The reinvention of ancient Macedonia.

Schoolbooks in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia consistently represent Macedonia as encompassing a region that consists of FYROM, the Greek administrative district of Macedonia and parts of other countries. An astonishing fabrication of history teaches schoolchildren that these borders of "Macedonia" existed from antiquity and that their country was "dismembered" and Macedonians underwent a genocide by the Greeks.

Indeed, young children in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are taught through their schoolbooks that Macedonians were a non-Greek people that have inhabited the land of Macedonia [...]

Read the full comment continuously. They are taught that this exact land as shown in the maps of Greater FYROM, was exactly the same as that inhabited by the ancient Macedonians. The boundaries are shown again and again in their schoolbook maps to have remained the same from antiquity! These schoolchildren are taught that the Greeks expelled the "Macedonians" from the "Aegean" part of this country in the middle of the 20th century. Generations of poisoned minds have since the days of Tito and again since 1998 been taught to believe that Greeks expelled their "Macedonian" but Slav speaking forefathers from their ancestral lands in some kind of genocide – that mysteriously no international organisation ever recorded. Raised with this kind of modern myth, it is no surprise Greece is faced with an insistence that their country (FYROM) should be named Macedonia and that no other name would be acceptable to them.

It is sad but true. Furnished with this kind of evidence, one is convinced that people can be raised in schools to believe in anything whatsoever, and to be poisoned as children to hate a people for imagined reasons. Unfortunately, this tactic of the FYROM government also revives the expansionist policies of Tito against historic Macedonia (in Greece). It reveals a sinister side in the claims of FYROM on Macedonian history and heritage despite assurances made to the United Nations prior to the Interim Agreement. These aggressive policies are carried out at a time when FYROM paradoxically wants to join the European Union and NATO - of which the invented enemy Greece is a member. Even more ironically, the current FYROM government claims and says to NATO that this policy of inciting ethnic hatred against Greece (and suitably inventing history schoolbooks for this purpose) is in the interests of peace in the region.

In the school books, there is again and again a map of Macedonia with fixed borders. It includes not only FYROM but also the present administrative region of Macedonia in Greece and parts of Bulgaria and Albania. This "Macedonia" is shown unaltered from times immemorial. Something like this type of map appeared for the first time in an ethnological description in 1899 by a Greek named C. Nicolaides and had formed the Greek view for the 1913 Bucharest Treaty discussions regarding the ethnicities in the region.

Moderator...Why did you remove my comment ?


I stated that by naming North and south Macedonia ,
North ( Slavic macedonia. }
South ( Greek Macedonia . )
will be a BIG mistake if agreed to
as it will create a much more hostile situation between the two countries.

Whats wrong with that ?
Its a true fact and possibility that i am stating .

Moderator ... You seem to be biased and you don't want [...]

Read the full comment to listen to peoples point of view.
Deleting what ever you don't agree with !
Then whats the point in having a forum like this ?
As i can see you have deleted other peoples comments previously.
You like to be on this forum talking to your self ?
It seems that way as you don't have any people replying to express there view as you delete them .

Moderator... You need to be able to handle a bit of criticism .

Well now you can delete this as i am expecting you to !

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Yes GMS that is exactly what the Macedonian Youth are fighting for. It is time that our countries recognise which Macedonian identity belongs to whom. We are aware that the ancient Greek speaking Macedonians are part of your heritage. Similarly we know (at the upmost despise of our antiquisationists and diaspora) that our people are a Slavic ethnicity originating from the Bulgarians and only taking their Macedonian identity in the years and time of our great revolutionaries Delchev & co. This piece of information is the scourge of all antiquisationists and diaspora, So long as the Youth in Macedonia voice [...]

Read the full comment these realities we will constantly be abused by our governments organs. Nevertheless the geographic qualifier is the most important step first, then the recognition of our different Macedonian identitites e.g. we the Makedonski of Slavic ethnicity and you the Makedones of Greek ethnicity.

So david what does it feel like to post to yourself? SAD is it not no one else responds to you

Sasha, I read this info about FYROM ready to accept a single compound name with a geographic qualifier. This is the most important step to accelerate the process and to find a mutually acceptable "win-win" solution for both Greece and FYROM. I congratulate Gruevski and Milososki for this positive improvement, even if nothing is yet solved.

I dislike to do pronostics, but I would not be surprised if Greece accepts the Macedonian identity of the Skopjans, but only if it can get in exchange the guarantee that Skopje recognizes the Macedonian identity also as a part [...]

Read the full comment of the greek identity and not as the exclusive property of the Skopjans. Because this is the main difficulty of this issue: that FYROM's finally recognizes that Macedonians are not only slavic, but greek too.
The Republic of Northern/North Macedonia name is already accepted by both countries.

Finally our government is willing to drop the double formula. It didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that this was the bargaining chip Gruevski and co. have been hanging onto for a compromise. Gruevski believes that by allowing a geographic qualifier to our name the Greeks will equally recognise our identity. This has taken years for our not too intelligent ex-boxer PM to realise that Greece recognises our Macedonian identity as for what it is " A Slavic ethnicity". As long as we stop this pathetic portrayal from those in our mist like the antiquisationist supporters and their [...]

Read the full comment diaspora backers that we are descended from the ancient Greek speaking Macedonian Al.Veliki and his Greek people then we are all on a realistic and honest footing. In other words, our modern Slavic speaking Macedonians are not descendents of the ancient Greek speaking Macedonians but rather a people who share like everyone else in this area a regional Macedonian identity. Compromise takes intellectual diplomacy not cunning ambiguity!

Long Live Vasko Gligorov, the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Aries - un grand merci de l'exigese ! But China is rather better equipped and mobilised now that it was in the era that you quote.

As regards "Moshi moshi", this depends on the accent of the speaker, but is always used when answering the telephone. The Katakana characters can be rendered either as "Mo" or "Mu".

To my namesake - you don't know Cantonese any more that I know (pause to think of a language that I do not know a bit of) Basque. And it is EXTREMELY unusual for an [...]

Read the full comment individual to be fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, let alone English as well.

Pray give us "encore de coordonees", as the French and Belgians say. Otherwise we shall not believe you, any of us.

Ataturk.
A french extact.
Le sociologue qui entend démontrer non sans ironie l’infondé des craintes du péril jaune, oriente sa démonstration sur le terrain économique plutôt que militaire. «Le «péril jaune» est signalé de toutes parts. Les Chinois sont quatre cents millions. Théoriquement, ils peuvent mettre trente millions d’hommes sur pied de guerre. Un beau matin, ils devraient envahir l’Europe, massacrer ses habitants et mettre fin à la civilisation occidentale. Cela paraissait un dogme inattaquable.
[Maintenant 1.3 billion capables pour service militaire environ 430 millions]
Mais, on s’est aperçu dans ces derniers [...]

Read the full comment temps que les Chinois éprouvent une horreur insurmontable contre le service militaire.
[maintenant argument non-valable car la Chine dispose un asrenal nucleaire redoubtable]
Depuis qu’ils se sont laissés battre par les Japonais, dix fois moins nombreux, les pessimistes ont fait volte face.
[Les Japonais furent a cette epoque de beaucoup plus equipes que les Chinois]
Le «péril jaune» n’est plus à craindre sous une forme militaire, du moins pour une période qui peut entrer dans nos préoccupations,
[cette periode est revolue ]
le «péril jaune» vient surtout de l’ouvrier chinois qui se contente de cinq sous».
L’Occident, surtout les Etats-Unis (Californie) et l’Australie, connaissent alors les premières vagues d’immigration chinoise
[ce taire a propos est le grand avantage du sage]
The between square brackets comments are mine
excusez les fautes D'accents mon clavier n'en possede pas.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

To Ataturk:

"<<The Chinese will respect Greece, as the Japanese also do, for having an "ancestor culture". But they will also ask why Greece has wasted resources for the past 17 years on the Macedonian "name issue" - which is not what they would do.<<
Crooked thinking !!!
Assumptions are yours and only
yours ! For apparently its Fyrom who is spending millions in propaganda trying to uphold the "sun rising in the west" antiquisation Hypothesis.
I personnally do not think that
the,in about 15-20 years [...]

Read the full comment time,
world's number one economic and military superpower
will ever care about Fyrom's debate with Greece about the Name issue."

>>>I second Aries there. Could not say it better.

Aries - mushi mushi, as they say on Tokyo - no it's not 'crooked thinking' at all - I spent five hard years working directly with Japanese and Chinese colleagues, and know reasonably well how their minds work.

Respect for "ancestor culture" will certainly be there, but they will know a lot about ethnicity too (which doesn't favour either side in the 'Macedonia' debate), and there is always the example of Formosa / Taiwan as to how not to handle the situation.

I don't doubt that Skopje will have a fairly "firm" [...]

Read the full comment visit from Beijing telling them Not To Be So Silly, in the same way as Athens will too. The Chinese will try to "smooth the path" in the way that they can do all too well (just forget Tibet !)

Sayonara, domo arigato

Ataturk
<<The Chinese will respect Greece, as the Japanese also do, for having an "ancestor culture". But they will also ask why Greece has wasted resources for the past 17 years on the Macedonian "name issue" - which is not what they would do.<<
Crooked thinking !!!
Assumptions are yours and only
yours ! For apparently its Fyrom who is spending millions in propaganda trying to uphold the "sun rising in the west" antiquisation Hypothesis.
I personnally do not think that
the,in about 15-20 years time,
[...]

Read the full comment world's number one economic and military superpower
will ever care about Fyrom's debate with Greece about the Name issue.

GMS - economics (originally oekonomics, from 'oikos' - house) may be a Greek word, but it is definitely not your strong subject.

Greece is in desperate economic straits, as Papandreou very well knows, and the rest of the EuroZone is not going to bail it out.

So Papandreou very sensibly seeks out the largest "venture capital" investor in the world these days, China (Peoples Republic of China), not Taiwan (Republic of China - spot the close symmetry to the fYRoM issue ?)

As reported by the FT, Papaconstantinou [...]

Read the full comment is even going to lead an "Invest in Greece" roadshow in Beijing next month, which again indicates serious intention to - if necessary - "sell off the family silver" to get a vital Chinese cash injection into the Greek economy.

The Chinese will respect Greece, as the Japanese also do, for having an "ancestor culture". But they will also ask why Greece has wasted resources for the past 17 years on the Macedonian "name issue" - which is not what they would do.

As I said earlier, the Chinese had a very similar problem with Taiwan. Since invasion threats did not work, they have now very sensibly decided on investment instead.

A pragmatic people, the Chinese. Maybe a dose of Chinese pragmatism is what Greece needs just now.....but the Chinese won't understand paying 14 months of salary for 12 months work, and other "Spanish Practices" in Greece.

To Ataturk:

"If the Chinese do indeed invest in Greece (and where they invest, they seek to influence), then their attitude to the Macedonia Name issue is likely to be brutal:

"Invade It, Or Else Ignore It"

They will not tolerate wasting Greek resources on the ICJ or on issues of "national prestige", and they will be conscious of their own wrong steps taken over Taiwan.

So it is likely that Beijing will direct Greece to cut the cackle, accept the Macedonia name, and [...]

Read the full comment get on with re-building the Greek economy with Chinese investment. Likely, but not certain."

>>>I am sorry, but I do not understand what China has to do with the macedonian name dispute. Because of somekind of hypothetic huge investments Greece would sell its own national identity et let a part of its historical/cultural heritage to go?? Naan, you seem to not know Greece well, because it will never happen, nor today, nor tomorrow and even if Greece will go bankrupt.

This item from this morning's "Financial Times" may be relevant to this post as well as to the Greek Economic Mess post:

<< Greece is wooing China to buy up to €25bn of government bonds in a sign of Beijing’s growing financial power. Goldman Sachs has been promoting a Greek bond sale to Beijing and Gary Cohn, Goldman’s chief operating officer, has twice visited Athens to meet Prime Minister George Papandreou and top officials. A deal of about €5bn-€10bn appeared possible. Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou told the FT he would visit China on a road [...]

Read the full comment show next month, but “no target is set” for a debt placement. >>

If the Chinese do indeed invest in Greece (and where they invest, they seek to influence), then their attitude to the Macedonia Name issue is likely to be brutal:

"Invade It, Or Else Ignore It"

They will not tolerate wasting Greek resources on the ICJ or on issues of "national prestige", and they will be conscious of their own wrong steps taken over Taiwan.

So it is likely that Beijing will direct Greece to cut the cackle, accept the Macedonia name, and get on with re-building the Greek economy with Chinese investment. Likely, but not certain.

On the other hand, it is equally likely that China will take a much tougher line with Turkey.....

On the other hand, we should not underestimate the "antiquization" propaganda and old fashioned rhetoric of London towards France and its territorial intentions behind the monopole of the name "Davidonia" and the creation of a davidonian ethny.
That is why prime minister chooses to handle himself the foreign portfolio...

On the other hand, we should not underestimate the "antiquization" propaganda and old fashioned rhetoric of Skopje towards Greece and its territorial intentions behind the monopole of the name "Macedonia" and the creation of a macedonian ethny.
That is why Papandreou chooses to handle himself the foreign portfolio...

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

It has to be said that the Macedonia Name Issue is not currently the most important problem that Papandreou has on his desk just now.

The financial crisis with the Euro and Turkish provocation in the Aegean are probably more urgent matters to deal with.

But the case in the Hague was due to re-open today after a previous Greek request for adjournment, so we hope to hear news shortly.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Famous in the former USSR, which is a large proportion of Planet Earth.

Foart multumesc

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Here is a message for the moderators of this blogsite (then delete it):

Seriously, are you unable to ban a user who utilizes unlimited aliases to express anti-hellenic/racist points of view in each of his posts? This person hidden under multiple aliases - "Koinos Nous", "Dr Cornelius" - "Dr Oz", and his latest "Ataturk"-, downgrades the quality of your blogsite with his extremist, insulting, provocating, xenophobic points of view. Don't you have rules and policies there or are we allowed to write down every crazy silly stupid things that come to our mind??? Don't tell me [...]

Read the full comment you have any way to ban an IP address from your system of comments. Trolling must be forbidden as far I know and respect between members restored...

I am sorry to tell you this is regrettable and shows nothing but a very negative image of your site which looks amateurish in its way to administrate and moderate the debate of its topics. I have never seen something like this in any other serious forums before.

If you are lazy to moderate the comments, then better close this option. Because it is a shame: your articles are interesting to read, but the comments below are most of the time clearly out of subject - mostly a pretext to animate tensions between Greece and Skopje. You do not help both countries if you authorize the animosity to grow up through the use of this kind of media.

Anyway, things said, I tried to be as clear and as helpful as possible.

Best Regards,
Greek Macedonia Supremacy




That shows a very bad image of your site and this is really regrettable

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

The continued ethnographic fieldwork in regional Macedonia remains steadily and unequivocably consitent. It seems that most of the Slav speaking Macedonian people we have interviewed throughout Greece have claimed a Bulgarian heritage. The likes of my diasporic compatriots who have continuously adhered to a antiquisationist rhetoric openly claiming that all Slav speaking Macedonians are descendents of the Greek Al.Veliki seem to be only well rehearsed arguments disseminated throughout the diaspora lands in an attempt to persuade our people at home. One need only read R. Stefov's highly charged fabrications of some type of continuity with antiquity to bring most modern [...]

Read the full comment Macedonians to openly feel some alienation and confusion. As most of the Macedonian Youth have challenged our governments current historical narrative Gruevski and his clowns have no option but to address this issue and finally reveal to our people where they stand. Macedonians will forever repect their Slavic heritage and above all their deepest respect to the original VROMO who fought for an autonomous Macedonia so that all the Bulgarian people could live free of oppression.

Long Live Vasko Gligorov, the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

While it is true that those people were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 359 B.C. (Diodorus Siculus 16.4.2), they were never Macedonians and never lived in Macedonia. Indeed, Demosthenes (Olynthian 1.23) tells us that they were “enslaved” by the Macedonian Philip and clearly, therefore, not Macedonians. Isokrates (5.23) makes the same point. Likewise, for example, the Egyptians who were subdued by Alexander may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia (and so far as I can tell does not seek that name today). [...]

Read the full comment

Certainly, as Thucydides (2.99) tells us, the Macedonians had taken over “a narrow strip of Paionia extending along the Axios river from the interior to Pella and the sea”. One might therefore understand if the people in the modern republic centered at Skopje called themselves Paionians and claimed as theirs the land described by Thucydides.

But why, instead, would the modern people of ancient Paionia try to call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia? Mr. Brunwasser (p. 55) touches on the Greek claims “that it implies ambitions over Greek territory” and he notes that “the northern province of Greece is also called Macedonia.” Leaving aside the fact that the area of that northern province of modern Greece has been called Macedonia for more than 2,500 years (see, inter alios, Herodotus 5.17; 7.128, et alibi), more recent history shows that the Greek concerns are legitimate. For example, a map produced in Skopje in 1992 shows clearly the claim that Macedonia extends from there to Mt. Olympus in the south; that is, combining the ancient regions of Paionia and Macedonia into a single entity.

Stupid error of mine - for Vienna in line 4, read Berlin.

Too many Congresses, and not enough coffee....

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Somebody is imitating me. Must be a fake Macedonian imitating the Real Thing, like Gruevski. Or Karamanlis, come to that.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

Sasha is David.

And SDSM are neo-imperialist fascists who want to seize Solun again.

Greece must repel the imminent Skopian invasion at all costs.

It seems that most of the Slav speaking Macedonian people we have interviewed throughout Greece have claimed a Bulgarian heritage. The likes of my diasporic compatriots who have continuously adhered to a antiquisationist rhetoric openly claiming that all Slav speaking Macedonians are descendents of the Greek Al.Veliki seem to be only well rehearsed arguments disseminated throughout the diaspora lands in an attempt to persuade our people at home. One need only read R. Stefov's highly charged fabrications of some type of continuity with antiquity to bring most modern Macedonians to openly feel some alienation and confusion. As most of the [...]

Read the full comment Macedonian Youth have challenged our governments current historical narrative Gruevski and his clowns have no option but to address this issue and finally reveal to our people where they stand. Macedonians will forever repect their Slavic heritage and above all their deepest respect to the original VROMO who fought for an autonomous Macedonia so that all the Bulgarian people could live free of oppression.

Long Live Vasko Gligorov, the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Interesting EU site that said much the same as I did earlier:

http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/en-US/European+Policy/Greece+in+the+EU/

..Greece is about as much adapted to EU membership as is a prostitute in a (Greek Orthodox) convent !

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

It is now a matter of some regret to the Ottoman authorities, that the Bashi-Bazouks did not go far enough 140 years ago in subduing and expelling the rebellious and thoroughly obnoxious (Greek word !) Hellenic population from the Aegean Peninsula / presque-ile.

Were the same to be feasible today, the Pashas might make a more successful attempt at thorough "population engineering", and send them all to Kibris / Cyprus.

Strange that northern Europe doesn't actually want them. One wonders why.. a propensity for Balkan blood-feuds might be the answer. Alternatively, too [...]

Read the full comment much organised crime....

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

poor David/Pravda, the old chap still thinks living beings read his useless opinions? Dear david, freedom of speech has one disadvantage: you.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

the simple answer about the Stanford map is that it was recognised at the time as a piece of pro-Hellenic propaganda by a London engraver with more sentiment than sense.

Look it up elsewhere to see what I mean....

That is why it is important to put together three or four independent maps of ethnic distribution in the Balkans in order to get a representative picture, as I and others have tried to do.

Bozhe moye, why did we ever let the monarchy / fascist dictatorship/ republic of [...]

Read the full comment the Hellenes into the EU in the first place ?

We would have done better suggesting that they formed an outside-EU federation with Turkey in the first place, as near-oriental associate member nations.

But let us see first what emerges from the current problem about Greek EuroZone debt....

If I were you, I would check on the "issue letters" of my EuroNotes most carefully, in case Germany wants to expel Greece (a real possibility, according to the Berliner Zeitung).

I always like being the harbinger of Good News...heh heh.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Nonsense, folks, I work for the Eu Anti-Fraud Office, and the more anecdotal evidence we can get against the Hellenic Republic, the better.

The site has already been very useful - please continue, parakalw.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

Sorry - curse of the typo - I meant 1878 !

Agreed entirely about the Congress of Berlin 1978 and its repercussions in the Balkans.

Pravda.
At last you let it go.
Yes by the San Stefano Treaty
the region was in fact Bulgarian
as you correctly mentioned
But as usuall forgot that the Congress of Berlin 1878 revised the extent of bulgaria because Disraeli the PM of Queen Victoria feared the influence of then Imperial Russia in the Balkans.
anybody can check it.

Apologies - I forgot the Greek Civil War 1946-39, with up to 1 million killed.

This was not committed by northern Europeans, but by Greek-against-Greek or Greek-against-Slav (or vice versa), plus more than a few Albanians.

Northern Europe does not exactly have the monopoly on all this massacre....

Nobody (in Europe) can have murdered more than:

- the Germans at Auschwitz 1940-45(4 million)

- the Franco Falangist troops in Spain 1936-39 (1 million)

- the Russians in the Gulagi 1935-1960 (1 million)

- the Serbs in former Yugoslavia 1991-1999 (up to 1 million)

- the Swiss by chemical engineering (up to 1 million)

- the Romanians under Ceausescu (up to 1 million)

- Turkish genocide in Armenian and Kurdistan (up [...]

Read the full comment to 2 million)

..no need to continue. No country is entirely innocent in the "massacre lottery ", even Ireland.

Not the first time you northern europeans act as racist pigs....it was you who murdered the Aboriginals in Australia when you colonised it. The Italians have saying that states "The English have murdered more people than the Nazis"

Tell it to someone who cares old fool David

International Justice Court in Hague - case on "name issue" against Skopjan republic has been postponed 10 to 26 January as Greek side not present in Court.

More important for Greek side to deal with financial crisis in Athens.

Skopje Republic claim that this mean they will win case if Greece not present in ECJ on January 26.

Never ! Right will Prevail. Greece will win case, even if not present in Court.

God is Greek !

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

What all these nineteenth-century ethnic maps of the Balkan show is simple:

(a) Macedonia (except for the coastal strip) was NOT populated by Greeks until the early twentieth century. So the current Greek claim to have been there since the time of Alexander the Great is simply historically wrong.

(b) instead, the population of Macedonia was clearly marked as ethnically Slavonic. Unfortunately in every case the Slavonic ethnicity concerned is marked as "Bulgarian" rather than "Macedonian". So the current Skopje Macedonian claim to have been there ever since the time of Alexander [...]

Read the full comment the Great is also wrong too.

The truth seems to be that the population of both Aegean and Vardar Macedonia, as well as Pirin Macedonia, in the nineteenth century were regarded by everybody else as "Bulgarian".

I don't think I can summarise it any more clearly than this.

But my summary will doubtless be equally unwelcome to both sides.

He who tells the objective truth is vilified by all.

Which is the other side of what "Pravda Vitezi" means in Czech....

So what's the difference with your new map david? there is still no mention of ethnic macedonians. I wonder what they taught you in that polish university about clear evidence. Stick to your day job, oh wait you are a retired old fool

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

I'm briefly stepping in again as "David=Pravda" clearly has no idea of map-making technology. (But that would not of course dissuade him from commenting, however inaccurately.) He says the map I posted dated from 1810.

The map that my prijatel Jiri Pravda posted was certified elsewhere on this site as dating from 1910, and in any case could not have been created before the 1870s as it uses very early photo-lithographic technology (photo-engraved or photo-etched plates to the layman).

In 1810 photography had not yet been invented. Nicephore Niepce (1765-1833) did this [...]

Read the full comment in 1829 in France, and it took until the 1860s for the various processes to become commercially viable.

Anyway, more to the point, that map was apparently still being used in 1910 by one of the armies involved in the Balkans, which is how it survived until today.

The 1919 map that Pravda posted still shows much the same Balkan ethnic boundaries, but is not such a high-quality piece of lithography or cartography.

There is an extant German map from 1916 by Dr Dietrich Schaeffer that is beautifully printed and super-accurate called "Lande und Volker Karte Europas", which again shows the same ethnic distribution in the Balkans, and if I can find an Internet copy of it I shall post it on this site (I have a physical paper/linen copy of it carefully locked away myself, but it's probably too valuable and fragile now even to risk scanning.)

Don't ever say I'm always unhelpful, but next time do check your facts and dates (and technical knowledge) before you post about maps.

Prosim. Is right map now ?

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

If Macedonia was Slav then why are the present day Skopjans referring to themselves as macedonians? The map clearly shows that it is SLav and BULGARIAN. The macedonians did not speak Slav nor did they have a Slav culture.

Thanks you David for shedding some light as it is high time that world understand that most of Macedonia was BULGARIAN which explains why the present day dialect in Skopje is consequently too similar to BULGARIAN!

Yes David, according to your map, BULGARIA has sole rights to Macedonia!

funny how you source wikipedia David while in the past you have rebuked others who have done so.

Turkish sources from that time period show that the Slavs were Bulgarian but there is no mention of an ethnic macedonian nationality. Europe knows all to well that the present day Skopje is a colony of Bulgaria with serious issues of communistic and fanatical propaganda. According to the diaspora with roots from Skopje, it is treason to speak of the Slav identity and denounce the ancient Macedonian lineage...is that mentality fit for the EU/NATO?

Pravda.
You have not mentioned Greek
settlements from Burgas(pyrgos)
and Varna and higher Nessebar (Messambria) Sozopol (Apollonia).
hope this will complement the picture.

Also please note large Hungarian minority and smaller German minority in Transylvania. Also Greeks in Turkish Thrace.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Sasha you are breath of fresh air

Ohh, here we go, now we have Peter/or 4 1/ & 1 all supposedly patriotic antiquisationists who are attempting to fabricate more as they go. If only you knew (1) that Macedonia has only been around for just over 2500 years which was inhabited by Al.Veliki's Greek ancestors. Before that it was an Illyrian region the ancestors of modern day Albanians. The Slavs came in the 6-7th cent.AD which with the later arrival of Bulgars were absorbed. The region was called an array of names until it finally was reintroduced in the post Balkan wars period. Our forefathers Delchev & [...]

Read the full comment co. who yes were left wing (pro-communists)revolutionaries promoted that all the Bulgarian people of Macedonia will live in an autonomous land free from Turkish tyranny. Your historical knowledge (1) seems to start and end in fanciful romanticism but who can blame you certainly not the Youth of Macedonia who want a future. Certainly it is your diasporic imbeciles who feed you crap from the inside of your nationalistic churches (the biggest hypocrites Macedonia has are its priests; biggots,spies,paedophiles) and disseminate imaginary constructs of continuity to the Greek Al.Veliki. If only you would all be proud of our Slavic ethnicity this divisive journey would be only a bad dream but as long as the diaspora continue their lying fabrications of our historical narrative we will always resist until all you old diasporas have moved onto greener pastures.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
Left Wing Politics will prevail.

David/Tibor: GET A LIFE

Maria - viszontlatasra. Ertem. Koszonom.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

"Such an interesting correspondence. In Hungary we do not often such things do. But subject does not seem to concern Macedonia (republic)."

OMG you so did not write that! I am Hungarian and I do NOT speak English in that manner! This is the most insulting thing EVER! You pretend to be Hungarian and think we speak English that way??!?!?

To the moderators, if you have any decency please remove David/Koinos Nous from this site once and for all....how PATHETIC!

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

Such an interesting correspondence. In Hungary we do not often such things do. But subject does not seem to concern Macedonia (republic). More important is somebody with the Greek name of Sense of the Common, who say things about Greece and EU that some of you like not.

Neutral on this I am, but this is public forum where open discussion permitted is. Also, Sense of the Common correct is about large Euro zonal crisis at moment, and cause of this crisis maybe in Greece is.

Cause of crisis in Macedonia Republic [...]

Read the full comment is not. In Hungary we fortunate are that we members of Euro zone are not. So why all this pointless correspondence is ?

More important matter Treaty of Trianon in 1919 and restoration of ancestral lands to Hungary and Crown of Saint Stephen is. Also restoration of Macedonian lands stolen in 1913 local war and re-negotation of 1913 Bucharest Treaty in 2013.

Koszonom

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

1 - Agreed, but to be fair, there was an earlier "Greece" before 1829, under the Roman and Byzantine Empires until 1453 AD, and during the pre-Roman period until 146 BC when the Romans conquered it.

It has had various names during the ages - hEllas during the pre-Roman period, Graecia under the Romans and Byzantines, and Yunanistan or various local regional names under the Ottomans.

How much genuine historical continuity this indicates is a matter for conjecture rather than of fact, but one has to acknowledge that "The Name Is (more [...]

Read the full comment or less) The Same.)

Similar continuity of name despite various occupations, upheavals, and fragmentation, is also true of Italy and Spain.

Sasha there you go again with your communist youth movement, which I assume is out doing it's famous polls on trying to find all the Bulgarians who claim to be Macedonian.

Well let me make it easier on you and your friends, the answer is zero.

You can only be Macedonian if you come from the area called Macedonia and like it or not, that's what the area was called for thousands of years. Unlike Bulgaria, which got it's name around 800 A.D. and Greece around 1829 A.D.

[...]

Read the full comment So stop with your Greek jargon and come out and be a true Macedonian patriot.

K.nous.
There one thing i have to say here
the difference between being disillusionised and obsessed is clear!
the first Growing up,working, even Studying it is normal to see things under a different angle a diferrent prism
from what we have been taught to look at it(theory) this causes
disillusion (facts and practical experience)
while the second obsession is a deep psychologiacal disturbance which impairs thought and causes seizures of ranting,(trying all the time to find facts oftenly blurred by "journalistic" over or under estimation) maniacal pesrsistance in [...]

Read the full comment "chercher la puce dans le grainier" or "making a mountain out of a mole hill".
cherrs!

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Ben -

My viewpoint on Greece is influenced by 28 years as a national representative in EU fora in Brussels, 19 of them after Greek accession to the EU, and my observation (like that of other delegates of the northern member-states) of how Greece manipulated the EU system since Day One of its accession. (If you don't believe me, just talk to the Danes and the Germans !)

The worst single case in my personal experience was the Feta Cheese PDO affair, but there were many others. Another one that sticks in [...]

Read the full comment my mind was corrupt Greek Customs officials issuing fake EU T5 transit documents, possession of which could entitle the holder to up to 1 million Euro of CAP "export restitutions" from EU funds. The strange thing was that each Customs officer - or 'telwnios' - had a scribe / clerk ('grammeteus') to do the dirty work for him. Over-manning by Northern standards....but probably very Balkan.

This and other experiences over the years left me and my fellow Northern delegates profoundly disillusioned by Greece as the "centre of European civilisation" that we had all learned about at school. Instead, it rather came across as the "centre of European corruption and worse".

The Commission was very patient, but even it got fed up after a time by the incompetence of Greek officials sent to it by Athens on the basis of patronage and political party rather than ability.

In short, not a "dream" of influencing European affairs, but the grim reality of actually doing so. I think you got your "diagnosis" slightly wrong....

Sasha you and your kind are the light of the Balkans and do not be afraid when peter and koinos nous attack you for so was Christ crucified by the world. What people like peter do not understand is that we don't care for Alexander the great...he is but dust. We worship the one true God, let peter worship Alexander the past gods.

Oh right Peter, nearly forgot, you have to be a fool to think that Karamanlis and Droutsas are the only Greek speaking Macedonians (or not as you claim) in greece. Stop being a fool and accept the fact that long before the anatolian Greek refugees came to Greece, greece always had a large Macedonian population stemming from Greek speaking peoples before the arrival of yours and mine Slavic ancestors. So grow a bit and admit that just as you recycle your primary argument that all Greek speaking Macedonians are refugees you should take into account that all Bulgarian (or in [...]

Read the full comment your case if you prefer Slavic) speaking Macedonians also came after the original Greek tribe of ancient Macedoninas. So whether Karamanlis and co. are or are not Macedonians is besides the point you are also a not to recent arrival. So your continous use of the political concept of an indigenous population is as flawed as your belief that you are descended from the Greek Al.Veliki.

Peter and all for one, you do not represent us Macedonians but rather one of those adjuncts of fabricated history denouncing your Slavic ethnicity, whereby you wish you all had ancient Greek blood in you from the likes of Al.Veliki. Both Peter & co. are equally embarrased about their Slavic ethnicity and both are diasporic actors preying on all our Macedonian compatriots to reject their Slavic heritage and take up an ancient one stemming from the Greek Al.Veliki. The only difference between the Macedonian Youth and these wannabees diasporic antiquisationists is that we here in Macedonia love our modern historical [...]

Read the full comment narrative stemming from the pre-Balkan war period whereas they (Peter & all for one) are afraid to admit that our heritage isn't as old as the Greeks, Albanians, and Vlachs and that is exactly what bothers them. The thought that we the modern Macedonians became a nationality in the last 100 years or so terrifies these delusional souls. In Macedonia many of our Youth already know about our Bulgarian heritage and we are proud of it, so we don't need the diaspora telling the youth here in our land that we are anything else. As long as you (Peter & all for one)pursue your love for the Greek Al.Veliki and want to denounce your Slavic origins, then we also have a right to pursue our Macedonian heritage, proud of our Slavic ethnicity.

long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM the inheritors of Gotse Delchev.

I think David you had dreams of a job that involves a position in your government or the UN where you could yield influence on world affairs. Now that you are retired and have not realised your dream, you attempt to make that dream come true by posting on this site and pretending to interfere with european affairs. What is most interesting is how you selected to antagonise balkan countries like greece and take the side of a country that is literally doomed by its ethnic Albanian population. However it has never occurred to you that neither side nor any [...]

Read the full comment other balkan country cares or and even reads your posts. It is estimated that less than 1% read these articles and less than 0.005% read the comments! Delusion is a sure symptom of psychosis, your critiques only wish to help you.

Also you do not post on any other site because most of them have blocked you due to your racist views

Well, I was warned to expect "timeo danaos et dona ferentes", which more or less translates as "Greeks bearing fake concerns", so now I understand what the Republic of Macedonia has to put up with !

All very instructive indeed. It will all go down in my little black book, for future use in Brussels.

I am Romanian and visit this site often but I never understood why an English man was so concerned about a balkan country like Greece. I swear David would win the award for the most posts and to be honest I don't even bother reading the comments because I don't have time, I just read the article....like the majority of the people

I agree with the others, to be honest David you visit and post on this site more than Peter, now if you're more maniac that peter then what hope do you have?

I am of Turkish decent and I definitely do not by any means hold any delusions about greece, lets be honest that country needs help. But David I have to agree with everyone on this site is that you are obsessed. You are more obsessed with Greece then any of her neighbours are, I've seen you post here more than the fanatics of my country shout antigreece slogans.

The question is if you are so infatuated over greece than her enemies are, then are you beyond medical treatment?

David, you are again embarrassing yourself. We all know that if the country called Greece was a Utopia (no where near a Utopia!) you would still find some irrelevant issue to satisfy your obsession with Greece. I am telling you this because some traumatic childhood experience has led you to devote insane amount of time to post these racist opinions of yours (eg for the past several years, every day as far as we know)

Please understand you must put aside your delusions for this country and concentrate on your health while you still can as [...]

Read the full comment you are a senior citizen

K.Nous.
<<Meanwhile, we await "Nemesis", although the fall in value of the Euro on world markets gives some advance hint of this >>
I continue

"so that the sterling may recover a bit from the previous devaluation down to 1.1 euro "

no further comments needed !!!

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

David, no one in the world cares about the news that you seem to be obsessed with. Now it is clear that you post your hateful messages every day on sites concerning greek news, the question is how many times a DAY do you do it? People are just trying to point out that you have been doing this every day for several years and it is not healthy....to the extreme! This is not about greece or greeks but something personal which is so disturbing you have gone as far as personifying a country and taking out your issues with [...]

Read the full comment it as if it is your wife or ex girl friend.

PLEASE YOU NEED HELP, we can help find professional help if only you reach out

Oh god David....as if anyone here is dumb enough not to see that "koinos nous" and "1" are YOU! You are in serious need of medical help as your mental state proves to be more unstable.

PS - If you want to disguise yourself more efficiently perhaps you should put aside your anti-greco opinions in your next post

Oh and by the way, I think half the people on this site are not even greeks because most of them don't care what you say

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

It seems to me the Greeks are ganging up on Koinos Nous and as usual when they lose an argument they start insulting, belittling, and demeaning, how typical.

Well I for one admire your wit and detailed objective side, so keep going and show these Greeks how wrong they are.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

David, many primary and highschools conduct a UN day where they play out the role of the UN in the class room. To fulfill your need to influence world events I suggest you visit one of these class rooms and take part as a basis of therapy. You may even come to terms with your extreme infatuation with Greece and get on with your life. David, Greece is not a person, you cannot hope to gain any satisfaction of antagonising a country through website postings as you would with a real person. A country is a collective of peoples, identities, [...]

Read the full comment cultures and ideals. I am afraid you have personified a country and have tricked yourself in thinking you can bully this country as if it is a person. Unfortunately David for you, your attempts go unnoticed by 99.99% of the population and you are in effect wasting your time and doing more harm to yourself.

This is an interesting case since David's obsession with a country is homologous to a person's obsession with another human being...only in the latter case it is a lot easier to negatively affect the person than a whole country!

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

Nonsense to Greg. I am (as I said) a Romanian national of Tranylvanian origin (which means I speak both rominesti and magyar) who happened to study ancient Greek at the University of Cluj/Koloszvar/Klausenburg, and this delevoped an interest in Balkan affairs.

As part of this I spent a long time in the Greek region of Thraki / Evros (where tourists never go) hitch-hiking on donkey carts and army lorries on both sides of the Evros River, which gave me the lasting impression that the Turkish Army is better equipped for combat.
I'm sorry David [...]

Read the full comment but delusion is a major symptom of psychosis and you have on many occasion declared that you are english and yes I also know you attended university in Poland.

Many people go to countries and see things that they do not like or experience things they are not content with but that does not drive them to stalk any news related to that country for many years as you do with greece. I do believe you suffer from maniac and delusions and your obsession with greece is not related to greece or anything greek but some childhoon trauma.

You are incapable of bringing any person down in real life nor do you have any influence on a institution so by targeting greece by anti-greco postings on this site you seek to reassure yourself that you can control events and that you feel powerful if the mentioned countries falls

Please consider treatment

When you too have visited Orestiada and Kastanies, then you can comment. Until then a period of silence on your part would be welcome, as Prime Minister Attlee said to a Ministeral colleague in the 1940s

Nonsense to Greg. I am (as I said) a Romanian national of Tranylvanian origin (which means I speak both rominesti and magyar) who happened to study ancient Greek at the University of Cluj/Koloszvar/Klausenburg, and this delevoped an interest in Balkan affairs.

As part of this I spent a long time in the Greek region of Thraki / Evros (where tourists never go) hitch-hiking on donkey carts and army lorries on both sides of the Evros River, which gave me the lasting impression that the Turkish Army is better equipped for combat.

When [...]

Read the full comment you too have visited Orestiada and Kastanies, then you can comment. Until then a period of silence on your part would be welcome, as Prime Minister Attlee said to a Ministeral colleague in the 1940s.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

To my namesake:

just what on earth does this mean:

<< Seems like the wisdom of good old Bess still prevails the commoner in even today's england like yourself David. >>

Have you used a computer translation program maybe ?

Anyway, by 1601 Elizabeth I had specifically authorised the "setting of soldiers" in the Low Countries to fight the Spanish, as well as employing privateers like Sir Francis Drake to grab territory from the Spanish in the Americas. The US State of Virginia was [...]

Read the full comment indeed named after her.

Which rather disproves your entire point.

Foart multumesc - I now return to my castle in Transylvania.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

K.nous.
<<Beyond that I would suggest that my vicarious namesake sticks to history that he knows rather than history that he doesn't.>>
============================
with all respects due
there is a slight problem here,that is that your
vicarious namesake KNOWS NONE

I seem to recall that Elizabeth I not only actively engaged at sea the Spanish Armada in 1588, but also regularly sent mercenaries to fight in the then Spanish Netherlands (today's Belgium): hence her 1601 Charities Act - still partly in force - covers what was then called the "setting of soldiers", i.e. mercenaries in today's terms.

This does not square with your perception that she did not "meddle in the affairs of countries that did not concern her". Indeed, quite the opposite.

Beyond that I would suggest that my vicarious namesake [...]

Read the full comment sticks to history that he knows rather than history that he doesn't.

I shall meantime restrain myself to the history of my Macedonian native land or else that of Transylvania, as I have blood relatives there near Bran Castle.

Vorbitse Romineste ? Va rog, respondire.

David now if it was not for your King Henry VIII then your england would be a spanish speaking colony worshiping the pope....the Tudors were the highlight of english history (got to love Anne Boleyn!) all the rest of it is but dull

I believe after Queen Marry died the church of england was restored by her sister Queen Elizabeth I who was the first monarch to conduct her coronation in English. You can learn alot from Elizabeth Tudor my dear David since she was wise enough not to meddle in the affairs of countries that did not concern her. ALSO, everyone predicted she would not last long (as you do with Greece) but she managed quite well didn't she?

Also David (Koinos nous), I am concerned about your obsession with the Hellenic Republic which my stem from incidents [...]

Read the full comment in your youth (80 years ago)

Anti-Skopia : yeah, "gray" in your posting should be spelled "grey", but I thought it would be impolite to point this out to you.

Hope you will learn to spell temporarily.

Anti-skopia: nearly right about England, but the religion (Church of England) was actually founded by a murderous adulterous polygamous tyrant, otherwise known as King Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1548). Oliver Cromwell (reigned as Lord Protector 1649-1660) had nothing to do with it, except that he temprarily banned Henry VIII's "Church of England" in 1649: the Church was restored by King Charles II in 1660, and has remained the Established Church ever since.

Hope you will accept this minor correction.

England is yesterday's empire. Her wives are fat old cows who can't cook, her Sunday's are as boring as their always gray weather, and her religion is a descendant of that stuck up, old puritanical bastard Oliver Cromwell. The reason they attempted to colonize the world was to get away from themselves, with failure on both counts.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

To Peter.
Τhe last paaragraphs is for all fur alles/pour tous/за всиски/για ολους

<<Aries,in your Greek message you are blaming the diaspora and you are compairing the "Rainbow"(Ouranio Toxo).It looks like you have read the interview of Pavle Voskopoulos on Dec.28,2008 and published on Jan.4,2010>>

Personally I do not give a dime about Voskopoulos ,Lithoxoou (the Greek Stefov) And The Vinozito( Rainbow) they are all framed under the word Revisionism.

<<You see Aries,unlike Sasha,Voskopoulos is not looking for sescecion from Greece,rather Greece to allow the same [...]

Read the full comment human rights as all citizens of Greece.The Republic of Macedonia is not looking to take over the Aegean Macedonia.>>

First of all there no such thing as “sescecio” but secession . Second the claim would be an act of lunacy as you point out. Most mildly put.

<<Compair the Armies,Greece with 240000, Macedonia with 8000.Do you think is it possible for Macedonia to attack Greece? I call that lunacy.>>

There is nothing like “Compaire” but Compare. Not only in numbers but also equipment . The Greek Air force would be hovering over Skopje in about 30 minutes but this will never happen since Gruevski and his clique ( In and out of Fyrom ) are smart enough and won’t commit suicide .

<< Greeces fear is the recognition of the Macedonian minoity.
Because,once the macedonians are recognised,Karamanlis and Droutsas cannot declair their absurd claim of being Macedonians.Just for the record,both Karamanlis a Pontious wit a Macedonian grandmother,Droutsas with an Austrian mother and Cypriot father does not make them pure Macedonians.They are both Mulato>>

My good man “declair” Is declare and “wit” is with. By the way who do you think can bloody care about what Droutsas’ and Karamanliss’ origins are What if a I told you that my great grand-father and mother from my maternal side are from Monastir (Bitola) , would any body care! of course no . About “Half-breed “ my friend in the 21 century it is very difficult not to find a half-breed we are all half-breeds they only pure breed you can find nowadays are pigmies of the Amazon the Massai of Kenya the Aborigines of Australia and some tribes of Eskimos in Lapland. And not for long.

<<‘(Tin erotisi pu su evala gia tin "Secret Services"den apandisate,giati? Maybe I did not used the english alphabet right in the transelation?. Aries,I dont take things personal,but what burnes my .... is when people are not truthfull. Most of my comments are from my past in Greece, and I know what I am saying.I am no historian I learned history in a third country that gives me my perspective from neutral point of view without the hotses eye blockers>>.

My good old man you have asked for it. As i stated before Secret services are there to gather all information that is available from a given site and sort-merge the information gathered so to provide the administration (government) with every possible reports in order for the latter to make decisions. When in the years 1944-1949 some took decisions for Greece to be a Moscow-Stalin satellite and when in the Florina region was was lurking the Народно Ослободителен Фронт (НОФ), Narodno Osloboditelen Front( NOF) also known as the People's Liberation Front, a communist political and military organization created by the ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece, operated from 1945–1949 in the Greek Civil War,with the goal of secession from Greece.Some have the insolence to ask for recognition.
As I say my friend the Sun rise in the east and sets in the west that is not Subject to any revisionism.
The rest is silent.
Good Day.

Since somebody mentions it, yes we DID demonstrate on the streets of London when the then King of Greece visited with Queen Frederica (she with the Nazi past) in the 1960s. All I can recall is the smell of tear-gas and a rather unpleasant blonde woman passing in an open carriage, before the London Astunomia started to get violent.

These days, along with the Colonels' regime in Greece a little later, are best left behind us. As is GMS....

Seriously david, with your anti-greco attitude I'm surprised you did not instigate a riot in the streets of London when your queen married a greek prince LOL

Oh and by the way, the citizens of Constantinople did not call themselves "byzantine" but Romans as the rest of europe did. It wasnt till recently did western europeans adopted the name "byzantine" and coined it as analogous to deceit and corruption in their jealousy of such a great City and empire.

All your comments and details about the functionning of the process inside the Berlaymont (which I am afraid is too simplistic and incomplete the way you described it) do not explain in any way how you could know what is in the head of Van Rompuy & Olli Rehn (to just mention those two), except if you are a medium or some mentalist... But looking how wrong you were in your hazardous predictions of december with Skopje still out of EU, I would say your thought that Greece would be excluded from the eurozone is even not based on facts [...]

Read the full comment and therefore comes only from your mulish way of thinking...

Also should I repeat you avoid to talk about the real subject of this topic: the name dispute which opposes Skopje & Greece. When will your brain decide to think about it or do you suffer from the senile dementia of the Alzheimer?

I will not discuss anymore about the greek financial crisis on this topic. I will focuse on the name dispute right now. Will you be able to do the same?
Waiting for your next post...

Oh dear, GMS, you never learn, do you ?

When you said:
<< Last time you said FYROM will start negociations with the EU by december, and... obviously it did not happen. Your pronostics were all wrong as always.

Things are simple and without misunderstanding: Greece is not excluded and "NO WAY" for it as Van Rompuy, Barroso, Trichet, Junker & Rehn said. Learn that only words and acts count. >>

....you betray a certain ignorance of how things are done in Brussels. But then waiters [...]

Read the full comment in the Berlaymont do not normally attend high-level meetings behind closed doors (admittedly the cleverer of them pick up lots of snippets from the delegates' restaurant, but that doesn't include you).

Pre-accession initial discussions will have been going on "a titre officieuse" (i.e. unofficially) between Macedonia and the EC Commission for quite some time, certainly since 1st December. (Actually, I happen to know this for a fact, but that's only because one of my old Brussels friends is an interpreter . Not a waiter, so she gets paid rather less !)

The time to formally announce the existence of these negotiations will be a matter for the EU Council Secretariat at a time and date of their choosing. Of course, if things turn out "pear-shaped", then the entire existence of the unofficial negotations is "instantly deniable".

Ca c'est le regle de jeu a Bruxelles - that's how things are done in Brussels. As any intelligent 11-year old pupil in an international Brussels school knows....

To the naive cleaner of Berlaymont, Koinos Nous:

"A diplomat never says what he thinks, and quite often is more than a bit "economical with the truth", as was recently said in the UK by the Head of the Civil Service. That is what being a good diplomat is all about".

>>>True, but how do you know/can you be so sure the heads of the EU

Are you a medium? Please, do not make me laugh. You look more like a false prophet, maybe one of those Mikroskopjans [...]

Read the full comment who are predicting the ressurection of the immortal Alexander to unify Macedonia.
Last time you said FYROM will start negociations with the EU by december, and... obviously it did not happen. Your pronostics were all wrong as always.

Things are simple and without misunderstanding: Greece is not excluded and "NO WAY" for it as Van Rompuy, Barroso, Trichet, Junker & Rehn said. Learn that only words and acts count.

Aries,in your Greek message you are blaming the diaspora and you are compairing the "Rainbow"(Ouranio Toxo).It looks like you have read the interview of Pavle Voskopoulos on Dec.28,2008 and published on Jan.4,2010.You see Aries,unlike Sasha,Voskopoulos is not looking for sescecion from Greece,rather Greece to allow the same human rights as all citizens of Greece.The Republic of Macedonia is not looking to take over the Aegean Macedonia.Compair the Armies,Greece with 240000, Macedonia with 8000.Do you think is it possible for Macedonia to attack Greece? I call that lunacy. Greeces fear is the recognition of the Macedonian minority.Because,once the macedonians are recognised,Karamanlis [...]

Read the full comment and Droutsas cannot declair their absurd claim of being Macedonians.Just for the record,both Karamanlis a Pontious wit a Macedonian grandmother,Droutsas with an Austrian mother and Cypriot father does not make them pure Macedonians.They are both "Mulato".(Tin erotisi pu su evala gia tin "Secret Services"den apandisate,giati? Maybe I did not used the english alphabet right in the transelation?.Aries,I dont take things personal,but what burnes my .... is when people are not truthfull.Most of my comments are from my past in Greece,and I know what I am saying.I am no historian,I learned history in a third country that gives me my perspective from neutral point of view without the hotses eye blockers.On your claim of not being same person as Koino Nous,it is very clear in your comments that you are not the same person.

GMS - que le bon Dieu nous protege ! - God Save Us !

Hasn't it crossed your simple mind that EU senior officials are diplomats first and foremost ? A diplomat never says what he thinks, and quite often is more than a bit "economical with the truth", as was recently said in the UK by the Head of the Civil Service. That is what being a good diplomat is all about.

In addition, in any domain relating to financial markets, diplomats NEVER announce their intentions in advance. (The average bright [...]

Read the full comment 11-year-old child could work out why !)

I do not feel, agapou mou GMS, that you are destined for a career in the Greek diplomatic service !

Perhaps you had better go back to being a restaurant waiter in the Brussels Berlaymont - you'd make more money there anyway than working in either the Greek or the UK diplomatic service ! And you do speak enough French to do the job - but remember your "septante" and your "nonante" for 70 and 90 !

After you contradict the statements of the heads of the EU, now you return your own theories on me? Is this all what you found as an argument? Sorry to tell you it does not work once again...

Oh dear, GMS, to use a North British expression, you are

<< truly away with the fairies >>

(to those unfamiliar with Lowland Scots, this means : "completely self-obsessed by your own conspiracy theories" !)

To Koinos Nous: "You posted on 15 January as follows:

<< Greek financial crisis > bankrupt > excluded from Eurozone> excluded from EU > Skopje in EU and eats Macedonia > Greece disappears from the map and all the Greeks that you hate so much are killed in skopjano-turkish genocide. >>

...in which I presume that you are putting forward a logically-linked series of events in your mind: a kind of "domino theory".

It's a bit extreme: it starts with Greece's current EU financial crisis and ends up [...]

Read the full comment with Greece disappearing from the map (I'm only quoting what you say.)"

>>>No no, those extreme theories do not come from me, but from you. I have translated this chain of destruction mixing all the weird/hellenophobic/provocative comments you posted there during the past 6 months.

Are you trying to say there is no connection between the greek financial crisis and the name dispute? So how do you justify you hijack everytime the "name dispute" topics and transform them into a "Greek financial crisis" subject, Mister Koinos Nous? You are the first to start to be out of subject and everytime I do my best to return on topic. But then again, because you are unhappy by your poor argumentation and my undisputed facts, you act like a coward and deturn the attention to the greek crisis... And then you complain about it? You are really a rare specimen of paradox.

GMS - I think I have now identified the core of your paranoia (which, ironically enough, brings Greece's EuroZone problems into the on-topic zone for this particular set of postings.)

You posted on 15 January as follows:

<< Greek financial crisis > bankrupt > excluded from Eurozone> excluded from EU > Skopje in EU and eats Macedonia > Greece disappears from the map and all the Greeks that you hate so much are killed in skopjano-turkish genocide. >>

...in which I presume that you are putting forward a [...]

Read the full comment logically-linked series of events in your mind: a kind of "domino theory".

It's a bit extreme: it starts with Greece's current EU financial crisis and ends up with Greece disappearing from the map (I'm only quoting what you say.)

What I can't understand is the link between any of these events in your remorseless deterministic chain. There is no logical justification for any of them.

The only possible merit that this hypothetical chain of disasters has, is that somehow the current Greek financial crisis is linked to the Republic of Macedonia in Skopje in your mind, and that somehow as a result "Skopje eats (Greek) Macedonia", and Greece disappears from the map as a result. This sole merit is that it brings your diatribe Back On Topic.

Whatever one might think of Gruevski (and most of us do not think very much of him !), he is not skilful enough to arrange such a profound conspiracy against Greece by manipulating the Greek economy and its position within the EuroZone.

I think I rest my case....

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

To Aries or Koinos Nous, I do not care: I will not speak in greek, this is quite unpolite towards the other readers of this blogsite.
You definitely feel very stressed and nervous in your previous post with harsh insults written in both greek and french. You should relax and sign some days off from there, if you are unable to control yourself when some persons want to express their own opinion. The freedom of expression is authorized in this kind of blog as far I know...

Also if you want to show "respect" [...]

Read the full comment as you wrote, then I would suggest to not interrupt/interfere in my bilateral discussion with Koinos Nous (something I never did to you...), because its content is between me and him. If you want to take part of it, you disagree with my opinions, you are welcome too if you deliver some arguments and constructive discussions staying on topic.

If you want to talk with your other alias more specifically, then write:
"To Koinos : ..."


And you can see how polite I am to explain you those simple marks of respect contrary to you.

Best Regards,
GMS

you are BULGARIAN

The latest Japanese Genetics Lab in Tokyo has discovered that you share more alleles with Bulgarians than any other nationality and they also found that you have much in common with Turks.

Also a secret Soviet document has been uncovered describing the communist plan of creating an artificial 'macedonian' identity in the Slavs of the Vadar region in hopes of gaining access to the Aegean sea.

Peter is right when he says that Sasha is Bulgarian through and through, and his endless tirades pretending to be Macedonian are becoming quite pathetic. His scheme to convince the Macedonian youth that they are Bulgarian is failing miserable and the next election will prove that!!

As for that sun worshiper Aries, when you write, "Can you name the well taugh tand their works and their academic peers so i might learn the correct history", well you sure are qualified to give me grammar and spelling lessons, you Rhodes Scholar!!! As for the word suppressors try [...]

Read the full comment glancing at the dictionary, if you have one!!!

There you go again bringing up the Byzantine Empire like a good little Greek, instead of naming it the correct name, The Roman Empire, you and that incorrect historian who labeled that name have done a grave injustice to history.

Your wikipedia lessons on themes and diocese is for not, as I am well versed on such matters and many more.

So my little school boy, please stop, and along with your little mate Sasha, do get another job other than being one of those bribed reporters that Peter has well documented!!

Sasha,did you hear what former President of Bulgaria Zhelev said? "Greece should be ashamed for not recognizing the Republic of Macedonia".You Sasha do not represent us the Macedonians.You are wannabe Macedonian.Well, you cannot be,you are Bulgarian.Read what Zhelev said before you open your mouth my friend.As a neighbor of my,have great day!

Aries,with due respect,I would like to hear your thoughts on what I wtote about the Secret Service in Greece.They are not my words,these were taken from Greek documents.The translation from Greek to English might not be at its best,I tried my best.I just read your comment in Greek,seams to me you used old Greek,but I understood most of it considering never spoke Greek for long time (55)years)As I understand,Greece has an economic problem,Macedonia is in no better position. If Greece was not as revisionist as it is and recognised the Republic of Macedonia,perhaps it will improve lives on both sides.On [...]

Read the full comment the matter of Sasha,he is Bulgarian who likes to put down the Macedonian people just as some Greeks.In my opinion,everybody has a right to be called what they feel.We the Macedonians have no problems with States that donnot occupie Macedonian land,why Greece and Bulgaria are fighting tooth and nail againts the Republic of Macedonia.This is why I am comming back to my first question;answer the reasons of Secret Services againts the Macedonian ethnics!Sooner or later,Macedonia will become member of NATO and EU.Have a nice day.

all for one why do you turn everything on everyone else when you contradict yourself at every turn. Fools like yourself exist only as fodder for the many. You are a part of a fabricated identity created by the diaspora antiquisationists who can't let go of their attachment to the Greek Al.Veliki. That is really your central problem. As for Aries and the other Macedonians of Greek background that does not concern me as I've over the last few years made many contacts with Macedonian students of Greek origin and like us they know better than yourself, I might add, [...]

Read the full comment that our modern identities are modern creations in a post nation-state world. You can scream all you want but as a diaspora Macedonian who breathes their air through Bulgarian lungs your Slavic ethnicity will remain paramount to who you are. Just like Peter you refuse one historical line in exchange for another and like Risto Stefov your fabrications of history become so inbred in your life that you naively live in a world of pure fantasy. Most of your argument stands on fictional sources where as the scientific evidence from the archaeol., epigraphical, iconographical records all attest that the region left evidence of the Greek tribe of Al.Veliki, the Bulgarians e.g. under Samuel & co. and Turks which have all left material evidence. Idiots like yourself tend to think for example that a star on many of the religious icons in churches are somehow connected to the Greek star of Vergina but you have not realised that in orthodox chrisitanity in churches as far away as Africa these were standard religious symbols not what your imbeciles think some type of continuum with the ancients. One day all for one, you will be enlightened by the Youth of Macedonia and better still reminded that you have only been created recently where your Slavic ethnicity was your mothers milk and that your present antiquisationist dream of having a Greek identity descended from Al.Veliki will soon pass into oblivion. It must feel good living in someone elses country where you can fabricate freely without any costructive criticism but then again even if you were here Gruevski's clowns have all the governemt machinery behind you so it would not be a problem.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
Equality is possible and the students stand behind it..
Vasko Gligorov the modern day Gotse Delchev

GMS.
ΤΙ ΝΑ ΣΟΥ ΠΩ ΤΩΡΑ , ΣΤΑ ΓΡΑΦΩ ΡΩΜΕΙΚΑ ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΠΕΙΣΤΗΣ , ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΜΕΓΕΘΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΟΡΑΜΑΤΙΚΟΤΗΤΑΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΕΩΣ ΣΟΥ . ΟΤΙ Ο ΚΟΙΝΟΣ ΝΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΓΩ ΕΙΜΑΣΤΕ ΔΥΟ ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ ΚΑΙ ΟΧΙ ΕΝΑ, ΘΑ ΣΥΝΕΧΙΣΩ ΤΑ ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΑ ΟΠΩΣ ΤΑ ΓΡΑΦΑΝΕ ΟΙ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΙ ΗΜΩΝ ΠΡΟΓΟΝΟΙ,ΜΑΖΥ ΜΟΥ ΦΙΛΕ ΝΑ ΕΙΣΑΙ ΣΕΜΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΧΙ ΤΣΑΠΜΟΥΚΑΔΕΣ ΓΑΛΙΚΟΥΣ ΓΙΑ ΠΟΥΣΤΗΔΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΙΠΕΣ. ΕΑΝ ΘΕΛΕΙΣ ΛΙΜΑΝΙ ,ΠΕΣ ΜΟΥ ΓΟΥΣΤΑΡΩ ΛΙΜΑΝΙ, ΘΑ ΤΟ ΕΧΕΙΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΤΙ ΠΡΟΚΥΨΕΙ.
ΜΑΘΕ ΝΑ ΑΚΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΝΑ ΔΙΑΒΑΖΕΙΣ ΟΤΙ ΕΧΕΙ ΝΑ ΠΕΙ Ο ΑΛΛΟΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΝΔΕΙΞΗ ΕΥΦΥΙΑΣ ΑΣΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΣΚΟΥΠΙΔΙΑΡΙΔΕΣ ΚΑΤΑ ΜΕΡΟΣ. ΣΤΟ ΣΑΙΤ ΑΥΤΟ Ο [...]

Read the full comment Κ.Ν ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΝΑΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥΣ ΠΙΟ ΟΞΥΔΕΡΚΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΞΥΠΝΟΥΣ ΣΥΝΟΜΙΛΙΤΕΣ. ΕΧΩΜΕ ΒΑΣΙΚΕΣ ΔΙΑΦΟΡΕΣ ΟΜΩΣ ΠΟΙΟΣ ΔΕΝ ΕΧΕΙ. ΠΡΟΣΠΑΘΩ ΝΑ ΜΑΘΟΥΝ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΩΡΙΣΜΕΝΟΙ ΕΓΚΑΘΕΤΟΙ ΣΚΟΠΙΑΝΟΙ ΚΑΙ ΚΑΤΙ ΑΠΟΜΕΙΝΑΡΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΕΜΦΥΛΙΟΥ, ΘΙΑΣΩΤΕΣ ΤΟΥ ΟΥΡΑΝΟΙΟΥ ΤΟΞΟΥ. ΠΑΡΑΤΗΡΩ ΟΤΙ Η ΔΙΑΣΠΟΡΑ ΤΟΥΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ Η ΠΙΟ ΦΑΝΑΤΙΚΗ ΚΑΙ ΡΕΒΙΖΙΟΝΙΣΤΙΚΗ.
Η ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΚΗ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΧΩΡΑΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΔΥΣΤΥΧΩΣ ΣΚΑΤΑ ΕΑΝ ΑΦΗΣΩΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΓΙΩΡΓΑΚΗ ΝΑ ΚΑΝΕΙ ΤΗ ΔΟΥΛΕΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΤΙ ΜΠΟΡΕΙ ΝΑ ΦΕΞΗ ΑΛΛΙΩΣ ΜΑΥΡΟ ΦΙΔΙ ΜΑΣ ΕΦΑΓΕ ΦΡΟΝΤΙΣΑΝ ΓΙ’ΑΥΤΟ ΟΙ ΑΥΛΟΚΟΛΑΚΕΣ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΡΑΜΑΝΛΗ.

Koinos Nous, sorry to interrupt you, but someone else - and quite childish- stole my username to write those french insults. I have nothing to do with that and you know that I have been always diplomatic even when I was insulted.

By the way, why not to tell the people there that you and Aries are one single person? This is ridiculous, because you are doing the same french mistakes and there are no coincidences for that...

Come on, GMS, that last comment of yours to Aries ('pede' with acute accents) was Well Out Of Order, as was your comment about "sucer la queue" If it wasn't for the fact that our Moderators are not as familiar with French as you and I (and Aries) are, I would report you.

Just because you don't like the argument that other people may express, does NOT entitle you to be rude or obscene on this site.

Or else buy a copy of the French "Journal Hara-Kiri, Bete et Mechant" from a [...]

Read the full comment foreign-language newsagent in Athens, and go and explore it in private. There are various other rude and obscene French expressions there, of which you may wish to refresh your memory before you upset everybody else too by posting similar messages elsewhere !

Alternatively, maybe you just don't like being disgreed with by people who know more than you do about a particular subject ? In which case there are more civilised ways of expressing your disagreement than the words you have chosen.

J'adore t'enerver goujat!

apprend a respecter autri ma fesse

T'as pas fini de sucer la queue de ton pote Koinos Nous?

Va te faire voir, gros pédé!

le mot telle doit lrie tel
pardon

GMS
J'AI L'IMPRESSION QUE TU T'EXPRIME TELLE UN GOUJAT
MA COUILLE MOLLE

To the cleaner of Skopjaland: "I wouldn't discount the London Financial Times as being "articulating speculations" exactly - it's informed financial journalism of the highest order"

>>>What you quote and what you interprete are two distinct things. Should I repeat it, but you are misreading what the content of the articles, turning it in your imaginery way...

As for your childish game, I do not have time for this and that does not interest the readers of this blogsite.

GMS - I wouldn't discount the London Financial Times as being "articulating speculations" exactly - it's informed financial journalism of the highest order. It merely identifies possible/probable things that might well happen (or in this case, if Zeus comes down from Mount Olympus and throws a thunderbolt at Brussels, possibly not. You, as a Greek, would have more trust in divine intervention from Zeus than I would as a mere northern European. I think I might more put my trust in Perkunas, the God of Thunder, or else in St Jude, Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes.)

[...]

Read the full comment It was once written thus on a wall:

MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN

We might all well heed this

(PS - you get a prize if you tell me which language it is in, and where I have mis-spelled one of the words.

To the cleaner of Berlaymont, Koinos Nous: No, no, no, please, do not make a fool of us once again. None of those articles are saying that Greece will be excluded from the Eurozone. They are describing the financial crisis and articulating some speculations about a possibility of Greece being pulled out of the Eurozone. But like all the medias, that are speculations and exaggerations.

That is why Van Rompuy & Olli Rehn did a conference press and categorically denied the exclusion of Greece from the Eurozone. So there is nothing else to discuss beside that. [...]

Read the full comment You have the worse difficulties it seems to interprete the articles and to separate the frontier of the reality and the myth...

So stop the comedy and your false argumentation. if you wish I demolish your argument one by one, do not worry about it, I am not tired to do so, because I dislike persons who are creating false and full of hatred theories to downgrade unfairly Greece and to promote the pseudo-state Skopje model.

Have a nice night, tête de concombre!

GMS - I don't really see how I can "accept and contradict" (your words) the statements of van Rompuy and Rehn at the same time, but then you always were the master of the unexplained paradox.

As for my feeling "very alone" (your words again), well I shall be in the good company of the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, and other authoritative world media, and - as I'm sure the Sofia Echo will confirm - journalists are always good company and know their wines, so there are worse places to be. And we [...]

Read the full comment have all outlined to the global financial community that Greek departure from the Eurozone, though certainly not certain, is "on the cards" as a possible eventuality.

Those who ignore this possibility live in a "cloud cuckoo land" of their own, or possibly in Athens.

And, by the way, as I know these things are always important to you, "van Rompuy" is spelled with a small / miniscule "v", or so the rules of ABN say. (ABN is of course, as you will have instantly recognised: "Algemene Beschafte Nederlands", or the "Generally Recognised Netherlands" language, as established by linguistic academies in The Hague and in Antwerp. One of the very few things - apart from the EU and the Euro - that bind the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium together. But I am sure you already knew this from your time spent working in the Berlaymont delegates' restaurant in Brussels.)

Koinos Nous, that you do not accept and contradict the statement of both heads of the EU, Olli Rehn & Van Rompuy sounds quite pathetic and a proof of a tortured brain. But of course it is up to you if you prefer to write sci-fi scenarios and leave in some interdimensional landscape...I am afraid you will feel very alone for this case.

Oh dear, GMS, how naive can you get ?

Of course Rehn will never announce Greek departure from the EU in advance; he's far too skilled an operator for that. And as for Van Rompuy (good that you didn't say "Von Rompuy" this time - vielen dank / dankUwel), his largely ceremonial role is to << cover a problem with warm words >>, a role reserved for heads of states or organisations throughout the ages. Just look at our Own Dear Queen, or the Queen of the Netherlands come to that. Or even King Simeon of [...]

Read the full comment Bulgaria (well, maybe not...)

The most reliable rule-of-thumb to use is that:

(a) the more that somebody high up in government explicitly says that Event X Will Never Happen, the more likely it is that Event X will indeed happen. But it will not be announced in advance.

(b) devaluations of currencies, major fiscal events (such as leaving the Gold Standard in the 1920s), earthquakes (alas, all too topical), plagues and pestilences, and major EU decisions, not to mention Declarations of War, are not Announced In Advance.

If I had a serious investment in a Greek Bank / Trapeza ths Ellados, having read what I have read today in the FT, I would take it out right now and re-invest it in Switzerland. And I am sure others are doing the same thing even as I write.

Somehow it is rather hard to blame all this on the Republic of Macedonia in Skopje, unless you belive in Little Green Men from space manipulating the financial markets.....

and finally, as I know these things are important to you, the word is spelled "incorrect" and not "uncorrect"....

All for one .
In your monumental address to Sasha you say
<<<<”The evolution of Macedonia has had a wild ride through history, but it's suppressors will never win. The Romans divided it into two provinces, then a diocese and then themes, later the Ottomans turned these areas into sanjaks and the Greeks can thank the Turks who made the region desolate in many areas of Macedonians and then brought in their people to strengthen the economy of the area.>>>>
denote your knowledge of history which is even lower at lot lower than Stefov’s [...]

Read the full comment crap.
I have to mention the masterpiece of ignorance in English
”The evolution of Macedonia has had a wild ride through history, but it's suppressors will never win.”
Macedonia is neither a bronco , horse, or even a cowboy
to have a wild ride.
Supressors is not the word for what you want hopefully to say oppressor is the correct.

themes or themata in Greek θέματα, singular θέμα, thema) were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire.
a diocese is an administrative territorial unit administered by a bishop. It is also referred to as a bishopric or Episcopal Area or episcopal see, which refers to the domain of ecclesiastical authority officially held by the bishop. The diocese is the key geographical unit of authority in the form of church governance known as episcopal polity.
the Orthodox Church calls its dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition, Slavic tradition calls their dioceses exarchies.
Remember my friend
The Sun rises East and Sets West. No Revisionism. Please learn some
English before “Reading history” and criticizing .

All for one
<<<<You seem however, to do the same mistakes as a lot of ill taught historians and keep calling the ancient Hellenes, Greek. I even heard the other day one prominent historian refer to the Persians as Iranian.>>>>

Can you name the well taugh tand their works and their academic peers so i might learn the correct history.

To Koinos Nous:

"...all telling the same message: what Greece is proposing to do will not satisfy the EU - or the international financial markets - or the volatile Greek electorate".

>>>Sorry, but the use of "all" is uncorrect. Van Rompuy and Olli Rehn said "no way" Greece will be excluded from the eurozone. That you bring there are comments from media. And we all know that it is in the role of the media to EXAGGERATE and MANIPULATE those kind of informations to get the attention of its crowd. I thought [...]

Read the full comment you knew it, but you are so naively believing in all their distorted infos that it is so hilarious to read your posts.

Grow up and insert this in your "cervelle de moineau affamé": The one information considered as valid is the statement of the heads of the EU. The same EU would never exclude Greece from the eurozone because it will show a negative image and weakness towards the other "superpuissances mondiales". Something the EU would avoid in all the way. End of the Story.

Sasha, you are a man of extremes, with you it seems everything is either black or white and you cannot see the gray areas in between. This is why you and Aries cannot come to terms that Macedonia exists now and has been around for 3000 years.

The evolution of Macedonia has had a wild ride through history, but it's suppressors will never win. The Romans divided it into two provinces, then a diocese and then themes, later the Ottomans turned these areas into sanjaks and the Greeks can thank the Turks who made the region [...]

Read the full comment desolate in many areas of Macedonians and then brought in their people to strengthen the economy of the area.

So I say to you and Aries, lighten up and see the sun rise in the east and set in the west as it has over Macedonia for 3000 years!!!

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

all for one, you sound like a very, very short man by the way you express yourself. If Macedonia had work I'm sure that the 40% unemployed would be ecstatic. But let me guess you must live in the diaspora with those imbecilic antiquisationists who, like yourself, think that Macedonia needs to be united as if it was ever a nation before. You see all for one it is this type of naive concepts that you portray that keep people so confused. You seem to imply that our Slavic ethnicity inhabited every inch of regional Macedonia but as our evidemce [...]

Read the full comment shows Bulgarians, Greeks, Vlachs, Romas, Albanians, and Turks inhabited the same land. Your suggestion that there is a pure nationality is obsurd because your ethnicity remains forever part of the Slavic heritage, so enjoy. As for your version of history its just as purported as Stefov who like yourself has grown rich from the suckers money, like yourself, who buy his fabrications and live in a fairytale where they enjoy thinking themselves as descendents of the Greek Al.Veliki and co. But if it must be, you can have a Greek ethnicity if you wish just leave our Modern ethnicity as it is, proud of its Slavic origins and its Macedonian land. You have a few feet to grow before you can see out your window, so I must advise you to read a little before you take a peek outside your little, little world.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
40% unemployment. what an embarrasment for our country.

Aries, thank you for concurring with me that Macedonia has seen many cultures pass through it through the centuries. That's what makes it the great multi-cultural country it is today, all of them calling themselves MACEDONIAN!!!

You seem however, to do the same mistakes as a lot of ill taught historians and keep calling the ancient Hellenes, Greek. I even heard the other day one prominent historian refer to the Persians as Iranian.

My friend your list of events is well known to me and I only summarized in order to accommodate [...]

Read the full comment your average knowledge of the area.

As for Fallmerayer, he stated that the Slavic tribes penetrated all the way to the Peloponnese and had witnessed accounts of the Slavs speaking their language in these areas.

Again you fall in the trap of instead of calling The Roman Empire buy it's rightful name and which was used up to modern times, you use the term Byzantine empire, which was again a made up name by some historian who I guess did not like the Romans.

Like the Trebizond Empire and the Latin Empire, the modern Greek Empire over Southern Macedonia will come to an end and an United Macedonia will exist once more as it did over two thousand centuries ago!!

Yes, my friend the sun will rise in the east and set in the west just as sure as Greece will go into bankruptcy and become a multi-cultured society, more so then Macedonia

To answer to the cleaner of Berlaymont, Koinos Nous:

"clearly you only see what you want to see in any message or posting".

>>>This is your case, not mine.

I will be clear with you (something you are not with us): I do not deny and the readers of this blogsite too that Greece is in a deep-serious financial crisis. I never denied a such thing. But the problem and - I cannot accept it - is that you turn this fact into tragedy to promote your skopjanish [...]

Read the full comment propaganda and which looks like more like a total aberration with a reasoning which is going too far to be considered as "realistic":

Greek financial crisis > bankrupt > excluded from Eurozone> excluded from EU > Skopje in EU and eats Macedonia > Greece disappears from the map and all the Greeks that you hate so much are killed in skopjano-turkish genocide.

We are talking about serious things there and I am not laughing. Such negative thoughts coming from your part must be banished from this blogsite. But unfortunately the moderators are now bored to ban your multiple pseudonyms every time...

* "I think I may recollect you from my time in the Berlaymont building as a delegate from a member-state; there is quite a good restaurant in the basement, and you were one of the waiters who was always over-zealous in trying to extract "une tabiche" (Belgian French for a tip !)"

>>>What kind of serious comment is that? If you like to joke, return to the kindergarden, because that DOES NOT INTEREST people there. A person who pretends to work in Berlaymont never talks like a childish abruti...

All for one and Co.

<<<Aries goes on ranting on with his wrong interpretations of history like a school boy with his first, stiffy!
His idea that you need 2,000 to 3,000 years in Balkan history to create a nation is idiotic and his failure to recognize there was not a Greek state before 1829, speaks volumes.>>>
No interpretation what so ever
2500 BC Indo-Europeans appear in Europe
2000BC Doric Greek tribes settle in Illyria
1300BC Illyrians spread from Pannonia to Dalmatia
1250BC Phrygians [...]

Read the full comment come from Balkans to Asia Minor - the first Great
1200BC Illyrians arrive at South Italy
1200 BC Doric peoples invade Greece; and soon destroy the Mycenaean civilization
1100 BC Thracian peoples arrive to Balkans
730 BC Cimmerians invade Europe and Asia and reach Pannonia and Lydia
550 BC Thracian inscriptions
550 BC Messapic and Venetic inscriptions
495 BC Macedonia under Greek influence
480 BC Thracian Kingdom of Odrisses
380 BC Illyrian Kingdom founded
280 BC Celts arrive to the Balkans and Asia Minor
143 Rome subdues Macedonia and divides it into Salutaris and Prima
31 BC Thrace conquered by Rome
9 BC Illyria and Pannonia conquered by Rome
112 AD Dacia conquered by Rome
270 AD Romans leave Dacia
488 AD Romans leave the Danube region
with a tiny wee bit of interpretation.
A human being (person) entering a room out of the blue states that he is Napoleon.
how do we interpret this act of self identification by cultural manipulation?

If your care about an exposition of Historical Greece through the materialistic interpretation of history prism the following will do.

Greece next enters the historical record, its class structure is very different from the time of Homer. Trading cities have sprung up all around the coast. All these cities seem to have been dominated at first by small ruling classes of landlords who monopolised political rights.
We can speculate that these landlords may have been the original occupants of the central city zones. As trade developed, the price of their land would have rocketed, and they would have been able to use their position to control the marketing of produce. Certainly they used their dominant position to lend seed to the poorer citizens living on the outskirts, and to enforce a debt bondage on many.

As trade developed, the merchant and artisan classes grew in importance, and campaigned with the poor peasants for political rights. Once class society had been established, it radiated throughout the main population centers through warfare and the chance of getting yourself a slice of the surplus.
All city states in Greece and Rome were organised around the same principles. The whole city-state ('polis' in Greek) was unified against every other city-state, but divided within itself.
It was divided on class lines--and between citizens and slaves.

At first the poor citizens ('plebeians' as they were called in Rome) were blocked from all political rights. Their struggle was political , to gain a say in the decision making of the state.
Military survival was also a necessity, and for that the state depended on the support of the peasantry in the army. The wealthy landlord class needed the poor citizens to fight for them. That is why a representative of the upper class, Solon in Athens actually redistributed the land to the plebeians in 594 B.C.

In Athens, a predominantly trading centre with a higher concentration of merchants and artisans, the small men were eventually able to win full democratic rights. Poor men were paid for public service, and over 5,000 citizens regularly met in the assembly to discuss policy.

The struggle for democracy went through a number of stages. In city after city the landed oligarchy were first overthrown by tyrants. These men bore a remarkable resemblance to the later absolutist monarchs who balanced between the feudal aristocracy and the rising class of merchant capitalists.
Like the absolutists, they used the deadlock in the class struggle to grab political power for themselves. Like the Tudor monarchs in England, the political stability they guaranteed allowed the further rise of the monied classes, who from being their sturdiest prop became their staunchest foe, as they themselves formed aspirations to untrammelled political power. So the era of the tyrants ended in all the commercial cities of Greece in 'democratic' revolution.
But Athenian democracy--democracy for the citizens--had as its foundation the exploitation of a class of non-citizens: slaves who were without political rights. Athenian democracy was in fact a mechanism for enforcing the interests of the ruling class over the exploited slave class--and for defending the interests of the ruling class in war.
The polis was an institution geared up for permanent war. The power of the city state was based on independent peasants capable of arming themselves . The victory of democracy was inevitable in Athens after the poor citizens won the naval battle of Salamis against the Persians for the city. Though too poor to arm themselves, they provided the rowers for the Athenian navy. A precarious unity of interests was established between rich and poor citizens through expansion outwards and the conquest of slaves.
By comparison with later Roman slave society the Greek slave mode of production was relatively "democratic" as far as the citizens were concerned. Even poor citizens could own a slave to help around the farm or workshop, or lease them out to work on slave gangs.
Thus the squeeze was off the poor citizen, for the rich had an alternative labour supply. The Greek states where democracy did not develop were mainly inland, where landed wealth was naturally more important than commercial riches.
Slavery itself was only possible because labour was now capable of yielding a surplus. That surplus was appropriated by a ruling class who owned the means of production--in this case the slaves themselves. The state was the state of the ruling class. The whole structure of society was based upon slave labour--all the miracles of art, culture and philosophy were only possible because an exploited class laboured so slave-holders could have leisure.


Third point.
A German a history professor of Classics at Landshut Bavaria named Jakob Phillip Fallmerayer wrote a book in 1827 titled Geschichte des Kaisertums von Trapezunt about the Trebizond Empire. This book is one of the many” Livre de chevet “ that provoked the mental lapsus in the following paragraph

<<<<<On the other hand there was a Macedonian Kingdom in ancient times and though it was interrupted by the Roman Empire and Ottoman Empire the area still survived throughout the centuries and the people in this area called Macedonia self identify themselves as Macedonian >>>>>

You people were taught that between the Roman and Ottoman empires there never existed a superset of the Trebizond Empire ( 1204–1461) the Byzantine Empire . When the army of the Fourth Crusade overthrew (1204) the Byzantine Empire and established the Latin Empire of Constantinople, several Greek successor states sprang up. These were the empire of Nicaea, the despotate of Epirus, and the empire of Trebizond. Until 1261 when Byzantine empire was reconstituted by the Palaiologoi Dynasty. In 1453 the Ottomans overthrew the Byzantines.

next time more ranting until you learn than the sun rises in east and sets in the west.

Sasha please get a job and stop your whining, as the growing Macedonian economy will leave you in the wind with your other comrades who are waiting for the state to find you jobs. May I suggest a job at the border with Greece so you can greet all your fellow Greeks with a big smile!

Macedonia will survive without you and you disillusioned friends and head towards a successful economic future unlike your Greek compatriots!

Well, GMS and others, this is an article from today's "Prague Post" saying much the same thing about the Czech Republic, and drawing an explicit parallel with Greece and its dire economic straits :

http://www.praguepost.com/business/3315-czech-republic-awash-with-debt.html

Just one further thought - GMS - the EU President is named "Van Rompuy" and not "Von Rompuy", as you wrote.

This is because he is Flemish, and not German. The nationalities and languages are different, as in:

- German: augenblick (moment)
- Flemish: oogenblik (moment)

- German: vielen dank (thank you)
- Flemish: dank U wel (thank you)

- German: bitte schoen (please)
- Flemish: alstublieft (please)

- French: kermesse(autumn festival)
[...]

Read the full comment - Flemish: kermesse (ditto)

- sorry, the last one slipped in somehow, as I know you are the greatest known expert on this site as regards modern languages.

Tot ziens, mijnheer - a bientot, monsieur

GMS - clearly you only see what you want to see in any message or posting. The Financial Times article of Wednesday 13 Jan on the Greek economy - to which the BBC item refers - was damning, to say the least. I take no pleasure in this, but let us at least be objective in our comments on this site.

I think I may recollect you from my time in the Berlaymont building as a delegate from a member-state; there is quite a good restaurant in the basement, and you were one of the waiters [...]

Read the full comment who was always over-zealous in trying to extract "une tabiche" (Belgian French for a tip !)

Apart from that, as they say in my home territory, "Cer i giachi i bob Groegwr", which is variously translated as "We welcome Greeks when they have the money", or else "Timeo Danaos Et Dona Ferentes". (You have my permission to analyse each of these three expressions for spelling mistakes.)

To the Berlaymont cleaner: I am sorry to tell you what BBC says support my argument, not yours. BBC did not say a single word about Greece being excluded from the eurozone. Read correctly and do not try to invent other dramatic theories... Also the statements from Olli Rehn and Von Rompuy are far enough to back my long-time thoughts.
I would suggest you to focuse on the Zerozone problem of FYROM which is isolated, because it is still not in the EU & NATO. Try to meditate about it and find a solution for your country...
[...]

Read the full comment />
"It's not "exclude", but "excluded", for example."

>>>Yes, you are right. Congratulations! But this mistake was unintentional contrary to yours which are systematic...
I just wrote very fast with my keyboard (because I am working contrary to you who are spending all your time on this blogsite)and sometimes some letters do not appear. Simply like that. If you judge me silly because of it, then I think this judgement returns to yourself...

Trying to be as much diplomatic as I can with you.

Kindest Regards,
GMS

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

To Koinos Nous: obviously you reject my humble opinion especially when you know I am fully right and you fully wrong...
As for the viewers of this blogsite, the articles I provided about "Greece being no way exclude from the eurozone" are enough convincing contrary to your poor and imaginary sources and theories...

GMS - since you ask me, I think on balance that I do NOT "want your humble opinion", as you put it. Nor, I imagine, does anybody else.

All for one, I didn't take you to be a fool but I was wrong. Not only are you a fool but an idiotic fool at that. Recently you wrote of how our Macedonian narrative had a discontinuous (a front obviously)past. Now you seem to hypocritically contradict yourself saying that the people in regional Macedonia had always called themselves that. Unfortunately you have revealed your antiquisationist facade and as such ridiculed all your fabricated past messages and only to appease all(cunning I have to admit). Thankfully your generation will soon pass and our young Macedonians will remember people like you [...]

Read the full comment in the diaspora as the hasbeens, those who rejected their Slavic ethnicity and prefered a Greek one under the likes of Al.Veliki.
Why do you not accept that your brand of Macedonianism (antiquisationists)is a modern product created in the diaspora to soothe your dislke of losing your homes to Greek speaking Macedonians who just happened to whoop your arses in the civil war. You take out your contempt on our Macedonian Youth who think and believe in a different future for our people and yet you remain discontent because you live in foreign countries and also have nothing to return too. But our Macedonian Youth are not to blame for your imbecilic decisions and idiotic ideas to leave the land of your mothers milk. So suffer in your host countries but leave our Macedonian Youth to continue to fight for reality and that is that yours and our identity is as old as our nationial awakening last century anything before that is a figment of your imagination regardless of how hard you would wish it otherwise.
So all for one I advise you too go pickup Peter and drink a nice Turkish coffee to think of lost lands, lost hopes, and lost identities.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
Soon the Old antiquisationists will pass away and a new Beginning will enrich all our Macedonian people.

To Aries;I wonder why you are inable to make a comment to what I wrote.Answer,why was the Greek Secret Service in Macedonia?.Lets leave the word pospasma "apospasma" it is not importent.Here is something you can masticate as long as you want." I will try to writte it in Greek with English alphabet.E Makedoniki glossa stin apografy plithismou tou 1920,by Dimitry Lithoxou.Ti 19th Dekemvriou 1920 pragmatopiithike e geniki apografi tou plithismou tou ellinikou kratous ke ton ellinon ipikon pu vriskotan stin allodapy."Here is how the Macedonians were asked;"E de erotisis gia tin glossa exe os exis:Pia ene e mitriki sou hlossa [...]

Read the full comment dil. pia ene e glossa tin opia emathes apo mikros ke tin opia omilis is tin ikean su.Ean e mitriki sou glossa den ene e elliniki, gnorizis ke tin Ellinikin;(ne e ohi.)Opos katalaveni o kathenas me ena tetio erotimatologio, e elliniki diikisi sigkentrose ola ta aparatita stihia pou hriazotan gia ti haraxi politikis.Sta zitimata de ton glossikon ke thriskeftikon miotiton, ehe pleon mia pliri ikona pou thriskeftikou ke glossikou harty tou plithismou ton prosartithenton edafon meta tous dio Valkanikous ke ton proto pangosmio polemo, ke malista sto mikro epipedo tou kathe ekismou horista."I wont try to writte the whole thing,but this happened after the Balkan war.What is very disturbing,Greece never anounced the results,they were kept secret like everything else.Why did they asked the question of;"if the Greek language is not yours,do you recognise the Greek?"To me it is obviouse,the Macedonians said;we speak Macedonian.This proves,Macedonia was never Greek.The Greek propaganda againts the Macedonians continious even today.I hope you did read about the Secret Services of 1982.At this, I will sign out.

By the way, I love to see your desperate attitude when I prove you everytime that you are completely wrong and a false prophet. But you love to ridiculize yourself in a high degree and it is pretty funny to read your comments.

I can send you with a big smile dozen of other articles saying "No Way Greece will leave Euro" if you wish and also dozen of others saying FYROM is still in the Zerozone, hehe.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

GMS.
First of all my apologies to the moderators for quoting in French but there is a point to be made to negative thinking AND THGE OTHER PERTAINING TO SO CALLED FYROMIAN WORDS OR EXPRESSIONS.
In greek poutre is dokari and paille is achiro.
IN ENGLISH ITS BEAM AND STRAW.
La paille est la partie de la tige de certaines graminees, dites cereales à paille (ble, orge, avoine, riz), coupee lors de la moisson et rejetee,
La Paille et la Poutre Blog contre la propagande américano-sioniste.
La parabole [...]

Read the full comment et l'imagination interprétative
Jacques Rhéaume
Le texte original de la parabole, la paille et la poutre, Lc 6,41
Qu'as-tu a regarder la paille qui est dans l'oeil de ton frere? Et la poutre qui est dans ton oeil à toi, ne la vois-tu pas! Comment peux-tu dire a ton frere: Mon frere attends, que j'enleve la poutre qui est dans ton oeil, toi qui ne vois pas la poutre qui est dans le tien? Hypocrite, enleve d'abord la poutre de ton oeil; et alors tu verras clair pour enlever la paille qui est dans l'oeil de ton frere.
The rest is Silent.
ps!
About the accents i leave to you the dirty work since I lack a French Keybord.

To the single person behind Koinos Nous and Aries who are congratulating always each others, some lessons of french orthograph:

"Allez vous faire pendre carement
idiotique votre contestation
vous voyez la paille dans l'oeil d'autris et vous ne voyez pas la poutre qui est dans le votre
cervelle de vache espanognole
n'est qu'un compliment pour vous
merci!!!"

>>>The correct french is:

"Allez vous faire pendre carrément (idiotique= impossible to translate= incompréhensible...)avec votre contestation, vous voyez la paille dans [...]

Read the full comment l'oeil d'autrui (some weird proverb translated in fyrom language)et vous ne voyez pas la poutre (another weird sentence...)dans votre cervelle de vache espagnole (what? a spanish cow? Ok, I see, some tranquillizers are needed) n'est qu'un compliment pour vous! >>> does it have a once of sense? Obviously not...

Also to Koinos Nous/Aries, if you ever worked in Berlaymont, that was probably in this restaurant or fast-food which is nearby this area, but in no way you have been working there with a so terrible french language. They would have even not let you enter the building!!

Aries - I'll try to keep this in English, as this is after all an English-language site (!), but the answer to your question is as follows (which might help others much less fluent in French than you are) :

"Cervelle de vache espagnole" was first used in the 1990s on the menu of those many Turkish restaurants near the Berlaymont that serviced EU officials and the many delegates from EU member-states regularly visiting Brussels (like me !)

It combines two expressions: "cervelle de veau" (calves' brains) as long served in many [...]

Read the full comment Brussels restaurants as a first course, and "parler francais comme une vache espagnole" ( to speak French not very well),another long-used expression.

The "cervelle de vache espagnole" expression rather "caught on" and became fashionable with the expatriate Brussels community and EU staff alike, so now it is part of Belgian French, along with "reciproquer", "bonne fin de soiree", "septante", "nonante", "dites une fois, monsieur", and all the other local Belgian expressions en francais that will make GMS furious.

There is a book that he might like, published by les editions Robert, and that is : "La Chasse Aux Belgicismes" (Chasing away Belgian expressions in French). But it is quite expensive, and it carries a health warning (if you use a Belgian expression unwittingly, it blows up in your pocket. Just like the recent 25 Dec event on an American airliner. So don't buy it at an airport.)

<<< but you refuse to distinguish between self identification and cultural manipulation>>>

A human being (persom) entering a room out of the blue states that he is Napoleon.
how do we interpret this act of self identification by cultural manipulation?

a bit sophisitic i agree

k.NOUS.
Thanks for appreciating my French.
By the way how did it occur that you came up with "cervelle de vache espangole" tres a propos
i would apreciate an analysis
has it any-thing to do with
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease?
God forbids.
<< the Irish vigilante border patrols (apospasma equivalent) unfortunately occurred on both sides of the border, so it wan't just the IRA. The other side's paramilitaries did it too. And this started in 1921, but only concluded in 1999 with the Good Friday Agreement.
[...]

Read the full comment >>
I do agree no more ghosts!!

About the secret (miltary) budget the analysis must be kept logically hided as any country would have done .

Sasha and others, you still don't get it! You seem to be relatively intelligent people but you refuse to distinguish between self identification and cultural manipulation.

Aries goes on ranting on with his wrong interpretations of history like a school boy with his first, stiffy! His idea that you need 2,000 t0 3,000 years in Balkan history to create a nation is idiotic and his failure to recognize there was not a Greek state before 1829, speaks volumes.

On the other hand there was a Macedonian Kingdom in ancient times and though [...]

Read the full comment it was interrupted by the Roman Empire and Ottoman Empire the area still survived throughout the centuries and the people in this area called Macedonia self identify themselves as Macedonian.

It is as simple as that, and all your hogwash will not change the facts, Macedonia will survive and become a prosperous nation within the E.U. framework!

GMS - there is nothing wrong with Aries' French, but we all make typos on the computer keyboard now and then (even you !)

A mon avis, Aries s'exprime dans un francais impeccable. Mieux que moi....

As for your other points,

(1) the Berlaymont in Brussels is quite accessible to government officials holding the right pass. It also has a very good restaurant and duty-free shop in the "sous-sol".

(2) You should "read between the lines" of Rehn's comments. The hidden message is that [...]

Read the full comment Greece needs to provide FULL compliance with Commission officials (including the "secret" defence budget), otherwise various consequences might otherwise happen.

Aries - the Irish vigilante border patrols (apospasma equivalent) unfortunately occurred on both sides of the border, so it wan't just the IRA. The other side's paramilitaries did it too. And this started in 1921, but only concluded in 1999 with the Good Friday Agreement.

Not a nice precedent to quote, but an accurate one.

Please all for one, get of your binary horse and speak your mind. We all know that continuity with the ancient past is frivolous. Yet your diaspora compatriots demand, not reseach, that Al. Veliki is their ancestor to the contrary of scientific evidence which gives him a Greek origin. Now whether the modern Greeks also lay claim to him is of no consequence to us in Macedonia because we have our heritage and Slavic background. Our ethnicity as you say is Slavic and yes we have a Macedonian nationality and also that it is not part of a ancient continuum. [...]

Read the full comment Peter and his diaspora idiots would have us believe otherwise and most, so far that he and his cronies have written on this site are nothing more than cutting and pasting info from MINA the most pathetic nationalisic Macedonian news online. When people denounce our Macedonian identity they do so because people like Peter (& Diaspora) are attempting to enhance our identity by stealing bits and pieces of regional historical narratives e.g. Al,Veliki. Now whether Al.Veliki should belong to us or the Greeks is an absurd question to ask. Our people are originally not from this land and whether you all like it or not you have to live with it. As our first head of state (K. Gligorov) openly demanded, that we are of Slavic origins and first came to the Balkans in the 6th century AD. This issue has divided us since our intial creation as a Nation-State in 1991. Yes our country is only 19 years old and all these idiots who try to claim that Macedonia was a state before are just imbeciles. Under Turkish administration there never was a Macedonian state let alone a nation. Peter is all talk as he claims to have some experience, believe me for him to be in Aust. Canada, or US just shows how easy he was able to remove himself. My family lost many members since the 1st Balkan war and yet we remain as ardent Macedonians in Macedonia to protect the honour of our fallen heroes against these pathetic diaspora imbeciles who have in little more than 3 decades fabricated new identities for themselves and now want us all here in Macedonia to just wear their hyperbole as if identity was just a brand of clothing you can just throw on and parade. The master imbecile has to be Risto Stefov who is being currently ridiculed in many Macedonian circles for lying to our people about 2013 when he relunctantly had to admit in public (after being publicly humiliated by historical academics) that the crap he wrote in his book was all a forgery. You see guys these people, you believe in every word they create, but it is not without saying objectivity belongs to us who employ it.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

Oula, votre français est quelque peu incompréhensible, Monsieur Aries la Couille Molle. Your french is terrible...
Would adopt a more mature attitude if I was you, then I can dare to communicate you, gosse de trois ans.

GMS.
Allez vous faire pendre carement
idiotique votre contestation
vous voyez la paille dans l'oeil d'autris et vous ne voyez pas la poutre qui est dans le votre
cervelle de vache espanognole
n'est qu'un compliment pour vous
merci!!!

To Aries and Koinos Nous, no offense, but écrivez dans un bon français s'il vous plaît. Et je ne parle pas que des fautes d'accentuation. Vos fautes d'accord et de doublement de consonnes sont assez graves... Vous donnez une image de vous dévalorisante en écrivant de la sorte.

Voilà un conseil avisé pour pas que le ridicule tue... Merci de votre attention.

K.NOUS.
Addendum/
to the Separists Of UK the
Ira(north ireland) .
To the Separists of Spain
the Basques
To the Separists of Georgia
The Osetians
To the Separists of Russia
the Chechens
Name one who was not fought
by the respective Governments.

les concerts et les chansons
sont aggreables mais les realites
sont touts autres
un mauvais commencement
on doit le supprimer de la naissance triste [...]

Read the full comment mais helas vrai !!!cela coute tres chers
your call mon vieux.!!!!

To Koinos Anus: "Clearly, GMS, you have never spent any time in the Berlaymont EU HQ in Brussels. I spent six years there, cervelle de vache espagnole".

>>>You have never been in Berlaymont, trou DUC. That was proven many times in old topics. Also kinda childish french insults prove your fake diplomatic seriousness...

But why am I talking about Greece, while Skopjaland has never been in the Eurozone and in the EU? Let is be precised: Skopje is now in the Zerozone and will stay like this until the implosion...
[...]

Read the full comment

Well, thanks Aries for confirming at last that "apospasma" does not only mean a part of a document or a bank-account statement / releve de compte !

When you say :
<< The word aposmasma not slang pospasma means in certain cases "patrol" specially frontier units with trained dogs used when one country does not feel uncomfortable with its neighbor >>..

this sounds exactly like the Irish frontier guerilla patrols during the 1920s "Troubles" that I described in an earlier post on this same thread.

So [...]

Read the full comment I am afraid that I have the "melancholy satisfaction of being proved right", to coin a phrase. This also applies - maybe just this once - to Peter too. Sorry.

The "melancholy satisfaction of being proved right" does not however apply to GMS, who is wrong yet again (are you trying for the World Record, GMS?)

The first thing you learn in Brussels, GMS, is to read "between the lines" of what official spokespersons and Commissioners say. For that is where the meaning lies, and it is quite often the reverse of what the statement ostensibly says (especially on financial matters).

Mon innocent, GMS, do not take Brussels at face value....but why should I help you, vous qui etes l'ingrat sempiterne ?

Clearly, GMS, you have never spent any time in the Berlaymont EU HQ in Brussels. I spent six years there, cervelle de vache espagnole.

Let us see what emerges in due course. But take no bets, meme que je suis pret a parier ma couille gauche que la Grece subira l'expulsion de l'eurozone dans les mois qui suivent. Mais personne ne sait combien des mois...

Avec l'assurance de mes sentiments les plus elevees at respectueuses, meme (courteous French letter ending to somebody who wouldn't know what a French Letter was !) [...]

Read the full comment

Koinos Nous.
The word aposmasma not slang pospasma means in certain cases "patrol" specially frontier units with trained dogs used when one country does not feel uncomfortable with its neighbor
ex. Fyrom, Albanian in the recent past, nowadays they are police
helicopters patroling.

A bit of recent history.
In the years of upheaval in those areas these patrols were conducted by the Gendarmerie specially trained police force tough guys
when one has a guilty conscience and some people at the time and place had, it is [...]

Read the full comment normal not to be fond of patrols.
By the way the patriots of EAM-ELAS did not fire a shot when the Molotoff-Ribentrop convention was active THEY HAD ORDERS FROM MOSCOW NOT TO MOVE ALL OF A SUDDEN they finally woke up when Adolf attacked the Soviets.
WHAT ABOUT THE MELIGALA ATROCITIES
Yes all of Greece where Collaborators of the Nazis and only real paatriots were Velouhiotis,Beloyannis and Co
For heavens sake NOT THOSE GHOSTS AGAIN.

Cheers.

To Koinos Nous comments below:

"GMS - if you read Rehn's comments closely (and with an informed eye) this means :"we will expel Greece from the Eurozone UNLESS it complies with all our new EU rules and requirements specific to Greece alone."

>>>What else will you utilize this time? You refute now the own words of Olli Rehn?
Your hellenophobic obsession is really as miserable as your poor intellect, Koinos Nous.

Olli Rehn message was crystal clear there. No needs to find hidden senses to the [...]

Read the full comment own comments of the commissionner:

"Outgoing Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, the EU’s new commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, on Monday (January 11th) ruled out excluding Greece from the eurozone, despite the country's financial crisis".

End of the story. No opposition is possible towards a clear statement like this one, cervelle d'oiseau.

Aries,the "apospasma" or Pospasma as we called it in my village was a terorising group of 11-12 men.I will give you an example what happened one evning in my village.The apospasma came and gathered all the women and girls into the school basement,next day was discovered hair all over the floor, ita a fact.Furtheremore they were going from house to house and asking the women,where their husbands were.Remember,this was durring the civil war.I also remember,every letter my father sent had to be read by these fashists who had no value of life.My mother was hit by a gun butt in [...]

Read the full comment front of us.A 16 year old boy was shot by one Lantsakis in 1947 just because his co-hords told him he was not a good "Skopeftis"Marksmen with the first shot.He then got up and stepped on his head and shot him in the throat.Now,as far as the pospasma "apospasma",it means just this;to break them,eliminate them.This has been shown even later on in 1982.Greece applies the same tactics as in 1946-49.and way before when the population exchange took place with Turkey and Bulgaria.You can argue as much as you wish,facts are facts. Greece did committ genocide againts the Macedonian people,and they are still continuing.In Greek "To idio violi" the same vialine. Koinos Nous,Greeks will never admmitt to the truth,they have been brought up this way,same as the Nazis"Ayrean"claim.As a foot note;Macedonia will join the EU wheather Greece likes or not.EU has been updet with Greeces claims for long time now. Have a nice day!

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Aries -

OK (glad our dictionaries agree) - but in that case what WERE the Slav-speaking Macedonians referring to by their borrowed word "pospasma" ?

It doesn't sound as if it was a free gift of McDonalds hamburgers by a grateful Greek government, exactly...

My analogy of the small bands of vigilantes who roamed the Irish border areas in the 1920s may not be too wide of the mark.

K.nous
Category error
this was not the main point
don't be evasive.
though you are good at it.
the collins dictionary is correct
les nuances ne sont paas les memes
wake up!

Aries - well, to answer your question -

"apospasma" is a perfectly good composite Ancient Greek word - "apo" is the preposition and "spasma" is the noun, as in "anabasis" which Xenophon may have written, and we all learned this as part of the UK "A"-level (bacalaureat) in ancient Greek, along with the endless tenses and moods of the verbs lu-ein, ti-themi (I wonder where I heard that more recently ?) and didwmi, including the useful aorist tense and interesting use of participles to express future purpose, as in "poreumenos" (in Latin you couldn't do this). [...]

Read the full comment

So my Greek might not be fluent or modern, but it is not elementary either. I have to admit, though, that my Latin is better; I can still read it without a dictionary.

Turning to "apospasma (to - neuter article)" in modern Greek, the Collins Greek-English dictionary gives this (page 17)as being "extract , extraction, excerpt, or (strat) detachment." The word comes below "aposkapo - verb - to have in view" and above "apospo" - to detach or tear out ". (I have a slight question there in that in Ancient Greek the infinitive would have respectively been "aposkapein" and "apospein" respectively, but you can take this as a purist linguist's quibble, and I don't want to misquote the current Greek-English dictionary.)

Hope this answers your question

To GMS.

ITE PAIDES ELLINON

All for one
As for you i'll be short very short stiff and th....
Did you read your lesson and the mouvements of the earth i respect with the sun etc,,,, etc...
if yes well done if not bad bad boy!

Peter
TO VALIDATE SASHA.
FYROM Foreign Minister Denko Maleski (1991 to 1993)
The idea that Alexander the Great belongs to us was at the mind of some outsider groups only. These groups were insignificant in the first years of our independence. But the big problem is that the old Balkan nations have been learned to legitimate themselves through their history. In the Balkans to be recognized as a nation you need to have history of 2,000 to 3,000 years old. Since you (Greece ) forced us to invent a history, we did invent it.” [...]

Read the full comment

Yes I know he is a traitor.

have a good eveninig

Aplogies for the previous post
K.nous
Where did you get the word
"apospasma" man, i have always
told you that little knowledge is a dangerous thing your little knowledge of Greek has a catastrophic effect on your so called "impartial" or should I say "my foot impartial" stance and has much to do with the lexical firework techniques you use such as
<<I can't find the word "pospasma" in my Serbo-Croat/Macedonian dictionary, but I CAN find the word "apospasma" in my Modern Greek dictionary, and the word in English means [...]

Read the full comment "extraction".
This in turn in German translates as "Herkunft"; the same word was used in the Nazi era to describe the "extraction" of Jews from Central Europe in order to send them to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps. >>
Denotes that you are trying to impress somebody ,Somebody perhaps but certainly not me. Time for you to learn some Greek, the word apospasma in JURIDICIAL terms means a part of of a document “un extrait de compte ou bordereau “ which means a summary of a bank account . there exists another meaning of the “stratiotiko apospasma” that is the Firing squad , or copy of a document “apospasma pinikou mitroou “ copy of a criminal record.The word “apospasma” is of static nature it has nothing violent or dynamic as “Extraction”
If my German were as good as my French perhaps could say more about Herkunft
Learn before firing fireworks mon vieux.
Sometimes you lose all sense of proportions, what has Treblinka Auschwitz and other extermination camps got to do with the issue.
The 1982 law on political refugees which allows repatriation only to those political refugees who are "Greeks by genus." Repealing this law would allow the return of all political refugees, regardless of ethnicity.
"I think resolving these issues has started from the easiest problem - [some limited] freedom of movement with the visiting of birthplaces. Solving the other issues will probably follow later", stated Gjorgi Donevski, executive secretary of the Third Gathering of the Children-Refugees.
The gathering was hosted by the Rainbow Party (Vinozhito), which represents the Macedonian minority in Greece. Rainbow evaluates the gathering in Florina should not be considered as the third gathering of the refugees. According to Rainbow, the reason for this is that return to Greece was not allowed for all political refugees, especially to former fighters.
Members of the Association of Aegean Macedonians, which has its seat in Bitola, were not present at the gathering in Florina According to Donevski, this does not mean there is any dispute among the associations of the Macedonians, but it is the stance of persons who do not want to change their passports in which the names of their birthplaces are written using the old Macedonian name.
"It is their right but I evaluate that it is not correct from their side to accuse us because we have accepted the agreement of the Macedonian and Greek Governments", stated Donevski. However, the president of the Association of Aegean Macedonians in Bitola, Aleksandar Popovski, stated that his dignity does not allow him to alter the name of his birthplace.
Participants of the gathering visited Kastoria and announced they would visit Edessa According to radio Deutsche Welle, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs is satisfied with the current visit of the refugees. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the private character of the event, evaluating that fears the organizers or participants "could raise their voices high" appeared unjustified.
Greek media did not dedicate much attention to the gathering. The visit of these political refugees to their birthplaces after 55 years of exile was marked by few newspapers in Athens. Most only emphasized the event was carried out peacefully, without giving further information about the nature of the gathering.

TO VALIDATE SASHA.
FYROM Foreign Minister Denko Maleski (1991 to 1993)
The idea that Alexander the Great belongs to us was at the mind of some outsider groups only. These groups were insignificant in the first years of our independence. But the big problem is that the old Balkan nations have been learned to legitimate themselves through their history. In the Balkans to be recognized as a nation you need to have history of 2,000 to 3,000 years old. Since you (Greece ) forced us to invent a history, we did invent it.”

[...]

Read the full comment /> K.nous
Where did you get the word
"apospasma" man, i have always
told you that little knowledge is a dangereous thing
your little knowledge of Greek has a disasteous effect on your so called "impartial" or should I say "my foot impartial" stance

the lexical firework techniques
used such as
I can't find the word "pospasma" in my Serbo-Croat/Macedonian dictionary, but I CAN find the word "apospasma" in my Modern Greek dictionary, and the word in English means "extraction".

This in turn in German translates repeal the 1982 law on political refugees which allows repatriation only to those political refugees who are "Greeks by genus." Repealing this law would allow the return of all political refugees, regardless of ethnicity.
"I think resolving these issues has started from the easiest problem - [some limited] freedom of movement with the visiting of birthplaces. Solving the other issues will probably follow later", stated Gjorgi Donevski, executive secretary of the Third Gathering of the Children-Refugees.
The gathering was hosted by the Rainbow Party (Vinozhito), which represents the Macedonian minority in Greece. Rainbow evaluates the gathering in Lerin should not be considered as the third gathering of the refugees. According to Rainbow, the reason for this is that return to Greece was not allowed for all political refugees, especially to former fighters.
Members of the Association of Aegean Macedonians, which has its seat in Bitola, were not present at the gathering in Lerin. According to Donevski, this does not mean there is any dispute among the associations of the Macedonians, but it is the stance of persons who do not want to change their passports in which the names of their birthplaces are written using the old Macedonian name.
"It is their right but I evaluate that it is not correct from their side to accuse us because we have accepted the agreement of the Macedonian and Greek Governments", stated Donevski. However, the president of the Association of Aegean Macedonians in Bitola, Aleksandar Popovski, stated that his dignity does not allow him to alter the name of his birthplace.
Participants of the gathering visited Kostur and announced they would visit Sabotsko and Voden. According to radio Deutsche Welle, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs is satisfied with the current visit of the refugees. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the private character of the event, evaluating that fears the organizers or participants "could raise their voices high" appeared unjustified.
Greek media did not dedicate much attention to the gathering. The visit of these political refugees to their birthplaces after 55 years of state enforced exile was marked by few newspapers in Athens. Most only emphasized the event was carried out peacefully, without giving further information about the nature of the gathering.

All for one
As for you i'll be short very short
Did you read your lesson and the mouvements of the earth i respect with the sun etc,,,, etc...
if yes well done if not bad bad boy!

Peter -

Many thanks for your clarification about "apospasma".

I'm not taking sides on this issue, as I said (I don't know enough about it, for a start), but what you describe sounds like various terror gangs in the 1920s that went round Ireland -both Catholic and Protestant gangs alike - terrorising the local population in the border areas between Northern Ireland and the new Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland)

These gangs - on both sides - were rather skilled at persuading many of the [...]

Read the full comment local inhabitants to move to the other side of the new border, preferably within 24 hours.

Otherwise "knee-cappings" or worse non-lethal bodily sanctions were applied (and occasionally lethal ones too).

Sounds at first sight a bit the same kind of thing as the 'apospasma', but we really need to know more about it before forming a view.

The German mass-version of the same thing - "Herkunft" or "Judenherkunft" - was of course carried out on a far larger scale (with typical German efficiency and appropriate use of rail transport for mass deportations to konzientrationslageren such as Auschwitz/Birkenau), but in principle it sounds a bit the same.

Not a nice precedent, anyway.

To Koin Nous;The word "Pospasma" was used by Macedonians.You are right,the properly is "Apospasma"These groups consisted of about 11,12 men who were going from village to village terorizing the Macedonian people. What I write is not from history books,rather from own experience. I lived through it and are personal experiences.What Sasha is arguing with me is something different.Sasha did not live through this.I cannot be two different identity like the likes of Karamanlis and Droutsas,even Sasha pretends to be two different identity.If I were Greek,Bulgarian or any other identity,I would have been proud,but, I am Macedonian like it or not,thats [...]

Read the full comment my ethnicity,it wont change.Thank you and have a nice day!

GMS - if you read Rehn's comments closely (and with an informed eye) this means :"we will expel Greece from the Eurozone UNLESS it complies with all our new EU rules and requirements specific to Greece alone."

This is the equivalent in the old days of a Minister of Finance saying: "We have no plans to devalue our currency". Everybody in the financial world immediately took this to mean "We shall devalue, but I say when and by how much".

Try not to take government and EU pronouncements so much at face [...]

Read the full comment vale, and you will make fewer mistakes.

Happy New Year and Orthodox Christmas, by the way - we were wondering where you were, as somebody has to act the Devil in our Orthodox Christmas pantomime !

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Aries, the comments I have been making on this site are connected with the Greek Veto againts Macedonias membership into NATO and EU.Macedonia is prepaired to wait,the walls wont fall or the nation will disapear.Only now,the Greek genocide has been written.The problem beforehand was,the Macedonians were occupied and no body dared to writte anything,being in Yugoslavja,Greece or Bulgaria.Thanks to the Helsinki Human Rights.Your question about Vasilis Dendramis of 1925,here it is; The treaty of Serves which Greece signed earlier on August 10,1920. According to conditions of the treaty, under Articles 7, 8, and 9, the Greek government was to undertake [...]

Read the full comment certain obligations regarding "the protection of the non-Greek national minorities in Greece".These Articles specifically stated free use of languahes and education. Initially Greece sought to neglect its obligations, however in March 1925 the League of Nations directed Greece to fulfill its obligations. By May 1925 an elementary school reader was published in the Macedonian language, it was known as the Abecedar. The Abecedar was to be used by Macedonian children in Macedonian schools which were yet to open in Aegean Macedonia.Strong reaction immediatly came from Serbia and Bulgaria. Serbia and Bulgaria were caught totaly by surprise,both were furious that the Abecedar was not printed in Serbian or Bulgarian respectivaly. Serbia threatend to break its treaty of Alliance with Greece and to commence negotiations with Bulgaria for the division of Aegean Macedonia.Bulgaria protested that they signed an Accord with Greece which recognized the Macedonians as Bulgarians. What occured next is truly a rare example, the Greek representative at the League of Nations Vasilis Dendramis responded by defending the Macedonian language as being "Neither Bulgarian,nor Serbian but an independent language" He listed various linguists and linguistic maps as evidence to support his claim of the independence of the Macedonian language. The high ranking Greek official represented the Greek State not only recognized the existance of the Macedonian identity, but openly defended and supported it. However, Serbian and Bulgarian objections, together with internal opposition in Greece prevented the Abecedar from even reaching the Macedonian children. The Abecedar was destroyed, but remains as a reminder to the Greek government of the Macedonians as a separate national entity. Here is what a Greek news paper "Rizospastis" write in 1932.Rizospastis published a lengtly article on the position of the Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia in November 1932 clearly describing the level of Macedonian awarness; What we have in Macedonia are neither Greeks nor Bulgarians nor Serbs but the Macedonian people, the Macedonian minority which, in spite of all the blows and in spite of all the repression, preserves its economic and its national existance and a separate culture." Another corespondent writes;"It is these Macedonians who Clench their teeth,stabbornly speak their Macedonian language of their own,for a free Macedonia". To Sasha;Your assumption of me being Greek is totally absurd.I do not sell my identity as you do by supporting the 130 million payout. Facts are facts. To Aries; Aries,I hope you did read my answer to your question,but must have made you realy uoset for the truth.I suggest to you,try and be more polite,more pragmatist in writting.Most of all, dont let the truth be a burden to you,because the whole Greek history has been so fabricated and its very hard for a Greek to comprehand it.The real fault is the Greek polititians who will do anything just to get elected by lies.Finaly, I wish you all the best,and hoping to read your comments.Please, let keep our comments in historical lines and not attack each other personally.

I'm trying to be a bit neutral in this discussion (for once!), but it does strike me that the mention of "pospasma" by Peter and his precise references to Greek measures << Athens,16th February,1982 Number of protocol 650217-3042. >> do at least deserve an informed answer from the Greek side of this debate.

I can't find the word "pospasma" in my Serbo-Croat/Macedonian dictionary, but I CAN find the word "apospasma" in my Modern Greek dictionary, and the word in English means "extraction".

This in turn in German translates as "Herkunft"; the same [...]

Read the full comment word was used in the Nazi era to describe the "extraction" of Jews from Central Europe in order to send them to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps.

Not a nice precedent.

What is the explanation from the Greek side of this debate ? "Apospasma" is certainly not a Slavonic word, and its meaning in modern Greek might need a bit of further elucidation.

As I say, I am neutral, but this one does strike me as being an issue for the Greek side to answer.

Sasha and Aries, yes please do not go on. Your weak attempts of trying to prove Macedonians are of Greek or Bulgarian descent is becoming laughably and pathetic!

Your obsession with history and the incorrect facts comes from a biased self inflicted train of thought, developed by a grandiose scheme of seeking a greater Greece and Bulgaria!

As I have stated many times on this site that the ancient Hellenes and Macedonians have very little to do with the modern Greeks or Macedonians and your insistence on trying to make that connection [...]

Read the full comment only shows your complete lack of knowledge and translation of history!

You quote sources out of context and then try and persuade us these are reliable facts, and then have the audacity of when given the proper facts only respond with a naive retort!

My friends, Macedonia does exist and Macedonians are enjoying their country with or without membership to the E.U. or Nato. I know the struggle is there economically and with some racial issues but this will slowly solve itself and fanatics like yourselves will not be able to stir up problems!

Peter I've noticed you've become quite good at cutting and pasting selective texts; a craft your idol Stefov is an expert in. You claim a lot but you are dumbfounded to answer me why so many of our Macedonian people not in Greece but in Macedonia openly claim an anti-antiquisationist identity based on our modern narrative. It seems to me and many of our students that your conspiracy laden theories must be very self-satisfying trying to find your place in OUR lands. Yet you hit brickwalls everywhere you go because just as in Macedonia the Slavic speaking Macedonians in Greece [...]

Read the full comment don't support your fabricating nature and your zealous attitude towards people of a different Macedonian ethnicity. You contradict yourself over and over. You are like a bright red tomato Peter with a Greek star painted on it for your claim of antiquisationism. This type of shallow existnce is god-sent to us in Macedonia because we are able to see through your hypocricy. Denying your Slavic ethnicity for a Greek one shows just how confused you are, at least most in Greece are openly proud of their Slavic origins but not Peter, Peter has to prove(quite amusingly, as he has now topped our stand-up uni campus comedy hour) that the Greek Al.Veliki just happened to be the ancestor of our Slavic ethnicity. Fools come and go, thankfully for us Peter will keep us amused for some time to come.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

Aries,here are the instructions: a)The Skopians activities for the autonomy of Macedonia may be efficiently confronted mainly by wiping out the use of the idiom, in the region near the borders. This opiniom is based on the realization that also other regions that in older times were center of "Macedonianism" loke Kastoria, are no hit by the Skopian propaganda, because there the use of the idiom has been almost wiped out. b) This element by itself would be enough to exclude any thoughts of repatriation of the P/R(political refugees), who now reside in Yugoslavia and who have been brought up [...]

Read the full comment with the "Macedonian idea",the "Macedonian language and culture", independently of their participation or not to the organizations SNOF,NOF and activities take for detaching Greek territories during the period 1946-1949. c) as for evidence it is imperative to: 1)The creation of a state institution that will depend from the Prefecures of the region near the borders, lined with the suitable and specially trained to the "Plot againts Macedonia" subject, personnel. This institution will engage itself only with the subject, with the supervision of the Ministry of Foregn Affaires and will collaborate closely,but in secret with the Security Authorities and all the Public Services(Tax office,Schools,Army,Church,etc. 2)In the public services and especially in the educational institutions the employees who will be in service have to be ignorant of the local idiom. 3)The establishment of special enlightenment seminaries, for all the public service employees and the clergy who are in service in the sensitive region of Macedonia. 4) The establishment of motivations for the obligatory residence of the public servants and other employees, in the quarters of their service(example,payment of the rent,extra pay,etc.) 5)Establishment of the Cultural Association,like "Aristotelis" in Florina and economic help to them, for the realization of evemts and the publishing of books, newspapers, magazines,etc. And afterwards these will be sent to the Diaspora abroad who has origin from the regions of the senders. This will boost their national sentiment and they will be protected from the anti-Hellenic propaganda that is been practiced by S/M(Slavomacedonians) organizations. 6)Insertion of various obstacles(non-recognition of diplomas, postponement of military service,etc.) for the Greek students who wish to study in Skopje. 7) Making in each village of persons who due to their kin bounda and their personally influence a large circle of co- villagers and with any means(even with money payments) get close to them and use them properly so they will behave as the fighters of the use of the idiom in their circle. To this direction a very positive and effective role can be that of the Younger of the political parties, by the judgement and coordination of the Government, when a between parties agreement will be reached. 8)Recruitment in the Armed Forces, in Police Bodies in the public services and Organizations of employees with origin from Florina region, and their obligatory location in other areas of the country. 9)The encouragement, by the leadership of the Army of meetings and marriages of Army officers, who are on duty, there and have origins abroad,with women that speak the idiom. THE CHIEF DIMITRIS KAPELARIS ANT/GOS. Aries, I hope you will read this.This is Greeces propaganda.They, admitt Macedonians do exist in Aegean Macedonia.Before the Pontious,we were all Macedonians living in this area.I hope I did answer your question,or should I say,dispelled your notion? Have a nice day!

Aries,age has nothing to do with the truth.I may have witnessed history before you were born,but you did not see what the "Pospasma" was doing to the Macedonian people. The statement by Droutsas is absurd,dont you agree? Since Greece does not recognize two ethnos,he cannot be Greek and Macedonian at the same time.Furthere,his mother is Austrian,as for himselve,he is a Cypriot "Mulato".Karamanlis said that the Christian Turks "Pontious" are the real ancient Macedonians.By their admittance,both are non Greek nor Macedonian.Therefore,Greece cannot claim Macedonia is Greek. As to your question on the 1982 Law,here it is and wht it says; Greek [...]

Read the full comment Secret Service plan for Macedonians. A document from the Greek Secret Services, dating back to 1982,exemplifies the methodical steps Athens took to destroy Macedonian ethnic conscious as well as the "idiom" within nits territoty. The plan had been drafted on February 16,1982, by the Chief of the Greek Secret Service, Dimitris Kapelaris. According to the plan, Athens had created a Secret Team nicknamed "Plot Againts Macedonia" that was dispatched to Aegean Macedonia and infiltrated into all aspects of public life:(Tax office, Schools, Army, Church,etc.) This is the period when a lot of Macedonians were followed, jailed, fired, beaten, for publicly stating they were Macedonians, not realizing they were being spied on at every level. The Greek Secret Service also had plansa for Florina (Lerin) residents who failed to "feel Greek" and feared may succumb under local Macedonian influence. As a solution, the Secret Service proposed to give these people money, brainwashing literature, and creating a cultural organization named "ARISTOTELIS". A briliant plan, that ouhgt to make them "Greek"! The magnitude, the sheer stupidity vand lunacy of these people is remarkable. Dimitris Kapelaris took a moment to congratulate the Secret Service for managing to "almost" wipe out the Macedonian conscious and the "idiom" in Kastoria (Kostur) The Greek Secret Services despised the fact that Macedonians marry only Macedonians in Greece, and made plans how to mix marriages, so the Macedonians would loose their ethnicity. Were they trying to create more of the Karamanlis type? Their plan backfired, to this day Macedonians in Greece marry Macedonians. 1982, the year of this letter, is also the year Athens implemented laws banning Macedonian refugees from returning to their properties-Not a coincidence. Aries,the HELENIC REPUBLIC top Secret MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SECURITY NATIONAL SECURITY Athens,16th February,1982 Number of protocol 650217-3042. The intoduction has a and b,furthere down has multiple paragraphs.I will not take the space of the site,but if you want next time I will complete the a,b,and the paragrephs.Why dont you call the Greek consulate and ask them.
As to your Bulgarian writting,east and west;Solnceto izgreva od istok, zajdiva na zapad,thats Macedonian.

Ohhhhhh all for one not you too! Just like Peter you find it difficult to accept hard evidence. Insriptions are one thing but other types of material evidence is another. Obviously your biased attitude will not allow you to see the evidence in an objective way so why go on. Sadly for your antiquistionist attitude, Yes the ancients of Al.Veliki were a Greek tribe, diseminating Greek culture of which much is left in the material record. Writing isn't alone proof of ethnicity all for one but it is that of 'doing' which is the quintessential trait of ethnic identity, in [...]

Read the full comment other words you have to practice your culture in all its disparity to be different from others.

As for Peter the hypocrite who lives in the diaspora but breathes through Bulgarian lungs, all the Greek villages where Bulgarian speaking Macedonians live also adhere to a Bulgarian heritage. Although not all Slavic speaking Macedonians in Greece claim Bulgarian ethnicity (e.g. the brainwashed disciples (Peter)of idiots like Voskop., Stefov). As for you Peter just like Voskop., you have had too much good life living like parasites off other peoples misery. You quote my Delchev's tyranny statement yet you left out its context. Two words before he talks, he mentions his (and our peoples) Bulgarian origins. Why do you live a lie Peter. When your family see you again in Greece they'll want answers from your traitorous imbeciles.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

Aries the history is there, I let you verify and I'll do the fireworks.

By the way which way does the moon travel?

Aries - thanks: it must indeed have been some local measure to control the Roma, as you say, so nothing to do with Macedonia as such.

The Roma - as we also see in the UK - are firmly rooted in their traditional customs (one bowl for washing food in the open air, one bowl for washing the body), and they will persist in this even if an enlightened public authority gives them bathrooms and bidets. (Not that we get many bidets in the UK, but that's what they're for).

The Moderators [...]

Read the full comment may complain I'm going Off Topic, so I'll shut up.

Cheers - and thanks - anyway. One more mystery solved !

K.nous.
None that I know of.
he must have taken a normal Roma housekeeping police directive
and they were plenty and still are
for anti-macedonian.
the Roma people live in nomadic cconditions even if you try to make them live in a proper way after certain number of days
they will go back to their own way of life. it's in their DNA very few of them get over the Rubicon.
and achieve marvelous things.
I have been to a Roma Neighborhood
[...]

Read the full comment they have bathrooms and they wash en plein air.
cheers

Aries - fair point, but just what WAS the Greek "anti-Macedonian" Law of 1982 that Peter is banging on about ?

Either there was one, or there wasn't.

The fact that Jugoslavija was using Salonika for its trade at that point is a bit immaterial, as we all know that laws are "more honoured in the breach than in the observance" (i.e. more often broken than observed.)

So either Peter is wrong, or else (for once) he may be right.

Which is it ? [...]

Read the full comment

Peter.
My good man you must be over 75 years old your mind sticks sometimes it's quite normal i am really impressed at how can you use the computer but the bucket stops here.
the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
винаги слънцето изгрява на изток и залязва на запад
I bid you a good evening.
cheers.

K.Nous.
How can it be possible 1982 Greece at it's first steps in EU
with a Socialist administration under Andreas Papandreou to pass
an Anti-Macedonian legislative procedure?
That one of Peter's non-existant Dendramanis and existing Dendramis
misimformative tctics.(fireworks)
At that time Yugoslavia was using regularly the commercial harbor of Thessalonikh normally for its trade.

THE PREVIOUS POST SHOULD READ
Aries . Sorry!

All for one.
<<you have given many interesting points about your views on the Macedonian question, but when you say statements such as, " You can argue all you want but the overwhelming evidence in the archeological, iconographical, textual, architectural and mortuary records all support the academic view that their cultural was Greek “, shows little knowledge you have of history.>>>
Fireworks are very impressive too when writing or commenting
<< You and the modern Greeks have this idea that, any land that has ancient Hellene writing on it must be part of modern [...]

Read the full comment Greece.>>>
Not of modern Greece but of greek culture for sure .
<<<One thing it seems you and others can not absorb is that ancient Hellene writing was the only written language of that area at that time and that is why it is found in the ancient kingdom of Macedonia many other places around the Mediterranean. >>>
Une verite peut etre triste pour certains mais helas vraie !
<<i have repeatedly have stated that the Ancient Macedonian and Hellene people are not the same as the modern Macedonian and Greek people, as well have many historians have adhered to this view. >>
Do some research and Name them no fireworks please , do not forget “ the sun Rises in the East and sets in the West”.

Not taking sides Aries, but when Peter claims that there was an anti-Macedonian Greek law in 1982, either he is demonstrably wrong or he is demonstrably right :

<< Prime example the law of 1982 for special police force how to quell the Macedonianism >>

Which is it ?

Aries,I know the Macedonian history,also I have learned the Greek histiry,but not in Greece.As I have mebtioned my Macedonian heroes,One outstanding Greek hero for me is Papa Diakos,Soufuklis and others.You might wonder,how could I have Greek heroes.Here is my explanation;All these heroes gave their lives for the freedom of their people.Remember,Papa Diakos refused to say he is a Turk,the Turks burned him to death.Delchev said;"I am not againts the Turks,but I am againts the Tyrany".Voskopoulos is not againts the Greek people,he wants same rights as all Greeces citizens as you can see from his interview.Greece does not recognise the Macedonian [...]

Read the full comment minority as different ethnos,yet Droutsas who is a mulato claims to be Macedonian,same with Karamanlis who proclaimed he is Macedonian and that the Christian Turks (Pontious) are the real ancient Macedonians.Granted,his grandmother was Macedonian who spoke no Greek.When Sasha says,that Voskopoulos is a treator,I suggest he read his interview with "Dnevnik" on Dec.28,2009,published on Jan.4,2010.Sasha goes as far as proclaiming Pavlos Melas being Macedonian.This in itselve is as absurd as can be.I admitt,there are Macedonians who think they are Greek or Bulgarian or Serbian for that matter.Dont forget,we have been under occupation for too long,and for people to survive under presure had to declair aligiance to the occupier.When someone says,the Villages I liste are Macedonia speaking,Sasha thinks they speak Bulgarian. Well,I am from one of those Villages and we spoke Macedonian as I do now,not Bulgarian.The truth is,Greek police who used to go from Village to Village when they heard us speak Macedonian,they used to call us "Vulgari".Dont anyone think,why Greece has been passing laws in Aegean Macedonia but none in Greece proper?Prime example the law of 1982 for special police force how to quell the Macedonianism?.People are not blind,they understand why.I had a Greek teacher by the name of Giorgos Papanasiou,the best teacher I ever had.When it came to ethnicity he always said that he was Greek and I was Macedonian.Are there more Greeks who say the same? Read Karakasidou,"Wheat,Hills of Blood:Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870-1990"Univesity of Chicago Press,1997.Also Athena Skoulariki.It will warm your hart.Aries,Sasha supports the ones who are selling their own people.I wont go any furthere,but will say one thing,every people have the right to declair its self their ethnos.As to Macedonias Eu membership,it will happen.Europe cannot leave a tiny country out when they have completed all the set things to do.

All-for-One: I well take your point when you say:

<< One thing it seems you and others can not absorb is that ancient Hellene writing was the only written language of that area at that time and that is why it is found in the ancient kingdom of Macedonia many other places around the Mediterranean. >>

... and you are of course quite right in what you say. The Hellenic alphabet was the only letter-by-letter language around at the time , and accommodated itself well to other non-Hellenic languages around (just as [...]

Read the full comment in more recent days the Russian Cyrillic alphabet adapted itself well to Mongolian, Azeri, and Moldovan Romanian, none of which are Slav languages.) English / Latin alphabet is also used in Turkish, Indonesian, and Maltese, none of which has the remotest linguistic connection to English.

That said, clearly there were significant ethnic Hellenic communities dotted around the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, and they would of course have spoken Greek (which dialect is open to question !)

(Before any self-appointed expert interjects, yes there were other eastern Mediterranean languages around in Classical times, but they were not letter-by-letter as Greek was, so were far less easy to use for transliterating other languages. Hebrew is one good example - a versatile language for consonants, but no vowels (until much more recent days.)

This is probaby getting a bit too specialist a topic, so I'll sign off now !

Sasha, you have given many interesting points about your views on the Macedonian question, but when you say statements such as, " You can argue all you want but the overwhelming evidence in the archeological, iconographical, textual, architectural and mortuary records all support the academic view that their cultural was Greek shows little knowledge you have of history.

You and the modern Greeks have this idea that, any land that has ancient Hellene writing on it must be part of modern Greece.

One thing it seems you and others can not absorb [...]

Read the full comment is that ancient Hellene writing was the only written language of that area at that time and that is why it is found in the ancient kingdom of Macedonia many other places around the Mediterranean.

I have repeatedly have stated that the Ancient Macedonian and Hellene people are not the same as the modern Macedonian and Greek people, as well have many historians have adhered to this view.

I suggest you do more reading instead of spouting your Bulgarian and Greek agenda.

The Macedonian nation will survive because the people of Macedonia self identify themselves with it's name.

Ohhh Peter, I didn't realise you wanted a run down of my family tree. Sorry didn't read it. Yes my family goes back generations in Prilep. We have family who live in Kostur, Australia and Germany. My father dropped the traitorous surname suffix -ski from our name in the early 70s to protest about the governemnts forced assimilation of all Bulgarian speaking Macedonians. Just like you Peter who also must have had a Bulgarian surname ending in -ov we unlike the 10,000s of other Macedonian sheep stood up to this betrayal. One of my great uncles said that when he [...]

Read the full comment left Kostur for Australia we were still Bulagrians. Once in Australia my cousins began calling themselves Macedonians denouncing their Bulgarian roots and now their children are beginning to only call themselves Australian denouncing both their Bulgarian ancestry and Macedonian nationality. Whether you want to believe or not many in Macedonia especially in the south e.g. Ohrid, Bitola, Prilep, Krushevo, Gevgelija, Strumica etc., not to mention in Greece all openly voice their Bulgarian ancestry, but that is not to say that all Slavic speaking Macedonians claim a Bulgarian ancestry. Its the old story that identity evovles with the times. Your hero Voskop. can better verse you on that because as a lying, cheating, stealing idiot he will divide our people more than any other. Or you should find out about Stefovs family who disowned the imbecile because of his ongoing lies and disagreement with his family in Greece who openly voice their Bulgarian origins. Faimly trees Peter are for better or for worse as bullshit as our Church which is created on foundations of lies and deceit. No-one has the perfect family so just as Voskop., Stefov, and many other fabricators have cousins, uncles, aunts and even one or both parents despising ,disowning, and ridiculing them back at home, you should have a good look at your own background and see what you can find. You'll probably see that there are members among your family who don't agree with everything you believe and you if would say otherwise then you are a bigger liar than the one you portray here on this site.

I'm proud being a Macedonian but its only better when you know what for! Think before you write!

I don't know where you read that all for one but believe me the texts of Delchev and many others never not once said that they were descended from some fabricated ethnicity. Delchev, Sandanski, and Gruev in particular are ardent Bulgarian supporters of an autonomous Macedonia made up of all these different ethnicities. Delchev's notes are unequivocally stating his Bulgarian ethnicity within an autonomous Macedonian nation. Nationality and ethnicity are two different entities my friend. And no not all slavic speaking Macedonians adhere to a Bulgarian ancestry just look at the antiquisationsts. Yes the vast amount of academic discourse have [...]

Read the full comment in the present given consensus to a Greek heritage to Al.Veliki and co. You can argue all you want but the overwhelming evidence in the archaeological, iconographical, textual, architectural, and mortuary records all supports the academic view that their culture was Greek with a sprinkling of Illyrian(Albanian ancestry)and Thracian overlay as in some of their words. But the antiquisationist view that the ancient language had Slavic elements is as trustworthy as using a heavily smoking, obese personal trainer as your fitness coach. Peter and many like him in the diaspora for example, have a view that our modern Macedonian people are part of Al.Veliki and that this continuity has never been broken LOL/LOL/LOL. The real world in Macedonia is that many of our people know that they either belong to one of the ethnic Slav Balkan peoples and that the Bulgarians are only one of them. Those who refuse their SLavic ethnicity are confusingly for themselves and to the academic world at large fabricating a new identity for themselves (from a Greek tribe) against anything that our revolutionaries ever wrote. Not in one text of our revoltuionaries would you find a mention, unlike these fake modern actors like the chief idiots Voskop., Stefov, Gandeto, Gruevski, Milososki, etc. Eventually our people will find out the truth and by then people like these above mentioned will go down in history as the traitors to our nation.

Long LIve the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
For Vasko Gligorov a modern day Delchev.

Professor, the lost country is Greece since 1834.Greece does not recognisr different ethnicities in Greece.How come Droutsas who is half Cypriot half Austrian can claim Macedonian?.Greeces claim of purity,does not fit to his statement does it?Karamanlis said that the Christian Turks are the real ancient Macedonians. Can anyone explain this absurd claims?. For better understanding on this subject,please read what Pavle Voskopoulos said on his interview for "Dnevnik".Part of that interview I copied on this site,read it.

If we look in the history there are Macedonians who invade Greece in the time of Filip 2 and Alexander the Great ... but if we want to see politic, then Macedonians are lost nation for 19 years..)

Aries,here is my answer to your question; Sasha is Bulgarian who pretends is Macedonian. To Sasha, Pavlos Melas was killed in Statica (Pavlos Melas) by the Ottomans.A Macedonian went to the Turks and told them that there are Macedonian Revolutionaries in the Village.The Turks went to this Village only to kill Melas without knowing.Remember, Greeks were colloborating with the Turks againts the Macedonian Revolutionaries.A Greek did the same againts Delchev in 1903. Aries, one more thing,I asked Sasha to write something on his ancestral clan,so far no response.This persons claim of being Macedonian is absurd.Through out their (Bulgarian) history are [...]

Read the full comment full of songs on the Tatar ancestry,but wont come out and say it.If this person was indeed Macedonian,I would call him a treator,but he is not.I have called Treators the likes of Crvenkovski,Frckovski,Sekerinska and others who are agents of the Greek government.See where the 130 million dollars went.The owner of A1 is just as them,and that is why 5 of his reporters quit this TV station.They did not wanted to sell their country,but money talks,dont they?

Sasha, there are two main points that I still am in disagreement with you, (besides your political agenda), one is that you seem to imply that all Slavs in Macedonia want to be of Bulgarian descent. The fact is that if you read the writings of Delchev and the other revolutionaries, as you say you have, they self identify themselves as Slaves of Macedonian descent and rejected their Bulgarian lineage.

The second point being is that you and others on this site think that there is a connection between ancient Hellenes and Macedonians to modern Greeks [...]

Read the full comment and Macedonians whereas most historians would tell you there is very little lineage between the two societies.

As the modern Bulgarian state claimed it's land in 1878, the Greek state in 1829 and the Macedonian state in 1991, these lands became self identified by their people and should respect each others rights under United Nations conduct.

Yes, I agree all for one that if the Ilinden uprising did succeed we would have a Macedonian nation. The nation would be made up of Bulgarians, Greeks, Vlachs, Albanians, Romas, etc. but none, not even one antiquisationist. Mainly because back then not one Slavic speaking Macedonian would have even thought of having any connection to the Greek tribe of AL.Veliki. That would make Voskop., Stefov, Gandeto and especially the master clown himself Gruevski look obsolete for they would have drank the same mother milk Gotse Delchev, Pavlos Melas, Pitu Guli, and Nike Archangel drank from their Bulgarian, Greek, Vlach, [...]

Read the full comment and Albanian mothers. Their are documents galore in our universities written by many of our forefathers which Bulgaria allowed us to have. Read something real Peter and 1 and stop reading bullshit or if you don't read then stop listening to bullshit.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language

1 or whatever

a quick answer is Deliriumn tremens

peter

stuck again like a needle on a vinyl disc.

If you both could explain why did you always put Sasha in the crossfire?

Sasha, you are dreaming.The revolutionaries I listed are Macedonian,they are not Bulgarian.But you have your rights to dream.Macedonians fought againts the Bulgarian occupation.Lets be honest about it,you could not win againts the Ottomans without the Big Powers,same goes for the Greeks.Your MYTHICAL thoughts are outdated.Like Pavle says,you cannot be both Macedonian and Bulgarian.Your thinking is like the one of Droutsas.You should be ashamed for hiding your own identity.I dont think you deserve furthere explanation.

Sasha,just for your information on Pavle Voskopoulos.Here is an interview by "Dnevnik". Ethnic Macedonian Party Leader Slams Greek Policy of "Neo-Nazism" greek alternate FM Dmitris Droutsas should explain on the basis of what criteria and standards he proclaimed to be a Macedonian,while denying the same right to me and a number of other citizens,asks Pavle Voskopoulos,member of the collective leadership of the ethnic Macedonian Party in Greece Vinozito (Rainbow).He believes that statements such as that by Droutsas, in which the existance of a separate ethnic Macedonian identity is utterly negated,promote neo-Nazism in Greece. Question; How do you interpret the public [...]

Read the full comment statement by Minister Droutsas, who was born in Cypres that he was "born and will die a Macedonian?. Pavle: This statement in itself indirectly confirms a lost Greek position when it comes to the Greek citizens identity. Only a "lost" man debates "origins". In other words, a person in Greece cannot possess TWO identities with the same connotation and determination,that is, be both a Greek and a Macedonian. This is because the Macedonian identity is different from the Greek and it is a reality and a fact not only in the Balkans but also at an international level. Greece adopted Macedonianism as part of the Greek identity after 1912. The Greek ideology and MYTH do not recognize another, different Macedonian identity, so Greek nationalism has been serving this to the Greek citizens for 90 years now.If a difference needs to be made, because Macedonianism here has been identified as part of Hellenism,I am ready to accept an addition to our name for the sake of a so-called compromise or a technical solution, because Greece wants exclusivity over the term "Macedonian".I for example, accept to be "an ethnic Macedonian".Greece may define its Hellenism or "Greek Macedonianism" as it pleases as long as it represents my affiliation. There is an excelent prefix-"ethnic" because this prefix is not used in Greece. Question: Will Droutsas or other people in Greece accept and agree with it? Pavles answer; When it comes to "birth" what are Droutsas arguments? I want to know with what argument I may be deprived of this right. We are waiting for their reply about how we should declare ourseves in compliance with our "birth" pr something else. It is a basic principal and a fundamental human right for individuald and the collectivity to comprehand their identity in accordance with their conscience, so it should be respected as such. The statement that identity is aquired by birth are associated precisly with the Nazi totalitarian ideologys. It is the Nazis who speak of "Aryan" origin and that they are born as "Aryans".It is catastophic when one determines ones identity with birth and proverance and directs it toward the genes. Here is an absurd example related to "genetic identity".Imagine a child of a Venezuelan-Laponian couple of who is adopted by a couple of whom the father is a Greek and the mother is Austrian, but they live in Greece,incidently, Droutsas mother is Austrian too. Now when this child grows-up what will he say about himself? That he is a Greek? That he is a mulato?.Who can tell who his real parents or their ancestros are? Where is the begining and the end of proverance?How will he reply to the question of identity in compliance with origin? This is ridiculous, is it not?In modern times the identity issue is expressed through the right to self determination, according to which individuals and the collectivity understand identity, according to their conscience, so their personal determination should be respected. Still,we know well that the state and national ideologies "feed" the national identities with the glorious past, famous origins,and national MYTHS. Yet to make origin exclusivity and to directly relate identity to origin,birth is a destructive ideology. Question: The resolution of the Macedonian-Greek dispute has been deffered for the next six months. Do you think that a compromise will be reached? Pavles answere and continues with the following. Still, what is even worse,the geographic prefixes may be associated with "secession, unification and liberation" which may be quite easily promoted by the destructive elites both in Macedonia and Greece in the future. We may explain the irrelevancy of this "geographic type of a solution" to Europe and beyond.Sucess can be attained only in this way through the required state reform, and with patience.This was part of Pavle Voskopoulos interview on Dec.28,2009. Sasha,what is wrong with this interview with the leader of the Macedonian people under Greek occupation?.Aries,tell me what you think of his thinking

All for one.
The Ilinden uprising 2-3 August was a full fledged revolt which unfortunately was illfated.
14 to 14 thousand revolutionaires were confronted to 200 to 300 thousands ottomans with superior weaponary, the outcome was a blood-bath. the uprising was indeed a pragmatist's referendum in one sense but not literary

Sasha, stop with the Bulgarian only propaganda as there are many others such as Slavs, Vlachs, Roma and Muslims who want to be called Macedonian. We are a multi-cultured society like it or not.

Yes there was a referendum, it happened in 1903 and was known as the Iliden Uprising. If it was not for the strength of the Ottoman army a whole Macedonian nation would have existed today.

Aries I think the phrase goes: Si la reine avait des boules, elle serait roi.

Peter at least you admit that you have Bulgarian ancestry by compiling a good list of revolutionaries fighting for the autonomy of Macedonia. To correct you Sandanski was killed by Nikolov's comitadjis another Macedonian rival group who wanted to remove Sandanski because of his association with the Young Turks. But as you see you have selected many revolutionaries who not only never spoke, wrote or mentioned that they had any ethnic ties with the ancient Greek tribe of Al.Veliki. but also that they were proud members of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Party first born in the early 1800s by the most [...]

Read the full comment famous Apostle of them all Levski ( the idol of Gruev, Delchev, Sarafov). Now this whole story about the Post not delivered was a concocted story created by Voskop. & co. to tell Gruevski and his clowns why they failed so miserably in the votes. Voskop. could not admit to his fuhrer that the vast majority of Macedonians despise him and his traitors. When we heard of this plot many of the Bulgarian students in Greece were up in arms not because of the fabricated post excuse by Voskop. but because the Rainbow Party tried to convince many of the Bulgarian residents to tell journalists from home that it was the Greeks who openly obstructed the votes. Now who do we believe Voskop. a traitor, despised by nearly every Slavic speaking(& Greek speaking) Macedonian in the Aegean who has been spat on, kicked, punched, beaten by the very people he is trying to convince to give up their Macedonian identity of proud Slavic heritage for a brand new version of ancients of Al. Veliki or do we believe the people of Macedonia in Kostur, Lerin, Voden, Bouf, Meliti, etc., who are proud of their Bulgarian ancestry and would not change it for any amount of money that Voskop. and his diaspora idiots keep offering them. No my friend Voskp. and his clowns are hated by the very people he believes he represents. It is no coincidence that after every public outing Voskop. fears for his life not by obvious Greek speaking Macedonians but rather he fears his own countrymen who have threatened him many times to rip every limb off his body if he doesn't leave them alone. So my friend if you do one day hear of a headless Voskop. you can be assured in the diaspora that some of your cousins, uncles and aunts meant what they said to the traitor. Travelling freely over the border has opened new research proposals for many of our anthropology/archaeology students hopefully we will learn without our governments censhorship what is the real feeling on the ground of our Macedonian brothers and sisters in Greece.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.

Sasha,Pavle Voskopoulos "Vino Zhito, or Ouranio Toxo"on the last EU parliamentary elections the States "Post Office" of Greece refused to deliver material to inform the peoples choices to vote.What Greek post office did was,they witheld the info.material and after the elactions were over the post office called the offices of Vino Zhito to pick-up their undelivered material.This blatant act on the part of the Greek government was dispicable.By this kind of action by the Greek government the intendet material was never delivered.The question is;why the Greek government refused a post paid material not to deliver to the people to make [...]

Read the full comment their choices?.What reason was there of no delivery? Is Greece so afraid of the macedonian minoirity? Sasha,answer these questions if you are man enough.You want the Macedonian revolutionaries?Marko Krale,1335-1395 ruled Macedonia fromShar Mountain to Kostur. Ilo Markov Maleshevski,1803-1898.Damian Gruev,1871-1906.Dimitar Berovski,1840-1907.Petar Pop Arsov,1868-1941.Gotse Delchev,1872-1903,born in Kukush,35 km. north of Solun.giorgi Sugarev,1876-1906.Hristo Uzunov,1878-1905..Lazar Pop Trajkov,1878-1903.Nikola Karev,1877-1905.Pitu Guli,1865-1903.Jordan Piperkata,Giurchin Naumov,Kostadin Mazneikov,1882-1903.Jane sandanski who was killed by the Bulgarians in 1915.Vasil Chakalarov-Kostur region,Pando Kliashev from Kostur region (Smrdesh). Srebra Aposolova,Lerin region.Do you want more? How about Mirka who was put in the ground with her head out only and a Greek soldier wrote to her father,explaining how heroicly she died!Today, we have the same heroes in Pavle Voskoloulos and Nase Parisi and others.These heroes you cannot compaire with yours like Crvenkovski,Frckovski and Georgievski.Have a nice day!

Sorry, all - the digital Curse of One struck again ! The last "1" posting was actually from me.

I agree with Aries that, whereas a "referendum" was theoretically possible in geographical Macedonia in the 1920s, it certainly would not have been at all easy to organise.

In addition, I seem to recall that a "plebiscite" (which is what a referendum was called in the 1920s) was organised in the SaarLand between France and Germany in around 1926, it all went pretty badly wrong. (Subject to correction here - anybody else know more about it ??)

All for One.
At the time, with the prevailing
conditions i don't think a referendum was possible.
Theoriticly speaking of course
probably the status pro ante
due to inertia.
En tous cas Si ma grande mere avait des pompons elle serait mon grand pere.
si si si... Cela remonte a Adam et Eve et au peche primordiale
Veuillez bien excuser les accents et les cedilles.

You see Peter ignorance not only becomes you, but you wear it every day. Firstly, the only indigenous people in the world are the tribal remnants of prehistoric cultures. Secondly, your ignorance astounds our Youth here in Macedonia. Traitors are created my friend not born and Vosko. and co. (like yourself and many diaspora compatriots) are in denial of asserting an identity on themselves and everyone around them. Not only don't you have any credibility but your art of being a fabricating cynic is tremendous. Why do you never not once in all the correspondence have mentioned the importance of [...]

Read the full comment the revolutionaries of VMORO but rather insist on your naive quest of stealing a Greek identity to elevate your pathetic fear of not agreeing with your Slavic ethnicity. The modern Macedonians are a people made up of many ethnicities which I won't repeat again but the interesting point here is that Voskop. and people like youreself are failures to the Slavic speaking Macedonians in the Aegean. Why do you think the fool (Voskop.) never gets votes after so may, many years come on you can't keep blaming the Greeks but its the people they just don't believe in him and if anything they despise the coward who ran away from so many villages after he heard that they were going to give him a traitors welcome. Peter living in the diaspora has certainly denied you reality but what can one say either you educate yourself on our real historical narrative or remain the fools puppet repeating his ongoing mistakes. You seem to like Voskop. the man who stole from the needy Macedonians only to sell them out to the diaspora and Gruevskis clowns. As long as you are in the diaspora there is hope for all the true Macedonians who are proud of their Slavic ethnicity while you the fool that you are, believe in fantasies fed to you by your deceitful priests in church liturgies becoming the most despised of all Macedonians. We the students, the Macedonian Youth will never leave you and your traitors destroy our future just that you can dream about your male loving bonds with antiquity.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
Students of Macedonia United against the traitors of our identity.

Aries, excusez-moi, let me reiterate again, I am not Peter and I admit I made the mistake, next time I will proof read my blog, but watch out, I will jump all over your next spelling errors.

Let me add one item to this fray, when Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia acquired there portions of Macedonia, they did so by force not democratic means and if a vote was taken at the time, I believe a whole Macedonian nation would exist today.

peter
i am glad that you droped the history
concentrate on Voskopoulos
c'est un sublime idiot
je peu t'en assurer mon vieux

touche est le mot et pas touce

Sasha,Pavle Voskopoulos is a true Macedonian who is fighting for the Human Rights of the indigenouse Macedonian people in Greece.Unlike you who is willing to sell our Republic and the Macedonian people to foreign countries,refering to 130 million Greek payout to your treason happy friends.Nase Parisi is equaly a hero for the cause of the Macedonians.These two great Macedonians were on "Alfa TV".I have seen them on different TV channel as well where the Greek fools were asking them about the Republic of Macedonias ads in a German book.The whole TV programm was spent on something neither Pavle nor Nase [...]

Read the full comment had anything to do.This is the paranoia Greece exibits on TV.Sasha,you are not worth 1/1000% of them.You and your friends are selling Macedonia,and you have the odasati to critisize the real heroes of our people,shame on you treator!The Macedonian name will not change as long as Gruevski is our Prime Minister.The Macedonian people will never go back to Crvenkovski and Frckovski,period!.On this note,have a nice day.

All For One - well, I largely agree with the argument that you put.

If "ancient history" were to dictate European boundaries and politics, we would be back in the days of the Holy Roman Empire (note: no connection with the Original Roman Empire !!) and the Ottoman occupation of most of south-eastern Europe. Not a good place to be coming from...

So, basically,agreed.

Touce, Koinos Nous, I admire your wit as to a sting of a bee.
However, I still maintain that the past has no connection to the present and modern history can only solve the solution, therefore, the right of the Macedonian people to call their country Macedonia is evident.

By the way Peter I see you didn't comment on your preacher Pavle Voskopoulos. It must have been a huge embarrasment for you and the diaspora when he was telling you (around the big banquets you held for him) all about his humiliating episodes (e.g. some of the many dozens, manure and spit on his face, kicked up the pants by old woman, beaten by Macedonian youth, etc.,)by many regular village Macedonians who despise him for the filth he is. As he represents your kind of views Peter, Voskopoulos' failures have been echoed as failures of the diaspora who have [...]

Read the full comment been providing him with the propaganda material needed to divide our Macedonian brothers in Greece. You are a culprit like Voskop. Peter, and when you return one day to our beautiful lands people will have mercy on you as they believe you (& many diaspora) do not know what you do, the overseas brainwashing campaign of antiquisation has broken new grounds. You say that Al.Veliki may not be your ancestor yet you do not outright denounce such frivolous rubbish created for church consumption. The diaspora have a lot to answer to one day our Youth will again find the culprits.

Poor, poor Peter of course you are as much Macedonian as I. The difference my naive old diaspora man is that we in the modern world have come to accept people like you as you say can call yourself numerous names. Obviously Al.Veliki was not part of your or my ancestry but yes I do agree with you that we are both Macedonians by virtue of the land we live on. This Bulgarian threw to the marrow is pretty good I will borrow it for a coming reseach proposal. As you are also Bulgarian to the marrow I need to [...]

Read the full comment suggest you learn a bit of your modern history before you and your naive lot in the diaspora continue digging backwards for an identity which doesn't exist instaed of your heads. Our identity starts in the revolutionary age (see Hobsbawm) with people like Delchev and co. and yes they also considered themselves Bulgarian to the marrow. By the way your Aegean compatriots consider people like you as lying traitors to the proud people in Lerin. You should have told me that the diaspora are very despised in many of the villages it was a good reseach project which is to be expanded on soon. Good luck Peter you are certainly a 1,2,3 etc., type of figure which although in search of a place and an identity among the many Macedonian ethnicities you still choose to bury your head in the sand and let right wing fascists speak for you.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth to the marrow.
In Honour of Vasko Gligorov a modern day Gotse Delchev.

1Peter.
There is definetly something wrong with you or you are feeble minded
or blind read first my post
why are you so obstinate man
repeating yourself like stuck needle on a vinyl disk.
the book you mention
Fields of wheat and hills of blood is an anthropopgical study of Assiros under the influence of theories of nationalism ( Hobsbawm , Anderson etc.)
Anastassia Karakassidou began to study Greek nationalism.

These studies reflects a reaction to the strong nationalism within Greek society, [...]

Read the full comment specially from the beginning of the 1990s due to the Macedonian issue and Greek-Turkish differences.The often volatile conjunction of ethnicities and nationalisms in the twentieth century.
Sasha is a Bulgarian to the marrow
as I am Greek to the marrow.

Sasha,you are a Bulgarian to your bone marrow.First of all,you are not Macedonian. Aries,the name of Dendramanis or Dendramis is not importent,what is importent is what he said at the League of Nations in 1925.It matters what PM Rallis said to the New York Times in 1903. It matters what Karakasidou and Skoulariki recently they said.It matters what Mitsotakis said in 1995.It matters who came to our lands in 1922-26 from Turkey.It matters what Droutsas and Karamanlis said about the Turkish Ortodox on this exchange and where were they settled and for what reasons.Have you and Sasha read the UN [...]

Read the full comment report by Gay MacDougal in Greece on Human Rights issues?.Last but not least,you have the right to call yourselves Greeks even that you have no connection to ancient Hellens.We as Macedonians if we dont have any connection to Alexanders people also have the right to call ourselves Macedonian.Dont you think it is our right?.

Well, thanks to "All for One / One for All" for that clarification ! I am a tiny bit less confused than I was before, but not much.

There was a splendid 1990s children's TV series called "Dogtanian" (modelled on Dumas "D'Artagnan in the Three Musketeers), which had the memorable slogan "One For All, and All For One"

Do I detect an echo of this now ?

I think we should be told !

Gentlemen, there seems to be a discrepancy between the two ones, I am not Peter, Old Man or the second one therefore I do exist. If further evidence is needed for my existence, I shall from now on name myself, One for All. Thank you for your attention and keep up this interesting debate.

I nearly forgot 1/Peter/old Greek(Macedonian) when P. Voskop. said on tv about his version of Macedonianism he was instantly denounced by many of his so called fellow Macedonians who openly phoned all the Greek Tv channels and papers and said "that he (P.Voskop.)was not speaking for the dopoi Macedonian (Bugarian ancestry) but only for the few traitors who live among us here in Greece and who are financed by Skopje." If you didn't read this in the local Macedonian/Greek/Bulgarian news at the time, then we have to realise here at uni that your fraudulent capers are quite rudimentary and simple [...]

Read the full comment and need much time to create the type of complexity needed to attain some form of methodology to sustain your apparent very hollow identity. My advice to you is leave Al.Veliki to his rightful descendents the Greeks and start reading up on our proud ancestors from VMORO.

In memory of Gotse Delchev "freedom to all Macedonians whether they are Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian and even Turk, they are all our brothers fighting against our common enemy: tyranny."

Yes thats right, that our modern Macedonian nation is a mixture of peoples or as the easterners call it a Bulgar of ethnicities and it is also true that I have never, ever disputed this fact. And yes I have to agree with 1 or Peter or whatever number he likes to call himself that modern Macedonians have never had a connection with the ancient Greek tribe of Al.Veliki. Just as the ancient Macedonians were a mix of Illyrians, Thracians and the Greek tribe of Macedonians so too are the modern Macedonians a collage of ethnic Bulgarians, Greeks, Vlachs, Romas, [...]

Read the full comment Pomaks, Turks, etc. 1 seems to believe that just because many of our countrymen (e.g. former PM Georgievski) believe in our Slavic ethnicity as opposed to their fabricated antiquisationist (quasi Greek) ethnicity that our left wing supporters are wrong. Shame on 1 (or Peter if he prefers) for dividing our people into moderns and ancients even Gruevski in his last press confrerence wasn't sure how to answer this question. As for the idiotic presumption (1 or Peter and other naive diaspora) that all the Slavic speaking Macedonians in Lerin, Bouf, Meliti, etc., claim to be only Slavic speaking Macedonians is absolute lies. Our team of Macedonian anthropologists (unlike western anthropologists who speak broken Bulgarian) have found that most of the townsfolk and surrounding villages continue to hold their Bulgarian origins. 1 can claim all he wants in the host countrys but here on the ground all who we have spoken to insist on their Bulgarian ancestry. It is no surprise that the nationalist idiot Pavle Voskopoulos supported by Gruevski and fed all over the world at diaspora banquets could never receive more than a couple thousand votes ( last count was only 2095). Peter (or 1) will obviously blame the Greek speaking Macedonians for their representatives failures but in actual fact Voskopoulos has made himself rather rich (diaspora money)in this region and has drawn the hatred from many of his erstwhile supporters for his greed. When the rainbow party began years ago they were drawing an average of 3250 vote from the whole Slavic speaking population but as time has gone on he has been beaten (in Kostur) by old Macedonians, spat on and waterbombed in Voden (by young school age Macedonians) and in Lerin he was nearly kicked to death by Macedonian Youth for trying in all these places to get the Macedonians to denounce their Bulgarian heritage and support a new identity from Skopje. So as you can see the facts are on the ground and soon to be published in Macedonia at the apparent distaste of Gruevski and his clowns. SDSM was the successor of the communist party and has always stayed true to its people. The right wing has never and I mean never supported our real identity as modern Macedonians but rather have childishly followed a diaspora inspired fabrication of stealing our neighbours history. Who in the world cares about if the modern Greeks are connected to the ancients. Obviously our government does and in so doing has opened a can of worms which we the people have to bare. Al.Velik was from a Greek speaking tribe possibly with an admixture of Illyrian, etc, but we the modern Macedonians descend from the 19th century Bulgarian revolutionaries (Delchev, etc.). The region of Macedonia has many ethnicities and we are all equally Macedonians for living on this land. Those who believe otherwise are trying to purify their identity. There are Macedonians of Bulgarian, Greek, Vlach, Albanian, etc. and also now antiquisationist origins. Ethnicity is created my friends not god sent.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
To Vasko Gligorov modern day Gotse Delchev for freedom against tyranny.

K.nous
I am not confused at all
1=peter/old macedonian
1=old macedonian/peter
Both driven by same incentives.
merci beaucoup.
At least they hopefully learned that there is no Dendramanis BUT
but Dendramis
and they admit at least the continuum of the alphabet that is positive attitude because word and sounds in written and spoken languages are combinations and patterns of letters in an alphabet.
that is i must say universally applicable . As applicable
as the earth rotates around itself and [...]

Read the full comment simultaneously around the sun.
As for Voskopoulos he is just
one of the many idiotic-separists
of the Rainbow.

well, thanks to the second "1", but I must admit that I (like many others reading) am getting very confused as to who is who, and which particular message you (who ?) are sending.

To Koinos Nous,what Sasha is talking about her Socio-Democratic Union of Macedonia,the fact is this party was called "Communist Party of Macedonia"Since the fall of communism,all have re-named themselves as Socio-Democrats in most of Eastern Europe.My problem is not the type of Party as I stated previously,it is the way they are selling our small independent country of the Republic of Macedonia.This is the only free Macedonia we can call for ourselves.On the question of my home town,I am from the Aegean Macedonia from the province of Lerin (Florina)Let me advise Sasha to go to Ovcharani,Bouf,Zelevo,Oshtima,Trna,Rula,Besfina,Rudari,German,Lak,Oromnik,Nivici and other Villages [...]

Read the full comment and ask if they speak Macedonian.I can assure Sasha,will be suprised.I am from one of these Villages so is my wife and we do speak Macedonian.Furthermore,has Sasha heard of Pavle Voskopoulos who on a Greek TV "Alfa" said "Macedonians,keep your heads high,dont be afraid"in Macedonian language."Makedonci,krenete ja glavata,nese plashejte"For me,that was the proudest momment of my life.We the Macedonians speak our mother tongue Macedonian.We do not consider ourselves as Greek nor Bulgarians,we are Macedonians.Sashas defence of the Socio-Democrats who are selling our State to Greece are traitors.Had they defended Macedonias interests like Gruevski does,I would have supported them as well,unfortunatly,they defend their pockets as reported from the investigation of the government of Mitsotakis and Samaras.Sasha,facts not thetoric my friend.Furthermore, when you support the Bulgarians you must be a friend of Georgievski who pretends he is Bulgarian.He tried to become a meyer in Bulgaria but failed.Koinos Nous,people like Sasha,are fabricating the real history.Peter.

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Gentlemen, there is no or very little connection between modern day society (people) and ancient ones.
Modern historians have placed wrong names on places and peoples that have caused great inaccuracies.
Since this discussion evolves around Greece and Macedonia let us find the truth about these two areas.
I believe modern Greeks have only two connections that link them to the ancient Hellenes and that is the area they live on and a alphabet.
The three essential elements of a people are language, religion and culture.
Starting with cultural the [...]

Read the full comment ancient Hellenes have no comparable traits to the modern Greeks.
The religion of the two societies is as far apart as one can get (though many modern Greeks rely on the ancient religion to try and prove their connection).
As for language, I don't think that modern Greeks could understand ancient Hellenes and at the best modern Greek has become a garbled dialect of the Hellenes.
The Macedonians are very different in these aspects too.
One could not compare the modern Macedonians to the ancient ones culturally, like the Greeks to many centuries have gone by and the influences of so many different peoples have left their mark on the two modern nations.
Again their religion is as different as night and day.
The ancient Macedonian language, although in dispute, is general accepted as being different from the ancient Hellenes and has no connection with the modern Macedonian language.
Which brings us to the topic at hand and is it right for a country to dictate what name another country can use.
Bearing in mind that one country was established in 1829 and the other one in 1991, one can only account for the feeling of self identification.
Therefore, the Macedonians have every right to call their country Macedonia since there is no connection between the ancient people and the modern people that inhabit there areas today.

Aries - many thanks for the reference to the Ancient Deities of Olympus. It must have been fascinating to attend one of their ceremonial occasions, held in Ancient Greek. Was it at Delphi ?

The Druids in the UK don't do quite the same thing, but the "Dievsturbas" pagans in Lithuania do EXACTLY the same thing, invoking their own Pantheon of pagan gods at times of national emergency.

I can't recall all of their twelve gods, but Siaulis is the sun god, Perkunas the thunder god (hence our word: "percussion"), and Nijole [...]

Read the full comment is the goddess of the underworld.

They were all invoked in 1990 at a grand Dievsturbas 'coven' near Siauliai, when the likelihood of bloodshed in seceding from the USSR was imminent. In the event, the USSR left Lithuania with relatively little bloodshed, and the country became independent, so it seems that the "coven" was successful.

Hopefully Apollo can do something similar for Greece in its present economic predicament. (Ireland is in an even worse one, but they can appeal to the old Celtic gods !)

Sasha - many thanks indeed for the explanation of the SDSM acronym. Now I understand ! And thanks too for the explanation of the "antiquisation" issue.

You are of course right in saying that the only surviving remnants of ancient Macedonian culture are Hellenic. But there is a counter-argument that this is because only the Greeks had an alphabet, and non-Greeks didn't, so couldn't write. So the ancient Macedonians could well have been a mixture of Greek and non-Greek.

There is an exact parallel in the UK, where all the surviving remnants [...]

Read the full comment of ancient civilisation are Roman, and anything written uses the Roman alphabet and is in Latin. But we know from archaeology that the predominant population was Celtic, who did not (then) have an alphabet, although they certainly had a language that wasn't Latin. So we cannot conclude that Ancient Britain was ethnically Roman, although all the surviving artefacts are Roman.

The analogy to Macedonia is a reasonable exact one, as far as I can see.

(For the intellectually curious, the Celtic alphabet emerged around 400 AD, and is variously described as either Uncial or Ogham script. It is quite different from Latin, and is probably closer to Greek.)

K.Nous - It stands for The Social Democratic Union (or as some prefer alliance)of Macedonia (Macedonian: Социјалдемократски сојуз на Македонија, Socijaldemokratski sojuz na Makedonija, SDSM.
It is lame to hear Peter stating absolutes of human rights when it is these very views that he supports that keep our people oppressed under a conservative regime where freedom of speech and media are submerged as internal government corruption bankrolled and supported by the diaspora are damaging our Macedonian identity. Peter cries for occupied lands but it is in the diaspora who remain in a time warp believing that some of [...]

Read the full comment their homes are in occupation. The evidence on the ground is different most slavic speaking Macedonians in Greece openly claim their Bulgarian heritage ( to the annoyance of Gruevski and his clowns & the diaspora) and feel their lives to be better off than most right wing government officials would have us believe. Peter runs scared to tell us his village so we can send reseach students to survey all the (only slavic speaking) Macedonians to see if his village is any different from the dozens of others which we have conducted field work on and are currently being documented.
The biggest flaw in the conservatives of Gruevski and his fabricating diaspora is the denigration of our Slavic ethnic heritage for want of a grandiose ancient connection not realising that the archaeological record is unable to substantiate it. Bring me hard evidence of a material culture that can connect us modern Macedonians to antiquity and believe me everyone like myself (& tens of thousands of others) will be there supporting right beside you. But to date all that our pro-antiquisationist academics have to argue with are textual sources and as one should know written sources are highly dubious and should be treated with caution until the material record can back alleged claims. If our most respected archaeologist (P. Kuzman -appointed by Gruevski himself) in Macedonia openly admits that thus far every bit of material evidence is tied to Greek iconographical, epigraphical, mortuary, and other Greek cultural practices this surely should tell you one thing, that our whole historical narrative as much as Gruevski would wish it otherwise is held together by a very loose thread. Those who made us and gave us our modern Macedonian identity (Delchev & co.) have been the most vociferous in their textual and material record that we are a part of a Slavic heritage and that this my friends are not fabricated because we can prove it. Our modern forefathers left an abundent of evidence everywhere for our people which is always overlooked by antiquisationists because of their strong Bulgarian character. But face up to it antiquisationists, allegations also need evidence, no evidence results in fabrications, brainwashing, and huge embarrasment for future generatiions when they realise that Gruevski and his diaspora clowns attempted to lie their way into world history.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
Long Live Vasko Gligorov a modern day Gotse Delchev and his original LEFT WING VMORO.

K.Nous.
In Greece there exist a Pagan cult still worshipping the twelve ancients Dieties Of Olympus.
something like the Druid cult of Stonehedge.
they proceed to rituals known in Ancient Greece and accept non-believers to witness their gatherings and to listen to spoken ancient Greek hell of an experience i must admit i have attended one of these when i was a student.
So should we summon a speciaal gathering for Apollo????

K.nous.
We have gone through the subject again and again it is not going to happen The Cassandras (not the brit jounalist but the daughter of Prian who was granted by Apollo
of visions forseeing forthcoming catastrophies)will not be proved correct. Spain is also presiding the EU.It is a very difficult pass we all admit certainly not the first and for sure not the last.

PETER
Read and think (if possible) who is
who and what in the following aticle from the American Chronicle
<<<<<<<<<<<<&lt;<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
"We live an era of strange and funny debates about ancient Macedonians and Slavs", Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said today at a ceremony in Skopje on the archaeological finds discovered this year in FYROM.
According to Gruevski, in the region where the current FYROM lies, many cultures lived and developed and therefore FYROM cannot identify only with one particular culture.
[...]

Read the full comment "I think that after 50-100 years, future generations will wonder what happened in the period we live in today. It's funny to try to classify some people as originating from only ancient Macedonians or only as Slavs" added Mr. Gruevski.
"We are dealing with many cultures that existed historically and today we cannot question what the ancient period comprised of. We cannot show only certain cultures and ignore others," added the PM of FYROM.

The opposition and a large portion of intellectuals in the country have recently accused Nikola Gruevski, that in his three and a half years in power, has managed to engage in serious, systematic efforts to connect the residents of FYROM with the ancient Macedonians (through the erection of statues, renaming of highways etc.) which clashes against Slavic reports, as well as the Slavic nature and language found in the country.
Australian Macedonian Advisory Council (AMAC)
>>>>>>>>>>>>&gt;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content

Koinos Nous,the Socio-Democrats are the left over of the "communist Party of Macedonia"durring the dissitergration of Yugoslavja.As i said to Sasha,I support any party that fights for the rights of the Macedonian people whether in the Republic of Macedonia or in occupied Macedonian lands.Political Party means nothing to me,what it matters is as I stated,fight for the Human Rights for the Macedonian people.The problem that I have is this;the Socio-Democrats were in power since 1991,and they with Crvenkovski and Frckovski were selling the Macedonian people.For over 16 years they have don nothing,but caved in to the Greek demands to change [...]

Read the full comment our name,flag and the constitution just to satisfy a foreign State.Gruevski on the other hand,refuses to follow the SD.This is why I support the Consewrvative government,not because I am a Conservative.Sash is dreaming for a comeback of the Socio-Democrats to further destroy our Republic.

With respect, to Sasha and Peter alike, what is << SDSM >> ?

Is it << Social-Democrat Sado-Masochists >> or what ?

I think we should we told.....

Silly, Silly Peter you are more naive than me and my peers thought. Of course you are against SDSM otherwise you would not be writing such biased, unproven rubbish coming from Greek journalists who have targeted their own right wing party with all this unsubstantiated reports. You will forever be a traitor to our Macedonian cause for your support of Gruevski and his clowns of antiquisationists. You can not forever hide behind your diaspora fabrications as we (Macedonian reseach students) are discovering in Greece that many of your so called persecuted minority (many of which claim Bulgarian origins)are actually totally [...]

Read the full comment against your diaspora rhetoric and are proclaiming their distance from fascism. Your unpatriotic subversion of our people has brought us in such a dilemma that many of the students throughout Macedonia are openly siding with Greek, Bulgarian, and Albanian students to press for all our Macedonian identity. In other words the diaspora is actually (& unwittingly) uniting many of the Youth throughout regional Macedonia regardless of their ethnic background (Slavic, Greek, Albanian, Vlach, etc.). We are all fighting for a Balkan world where our Macedonian identities will follow the path of our historical narratives. For example, we know that the real ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe (even P. Kuzman Gruevski's chief archaeologist has stated as such across many uni. lectures) and that the modern Macedonians are of regional ethnicities such as Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Romas, and now your kind who are known as the antiquisationists (Bulgarian speaking Slavs with a fabricated Greek historical narrative). So Peter while you concern yourself about unproven rubbish coming out of right wing papers you like your highly naive diaspora have further united our cause among the Macedonian Youth.

Long LIve the Macedonian Youth & SDSM. We honour our friend and mentor Vasko Gligorov whose courage to stand up to Gruevski's undemocratic processes of aniquisationism shows us how proud we are to be Macedonians.

Peter Janovski.
My friend you are a relic of Titoic commiterm you must be over or approaching 78 back in 1948 some of you people found yourselves on the wrong side
at the wrong moment.
The Sun Rises always in the East
and Sets In the West.
Happy new Year.

Sasha,if you support the payouts from the Greeks to members of the Socio-Democrats I truly feel sorry for our people for having traitors in our society.When I read of this story,I truly felt ashamed having leaders such as Crvenkovski,Frckovski,Sekerinska and others.I am not againts the SD party,I am againts people who committ treason againts its own people.I have no desire to communicate with you anymore due to the fact,you must be parcel and package with them,shame.Zemjata me glta od stram sto imame prodavaci na nashiot narod.Za mene,dali Socialisti,Konservati,Caristi se na vlas ke gi poderzavam do kolku gledaat za zachuvanjeto na [...]

Read the full comment nashata slobodna drzava,jazik,kultura i identitetot. Oni sto sorabotuvat so Grcja za unistovanjeto na nashiot narod,se molam na Boga dase obesat kako Sadam.Ama razlikata po megju Sadam i Crvenkovsi et,Sadam ja braneshe negovata zemja so negovata zivot,Crvenkovsi ja prodave svojata koza za pari od druga drzava za unistovanje na svojot narod kojto Delchev si dade svojata zivot za nashata sloboda. Sasho,ne zaboravaj zashto tie borci si dadoja negovata zivot.Ja sum Egejec,ama sega si imame edno parche nashe i morame da go zachuvame ne dago prodavame.Pameti sto Mirka mu reche pred negovoto ubistvo od grcite.Pametuvaj,sto eden askerlja mu pisa na Mirka tatko im.Egajcite se borea za ovaa sloboda,ama Tito ne prodade 48ta godina.Ako se izmislish,mzi da menish malku so tvojata iskrivena politika.Koga Makedonja beshe Federativna Socialisticka Republika Makedonja jas ja podrzavav isto kako denes,bez razlika na sistemot,za tova sto et Makedonja. I wish you do the same if you are truly a patriot.

Silly, Silly Peter the new year has arrived and your diaspora politics have lost much of its weight. Many now know to take your diaspora supported antiquisationism with a grain of salt so keep dreaming. The ex-boxer has done more to damage our countries identity than any other before him. Gruevski is by far the biggest loser our country has had to entertain. You condemn everyone but your right wing views which have done more to harm our cause than any other. You see Peter the fabricated antquisationisms are targeted against our people and have divided us more than anything [...]

Read the full comment else. To support the male loving Al.Veliki and his even hungrier male loving father Filip shows just how much you denounce our Slavic heritage.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM possibly the only the heterosexual party left in Macedonia.

Tibor,the first President of Slovakia was a boxer with the Cheshoslovakian boxing team.Both are doing fine,thank you!With or without Greeces consent,Macedonia will joing the EU and NATO.As is Greece is an obstacle to the economy of the EU as well NATO.EU is pouring money into Greece just so they can spent it on propaganda againts Macedonia and the Macedonian minority in Greece.The 130 million could have been spenting on better things,not buying off shameless Macedonian politicians like Crvenkovski,Frckovski and others. These same people are attacking Gruevski for not solving the name issue. Gruevski will never stoop so low as the [...]

Read the full comment ones who are selling our country to a foreign State for money.The red line is;no name change,no language and ethnicity changes,period.Greece does not own Macedonias name,nor country!Gruevski will never change our rights.

The one point that nobody has yet made in this long debate on this site concerns Gruevski, Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia (or Makedoniorszag as we call it in Hungarian.)

Before entering politics he was a professional boxer.

Now, one occupational hazard of professional boxing is that - even if you win all your fights - you still run the risk of permanent brain damage from the constant impact of so many blows to the head.

This is why most retired boxers take up intellectually undemanding [...]

Read the full comment jobs such as owning a pub/bar or (if less successful) becoming a night club "bouncer".

It is unusual for a retired boxer to enter politics, and almost unheard of for a retired boxer to become prime minister of a country, even if the country is a small and backward one like Serbia - SORRY - Republic of Macedonia.

Gruevski's many errors of judgment in the job - over the "antiquisation" issue for a start and also the "name" issue - must raise questions about how far he is competent to remain in office, despite the financial backing from the 'diaspora' that he clearly has.

We Hungarians have powerful diasporas too - mainly to fund remedying the injustice of the 1919 Treaty of Trianon in which we lost our historic lands such as Transylvania, and also parts of today's Slovakia and Croatia, so we understand and support the Macedonian Republic's position. But the Republic needs a much better Prime Minister, with brain cells that are undamaged.

Since this thread seems to be the one where Macedonia / Greek economic issues are raised, maybe the Moderators will let me post this link (UK Dail Telegraph, 20 Dec 09):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6851932/Euro-Diktats-risk-terrorist-response-across-Southern-Europe.html

The topic is a sombre one : as it affects Greece, the German idea of Europe imposing its will upon the Hellenic Parliament in order to save the Euro, is likely to provoke severe civil unrest, as memories of the German Occupation 1940-44 are still active.

Republic of Macedonia, in contrast, [...]

Read the full comment escapes - mainly because it is not an EU member-state and is too small to worry about.

As Aesop's Fables said : << If people are hunting elephants, the mouse doesn't need to worry. >>

Aries - yes, a good point about tax collection at source, but this only works if the employer, having deducted the tax, immediately pays it to the 'fisc'/tax authorities, and doesn't retain it for his own purposes.

Examples of the latter have certainly - very reprehensibly - happened in the UK, and also in France and Belgium too. It is of course a criminal offence to do so, but unscrupulous employers have been known to do it. The employee, of course, does not know that the tex which he "paid" has not been passed on to [...]

Read the full comment the State, so he can end up being doubly penalised too.

I don't know what the incidence of this is in Greece, but given that tax avoidance seems to be a national sport there, there must be a certain amount of it taking place.

(What we need is an experienced tax accountant on this site !)

k.NOUS
The only tax which is 98% collectable for sure is Salaried
income because it is deducted at source in both Salaried private and public sectors,the same stands for the pensions.

Aries - yes, a good list, although I hadn't heard THAT "justification" for the 13th/14th month before ! Is it REALLY so tax-efficient in Greece, given that so much tax evasion apparently goes on ?

Anyway, for their part the Hungarians have abolished theirs, and I don't know what's happened in France and Belgium, where "le treizieme" is often an expected part of salaries.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect Greece to maintain as low a defence budget as does Hungary, given the Turkish "threat", real or imagined, but it might [...]

Read the full comment be helpful if the EU Commission actually knew what it was, even under seal of secrecy.

Beyond that, it's worth remembering the old story about the Hungarian being the person who goes into a revolving door behind you, and who comes out ahead of you !

Hungary has produced some of Europe's very best economists, and they were also the only Communist state to make a "command economy" actually work - hence their nickname of "goulash communism" at the time: everybody could eat, and everybody had heated housing.

Hungary has stayed out of the EuroZone so far as its economists say it is "not quite ready yet to join", even though the Hungarian forint is now one of the strongest currencies in Europe. I would disbelieve them, except that (as mentioned earlier) Hungary is renowned for its proficient economists.....we got a few in the UK back in 1956 !

K.nous
Some measures I would suggest
slimming the bureaucracy,
cutting public spending,
collecting vat.
tax church propert.cutting premature pensions
to a minimum.
tax big real-estate.
reducing tax evasive techniques.
investing in labor intensive
factories
investing in car industry
and heavy industries.
investing in high tech.
tax the Greek-ownwed merchant navy

the 13/14 salary promotes the tax income and yhe commercial turnover
as for reducing the military [...]

Read the full comment
budget.
<<qui vis in pacis para bellum>>

Peter
I am afraid you did not Read my post Sorry
you are just name-dropping.

Interesting link here to the Budapest Times about how Hungary got itself out of nearly as bad an economic mess as Greece:

http://www.budapesttimes.hu/content/view/13650/221/

It did it by cutting public-sector wages/salaries, abolishing the "14th/13th month" extra salary payments, slimming the bureaucracy, reducing military spending, and other similar draconian measures. (And it seems to have worked).

Does any of this sound familiar to Greeks, if only because PASOK have not done any of it yet ?

Aries - thanks for the info about Tsangarada. I holidayed in the Pelion peninsula a few years ago, and it is indeed a beautiful place - we were staying in Agios Ioannis a few km away (less beautiful and more tourists.)

The Slovene for "beautiful view" is ' krasen pogled ' (the closest I could find to 'tsangarada' - 'lep stalisce' would have fitted even less well , so maybe the words mutated a bit over the years.....

K.Nous.
TSANGARADA is a beautifull village one of the many of Estearn Pelion indeed the name in Slavonic means "beatifull view" it has realy breathtaking views of the
Aegean it is a top hooliday resort and is preferred by visitors from Greece and abroad,
Pelion being the Centaur home in
Greek Mythology.
During the Ottoman Rule the inhabitants were in costant trade with the Austro-Hungarians and Crooats possibly Slovenes hence a possible commercant muat have liked the place with the "beautiful view".

Aries, What I wrote is factual,it is not dreamed up story like yours.It is a fact that Vasilis Dendramanis,Karakasidou,Sloulariki,even the Greek Prime Minister Rallis made comments to New York Times in 1903.Why would you try to change facts?.The Macedonians knew no greek language,but because the Bulgarian is slavic language it was better understood by the Macedonians,different,but more understandable.Slavic languages are close to each other,but the Macedonian language is not Bulgarian-Vasilis Dendramanis! Why do you people lie so much?.What I wrote on this site is the truth my friend,with quotes from the authors of Greek discent.I remain on what has been [...]

Read the full comment written,thak you!

GMS - ok, so it may be spelled "katalaves" and not "katalaveis", but it is still pronounced "katalaveis" in Alexandroupolis, Kavalla, Xanthe and that region, also Lefkosia in Cyprus. (Unless, of course, I was unknowingly talking to members of the Turkish enclave at the time !)

Talking of Greek spelling and its idiosyncracies (also its use of "TS" / tau sigma in front of a lot of place names like "Tsangarada", which is really a Slavonic sound denoted by one single letter in Bulgarian and other Slav languages), you may not be aware of the EU [...]

Read the full comment Draft Directive on Linguistic Simplification, issued under the Czech Presidency from Prague / Praha on 1 kvetna 2009.

This Directive, in its recitals, recognised that the Greek alphabet was used worldwide by less than 20 million people, virtually all of them living in Greece or Cyprus, who were already EU member states. In contrast, the Cyrillic alphabet was used by over 200 million people, of which the only current EU member-state was Bulgaria. And, said the Draft Directive, the Greek language could easily be adapted to use the Cyrillic Alphabet (itself derived from Greek), at a vast saving as far as the EU internal budget was concerned.

One whole EU translation division could be abolished in Brussels, one whole character-set could be removed from the Official Journal - again at a vast saving - and the sums involved in re-educating the Greek public to use Cyrillic instead would be cheap at the price,especially as not all of them could read in the first place. The Ataturk model in Turkey in 1919/1920 was taken as a helpful precedent, also the more recent Azeri exercise in 1999/2000 to replace Cyrillic with Latin alphabet would release a lot of spare tools.

This Directive was never enacted, owing to Slovak objections, but I can tell you more about it if you like.

Have a nice day / dobry den

the 1 of previous post should read
Aries.

GMS
<<<<
You are unable to assimilate any language (French, Belgian, Greek, etc.) and you have always a half/false knowledge of everything. As the Ancient Greeks used to say: "Η ημημαθια ειναι χειροτερη και απο την Αμαθεια" "the half knowledge is worse than the unknowledge".>>>
==================================
With all respect due
There is no such word in current
english unknowledge
the negation goes as no-knowledge
or ignorance.
i would in your place put "NO-KNOWLEDGE" for Αμαθεια is a state so is no-knowledge
[...]

Read the full comment />
K.NOUS/GMS
Gentlemen
entre nous on n'a pas besoin de se
bagarrer d'une telle facon lorsque
cela n'arrange rien pour le meilleur nous sommes de grands garcons civilises je suppose!!!
Pousser les choses aux extremes est toujours deplorable

Ps
mon clavier n'a pa les accents et
cedilles voulus

To Koinos Nous: you are so desperate that someone like me is teaching you the basic grammar lessons of Greece, that you utilize now insults like "idiot" in German...
J'ai vraiment pitié de toi, pauvre garçon.

""Katalabeis / katalaveis ;" is colloquial Greek for "do you (singular) understand ?" in northern Greece and Cyprus, otherwise I would not have learned the phrase by ear in the first place ! I agree that "katalabaneis" is more grammatical and closer to Ancient Greek, but it is NOT ACTUALLY WHAT PEOPLE SAY (at least outside the effete [...]

Read the full comment urban areas in Southern Greece where you probably live.)"

>>>What else will you invent this time to escape from your false/half knowledge? How miserable you are! You love to sink more and more in your illiteracy...
I show a real good will to repeat again and again the same thing. "Katalaveis" does not exist in the interrogative mode. "Katalaves" or "Katalavaineis" we say both in the grammar and the popular language. NO WAY people would understand you if you say "katalabeis". You would have an albanian pronunciation then, but following your stupid logic, maybe you are living in Tirana...
Also that makes me think you have never been in Greece, probably for obvious financial reasons...

Oh dear - GMS - which planet do you live on ?

"Katalabeis / katalaveis ;" is colloquial Greek for "do you (singular) understand ?" in northern Greece and Cyprus, otherwise I would not have learned the phrase by ear in the first place ! I agree that "katalabaneis" is more grammatical and closer to Ancient Greek, but it is NOT ACTUALLY WHAT PEOPLE SAY (at least outside the effete urban areas in Southern Greece where you probably live.)

The same is true in French: to say "I don't feel like (something)" [...]

Read the full comment is "J'ai pas envie de..." Again, this does not fit into your book of "le francais correct", but IT IS WHAT PEOPLE SAY.

Finally, when English people say "innit" for "isn't it", and write "it ain't much" for "it isn't much", this is not grammatically correct but once again IT IS WHAT PEOPLE SAY.

I suggest, GMS, that you descend from your Ivory Tower somewhere near Athens (before the Macedonians invade it and hang you from the rooftops, that is), and get in with real people to listen to languages "as they are spoke" (sic).

Ach, wie schwerigkeit mit idioten zu konversieren.....as they say in Koln.

By the way Silly, silly old man the spirit you talk about is our glorious revolutionary one and not some fabricated diaspora enhanced ancient narrative that you like to parade around in your host countries. The spirit of our people lays in the arms of their Slavic forefathers like Delchev and the other Bulgarian intellectuals so until you pick up and read your real lineage your spirit remains purely Slavic like mine and the rest of our Macedonian compartiots.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM.
Good Luck Vasko Gligorov leader of the Students [...]

Read the full comment against Right Wing injustices.

to Peter Janovski / or whatever
and to whom it may concern
<<<<Aries, lets not talk about ancient times for a moment.
the tuth is, Greece did publish the Abcedar for the Macedonian children ,but it was scraped due to an opposition in Greece and Serbia and Bulgaria.
Here is what really happened in 1925 at the League of Nations, I hope you are familiar with it. The Greek representative Vasilis Dendramanis had harsh words exchanged with the Bulgarians and Serbians then. This has happened during the treaty of Serves which Greece [...]

Read the full comment signed earlier on August 10 , 1920.>>>
===================================
Treaty of Sevres.
THE BRITISH EMPIRE, FRANCE, ITALY AND JAPAN,
These Powers being described in the present Treaty as the Principal Allied Powers;
ARMENIA, BELGIUM, GREECE, THE HEDJAZ, POLAND, PORTUGAL, ROUMANIA, THE SERB-CROAT-SLOVENE STATE AND CZECHO-SLOVAKIA,
These Powers constituting, with the Principal Powers mentioned above, the Allied Powers, of the one part;
AND TURKEY,
of the other part;
the only article referring to Greece of the whole section is art 143.
Turkey renounces any right to avail herself of the provisions of Article 16 of the Convention between Greece and Bulgaria relating to reciprocal emigration, signed at Neuilly-sur-Seine on November 27, 1919. Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, Greece and Turkey will enter into a special arrangement relating to the reciprocal and voluntary emigration of the populations of Turkish and Greek race in the territories transferred to Greece and remaining Turkish respectively.
Until 1913 the majority of the Slav population of all three parts of Macedonia had Bulgarian identity. During World War II, most parts of Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia were annexed by Bulgaria, and the local Slavic-speekers were regarded and self-identified as Macedonian Bulgarians. Not until much later did the process of Macedonian national identity formation gain momentum.
After 1944 Communist Bulgaria and Communist Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia connecting link for the establishment of new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Slav Macedonian consciousness.
The Greek communists as well as its fraternal parties in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, had already been influenced by the Comintern and it was the only political party in Greece to recognize Macedonian national identity. The region of Vardar Macedonia received the status of a constituent republic within Yugoslavia and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified. The population was promulgated ethnic Macedonian, a nationality different from both Serbs and Bulgarians.
In 1999, Ivan Kostov and Lubcho Georgievski, the Prime-ministers of Bulgaria and Macedonia respectively, signed a common declaration that within Bulgaria a Macedonian minority does not exist. In 2008, Gruevski, the current Prime Minister of Macedonia, did not defend the existence of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, when visiting his Bulgarian counterpart- Sergei Stanishev.
The Slav Macedonian ideology during the second half of 19th century was at its inception. One of the first preserved accounts is the article The Macedonian question by Petko Slavejkov (central Square with plenty of bookstalls in it ,in Sofia) was published on 18 January 1871 in the "Macedonia" newspaper in Constantinople. In 1880, Gjorgi Pulevski published Slognica Rechovska in Sofia as an attempt at a grammar of the language of the Slavs who lived in Macedonia. Although he had no formal education, Pulevski published several other books, including tree dictionaries and a collection of songs from Macedonia, customs, and holidays
In 1888, Kuzman Shapkarev wrote to Marin Drinov with regard to the usage of the words Macedonian and Bulgarian: <<"But even stranger is the name Macedontsi, which was imposed on us only 10 to 15 years ago by outsiders, and not as something by our own intellectuals.... Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name, reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: Bugari, although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians".>>>
The first significant manifestation of Slav Macedonian nationalism (separist)was the book За Македонските Работи ( On Macedonian Matters, Sofia, 1903) by Krste Misirkov. In the book Misirkov advocated that the Slavs of Macedonia should take a separate way from the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian language. Misirkov considered that the term "Macedonian" should be used to define the whole Slavic population of Macedonia, obliterating the existing division between Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians. The adoption of a separate "Macedonian language" was also advocated as a means of unification of the Ethnic Macedonians with Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek consciousness. On Macedonian Matters was written in the South Slavic dialect spoken in central Bitola-Prilep. This dialect was proposed by Misirkov as the basis for the future language, and, as Misirkov says, a dialect which is most different from all other neighboring languages (as the eastern dialect was too close to Bulgarian and the northern one too close to Serbian). Misirkov calls this language Macedonian.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Macedonian_Matters
<<<<Within the South Slav language complex there are several branches outside the Serbian and Bulgarian political units; these are the Macedonian dialects. These branches, since they are closely allied, naturally have some connection linking them more closely with Bulgarian in the east and Serbian in the north. These branches have been given various names at various times but it was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that these names overlapped so much as to displace one another. These various names did not properly catch on, and gradually they began to give way until finally they were replaced by the natural description Slav" with a "Macedonian" reflection from the geographical area in which they were distributed. The people who spoke these dialects had once been called "Slavs" and later either "Serbs" or "Bulgarians" until the rivalry between these two names made them both alien to the Macedonian Slavs, who started calling themselves after the old geographical name of their country. The name Macedonian was first used by the Macedonian Slavs as a geographical term to indicate their origin. This name is well known to the Macedonian Slavs and all of them use it to describe themselves. Since the formation of nationalities is a political and mechanical process, all the necessary conditions exist for Macedonia to break off as an independent ethnographic region. The Macedonians have a common country which is gradually, with the reforms, breaking off into an independent political whole in which there are "several branches of the South Slav chain of languages": these branches can easily be united through a general recognition of the central one as the means of expression of the literary language of all intelligent people in Macedonia and as the language of books and schools. Thus all the conditions for the national revival of the Macedonians are clearly visible, and, even from the point of view of the other historical theory (concerning the formation of small ethnographic units from a larger unit on the Balkan Peninsula), this is completely logical. >>>>

Will deal with the second part in due time
meanwhile learn
cheers

To my dear Koinos Nous:

"No- GMS - the first three are headlines in the pages of serious Western European newspapers, referring to the current Greek economy and its parlous straits".

>>>I proved it was not the case in another topic. You give naively credits to an X unknown user who registered an account on the financial times and wrote a "burlesque" post from his own Shakespearian/Racinian imagination. I asked you then to show me a REAL proof that EU officials are going to exclude Greece from EU and to restablish the [...]

Read the full comment Drachma, but you were/are unable to do it.
>Therefore, we can give zero credits to your abracadabresque theories : CASE CLOSED.

"The last two are your own invention".

>>>Really? Need I count and quote below all the infinite posts you wrote about the end of Greece, all the revisionnist views about the Greek History, your fanatic and hellenophobic argumentation, your provocative posts with the greek genocide commited by the Turks, your propaganda for the return of Macedonia Salutaris on this blogsite? I feel tempted you ridiculize yourself even more in the front of all the people there. I would seriously think about it, if I had some time to waste.

"I am merely a scholar trying to establish some truth"

>>>A scholar? "Le ridicule ne tue pas" as we use to say in France. Let is be serious and count this sentence as one of your numberous jokes/"boutades". You have never been a scholar nor in the past, nor in the present, nor in the future. Let's prove it once for all with this simple quote:

"Katalabeis ?" : no, this does not exist... We say, translated with the latin alphabet: "katalavaineis ?". Also this is not a "b" that we pronounce but a "v". Aries told you it. You are unable to assimilate any language (French, Belgian, Greek, etc.) and you have always a half/false knowledge of everything. As the Ancient Greeks used to say: "Η ημημαθια ειναι χειροτερη και απο την Αμαθεια" >"the half knowledge is worse than the unknowledge". That fits perfectly for your case.

So better you stop your pseudo-erudite comments that convince no one except you and adopt a more modest attitude with objective/realistic opinions if some people want to catch the attention of the people with your posts.

I am sure you thank me already for those wise advices.

A votre service, petit gars

Greek Macedonia Supremacy

Aries,lets not talk about ancient times for a moment.The reuth is, Greece did publish the Abcedar for the Macedinian children,but it was scraped due to an opposition in Greece and Serbia and Bulgaria.Here is what realy happened in 125 at the League of Nations,I hope you are familiar with it.The Greek representative Vasilis Dendramanis had harsh words exchanged with the Bulgarians and Serbians then.This has happened during the trety of Serves which Greece signed earlier on August 10,1920.According to conditions of the Treaty,under Articles 7,8 &9 the Greek government qas to undertake certain obligations regarding "the protection of the non-Greek [...]

Read the full comment national minorities in Greece." These Articles specifically stated free use of languages and education. Initially Greece sought to neglect its obligations, however in March 1925 the League of Nations directed Greece to fulfill its obligations. By May 1925 an elementary school reader was published in the Macedonian language,it was known as the Abecedar.The Abecedar was to be used by Macedonian children in Macedonian schools which were yet to open in Aegean Macedonia.Strong reaction immediatly came from Serbia and Bulgaria.Serbia and Bulgaria were caught totaly by suprise, both were furious that the Abecedar was not printed in Serbian or Bulgarian respectivaly. Serbia threatend to break its treaty of Alliance with Greece and to commence negotiations with Bulgara for the division of Aegean Macedonia.Bulgaria protested that they signed an Accord with Greece which recognized the Macedonian as Bulgarians.What occured next is truly a rare example,the Greek representative at the League of Nations Vasilis Dendramanis responded by defending the Macedonian language as being "Neither Bulgarian,nor Serbian but an independent language".He listed various linguists and linguistic maps as evidence to support his claim of the independence of the Macedonian language.The high ranking Greek official representing the Greek State not only recognized the existance of the Macedonian idwntity,but openly defending and supporting it. Aries,read Anastasia Karakasidous 300 page study of ethnicity and identity in the Northern Greek province of Macedonia.Under Greek preasure the book was not published by Cambridge University Press. Here is professor Athena Skoulariki,professor at the Crete University said,"Greece is tangled in a srategic dead end,in the last 16 years we have lost one battle after another and still have not seriously considered what we are doing wrong.Why is the outside world not supporting the Greekthesis on this issue? Why after so many years of trying has Greece not succeeded in convincing the international public?asks professor Skoulariki.According to Skoulariki the Greek arguments are not convincing because it is a fundamental right of all people to freely choose their name,We insist that our neghbor has no right to use the name Macedonia, ignoring the fact that during the 19th and 20th century there was a wider region called Macedonia." Why in 1995 Mitsotakis was woried and said "In 1995 Mitsotakis recognized that the problem with Macedonia was not the name but the Macedonian minority in Greece.From the moment I first saw it I recognised Skopjes theme in its true dimensions. What made me uneasy from the begening was not the name of this country... the problem for me was how to avoid creating a second minority problem in Western Macedonia.If the problem of the Slavo-Macedonian minority in Western Macedonia is added to the Muslim minority, which sadly,with our errors is a dangerous development,the situation will become unsustanable for Greek external politics."These statements made by the former PM of Greece were made for the book "For the name of Macedonia" by T. Skinakis,author. Aries, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923-26 was an exchange preasured by the Greek church to bring Christian Turks to Greece,not because they were Greeks.Next time I will give you some background on your Albanian President of Greece Papulias. Have a happy holidays.

No- GMS - the first three are headlines in the pages of serious Western European newspapers, referring to the current Greek economy and its parlous straits.

The last two are your own invention. Nobody in Western Europe cares a b*gg*ry about Greece's long-drawn-out teenage spat with Macedonia, and only cares a bit more about problems between Greece and Turkey if their own holiday properties are threatened.

So get real - basically, only the Greek and Macedonian diasporas are stoking the flames of this one. Nobody else in the West cares a ***t. [...]

Read the full comment

I am merely a scholar trying to establish some truth / verite / pravda / alethia in all this, and finding it very hard to do so from both sides. As Shakespeare said:

"A plague on both your houses"

That said, the Macedonian side has - during this investigation - proved less objectionable than has the Greek one.

The Macedonians are simply "thick" - like Gruevski - i.e. basically stupid but not devious.

The Greeks are devious but not stupid.

Do I make my point sufficiently clearly ?

Katalabeis ?

To Koinos Nous: "Reintroduction of the drachma", "Greece excluded from the Eurozone", "Greece excluded from the EU & NATO", "Greece invaded by Skopje & Turkey & USA", "creation of The Great Macedonia"...
Is there another of your extremist/anti-hellenic/highly ridiculous/utopic prophecies I forgot to mention there?

Aries - "Cassandra" was a very respected British journalist who survived 50 years as a media commentator by - as he put it - "forecasting doom and disaster, largely economic".

He survived because he was proved to be right well over the "magic" 50 % of the time....his actual score was around 75 %.

There are worse things to do than to follow in his footsteps, especially as the Greek economy fits all his rules as to a Disaster About To Happen. Ireland comes a close second, but there the government has [...]

Read the full comment taken drastic - even draconian - measures to cut public-sector salaries and to reduce the number of public sector staff by 25%.

I have yet to hear of this being proposed by the current Greek PASOK government....nor has the international financial community heard about it either, unfortunately.

In contrast (said he bringing us all Back On Topic), the Macedonian economy - though badly led by Gruevski and probably meriting a Standard&Poor CCC+ rating - lurches along on a "subsistence" basis, and is probably less vulnerable than the Greek one because nobody but an expatriate 'diaspora' idiot would invest / has invested in it in the first place !

So, in short, what it hasn't got, it can't lose....

Still intrigued as to why Greece opened its borders, though. Conventional economics says "no", unless there is a hidden scenario such as I outline earlier.

Anybody else want to comment ? (Anyone else, that is, with the exception of GMS!)

K.Nous.
<<<SPOT THE ANALOGY WITH GREECE AND MACEDONIA NOW ? You don't need a PhD to do so.....the local Greeks clearly want to generate some income in Macedonian dinars in advance of the re-introduction of the Drachma at a heavily devalued rate ! >>>
===================================By the way i cannot the Idea
behind your Obsession with the Drachma ....cool it mon ami
it stands the same chance as a
snowball in Hell.......
Instead of K.Nous for nom de plume try Cassandra.



[...]

Read the full comment

GMS - what this EXACTLY reminds me of is the Hungarian opening of part of their "Iron Curtain" border fence in late 1989, ostensibly to allow local rural Austrians into Hungary for a local wine festival, and to let local Hungarians into Austria for the equivalent wine festival on the other side.

At that time the Hungarian forint was a "weak" currency, and the Austrian schilling a "strong" currency, so there was a substantial economic incentive for the Hungarians to do this (i.e. to generate some local hard-currency income).

Needless to say, [...]

Read the full comment the border formalities (visas etc) were substantially relaxed in both directions, especially by the Hungarians.

SPOT THE ANALOGY WITH GREECE AND MACEDONIA NOW ? You don't need a PhD to do so.....the local Greeks clearly want to generate some income in Macedonian dinars in advance of the re-introduction of the Drachma at a heavily devalued rate !

What of course went wrong with the Hungarian experiment is that, whereas the Austrians and Hungarians were very well-behaved, the East Germans were not. They flocked to the "hole" in the Iron Curtain in the Hungarian border, and drove their Trabants through it en masse.

And so began the start of the story of the fall of the Berlin Wall....this may not be the start of the fall of the Greek economy..

Silly, Silly old Man who worships ancient Greeks like Al. Veliki while denouncing our Slavic forefathers like Delchev. Your life old Greek must be so confused to be so easily brainwashed by your diaspora neighbours and never taking the time to study our proud Slavic past yourself. Obviously your just another cronie of Risto Stefov and his Bouf Lords and have no other contigency in life but to admire Al. Veliki. You refrain from letting our glorious revolutionay forefathers speak from their countless notes they left us about our liberation for all the Bulgarian people of Macedonia and the struggle [...]

Read the full comment for equality for all Macedonians whether they are ethnic Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Vlachs and even Turks who want to break free of the Ottoman tyranny. I suppose they don't teach diaspora kids these intricate historical narratives of our Macedonian nation but rather sit and be brainwashed about some kind of connection to a Greek tribe over a 1000 years before any of our Slav forefathers arrived. You should be proud of your Slavic roots old Man (Greek) for although you admire Greek culture and history Al.Veliki never spread anything other than Greek civilization into the East so we shouldn't be stealing their history. If he had spread Slavic culture then believe me I would be right behind you old man Greek but as you know (I hope) that was not the case. And no matter how much your Lord of Lies R. Stefov preaches otherwise the truth remains the truth that our people are of a Slavic heritage. Have you ever sat to wonder why the world scoffs openly at all those in our academia who are trying to fabricate an ancient connection to the GReek tribes, wake up to yourself old man I'm only 17 and you are certainly under educated and probably one of those Gruevski relics that any identity is better than the one we got. Personally I'm a very proud Macedonian and like many of our Youth believe in our identity but as we can see your diaspora lot are very, very confused and not to mention embarrasing many of our left wing Macedonian Youth.

Just wake up old man Greek and see that being a proud Macedonian (like us) doesn't mean you have to steal your neighbours identity and history, for we already have a sound one of our own.

Long Live the Macedonian Youth & SDSM

To Koinos Nous:

"A more prosaic explanation is that the local Greeks are short of cash and want to get in some hard currency from the Macedonians...."

>>>I think you have to replace the Greeks by the Skopjans and only then your sentence will work well.

GMS - there is only one possible response to your posting, and that is "Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes",
i.e. "I fear the Greeks bearing gifts", from Virgil about the Trojan Horse of Troy.

There is a Greek version of this : "Phobeo Danaious kai Dora Pherountas", but my Ancient Greek is rusty.

A more prosaic explanation is that the local Greeks are short of cash and want to get in some hard currency from the Macedonians....

sorry Typos.
Sythians should read Scythians
nomadic populations dreaded horsmen
and renowned goldsmiths.Known to
Aesschylos and mentioned in his
Prometheus Bound.

To my dear Koinos Nous, the government of Skopje creates more and more tensions and has provocative words towards Greece. On the other hand, look below the christmas gift that Greece offered to Skopje:

"Athens/Skopje. Although the name issue remains unsolved, Greek borders will be officially opened for citizens of Macedonia on Saturday, Greek daily Kathimerini said, as cited by Macedonian Makfax news agency.
The daily pointed out that Macedonian prime minister gave himself the credit for the visa liberalization, adding that the only necessary document for Greece would be a piece of paper, [...]

Read the full comment which will be stamped at Greek customs.
Greek Minister of Civil Protection, Michalis Chrysohoidis, and Deputy Foreign Minister, Dimitris Droutsa,s have issued a order for easier border transit, while Greek checkpoints are to be enforced with extra staff and technical equipment".

>>>This is Greece: a mature and responsible attitude with a great sense of diplomacy, giving a helpful hand to its neighbours. Yes, this is Greece and not the case of Skopje.

I agree entirely with Aries on this one....

Old Macedonian
<<<Macedonians know who they are>>
you say
pick one of these
Greeks
Illyrians
Sythians
Parthians
Paionians
Dardanians
Romans
Aromanians
Vlachs
Bulgars
or a cocktail of all the above

Bravo Sasha, divide and conquer, your tactics have been played by you Bulgarians and Greeks for the past 150 years.
As soon as you smelled the break up of the Ottoman Empire you sent your teachers and antagonists into Macedonia to try and force and convince the Macedonians that they were either Greek or Bulgarian.
Well your tricks only worked by force in some areas of Macedonia but you will not take the rest of it through your schemes and lies!!
Real Macedonians know in their souls who they are and it isn't Greek [...]

Read the full comment or Bulgarian!!
The long line of Macedonians throughout history have have been conquered by many, but their spirit remains in many of us today and will not be extinguished by distorted truths fabricated by modern day picaroon!!!

Oh dear GMS, you can't spot irony, can you ? I quote :

<< "There is no risk of third world war if Macedonia’s name dispute is not solved over the next six months, said Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), as cited by Macedonian A1 television."

Skopjans are even thinking a WWIII can emerge from the name dispute. I think that says everything about the peaceful afterthoughts of Skopje... >>

If GMS hasn't spotted this, Ali Ahmeti was indulging in gentle irony...
[...]

Read the full comment />
His gently ironic statement was NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY, GMS.....

What more can I say ..... ?

Listen Old Greek you are right that the ancients had male lovers like Al.Veliki and Filip who were both killed by them so admit that you like that sought ancestors. As for myself like countless other young Macedonians we have no inkling of belonging to or having any connection with these ancient Greek tribes and so no attachment to your homosexual tendencies. As for Delchev you are obviously a huge liar because my Dedo a revolutionary fighter unlike yourself an antiquisationist traitor, knew many of these famous Bulgarian revolutionaries. So you see old Greek you are very misled in trying [...]

Read the full comment to bring our Famous Delchev any where near your Greek Al. Veliki so please don't use them in the same breath. The modern Macedonians are proud of their forefathers like Delchev but as we can see there are those among us who support ancient Greek tendencies like yourself who are very confused.

Long LIve the Macedonian Youth & SDSM the inheritors of Delchev's dreams.

GMS

Do Not Get overexecited !!!!

Il y a un tout petit morceau de verite,mais mal interpretee comme d'habitude.
voyez les tendences revisionistes
son la.
merci
ps
excusez l'absence d'accents mon
clavier ne les supportent pas.

To Peter:

"Here is a document that reads,"Greek documents on Macedonian language from 1920s.You will find it in the "La Population de la Grece 1920"Greece recognised the Macedonian language,and that Macedonians do exist in Greece.No need furthere explanations,thank you!. Have a great day as I have".

>>>What are you talking about, Petro? Send some precised details over there, because I am afraid no one on this blog site will believe one second in what you wrote below: author, title, sources, content, date, editor, extracts, internet links, etc, etc.

K.nous.
On the Phonetics of Ya or Gia
In Greek there is no phoneme Ya like Я or j
John ΓΙΑΝΝΗΣ is closer transliterated to
Italian Giannis like Gianncarlo
than to Yannis yancarlo
Girl's name мая is ΜΑΓΙΑ with a slight "g" sound.

Peter.
Yes there is a demographic analysis of greek population
exactly there is about a 2 million plus which corresponds to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey at the time.
so what!
[...]

Read the full comment as for the Abcedar you must refer the the Rainbow site and thwere is the great surprise instead of the Abcedar publication you find under
its title guess what instead of language characteristics: propaganda .
some more morons distribute photos of the Rosetta stone
Pleaase let me know where and if i am distorting anything.
merci beaucoup and bonne soiree

Aries - the usual English rule on transposing / transcribing /transliterating foreign languages is ALWAYS to stick to the other alphabet as it is written, and not to try to render it phonetically.

The awkward exceptions can be accents which completely change the sound of a consonant or a vowel (as with the "Kruschev" example I posted earlier).

Accents are often omitted when using upper case / 'majiscule' in the other language, which can also cause the occasional mistake. The worst single example I can think of is the Polish city named [...]

Read the full comment "LODZ", where three out of the four letters carry accents that radically change their pronounciation.

The only European language to my knowledge that has a completely phonetic alphabet (and even then with two forms of the letter "I") which is thus easy to transcribe is Turkish. (Boy, I bet that'll make me popular on this site !!)

Welsh comes close, as do Hungarian and Lithuanian, and most Slav languages are pronounced approximately as spelled (maybe not Slovene !)

The languages where spelling and pronounciation differ most are probably French, English, and Irish Gaelic.

In the case of Modern Greek, there seems to be an uneasy mishmash of transcription methods, one of which is Classical (obeying the above rules) and the other phonetic (which doesn't). For example - leaving Molon Lave/Labe aside, does one write "Ya'sas" for 'hello', or Gia Sas ?

An interesting point, but possibly off-topic for this particular set of postings.

Here is a document that reads,"Greek documents on Macedonian language from 1920s.You will find it in the "La Population de la Grece 1920"Greece recognised the Macedonian language,and that Macedonians do exist in Greece.No need furthere explanations,thank you!. Have a great day as I have.

Unfortunatelty K.nous
Why then do you insist on transposing ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ to MOLON LAVE
I must say it is much easier for a newcomer to Greek to understand
the B(gr) to V(en) than anything
else
in Cyrillic
МОЛОН ЛАВЕ и не МОЛОН ЛАБЕ

КРАЙ ΤΕΛΟΣ END FIN

And to the very pessimistic Skopjan Koinos Nous, I know now from where comes all those negative thoughts:

"There is no risk of third world war if Macedonia’s name dispute is not solved over the next six months, said Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), as cited by Macedonian A1 television."

Skopjans are even thinking a WWIII can emerge from the name dispute. I think that says everything about the peaceful afterthoughts of Skopje...

Back on topic, I am afraid Skopje will not get any date for 2010. This would be too optimistic both Greece and Skopje found a compromise for the name issue.
What I predict (remember me for the december summit, I was totally right) is the talks will failed once again because of the rigid stance of Gruevski. That will cause undoubtely anticipated elections in Skopje where a new government - with Gruevski out from the political world- will take place with more flexible positions and will accept "Republic of Northern Macedonia" as its national & international name with [...]

Read the full comment the exclusive Macedonian identity belonging to Greece.

Happy New Year everyone!

GMS