The Macedonian issue – A perilipsis of the matter

 

The Macedonia(n) issue

The terms “the Macedonian issue”, “the Macedonian conflict”, “the Macedonian question”, or other similar phrases, describe a political situation which began almost 150 years ago, due to the negative effect of the Crimean war (Oct. 1853 – Feb. 1856) to Russia’s territorial influence. The detrimental defeat of the Russians and the resulting loss of the right to trade their products via the Black sea, was considered a colossal economical loss by them, therefore they had to find another way to do their sea trade. Technically this shouldn’t be a problem since Russia is as big as almost a whole continent which means that many seaways as well as continental routes could be suitable for the purposes of trade. However, their interest was focused rather on just two seas, since they didn’t have access to the third one anymore (Black sea), and the any other seas were already in their possession. The remaining seas were the Aegean and the Adriatic seas. Macedonia specifically, is a part of the Haemus peninsula (i.e, the Balkans) geographically spanning from the east of Epirus to the west of Thrace and from the mountainous area southern of Serbia down to the Thermaic and the Strymonian Gulfs. The Adriatic and Aegean seas are on its west and east sides respectively, in southeastern Europe. Macedonia has been inhabited mostly by a Dorian Greek clan, named Mak-ednos (which is a Greek word; See the etymology here) hence the name.

Extra info by me:
1) “Makednoi” = plural of “Makednos”
2) “Ethnē” plural or “ethnos”. And “ethnos” = ethic group

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Dorian-people
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Makednoi (Greek: Mακεδνοί) were a Dorian tribe …[…]…. of the Dorian Greeks (Histories 1.56.1)

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Doric-Greek
The Dorians were one of the four major Greek ethnē into which the Greeks, or Hellenes, of the ancient period considered themselves divided (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians). Ethnos has the sense of ethnic group.

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Ethnic-group
An ethnic group or ethnicity is a socially defined category of people who identify with each other [……] by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language and/or dialect, ideology, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, physical appearance, etc.

Macedonia, as a region, is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times. Its oldest known settlements date back approximately 9,000 years ago. Its recorded history began from the middle of the 4th century BC with the emergence of the ancient kingdom of Macedon, centered somewhere between the southern slopes of Lower Olympus and the lowest reach of the Haliakmon River.

Extra info by me: (Wikipedia link: Aristotle of Stagira)
Lower Olympus = the mountain which gave its name to the Olympic Games…. I believe that no one has any objections about the origin of the Olympics, i.e, that are Greek. Is even possible for a mountain which exists in Macedonia to be Greek but not Macedonia itself? The “Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle was born in the Macedonian city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece” says Wikipedia. Was Macedonia not Greek but he was?

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Ancient-Macedonians
The Macedonians (Greek: Μακεδόνες, Makedónes) were an ancient tribe that lived on the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula.

The first Macedonian king according to the father of history, Herodotus, was a guy called Perdicas, though, according to another ancient historian, Theopombos from Chios, the first king was a guy called Karanos (Caranus). Nonetheless as to who was the first king after all, both of them were from the same Greek family, from the royal house of the city of Argos, the Argean Dynasty, the No2 most ancient city* in Europe and one of the oldest cities in Greece, which with its long history comes in comparison even with the most famous Greek city, the city of Athens.

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Argos-MAETN
“The Most Ancient European Towns Network” is a working group of the oldest cities in Europe. It was founded in 1994, with the idea coming from the town of Argos…

The most famous king of Macedonia was Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III, or Alexander III of Macedon, (21 July 356 B.C – 10 or 11 June 323 B.C). He is recognized for spreading the Greek culture, language, and thought from Greece throughout Asia Minor, Egypt, and Mesopotamia to India and thus initiating the era of the “Hellenistic World”. He was the son of Philip II, also known as Philip II of Macedon. Alexander’s mother was Olympias, a name that she took as a recognition of her husband’s victory, Philip, in the Olympic Games in 356 BC.

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Olympias-queen
Olympias (375–316 BC) was a princess of the Greek land of Epirus, daughter of king Neoptolemus I of Epirus, king of the Molossians. Her family belonged to the Aeacidae, a well-respected family of Epirus, which claimed descent from Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, the Greek hero who fought against the Trojans, and a good friend of Odysseus (Ulysses). She was born as “Polyxena” but due to cultural traditions she changed her name to “Myrtale” before her marriage with king Philip. Her name “Olympias” is the third out of the four names that she had. The last one was “Stratonice” because she won against the army of Eurydice in 317 B.C.

Extra info by me:
1) Stratonice = compound word of “stratos” and “Nike”.
Stratos = army; The “a” sounds like the one in “alter, “accident”, “apple” etc.; The accent goes to “os”.

Nike = victory; pronounced as “neeh-keeh”, (Greek: Νίκη) accents goes to “nee”. Nike was the goddess of victory.

PS: The famous shoes brand was named after the Greek goddess. “The company takes its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Wikipedia, http://tinyurl.com/Nike-company

2) In ancient Greece, only Greeks had the right to participate in the Olympic games unlike today. King Philip’s participation in the games prove his Greek ancestry.

Almost 600 years after Alexander’s death (323 B.C), during the era of the Byzantine Civilization, (330 – 1453 AD) the whole Roman Empire has passed to Greek hands, while incorporating many different nationalities without any nationalistic conflicts. In fact, the Byzantine (Greek) emperor Constantine the Great (272-337 AD), wanted to get rid of customary tribal raids in the northern part of modern Greece, (Macedonia) and to achieve that, he had established a policy of making alliances with neighboring tribes, by allowing them to settle on byzantine lands, in exchange of converting to eastern (Orthodox) Christianity. Therefore, when the Slavs came into the picture after the 5th century A.D., ravaging, stealing and vandalizing the property of others in the Balkan Peninsula, they were allowed to establish permanent settlements there, contrary to their modern claims, that they have been native there since antiquity (i.e, since 8th century BC).

Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Slavs-warfare”
“Typical early barbarian warriors […] were intended for fast penetration into enemy territory, and an equally quick withdrawal”.

Some centuries later, 1453 and onwards, the Turks invaded the whole Byzantine Empire and almost half of Europe and remained there for about 500 years. During those centuries the Russians have fought twelve wars against them (known as the Russo-Turkish Wars), struggling for sea passages to the Aegean Sea which is the main Greek sea. Meanwhile, an increasingly establishing awareness of national identity in the other occupied nations, has led to the formation of various coalitions against the Ottoman rule. The Russians, pursuing their own geopolitical expansion interests, have played their role in them, as we said above. Namely, after the failure in the Crimean War (1853- 56), Russia wanted more than ever to find the right occasion to gradually incorporate Macedonia. They found the opportunity in the fact that they are a Slavic nation themselves as the rest of the Balkan countries, e.g Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, etc. In the next war against the Turks (1877), they regained much of their power and were able to demand an expanded Bulgaria (at the San Stephano treaty – 1878), to which they delegated the authority of representing them in the Balkans. Consequently they continued their plan of Pan-Slavization (the also known as “Stalinization” since Stalin had the same idea 50 years later) of the Balkans as it was aligned to their interests.

Unfortunately for Russia, some of the other Great Powers, namely Austria-Hungary and England, disagreed with their plans (due to their own personal interests of course) and demanded “a new treaty or else”… Russia was indeed a Great Power but it couldn’t stand against TWO Great Powers, so – having no other choice – Russia complied to sign a new treaty in 1878, the one which concluded the Congress of Berlin. This treaty among other things, took away many rights of another slavic country, Serbia, blocking its own trade pathways via Montenegro, which had access to the Adriatic sea. And since it is common knowledge, that without trade any country would eventually starve and die, the Serbs had no other choice, but to demand a new treaty.

Austria-Hungary however, had interests in Montenegro, so its political leaders tried to avoid an upcoming war with the Serbs by offering an exchange: Serbia should forget the Adriatic Sea and Montenegro, and rather turn to the remaining passage, which was through Macedonia to the Aegean Sea. From their part, Austria-Hungary would provide any help the Serbs would ask. They didn’t even care whether Macedonia was a foreign land or not and what would happen to the Greeks, who still were under the Turkish rule and they didn’t even have a chance to defend themselves against an upcoming war. The Serbs on the other hand, instead of choosing a friendly negotiation with the Greeks (since they were in good relations with them for more than 1.000 years due to Constantine’s policy), agreed with Austria-Hungary and signed an official contract in 1881 – and renew it later in 1889 – on how they would steal Macedonia from the Greeks.

In the next few decades many things changed. Various geopolitical interests around the world have led to the first (1914-18) and second (1939-45) World Wars, and later the Vietnam (1955-75) and the Gulf War (1990-91). In the Balkans particularly, the consecutive ethnic uprisings have caused many frictions, while the underlying root of the problem was mainly the Macedonian issue. As we have already reached the 20th century, the unification of southern (Yugo) Slavs in a single nation under the umbrella of the “Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes” (later officially renamed as “Yugoslavia”), and the recent destruction of this state as the consequence of the Yugoslav Wars (which started in 1990), has left behind another (newly disguised) flame of the historical issue. Neither Russia, nor Serbia anymore, but a modern country which has been formed in the southern part of Serbia, (part of Serbia before 1878) is the one to claim Macedonia today. This is because after all those years, the wars and the treaties, borders and countries having been defined anew in the Balkans. Some minor Slavic remnants of the Yugoslav Republic together with some Bulgarians, Turks, Gypsies and Albanians who also exist in the area, were considered a very good pool by interacting powers, for creating a new core of influence and tension not just for facilitating trade, but recently also for the sake of minerals and oil that Americans have discovered in the whole and especially Greek area in the meantime.

To pursue powers’ interests, a group of historians, linguists, politicians and thinkers has been formed and worked hard, in order to create the grammar of a new slavic language and to create a new, arbitrary and never-existed so called “nation” under the historical name of Macedonia. This new country has been given various names since then, like “Vardar Banovina” (Vardarska) and “FYROM”, but the government of this country doesn’t want to agree with any of them, except “Macedonia”. The most suitable name for them is “Vadarska” since the name derives from the Vardar river and the Slavic citizens have been using this name for many centuries now. “FYROM” is NOT suitable, because it’s an acronym of the words “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and by including the geographical term “Macedonia” (either by the whole “Fyrom” acronym, either by only the plain “Macedonia” word) in their name, they want to implicitly impose, that the whole Macedonian district belongs to their so called “historical” nation. This is the only way to brainwash foreigners, in believing that the historical Macedonian kingdom of Alexander the Great has been slavic indeed, as also theirs. (Note, that the geographical area that Macedonia spans, is at least double the land that has been allocated to them after the fall of Yugoslavia, while their constant propaganda remains, that the rest of it has always been theirs and they should eventually regain it from current Greek occupation! Of course this is very naive, considering all archeological findings, which not only suggest, but prove definitely, that the whole southern Balkan has been inhabited by Greeks.

However, naive or not, any name combination that contains the word “Macedonia”, is not only falsified and stolen, but very dangerous as well, given all the nationalistic turmoil in the whole peninsula for many years now. It is clear that most of their dictionary‘s words have the same roots as the Russian and the Bulgarian ones, as it is clear that no such words exist in any inscriptions found in the area before the creation of the Cyrillic Alphabet, i.e, their main alphabet.

Extra info by me:
1) The Cyrillic alphabet was founded by two Greek monks from Thessaloniki, Cyril and Methodius, in the 9th-century AD.

Plus some Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Cyrilic-saints
Saints Cyril and Methodius [….] were 9th-century Byzantine Greek brothers born in Thessalonica, Macedonia, in the Byzantine Empire. They were the principal Christian missionaries among the Slavic peoples […..] introducing Orthodox Christianity…

Extra info by me:
2) Thessaloniki (also spelled and known as “Thessalonika” or just “Salonika”) is the second biggest city in Greece. It was named after Alexander the Great’s half sister, Thessalonike (Thessaloniki of Macedon) by the king Cassander, (Greek: Κάσσανδρος, Kassandros) son of Antipatros. (Also known as “Cassandros of Macedon”) Cassander was one of the four “diadochi” (successors, Greek: διάδοχοι) of Alexander’s empire after Alexander’s death. The city was named that way, as a remembrance of the Macedonian victory in the battle of Crocus field for the sake of the last (3rd) sacred war.. (Thessaloniki = Thessalon + Nike)

Plus some Wikipedia info: http://tinyurl.com/Thessaloniki-name
All variations of the city’s name derive from the original (and current) appellation in Ancient Greek, i.e. Θεσσαλονίκη from Θεσσαλός, Thessalos, and Νίκη, Nikē, literally translating to “Thessalian Victory”. The name of the city came from the name of a princess, Thessalonike of Macedon, half sister of Alexander the Great, so named because of her birth on the day of the Macedonian victory at the Battle of Crocus Field (353/352 BC).

Moreover, if somebody would argue that the ancient Macedonian alphabet has been lost, while the words have been preserved acoustically and later written down in the Cyrillic script, a Greek and a Russian would have a ready answer: The words found on ancient inscriptions are readable and understandable by modern Greeks as predecessors of their modern language, the Slavonic scripts (falsely claimed to have been found), sound exactly like early Russian words and can be read and fairly understood by modern Russians, but phonetically, neither has anything to do with the other.

That said, political lobbies around the world have agreed to pursue the interest of this “nation” and enforced a silent acceptation of the name Macedonia in people’s consciousness, while the UN official name of the country is Fyrom. Not that Greeks want to raise any irredentism issues, but morally speaking, Macedonia WAS, IS, and MUST remain Greek since Greeks are its rightful owners.

PS: The above description will be updated in the future with historical maps and pictures as extra proofs of the matter. Also new info about the historical figures that helped this fake nation to be established will be added too.

Update: Plus many and various other sources that I forgot to mention above.