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"2,300 years later, 'Alexander-mania' grips Macedonia"
Gandeto
March 29, 2009
Rebuttal:
Once again, another writer nonchalantly assumes that he can dispense a lesson in ancient history to us, the Macedonians. Fair enough Mr. Marquand, we´ll listen to what you have to say; after all there is no harm in listening to people who bring a wealth of experience and wisdom, is there? Others have lectured us on many subjects before; told us what to do, have written our history books for us, told us what language we should speak and even told us what to call ourselves. One more lecture in historiography, I presume, will not hurt much. Actually, it would be a welcomed interlude but I must warn you that you should have taken a number because these days our lecture halls are booked solid.
Indeed, Robert Marquand has taken upon himself to enlighten us with our supposed "missteps" in our socio-political ideology. In his article "2,300 years later, ´Alexander-mania´ grips Macedonia´, from the March 20th, 2009 edition of Christian Science Monitor, he makes several interesting observations, some of which have immediately caught my attention and deserve a prompt response.
To begin with, I must admit that my personal heartfelt distaste and intended criticism of Robert´s article was measurably blunted upon realizing that he had properly called our country by its rightful constitutional name ´Macedonia´, and for that I promise to dip my darts in honey before I throw them at him.
He, more or less, accurately depicted the political wrangling in our country but at the same time made some very disturbing statements regarding our history. I will not delve into his assertions, he is entitled to his opinion, but since he is a journalist and writes for a prominent paper, it would have been more professionally appropriate, if he had exercised restrained enthusiasm dispensing politically sensitive qualifications.
His views on Macedonian history are fundamentally flawed; it seems to me, and his assertions prove my suspicion, that he, as a student either (a) did not like history, (b) had a mediocre history teacher who never introduced him to mainstream revisionist scholars or (c) he must have been absent too many days from school not to learn "the other side of the story".
My impression is that Mr. Marquand has not ventured beyond the scope of today´s outdated and grossly inaccurate history textbooks for high school students. If that is not the case then why would he make statements of this magnitude?
(1)
"Unlike Serbia's Kosovo story, based on centuries of poetry and legend, the Macedonian ideology is being both invented and presented at the same time."
Your depth perception is definitely skewed; either you are misinformed or the information that you have obtained was drastically diluted. In either case, much of the Balkan history remains beyond your peripheral grasp of our country. Macedonian history is as rich and as colorful as any of our thieving neighbors. As a matter of fact they don´t even come close. For your information Mr. Marquand, we are the oldest and the most indigenous population in the region and others have learned by imitation, or stealing, if you will, from us. Your statement above is both immature and frivolous. If you want to learn more about our history sir, you need to speak to a Macedonian person about it rather than gathering one sided details from our neighbors who have benefitted from their association with us. Any other info you obtain will be contaminated with distortions and would be perilously inaccurate.
(2)
"By pushing its thumb further into the already sore eye of Greece".
Hmm, I can see your eyebrow arching up but do read the following couple of sentences below:
Greece has no right to claim Alexander the Great. He does not belong to Greece, never did. He was a Macedonian king first and foremost. With his father Philip, together they conquered Greece and subsequent Macedonian kings kept the Greeks enslaved for centuries. Ancient Greeks have made these observations themselves, I simply regurgitate their feelings. Even as recently as the nineteen century, Greeks regarded the ancient Macedonians as conquerors of Greece. Ancient Greeks are on the record asking Philip V of Macedon to evacuate from Greece. They pleaded with him not to make Greece easy prey for the invaders and to take care of Greece as if it were a part of his own dominion. No matter how you approach these statements the meaning stubbornly stays the same; one party (Greece) is being conquered—enslaved and the other party (Macedonia) is the conqueror—the enslaver. The words from the mouth of King Philip V are preserved by Justin 30. 3.3-9, to remind people like yourself, not to jump to conclusions prematurely. Moreover, Macedonian kings themselves have said that they had enslaved Greece.
I can bring hundreds of irreconcilable facts that ancient Macedonians never regarded themselves as Greeks. Why should they? They were the dominant, the most imitated army in antiquity; the invincibility was reserved only for the Macedonians, the conquerors of the known world. Why then, step down from the lofty pedestal and become Greek? Mr. Marquand your knowledge of history needs to be upgraded; the old convenient days of assuming that everything "originated" with the Greeks and sweeping everything else of unknown origin and placing it into a "Greek basket" are over. A significant number of prominent scholars will definitely disagree with your postulates.
(3)
"Beyond theatrics, the new program deeply troubles many scholars and intellectuals here – who are being sidelined – for its promulgation of myth as truth. The new taxpayer-funded Alexander ideology has no serious texts."
You elected to see it as "theatrics"; I see it as democracy at work. Unlike our neighbor to the south, we do not dismiss people for speaking their mind, nor do we fire them from their posts or send them to jail for disagreeing with us. Macedonia is a light year ahead of our Balkan neighbors when it comes to practicing democracy. We recognize all ethnic minorities and have granted them full human rights as equal citizens of our country.
Surely, you can not say the same thing about Greece where ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Turks have been discriminated against and their basic human rights abrogated. You mention promulgation of "myth as truth". Sorry mate, you have the wrong country; myths have taken deep roots in the land of Zeus. Mythology is not part and parcel of our existence like it is in the land south of the border.
(4)
"Alexander is considered one of the greatest military leaders of all time. Born in the Greek city of Pella in 356 BC, his conquests extended to most of his known world by the time of his death at age 32. He opened up Greek civilization from the Mediterranean to India, and is regarded as the first to link Europe, Asia, and Africa."
Big mistake sir; Pella is a Macedonian city. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedon. You should have qualified your statement. Pella became a Greek city only after 1912-13 when the Balkan states partitioned Macedonia. Thus, Pella for thousands of years was simply a Macedonian city. Here, you were caught cheating.
Mr. Marquand, it is a colossal mistake to assume that Greeks went to Asia only after Alexander´s conquest. They were in Asia hundreds of years before Alexander. Persian king Darius employed more than 50,000 of them as soldiers to fight against the Macedonians. Your slogan-esque statements are less than convincing; as usual subsequent proof is never furnished, for such proof, granted, is nowhere to be found.
(5)
"Alexander was the captain general of all the Hellenes. He spoke Greek. He went to war on behalf of the Hellenes. No one in the ancient, medieval, or modern world has disputed this," says Michael Wood, a historian and British filmmaker who has produced a work on Alexander and has another in the making."
Total academic collapse on this event; your statement is indicative of a person who possesses a rudimentary knowledge of history and of one who reads the titles of the pages only. I am really disappointed with your lack of depth in understanding the events that have taken place with Alexander. Please follow my logic here:
(a) Alexander was the captain general of all the Hellenes after he taught Thebes a terrible lesson ((Diod. 17.4.4-6): thousands dead, thousands sold into slavery and the city, the most venerated city in Greek history, raised to the ground. Only then, the Greeks lined up behind the captain general at Corinth.
(b)
He did not go to war on behalf of the Hellenes. Please Mr. Marquand, do not humiliate your self with this kind of thinking. It is apparent that you have fallen far behind the mainstream historians. Please do your homework before you lecture us on topics you possess neither in-depth knowledge about nor have the sophistication to analyze the events.
(c) "He spoke Greek" and ….what does it make him; monolingual or bilingual? He spoke Macedonian with his troops and prominent scholars like Badian, Borza, Bosworth, have attested that Alexander´s phalanx had to be addressed in Macedonian language. Curtius makes it explicitly clear while describing the episode with Philotas, and Plutarch confirms it in the episode with Cleitus the black. There were Macedonian soldiers who spoke Persian and Persian soldiers who spoke Greek. To stake your ethnicity of Alexander on the language he spoke is to equate a Mexican Indian from the state of Morelia with the Spaniards living in Madrid, Spain. It is absurd to attach Greekness to Alexander the Great from Macedon on the basis that he could communicate in Greek.
The link is extremely tenuous, if not down right ridiculous. I am ethnic Macedonian and I communicate with you in English; does it make me an Englishman? Even though your intent was to tell us that Alexander was Greek because he spoke Greek, your statement is correct as far as it goes; "he spoke Greek", period. It would not have surprised me if he were trilingual, for that matter.
(d)
Your friend Michael Wood is a confused entertainer. He needs to come to grips with the fact that ancient Macedonians were just that: Macedonians. Philip would not waste his soldiers fighting for Greece. See if you two can come to terms with this statement: The Lamian War was popularly known as "Hellenic War". Truth is that all the Hellenes were fighting the Macedonians. Just this fact alone, that this war was known as the "Hellenic" war, excludes the Macedonians from ever being grouped together with the Greeks. I believe it was the Athenian Cremonides or Demades who said: "all Hellenes united against the enemy of Hellas". You do the math, mate.
(e)
When he states that "no one in the ancient, medieval, or modern world
has disputed this,"
I must say that the poor chap is out of touch with reality; I wonder, has he read the works of Peter Green, Ernst Badian, Eugene Borza, A.B. Bossworth, David Hogarth, Pierre Jouguet, and hundreds more? No further comment is needed.
(f) "The Macedonian state claim has no basis in history; it is a state-sponsored myth. I tell my Macedonian and Greek friends to ignore it," Mr. Wood adds.
Michael Woods should keep his comments reserved for Greece. We do not dwell into the imagined world; we don´t have to, for there are no invented episodes in our historiography for which we have no explanations. His statements not only have no basis in history but they have no business being printed in the media.
I am yet to find a cogent, convincing argument coming from him for his thoughtless assertions. His statement is neither appropriate nor accurate and as such it needs to be retrieved. Michael Woods has no friends among the Macedonians I can assure you of that. His lens of objectivity is so deformed and opaque that he perceives nebulous things as real. His credibility with the Macedonian people has suffered irreparable damage with his first film about Alexander for which he received much needed dribbling from Eugene Borza, the authority on Macedonia. Enough has been said about this biased and largely marginalized filmmaker.
In conclusion Mr. Marquand, it is best to stay neutral on matters too complicated for your "pen". Let me leave you with this: there are scholars who possess analytical skills and much needed resolve to get to the root of the problem—they teach; and then, there are others (pretenders) who lump things together under one big Hellenic brush.
Until next time….
March 29, 2009
Rebuttal:
Once again, another writer nonchalantly assumes that he can dispense a lesson in ancient history to us, the Macedonians. Fair enough Mr. Marquand, we´ll listen to what you have to say; after all there is no harm in listening to people who bring a wealth of experience and wisdom, is there? Others have lectured us on many subjects before; told us what to do, have written our history books for us, told us what language we should speak and even told us what to call ourselves. One more lecture in historiography, I presume, will not hurt much. Actually, it would be a welcomed interlude but I must warn you that you should have taken a number because these days our lecture halls are booked solid.
Indeed, Robert Marquand has taken upon himself to enlighten us with our supposed "missteps" in our socio-political ideology. In his article "2,300 years later, ´Alexander-mania´ grips Macedonia´, from the March 20th, 2009 edition of Christian Science Monitor, he makes several interesting observations, some of which have immediately caught my attention and deserve a prompt response.
To begin with, I must admit that my personal heartfelt distaste and intended criticism of Robert´s article was measurably blunted upon realizing that he had properly called our country by its rightful constitutional name ´Macedonia´, and for that I promise to dip my darts in honey before I throw them at him.
He, more or less, accurately depicted the political wrangling in our country but at the same time made some very disturbing statements regarding our history. I will not delve into his assertions, he is entitled to his opinion, but since he is a journalist and writes for a prominent paper, it would have been more professionally appropriate, if he had exercised restrained enthusiasm dispensing politically sensitive qualifications.
His views on Macedonian history are fundamentally flawed; it seems to me, and his assertions prove my suspicion, that he, as a student either (a) did not like history, (b) had a mediocre history teacher who never introduced him to mainstream revisionist scholars or (c) he must have been absent too many days from school not to learn "the other side of the story".
My impression is that Mr. Marquand has not ventured beyond the scope of today´s outdated and grossly inaccurate history textbooks for high school students. If that is not the case then why would he make statements of this magnitude?
(1)
"Unlike Serbia's Kosovo story, based on centuries of poetry and legend, the Macedonian ideology is being both invented and presented at the same time."
Your depth perception is definitely skewed; either you are misinformed or the information that you have obtained was drastically diluted. In either case, much of the Balkan history remains beyond your peripheral grasp of our country. Macedonian history is as rich and as colorful as any of our thieving neighbors. As a matter of fact they don´t even come close. For your information Mr. Marquand, we are the oldest and the most indigenous population in the region and others have learned by imitation, or stealing, if you will, from us. Your statement above is both immature and frivolous. If you want to learn more about our history sir, you need to speak to a Macedonian person about it rather than gathering one sided details from our neighbors who have benefitted from their association with us. Any other info you obtain will be contaminated with distortions and would be perilously inaccurate.
(2)
"By pushing its thumb further into the already sore eye of Greece".
Hmm, I can see your eyebrow arching up but do read the following couple of sentences below:
Greece has no right to claim Alexander the Great. He does not belong to Greece, never did. He was a Macedonian king first and foremost. With his father Philip, together they conquered Greece and subsequent Macedonian kings kept the Greeks enslaved for centuries. Ancient Greeks have made these observations themselves, I simply regurgitate their feelings. Even as recently as the nineteen century, Greeks regarded the ancient Macedonians as conquerors of Greece. Ancient Greeks are on the record asking Philip V of Macedon to evacuate from Greece. They pleaded with him not to make Greece easy prey for the invaders and to take care of Greece as if it were a part of his own dominion. No matter how you approach these statements the meaning stubbornly stays the same; one party (Greece) is being conquered—enslaved and the other party (Macedonia) is the conqueror—the enslaver. The words from the mouth of King Philip V are preserved by Justin 30. 3.3-9, to remind people like yourself, not to jump to conclusions prematurely. Moreover, Macedonian kings themselves have said that they had enslaved Greece.
I can bring hundreds of irreconcilable facts that ancient Macedonians never regarded themselves as Greeks. Why should they? They were the dominant, the most imitated army in antiquity; the invincibility was reserved only for the Macedonians, the conquerors of the known world. Why then, step down from the lofty pedestal and become Greek? Mr. Marquand your knowledge of history needs to be upgraded; the old convenient days of assuming that everything "originated" with the Greeks and sweeping everything else of unknown origin and placing it into a "Greek basket" are over. A significant number of prominent scholars will definitely disagree with your postulates.
(3)
"Beyond theatrics, the new program deeply troubles many scholars and intellectuals here – who are being sidelined – for its promulgation of myth as truth. The new taxpayer-funded Alexander ideology has no serious texts."
You elected to see it as "theatrics"; I see it as democracy at work. Unlike our neighbor to the south, we do not dismiss people for speaking their mind, nor do we fire them from their posts or send them to jail for disagreeing with us. Macedonia is a light year ahead of our Balkan neighbors when it comes to practicing democracy. We recognize all ethnic minorities and have granted them full human rights as equal citizens of our country.
Surely, you can not say the same thing about Greece where ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Turks have been discriminated against and their basic human rights abrogated. You mention promulgation of "myth as truth". Sorry mate, you have the wrong country; myths have taken deep roots in the land of Zeus. Mythology is not part and parcel of our existence like it is in the land south of the border.
(4)
"Alexander is considered one of the greatest military leaders of all time. Born in the Greek city of Pella in 356 BC, his conquests extended to most of his known world by the time of his death at age 32. He opened up Greek civilization from the Mediterranean to India, and is regarded as the first to link Europe, Asia, and Africa."
Big mistake sir; Pella is a Macedonian city. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedon. You should have qualified your statement. Pella became a Greek city only after 1912-13 when the Balkan states partitioned Macedonia. Thus, Pella for thousands of years was simply a Macedonian city. Here, you were caught cheating.
Mr. Marquand, it is a colossal mistake to assume that Greeks went to Asia only after Alexander´s conquest. They were in Asia hundreds of years before Alexander. Persian king Darius employed more than 50,000 of them as soldiers to fight against the Macedonians. Your slogan-esque statements are less than convincing; as usual subsequent proof is never furnished, for such proof, granted, is nowhere to be found.
(5)
"Alexander was the captain general of all the Hellenes. He spoke Greek. He went to war on behalf of the Hellenes. No one in the ancient, medieval, or modern world has disputed this," says Michael Wood, a historian and British filmmaker who has produced a work on Alexander and has another in the making."
Total academic collapse on this event; your statement is indicative of a person who possesses a rudimentary knowledge of history and of one who reads the titles of the pages only. I am really disappointed with your lack of depth in understanding the events that have taken place with Alexander. Please follow my logic here:
(a) Alexander was the captain general of all the Hellenes after he taught Thebes a terrible lesson ((Diod. 17.4.4-6): thousands dead, thousands sold into slavery and the city, the most venerated city in Greek history, raised to the ground. Only then, the Greeks lined up behind the captain general at Corinth.
(b)
He did not go to war on behalf of the Hellenes. Please Mr. Marquand, do not humiliate your self with this kind of thinking. It is apparent that you have fallen far behind the mainstream historians. Please do your homework before you lecture us on topics you possess neither in-depth knowledge about nor have the sophistication to analyze the events.
(c) "He spoke Greek" and ….what does it make him; monolingual or bilingual? He spoke Macedonian with his troops and prominent scholars like Badian, Borza, Bosworth, have attested that Alexander´s phalanx had to be addressed in Macedonian language. Curtius makes it explicitly clear while describing the episode with Philotas, and Plutarch confirms it in the episode with Cleitus the black. There were Macedonian soldiers who spoke Persian and Persian soldiers who spoke Greek. To stake your ethnicity of Alexander on the language he spoke is to equate a Mexican Indian from the state of Morelia with the Spaniards living in Madrid, Spain. It is absurd to attach Greekness to Alexander the Great from Macedon on the basis that he could communicate in Greek.
The link is extremely tenuous, if not down right ridiculous. I am ethnic Macedonian and I communicate with you in English; does it make me an Englishman? Even though your intent was to tell us that Alexander was Greek because he spoke Greek, your statement is correct as far as it goes; "he spoke Greek", period. It would not have surprised me if he were trilingual, for that matter.
(d)
Your friend Michael Wood is a confused entertainer. He needs to come to grips with the fact that ancient Macedonians were just that: Macedonians. Philip would not waste his soldiers fighting for Greece. See if you two can come to terms with this statement: The Lamian War was popularly known as "Hellenic War". Truth is that all the Hellenes were fighting the Macedonians. Just this fact alone, that this war was known as the "Hellenic" war, excludes the Macedonians from ever being grouped together with the Greeks. I believe it was the Athenian Cremonides or Demades who said: "all Hellenes united against the enemy of Hellas". You do the math, mate.
(e)
When he states that "no one in the ancient, medieval, or modern world
has disputed this,"
I must say that the poor chap is out of touch with reality; I wonder, has he read the works of Peter Green, Ernst Badian, Eugene Borza, A.B. Bossworth, David Hogarth, Pierre Jouguet, and hundreds more? No further comment is needed.
(f) "The Macedonian state claim has no basis in history; it is a state-sponsored myth. I tell my Macedonian and Greek friends to ignore it," Mr. Wood adds.
Michael Woods should keep his comments reserved for Greece. We do not dwell into the imagined world; we don´t have to, for there are no invented episodes in our historiography for which we have no explanations. His statements not only have no basis in history but they have no business being printed in the media.
I am yet to find a cogent, convincing argument coming from him for his thoughtless assertions. His statement is neither appropriate nor accurate and as such it needs to be retrieved. Michael Woods has no friends among the Macedonians I can assure you of that. His lens of objectivity is so deformed and opaque that he perceives nebulous things as real. His credibility with the Macedonian people has suffered irreparable damage with his first film about Alexander for which he received much needed dribbling from Eugene Borza, the authority on Macedonia. Enough has been said about this biased and largely marginalized filmmaker.
In conclusion Mr. Marquand, it is best to stay neutral on matters too complicated for your "pen". Let me leave you with this: there are scholars who possess analytical skills and much needed resolve to get to the root of the problem—they teach; and then, there are others (pretenders) who lump things together under one big Hellenic brush.
Until next time….
