Macedonia History

 Professor Victor Friedman is one of the world’s foremost experts on Balkan languages, and has been studying them for almost four decades, since 1993 as a linguist at the University of Chicago. Professor Friedman has a special place in his heart for Macedonia, which he first visited in 1971. This year finds him back in the country, as the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Grant from the US Department of Education and a research grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.(All opinions expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the funding organizations.) Balkanalysis.com Director Christopher Deliso caught up with Professor Friedman recently in Skopje for an interview. Their engrossing and wide-ranging conversation, covering everything from linguistic history, politics and lobbying to national identity and multiculturalism, is reproduced below for our readers. Christopher Deliso: Victor, thanks for taking the time to discuss your ideas and your research, ...

  The work "Friedrich August Wolf's Lectures on Ancient Studies, Volume Four", published in 1835, is the subject of our short article today. Friedrich August Christian Wilhelm Wolf, as he was known in full, was a German classical philologist and scholar of antiquity. He is considered the founder of classical and modern philology. The following is a quote from page 28 (translated): Macedonians should not be considered Greeks; the ancients did not count them among them and called them barbarians; in fact, Macedo was a derogatory name . They differed from the Greeks in their customs and had many barbaric characteristics long after the Greeks were already civilized. The first time we see Macedonia shine is in the time of Archelaus in Socrates. He had a court where Greek culture prevailed and a lot of young people around him. There was no culture in the country itself; this was only achieved in Philip's time. The Greeks did not easily count among themselves peoples who had...

  It has been a while since the historian Stephen G. Miller sent out a "cry for help". Macedonia is Greek, and it must stay that way - was his story!  In a circular letter he tried to persuade other historians and academics to jump on his horse. At first, some did so, but nowadays his attempt is almost forgotten. Only almost, because some Greek nationalists still use his (poor) action at the time and the website he founded as the basis for their "arguments". But Miler's attempt was criticized among scholar. Open criticism hit him in the German media. Uwe Walter sharply criticized this call in a column in the FAZ, the German historian described Miller's call as an "embarrassing historical-political call". The British academic of Swiss origin Andreas Willi also criticized Miller's approach and the "arguments" he put forward. And indeed, politics was the motivation for the American PHD Miller to write this (embarrassing) appeal. His appe...

 An excerpt from a compiled german paper titled "Greek history up to 336 BC - a first overview up to the appearance of Alexander the Great" by Norbert Froese. Taken from the german website antike-griechische.de ("ancient-greece") We have taken/translated a passage from page 24: The rise of Macedonia - The relationship between Macedonians and Greeks Historians argue about whether Macedonians are actually Greeks. In this form, I don't think the question is very productive. What is interesting, however, is the question of how the inhabitants of the Greek heartland perceived the Macedonians and whether the Macedonians themselves felt like Greeks. From the perspective of the mainland Greeks, the Macedonians are at most something like half-Greeks. On the one hand they are connected to the Macedonians through a related language (23), but on the other hand they are separated from them by a number of features of culture and tradition. Conversely, according to the evidenc...

  Not only that the then two leaders of Turkey and Greece had spoken about the Macedonians, the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos said he wanted to grant the Macedonians "schools and minority rights"! The Macedonian-Australian journalist Sasa Uzunov discovered a spectacular document in the National Archives of Australia. Quite a few secret reports from the British Foreign Office at the time are kept there; these have now been declassified and made available to the public. Such a secret report of September 30, 1933 shows that the Greek Prime Minister Venizelos knew exactly who the Macedonians were - neither Serbs nor Bulgarians. Even more, Venizelos gave an approximate number of ethnic Macedonians in Northern Greece who were then still living in Northern Greece. The number he estimated was "around 60,000". One should note, however, that the number seems small at first glance, but is due to the population exchange from 1923. The kingdom of Greece had occupied...

 In our article " When the Anatolian Greeks came to Macedonia " we had already shown some evidence that Aegean Macedonia (after the division in 1913) was by no means home to a majority of "Greek population". From Richard Clogg's work " Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society ", we cite another evidence today. But first brief information about the author: Who is Richard Clogg? Richard Clogg, born in Rochdale, England, in 1939, is a British historian and neo-Greekist. He studied history at the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Masters in 1963. Since 1969 he has taught modern Greek history at King’s College London, first as a lecturer, then as a reader, and finally from 1988 to 1995 as professor for the history of the Balkans. Since 1995 he has been a Senior Research Fellow and Board Member at St Antony’s College, Oxford University. The 'Makedones' made up the majority of the population in the Lerin region In his work Minori...

 King Philip II of Macedonia (father of Alexander the Great) was the guarantor for Macedonia's rise, as well as for the later glory that his son Alexander III of Macedonia would reap. When Philip defeated the allied Hellenes at Chaironeia with Alexander's help, it marked a turning point in the history of the "Greek world". From then on the Greeks were led by a stranger: King Philip II of Macedonia, as the "Hegemon of the Corinthian League". In the Corinthian League, Philip gathered all the Greeks he had defeated - The Corinthian League was a federation of states that consisted of the defeated Greeks. Almost all city-states were "united" under the the federal government of the Macedonian king. Macedonia, on the other hand, was not a member of the Confederation. Philipp, however, let himself be determined as the hegemon, as he was the  winner on the battlefield. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel reported on these events in his work...

 In a PDF attachment from the German Friedrich-Ebert Foundation we find, let's say, a document in German language by Greek professor Vassiliki Georgiadou entitled " The transition of Greece from dictatorship to democracy Superficial coming to terms with the past and resistance to modernization " (original title: Der Übergang Griechenlands von der Diktatur zur Demokratie. Oberflächliche Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung und Modernisieungswiderstände). Briefly about the author :  Vassiliki Georgiadou is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Political Science and History at Panteion University in Athens, capital of Greece. She studied political science in Athens (Panteion University), politics and political sociology in Münster (Germany). She also received her doctorate from the University of Münster. ...historically incorrect argument that Macedonia is exclusively Greek... On page 10 of the document you can find and read an almost unbelievable statement, if...

 In the inaugural dissertation "Studies on War and Power Formation in Early Hellenism" (Justus Liebig University, Giessen) we find an important reference to the constant question of whether the ancient Macedonians were actually Greeks, as the modern Greek propaganda claims.  This construction that a foreign king was leader of a Greek league is an absolute novelty In section "5.2.4" Personal union" we read the following passage about the father of Alexander the Great, Phillip II of Macedon: ... The area to which the Argead kings had been of special interest even before Philip was Thessaly, the bridging land between the Hellas of the great Poleis and Macedonia. The rule over Thessaly meant security to the south and was at the same time an offensive position, a gateway against Thebes or Athens, both of which had appeared as intervention powers in Macedonia. But Thessaly had more to offer than just its strategic location; Thessaly had a powerful cavalry, but also a...

 Another Theft This Time Zorba He Was Born Macedonian And Is Buried In Skopje Zorba the Greek Unmasked: Chorba the Macedonian by Dr. Alex K. Gigeroff, Ph.D. Originally published September, 1990 To make a good soup you have to collect the ingredients and cook it very slowly. My Dedo Naumche was born in Macedonia way back about 1870. I never met him but I've heard lots about him. Sometimes I think about him. Apparently he really liked soup and I imagine that he enjoyed it ever since he was a child. He enjoyed soup as an experience and everything that went into making and eating it. He enjoyed the whole process. He loved having food in the house. He enjoyed the aroma of the dish as it bubbled and simmered slowly in the big pot that hung on a rack in the fireplace. And just as much, he loved that first taste, every mouthful and particularly the last spoonful. In my mind's eye, I can see him when he had finished his soup that he had eaten with home made bread. I see him brushing asi...