HISTORY BOOK
Mike Kash
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FROM THE COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH INTO SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE
OF THE MACEDONIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS.
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Skopje, Macedonia 1993
Editorial Board:
Gorgi Sterdelov
Svetan Grozdanov
Blaze Ristovski
Lidia Simovska-Petkovska
Part 1...........Part 1..............Part 1
This is the first instalment in what will be a series of parts
of a book I picked up in RM, all of which I will try to submit in
full over the next 6 months.
It is called "Macedonia and its relations with Greece". It is
a very official looking document, that has been compiled by a team
of professors from Skopje University. In 123 pages of small print,
this book addresses the entire history of the Macedonian people,
starting with ancient times, all the way until now.
To start things off, here is the Table of Contents and the
Foreword.
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CONTENTS
Foreword
I The Ancient Macedonians and their language
II Macedonia from the settlement of the Slavs to the Ottoman
Empire
III Evidence of Macedonia in the Ottoman period
IV The Archbishopric of Ohrid and the Macedonian Orthodox church
V Attempts at Hellenization
VI The development of the idea of the Macedonian nation
VII Macedonian uprisings in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th
century
VIII Programmatic premises for a Macedonian state
IX The Macedonian question in foreign relations
X The Balkan wars and the Partition of Macedonia
XI The Aegean part of Macedonia after the Balkan wars
1. Partitions and Colonization
2. The Athens "Abecedar" Case
3. Change of toponyms
4. Oppressive measures in the period following World War II
XII The idea of Macedonian liberation between the two world wars
XIII The establishment of the Macedonian state in the Second World
War
XIV The Republic of Macedonia - from a member state of the
Yugoslav federation to a sovereign and independent state
XV The Macedonian language in the Balkan language environment
XVI Macedonian culture
Afterward
Notes
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FOREWORD
The Macedonian question as an integral part of the
international recognition of Macedonia is now preoccupying the
attention of the states of the European Community and the United
Nations and also the wider world public. This has been brought
about by the opposition of the Republic of Greece to the
recognition of the Republic of Macedonia under its historical and
constitutional name. This has gravely damaged relations in this
part of the Balkans, threatening the peace and stability of this
part of Europe.
Thus the Greek-Macedonian dispute which has, particularly in
the last century, had its own history is now on the agenda once
more. It has reached its culmination in the last few years just as
Macedonia, by means of a referendum of its citizens, has proclaimed
its independence and, as a sovereign state, is fighting for
international status in the world community. In order to hinder
this and render it impossible, in the past few years alone a whole
little library of books, brochures, reviews and audio-visual
materials has been published in neighbouring Greece and distributed
throughout the world. This large quantity of high quality paper
represents the Greek view of the matter, according to which neither
the Macedonian people, its language or its culture exits. These are
inventions, a political construct and some sort of alchemy on the
part of the "Skopje historians". This, albeit unintentionally,
reveals the true motives of the Greek anti-Macedonian policy in
which the "question of the name" in fact occupies a wholly marginal
position. The tragic nature of the dispute, however, lies in the
fact that it has not taken place within the parameters of
historical scholarship, linguistics or cultural history but, most
frequently, through a day-to-day unscholarly denial of the
Macedonian people, its language and its culture and, within recent
history, it has involved the use of physical and mental repression
against that "non-existent" people in the Aegean part of Macedonia.
On the basis of existing and available historical
documentation, we are here setting out the genesis of the
Macedonian people on this soil with particular emphasis on Greek-
Macedonian relations. We hope that this will make it possible for
the essence of this "dispute" and of this tragic failure in
understanding to be viewed more clearly.
The history of the Greek-Macedonian relations has, however,
another and a good side to it. We mention this precisely because we
are convinced that it is not merely a matter of past history.
Once upon a time, int golden age of the development of culture
and art in these parts, the ancient Greek cultural and
civilizational influence was a fruitful one for Macedonian culture
and art and for Slavonic culture at large.
This was the case from the very outset of the coming of the
Macedonian Slavs to this area, the southern part of the Balkan
Peninsula, and to the Byzantine Empire which contained the most
glittering culture in the Europe of the time. It is to this
influence in large measure that are owed the great Slavonic
cultural verticals which first saw the light of day in Macedonia
and the Slav masses to the works of literature and art. From the
contact with Byzantium there grew in Macedonia the stem of
Macedonian and Slavonic literacy and culture.
Thus as early as the Middle ages, within the framework of the
late Roman Empire and Byzantium, following their Christianisation
and then throughout the period of Ottoman rule and right up to the
close of the 18th century the Macedonians made a significant
contribution to culture and to art through the achievements of
outstanding thinkers, writers fresco- and icon-painters, builders
and composers within the overall development of the Slavonic and
Byzantine art. From these parts, numerous individuals of worth and
merit in Christian civilization at large were canonised as saints;
first and foremost the founders of Slavic literacy, Ss. Cyril and
Methodius and their disciples.
For centuries, until shortly before the close of the 18th
century, there existed no essential antagonism between Macedonians
and Greeks, since on Macedonian soil there was a continuously
ebbing a flowing process of spiritual blossoming arising out of the
contracts and the autochthonous artistic creations of these ethnic
entities. This process was to be halted by the attempt to recreate
the glory of the classical and medieval periods through the
assimilation in various forms of other ethnic regions, particularly
through pressure on ecclesiastical life, dictated by the
Patriarchate of Constantinople with its Greek administration. After
the dissolution of the Archbishopric of Ohrid this process led to
an antagonism between these two environments which had such close
cultural traditions. It is therefore not strange that all this has
been forgotten in more modern times. Today we re confronted by the
irrational white-heat of a Greek-Macedonian dispute which has
assumed such dimensions that it has rendered rational communication
an impossibility not merely on the diplomatic level but also on the
economic, cultural an political levels.
Setting out the fundamental reasons why an escalation of this
conflict has come about precisely now, the Council for Research
into South-eastern Europe of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and
Arts considers it its scholarly duty too make its contribution
towards casting an objective light on this question which is of
such great significance for the place of the macedonian people and
the Republic of Macedonia in the world community of peoples and for
the opening up of a fresh, European prospect for Greek-Macedonian
relations.
[end]