The Truth: Macedonia & Greece Mutual Relations

Macedonia & Greece Mutual Relations

George Nikolov

Copyright © 2016

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN  978-1-365-02866-3

Content

Introduction

FOREWORD

THE ANCIENT MACEDONIANS AND THEIR LANGUAGE

MACEDONIA FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SLAVS TO THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

EVIDENCE OF MACEDONIA IN THE OTTOMAN PERIOD

THE ARCHBISHOPRIC OF OHRID AND THE MACEDONIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

ATTEMPTS AT HELLENIZATION

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF THE MACEDONIAN NATION

MACEDONIAN UPRISINGS IN THE 19th AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th CENTURY

PROGRAMMATIC PREMISES FOR A MACEDONIAN STATE

THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION IN FOREIGN RELATIONS

THE BALKAN WARS AND THE PARTITION OF MACEDONIA

THE AEGEAN PART OF MACEDONIA AFTER THE BALKAN WARS

THE IDEA OF MACEDONIAN LIBERATION BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MACEDONIAN STATE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA - FROM A MEMBER STATE OF THE YUGOSLAV FEDERATION TO A SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE

THE MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE IN THE BALKAN LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENT

AFTERWORD

Introduction

In the Balkans there are as many histories as the states in it. For undetermined reader to form their own opinion, it is desirable to read the various information sources. In these book you will find historical articles for Republic Macedonia that is taught in this country, so the same events in other countries could have a different version.

Republic of Macedonia is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991. It became a member of the United Nations in 1993, but, as a result of an ongoing dispute with Greece over use of the name Macedonia, it was admitted under the provisional description of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, abbreviated as FYROM, used by international organizations such as European Union, Council of Europe, NATO etc.

A landlocked country, the Republic of Macedonia is bordered by Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. It constitutes approximately the northwestern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia, which also comprises the neighbouring parts of northern Greece and smaller portions of southwestern Bulgaria and southeastern Albania.

The Republic of Macedonia roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Paeonia, which was located immediately north of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. Paeonia was inhabited by the Paeonians, a Thracian people, whilst the northwest was inhabited by the Dardani and the southwest by tribes known historically as the Enchelae, Pelagones and Lyncestae; the latter two are generally regarded as Molossian tribes of the northwestern Greek group, whilst the former two are considered Illyrian.

In 356 BC Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Upper Macedonia (Lynkestis and Pelagonia) and the southern part of Paeonia (Deuriopus) into the kingdom of Macedon. Philip's son Alexander the Great conquered the remainder of the region, and incorporated it in his empire, reaching as far north as Scupi, but the city and the surrounding area remained part of Dardania.

After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the name of Macedonia became the object of a dispute between Greece and the newly independent Republic of Macedonia. In the south, the Republic of Macedonia borders the region of Greek Macedonia, which administratively is split into three peripheries (one of them comprising both Western Thrace and a part of Greek Macedonia). Citing historical and territorial concerns resulting from the ambiguity between the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia and the ancient kingdom of Macedon which falls within Greek Macedonia, Greece opposes the use of the name Macedonia by the Republic of Macedonia without a geographical qualifier, supporting a compound name (such as Northern Macedonia) for use by all and for all purposes (erga omnes). Greece further objects to the use of the term Macedonian for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group. The Republic of Macedonia is accused of appropriating symbols and figures that are historically considered parts of Greece's culture (such as Vergina Sun, a symbol associated with the ancient kingdom of Macedon, and Alexander the Great), and of promoting the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia, which would include territories of Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia.

This dispute with Greece still runs and are a serious obstacle to the development of the Republic of Macedonia.

FOREWORD

The Macedonian question as an integral part of the international recognition of Macedonia is now preoccupying the attention of the states of the European Community and the United Nations and also the wider world public. This has been brought about by the opposition of the Republic of Greece to the recognition of the Republic of Macedonia under its historical and constitutional name. This has gravely damaged relations in this part of the Balkans, threatening the peace and the stability of this part of Europe.

Thus the Greek-Macedonian dispute which has, particularly in the last century, had its own history is now on the agenda once more. It has reached its culmination in the last few years just as Macedonia, by means of a referendum of its citizens, has proclaimed its independence and, as a sovereign state, is fighting for international status in the world community. In order to hinder this and render it impossible, in the past few years alone a whole little library of books, brochures, reviews and audio-visual materials has been published in neighboring Greece and distributed throughout the world. This large quantity of high quality paper represents the Greek view of the matter, according to which neither the Macedonian people, its language or its culture exists. These are inventions, a political construct and some sort of alchemy on the part of the Skopje historians. This, albeit unintenti­onally, reveals the true motives of the Greek anti-Macedonian policy in which the question of the name in fact occupies a wholly marginal posi­tion. The tragic nature of the dispute, however, lies in the fact that it has not taken place within the parameters of historical scholarship, linguistics or cultural history but, most frequently, though a day-to-day unscholarly denial of the Macedonian people, its language and its culture and? within recent history, it has involved the use of physical and mental repression against that non-existent people in the Aegean port of Macedonia.

On the basis of existing and available historical documentation, we are here setting out the genesis of the Macedonian people on this soil with particular emphasis on Greek-Macedonian relations. We hope that this will make it possible for the essence of this dispute and of this tragic failure in understanding to be viewed more clearly.

The history of Greek-Macedonian relations has, however, another and a good side to it. We mention this precisely because we are convinced that it is not merely a matter of past history.

Once upon a time, in the golden age of the development of culture and art in these parts, the ancient Greek cultural and civilization influence was a fruitful one for Macedonian culture and art and for Slavonic culture at large.

This was the case from the very outset of the coming of the Macedo­nian Slavs to this area, the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, and to the Byzantine Empire which contained the most glittering culture in the Europe of the time. It is to this influence in large measure that are owed the great Slavonic cultural verticals which first saw the light of day in Macedonia and then spread throughout the entire Slav world: from the Christianization of the Slav masses to the works of literature and of art. From the contact with Byzantium there grew in Macedonia the stem of Macedonian and Slavonic literacy and culture.

Thus as early as the Middle ages, within the framework of the late Roman Empire and Byzantium, following their Christianization and then throughout the period of Ottoman rule and right up to the close of the 18th century the Macedonians made a significant contribution to culture and to art through the achievements of outstanding thinkers, writers, fresco- and icon-painters, builders and composers within the overall development of Slavonic and Byzantine art. From these parts, numerous individuals of worth and merit in Christian civilization at large were canonized as saints; first and foremost the founders of Slavic literacy, Ss. Cyril and Methodius and their disciples.

For centuries, until shortly before the close of the 18th century, there existed no essential antagonism between Macedonians and Greeks, since on Macedonian soil there was a continuously ebbing and flowing process of spiritual  blossoming  arising  out  of the  contacts  and  the  autoch­thonous artistic creations of these ethnic entities. This process was to be halted by the attempt to recreate the glory of the classical and medieval periods through the assimilation in various forms of other ethnic regions, particularly through pressure on ecclesiastical life, dictated by the Patriarc­hate of Constantinople with its Greek administration. After the dissolution of the Archbishopric of Ohrid this process led to an antagonism between these two environments which had such close cultural traditions. It is there­fore not strange that all this has been forgotten in more modern times. Today we are confronted by the irrational white-heat of a Greek-Macedo­nian dispute which has assumed such dimensions that it has rendered rational communication an impossibility not merely on the diplomatic level but also on the economic, cultural and political levels.

Setting out the fundamental reasons why an escalation of this conflict has come about precisely now, the Council for Research into South-eastern Europe of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts considers it its scholarly duty to make its contribution towards casting an objective light on this question which is of