The author´s letter is rather lengthy and it would take too much of my time to respond to it in detail, so I will try to concentrate on the most important points of interest.

He begins the article by saying that a friend of his told him that he does not trust the Greeks, the Serbians and the Bulgarians for not being objective when writing about Macedonia.

First of all, in my opinion, neither the Serbians nor the Bulgarians have really any business whatsoever with Macedonia because Macedonia, the historic and classic Macedonia lies in the northern part of Greece and, therefore, the only people qualified and knowledgeable enough about Macedonia are the Greeks and they can be the only ones that can be trusted to write about Macedonia´s narrative and history.

It is only the Macedonian Greek people as well as the rest of the Greeks that know well about themselves, their Macedonian Greek land and their Macedonian Greek history.

What do the South Slavonic Slavs like himself and those who live in the southern part of former Yugoslavia know or have to do with Macedonia when the land they happen to inhabit was never part of Macedonia but it was land inhabited by the ancient Paeonians and Dardanians while they themselves were never, how could they be, Macedonians since they were Slavic people who came down the Balkans in the sixth century A.D. , almost a thousand years later than Macedonia ceased to exist as an independent Greek tribal state.

Risto Stefov is wondering why no Westerners or even people from his own country have not written anything about themselves. The answer is very plain and simple. There isn´t much to write about it as their country is desperately trying to acquire a name and an identity for itself by stealing everything from their Southern neighbors, the Macedonian Greeks who feel, and rightfully so, that they have been looted of their Macedonian Greek identity, their culture, heritage and history by the South Slavonic Slavs of F.Y.R.O.M. , a South Slav country that wants to patent for itself and its people the names Macedonia, Macedonian that are totally irrelevant and ethnically foreign to them, to the people and to that country itself.

Macedonians in Greece and I mean Macedonian Greeks in their own homeland or outside of it learned about Macedonia, the historic and classic Macedonia, and its history from a variety of Greek or foreign sources and that is how their own relatives have told them about it especially those who were fortunate enough to have relatives that were Macedonian fighters who were fighting not only against the Ottoman Turks but also against the Serbian or Bulgarian invasion and occupation of Macedonia, the real and the only true Macedonia that has existed for more than two thousand years.

The author of this article keeps talking constantly and repeatedly about “Macedonia” and “Macedonians” as though there are or have ever been more than one Macedonia and more than one group of Macedonian people. The truth is as I said earlier and in my previous articles in the American Chronicle that there has only been one Macedonia and one Macedonian people and those are the ones that have lived always in the Macedonian province of northern Greece or migrated later on to other countries for economic reasons and better life for themselves and their families.

So, then, if there are any Macedonian people and there certainly are more than two million of them, those are the ones that are Greeks and the Macedonian adjective simply signifies the local identity of those Greek people just like there are Cretans, Thessalians, Peloponnesians, islanders etc.

Mr. Stefov is talking about the existence of phony Macedonian people in Bulgaria and, of course, in his own of F.Y.R.O.M. of former Yugoslavia. Sorry to disappoint you, my friend but there is no Macedonia that has been divided and if there was one what do you and your South Slavonic Slavic People have to do with it. Consequently, there is no more than one Macedonian people, one Greek, another one Bulgarian and the other one South Slavonic Slav. There cannot be there three Macedonian people with three different ethnic identities or two of those have to be phony and fraudulent.

Consequently, there are no Macedonian people in Bulgaria or in your beloved pseudo-Macedonia but only in Greece and that is because they are and have been always Greeks and no Slavs ever.

The so-called division of Macedonia was created by your people and your country in order to justify its existence in the beginning and create irredentist ambitions later on. It was a political scam for land speculation. You and your people invaded our land and with the help of the Bulgarians and the Serbians got part of it because the Greeks were not able to reclaim all of our land as we were fighting one against two and we had to give up part of the Macedonian land and let you keep the lands of ancient Paeonia and Dardania which is now what your country is made up of.

I would also like to say again something about the so-called Ilinden Uprising so my readers will get to know that the Ilinden Uprising was prepared, organized and executed by the Bulgarians in order to blame that uprising to the Greeks in that area while the Bulgarians ran away up to the mountains to escape the Ottoman Turk retaliation. This was an ingenious plan for the Turks to turn against the Greek population in that area and make the Turks kill many Greeks that were blamed for it and drive the rest of them to the South for safety. Now, Mr. Stefov, you are trying to tell us that the Ilinden Uprising was a pseudo-Macedonian accomplishment. Please, read the Bulgarian archives and find out for yourself that you are lying again as always.

The author is wondering again why writing history about Macedonia and the Macedonians in the past and always had been delegated mostly, to the Greeks, his enemies, by pretending he does not know that Macedonia had always been the northern province of Greece and the Greek people of Macedonia, Greece were and had been the only Macedonian people who had lived though in the past the Macedonian history and they thought that it would be a good idea for the rest of the world to know about it.

Now, Mr. Stefov, what does your country have to offer to the world? What history did your people, the South Slavonic Slavs or your earlier ancestors, the Paeonians and the Dardanians have to offer to the world? Obviously, none unless you steal it from us, the Macedonian Greek people and then claim it to be your own by fraud and forgery. The mainstream historians have accepted the Greek side of the Macedonian story because that was the only story ever made by those people and, therefore the only side ever told. What do you have to tell us or to the world about yourselves. The whole world knows who you are and what you are trying to become with somebody else´s “marbles” but they are not for sale or up for grabs.

Calling your country “Macedonia”, your people “Macedonians” and your Serbo-Bulgarian language “Macedonian” are and should be the GREATEST LIES EVER TOLD and Risto Stefov is one of the most if not the most deceitful and charismatic and by all means professional liar. However, the arbitrary and unauthorized use of those Macedonian Greek names by the South Slavonic Slav people constitutes a case of identity FRAUD against the Macedonian Greek people who are being deceitfully induced to abandon or surrender their Macedonian (Greek) legal rights and let the South Slavonic Slav people FORGE a Slavic identity to it and dream about even a Slavic sovereignty to the Macedonian Greek land.

Macedonia, the classic, historic and true Macedonia which comprises the northern part of Greece and its legacy belong exclusively to the Macedonian Greek people who are and have been the only ones to claim the legal rights to the names Macedonia/Macedonian and everything else that is associated with those two names. The nations of the world will realize sooner or later that the South Slavonic Slav people are lying about their identity and they are desperately trying to mislead and deceive as many people as possible by means of FRAUD and FORGERY in order to justify for themselves the illegal and fraudulent use of the names Macedonia/Macedonian for themselves although, as I said, earlier they have absolutely nothing to do with Macedonia and the ancient or modern Macedonian people of northern Greece. These South Slavic people who came down the Balkans in the sixth century A.D. have nothing in common with Macedonia or the Macedonians who were always Greek people and have lived for two millennia in their Macedonian Greek land and away from any South Slavs or Bulgarians.

I would also like to say to my readers that the name Macedonia refers to a geographic region that was inhabited in antiquity and now for the most part by Greek people who always had a Greek ethnic identity and there never was such a thing as a national “Macedonian” until, say, a hundred or so years ago or earlier and it was invented and created and practiced by the South Slavonic Slavs of the old Vardarska Banovina that was renamed as “Macedonia” for reasons that we all know and we see it happening today when we look at these South Slavonic Slav people to usurp our Macedonian Greek identity, our history and culture and long term plans for a Slavic sovereignty in our Macedonian Greek land, the one and only Macedonian land.

Moreover I would like to let my readers realize which “Macedonia” if any is or could be considered to be called “occupied”. Risto Stefov keeps always referring to the Greek occupied Macedonia but he does not tell who the people that Macedonia was occupied from are and where were they to defend that land from the so-called Greek occupation. We all know that Macedonia became a Roman territory in 168 B.C. and then Byzantine and finally Ottoman Turk territory for a few hundred years.

Evidently, the South Slavonic Slavs never had a land of their own or a land that rightfully belonged to them because it was the Serbian and the Bulgarian Slavs that invaded Macedonia and took a good chunk of it away from the Macedonian Greek people who were the rightful owners of that land. So, what they have now it is land that was won by the Serbians and given to them at least temporarily until Serbia may be in a position to claim it back if possible. So, who were the rightful owners of Macedonia and who invaded it and occupied a good chunk of its land although most of that land was really not Macedonian land but Paeonian and Dardanian and had been settled by the Slavs during the Byzantine years.

I want to make it clear that the only occupied land is the one inhabited by the South Slavic Slavs of former Vardarska Banovina and part of that land that is inhabited by the Bulgarians because it was those two people, who used to be one people many years ago, that have occupied Macedonian land and they seem to have an appetite for more of it if allowed to do so.

However, I want to ask Mr. Stefov where were his people when either the Serbians or the Bulgarians

were fighting against the Ottoman Turks or against each other in the year 1913 and there is no mention of phantom “heroic” people under a so-called “Macedonian” ethnic name but there were only Serbians or Bulgarians who might have used the term “Macedonian” but they always associated it with Bulgaria.

Last but not least I want to say to everybody that Macedonia, the classic and historic Macedonia is the only Macedonia and the only one that is free from South Slavonic Slav occupation.

So, then, since Risto Stefov is not a “Macedonian” and can never be one, he thinks or has the audacity to say that we the Greek people are not Greeks and we are not the descendants of the ancient Greek people. Sorry to disappoint you, my friend, we are who we are and we are Greeks and never claimed to be something that our next door neighbor has the exclusive right to be because that is their historically ethnic identity.

We do not clam anything that does not rightfully belongs to us and at the same time we feel others should the same thing to us. You and your people “hate” us because we are something, we are great and we have been able to achieve it all by ourselves while you and your people are nothing without us and our stolen goods which you falsely think that they will make you like us.

You are what you are and accept yourself as you are and learn to live with what you and your country was able to provide yourself.

We, Greeks are happy for what we are and you and your countrymen should happy for being South Slavonic Slavs and not something phony or fraudulent such as pseudo-Macedonians because you CAN NEVER BE REAL AND TRUE MACEDONIANS which is only reserved for the Greek people of the Macedonian province of northern Greece. Nick Hodges.