Where did we lose our country? – To whom does Macedonia Belong?
Where did we lose our country? – To whom does Macedonia Belong?
By Risto Stefov
rstefov@hotmail.com
February 6, 2011
If at the start of the 19th century Macedonia was occupied by the Ottomans and was seen as not belonging to the Ottomans after 600 years of occupation, then to whom did Macedonia belong?
Did it belong to Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania? Based on what legitimate grounds? Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania were modern countries either just created or in the case of Albania, about to be created! So, considering how Macedonia was to be “divided” according to pre-Balkan War agreements and how it actually was divided first during the First Balkan War, second during the Second Balkan War, by the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and finally by the Treaty of Versailles, is proof that there was absolutely no legitimate basis for its division! It was simply an arbitrary division; history is very clear on that!
So if Macedonia did not belong to the Ottomans, Greeks, Serbians, Bulgarians or Albanians; to whom did it belong?
The most logical conclusion that can be reached from this is that Macedonia belonged and still belongs to the Macedonian people, the people who were found to live in Macedonia prior to the eviction of the Ottomans!
There are some Greeks who now claim that 85% of the Macedonian territory occupied by Greece today is “ancient Macedonia” and belongs exclusively to Greece. Greeks nowadays are making statements of fact to that effect and conclude that the rest of historic and geographical Macedonia was “never” part of ancient Macedonia, therefore it cannot be called Macedonia and the people living there cannot possibly be Macedonians. In other words, according to some Greeks, no major Macedonian territories outside of Greek occupied Macedonia were “part” of ancient Macedonia.
No Greek up to this day, however, has specified “when” in time this was and who ruled Macedonia at that time!
Just to clear things up a little, Macedonia was never static from prehistoric times (800 BC) to the fall of the Ptolemaic Empire (40 BC). In 800 BC Macedonia was a dot on the map and during Alexander’s time it grew to encompass the entire known world! So unless the Greeks come up with a date and name of a ruler, they are wasting our time with their bogus claims!
Even if the Greeks do come up with a date and a name, then what will make us believe that “this and only this” was ancient Macedonia?
When I think of ancient Macedonia, I think of the period from about 600 BC to about 40 BC when Macedonia grew from a small landlocked tribal kingdom, found near present day Kostur and Lerin, to a super power unmatched to this day, encompassing the entire Balkans north to the Danube River, south to the tip of the Peloponnesus, west to the Adriatic Sea and east to the Hellespont and this is only on the European continent! So which Macedonia are the Greeks talking about?
Allow me to elaborate, in this newest Greek claim, in the ever evolving historic Modern Greek set of claims and counter claims, everything is fluid, made fluid to fit the Modern Greek political agenda. In the hands of the Greeks history has become a tool, a weapon which has nothing to do with reality and plenty to do with Greece’s desperate attempts to hang on to Macedonia and to its fake identity by any means possible.
As I have said many times before, the Modern Greeks are a modern construct which has nothing to do with ancient times! Creating a modern country and calling it Greece or Hellas and taking its Albanian, Vlach, Slav, Turkish, Latin and Roma inhabitants and calling them Greeks or Ellines and then teaching them in school how to speak an antiquated dead language neither makes the country “ancient Greece” or a “continuation of ancient Greece” nor the people “Greeks” or “the descendents of the ancient Greeks from 2,600 years ago! So given that these people cannot possibly be a continuation of the ancient Greeks and they are not even real Greek, then what gives them the right to lay claim to the ancient Greek heritage, let alone to the far detached ancient Macedonian heritage?
Greece today uses “pure myth” to justify its existence and this pure myth exists at the expense of the various ethnic identities and cultures which were sacrificed to support the myth! Among those ethnic identities and cultures sacrificed are also the Macedonians.
The tragic part about the Macedonians is that both their country and their people were sacrificed four ways to support four separate “national myths”. In other words Macedonia and the Macedonian people were separated four ways between 1912 and 1919 and each was given an alien identity very different from the others! Families, even brothers and sisters, were divided by the artificial borders erected by these four countries inside Macedonia and on one side members of the same family were forced to accept “Greek” as their identity, on another side they were forced to become Serbian, on a third side they were forced to become Bulgarian and on the fourth side they were forced to become Albanian! Now please tell me how that is possible and what rational mind can wrap itself around this and truly comprehend what has happened here?
Even though Macedonians were forced to assume alien identities, deep inside they could not accept them. They could not accept themselves being Greeks on one side and close family members being Serbian, Bulgarian, or Albanian on the other side. So to remain sane and loyal to their families, many continued to exist as Macedonians in secret.
The constant torment, denigration, humiliation and refusal to accept Macedonians as equal members of Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian society made the Macedonians more stubborn and more difficult to assimilate.
Those who fled these terrible countries and found sanctuary in tolerant countries like Canada, the USA and Australia reverted back to being Macedonians. Many even changed their names back to their original Macedonian name. Those who accepted the fate set upon them by their occupiers and oppressors became the “Grkomani, Serbomani, Bulgaromani and Albanomani”, otherwise known as the “traitors” who rejected their own identity. In Greece, they, along with the Christian Turkish colonists imported from Asia Minor during the 1920’s, are today the so-called “Greek-Macedonians” and the inheritors of the “entire” Macedonian heritage, of which Greeks speak so proudly!
Greeks cannot even stomach calling these people “Macedonians”, so they call them “Greek-Macedonians” a name that cannot be trusted but must be kept very close to the chest of Greece! They are called “Greek-Macedonians” not because they are “ethnic Greeks” (only if such an identity existed) or “ethnic Macedonians” but only because they happen to be “geographically” located in “Greek-Macedonia”! According to the same Greeks, these people are Greeks who live in Macedonia.
Given the “Greek side” of the Macedonian story then where does this all leave the non-Greek-Macedonians, i.e. the real Macedonian people living in Macedonia? For example, those who were tormented, jailed, killed, exiled and driven out of their fatherland through economic hardship? Those whose names were changed by force and whose properties were confiscated by the Greek authorities? Those, including the 28,000 children exiled during the Greek Civil War, who are not allowed to return to their homeland and place of birth, not even to visit, because they remain true to their Macedonian identity? What about these people? Where do they fit into the Greek plan?
But of course these are the “real” Macedonians that Greece does not want you to know about and that time and again has claimed “they do not exist”. These Macedonians are a figment of Tito’s imagination, they are the brain child of the Communists, they are “Slavs”, “Bulgarians” and every other derogatory term in the bad book; but according to the same Greeks, “are definitely not Macedonians”.
In other words “if they don’t fit in Greece’s political agenda they cannot possibly be Macedonians”. Unfortunately this Greek “courtesy”, as of the last 20 years or so, has been extended to include the “Former Serbian occupied Territories of Macedonia”, now known to the world, except to the Greeks, as the Republic of Macedonia!
Even people outside of Greece now cannot be Macedonians so that Greece can continue to live a lie and enjoy its mythical identity created for it by a number of “deranged” Philhellenes who saw themselves fit to recreate a 2,600 year old dead civilization out of the 19th century savages who lived on those lands and subsisted by robbing and murdering one another.
If history is so important to Greece then why are Greeks ignoring “historical facts” in favour of “dodgy arguments and propaganda”?
If Greeks wish to “analyze” history why don’t they look at when Greece was created? And by that I mean Greece’s “real” narrative not the current myth. Examine how Greece expanded and swallowed and destroyed entire cultures through its “Hellenization” process. Analyze how Greece acquired 51% of the Macedonian territories in 1912, 1913 which today it calls “exclusively” Greek since ancient times?
If Greece is all for examining history then why not examine how Greece the country was created, what kind of people lived in Greece before it was created, what language the people who lived there spoke, where did these people come from and when, before they settled in Greece. And finally if history is so important why not examine how the Modern Greek people came to acquire their so-called “Greek national language”?
While you are at it, why not examine the Treaties Greece signed and counter signed with Serbia and Bulgaria, both open and secret, on “how to divide Macedonia” prior to its invasion, occupation and partition? Where was your “ancient Macedonia” claim then?
Why jump back to ancient times when we have plenty to “air out” right now in the last century or so?
Greece would rather “cling on” to vague issues like “who was who” 2,000 years ago than discuss current and burning issues because when it comes to recent history Greece has no ground to stand on!
No matter, willing or unwilling on Greece’s part, the Macedonian and Greek people, the ones who Greek authorities have lied to for generations, will one day learn the truth. They will learn who and what they are and are not! There is plenty of evidence out there and if I was able to find it so will they. Lies and propaganda can and will only go so far but when authorities are painted into a corner they become desperate and need to invent new lies to cover for old ones. At times like these their castle of cards will come tumbling down!
To be continued.
Where did we lose our country? – To whom does Macedonia Belong?
By Risto Stefov
rstefov@hotmail.com
February 6, 2011
If at the start of the 19th century Macedonia was occupied by the Ottomans and was seen as not belonging to the Ottomans after 600 years of occupation, then to whom did Macedonia belong?
Did it belong to Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania? Based on what legitimate grounds? Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania were modern countries either just created or in the case of Albania, about to be created! So, considering how Macedonia was to be “divided” according to pre-Balkan War agreements and how it actually was divided first during the First Balkan War, second during the Second Balkan War, by the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and finally by the Treaty of Versailles, is proof that there was absolutely no legitimate basis for its division! It was simply an arbitrary division; history is very clear on that!
So if Macedonia did not belong to the Ottomans, Greeks, Serbians, Bulgarians or Albanians; to whom did it belong?
The most logical conclusion that can be reached from this is that Macedonia belonged and still belongs to the Macedonian people, the people who were found to live in Macedonia prior to the eviction of the Ottomans!
There are some Greeks who now claim that 85% of the Macedonian territory occupied by Greece today is “ancient Macedonia” and belongs exclusively to Greece. Greeks nowadays are making statements of fact to that effect and conclude that the rest of historic and geographical Macedonia was “never” part of ancient Macedonia, therefore it cannot be called Macedonia and the people living there cannot possibly be Macedonians. In other words, according to some Greeks, no major Macedonian territories outside of Greek occupied Macedonia were “part” of ancient Macedonia.
No Greek up to this day, however, has specified “when” in time this was and who ruled Macedonia at that time!
Just to clear things up a little, Macedonia was never static from prehistoric times (800 BC) to the fall of the Ptolemaic Empire (40 BC). In 800 BC Macedonia was a dot on the map and during Alexander’s time it grew to encompass the entire known world! So unless the Greeks come up with a date and name of a ruler, they are wasting our time with their bogus claims!
Even if the Greeks do come up with a date and a name, then what will make us believe that “this and only this” was ancient Macedonia?
When I think of ancient Macedonia, I think of the period from about 600 BC to about 40 BC when Macedonia grew from a small landlocked tribal kingdom, found near present day Kostur and Lerin, to a super power unmatched to this day, encompassing the entire Balkans north to the Danube River, south to the tip of the Peloponnesus, west to the Adriatic Sea and east to the Hellespont and this is only on the European continent! So which Macedonia are the Greeks talking about?
Allow me to elaborate, in this newest Greek claim, in the ever evolving historic Modern Greek set of claims and counter claims, everything is fluid, made fluid to fit the Modern Greek political agenda. In the hands of the Greeks history has become a tool, a weapon which has nothing to do with reality and plenty to do with Greece’s desperate attempts to hang on to Macedonia and to its fake identity by any means possible.
As I have said many times before, the Modern Greeks are a modern construct which has nothing to do with ancient times! Creating a modern country and calling it Greece or Hellas and taking its Albanian, Vlach, Slav, Turkish, Latin and Roma inhabitants and calling them Greeks or Ellines and then teaching them in school how to speak an antiquated dead language neither makes the country “ancient Greece” or a “continuation of ancient Greece” nor the people “Greeks” or “the descendents of the ancient Greeks from 2,600 years ago! So given that these people cannot possibly be a continuation of the ancient Greeks and they are not even real Greek, then what gives them the right to lay claim to the ancient Greek heritage, let alone to the far detached ancient Macedonian heritage?
Greece today uses “pure myth” to justify its existence and this pure myth exists at the expense of the various ethnic identities and cultures which were sacrificed to support the myth! Among those ethnic identities and cultures sacrificed are also the Macedonians.
The tragic part about the Macedonians is that both their country and their people were sacrificed four ways to support four separate “national myths”. In other words Macedonia and the Macedonian people were separated four ways between 1912 and 1919 and each was given an alien identity very different from the others! Families, even brothers and sisters, were divided by the artificial borders erected by these four countries inside Macedonia and on one side members of the same family were forced to accept “Greek” as their identity, on another side they were forced to become Serbian, on a third side they were forced to become Bulgarian and on the fourth side they were forced to become Albanian! Now please tell me how that is possible and what rational mind can wrap itself around this and truly comprehend what has happened here?
Even though Macedonians were forced to assume alien identities, deep inside they could not accept them. They could not accept themselves being Greeks on one side and close family members being Serbian, Bulgarian, or Albanian on the other side. So to remain sane and loyal to their families, many continued to exist as Macedonians in secret.
The constant torment, denigration, humiliation and refusal to accept Macedonians as equal members of Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian society made the Macedonians more stubborn and more difficult to assimilate.
Those who fled these terrible countries and found sanctuary in tolerant countries like Canada, the USA and Australia reverted back to being Macedonians. Many even changed their names back to their original Macedonian name. Those who accepted the fate set upon them by their occupiers and oppressors became the “Grkomani, Serbomani, Bulgaromani and Albanomani”, otherwise known as the “traitors” who rejected their own identity. In Greece, they, along with the Christian Turkish colonists imported from Asia Minor during the 1920’s, are today the so-called “Greek-Macedonians” and the inheritors of the “entire” Macedonian heritage, of which Greeks speak so proudly!
Greeks cannot even stomach calling these people “Macedonians”, so they call them “Greek-Macedonians” a name that cannot be trusted but must be kept very close to the chest of Greece! They are called “Greek-Macedonians” not because they are “ethnic Greeks” (only if such an identity existed) or “ethnic Macedonians” but only because they happen to be “geographically” located in “Greek-Macedonia”! According to the same Greeks, these people are Greeks who live in Macedonia.
Given the “Greek side” of the Macedonian story then where does this all leave the non-Greek-Macedonians, i.e. the real Macedonian people living in Macedonia? For example, those who were tormented, jailed, killed, exiled and driven out of their fatherland through economic hardship? Those whose names were changed by force and whose properties were confiscated by the Greek authorities? Those, including the 28,000 children exiled during the Greek Civil War, who are not allowed to return to their homeland and place of birth, not even to visit, because they remain true to their Macedonian identity? What about these people? Where do they fit into the Greek plan?
But of course these are the “real” Macedonians that Greece does not want you to know about and that time and again has claimed “they do not exist”. These Macedonians are a figment of Tito’s imagination, they are the brain child of the Communists, they are “Slavs”, “Bulgarians” and every other derogatory term in the bad book; but according to the same Greeks, “are definitely not Macedonians”.
In other words “if they don’t fit in Greece’s political agenda they cannot possibly be Macedonians”. Unfortunately this Greek “courtesy”, as of the last 20 years or so, has been extended to include the “Former Serbian occupied Territories of Macedonia”, now known to the world, except to the Greeks, as the Republic of Macedonia!
Even people outside of Greece now cannot be Macedonians so that Greece can continue to live a lie and enjoy its mythical identity created for it by a number of “deranged” Philhellenes who saw themselves fit to recreate a 2,600 year old dead civilization out of the 19th century savages who lived on those lands and subsisted by robbing and murdering one another.
If history is so important to Greece then why are Greeks ignoring “historical facts” in favour of “dodgy arguments and propaganda”?
If Greeks wish to “analyze” history why don’t they look at when Greece was created? And by that I mean Greece’s “real” narrative not the current myth. Examine how Greece expanded and swallowed and destroyed entire cultures through its “Hellenization” process. Analyze how Greece acquired 51% of the Macedonian territories in 1912, 1913 which today it calls “exclusively” Greek since ancient times?
If Greece is all for examining history then why not examine how Greece the country was created, what kind of people lived in Greece before it was created, what language the people who lived there spoke, where did these people come from and when, before they settled in Greece. And finally if history is so important why not examine how the Modern Greek people came to acquire their so-called “Greek national language”?
While you are at it, why not examine the Treaties Greece signed and counter signed with Serbia and Bulgaria, both open and secret, on “how to divide Macedonia” prior to its invasion, occupation and partition? Where was your “ancient Macedonia” claim then?
Why jump back to ancient times when we have plenty to “air out” right now in the last century or so?
Greece would rather “cling on” to vague issues like “who was who” 2,000 years ago than discuss current and burning issues because when it comes to recent history Greece has no ground to stand on!
No matter, willing or unwilling on Greece’s part, the Macedonian and Greek people, the ones who Greek authorities have lied to for generations, will one day learn the truth. They will learn who and what they are and are not! There is plenty of evidence out there and if I was able to find it so will they. Lies and propaganda can and will only go so far but when authorities are painted into a corner they become desperate and need to invent new lies to cover for old ones. At times like these their castle of cards will come tumbling down!
To be continued.
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