A Sisyphea dispute 17:00 Fri 30 Nov 2007 - Elena Koinova  NO END: The prime ministers of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski,
and Greece, Costas Karamanlis, are scheduled to hold a new round of
talks on dispute over the name Macedonia. The talks will
take place in the presence of Matthew Nimetz, the UN-
appointed envoy on the issue.
Photos: REUTERS and NATO It has always been turbulent in the Balkans, to the extent that the West coined the term “Balkanisation” to define partition into small hostile states. In the past two decades, this definition has been transliterated many times into various languages, by fate differing little in each, of the former Yugoslav states. And the plethora of transliterations for the word Macedonia across the Balkans gave rise to an enduring name dispute.
The name dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav State of the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) having continued for a century, it really took off in 1991 when the tiny region broke away from Yugoslavia to form an independent state. Ever since, it has insisted that the international community officially recognise the new state as Macedonia.
The name dispute has been staged on a number of scenes – through negotiations, lobbying and written discourse. While in the early 1990s it mainly took the form of written discourse through paid advertisements in the New York Times, with the emergence of the internet era it has gone online through many a blog.
Greece, for its part, claimed that Macedonia is the name belonging to the northern part of its country. As the immediate descendants of ancient Greeks, the Greek argument runs, the Hellenic state is the rightful owner of the name of Alexander the Great (the Macedonian) and Macedonia alike. It argues that the FYROM was as keen on the name because it is part of a long-term strategy to return what Greece claims the FYROM believes are regions of its own. According to Greece, Macedonia wants to return to its fold Macedonian-populated areas in Greece, Bulgaria and Albania. “Such irredentist claims” are a threat to Greece’s territorial integrity, the Hellenic nation’s argument runs. Hence, the importance attached to a seemingly immaterial dispute such as the name issue.
The name dispute has seen the sides as steadfast in their positions as to require international intermediation. Matthew Nimetz, appointed by the United Nations (UN) as the special envoy for life on the name dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, has so far brokered dozens of talks between the sides and has scheduled another round in Athens on December 4-5.
In the past few years, Greece scored a number of interim victories, among them success in persuading the EU into officially referring to the former Yugoslav state as the FYROM. The US too, itself a host of a big Greek diaspora that has predicated the long-standing US preference for the Greek cause on the issue, has only recently showed signs of going from pro-Greek to neutral on the name dispute.
On November 14, the US under-secretary for political affairs, R Nicholas Burns, told the house foreign affairs subcommittee on Europe that Greece should refrain from becoming too radical in its fight over the name Macedonia. Namely, it should not object to the FYROM’s bid for Nato membership. Burns was responding to Greece’s recent warning that should the FYROM not drop its “irredentist claims”, it would be vetoing Macedonia’s request for an invitation at Nato’s Bucharest summit in April next year.
“We ask for a spirit of compromise on both sides,” Burns said in a statement. “The United States cannot impose a solution on either side. Finding a solution acceptable by both countries is something they need to do themselves.”
With rounds of negotiations running in and out and talks hardly making any progress in the past few years, there is little hope for a breakthrough at the December 4-5 meeting. However, there are signs that a long-running stalemate is about to shift, a little, towards a solution.
In mid-November, Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis met Greek prime minister Costas Karamanlis to discuss the name dispute, alongside a five-point plan the EU general affairs council put before member states to accelerate the accession bids of countries from the West Balkans, the FYROM included.
Recent comments by the Greek media have given indirect signs of a change in the status quo. Despite that Karamanlis did not officially back down from the official name dispute position, the opposition’s fear that he might do so is indicative that some changes might yet be ahead. The opposition accused Karamanlis of back-peddalling in mid-November.
According to experts on the issue, the Greek government’s potential new position might be prompted not by changing rhetoric within the government but by growing international pressure to have an economically and politically stable FYROM. As Burns said, “I think we all agree it is in everyone’s interest to see Macedonia become a stable and co-operative neighbour of Greece and part of the Nato alliance.”
The EU has also seen a number of countries gradually using the name Macedonia name instead of the FYROM.
The West being interested in “debalkanising” the Balkans, it remains to be seen how long it will take before the problem is resolved.
The international community recognises that the very essence of the problem rests on artificial grounds. Greece had not a single mention of Macedonia in the name of its provinces until the name issue arose. Besides, experts on the Macedonian issue such as John Shea have pinpointed that a number of people who regard themselves as Macedonians live in northern Greece, Bulgaria and Albania. As such, the Macedonian name belongs to anyone who regards himself as Macedonian just as much as the Bulgarian name does to everyone regarding himself as Bulgarian. On the other hand, there has been little of the Macedonian streak in northern Greece, as Shea notes. He said the region had been predominantly populated by migrants from northern Turkey and people of Macedonian origin, rather than by ethnic Greeks.
This dispute sees the patchy Balkans deserving the “Balkanisation” term. It remains to be seen if it can ever be “debalkanised”. 
Comments
Comments by george - 23:43 30 Nov 2007 |  | Republic of Macedonia has the right to use that name, it's part of a democratic system, there's no other country called Macedonia. |  | Comments by Historical Truth - 20:42 01 Dec 2007 | | SLAVIC liars and their supporters...what next Slavic people were the people from the lost city of Atlantis...must suck to be such an inferior people...having no history or achievements...MACEDONIA IS GREEK AND WILL ALWAYS BE... | | Comments by John J. Yiannias - 23:28 01 Dec 2007 | | I am afraid that your summation of the FYROM name dispute only gives the initial appearance of objectivity and is in fact implicitly weighted against the Greek position. Citing Shea as an authority on the issue is like quotiing Voltaire to characterize Christianity. We need a full historical analysis that takes the views of both sides seriously. I have yet to see one, and clearly the EU and the US are not interested in ever seeing one. | | Comments by Ion - 23:43 02 Dec 2007 | | I agree with the previous comment by Mr. Yiannias. You attempted objectivity in this report but fell prey to Skopjan propaganda. That being that Greek Macedonia is only populated by refugees from the Greco-Turkish after 1923. By doing this, you mistakenly imply that no Greeks lived in the region before that when in fact, they have lived there for thousands of years, unlike the slavic macedonians. Also, your comment that the name Macedonia was never used in Greek Macedonia before 1991 is wrong. When I was a student in the 1970s, we were always told that the northen region of Greece was called Macedonia. There are also buildings and Greek newspapers dating from before this period that carry the name Macedonia as part of their title. This was a case of poor, biased reporting. | | | | I think it is very offensive that instead of the name of the country: Republic of Macedonia, you actually use an acronym (FYROM). If you have a problem to use the name that the citizens of the country have chosen: Republic of Macedonia, you can, at least use the UN temporary reference: The former Yougoslav Republic of Macedonia. The acronim is insulting and inaccurate.
The main Greek argument against the constitutional name of Republic of Macedonia is that it will be confusing with the Greek province of Macedonia. But if we check the facts, we can easily realise that Greece administratively is divided into 13 provinces (peripherias), and neither of them is named Macedonia. There are three that has the word Macedonia in their name: The province of Western Macedonia, The province of Central Macedonia and the Province of Eastern Macedonia with Trace, but there is no one single administrative unit that has the name Macedonia only. So, there is no room for confussion. | | Comments by Makaton - 04:53 03 Dec 2007 | | The only solution to the situation created in the Balkans by the Western Powers and Russia themselves is to return all of Macedonia to it's people, The Macedonians!
They are the innocent indegenous population who were shut out at The 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and are still suffering under foreign occupation. It's time that Macedonians have the same human rights as all people and the freedom to live and identify themselves as Macedonians. How long can this Greek and Bulgarian charade about the non-existance of Macedonians continue? I'm Macedonian and proud of it! | | Comments by Angelo - 06:11 03 Dec 2007 | | History tells us that Macedon was an ancient Greek city state during and way b4 the time of Alexander the Great. If you study the historical accounts These peoples have Hellenic names, Hellenic culture written all over them.
Macedonia has absolutely nothing to do with Slavic peoples who came into the region during the late Byzantine era. The Christianized Greeks at the time called these people slavee because who knows perhaps they were used as slaves, actually they were.
In other words these Slavs have no historical connection with the Golden age of Greece and the Hellenistic era when the "Hellenic" way was spread dramatically and flourished all over Asia thanks to Megas Alexandros conquering most of the known World and paving the way for the Greek language to become the universal language of educated peoples which lasted for centuries, hence why the bible was written in original Greek. Slavs have nothing to do with Macedonia, 70% of the original ancient Macedonia is located in Greece, and Bulgaria, Albania and FYROMania has the rest. For FYROM to take this name and take credit for its history is a phony! Its a problem that needs a solution. U will not steal our name and our history because "Makedonia" was, and always will be Greek! Truth vs propaganda is what this is and I hope that truth will prevail. | | Comments by Antonios of Makedonia - 00:47 04 Dec 2007 | | I have a great idea. lets settle this the old fashion way... you all know what this is...don't you? Its democracy. If all the people in Skopia what so bad to be Macadonian, then let them be... Just have them join, I would love to be able to travel to a Greater Greece in the Future. | | Comments by GiorgioAthens - 02:08 08 Dec 2007 | | Alexander The Great never was the Greek and Macedonians are not Greek and never been.
Appian's History of Rome: The Macedonian Wars ,Appian of Alexandria (c.95-c.165)
is an undiscovered key book for Greece.If Greeks like to know the truth I strongly recommended this book,Is easy to be involved in daily propaganda of Athens and lies ,fixed history of Athenian power groups MonarhoFashistes.
What they like to cover with lies are 2 simple things:
100.000 refuges living in FYROM today born in Greece and ethnic cleaning due II war
2.Properties in Greece today of this peoples in value over 10 bil of EUR.
This is reality .The stories about Greek Macedonian,the name and etc..etc...are lies produced by Top Greeks legislative ,authorities,MOARHOFASHISTES
GeorgiosLupus | | Comments by Paul Kouts - 11:15 27 Dec 2007 | | Macedonians were one of several Ancient Greek tribes, like the Dorians, Ionians, etc. All of them shared a common Greek language and the same religion and customs. Ancient Macedonia rose to dominate the rest of Greece, and established a World Hellenistic Empire, which spread Greek language as the main international language for centuries to come, promoting Greek civilization and culture in the then-known world. After the decline of Rome, Macedonia was for over one thousand years administratively an integral part of the Greek Empire of Byzantium, retaining its Greek character, Greek culture, Greek administration, and Greek language. One of the most glorious dynasties of Byzantium was the Macedonian Dynasty (811 - 1056 A.D.), that defeated in this region the external and internal foes of the Greek Byzantine Empire, and advanced the celebrated "Macedonian Renaissance", characterised by its affinity to ancient Greece. Nearly one thousand years after the era of Alexander the Great, Slavic tribes from Asia established some presence in the Balkans. After the decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire and the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks, the Sanjak (administrative and military district) of Macedonia was created by the Sultans. The more recent Balkan Wars of 1912-13, which displaced the Turks from Macedonia, left Greece with nearly two thirds of the area of Classical Macedonia, including all the important archaeological sites (an area amounting to roughly an equivalent two thirds of the former Turkish Sanjak of Macedonia). The rest of the territory of Macedonia was taken in 1913 by Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia. In the part of Macedonia controlled by Yugoslavia, the communist regime of Tito, at the end of the Second World War, created the so-called "Federal Republic of Macedonia", which comprised the Yugoslavian part of Macedonia plus another, larger tract of territory to the north, which was never part of Macedonia proper in any historical period of time. Skopja, the capital city of this entity in our days, lies to the north, deep outside the Macedonian territory proper. The creation by Tito of this Federal Yugoslave entity under this unlikely usurped name facilitated the communist propaganda (before the rift between Tito and Stalin), with the aim of subverting Greek Macedonia, in order to create a larger communist-dominated Slavic region with access to the Mediterranean (Aegean Sea), in which region the Greek population would of course be eventually eliminated. Thankfully, with the help of all civilised world at that time, this scheme did not pass. But some of the protagonists or nostalgists of this aborted scheme continue to-date in Skopja, trying to maintain the fiction of the pseudo-state, fabricating a non-existing historical past and national symbols that do not belong to their peoples' own history. Every educated person in the world knows that Macedonia, in name and culture, has throughout history been an integral part of the Greek world. All historical evidence and the archaeological finds in Macedonia reveal Greek language, Greek artifacts, and Greek names. As we all know from the ancient historians and from our modern school history-books, in his campaign against the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great advanced against the enemy with the battle-cry "For the Glory of Greece". With a small part of Macedonia under their control, people in Skopja continue today to disseminate their ludicrous un-historical propaganda. The absurdity of the situation can be demonstrated easily by the way of a hypothetical example. The current situation is similar with the one that might have arisen after the Second World War if the Poles had demanded that their country should from then on be called "Prussia". And then insist that the great German-Prussian Frederic the Great was indeed their own Polish-"Prussian" national hero. Of course the Poles never contemplated such a ridiculous scheme, being proud of their own national identity and not wishing to usurp another country's history and symbols. What we observe today in Skopja is really shameful, and a case-study of mass self-delusion. | | Comments by rmarkos - 03:38 26 Feb 2008 | | Macedonia is Greek and always has been Greek. Phillip of Macedon and Alexander the Great were Greek. If they were not then why conquer the known world in the name of Greece and spread Hellenism throughout the world? As for those of you who believe that the region in Greece under question was not populated before the Ottoman Empire conquered the region, then READ your history books. Ethnic Greek Macedonians have populated the region for thousands of years and they always referred to themselves as GREEK. Not as anything else. All you have to do is open any ancient Greek or Roman history text to know that this FACT is true. It really is shamefull that so many people believe the propaganda that the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia spouts as truth. That they would try to steal a whole country's history and nationality is really shameful. Just because your country borders another doesn't give you the right to steal its name and national identity. Greeks everywhere should stand up at this outrage against our national identity and rally themselves together to fight these lies that FYROM is trying to put out as truth. By the way, for those of you that say you are native born Macedonians, the ethnic minority, the truth is that you really are ethnic born Albanians, Yugoslavians, Bulgarians or Turks. NOT GREEK as only those born in Greek Macedonia have the right to use!!! | | | | evidence that the Macedonians were not Hellenes can be of the Manifesto of Polyperchon, regent to the Macedonian throne and envoy to the Greek city-states in the year 319 BC, where we read: "Our ancestors [meaning the Macedonians - author's note) were always kind to the Hellenes and intend to continue their good ways and give proof of our goodwill towards the Greek people ." (Istorija diplomatije, p. 53, reference taken from Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheka historika, XVIII, p. 55).
read some history books | | | | The modern Greek scholar, Karagatsis, makes his contribution to the clarification of the question whether the ancient Macedonians were Greek or not. The master work of this respected author, History of the Greek People, 1952, raised a great commotion in the camp of the nationalistically oriented intellectuals of Greece. Karagatsis, however, disregarded the burden of tradition and mythology and claimed that reality was different (p. 314). "It is the King of the Macedonians," he says, "who is the hegemon of the Greeks. The Congress is summoned by the hegemon, but is never chaired by him, because the hegemon is not Greek." (p. 340).
Many circles in Greece turned against Karagatsis. Thus Stefanos Hrisos, a critic, states the following in his article in the Salonica newspaper Makedonia: "I believe that it is a moral obligation of every Greek, particularly those in Northern Greece, to raise his voice and demand that this book by Karagatsis should not leave the boundaries of Greece or be translated into other languages, and, if possible, be withdrawn from the shops. We might have expected such bad language from our neighbors but never from a Greek writer..." | |
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