08-09-2006, 07:58 PM
I think that its very dificult to start a conversation about the ethnicity of macedonians without turn into a political discussion. You know why? Because the whole issue is an effort for a political arguement. Before the late 40's no such issue existed. Basically it was devised by Tito. FYROM as state and various organizations pushing and financing this case has produced a massive propagandistic material in such a Goebels tactic. The network is unbelievable. It stretches from paramilitary organizations to international lobbies and pay rolls of academics to promote the idea of a Macedonian nation which is oppressed by the Greek state. A Macedonian state destined to be reunited and claim the lost lands :roll: . Despite the slavonic descendence of the popullation and not a sign of an ethnic group with a native ancient lineage.
There is no sign of a relation of nowdays people language with any ancient pre-medieval local unique dialect, there are no graves, no findings, no monuments to suggest a radically different culture than the greek one. All findings including a calendar which if i recall right was found 3 years ago plus this recent plaque suggest a greek culture with the known diversities that all greek city states and regions up to day have.
Despite the many ancient sources some researchers try to make a case with hypothesis and wishfull thinkings. Where are the findings ladies and gentlemen that verify those claims?
I would like to note that even if there is a hue of conspiracy and propaganda in all those ''new'' theories i dont believe that all researchers are on a pay roll or something. I do believe though that many researchers eager to be the ones presenting a big discovery and given that most of radical discoveries are done about the area they let their ego lead them to the path of academic glory and booksales. after all it is charming to be radical. To turn upside down what people believed for years. The problem is that they lack the evidences to do so.
The whole phainomenon has created a snowball the last years. If you were asking before 30 years what Alexander was everybody would say that he was a greek king of the macedonia region. Now people start as our friend ''i know macedonians are not exactly greek''. Well? how does he know that? Alexander told him? No. There is a massive effort through books tv programmes, internet. People are bombarded with those info and usually there is some big shot signature under those articles. After people who love history read those stuff and pass them over contributing without knowing to the snowball.
When the whole issue started Greece was in political turbulance. Actually till the late 70's greece was all the time in political turbulance sponsored by our lovely ''allies''. There was no space for anyone to seriously take account of such absurb claims that reached the sphaire of joke. Everybody said ''oh yes yes sure whatever you say''. Add in this the greek style of ''why do today what we can do tommorow''. Since antiquity we leave everything till last moment we can only work under pressure :lol: (olympics?). In the 90's they stopped laughing and did another mistake. They did a huge mistake. They tried to reverse ''in a night'' what FYROM was building for decades. they mobilised the people they put vergina star eveywhere you can imagine in a silly effort that only made the impression that we are no diffrent than FYROM.
In the meantime i Skopje they publish maps that show thessaloniki within their border, they have crazy history books at school poisoning the kids with stories of the greeks that stole their heritage.
Jona made a very correct note. Many scholars seems to ignore all the steps that made Greece a state. And how recent this is. I argue though on the fact that more than less Jona says that Greek state was somehow ''made up'' to stage the memory of ancient Greece. Surely we would be crazy to claim that each and every one of us is deriving from an ancient lineage. BUT. There seems to be a comparisson between Greek people and living space and people that basically roamed europe in an effort to FIND a living space. I cant see a valid comparisson. Yes people blend in yes conquests, yes wars, but there are too many regions of greece that either invaders never set foot or they had insignificant and rather ceremonial presence. Also there are the case wer conquerors had a very significant presence (turks) but local customs and mentality prevented the alteration of the population to a point that can be noted as major.
Yes offcourse there are areas where due to the closeness of customs and relligion populations where more positive. As the case of regions occupied by italians.
Greeks dominated the living space of aegean costs. I wont reffer to further regions. They were prosperous and didnt needed to massively move after the archaic major colonizations. So that means that the population base stayed here and just received groups of people. So where all those people went? Surelly people came and went but not to a point that a whole population can be completely altered and be something completely different. Evolution is another thing, extinction another.
The revolution that made modern greek state happen was on 1821 and it was one of the 400 major uprisings since turkish occupation. The greeks by themselves and without any help apart from some romantic philellenes from all over europe claimed back their own right to liberty. In the course they gain official support from major forces that by that time even aided the otomans. In order to be recognised as state they even accepted an apointed king to assure european royal houses that their motives are ethnic not political. Thessaloniki was part of greek state during the balkan wars.
Greeks had to fight or have serious diplomatic struggles for every inch of ground. I would say its a miracle the fact that after 400 years of occupation greeks stil remembered who they were and maintained their customs and most important language. That proves alot imo. It also makes clear why Greeks are so sensitive with anything that has to do with political and territorial claims.
Im sure people that dont live in countries that have their borders questioned in daily basis cannot understand this and maybe looks as a nationalistic tense.
What i would like to sayis that if the propagandistic snowball is able to influence people that really love history and painstakinly try to recreate even the smallest aspect of ancient cultures, imaging how influencing can be to people that get educated through movies or tv programmes.
Sorry for the long post, i just felt that i must explain some things.
There is no sign of a relation of nowdays people language with any ancient pre-medieval local unique dialect, there are no graves, no findings, no monuments to suggest a radically different culture than the greek one. All findings including a calendar which if i recall right was found 3 years ago plus this recent plaque suggest a greek culture with the known diversities that all greek city states and regions up to day have.
Despite the many ancient sources some researchers try to make a case with hypothesis and wishfull thinkings. Where are the findings ladies and gentlemen that verify those claims?
I would like to note that even if there is a hue of conspiracy and propaganda in all those ''new'' theories i dont believe that all researchers are on a pay roll or something. I do believe though that many researchers eager to be the ones presenting a big discovery and given that most of radical discoveries are done about the area they let their ego lead them to the path of academic glory and booksales. after all it is charming to be radical. To turn upside down what people believed for years. The problem is that they lack the evidences to do so.
The whole phainomenon has created a snowball the last years. If you were asking before 30 years what Alexander was everybody would say that he was a greek king of the macedonia region. Now people start as our friend ''i know macedonians are not exactly greek''. Well? how does he know that? Alexander told him? No. There is a massive effort through books tv programmes, internet. People are bombarded with those info and usually there is some big shot signature under those articles. After people who love history read those stuff and pass them over contributing without knowing to the snowball.
When the whole issue started Greece was in political turbulance. Actually till the late 70's greece was all the time in political turbulance sponsored by our lovely ''allies''. There was no space for anyone to seriously take account of such absurb claims that reached the sphaire of joke. Everybody said ''oh yes yes sure whatever you say''. Add in this the greek style of ''why do today what we can do tommorow''. Since antiquity we leave everything till last moment we can only work under pressure :lol: (olympics?). In the 90's they stopped laughing and did another mistake. They did a huge mistake. They tried to reverse ''in a night'' what FYROM was building for decades. they mobilised the people they put vergina star eveywhere you can imagine in a silly effort that only made the impression that we are no diffrent than FYROM.
In the meantime i Skopje they publish maps that show thessaloniki within their border, they have crazy history books at school poisoning the kids with stories of the greeks that stole their heritage.
Jona made a very correct note. Many scholars seems to ignore all the steps that made Greece a state. And how recent this is. I argue though on the fact that more than less Jona says that Greek state was somehow ''made up'' to stage the memory of ancient Greece. Surely we would be crazy to claim that each and every one of us is deriving from an ancient lineage. BUT. There seems to be a comparisson between Greek people and living space and people that basically roamed europe in an effort to FIND a living space. I cant see a valid comparisson. Yes people blend in yes conquests, yes wars, but there are too many regions of greece that either invaders never set foot or they had insignificant and rather ceremonial presence. Also there are the case wer conquerors had a very significant presence (turks) but local customs and mentality prevented the alteration of the population to a point that can be noted as major.
Yes offcourse there are areas where due to the closeness of customs and relligion populations where more positive. As the case of regions occupied by italians.
Greeks dominated the living space of aegean costs. I wont reffer to further regions. They were prosperous and didnt needed to massively move after the archaic major colonizations. So that means that the population base stayed here and just received groups of people. So where all those people went? Surelly people came and went but not to a point that a whole population can be completely altered and be something completely different. Evolution is another thing, extinction another.
The revolution that made modern greek state happen was on 1821 and it was one of the 400 major uprisings since turkish occupation. The greeks by themselves and without any help apart from some romantic philellenes from all over europe claimed back their own right to liberty. In the course they gain official support from major forces that by that time even aided the otomans. In order to be recognised as state they even accepted an apointed king to assure european royal houses that their motives are ethnic not political. Thessaloniki was part of greek state during the balkan wars.
Greeks had to fight or have serious diplomatic struggles for every inch of ground. I would say its a miracle the fact that after 400 years of occupation greeks stil remembered who they were and maintained their customs and most important language. That proves alot imo. It also makes clear why Greeks are so sensitive with anything that has to do with political and territorial claims.
Im sure people that dont live in countries that have their borders questioned in daily basis cannot understand this and maybe looks as a nationalistic tense.
What i would like to sayis that if the propagandistic snowball is able to influence people that really love history and painstakinly try to recreate even the smallest aspect of ancient cultures, imaging how influencing can be to people that get educated through movies or tv programmes.
Sorry for the long post, i just felt that i must explain some things.
aka Yannis
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Molon lave
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Molon lave
