Can Classical Mythology be “explained” through the use of Slavomacedonian vocabulary?

in Alexander the Great, ancient macedonian cities, ancient macedonian ethnicity, Ancient Macedonian Kings, Articles, documents, Falsified ancient texts, FYROM Propaganda, Greece, Hellenic language, Skopjan Propaganda, Thessalonike & Other Macedonian Cities / by History / on January 20, 2011 at 4:06 am /

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Persephone’s abduction by Plouton from an ancient Greek painting on a wall of a tomb at the ancient Macedonian capital of Aegai, Central Macedonia, Greece.

This article was instantaneously published at the American Chronicle:

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/211763

Το παρών άρθρο δημοσιεύτηκε ταυτόχρονα και στο Αμέρικαν Κρόνικλ.

FALSIFYING HISTORY – FABRICATING A FAKE IDENTITY: Skopjan pseudo-Makedonism revising Greek Mythology.*

A brave new world is dawning on classical studies. A new breed of classical scholars is collectively trailblazing new and exciting avenues of creative knowledge in our understanding of the ancient world, demolishing old taboos about the Greeks and their contribution to civilization.

These hereto internationally unknown scholars, professors like Vasil Ilyov, Risto Stefou, Aleksandar Donski, JSG – “Gandeto”, Odisej Belchevski, Aristotel Tendov, Tome Boshevski, and others, whose numbers are on the rise, all happen to trace their descent from that world famous (some would utter “infamous”) beacon of Classical Scholarship, that lies in the southernmost province of former Yugoslavia whose capital is Skopje. I am speaking of course of the Former Yugoslav Republic that insists on being called Makedonija.

We will be concerned here with exploring the findings on the article “Is There a Practical Meaning to Mythology?” by “contemporary scholar” as he has been hailed by his co-scholarly circles, Odisej Belchevski. This article is “part 1” of :

“A Series of Studies in European Mythology” where

“Classical Mythology (is) Explained With The Use of Macedonian Vocabulary“.

As it soon becomes apparent, once we start reading his article, the writer is wholly unbiased by any superficial connections to the labors and findings of other “modern scholars and scholars of the “Romantic Era” in particular”. His only bias is to serve the neo-Balkan cult of historical revisionism [locally branded by its opponents as the “Antiquization” or “Bukefalization” (branded so from the name of Alexander the Great´s horse, Bucephalas) campaign] that has taken the small Balkan country by a storm. Once someone accepts the basic premise that the modern Slavic-speaking descendants of the Slavonic tribes that entered the southern Balkans in the 7th century AD to be the true descendants of Alexander the Great´s Macedonians, who lived more a thousand years before the Slavs appeared in Macedonia, in the 4th c BC, then everything is possible!

It is important for us to be open minded and to take Odisej Belchevski at his word when he assures us that “the information contained in this article is not of mythical or imagined content but is very real, which the reader should find exciting and interesting”. I, for one, am already excited, yet calm at the same time, in the knowledge that Odisej B. will take us “through a fresh new look at classical mythology and bring out alternative meanings of the identities of Demeter, Saturn, Pluto/Hades and Zemele.”

Being of “an inquiring mind“, he wondered “How is it that for the last 200 years European scholars…when it comes to interpreting mythological figures they could only manage to provide imaginary, unrealistic, impractical, hard to understand and confusing explanations?”

Being thus assured that “modern scholars…did not have a clear understanding of the true meaning of the names of deities in relation to the deities´ roles and functions in nature”, Odisej Belchevski decided to “then show how the ancient Europeans used practical methods for naming their deities and each name such as Demeter, Pluto, Hades, Zemele, etc., had a special meaning for them which, when interpreted properly, makes sense even today.“

We need to stress two things right away. Somehow, Odisej B., who hears people call him by his very Greek name every day, somehow has an aversion to even mention Greeks by name. Wherever the text leads him to say “Greeks” or “Greek Mythology“, I notice that he clicks an internal switch and writes “ancient Europeans” or “ancient European” Mythology, instead. Not that anyone would care for this, but it simply makes for a more generally confusing text. The second thing that catches someone´s attention is Mr. Belshevski´s naively mechanistic way of thinking, when he says that “the ancient Europeans used practical methods for naming their deities”. Somehow I beg to differ with this author, since I cannot possibly visualize a tribal “ancient European” gathering where the tribe´s elders are calling a meeting for the purpose of discussing the burning issue; that of deciding on a new method for coming up with a new practical Proto-Slavonic name for a Deity of the land to be adopted in tonight´s meeting, called for 6:30 pm sharp! I am sure this is not how a divine name was given…Primitive people observing nature and their surroundings (including their on society), always tried to find patterns. This was done in a slow and organic way, that took many years, sometimes whole generations and beyond. By trying to decipher the inner meaning of the cycles of nature and social life, they would inevitably try to compromise their observations with their already acquired common knowledge. This communal knowledge was always codified in religious terms. It was natural to look for answers in divine interference and action within every aspect of their life, whether cyclical or abrupt. Every action already had a name, a word describing it, so it was always easy to make that small step and name the divine “mover” of that action or event after the action he was responsible for. We will come back to this.

For now we move on, following the steps of Odisej Belchevski, who insists that:

“To conduct our interpretations properly we must seek the oldest name of each deity and have a good knowledge of the deity´s attributes and characteristics.” This is an excellent way to proceed, I agree. We will go to the original sources, but to do that, our author insists, “It is also essential that we have a good knowledge of the old Macedonian languages, Koine and Slavonic.”

Now I am slightly confused. What “old Macedonian languages” is he referring to? “Koine and Slavonic”? From the little that I have read, neither one can be described as one of “the old Macedonian languages”. The Macedonians spoke another Greek dialect before they helped form the Alexandrian Koine (common Greek of the age after Alexander). It was by all indications the dialect found in the Pella katadesmos text, and survived in the Macedonian

The only document found to date in the Macedonian dialect. 4th cAD. Pella, Central Macedonia, Greece

“glosses” saved by Hesechios and others, which has been classified as a Northwest Greek dialect, like the one spoken by the Epirotes, with strong influences of Aeolian, as spoken in nearby Thessaly.

Obviously he cannot be speaking of Slavonic as a possible ancient Macedonian language, since the Slavs had not appeared in the historical account as yet, still residing in the general area around the Pripet marshes of what are now parts of north Ukraine and southern Belorussia.

As any high school student that took his European history class seriously will remember, the Slavs did not appear into the Greek and Latin speaking Balkan Peninsula until the 7th century AD, about 1500 years after historians place the Macedonian Greeks as first residing

in Macedonia, and fully one thousand years after Alexander the Great and the beginning of the formation of the Koine Greek dialect.

Slavonic had to wait for fully 1400 years after the Pella katadesmos text before it was even written down, thanks to the two Greek monks from Thessaloniki that were sent to Moravia to convert the great grandparents of modern Czechs and Slovaks into Christianity, inventing a system, of writing adjusted to their own language.

One of the earliest Slavonic existing inscriptions in Glagolitic alphabet, from Croatia, 11th cAD.

Having eliminated both Koine and Slavonic as possible candidates for what this author specified as “old Macedonian languages”, we are left hanging.

Is he possibly speaking of some (hereto unattested and unidentified) “old Macedonian languages” plus the later attested “Koine and Slavonic”? And where does Alexandrian Koine Greek dialect fall into this? The Alexandrian Koine (“Common”) is a rather late dialect of Greek that is an amalgam of Attic, Macedonian, Doric and Aeolian and other minor Greek dialects, which were mixed as a result of the new society that was created by the conquests of Alexander the Great. It is the Greek dialect into which the New Testament and all the early Christian scholarship have been written. It will hardly be of significant help for someone who wants to study the earlier sources of Greek Mythology. In order to go to the sources, Ionian, Aeolian and Achaean (linear B) Greek are necessary.

Mr. Belchevski is coolly unabated: “Over the years I have studied many details of these deities both from linguistic and historical sources and, although many books have been written on this subject, none can provide a simple and logical explanation.” One is definitely impressed but is also left wondering as to how many of these books Odisej has read…

Nevertheless, “By applying my knowledge of the Macedonian language, some of its older dialects and Old Slavonic I have been able to find simpler and more practical meanings for the names of the deities which not only identify the deities with nature but also put them in harmony with their characteristics and attributes.” So, then who cares for Koine, Ionian, Aeolian or any other Greek, if Odisej Belshevski will apply his knowledge of the modern Yugoslavian Slavomacedonian language, plus Old Slavonic and “more practical meanings for the names of the deities” will be revealed…

True enough, please read more here:http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2011/01/can-classical-mythology-be-explained.html