Nationalism and Stability

“Macedonism”

Nationalism has been omnipresent in every society since time immemorial, and it has been the subject of numerous studies especially after the 19th century. Whether one classifies it as ideology or movement, nationalism is responsible for many events in the human history.

Detailed definitions of what constitutes a nation varies from person to person, but in general, a nation is a group of people with consanguinity, common language, common customs, common past history and common aspirations for the future. Per Joseph Stalin, “a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make up manifested in a common culture.” 133

Ernest Renan describes the nation as “a soul, a spiritual principle…To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have accomplished great things together, to wish to do so again, that is the essential condition for being a nation.” 134 In addition, Max Weber feels that a nation is undefined in terms of a certain criterion seeing the nation as a gathering of ethnic communities or populations unified by a myth of common descent. 135 The above three definitions are considered the classic definitions of a nation.

Nationalism turns devotion to the nation into principles or programs. It thus contains a different dimension from mere patriotism, which can be a devotion to one’s country or nation devoid of any project for political action. One cannot confuse nationalism with patriotism or even xenophobia. Patriotism is defined as love of one’s country or zeal in the defense of the interests of one’s country, and xenophobia is an unreasonable fear, distrust, or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or anything perceived as foreign or different.

“In nationalist doctrine, language, race, culture, and sometimes even religion, constitute different aspects of the same primordial entity, the nation.” 136 Nationalism takes on different names and concepts such as religious, conservative, liberal, fascist, communist, cultural, political, protectionist, integrationist, separatist, irredentist, etc.

James G. Kellas argues that “nationalism is both an ideology and a behaviour.” 137 Using this definition, we can see the creation and evolution of nationalism of the former Yugoslav republics, and particularly the FYROM, in view of the issues raised after the establishment of the People’s (later Socialist) Republic of Macedonia and definitely after its independence. Although some types of nationalism use simple methods to justify their existence, the conception of nationalistic methods in the former Yugoslavia are more complex employing convoluted methods and myths.

Ivan Banac states, “the Slovenes acquired a national consciousness only in the nineteenth century and … the Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Bosnia-Hercegovinian Muslims…are the products of twentieth century mutations in South Slavic national affinities and are, indeed, still in the process of formation.” 138 Banac perceived that the whole national problem in Yugoslavia can be seen as the product of competing and incompatible nationalist ideologies, some medieval and some modern. 139 In the case of the FYROM, the nationalism is expressed in the specific form surrounding the myth of a Macedonian descent and that is why the FYROM Slav nationalism is Macedonism.

Besides Greece, both Bulgaria and the FYROM Albanians find the sense of Macedonism a product of imagination based on faulty assumptions in order to satisfy the agenda of the FYROM Slavs. The President of Bulgaria during an official visit to Sweden on June 20, 1993, declared to the newspaper Svenska Dugbladed, “The created after WWII and Comitern “Macedonian nation” is a crime and both Titoism and Stalinism are responsible for it.” Arben Xhaferi, the leader of an Albanian Party, accused Gligorov that he usurped the history of his neighbors and that “Macedonism” is fake and it is held by a myth. Paddy Ashdown the Fourth High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated in 2000 “The FYROM is a time-bomb in the Balkans” externalizes a fact that very few people will be able to deny it. 140

Arben Xhaferi, the Albanian leader of a political party in the FYROM sees the matter from a different point of view:

First, a centaurian image of the nation is being asserted to show that the Macedonians are both an ancient and a Slavic nation. However, you can only be one of the two as it is impossible to be both ancient and Slavic. Still, they are in shortage of historical facts to corroborate either of the two. They may create a new nation. However, they should not do it by stealing the historical legacy of the other Balkan peoples… We know who Cyril and Methodius were and what they did. It is also known who Samuil was. His gravestone says that he was a Bulgarian king. In general, reality proves the concept of Macedonism wrong. Historical facts are written and unchangeable, the rest is an illusion. … It is the problem with national identity, with the dire economic straits, and with interethnic relations. Dangerously, instead of a serious approach to them, what is being asserted is a set of illusions, the greatest being the myth of a fast accession to NATO and the EU. I think that membership of the Euro-Atlantic structures will be impossible without a solution to the great identity problem because Greece is bound to veto it.” 141

Macedonism is rooted deeply into the soul of the Slavs reaching points that no other group has reached before and without any evidence or proof that they have direct lineage from the ancient Macedonians. Evangelos Kofos brings a very good example depicting the extent of irrational and scientifically baseless assumptions, wishful hypotheses, and misrepresentations of facts by the FYROM Slavs, and although the official version does not adopt these ruminations, it does accept them by keeping silent.

A few years ago a Kratka lstorija na Makedonija [Short History of Macedonia] appeared in Australia summarizing the perceptions of the followers of this movement. Denying that ‘Macedonians’ are, or have ever been, either Slavs or Greeks, it revealed that the Macedonians-a separate people- appeared 124 years after the cataclysm and spread from Macedonia to Bulgaria and Asia Minor. Not only was Alexander’s empire ‘Macedonian’, but also the Byzantine Empire. Thus, Constantinople, not Thessaloniki should be the capital of a resurrected Macedonian empire. The ancient Macedonians and the present ‘Macedonians’ spoke and continue to speak a Macedonian language which is neither Greek nor Slavonic. In their pantheon of heroes and saints are Alexander, Aristotle and Democritus, Cyril and Methodius, Tsar Samuel, Goce Delcev, and the leaders of the Slav-Macedonian organizations which participated in the Greek Resistance and the Greek Civil War. A similar treatise was published in Makedonija (Melbourne), 30 July-21 August 1986, reprinted from Glas na Makedoncite. The following excerpts are particularly revealing: “For almost three hundred years we have been taught under cruel circumstances that we are Sloveni-Macedonians are dead and we are different people - ‘Macedonian Slavians’ … Slavianism for us Macedonians is a deadly destructive political, moral and national force which aims to eradicate Macedonianism completely …. Politically, once we become Slavs we automatically lose any significance as descendants of the ancient Macedonians…. By calling ourselves Slavs we legalize this robbery by the Greeks [of the ancient Macedonians]…. For us, Macedonian revolutionaries, Macedonianism gives wholeness to our being, past, present and future. It is inner liberation from foreign imposed ideas, and confidence in our ability to be what we have been and will again be…. If we remain silent, we will remain Slavs, and as Slavs we have no legal right to anything Macedonian…” 142

The above goes hand to hand with the publishing of an article in Nova Makedonija, the oldest government supported newspaper of Skopje. On 04 October 1997 under the title “Neo-Methods,” a commentary by Dimitar Čulev, stated:

However, according to the paleographic and paleolinguistic research conducted by architect Vasil Iljov from Skopje, it seems that the inhabitants of Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria are descendants of the “same people that spoke and wrote in an ancient Macedonian language and alphabet 7,000 years before Christ.” The alphabet was Cyrillic, whereas the language, according to the amateur linguist, was actually an “Aegean language,” also called ancient Macedonian language. If the above method of historical appropriation is applied to this amazing discovery, we could very easily reach the even more astounding discovery that the allegedly so widespread Bulgarian language in the past, as the neo-Russian history of the Southern and Eastern Slays claims, is a dialect of the “Aegean language,” that is, the ancient Macedonian language. 143

The above excerpt is enough to indicate the extremes to which the people of the FYROM go in order to “prove” that they are descendants of the ancient Macedonians. It is important to point out that the ancient Macedonians spoke a Western Aeolian Dialect according to Litus Livius (aka Livy). 144 Moreover, we know that the Romans considered the Macedonians as Hellenic speaking peoples, because Livy wrote, “…[General Paulus] took his official seat surrounded by the whole crowd of Macedonians … his announcement was translated into Greek and repeated by Gnaeus Octavius the praetor.” 145 If the crowd of Macedonians were not Greek speaking, the translation from Latin into Greek and not into their own language would have been fruitless. In addition, the Cyrillic alphabet was created the AD 9th century by two brothers, Greek monks from Thessaloniki, Greece, Cyril and Methodius. In addition, the Serbs and the Bulgarians are of two different racial stocks, Slavic and Turkic respectively.

The government of the FYROM oftentimes brings the issue of the name as the foundation of stability in that country. The United States Department of State in November 2004, two days after the re-election of President Bush, adopted this rationale, justifying the recognition of the FYROM as “Republic of Macedonia.” 146

The case was made that the ultra-nationalists, and especially those of the Slavic diaspora, had called for a referendum in order to void the Ohrid Accord that the Slavic government of the FYROM signed with the Albanian insurgents in August 2001, which terminated the civil war in the FYROM. The rationale was that if the United States had recognized the country under its constitutional name, the ultra nationalists would be defeated and the Accord would prevail. However, after the recognition of their constitutional name by the United States, the uneasy alliance of the Slav majority and the Albanian minority continued.

In relation to the Albanians, the problem is not the constitutional name of the country, but the struggle of the ethnic groups and their will for their individual nationalism to prevail over the other. The Albanian minority, in the fight against the majority, takes advantage of the neighboring Albania and Kosovo fighting against the Slavic majority in a struggle of balancing out the numbers and the influence in the international arena. In relation to the struggle among Slavic groups on who is more “Macedonian” and which direction the country should take not just internally, but also in relation to its neighbors, the matter would be avoided if the Slavs had faced reality. The FYROM government often accuses Greece for destabilizing their country. The fact is that Greece went to great extents to provide economic and financial stability to the FYROM through investments of US $1 Billion and creation of 30,000 jobs. 147 Additionally, Greece invested in the Balkans US $20 billion creating 200,000 jobs, and contributed over US $750,000,000 in development aid to the region. 148 Such effort and money can hardly be called a destabilizing factor.

There are three main players in the FYROM. One is the Serbo-communists who are responsible for the Slavs adopting the name “Macedonia” and its derivatives. The other group is the pro-Bulgarians of VMRO who want to see “Macedonia” eventually unite with mother Bulgaria. An estimated 100,000 Slavs hold Bulgarian passports including the former Prime Minister Lubco Georgevski. 149 The third group, acting as a catalyst, are those who are pro-Greek wanting good relations with Greece based on mutual respect and an understanding of Greece’s positive influence on their country. 150 The problem they face is Article 179 of the FYROM Penal Code under which any reference to the fact that the so-called ethnic Macedonians are actually Slavs. Instead, the government of the FYROM does not want to address the issue. It prefers to maintain the status quo in a state that “fiction has turned into fact, myth transformed into reality,” and “propaganda … elevated to the rank of scholarship.” 151

The following example is characteristic of the prevailing mentality. The day after United Nations accepted the FYROM as member, President Gligorov gave a reception in which a group of young people from Australia of FYROM Slavic descent was present. President Gligorov approached them and asked them where they came from. One young man, obviously distraught, said to Gligorov,

“You spoke but you didn’t mention the most important thing. You did not say that we are the descendants of Alexander the Great. This could be interpreted that we denied our origin, our ancestors.” I found it difficult to answer immediately, but I finally said to them.

You know I respect your thoughts and beliefs. It is your right. Nevertheless, according to the history of the Macedonian people the prevailing view is that we are Slavs. We came from the Balkans in the sixth, the seventh century and settled on the land called Macedonia. I do not know to what extent a drop of blood of ancient Macedonians runs in our veins. Even so, this is not what gives the identity of our people. It is within your rights, but this should not alter your view about the fact that the Republic of Macedonia is an independent State. 152

Mr. Gligorov continued that the youths “stayed for another half an hour in the hall, I think, and left dissatisfied. “ 153

The West has miserably failed to understand the reasons that Greece objects to the name “Macedonia” for the FYROM assuming that a small and weak country does not and will not threaten Greece. The same is very true with Cuba during the missile crisis of 1963. Cuba itself could not threaten the United States; but given a chance, Cuba could in the future become a serious contender of power, regulator of stability and a definite threat to the United States. Skopje can develop to a potential threat to Greece’s territorial integrity by finding the right patron. The manner, which Bulgaria acquired the territories of Eastern Rumelia from

Map of Greater Macedonia published by the FYROM Official newspaper “Nova Makedonija” in 1992 154

the Ottoman Empire in 1885 and how Kosovo gained independence 2008, fully justify Greece’s nervousness.

Commemorative banknote published on 15 January 1991 illustrating the city of Thessaloniki, Capital of Greek Macedonia as part of the “Republic of Macedonia”

Under the tile “Anti-Illegal Immigration Group Calls for ‘Absolut’ Vodka Boycott,” Fox News published on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 a report that covered an advertisement of Absolut Vodka, which “showed an 1830s map of Mexico and the United States where most of the modern western United States was still part of Mexico. The ad headline was ‘In an Absolut World.’” People got angered and the company issued an apology.

Could anyone imagine how do the Greeks feel when the map is not an advertisement, but appears in FYROM government sponsored publications, including schoolbooks? How would an American feel if the Mexican government was responsible for the map shown above? 155

Who is a Macedonian?

Promulgated by Skopje, the misconception is the offspring of a groundless theory, the so-called “Amalgamation Theory,” that by coming to Macedonia from the north and mixing with the Macedonians, the Slavs themselves became Macedonians. The underpinning for accepting the amalgamation of Slavs and other peoples (e.g., Macedonians, Paeonians, etc.), with the Slavs predominating with the passage of time, is provided by FYROM’s Slav historians and population geneticists advocating that the occupier of a new land takes the identity of the occupied people.

If we accept the lopsided hypothesis, then the Turks, for instance, who occupied Greece for four hundred years, have become Greeks, or even Byzantines and their language is Greek or Hellenic, which we know is not true. What seems certain is that, ethnologically, the Turks are a mixture of Turks and other peoples living in Anatolia (Greeks, Slavs, Kurds, Persians, Armenians, Arabs, Georgians, Circassians, etc.). 157 The Ottoman population has lost its Turanian characteristics turning into a uniform type that evolved from a mixture of nationalities. In addition, the contemporary Turks remain Turks in a political sense. The Turkish occupiers did not assume the occupied peoples’ identity. The founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in a speech to the Turkish Grand National Assembly declared that he was a Turk “ben Türküm” (I am a Turk), in spite of his light hair and blue eyes, a far cry from the effaced Turanian type, traces of which rarely have been seen.

Several other objections can be brought forth underlining the fallacies of this theory. If the occupier assumes the name and identity of the occupied touted by Skopje as their answer to the Greek and international historiography’s supporting the ancient Macedonians’ Hellenism, the FYROM Slavs are Hellenized Paeonians. After all, the largest part of today’s territory of the FYROM was the land of the Paeonians and as Enver Imamovic, a member of the Bosnian and Hercegovinian Academy of Sciences and Arts admits “cities mentioned in Herodotus were Doberos and Bymazos, in a younger epoch are Stuberra, Astraion, Argos, Bryanion, Bylazora, Stobi, Idomene.” However, he is very clear in another point,

Paeonians being direct neighbor of the Greeks maintained close trade relations and as a result, they fell early under their [Greek] cultural influence. Because of it, they were among the first Illyrian communities to have stepped towards civilization. Close relations with Greece is confirmed by data that states that certain Paeonian rulers were granted honored citizenship rights or proxenia by some Greek states. That was given in order to thank them for certain services (assistance in wheat, monetarily, military aid and similar). 158

Who exactly were Paeonian’s “immediate neighbors?” Paeonian’s direct neighbors were Thracians, other Illyrian tribes, and the Macedonians. So what Greek “immediate” neighbors Imamovic is talking about? He is definitely, talking about the Macedonians. Even if one considers the Athenian colonies of Chalkidike as neighbors, they were not the “immediate” neighbors. The Macedonians were the only immediate Greek-speaking neighbors.

What little has been known about the Paeonians is shrouded in mystery and misinformation, but one thing is certain, they were Hellenized by the Macedonians by the time of King Philip V’s reign (220-179 B.C.). Thus, when the Macedonians Hellenized the Paeonians, making them culturally and linguistically Greeks like themselves, virtually anything Paeonian disappeared. Therefore, if we regress in time as the FYROM Slavs want to do, in view of the fact that the Paeonians were already Hellenized and spoke the Greek language and having adopted the Greek Macedonian culture and religion, the Slavs became Hellenized Paeonians, according to their own theory. Nevertheless, it did not happen. When the Slavs subjugated the Hellenized Paeonians, anything Paeonian disappeared and Paeonia’s inhabitants became Slavs.

A perusal of books on human amalgamation theories reveals an overwhelming number of cases in which the occupiers did not assume the occupied people’s identity, though they may have indeed absorbed or exploited some non-ethnicity determining characteristics. There is ample evidence that the invader imposes his language, religion, and culture; and that is exactly what the invading Slavs did in the Vardar Province. They imposed their language (Bulgarian) and culture on the conquered Paeonians and other tribes. That is also what Alexander the Great did in Asia. He did not impose a mysterious “Macedonian” dialect, traces of which have never surfaced, but his own Hellenic Macedonian dialect and culture on the occupied people. According to Plutarch, while in Asia, Alexander the Great selected 30,000 young Persians to join his army and “ . . . he ordered to teach them the Greek letters and Macedonian weapons,” the word “letters” meaning “education.” 159 He did not impose a “Macedonian” education because it was the same with the rest of the Greek world; but he considered the Macedonian weapons, training, and tactics, superior to those of the southern Greeks. When he came across a foreign inscription, “. . . he read the inscription and then ordered to write under it a translation in Greek. 160

Virtually unknown to the world is the return to Greece of many of the descendants of the ancient Macedonians who followed Alexander the Great almost 2300 years ago to Egypt and all the way to India. The astonishing fact is that all of them, without any exception, spoke Greek when they arrive and claimed Greek, not Macedonian ancestry. Thus far, nobody has returned from countries conquered by Alexander’s armies speaking a hypothetical non-Greek “Macedonian” language. If the ancient Macedonians spoke a non-Greek dialect and considered themselves non-Greek, it would be logical to expect that at least some people of the surviving tribes would speak a non-Greek Macedonian dialect.

The Kalash and the Khowar, for instance, two tribes descending from Alexander the Great living in the Northern Himalayan region of the Hindu Kush mountains, have maintained their Hellenic Macedonian culture and traditions since 325 B.C. 161 They still recognize Shalakash (Seleucus, Alexander’s general and later King Seleucus I Nicator of the Seleucid Empire) as their ancient leader.

Even though their language has been influenced by languages of Muslim nations surrounding the Kalash and Khowar, it contains many elements of the ancient Greek language. They greet their visitors with ‘ispanta” from the Greek verb “ασπάζομαι” (greet) and warn them about “heman” or yomun (“χειμών,” winter). The Kalash sing songs reminding people of the age-old music from northern Greece (Hellenic Macedonia) and dance (horós) in circles in the Greek way. These indigenous people still believe in the twelve Olympian gods and their architecture resembles the Macedonian architecture (see Quest for Alexander’s Lost Tribe, Readers Digest, July 20, 2000).

The contemporary FYROM Slavs continue to argue that they must be recognized

as Macedonians because, they insist, by occupying parts of the Macedonian land and mixing with the Macedonians they assumed the characteristics of the occupied Macedonia’s inhabitants and became Macedonians. To support this argument, they must convincingly answer all the questions raised above and convince the world that the ancient Macedonians were not Greek. If they fail to dissociate the Macedonians from the Greek world and continue to advance their occupier-occupied theory, then, according to this theory, they are not Slavs, but they have become slavophone Paeonians.

Even citing Borza’s publications (especially his book In the Shadow of Olympus, 1990) and Badian’s Greeks and Macedonians (1982) to justify their usurped Macedonianism, it is bound to backfire. Both Borza and Badian accept that the Macedonians were hellenized during the middle of the fifth century B.C. Nevertheless, Papavizas goes even a step further arguing,

In view of the fact that the Indo-European tribes carried with them the essential elements of the proto-Hellenic dialect, and Perdiccas’ Macedonians were of Indo-European stock . . . hellenization may never have occurred in a true sense of the word; after all, these people belonged to Hellenic tribes to begin with, and, therefore, only evolution of the Archaic (Aeolic) Macedonian dialect occurred, not hellenization in a true sense. 162

What emerges from the story of the Macedonian hellenization is this: Whether the ancient Macedonians were hellenized in the fifth century B.C. (Borza 1990) or were of a Hellenic stock to begin with, by the time the Slavs arrived in the Balkans more than one thousand years after Alexander the Great, the surviving Paeonians were of Hellenic stock. Therefore, if Skopje’s theory is accepted, the invading Slavs assumed the identity of the hellenized Paeonians.

A few historians and archaeologists claim that conclusions not based on scientific

research are only assumptions, but they admit archaeology has provided useful information by exposing artifacts of an age long past. However, based on the above claim, the FYROM Slavs cannot pass the test of Macedonism since the only conclusion they employ is based, not on a scientific research, but solely on assumptions and hypotheses. There is not one primary source of the time of the alleged amalgamation of the Slavs, Bulgars, and the autochthonous Macedonians answering the questions of the “five w’s”-who, what, when, where, and how—not one.

Greek and the majority of world scholars believe that archaeological and historical evidence clearly demonstrates the ancient Macedonians’ Hellenism. Casson (1926) and Hammond (1989, 1997), for instance, believe that the ancient Macedonians were of Hellenic stock since the comparison of Macedonian artifacts from Pateli (Aghios Panteleimon, Florina Prefecture, Greece) and Kalindoia, (Thessaloniki Prefecture, Greece) are identical to those found in Sparta, Olympia, Delphi, Aegina, Argos, and numerous other Greek sites.

Although archaeology is the bedrock on which to build our knowledge on the

Macedonians’ ethnicity, it is by no means the only source of knowledge. Language is one of the most important characteristics determining a group’s ethnicity. To understand the ancient Macedonians’ ethnicity it must be determined what language one of the most important city-states of the ancient Greek world spoke.

The task of determining the Macedonian language is very difficult, especially for the period before the fifth century B.C. The difficulty stems from: (a) the lack of writings by Macedonians and insufficient word samples; (b) the inability of archaeologists so far to unearth large numbers of samples and provide undisputed assistance; and (c) the way a person comprehends the issue or feels about it. But even some of the doubters admit that the Macedonians perhaps spoke a Greek dialect. Borza for instance, states,

Macedonian seems closer to Illyrian and Thracian than to the Greek dialect. This is not, however, to insist that Macedonian is Illyrian or Thracian. . . . It must be emphasized that this is not to say that it was not Greek; it is only to suggest that, for the linguists’ point of view, it is impossible to know. 163

The problem with this statement is that Borza does not consider the evidence provided by the katadesmos or curse sufficient to bring the language under the umbrella of the Northwestern Greek dialects, perhaps because it goes against his own theory. Nevertheless, katadesmos bears “the phenomena that distinguish the Northwest Greek dialects” as pointed out by Carl D. Buck. 164 The newly authenticated inscription of katadesmos brings the Macedonian dialect in the realm of Northwestern Greek dialects along with Acarnanian and Aetolian, which verifies Titus Livius’ statement that “Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Macedonians are people of the same speech.” The difference between the Doric and Northwest Greek dialects is that by Doric we mean the South Doric of Peloponnesus and by Northwest Greek we mean an unspecified variety of Doric dialects that developed independently due to the rugged terrain that separated the communities of their speakers.

The termination –KA as in the word OΠOKA or OPOKA found in katadesmos meaning “whenever” remains one of the most persisted characteristics of the North-west dialects according to Buck. 165 Its equivalent ending in Thessalian Aeolic dialects is –KE and Ionic/Attic is –TE. Thus, in Thessalian the same word would have been OΠΟΚΕ or OPOKE and in Ionic/Attic would have been ΟΠΟΤΕ or OPOTE. Modern Greek renders OPOTE. (see Apendix B) All scholars believe that if we carefully examine what we know so far of the ancient Macedonian dialect, we will conclude that it belonged to the Indo-European family of languages, specifically to the linguistic group known as centum (pronounced kentum). In contrast, the ancient non-Greek Thracians spoke a language that belonged to the group called satem and we have proof that Macedonians and Illyrians communicated through interpreters. 166 In addition, by 1984 the museums of Greek Macedonia displayed 62,696 archeological findings and approximately 5,000 inscriptions and 11,000 names of Macedonians, all in Greek. 167

The centum group included words with roots reminding us of the Doric-based and Aeolic-based speech. It is also true that the Hellenic Macedonian dialect spoken during King Philip’s and Alexander’s the Great time included words of Phrygian, Thracian, and Illyrian roots, resulting from the proximity among all these groups in a relatively small geographical area undergoing turbulent reshuffling of people. Alexander’s expansion into Central and South Asia, and Egypt also brought words from Tocharian, Persian, Gedrosian, Median, and other dialects to the dialect spoken by soldiers from Macedonia and from the other Greek city-states.

To understand the language question further, we must first divide the Macedonian era into two distinct periods: First, the period before the fifth century B.C. (during the reign of Perdiccas I, Argaeus, Philip I, Amyntas I, and Alexander I, ca. 650 - ca. 498); and second, the period after ca. 498 B.C. to the end of the Macedonian dynasty (168 B.C.). No artifacts have been discovered to help us understand what language the Macedonians spoke before 498 B.C. Because the Macedonians of that period were of Indo-European stock known to have carried with them the elements of a proto-Hellenic dialect, and all the Macedonian leaders had Greek names, we assume that at least as far back as Perdiccas we (ca. 650 B.C.) the Macedonians spoke a Hellenic dialect.

We can even venture a more daring leap backwards in time to the ninth century B.C. mentioning what the ancient historian Theopompus reported: “The first Macedonian king was not Perdiccas we, but Caranus (c. 850 BC), brother of the king of Argos in Peloponnesus, Pheidon, who abandoned Argos in Peloponesus and went to Macedonia.” Caranus or Karanos became king in the ninth century and founded the first Macedonian capital, Aegae, following a troop of goats to the location near the town of Verghina. 168 Although some linguists want the toponymy of the first Macedonian Capital Aegae, a Greek word for “goats,” another etymology that we find more plausible deriving from the Greek root aeg- (αιγ-) gives us toponymies and words as Aegina, Aeginion, Aegion, Aegeon (=Aegean), aegialòs, aegiálios, etc. Pausanias informs us that “by the Achaean Crathis once stood Aegae, a city of the Achaeans, 169 etc. Such words are identified with the Greek word for beach. One must always consider that in the ancient times both Macedonian capitals, Aegai and Pella, were located on a beach.

Though not perfect, our knowledge of the language spoken by the Macedonians

after the middle of the fifth century B.C. is satisfactory because we have a good litmus test to decide what their language was. By examining a plethora of gravestones of common people, funerary stelae, statues, frescoes, and coins lying under foot in Macedonia, all inscribed in Greek, some dated as far back as 500 B.C. gives evidence of the language of that time. Also, adding to our knowledge is a decanter (500 B.C.) found in Verghina, bearing the name Peperias in unmistaken Greek characters; an octadrachm of Alexander we, 478 B.C.; the ring of Sindos, 480 B.C.; coins of King Archaelaos, 413 B.C.; 5,000 Greek inscriptions and names of common people from Macedonia exhibited at the National Research Center of Athens; and the papyrus of Mygdonia found in Derveni near the Greek city of Langada. Found in Egypt is the inscription “From [General] Peukestas: No one is to pass this point. The residence belongs to a priest,” written in pure Greek; the plaque found at the town of Oleveni near Bitola, written in Greek; the Katadesmos or “curse” found in Pella, second Capital of Macedonia, and hundreds of other artifacts exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, in Verghina, and the Archaeological Museum of Skopje all add credence to the assumption that the Macedonians of that time spoke Greek. Manolis Andronikos, the archaeologist who headed the excavations in Verghina, Greek Macedonia, suggested that archaeology legitimized the Greek position on the Hellenism of ancient Macedonians.

In Opis, during the mutiny of the Macedonian Army, Alexander the Great spoke to the whole Macedonian Army addressing them in Greek. 170 The Macedonian soldiers listened to him and they were dumbfounded by what they heard from their Commander-in-Chief. They were upset. Immediately after Alexander left for the Palace, they demanded that Alexander allow them to enter the palace so that they could talk to him.

When this was reported to Alexander, he quickly came out and saw their restrained disposition; he heard the majority of his soldiers crying and lamenting, and was moved to tears. He came forward to speak, but they remained there imploring him. One of them, named Callines, whose age and command of the Companion cavalry made him preeminent, spoke as follows: “Sire, what grieves the Macedonians is that you have already made some Persians your ‘kinsmen’, and the Persians are called ‘kinsmen’ of Alexander and are allowed to kiss you, while not one of the Macedonians has been granted this honor” 171 . The previous story clearly reveals that the Macedonians were speaking Greek since they could understand their leader. There were thousands of them, not just some selected few who happened to speak Greek. It would be unrealistic for Alexander the Great to speak to them in a language they supposedly did not understand.

Furthermore, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the “kausia” 172 (καυσία) from the Greek word for heat that separated them from the rest of the Greeks. That is why the Persians called them “yauna takabara,” which meant “Greeks wearing the shield-hat.” 173 The Macedonian hat was very distinctive from the hats of the other Greeks, but the Persians did not distinguish the Macedonians, because the Macedonian speech was also Greek 174 .

There are three inscriptions written by the order of Darius I (Ancient Farsi Dârayavauš). One is the Behistun inscription dated c. 492 BC, which calls the Greeks as Yauna and the second, Naqsh-i Rustam dated c. 490, which calls the Macedonians Yauna takabara. The third one, however, is most interesting dated c.479-478 BC. It calls the Macedonians straight Yauna, which means “Greeks.” At that time, the Macedonians not only were obscure people, but also not under the south Hellenic influence. The Persians knew very well what language the Macedonians spoke since there is historical evidence that the two peoples, Persians and Macedonians, had conversations at parties. 175

In the third inscription, also known as the Daiva inscription, King Xerxes says:

By the grace of Ahuramazda these are the countries of which I was king apart from Persia. I had lordship over them. They bore me tribute. What was said to them by me, that they did. My law, that held them: Media, Elam, Arachosia, Armenia, Drangiana, Parthia, Aria, Bactria, Sogdia, Chorasmia, Babylonia, Assyria, Sattagydia, Lydia, Egypt, Yaunâ, those who dwell on this side of the sea and those who dwell across the sea,…

The inscription does not separate the name Macedonia, which was the only Greek speaking territory within the kingdom of Persia located on the other side of the Aegean Sea. To the Persians, unless they knew the dialectal differences of the Hellenic dialects, all Greeks sounded the same. Persians, Medes, and Parthians called all Greek speaking peoples Yauna, but they distinguished the Macedonians using as their indicative the sun hats the Macedonians wore.

A careful examination of the language on these findings will reveal that the similarities and differences of the Macedonian dialect to other Greek dialects are of the same magnitude as the similarities and differences that existed between Ionic and Aeolic, Attic and Doric (i.e., Western Hellenic), Arcadian and Cypriot, Doric group of languages to the Aeolian group, etc. Some linguists use the Doric family of languages as a basis to compare the Hellenic language with Latin.

We also know that the Macedonian dialect preserved characters that had disappeared from other Greek dialects. The Romans and Byzantine lexicographers and grammarians, for instance, used samples from the Macedonian dialect to interpret difficult paragraphs of the Homeric poems. Interestingly, all Hellenic tribes were influenced by and accepted words from the Pelasgians (or Pelargians), Leleges, Phoenicians, and other non-Hellenic tribes. If we compare the Ionic dialect to its closest relative, the Attic dialect, we will be amazed how different these two dialects were - and yet both were Hellenic and closely related.

As scholars contemplate history’s and archaeology’s deficiencies in their efforts to prove or disprove the ancient Macedonians’ Hellenism, they lose sight of a factor of paramount importance that had a profound effect on the Balkan Macedonian policies, especially during and after World War II: communism. What inexorably emerges in the field of communism after its demise in Europe and the Balkans is its uncomplimentary portrayal as a paramount force of evil that brought the Macedonian Question to the fore for chauvinist and irredentist reasons and sharpened the strain, and even animosity, among Balkan nations. Communism’s brutality was also manifested by the fact that the significant Greek minority thriving in the Vardar Province virtually disappeared during the macedonization process to which it was forced to submit by the Yugoslav communist regime.

There existed no “Macedonian nation” and no “Macedonian ethnicity” before communism’s brutal force emanating from Moscow that directed Tito and Dimitrov to “solve” the Macedonian problem in favor of Tito’s Yugoslavia. There existed no serious dispute on the ancient Macedonians’ language before the establishment of communism in the Balkans. There were no school rooms in the Vardar province (South Serbia), as they exist now, with two maps on the wall, one showing the entire geographical Macedonia, the Slavic dream to be realized in the future at Greece’s and Bulgaria’s expense. There were no students in the province — before communism — being taught a history rife with falsifications and inaccuracies to de-Hellenize king Philip’s and Alexander the Great’s Macedonians. There were no efforts in southern Serbia before communism to inculcate the false ideas that Greece usurped the “Macedonian identity” to the students and teach them to be vindictive against the Greeks grasped the communism’s impact on the Macedonian problem and described it better than anybody else with a single sentence: “only communism could provide the theoretical base and the necessary force to push for a separate ‘Macedonian nation.’” 176

The former President of The FYROM, Kiro Gligorov said: “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians.” 177 In addition, Mr Gligorov clarified, “We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That’s who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia… Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century.” 178

Former ambassador of the FYROM to USA, Ljubica Achevska, in answering questions at the end of her speech said: “We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great … Greece is Macedonia’s second largest trading partner, and its number one investor. Instead of opting for war, we have chosen the mediation of the United Nations, with talks on the ambassadorial level under Mr. Vance and Mr. Nimetz.” 179 In reply to another question about the ethnic origin of the people of FYROM, Ambassador Achevska stated that “we are Slavs and we speak a Slav language.” FYROM’s Ambassador to Canada, Gyordan Veselinov, admitted, “We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.” He also commented, “There is some confusion about the identity of the people of my country.” 180 Moreover, the Foreign Minister of the FYROM, Slobodan Časule said that he mentioned to the Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, Solomon Pasí that they “belong to the same Slav people.” 181

Other important people of the former Yugoslavia echo the above. Milovan Djilas, a Montenegrin dissident during the year of communist Yugoslavia and author of anti-communist books, in an interview that he gave to Dimitris Gousidis, author of the book Burning Balkans, in regards to the alleged direct Macedonian lineage of the Slavs or their assertion of amalgamation with the descendants of the ancient Macedonians and their symbols stated,

… the [appropriation of the] symbols of Philip of Macedonia is foolishness, it demonstrates megalomania and raises inexcusable claims. I think they will stop doing it. In addition, the propaganda of certain “Macedonian” parties against Greece will stop. I support the existence of the country… I do not support any claims against Greece. They are not claims based on facts…, 182

Most importantly the former President Kiro Glogorov, said, “To identify ourselves with the ancient Macedonians is historically inaccurate.” 183

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