Chapter 6.

The Establishment of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (The FYROM)

The independence of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM in 1991 was based on the decision by Tito to create a republic within a Balkan federation that would include Yugoslavia and Bulgaria under the name Macedonia, incorporating the Greek, Bulgarian, and Yugoslav parts of Macedonia. Tito, encouraged by Stalin, was determined to succeed regardless of the means, which in this case meant a civil war of the “progressive” forces of the communist world against the “monarchofascists” of Greece. The People’s Republic of Macedonia within the communist or AVNOJ Yugoslavia 115 declared its independence almost 50 years later, continuing the same expansionistic policies towards its neighbors as the AVNOJ Yugoslavia. The newly independent “Republic of Macedonia,” included only the south part of the territories of Vardarska Banovina, a pre-WWII Yugoslav area.

Although the creation of the VMRO was outdated and a clear ultra-nationalistic Bulgarian initiative, the communists created the new republic with the sole purpose of creating a new ethnic group, the “Macedonian” which, after its creation, had to have a direct lineage from the ancient Macedonians and naturally had to have its own land, or rather “ancestral” land. In order to achieve this goal, the creators of the “ethnic” Macedonian nation had to re-write history by first de-Hellenizing the ancient Macedonians. Once they did, they could find or invent a means to connect the Slavic people of the “Republic of Macedonia” to the now “non-Hellenic” ancient Macedonians. This is what Ambassador Kofos called, the politics of mutation. 116

Penal Code Articles 178-179: Protecting “Macedonism”

Freedom of speech not only in the country, but also in academic institutions regarding the history of the country and the origin of its people is absent (see Appendix K). According the West Balkan Research, the government of the FYROM regulates research in the following manner.

Pursuant to Article 6 of the Law on the Scientific Research Activity (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia” Nos.13/96 and 29/02), the fundamental principles of the scientific research activities are inviolability and protection of human dignity.

They, in turn, are based on the following criteria: freedom of scientific and scholarly creative work, autonomy and implementation of the findings, diversity of scientific views and methods, as well as international cooperation. 117

But when the government of the FYROM states “the fundamental principles of the scientific research activities are inviolability and protection of human dignity” it means that nobody can research the matter of their own Macedonism or the status of ancient Macedonians, which has been officially established through political means. Those two topics are not subject to research in the country. Research on how the Slavs became Macedonians seeking primary sources is considered an insult to the human dignity of the “Macedonians” i.e. Slavs. Anyone researching anything on the history of the Slavic tribes that constitute the Slavic population of the FYROM attempting to prove that the population is Slavic and has nothing to do nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians is subject to prosecution based on the above law and articles 178 and 179 of the Penal Code below.

One of the most controversial laws of the FYROM is Article 179 of the penal code, which allows the State to indict anyone for offending the “Macedonian” State and anti-”Macedonism” similar to the Penal Code 301 of the Turkish Republic which prohibits acts, expressions, etc. that offend Turkishness. Based on this law, the government of the FYROM has prosecuted many citizens of the FYROM, especially of Bulgarian descent. Fearing prosecution under this law, publishing companies routinely refuse to publish documents that might remotely offend the state.

The “Criminal Code of the Republic of Macedonia” was enacted on 23 July 1996 and came into effect on 1 November 1996. Two of its articles, 178 and 179, safeguard the reputation of the republic. The articles state,

Offending the reputation of the Republic of Macedonia

Article 178

A person, who with the intention to ridicule shall publicly make a mockery of the Republic of Macedonia, its flag, arm or anthem, shall be punished with imprisonment of three months to three years.

Ridiculing the Macedonian people and the nationalities

Article 179

A person, who with the intention to ridicule shall publicly make a mockery of the Macedonian people and the nationalities, shall be punished with imprisonment of three months to three years. 118

At first glance, one sees nothing wrong in protecting the symbols of the country or with deterring a citizen from mocking the ethnicity of another citizen. Nevertheless, the law that protects the symbols of the country and the ethnicity of fellow citizens is the same law that throws citizens into prison for offending “Macedonism.” One of the most celebrated cases forced Xavier Solana, the head of the EU diplomacy to intervene on behalf of Bishop Jovan of Ohrid. In addition, in a letter to the chair of the Commission of the European Union Bishops’ Conference, Roman Catholic Bishop Josef Homeier, Solana stated,

The case of Bishop Jovan of Ochrid and Exarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, who has been imprisoned for allegedly inciting religious and national intolerance can be seriously disputed, and thus endanger the ascension of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the European Union. 119

Prof. Nina Gatzoulis, President of the Pan-Macedonian Association of the United States, shared the following e-mail with me after I agreed not to publish it with the sender’s name and e-mail address. I am publishing the text as it was received with the exception of the email address of the sender.

From: xxxxx_xxxxxxxx@xxxxx.com

To: nina@panmacedonian.info

Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2005 9:42 AM

Subject: my drama

I’m from FYROM and I’m an young drama writer. I have a text which has very large artistic value and that is opinion from very relevant critics (if you wish, I can give you the names and addresses of the critics). In my text there are a lot of sentences they say that Alexander the Great is a Greek, the king Philip is a Greek and the history of ancient Macedonia is one of the glorious parts of the Greek history. Because of this words, the publishers refuse to publish my drama. So, I ask for a help in publication in FYROM and translation and publication in Greece and Serbia. I hope, you will find the way to make you sure that my intentions are true and honest.

Officials of NATO and EU countries consider the name dispute that Greece has brought up as ridiculous, and that could be the case had successive Slavic governments in the FYROM confined themselves to the name. However, the problem is wider than the simple name Macedonia; most importantly, the problem is what foreign governments do not see.

Upon the end of WWI and the abdication of the Kaiser, the Provisional National Assembly of Austria representing the new state called Republik Deutschösterreich or “German-Austrian Republic” formed the Provisional Government of German Austria. The allies fearing future ramifications of the inclusion of the word “German” in the name of Austria, insisted that Austria changes its name removing the term “German” from it. Thus according to the provisions of the Peace Treaty of St. Germain-en-Layé, signed on September 10, 1919, Austria had to change its name to Republik Österreich or Austrian Republic. The website of the Austrian parliament explains in detail the reasons and the fears of the allied powers regardless of the fact that Austria did not consider those fears valid. The fact is that the same countries that find the position of Greece on the name issue ridiculous were the same countries that did not find their own position ridiculous threatened by the name “German” insisting on the name change of Austria. 120 On October 17, 1919, four days after the Constituent National Assembly adopted the treaty the name of the state was changed to “Republic of Austria.” As ridiculous as Greece’s objections might appear to other countries, the fact is that “failure to understand that others perceive their national interests differently from the way we perceive those interests is a constant source of problems.” 121

Besides the propaganda issue of “Macedonians in bondage,” the FYROM government published the history book of the “Macedonian Military” that included the history of ancient Macedonia and an Army associated with their perceived territories of Macedonia. 122 To be exact the Military Academy of the FYROM funded the book, which after Greece filed a demarche, the government of the FYROM withdrew, but it is now on sale by the author. Simultaneously, the Slavic pupils and youth have been constantly bombarded with anti-Hellenic propaganda through their schoolbooks.

Historically speaking, similar publications appeared in Argentina before the Falkland war because they placed the mentality of the Argentinean people and encouraged the regime to attack a British territory. CDR Chennette states, “A generation of school children had been taught that the Malvinas were Argentine. Postage stamps proclaimed that the Islands were a part of the Argentine Republic. Argentine maps labeled the Islands as “occupied territory.” 123

Ljubco Georgievski, the founder and former chairman of VMRO-DPMNE, 124 a former Prime Minister of the FYROM and a current Member of Parliament in the FYROM disagrees with the prevailing scholarship of the FYROM populace. In his commentary regarding the name of his country, Georgievski clarifies that the Slavic population of the FYROM has nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians. It should be noted that Mr. Georgievski holds a Bulgarian passport as do more than 100,000 citizens of the FYROM. 125

[I]nstead of calming down the tension, over the last few months, we witnessed a culmination of our new proofs regarding Ancient Macedonia. The media were competing to present more and more proofs for the imaginary origin of Ancient Macedonia. We saw a series of statements of many, unfortunately, popular intellectuals, who, running from the clear situation, contributed to the complication of the problem. I will give an example with the newly formed stupidity expressed in the term “classical Macedonian language” (language in Ancient Macedonia as a basis of modern Macedonian language?!). The whole story about Ancient Macedonia sounds undoubtedly very nice. However, there is a great problem, a huge hole of about 2,000 years during which we have neither oral nor written tradition, nor a single scientific argument! But this is another story. 126

The problem is that in the FYROM Slavs do not want to believe that they are not genetically Macedonians, since the myth of Macedonism is being taught since 1945 in every occasion possible and at all social levels and lifestyles. Lately the new “proof” of their Macedonism comes from the Rosetta Stone as Skopje wants it to be. It is a fact known by a multitude of scholars that the Rosetta Stone includes a decree written in hieroglyphic, Egyptian demotic, and Greek (the language of the administration). However, the FYROM Slavs disagree! In their opinion, which no one else shares, the middle writing on the stone belongs to the ancient “Macedonian” language! There is not a single scientific argument to support such an opinion. Skopje’s Academy of Sciences and Arts remains silent on this issue.

The fact is that the middle writing is Egyptian demotic which was the native script used for daily purposes. It appeared circa 650 BC long before the troops of Alexander the Great conquered and occupied Egypt in 332 BC. 127 It would be illogical for the Macedonians living so close with the rest of the Greeks to have a script for their “language” deferring so much from the Greek, while it is proven that Thracians and even Etruscans used various versions of Greek alphabets. Furthermore, it would be unfounded for such script to be found in Egypt, but nowhere in the Balkans and especially in the Macedonian Homeland, or in any other places in the world that Macedonians passed through or lived.

Professor P. Ksohellis of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and scientists of the Center of Research of School Books and Cross-cultural Education conducted a ten-year research program regarding books of History and Maternal Language of the FYROM and four additional Balkan States. The results of their study demonstrate the FYROM’s constant violation of the Interim Agreement of 1995 with Greece.

I have interviewed Prof. Nina Gatzoulis on the subject. She said,

The Ambassador of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Dimitrov during a recent briefing in Washington D.C. tried to convince a few congressional staffers not to support HR 521 and 306. 128 Regarding the history books of the FYROM public education, where the propaganda against Greece emanates, he stated: “Even though the mentioned textbooks do not include any of the alleged nationalist propaganda, it has to be known that they are no longer in use, since a new history curriculum was developed for all grades in 2003”… In answer to Ambassador Dimitrov’s arguments a recent article, can be brought up, published by the well-known Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia on October 10, 2005. There are other studies regarding the history and other texts of the FYROM pupils that have been done, such as Dr. Evangelos Kofos’ study, The Vision of a “Greater Macedonia”, as well as various air produced documentaries, such as Papahelas’ Envelopes, aired in the winter of 2004. However since Eleftherotypia’s article is a most recent one, it is used as an argument to Mr. Dimitrov’s statement: “The new curriculum was drafted in accordance with guidelines of the Council of Europe’s EUROCLIO, an association of European instructors of history, which emphasize the use of historically accurate maps to illustrate political, ethnic and other developments during the specific historical period”.

Nevertheless, according to Prof. Gatzoulis nothing has changed in the FYROM. Xhelal Neziri, a journalist from the FYROM explains that the schoolbooks of the country present the map of “Greater Macedonia.” 129 The following clipping verifies the above statement.

The clipping is taken from a recent FYROM schoolbook depicting the meeting of the Bulgarian King Petar Deljan, and the Serbian Prince Tihomir before the execution of the latter by the former. On the text of the book, the words “Macedonian population” is in the FYROM Slavic language, but on the picture and above the heads of the people to the right, circled in black, the word “Bulgarians” in Greek is equally clear.

Simple changes such as above are not out of the ordinary in the FYROM. The Mi-An claims to be one of the oldest “Macedonian” publishing companies. Its website states that in the beginning of the 20th century three vilayets existed in Macedonia, the one of Bitola, Thessaloniki and Skopje.” 130 The fact is that there was no vilayet of Skopje. The three vilayets were of Manastir (Bitola), Selanik (Thessaloniki), and Kosova (Kosovo). Skopje was part of the Vilayet of Kosovo. 131

Another example comes from the history books of the FYROM where they state that the ancient Macedonians spoke a language related to the Greek, but it was not Greek. The two peoples could understand one another. 132 Nevertheless, the same argument applies to the ancient Athenians, Spartans, Locrians, etc. since there was no common Greek language until 265 BC, the year that Aristeas completed the codification of the Greek language.