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Macedonia and Greece by John Shea
1997, pp.6-21 It would probably be best to begin with a presentation of the Greek argument. This argument has been disseminated in various ways in America, including full-page political advertisements in leading newspapers, travel advertisements inviting people to visit "Macedonia" (meaning northern Greece), English-language materials published in Athens and distributed by the Greek embassy, and pamphlets distributed in Greek Orthodox churches. Recent statements by the Greek government have not deviated from these sources, so they remain a fair means of discovering what the Greeks appear to be concerned about. On the 26th of April 1992 and the 10th of May 1992, an organization called "Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue" placed full page advertisements in the New York Times. The first of these was headlined, "Macedonia, what's in a name"; the second, "The name "Macedonia" is a time bomb! Mr President, you can defuse it." In both cases the appeal was directed at then president George Bush. The first of these advertisements focuses on the idea of a threat to Greece from a state called Macedonia. While the text says, "Recognize the Republic of Skopje, yes!" it adds, "With the name 'Republic of Macedonia,' why?" Thus, on the face of, it the problem is not so much the existence of the new state, but the possible consequences of it bearing the name Macedonia. The implication is that this name will somehow rekindle past territorial ambitions that would not be so easily stirred with a different name.
The advertisement gives a lot of attention
to the involvement of Tito and Yugoslavia in the Greek civil war,
referring for instance to "former communist designs on sovereign
Greece." It informs the reader that
"in 1946, Tito and Stalin armed insurgents
to trigger a bloody Civil war and unimaginable years of suffering for
the Greek nation.... Today, Skopje's government aims to perpetuate the
nightmare."
The advertisement goes on to say that the "Skopje's
government":
According to this ad, recognition of an
independent republic called Macedonia would encourage aggression,
increase tensions, destabilize the Balkans, and validate a "shameless
fraud."
In this last statement we have a reference
to the wider issue concerning the name Macedonia. The Greeks say that
they have the sole right to use the name, for various historical
reasons. The rest of the advertisement contains statements from American
and world leaders (including American senators, the president of the
European Parliament, the prime minister of Australia and the Greek prime
minister), opposing recognition of the state of Macedonia up to the time
the ad was placed, and an open letter to President Bush appealing in
particular to historic concerns about "communist expansionism" in the
area, the bitter experience of the Greek civil war, and previous
American support of anti-communist forces in Greece. In this latter
connection it is worth considering the quoted statement by a former
United States Secretary of State on December 26, 1944: "This government
considers any talk of a Macedonian 'nation,' Macedonian 'Fatherland' or
Macedonian national consciousness' to be unjustified demagoguery
representing no ethnic or political reality ... a possible cloak for
aggressive intentions against Greece." The May 10 ad is much less detailed. It quotes a New York Times story (datelined May 2, 1992) on the European community's willingness to recognize the "breakaway republic of Macedonia" only if it changed its name, and once again appeals to past American concern about instability in the Balkans in general and about Macedonia in particular. "Since the break-up of Yugoslavia," reads the ad, "its people have suffered the relentless gunfire of hostilities: one tragedy after another - all stemming from ethnic violence and border disputes. The single stable border in the Balkans is provided by Greece. Now the breakaway southernmost Yugoslavian republic of Skopje insists on being recognized as 'Macedonia."' The advertisement goes on to say that in 1944, the Roosevelt administration recognized Greek ethnic, cultural and historical rights to the name and condemned any reference to a so-called Macedonian "nation." Describing the same issue today as a "dangerous ticking time bomb," the ad says that recognition of what it calls "Skopje" as the "Republic of Macedonia" would legitimize and encourage extremist and false claims upon sovereign Greek territory. Furthermore, the advertisement suggests a threat of war in the Balkans in which the United States could become involved.
Any thoughtful reader of these
advertisements not versed in the history of Macedonia and Greece could
not help being concerned about the issues raised. To a large degree I
will allow other international commentators to pass judgment on the
strength of these Greek fears at a later point in the book, giving here
only a brief indication of an alternative viewpoint. Before that
comment, however, I will present the rest of the Greek position,
expanding on the question of the "Greek ethnic, cultural and historical
rights to the name." I will use, in particular, quotations from
pamphlets distributed from Greek Orthodox churches, apparently deriving
from Greek government publications available in the Greek embassy during
1992. I do this so that the Greek position is accurately represented.
Here are some of the important claims that are made.
1. The New York Times advertisement of
4/26/92 says, "4000 years of Greek History, 4000 years of Greek Culture,
4000 years of Greek Heritage... Skopje's government seeking recognition
as the 'Republic of Macedonia' perpetuates a fraud." Pamphlets
distributed in churches stated, "Macedonia has been Greek for 3,000
years. In ancient times Macedonians spoke Greek, worshipped Greek gods,
expressed their creativity through Greek art and maintained a refined
Greek culture ... all archaeological discoveries continue to unearth
more information attesting to the indisputable Greekness of Macedonia."
2. "Out of the blue, in 1944, the Yugoslav
communist leader, Tito, wishing to weaken Serbia on the one hand, and
set the footing for future territorial claims against Greece on the
other, schemingly gave South Serbia the Greek name 'Macedonia' and
re-wrote the 'history' books to declare that ancient Macedonia was
Slavic and that these people were descendants of Alexander the Great."
3. "The existence of a 'Slav' Macedonia
could never be, and indeed, has never been supported either by
historical data, or by ethnographic maps, or by statistics, or by some
census, or by archaeological finds, or by even an obscure mention of
such a nation from antiquity till today."
4. "Macedonia has been the name of Northern
Greece for more than 3000 years. The Greek region ... has one of the
most homogeneous populations in the world (98.5% Greek). Its population
speaks Greek, feels Greek, is Greek."
5. "An independent 'Macedonia' would
monopolize the name at the expense of the real Macedonians who are twice
the number of the Slavs. The use and abuse of the name would cause
widespread confusion as is already apparent."
6. "Macedonia is an indispensable part of
Greece's historical heritage it cannot identify, in an ethnic sense
another nation."
7. "The Skopje 'language' is undeniably
Slavic."
8. "The Slavs did not set foot in the
Balkans until 1000 years after Alexander the Great."
9. "The name 'Macedonia (which is
etymologically Greek) was in use at least 1500 years before the arrival
of the first Slavs."
10. "Every known Macedonian town, river and
person had a Greek name – Philip (lover of horse), Alexander (protector
of men), Archelaus (leader of people), Amyntas (defender), Ptolemy
(warlike), Bucephalus (ox-head)."
11. "The Old Testament (Daniel Ch. 8) and
the New Testament (Acts Ch. 17) confirm the Greekness of Alexander and
the Macedonians."
12. "It was the Greek language that was
taken to Asia (Bible written in Greek) and cities with Greek names and
institutions that were founded."
13. "There are 60,000 archaeological finds
that confirm that the Macedonians were Greek in language, culture and
religion."
14. "The home of the Greek gods was in
Macedonia. Is it feasible that a people would worship its national gods
in a foreign country?"
15. " Yugoslav Macedonia is not even
geographically in the territory occupied by ancient Macedonia."
16. "Independent sources in this century
(Turkish Census of 1904 when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire,
League of Nations Census of 1926 and declassified British Archives 1934)
make no mention of any ethnic Macedonians whatsoever until the
Communists came along with their preposterous concoction to dominate the
Balkans."
17. "By appropriating and maintaining the
name 'Macedonia' the Slavs are laying the foundations for future
territorial claims against the region of the same name in Greece. They
have clearly expressed this intention by:- (a) plagiarizing and
blatantly falsifying history (b)... continuously using maps and emblems
that include northern Greece as part of 'Macedonia~ and (c) refusing to
comply with the directive of the European Community in its declaration
of 16th December 1991 to (i) cease hostile propaganda; (ii) commit
itself to guarantees that it has no territorial claims and (iii) not use
a denomination (Macedonia) which implies expansionist intentions."
This set of statements was widely
circulated, with minor changes made for particular locations, in
different parts of the English-speaking world. Copies of the main points
were distributed through Greek churches, and were frequently published
in the "letters to the editor" sections of local newspapers. Clearly the
Greek communities were very keen to see the message spread and went to
great organizational effort and expense to see that this happened. I
have no doubt that most of those engaged in this effort hold these
beliefs very sincerely. Indeed the mass demonstrations by Greeks in
various parts of the world suggest deep emotional commitment to these
ideas. All the more reason, of course, to examine the claims more
closely.
In this book I will examine the Greek claims
as fully as possible and present the views of historians, linguists, and
other experts who will paint a different picture for us. While there are
histories and anthropological analyses of the Greek and Macedonian
positions emerging at the present time, to my knowledge there has been
no significant presentation of the other side of the argument outlined
above, nor any analysis of how it fits into broader Balkan politics
centered on Macedonia at the present time. Macedonian interest groups in
various parts of the world have taken to the streets themselves,
indicating their distress at what they say is a one-sided airing of the
Macedonian question in the media. Like the Greeks, the Macedonians
express a strong emotional commitment to their interpretation of the
situation.
I do not claim to be unbiased, though in my
examination of the evidence available to me I have tried to be as
objective as possible. When I began my own inquiry about the topic, I
wanted to know the truth. I began the process of discovery from a state
of quite profound ignorance. I had talked with elderly Macedonian people
about their lives, and about stories they remembered from the old days
in Macedonia, and the things they told me often conflicted with the
arguments of modern-day Greeks. I knew that these Macedonians, at least,
thought of themselves as Macedonian long before the time of Tito. They
told stories of Macedonian revolutionaries who, at the turn of the
century, wanted a state separate from Bulgaria. They described how
Bulgarian agents infiltrated the revolutionary movement and assassinated
Macedonian leaders, and voiced a prevailing belief that Aegean Slavic
Macedonians had been persecuted by successive Greek governments. But
they told me little about the broader facts of the history of the
Macedonians over the past two and a half thousand years.
My readings have established to my
satisfaction the weakness of the Greek historical argument. It is also
clear to me that national aspirations were alive and well in Macedonia
long before Tito arrived on the scene. But by and large the Macedonians
have had a pretty miserable time of it, dominated by one greater power
or another for much of their history, a domination most recently
perpetrated by the same European nations who were slow to support the
Macedonians in the 1990s. As the Irish patriot Roger Casement (executed
by the British after the 1916 uprising in Ireland) put it: “I know of
two tragic histories in the world - that of Ireland, and that of
Macedonia. Both of them have been deprived and tormented.”
Casement was speaking primarily of the
Macedonians who then inhabited the lands that fell within the borders of
the ancient Macedonian homeland. A majority of them were Slavic speakers
when Greece conquered a large part of Macedonia, taking it from the
Turks, just before the First World War. Casement's rather eloquent lines
by themselves must cause us to ponder Greek claims that a non-Greek
Macedonia was merely a Communist invention.
Before I present my argument, I need to make
a few introductory statements to establish the context of the
discussion.
First, it should be noted that the Greek
claims are a new political development. Just a few years ago the Greeks
preferred not to use the name Macedonia at all. The Macedonian news
magazine (Skopje, February 15, 1992, pp. 20-2 1) claims that "there were
periods in Greece when use of the name 'Macedonia' was avoided with
administrative measures. After the Balkan wars (191213) the area of
Macedonia under Greek rule was called ... the 'New territory' while the
Ministry in Salonika was called the Ministry of Northern Greece. Whence
such zeal to pre-empt the names 'Macedonia' and 'Macedonian' today when
so recently they avoided them as the devil avoids church?" Peter Hill,
professor of Slavonic studies at the University of Hamburg in Germany,
makes a similar point:
Funnily enough, northern Greece was for many
years called just that, "Northern Greece"... and the name Macedonia was
considered somehow suspect.... But three years ago that all changed.
Now that name, Macedonia, is at the heart of it dispute that has
paralyzed the foreign policy of the European Community and brought
thousands of people on to the streets of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and
Brussels.
Second, I have tried to present ideas that
can be critically examined. I have tried to avoid insupportable claims,
and have cited the sources from which I have drawn my conclusions. It
seems reasonable to me to read the views of people who are experts in
the field, and to adjust my own conclusions on the basis of some
aggregation of what they have said. You might think that this matter
could be dealt with quite simply by referring to such historical
experts. But one of the problems is that the Greek "experts" often do
not agree with the "experts" from other parts of the world. Not
surprisingly, the Greek experts almost invariably take a nationalistic
line. The ancient Greeks are said to have been imbued with a "mythic
imagination." They tended to interpret historical events in the light of
their understanding of the role of supernatural powers in their lives,
and of course they were often inclined to present stories that showed
Greeks in the best possible light. What could be more natural? It is
hardly surprising that writers throughout the world do exactly the same
kind of thing these days. Bulgarians and Serbians tend to favor views
that support their own nations' historical perspectives about Macedonia.
Sometimes, though, Greek writers have gone to such extremes that other
historians have actually ridiculed their conclusions. I will give some
examples later on. Thus it is necessary to tread very carefully amongst
the expert opinions. For this reason when discussing historical issues I
have tended to give preference to writers from Britain, France, Germany,
and the United States. When dealing with contemporary matters I have
given much greater emphasis to news sources and interpretations from
within Macedonia. Generally these are about uncontroversial matters of
recorded fact.
Third, in some ways this kind of analysis is
little more than an empty academic game, since we have to talk in part
about ancient history. It is not a very convincing exercise to justify
the boundaries of modern states on the basis of things that happened
more than two thousand years ago. Ancient historical claims seem of
trivial importance beside the realities of the present day. To people
who live in former English colonies, such as Americans, Canadians and
Australians, a lot of these ideas seem very strange. After all, at the
very least the Slavic speakers have lived for around 1500 years in the
territory that has been called Macedonia. (Some historians present a
more extreme position, claiming that the invading Slavs were really just
the returning Paeones who had inhabited northern and western parts of
Macedonia before the Macedonian kingdom existed.) They would not have
had to wait 1500 years to be entitled to call themselves Americans,
Canadians or Australians. They have been there at least as long as the
Germanic tribes, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes have been in Britain. No
one seems to think it a problem that the English use a Celtic name,
"Britain," for their land. So we have clear examples of this sort of
thing happening elsewhere in the world without any necessary belittling
of the original peoples and their historic achievements. However, we
have to recognize that rationality may have little influence in matters
of national pride. Nonetheless it can be argued that the Macedonians, by
virtue of 1500 years of occupation, have a pre-eminent claim to the
place and to the name, regardless of who lived there 3000 years ago. And
that is precisely the case for recognizing the right of Macedonians
everywhere to call themselves by that name today. Of course I will make
the longer historical case too.
Greek advertising throughout the world has
made a great play of using what are said to be historical facts to
support the attack on the Macedonians. So I will discuss some of these
ideas first before turning to the more recent past and to contemporary
events. It is worth noting that after Macedonians voted to become
independent from the Yugoslav state, the only resistance to their
international recognition came from Greece. The other eleven members of
the European Community accepted the Republic of Macedonia's claims to
independence and to the use of a name which the population of these
lands has used for thousands of years. Greece was able to block this
recognition for a considerable time because of an EC requirement for
consensus in its decision-making. The same requirement for consensus
kept Macedonia out of some European organizations up until the end of
1995. It is something of a paradox that throughout its attack on
Macedonia, Greece, claiming a threat from Macedonia, has been seen by
its European allies and America as a greater threat to peace in the
Balkans.
The issue of the Slavic minority in northern
Greece is one that deserves attention in its own right. It has some
bearing on our understanding of certain issues in areas bordering the
state of Macedonia. In its annual reports from 1991 through 1994, the
United States State Department complained about the Greek government's
denial of civil rights to minority groups, including Slavic speakers in
Aegean Macedonia and Turkish speakers in Thrace. This leads us into a
fascinating exploration of the redistribution of populations in northern
Greece earlier this century, and the repeated efforts by strong central
government in Greece to create the impression of a tightly knit and
coherent Greek-speaking community. At first blush one might think that
northern Greeks have a legitimate claim to at least share the name
Macedonia with the Vardar Macedonians. However, it turns out that the
immediate forbears of a majority of the Greek population of northern
Greece originate from outside of the Balkans, in Western Turkey. These
northern Greeks are not indigenous to the area, a fact to be taken into
consideration when seeking to discover who has a legitimate claim on the
name Macedonia. We might also wonder at the unwillingness of Greece to
use the name Macedonia when it conquered the southern part of Macedonia
in the first Balkan war, and the apparent rehabilitation of the name in
recent years.
Several analysts, who will be referred to
later, suggest that Greek actions should not be seen in isolation, but
must be viewed in the light of a strong alliance with Serbia. As we view
Balkan events now, and see Serbians attempting to expand Serbian
territory, first in one former Yugoslav state and then another, with
very modest success up to the present time, we might wonder whether
Serbia has designs on Macedonia. Certainly some Macedonians believe this
to be the case. Skopje was the capital of the great fourteenth-century
Serbian Empire, and just a few decades ago the Serbs ruled this
territory by conquest. They have engaged in provocative border actions
that have drawn in United Nations troops with a major United States
contingent. It is not disputed that the Greeks are the strongest allies
of the Serbs in the Balkans, and that they have reached some kind of
accord with the Serbian leader Milosevic. What we cannot know yet is
whether some master plan guides both the Greeks and the Serbians.
By way of introduction to some of the
content that follows, here are some of the conclusions that seem to me
arguable after my examination of historical literature. These points
briefly deal with the list of Greek claims above, both those published
in national newspaper advertisements and those distributed throughout
Greek communities.
Firstly, regarding the appeals to the
American people based on concerns arising from the Greek civil war and
the involvement of Yugoslavia and the U.S.S.R. in support of that
conflict: The Macedonia under discussion by Edward Stettinius, United
States Secretary of State, in 1944, was the "Greater Macedonia' that had
been dismembered by Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania after the
Balkan wars some thirty years earlier. The nation under discussion today
encompasses less than 38 percent of that Greater Macedonia. Furthermore,
Greece acknowledges this new nation's right of existence. Can we believe
that the use of the name Macedonia by the new state somehow constitutes
a threat to Greek borders? It should be remembered that Slavic-speaking
Macedonian partisans fought against the Nazis on the side of the allies
(and in alliance with Tito) during the Second World War. They were among
the most reliable and successful of the resistance fighters against the
German and Bulgarian invaders. Their language of command was Macedonian.
Their motivation to resist the Bulgarian and German occupation came
partly from being forced to use Bulgarian language and customs in their
schools. Since Tito himself was Croatian, and Croatians traditionally
have been more sympathetic to Macedonians than Serbians, it is perhaps
not surprising that he took advantage of this motivating force within
the Macedonian community and harnessed it to the new socialist state he
forged out of the diverse groups that became the new Yugoslavia.
There is little doubt that Tito saw the
possibility of expanding his sphere of interest into parts of Greek
territory. At one point the new socialist Bulgarian government, fired
with ideological righteousness, expressed its concern at the repression
of the Macedonian language wherever it existed, including Western
Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia), and seemed on the verge of forming a Balkan
federation with the Yugoslav states. At the time of this activity, the
issue of a greater Macedonian state was being proposed; both the U.S.S.R.
and Yugoslavia were supporting insurgent forces in the Greek civil war;
and Macedonian nationalists who had fought with the partisans had joined
in an alliance with the Greek Communists in an effort to achieve a
freedom which had been denied them previously. A Balkan federation
incorporating a Greater Macedonia and other Yugoslav states and Bulgaria
would have presented a very strong barrier to Russian influence. Stalin
soon applied pressure to Bulgaria to change its tune and stopped support
for the Greek Communists and Macedonian partisans. Thus it was not just
the United States that was concerned about the development of a Greater
Macedonia. On this issue the United States saw eye-to-eye with the
U.S.S.R. This was the turning point in the Greek civil war. The
statements made by American political figures must be understood in the
context of those times. With changes in the political situation,
American political figures changed their analyses of Balkan history.
The small Macedonian state has publicly,
formally, and repeatedly disavowed any territorial claim on Greek lands
since the Greeks first made their accusations. None of the surrounding
states has expressed any support for the idea of a greater Macedonia,
since it would threaten their own borders. It is simply not a live
issue. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to think that a tiny nation of
little more than two million people, with no heavy arms, no air force
and no navy, could be a threat to the Greeks, who have been supplied and
supported in their armed forces by NATO and the United States to the
tune of billions of dollars in past years. No political analysts in the
United States believes that this could happen.
I will now respond to the broader historical
issues, dealing with these in the order listed above. My responses are a
summary of ideas that will be expanded elsewhere in this book. For the
moment they lay the groundwork for the more detailed arguments that
follow.
1. Three thousand years ago the lands that
came to be called Macedonia were inhabited mainly by Illyrians and
Phrygians. The Macedonians who appeared around 700 to 800 B.C. were for
centuries a small group confined to a very small area of land. This area
of land is a tiny portion of what is now Greek Macedonia. The language
of these Macedonians was not Greek, nor were their gods; nor were they
recognized by the Greeks. In time their leaders aspired to be as
culturally refined and politically powerful as the Greeks, and used
Greek teachers for their children. By about the fourth century B.C. the
Macedonian nobles often used Greek for official purposes, but they and
the common people spoke the Macedonian vernacular at home. A version of
the Greek language had become an important trade language in the area
and was widely used for such purposes. This variety of Greek was from
the southern Greek states, and its use proves nothing at all about the
native tongue of the Macedonians, which, if it had been Greek, would
likely have been a different dialect. In any case, there are no
inscriptions in any form of Greek from before about 400 B.C. found in
material excavated in any part of Macedonia. Of course there were small
Greek settlements in coastal areas of Macedonia, and until the
Macedonians conquered the area, the Chalcidice peninsula was Greek.
2. It is certainly true that the Yugoslav
leader Tito gave the Macedonians a degree of recognition as a unique
nationality with their own language. No doubt there were various reasons
for doing so. The Macedonian partisans were of great significance in the
Yugoslav resistance to the Nazis, and the respect they earned at this
time probably helped. It should be noted too that Tito adopted the same
policy throughout Yugoslavia. All regions had a degree of autonomy,
including the use of their own language. The success of Tito's policies
in maintaining unity has become increasingly clear as we witness the
bloody conflicts that erupted in Yugoslavia after his death. However,
getting back to the point about the existence of Macedonia, even in the
very long rule of the Turks Macedonia was recognized as a separate
entity. It was this Greater Macedonia that was divided by the Greeks,
Bulgarians and Serbians after the Balkan wars of 1912-13. No historian,
Greek or otherwise, uses any name but Macedonia to describe the
territories that were partitioned. After the division, none of the
controlling powers permitted the use of the name in the portions of
Macedonia that they had taken. The kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and
Slovenians used the name "South Serbia7; Greece referred to the
"Northern Provinces"; and Bulgaria used the name "Western Bulgaria." Of
relevance to the Greek claim is the interesting point that the people in
the Yugoslav part of Macedonia were permitted to use the name Macedonia
in this century long before the people in the Greek part.
The Greek assertion that Yugoslav history
books claim the ancient Macedonians were Slavic seems not to be true. I
have examined secondary school texts written in Macedonian and
interpreted for me by Macedonian speakers. I am confident that these
books do not present such a view of history. However, that view does
exist; it is promulgated by historians who have sympathies with the
"Illyrian" movement. (The Albanian language is thought by some linguists
to be related to ancient Illyrian, and Albanians believe that they are
the rightful heirs of the ancient Macedonians.) Their argument states
that the ethnic predecessors of the Slavs were the Paeones, who
inhabited significant portions of Macedonian lands before and during the
time of the great Macedonian kingdom. They say that the Paeones returned
to their Macedonian homelands in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. and
that these peoples have been called Slavs.
Whether or not these claims are verifiable,
it should be noted that both Macedonia and Greece have changed
dramatically in ethnic mix over the past 2000 years. Neither shows any
close match to the ethnic nature of the area at the time of Alexander
the Great. Over the past 2300 years or so, the Balkan peninsula has been
invaded by hordes of newcomers, including Celts (third to first century
B.C.), Germanic tribes (third century A.D.), Slavs (fifth and sixth
century A.D.), and Turks (fourteenth century A.D.). The original peoples
may not have been wiped out, or pushed out of Macedonia or Greece by
these new peoples. What happened often was that after a time the new
peoples merged with the existing peoples. Throughout the Balkans, in
both Macedonia and Greece, the ethnic mix is profoundly complex.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that the people of Macedonia
are any less ethnically "pure" and representative of the ancient peoples
than the Greeks. If it is argued that the Slavic ethnic influence
predominates in Macedonia, precisely the same case can be made for most
of Greece. Quite simply, in Macedonia we have a majority of people of
mixed ethnic stock who speak a Slavic language and have a predominantly
Slavic culture, and in Greece we have a majority of people of mixed
ethnic stock who speak Greek and have a Greek culture.
3. Has there ever been a "Slav Macedonia"?
By most people's standards, it would be very hard to make a case that
there has not. A great Slavic Empire in the tenth century A.D.
incorporated most of the territory that historians recognize as ancient
Macedonia as well as Bulgaria. This empire was ruled by Samuil, a
Macedonian Slav, who governed from Ohrid, in the Southwest of modern-day
Macedonia. Although the Byzantine Emperor Basil II ("the Macedonian")
vanquished this empire, he and subsequent conquerors always acknowledged
the Slavic language, culture and ethnicity of the people that they
ruled. They generally recognized the territory of Macedonia, although
administrative boundaries changed from time to time. The fact that the
Macedonian Slavs were ruled by others is no grounds for speaking as
though they did not exist, or for saying that their territories should
not retain the old name of Macedonia. In the chapters that follow,
historical, ethnographic, statistical and census material demonstrates
clearly the existence of a Slavic Macedonia.
There is evidence that the Slavs of
Macedonia called themselves "Macedonian" as early as the tenth century
A.D. At the same time, the Byzantine emperors came to call the
Macedonian Slavs "the Macedonians" since they made up the politically
most significant population of the area. Written evidence and surviving
crests from the sixteenth century proclaim Macedonia’s distinction from
other Balkan territories. When other Balkan states began to assert
themselves against the Turks between the seventeenth and the twentieth
centuries, similar feelings of nationalism were seen in Macedonia, and
recognized by the leading powers of Europe. During the twentieth century
the Serbians, Bulgarians and Greeks tried to eliminate the influence of
the Slavic Macedonian language, and to suppress the customs of
Macedonian people in territories they conquered. The United Nations
recognizes the Macedonian (Slavic) language.
4. While it is true to say that the name
Macedonia has been applied to Aegean Macedonia for a long time, "more
than 3000 years" is pushing things just a little. Twenty-three hundred
to twenty-six hundred years would be closer to the mark. However, most
of the territory of the present Republic of Macedonia has also had that
name for the same period of time. Although the boundaries of that land
called Macedonia have changed from time to time under the rule of the
Romans (this includes the period of Byzantium), the Bulgarians, the
Serbians, the Turks and the Greeks, all historical analyses, even those
emanating from Greeks, show certain territories to have been part of
Macedonia since the time of Alexander the Great. Included in these
territories are Skopje, Stobi, and Herakleia. (later Monastir/Bitola).
These towns come close to the northern and western boundaries of the
present Republic of Macedonia. They have been Macedonian since before
the great empire. The territory that is now northern Greece has also
been an important part of Macedonia since ancient times, though most of
this territory was not a part of the first Macedonian kingdom, but was
gradually incorporated into that kingdom as Macedonian power grew.
Macedonia was split apart in 1912 when the
Bulgarians, the Greeks and the Serbs united to push the Turks out of the
Balkans. Succeeding in that, they split Macedonia among themselves.
Aegean Macedonia, some 52 percent of Greater Macedonia, was taken by
Greece by conquest, never by any act of self-determination. It could be
argued that Greece created the very problem about which it now complains
since Greece participated in the initial division of Macedonia earlier
this century. Given this division of territories it is hardly surprising
that some Macedonians hope for a restoration of older borders.
Nationalist forces throughout the Balkans have very similar ambitions.
The Slavic-language Macedonian people who
come from Aegean Macedonia, including those who left the country before
and during the Second World War and the Greek civil war (many are now in
the United States, Canada, and Australia), still call themselves
Macedonian. Even Greek government publications admit that the different
peoples of Macedonia, such as the Slavs, Greeks, and Vlachs, called
themselves Macedonians in earlier times and during the last century.
Only in the last few years have the Greeks publicly attempted to reclaim
for themselves the name that they abandoned and actually tried to
suppress for so many years.
The statement that the Greek region called
Macedonia "has one of the most homogeneous populations in the world"
(98.5 percent Greek) is very much without substance. For a start the
number is probably a considerable exaggeration, according to United
Nations and United States State Department estimates. But given that
there is a high proportion of Greek speakers in this area, a more
important question is how did northern Greece became so "ethnically
pure"? There is no dispute that this happened through a process of
exiling tens of thousand of Slav-speaking Macedonians, both Christian
and Moslem, and resettling hundreds of thousands of Greek speakers from
Asia Minor and Armenia. fly this process the Greeks accomplished a great
change in the ethnic mix in Aegean Macedonia. Today, after the term was
coined during the war in Bosnia, we would call this "ethnic cleansing."
It is not a new phenomenon, and was not uncommon in Europe around and
after the First World War. After this process in Aegean Macedonia, the
Greeks made it illegal to speak the Slavic language and imprisoned and
in other ways severely punished people who did so. Naturally enough,
members of the minority Slavic population that remained after this
social engineering were also forbidden to teach their children in their
own language. The Greeks changed place names and forced people to use
Greek names in place of their Slavic names. Given all of this
extraordinary government intervention, it is hardly surprising to find a
high proportion of Greek speakers in Aegean Macedonia. But clearly this
does not tell us anything useful about historic rights to the name or
the lands of Macedonia or the people who inhabited the area for fifteen
hundred years. Brief reflection will show that the Greek speakers
brought into northern Greece had no historic association with the land
at all.
5. The idea that an independent Macedonia
will somehow monopolize the name seems an overreaction to the situation.
Many places in the world have the same names as other places, but human
beings can deal with this. For instance, people can get used to the idea
that a place in Greece and a place in the United States might have the
same name and still be different places. This point also implies that
since there are twice as many "real Macedonians" in Aegean Macedonia as
there are in Vardar Macedonia, those with the numerical superiority
should get the name. However, if we consistently appeal to the older
historical justifications noted above, most of this Greek population
would not count, since they are relative newcomers to Aegean Macedonia.
6. It is fine to say that Macedonia, meaning
the history of ancient Macedonia, is an indispensable part of Greece's
heritage. Given that the Greeks occupy a major part of ancient
Macedonian territory, this seems fair enough. The fact that the ancient
Macedonians and Greeks despised each other, and that the Macedonians
conquered the Greeks, need not be relevant to this aspect of modern
political life. However, it does seem quite paradoxical for Greeks to
choose as a national symbol a recently discovered emblem used by the
hated overlords of ancient times (the Macedonians). The implication that
there is a coherent ethnic group existing today, living only in northern
Greece, that we could recognize as "Macedonian"- people who have a
strong line of descent from the ancient Macedonians - simply cannot be
substantiated.
7. There is no dispute that the language of
Vardar Macedonia is predominantly Slavic, though in modern times there
are increasing demands to allow the official use (in schools for
instance) of the languages of minority groups such as Albanians and
Turks. If it can be demonstrated that the ancient Macedonians were
neither Slavic speakers nor Greek speakers -and such a case is presented
in this book - the Greek position does not gain any advantage by
pointing to the current language of the occupants of Vardar Macedonia.
8. The Slavs set foot in the Balkans about
900 years after the time of Alexander the Great. They, and some other
"new" peoples, spread widely throughout the Balkans, but particularly
into those lands that we have called Greece and Yugoslavia. The Slavs
eventually mixed with the remaining peoples, but in Vardar Macedonia the
language and culture that lasted was Slavic Macedonian, and in the
south, in Greece, the language and culture that survived was Greek. In
both cases it was necessary to have a very strong government support for
the stabilization and establishment of an official modern form of the
language. In Greece this happened a little more than a hundred years
earlier than it did in Macedonia. The Greek language was not imposed on
Aegean Macedonia until the mid-1920s. Until that time Slavic Macedonian
was the "lingua franca7 of the area.
9. The name Macedonia was not used until the
second century B.C., and it was applied to the country by the Macedonian
king, not by a Greek. The term "Macedon' and the expression "land of the
Macedons" were used long before that time, though there is debate about
the origins of the word "Macedon." Philologists are not certain of its
derivation, though Greeks prefer to think that the word comes from
Greek. In any case, neither the ancient Macedonians nor the ancient
Greeks thought that the Macedonians were Greek; thus the name the
Macedonians used for their land must surely belong to them alone. The
weight of this issue does not seem to be substantial.
10. It is quite true that many Macedonian
places and people were given Greek names. This was especially the case
after the Macedonian rulers started to use a Greek dialect that came
from the south (they were not using a dialect similar to that of their
nearest Greek neighbors, but one borrowed from much farther away) and
ostentatious features of Greek culture. However, we do not know the
names that were given to many places and people because we have no
written records. The contemporary records we have come from Greek
writers, or others writing in the Greek language, for Greek-speaking
readers. It would be surprising if they did not use Greek names.
11. Generally the Old Testament is not
accepted as being very good history, at least as we understand history.
As far as New Testament writings are concerned, we must be careful about
what has really been said. Differences in interpretation have led to the
establishment of different religious groups, so it can hardly be said
that the New Testament writings are always subject to the same
interpretation. It should be noted that several ancient writers
acknowledged the close association of the Macedonians and the Greeks,
once the Greeks had been conquered by the Macedonians. Often the
Macedonian rulers wanted the Greeks to be working in concert with them,
though the Greeks were less enthusiastic about this idea. As already
noted, the Macedonian leaders, from about the fourth century B.C., moved
increasingly to adopt the use of the Greek language for official
affairs, and were attracted by facets of Greek culture. Greek culture
was spread widely throughout the world by Macedonians rulers in their
Macedonian Empire, and then by Romans in the Byzantine Empire. To be
consistent one might just as well argue that since the Romans maintained
and spread Greek culture they must have been Greek. Of course this is
obviously wrong, but it points to the weakness of this argument when
applied to the Macedonians.
12. It is quite true that Alexander took the
Greek language and some aspects of Greek culture to Asia. This was a
period of flowering for the Greek language, and for Greek trading
influence in the world. The time of Alexander marks a period in Greek
history called the Hellenic period for this very reason. However,
Alexander did not take that mainstay of Greek culture, democracy, to his
new Asian empire, and in time he even abandoned most of the things he
had started with, turning to a new blend of Asian, Macedonian and Greek
ways. It became more important to appease Asians than to appease
Greeks.
The fact that Philip and Alexander used the
Greek language for administration and were supposedly "Hellenistic" in
orientation has more to do with political manipulation and
administrative convenience than any appreciation for the Greeks. This
observation is not disputed by historians. Thus the use of the Greek
language does not tell us anything about the ethnic or cultural origins
of the Macedonians. The English language has had a similar role in
recent international history. The third largest English-speaking country
in the world today (at least in population terms) is the Philippines,
according to that country's own claims. Yet no one would seriously
suggest that the people of the Philippines are English, or even
American, by race or by culture.
The evidence discussed in this book
indicates that Alexander's mother tongue was not Greek, his mother was
probably not Greek and his father was not Greek. Eventually Alexander
himself became an "internationalist" rather than a Hellenophile, even to
the extent of arranging marriages between thousands of Persian women and
his own troops in a strange effort to merge the peoples and cultural
extremes of his empire.
13. There are no archaeological finds that
confirm the racial origins of the Macedonians. In a later section I
discuss the writings of R. A. Crossland, who contributed to the
Cambridge volumes on ancient history. Crossland thoroughly deals with
this question and dismisses as worthless the supposed archaeological
evidence about the alleged Greek origins of the Macedonians.
14. To say that the home of the Greek gods
was in Macedonia is to embellish the truth. However, the real issue here
is not whether a people (the Greeks) would worship its national gods in
a foreign country, but whether Greeks believed Macedonians to be
foreigners. If the latter is true, and if Greeks worshiped gods from
Macedonia, then by definition they worshiped gods from a foreign
country. Thus the argument fails if it can be shown that Greek people of
ancient times believed that the Macedonians were foreigners. There is no
debate among historians about the fact that in historical times the
Macedonians and the Greeks saw themselves as separate peoples. The
Macadamias were always named separately from the Greeks, even when the
two groups were in closest connection under the rule of Philip II,
Alexander the Great, and later the Turks. Historians say that the two
peoples were held together in ancient times only by force of arms, and
as soon as the empire of Alexander collapsed, they split apart once
again. So whatever linguistic analysis might be argued these days to
suggest similarity of ethnic background for the ancient Greeks and
Macedonians (and there is no such analysis that is widely accepted),
those ancient peoples knew nothing of it. The Greeks explicitly
classified the Macedonians as foreigners. That is what the word "barbaroi,"
frequently given to the Macedonians and other non-Greek groups, means.
Since the ancient Greeks thought of the Macedonians as foreigners, if
modern Greeks wish to argue that the home of Greek gods was Macedon, it
is evident that the ancient Greeks must, have worshipped gods from the
lands of foreigners.
15. As noted above, even modern Greek texts
show that the areas of modern-day Skopje, Stobi, and Bitola were
included in the boundaries of the Macedonian homelands. These cities are
close to the northern and western borders of the modern-day state of
Macedonia. Although some texts show slight variations in the position of
the northern borders, historians agree that virtually the whole of the
territory of the modern-day Republic of Macedonia was a part of ancient
Macedonia.
16. Most of the census figures cited here
are of questionable relevance. A crucial date is the 1912-13 Balkan wars
which resulted in the partitioning of Macedonia. Since Greece took about
52 percent of the territory of Macedonia it is not helpful to talk about
census figures taken after that date. It might be noted again that by
the late 1920s the Greeks had completed a major social engineering
program in Aegean Macedonia, having exiled tens of thousands of Slavic
speaking Macedonians, and imported perhaps ten times as many
nonMacedonian Greek speakers from Turkey and Armenia. Figures taken
after that date really do not help in this debate.
Another interesting issue contained in this
Greek comment is worth mentioning briefly here, and that is the labeling
of Slavic-speaking Macedonians as Bulgarian. The major powers that were
fighting over Macedonia in the Balkan wars were Turkey, Serbia,
Bulgaria, and Greece. The occupying power, the Turks, identified their
Slavic subject peoples in the Balkans in terms of their religious
affiliation. The usual possibility was for them to be Moslem, Jewish,
Greek Orthodox, or Bulgarian Orthodox (although there were some other
numerically insignificant classifications such as Roman Catholic). The
Greek Church had been successful in pleading with the Turkish
authorities to have the Macedonian Orthodox Church banned in favor of
the Greek Orthodox Church towards the end of the eighteenth century;
thus Macedonians had no Slavic-speaking church to attend. However, after
about 1870 the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was permitted in Bulgaria and
began to attract Slav speakers in Macedonia. Orthodox Christian
Macedonians were called Bulgarian if they had affiliated with the
Slavic-speaking Bulgarian church, or Greek if they still attended a
Greek Orthodox church. So, at the beginning of the twentieth century,
the Turkish rulers of Macedonia used a classification of its Balkan
peoples that spoke as if Macedonians did not exist. The competing
powers, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, also wished to extend their
territory, and it did not suit them to recognize a nationalistic group
that might reduce their acquisition. The Serbians spoke of "South
Serbians" when referring to Macedonians, and the Bulgarians simply spoke
of "Bulgarians." This kind of classification suited the Greek political
purpose also. Nevertheless, as you will see later in this book, European
powers recognized the Macedonians, as did some newspaper accounts of the
early part of the twentieth century. Even today the Greeks deny that
they have any ethnic minorities, and their treatment of the Turkish and
Macedonian speakers in Greece has brought international condemnation.
17. The politics of the use of the name
Macedonia are rather more complex than the Greek writers suggest. I have
no doubt that Macedonians throughout the world would like to see a
reunification of Macedonia. However, the government of Macedonia seems
to appreciate the political reality that it is beyond their power to
achieve this. Some more radical groups in Macedonia still hope for such
a development through armed struggle, but given the military might of
Greece, this is undoubtedly a futile hope. The political group that
takes this extreme nationalist position is a minority in the modern
state of Macedonia. It is curious that the Greeks seem not to recognize
that the politicians in power in Macedonia are moderate and that
continued Greek agitation may actually strengthen the position of the
radicals. One can only speculate about the intentions of the Greek
government in this issue. As with any elected government there must be
an acute sensitivity to the attitudes of the electorate. However, there
may be a greater political game being played here, one that is suggested
by some modern analysts and described in later chapters of this book.
While only extremists in Macedonia speak about going to war, if we are
to judge by the banners that have been waved in Salonika in mass
demonstrations about the issue, Greeks in general seem to be prepared
for war with the Macedonians. With luck, increased awareness of
alternative analyses of history may serve to reduce the vigor of warlike
thinking.
It is the intention of this book to clarify
and present the conclusions of significant historians about the origins
of the modern-day Macedonians. From time to time I will again compare
those conclusions with the various points of the Greek position. For
instance, it is appropriate to explain the complex ethnic mix that
characterizes modern Greece. A major issue of international concern is
the treatment of minority ethnic groups in Greece - Albanians, Turks,
and Macedonians. Greece continues to deny the existence of all except a
"Muslim minority," meaning Turkish speakers, and seems willing to
acknowledge them only because they are specified in international
treaties. There are some who argue that potential unrest from its
Macedonian minority, or pressures for the return of exiled Macedonians
to Greece (and resumption of confiscated lands), may be behind Greece's
aggressive posture against Macedonia. The matter is well worth
exploration. By examining the particular dispute between Macedonia and Greece we can gain some understanding about other significant questions in the Balkans centered around Macedonia. Accordingly, this book examines the contemporary position of Macedonia. This has relevance to the Greek arguments, but introduces us also to broader questions about Macedonia’s stability and ability to survive as an independent nation. A consideration of the new nation's international experiences gives us a context for examining the aims of its immediate neighbors and the attitudes of the United Nations and the United States. The American involvement is of particular interest, since the United States was unwilling to send men to participate in the peacekeeping force in Bosnia, but shared in the ground-breaking move of sending a contingent of troops as part of the first ever United Nations "war-prevention" effort. This seems to have come about because of the American recognition that forces within and around Macedonia could provoke a European war much greater in scale than the present war in Bosnia. The issues that have provoked Greek reactions seem unlikely to go away in the near future. The Macedonians are quite unlikely to agree to abandon the name, though they may be prepared to accept the use of a longer name, such as "New Macedonia." However, at the present time Greece insists that no name involving "Macedonia" is acceptable. But this is only one dispute among many. Like the Greek arguments, what is visible on the surface may reveal only a part of the overall agenda. The strength of many old ambitions is there to be seen. There are larger stories being played out, and it is very likely that Greece is a part of many of them. That is what makes the present case so fascinating.
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