Posted on 11/02/2004 1:50:29 PM PST by Destro
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged Macedonia to resolve an 11-year-old dispute with Greece over its name, saying the former Yugoslav republic should respect Greek historic sensitivities. Greece argues that the name Macedonia belongs exclusively to a northern Greek province.
Schroeder, speaking after talks with Macedonian Prime Minister Hari Kostov, said any effort by Macedonia to join the European Union or the NATO military alliance would require Greek approval. A resolution of the name dispute should be found through political dialogue, and Macedonia needs to take account of Greece's "historical sensibilities," Schroeder said.
Kostov thanked the lower house of Germany's parliament for passing a resolution last week that endorsed the use of Macedonia as his country's official name. "That adds further strength to Germany's support of Macedonia over the past two years," he told reporters.
Schroeder stopped short of endorsing the call by parliament, emphasizing that the government -- not parliament -- sets foreign policy.
But the German leader strongly backed Macedonia's efforts to bolster the rights of its ethnic Albanian minority, expressing "great respect" for the reforms. His remarks came ahead of a referendum Sunday in which Macedonia's nationalist opposition is aimed at blocking legislation granting ethnic Albanians greater autonomy at the local level.
Schroeder said stability in Macedonia is important for the entire Balkan region, and a condition for drawing closer to the EU and joining NATO. Macedonia gained independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991. To join the United Nations, it adopted the provisional name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to sidestep Greek objections over the name.
Greece imposed a yearlong trade embargo in 1994 because of the name dispute. Tensions have eased since then and economic ties have flourished.
I'm having trouble taking them seriously.
actually that IS its official designation at the UN.
There is also the issue of the flag using Greek symbols.
For that matter the name "Yugoslavia" is available is it not?
>>The historic kingdom of Macedonia was geographically located in an area which straddles both the modern state of Greece and the modern state of Macedonia.
In fact the historical Kingdom of Macedon was in the region of Macedonia that's within Northern Greece. The region of Macedonia as a Roman province was extended to enclose a wider piece of land including only 1/3 of what is now known as FYROM.
>>And while the ruling house of Macedonia became Hellenic through intermarriage, the ancient Macedonians were not ethnic Greeks, nor were they ethnic Slavs like modern Macedonians.
The Slavs came in the region in the 7th century AD or so. They have nothing to do with Macedonian history. The Kingdom of Macedon was Greek but just a bit more backwards from Southern Greece. However it participated in the pan-hellenic events long before Philip was born. It never became Hellenized. On the contrary it Hellenized the regions it conquered.
>>The Greeks are being ridiculous.
I think you're all being naive. Do you think that if Slovenia decides to call itself "Venice" and starts bashing the Italians and say that the Romans were not Italian or something like that, do you think that Italy would just sit and watch? Or what if Switzerland wanted to call itself "Normandy". There would be a World War... The name of a region especially in a place such as the Balkans is very important. FYROM already has land claims in Northern Greece... Recognizing the name is only making the situation worse.
>>This is an interesting historical twist. In Alexander the Great's time, the Greek city-states steadfastly refused to consider Macedonians to be "Greek". They considered Macedonia to be the land of the rube, hick or country bumpkin. Of course Alexander's military genius kind of settled the question for all time.
I'm not sure whether you people are biased or just extremely misinformed. Macedonia was a Greek Kingdom that participated in all the pan-hellenic events (events only for greek states) since almost the beginning of its history. The only difference was that Macedonia was not such a culturally advanced polis such was Athens hence some Athenians viewd it as semi-barbarian, yet as a good shield from the real Barbarians in the North. Macedonia was even part of the Hellenic alliance during the Persian Wars. It was only after Philip II that the rest of the Greeks started taking it seriously. No one considered Macedon to be Greek, not even Demosthenes, some people only refused to have them as the leader of the Greeks... Philip's dream had always been to unite Greece (by force) and make Macedon an prominent state of the Greek world. Wait for the movie "Alexander" by Oliver Stone, it's going to be very historically accurate since (an Oxford historian took up the project). Everything I said will be shown there.
>>Now, in the 21st century we have the modern country of Greece claiming sole ownership of the name "Macedonia". Go figure.
That's because Greeks have been the dominant ethnicity in Macedonia since the day they founded it. FYROM is not even in the geographical borders of the real Macedonia. Read my Slovenia/Florence example to see we this is serious.
>>having all but forcibly caused the southern Slavs in Greece to become hellenicized and abandon their native language (in the interest of Greek nationalism and "unity")
Actually there is almost no "FYR-Macedonian" minority left in Northern Greece (Macedonia). The attempt of ethnic cleansing took place in the 40's and that was under dictatorship. In the beginning of the century the Slavic minorities of Greek Macedonia were committing crimes against the Jewish community of Thessaloniki in order to establish themselves as the dominant minority in the region. They were never the inhabitants of Macedonia as they fantasize. That's when most of them were sent back to FYROM. They've been always a minority amongst the native Greeks (the real Macedonians). The Greeks have always seen them as the invaders, hence the whole ruckus on the subject.
>>Greece would like nothing better than those people's kinsmen on the other side of the border to be squelched. (Gee, does this sound anything like the way Turkey and the Kurds are going at it over Kirkuk? Me thinks the Greeks learned a bit too much from their Ottoman masters.)
The Ottoman "masters" sold out and bastardized their culture by adopting Western elements in order to be favored by the French and the British in the war. The Greek "slaves" had preserved their ethnic identity after 3 centuries of Ottoman occupation... So preserving an ethnic identity despite any external pressure was a lesson that the Ottoman masters didn't learn from their Greek slaves...
>>Both Demosthenes and Isocrates denounced the Macedonians as non-Greeks, they were numbered among the barbarians, they were prohibited from participating in the Olympics for that reason.
As a matter of fact Isocrates was fanatic about the idea of a united Greek State against Persia. His whole work was based on developing good relations between Macedon and Athens and give the leadership of the Greek nations to Philip. The Kingdom of Macedon participated in all the pan-hellenic events (events held strictly for Greek nations) since its early history, long before Philip was born and long before Macedon had military power. Such pan-hellenic events were the Olympic Games and the Delphic alliance. Demosthenes belonged in the anti-Macedonian party of Athens and was receiving bribes from the Persians to stop the Greek alliance (that's a rumour). Demosthenes accused Philip for not respecting the rules of the pan-hellenic and for forcing Macedon into the Amphyctions (a league for the elite Greek states). He concludes that Philip is not worthy of the Greek leadership because he has broken the rules of the Greek alliance. So in other words he views Philip as a "bad" Greek, and Macedon as a backwards Greek state.
>>The first Macedonian who was permitted to compete in the games was Alexander, and that was because he claimed that the royal line he personally came from was descended from the Greek deities.
It was Alexander I not Alexander III (the Great). Alexander one was a distant ancestor of Alexander the Great. Back then Macedonia was for awhile under Persian rule and afterwards completely powerless. So that makes all your assumptions moot. He was indeed of Argive (Greek) blood, it's recorded by ancient historians such as Thucydides and Herodotus.
>>Macedonians only became Greeks when a Macedonian conquered Greece and forced the Greeks to accept his countrymen as Greeks, while simultaneously pushing the Macedonians to speak Greek instead of their native tongue.
Macedonians united the Greek nations against Persia. Philip's dream was to free the Greeks of Asia Minor and gain a high status in the Greek World and Alexander's dream was to avenge the Persians for their invasions of Greece (including Macedon). The Macedonians' native tongue was a dialect of Greek (as they were Greeks themselves), that's recorded by several historians.
I have academic knowledge on the subject but if you don't believe me then you can find out more about Demosthenes and Isocrates and the unification of Greece under Macedonian rule by checking an academic source from the best university in the world:
http://www.chs.harvard.edu/online_disc/athenian_law/orators.html#isocr
If you want more information on the Kingdom of Macedon by an unbiased source then check a secure article of wikipedia (secured means that can't be edited because it's verified for validity):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedon
I ran into this thread at random and I discovered how misinformed are the people on this subject. Everything wideawake wrote is a typical example of FYR-Macedonian propaganda and an attempt of falsification of Western history in order to suit modern political and nationalistic needs. I'm not saying that wideawake purposely posted false information, I'm only bringing up the result of this as a sad phenomenon. Maybe now it's more evident why Greece is disturbed by FYROM's attitude on the name topic. Falsification of history and territorial claims are something serious. Alexander the Great and Classical Greece is an era that concerns not only the Greeks, but also the entire World as it marked the foundation of Western culture as we have it today. So actually by promoting FYROM we're promoting a propaganda which insults all American and European common history... Just my answer to the people who keep thinking of this as "not a big a' deal". Impartial education in worse than ignorance. Wideawake if you're purposely spreading this FYROM propaganda then my advice to you is instead of trying to own history you should rather try to understand it...
Oh, and one more thing...
>>Gee, does this sound anything like the way Turkey and the Kurds are going at it over Kirkuk?
Well things are not always what they seem. Time more some more facts. Kurds blatantly do exist in Turkey and comprise 20% of the country's population or so. Greek Macedonia has no Slavic minorities anymore. After Bulgaria lost the Balkan wars those land were ethnic cleansed through population exchanges (at least Greece did). FYROM claims the existence of millions of Slavic peoples who the Greek government supposedly manages to hide from the rest of the planet (including Greek people). Albania claims the existence of an imaginary Albanian minority again by outrageous numbers, so this is quite typical in the Balkans (hoping that NATO bombs someone and the others can loot him). The Albanians, Poles and Romanians in Greece are workers and don't count as minorities because their stay is temporary. The Albanians in particular are claiming a minority out of their workers and border-jumpers (trying to expand their minorities there). For someone who knows the real and unbiased version of the story this matter is truly rediculous. The most ironic thing is that America is on the side of border-jumpers and ex-commies instead of the nation who inflicted the first defeat on the axis during WW2...
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