"...ending...": in fact, it has just begun..
There's a long way until this 'agreement' becomes a 'reality' (referendum and constitutional changes in FYROM and then vote in both parliaments). But most importantly the will of the people has been ignored so only the near future will show what will actually happen.
I can see you can't really understand what a nationalist means despite one representative source I cited with regards to Mikis Theodorakis. I won't mock you for that -as you did- however to make my point easier for you here is a hint: M. Theodorakis has been a communist all his life and was imprisoned during the Greek dictatorship (Junta) in 1967-74. Junta is the 'dream' of Greek nationalists (see Golden Dawn). I think that'd be helpful
To my eyes Miki is reading someone else's opinions. Happens a lot lately. It looks like he is being used every time he steps up publicly regarding national matters. IMHO.
>> But most importantly the will of the people has been ignored so only the near future will show what will actually happen.
If "the will of the people" is to cling on to nationalist and irredentist ideas, then it's imperative that the people are givent he opportunity to reconsider their "will". We know all too well what happens in Europe when we let nationalism guide us. In the Balkans, even more so.
The "will" of the people can certainly not be that we are constantly up in arms, killing each other for petty malakies (yes, I'm Greek). The only "people" who "will" this are populist politicians who stand to profit from constant unrest.
Now that Greece recognizes Macedonias heritage as it's own, it's time to pay back reperations to Turkey, Iran and India for plundering and killing by Alexander the Great.
Isn't it ironic that things like Mickey Mouse are super copyrighted that even if you name your son that you will get in trouble. On the other hand things like historical references(Macedonia) are up for grabs by anyone and they even attract supporters of the type "self naming is a right"..
"On the other hand things like historical references(Macedonia) are up for grabs by anyone and they even attract supporters of the type "self naming is a right".."
absolutely agree... unfortunately common sense is extinct nowadays
Disney hasn't had a "regime change", and the regime question was quite clear at the time Mickey was invented.
Macedonia (Kingdom? Empire? Ancient ethnicity?/dialect?/polity?) had lots of regime changes. We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander considered Macedonia to be "Greece." You could argue either way. You could also argue that half the world is the "real" Macedonia. Bagdad has a decent claim.
I can see how Greece sees it, that naming may lead to territorial claims. That aside, Names are just names. I don't think this name is a crime against logic/history.
This is like insisting that what gay "really" means is happy. It's neither true or false statement. It's nonsensical.
>> We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander considered Macedonia to be "Greece."
This is plain wrong. There is absolutely no dispute what so ever among historians about the Greek origin of Macedonia. The new country of Northern Macedonia in no way disputes this either. Comments like yours are the prime proof that what happened is very very wrong.
This is a quote from Wikipedia about Alexander the great.
>> Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this
>> authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project to lead
>> the Greeks in the conquest of Persia.
If the wars had gone differently, Greek historians would have recorded a glorious defeat of the northern barbarians by the Greeks. Alexander won, and so the story features "awarding a generalship."
I'm not making the case for either narratives. I'm making the case that both narratives are fictions, a symbolic language narrating a one-damned-thing-after-another truth. I don't think Alexander/Macedonia was "really" Greek or not Greek. I also think this meant different things at different times. Modern nationalism is a very dominant paradigm in our times. It is new though. Even though it's hard to imagine it, "nationality" was not a dominant paradigm either for personal identity or politics throughout most of history. Alexander didn't seem to give much of a damn about nationality.
Yes, the city-states have been fighting all the time, just like Athens and Sparta. But they have been part of Ancient Greece.
In the case of FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented soonish), they have been appropriating the Greek identity. That was not just some individuals at FYROM, it was the whole political apparatus of FYROM since the 90s.
Was ancient Libya/Carthage or even Spain a part of ancient Lebanon/Israel? They were certainly a part of the same culture, in the same way "Hellenic Culture" was a thing. They spoke the same Language, shared customs and myths and such.
I understand that if Jordan remained themselves "Canaan" or "Phoenicia" then Israel, Palestine, & Lebanon might object. Territorial implications, etc. It's not made up though. Jordan has a "right" to that legacy too. That language and culture were spoken and practiced in Amman as well as Tyre even if Tyre is what we think of as the original "hub."
The consensus of historians is pretty clear on the subject though. However, if now a layman considers "We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander" shows the extent of the damage this light "stupid" naming situation has caused. Would you consider Spartans or Athenians or people of Thebes not to be Greeks?
>>This is like insisting that what gay "really" means is happy. It's neither true or false statement. It's nonsensical.
Yes, that word has been overloaded with multiple meanings. Yet your example is perfect as it shows that people care how you call them and how you refer to them. If I go and define gay as something else, people referring themselves as gay probably will not appreciate my renaming. If I change the meaning of the terms U.S. citizen, British etc people would not take it lightly either.
Now consider you do that for a race, that is proud for its past for at least the last circa 2000 years. And it is done in a form of bullying. Recall this whole naming situation started during the Cold War and Greece was blackmailed to "keep in line" for the greater good. Recall USSR and the rest of the allies were both imagining their world. USSR's gift to Tito to side with them encompassed all of Northern Greece and Bulgaria, and that was his aspiration.
Consider a Greek, especially one in Macedonia; they are proud of their ancestors and have seen a lot of bullying from a financial and political perspective being applied on them the last few years. Now the same outsiders come in and say that while we settled on a U.N. name originally, we did not really used it and you have to find a compromise and make it work, whatever the cost for Greece. I am sorry, but historically silly issues like this have backfired for the area and Greece. Let us hope there is no war over this (if you think people would not fight over this area see WWI, Balkan Wars, and WWII atrocities; Cold War was not that cold in that area; the Yugoslavia war (90s) was over identity).
Greece's logic in disapproving of the name Macedonia is that they fear that Macedonia (the republic) could some day claim the Greek province of Macedonia. By that logic, so should Luxembourg (the grand duchy) be able to claim the Belgian province of the same name.
There's a difference though, in that the province of Luxembourg was indeed a part of Luxembourg (the country) not even 200 years ago. So it would be a much more legitimate claim.
Macedonia is part of the Greek identity. FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented in a few months) have been claiming this Greek identity by misappropriating history.
A more appropriate parallel is the US state of California, which is named as it was once a part of a region named after Alta California, the name California first being applied to the then-thought-to-be-an-island peninsula in modern Mexico.
The country of Macedonia was part of a region generally called Macedonia for over a thousand years, as the initial named unit of Macedonia (which was in Greece) expanded to cover a wider area.
Bad logic because Greece's borders are internationally recognized. Nobody legalised Russia annexing the Crimea. You cannot just claim territory unless you're a superpower.
Besides I think the people in Greece-Macedonia are happy being Greek.
Greece didn't claim anything. Macedonia has been a Greek region for thousands of years. The so-called 'macdonia' state and the whole naming dispute emerged out of nowhere after WWII.
The conflict became about name after the aggressive irredentist rhetoric coming from newly-formed Makedonia in the 1990s. Remember that Greece had a civil war and Yugoslavia supported the communists in Northern Greece, so the subject is tricky.
I wonder - is this spelling some sort of shibboleth for Greeks who want to make a point that 'Macedonia' is only the area in Greece? I've seen it a few times in this thread, but never before anywhere else (then again, I didn't even know this was an issue until a week ago).
Probably a more accurate transliteration, since the 'c' gets pronounced as soft in English (at least, every time I've heard it: "Mass-ə-doh-nee-ah"), whereas the kappa indicates it should be a hard 'c'.
New Mexico was actually named before Mexico. It was only under uncontested Mexican control for about 13 years, between the 1824 invasion and the beginning of the Chimayó Rebellion in 1837.
Or another example is China's Inner Mongolia province which borders the country Mongolia. This whole name thing is so stupid. Why can't they both just have the same name?
Considering how strong nationalistic propaganda is these days in the Balkans, if this thing passes all the referendums, etc needed to make it a reality, it will be a huge win. Congrats
The 'macedonian' (irl: south slavic) language was recognized as a language in 1977 at a UN standards meeting that took place in Athens.
When Yugoslavia was broken in pieces, the issue of the name for FYROM should have been resolved then and there.
The most promising name was North Macedonia. Oh the irony.
Greece has objected because they can; they have a veto on new EU members and have made this a red line. Other EU countries technically can tell Greece to accept Macedonia as it is (was) or no aid etc, but that's an extreme.
Considering that "Macedonia" extends also into Greece it's not unreasonable to differentiate, into Northern and the other part. Without wanting to start a war, today's "Macedonians" are mostly slavs, and Albanians make about 25-30%.
I really hope things change for the better. Being from the north of Greece I know first hand the difficulties with the name. I am very passionate about it but I understand we live in a different world. My feeling is that the Greek government and their NATO, EU allies pushed this forward now in order to stop the imperialistic plans of Erdogan in the region. I think with more Balkan countries in the EU, NATO influences start and stop with the West not the Russians, not the Erdoganites.
FYROM is a neighboring country to Greece.
For the last 20+ years, the two countries were on a stalemate on this. Greece did not invest much into their northern neighbor.
Turkey with Erdogan has more economic involvement in FYROM than Greece, even if there are no traditional links between them.
In Greece there's quite an uproar for this agreement. 70% of the population is against it and in the northern parts of the country the government's acceptance rates have dropped to single digit percentages.
I appreciate that we all live in a bit of an echo chamber since we choose our friends, but I don't know anyone who is not okay with the "two names" solution
What more could anyone else want? That they call themselves Skopje? We are the only ones to clal them that while E V E R Y O N E else just calls them "Macedonia" and wonders "what the hell is wrong with you greeks".
Silly dispute, but much less stupid. The Persian/Arabian Gulf dispute is the product of an ongoing and relatively-new geopolitical tension. Both sides have military assets in the Gulf, and those assets threaten a major trading corridor. As a result, there is a genuine threat of one side seizing strategic ground from the other. Neither side is losing economic activity as a result of the naming dispute per se. (Lots of other things would need to be resolved before they could trade with and invest in each other.) And given the lack of intermingling (or common allies), they can each call it what they want without the other side noticing.
I bring up the "dispute" in quotes because it's something that was entirely manufactured for the purposes of manufacturing a dispute. The Persian Gulf is an appellation that is millennia old, and the Arabs decided to call the gulf something else because they didn't like the Iranians... and then pretended to make up the entire fact that it's called the Persian Gulf as some weird Iranian conspiracy.
At least the dispute of Macedonia has some kernel of truth to it (the Slavic peoples who moved into the Balkans during the Age of Migrations bear no relation to the Ancient Macedonians).
> the Arabs decided to call the gulf something else because they didn't like the Iranians
This is a normal facet of disputes. It's silly. But it isn't stupid. Doing this in reverse, where a name dispute turns into a proper dispute, is stupid.
Think of like a part of the US emigrating into Argentina, taking up a majority of the country, and then deciding to rename Argentina to "Inca Empire" and talk about how great their Inca ancestors were. Presumably Peru would be at least a bit miffed about it.
They do not want just to be named after that region. They want their country to eventually be this region. This is very clear if you ever visit. You can see everywhere maps like [1]. The red part is the "borders of their heart". In this photo, they actually kept the current borders (usually this is not the case) and you can see that they claim parts of Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania and a huge part of Greece. Also, a large part of the population shares these views, so such events is not just a mindless ultra nationalist minority.
So there are nationalists like everywhere in the world. Is that really an issue? Is this even remotely plausible. I mean Macedonia occupying parts of Greece? Doesn't that sound silly to you? Greece is NATO member which Macedonia is trying to join while being blocked by Greece. Do you think Macedonia will go to war with NATO? Come on, this problem was used by corrupted politicians on both sides as an excuse for bad governing. Oh it is hard to deal with the real issues so lets fight over irrational problems.
And no, large part of the population does not share those views. The reason is simple, those views are unrealistic and have no place in today's Europe.
Yea, it's as silly as a country claiming to be the "United States of America" when lol, Canada and Mexico and all of South America would like a word...
Except, lol, it’s the reverse of the Macedonia-Greece issue: the US was the only recognized independent state in the Americas when they chose their name. If “Canada and Mexico and all of South America would like a word” they should invest in time machines.
No, I don't see how you think it's opposite. Macedonia is a name for a large area. FYROM/Northern Macedonia is being used to name a country that takes up only part of this area. Similarly, the Americas are two continents, and USA is being used to name a country that takes up only part of this area. Neither the USA nor FYROM are granted any claim to the rest of their nominal superset.
Because you're misunderstanding the issue at hand.
Greece and Macedonia aren't having an abstract argument over sets. As the article explains, Greece has two specific objections to its neighbor using the name Macedonia: that the name (and certain actions) are thinly-disguised territorial claims against its own province of Macedonia, and are an attempt to lay lay claim to the historical/cultural legacy of the ancient Greeks.
This is why the US situation is the opposite, because the US as a separate nation predates all of the other nations you mentioned in the Americas. It therefore can't have been claiming territory of other neighboring states because there weren't any, nor were they claiming anyone's cultural legacy (except arguably the natives, but that's a charge that can be brought against every modern nation in the Americas).
It might help to recall that after the American Revolution the 13 colonies became 13 separate sovereign states that would only come together as a single nation in 1789 with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The new nation was a union of all then-extant states on an American continent, hence the United States of America. That other independent nations eventually came to be in the Americas has no bearing on what America chose to call itself at the time of its founding.
(logged out, discovered last pass doesn't have the password for hn: new account to continue)
I think you skipped over the comment that I was responding to, which said this:
> They want to be named after a geographical region which is way bigger than their borders.
Sounds exactly like the USA at the time of their founding, and is in no way describable as "the opposite".
FYROM (UN designated name) and to be Severna Makedonija has been actively teaching they are the descendants of Alexander the Great, raised statues [0](random article googled, you can find more) etc. Extremist groups also post maps [1] (also random googling you can find more). So I would say the claims are disguised only in talks with other country officials.
Don't take this dispute lightly; recall that country policies trying to force the dispute to end created the whole Middle East mess and the Balkan's has been a hotpot with the last war happening in the 90's (also because they forced together two different people (I am skimming on the subject please read into Yugoslavia)).
I eventually figured out that this is largely an issue with terminology.
In Central/South America, it's generally taught that everything from Nunavut to Cape Horn is a single continent, America. When the US calls itself "America," that's seen as a deliberate attempt to claim primacy over the whole continent.
In English-speaking North America, it's generally taught that "America" is the country and "North America/South America" are the continents, so we're befuddled by the irritation.
This is why Canada, actually, doesn't appear to have an issue with the "America" thing.
>in English-speaking North America, it's generally taught that "America" is the country and "North America/South America" are the continents
aaaaaand you don't see any problem here, no?
Let's try again. With that logic, there'd be no problem with Germany calling itself "Europe":
"What's the problem? When we say 'Europe', we mean our home country, a large part of the region known as 'Western Europe', and disjoint from 'Eastern Europe' - everybody here is befuddled by why the Greeks are upset! The Austrians are totally on board with it, by the way."
Words can mean different things in different languages and different contexts.
In English-speaking cultures, North and South America are separate continents. "America" is understood to mean the USA. The polite term for someone from the USA is "American". Calling a Canadian "American" is impolite.
In Spanish-speaking cultures, América is a single continent. "Estados Unidos" is understood to mean "de América", not "Mexicanos". People from the USA are commonly called "estadounidense", "norteamericano", or "americano". It's polite for outsiders to use "estadounidense".
Neither language is indigenous to the Americas, so why not just use the polite words in each language?
However, United States of America does not claim in this situation historical figures of Canada, Mexico and rest of South America to be U.S.A. nationals, or publish maps with its aspired borders including Quebec or Mexico City. For instance, they claimed that Simon Bolivar was U.S. national.
The situation is way more complicated than people expect or are comfortable with. I am not objective in this situation to give you a full analysis, but I would suggest if you want to have a full picture to start by looking at Balkan Wars to get an idea about the imperialistic dreams of each country in the area and the events. WWI shows how things evolved afterwards. Just checking the alliances is enough.
Then read about WWII specifically in that area and about Josip Broz Tito [0] (for starters) and dig in why he introduced new history and an identity and what were the political aspirations after WWII and why Yugoslavia was created and the naming of its regions.
I tried to give an objective guide to read the situation. Again personally I am perhaps not objective, as I have a stake in the situation.
> They want to be named after a geographical region which is way bigger than their borders.
Surely that can't be the whole reason for this dispute. I mean, the name "United States of America" would also fall into that description, but nobody's up in arms about it.
Think of it like a portion of Canada bordering Montana seceding from Canada and calling themselves Montana. Also, a lot of the people of a certain ethnicity from that portion of Canada move into Montana in the US. In time, the ex-Canada Montana people lay claim to the US Montana region. After all, it's all Montana, right? That's what they are worried about.
Historically, this is pretty much what happened with Texas. A bunch of Americans moved there, fought their own war of independence, and then immediately asked to join the US.
I'm treading lightly here because this is a sensitive subject, and I am somewhat personally involved [0]. But the discussion here is missing important history that shapes this problem that others casually dismiss as "silly". Please, educate yourselves on the history of this area before making flippant comments.
You can't understand this problem without understanding the Greek Civil War and former Yugoslavia post WW2. The facts are disputed so rather than try to play historian on a subject on which I am biased, I encourage you to read the wikipedia page [1], and especially look for information regarding Slavic Macedonians, separatist groups that wanted to take Greece behind the Iron Curtain, and the claims made to a large chunk of territory within Greece by the separatists and by Greek communists specifically around the region we call Macedonia. Keep in mind that our current government openly calls itself the Radical Left Coalition.
Reach your own conclusions about whether Greeks should consider this a silly matter.
[0] My grandparents fought in the civil war against the separatists
Well, using word 'stupid' to describe things one doesn't understand is a sort of popular fallacy.
For both countries it's a real conflict which involves not only emotions (the way news websites make you see it), but economical interests, political perspectives, and safety.
> By agreeing to rename itself the Republic of North Macedonia the country will replace an interim accord under which it joined the UN 23 years ago as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
> The agreement means Skopje will need to make more than 150 changes to its constitution before Greece brings the pact before its own parliament for ratification – a task replete with challenges for Zaev, who like Tsipras has taken a progressive view on the issue, and faces considerable opposition from nationalists. Macedonia’s president, Gjorge Ivanov, has refused to support the deal, presaging a stormy few months ahead.
Seems silly that a name change means that legal agreements have to be re-ratified.
I personally do not care about the naming. Name each place / country whatever you want. What I care about is the political games that are being played behind it.
People in this thread miss one point about FYROM, they want to use the name Makedonia with relations to the ancient Makedonas. Which in turns creates issues with the Greek nation.
Now with the new "deal" they will take the name North Macedonia but they strictly mention that they do not have any relation to the Ancient Makedonas. So at the end of the day, why didnt the two goverment or EU or UN take 20 historians and ask them, "guys do they bare the right to have that name?" Whatever the historians say should be the verdict.
Now as for the name, there is a reason it is being pushed right now. The balkans are a chessboard for many many years and we will see soon the effects on "North Macedonia".
On a side note, try to name your cheese "Feta" or any other commercial product with a licensed name and you would be getting a lawsuit. I dont understand why the same does not happen here.. or wait capitalism :P
> Which in turns creates issues with the Greek nation
It creates zero issues for Greece. Alexander the Great died over two millenia ago [1]. Shortly after his death, the ancient kingdom of Macedon fell to Rome [2]. Again, over two millennia ago.
Instead of working on something productive, these two nations found something totally irrelevant to squabble over.
I think you grossly underestimate how much tourism Greece gets for the Macedonian museums/artifacts/etc. That would be like saying that Germany calling themselves "Rome" has zero issues for Italy.
Actually, the naming there was not incorrect. Recall the Roman empire split into East and West, with West disappearing shortly after. So it was the only remaining (piece) of the Roman empire at that point and there was later an attempt to liberate Rome etc (see Justinian for the most serious one).
The Holy Roman empire was an attempt of Charles I (to be named Charlemagne, i.e. the great) to recreate such an empire.
But there's more to the name. Ironically, large parts were roman territory, once. They did trace their ancestors back to ancient heroes and kings, too, even if that might be seen as hyperbole now, it continued a roman tradition.
> Now with the new "deal" they will take the name North Macedonia but they strictly mention that they do not have any relation to the Ancient Makedonas. So at the end of the day, why didnt the two goverment or EU or UN take 20 historians and ask them, "guys do they bare the right to have that name?" Whatever the historians say should be the verdict.
The name Macedonia expanded to cover the modern country of Macedonia sometime during the Roman Empire. The historians (well, everyone but the Greeks) would all agree that there is absolutely no issue with calling the modern country of Macedonia from a historical naming perspective. Sure, there's confusion between the Slavic-speaking Macedonians and the Hellenic-speaking Ancient Macedonians, but this is far from the only instance of the same name referring to completely different entities.
As you said the Macedonia region covers way more territory than the territory of the modern country. Add to this the fact the nationalists want the modern country to eventually gain all these territories. And before you claim, that these people are minority, having been there it seems that a lot of people share these feelings. For example you can see everywhere maps where the borders of the modern country are way more expanded including a huge part of Greece.
The consensus of historians is clear. They ignore them because they don't like to side with any single country. Think of it more like politicians ignoring consensus about Global Warming (e.g. Trump as an obvious example) or financial issues.
Politicians do not care about what is right, or what the scientific community thinks. They want to make things easier for them.
I was born in what was then Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia). In order to get a good full perspective of this issue I think you have to talk to several Greeks and North Macedonians. This has been my perspective and experience:
It's mostly split between the population -- half (probably most) of us don't really seem to care about this issue, the other half feels pretty upset about it. It's really important to note that not a single Macedonian I've ever talked to has ever claimed that Ancient Macedonia isn't part of Greek history, I really don't know where Greeks are getting that from. Almost everyone here goes to vacation in Greece every year, and concedes when some Greeks say "Skopje?" to suggest that we're not Macedonians. We just nod and shrug it off, and say "Yeah, Skopje". Most people really don't care about this, if we did we wouldn't be going to Greece on vacation or buy Greek products, both of which we do a fair amount of. Some of us even wonder why we're celebrating a serial killer at all (Alexander the Great). In order to understand what's going on, I think you need to separate yourself from what politicians are thinking and doing compared to what the people are thinking and doing. Also let's face it, governments love to manipulate group identities to serve their interests.
What Macedonians are upset about is that they feel like Macedonia has a shared history and Greece doesn't want to acknowledge it, and it's leveraging it's strong international influence to set us back and/or make us look bad. We're a small, formerly communist, landlocked country in the Balkans, we barely have any international influence at all. It's a no-brainer that most countries will side with Greece, and why there's EU pressure for us to change the name. We definitely wouldn't be able to dispute Greece's territory, especially since 1952 when Greece became part of NATO. We're seriously no threat to them even without NATO. I don't think this is about the name or territorial ambitions, or if it was it was like that a long time ago and is no longer relevant. It's deeper than that.
People on the thread and the previous one have talked about the Balkan Wars being relevant to understanding this, and that the then conservative Greek govt in the mid-20th century suppressed a lot of North Macedonian speaking peoples living in Greek Macedonia to force them to say that they're Greek and that they can't speak slavic, much like how Bulgarians forced us to say that we're Bulgarian and speak Bulgarian when we were occupied by them, or how some people think we should be part of Greater Albania, or how some Serbians view us as South Serbians, and that Greece wants to cover this up. There's probably something there to look into, the Balkans is full of territorial grabs like that. I don't really know anything about this part of history.
A lot of us just feel like we're being bullied to an extent, and that Greece is basically being a d*ck about it. Ancient Macedonia has mostly been part of Greece, but Paeonia (North Macedonia) has for a large part of it's existence, either been a dependent territory of Ancient Macedonia or has been fully a part of Ancient Macedonia when it was at the height of it's power. We didn't just pull the name out of nowhere, we've been called Macedonians since forever. Some of us that are upset about this think that we shouldn't be giving in to powerful external forces and that we should just make a stand. And that by giving in we're showing ourselves as weak and easy to manipulate, and would affect future negotiations. Some of us others think we're being stubborn, and that we should be the bigger person and just concede, because it's a pretty stupid dispute and I agree. A lot of us just don't care, or if we used to care we're jaded now after all this time and don't care anymore.
The term 'Macedonia' does not refer to a geographical region only. It refers to a geographical region plus the connection to ancient Greece.
Slavic people like you have no right to use the term Macedonia, because you are not related to Macedonia, the ancient-Greek derived sub-ethnicity. You only live in Macedonia, you are not a Macedonian.
History is full of examples of people that moved to other areas but did not 'steal' the history of the area they ended up into.
Turks moved to Ionia, they didn't become Ionians.
Greeks moved to Pontos, they didn't become Turks.
Spaniards moved to America, they didn't become Indians.
British moved to Australia, they didn't become Aboriginals.
Just because your progenitors moved to the area of Macedonia, that does not entitle your people to claim they are Macedonians.
Yes, you are a separate people, you have your own culture, language, you have become a nation, and we, Greeks, certainly recognize that.
But claiming you are Macedonian and you speak the Macedonian language? that's a fallacy. You should just use another term.
I am saying all the above in friendly spirit and with the relevant historical sciences in mind. I am not a Greek nationalist, I only want justice. And in this case, judging from the historical records, justice means you Slavic people are not entitled to use the term Macedonia in any form.
The ancient Kingdom of Macedonia was 100% Greek, judging from the historical records, the written works, the names of places and people, the language used, the art forms, and the fact that the rest of Greece accepted Macedonians as Greek.
Beyond justice, what might be the reasons for us Greeks not wanting other people to take our history? well, here are the reasons:
1) there is the danger that, in the future, the connection between North Macedonia and Greek Macedonia becomes the geopolitical cause for an unforseen yet block of power to change borders in the area.
History is full of examples of geopolitical blocks using specific interpretations of history, culture and geography to cause problems.
2) Greek products from Macedonia can no longer be named 'Macedonian' in other countries.
I understand it's difficult for you to accept it, but you have been actually scammed. From the moment you were born, to now, in all your life, you have been indocrinated to believe you are Macedonian, that you speak Macedonian, etc. What a shame! this has been done for political purposes.
If only you could let the notion that your people and any form of the word Macedonia has any connection, the world would be so nice!!!
You're saying people don't have a right to use a certain name because it meant something else hundreds of years ago.
Your comment is as flawed as "my culture is not your prom dress." Nobody has a monopoly on culture.* That's now how culture works. It's always changing and shifting, and getting borrowed between people.
Go back far enough in history, and you'll see that Greek identity didn't always exist. Greece was a bunch of independent city states, and people were more likely to identify with that city state than with the notion of a greater Greece.
*That is not to say that every borrowing of culture is respectful, or fair. Obviously, whenever you borrow from another culture you must be responsible in how you do so.
>I am not a Greek nationalist, I only want justice. And in this case, judging from the historical records, justice means you Slavic people are not entitled to use the term Macedonia in any form.
Sounds pretty nationalist (if not blatantly racist) to me.
135 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] threadFor a historical reference about this issue and the Greek identity of Macedonia: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/6265/was-alexand...
Nationalist Greeks are angry and so do nationalist Makedonians.
I would think both countries have more important things to protest about than name change, but then I don't live on Balkans.
Can’t really say the will of the people is being ignored when referenda are planned, referenda which one can reasonably still presume will be binding.
And before you speak again about nationalists, etc read a bit about Mikis Theodorakis who was the main speaker addressing the crowd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikis_Theodorakis
If "the will of the people" is to cling on to nationalist and irredentist ideas, then it's imperative that the people are givent he opportunity to reconsider their "will". We know all too well what happens in Europe when we let nationalism guide us. In the Balkans, even more so.
The "will" of the people can certainly not be that we are constantly up in arms, killing each other for petty malakies (yes, I'm Greek). The only "people" who "will" this are populist politicians who stand to profit from constant unrest.
absolutely agree... unfortunately common sense is extinct nowadays
Macedonia (Kingdom? Empire? Ancient ethnicity?/dialect?/polity?) had lots of regime changes. We can't even be sure that the Greeks, at the time of Philip & Alexander considered Macedonia to be "Greece." You could argue either way. You could also argue that half the world is the "real" Macedonia. Bagdad has a decent claim.
I can see how Greece sees it, that naming may lead to territorial claims. That aside, Names are just names. I don't think this name is a crime against logic/history.
This is like insisting that what gay "really" means is happy. It's neither true or false statement. It's nonsensical.
This is plain wrong. There is absolutely no dispute what so ever among historians about the Greek origin of Macedonia. The new country of Northern Macedonia in no way disputes this either. Comments like yours are the prime proof that what happened is very very wrong.
This is a quote from Wikipedia about Alexander the great.
>> Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this >> authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project to lead >> the Greeks in the conquest of Persia.
I'm not making the case for either narratives. I'm making the case that both narratives are fictions, a symbolic language narrating a one-damned-thing-after-another truth. I don't think Alexander/Macedonia was "really" Greek or not Greek. I also think this meant different things at different times. Modern nationalism is a very dominant paradigm in our times. It is new though. Even though it's hard to imagine it, "nationality" was not a dominant paradigm either for personal identity or politics throughout most of history. Alexander didn't seem to give much of a damn about nationality.
Yes, the city-states have been fighting all the time, just like Athens and Sparta. But they have been part of Ancient Greece.
In the case of FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented soonish), they have been appropriating the Greek identity. That was not just some individuals at FYROM, it was the whole political apparatus of FYROM since the 90s.
Was ancient Libya/Carthage or even Spain a part of ancient Lebanon/Israel? They were certainly a part of the same culture, in the same way "Hellenic Culture" was a thing. They spoke the same Language, shared customs and myths and such.
I understand that if Jordan remained themselves "Canaan" or "Phoenicia" then Israel, Palestine, & Lebanon might object. Territorial implications, etc. It's not made up though. Jordan has a "right" to that legacy too. That language and culture were spoken and practiced in Amman as well as Tyre even if Tyre is what we think of as the original "hub."
>>This is like insisting that what gay "really" means is happy. It's neither true or false statement. It's nonsensical.
Yes, that word has been overloaded with multiple meanings. Yet your example is perfect as it shows that people care how you call them and how you refer to them. If I go and define gay as something else, people referring themselves as gay probably will not appreciate my renaming. If I change the meaning of the terms U.S. citizen, British etc people would not take it lightly either.
Now consider you do that for a race, that is proud for its past for at least the last circa 2000 years. And it is done in a form of bullying. Recall this whole naming situation started during the Cold War and Greece was blackmailed to "keep in line" for the greater good. Recall USSR and the rest of the allies were both imagining their world. USSR's gift to Tito to side with them encompassed all of Northern Greece and Bulgaria, and that was his aspiration.
Consider a Greek, especially one in Macedonia; they are proud of their ancestors and have seen a lot of bullying from a financial and political perspective being applied on them the last few years. Now the same outsiders come in and say that while we settled on a U.N. name originally, we did not really used it and you have to find a compromise and make it work, whatever the cost for Greece. I am sorry, but historically silly issues like this have backfired for the area and Greece. Let us hope there is no war over this (if you think people would not fight over this area see WWI, Balkan Wars, and WWII atrocities; Cold War was not that cold in that area; the Yugoslavia war (90s) was over identity).
Macedonia is part of the Greek identity. FYROM (still the official name until the agreement gets implemented in a few months) have been claiming this Greek identity by misappropriating history.
Think of it as a trademark violation.
The country of Macedonia was part of a region generally called Macedonia for over a thousand years, as the initial named unit of Macedonia (which was in Greece) expanded to cover a wider area.
Besides I think the people in Greece-Macedonia are happy being Greek.
I wonder - is this spelling some sort of shibboleth for Greeks who want to make a point that 'Macedonia' is only the area in Greece? I've seen it a few times in this thread, but never before anywhere else (then again, I didn't even know this was an issue until a week ago).
The 'macedonian' (irl: south slavic) language was recognized as a language in 1977 at a UN standards meeting that took place in Athens.
When Yugoslavia was broken in pieces, the issue of the name for FYROM should have been resolved then and there. The most promising name was North Macedonia. Oh the irony.
Considering that "Macedonia" extends also into Greece it's not unreasonable to differentiate, into Northern and the other part. Without wanting to start a war, today's "Macedonians" are mostly slavs, and Albanians make about 25-30%.
Could you perhaps expand on this a little? I have a very hard time understanding why someone would be passionate about something like this.
PS As a greek citizen, i couldnt care less about the name of our neighbors, as long as we live together in peace (and we do live in peace with them)
I appreciate that we all live in a bit of an echo chamber since we choose our friends, but I don't know anyone who is not okay with the "two names" solution
What more could anyone else want? That they call themselves Skopje? We are the only ones to clal them that while E V E R Y O N E else just calls them "Macedonia" and wonders "what the hell is wrong with you greeks".
The official name is still FYROM and will switch to North Macedonia when the agreement starts getting implemented. In a few months or so.
Silly dispute, but much less stupid. The Persian/Arabian Gulf dispute is the product of an ongoing and relatively-new geopolitical tension. Both sides have military assets in the Gulf, and those assets threaten a major trading corridor. As a result, there is a genuine threat of one side seizing strategic ground from the other. Neither side is losing economic activity as a result of the naming dispute per se. (Lots of other things would need to be resolved before they could trade with and invest in each other.) And given the lack of intermingling (or common allies), they can each call it what they want without the other side noticing.
At least the dispute of Macedonia has some kernel of truth to it (the Slavic peoples who moved into the Balkans during the Age of Migrations bear no relation to the Ancient Macedonians).
This is a normal facet of disputes. It's silly. But it isn't stupid. Doing this in reverse, where a name dispute turns into a proper dispute, is stupid.
This is exactly what is happening here. They want to be named after a geographical region which is way bigger than their borders.
Ancient Athens once controlled the Aegean and its borders. Does this mean Anatolians should require Athens be re-named?
[1] http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/04/02/49CB53830000...
And no, large part of the population does not share those views. The reason is simple, those views are unrealistic and have no place in today's Europe.
There concerns would have been well founded, the issue was settled in 1922: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_%281919%E2%8...
Because you're misunderstanding the issue at hand.
Greece and Macedonia aren't having an abstract argument over sets. As the article explains, Greece has two specific objections to its neighbor using the name Macedonia: that the name (and certain actions) are thinly-disguised territorial claims against its own province of Macedonia, and are an attempt to lay lay claim to the historical/cultural legacy of the ancient Greeks.
This is why the US situation is the opposite, because the US as a separate nation predates all of the other nations you mentioned in the Americas. It therefore can't have been claiming territory of other neighboring states because there weren't any, nor were they claiming anyone's cultural legacy (except arguably the natives, but that's a charge that can be brought against every modern nation in the Americas).
It might help to recall that after the American Revolution the 13 colonies became 13 separate sovereign states that would only come together as a single nation in 1789 with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The new nation was a union of all then-extant states on an American continent, hence the United States of America. That other independent nations eventually came to be in the Americas has no bearing on what America chose to call itself at the time of its founding.
Sounds exactly like the USA at the time of their founding, and is in no way describable as "the opposite".
FYROM (UN designated name) and to be Severna Makedonija has been actively teaching they are the descendants of Alexander the Great, raised statues [0](random article googled, you can find more) etc. Extremist groups also post maps [1] (also random googling you can find more). So I would say the claims are disguised only in talks with other country officials.
Don't take this dispute lightly; recall that country policies trying to force the dispute to end created the whole Middle East mess and the Balkan's has been a hotpot with the last war happening in the 90's (also because they forced together two different people (I am skimming on the subject please read into Yugoslavia)).
[0]https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-06-24/macedonia-gets-statue... [1] https://www.thenationalherald.com/172171/fyrom-map-claims-gr...
In Central/South America, it's generally taught that everything from Nunavut to Cape Horn is a single continent, America. When the US calls itself "America," that's seen as a deliberate attempt to claim primacy over the whole continent.
In English-speaking North America, it's generally taught that "America" is the country and "North America/South America" are the continents, so we're befuddled by the irritation.
This is why Canada, actually, doesn't appear to have an issue with the "America" thing.
aaaaaand you don't see any problem here, no?
Let's try again. With that logic, there'd be no problem with Germany calling itself "Europe":
"What's the problem? When we say 'Europe', we mean our home country, a large part of the region known as 'Western Europe', and disjoint from 'Eastern Europe' - everybody here is befuddled by why the Greeks are upset! The Austrians are totally on board with it, by the way."
In English-speaking cultures, North and South America are separate continents. "America" is understood to mean the USA. The polite term for someone from the USA is "American". Calling a Canadian "American" is impolite.
In Spanish-speaking cultures, América is a single continent. "Estados Unidos" is understood to mean "de América", not "Mexicanos". People from the USA are commonly called "estadounidense", "norteamericano", or "americano". It's polite for outsiders to use "estadounidense".
Neither language is indigenous to the Americas, so why not just use the polite words in each language?
The situation is way more complicated than people expect or are comfortable with. I am not objective in this situation to give you a full analysis, but I would suggest if you want to have a full picture to start by looking at Balkan Wars to get an idea about the imperialistic dreams of each country in the area and the events. WWI shows how things evolved afterwards. Just checking the alliances is enough.
Then read about WWII specifically in that area and about Josip Broz Tito [0] (for starters) and dig in why he introduced new history and an identity and what were the political aspirations after WWII and why Yugoslavia was created and the naming of its regions.
I tried to give an objective guide to read the situation. Again personally I am perhaps not objective, as I have a stake in the situation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito
Surely that can't be the whole reason for this dispute. I mean, the name "United States of America" would also fall into that description, but nobody's up in arms about it.
Many people in South America think it's a ridiculous, pretentious name.
It's not even the only United States in America (for example, Mexico is formally United States of Mexico).
But nobody is that worried, it's true.
Fairly sure they'd laugh at them, and then get on with their lives.
You can't understand this problem without understanding the Greek Civil War and former Yugoslavia post WW2. The facts are disputed so rather than try to play historian on a subject on which I am biased, I encourage you to read the wikipedia page [1], and especially look for information regarding Slavic Macedonians, separatist groups that wanted to take Greece behind the Iron Curtain, and the claims made to a large chunk of territory within Greece by the separatists and by Greek communists specifically around the region we call Macedonia. Keep in mind that our current government openly calls itself the Radical Left Coalition.
Reach your own conclusions about whether Greeks should consider this a silly matter.
[0] My grandparents fought in the civil war against the separatists
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War
For both countries it's a real conflict which involves not only emotions (the way news websites make you see it), but economical interests, political perspectives, and safety.
> The agreement means Skopje will need to make more than 150 changes to its constitution before Greece brings the pact before its own parliament for ratification – a task replete with challenges for Zaev, who like Tsipras has taken a progressive view on the issue, and faces considerable opposition from nationalists. Macedonia’s president, Gjorge Ivanov, has refused to support the deal, presaging a stormy few months ahead.
Seems silly that a name change means that legal agreements have to be re-ratified.
The FYROM constitution includes claims to Greek territories. Part of the deal (among others) is for these claims to be removed.
People in this thread miss one point about FYROM, they want to use the name Makedonia with relations to the ancient Makedonas. Which in turns creates issues with the Greek nation.
Now with the new "deal" they will take the name North Macedonia but they strictly mention that they do not have any relation to the Ancient Makedonas. So at the end of the day, why didnt the two goverment or EU or UN take 20 historians and ask them, "guys do they bare the right to have that name?" Whatever the historians say should be the verdict.
Now as for the name, there is a reason it is being pushed right now. The balkans are a chessboard for many many years and we will see soon the effects on "North Macedonia".
It creates zero issues for Greece. Alexander the Great died over two millenia ago [1]. Shortly after his death, the ancient kingdom of Macedon fell to Rome [2]. Again, over two millennia ago.
Instead of working on something productive, these two nations found something totally irrelevant to squabble over.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#Co...
The Holy Roman empire was an attempt of Charles I (to be named Charlemagne, i.e. the great) to recreate such an empire.
The name Macedonia expanded to cover the modern country of Macedonia sometime during the Roman Empire. The historians (well, everyone but the Greeks) would all agree that there is absolutely no issue with calling the modern country of Macedonia from a historical naming perspective. Sure, there's confusion between the Slavic-speaking Macedonians and the Hellenic-speaking Ancient Macedonians, but this is far from the only instance of the same name referring to completely different entities.
Should people in Western Turkey get pissed off about Greece calling itself Greece?
Politicians do not care about what is right, or what the scientific community thinks. They want to make things easier for them.
Oh really? We need to have an authority deciding if we can have a name or not. Why not just let people label themselves what they want.
I'm pretty sure if I name my island the "United States of America" people will not start paying their taxes to me anytime soon.
Would never have guessed that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Macedon...
It's mostly split between the population -- half (probably most) of us don't really seem to care about this issue, the other half feels pretty upset about it. It's really important to note that not a single Macedonian I've ever talked to has ever claimed that Ancient Macedonia isn't part of Greek history, I really don't know where Greeks are getting that from. Almost everyone here goes to vacation in Greece every year, and concedes when some Greeks say "Skopje?" to suggest that we're not Macedonians. We just nod and shrug it off, and say "Yeah, Skopje". Most people really don't care about this, if we did we wouldn't be going to Greece on vacation or buy Greek products, both of which we do a fair amount of. Some of us even wonder why we're celebrating a serial killer at all (Alexander the Great). In order to understand what's going on, I think you need to separate yourself from what politicians are thinking and doing compared to what the people are thinking and doing. Also let's face it, governments love to manipulate group identities to serve their interests.
What Macedonians are upset about is that they feel like Macedonia has a shared history and Greece doesn't want to acknowledge it, and it's leveraging it's strong international influence to set us back and/or make us look bad. We're a small, formerly communist, landlocked country in the Balkans, we barely have any international influence at all. It's a no-brainer that most countries will side with Greece, and why there's EU pressure for us to change the name. We definitely wouldn't be able to dispute Greece's territory, especially since 1952 when Greece became part of NATO. We're seriously no threat to them even without NATO. I don't think this is about the name or territorial ambitions, or if it was it was like that a long time ago and is no longer relevant. It's deeper than that.
People on the thread and the previous one have talked about the Balkan Wars being relevant to understanding this, and that the then conservative Greek govt in the mid-20th century suppressed a lot of North Macedonian speaking peoples living in Greek Macedonia to force them to say that they're Greek and that they can't speak slavic, much like how Bulgarians forced us to say that we're Bulgarian and speak Bulgarian when we were occupied by them, or how some people think we should be part of Greater Albania, or how some Serbians view us as South Serbians, and that Greece wants to cover this up. There's probably something there to look into, the Balkans is full of territorial grabs like that. I don't really know anything about this part of history.
A lot of us just feel like we're being bullied to an extent, and that Greece is basically being a d*ck about it. Ancient Macedonia has mostly been part of Greece, but Paeonia (North Macedonia) has for a large part of it's existence, either been a dependent territory of Ancient Macedonia or has been fully a part of Ancient Macedonia when it was at the height of it's power. We didn't just pull the name out of nowhere, we've been called Macedonians since forever. Some of us that are upset about this think that we shouldn't be giving in to powerful external forces and that we should just make a stand. And that by giving in we're showing ourselves as weak and easy to manipulate, and would affect future negotiations. Some of us others think we're being stubborn, and that we should be the bigger person and just concede, because it's a pretty stupid dispute and I agree. A lot of us just don't care, or if we used to care we're jaded now after all this time and don't care anymore.
We have a lot of share...
The term 'Macedonia' does not refer to a geographical region only. It refers to a geographical region plus the connection to ancient Greece.
Slavic people like you have no right to use the term Macedonia, because you are not related to Macedonia, the ancient-Greek derived sub-ethnicity. You only live in Macedonia, you are not a Macedonian.
History is full of examples of people that moved to other areas but did not 'steal' the history of the area they ended up into.
Turks moved to Ionia, they didn't become Ionians. Greeks moved to Pontos, they didn't become Turks. Spaniards moved to America, they didn't become Indians. British moved to Australia, they didn't become Aboriginals.
Just because your progenitors moved to the area of Macedonia, that does not entitle your people to claim they are Macedonians.
Yes, you are a separate people, you have your own culture, language, you have become a nation, and we, Greeks, certainly recognize that.
But claiming you are Macedonian and you speak the Macedonian language? that's a fallacy. You should just use another term.
I am saying all the above in friendly spirit and with the relevant historical sciences in mind. I am not a Greek nationalist, I only want justice. And in this case, judging from the historical records, justice means you Slavic people are not entitled to use the term Macedonia in any form.
The ancient Kingdom of Macedonia was 100% Greek, judging from the historical records, the written works, the names of places and people, the language used, the art forms, and the fact that the rest of Greece accepted Macedonians as Greek.
Beyond justice, what might be the reasons for us Greeks not wanting other people to take our history? well, here are the reasons:
1) there is the danger that, in the future, the connection between North Macedonia and Greek Macedonia becomes the geopolitical cause for an unforseen yet block of power to change borders in the area.
History is full of examples of geopolitical blocks using specific interpretations of history, culture and geography to cause problems.
2) Greek products from Macedonia can no longer be named 'Macedonian' in other countries.
I understand it's difficult for you to accept it, but you have been actually scammed. From the moment you were born, to now, in all your life, you have been indocrinated to believe you are Macedonian, that you speak Macedonian, etc. What a shame! this has been done for political purposes.
If only you could let the notion that your people and any form of the word Macedonia has any connection, the world would be so nice!!!
You're saying people don't have a right to use a certain name because it meant something else hundreds of years ago.
Your comment is as flawed as "my culture is not your prom dress." Nobody has a monopoly on culture.* That's now how culture works. It's always changing and shifting, and getting borrowed between people.
Go back far enough in history, and you'll see that Greek identity didn't always exist. Greece was a bunch of independent city states, and people were more likely to identify with that city state than with the notion of a greater Greece.
*That is not to say that every borrowing of culture is respectful, or fair. Obviously, whenever you borrow from another culture you must be responsible in how you do so.
Sounds pretty nationalist (if not blatantly racist) to me.