The chronicle of Serres was written by the priest Synadinos who lived in Serres during the first half of 17th century. We know very few things about Papasynadinos. He was born in the village Melenikitsi,10 km northern of Serres,where he settled in 1615. He became priest in 1622 and he started to write his chronicle in 1642,when he sought refuge in his village due to the deadly plague that hit the whole Ottoman empire since 1641. We don’t know the date of his death,but it was for sure not prior to 1646,since his name is mentioned in a document of the monastery of St John the Baptist near Serres dating from that year. The chronicle covers the years 1598-1642 and it resembles the Byzantine chronicles. It’s written in colloquial language.Papasynadinos uses many Turkish loanwords that were in the vernacular of the regional dialect of Serres at that time and many dialectical peculiarities as well. It’s considered as a source of valuable informations for the life of the enslaved Greeks during the Ottoman time, their relations with the Ottomans and all the oppresion and acts of violence they suffered by the later. We can find also informations for the function of the institutions of the local self-government in Greece under Ottoman rule and the organization of the Orthodox church. The author uses the Byzantine calendar that was introduced by the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople and numbers the years from the beginning of the world (date of creation) or 5508 BC. The chronicle was discovered by Spyridon Lambros in the monastery of Koutloumousion in Mt. Athos in the last years of 19th century.
A copied page from Papasynadinos’ original manuscript
which is kept today in the Athonite monastery of Koutloumousion
It starts with a <Thrinos> (lament) for the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans, a very popular topic for Greek folk poetry in the first years of post-Byzantine era.Some scholars doubt whether Papasynadinos was the real author of this <thrinos> ,due to the many differences between it and the main text of the chronicle.There is also a close morphological affinity between this <thrinos> and the one that wrote in 1618 the bishop of Myres (in Asia Minor) Mathaeus (it was published in 1672).
We can see in this <thrinos> that the ethnic names <Romei> and <Hellenes> were used interchangeably by Papasynadinos(or the real author) while the Greeks never applied the name <Romeos> to the other Christian nations of the Balkans:
The chronicle was studied even by Turkish historians,since it is a good first hand account of the Ottoman administration in the Balkans.The pages below are from <The Ottomans and the Balkans> by Fikret Adanır and Suraiya Faroqhi,2002:
Very interesting that the Turks applied the ethnic name <Rum> only to the Greeks.
And here we see that the Greeks never called <Romei> the Bulgarians,Serbs and other Christian nations of the Balkans,instead they had their own ethnic names.Below is the Greek text:
Some other pages of the chronicle:
A Greek named Patrulas was burnt alive due to the false accusation of a Turk whom he had saved from death in Romania some years ago:
The execution of another Greek by impaling is described here.The Turks offered him the option to save his life if he converted to Islam but he refused.
A forceful conversion to Islam:
Another Greek murdered by a Turk:
The infamous <pedomazoma> (the recruiting of children as janissaries) :
A Greek was hanged due to false accusations:
Another Greek who was hanged refused to convert to Islam in order to save himself:
The term Macedonia was not unknown to the Greeks of Macedonia at that time:
It’s also remarkable that Papasynadinos’ native village was in early 20th century Slavophone as some other villages in the vicinity that are mentioned in his chronicle.It seems that at Papasynadinos time the inhabitants were still Hellenophones,since he mentions the Greek surnames of their inhabitants,like Skarlatos,Dimos and furthermore some of them were accomodated in the regional Greek dialect,like Gerakoudis,Mavroudis.So the question is when and how these people lost their Greek language?
A Byzantine icon that was stolen from a monastery in northern Greece 30 years ago and ended up in the hands of a London-based art collector a few years ago, has been returned to Greece, the Culture Ministry said yesterday. The 14th-century painting, which shows Christ being taken down from the cross, disappeared from a monastery in the northern town of Serres in 1978. Greek authorities traced its whereabouts in 2002 when a British collector, who is reportedly of Greek origin, attempted to sell it. Greek authorities alerted the British police after the collector allegedly refused to hand over the painting despite being shown evidence that it had been illegally smuggled out of the country. A British court finally ruled earlier this year that the painting should be returned to Greece, dismissing an appeal from the collector who has owned it for the past six years.
“Days like these are a joy for all those struggling to rescue our cultural legacy,” Culture Minister Michalis Liapis said.
The icon is to be returned to the John the Baptist Monastery in Serres after undergoing restoration at Athens’s Byzantine and Christian Museum. Liapis said security would be intensified at the museum to prevent another theft. “The Culture Ministry does not encourage domestic ‘Elginism,’” he said.
Liapis exploited the development yesterday to reiterate Greece’s bid for the repatriation of smuggled artifacts, including the Parthenon Marbles which are in London’s British Museum. “The ministry is making a major effort on a daily basis to repatriate monuments that have fallen victim to criminal activity,” Liapis added. In recent months, Greece has reclaimed antiquities from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Shelby White collection in New York.
The following collection of Macedonian Newspapers is what Skopjans hate most since it completely shatters their illusions that “Macedonia was a term forbidden in Greece” prior to 1988. Contrarily Macedonian Newspapers were in use from 19th cent. even prior to the invention of the Skopjan fictitious “nationality”.
Newspapers like:
- Echo tis Makedonias
- Dytiki Makedonia
- Makedonikos Epinohr
- H Pammakedoniki
- Makedoniki Enosis
- Makedoniki echo
- H Makedoniki
- Makedonikos Astir
- Makedoniki foni
- Elliniki Makedonia
- Makedonika Xronika
- Makedonia
- Makedonikos
- MAkedonika Salpismata
- Makedonia
- Makedonomachos
- Makedonikos Typos
- Makedoniki Echo
- Makedoniki
- Chronika Dytikis Makedonias
- Makedonikon Vima
- Makedonis Gh
- Makedoniki Floga
- Makedonika Themata
- Makedonika Spor
- Makedonika Nea tis Thessalonikis
- Makedoniki Neolaia
- Makedonikes selides
- Makedonopoulo
- Makedonika grammata
- Makedonika
- Makedonikon hmerologion
- La Macedoine
are the best evidence against FYROM’s misinformation and Lies.
Another source from 1903 describing the races of Macedonia. Greek, Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians……. It describes the Greeks as the most ancient race of Macedonia number 350,000, 500,000 Bulgarians, and 3/4’s of all Muslims are Turkish…. As usual for the frustration of Skopjan Propagandists, no independent Makedonskian group listed.
We are producing here more evidence of who and where the people of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) come from; below there is an extensive list from politicians, historians, writers, travellers, sociologists of neutral heritage that are not on the “Greek payroll” like these “alleged” FYROM(ians)propagandists claim. The flag on the image (main frame) is the only flag that the people from FYROM raised on their day of Ilinden(1903) (FYROM and Bulgarian National Day - 2nd August) which is obviously a Bulgarian flag. Greeks on the other hand, are a peace loving people that respect the law of the land. All they require is mutual respect from the northern Slavic neighbors; they have no irredentist claims, nor do they impose their ideology upon them; they simply let them be as long as they respect Greece. Sadly it’s people like Risto Stefov (a.k.a Christos Stefou)Gandeto (birth name Grezlovski), Donski, Ilyev, Tentov, Bosevski and others that propagate a false ideology that is totally flawed historically, but sadly and tragically confuses the ethos and legacy of its own citizens both in FYROM and their diaspora to a fanaticism that borders on extremism; that threatens to spill out to violence between the two communities. By consistently producing the evidence for all to see, it shows how deluded some people from FYROM can be. Greeks are told by the Bush administration to relent and accept them by name, yet Mr. Bush has no real idea of how deep Greek history really; and is associated with land and legacy. Mr. Bush wants Greeks to forget their past and move on for today, but a man with no past is a man of no future, and that sadly applies to the state of FYROM. Mr. Bush (soon to be former President) and FYROM propagandists: Greek (Macedonian) history is not up for trade nor is our legacy up for sale. The identity of the people of Greece is Greek (or Hellenes), and tragically for the people from FYROM, Macedonia is part of Hellenic history. Feel free to create a new identity; and try not to steal from your neighbors. Identity theft is a crime Mr. Stefov and you should be ashamed of yourselves!
Every ethnic Macedonian who does not claim Albanian or Serbian origin has the right to declare a Bulgarian origin. This is an individual act in accordance with the historical reality of our common ethnic origin.
Stefan Nikolov,(Bulgarian diplomat - Agency for Bulgarians Abroad of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry in Sofia), AFP report, Sunday 13 August 2006
We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That’s who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians no longer exist, they had disappeared from history long time ago. Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century (AD).Kiro Gligorov,(first democratically elected president of FYROM, referring to the citizens of his country), Toronto Star, March 15, 1992
24 February 1999: In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Gyordan Veselinov, FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada, admitted: “We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.” He also commented “there is some confusion about the identity of the people of this country.”
Moreover, the Foreign Minister of FYROM, Slobodan Casule, in an interview to Utrinski Vesnik of Skopje on December 29, 2001, said that he mentioned to the Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, Solomon Pasi, that they “belong to the same Slav people.”
For many years, since the decade of the ’90s, we have been making efforts so that the name ‘Republic of Macedonia’(FYROM) is not recognized, because no nation should steal the history and symbols of another nation.
Mike Rann, Australian politician
For Macedonia to be recognized as an independent state, it would be necessary to change its name […] It is historically proven that the Yugoslavian Democracy of Macedonia was created by Stalin, Tito and Dimitrov, aiming at the stealthy removal of a large part of Northern Greece. This Democracy was used during the period 1944-1949 in order to destabilise Greece.
Thomas Niles, US Ambassador
We talked a long time about the goal of this organization and at last we fixed it on autonomy of Macedonia with the priority of the Bulgarian element. We couldn’t accept the position for “direct joining to Bulgaria” because we saw that it would meet big difficulties by reason of confrontation of the Great powers and the aspirations of the neighbouring small countries and Turkey. It passed through our thoughts that one autonomous Macedonia could easier unite with Bulgaria subsequently and if the worst comes to the worst, that it could play a role as a unificating link of a federation of Balkan people. The region of Adrianople, as far as I remember, didn’t take part in our program, and I think the idea to add it to the autonomous Macedonia came later.
Dr. Hristo Tatarchev, Founding member of VMRO (IMRO)
Look, I believe that Greece is right to object and I agree with Athens. The reason is that I know history which is not the case with most of the others including most of the Government and Administration in Washington. The strength of the Greek case is that of the history which I must say that Athens have not used so far with success.
Henry Kissinger, Management Centre Europe, Paris, 19 June 1992
I call these songs Bulgarian and not Slavic, because if someone today should ask the Macedonian Slav “what are you?” he would be immediately be told: “I am Bulgarian” and would call his language “Bulgarian”.
Stefan Verkovich, Bosnian folklorist, “Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarian”, Vol. 1
The Department has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia emanating from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav partisan and other sources with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected State. This Government considers talk of “Macedonian Nation”, “Macedonian Fatherland”, or “Macedonian National Consciousness” to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic or political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece.
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., U.S. State Dep. Foreign Relations Vol. VII, Circular Airgram [868.014]
There is no doubt that they are southern Slavs; they have a language, or a group of varying dialects, that is grammatically akin to Bulgarian but phonetically in some respects akin to Serbian, and which has certain quite distinctive features of its own……In regard to their own national feelings, all that can safely be said is that during the last eighty years many more Slav Macedonians seem to have considered themselves Bulgarian, or closely linked to Bulgaria, than have considered themselves Serbian, or closely linked to Serbia (or Yugoslavia). Only the people of the Skopje region, in the north west, have ever shown much tendency to regard themselves as Serbs. The feeling of being Macedonians, and nothing but Macedonians, seems to be a sentiment of fairly recent growth, and even today is not very deep-rooted.
Elisabeth Barker, “Macedonia, Its Place in Balkan Power Politics”
and Uskub, the great majority of the population is Slavic,[…] the middle ages until 1913 called themselves and were called by their neighbors Bulgarians.
George Hubbard Blakeslee, “The Journal of International Relations”.
When the Turks and the Bulgarians left, Macedonia remained a purely Greek region.
Henry Morgenthau, “I was sent to Athens”, Doubleday, Doran & Company, inc (1929).
Attention may have been deflected from the danger in that area by the nature of the dispute between Macedonia and Greece, which is seen as being ostensibly over a name, although it amounts to more than that. A name is important as it gives an area an identity. I shall not indulge in a lecture on the ancient identity of the Macedonians and on Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, but the Greeks were historically correct in the campaign that they launched in the early days of the dispute. Understandably, detached outsiders say, “But that is ancient history, isn’t it?” Nor shall I engage in a lecture on the falsification of the history of Slavo-Macedonia since 1944, although that, too, has much hard factual content. I simply remind the House that Tito’s renaming of Vardar Banovina as the Republic of Macedonia in 1944 was a political statement. More than that, it was a territorial claim. It laid claim to territory in Greece and in Bulgaria. Notably, the objective was the warm water port of Salonika on the Aegean.
The Greeks fought a bloody civil war on that issue between 1945 and 1949, when we were celebrating the peace that was commemorated as recently as yesterday. Clause 49 of the constitution of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia enshrines that claim and subsequent propaganda, especially by a political faction, the VMRO, has kept the claim alive ever since.
Edward O’Hara, House of Commons Hansard Debates for 9 May 1995, Column 601
The idea that Alexander the Great was something that belonged to our history was in the minds of some extremist political groups only! These groups were insignificant the first years of our independence, but the big problem is that the old Balkan Nations have been used to be legitimized through their history. In the Balkans, if you want to be recognized as a Nation, you need to have history 3000 years old. So since you made us invent a history, we invented it!(…) You forced us to the arms of the extreme nationalists who today claim that we are direct descendants of Alexander the Great!
Denko Maleski, first Minister of foreign affairs of FYROM (1991 to 1993) and ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997, in an interview to Greek TV channel Mega, November 2006
The borders between Greece and Serbia were defined in 1913 on the basis of the advances of the armies of the two nations during the first Balkan war. The border between Greece and Bulgaria was defined at the Treaty of Bucharest. Since then, the borders of the three nations had remained the same. Macedonia, a region mostly of Greece since ancient times, was divided into three perhaps even four parts, with Greece keeping the largest portion of about 50%, then-Yugoslavia receiving about 35%, Bulgaria about 10% and a small percentage eventually ending in Albania. The Greek people on the portion of the Macedonia part in Greece have been there since time immemorial — over more than forty centuries before the Slavs arrived. The language spoken in the Greek region since antiquity is Greek, whereas the language of the former-Yugoslavia portion is a Slavic dialect of Bulgarian (Marline Simons, The New York Times, February 3, 1992). As a matter of fact, the portion of Macedonia in then-Yugoslavia was part of the Eastern Branch of the Roman Empire. The people who ruled over Serbia spoke Greek. Constantinople was their headquarters. Their main trade was to the South and East…
Joseph C. Harsch, American journalist, “The Christian Science Monitor”, January 29, 1992
A)We are Bulgarians, more Bulgarians than the Bulgarians in Bulgaria themselves.
B)And, anyway, what sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?
Krste Misirkov(voted “Macedonian” of the 20th century), “On Macedonian Matters”, Macedonian Review Editions 1974,(Sofia 1903).
the Macedonian Slavs had as late as the congress of Berlin exhibited no perceptible national consciousness of their own. It was therefore impossible to foretell in what direction they would lean when their awakening came; in fact, so indeterminate was the situation that under favorable circumstances they might even develop their own particular Macedonian consciousness.
Ferdinand Schevill, “History of the Balkans: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day.
The star of vergina applies to the 3rd Century BC northern Greece - a very different situation, not related to the 21st Century AD. I think it’s modern politics, and we’re witnessing the use of an archaeological symbol for history that it’s really not related to.
Bajana Mojsov, FYROM archaeologist, “BBC News (2004), When archaeology gets bent, BBC World Service, 2004, The World Today programme”, Accessed 12 October 2006
But even stranger is the name Macedonians, which was imposed on us only 10 to 15 years ago by outsiders, and not as something by our own intellectuals… Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name, reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: “Bugari”, although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians. You can find more about this in the introduction to the booklets I am sending you. They call their own Macedono-Bulgarian dialect the “Bugarski language”, while the rest of the Bulgarian dialects they refer to as the “Shopski language”.
Kuzman Shapkarev, in a letter to Prof. Marin Drinov of May 25, 1888.
The possible creation of a Macedonian free state within Greece to amalgamate with Marshal Tito’s Federated Macedonia State, with is capital in Skopje[…]would fulfill the Slavic objectives of re-uniting the…province of Macedonia under Slavic rule, giving access of the sea to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia
THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 26, 1946
Though once the heart of the empire of Alexander the Great,(Macedonia) has been for centuries a geographical expression rather than a political entity, and is today inhabited by an inextricable medley of people, among whom the Serbs, now Yugoslavs, are certainly the least numerous. But a “Federal Macedonia” has been projected as an integral part of Tito’s plan for a federated Balkans…taking Greek Macedonia for an outlet to the Aegean Sea through Salonica.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 10, 1946
During the occupation[…]a combined effort was made to wrest Macedonia from Greece[…]an effort that allegedly continues, although in altered form[…] The main conspirational activity in Macedonia today appears to be directed from Skopje.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 16, 1946
The possible creation of a Macedonian free state within Greece to amalgamate with Marshal Tito’s Federated Macedonia State, with is capital in Skopje[…]would fulfill the Slavic objectives of re-uniting the…province of Macedonia under Slavic rule, giving access of the sea to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 26, 1946
According to most reliable information, a secret meeting was held yesterday at Comi in southern Bulgaria[…]to draw up plans for a general rising in Greek Macedonia, with the ultimate object of incorporating that region with Salonica in an autonomous Macedonia under Yugoslav hegemony.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 19, 1946
The lack of capability by “Macedonists” in condition of democracy, also contributes to the vision of their opponents. The creation of the “Macedonian” nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made. In a case which that was not possible, the persons from history were proclaimed for Bulgarian agents who crossed into some imaginary pure “Macedonian” space.
But when we had to encourage the moderate Greek political variant and move into a direction of reconciliation among peoples, our nationalism was modelled according to the Greek one. The direct descendants of Alexander the Great raised the fallen flag on which the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia was written and led the people in the final confrontation with the Hellenes (Greeks), the direct descendants of Greek gods. This warlike attitude of the “winners” which was a consequence of the fear of politician from heavy and unpopular compromises had its price. In those years, we lost our capability for strategic dialog. With Greeks? No, with ourselves. Since then, namely, we reach towards some fictional ethnic purity which we seek in the depths of the history and we are angry at those which dare to call us Slavs and our language and culture Slavic!? We are angry when they name us what we -if we have to define ourselves in such categories- are, showing that we are people full with complexes which are ashamed for ourselves. We lost our capability for reasonable judgment, someone shall say, because the past of the Balkans teaches us that to be wise among fools is foolish. Maybe. Maybe the British historians are right when they say that in history one can find confirmation for every modern thesis, so, we could say, also for the one that we are descendants of the Ancient Macedonia…
Denko Maleski, Minister of foreign affairs of the FYROM from 1991 to 1993 and ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997, in an interview to FYROMian newspaper Utrinski Vesnik, October 16, 2006The province of Thessalonica (Saloniki) had, together with Greece, been awarded to the warlike Marquis Boniface of Montferrat with the royal title. It comprised the greater part of ancient Macedonia and Boniface carried his victorious arms into Greece, where he everywhere divided the conquered territories among his knights; but having perished in a skirmish with the Bulgarians, in 1207, his kingdom was invaded by the Greek despot, Theodore of Epirus who was received with open arms by the Greeks, and crowned emperor at Thessalonica in 1222.
Adolphus Louis Koeppen, Danish historian, “The World in the Middle Ages: An Historical Geography, with Accounts of the Origin”, Appleton, p.409
For Macedonia to be recognized as an independent state, it would be necessary to change its name […] It is historically proven that the Yugoslavian Democracy of Macedonia was created by Stalin, Tito and Dimitrov, aiming at the stealthy removal of a large part of Northern Greece. This Democracy was used during the period 1944-1949 in order to destabilise Greece.
Thomas Niles, US Ambassador, statement on the 23rd June 1992 to the SubCommittee of US Congress, Eleutherotypia newspaper, June 24, 1992
have even met people who believe there is a special race which they call ‘Macedonian’, whose ’cause’ they wish to aid. The truth is, that in a district which has no official frontiers, and never has had any stable ones, there are people of six races, who, as we have seen, all have causes to be considered […] I shall speak only of the part I have stayed in- the districts of Lakes Ochrida and Prespa. Here there are Greeks, Slavs, Albanians, and Vlahs. Of Turks, except officials and such of the army as may be quartered on the spot, there are few. The Albanians, I believe, are all Moslem. Should there be any Christians they would be officially classed as Greeks. A large part of the land near Lake Prespa is owned by Moslem Albanians as “chiftliks” (farms).
Edith Durham, “The Burden of the Balkans”, (1905), p. 76
But the Bulgarians, from the palace down to the meanest hut, have always been animated by that racial and national idea. The annexation of Eastern Roumelia in 1885 was a great step in the direction of its realization. And it was to carry that programme to completion that Bulgaria made war against Turkey in 1912. Her primary object was the liberation of the Bulgarians in Macedonia and their incorporation in a Great Bulgaria. And the Treaty of Partition with Servia seemed, in the event of victory over Turkey, to afford a guarantee of the accomplishment of her long-cherished purpose. It was a strange irony of fate that while as a result of the geographical situation of the belligerents Bulgaria, at the close of the war with Turkey, found herself in actual occupation of all European Turkey from the Black Sea up to the River Struma and beyond,–that is, all Thrace to Chataldja as well as Eastern Macedonia–her allies (Bulgaria’s) were in possession of the bulk of Macedonia, including the entire triangle she had planned to inject between the frontiers of New Servia and New Greece!
American educationist Jacob Gould Schurman, The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913
Attention may have been deflected from the danger in that area by the nature of the dispute between Macedonia and Greece, which is seen as being ostensibly over a name, although it amounts to more than that. A name is important as it gives an area an identity. I shall not indulge in a lecture on the ancient identity of the Macedonians and on Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, but the Greeks were historically correct in the campaign that they launched in the early days of the dispute. Understandably, detached outsiders say, “But that is ancient history, isn’t it?” Nor shall I engage in a lecture on the falsification of the history of Slavo-Macedonia since 1944, although that, too, has much hard factual content. I simply remind the House that Tito’s renaming of Vardar Banovina as the Republic of Macedonia in 1944 was a political statement. More than that, it was a territorial claim. It laid claim to territory in Greece and in Bulgaria. Notably, the objective was the warm water port of Salonika on the Aegean.
The Greeks fought a bloody civil war on that issue between 1945 and 1949, when we were celebrating the peace that was commemorated as recently as yesterday. Clause 49 of the constitution of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia enshrines that claim and subsequent propaganda, especially by a political faction, the VMRO, has kept the claim alive ever since.
Edward O’Hara, House of Commons Hansard Debates for 9 May 1995, Column 601
Why are we ashamed and flee from the truth that whole positive Macedonian revolutionary tradition comes exactly from exarchist part of Macedonian people? We shall not say a new truth if we mention the fact that everyone, Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Gjorche Petrov, Pere Toshev - must I list and count all of them - were teachers of the Bulgarian Exarchate in Macedonia.
Former Prime Minister and Vice President of FYROM, Ljubčo Georgievski, 2007, in his book “Слицекъмистината” (”Facing the truth”).
The Similarities between Marie Antoinette and the Greek Political Elite
by Marcus A. Templar
There is a definite disconnect within the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On one hand when Gruevski takes nationalistic actions against Greece Greek MFA officials triumphantly claim that Gruevski’s actions confirm Greece’s positions on the name dispute. On the other hand, the same people give in more and more to the FYROM’s whims and demands. As someone in a meeting put it, “we tend to negotiate with ourselves, make the concessions then hope the other side goes along. Just because we have made the concession it doesn’t mean that the other side will; in fact, it will be emboldened to ask for further concessions, case in point Gruevski’s behaviour.” Such thinking does not inspire confidence to the Greek people that expect to see a better future.
Nationalism turns devotion to the nation into principles or programs. It thus contains a different dimension from mere patriotism, which can be a devotion to one’s country or nation devoid of any project for political action. One cannot confuse nationalism with patriotism or even xenophobia. Patriotism is defined as love of one’s country or zeal in the defense of the interests of one’s country and xenophobia is an unreasonable fear, distrust, or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or anything perceived as foreign or different.[1]
The above phenomenon is analyzed in an excellent book on Intelligence Analysis authored by Richards J. Heuer, Jr. In his book, Heuer explains that the worst thing one could do is to put oneself in someone else’s mental position. In this case, “what would I do if I were, a Skopjan?” The answer of course is, “well, you are not a Skopjan, you do not know how the Skopjans think, and every indication and warning you have is against the way you think that the Skopjans would react. Why in the world do you continue taking the path you are taking? Why don’t you change direction?” But, as Heuer explains, “failure to understand that others perceive their national interests differently from the way we perceive those interests is a constant source of problems.”[2]
The above brings us to the matter of leadership. As erratic as they might seem, Skopje has leaders devoted to their cause, their “Macedonia.” From the day they are born to the day they die, from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep, they have their “Macedonia” in mind. They breathe, eat, and drink having their “Macedonia” in mind.
Modern Greece thus far has produced managers with only one thing in mind: their personal political success at the expense of the fellow citizens whom they supposedly represent. They would do enough to get re-elected relying on their political party’s machine. That’s all. From the day they get a degree in their hands they devote their life to only thing: themselves, and since politics in Greece is a very profitable profession, they follow politics. How else can they earn a hefty salary for a position that comes with clout and fringe benefits (oftentimes immoral or even illegal) while pretending that they help the country and get away with it?
The difference between managers and leaders is that managers do only what they are required to do managing everyone and everything. On the other hand, leaders do what it is right, which means leaders go the extra mile needed to accomplish their mission while taking care the welfare of the country’s human resources; in this case the people of Greece. In addition, leaders lead people, but manage missions, operations, and the affairs of the country. They lead by example!
The people of Greece keep voting for incompetent people because it is the only choice the political party machines provide. But incompetence begets insecurity that turns out to be the crux of the problem. Insecure people fearing exposure of their incompetence prefer to employ subservient and unqualified subordinates. Competent subordinates would unwillingly expose the inability of their boss’s ineptitude. One must bear in mind a consequence of incompetence is arrogance that brings to the picture the syndrome of one being a know-it-all.
It is a well known fact that one does not have to be intelligent to gain wealth, nor to become a politician. Unfortunately, it is also true that one does not have tobe competent nor overly intelligent to receive a degree. A certain teacher once told me that the hardest thing for a person was to matriculate into the university. Foreign students do not even have to take entrance college exams and so getting into college in a foreign country is easy. One must also understand that the above statements do not apply to all. It simply means that just because certain individuals have a degree in their hands, including a PhD, they are not necessarily intelligent. We have all seen how many so-called “scientists” with PhDs end up authoring studies whose quality is synonymous to trash.
All the above are behind the low tone foreign policy of successive Greek governments that hope that their constituencies would not find out the decay of their government. They are afraid that blogs, websites, blackberries that they cannot control are going to spread the word that they do not know what they are doing. The “do not dig into a certain course of action” policy or “do not publish this map or that document” are a thing of the past. In the age of information such thoughts make one wonder on which planet does the Greek political establishment live?
Some of the above incompetent politicians are amazed with the lack of understanding of Greek national issues on behalf of the Greek diaspora. The problem is that the Greek diaspora understands Greek national issues much deeper than does the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Mrs. Bakoyanni was the one who told the Pan-Macedonian delegation a few years ago that the Macedonian name dispute with Skopje was not a national issue leaving the said delegation stunned!
The following parallelism gives a better understanding as to why does the Greek diaspora sees things far more clear than the Greeks of Greece and definitely the MFA. The scene is in a football field with fans, coaches, referees, and players of both teams and two dirigibles with observers above the field. The players are divided into blues and reds representing the two MFAs: Greece and the FYROM. The fans are people of the two countries who are looking from somewhere above the field; the coaches are the Prime Ministers, and the observers in the dirigibles are the diaspora of both countries. The referees are Matthew Nimetz, and the U.S. State Department. From where all these people are located, the best view belongs to the observers of the diasporas. They have the birds’ eye view. The problem is that while the coach of the red team listens to the instructions of his own observers/diaspora and directs his team’s game, the coach of the blue team listens to his own blue players who do not have any view of the goalpost yet keep yelling “good job.” All this is happening, while his own blue fans that can see a little better than the coach scream at him: “you are sending the players in the wrong direction!” Unfortunately, he does not listen to anyone but himself.
Yes, there is a definite disconnect within the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is up to the readers to judge and up to the people of Greece to take care of the coach and his team. In a democracy it is called: elections. The problem is even if the people of Greece change the team and coach, the new team and the new coach will be the same or even worse. What a predicament for a country to be in.
[1] Marcus A. Templar, MS Thesis “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: A Challenge to the Macedonism of the Slavs - Implications for the Intelligence Analyst,” National Defense Intelligence College, Washington, DC, 2008.
[2] Richards J. Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Chapter 6 (Keeping an Open Mind), Center for the Study ofIntelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/index.html
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