Get to Know the Other Side – A Quick Look at the Foreign Minister of FYROM

Antonio Milososki was born in Tetovo, FYROM on January 29, 1976. Between 1994 and 1999 he studied law at Skopje’s St. Cyril and Methodius University. Between 2000 and 2001 he was Skopje’s government spokesman. From 2001 until 2002, Milososki studied at the Center for European Integration at the University of Bonn, Germany, and between 2005 and 2006 he continued as a Ph. D. and political research assistant at the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His thesis was based on the post-Cold War relations of Greece and his country since 1991.

1. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/11/20/articles-of-greek-newspapers-from-beginning-20th-century-about-macedonia/:

2. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/11/20/the-establishment-of-general-administration-of-macedonia/

 

3. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/11/19/the-greek-uprising-in-macedonia-of-1854/

 

4. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/11/18/the-greatest-collection-of-macedonian-newspapers-on-the-web/

 

5. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/11/14/the-living-age-of-1903-exposes-the-myth-of-macedonian-race/

 

6. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/10/17/rare-maps-of-17th-century-showing-macedonia-as-part-of-greece/

 

7. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/10/15/the-heroic-death-of-pavlos-melas-the-contemporary-newspaper-empros/

 

8. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/10/02/ss-makedonia-%ce%91%ce%a0-ce%9c%ce%b1%ce%ba%ce%b5%ce%b4%ce%bf%ce%bd%ce%af%ce%b1/

 

9. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/09/14/london-times-about-the-greek-revolution-in-macedonia-of-1878/

 

10. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/09/06/declarations-of-union-with-greece-temporary-government-of-elimia/

 

11. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/09/03/187-proclamation-temporary-government-macedonia-requesting-unification-with-greece/

 

12. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/08/09/fyrom-propaganda-the-use-of-the-term-macedonia-was-forbidden-in-greece-until-1988-part-iii/

 

13. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2007/11/08/skopjan-propaganda-the-use-of-the-term-macedonia-was-forbidden-in-greece-until-1988/

 

14. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/01/10/20th-international-fair-trade-of-thessalonike-1955/

 

15. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/07/27/document-of-1865-sacrifices-of-macedonians-for-their-motherland-hellas/

 

16. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/07/25/time-magazine-archives-smash-fyroms-propaganda/

 

17. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/07/22/documents-19thcentury-we-macedonians-to-mother-greece/ 

 

18. http://history-of-macedonia.com/2008/07/03/greek-school-books-prior-to-1988-another-fyromian-falsification-falls-apart/

 

 The following 2 videos show an interview given by Antonio Milososki on Greece’s SKAI TV. Please pay special attention to what he says during the highlighted timeline:

 

 

4 minutes 6 sec: “…in respect to the Greek northern province which was renamed in 1988 from Northern Greece to province of Macedonia and Thraki…“

 5 minutes 51 sec: “…we are prepared to share the heritage of this rich historical past of our common region…like Alexander the Great…that greatness goes beyond national borders…no one should have a monopoly over the name…“

 6 minutes 57 sec: “We would have been more pleased if…the [Greek] officials could have said, ‛Well, thank you very much for expressing a gratitude and respect to a person being very – of a great importance to our Greek history.’“

 7 minutes 38 sec: “We are prepared to go forward and to have a mutual educational historical committee – both sides to delegate experts and professionals in this direction – and they to be able to go through all books in our or in the Greek curricula.“

Essentially what he is telling the reporter is that Greece renamed Macedonia in 1988 so there was no Macedonia in Greece before that time however he continues to say that Skopje accepts that Ancient Macedonia was in Greece! Furthermore, he states that his country is willing to share Greece’s history and Greece should in fact thank his country for honouring Alexander the Great. Moreover, he expresses the idea that his country is ready to go ahead with a common history project involving “experts and professionals“ that apparently will review (and revise) the history of the region. This last statement is very important indeed and in fact this project has already started.

It is uncertain whether he is referring to The Joint History Project of the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE) but if not, it is an impressive coincidence. The CDRSEE is a non-governmental organization formed in 1988 whose motto is Thomas Paine’s quote “An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot“. It is supported by various corporations (e.g. Coca Cola and George Soros’s Open Societies) and despite it being a non-governmental organization, some major sponsors are various governmental bodies (like the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department). It is based in Thessaloniki, Greece and is chaired by Dr. Erhard Busek, an Austrian politician. The first chair of the CDRSEE and a sponsor of this organization is Matthew Nimetz, a New York lawyer and a partner in the private investment firm General Atlantic partners, LLC. He is also the UN negotiator between Athens and Skopje in the Macedonia naming dispute.

 Four common history books have been written in languages of countries they are intended for and have entered the educational curricula of various countries in the Balkans. One of the people responsible for overseeing the Joint History Project is the Deputy Secretary of the CDRSEE Costa Carras. So far the books have not entered the Greek educational system but the CDRSEE’s goal is to achieve this. These four books present a common revised history (intended to be politically correct) to the Balkans.

 Although superficially the aim of this project seems noble, the major problem is that history is indeed ethnocentric and is a source of a nation’s pride. The history of the Balkans has already been written and needs no revision. It is a tumultuous history and a politically correct revision only serves to “sugar coat“ events that do need to be. Every country has its own history and does not need to be revised by another country’s experts especially when some of the intentions of another country are not noble. A thorough examination of Macedonism is not required to understand the Greek citizen’s mistrust of this Joint History Project. Even though the opinions and books shown in the 2 videos are not those of the Joint History Project, they highlight the problems encountered when a country’s education system is based on historical revisionist irredentism. Consequently, if one plans on using this country’s historical experts to help write your history, there is an obvious conflict of interest.

 A major concern is that UN negotiator Matthew Nimetz is involved. This immediately defeats his purpose as a neutral and unbiased catalyst for a resolution to the name dispute between Athens and Skopje.

 

The following are links to the CDRSEE’s website:

 http://www.cdsee.org/projects.html

 http://www.cdsee.org/aboutus_mission.html

 http://www.cdsee.org/aboutus_board.html

 http://www.cdsee.org/aboutus_donors.html

 

VIDEO 2:

 

 

57 seconds: “If a Macedonian [sic] journalist goes to some school in Yannena [Greece] for example…and especially if these children are – if they are younger – and if you ask them a similar questions [sic] maybe some of them would say Greece ends…[in] Constantinople or um some other let’s say –”

 

1 minute 23 sec:     REPORTER: “No I don’t think so.“

                                    MILOSOSKI: “Well…I don’t think so as well.“

 

            If Mr. Milososki didn’t think so, then why did he say so? Instead of answering the reporter’s question as to why his country’s educational curriculum encourages irredentism against Greece, he tries to turn the tables on her with a sly but unsuccesful attempt to deflect the question and put her on the defensive.

This is the man that supports a common history with Greek Macedonia. He is the first official person recorded to say that Greece renamed Northern Greece to Macedonia in 1988. He has repeated this view many times in his career as is also evident in the following Newsweek article:

 

 

 

 

  The various diaspora groups of Skopje have also adopted his views and so the lie becomes bigger:

 

The following is an essay Antonio Milososki had written about a book he had read which claimed that Greek Macedonia was in fact Hellenized in 1913 since there was a majority of non-Greek inhabitants there. Again, he uses historical distortion and revision. He further continues the commonly used propaganda idea that the only Greeks living in Macedonia are the Pontian Greek refugees from Asia Minor.

 

About the Hellenization of Southern (Aegean) Macedonia – A Review of ‘Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood’

By Antonio Milososki
Ph.D. Candidate
University of Duisburg
Germany

“Elsewhere in Greek Macedonia, the term [en-] dopyi (“local”) is used to refer to Slavic-speakers who had inhabited the region prior its incorporation into Greece in 1913; in the Edessa and Florina prefectures, for example, the phrase dopyos Makedhonas (“local Macedonian”) is used by many to signify a Slavic-speaker, and his descendants.

           

After the partition of Macedonia, beside the Patriarchate, state-sponsored schools and the Army (through the army-obligation for adult males) undertook the leading role in the process of nation building of the Greek national consciousness among the non-Greek inhabitants, which at that time consisted of the majority of the population in Southern (Aegean) Macedonia. Those were the main assimilation-levers for the realization of the state-sponsored project for the Hellenization of that part of Greece.

        

Further on, one can understand the significance of the refugees (prosfighas) and their immense importance in the process of “national homogenization” of the young Greek state

          

The next method that had accelerated this process of state sponsored assimilation was the so called “voluntary resettlement” of the native population, mainly to Turkey and Bulgaria, but also to the East-European countries during and after the Greek Civil War.

           

Nonetheless, it gives us more than enough evidence to draw the conclusion that Macedonia has never been exclusively Greek. Moreover, at the beginning of the twenty-century, Southern Macedonia was a multiethnic region with an overwhelmingly non-Greek majority. As the Bishop of Florina (Lerin) Augostinos Kandiotis once said, “If the hundreds of thousands of refugees had not come to Greece, Greek Macedonia would not exist today”.

 Historical revision indeed!

 By Christos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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