A Broad-spectrum View of the Macedonian issue
Often the subject of what constitutes the geographic and historic Macedonia appears in publications and websites. Depending on the degree of one’s knowledge of the subject, the two may or may not become interchangeable. To elevate the confusion, historians and archeologists when writing about the history of Macedonia often use the term Macedonian Homeland. This part of the thesis deals with the explanation and interpretation of the three terms. Macedonian Homeland, Historic Macedonia, and Geographic Macedonia, must never be confused nor used interchangeably.
Macedonian Homeland
The demarcation of the boundaries of the Macedonian Homeland is very difficult to determine. Ancient sources are imprecise because most of them were Athenians and they did not know or appreciate the Macedonians living in an area that was far from Athens.
Herodotus describes the south borders of Macedonia as being the River Peneios between Olympus and the Ossa Mountains coming to an agreement with the geographer Strabo. 1 He also acknowledged Macedonia as the area around the west foothills of Olympus and the Pieria Mountains, following the River Aliakmon to its southwest springs and then going up northwest on the Pindus Mountain range. 2 Both Herodotus and Thucydides considered the River Strymon in Greece as the eastern borders of ancient Macedonia. The Epirotan tribe of Orestes 3 of Upper Macedonia in the area of modern day Korce, Albania constituted the western borders of ancient Macedonia. Thucydides maintained that the northern borders of Macedonia laid the flow of the River Erigon (present day Crna Reka, the FYROM), also Mount Orbēlos (Bulgarian Pirin).
The borders got more confusing as time passed as the ancient Macedonians occupied and annexed more territories, almost exclusively over present day Bulgaria and even reaching the Danube River. Modern scholars on historical Macedonia accept that its northern borders follow the line Bakarno Gumno (41° 16’21”N 21° 25’08”, present day Krushevo and Prilep areas), following the flow of Crna Reka to Kavadarci south of Demir Kapija Pass to Strumica, and from there to Sandaski, Bulgaria and ensuing the flow of the River Strymon to the Aegean Sea.
Internally, the Macedonian Homeland was divided into Upper Macedonia and Lower Macedonia. Upper Macedonia included all the areas of the present day Grevena, Kozani, Kastoria, Pella, and Florina Prefectures in Greece, the Korce area of Albania, and the territories between Bitola and the Mountain Bakarno Gumno. The Macedonian areas on the north side of the present day borders between Greece and the FYROM on one hand and Crna Reka on the other were considered as Macedonian Paeonia.
Lower Macedonia included the rest of the country with the Axios and Strymon Valleys and the Khalkidiki Peninsula. The coastline was quite different with the sea touching the second Capital city of Pella. That natural bay developed gradually to a lagoon, then a swamp, and today has become arable land. Fanula Papazoglu, a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the FYROM, states,
In this case it is not very important whether it is correct to apply the term “Illyrian” (in the narrower sense) to the cultural area of Bosnia and Dalmatia, since the earliest literary sources give the name of Illyrian to tribes living much further south, in the immediate vicinity of Macedonia (ancient Macedonia, of course; it is often forgotten that ancient Macedonia occupied only a relatively small part of the Yugoslav Macedonia of today!).”
Historic Macedonia
The borders of Historic Macedonia are another matter. Using the borders of the Macedonian Homeland as the basis, they expanded or contracted over the years from the conquest of the Hellenic states to the expansion of the area of present day Bulgaria, to the Middle East, present-day Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, partially India and definitely the modern nation-states of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The Bactrian Greek kingdom that was captured by Alexander the Great in 327 BC and lasted until 150 BC was the result of that expansion. On the African continent, the Macedonian Empire extended to present-day Libya and Tunisia. Upon the demise of the Empire, Historic Macedonia ceased to exist because from that point on Macedonia as well as the rest of Greece was part of the Roman Empire.
While the FYROM scholarship extends the northern borders of Historic Macedonia to coincide with the present northern borders of their country, the correctness of this assertion is disputable. When one wants to consider territories solely inhabited by ancient Macedonians, one cannot consider as part of the Macedonian Homeland peoples other than Macedonians as is the case of Paeonia. Most of the present territory of the FYROM was Paeonian, with the area of Skopje and Tetovo in Dardanian hands. As mentioned above, the Macedonian Homeland and the Historic Macedonia are not interchangeable.
Having established the difference between Geographic Macedonia, Historic Macedonia, and the Macedonian Homeland, the remaining point to consider is the status of the Paeonians. Although the name Paeonia reminds us of the Attican demos of Paeania, the ethnic nature of the Paeonians is still a mystery among authoritative historians; however, it is certain that they were not a Macedonian tribe. Not one respected historian will dispute this fact. Simply, we do not have any primary sources of the ancient world to offer us convincing evidence pointing to the ethnic nature of ancient Macedonia’s northern neighbors, the Paeonians.
It makes no sense to include the area of the FYROM into Macedonian Homeland since the Macedonians lived in the Macedonian Homeland, not in Paeonia. If one wants to include non-Macedonian people within Macedonian territories, one should include the Greek states of the south since Macedonians were of the Greek tribes. To incorporate into Macedonia non-Macedonian peoples, i.e. Paeonians, and exclude the Greek states, one must question why not include the Thracians to the east and northeast of ancient Macedonia? Philip V conquered the pure Paeonian areas, located north of the present day Greek borders in 217 BC. 6 He never conquered the Dardanian Illyrian town of Scupi, present day Skopje.
The accusations that the Macedonians were barbarians began in Athens and were the result of political fabrications based on the Macedonian way of life and not on their ethnicity or language. 7 The Athenian orator, Demosthenes, traveled to Macedonia twice for a total of nine months and knew what language the Macedonians spoke. It is obvious from the text that the name-calling of Demosthenes was clearly an epithet directed to Phillip II on a personal level. Accusations from one politician to another do not apply to the people of a region or the entire state. These attacks were purely personal. 8 Simply Demosthenes hated Philip because of political considerations because he wanted Athens and Thebes to lead the Greeks not Macedonia whose king, Philip II, was a sworn enemy of Athens and democracy. Demosthenes called Philip “barbarian,” a very common and humiliating cuss directed at a Greek. ”Barbarian” was the epithet of a “non-Greek” or someone who spoke an incomprehensible language. The Lexicon Liddell and Scott includes a number of examples in which the word barbarian in antiquity did not necessarily mean, a foreigner or non-Greek speaker. It exactly states, “after the Persian wars the word took contemptuous meaning with the meaning of peasant, uneducated, monstrous” as in Aristophanes, Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon Anabasis, and Aristotle.
Nevertheless, regarding Demosthenes addressing Philip, as “barbarian,” even Badian does not find it strange stating, “it may have nothing to do with historical fact, any more than the orators’ tirades against their personal enemies usually have.” 10 He is correct because it is well known that the profession of a lobbyist is nothing new. In the ancient Greek world, a lobbyist was also a representative of another state, tribal or not and because of it he was called πρόξενος or proxenos, which was a political and diplomatic post. 11 It is the equivalent of the present day ambassador. During that time, the Boeotian Thrason employed by the Athenians represented Athens’ interests in Thebes and the Athenian Demosthenes, the orator, represented the interests of Thebes in Athens. 12 At that point Thebes’ power was on the rise and if Athens and Thebes were allied the only power they had to consider was Macedonia. Demosthenes’ job as a paid representative of Thebes included his duty to discredit Philip and the only way to do it was by attacking him on a personal level. This is the reason Aeschines called Demosthenes a Theban lobbyist and a traitor to Athenian interests. 13 For someone like Demosthenes who inherited so much money but he was left penniless, money was a prime motivator to call the person who directly threatened his welfare as Philip did, a barbarian. Due to the fact that the speech took place after the Persian Wars, the term Barbarian had the meaning of crude, monstrous, etc.
We encountered similar inimical behavior of Demosthenes’ against Philip with Thucydides’ behavior against the Acarnanians. Thucydudes states that the Aetolian tribe of Euritanes was barbarian “eating the meat raw” only when the Athenians encountered a political conflict with the Aetolians. The Macedonian way of life differed in many ways from the southern Greek way of life, which was common among the western Greeks such as with the Chaones, Molossians, Thesprotians, Acarnanians, and Aetolians. Macedonian state institutions were similar to those of the Mycenean and Spartan. Moreover, it is stated by Herodotus that a number of Peloponnesian cities inhabited by Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Sicyonians, Epidaurians, Troezinians, and Hermionians, with the exception of Hermionians, were of Dorian and Macedonian blood. These people lived in cities located in Peloponnesus, which makes the Macedonians as Greek as the Dorians
Geographic Macedonia
The geographic territory of Macedonia is a result of political maneuvering and occupation of the area by powers that did what they saw fit in order to administer the area. The end of Historic Macedonia, upon the demise of the Macedonian Empire, was the beginning of a new term, Geographic Macedonia. Macedonia’s geographic territory depends on the period one describes and on contemporary political needs and agendas. In some cases, Geographic Macedonia was not even close to the territories that in general are considered “Macedonia.” At present, Geographic Macedonia is the area of Greek Macedonia, Bulgarian Macedonia – Province of Blagoevgrad, the FYROM, and the Albanian territories around lakes Prespa and Ohrid.
Geographic Macedonia in medieval and modern times did not necessarily coincide with the Macedonian Homeland. In some cases, Geographic Macedonia included areas of present-day Albania, or as Macedonia Secunda the whole territory of the FYROM. In other cases, the Thema of Macedonia was in the area of Adrianople (Edirne) away from the Macedonian Homeland as the following entry states:
Thema of Macedonia, which is attested to for the first time in 802, was established and extended eastwards of the Nestos river into a large section of Thrace, i.e. it was not identified with the geographical boundaries of Macedonia. A little later the Thema of Thessaloniki was established, which extended to Central and West Macedonia, and the thema of Strymon in Eastern Macedonia.
Origin of the Ancient Macedonians
Before the Trojan War, a tribe, recognized later under their exonym as Makednoi 19 and living on the mountain range of Pindus, split into branches and took routes in different directions. Three branches, Hylleis, Dymanes, and Pamphyloi utilized the area just northwest of the Corinthian Gulf called Dryopis as their staging area but apssing to Pelopenneus they received the exonym “Dorians” and the area they lived, Doris, in honor of Dorus their legendary ancestor and son of Hellēn, the nominal father of the Greeks. From there, some of them reached the area of what presently is Boeotia, and others passed into Peloponnesus from the Isthmus of Corinth (20 years before the Trojan war) and the Rhium /Antirhium strait. One of them went north to Thessaly just south of Olympus and then, using as their guide the current of the River Pēnius toward the Thermaic Gulf, moved northward and established themselves in the area northeast of Olympus Mountain where they pushed out the Thracian tribe of Pieres 20 and built the city of Dion 21 in honor of Zeus. 22 Dion was the sacred city of the Macedonians until the appearance of Christianity.
According to Herodotus, in the early stages of the Hellenic race and after the great flood, a Hellenic tribe lived in Phthiotis, an area in South Thessaly (present day in the very north-eastern point of the Prefecture of Phthiotis) under the leadership of Dorus, Hellēn’s son (pronounce hĔllēn ˜λλην).
Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedonians, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopis having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians.
Members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the FYROM and Hellenism of ancient Macedonia
Respected members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the FYROM such as Fanula Papazoglu on page 4 of her dissertation states: “Macedonia, disappearing as a state, stopped having rights in history but the Macedonian people did not disappear. They continued to live in the framework of the new political community – the Roman state, having kept ethnic characteristics, language, religion and customs,” and on page 333 of the same, “Macedonia, a Province of Greek language.”
Other individuals and periodicals of the FYROM Academy of Sciences and Arts in various studies have accepted the Hellenic origin and culture of the ancient Macedonians. Ivan Mikulčić points out, “The northern periphery of the Greek world, inhabited by ancient Macedonians and other peoples and tribes, wasn’t developed for democracy as the most developed social system at that time.” 26
The publication Macedonian Heritage adds, “During the early archaic period at the Macedonian territory, the Dorian tribal groups came across over the Pindos Mountain. They established several early principalities partially by chasing away the local Paeonian tribes. Those [Dorian] tribal groups were the ancient Macedonians.” 27
Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova feels, “The lower part of Vardar [Greek Axios] is certainly the area south of Demir-Kapija gorge that entered Hellenic cultural sphere very early and already before 600 BC the material culture is thoroughly Hellenised.” 28 In addition, Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova writes,
The Art of Antiquity left in the region of Ohrid a great number of traces of its own presence. Illyrian forts imported goods from Greek centers and imitated them in a modest fashion. Political advancement of the Macedonians and their domination enabled cultural influx that manifested itself through products of crafts and alphabet. From the times of Phillip II deeper advances in the area of Lychnidos [Lake Ohrid] are attested. Cultural influences of the Graeco-Macedonian world are present. Rich Hellenistic culture arrived at Illyrian soil. 29
The publication Arheologija remarks,
Certain proto-populations occupying distinct areas of the Balkans could be distinguished on the territories of the cultural groups: in western part of the Balkans the proto-Illyrians, in the east the proto Thracians, in the south the Hellenes, in the northern part of the Balkans the proto Daco-Mysians and in the southwest of the Central Balkans the proto-Bryges. 30
No mention of the Macedonians has been made since they were Hellenes or Greeks. Paeonia was located in the middle of the present day FYROM having Astibus (Štip) as its capital and Vylazora (Veles) as one of the most important cities. Professor Fanica Veljanovska declares, “Paeonians, a people who during the first millennia BC inhabited the border area between the three great paleo-balkanic peoples – Illyrians, Thracians and Greeks.” 31 Veljanovska mentions no Macedonians since she considers the Macedonians Greeks.
Vera Bitrakova – Grozdanova asserts, “Greek epigraphic monuments created before definitive Roman domination of our area are to be found in modest quantity.” 32 Moreover, Dr. Bitrakova-Grozdanova states, “Study of the inscriptions speaks about epigraphic characteristics of the neighboring Macedonian – Hellenic world.” 33 She also mentions, “Having the central position in this part of the Balkans, Paeonia, apart from receiving influences from the Hellenic south, wasn’t an exception with regard to influences from Illyrian and Thracian sphere.” 34 Dr. Bitrakova-Grozdanova would not have made such a statement if she did not feel that the Macedonians were Greeks living south of Paeonia.
Viktor Lilčić describes life in Paeonia and the northern part of Upper Macedonia (Pelagonia):
The quantitative ceramic material used to be produced with the usual process including the labor of persons. Partly because of that, partly because of the traditions that had taken roots into our soil, which with centuries before that used to be watered with Hellenic spirit and Hellenistic way of life, the use of the building ceramics had been brought to minimum. 35
Pelagonia on the other hand was the area just north of Lyngistis (Florina-Bitola) and its inhabitants were Molossian speaking Macedonians of Upper Macedonia. Statements about Pelagonia made by Ivan Mikulčić, an excellent archaeologist, are the first to concur that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks. Mikulčić states, “We are not to be amazed that in the archaeological material of Pelagonia we have a rarely great wealth of reflections of all pronounced cultural events in the relations between middle-Danubian and Graeco-Aegean world.” 36 In addition, he determines, “in a such great chronological distance in the life of ancient Pelagonia two stages are visible: development and existence in the frames of Hellenic culture and later the Roman one.” 37 “Even in the last decades of 5th century stabilization in all spheres of social life is established. As first sign of the new time import from Graeco-Macedonian south appeared as well as fortified settlements that later grew into urban centers with character of economic and religious nuclei of the region.” 38
The present-day Hellenic nation is the result of the social, civic, and linguistic amalgamation of more than 230 tribes speaking more than 200 dialects 39 that claimed descent from Hellen, son of Deukalion. “When we take into account the political conditions, religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians. Having stayed behind in the extreme north, they were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which went further south…” 40 Most historians have assessed the Macedonian state of affairs in a similar fashion. The Macedonians were a Hellenic group of tribes belonging to the Western Greek ethnic group.
The Macedonians incorporated the territory of the native people into Macedonia and forced the Pieres, a Thracian tribe, out of the area Bottiaia to Mt. Pangaeum and the Bottiaiei. They further expelled the Eordi from Eordaia and the Almopes from Almopia and they similarly expelled all tribes (Thracian, Paeonian, Illyrian) they found in areas of Anthemus, Crestonia, Bysaltia and other lands. The Macedonians absorbed the few inhabitants of the above tribes that stayed behind. They established their suzerainty over the land of Macedonia without losing their ethnicity, language, or religion. 41
They also incorporated the lands of the Elimeiotae, Orestae, Lyncestae,Pelagones, and Deriopes ,all tribes living in Upper Macedonia who were Greek speakers, but of a different (Molossian) dialect from that spoken by the [ancient] Macedonians. 42
Then, living with savage northern neighbors such as Illyrians, Thracians, Paeonians and later Dardanians, the Macedonians physically deflected their neighbors’ hordes forming an impenetrable fence denying them the opportunity to attack the Greek city-states of the south.( which is why omit) This is the reason they are considered the bastion of Hellenism.
The evidence above shows that the ancient Macedonians were one of the Hellenic groups of tribes speaking a Greek dialect and having the same institutions as the Spartans and especially the Greeks of the Western group of nations. Thus, the fallacies emanated from the FYROM and its diaspora are strongly repudiated.
Borza, agreeing with Hammond states, “First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond’s general conclusion that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Hellenic speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age is acceptable.” 43 This is an excellent basis for the beginning for the challenge on the Macedonism of the Slavic population of the FYROM. Since two of the greatest authorities on Macedonia agree that the origin of the ancient Macedonians “lies in the pool of proto-Hellenic speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age,” 44 there is no doubt that they are related to the rest of the Greeks. Thus, the qualification of the term Greek and the degree of affinity or relation between Greek tribes is the key to the question of whether the Macedonians were Greeks or they were simply a related branch as the Illyrians or even Thracians.
1 Herodotus, Histories, VII, 173; Strabo, Geography, VII fragment 14.
2 Herodotus, Histories, VIII, 137, Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, II, 99, 4.
3 The area today includes the territories of the Greek Prefecture of Kastoria, partially South Florina and the Albanian area of Korce.
4 Fanula Papazoglu, The Central Balkan Tribes in Pre-Roman Times: Triballi, Autariatae, Dardanians, Scordisci and Moesians (Amsterdam, Hakkert, 1978), 268.
5 Dimitris N. Alexandrou, Kalash, the Greeks in the Himalaya, 9th Ed. (Thessaloniki, Erodios, 1993), 112-113.
6 Polybius V. 97.1
7 Stanley Casson, Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria (Westport, Grenwood Press, 1971), 158; R. Malcom Errington, A History of Macedonia, Translated by Catherine Errington (Berkeley, Univerisity of California Press, 1990), 4.
8 Demosthenes, Olynthiac III, 14 – 21; Demosthenes, Philippic II.
9 Aristophanes, Clouds 492 and Birds 1573; Plato, Menexenus 245c-d; Thucydides, VIII.98; Xenophon Anabasis 5.4, 34; Aristotle Politics 1.2,4.
10 E. Badian, Studies in the History of Art: Macedonia And Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times, Greeks and Macedonians, Vol 10.
11 Andre Gerolymatos, Espionage and Treason (Amsterdam, Gieben 1986), 76.
12 Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, 138-139.
13 Aeschines, On the Embassy, 141.
14 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, III, 94.
15 R. Malcom Errington, A History of Macedonia, Translated by Catherine Errington (Berkeley, Univerisity of California Press, 1990), 4.
16 Urlich Wilcken, Alexander the Great (New York, Norton, 1967), 23.
17 Herodotus, Histories, VIII, 43.
18 Maria Nystazopoulou – Pelekidou, The Macedonian Question: A Historical Review, Translated by Ilias Kyzirakos (Corfu, Ionian University), 1988, http://www.hri.org/docs/macque/, accessed 12 March 2008.
19 Also Makedni. The word Macedonia derives from the Doric and Aeolic dialects word mākos meaning length, in humans and mountains means height. In Attic dialect and Modern Greek the same word is mēkos. Compare to Homer Odyssey book VII, 106. Homer’s Greek was mostly Ionic, but included Aeolic words and syntax. It was natural for him to mix both dialects since Smyrna (present day Izmir, Turkey) his most probable birthplace was inhabited by the Aeolian Greeks who lost it later to the Ionian Greeks. Smyrna was located on the borders between the Asia Minor Aeolians and Ionians.
20 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, II, 99.
21 Latin the same town is called Dium.
22 The word Zeus exists in the Greek literature under a number of different but related names: Zeus, Deus, Sdeus, Zēs, Zas, Dan, Dēn, Tēn, Tan, Tiēn and Dis. Compare to the Indian god of the Heavens Dyaus pitar meaning “father God.” Thus, Dion means the City of Zeus or in essence the City of God.
23 Herodotus, Histories, I, 58.
24 Polybius XXVIII, 8, 9.
25 For a list of ancient Macedonians participating in the Olympic games (see Appendix A).
26 Ivan Mikulčić, Ancient towns in the Republic of Macedonia (Skopje, 1999), 9.
27 Macedonian Heritage (July 1996), 1, 5.
28 Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova The Valley of Vardar in 1st millennium BC (Skopje, 1982), 2.
29 Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova, “Ohrid,” The Art in Macedonia (Skopje 1984), 85.
30 “Bryges on the central Balkans in the 2nd and 1st millennium BC,” Arheologija ( Skopje 1995).
31 Fanica Veljanovska, An Attempt at Anthropological Definition of the Paeonians (Skopje, 1994).
32 Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova, Hellenistic Monuments in S.R.Macedonia (Skopje, 1987), 130.
33 Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova, Hellenistic Monuments in S.R.Macedonia (Skopje, 1987), 103.
34 Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova, Hellenistic Monuments in S.R.Macedonia, (Skopje,1987), 134.
35 Lilcic,Viktor, Building ceramics in the Republic of Macedonia during the Roman Period: Scupi, Stobi, Heraclea Lynkestis, Styberra, (Skopje, 1996), 120.
36 Ivan Mikulčić, Pelagonija, (Skopje, 1966), 2.
37 Ivan Mikulčić, Pelagonija (Skopje, 1966), 4.
38 “Guide to the archaeological exhibition” (Skopje, 1996), 54.
39 Aristotle’s Works, passim.
40 Wilcken, Alexander the Great (New York: Norton, 1967), 22.
41 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, II, 99.
42 Hammond, The Macedonian State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 390.
43 Eugene Borza, Makedonika, Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexander’s Court (Claremont: Regina Books), 149-58.
44 Eugene Borza, Makedonika, “Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexander’s Court,” 149-58.
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9 comments:
I was looking for information about Macedonia and its culture, extension, and where it's located, and here I found the precise info. Thnaks and I hope you continue posting this interesting themes.
Macedonians have always been a Centum Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples...a regional historical people-group of ethnic-Greek stock.
Macedonians have UN recognized right to keep as Greek as possible, the identity-characteristics of their Haemus-Hellenic ancestors.
FYRoM is not Macedonia and the peoples there are Slavic...[ized]
E1b1b J2 Slavicized-Paeonians - and then Dardanians north from Skopje.
Political expediance cannot ride roughshod over accredited prefixed academic reference-points. Case in point is FYRoM, where politicians rushed to incorporate minor Slavic country into Euro-Atlantic economic and security structures, without giving due care and attention to the corosive effects integration would have on Western worlds cultural-historical foundations.
Integrating FYRoM into the EU and NATO is not impossible though, what is impossible, is integrating FYRoM’s national history into the Western worlds long-established mainstream historical narrative.
FYRoM’s ethnogenesis story makes Macedonians Proto-Slavs…this is the propblem!
Macedonians have always been a Centum Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples…a regional historical people-group of ethnic-Greek stock. Keeping the Western worlds cultural-historical narrative intact is something that has a taken on an importance never before seen, or heard of, in light of the current threats that seek to alter it. Preserving the Western worlds historical cohesion is now top priority for the West.
History has taught us that Paeonia changes name according to the ruling authorities contesting it’s jurisdiction. From since the settlement of the Slavic-tribes on Greco-Roman soil…Slavdom renames Paeonia to ‘Peoples Republic of Macedonia’ for the first time, in 1945. Before 1945, there was never a ‘Macedonia’ in the Slavic world. FYRoM attempts to rewrite history, but their version of it clashes and conflicts with the Western worlds long-established mainstream historical narrative.
Historians Philologists and Demographers know, FYRoM is not Macedonia and the peoples there are Slavic…[ized] now! Historically and geographically FYRoM was Paeonia in antiquity, Dardania north from Skopje. FYRoM had many names in the past, all of them recorded for posterity. The first recorded name was Paeonia.
It was the latin-Romans that renamed Paeonia to Macedonia II Salutaris. Later, the Greco-Romans renamed Paeonia to Theme-Bulgaria when they recaptured lost Byzantine lands from an invading Avaro-Hunnic, Slavo-Bulgar, tribal-conglomorate. Theme-Macedonia was physically relocated to Thrace. You know when a name is yours, when you take it with you, wherever you go. Example is Theme-Macedonia.
Paeonia stayed inside Byzantium, the empire of Constantinople, Imperium Romanum, Romania, until the coming of the Eastern-Asiatic, Oriental-Musulman Turk.
The Turk renamed Paeonia to Vilayet-Monastir and Vilayet-Kosovo, until the Balkan Wars, when Paeonia became a province of South-Serbia, within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
1943, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia becomes Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Paeonia becomes Vardar-Banovina when in 1945, Comrade Tito rename the place to ‘Peoples Republic of Macedonia’, then to ‘Socialist Peoples Republic of Macedonia’ a short while afterwards.
FYRoM can trace it’s geographical, regional-historical name back to Paeonia, in backwards compatible fashion…in perfect synchronicity with the long established mainstream historical record.
Knowing these things, these accredited prefixed academic reference-points…FYRoM cannot exist like ‘Republic of Macedonia’ without distinction.
The Slavs of FYRoM believe they are Macedonians, so they fight hard to have the Macedonian name assigned to them exclusively. They covet the Macedonian name for country-name, sovereign state-name, nationality, language and ethnicity, when it is known, those Identity-factors do not bode well for South-Slavs – FYRoM’s answer to this anomoly is to deny that they are Slavs in the first place.
If the Satem Slavic-speaking peoples of FYRoM are not Slavs, then what are they ? Paeonians [Slavicized] maybe! If they were authentic-Macedonians, they would be talking Centum-Greek…walking and talking Greek-style.
Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonians from antiquity were not Slavs, they were intrinsic part of Greek-Hellenic Collective of peoples. They walked like Greeks and talked like Greeks…there were no detectable ethnic differences between them and other Greeks, but because they were rough and ready Greeks, Northern frontier Greeks, that spoke the Hellenic language a tad differently from the quintessential Athenian standard, rogue classicist scholars, pseudo-historical revisionists, and specialist propagandists from FYRoM, like to use this language dialect thing like some definate distinguishable difference between ancient-Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks. Nothing, is further from the truth, dialect does not constitute seperate language.
FYRoM language is Satem-Slavic language. Slavist philogists branded it Macedonian-language in Autumn of 1944 in order to exploit the possibility ancient-Macedonians spoke Satem-Slavic.
The same propagandists like to exploit the “barbarian” element, like some definate distinct meaningful difference between Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks. They do it in order to suggest, that if they were not understood by Athenians, then surely they were not Greeks. It was not uncommon though, for some elitist Athenians to pretend to have difficulty understanding Macedonians. Safe to suggest that Athenians knew how to play politics better than Macedonians, they did this in order to minimize Macedonian political influence, which was in the ascendancy and against Athenian interests.
We know from recorded history that Slavs moved into the Haemus [Greek] peninsula top-end of 6th Century AD, after the East-Goths and West-Goths migrated to their respective destinations, and after depopulation of the Haemus from plagues and conflicts. The Eastern-Roman Empire’s northern frontiers collapsed. Around this time, the Imperial forces of Byzantium were busy protecting Europe from the Arab threat that Slavic tribes made their way into Greco-Roman world.
FYRoM ex-Yugoslavians are primal descendents of Slavic settlers. They did not enter the Greco-Roman world as Macedonians. This name was foreign to Slavs.
FYRoM Yugoslavians referring to themselves like Macedonians within confines of Yugoslavic Federation posed no problem for Greece. No clash, no conflict, no overspill. The problem really only occurs when SouthSlavs outwardly proclaim themselves Macedonians, descendents of ancient-Macedonians, and start to stake claim to history and heritage of Macedonia. Slavic tribes as we know, were distanced hundreds of miles away from ancient-Greek world, distanced by geography, by language, and by time continuum spanning almost one thousand years from the death of Alexander the Great.
Macedonians have always been Greek. Trying to disenfranchise them from Helenism, or to say that the people of ancient-Greece were ethnically different from the people that live there today, flies in the face of the material evidence. Todays Greeks are just as Greek as ancient-Greeks, in fact todays Greeks are sole, legal, cultural-linguistic inheritors of ancient-Hellenic legacy…FYRoM would do well to respect that!
So the peoples of FYRoM learn to see themselves like Macedonians. They learn to see their land like Macedonia and their language like Macedonian-language. In reality though, FYRoM is Paeonia geographically, Dardania north from Skopje. The peoples there are Yugoslavians, same like Slovenians, Serbians, Croatians and Bulgarians. The language spoken there is Serbo-Bulgarian, a Satem-Slavic concoction renamed Macedonian-language August 1944, on the will of Marshall Tito, Croatian dictator of Wartime Yugoslavia.
It is important to say here that not all of the peoples of FYRoM see themselves that way. A large percentage of them see themselves differently – so there is a problem of perception, inwardly and outwardly.
Inwardly: Minorities in FYRoM see the majority there like South-Slavs from Serbian and Bulgarian stock, and call them the same.
Outwardly: Those who see FYRoM like Macedonia, Yugoslavians like Macedonians, their Satem-Slavic language like Macedonian-language…display an ignorance deficient of knowledge in the fields of geography, demography, history and linguistics.
FYRoM is not Macedonia and the peoples there are Slavic. Yugoslavians and Bulgarians form Slavdoms southern-branch…confusing South-Slavs for Macedonians displays disgraceful ignorance of classicist Graeco-Roman history, a mischievous deviancy from mainstream preset academic reference-point.
If the peoples of FYRoM in their majority wish to see themselves like Macedonians, their country like Macedonia and their language like Macedonian-language – that, is for them to decide, it is their perogative to see themselves that way…self-perception is private and individual. The problems begin when that image, that self-perception is screened on world-stage setting.
When a peoples are that indoctrinated to see themselves in way that clashes and conflicts with the way the outside world see them, like the UN, EU, USA, NATO and the International Academic Community – It becomes duty for these worldy-wise bodies and institutions to set the record straight…Macedonia is northern-Greece, Macedonians are Centum Greek-speakers and Macedonian-language is Centum-Hellenic language. The way Greeks see themselves is the way others see them, no clashes no conflicts. Contemporary Greeks look back at themselves standing at forefront of long chain of Centum Greek-speakers.
Todays Greeks see themselves like cultural-linguistic continuators of a Hellenic inheritance that has been passed-on to them from previous generations of Greeks…stretching all the way back to and from, Mycaenean Proto-Greeks. The Greek language and Hellenism define an ancient and archaic people-group that boasts autochthony to Haemus peninsula. Greek cultural-linguistic space can Hellenize peoples in it’s sphere of influence. From Crete in the south to Macedonia in the north, and from Cyprus in the east to Sicily in the west…that space in between is Greek cultural-linguistic sphere – from since millenia. Greeks look back at themselves and awe at their inheritance.
Greeks promise to defend, protect and pass-on their inheritance to next generation of Greeks – Come Hell or High Water!
FYRoM Yugoslavians insist they are Macedonian, on the basis, they live in Macedonia and speak Macedonian. If I live in Macedonia and speak Macedonian then I am Macedonian goes the logic behind their thinking. If my country is called Macedonia then my nationality is Macedonian, because country-name generates nationality. If my language is called Macedonian-language, then my ethnicity is Macedonian, because language name generates ethnicity – goes the same logic behind FYRoM Yugoslavians mode of thinking.
It must be stressed here that Macedonians are a regional-historical people-group of ethnic-Greek stock…from since the days of King Karanus, the first King of Macedon 778-808 BC.
The Macedonian name on South-Slavs blurs the distinction between Yugoslavians and Macedonians…the former belong to Slavdom – the latter belong to Hellenism.
Confusing FYRoM for Macedonia intentionally, shows disgraceful ignorance of geography and history. Mistaking Yugoslavians for Macedonians on ethnic level and cultural-linguistic level exposes a mischievous deviancy that is anti-Hellenic at heart and anti-Western by extension.
The Macedonian name belongs in Greek domain – Macedonian-Identity belongs to Greek heritage…these are historical-facts, prefixed academic reference-points.
FYRoM denies Macedonians were Greek in the first place and deprives contemporary Greek-speaking Macedonians from practicing their rights. Macedonians have right to keep as Greek as possible, the identity-characteristics of their regional-historical Haemus-Hellenic ancestors. FYRoM covets the Macedonian name for country-name…sovereign state-name, nationality, language, ethnicity, and scripts national historical narrative that erases Macedonian Hellenic-Identity. Yugoslavian children in FYRoM learn different history from the Western mainstream. Ancient-Macedonians in FYRoM history books are Proto-Slavic and Alexander the Great becomes Aleksandar Veliki, the first Czar of the Slavs.
Those who see FYRoM like Macedonia are anti-Hellenic at heart. Those who see Yugoslavians like Macedonians are anti-Western by default. The ancient-Kingdom of Macedon contributed greatly towards Western worlds cultural-foundation…FYRoM did not. Macedonians contributed heavily towards developing Western worlds civilizational principles…Yugoslavians did not.
Greeks can deal with anti-Hellenic drongo imbeciles. It takes the West though, to deal with anti-Western 5th columnists that fight hard to establish a NoN-Greek Macedonian nation with ready history and heritage bismerched from Western worlds long-established cultural-historical narrative. In that narrative Macedonians are Centum Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples with affiliations and kinship ties towards Hellenism and other Greeks.
Those who champion to see FYRoM established to ‘Republic of Macedonia’ are no friend to Greece nor Greeks…they shall be dealt with, accordingly!
Macedonia:Name Dispute at Deeper Level
If the measure of ethnicity is calculated in feelings, then Macedonians are passionate Greeks from since the days of King Karanus 778-808 BC. Ethnicity is manipulative concept, something learned under strict authoritarian conditions or not – Collective memory is quite different.
If FYRoM South-Slavs hold-on to collective-memories rooted in ancient-Hellenic themes and synergies – these things need to be explored to deeper level.
E1b1b J2 Slavs: How Slavic can they be in comparison to Russian-Slavs and Polish-Slavs ?
Macedonians are Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples – this is what Archaelogy and History teach us. Both academic disciplines support Greek-Hellenic Identity for Alexander the Great and the ancient-Macedonians from antiquity.
FYRoM is Paeonia in terms of Archaelogy Geography and History.
In the Haemus (Balkan) peninsula, we are all genetically similar – Haemus peoples spawned from same gene-pool, same genetic stock, so why do the peoples of FYRoM reject their Paeonian roots and ethnogenic origins.
Assuming the peoples of FYRoM are Haemus-natives self-ascribing like Macedonians – Why are they, and what are they doing in Paeonia. Paonians and Macedonians derive from common Haemus gene pool…the latter Hellenized by the former, in that order.
Macedonians Hellenized the Paonians in 217 BC under King Philip V. By Identifying morfe with Macedonians, moreso than with Paeonians, the peoples of FYRoM are indirectly telling the world they are Greeks originally.
I say again: If the peoples of FYRoM are native to the Haemus peninsula. Never moved, never shifted from where they are today – that makes them Paeonians, and not the Macedonians they want to be. Paeonians like the rest of the Haemus natives sprang from common gene pool, equally as ancient as the Macedonians sharing similar genes and haplogroups but differing on cultural-linguistic lines…until Hellenization.
FYRoM is Paeonia…a Haemus peoples. Hellenized – Romanized – Bulgarized – Slavicized – Turkified, now searching for Identity rooted in antiquity. The options for them are many but the choices are rather limited.
The Macedonian name belongs in Greek domain…Macedonian-Identity belongs to Greek heritage – FYRoM South-Slavs disagree with these historical facts, these academic reference-points.
Yugoslavian peoples covet the Macedonian name for Country-name…Sovereign state-name, Nationality, Language and Ethnicity – Identity factors that do not bode well for South-Slavs. There was never a Macedonian tribe of Slavs in the recorded history of the Slavonic peoples.
Inside Federal Yugoslavia, Communism reigned. Vardaska-Banovina renames to Socialist Republic of Makedonija on will and demands of ruling Communist elite. FYRoM was ‘Peoples Republic’ then ‘Socialist Republic’ in Old-Yugoslavia, a Communist invention, invented by Croat Marshall Tito in 1945 to compliment creation of FYRoM language just one year earlier, in Autumn of 1944. A Slavic entity SRoM cacooned inside Federal Yugoslavia posed no problem Greece or Greeks, until disintigration of Yugoslavia. From since 1991, when FYRoM steps onto world-stage, they challenge Greece and Greeks on History, Heritage and Legacy of ancient-Macedon, the Greek-Kingdom ruled over by Alexander the Great.
Yugoslavian children post 1991, learn to use Macedonian name for Country-name, Nationality, Language and Ethnicity. The same believe they are descended from ancient-Macedonians. They see Greece like Western invention, created by West to cheat Slavic race from it’s true history and heritage in Haemus [Greek] peninsula. Greeks for them become Ethiopians, Greece becomes the enemy and Hellenism becomes loaded word beyond hate.
This is what Recognition [November 2004] did, to the children pupils and students of FYRoM. They took recognition to mean the West was punishing Greeks for crimes against Slavs of FYRoM…from since Balkan Wars 1 and 2.
GW Bush, November 2004, just hours into his second term, is issued substandard poor-quality academically-flawed advice…politically-charged advice to recognize FYRoM like ‘Republic of Macedonia’ – against Academia and against Greek concerns. The West Dumps on the Greeks to establish NoN-Greek Macedonian Nation peopled by South-Slavs, Albanians and other minorities.
That ill-judged, ill thought-out advice, cost the West dearly. It pitted Scholars and Academics against Politicians and Diplomats. It pitted long-established prefixed historical-facts and academic-reference-points against Political-Expediances. Anti-Hellenic, anti-Western 5th Columnist Mind-Architects working in positions of power and influence, at highest echelons of diplomatic office nearly destroyed the Western worlds cultural-historical foundation. In Western worlds cultural-historical narrative…Macedonians are Centum Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples – not Satem Slavic-speaking South-Slavs from Yugoslavia.
The West lost it’s way…damaged, but not beyond repair! FYRoM is not Macedonia and the peoples there are Slavic. FYRoM cannot exist like ‘Republic of Macedonia’ on that basis. Macedonians are Greek from since the days of King Karanus 778-808 BC – Only drongo anti-Hellenic imbeciles dare to contest it.
Macedonia:FYRoM Could End Name Dispute Today
Denying the Macedonian-name it’s Greek-Hellenic credentials is the sole reason, the name-dispute between FYRoM and Greece has dragged-on for >2 decades. The UN, EU, USA, NATO and the International academic community place the Onus on FYRoM to end the name-dispute in a way that is mutually acceptable to both parties. The Onus is on FYRoM compromise, to find a proper more suitable name for country-name, nationality, language and ethnicity.
FYRoM could end the name-dispute today, in an instant, at a stroke…if the ruling elite there recognized Alexander the Great as the Greek-King of Macedon and the ancient-Macedonians as Greek-speakers, with affinities and kinship-ties towards Greeks and Hellenism.
FYRoM could end the name-dispute today, in an instant and at a stroke, if politicians there recognized the Macedonian-name as Greek-name, originating in Hellenic-world by Centum Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples
FYRoM could end the name-dispute today, in an instant and at a stroke, if the government there recognized and acknowledged, the Greek-Hellenic Identity of Macedonians from since the days of King-Karanus, 778-808 BC.
FYRoM denies the Macedonians were ever Greek in the first place, they teach a revisionist pseudo-historical narrative to their own children, pupils and students. In the history books there, Alexander the Great becomes Aleksandar Veliki, the first Czar of the Slavs and ancient-Macedonians become proto-Slavs who spoke a Satem-Slavic, Serbianized-Bulgarian language FYRoM Slavs call Macedonian-language.
FYRoM denies Macedonians were Greek to begin with, denies they spoke Centum Hellenic-language, denies they had strong kinship-ties and affiliations towards other Greeks and Hellenism, and denies, that Macedonians themselves self-Identified and self-determined Greek, from Dorian-Hellenic stock.
FYRoM erases Macedonians Greek-Hellenic Identity in order to superimpose quasi-experimental Slavic-Identity on top of original Greek one. They do these things in bad taste, under crude and crass conditions, in ways that clash and conflict with all that is known about Macedonia…that Macedonians are self-determined Greeks from since >3 Millenniums.
FYRoM could end the name-dispute today, right now, in an instant and at a stroke…if the politicians there stopped the pretense and the theatrical silliness that goes with promoting a quasi-experimental Slavic-Identity that takes from Hellenism something the Greeks are not willing to relinquish. If a Greek-Hellenic peoples have self-Identified like Macedonians for more than 3 Milleniums, should FYRoM respect that – You decide ?
Those who know about Macedonia know: Macedonians have always been Greek-speaking Hellenic-peoples from since the days of King-Karanus 808-778 BC – a regional historical people-group of ethnic-Greek stock. Time for FYRoM to catch up!
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