CONCLUSION

This thesis has argued that the Slavic speaking inhabitants of the FYROM who want to be called “Macedonians” are actually consanguinely, culturally, and linguistically Slavs. Despite extensive and laborious attempts to find authoritative sources or scientific arguments that would offer evidence that the Slavic inhabitants of the FYROM are actually the product of an amalgamation of the ancient Macedonians’ descendants with the Slavs, I could find no publication that could withstand scientific scrutiny. Any trustworthy publication examined, including those of the FYROM, substantiated the same view taken in this thesis.

An abundance of information regarding the ancient Greek past comes from the Greek mythology. Unfortunately, mythology cannot be a dependable source since it cannot furnish reliable information, which would help reconstruct the Hellenic past. However, it does not mean it is useless either. It elucidates through symbolism truths leading to the right path while one searches for historical facts through written or unwritten monuments. Such monuments are the only ones accepted by historians in their attempt to unlock hidden elements that hold the key to the reconstruction of the past of all the Hellenic group of nations.

Countries are products of historical events causing them to come and go; nations are different. Nations and ethnic groups are a product of sociopolitical events that develop into culture, heritage, language, etc., taking an arduous path and a long time to evolve. The same is true for their appellation. Nations cannot be given birth and receive names by political legislation, as it is the case of the FYROM.

In 371 BC, a power struggle had been raised between the Boeotians, Athenians, and Spartans regarding the hegemony of the Greek world. 184 The Spartans, as the guarantor state of all Greeks (except those on the Asian Minor coast since they were under Persian rule) called a conference in order to solve the differences among the states of Athens, Sparta, and Boeotia. As a result, the Spartan invited the Macedonians who were under the hegemony of Amyntas III, the father of Philip II, to represent his state. Amyntas did not go, but he sent a plenipotentiary delegate to vote for him.

Let us read what exactly Aeschines said on the issue,

For at the congress of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks, in which Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis. As proof of this I presented from the public records the resolution of the Greek congress and the names of those who voted. 185

In the above argument Aeschines excludes the Spartans and their allies and then he includes Amyntas among the other Greeks as “entitled a seat” in that Congress. That Congress was open only to Greeks and Amyntas was “entitled a seat” of course as a Greek, representing a Greek state. Aeschines makes the statement clearer when he says that Amyntas “joined the other Greeks.” There is no record that anyone including Demosthenes objected to Aeschines’ statement, which means even Demosthenes accepted the fact that Aeschines was speaking the truth regarding the Greekness of Amyntas and his Macedonians. Not one of the most powerful states at that time Sparta, Thebes, and Athens considered Macedonia as a formidable force like they did when Amyntas’ son Philip was in power. At that time under Amyntas Macedonia was a backward state inhabited by people that Alexander III described as follows,

vagabonds and destitute of means, most of you clad in hides, feeding a few sheep up the mountain sides, for the protection of which you had to fight with small success against Illyrians, Triballians, and the border Thracians. Instead of the hides he gave you cloaks to wear, and from the mountains he led you down into the plains, and made you capable of fighting the neighboring barbarians, so that you were no longer compelled to preserve yourselves by trusting rather to the inaccessible strongholds than to your own valor. 186

Alexander the Great especially mentioned the matter of the Illyrians because he was aware that during his grandfather’s, Amyntas, reign, the Illyrians had overrun Macedonia and Amyntas was seeking alliances with anyone that could conceivably help Macedonia. There was no prestige involved, but a weak state with a desperate king. Yet Amyntas was invited to take his seat in the Pan-Hellenic Conference because the conferees all Greeks and only Greeks, considered him and his kingdom of Macedonia, Greek! But there is another point presented in this speech. Although Alexander mentions Illyrians, Triballians, and Thracians as their enemy states, he never mentioned any of the neighboring Greek states as being inimical even though Macedonians had fought against Thessalians and Athenians alike.

In modern times, the behavior of the Slavic population of the FYROM has been a product of sociopolitical events starting with the demise of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the annexation of the area by Serbia in 1913. The controversy on Macedonia started in 1878, but continued into the early 20th century. The Treaty of Neuilly attempted to alleviate the instability that might occur between Serbia and Greece, requiring that both countries change the name of their Macedonian territories to South Serbia and Northern Greece respectively. FYROM historians claim that the “Macedonian” people existed in 1913 when the Treaty of Bucharest divided “Macedonia.” They do not, however, explain why there was no “Macedonian” army at that time and no “Macedonians” participated in any of the Balkan wars.

Although Serbia kept the name South Serbia political, Greece gave a geographic slant to the name Northern Greece by incorporating the newly gained territories of Western Thrace into Northern Greece, a practice that unofficially continues, especially in journalism. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia changed the political administration of the country implementing the Banovina or Province system. Article 83 of that Constitution sets up the names and the borders of the Banovinas creating the Vardarska Banovina with the Old Serbian city of Skopje as its Capital. 187

The Civil War in Greece that lasted approximately five years started as a war of dominance between the democratic forces and the communist forces of Greece supported by the communist block, but ended up also being a war for annexation of Greek Macedonia to the newly envisioned Yugoslav confederation under Slavic rule. While Greece continued on the path of reconstruction and prosperity, the communist party of Yugoslavia took the path of constant anti-Hellenic propaganda and the distortion of Greek history. In addition, Belgrade’s improper involvement in religious affairs with the help from Skopje strived to achieve indirectly what they could not accomplish through the Civil War of Greece, the incorporation of the Greek part of Macedonia to Yugoslavia.

The FYROM is the product of that policy, which was founded on a disputable basis with political aims that created a myth of a past that never was and intransigence of impudence. The concept that the two countries argue about events that took place 23 millennia ago seen as an absurd incident is absurd in itself. Greece’s arguments that the adoption of the term Macedonia by the FYROM and Macedonian as the national identity of its people and its language would bring instability in the region are very valid. On one hand, Skopje uses the appropriation of ancient history to advance its future negotiating position in regard to anything Macedonian, and on the other hand, Athens defends its right to the name insisting that the name of the FYROM has to be geographic since it is the manner in which Bulgaria and Greece use it.

If the FYROM is recognized as Macedonia, it is almost certain that it would consider the term Macedonia and its derivatives as the inherent right to its people to appropriate anything Macedonian including the territories of Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia. The FYROM Diaspora has already done it. 188 The government of the FYROM includes maps branding Greek and Bulgarian parts of Macedonia as part of their own country, simply the map of Greater Macedonia. 189 After April 2008, the NATO Summit that took place in Bucharest, Romania, the Romanian President made a statement. Under the title “Basescu: Greece is right to Veto” which appeared in the dispatch, the official Romanian Press Agency RomPress conveyed the words of Traian Basescu, the President of Romania, who stated, “Greece has been fully right to veto Macedonia’s joining NATO and the 25 NATO member states had to take note and support their ally.” The article further noticed, “Greece reproaches Skopje authorities with using the name of Macedonia and assuming as its state policy the cultural values of the Greek province bearing the same name.” 190 Bulgaria’s President Purnarov was on the same line with Greece warning the FYROM not to adopt Bulgaria’s past stating that “the Macedonian nation is a Commitern creation, formed at the time of Tito’s Yugoslavia.” 191 The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman, Dimitur Tsonchev, announced, “Macedonia’s membership to NATO is not unconditional,” noting, “historical, cultural, and other realities related to the geographic area of Macedonia should be taken into account.” 192

The leadership and the people of the FYROM first have to come to terms with themselves by discovering who they really are, instead of adopting an identity that leads the country to destructive behaviors and the region to dangerous instability. This thesis concludes that the Macedonian Slav Nationalism or Macedonism decreases stability on the region.

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