, the state propagandists in Skopje, by giving the Apostle’s name to the Ohrid airport, attempt to convey two messages:
First, that St. Paul’s mission is a cherished religious and cultural component of “their” nation’s patrimony, thus justifying its appropriation for the promotion of their tourist industry.
Second, in an indirect way, it provides attractive elements to propagate, shamelessly, their territorial fantasies over the Greek Macedonian regions, visited by St. Paul.
Claiming Philippi, Thessaloniki and Beroea as sections of their homeland from the first century AD (that is, five centuries prior to the gradual descent of Slavic tribes towards the south), they aim in what is now a classic equation: If Paul was invited by a vision of a Macedonian to preach the Christian faith in three Macedonian cities, and if Skopje has a constitutional monopoly over the unscathed Macedonian name, then the territory, the citizens and the history of Macedonia through the ages, belong exclusively to them...In a few words, this is precisely the message conveyed by this new dish of “salade Macedoine”. And, in an indirect way, it reveals the core to the long-standing name dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
*****
Article 7 of the Interim Accord between Greece and FYROM (1995) states the following:
“If either Party believes one or more symbols constituting part of its historic or cultural patrimony is being used by the other Party, it shall bring such alleged use to the attention of the other Party, and the other Party shall take appropriate corrective action or indicate why it does not consider it necessary to do so.”
The Greek people, in general, and our Macedonians, in particular, wish to know the steps taken by the Greek government toward FYROM, and, more importantly, how the latter responded. Yet, irrespective of the response, it would be worthwhile to place it in the Greek delegation’s files when the EU embarks on accession talks with Greece’s northern neighbour.
Below you can read the Greek Edition
http://akritas-history-of-makedonia.blogspot.com/2007/02/blog-post_03.html
† Dr. Evangelos Kofos is currently Senior Advisor-Balkan Area of ELIAMEP and member of the Board of the Research Centre for Macedonian History and Documentation, Museum of the Macedonian Struggle.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Making FYROM negotiate
By Stavros Lygeros
It’s sad, but it was to be expected. The leadership of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is playing tricks on Greece.
After all, experience has shown that it can play games behind Greece’s back and go unpunished. Renaming Skopje airport “Alexander the Great” was a bid to reinforce Skopje’s fixation with creating a “Macedonian” identity. Even if Skopje backs down eventually, it will seek political rewards for doing so. The EU will go on to praise Skopje’s moderation while Costas Karamanlis’s administration will brag about having stopped its bid to usurp Greek history. Everyone will be happy – but, politically speaking, Skopje will be the real winners.
The root cause of the problem is that the name issue remains unresolved. FYROM has no reason to press for a solution. In fact, Athens should be the one pressing for a breakthrough. In 2005 Prime Minister Karamanlis warned Skopje that its NATO and EU ambitions hinged on a settlement. But Athens finally gave the green light to FYROM gaining EU candidate status without a solution to the name problem.
If the past is any prologue, FYROM will negotiate only if it is forced to. That is, it will negotiate only if it’s threatened with a block of its path to Europe and the transatlantic alliance – both of which are rightly seen as crucial to the survival of the state.
What would set a political precedent and change the terms of the problem is a referendum whose outcome would block FYROM’s path to NATO and the EU unless a commonly accepted solution were reached. That would force Skopje into serious negotiations and an honest compromise. Washington would also urge FYROM to do so.
It’s sad, but it was to be expected. The leadership of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is playing tricks on Greece.
After all, experience has shown that it can play games behind Greece’s back and go unpunished. Renaming Skopje airport “Alexander the Great” was a bid to reinforce Skopje’s fixation with creating a “Macedonian” identity. Even if Skopje backs down eventually, it will seek political rewards for doing so. The EU will go on to praise Skopje’s moderation while Costas Karamanlis’s administration will brag about having stopped its bid to usurp Greek history. Everyone will be happy – but, politically speaking, Skopje will be the real winners.
The root cause of the problem is that the name issue remains unresolved. FYROM has no reason to press for a solution. In fact, Athens should be the one pressing for a breakthrough. In 2005 Prime Minister Karamanlis warned Skopje that its NATO and EU ambitions hinged on a settlement. But Athens finally gave the green light to FYROM gaining EU candidate status without a solution to the name problem.
If the past is any prologue, FYROM will negotiate only if it is forced to. That is, it will negotiate only if it’s threatened with a block of its path to Europe and the transatlantic alliance – both of which are rightly seen as crucial to the survival of the state.
What would set a political precedent and change the terms of the problem is a referendum whose outcome would block FYROM’s path to NATO and the EU unless a commonly accepted solution were reached. That would force Skopje into serious negotiations and an honest compromise. Washington would also urge FYROM to do so.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Connections between Slavonic and ancient Macedonians
I hear the Slavonic origin macedonians the continious claim that they are descents from the ancient Macedonians.
Three from the most favour writers that used from the Slavonic origin Macedonians are the
-Karakasidou
-Danforth
-Borza
All the above writers were specefic as about the origin of the today Slavonic origin Macedonians.Are Slavs that came in the Balkans 800 years after the kingship of the ancient Macedonians
Here some quote from them:
Borza in "Macedonian Rendux"
The Macedonian kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire, never to recover its independence. During medieval and modem times, Macedonia was known as a Balkan region inhabited by ethnic Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Turks.
Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom.
On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish their singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians
Loring Danforth in his known book (page 56) mention clearly
"the history of the construction of a macedonian national identity does not begin with alexander the great in the fourth century b.c. or with saints cyril and methodius in the ninth century a.d., as Macedonian nationalist historians often claim. nor does it begin with tito and the establishment of the people's republic of macedonia in 1944 as greek nationalist historians would have us believe.
It begins in the nineteenth century with the first expressions of macedonian ethnic nationalism on the part of a small number of intellectuals in places like thessaloniki, belgrade, sophia, and st.petersburg. this period marks the beginning of the process of "imagining" a macedonian national community, the beginning of the construction of a macedonian national identity and culture"
Karakasidou in Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood mention
However the polemics round Macedonia acquired new critical dimensions afterwards the establishment of Yugoslavian Socialist Republic of Macedonia, to1944. The Yugoslavian Macedonians and their successors of FYROM undertaken their own construction of nation, manufacturing separate fables of collective origin and claims from Great Alexandros (Apostolski et al 1969, Kolisevski 1959)
In the beginning of 20th century, Greece and Bulgaria colided for the region of Macedonia. Today, in the threshold 21th century the axis of competition was shifted with the constitution of FYROM in independent government owned entity, which includes Slavs, Albanians, Muslim Turks and Rom
So dear Slavonic origin inhibants of the Macedonia you are just a people that came in the Balkans at the 6th century and your supposing connection is just a fabrication of your new founding State.
Or and the Borza,Danforth and Karakasidou are part of the Greek propagnda as you learned dear Slavonic origin inhibants of the Macedonia?
Three from the most favour writers that used from the Slavonic origin Macedonians are the
-Karakasidou
-Danforth
-Borza
All the above writers were specefic as about the origin of the today Slavonic origin Macedonians.Are Slavs that came in the Balkans 800 years after the kingship of the ancient Macedonians
Here some quote from them:
Borza in "Macedonian Rendux"
The Macedonian kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire, never to recover its independence. During medieval and modem times, Macedonia was known as a Balkan region inhabited by ethnic Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Turks.
Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom.
On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish their singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians
Loring Danforth in his known book (page 56) mention clearly
"the history of the construction of a macedonian national identity does not begin with alexander the great in the fourth century b.c. or with saints cyril and methodius in the ninth century a.d., as Macedonian nationalist historians often claim. nor does it begin with tito and the establishment of the people's republic of macedonia in 1944 as greek nationalist historians would have us believe.
It begins in the nineteenth century with the first expressions of macedonian ethnic nationalism on the part of a small number of intellectuals in places like thessaloniki, belgrade, sophia, and st.petersburg. this period marks the beginning of the process of "imagining" a macedonian national community, the beginning of the construction of a macedonian national identity and culture"
Karakasidou in Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood mention
However the polemics round Macedonia acquired new critical dimensions afterwards the establishment of Yugoslavian Socialist Republic of Macedonia, to1944. The Yugoslavian Macedonians and their successors of FYROM undertaken their own construction of nation, manufacturing separate fables of collective origin and claims from Great Alexandros (Apostolski et al 1969, Kolisevski 1959)
In the beginning of 20th century, Greece and Bulgaria colided for the region of Macedonia. Today, in the threshold 21th century the axis of competition was shifted with the constitution of FYROM in independent government owned entity, which includes Slavs, Albanians, Muslim Turks and Rom
So dear Slavonic origin inhibants of the Macedonia you are just a people that came in the Balkans at the 6th century and your supposing connection is just a fabrication of your new founding State.
Or and the Borza,Danforth and Karakasidou are part of the Greek propagnda as you learned dear Slavonic origin inhibants of the Macedonia?
Friday, January 12, 2007
Great Alexander airport
The provocative decision by the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to rename the airport in capital Skopje after Alexander the Great(Aleksantar Veliki) proves that as long as the name dispute with Greece remains unresolved, it will continue to have a deleterious effect on bilateral relations and also influence broader political implications.
Unless an honest and mutually accepted compromise is reached on the name issue between the two neighboring states, the Greek Parliament (whether it is led by a conservative or a Socialist majority) is not going to give FYROM the go-ahead for the much-coveted membership of the NATO alliance.
Similarly, the government in Athens will most likely block the launching of the country’s European Union talks.
In light of the current deadlock on the name issue, which has been a problem for years, the visit of United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz to the two capitals will offer a chance to lift the deadlock.
Skopje’s evasive tactics, which have managed to keep FYROM away from serious negotiations on the name issue, cannot continue. If these tactics go on, they will cause more damage and Skopje may have to pay the costs.
There is simply too much at stake, as FYROM’s membership of the EU and the transatlantic alliance is vital for our neighbor’s very survival.
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis is today due to urge visiting United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz to resurrect stalled talks aimed at resolving a dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) regarding the latter’s official name.
Bakoyannis is expected to impress upon Nimetz Athens’s “deep displeasure” with Skopje’s decision last month to name its airport after the ancient Greek warrior Alexander the Great.
Greek diplomats have condemned the move for violating the spirit of an interim agreement and discrediting UN-backed efforts to resolve the dispute.
Bakoyannis intends to send a clear message to Skopje that Athens’s established stances on this issue “are not just formalities” but a true expression of Greece’s position, a diplomatic source told Kathimerini yesterday.
However the foreign minister will also reiterate Athens’s support of FYROM’s accession to the European Union and NATO, as long as a mutually acceptable agreement on the name dispute is reached, ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos said.
“We have already taken the necessary constructive steps,” he added, in reference to Athens’s acceptance in 2005 of Nimetz’s proposal of “Republika Makedonija-Skopje” as an official name. (The proposal was rejected by FYROM.) Koumoutsakos stressed that the ball is now in FYROM’s court, and that Skopje “should follow the example of Bulgaria and Romania, which are looking toward a common European future instead of taking backward steps and insisting on distorting the past.”
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100008_12/01/2007_78787
Unless an honest and mutually accepted compromise is reached on the name issue between the two neighboring states, the Greek Parliament (whether it is led by a conservative or a Socialist majority) is not going to give FYROM the go-ahead for the much-coveted membership of the NATO alliance.
Similarly, the government in Athens will most likely block the launching of the country’s European Union talks.
In light of the current deadlock on the name issue, which has been a problem for years, the visit of United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz to the two capitals will offer a chance to lift the deadlock.
Skopje’s evasive tactics, which have managed to keep FYROM away from serious negotiations on the name issue, cannot continue. If these tactics go on, they will cause more damage and Skopje may have to pay the costs.
There is simply too much at stake, as FYROM’s membership of the EU and the transatlantic alliance is vital for our neighbor’s very survival.
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis is today due to urge visiting United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz to resurrect stalled talks aimed at resolving a dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) regarding the latter’s official name.
Bakoyannis is expected to impress upon Nimetz Athens’s “deep displeasure” with Skopje’s decision last month to name its airport after the ancient Greek warrior Alexander the Great.
Greek diplomats have condemned the move for violating the spirit of an interim agreement and discrediting UN-backed efforts to resolve the dispute.
Bakoyannis intends to send a clear message to Skopje that Athens’s established stances on this issue “are not just formalities” but a true expression of Greece’s position, a diplomatic source told Kathimerini yesterday.
However the foreign minister will also reiterate Athens’s support of FYROM’s accession to the European Union and NATO, as long as a mutually acceptable agreement on the name dispute is reached, ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos said.
“We have already taken the necessary constructive steps,” he added, in reference to Athens’s acceptance in 2005 of Nimetz’s proposal of “Republika Makedonija-Skopje” as an official name. (The proposal was rejected by FYROM.) Koumoutsakos stressed that the ball is now in FYROM’s court, and that Skopje “should follow the example of Bulgaria and Romania, which are looking toward a common European future instead of taking backward steps and insisting on distorting the past.”
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100008_12/01/2007_78787
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The issue of a seperate 'macedonian' identity up the end of WWI
Before 1870 the literate Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia and Bulgaria were engaged in a common struggle against Greek cultural and linguistic domination in the Balkans. During this period the Slavs of Macedonia called their language Bulgarian.
They hoped to create a single Macedo-Bulgarian literary language based on some kind of compromise among the various dialects of Macedonia and Bulgaria (Friedman 1993).
It was not until after the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate and the increasing attempts by the Bulgarian intellegentsia to impose an eastern Bulgarian-based standard language of the people of Macedonia that efforts to establish a single Macedo-Bulgarian literary language were abandoned and the first signs of Macedonian linguistic separatism appeared. This is the period when dictionaries, grammars, and textbooks began to be published in what was specifically referred to as "Slavo-Macedonian" or "Macedonian language".
In 1892 the Kostur (Kastoria) parish school council adopted the proposal of a group of teachers "to eliminate both Bulgarian and Greek and introduce Macedonian as the language of instruction in the town school" (Andonovski 1985a, cited in Friedman 1993.) However, the Greek bishop and the Turkish governor of the city prevented this from taking place.
The careers of some of the important literary figures in Macedonia in the nineteenth century illustrate the degree to which the different languages and cultures of the Balkans had not yet become separated into bounded, mutually exclusive national spheres. They also poignantly reveal the dilemmas these writers faced as a result of the conflicting nationalist pressures that had begun to converge on Macedonia at this time.
Grigor Prlichev, who was born in Ohrid in western Macedonia in 1830, gained his reputation as a famous poet when his poem 'The Bandit' written in Greek, won a prize in Athens in 1860. He was described as a "second Homer."
When Greek officials offered him a scholarship to study in western Europe, however, he turned it down. He realized that even though he loved Greek literature, he was not Greek. Shortly thereafter he left Greece for Macedonia, and never wrote in Greek again.
After spending five months in Constantinople learning "the Slav language," Prlichev returned to Ohrid where he was imprisoned by the Greek bishop for opposing the use of the Greek language in the schools and churches of Macedonia. His translation of the 'Iliad' into the local Slavic language of Ohrid was dismissed by Bulgarian critics, who said he had poor knowledge of Bulgarian. Prlichev himself wrote, "In Greek I sang like a swan; now in Slavic I cannot even sing like a donkey." Even though he described himself once as "slain by the Bulgarians," toward the end of his life, when he decided to write his autobiography, he chose to write in Bulgarian.
The brothers Konstantin and Dimitar Miladinov confronted similar challenges. Dimitar was born in Struga on Lake Ohrid in 1810. He received a Greek education and taught Greek until a visiting Russian scholar encouraged him to teach his own language. As Dimitar became more interested in his native Slavic language, he developed a Bulgarian national consciousness (De Bray 1980:139),
His younger brother Konstantin, after competing his studies in Athens and Moscow, returned to Struga to work with his brother on a collection of folksongs in the local Slavic language. "I shall have these songs... published," Dimitar wrote, "so that they can always be sung, because these cursed Greeks will Craecize us and we shall no longer count for anything" (Nurigiani 1972:129).
Unable to find a publisher for his collection in Moscow, Konstantin finally obtained the sponsorship of a Croat bishop and patron of South Slavic culture in Zagreb. After Konstantin transcribed the six hundred songs he and his brother had collected in western Macedonia into the Cyrilic alphabet from the Greek alphabet in which they had originally recorded them, seventy-seven songs from eastern Bulgaria collected by a Bulgarian folklorist were added, and the total collection was finally published in Zagreb in 1861, under the title 'Bulgarian Folk Songs' (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 1978:182).
Finally, Krste Misirkov, who had clearly developed a strong sense of his own personal national identity as a Macedonian and who outspokenly and unambiguously called for Macedonian linguistic and national separatism, acknowledged that a Macedonian national identity was a relatively recent historical development.
In 'On Macedonian Matters', published in 1903, Misirkov, referring to himself and other Slavs of Macedonia in the first person plural, admits repeatedly that "our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians" and that "in the past we have even called ourselves Bulgarians" (1974:27,150).
He describes "the emergence of the Macedonians as a separate Slav people" as a "perfectly normal historical process which is quite in keeping with the process by which the Bulgarian, Croatians and Serbian peoples emerged from the South Slavic group" (153).
The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard Misirkov's call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians..
The political goals of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) were the liberation of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia, but VMRO's leadership of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia was challenged by the formation of the Supreme Macedonian Committee in Sofia, whose ultimate goal was the annexation of Macedonia by Bulgaria.
In spite of these political differences, both groups, including those who advocated an independent Macedonian state and opposed the idea of a Greater Bulgaria, never seem to have doubted "the predominantly Bulgarian character of the population of Macedonia" (MacDermott 1978:85).
Even Gotse Delchev, the famous Macedonian revolutionary leader, whose nom de guerre was Ahil (Achilles), refers to "the Slavs of Macedonia as 'Bulgarians' in an offhanded manner without seeming to indicate that such a designation was a point of contention" (Perry 1988:23).
In his correspondence Gotse Delchev often states clearly and simply, "We are Bulgarians" (MacDermott 1978:192,273).
After the failure of the Ilinden Uprising, the struggle for Macedonia continued. In the period leading up to the Balkan wars f 1912-13, Serbia became increasingly involved in what had until then been primarily a conflict between Bulgaria and Greece.
In their attempt to achieve the "ethnographic reclamation" of Macedonia (Wilkinson 1951:316-17), the Serbs first had to refute the Bulgarian claims that Macedonia belonged to Bulgaria because the Slavs of Macedonia were Bulgarians.
The Serbian position, which was effectively articulated by Jovan Cvijic, one of the most respected human geographers of the Balkans at the time, was that the Slavs of Macedonia were a transitional group located linguistically and culturally somewhere between the Bulgarians and the Serbs.
Cvijic gave this group the neutral name of "Macedo-Slavs". According to the Serbs, because the "Macedo-Slavs" did not exhibit any permanent national consciousness, they should be considered "incipient Serbs" (Wilkinson 1951:258).
In 1909 Cvijic published the first map to depict 'Macedo-Slavs" as a distinct ethnic group. His later ethnographic maps were extremely influential and were used as the basis for most postwar maps of the Balkans in both Europe and the United States. Through Cvijic's maps, then, the existence of a group of "Macedo-Slavs" became widely accepted, as did the right of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) to retain a large portion of Macedonian territory after World War I (Wilkinson 1951:148-203).
At the end of World War I there were very few historians or ethnographers who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed. It seems more likely that at this time most of the Slavs of Macedonia, especially those in rural areas, had not yet developed a firm sense of national identity at all.
In a revealing passage from 'Life in the Tomb', Stratis Myrivilis' novel about life on the Balkan front during World War I, a Slavic-speaking family from a village of Vardar Macedonia is described as wanting to be neither "Boulgar," "S'rrp," nor "Grrts" (1977:182). Significantly, there is no positive statement of what they do want to be, no assertion of any nationality that they do want to identify with.
Of those Slavs who had developed some sense of national identity the majority probably considered themselves to be Bulgarians, although as R.King (1973:217) points out, they were aware of differences between themselves and the inhabitants of Bulgaria.
http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/macedonia/macmodnat2.html
They hoped to create a single Macedo-Bulgarian literary language based on some kind of compromise among the various dialects of Macedonia and Bulgaria (Friedman 1993).
It was not until after the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate and the increasing attempts by the Bulgarian intellegentsia to impose an eastern Bulgarian-based standard language of the people of Macedonia that efforts to establish a single Macedo-Bulgarian literary language were abandoned and the first signs of Macedonian linguistic separatism appeared. This is the period when dictionaries, grammars, and textbooks began to be published in what was specifically referred to as "Slavo-Macedonian" or "Macedonian language".
In 1892 the Kostur (Kastoria) parish school council adopted the proposal of a group of teachers "to eliminate both Bulgarian and Greek and introduce Macedonian as the language of instruction in the town school" (Andonovski 1985a, cited in Friedman 1993.) However, the Greek bishop and the Turkish governor of the city prevented this from taking place.
The careers of some of the important literary figures in Macedonia in the nineteenth century illustrate the degree to which the different languages and cultures of the Balkans had not yet become separated into bounded, mutually exclusive national spheres. They also poignantly reveal the dilemmas these writers faced as a result of the conflicting nationalist pressures that had begun to converge on Macedonia at this time.
Grigor Prlichev, who was born in Ohrid in western Macedonia in 1830, gained his reputation as a famous poet when his poem 'The Bandit' written in Greek, won a prize in Athens in 1860. He was described as a "second Homer."
When Greek officials offered him a scholarship to study in western Europe, however, he turned it down. He realized that even though he loved Greek literature, he was not Greek. Shortly thereafter he left Greece for Macedonia, and never wrote in Greek again.
After spending five months in Constantinople learning "the Slav language," Prlichev returned to Ohrid where he was imprisoned by the Greek bishop for opposing the use of the Greek language in the schools and churches of Macedonia. His translation of the 'Iliad' into the local Slavic language of Ohrid was dismissed by Bulgarian critics, who said he had poor knowledge of Bulgarian. Prlichev himself wrote, "In Greek I sang like a swan; now in Slavic I cannot even sing like a donkey." Even though he described himself once as "slain by the Bulgarians," toward the end of his life, when he decided to write his autobiography, he chose to write in Bulgarian.
The brothers Konstantin and Dimitar Miladinov confronted similar challenges. Dimitar was born in Struga on Lake Ohrid in 1810. He received a Greek education and taught Greek until a visiting Russian scholar encouraged him to teach his own language. As Dimitar became more interested in his native Slavic language, he developed a Bulgarian national consciousness (De Bray 1980:139),
His younger brother Konstantin, after competing his studies in Athens and Moscow, returned to Struga to work with his brother on a collection of folksongs in the local Slavic language. "I shall have these songs... published," Dimitar wrote, "so that they can always be sung, because these cursed Greeks will Craecize us and we shall no longer count for anything" (Nurigiani 1972:129).
Unable to find a publisher for his collection in Moscow, Konstantin finally obtained the sponsorship of a Croat bishop and patron of South Slavic culture in Zagreb. After Konstantin transcribed the six hundred songs he and his brother had collected in western Macedonia into the Cyrilic alphabet from the Greek alphabet in which they had originally recorded them, seventy-seven songs from eastern Bulgaria collected by a Bulgarian folklorist were added, and the total collection was finally published in Zagreb in 1861, under the title 'Bulgarian Folk Songs' (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 1978:182).
Finally, Krste Misirkov, who had clearly developed a strong sense of his own personal national identity as a Macedonian and who outspokenly and unambiguously called for Macedonian linguistic and national separatism, acknowledged that a Macedonian national identity was a relatively recent historical development.
In 'On Macedonian Matters', published in 1903, Misirkov, referring to himself and other Slavs of Macedonia in the first person plural, admits repeatedly that "our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians" and that "in the past we have even called ourselves Bulgarians" (1974:27,150).
He describes "the emergence of the Macedonians as a separate Slav people" as a "perfectly normal historical process which is quite in keeping with the process by which the Bulgarian, Croatians and Serbian peoples emerged from the South Slavic group" (153).
The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard Misirkov's call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians..
The political goals of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) were the liberation of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia, but VMRO's leadership of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia was challenged by the formation of the Supreme Macedonian Committee in Sofia, whose ultimate goal was the annexation of Macedonia by Bulgaria.
In spite of these political differences, both groups, including those who advocated an independent Macedonian state and opposed the idea of a Greater Bulgaria, never seem to have doubted "the predominantly Bulgarian character of the population of Macedonia" (MacDermott 1978:85).
Even Gotse Delchev, the famous Macedonian revolutionary leader, whose nom de guerre was Ahil (Achilles), refers to "the Slavs of Macedonia as 'Bulgarians' in an offhanded manner without seeming to indicate that such a designation was a point of contention" (Perry 1988:23).
In his correspondence Gotse Delchev often states clearly and simply, "We are Bulgarians" (MacDermott 1978:192,273).
After the failure of the Ilinden Uprising, the struggle for Macedonia continued. In the period leading up to the Balkan wars f 1912-13, Serbia became increasingly involved in what had until then been primarily a conflict between Bulgaria and Greece.
In their attempt to achieve the "ethnographic reclamation" of Macedonia (Wilkinson 1951:316-17), the Serbs first had to refute the Bulgarian claims that Macedonia belonged to Bulgaria because the Slavs of Macedonia were Bulgarians.
The Serbian position, which was effectively articulated by Jovan Cvijic, one of the most respected human geographers of the Balkans at the time, was that the Slavs of Macedonia were a transitional group located linguistically and culturally somewhere between the Bulgarians and the Serbs.
Cvijic gave this group the neutral name of "Macedo-Slavs". According to the Serbs, because the "Macedo-Slavs" did not exhibit any permanent national consciousness, they should be considered "incipient Serbs" (Wilkinson 1951:258).
In 1909 Cvijic published the first map to depict 'Macedo-Slavs" as a distinct ethnic group. His later ethnographic maps were extremely influential and were used as the basis for most postwar maps of the Balkans in both Europe and the United States. Through Cvijic's maps, then, the existence of a group of "Macedo-Slavs" became widely accepted, as did the right of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) to retain a large portion of Macedonian territory after World War I (Wilkinson 1951:148-203).
At the end of World War I there were very few historians or ethnographers who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed. It seems more likely that at this time most of the Slavs of Macedonia, especially those in rural areas, had not yet developed a firm sense of national identity at all.
In a revealing passage from 'Life in the Tomb', Stratis Myrivilis' novel about life on the Balkan front during World War I, a Slavic-speaking family from a village of Vardar Macedonia is described as wanting to be neither "Boulgar," "S'rrp," nor "Grrts" (1977:182). Significantly, there is no positive statement of what they do want to be, no assertion of any nationality that they do want to identify with.
Of those Slavs who had developed some sense of national identity the majority probably considered themselves to be Bulgarians, although as R.King (1973:217) points out, they were aware of differences between themselves and the inhabitants of Bulgaria.
http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/macedonia/macmodnat2.html
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Historical revisionism / negationism in the Balkans
Historical revisionism
........... is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form (see historical revisionism) it is the reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate.Historical revisionism can be used as a label to describe the views of self-taught historians who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence.
This usage has occurred because some authors who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence (such as David Irving, a proponent of Holocaust denial), have called themselves "historical revisionists.Examples of historical revisionism in Balkans are the Macedonism and Albanianism.
MACEDONISM is the political idea prevalent in the Republic of Macedonia advocates revising history in order to project an ethnic group that formed in the 20th century - ethnic Macedonians - in the context of the 19th century and even in the middle ages. For example, Bulgarian Tsar Samuil is denied the Bulgarian nature of his kingdom, despite overwhelming evidence supporting it, and is defined as a "Slavic" or "Macedonian" king. Further attempts are made to deny the Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom of Macedon and to seek connections between present day ethnic Macedonians and the Ancient Macedonians.Fundamentally, history knows that the "Macedonianism" of Vardar Province's slavophone inhabitants and Albanians is exclusively based on the role played by external factors of paramount importance when in the early 1940s they were transformed into "Macedonians" for political reasons by communist dictators (Tito, Stalin, and Dimitrov) and infamous communist organizations (Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation).'" In reality, it was not even a self-ascription or ascription by others and assignment of a cause, but a dictatorial order, a forceful conversion that preceded the FYROM Slavs' self-ascription as "Macedonians," resulting in an unorthodox and scandalous creation of a new artificial ethnicity in a manner similar to Byelorussia's formation by Lenin and Stalin.
As Danforth pointed out,
Given the common nationalist view of the immutability of identity, conversion from one identity to another [by ascription by others] is bound to raise serious questions of authenticity and legitimacy .
He also pointed out (p. 100) that
It is possible precisely because Greeks and Macedonians are not born, they are made. National identities, in other words, are not biologically given, they are socially constructed" (p. 87).
That is what happened to the Slavs of the People's Republic of Macedonia. They were not born ethnic Macedonians, their Macedonian ethnicity was constructed by the state in 1943-1945. In contrast, the Greek Macedonians, whose forebears always lived in Hellenic Macedonia, always spoke Greek, were not made Macedonians by a totalitarian communist system.......they were born Macedonians.
What characteristics (historical, cultural, ethnological, linguistic, or anthropological) does the FYROM population possess- besides inhabiting a section of the former Vardar Province - to be described by communists first, by anthropologists later, as "Macedonian"?
Why did the Slav "Macedonians" describe themselves as Bulgarians from 1870 to 1943 -and many do so today - waiting for almost seventy-five years to be transformed into "Macedonians" by the dictatorial powers of a communist state.
Something as about Danforth-Karakasidou-Borza and many favour modern and favour writers in FYROM diaspora.
Why dear writers-historians you forget to mention that the heroes of the 19th century-beggining of the 20th clearly identified themeselves as Bulgarians?
Why dear writers-historians you forget to mention that the Slavmacedonians heroes of the Greek civil war enjoyed the Bulgarian fashists forces(OHRANA) first before identified as "Macedonians" ?
........... is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form (see historical revisionism) it is the reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate.Historical revisionism can be used as a label to describe the views of self-taught historians who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence.
This usage has occurred because some authors who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence (such as David Irving, a proponent of Holocaust denial), have called themselves "historical revisionists.Examples of historical revisionism in Balkans are the Macedonism and Albanianism.
MACEDONISM is the political idea prevalent in the Republic of Macedonia advocates revising history in order to project an ethnic group that formed in the 20th century - ethnic Macedonians - in the context of the 19th century and even in the middle ages. For example, Bulgarian Tsar Samuil is denied the Bulgarian nature of his kingdom, despite overwhelming evidence supporting it, and is defined as a "Slavic" or "Macedonian" king. Further attempts are made to deny the Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom of Macedon and to seek connections between present day ethnic Macedonians and the Ancient Macedonians.Fundamentally, history knows that the "Macedonianism" of Vardar Province's slavophone inhabitants and Albanians is exclusively based on the role played by external factors of paramount importance when in the early 1940s they were transformed into "Macedonians" for political reasons by communist dictators (Tito, Stalin, and Dimitrov) and infamous communist organizations (Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation).'" In reality, it was not even a self-ascription or ascription by others and assignment of a cause, but a dictatorial order, a forceful conversion that preceded the FYROM Slavs' self-ascription as "Macedonians," resulting in an unorthodox and scandalous creation of a new artificial ethnicity in a manner similar to Byelorussia's formation by Lenin and Stalin.
As Danforth pointed out,
Given the common nationalist view of the immutability of identity, conversion from one identity to another [by ascription by others] is bound to raise serious questions of authenticity and legitimacy .
He also pointed out (p. 100) that
It is possible precisely because Greeks and Macedonians are not born, they are made. National identities, in other words, are not biologically given, they are socially constructed" (p. 87).
That is what happened to the Slavs of the People's Republic of Macedonia. They were not born ethnic Macedonians, their Macedonian ethnicity was constructed by the state in 1943-1945. In contrast, the Greek Macedonians, whose forebears always lived in Hellenic Macedonia, always spoke Greek, were not made Macedonians by a totalitarian communist system.......they were born Macedonians.
What characteristics (historical, cultural, ethnological, linguistic, or anthropological) does the FYROM population possess- besides inhabiting a section of the former Vardar Province - to be described by communists first, by anthropologists later, as "Macedonian"?
Why did the Slav "Macedonians" describe themselves as Bulgarians from 1870 to 1943 -and many do so today - waiting for almost seventy-five years to be transformed into "Macedonians" by the dictatorial powers of a communist state.
Something as about Danforth-Karakasidou-Borza and many favour modern and favour writers in FYROM diaspora.
Why dear writers-historians you forget to mention that the heroes of the 19th century-beggining of the 20th clearly identified themeselves as Bulgarians?
Why dear writers-historians you forget to mention that the Slavmacedonians heroes of the Greek civil war enjoyed the Bulgarian fashists forces(OHRANA) first before identified as "Macedonians" ?
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Greeks or Hellenes ?
"Though the words 'Hellenism', 'Hellenic', 'Hellenes', 'Hellas' are less familiar than the words 'Greece' and 'Greek' to the English-speaking public, they have two advantages. They are not misleading; and they are the words which, in the Greek language, the Hellenes themselves used to designate their civilization, their world, and themselves. 'Hellas' seems originally to have been the name of the region round the head of the Maliac Gulf, on the border between Central and Northern Greece, which contained the shrine of Earth and Apollo at Delphi and the shrine of Artemis at Anthela near Thermopylae (the narrow passage between sea and mountain that has been the highway from Central Greece to Northern Greece and thence to the great Eurasian Continent into which Northern Greece merges). 'Hellenes', signifying 'inhabitants of Hellas', presumably acquired its broader meaning, signifying 'members of the Hellenic society', through being used as a corporate name for the association of local peoples, the Amphictyones ('neighbours'), which administered the shrines at Delfi and Thermopylae and organized the Pythian Festival that was connected with them."
[Arnold J. Toynbee: Hellenism, The History of a Civilization; Oxford University Press, 1959]
Scholars agree that the majority of the ancient Greeks found difficult to see beyond the horizon of the city-state or to overcome the limitations that slavery and other facts of their life imposed upon their sight. That is to say, the ancient Greeks did not reach the picture of a world-society in which not only those who enjoy Hellenic culture, not only the wise, but all peoples, or at any rate all civilized peoples, have a place. These research findings explain why many ancient Greeks called the ancient Macedonians uncivilized barbarians .
According Thucydides, Andriotis, Hatzidakis and Wilkes, in the eyes of many ancient Greeks, the Macedonians, the Epirotes, as well as the Boeotians and the Thessalians were barbarian, uncivilized Greek tribes. Thus, Andriotis also argues that the designation barbarian was attributed by ancient writers to other uncivilized Greek tribes, as well, such as the Epirote tribe of Chaones (Thuc. 2.80) . Chatzidakis agrees on this asserting that as was the case with Macedonians, some included Macedonia and Epirus in Greece, while others did not. Thucydides speaks of the barbarian Chaones in B.80, while in 81 it is mentioned that the Thesprotians and the Molossi were also barbarians, according to Thucydides .
Hatzidakis affirms that the term barbarian Macedonian is not used in an ethnological sense, but with a derogatory cultural meaning. Admitting that, for some ancient Greeks, the Macedonians were an uncivilized Greek tribe, Hatzidakis says that for that reason many excluded certain tribes from the national community, for they were considered to be inferior compared with the general national civilization .
Hatzidakis, Andriotis , Hammond also attempted to prove and defend the greekness of the ancient Macedonians. On the contrary, some scholars (Georgiev ,O. Muller) supported that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeksand some others(Borza,Green) that ancient Macedonians hellennized. However, the archaeological findings of the Greek archaeologist Andronikos in Vergina put an end to the scientific disagreement about the origin of the ancient Macedonians. Therefore, now it is certain that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks despite the fact that, in the eyes of many ancient Greeks, the Macedonians were a barbarian, uncivilized Greek tribe.
For nationalists like the Afroeccentrists (Bernal) or FYROMian(Stefou) , the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, since they were barbarians, a fact which to their view makes the Greek Macedonia theirs.
But what is Greek and what is Hellene.
What is the derivation of the Hellene(Hellinas) ? During the era of the Trojan war, the Hellenes were a relatively small but vigorous tribe settled in Thessalic Phthia, centralized along the settlements of Alos,Trhine,Alope, and PelasgianArgos. Various etymologies have been proposed for the word Hellene, but none are widely accepted. These include Sal (to pray), ell (mountainous) and sel (illuminate). A more recent study traces the name to a city named Hellas next to the river Sperhious, still named that today. Hellenes in the wider meaning of the word appears in writing for the first time in an inscription byEkembrotus, dedicated to Heracles for his victory in the Amphictyonic games and refers to the 48th Olympiad Games (584 BC).
The modern English word Greek is derived from Latin Greaecus, which in turn comes from Greek Γραικός(Graikos), the name of a Boetian tribe that migrated to Italy in the 8th century BC, and it is by that name the Hellenes were known in the West. Homer, while reciting the Boeotian forces in the Iliad's Catalogue od Ships, provides the first known reference to a Boeotian city named Grea, and Pausaniasmentions that Graea was the name of the ancient city of Tanagra.
There is and the term Hellenistic .Some say that the Hellenistic is not mean Greek or Hellenic!!!. The deriviyion came from the Greek word Έλλην Héllēn and was established by the German Historian Johann Gustav Droysen to refer to the spreading of Hellenic Culture over the non-Hellenes peoples that were conquered by Alexander the Great. According to Droysen, the Hellenistic civilization was a fusion of Greek and Middle-Eastern culture that eventually gave Christianity the opportunity to flourish.
The term Hellenistic mentioned first in the book of Droysen Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen that published at 1833.Modern historians see the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC as the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
The Hellenistic period of the Greek history was the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome at 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.
During the Hellenistic period the importance of "Hellenic proper" (that is, the territory of modern Hellas) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centres of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria respectively
So any other explainations such that the term Hellenistic is not mean Hellenic is un-accurate and of course propagandistic.The founder of this term was clear.
But Back in the definition of the modern Nation.
According to the current international thinking as Mr Michael Vakaoukas said there are two main models of nation:
(a) the territorial and civic model and
(b) the ethnic-genealogical model.
The theory of Renan belongs to the western civic model, as per which a historic territory, legal-political community, legal-political equality, and common civic culture and ideology are required for the formation of a nation. According to the alternative ethnic model, which is supported by one of the most prominent modern theorists of nationalism, Anthony Smith, nation as a community is based on the common predecessors, the common descent of the different ethnic groups and their native culture.
The question now is which model is the most appropriate for the Greek historical reality: the civic model of Renan, Gellner and Anderson or the ethnic model of Smith. In other words, which of the two types of nationalism (emanating from the two models) applies to the Greek nation:
the civic model or the ethnic model?
The nations with an ethnic or genealogical basis seek to expand so as to include the ethnically kin populations that are beyond the current borders of the ethnic nation, along with the territories where they live, or aim for the creation of a much larger ethic-national state, merging into other culturally and ethnically kin states. This is the case of the pan-nationalism of the unredeemed and all other kinds of pan-nationalisms .The characteristics of the genealogical nationalism of the unredeemed fit the Greek nation almost perfectly. Greeks will still talk about the "The Great Idea" and the unredeemed Hellenism (e.g. that of northern Epirus), even though these ideas have fortunately faded after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. However, what is happening today and what happened in the 19th cent, when the Greek nation was built on the basis of the unredeemed-ethnic-genealogical nationalism and much less on the vision of Renan , are two completely different things.A nation is defined by its ethno-culturalism, not by its geographical borders. Common Language and Heritage are what unite a people
In other words, the example of the Greek nation substantiates Smith's theory. That is to say, the modern Hellenic nation is not an entirely modern formation, for it is based on much older cultural groups (ethnies). Greek ethnies (like Arvanites, Vlachs, Slavophones etc.) present "permanent cultural attributes" such as memory, value, myths and symbolisms.
Hellenic ethnies present a common cultural origin descending from ancient Greece and Byzantium. For example, all Greek cultural groups believe in the myth of "Gorgona" who seeks to find Alexander the Great. That is to say, the modern Hellenic nation (in the beginning) was not "a community of citizens" but a "cultural" group. Thus, as Smith points out, "the challenge for scholars is to represent more accurately and convincingly the relationship of ethnic, cultural (Greek) past to modern Hellenic nation.
When the Greeks, in answer to the apparently plausible but entirely misleading ethnographical statistics of their rivals, contended that educational figures were a better indication of `nationality' within Macedonia, their contention was not at all ridiculous: far from it. The position of Greek education corresponded exactly to both the strength and the weakness of Hellenism in Macedonia.
Many in Western Europe doubted whether Hellenism existed at all in Macedonia, and regarded it solely as the invention of the Greek press. Such people were proved to be wrong. Hellenism, although nearly defeated by force and revolutionary upheaval, managed to survive as Dakin mentioned.
Greeks or Hellenes ?
Ancient Or Moderns ?
The answer is one ........Hellenism
References
1-N. Andriotis, On the language and the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians
2-Wilkes, The Illyrians, Odysseus, trs. in Greek
3-Hatzidakis, Macedonians
4-Michael Vakaoulas,Modern Greek Identity
5-Douglas Dakin,The Greek Struggle in Macedonia
[Arnold J. Toynbee: Hellenism, The History of a Civilization; Oxford University Press, 1959]
Scholars agree that the majority of the ancient Greeks found difficult to see beyond the horizon of the city-state or to overcome the limitations that slavery and other facts of their life imposed upon their sight. That is to say, the ancient Greeks did not reach the picture of a world-society in which not only those who enjoy Hellenic culture, not only the wise, but all peoples, or at any rate all civilized peoples, have a place. These research findings explain why many ancient Greeks called the ancient Macedonians uncivilized barbarians .
According Thucydides, Andriotis, Hatzidakis and Wilkes, in the eyes of many ancient Greeks, the Macedonians, the Epirotes, as well as the Boeotians and the Thessalians were barbarian, uncivilized Greek tribes. Thus, Andriotis also argues that the designation barbarian was attributed by ancient writers to other uncivilized Greek tribes, as well, such as the Epirote tribe of Chaones (Thuc. 2.80) . Chatzidakis agrees on this asserting that as was the case with Macedonians, some included Macedonia and Epirus in Greece, while others did not. Thucydides speaks of the barbarian Chaones in B.80, while in 81 it is mentioned that the Thesprotians and the Molossi were also barbarians, according to Thucydides .
Hatzidakis affirms that the term barbarian Macedonian is not used in an ethnological sense, but with a derogatory cultural meaning. Admitting that, for some ancient Greeks, the Macedonians were an uncivilized Greek tribe, Hatzidakis says that for that reason many excluded certain tribes from the national community, for they were considered to be inferior compared with the general national civilization .
Hatzidakis, Andriotis , Hammond also attempted to prove and defend the greekness of the ancient Macedonians. On the contrary, some scholars (Georgiev ,O. Muller) supported that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeksand some others(Borza,Green) that ancient Macedonians hellennized. However, the archaeological findings of the Greek archaeologist Andronikos in Vergina put an end to the scientific disagreement about the origin of the ancient Macedonians. Therefore, now it is certain that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks despite the fact that, in the eyes of many ancient Greeks, the Macedonians were a barbarian, uncivilized Greek tribe.
For nationalists like the Afroeccentrists (Bernal) or FYROMian(Stefou) , the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, since they were barbarians, a fact which to their view makes the Greek Macedonia theirs.
But what is Greek and what is Hellene.
What is the derivation of the Hellene(Hellinas) ? During the era of the Trojan war, the Hellenes were a relatively small but vigorous tribe settled in Thessalic Phthia, centralized along the settlements of Alos,Trhine,Alope, and PelasgianArgos. Various etymologies have been proposed for the word Hellene, but none are widely accepted. These include Sal (to pray), ell (mountainous) and sel (illuminate). A more recent study traces the name to a city named Hellas next to the river Sperhious, still named that today. Hellenes in the wider meaning of the word appears in writing for the first time in an inscription byEkembrotus, dedicated to Heracles for his victory in the Amphictyonic games and refers to the 48th Olympiad Games (584 BC).
The modern English word Greek is derived from Latin Greaecus, which in turn comes from Greek Γραικός(Graikos), the name of a Boetian tribe that migrated to Italy in the 8th century BC, and it is by that name the Hellenes were known in the West. Homer, while reciting the Boeotian forces in the Iliad's Catalogue od Ships, provides the first known reference to a Boeotian city named Grea, and Pausaniasmentions that Graea was the name of the ancient city of Tanagra.
There is and the term Hellenistic .Some say that the Hellenistic is not mean Greek or Hellenic!!!. The deriviyion came from the Greek word Έλλην Héllēn and was established by the German Historian Johann Gustav Droysen to refer to the spreading of Hellenic Culture over the non-Hellenes peoples that were conquered by Alexander the Great. According to Droysen, the Hellenistic civilization was a fusion of Greek and Middle-Eastern culture that eventually gave Christianity the opportunity to flourish.
The term Hellenistic mentioned first in the book of Droysen Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen that published at 1833.Modern historians see the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC as the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
The Hellenistic period of the Greek history was the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome at 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.
During the Hellenistic period the importance of "Hellenic proper" (that is, the territory of modern Hellas) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centres of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria respectively
So any other explainations such that the term Hellenistic is not mean Hellenic is un-accurate and of course propagandistic.The founder of this term was clear.
But Back in the definition of the modern Nation.
According to the current international thinking as Mr Michael Vakaoukas said there are two main models of nation:
(a) the territorial and civic model and
(b) the ethnic-genealogical model.
The theory of Renan belongs to the western civic model, as per which a historic territory, legal-political community, legal-political equality, and common civic culture and ideology are required for the formation of a nation. According to the alternative ethnic model, which is supported by one of the most prominent modern theorists of nationalism, Anthony Smith, nation as a community is based on the common predecessors, the common descent of the different ethnic groups and their native culture.
The question now is which model is the most appropriate for the Greek historical reality: the civic model of Renan, Gellner and Anderson or the ethnic model of Smith. In other words, which of the two types of nationalism (emanating from the two models) applies to the Greek nation:
the civic model or the ethnic model?
The nations with an ethnic or genealogical basis seek to expand so as to include the ethnically kin populations that are beyond the current borders of the ethnic nation, along with the territories where they live, or aim for the creation of a much larger ethic-national state, merging into other culturally and ethnically kin states. This is the case of the pan-nationalism of the unredeemed and all other kinds of pan-nationalisms .The characteristics of the genealogical nationalism of the unredeemed fit the Greek nation almost perfectly. Greeks will still talk about the "The Great Idea" and the unredeemed Hellenism (e.g. that of northern Epirus), even though these ideas have fortunately faded after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. However, what is happening today and what happened in the 19th cent, when the Greek nation was built on the basis of the unredeemed-ethnic-genealogical nationalism and much less on the vision of Renan , are two completely different things.A nation is defined by its ethno-culturalism, not by its geographical borders. Common Language and Heritage are what unite a people
In other words, the example of the Greek nation substantiates Smith's theory. That is to say, the modern Hellenic nation is not an entirely modern formation, for it is based on much older cultural groups (ethnies). Greek ethnies (like Arvanites, Vlachs, Slavophones etc.) present "permanent cultural attributes" such as memory, value, myths and symbolisms.
Hellenic ethnies present a common cultural origin descending from ancient Greece and Byzantium. For example, all Greek cultural groups believe in the myth of "Gorgona" who seeks to find Alexander the Great. That is to say, the modern Hellenic nation (in the beginning) was not "a community of citizens" but a "cultural" group. Thus, as Smith points out, "the challenge for scholars is to represent more accurately and convincingly the relationship of ethnic, cultural (Greek) past to modern Hellenic nation.
When the Greeks, in answer to the apparently plausible but entirely misleading ethnographical statistics of their rivals, contended that educational figures were a better indication of `nationality' within Macedonia, their contention was not at all ridiculous: far from it. The position of Greek education corresponded exactly to both the strength and the weakness of Hellenism in Macedonia.
Many in Western Europe doubted whether Hellenism existed at all in Macedonia, and regarded it solely as the invention of the Greek press. Such people were proved to be wrong. Hellenism, although nearly defeated by force and revolutionary upheaval, managed to survive as Dakin mentioned.
Greeks or Hellenes ?
Ancient Or Moderns ?
The answer is one ........Hellenism
References
1-N. Andriotis, On the language and the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians
2-Wilkes, The Illyrians, Odysseus, trs. in Greek
3-Hatzidakis, Macedonians
4-Michael Vakaoulas,Modern Greek Identity
5-Douglas Dakin,The Greek Struggle in Macedonia
Friday, December 22, 2006
The argument regarding the name ""Macedonians-Macedonia"".
We have seen that the name Macedonia was assigned to Southern Serbia, hose inhabitants had hitherto been called Bulgari by the Bulgarians and Bugari by the Serbs. This name was arbitrarily applied by Panslav propaganda with the devilish purpose of using it as an argument in support of the annexation of Greek Macedonia by the FYROM.
But that the Slavs should Give themselves the name ""Macedonians"", that they should call their newly founded state ""Macedonia"" is no less inappropriate and historically unacceptable, than if the Turks who now inhabit the lands of anvient Ionia and Aeolia, decided to call themselves Ionians and Aeolians respectively and on the strength of those names endeavoured to establish a claim on anygeorgraphical extension of the ancient Ionians and Aeolians into Greek territory.
And yet it is on the basis of this argument that the FYROMacedonians claim as their national heritage the entire geographical region of Macedonia, the so-called ""Aegean Macedonia"", which has been peopled since remotest antiquity, through the middle Ages to this very day by an uninterrupted succession of Greek generations.
The Slavs choose to ignore the fact that in those remote times when the genuine Greek names «Macedonian, Macedonia, Aegean Sea», what they now so fondly call «Egejska Makedonija», came into use, their own ancestors lived in some unknown Russian steppe.
This habit to appropriate foreign names for political purposes, is by no means new. In an attempt to unite the Yugoslavs, from 1830 to 1850, the Croats assumed the name «Jllyrian» and fought for political and national ends under this foreign, pre-slavic appellation. FYROMacedonians to-day are doing exactly the same with the pre-slavic name «Macedonian».
If the historical and national rights of peoples are decided in this fashion, then who could deny the Greeks the right to reverse the argument of the Slays and to argue with equal logic, that since the Greeks have saved the southern part of Macedonia from Slavisation and kept it ethnologically and inguistically Greek, indeed a trustee of Greek civilization, just as the ancient Macedonians were trustees, members and promoters of Greek civilisation the world over, and since furthermore the inhabitants of Greek Macedonia are historically and ethnologically the heirs and successors of ancient Macedonians, it is to this Greek Macedonia that its northern, Yugoslav, extension should be annexed whether or not it is inhabited to day by many Greeks; and it is in fact inhabited by approximately two millions of pure and nationally conscious Greeks.
The Greeks nevertheless have accepted the present ethnological reality in the Balkan peninsula and respect the new rights which history has created de facto in this part of the world. They make no claims on the northern, Slavophone parts of Macedonia, and recognise as an accomplished fact the situation which history has created to their disadvantage.
They ask no more than that their northern neighbours should themselves realise that the extent of provocation for which they have been responsible has reached the limit. «There are limits which ought to be respected "" or else who could ever put an end to this vicious circle of mutual malice?
The Greeks and all sensible and objective people, whatever their nationality, regard the fate of Macedonia as decided once and for all.
Macedonia has been divided by the sword of history ethnologically, linguistically and politically into two zones:
A) the Slavic zone which to-day is contained in the State of Skopje and the Pirin region in the south-western part of Bulgaria and
B) the Greek zone which forms part of the Hellenic State. The latter is inhabited solely by Greeks. It has resisted Slavic penetration. The former can no longer claim a substantial Greek population. It is inhabited chiefly by Slavs whose right it is to attribute any name they like to themselves, if only a greater respect for their racial origins taught them to refrain from using a name so doubtlessly Greek and so closely bound up with the glorious past of Greece, as is the name of Macedonia.
The Macedonians, as is well known, spoke Greek at least from the 5th century B.C. onwards even if we accept for a moment that their language was not, originally, some older Hellenic dialect as indeed we now know for sure that it was. The Macedonians clung to Hellenic culture and according to Polybius (9,35), the ancient historian, «they never ceased fighting in defense of the security of the Greeks». Their names are well-known to us, they are all pure Greek and none is Thracio-Illyrian or Slavic. How, then, could the people who from the time they first set foot on Greek lands and throughout the Middle Ages and the period of Turkish rule were linguistically, culturally and politically Slavs, who ignored completely the geographical name Macedonia, who before the Balkan wars sent Bulgarian representatives to the Turkish Parliament, how could these people become Macedonians overnight?
How can they reconcile their new Greek name with either their Slavic language or their fanatical hatred of everything Greek?
But this is not all; the western region of the FYROM is inhabited by 600.000 Albanians who consider themselves both linguistically and in every other respect part of the Albanian nation.
Are these Macedonians too?
If so why not call by the same name the 200.000 Turcophones, the Gypsies and the Armenians?
Why not attribute this national name to the Vlachs?
But then we should first have to fashion a new definition of historical and ethnological concepts.
Source :
Giannis Babiniotis,The language of the Macedonia,Olkos, 1992, page 235-237(article from N.P.Adriotis)
ps
I have change the given figures regarding the FYROM population
But that the Slavs should Give themselves the name ""Macedonians"", that they should call their newly founded state ""Macedonia"" is no less inappropriate and historically unacceptable, than if the Turks who now inhabit the lands of anvient Ionia and Aeolia, decided to call themselves Ionians and Aeolians respectively and on the strength of those names endeavoured to establish a claim on anygeorgraphical extension of the ancient Ionians and Aeolians into Greek territory.
And yet it is on the basis of this argument that the FYROMacedonians claim as their national heritage the entire geographical region of Macedonia, the so-called ""Aegean Macedonia"", which has been peopled since remotest antiquity, through the middle Ages to this very day by an uninterrupted succession of Greek generations.
The Slavs choose to ignore the fact that in those remote times when the genuine Greek names «Macedonian, Macedonia, Aegean Sea», what they now so fondly call «Egejska Makedonija», came into use, their own ancestors lived in some unknown Russian steppe.
This habit to appropriate foreign names for political purposes, is by no means new. In an attempt to unite the Yugoslavs, from 1830 to 1850, the Croats assumed the name «Jllyrian» and fought for political and national ends under this foreign, pre-slavic appellation. FYROMacedonians to-day are doing exactly the same with the pre-slavic name «Macedonian».
If the historical and national rights of peoples are decided in this fashion, then who could deny the Greeks the right to reverse the argument of the Slays and to argue with equal logic, that since the Greeks have saved the southern part of Macedonia from Slavisation and kept it ethnologically and inguistically Greek, indeed a trustee of Greek civilization, just as the ancient Macedonians were trustees, members and promoters of Greek civilisation the world over, and since furthermore the inhabitants of Greek Macedonia are historically and ethnologically the heirs and successors of ancient Macedonians, it is to this Greek Macedonia that its northern, Yugoslav, extension should be annexed whether or not it is inhabited to day by many Greeks; and it is in fact inhabited by approximately two millions of pure and nationally conscious Greeks.
The Greeks nevertheless have accepted the present ethnological reality in the Balkan peninsula and respect the new rights which history has created de facto in this part of the world. They make no claims on the northern, Slavophone parts of Macedonia, and recognise as an accomplished fact the situation which history has created to their disadvantage.
They ask no more than that their northern neighbours should themselves realise that the extent of provocation for which they have been responsible has reached the limit. «There are limits which ought to be respected "" or else who could ever put an end to this vicious circle of mutual malice?
The Greeks and all sensible and objective people, whatever their nationality, regard the fate of Macedonia as decided once and for all.
Macedonia has been divided by the sword of history ethnologically, linguistically and politically into two zones:
A) the Slavic zone which to-day is contained in the State of Skopje and the Pirin region in the south-western part of Bulgaria and
B) the Greek zone which forms part of the Hellenic State. The latter is inhabited solely by Greeks. It has resisted Slavic penetration. The former can no longer claim a substantial Greek population. It is inhabited chiefly by Slavs whose right it is to attribute any name they like to themselves, if only a greater respect for their racial origins taught them to refrain from using a name so doubtlessly Greek and so closely bound up with the glorious past of Greece, as is the name of Macedonia.
The Macedonians, as is well known, spoke Greek at least from the 5th century B.C. onwards even if we accept for a moment that their language was not, originally, some older Hellenic dialect as indeed we now know for sure that it was. The Macedonians clung to Hellenic culture and according to Polybius (9,35), the ancient historian, «they never ceased fighting in defense of the security of the Greeks». Their names are well-known to us, they are all pure Greek and none is Thracio-Illyrian or Slavic. How, then, could the people who from the time they first set foot on Greek lands and throughout the Middle Ages and the period of Turkish rule were linguistically, culturally and politically Slavs, who ignored completely the geographical name Macedonia, who before the Balkan wars sent Bulgarian representatives to the Turkish Parliament, how could these people become Macedonians overnight?
How can they reconcile their new Greek name with either their Slavic language or their fanatical hatred of everything Greek?
But this is not all; the western region of the FYROM is inhabited by 600.000 Albanians who consider themselves both linguistically and in every other respect part of the Albanian nation.
Are these Macedonians too?
If so why not call by the same name the 200.000 Turcophones, the Gypsies and the Armenians?
Why not attribute this national name to the Vlachs?
But then we should first have to fashion a new definition of historical and ethnological concepts.
Source :
Giannis Babiniotis,The language of the Macedonia,Olkos, 1992, page 235-237(article from N.P.Adriotis)
ps
I have change the given figures regarding the FYROM population
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Etymology of the Macedonian name
Is generally accepted that the today observers agree that there is more than one variant of Macedonians. Ironically, all these variants are usually defined in foreign languages (major English) by the same name: Macedonians, Macedoniens, Macedoni etc..
Of course with the notable exception of the Germans, who use two names: “Makedonen” for the Ancient Macedonians, and “Mazedonier” for the various contemporary brands of Macedonians).Let explain one by one the various brands of Macedonians.
GENERAL
The Macedonian (Makedon) derives from the ancient Greek adjective makednos (μακεδνός). The latter was formed by the stem of the noun makos=mekos (this mean length) with the suffix –d-(delta) and the ending –nos.This came from the Homer (Od h-106).
From the Greek name "Makedon", there are many derivative names, such as the Greek "Makedonianos","Makedonios", "Makedonas" and of course the Slavonic terms such as "Makedonci" and "Makedonjia".
A. HELLENIC VIEW
MACEDONIANS OF ANTIQUITY
MAKETH(D)W(Omega)NES
A tribe of Greek culture and language The etymology of their name is further proof of their greek identity as I explained previous. They gave their name to the land and self-identified themselves in their Greek vernacular as , [pronounced ‘makethnΙ’ (a as in about, e as in bet, Ι as ea in eat’)]. Under Alexander the Great they united the Greeks and spread the Greek language and Greek civilisation to the known limits of the world.
MACEDONIANS AS A REGIONAL GREEK NAME
MAKETH(D)ONES
For centuries, in Byzantine and Ottoman times, Greek-speakers of the wider and usually ill-defined Macedonian regions identified themselves as Macedonians in the regional as well as in a cultural sense. Particularly after the revival of Greek cultural heritage, educated Makethones also compounded their Greek identity with elements of the ancient Macedonian heritage and proud references to the Kings Alexander and Philip and their generals such as Philotas, Krateros, etc. It is interesting to notice that such names were given only by the Greeks of Macedonia to their children, not by the Slavs of Macedonia, who opted for names of the medieval Bulgarian tradition (Boris, Ivan). How popular the Macedonian name is among the Greeks of Macedonia, is attested by its widespread use. Since the 19th century, and especially during the 20th until today, numerous Greek firms, shops, associations, schools (both private and state institutions) have used the adjective “Macedonian” as part of their trade markToday the name Makedonia is the name of a provivance of the Hellenic republic.
B. BULGARIAN VIEW
MACEDONIANS AS A REGIONAL BULGARIAN NAME
MAKEDONC(TS)I
At the time of the Bulgarian renaissance of the 19th century, and during the national liberation struggles, the Bulgarians, like the Greeks, used regional names, in addition to their ethnic Bulgarian name, to identify themselves. Thus the name Makedonc(ts)i was used to differentiate the Bulgarians of Macedonia from the Dunavtsi, Trakiitsi etc. The name Makedonc(ts)I gained more prominence after the establishment of the Bulgarian state (1878) and during the Bulgarian armed fighting in Macedonia in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. It was used to describe the Bulgarians of Macedonia and distinguish them from those of the Bulgarian Principality. The term is still being used in this sense by Bulgarian Macedonians in Bulgaria and the diaspora.
C. Slav-MACEDONIAN VIEW
MACEDONIANS AS AN ETHNIC TERM OF CERTAIN SLAVS OF THE WIDER MACEDONIAN REGION
MAKEDONC(TS)I
According theirs scholars derives from the Makedonjia that mean mother land. Nationalists and scholars continue their debate over their diametrically opposing views concerning the origins of the name Makedontsi as an ethnic term. It is still a controversial issue. It is true, however, that at the beginning of the 20th century, certain Slav- (Bulgarian-) speaking intellectuals and nationalists from Macedonia sought to define themselves, through the Macedonian name, as a separate national group from the Bulgarians. But the main impetus came during the 1930s when the Comintern and the communist parties of the Balkan states, motivated by political reasons, adopted the term not only as a regional but as an ethnic one. It was on this basis, that during the Second World War and after the Liberation, the Yugoslav communists accepted and sanctioned the Macedonian name as the ethnic and national name of a separate people within the Yugoslav federation.This is also today the name of the citizens of the UN recognized state of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). By this name, the state recognizes not only the ethnic Slav Macedonians, but also the Albanians, the Vlachs, the Serbs and other citizens of the country. The constitutional name is Republic of Makedonja.
sources:
-History of the Name Macedonia,Nikolaos Adriotis,Thessaloniki 1960
-Macedonia and Macedonians,C Antonovski,Skopje 1974
-The Macedonian Question ,Dimiter Minchev, Ph.D.,Sofia, 2002
-www.macedonia-heritage.gr
Of course with the notable exception of the Germans, who use two names: “Makedonen” for the Ancient Macedonians, and “Mazedonier” for the various contemporary brands of Macedonians).Let explain one by one the various brands of Macedonians.
GENERAL
The Macedonian (Makedon) derives from the ancient Greek adjective makednos (μακεδνός). The latter was formed by the stem of the noun makos=mekos (this mean length) with the suffix –d-(delta) and the ending –nos.This came from the Homer (Od h-106).
From the Greek name "Makedon", there are many derivative names, such as the Greek "Makedonianos","Makedonios", "Makedonas" and of course the Slavonic terms such as "Makedonci" and "Makedonjia".
A. HELLENIC VIEW
MACEDONIANS OF ANTIQUITY
MAKETH(D)W(Omega)NES
A tribe of Greek culture and language The etymology of their name is further proof of their greek identity as I explained previous. They gave their name to the land and self-identified themselves in their Greek vernacular as , [pronounced ‘makethnΙ’ (a as in about, e as in bet, Ι as ea in eat’)]. Under Alexander the Great they united the Greeks and spread the Greek language and Greek civilisation to the known limits of the world.
MACEDONIANS AS A REGIONAL GREEK NAME
MAKETH(D)ONES
For centuries, in Byzantine and Ottoman times, Greek-speakers of the wider and usually ill-defined Macedonian regions identified themselves as Macedonians in the regional as well as in a cultural sense. Particularly after the revival of Greek cultural heritage, educated Makethones also compounded their Greek identity with elements of the ancient Macedonian heritage and proud references to the Kings Alexander and Philip and their generals such as Philotas, Krateros, etc. It is interesting to notice that such names were given only by the Greeks of Macedonia to their children, not by the Slavs of Macedonia, who opted for names of the medieval Bulgarian tradition (Boris, Ivan). How popular the Macedonian name is among the Greeks of Macedonia, is attested by its widespread use. Since the 19th century, and especially during the 20th until today, numerous Greek firms, shops, associations, schools (both private and state institutions) have used the adjective “Macedonian” as part of their trade markToday the name Makedonia is the name of a provivance of the Hellenic republic.
B. BULGARIAN VIEW
MACEDONIANS AS A REGIONAL BULGARIAN NAME
MAKEDONC(TS)I
At the time of the Bulgarian renaissance of the 19th century, and during the national liberation struggles, the Bulgarians, like the Greeks, used regional names, in addition to their ethnic Bulgarian name, to identify themselves. Thus the name Makedonc(ts)i was used to differentiate the Bulgarians of Macedonia from the Dunavtsi, Trakiitsi etc. The name Makedonc(ts)I gained more prominence after the establishment of the Bulgarian state (1878) and during the Bulgarian armed fighting in Macedonia in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. It was used to describe the Bulgarians of Macedonia and distinguish them from those of the Bulgarian Principality. The term is still being used in this sense by Bulgarian Macedonians in Bulgaria and the diaspora.
C. Slav-MACEDONIAN VIEW
MACEDONIANS AS AN ETHNIC TERM OF CERTAIN SLAVS OF THE WIDER MACEDONIAN REGION
MAKEDONC(TS)I
According theirs scholars derives from the Makedonjia that mean mother land. Nationalists and scholars continue their debate over their diametrically opposing views concerning the origins of the name Makedontsi as an ethnic term. It is still a controversial issue. It is true, however, that at the beginning of the 20th century, certain Slav- (Bulgarian-) speaking intellectuals and nationalists from Macedonia sought to define themselves, through the Macedonian name, as a separate national group from the Bulgarians. But the main impetus came during the 1930s when the Comintern and the communist parties of the Balkan states, motivated by political reasons, adopted the term not only as a regional but as an ethnic one. It was on this basis, that during the Second World War and after the Liberation, the Yugoslav communists accepted and sanctioned the Macedonian name as the ethnic and national name of a separate people within the Yugoslav federation.This is also today the name of the citizens of the UN recognized state of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). By this name, the state recognizes not only the ethnic Slav Macedonians, but also the Albanians, the Vlachs, the Serbs and other citizens of the country. The constitutional name is Republic of Makedonja.
sources:
-History of the Name Macedonia,Nikolaos Adriotis,Thessaloniki 1960
-Macedonia and Macedonians,C Antonovski,Skopje 1974
-The Macedonian Question ,Dimiter Minchev, Ph.D.,Sofia, 2002
-www.macedonia-heritage.gr
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