Showing posts with label FYROM Propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FYROM Propaganda. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Letter from All Pan-Macedonian Association to UN and EU regarding the Statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje


To: UN Country Members
       Europarliamentarians

We are vehemently opposing the erection of Alexander the Great’s statue in the Skopje Square, in the capital of the FYROM. This act does not only show the usurpation of the Greek history by that country’s Slavs in the strongest terms, but it also portrays their true irredentist ideas such as land expansion. We are not fooled by the name "Warrior on a Horse", as Skopje's ultranationalist government is now clearly breaking the Interim Accord signed by the two countries in 1995.

Under no circumstances should the international community and the international legal system allow this theft of Greece’s most famous persona, Alexander the Great to take place. We, the Macedonians are proud of our Macedonian cultural identity for...

Monday, May 02, 2011

The Myth of Modern Macedonia - inventing an identity

By Professor John Melville-Jones

Last year I learned that a statue of Alexander the Great was to be erected in Skopje. I knew enough about modern history to be sure that the choice of this subject was not simply, as in some places (for example in Edinburgh), the result of a desire to commemorate a heroic figure of the past. I realised that it was part of an attempt that has been made during the last few generations to create an identity for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which can stretch back to distant antiquity. So what we have here is a myth in the making.

A myth is a story which can be told, retold, and modified. It survives because it gives pleasure, or satisfies a human need. It may be based on a fact, but it is not a historical account of something that happened, because even if an event took place that led to the birth of the myth, the story has been so changed for artistic or other reasons that it takes a form that is different from the form that it had when it was born. So a raid that might have been made on a city in Asia Minor by men who sailed from Greece in the second millennium B.C. turns into the story of the abduction of Helen and the Trojan War.

To take another example, among....

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ongoing Ethnogenesis in 21st Century Balkans: FYROM and the ethnic Slav majority

April 04, 2011, John James Smith

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is one of the world´s newest nations established towards the end of the 20th century. In September, 1991 the mixed population of ethnic Slavs (majority ca. 64%), Albanians (largest minority ca. 27%), Vlachs, Roma, Turks, and Greeks of this former Yugoslav state voted for independence in a referendum. From the outset, however, the constitutional name (e.g. Republic of Macedonia) and ethnic identity (Makedonski) of this young fledgling state have been at the centre of an intra-regional dispute spanning nearly two decades.

On the one hand, Greece, FYROM´s southern neighbour disputes any reference to the name Macedonia without a geographic qualifier. According to Greek arguments, FYROM´s constitutional name has...

Friday, March 25, 2011

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(FYROM)’S VIOLATIONS OF THE INTERIM ACCORD

The summary that follows focuses on the FYROM’s actual violations; an analysis of those legal obligations and the significance of the FYROM’s violations of them, as presented at 9 January 2010, in Greek Counter-Memorial Volumes, at International Court of Justice.

The parts of this summary are:

I. RECENT EXAMPLES OF THE FYROM’S FAILURE TO CONDUCT GOOD FAITH NEGOTIATIONS
II. THE FYROM’S INTERVENTION IN GREECE’S INTERNAL AFFAIRS
III. THE FYROM’S HOSTILE ACTIVITIES AND PROPAGANDA AGAINST GREECE
IV. THE FYROM’S CONTINUED USE OF THE SUN OF VERGINA
A. Hostile Propaganda against Greece by Public Authorities and State-controlled Agencies of the FYROM
B. Activities by Private Entities and Persons Inciting Hostility against Greece Financed and/or Supported by the FYROM
C. Persistent Harassment against the Premises of the Greek Liaison Office and its Personnel in Skopje
V. THE FYROM’S APPROPRIATION OF OTHER GREEK HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS
VI. THE FYROM’S BEHAVIOUR BEFORE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
VII. GREECE’S REACTIONS TO THE FYROM’S BEHAVIOUR PRIOR TO THE BUCHAREST SUMMIT
VIII. CONCLUSION

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

THE LOBOTOMY OF LIBERTY IN FYROM: THE CASE OF DESTRUCTION OF ANTI-GRUEVISTIC A1 TV THROUGH MASS ARREST OF ITS JOURNALISTS

by Vasko Gligorijević

Nikola Gruevski, the Prime Minister of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) demonstrated, encouraged by absence of proper, tough approach from legitimate factors that represent values of European civilization, by far the most extreme form of his crackdown of opposition, exacerbating his stamina and reputation of FYROM's autocratic tyrant.

This time, this manifestation of Gruevski's totalitarianism, exercised through the FYROMian political party VMRO-DPMNE, in particular by the Special Security Agencies led by his first cousin Sašo Mijalkov, came through blitz storming of A1 Television House in Skoplje by dozens of members of “Alfa”'s (24/7 patrolling/monitoring secret, plain-clothed police strike-force constituted on basis of VMRO-DPMNE party affiliation). The event of the transition ofrom 23th to 24th of December 2010, inwhich disproportional force was used in relation to what police was technically able toknow regarding the assessment of situation, together with subsequent video presentation* by pro-VMRO channels (KANAL 5 TV and more pronouncedly, SITEL TV), constitute the gravest act of.....

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Victoria University conducts offensive survey ‘in partnership’ with nationalist lobby group, the ‘United Macedonian Diaspora’

PRESS RELEASE
8 September 2010

AMAC was disappointed to discover the content of a survey conducted by the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, a research centre of Victoria University, for people of Slav-Macedonian background: http://www.cfses.com/survey-macedonia-2010.htm. According to this link, the survey was conducted “in partnership with the Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Macedonian Diaspora”.

The UMD is a nationalist, US-based lobby group with its head office in Washington DC. The UMD is well-known for their supporting territorial claims by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia against Greece and Bulgaria.

Question 1 asks for the respondent’s country of birth and gives the option “Aegean Macedonia (in Greece)”. This sort of terminology is highly inappropriate. The term “Aegean Macedonia” is a term coined by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in order to legitimise its claims on the Greek province of Macedonia and, in particular, the port of Thessaloniki.

Question 15 then asks.....

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Where Loring Danforth failed..

«The social anthropologist Loring Danforth wrote in the early 1990s that "serious national historiography [of FYROM] rejects the iedea of any direct continuity between the ancient and modern Macedonians". [The Macedonian Conflict, page 187]
The American scientist failed, to understand  the importance of this link, which both South Slavic invalidate the current unit (and mounting from Belgrade), causing, of course, the discomfort of the old regime members, such as Kiro Gligorov, the other gave in the young Republic oldest and richest property titles of the Macedonia name.
Danforth also failed to understand that...

Saturday, January 23, 2010

The political ethno-myth of the Slav Macedonians




The political ethno-myth of the Slav Macedonians[1] can be divided in two opinions. Namely, the issues are two ethno-myths, which are produced and dictated by opposed opinions of certain political power centers in FYROM and her diasporas. The first view or the first ethno-myth is when the Slav Macedonians declare themselves as direct descendents of the Ancient Macedonians and 7.000 B.C Balkan peoples and the second one is when they connect their own genesis with the history of the amalgamation of the Slavs with the 6th cent A.D Balkan people. This kind of divergency, which appears in the Slav Macedonian ethnos, started to be illustrated at a larger extent after the independence of Macedonia that is in the period when the era of totalitarianism finished.

The first view promoted from the Gruevski regime and his ultra-nationalist political partie, nationalists parties, Institute of National History (INI, Institut za natsionalna istorija), World Macedonian Congress and the second from the Socialists political parties, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU, Makedonska Akademija na Naukite i Umetnostite)

Both of them characterizing from theirs.....

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Krste Crvenkovski : we were Bulgarians until 1940


Krste Crvenkovski (President of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia) to Todor Zhivkov (First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bulgaria) – May 19, 1967 said:

“And whether bulgarian consciousness exists in Macedonia, this is a historical legacy. We’re now writing our history. We can’t write that until 1940 we were Bulgarians and after 1940 Macedonians.”

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Fictitious Academia: Political activism, covered in academic cloak in the University of Utah

By Nina Gatzoulis*

The presentations of the majority of the academics participating in the 7th “Macedonian”- North American Conference on “Macedonian” Studies at the University of Utah that took place from November 5-7, 2009, amounted to an anti-Hellenic delirium. The Universities of Utah and Chicago jointly organized the conference, in cooperation with the United “Macedonian” Diaspora (UMD) of Skopje based in Washington D.C.

Most of the presenters, with a few exceptions, aimed to launch an aggressive propaganda attack against Greece, presenting their views without scientific and academic research criteria, without references to sources thereby promoting unilateral research.


Dr. Vasiliki Neofotistos in her presentation “Alexander the Great and the mythic lands”, implied that ...educator Thanasis Lerounis approached the Kalash tribe in Afghanistan through an education program, funded by Greek ministries and thus created the myth of the Kalash as descendants of the soldiers of Alexander the Great. However, she claimed that “Macedonia” approached the tribe of the Hunza in 2008 on private initiative. Dr. Neofotistos used the term “Macedonia” freely, rather than the Republic of “Macedonia,” creating the impression that the entire region of Macedonia (in Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania) belongs to Skopje. Dr. Neofotistos referred to FYROM as “Macedonia”, and she only named the Slavs as “Macedonians”, while the Albanians citizens of “Macedonia” were referred as “the Albanians”, which is academically unacceptable.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Anti-Hellenic movie “A Name is a Name” playing in FYROM diaspora festival

At the so-called “Macedonian Film Festival” in Toronto. Made by a small European film company with the heavy support of the Skopje government and its allies and lobbies, and by its political party “Rainbow” (Grk: Ouranio Toxo) in Greece, it will be distributed throughout North America in coming weeks. It attempts to depict Greece as a human-rights-abuser

It projects a fictitious story of a Skopjian-American marine “Nick Stoyan” being tortured by skinhead look-alike Greek officials. In an attempt to dupe American viewers its has images of the American flag interweaved with the Star of Vergina.

One YouTube trailer we located says “Ellada the other Greece”

“A Name is a Name: A film about a Nation held hostage because of its name.”

http://www.anameisaname.com/

Here is the offensive Anti-Hellenic You Tube trailer in English:

You Tube: Nick Stoyan, eng



by Hellenic League of America (HLA)

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Trouble with Knowledge

By Michael Celik

Like an earthquake, the new Macedonian encyclopedia published in Skopje has shaken and undermined imperialist political architecture on the Balkan Peninsula. The imperialist conquest and gains in the Balkans were founded on “new thinking” or better still, no thinking at all. The new thinking was supposed to lead to new prosperity and the peoples and nationalities in the region were led to believe that embracing European and American imperialism must be accompanied by wholesale denial of people’s historical experiences. In other words, the smaller peoples in the Balkans were asked to adopt “new identity”, “foreign mentality” and to institute a regime of self denial in exchange for promised prosperity. Insecure in their post socialist neighbourhood, peoples like the Macedonians sought safety under the skirt of imperialism. However, there are two inherent problems with that strategy. First, all their ancient enemies are already under the same skirt and nobody was ever allowed to shout: “Imperialism stinks, I want out”.

The formula is simple; everyone abandons his own self interest for the sake of U.S. imperialism, which then defines everyone else’s interests. And since imperialist needs and strategies shift with time, some nations become less or more valuable than others. This has happened to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Macedonia was very important for the breakup of Yugoslavia and now it is practically worthless. It is a captive nation with a gun to its head. At the end of the process, Macedonia is an economic basket case, internally divided and unable to do much about it. The promised prosperity, for which Macedonians did all the silly things, is nowhere on the horizon and Macedonians dream of prosperity and stability they once had in Yugoslavia.

Skopje, the capital of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has become the largest C.I.A. operational base for American espionage and manipulation in the Balkans. The Americans feel there more secure than anywhere else in the region. And now, when the Macedonians are expected to parrot imperialist falsehoods, there comes the new Macedonian Encyclopedia leaking forbidden knowledge. Just when the imperialists thought that they have supplanted truth with their self serving rhetoric, the encyclopedia speaks what the Macedonian Government does not dare to say. This is not an insignificant thing, as the encyclopedia was issued under the auspices of the Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts (MANU).

What did the Macedonian Encyclopedia say that is so heretical? For one thing, the encyclopedia declares that the Macedonians are Slavs, which undermines the imperialist scheme of inventing new nations on the territory of former Yugoslavia. The encyclopedia further reveals that the Albanian inhabitants of Macedonia are not indigenous to that land and that they forcibly settled there in the sixteenth century, displacing the Macedonians. There is another more contemporary aspect in which once top secret information is revealed. The 2001 Albanian terrorist separatist plotters against Macedonia were trained by British SAS and American Special Forces in Albania and in the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo. On the one hand, the Americans have trained and supported the Albanian terrorist organization ONA for mischief and mayhem in Macedonia and on the other, they have designated the same organization as “terrorist”.

This duplicitous American game is only possible because all the client states of the region have one and the same supreme master who promises the same land to two inimical peoples. While it is absurd that Americans should promise Macedonia to the Macedonians, it is even more despicable to promise parts of Macedonia to the Albanians and set them on the path of murder and terrorism as they did in Kosovo. However, this is imperialism’s modus operandi. Those who provide greater and more valuable services to the master reap greater rewards, (maybe and sometimes), for imperialism is selfish and immoral. In this case, the Albanians are more useful than the numerically insignificant and land locked Macedonians.

The outcry against the Macedonian Encyclopedia and its authors and editors is nothing other than the cacophony of American, British and Albanian voices with veiled threats and demands that the Macedonians realize and correct their own mistakes. The embassies of all three countries have been active in threatening the Macedonians, demanding firing of people responsible for this publication, especially Blaža Ristovski. They claim the encyclopedia is “scandalous” and needs to be withdrawn from circulation.

To understand how much pressure Macedonia is under, one only needs to look at Serbia where the EU already censors that country’s school textbooks, removing what it does not like and forcing the Serbs to publish what they do not like. Even the new Constitution of Serbia was co-authored by the former NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, who had presided over that notorious organization during its savage bombing of Yugoslavia.

In its relatively short period of independent existence, Macedonia has managed to intimidate its neighbours, Greece and Bulgaria and ally itself with its own historical enemy, Turkey. Turkey at the same time backs Albanian expansionism against all the Balkan states, including Macedonia. The imperialist powers have their own misgivings about the Macedonians who sympathize with and admire the Serbs and had staged massive protests against NATO during its bombing of Yugoslavia. Some British soldiers were even beaten up in Macedonia during that time. When it comes to the question of Kosovo, the Macedonian people are unequivocally on the side of Serbia’s right to her own province. As victims of Albanian terrorism themselves, the Macedonians feel that American interpretation of things there is cooked up for the consumption of more distant and naïve peoples. But Macedonian – Serb relations have also had their strains when Serb Orthodox Bishop Jovan was jailed 18 months for his religious conviction and for distributing Serbian Orthodox church calendars and pamphlets in his parish. Both Serbs and Macedonians share the same Orthodox religion but have separate religious hierarchies.

Today, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has a government which aims to bring the country into NATO strictures and the European Union, as panacea for the plague of poverty (22%) and unemployment (37.2%). Ethnic instability and corruption do not readily attract foreign investment to Macedonia where Macedonians boast 64% of the population. While the subservient Macedonian Government dares not say what its academics reveal, the story would be even more shocking if the ordinary Macedonians’ lament were put to paper.

Source: Pravda.Ru

Monday, September 28, 2009

FYROM academy and Gruevski administration: Greeks are black Africans, Parthenon and Homer are part Slavic!!!!

As revealed yesterday, the "Thema" newspaper, the new incredible provocation contained in the so-called "Macedonians Encyclopedia, which have written, at the behest of the extreme-right Prime Minister Gruevski, the historians of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Skopje and presented himself with all solemnity on 16 September . The two-volume work of 1671 pages, the version of which was financed by public funds of the neighbouring country, according to Mr. Gruevski is absolutely express “the cultural and political past and our present”, the Skopje government not only tries to rewrite history region at will, but consciously alter key elements of our national Greek status.

Specifically, on page 67 of the encyclopaedia and under the word "Greek" states that "recent research has shown that the Greek nation as having been descended from black African tribes of the Sahara desert!"

The 260 Skopjans historians, bringing out the government arranged the shipment was, they note that the Greeks, coming from the continent, with virtually cultural backgrounds, "settled by the local appropriating Balkan cultures, which were advanced and shown as its own achievements.

The unprecedented provocation of Skopje government reaches in the point to characterize the Greek culture as result of counterfeiting and intercepting other cultures, while not hesitating to seize the historic Parthenon and even the Homeric epics! "Even the epics of Homer and the Parthenon is not the result of Greek culture, but as result of counterfeiting, adoption and even interception of these local indigenous cultures such as ours, the Macedonia!"

The new methodology of Skopje unacceptable, has not been any reaction from the Greek Foreign Ministry, this time not as a result of political unacceptable compliance applied systematically to national issues in recent years, but because apparently not even noticed! At the same time when the particular case has received international dimension with the involvement of the United States, Great Britain, Albania and Bulgaria.

Of course as I said Greek administration is absent in this new provocation from the ultranationalists.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Alexander the Great: how Slavic was he?

27 January 2009

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

by Prof. Paul Cartledge, Cambridge University

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

source: hellenesonline.com

Friday, June 26, 2009

Aleksovska's False Claims

June 25, 2009

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

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

There are numerous points in Aleksovska's American Chronicle piece that perplex me. To begin with, I find it astounding that nationalists from F.Y.R.O.M and her diaspora insist on citing the historians Ernst Badian and Eugene Borza as being "supportive" of their "cause". In this case Aleksovska asks why "the most respected" scholars of ancient Macedonia, Badian and Borza, haven't signed Miller's letter with the implication that Borza and Badian somehow support her nationalist historiography:
"....Where on the list are respected scholars like Eugene Borza, Ernst Badian or Peter Green, who have written the most respected books on Ancient Macedonia...."
Evidently Aleksovska is not familiar with the published views of Badian and Borza. If she was familiar with their work she would know that much of what they have published is far more devastating to her cause than any statements in Prof. Miller's letter. As a matter of fact Borza made a point of stating that modern "ethnic Macedonians" have no relationship to ancient Macedonia. It seems that the misinformed nationalists from F.Y.R.O.M and her diaspora cannot see beyond Badian's and Borza's views of 4th century BC Macedonia and have taken to blindly citing them ad infinitum in any situation that they think suits their cause.

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

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

"There is NO DOUBT that this tradition of a superimposed Greek house was WIDELY BELIEVED by the Macedonians."- E. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. pg 80
"There was a PERSISTENT, WELL ATTESTED tradition in antiquity that told of a group of Greeks from Argos-descendants of Temenus, kinsman of Heracles-who came to Macedonia and established their rule over the Makedones, unifying them and providing a royal house."- E. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. pg 80
"There is NO reason to deny the Macedonians' own traditions about their early kings and the migration of the Macedones. [..] The basic story as provided by Herodotus and Thucydides, minus the interpoloation of the Temenid connections, UNDOUBTEDLY relfects the Macedonians' own traditions about their early history." - E.Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. pg 84


2. Badian concluded that the Macedonians were regarded as Northern Greeks by Roman times. If we are to use Badian as an ultimate authority, as "Aleksovska" suggests, then we must conclude that regardless of what the perceptions of the Macedonians were in the 4th century BC the Macedonians were regarded as Greeks by other Greeks by Roman times:
"We have now become accustomed to regarding MACEDONIANS as northern GREEKS and, in extreme cases, to hearing Alexander's conquests described as in essence GREEK CONQUESTS. The former CERTAINLY became TRUE, in Greek consciousness in the course of the Hellenistic age; the latter may be argued to be true`ex post facto'." But it is an important question whether these assertions should properly be made in a fourth century B.C context." - E.Badian, Greeks and Macedonians (Studies in the History of Art)
Aleksovska should also acquaint herself with Borza's positions regarding F.Y.R.O.M's modern history before she implicitly associates Borza as a defender of her nationalist historiography. These are Borza's published views on F.Y.R.O.M's modern history and they are far more damaging to Aleksovska's political agenda and nationalist historiography than Prof. Miller's letter!

1. Borza asserts that the Slavic populace of F.Y.R.O.M have no relationship to ancient Macedonia:
"If the claim is based on ethnicity, it is an issue of a different order. Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, CANNOT establish a link with anitquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. ONLY THE MOST RADICAL SLAVIC FACTIONS- mostly emigres in the United States, Canada, and Australia- EVEN ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A CONNECTION TO ANTIQUITY." - E. Borza, Macedonian Redux(The Eye Expanded- Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity). pg 255.

2. Borza asserts that the Macedonian ethno/national identity is a relatively recent social construct and implies that history is being constructed in order to lend the new "Macedonian" nation a historical legitimacy:
"On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish a singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians." - E. Borza, Macedonian Redux(The Eye Expanded- Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity).

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

Furthermore Aleksovska blatently lied to the readers by stating:
"..The ´elephant in the room´ in this argument has always been the fact that Modern Greece stole Macedonia from the Macedonians in 1913..."

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

Aleksovska also made the absurd and unsubstantiated claim that there were no Greeks in Macedonia prior to the Balkan Wars:
"..Prior to this there was not a single part of Macedonia that was Greek – ever.."

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

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

by Chris Philipou
american chronicle.com

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Historical revisionism in the school books of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

by Tymphaios
americanchronicle.com

Part 1: The reinvention of ancient Macedonia.

Schoolbooks in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia consistently represent Macedonia as encompassing a region that consists of FYROM, the Greek administrative district of Macedonia and parts of other countries. An astonishing fabrication of history teaches schoolchildren that these borders of "Macedonia" existed from antiquity and that their country was "dismembered" and Macedonians underwent a genocide by the Greeks.

Indeed, young children in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are taught through their schoolbooks that Macedonians were a non-Greek people that have inhabited the land of Macedonia continuously. They are taught that this exact land as shown in the maps of Greater FYROM, was exactly the same as that inhabited by the ancient Macedonians. The boundaries are shown again and again in their schoolbook maps to have remained the same from antiquity! These schoolchildren are taught that the Greeks expelled the "Macedonians" from the "Aegean" part of this country in the middle of the 20th century. Generations of poisoned minds have since the days of Tito and again since 1998 been taught to believe that Greeks expelled their "Macedonian" but Slav speaking forefathers from their ancestral lands in some kind of genocide – that mysteriously no international organisation ever recorded. Raised with this kind of modern myth, it is no surprise Greece is faced with an insistence that their country (FYROM) should be named Macedonia and that no other name would be acceptable to them.

It is sad but true. Furnished with this kind of evidence, one is convinced that people can be raised in schools to believe in anything whatsoever, and to be poisoned as children to hate a people for imagined reasons. Unfortunately, this tactic of the FYROM government also revives the expansionist policies of Tito against historic Macedonia (in Greece). It reveals a sinister side in the claims of FYROM on Macedonian history and heritage despite assurances made to the United Nations prior to the Interim Agreement. These aggressive policies are carried out at a time when FYROM paradoxically wants to join the European Union and NATO - of which the invented enemy Greece is a member. Even more ironically, the current FYROM government claims and says to NATO that this policy of inciting ethnic hatred against Greece (and suitably inventing history schoolbooks for this purpose) is in the interests of peace in the region.

In the school books, there is again and again a map of Macedonia with fixed borders. It includes not only FYROM but also the present administrative region of Macedonia in Greece and parts of Bulgaria and Albania. This "Macedonia" is shown unaltered from times immemorial. Something like this type of map appeared for the first time in an ethnological description in 1899 by a Greek named C. Nicolaides and had formed the Greek view for the 1913 Bucharest Treaty discussions regarding the ethnicities in the region.

Nicolaides,map,macedonia,ottoman,1899

It was an attempt at depicting the ethnic constitution of a part of the Balkans. It did not represent of course a country. The region shown was part of a larger area under Turkish rule. It was not a map of a country. Such a "country" did not exist in 1899. A country with such boundaries had never existed before.

Below are three maps of the Ottoman vilayets of Salonik, Manastir and Kosova. FYROM mostly consists of parts of the later two.

Selanik,Thessaloniki,salonica,vilayet,vilayeti

Vilayet of Selanik

vilayet,sanjak,skopjie,skopje,fyrom,macedonia,manastir,monastir,bitola

Vilayet of Manastir

Kosova,vilayet,Uskub,sanjak,Skopje,fyrom,macedonia

Vilayet of Kosova

Nowhere in the Turkish maps is there any indication of a Macedonia. No such map can be seen either. Yet such a Macedonia, belonging to the FYROM schoolbooks was allegedly partitioned or dismembered by the Balkan nations during the Balkan wars! It is surprising that the level of miseducation and the hatred it has engendered stop people in FYROM from looking at this paradox and realise they are applying WWII propaganda as historical truth backwards to 1912 and beyond.

The ethnological map of Nicolaides moreover made no reference to a Macedonian ethnicity. The ethnicities were clearly labelled as Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian and Turkish or Muslim (as in the Turkish censuses of around the same time). The FYROM propaganda kept the map as a map of "Macedonia" in the schoolbooks, but changed all ethnic groups into one: the Macedonians. These are now claimed to have existed from time immemorial unchanged, although quite paradoxically the Slav Macedonians of FYROM are Slavic speaking and have no established cultural, religious or other connections to the ancient Macedonians. Then in the mid-20th century a completely unreported genocide apparently took place that wiped out these ancient FYROMacedonians from Macedonia in Greece.

Let us have a look at some of the unhistorical claims made by the FYROM schoolbooks (mainly from 1997-2006, still being used at least as late as 2007).

PRE-HISTORIC MACEDONIA

The first map shows the arbitrary map of a Greater FYROM closely modelled on the Nicolaides ethnological plan. It contains exactly modern Macedonia (in Greece), the former Blagoevegrad district in Bulgaria and FYROM. These boundaries were only fixed and recorded for the first time at around the time of the first world war.

macedonia,fyrom,map,schoolbook,propaganda,school

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

macedonia,fyrom,school,schoolbook,propaganda,falsification

"Greater FYROM" appears as a distinct geographical unit in prehistoric times with Slavic cities. This unhistorical map is from the «Istoriski Atlas», Skopje 1998, pg. 10 and the «Istoriski Atlas», Skopje 2006, pg. 10. This Istoriski Atlas is used in schools in FYROM to educate children on how to hate their neighbours.

ANCIENT MACEDONIA

The next schoolbook map is of Greece from the period around 6-5th C BC. It describes the colonies of Greeks and Phoenicians. Macedonia is labelled in pink as a part of Greece and encircled correctly. The map is from Istoriski Atlas, Skopje from the year 1992 (page 8).

macedonia,fyrom,schoolbook,istoriski,atlas,map,school

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

macedonia,fyrom,map,classical,greek,archaic,schoolbook

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

In the 5th Grade Primary School History book (Kosta Adžievski, Darinka Petreska, Violeta Ačkoska, Naum Dimovski and Vančo Gjorgjiev, Istorija za petto oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 39) we find another map entitled "Athens and Sparta". Presumably Greece is the pink area and Macedonia was outside Greece (same with Crete, the colonies in Asia Minor,many of the islands, etc).

macedonia,fyrom,schoolbook,map,classical,athens,sparta

The appearance is like intending to say "go back to Greece, the pink area". FYROM propagandists often claim that Greece stops in Thessaly, this is the clear effect maps such as this have in the mind-frame of children in FYROM.

A map from the Roman period also from the 5th Grade Primary School History book (Kosta Adžievski, Darinka Petreska, Violeta Ačkoska, Naum Dimovski and Vančo Gjorgjiev, Istorija za petto oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 79), in its section on "The Roman State during the 1st century A.D." is showing Macedonia and Greece as separate Roman provinces.

macedonia,roman,fyrom,school,schoolbook,propaganda

Though factually correct, this echoes the FYROM dogma of two separate countries with different people. They were actually separate Roman provinces and indeed the Romans had incited constant wars between Macedonia and some of the other Greek states in an effort to weaken and conquer all the Greeks. It was the very tactic that led to the proverb "Divide et impera" (divide and conquer). For modern FYROM propaganda it is evidence that the Greeks were different from the Macedonians - even though the inscriptions, city names, peoples´ names, customs, religion and festivals were everywhere Greek.

BYZANTINE PERIOD

It is not clear what continuity is envisaged between the prehistoric and ancient Macedonians and the Slavs. The following map shows the Slavic settlement in Greater FYROM. It is another school map from the Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 1997, pg. 33 that describes "The settlement of the Slavic tribes in Macedonia".

macedonia,schoolbook,propaganda,map

The Slavs and Huns ransacked most of the European side of the Byzantine Empire, until they were repelled to the regions beyond the Ceraunian mountains and settled the area known as Illyricum (part of modern Yugoslavia). Byzantine Greeks from the eastern dominions were settled in the depopulated areas after Byzantine rule was re-established. What do these Slavs who were for the most part cast out of the empire have to do with the Macedonians? They murdered and pillaged the inhabitants of Macedonia for sure. Did that make them Macedonian? What is the connection? The unhistorical map of this fictitious "Macedonia" of the Slavs of the 6th century AD is again exactly the same as the modern maps of Greater FYROM.

This revisionism is recent, appearing after the Interim Agreement. Instead, in 1992, a Historical Atlas from FYROM described "the places where the first State entities of the Southern Slavs were established" (Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 1992, pg. 26) very differently:

macedonia,fyrom,map,slavic,period,istoriski,atlas

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

norman,macedonia,fyrom,propaganda,schoolbook,school,map

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

fyrom,imagination,atlas,unhistorical,fake,fiction,macedonia,istoriski,skopje,schoolbook,school,propaganda

It is a map of the subsequent historical period entitled: "The independent feudal lords of Macedonia in the 12th and 13th centuries" (Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 1998, pg. 66 and Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 2006, pg. 74). There is not a shred of evidence that any feudal lords of the time referred to themselves as Macedonians, whether they were Normans, Francs, Venetians or Slavs. Yet here we have a statement about independent Macedonian feudal lords in an unhistorical atlas of Macedonia. The word "Macedonia" is shown outside Macedonia, over the region of FYROM. The location does not conform whatsoever to the Byzantine administrative district with that name, that was further east and only existed up to the 11th century as a Byzantine administrative district. It had the same administration as the rest of the Byzantine Empire and the language was Greek. The Byzantine administrative district of Macedonia was founded by Constantinos Porphyrogenitus, together with the other Themata of the empire. He chose the name of Macedonia in reference to the ancient Greek hero Macedon:

"The district Macedonia took its name from Macedon the son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion's daughter, as Hesiod says: `And she conceived and bare to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus ((lacuna)) . . . And Magnes again (begot) Dictys and godlike Polydectes."

Byzantine Emperor Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, 2 de Them. 2 p. 48B

But in the map from the unhistorical FYROM school atlas we have Macedonia neatly in the location of modern FYROM and if one traces the black line around this "Macedonia", it can be seen that it perfectly conforms to the other revisionist maps. Perfect fiction inciting racial and ethnic hatred against Greece and Greeks. Despite the repeated claims of FYROM schoolbooks, no such country contour can be found in any historical European map. The distinctive contours of Greater FYROM are found as a country for the first time in a map of Greater Macedonia envisaged by fascist Bulgaria in 1941:

fyrom,macedonia,greater,nazi,fascist,adolf,hitler,King,Boris,Bulgaria,propaganda,irrendetism,irrendetist

This is the actual source of all these revisionist maps of ancient and medieval "Macedonia" in the FYROM schoolbooks. It is the actual origin of all the maps of Greater FYROM and the only truly historical example, but unsurprisingly it does not appear in the schoolbooks. That all the other maps showing Greater FYROM are fictitious and the last map is the actual original can easily be proven since no real historical maps show anything like it and the Nicolaides map does not refer to Macedonians as an ethnicity or Macedonia as a country. The fascist map above the portraits of Adolf Hitler and King Boris of Bulgaria is the inspiration for the endeavor by the Bulgarians, later by Tito and now eventually by FYROM schoolteachers to rewrite history and national boundaries.

We normally regard education as liberating and a means of learning and transmitting knowledge freely. We consider education a civil right. Sadly there are examples, especially in former communist countries, were education simply meant the indoctrination of the population to a new version of history where truth was what the party wished it to be. This is no way of facing the future. Are the political leaders and miseducators responsible for this poisoning of children´s minds really prepared to face the challenge of entering Europe? Of entering NATO? Can they face the judgement of future historians?

Friday, May 22, 2009

The fake "evidence" regarding Dr. Mittag e-mail.

A few internet forums, namely topix.com and macedoniantruth.org, posted an e-mail, supposedly from the "Oxford Classicists Discussion Group" mailing list. Such a group is nowhere to be found online.

The e-mail showing as...

=?UTF-8?B?0Jw=?=
From: Peter F. Mittag peter.franz.mittag@uni-koeln.de

To: Oxford Classicists Discussion Group oxford.ssac.clarence.uk@barebones.usenetnext.co m
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
I was surprised to find my name on Miller's list. I would think of that as a typo, since most likely this was not an automated process (or it was an anomalous one!). But I haveto distance myself from the list. I am not its signatory and it isa farce if Miller could not get its instruments straight on the matter.I will contact him, likely via ESOP's email list and challenge him.I dislike the general tone of the letter, I think its a political no-win game.

peter.franz.mittag@uni-koeln.de



The supposed e-mail address of the group is "oxford.ssac.clarence.uk@ barebones.usenetnext.com".

In other words, the format is "mail@subdomain.domain.com".
The domain is "usenetnext.com" and it's non-existent, as a whois search shows.
http://www.who.is/whois/usenetnext.com/

In this universe, there is absolutely no way that a mailing list will function with an imaginary domain.

This is another shameless propaganda attempt, in order to discredit dozens of scholars supporting the historical truth about Macedonia and its greek character.

People spreading and supporting unsubstantiated accusations, based on falsified data, face the danger of being publicly humiliated

A mailing list can only function with a domain that exists.

Concluding, this e-mail is fake.

by PetrosM



UPDATE(23:10)

Vasko sent me the following information as regards the issue:



In this video, by FYROMian Sitel TV it is claimed that P. F. Mittag actually stated:

"I am surprised to find my name on the list....I have to distance myself from the list. I am not its signatory and it is a farce if Miller does not correct that. I don't like the tone of the letter. I think it is a political game without winner."

This is a screenshot of his statement:







This is the video-clip:

http://www.sitel.com.mk/?ItemID=1DC67A0D96DAEF45B7A28AC7E140FA0A

From the above is obvious that the FYROM is under falsification racing in order to discredit Mr Miller letter. Is not first time that Slavmacedonists produce propaganda in order to discredit scholars. No credible and objective historian in the world supports therts historical far fetched claims. Unfortunately for the nationalists from FYROM and her diaspora the ancestors of the Slavs of FYROM were almost universally regarded as Bulgarians up until the early 20th century .

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Classical Scholars from around the world sent a Letter to President Barack Obama as regards the Macedonian History and FYROM irredentism

On May 18th, 201 Classical Scholars from around the world, sent a letter to the President of the United States of America, Barak Obama.
Since then, the list of cosigners has grown to 254, see Addenda

Here is the Documentation that accompanies the letter.

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

ancient-scholars@macedonia-evidence.org

May 18, 2009

The Honorable Barack Obama

President, United States of America

White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity, respectfully request that you intervene to clean up some of the historical debris left in southeast Europe by the previous U.S. administration.

On November 4, 2004, two days after the re-election of President George W. Bush, his administration unilaterally recognized the “Republic of Macedonia.” This action not only abrogated geographic and historic fact, but it also has unleashed a dangerous epidemic of historical revisionism, of which the most obvious symptom is the misappropriation by the government in Skopje of the most famous of Macedonians, Alexander the Great.

We believe that this silliness has gone too far, and that the U.S.A. has no business in supporting the subversion of history. Let us review facts. (The documentation for these facts [here in boldface] can be found attached and at: http://macedonia-evidence.org/documentation.html)

The land in question, with its modern capital at Skopje, was called Paionia in antiquity. Mts. Barnous and Orbelos (which form today the northern limits of Greece) provide a natural barrier that separated, and separates, Macedonia from its northern neighbor. The only real connection is along the Axios/Vardar River and even this valley “does not form a line of communication because it is divided by gorges.”

While it is true that the Paionians were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 358 B.C. they were not Macedonians and did not live in Macedonia. Likewise, for example, the Egyptians, who were subdued by Alexander, may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia.

Rather, Macedonia and Macedonian Greeks have been located for at least 2,500 years just where the modern Greek province of Macedonia is. Exactly this same relationship is true for Attica and Athenian Greeks, Argos and Argive Greeks, Corinth and Corinthian Greeks, etc.

We do not understand how the modern inhabitants of ancient Paionia, who speak Slavic – a language introduced into the Balkans about a millennium after the death of Alexander – can claim him as their national hero. Alexander the Great was thoroughly and indisputably Greek. His great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I, competed in the Olympic Games where participation was limited to Greeks.

Even before Alexander I, the Macedonians traced their ancestry to Argos, and many of their kings used the head of Herakles - the quintessential Greek hero - on their coins.

Euripides – who died and was buried in Macedonia– wrote his play Archelaos in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, and in Greek. While in Macedonia, Euripides also wrote the Bacchai, again in Greek. Presumably the Macedonian audience could understand what he wrote and what they heard.

Alexander’s father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi, the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete. Even more significantly, Philip was appointed to conduct the Pythian Games at Delphi in 346 B.C. In other words, Alexander the Great’s father and his ancestors were thoroughly Greek. Greek was the language used by Demosthenes and his delegation from Athens when they paid visits to Philip, also in 346 B.C. Another northern Greek, Aristotle, went off to study for nearly 20 years in the Academy of Plato. Aristotle subsequently returned to Macedonia and became the tutor of Alexander III. They used Greek in their classroom which can still be seen near Naoussa in Macedonia.

Alexander carried with him throughout his conquests Aristotle’s edition of Homer’s Iliad. Alexander also spread Greek language and culture throughout his empire, founding cities and establishing centers of learning. Hence inscriptions concerning such typical Greek institutions as the gymnasium are found as far away as Afghanistan. They are all written in Greek.

The questions follow: Why was Greek the lingua franca all over Alexander’s empire if he was a “Macedonian”? Why was the New Testament, for example, written in Greek?

The answers are clear: Alexander the Great was Greek, not Slavic, and Slavs and their language were nowhere near Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years later. This brings us back to the geographic area known in antiquity as Paionia. Why would the people who live there now call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia? Why would they abduct a completely Greek figure and make him their national hero?

The ancient Paionians may or may not have been Greek, but they certainly became Greekish, and they were never Slavs. They were also not Macedonians. Ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian Empire. So were Ionia and Syria and Palestine and Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Bactria and many more. They may thus have become “Macedonian” temporarily, but none was ever “Macedonia”. The theft of Philip and Alexander by a land that was never Macedonia cannot be justified.

The traditions of ancient Paionia could be adopted by the current residents of that geographical area with considerable justification. But the extension of the geographic term “Macedonia” to cover southern Yugoslavia cannot. Even in the late 19th century, this misuse implied unhealthy territorial aspirations.

The same motivation is to be seen in school maps that show the pseudo-greater Macedonia, stretching from Skopje to Mt. Olympus and labeled in Slavic. The same map and its claims are in calendars, bumper stickers, bank notes, etc., that have been circulating in the new state ever since it declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Why would a poor land-locked new state attempt such historical nonsense? Why would it brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor?

However one might like to characterize such behavior, it is clearly not a force for historical accuracy, nor for stability in the Balkans. It is sad that the United States of America has abetted and encouraged such behavior.

We call upon you, Mr. President, to help - in whatever ways you deem appropriate - the government in Skopje to understand that it cannot build a national identity at the expense of historic truth. Our common international society cannot survive when history is ignored, much less when history is fabricated.

Sincerely,

NAMETITLEINSTITUTION

Harry C. Avery, Professor of Classics, University of Pittsburgh (USA)
Dr. Dirk Backendorf. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (Germany)
Elizabeth C. Banks, Associate Professor of Classics (ret.), University of Kansas (USA)
Luigi Beschi, professore emerito di Archeologia Classica, Università di Firenze (Italy)
Josine H. Blok, professor of Ancient History and Classical Civilization, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)
Alan Boegehold, Emeritus Professor of Classics, Brown University (USA)
Efrosyni Boutsikas, Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Kent (UK)
Keith Bradley, Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of Classics, Concurrent Professor of History, University of Notre Dame (USA)
Stanley M. Burstein, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles (USA)
Francis Cairns, Professor of Classical Languages, The Florida State University (USA)
John McK. Camp II, Agora Excavations and Professor of Archaeology, ASCSA, Athens (Greece)
Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge (UK)
Paavo Castrén, Professor of Classical Philology Emeritus, University of Helsinki (Finland)
William Cavanagh, Professor of Aegean Prehistory, University of Nottingham (UK)
Angelos Chaniotis, Professor, Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (UK)
Paul Christesen, Professor of Ancient Greek History, Dartmouth College (USA)
Ada Cohen, Associate Professor of Art History, Dartmouth College (USA)
Randall M. Colaizzi, Lecturer in Classical Studies, University of Massachusetts-Boston (USA)
Kathleen M. Coleman, Professor of Latin, Harvard University (USA)
Michael B. Cosmopoulos, Ph.D., Professor and Endowed Chair in Greek Archaeology, University of Missouri-St. Louis (USA)
Kevin F. Daly, Assistant Professor of Classics, Bucknell University (USA)
Wolfgang Decker, Professor emeritus of sport history, Deutsche Sporthochschule, Köln (Germany)
Luc Deitz, Ausserplanmässiger Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin, University of Trier (Germany), and Curator of manuscripts and rare books, National Library of Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
Michael Dewar, Professor of Classics, University of Toronto (Canada)
John D. Dillery, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA)
Sheila Dillon, Associate Professor, Depts. of Art, Art History & Visual Studies and Classical Studies, Duke University (USA)
Douglas Domingo-Forasté, Professor of Classics, California State University, Long Beach (USA)
Pierre Ducrey, professeur honoraire, Université de Lausanne (Switzerland)
Roger Dunkle, Professor of Classics Emeritus, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (USA)
Michael M. Eisman, Associate Professor Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, Department of History, Temple University (USA)
Mostafa El-Abbadi, Professor Emeritus, University of Alexandria (Egypt)
R. Malcolm Errington, Professor für Alte Geschichte (Emeritus) Philipps-Universität, Marburg (Germany)
Panagiotis Faklaris, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Denis Feeney, Giger Professor of Latin, Princeton University (USA)
Elizabeth A. Fisher, Professor of Classics and Art History, Randolph-Macon College (USA)
Nick Fisher, Professor of Ancient History, Cardiff University (UK)
R. Leon Fitts, Asbury J Clarke Professor of Classical Studies, Emeritus, FSA, Scot., Dickinson Colllege (USA)
John M. Fossey FRSC, FSA, Emeritus Professor of Art History (and Archaeology), McGill Univertsity, Montreal, and Curator of Archaeology, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada)
Robin Lane Fox, University Reader in Ancient History, New College, Oxford (UK)
Rainer Friedrich, Professor of Classics Emeritus, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. (Canada)
Heide Froning, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Marburg (Germany)
Peter Funke, Professor of Ancient History, University of Muenster (Germany)
Traianos Gagos, Professor of Greek and Papyrology, University of Michigan (USA)
Robert Garland, Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the Classics, Colgate University, Hamilton NY (USA)
Douglas E. Gerber, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Western Ontario (Canada)
Hans R. Goette, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Giessen (Germany); German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany)
Sander M. Goldberg, Professor of Classics, UCLA (USA)
Erich S. Gruen, Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Christian Habicht, Professor of Ancient History, Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (USA)
Donald C. Haggis, Nicholas A. Cassas Term Professor of Greek Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Judith P. Hallett, Professor of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD (USA)
Prof. Paul B. Harvey, Jr. Head, Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, The Pennsylvania State University (USA)
Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Arizona (USA)
Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos, Director, Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity, National Research Foundation, Athens (Greece)
Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, Prof. Dr., Freie Universität Berlin und Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Germany)
Steven W. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Classics and History, Tufts University (USA)
Karl-J. Hölkeskamp, Professor of Ancient History, University of Cologne (Germany)
Frank L. Holt, Professor of Ancient History, University of Houston (USA)
Dan Hooley, Professor of Classics, University of Missouri (USA)
Meredith C. Hoppin, Gagliardi Professor of Classical Languages, Williams College, Williamstown, MA (USA)
Caroline M. Houser, Professor of Art History Emerita, Smith College (USA) and Affiliated Professor, University of Washington (USA)
Georgia Kafka, Visiting Professor of Modern Greek Language, Literature and History, University of New Brunswick (Canada)
Anthony Kaldellis, Professor of Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University (USA)
Andromache Karanika, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of California, Irvine (USA)
Robert A. Kaster, Professor of Classics and Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin, Princeton University (USA)
Vassiliki Kekela, Adjunct Professor of Greek Studies, Classics Department, Hunter College, City University of New York (USA)
Dietmar Kienast, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, University of Duesseldorf (Germany)
Karl Kilinski II, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, Southern Methodist University (USA)
Dr. Florian Knauss, associate director, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek Muenchen (Germany)
Denis Knoepfler, Professor of Greek Epigraphy and History, Collège de France (Paris)
Ortwin Knorr, Associate Professor of Classics, Willamette University (USA)
Robert B. Koehl, Professor of Archaeology, Department of Classical and Oriental Studies Hunter College, City University of New York (USA)
Georgia Kokkorou-Alevras, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Classical Studies, Brandeis University (USA)
Eric J. Kondratieff, Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient History, Department of Greek & Roman Classics, Temple University
Haritini Kotsidu, Apl. Prof. Dr. für Klassische Archäologie, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt/M. (Germany)
Lambrini Koutoussaki, Dr., Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Zürich (Switzerland)
David Kovacs, Hugh H. Obear Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA)
Peter Krentz, W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History, Davidson College (USA)
Friedrich Krinzinger, Professor of Classical Archaeology Emeritus, University of Vienna (Austria)
Michael Kumpf, Professor of Classics, Valparaiso University (USA)
Donald G. Kyle, Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington (USA)
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Helmut Kyrieleis, former president of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany)
Gerald V. Lalonde, Benedict Professor of Classics, Grinnell College (USA)
Steven Lattimore, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of California, Los Angeles (USA)
Francis M. Lazarus, President, University of Dallas (USA)
Mary R. Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, Wellesley College (USA)
Iphigeneia Leventi, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
Daniel B. Levine, Professor of Classical Studies, University of Arkansas (USA)
Christina Leypold, Dr. phil., Archaeological Institute, University of Zurich (Switzerland)
Vayos Liapis, Associate Professor of Greek, Centre d’Études Classiques & Département de Philosophie, Université de Montréal (Canada)
Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Professor of Greek Emeritus, University of Oxford (UK)
Yannis Lolos, Assistant Professor, History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
Stanley Lombardo, Professor of Classics, University of Kansas, USA
Anthony Long, Professor of Classics and Irving G. Stone Professor of Literature, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Julia Lougovaya, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, Columbia University (USA)
A.D. Macro, Hobart Professor of Classical Languages emeritus, Trinity College (USA)
John Magee, Professor, Department of Classics, Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto (Canada)
Dr. Christofilis Maggidis, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Dickinson College (USA)
Jeannette Marchand, Assistant Professor of Classics, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio (USA)
Richard P. Martin, Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor in Classics, Stanford University
Maria Mavroudi, Professor of Byzantine History, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Alexander Mazarakis Ainian, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
James R. McCredie, Sherman Fairchild Professor emeritus; Director, Excavations in Samothrace Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (USA)
James C. McKeown, Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA)
Robert A. Mechikoff, Professor and Life Member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, San Diego State University (USA)
Andreas Mehl, Professor of Ancient History, Universitaet Halle-Wittenberg (Germany)
Harald Mielsch, Professor of Classical Archeology, University of Bonn (Germany)
Stephen G. Miller, Professor of Classical Archaeology Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Phillip Mitsis, A.S. Onassis Professor of Classics and Philosophy, New York University (USA)
Peter Franz Mittag, Professor für Alte Geschichte, Universität zu Köln (Germany)
David Gordon Mitten, James Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, Harvard University (USA)
Margaret S. Mook, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Iowa State University (USA)
Anatole Mori, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, University of Missouri- Columbia (USA)
Jennifer Sheridan Moss, Associate Professor, Wayne State University (USA)
Ioannis Mylonopoulos, Assistant Professor of Greek Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York (USA).
Richard Neudecker, PD of Classical Archaeology, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Rom (Italy)
James M.L. Newhard, Associate Professor of Classics, College of Charleston (USA)
Carole E. Newlands, Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA)
John Maxwell O'Brien, Professor of History, Queens College, City University of New York (USA)
James J. O'Hara, Paddison Professor of Latin, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA)
Martin Ostwald, Professor of Classics (ret.), Swarthmore College and Professor of Classical Studies (ret.), University of Pennsylvania (USA)
Olga Palagia, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Vassiliki Panoussi, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, The College of William and Mary (USA)
Maria C. Pantelia, Professor of Classics, University of California, Irvine (USA)
Pantos A.Pantos, Adjunct Faculty, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Greece)
Anthony J. Papalas, Professor of Ancient History, East Carolina University (USA)
Nassos Papalexandrou, Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin (USA)
Polyvia Parara, Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek Language and Civilization, Department of Classics, Georgetown University (USA)
Richard W. Parker, Associate Professor of Classics, Brock University (Canada)
Robert Parker, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, New College, Oxford (UK)
Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Associate Professor of Classics, Stanford University (USA)
Jacques Perreault, Professor of Greek archaeology, Université de Montréal, Québec (Canada)
Yanis Pikoulas, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek History, University of Thessaly (Greece)
John Pollini, Professor of Classical Art & Archaeology, University of Southern California (USA)
David Potter, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Greek and Latin. The University of Michigan (USA)
Robert L. Pounder, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Vassar College (USA)
Nikolaos Poulopoulos, Assistant Professor in History and Chair in Modern Greek Studies, McGill University (Canada)
William H. Race, George L. Paddison Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
John T. Ramsey, Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Chicago (USA)
Karl Reber, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Lausanne (Switzerland)
Rush Rehm, Professor of Classics and Drama, Stanford University (USA)
Werner Riess, Associate Professor of Classics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Robert H. Rivkin, Ancient Studies Department, University of Maryland Baltimore County (USA)
Barbara Saylor Rodgers, Professor of Classics, The University of Vermont (USA)
Robert H. Rodgers. Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, University of Vermont (USA)
Nathan Rosenstein, Professor of Ancient History, The Ohio State University (USA)
John C. Rouman, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of New Hampshire, (USA)
Dr. James Roy, Reader in Greek History (retired), University of Nottingham (UK)
Steven H. Rutledge, Associate Professor of Classics, Department of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park (USA)
Christina A. Salowey, Associate Professor of Classics, Hollins University (USA)
Guy D. R. Sanders, Resident Director of Corinth Excavations, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Greece)
Theodore Scaltsas, Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy, University of Edinburgh (UK)
Thomas F. Scanlon, Professor of Classics, University of California, Riverside (USA)
Bernhard Schmaltz, Prof. Dr. Archäologisches Institut der CAU, Kiel (Germany)
Rolf M. Schneider, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität München (Germany)
Peter Scholz, Professor of Ancient History and Culture, University of Stuttgart (Germany)
Christof Schuler, director, Commission for Ancient History and Epigraphy of the German Archaeological Institute, Munich (Germany)
Paul D. Scotton, Assoociate Professor Classical Archaeology and Classics, California State University Long Beach (USA)
Danuta Shanzer, Professor of Classics and Medieval Studies, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (USA)
James P. Sickinger, Associate Professor of Classics, Florida State University (USA)
Marilyn B. Skinner 
Professor of Classics, 
University of Arizona (USA)
Niall W. Slater, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Latin and Greek, Emory University (USA)
Peter M. Smith, Associate Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Dr. Philip J. Smith, Research Associate in Classical Studies, McGill University (Canada)
Susan Kirkpatrick Smith Assistant Professor of Anthropology Kennesaw State University (USA)
Antony Snodgrass, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge (UK)
Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece).
Andrew Stewart, Nicholas C. Petris Professor of Greek Studies, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Oliver Stoll, Univ.-Prof. Dr., Alte Geschichte/ Ancient History,Universität Passau (Germany)
Richard Stoneman, Honorary Fellow, University of Exeter (England)
Ronald Stroud, Klio Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Sarah Culpepper Stroup, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Washington (USA)
Nancy Sultan, Professor and Director, Greek & Roman Studies, Illinois Wesleyan University (USA)
David W. Tandy, Professor of Classics, University of Tennessee (USA)
James Tatum, Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics, Dartmouth College
Martha C. Taylor, Associate Professor of Classics, Loyola College in Maryland
Petros Themelis, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, Athens (Greece)
Eberhard Thomas, Priv.-Doz. Dr.,Archäologisches Institut der Universität zu Köln (Germany)
Michalis Tiverios, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Michael K. Toumazou, Professor of Classics, Davidson College (USA)
Stephen V. Tracy, Professor of Greek and Latin Emeritus, Ohio State University (USA)
Prof. Dr. Erich Trapp, Austrian Academy of Sciences/Vienna resp. University of Bonn (Germany)
Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Associate Professor of Classics, University of New Hampshire (USA)
Vasiliki Tsamakda, Professor of Christian Archaeology and Byzantine History of Art, University of Mainz (Germany)
Christopher Tuplin, Professor of Ancient History, University of Liverpool (UK)
Gretchen Umholtz, Lecturer, Classics and Art History, University of Massachusetts, Boston (USA)
Panos Valavanis, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Athanassios Vergados, Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
Christina Vester, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Waterloo (Canada)
Emmanuel Voutiras, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Speros Vryonis, Jr., Alexander S. Onassis Professor (Emeritus) of Hellenic Civilization and Culture, New York University (USA)
Michael B. Walbank, Professor Emeritus of Greek, Latin & Ancient History, The University of Calgary (Canada)
Bonna D. Wescoat, Associate Professor, Art History and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Emory University (USA)
E. Hector Williams, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of British Columbia (Canada)
Roger J. A. Wilson, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire, and Director, Centre for the Study of Ancient Sicily, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada)
Engelbert Winter, Professor for Ancient History, University of Münster (Germany)
Timothy F. Winters, Ph.D. Alumni Assn. Distinguished Professor of Classics, Austin Peay State University (USA)
Ian Worthington, Frederick A. Middlebush Professor of History, University of Missouri-Columbia (USA)
Michael Zahrnt, Professor für Alte Geschichte, Universität zu Köln (Germany)
Paul Zanker, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Munich (Germany)

201 signatures as of May 18th 2009.

For the growing list of scholars, please go to the Addenda.



cc: J. Biden, Vice President, USA

H. Clinton, Secretary of State USA

P. Gordon, Asst. Secretary-designate, European and Eurasian Affairs

H.L Berman, Chair, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

I. Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

J. Kerry, Chair, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

R.G. Lugar, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

R. Mendenez, United States Senator from New Jersey.



Addenda

12 Scholars added on May 19th 2009:
Mariana Anagnostopoulos, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno (USA)
John P. Anton, Distinguished Professor of Greek Philosophy and Culture University of South Florida (USA)
Effie F. Athanassopoulos, Associate Professor 
Anthropology and Classics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA)
Leonidas Bargeliotes, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Athens, President of the Olympic Center for Philosophy and Culture (Greece)
Joseph W. Day, Professor of Classics, Wabash College (USA)
Christos C. Evangeliou, Professor of Ancient Hellenic Philosophy, Towson University, Maryland, Honorary President of International Association for Greek Philosophy (USA)
Eleni Kalokairinou, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Secretary of the Olympic Center of Philosophy and Culture (Cyprus)
Lilian Karali, Professor of Prehistoric and Environmental Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Anna Marmodoro, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford (UK)
Marion Meyer, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna (Austria)
Jessica L. Nitschke, Assistant Professor of Classics, Georgetown University (USA)
David C.Young, Professor of Classics Emeritus, University of Florida (USA)

10 Scholars added on May 20th 2009:
Maria Ypsilanti, Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Literature, University of Cyprus
Christos Panayides, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Nicosia (Cyprus)
Anagnostis P. Agelarakis, Professor of Anthropology, Adelphi University (USA)
Dr. Irma Wehgartner, Curator of the Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg (Germany)
Dr. Ioannis Georganas, Researcher, Department of History and Archaeology, Foundation of the Hellenic World (Greece)
Maria Papaioannou, Assistant Professor in Classical Archaeology, University of New Brunswick (Canada)
Chryssa Maltezou, Professor emeritus, University of Athens, Director of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies in Venice (Italy)
Myrto Dragona-Monachou, Professor emerita of Philosophy, University of Athens (Greece)
David L. Berkey, Assistant Professor of History, California State University, Fresno (USA)
Stephan Heilen, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA)

3 Scholars added on May 21st 2009:
Rosalia Hatzilambrou, Researcher, Academy of Athens (Greece)
Athanasios Sideris, Ph.D., Head of the History and Archaeology Department, Foundation of the Hellenic World, Athens (Greece)
Rev. Dr. Demetrios J Constantelos, Charles Cooper Townsend Professor of Ancient and Byzantine history, Emeritus; Distinguished Research Scholar in Residence at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (USA)

3 Scholars added on May 22nd 2009:
Ioannis M. Akamatis, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Lefteris Platon, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Lucia Athanassaki, Associate Professor of Classical Philology, University of Crete (Greece)

5 Scholars added on May 23rd 2009:
Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Professor of Philosophy, University of California-San Diego (USA)
Ioannes G. Leontiades, Assistant Professor of Byzantine History, Aristotle University of Thessalonike (Greece)
Ewen Bowie, Emeritus Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford (UK)
Mika Kajava, Professor of Greek Language and Literature; Head of the Department of Classical Studies, University of Helsinki (Finland)
Christian R. Raschle, Assistant Professor of Roman History, Centre d’Études Classiques & Département d'Histoire, Université de Montréal (Canada)

4 Scholars added on May 25th 2009:
Selene Psoma, Senior Lecturer of Ancient History, University of Athens (Greece)
G. M. Sifakis, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki & New York University (Greece & USA)
Kostas Buraselis, Professor of Ancient History, University of Athens (Greece)
Michael Ferejohn, Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Duke University (USA)

5 Scholars added on May 26th 2009:
Ioannis Xydopoulos, Assistant Professor in Ancient History, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Stella Drougou, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Heather L. Reid, Professor of Philosophy, Morningside College (USA)
Thomas A. Suits, Emeritus Professor of Classical Languages, University of Connecticut (USA)
Dr Thomas Johansen, Reader in Ancient Philosophy, University of Oxford (UK)

6 Scholars added on May 27th 2009:
Frösén Jaakko, Professor of Greek philology, University of Helsinki (Finland)
John F. Kenfield, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Rutgers University (USA)
Dr. Aristotle Michopoulos, Professor & Chair, Greek Studies Dept., Hellenic College (Brookline, MA, USA)
Guy MacLean Rogers, Kemper Professor of Classics and History, Wellesley College (USA)
Stavros Frangoulidis, Associate Professor of Latin. Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
Yannis Tzifopoulos, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek and Epigraphy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)

1 Scholar added on May 29th 2009:
Christos Simelidis, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Lincoln College, University of Oxford (UK)

3 Scholars added on June 2nd 2009:
Dr. Peter Grossmann, Member emeritus, German Archaeological Institute, Cairo (Egypt)
Eleni Papaefthymiou, Curator of the Numismatic Collection of the Foundation of the Hellenic World (Greece)
Evangeline Markou, Adjunct Lecturer in Greek History, Open University of Cyprus (Cyprus)

2 Scholars added on June 3rd 2009:
Aliki Moustaka, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
François de Callataÿ, Professor of Monetary and Financial history of the Greek world, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris/Sorbonne) and Professor of Financial history of the Greco-Roman world, Université libre de Bruxelles (France and Brussels)