MACEDONIA

The Varied Population of Uskub (Skopje) consists of Turks of Europe, Turks of Asia, Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, Gypsies and Germans. Once more the so-called "Ethnic Macedonians" are nowhere to be found.

http://history-of-macedonia.com/

http://history-of-macedonia.com/

Skopje Contributes to its own Instability

By Marcus A. Templar 

Regional Stability

Stability in a country can be the result of internal or external causes which are all sociologically rooted. Whether we classify stability as political, social, or economic it undeniably contributes to a country's uninterrupted function, otherwise the country's uneven operation could lead to either political troubles, collapse of the government, or in multi-national societies it can even proceed to the country's demise. In addition to their expected contributions to the normal operation of a society, multiethnic societies have an extra burden. In a multiethnic nation good racial relations have to be maintained in order for the country to prosper. Ethnic infighting in a country increases the possibility for social, economic and political hazardous undertakings, with devastating results.

It has become a usual phenomenon for a society to be susceptible to corrupt governments, implement unrealistic economic strategies, intransigent foreign policies, domestic laws that phenomenally protect citizens. Bad laws in the name of respect and equality could be used to suppress freedoms and human dignity, which could be detrimental to the country and the region. Furthermore local, or across the board unemployment and heavy reliance of the country on foreign investments, produce foundations for domestic upheavals. Truly democratic societies produce governments that care about their people in a real sense and do anything for the welfare of their people.

Balkan countries, with the exception of Greece, have discovered that although under communist rule doctrinal education was essential in the survival of a regime, albeit the gap between theory and practice was great, in a democratic society it is the only practice. As former communist countries attempt to reconcile their societies' gradual transcendence to democracy it is evident that their understanding of how democracy works is absent. The majority of the citizens in the former communist countries of the Balkans are content with their undeniable right to vote, while some of their governments care to offer more democratic institutions than just voting. However, successive governments of the FYROM are very concerned that with real democracy the spirit of Macedonism would be a thing of the past bringing such social instability that no government would be able to withstand. Macedonism is the concept that keeps the Slavs together. Without it, not only the country will lose the Albanian
inhabited lands, but also it will create havoc to its inhabitants seeking their identity, thus destabilizing the region.

For Greece, stability in the Balkans is of paramount consideration. But stability in the region cannot be achieved, unless all Balkan countries cooperate to accomplish it. When one of the region's countries promotes violence in a row of absolute nationalism, advocating an identity, which one could argue, is the result of euphoric recalls considering that in the last century their alleged identity changed four times, then the results of such activities can only be negative. The education in history of the Slavic children of the FYROM does just that, it has brought the most unproductive nationalism into its youth.

 

Slavic Nationalism

The probability of instability in the FYROM because of the name issue is very real, albeit the government in Skopje purposely ignores the root of the potential domestic social instability, with evident political and economic consequences. Feeding ethnic tensions against the Albanian nationalism could have dire consequences taking into account that Albanians are about 35% of the FYROM's population. As if the internal problems are not enough, Skopje exports domestic genetic engineering and homemade cultural anthropology to its neighboring countries, "Macedonizing" anyone and anything that could be used by their propaganda machine in their effort to build a past that never was.  Glosses scientifically proven Greek, pertaining to Macedonia have been re-invented as part of a vocabulary of an ancient "Macedonian" language that by the admission of FYROM's former Prime Minister Lubco Georgievski never existed, adding that there is no connection between the ancient Macedonian dialect to the
modern language of the FYROM.  Instead of addressing the issue with seriousness and responsibility, Skopje domestically perpetuates the plague in a gradual but steady upgraded degree, while externally it plays the victim card in an attempt to gain international sympathy and support, rallying uninformed individuals and political sympathizers to their corner.

Given the fact that the Slavic population of the FYROM has changed its national identity four times during the 20th century, wavering from Bulgarian to Serbian to Bulgarian to "Macedonian," the insistence of Skopje not to give up its "Macedonian" identity feeds increasingly Athens' suspicions that Skopje's end goal is the eventual claim of all Macedonian territories (Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania). For more than 18 years Skopje has done all possible to maintain its "Macedonian" identity and increasingly forces the issue through speeches or deeds of its governments, blaming Greece for all the ills of the FYROM society, as if it is a spoiled child in a tantrum.

The federalization of the FYROM is eminent and the dissolution of that country could be close, unless the Slavs come to terms as to who they actually are, leaving away wishful thinking. Skopjan nationalism increased as the years passed resulting of the encouragement they received from NATO and EU countries which were disinterested in Greece's rights, promoting interests or sensitivities of their own agendas. Greece's veto was a rude awakening not only to Skopje, but also to all those behind the scheme. Sociological maturity is normally a matter of time and although the shock of the veto could wake the Slavs up bringing them closer to reality, it practically made them increasingly negative, attacking Greece in any way possible. At the end, Skopje attributes its instability to Greece instead of its own revanchist, nationalistic, irredentist, and expansionistic education. Greece's national interests counter the FYROM's plans, and that is why Greece has to do what it has to do to protect
,
if not its rights, at least protect its interests.

 

Nation and Nationality

The system of narod (nation), narodnost (nationality), and malčinstvo (minority) worked during Tito's leadership. The Yugoslav Communist League accredited Tito with the liberation of the country and the defeat of Draza Mihajlović's "fascist" forces, giving a dictator credit which he did not deserve. Due to the communist fascination on promoting minority rights in order to keep groups separate in the name of "brotherhood and unity," communist policies emphasized, rather than downplayed, ethnic consciousness.

The communist party of Yugoslavia gave a new meaning to words nation and nationality which was interesting and complex. In a simplistic way, any of the six constituent peoples of Yugoslavia i.e. Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, "Macedonians" and Muslims constituted narod or nation. If the mother country of a people of a certain ethnic group, regardless of their population size was outside the borders of Yugoslavia, that group was considered narodnost or nationality. Under this definition, Albanians being more numerous that the "Macedonians" within SFRJ, they were a nationality, but the Slavs of Skopje were a nation. Based on the above logic Skopje became the center, the mother "country of all "Macedonians," having the inherent right to demand union with all Macedonian lands under Skopje's leadership.

 

The Albanian Factor

Albanian nationalism has exacerbated an already inflamed situation in the region. Albanian diaspora enlisted all possible means and took advantage of every opportunity they could to make a point that no government would be able to push them around. This kind of thinking goes back to the former Yugoslavia, as a result of Tito's internal policies explained above, who played ethnicities against each other, granting specific rights and increasing autonomies to minorities to ensure the state's slogan, "brotherhood and unity." In fact the system had long-term effects of enmity of perceived weak ethic groups toward alleged privileged ones.

Albanians claim territories from Montenegro (Malesia), the FYROM (Ilirida), Greece Tsameria, and they have arguably achieved independence for Kosovo bringing the unity of their lands in agreement with their national goal. Due to Albania's defunct system it is expected that its neighboring territories will be more advanced if they will achieve either direct independence or union with the neighboring Albanian inhabited lands before achieving independence. Since Kosovo is considered independent, next in line will be Ilirida which will be achieved through federation with the Slavic part of the FYROM in a couple of years from now.

Given the fact that Albanians form about 35% of the population in the FYROM they resent the name malčinstvo or minority, pinned by the Slav government of Skopje. The rise of Albanian nationalism found an unprecedented appeal among young Albanians who went far into ancient history in order to consolidate their roots to something more concrete than new rootless ethnocentric nationalism with expansionistic tendencies. Albanian nationalists content that their ancestors are Deukalion and Pyrrha, parents of Hellen, Illyrus, etc. appropriating even ancient Macedonian History, declaring Myrtale a.k.a. Olympias, Philip and Alexander the Great as their own.

Despite the fact that Albanian consanguinity and direct lineage to the ancient Illyrians is greatly questionable, lacking archeological evidence. Albanians believe in their Illyrian ancestry. The fact that the ancient Illyrian language belonged to the centum branch of the Indo-European group of families, while modem Albanian belongs to the satem branch without any linguistic or archeological evidence, connecting the two languages, it is absolutely inconsequential to young Albanians. Great grammatical differences exist between the two Indo-European branches while absence of archeological data and linguistic continuity deprives linguists' scientific arguments which would connect even remotely the languages of the FYROM Slavic to the ancient Macedonian. The difference is the same between Modern Albanian and ancient Illyrian providing both groups ground only to speculations, assumptions, and hypotheses driven to the extreme by imagination, wishful thinking, and definitely megalomania.

Thus the FYROM is inhabited mainly by two peoples ethnocentrically nationalistic and expansionistic who due to falsified education, both claim same or related ancestry, whilst speaking satem languages versus the centum of their imagined ancestry and additionally a Slavic government fueling its own nationalism, antagonizing the Albanian administration which is fueled by political patrons who hope they will benefit from the result.

 

Greece's Right to Veto.

One could assess that this whole situation against the neighboring state it is not Skopje's fault altogether, but Greece's partisan irrationality and political inconsistency. Had consecutive Greek governments checked Skopje's moves from the beginning and had Greece established a sound national policy, remaining consistent in her policy towards Skopje, Greece would not have found herself in the diplomatic quagmire that she is in today. Greek politicians having as their first priority their self-indulgence, second their political party's interest and Greece's benefits in the backburner, they created an inconsistent stage on which various actors played their role as they wished with Greece being the only spectator, watching Skopje pulling the strings, setting the agenda and imposing its terms. One should add that Skopje's efforts are indirectly funded by EU and the Greek taxpayer. For a nation that keeps stating that it has no claims on Bulgarian or Greek Macedonian territories, it
spends a lot of time, effort and definitely Greek money to consolidate what it is not theirs, the epithet Macedonian. It appears that Skopje waits for the right moment to legally deprive the epithet Macedonian from its neighbors, especially the Greeks, exercising the inherent by that time right, to anything Macedonian.

According to the FYROM and its friends, Greece did not have the right to veto FYROM's membership to NATO and the EU because of the Interim Agreement that both countries signed in 1995.  Nevertheless, the government of The FYROM has already chosen its country's own fate. Looking back to the FYROM's behavior we realize that right from the very beginning there were continuous actions of rejecting their provisional name.  The FYROM and its friends did anything possible not only to maintain the name "Republic of Macedonia," but also spread it through half-truths and schemes, demanding recognition under that name from any who wanted to do business with Skopje. In October 2007 the President of the FYROM declared from the podium of the UN that the name of his country is "Macedonia" renouncing the provisional name and denouncing any country that calls it The FYROM. The official websites of their government do the same. These are indicators that the FYROM has abolished its right to expect to
join any organization under the name The FYROM when it suits its agenda and interests. The FYROM and their friends must understand that their name is either "Republic of Macedonia" staying out of any organization, or it is "The FYROM," receiving membership.  The rejection of the name "The FYROM" by its own president, not only meant an official rejection of the provisional name that his country joined the UN, but also the violation of Article 11 of the Interim Agreement which refers to the UNSC resolution 817 of 1993 that "this State [The FYROM] being provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as 'former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' pending settlement of the difference that has arisen over the name of the State."  The expression "within the UN" has much broader meaning than the building of the UN.  It means the institution for whatever it stands, consequently all organizations, countries, etc., including treaties, conventions, protocols, correspondence,
and activities connected with the UN which includes recognitions of countries, alliances, etc.

 Regarding the argument that the FYROM's stability is in danger, all people, countries and organizations concerned should be talking to the FYROM, not to Greece because it is up to the FYROM government to correct the problem. Nevertheless, the day that the "Republic of Macedonia" signed the military co-operation agreement with the US recently, the agreement vacated any danger and possibility of destabilization of the country and the region.  The United States by guaranteeing the FYROM's survival and security has vacated all danger phobia and fear mongering surrounding Greece's veto, which means that Greece does not have to rush to solve a problem that Skopje should have taken care of by changing their faulty education.  Its rationale, under which all of Skopje's friends pressure Greece, does not exist anymore.  Another fact that nobody can refute is that both the FYROM government, the schismatic FYROM Church and their diaspora declared very openly their strategic goal; making
Thessaloniki their Capital.  What country would be suicidal to accept such open aggression supporting and accepting Skopje as an ally?

Although it has already succeeded in its external goals due to Athens' consistent diplomatic ineptness, low-tone policies, and political indolence, Skopje has conscripted its diaspora and employs three (thus far) Public Relations firms to accentuate its so-called victimization. Athens did not complain about Skopje's perpetual violation of articles 7 and 11 of the Interim Agreement, unless the Greeks of the diaspora alerted the Greek press.  But the path Greece chose seems very strange to all those with simple common sense.  In their eagerness to satisfy persons in charge of Greece's foreign policy, i.e. foreign interests, successive Greek governments from 1991, followed an accommodating bargaining strategy, while they disregarded the Greek people's sentiment on the Macedonia name issue. Furthermore, exerting overconfidence for the success of their positions and believing that the solution was near, they did not bother to prepare the Greek public for a long delay. Greece set low
expectations in the negotiations with Skopje and that is why the result of these negotiations will be negative for Greece and positive for Skopje. Greece should have set high standards, so that it would have space to maneuver; now it has no place to go.  The chart below demonstrates what the political establishment of Greece has done to the country.



 

Conclusion

The reality of Kosovo's independence and the new reality in the Balkans nurture danger for the territorial integrity of the FYROM, since the Albanians of that country will be called one day to test their loyalty to the State.  Which state they will choose is very clear. Questions being raised include, but not limited to 'what is it going to happen to the FYROM's Slavic areas?' 'Which country or countries will fill the void?' Are the Slavs preparing the ground to claim Greek Macedonia?' 'If so, why is Greece assisting their claim by offering a compromise which means offering the name Macedonia?'  These politically destabilizing factors, along with high unemployment, corruption, heavy dependence on foreign investment, an education founded on baseless megalomania creates greater instability.  If the FYROM needs a lie to exist, its existence is redundant!

http://panmacedonian.info/skopje_contributes.htm


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The Pan-Macedonian Association of America, Sixty Years of Activity.

http://www.PanMacedonian.info
http://www.Macedonia.info

FROM: http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/forum/macedonia-articles/5138-makedonski-slavmacedonian-language.html akritas Macedonian   Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Hellas Posts: 3,446

Makedonski (Slavmacedonian) language Makedonski (Slavmacedonian) language Modern Slav-macedonian (makedonski in Slavic Macedonian) is a South Slavic language (Slavic, Indo-European). It is not to be confused with Ancient Macedonian, an Indo-European language more close to the Greek(and not Slavic) affiliation, whose most famous speaker was Alexander the Great. Makedonski is closest to Bulgarian and Serbian.Makedonski is descended from the dialects of Slavic speakers who settled in the Balkan peninsula during the 6th and 7th centuries C.E. The oldest attested Slavic language, Old Church Slavonic, was based on dialects spoken around Salonica, in what is today Greek Macedonia(Makedonia). As it came to be defined in the 19th century, geographic Macedonia is the region bounded by Mount Olympus, the Pindus range, Mounts Shar and Osogovo, the western Rhodopes, the lowercourse of the river Mesta (Greek Nestos), and the Aegean Sea. Many languages are spoken in this region, but it is the Slavic dialects to which the glossonym Makedonski is applied.The region was part of the Ottoman Empire from the late 15th century until 1912 and was partitioned among Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria (with a western strip of villages going to Albania) by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913. The modern Republica of Makedonjia, in which Makedonski is the official language, corresponds roughly to the southern part of the territory ceded to Serbia plus the Strumica valley. The population is 2 022 547 (2002 census) and the Makedonski speakers estimated in 65% of the population. Outside the Republic, Makedonski is spoken by ethnic communities in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Kosovo as well as by emigre΄ communities elsewhere. Greece does not recognize the existence of minorities with the name of Macedonian , Bulgaria insists that all Slavmacedonians are really Bulgarians, Albania refused to include questions about language and ethnicity in its last census (2001), and there has not been an uncontested statistical exercise in Kosovo since 1981, so official figures on Makedonski speakers outside the republic are unavailable estimates range to 700 000. WHAT IS THE MAKEDONSKI LANGUAGE The language spoken by the majority of the people of the Republica of Makedonjia which they have quite arbitrarily known with the English term «Macedonian», is a Slavic dialect so closely resembling Bulgarian and Serbian, that according to linguistic principles it can hardly be considered an independent language at a par with the other two. The only detinite boundaries of this Slavic dialect are set by the Greek language. They broadly coincide with the South Slavic-Greek cultural frontiers except for a small enclave which that dialect forms on Greek territory in the mountainous regions north of Kastoria. In the West, that Slavic dialect borders on the Albanian language, but, in this case, the linguistic frontier does not coincide with the national Albanian- South Slavic border; for the State of Skopje counts among its inhabitants, 164,000 Albanian-speaking people.The linguistic frontier on the Serb and Bulgarian sides are lost in the fluidity of equally divided linguistic groups on either side and are impossible to determine. The so-called Makedonski dialect is, in fact, an intermediate stage between Bulgarian and Serb. As one moves towards Bulgaria, the Serb elements grow rarer while the Bulgarian elements multiply and vicc versa. For that reason, just as the Vardar region was the apple of discord between the politicians of Bulgaria and Serbia, so its language has become an object of dispute. Serbian linguists stress its affinities with the Serb language; Bulgarians emphasize its similarities with Bulgarian. Both are anxious to prove that it is reallv an extension of their respective languages.Makedonski dialects are divided by a major bundle of isoglosses running from northwest to southeast along the River Vardar, swerving southwest at the confluence of the Vardar and the Crna and continuing down the Crna and into Greece southeast of Florina. The number of the dialects according Slavmacedonians sources estimated in 51(Donski). HISTORY Two centers of Balkan Slavic literacy arose, one in what is now northeastern Bulgaria, the other in what is now southwestern geographical Macedonia. In the early 19th century, all these intellectuals called their language Bulgarian, but a struggle emerged between those who favored northeast Bulgarian dialects and those who favored western Makedonski dialects as the basis for what would become the standard language. Northeast Bulgarian became the basis of standard Bulgarian, and Macedonci intellectuals began to work for a separate Makedonski literary language. The earliest known published statement of a separate Makedonskata linguistic identity was by Gjorgji Pulevski 1875, but evidence of the beginnings of separatism can be dated to a letter from the teacher Nikola Filipov of Bansko to the Bulgarian philologist Najden Gerov in 1848 expressing dissatisfaction with the use of eastern Bulgarian in literature and textbooks (Friedman, 2000: 183) and attacks in the Bulgarian-language press of the 1850's on works using Makedonski dialects (Friedman, 2000: 180). Kristo Misirikov a known Bulgarian Macedonian scholar write as about the closing connection of the Makedonski and Bulgarian languages in 1910 ...; We the Makedonci voluntarily choose one and the same language with Bulgarians long before the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkey. The prohibition from the Serbs to use our literally language, which is the only one connection between us and Bulgarians is significant violation of our human rights. .. and further.. when they forbid us to call ourselves Bulgarians, to learn Bulgarian history and to be ashamed from everything which connect us with Bulgarians. It is enough to learn our Makedonci culture and history to understand that we are very different from Serbian nationality. THE CODIFICATION OF THE MAKEDONSKI LANGUAGE To sever the linguistic bonds between the "Macedonians" and Serbsand Bulgarians, a new language was fabricated and touted as a separate Macedonian language, the language, it was said, of Alexander the Great (Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou 198. In contrast to Alexander's language, which had an alphabet (Greek), the present "Macedonian" language did not have an alphabet until 1945. To complete the deception, Tito commissioned the linguist Blago Konev (he changed his name later to Blaze Koneski) to devise an alphabet. Koneski modified the Serbian version of the Cyrillic alphabet and called it the "Macedonian alphabet" (Templar 2002). Koneski and his glossologists also modified the old church Slavonic, used by Cyril and Methodius (now named "old Macedonian"), and fabricated thelexicon of the "Macedonian" language from a mixture of Bulgarian, Serb, Croat, Slovenian, and other Slavonic languages. In the photograph at the befinning of this post you can see the commission that established from Yugoslav authorities in November 1944 and created the Makedonski alphabete. Left to right: Vasil Ilioski, Hristo Zografov, Krum Toshev, Dare Djambas, Venko Markovski, Mirko Pavlovski, Mihail Petrushevski, Hristo Prodanov, Georgi Kiselinov, Georgi Shoptraianov, Iovan Kostov. The new nation needed a written language, and initially the spoken dialect of northern geographical Macedonia (South FYROM) was chosen as the basis for the Makedonski language. However, this was deemed too close to Serbian and the dialects of Bitola-Veles became the norm. These dialects were closer to the literary language of Bulgaria but because the latter was based on the eastern Bulgarian dialects, it allowed enough differentiation for the Yugoslavs to claim it as a language distinct from Bulgarian-a point which Bulgaria has bitterly contested ever since. In fact the differentiation between the Macedonian and Bulgarian dialects becomes progressively less pronounced on an east-west basis. Makedonski shares nearly all the same distinct characteristics which separate Bulgarian from other Slav languages lack of cases, the post-positive definite article, replacement of the infinitive form, and preservation of the simple verbal forms for the past and imperfect tenses-but whether it is truly a different language from Bulgarian or merely a dialect of it is a moot point(Poulton). The alphabet was accepted on 3 May 1945 and the orthography on 7 June 1945, and the first primer in the new language appeared by 1946, in which year a Makedonskata Department in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Skopje was also founded. Below is document that showed how created the Makedonski alphabete( Spyridon Sfetas ) A grammar of the Makedonski literary language appeared in 1952 with the help of the American linguist Horant Lunt, and the Institute for the Makedonski Language "Krste P' Misirkov" was founded the following year. Since the Second world 'war the new republic has used the full weight of the education system and the bureaucracy to make the new language common parlance, and indeed it is noticeable that old people still tend to speak a mixture of dialects which include obvious Serbianisms and Bulgarianisms, while those young enough to have gone through the education system in its entirety speak a 'purer' Macedonian (Andriotis). MODERN POLITICAL ASPECTS In subsequent years, painstaking efforts were also made to camouflage the language's fabricated origin, but nonetheless it remains an offshoot of Bulgarian and is spoken in villages and towns of what is now known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).'" The new dialect was carefully cleansed of glossic elements betraying its Bulgarian origin, replaced by "Macedonian" neologisms, and forced on the pupils from above for political reasons (Koneski 1993; Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou 198. These comments are not meant to denigrate the language spoken in FYROM today, but simply to insist that this most impressive new language must not be touted as "Macedonian," which it is not, but sinlply as a new Slavonic dialect based on the Bulgarian language.(Papavizas, 2006) The most recently poltical aspect is that two university professors in electrical engineering ( Aristotel Tentov and Tome Bosevski ) from Skopje, operating under the auspices of the government funded Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Skopje and presented to the official Makedonskata Academy of Sciences and Arts , are claiming that the " Egyptian Demotic" script is, in fact, a text related to the "old Slavonic Makedonski language" and is Ancient Macedonian. This contradicts all mainstream interpretations of the Stone and the mainstream scientific evidence that Ancient Macedonian was not a Slavic language and, not least, that Slavic speaking peoples did not reach the Balkan peninsula until the 6th CenturyCE. This theory is also promoted by the authorities and church in Skopje as a "2,200 Years Old Script and Text in the Makedonski Language". References and recommended books.. Spyridon Sfetas,The Configuration of the Slavmacedonian Identity, Vanias,2003 George Papavizas, Claiming Macedonia,2006 Maria Nystazopoulou - Pelekidou, The "Macedonian Question",1988 P.N. Adriotis, The federative republic of Skopje and its language Hugh Poulton,Who are the Macedonians?, 1995 Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Keith Brown, 2005

FROM: http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/forum/macedonia-articles/2642-why-macedonian-slavs-appropriating-greek-macedonian-history.html   Macedonian

Why are Macedonian Slavs Stealing Greek Macedonian History? Historian and Professor Eugene Borza is credited as a "Macedonian specialist" by the American Philological Association and has completed extensive studies regarding the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians. Borza has also presented in-depth analysis that the ancient Macedonians were not "Slavs" or a mixture of Slavs and Romans, as one of many different Macedonian Slav historiographical positions claim. In his Macedonia Redux Borza writes: The Macedonian kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire, never to recover its independence.  During medieval and modem times, Macedonia was known as a Balkan region inhabited by ethnic Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Turks. Also Borza in β¬SIn the shadow of Olympus; The emergence of Macedon⬝ on the origin of the ancient Macedonians: We have seen that the β¬SMakedones⬝ or β¬Shighlanders⬝ of mountainous western Macedonia may have been derived from northwest Greek stock. That is, northwest Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of proto-Greek from which emerged the tribes who were later known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country. Thus the Macedonians may have been related to those peoples who at an earlier time migrated south to become the historical Dorians, and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians Without a common national entity and distinguished historical path as a nation, the present FYROMacedonia  was part of Serbia since 1912 with the name of VARDARSKA and with Skopje as its capital. In 1929, following an administrative reorganization of the "Kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia", which consisted of 33 Districts (Oblasti), the "Kingdom of South-Slavia" (Yugoslavia) was created, with 9 Administrative Districts (Banobina) and a 10th one, independent, the Administrative District of Belgrade. The boundaries of the 9 Districts where set with geophysical criterias, in a way that they did not disturb any ethnological elements. Due to the inborn ethnological problem of the entire Dominion, which was composed of a mosaic of nationalities, the reformation law had foreseen the non existence, for each of the administrative districts, of common ethnographic elements, which could incubate future moves for independence.Loring Danforth points out in his book 'Who are the Macedonians?': The history of the construction of a macedonian national identity does not begin with alexander the great in the fourth century b.c. or with saints cyril and methodius in the ninth century a.d., as Macedonian nationalist historians often claim. nor does it begin with tito and the establishment of the people's republic of macedonia in 1944 as Greek nationalist historians would have us beleive. It begins in the nineteenth century with the first expressions of macedonian ethnic nationalism on the part of a small number of intellectuals in places like thessaloniki, belgrade, sophia, and st.petersburg. this period marks the beginning of the process of "imagining" a macedonian national community, the beginning of the construction of a macedonian national identity and culture" FYROMacedonian historiography had continued this β¬Simagining process⬝ via historical revisionism. Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form, it is the re-examination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate. However historical revisionism can also be used as a label to describe the views of self-taught historians who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence. This process or ideology in regards to FYROMacedonian historiography is identified by Bulgarian historians, Western historians and some Greek historians as Macedonism Macedonism is the political idea currently prevalent in the Republic of Macedonia which advocates revising history in order to project the continuity of a Macedonian ethnic group since the Slavic migrations of the middle ages and even since antiquity. This is done by appropriating various historical figures and groups to have inhabited the Macedonian region as "ethnically" Slav Macedonian. For example, Tsar Samuil and his medival kingdom is denied to have Bulgarian, despite overwhelming evidence supporting it. Tsar Samuel is defined as a "Slavic" or "Macedonian" king in FYROMacedonian historiography. Further attempts are made to appropriate the Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom of Macedon and to seek connections between present day ethnic Slav Macedonians and the Ancient Macedonians. What are the aims of the Macedonists after the creation of the Macedonian Slav State ? Maria Nystazopoulou Pelekidou writes: Their first aim was to cut off every link between the so-called "Macedonians" and the Bulgarians, as a well as the Serbs, and to convince the people that they belonged to a separate Slavic nation, the "Macedonian" one The second aim was to eliminate Greek character of Macedonia and Macedonian history; and this would be achieved by minimizing the Greek presence in this region and misinterpreting or falsifying their role, specifically the cultural and intellectual contribution of Hellenism, the orthodox Greek clergy and Greek schools. The third aim was to search for, fabricate and project the historical development of the so-called "Macedonian people", so as to prove the separate national identity of the "Macedonians", as well as their cohesion and continuity from ancient times until today. The fourth aim was to create a Great Idea, which would bring awareness to the masses. So the historians of Skopje started declaring that Macedonia, as a whole, was a Slavic country both in its historical tradition and its ethnic composition. For this reason, it had to be united and form a unified state. This is why Macedonian Slav historiography claims the ancient Macedonians were Slavs or later mixed with Slavs. This is to say that the Macedonians of antiquity were a non-Greek tribe and that the Slavonic migrations of the 6th cent. found no Greek presence in Macedonia. According to the Slav migrations mix theory the Slav invaders assimilated the indigenous population and thus somehow the Macedonian Slav ethnogenesis occured. In this way, Skopje has appropriated for itself not only the ancient Greek history but also medival Bulgarian history and almost any other historical figure or achievement associated with the Macedonian region. Source 1-Eugene Borza, β¬SMacedonian Redux⬝ 2-Loring Danforth, β¬SThe Macedonia Conflict⬝ 3-Maria Nystazopoulou Pelekidou, β¬SThe Macedonian Question⬝ 4-Historical Revisionism, wikipedia Authors note: This article is a responce the Macedonian Slav article of the title "Why is Greece Stealing the Macedonian History?"

The letter of the Pan-Macedonian association of the

USA to Mr. Richard Holbrook

March 6, 2002

Honorable Ambassador Richard Holbrooke
Perseus Company
888 7th Avenue, 29th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10106


Hon. Amb. R. Holbrooke:

It has been several years since I first met you in Washington, D.C. during the Annual Hellenic Leadership Conference, organized by Andy and Mike Manatos under the auspices of PSEKA, S.A.E. and the Coordinated Efforts of Hellenes (CEH). At that time you were serving as the Special Emissary for the Cyprus Issue working closely with Ambassador T. Miller.

As I recall we all admired your knowledge, your sincerity, and your objectivity. However, I have to admit we were all very disappointed and very concerned about your statements during your recent lecture at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., in which, according to Skopje's newspaper, "Outrinski Besnik", as you were portraying the present situation in Bosnia, FYROM and Kosovo, you urged Greece to recognize FYROM under its constitutional name "Macedonia". When then you were asked how FYROM's people should be called, you simply replied "Macedonians".

On behalf of the members of the reputable Greek Organization, "Pan-Macedonian Association USA", which is in existence for 56 active years, I would like to express my grave concern for all the thousands of true Makedonians, about the recent activity regarding the permanent name for FYROM, and the effusive rumors regarding a settlement with the use of an adjectival or regional defining which includes the term "Macedonia". How sad to have such a considerable misinformation circulating through pamphlets, maps handbooks, the American media and even within the US Department of Defense, regarding the true ethnicity and language of the Slavic people who are inhabiting FYROM and want to be called "Macedonians". Of course, as Dr. Henry Kissinger has repeatedly stated, "who ever knows history, knows that the rights are with Greece although Greece took its rights for granted and did not utilize its biggest weapon properly, which is called History".

Honorable Ambassador, for you and the Governments of the World the issue might be Political. However, for us, the true Makedonians, the matter is Cultural, Historical and Ethnic. It is a matter of our Ethnic identity, which cannot be negotiated, and it is our Heritage which cannot be spared.

Regarding the ethnicity and the language of the inhabitants of FYROM, it should be brought to your attention, that there are three statements, which indisputably prove that they are Slavs and a fourth statement that attests to the threat of the name they wish to retain. The only ones who believe they are descendants of the ancient Makedonians are the ones who received the "high education" from the Titoic School of History under the auspices of the Communist Yugoslavia. The statements are as follows:

1. February 26 1992: FYROM's President Gligorov at a interview reported by the Foreign Information Service, Daily Report, Eastern Europe stated: "We are Slavs, who came to this region in the sixth century. We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians."
2. January 22 1999: FYROM's Ambassador in Washington, Mrs. Ljubica Acevshka, gave a speech on the present situation in the Balkans. At the end of her speech answering questions Mrs. Acevshka said: "We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great. Greece is FYROM's second largest trading partner, and its number one investor. Instead of opting for war, we have chosen the mediation of the United Nations, with talks on the ambassadorial level under Mr. Vance and Mr. Nemitz." In reply to another question about the ethnic origin of the people of FYROM, Ambassador Achevska stated that "we are Slavs and we speak a Slav language."
3. February 24 1999: In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM's Ambassador to Canada, he admitted, "We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian." He also commented "there is some confusion about the identity of the people of this country."
4. U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations Vol. VII, Circular Airgram (868.014 / 26 Dec. 1944) by then Secretary of State E. Stettinius: "The Department has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia emanating from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state. "This Government considers talk of Macedonian "nation", Macedonian "Fatherland" or Macedonian "national consciousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic or political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece".

As we all know our problem is stemming from the action of Dictator [Josip Broz] Marshal Tito who in 1944 as a move fitting his territorial ambition, created the "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" which until then was called Vardarska Banjovina. He then began a guerilla war aided by neighboring Communist countries whose goal was the capture of Northern Greece and have easy access to the Aegean Sea.

Dear Mr. Ambassador in the name of Justice, objectivity, credibility and Historical truth, in order for you to maintain your integrity and prestige, we are kindly requesting to correct your statements to the above discussed newspaper or elsewhere. The final chosen name for FYROM has to differentiate them from us, the direct descendants of the Greek Kingdom of Macedonia, which in Ancient times spread Hellenism around the World and pre-existed by 1,000 years the appearance of the Slavic elements in the region (700 A.D.)

Your understanding, your support, and a reply will be greatly appreciated

Very Sincerely,

Nina Peropoulos, Supreme President
Pan-Macedonian Association USA, Inc.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

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IRON MAIDEN: Alexander the Greek!

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"Macedonia belongs to Greece" (Mike Rann Premier of South Australia)
Athens 05/07/07
Macedonia belongs to Greece, like the Acropolis does, Mike Rann, the Premier of South Australia, said today in Athens. In the course of his visit to Greece, he met with the Minister of Macedonia & Thrace, Georgios Kalantzis, and the regional prefect Panayiotis Psomiadis. According to Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, Rann said that no nation should steel the history and insignia belonging to another nation.

NEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD HISTORY, AN INVENTED STATE TO TRY TO STEEL THE HISTORY OF ANOTHER NATION!!!

THE BEGGARS OF THE HISTORY!

OF COURSE THE FACT ISN'T SO SIMPLE, BEING INVOLED THE USAMERICANS, WHO WANT TO CONTROL THE WHOLE REGION OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA!

THE MORE COUNTRIES ARISE TO THE VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD, THE MORE EASY TO BE CONTROLED BY THE SUPER POWER OF USA!

ALL NATIONS HAVE TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF THE USA POLICY, BUT CONTROLLED AND CORRUPTED GOVERMENTS AND POLITICIANS ARE INVOLVED TO THE USA PROJECT!

From the FYROM'S Slavic ''Macedonia Daily News''

''MACEDONIA''! URGES FOR QUICK BORDER DEMARCATION

Name: MAIk

In Greece today people start from an a priori assumption of the "Greek identity of Macedonia as an obvious historical fact". Identifying the Greeks from the ethnic and linguistic point of view with the ancient Macedonians, the current Greek regime accuses "Skopje" of encroaching upon the name Macedonia and on a part of a cultural heritage which belongs only to the Greeks.

In fact this is nothing more than their conviction which for years now has been handed out to young people in Greek schools from their earliest years and, most recently, has been propagated throughout the entire world. The thesis of the "Greek identity of Macedonia" is not scientifically supportable. We shall concentrate here on the earliest period.

In Greek scholarship, in numerous articles and books, the historical facts which go against the thesis of a "Greek Macedonia" are passed over. It is universally known that the classical Greek authors did not recognize the Macedonians as their fellow-countrymen, calling them barbarians, and they considered Macedonian domination in Greece as an alien rule, imported from outside by the members of other tribes, the, as Plutarch says, allophyloi.

This historical right and this "Greek identity of Macedonia" have for a long time been "proved" with the hypothesis that the ancient Macedonians were a Doric tribe and their language a Doric dialect. Since this could not be supported by definite facts from historical sources, and even less by archaeological or linguistic proofs, not long ago official Greek scholarship discarded this hypothesis. After the deciphering of Linear B in 1952, and more particularly after 1970. when the luxurious edition of The History of the Greek Ethnos' was published, Greek linguists and historians went far into the past to seek for foundations for their thesis of a "Greek Macedonia".

Although none of the Mycenaean scholars in the world takes seriously their hypothetical interpretations of Mycenaean texts, they nevertheless wish to discover in them "proofs" that the ancient Macedonians were Indo-Europeans, Proto-Hellenes, and that their language was the oldest, purest and most conservative Greek dialect which at the same time cast a new light on the oldest history of the Greek ethnos. This thesis reached its culmination at the beginning of the 1980's when an unusual jubilee under the title of "4,000 Years of Greek Macedonia" was celebrated with great pomp. The theory thus constructed has pretensions to scholarship but in fact starts out from pre-suppositions which are not supported by a single historical fact.

The history of the ancient Macedonians over a lengthy period of 1,600 years (2,200-600 B.C.) has been reconstructed on the basis of a prejudgement that they could have been nothing other than Greeks. It should be noted that no text whatsoever has been preserved in the ancient Macedonian language. Only about a hundred glosses are known, from which it is not possible to reconstruct the language. For more than 150 years these words have been a subject of comparative linguistic studies, but quite a large number of these remain with only a hypothetical explanation or even with no explanation at all.

While earlier on Doric forms were being sought in the Macedonian glosses, Greek linguists are now investing great efforts in revealing archaic Aeolian. Arcado-Cypriot and Mycenaean parallels. In fact the sparse linguistic material is extremely complex and heterogeneous. It is clear that among the glosses there are borrowings from Greek which in antique times was a language of great prestige; the Greek words, however, have been adapted according to a different, non-Greek phonetic system, [e.g.: Macedonian ade "sky", Greek aither "air"; Mac. danos, Gk. thanatos "death"; Mac. keb(a)]le Gk. kephale "head", etc.] But at the same time there are among the glosses such words as are not found in Greek but have parallels in other Indo-European languages, [e.g.: aliza "a white layer under the bark of a tree", Slavonic e/oa xa; Mac. goda "innards", Gk. entera, Old Indian Sanskrit gudam "intestine"; Mac. pella "stone", Germ. Fels < + pel-sa, etc.]

As proof of the cognation of the ancient Macedonians with the Greeks a photograph has been presented of the inscription from Vergina with Greek names. It should be mentioned that the majority of the names of Macedonians from the ancient period are those of members of the ruling dynasty or the aristocracy who consciously identified with the sphere of Hellenic culture so that it is in no way strange that the names of the majority of them are Greek. But alongside them are to be found Macedonian names which cannot be explained by means of Greek etymology.

With regard to their religion which, it is maintained, was the same as that of the Greeks, it should be borne in mind that the names of the divinities were translated into Greek in accordance with their functions, just as the names of the Greek divinities were altered by Roman authors writing in Latin: Jupiter in place of Zeus, Minerva for Athena, Venus for Aphrodite, etc. From an analysis of the ancient Macedonian glosses it can be concluded that ancient Macedonian was an Indo-European language distinct from Greek.

The well-known French Indo-European scholar A. Meje says that Greek is no closer to ancient Macedonian than is any other Indo-European language. In his classification of the Indo-European languages, J. Pokorny with complete justification puts Macedonian together with Phrygian in his Indo-European etymological dictionary. In support of the thesis that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks it is stressed that Philip II and Alexander the Great not only behaved as Greeks but were incarnations of the idea of a united Greek state.

The state which was ruled by Philip II and Alexander the Great, who subdued the Greek city-states and extended their frontiers to Central Asia, is nowhere called a Greek state. Educated by the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, Alexander highly valued classical Greek education and spread it to Central Asia. He abandoned, moreover, the dogma of the "difference" between Greeks and barbarians. He introduced into his policy a new spirit of the equality of all peoples, a spirit alien even to his teacher, who had prepared him for leadership of the Greeks and mastery of the barbarians.

In accordance with his cosmopolitan ideology, Alexander showed an extraordinary broadmindedness both towards the Greeks and towards the other Balkan and Asiatic peoples. With this approach he laid the foundations of Hellenism too, which was a mixture of Greek philosophic and educational ideas with the cultural and religious understandings of the peoples of the east. Alexander spread Hellenism in the Greek language, which he considered to be the language of culture, but his mother tongue was not understood by the Greeks: a fact of which there are explicit proofs.")

Greek scholarship passes over with an underestimation the historic fact of the migration of peoples which fundamentally redrew the ethnic map of Europe, and especially of the Balkans, during the early Byzantine period. Macedonia has been represented as a buffer protecting Hellenism from the waves of the barbarians throughout the centuries.

The Slavonic element in Greece is either denied or minimalized and it is well known that the Byzantine historian Constantine Porphyrogenitus openly says that the whole of Hellas had been Slavicized - It is likewise a known fact that the Slavonic tribes of the Ezerites and the Milingi were independent in the Peloponnese in the 7th and 8th centuries and did not pay tribute to Byzantium. If such facts are borne in mind, it is not difficult to understand whether Macedonia at that period was really a "bastion of Hellenism".

There have been protests in Greece that we have not used toponyms from the Aegean part of Macedonia in the forms which were given to them by decree after 1913 and more especially in 1926 because this has called Greek sovereignty into question. Demelios Georgakas" notes that even today in the Peloponnese no matter in which direction one moves one cannot go three miles without encountering a Slavonic place-name. Similar statements have been made by Ph. Malingudis.

If there are so many Slavonic place-names in the Peloponnese, how many more are there in the Aegean part of Macedonia where the Slavonic tribes dwelt? And today Slavs have been living there for a period of 1,400 years. What is more natural than that the Balkanized Slavs who have lived so long and continuously in Macedonia should be called Macedonians and their language Macedonian.

During the period of Thucydides (11, 99) the population of Northern (Upper) Macedonia was distinguished from the Macedonian conquerors; but even those from Upper Macedonia were likewise called Macedonians. It is very unscholarly to speak of a homogenization of just one nation in these regions of the Balkans.