FYROM - A COUNTRY WITH A BORROWED IDENTITY

A dispute is going on between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on the name "Macedonia," which FYROM is using since 1991 when it broke away from the crumbling state of Yugoslavia. The dispute goes deeper than the use of the name. It is an attempt by FYROM to discredit the ancient Macedonians’ ethnicity, break the connection between  present-day Greek Macedonians and the Macedonians of antiquity, and establish a connection between FYROM’s Slavs and Albanians with ancient Macedonia. The historically, linguistically and archaeologically incorrect challenge is that Macedonia was never part of Greece and the Macedonians were barbarians who spoke a language incomprehensible to the other Greeks.
It is true that ancient Macedonia was not....

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Prospects for resolving the name issue -- presentation by Dr. E. Kofos at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s Rose-Roth Seminar (Skopje 20.10.2010)

The organizers of the seminar have asked me to discuss the “Prospects for resolving the name issue”. For someone like me, a native of Macedonia, who, for half a century, has been studying the Macedonian question or being involved with contemporary Macedonian issues, it was not an easy task. For help, I turned to the Athenian philosopher Antisthenis, a contemporary and friend of Socrates: I found his advice, «αρχή σοφίας η των ονομάτων επίσκεψις», an appropriate way to approach our problem. In English, his dictum could be rendered as, “the foundation of wisdom, is the definition of the names”

The first mistake we, the contemporaries, have made in dealing with the “name issue” was to ignore his advice. And naturally we failed.

The traditional “Macedonian Question”-- traced from the last decades of the
19th century to the mid-20th century-- was a contest mainly over territories, and as such an issue of regional and international security. During the latter part of the 20th century, up to this day, it has evolved, mainly, as an issue of identities.

Claims over territories have been dealt by wars, uprisings, persistent insecurity. On the other hand, contested identities, are hard to decipher, particularly by outsiders, who tend to underestimate, or denigrate them as “incomprehensible” or “nuisances”. Thus, our failure to decipher the different identities, hidden behind identical names, was our second error.
So let us try, today, to define the various elements of the problem.

There are three groups of identities that require clear definition before proceeding to resolve the “name issue”: .....

Hilary Clinton Defends Greece on the FYROM Name Issue

The Obama administration in Washington D.C. is pushing the  Skopian  Republic to accept the predominant name for the country which is “Vardaska Makedonija”. However the United Nations official proposal of “Northern Makedonia” remains on the table. Secretary of Foreign Affairs Hilary Clinton was very clear about the intentions of the Obama government at a recent U.S. – E.E. meetingt . During the speech from the representative of Slovenia, she intervened and strongly stated that Greece should cease negotiations with the E.U. about FYROM, and the country’s accession into NATO. Her opinion on the matter was that Prime Minister George Papandreou had stated his position, therefore it was now FYROM’s turn to respond.
She indirectly sent another message to....

AMAC: Truth must prevail in Macedonian issue

11 Oct 2010
Laura Burgoine and Fotis Kapetopoulos
neoskosmos.com

The Australian Macedonian Advisory Committee's (AMAC) annual function, last Friday, was attended by three generations of Greek Australians. Chairman Con Kouremenos welcomed guests while emphasising the changes in AMAC.

"One third of AMAC's membership comprises of third generation Greek Australians," he said.

He said AMAC is an advisory body which assists in the preservation of the truth in the face of the "falsification of history in the area of Macedonian identity".

Professor John Melville-Jones from the University of Western Australia spoke about the "importance of preserving historical truth in light of attempts to distort Macedonian history."

He relayed how he....