Slate Mistake 1997 - Macedonian problem communicating with media
David Edenden
In honor of the death of Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski please correct this mistake.
See Slate, Eastern Europe, By Franklin Foer, Posted Sunday, April 27, 1997 (this is my 12th and last time sending this information- no response yet ... 13 is an unlucky number. With one president dead and the other surviving an assassination attempt we can't try our luck) http://slate.msn.com/id/1056 . See CIA (yes THAT! CIA) for correct Macedonian ethnic groupings. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mk.html
Back in 1997 (this is like an itch I cannot scratch), I sent a
correction regarding the article below which had fundamental errors that
were not corrected by the author or SLATE.
Anyone retrieving that article
today, may assume that, because it was written in SLATE, the facts are correct.
This is not the case. It was part of an article about Eastern Europe that was
written by Franklin Foer for: The Gist
Foer:
"Macedonia (-3.2 percent growth; 50 percent private. Democracy relatively
strong: free elections, though minority groups claim oppression.) Though
Macedonia avoided the Balkan War, ethnic tensions and instability are a problem.
Last year, the country's liberal, pro-West president was seriously injured in a
car-bomb attack. A Greek minority demands that
Macedonia, with its ethnically
Albanian majority, be absorbed into Greece."
Response:
THE LAST LINE WITH 15 WORDS, HAD THREE ERRORS, IT SHOULD BE REPLACED
BY:
An Albanian minority (23%) demands that Macedonia, with its
ethnically Macedonian slav majority (67%) be changed from a unitary state into a
"confederation" of two states with their respective ethnic majorities.
Macedonian slavs fear this would be the first step to the partition of Macedonia
and the creation of a "Greater Albania". Greece demands that Macedonia change
the name of its country, its Macedonian language and Macedonian Orthodox Church
because Greeks
feel that "Macedonian history" belongs to Greek
heritage.
Dorian West
REFERENCE.
Can you please answer the questions below. Thanks.
1. Why did the Yugoslavs rename their province Vardaska, adjoining the Greek
province of Macedonia, to Makedonija (Macedonia in English) on 2nd August
1944? In addition, why did they consider it necessary to kill almost 200,000
Greeks in their failed 1944-49 effort of conquering Greece and especially
the beloved Greek province of Macedonia - the Heart of Greece?
ANSWER TO GET YOU STARTED:
"I shall not indulge in a lecture on the ancient identity of the Macedonians
and on Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, but the Greeks were
historically correct in the campaign that they launched in the early days of
the dispute...
"Nor shall I engage in a lecture on the falsification of the history of
Slavo-Macedonia since 1944, although that, too, as much hard factual
content. I simply remind the House that Tito's renaming of Vardar Banovina
as the Republic of Macedonia in 1944 was a political statement. More than
that, it was a territorial claim. It laid claim to territory in Greece and
in Bulgaria. Notably, the objective was the warm water port of Salonika on
the Aegean."
[Mr. Edward O'Hara of the British Parliament]
2. Why did the written language of these Yugoslav-Makedonijans first appear
after 2 August 1944?
3. The Macedonians conquered lands in 3 continents as Rome and England (5)
did. The Greek language was used in ALL inscriptions and writings in the
areas controlled by Macedonia, just like Latin and English was used in the
lands conquered by the Romans and English. Why would non-Greeks solely use
Greek and why has there not been even ONE Greek writing with the typical
Slavic endings of "ov" and "ski"? Why is EVERYTHING in Greek? What kind of
conquerors spread a so-called enemy language and culture?
4. Why is it that ancient and modern Macedonian names like Alexandros,
Philippos, Krateros, Ptolemaios, Kleopatra, Cassander, Thessaloniki,
Antipater and Macedonia are Greek?
5. Why is it that after 700 years of the ancient Macedonian state's
existence, tens of thousands of writers from every class wrote only in
Greek?
6. Why did the leader of Yugoslavia Josif Broz Tito, a communist-atheist,
give the newly created province of Makedonija a new Church? What kind of
people accepts a newly created church from an avowed and rabid atheist?
7. Why did the heretical church mentioned above, change the text of the Old
Testament prophet Daniel's prophesy to read the "Macedonian king" rather
than "the Greek king"? Daniel prophesied the rise and death of the Greek
king, Alexander the Great, and stated that his kingdom would be divided into
4 parts among his 4 generals (Dan. 8th Chapter). One of these 4 generals
headed the Syrian Kingdom and would desecrate the temple. "Yea, he magnified
himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was
taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down (Dan. 8:11)."
8. Why do a large majority of Yugoslav-Makedonijans not speak the official
language at home, but speak Bulgarian instead? Why do Bulgarians and
Yugoslav-Makedonijans fully understand each other? No interpreter needed!
9. Why is that NOT ONE Yugoslav-Makedonijan knows any Macedonian history,
the kind taught in schools in universities all over the world, including
such esteemed institutions as Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, UCLA, London,
Rome, Paris, Heidelberg, Vienna, Edinburgh and Dublin et al?
10. Why can all Greek speakers read all ancient Macedonian coins,
inscriptions and writings and no Yugoslav-Makedonijan can do so, unless he
is learned in Greek, of course?
11. Why can't the Yugoslav-Makedonijans pronounce the name of the capitol
city of Macedonia, Thessaloniki? Why can't they even pronounce the sound
"th" which is prevalent in all Macedonian writings from antiquity to the
present?
12. If the Yugoslav-Makedonijans are the glorious Macedonians from antiquity
to the present, as they claim, why are they poorer than African nations like
Botswana?
13. If the Yugoslav-Makedonijans are the glorious Macedonians from antiquity
to the present, as they claim, why do Albanians armed with not much more
than pitchforks and hoes control the western part of the country? (The
Macedonian-Greeks, i.e. the real ones, have proven their valour in 1940-49
and beyond. It took 43 days for German, Austrian, Italian and Bulgarian
forces to subdue Greece when others like France fell in 14 days.).
14. In 1941 when Hitler's army entered the capital of Vardaska (later to be
renamed to Makedonija), Skopje, there were thousands of Bulgarian flags
there to greet them and the German army was welcome as liberators. King
Boris of Bulgaria was received in 1942 in Skopje as a liberator. Please
explain this?
15. Thessaloniki was NEVER conquered by Bulgaria or Slavs. It remained
Macedonian throughout its history. The Macedonians never disappeared. When
will they be recognised us as the true Macedonians and given their basic
human rights of an identity and a culture which they forged in blood and
sweat?
16. Why did the greatest Yugoslav-Makedonijan national hero, Samuel, title
himself as"Tsar of Bulgars" if he wasn't a Bulgarian?
17. If the Yugoslav-Makedonijans are the one and only, true Macedonians, why
is their nation recognised under the temporary name of the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Makedonija (FYROM)?
18. Why do the Yugoslav-Makedonijans terrorise the indigenous Albanians, who
are near enough to the majority in FYROM, as well as all their minorities
like indigenous Greeks, Vlach and Gypsies?
19. Unless the Yugoslav-Makedonijans can find any international organisation
that can claim ex-communist FYROM respects human rights more than the
Hellenic Republic (Greece), why don't they shut up and cease with their
extremely provocative and insulting propaganda?
20. If the Yugoslav-Makedonijans are Slavs, why do they look like
Mongol-Turks?
FURTHER NOTES:
FYROM's President Gligorov at a interview reported by the Foreign
Information Service, Daily Report, Eastern Europe: "We are Slavs, who came
to this region in the 6th century. We are not descendants of the ancient
Macedonians."
FYROM's Ambassador in Washington, Mrs. Ljubica Acevshka, in her speech on
the present situation in the Balkans: "We do not claim to be descendants of
Alexander the Great. We are Slavs and we speak a Slav language. Greece is
FYROM's second largest trading partner, and its number one investor".
In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM's
Ambassador to Canada: "We are not related to the northern Greeks who
produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are Slav people and
our language is closely related to Bulgarian." He also commented "there is
some confusion about the identity of the people of this country".
The testimony of the American Henry Morgenthau is also of great
significance. Serving in Greece between 1925 and 1926 as President of the
Committee on Refugees for the Community of Nations, he wrote -in his book "I
was Sent to Athens" and "When the Turks and the Bulgarians left, Macedonia
remained a purely Greek region" Then, as now, on the northern borders of
Macedonia there were inhabitants speaking a local Slavic dialect alongside
the Greek language. These people were, and still are, Greeks.
Testimony of perhaps the greatest Macedonian and indeed Greek, Alexander the
Great, King of Macedonia and Captain-General of all Greece.
"Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Hellas and did us great
harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed leader
of the Greeks, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which
I took from you."
Arrianos II (Anabasis) 14, 4
Historian, 95-175AD
"There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service, but how different
is their cause from ours?! They will be fighting for pay and not much of it
at that; we on the contrary shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be
in it."
Arrian.
The Campaigns of Alexander.
Alexander talking to the troops before the battle.
Book 2-7
Penguin Classics.
Page 112.
Translation by Aubrey De Seliucourt.