Alaric

Where did Tito kick Greeks out? I've never read anything about this (and don't claim it's because I was taught 'altered history' - I've studied this dispute on my own and hold a number of views that Gruevski would frown upon).

falcon

But it does, oh yes it does! It's a Greek name with a meaning behind it describing the Greeks from Macedonia.

The wars that took place 100 years ago, the Balkan wars, were not for the name but for occupuing areas of the Ottoman empire, and I don't recall you were one of those countries that fought in these wars, maybe part of some other country, and I don't know if that was Serbia or Bulgaria.

Keep in mind that the area you occupy now was not part of the original ancient Macedonia except for a small portion (less than 10%).
The area you are in was the ancient Paeonia, or later on called as Vardarska.

And what about Pirin Macedonia or the Aegean Macedonia as you call it?
Don't they have a say on it?

The modern borders for Macedonia is actually an extension of the original ancient borders of Macedonia, and I'm not quite sure who created these modern borders; It might had been Tito in order to give this fictitious name for you people, and thus create problems for Greece and Bulgaria.

Look, I don't have any problem for you people creating a state, in fact we want you to be a successful state and have good relations with you, but we cannot tolerate the appropriation of the name Macedonia or its history!

I agree, it's a fine name, but it doesn't belong to you.

Well, Samaras is not really the problem, in fact he has moderated his position since then. If you think anything has changed since then....., you got another thought coming.

Woodhouse or anybody else for that matter, had no way of knowing the relative numbers involved in this thing.

Even if we assume that this was true......, can I ask you something?
What were those Slavomacedonians fighting for in Greece?
Was it to bring down the legal government of Greece?
or was it to establish a communist dictatorship in colaboration with the Greek communists?
Of course they were never anywhere near of being successful in their endeavor.

sturm

The factor here isn't that the occupation become harsher, it is because the Yugoslav communists took control, and mounted partisan units. In 1941 the macedonian communists were of course a resistance, but didn't believed that attacking the Bulgarian army will lead to a liberation. IMRO itself at that time, at least the one led by Ivan Mihailov, was more sympathic to Bulgaria. I know that Ivan Mihailov is a hated figure in Macedonia, but around 1944 he was sent in Macedonia to organize an independent nation of Macedonia, not part of Yugoslavia, and not part of Bulgaria, of course it was too late for this.

I know that the macedonians call it occupation, but one thing is surprising, i see photos of the macedonian people how they greet the bulgarian army, with flowers and slogans. There is also a photo in which bulgarian tzar Boris III dances horo with macedonian people

Alaric

Every army or leader receives this support when they 'triumphantly' enter a city. Andonov-Čento also received a big welcoming - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._of_Skopje.jpg

The Yugoslav communists helped organize our resistance, but all the soldiers were from Macedonia. They were not all pro-Yugoslav either: most of the influential leaders of ASNOM (Andonov-Cento, Mane Cuckov, Kiro Gligorov, etc) supported only a brief association with Yugoslavia while emphasizing the independence option, and in fact many of them later 'disappeared' for these opinions.

The later VMRO is rightfully hated because they became increasingly fascist. Not even the Bulgarian government after 1934 liked them. They associated with Fascist Italy and the Ustase in Croatia, and in the war, Mihailov was very close to the Nazis.

For reference, here is the modern region of Macedonia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(region) We don't live in ancient times, so this is the map we should be consulting.

The modern borders developed during Ottoman times, though the Romans organized this region in a somewhat similar way: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...onia_ad400.png

They were fighting for an autonomous Macedonia or later on unification with us. Here is the opinion of Lazo Damovski, one of the leading ideologists in this organization: "The desire of Aegean Macedonia is Unification with Free Macedonia in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the declarations of Stalin-Roosevelt-Churchill"

The Greek communists were not so keen on this, as you would imagine, and tried to limit the goals of the movement to equality within Greece.

Macedonia was the principal theater in the war - the issue of who would occupy what was the burning question of the previous decades. VMRO was severely weakened by that time, but we were around.

This is underwhelming. You actually want us to live in a less secure country and a weaker economy outside of NATO and the EU because you disagree with what some of us think about ourselves. The disagreement itself isn't heinous, I also disagree with Gruevski, but to use your opinions to negatively affect the standard of living of another people is very bad indeed.

I don't understand why we don't recognize the status quo. My solution for the name dispute: Greece recognize us as Republic of Macedonia, we affirm the borders and denounce any irredentism, internal affairs of both countries are recognized as internal affairs, and history disputes are left to historians (and forum-goers ).

Thessalonian

Macedonia (Greece) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thessalonian

"Macedonia (/ˌmæsɨˈdoʊniə/ ( listen); Greek: Μακεδονία, Makedonía, [maceðoˈnia]) is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region. The region and that of Thrace (and sometimes Epirus and Thessaly) are often together referred to informally as Northern Greece.
It incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name Macedonia was later applied to identify various administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine Empires with widely differing borders. Under the Ottomans, the name disappeared altogether."


Macedonia (Greece) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Therefore I am Macedonian and you Alaric are a Slavo"Macedonian".
Your country occupies a small territory of the ancient kingdom of Macedon. That is a fact.



The capital of Macedonia is Thessaloniki, since 316 BC. It was never Skopje.... Denying reality is not going to help at all.

bilbil

Well this is strange, Grecian does not know contemporary Greek language and know ancient Macedonian language.Bre, bre. In third row Pavlos Mela wrote “sti varia Makedonitiki glosa” – her heavy Macedonian language


I asked you once, I’ll ask you twice, Can you show us on which census of the population you declared yourself as Macedonian? Please, Make difference between Macedonian and ancient Macedonian.


This is Census of the population in Greece in the 1928
Imageshack - 29674195zd8.jpg

and
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5287/1910p527pm3.png

(W. Jett Lauck, "The Economic Investigations of the United States Immigration Commission," published in "The Journal of Political Economy",Vol. 18, No. 7, July 1910, pg. 525-549). This page is nr. 527

So can you show us where are Serbian in Greece. Thess, everything you post falls on the very first check. Please, be proud Greek.


You post map of today Greece and that's OK. Must I repost pictures when and how you come to this part of Macedonia?

Thessalonian

bilbil if you actually translated the whole text you would have to mention that the so called "Macedonian language" is later referred to as a Slavophone's language. Melas refers to the language of those people as "Macedonian" because they call it Macedonian but he later mentions that this language is a Slavic one. He NEVER recognizes them as a Macedonian nation. So you failed.....miserably.


"So can you show us where are Serbian in Greece" ? Where did that come from?
The Slavophones were a minority in Greece, not just Serbs but Slavs in general.

Please post the pictures that show when and how "we came to this part of Macedonia". Last I checked, the timeline was this:

Ancient Hellenic Macedonia
Roman Hellenic Macedonia (including the Byzantine period)
Ottoman Macedonia
Modern Greek Macedonia

Slavic presence in Macedonia (that includes your own people) began in the Byzantine period and ended in the 20th century, some 1300 years later.... when the Balkan wars and WW1 ended.

So, what is your point? That you came LATE and you called yourselves Macedonians to prove what exactly? That you want a piece of glory? What's the idea?

You use the name of an ancient Hellenic kingdom to try convince yourselves that you are not Slavs from the North? That doesn't make any sense at all. What kind of desperate nationalistic behaviour is that?

KGB

The things are very, very simple.

Ancient Macedonians lived in present day Macedonia. There is almost no trace of them after the Roman invasion and even before.

In the Medieval period, Macedonia was a region of the East Roman Empire, located arround the city of Adrianopol, present day Odrin in Turkey.

When the Byzantians destroyed the First Bulgarian kingdom, they have named the present day Macedonian teritories, i.e. the land on both sides of the Vardar river "Region Bulgaria" ("Tema Bulgaria"); they have called present day Bulgaria, north of the Balkan mountain Tema Paristrion (Danube region) and south of the Balkan - tema Trakia (Trace region).

King Samuel, who fought about 40 years with the Byzantians, died and the great Byzantian Emperor, who destroyed Bulgaria, was called "Basil the Bulgarian killer" - Bulgarookton in Greek.

There is no any single trace of Macedonians in the Medieval time. The Otoman Empire referendum for Bulgarian church showed cleraly and without any presure, that Macedonia is populated mostly by Bulgarians. To allow a Bulgarian church to be opened in a town, Turks wanted 75% of the vote and they got them. Later, with the contract with Stefan Stambolov`s government for the "berats" (the religion regions), the Sultan confirmed the Bulgarian church in Macedonia.

There are three huge refugee`s waves with Macedonians to Bulgaria and a whole diostricts of Sofia were populated by Macedonians. For all Bulgarians "a Macedonian" is nothing but a Bulgarian person from Macedonia.

When the 19th century nationalism got force and momentum in the Balkans, Serbian and Greeks national doctrirnes involved the Macedonia region. The propaganda took it`s role, so now we have those "sources and information" about Macedonian`s in the 190th century.

There is not any Macedonian ethnicity different than the Bulgarians in the whole New history, i.e. after medieval time history.

Both the times where the Bulgarian state was ruling the present day Macedonia, about 40 - 50% of all te army, police, including officers were local people.

In the Tito period in Yugoslavia, the main repression against the ppl in Macedonia were against Bulgarians and against any sign of Bulgarian idea only and exclusively.

Even the Bulgarian military cemetaries were destroyed...

Now people of Macedonia can decide who they are - this is basic human right and it must be free.

But to try to change and forge history to legitimate a nation - sorry, no way!

Thessalonian

The thing is, Skopje is outside the boundaries of ancient Macedon. It is not part of historical Macedonia, no matter how one sees it. It is a Former YugoSLAV republic. It is Vardarska...