Archive for July 14th, 2007

Jul 14 2007

World Encyclopaedias about Macedonia - Britannica

Posted by: admin in Encyclopaedia, FYROM Propaganda, Modern Historians, Modern Macedonian History, Skopjan Propaganda

Quote:

The people
Ethnicity and languageMacedonia has inherited a complex ethnic structure. The largest group, calling themselves Macedonians (about two-thirds of the population), are descendants of Slavic tribes that moved into the region between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. Their language is very closely related to Bulgarian and is written in the Cyrillic script.In language, religion, and history, a case could be made for identifying Macedonian Slavs with Bulgarians and to a lesser extent with Serbs. Both have had their periods of influence in the region (especially Serbia after 1918); consequently, there are still communities of Serbs (especially in Kumanovo and Skopje) and Bulgarians.

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The people who form the majority of the inhabitants of the contemporary Macedonian republic are clearly not Greeks but Slavs. However, this ecclesiastical tradition, taken together with the long period during which the region was associated with the Greek-speaking Byzantine state, and above all the brief ascendancy of the Macedonian empire (c. 359–321 BC) continue to provide Greeks with a sense that Macedonia is Greek.

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Yet, although the inhabitants of the present-day republic are Slavs, it remains to be determined what kind of Slavs they are. Among the short-lived states jostling for position with Byzantium were two that modern Bulgarians claim give them a special stake in Macedonia………………

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Vŭtreshnata Makedono-Odrinska Revolutsionna Organizatsiya secret revolutionary society that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to make Macedonia an autonomous state but that later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics……….IMRO’s terrorist bands operated in conjunction with Bulgaria’s foreign policy, which was designed to force a redistribution of Macedonia.

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Alexander the Great
also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia king of Macedonia (336–323 BC)………………….LifeHe was born in 356 BC at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by Aristotle, who inspired him with an interest in philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation; but he was later to advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves.He then marched south, recovered a wavering Thessaly, and at an assembly of the Greek League at Corinth was appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia, already planned and initiated by Philip

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Alexander’s short reign marks a decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia. His expedition and his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history. His career led to the moving of the great centres of civilization eastward and initiated the new age of the Greek territorial monarchies; it spread Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Middle East and created, if not politically at least economically and culturally, a single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common civilization and the Greek koinē as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree the fruits of Alexander’s achievement.

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By Orphic Hymn

 SEE ALSO: Bolsaya Sovetskaya Encyclopaedia about ancient Macedonian ethnicity

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Jul 14 2007

Stratonicus verifies greekness of ancient Macedonians

Posted by: admin in Ancient Macedonian History

One of the most famous harp-players of the ancient Greek world was the Athenean Stratonicos (410-360 B.C). In Athenaeos Deipnosophistes, there are series of anecdotes concerning Stratonicos where except his witty answers we learn also valuable infos about life in ancient Greece

Παράθεση:

Stratonicus said once to the father of Chrysogonus, when he was saying that he had everything at home in great abundance, for that he himself had undertaken the works, and that of his sons, one could teach and another play the flute; “You still,” said Stratonicus, “lack one thing.” And when the other asked him what that was, “You lack,” said he, “a theatre in your house.” And when some one asked him why he kept travelling over the whole of Greece, and did not remain in one city, he said- “That he had received from the Muses all the Greeks as his wages, from whom he was to levy a tax to atone for their ignorance.”

[Ath. Deipn. VIII.350e]

Παράθεση:

And Machon records these reminiscences of him: ‘Once on a time Stratonicus journeyed to Pella, having previously heard from several sources that the baths there usually made people splenetic. Well, observing several lads exercising in the bath beside the fire, all of them with bodies and complexions at the top of their form, he said that his informants had made a mistake. But when he came out again, he noticed a man who had a spleen twice as large as his belly. (He remarked) “The door-keeper who sits here and receives the cloaks of patrons as they enter must plainly have an eye on their spleens as well, to make sure immediately that the people inside are not crowded

[Ath. Deipn., Book VIII. 348 e-f]

Παράθεση:

And when Zethus the harper was giving a lecture upon music, he said that he was the only person who was utterly unfit to discuss the subject of music, inasmuch as he had chosen the most unmusical of all names, and called himself Zethus instead of Amphion. And once, when he was teaching some Macedonian to play on the harp, being angry that he did nothing as he ought, he said, “Go to Macedonia.”

[Ath Deipn. VIII.351b]

So Stratonicos the harp-player was “travelling all over Greece” without remaining in one city while he himself declared he considered “all the Greeks as his wages, from whom he was to levy a tax to atone for their ignorance”

Since Stratonicos visited also Pella, its clear that Pella (and naturally Macedonia) is inside Greece and this is even more clear from the fact that among the Greeks he was trying to educate, there were also Macedonians!!!

Stratonicos lived between 410-360 B.C.E. meaning he visited Macedonia before Philip’s reign but from the text attested we find absolutely no problem of communcation between him and Macedonians, obviously because they spoke the same language.

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