History Forum / General / Ancient History / May 2009

Spirit:
Attention folks, this Christopher Ingram is trying to mislead you
with complete unhistorical nonsense.
Christopher, do not try that again.

On May 23, 4:30 pm, Mitsos** <smy...@isgreek.org> wrote:

These recurring discussions seem to be less about conveying or
ascertaining facts than repeating propaganda as a continuation of old
political and ethnic hostilities.

.............................................................................................
...............................................................................................
Spirit:

Why do you lie?

These are FACTS:

The real Macedonia:

http://www.macedonia.com/english/history/regions1.html

http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Maps/mapSeq_Map01.html

http://crystalinks.com/mapgreeceancient.gif

The Dardanians, Paeonians, and Illyrians are the ancient
inhabitants of the Fyrom area....NOT ancient Macedonians:

http://www.soros.org.mk/archive/G01/A01/as0106.htm

....................................................................................
....................................................................................

To keep the historical record straight, the following is a brief
overview of Macedonian territory, ethnicity, and language (dredged
from old posts of mine and reedited):

Ancient Macedonian language

The historical development and language distribution of Macedonia is
quite complex.
The affiliation of ancient Macedonian, a now extinct I-E language, is
undetermined, although the prevailing hypothesis is that it was a
northern Greek dialect. Some conjecture that it was related to
Illyrian or Thraco-Phrygian. Regardless of what the original
inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, of unknown ethnic
origins, initially may have spoken, they adopted the Greek language by
the fifth century BC.

Geographical location Of Macedonia (medieval and modern)

Under Roman and Byzantine control, Macedonia was divided into various
administrative units.
......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................

Spirit:

Again, nonsense.

What was called MACEDONIA in Roman times was not the
ancient Macedonia region Why on earth do you continue to
try to mislead people?

The real Macedonia:

http://www.macedonia.com/english/history/regions1.html

http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Maps/mapSeq_Map01.html

http://crystalinks.com/mapgreeceancient.gif

.....................................................................................................
......................................................................................................

It then became a region of the Ottoman Empire
(1371-1912), after which it was divided among Greece, Bulgaria,
and Serbia,

............................................................................................
.............................................................................................

Again complete nonsense. What was split between Greece
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia was European Turkey aka
West Rumelia.
If you cannot discern time you have no business talking
about history.

...........................................................................................
..........................................................................................

the latter which after WW I was incorporated into Yugoslavia.
Serbian Macedonia after WW II was a constituent republic within the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and in 1991 became an
independent nation called The Republic of Macedonia. Because of
complaints from Greece, whose northern region is also called
Macedonia, the official designation of the Macedonian republic as a
member of the UN is The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It
comprises about 40% of the area of Macedonia formerly held by the
Ottomans.

The "region of Macedonia" is a legitimate term when referring to the
diverse and coterminous Macedonias, i.e., FYROM (the former
constituent republic of Yugoslavia), the northern territory in Greece,
as well as the area designated as "Macedonia" once held by the Ottoman
Empire, all of which occupy/occupied approximately the area of ancient
Macedonia.

.......................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
Spirit
As I have written above, you are talking nonsense.

....................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

Spirit of Truth

On May 23, 4:30 pm, Mitsos** <smy...@isgreek.org> wrote:

<<<These recurring discussions seem to be less about conveying or
ascertaining facts than repeating propaganda as a continuation of old
political and ethnic hostilities.>>>

By the Skopjians

<<<To keep the historical record straight, the following is a brief
overview of Macedonian territory, ethnicity, and language (dredged
from old posts of mine and reedited):>>>

<<<Ancient Macedonian language>>>

Was and still is Greek.

<<<The historical development and language distribution of Macedonia is
quite complex.
The affiliation of ancient Macedonian, a now extinct I-E language, is
undetermined, although the prevailing hypothesis is that it was a>>>

Rubbish. It is universally agreed by everyone except Titoist Slavic racist
irredentist propagandists that Macedonian is a dialect of Greek, most
closely related to Doric.

<<<northern Greek dialect. Some conjecture that it was related to
Illyrian or Thraco-Phrygian. Regardless of what the original
inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, of unknown ethnic
origins, initially may have spoken, they adopted the Greek language by
the fifth century BC.>>>

WRONG! The original inhabitants on Macedonia were and always have been the
Greeks. In 2200 BC and then again in 1900 two waves of M173 linage invaders
entered northern Greece from the Balkans and then migrated further
southwards. These people along with the indigenous inhabitants formed the
nucleus of the Hellenic race. It is therefore clear that the Macedonians
were Greeks since they are descended from the same people as all other
Greeks. The cannot possible have been Slavs and the Slavo Skopjians cannot
possible have any relationship to them since there are of M17 linage.

<<<Geographical location Of Macedonia (medieval and modern)

Under Roman and Byzantine control, Macedonia was divided into various
administrative units.>>>

Why have you missed out all the history of Macedonia under the Argid
Dynasty?

Under Byzantine control the borders of Macedonia were different to those
under Roman control and did not include any part of what is now Skopjian or
Bulgarian or Slavic territory. Instead the borders were all entirely
witching the territory of what is now modern Greece and included the modern
provinces of Macedonia and Western Thrace. It is during this time that the
Slavo Skopjians ethered the Balkans as Bulgarian Slavs. Where was Macedonia?
Entirely within modern Greek territory. The Slavo Skopjians NEVER set for in
it.

<<<It then became a region of the Ottoman Empire>>>

THAT IS A PURE AND DOWNRIGHT LIE!

There was NO region called Macedonia or any adminstrative district
corresponding to any of its borders under the Ottoman empire. NONE
WHATSOEVER!

Macedonia was part of the Ottoman province of Rumelia and administered along
with the rest of Greece as Greek territory.

What is now FYORM, was part of the Ottoman vilayet of Monastir, Skopjia was
the capitat of the Ottoman vilayet of Kosovo.

<<<(1371-1912), after which it was divided among Greece, Bulgaria, and
Serbia, >>>

THAT IS A PURE AND DOWNRIGHT LIE!

I reapeat once again.

Under Byzantine control the borders of Macedonia were different to those
under Roman control and did not include any part of what is now Skopjian or
Bulgarian or Slavic territory. Instead the borders were all entirely
witching the territory of what is now modern Greece and included the modern
provinces of Macedonia and Western Thrace. It is during this time that the
Slavo Skopjians entered the Balkans as Bulgarian Slavs. Where was Macedonia?
Entirely within modern Greek territory. The Slavo Skopjians NEVER set foot
in it.

<<<the latter which after WW I was incorporated into Yugoslavia.
Serbian Macedonia after WW II was a constituent republic within the>>>

THERE WAS NOT SUCH PLACE CALLED SERBIAN MACEDONIA!

From the time of the foundation of Yugoslavia up until WW2 what is now FYROM
was called VARDARSKA BANOVINA!

Even during the Balkan wars the ONLY place referred to as Macedonia was the
province of Greece. The Bulgarians fought over what they called Blagoevgrad
not Macedonia and the Serbs and Skopjians fought over the control what they
called Vardarska Banovina. There was NEVER any collective reference to these
places by the combatants, including the Ottomans as Macedonia. The only time
the term Macedonia was used other than by the inhabitants of the Greek
province was in the ignorant western press as a geographic term to refer to
the former Roman province.

FYROM is an artificial construct concocted in 1944 by General Tito who
usurped the name of Macedonia which was ALREADY being used as the name of
the Greek province of Macedonia when it was liberated by the Greeks, and
used it to rename Vardarska Banovina in order to lay claim to Greek
territory. There was NEVER an Macedonian consciousness except by the Greeks
before this time.

<<<Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and in 1991 became an
independent nation called The Republic of Macedonia. Because of>>>

NO IT DID NOT!

It was only recognised under the name of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia" or FYROM by the United Nations, the European Union and all
international organisations including UEFA, FIFA, the IOC, NATO etc. etc.

<<<complaints from Greece, whose northern region is also called
Macedonia, the official designation of the Macedonian republic as a
member of the UN is The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It
comprises about 40% of the area of Macedonia formerly held by the
Ottomans.>>>

ANOTHER LIE!

When the Ottomans captured Macedonia it constituted only the territory of
the present Greek province of Macedonia and the Greek province of Western
Thrace, and this had been the case for 1000 years of Byzantine rule.

It was only under that Romans that any part of Macedonia was in the
territory which is now FYROM and then only 35% of it.

It is clear from the above that AT NO TIME IN HISTORY did the Skopjians
occupy any part of Macedonia. Tito stole the name of Macedonia from Greece
and applied it to the Yugoslav province of Vardarska Banovinia which was
never called Macedonia at any time in history when Slavs occupied it, either
under the Byzantines or the Ottomans, in order to lay claim to Greek
territory. Only the Greeks within the Greek province preserved the name of
Macedonia. The Slavs did not call any part of their territory Macedonia and
further more did not even have a clue what Macedonia even was so could never
have done so even if they wanted to. Tito artificially constructed the FYROM
by stealing the name from the existing province Greece and applying it to
the whole of Vardarska Banovinia by appealing to Roman history which the
Slavs took no part in, even when 60% of the territory of Vardarska Banovinia
was NEVER part of Roman region Macedonia at any time in history, and it has
been nearly 1600 years since Macedonian borders had extended that far.

<<<The "region of Macedonia" is a legitimate term when referring to the
diverse and coterminous Macedonias, i.e., FYROM (the former>>>

NO IT IS NOT!

The region of Macedonia can ONLY be used in a HISTORICAL context. The region
of Macedonia was ALWAYS the territory which at the time of reference was
part of the Greek province of Macedonia.

<<<constituent republic of Yugoslavia), the northern territory in Greece,
as well as the area designated as "Macedonia" once held by the Ottoman
Empire, all of which occupy/occupied approximately the area of ancient
Macedonia.>>>

THERE WAS NO REGION CALLED MACEDONIA UNDER THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE!

<<<Macedonian ethnicity

<<<The question of Hellenic ethnic survival in Greece and Macedonia is
vexed. Many invasions and migrations of diverse peoples have occurred,>>>

WRONG!

There were only two successful invasions of Macedonia, the first was by the
Romans, and the second was by the Ottomans, who included Macedonia as part
of the province of Rumelia which was Greece. The Slavs NEVER succeeded in
invading Macedonia and when they attempted to Macedonia borders were
entirely in the present Greek province and the province of Western Thrace.

<<<due to the fact that, especially in the case of Macedonia, the region
served as a communication route between the Danube and the Aegean.
This area is thus inhabited by Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians,
Vlachs, Turks, Pomaks (a Turkicized people), and Gypsies.>>>

RUBBISH! Valch and Pomaks were Greeks, and Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians
NEVER controlled Macedonia at any time in history.

<<<Modern Macedonian language>>>

Is Greek.

<<<Macedonian, a South Slavic language closely related to Bulgarian, is>>>

No it is not. Modern Macedonian is a dialect of Greek and classified as such
by all linguists.

<<<the official language of the Republic of Macedonia, and is also spoken>>>

There is no such political entiry recognise by the UN.

The official language of the FYROM is recognised by ALL linguists as being a
DIALECT of BULGARIAN not as a separate language and is called Western
Bulgarian.

<<<in the adjacent areas of Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia. Northern
dialects of Greek are primarily spoken in Greek Macedonia, although
many there of non-Greek ethnicity, if not speakers of Macedonian,
retain their original dialects or have become only partially
Hellenophone.>>>

<<<Greek and Slavic are two of ten distinct language groups of the Indo-
European family of languages. Greek, which has been a single language
(with many dialects)
throughout its history, was spoken in Greece probably beginning in the
late third millenium BC. Slavic, akin to Baltic, was originally spoken
in the area between the Oder and the Dnieper rivers, and later evolved
into three subgroups: South Slavic, West Slavic, and East Slavic.
Greek and Germanic belong to the wester (_centum_) I-E languages,
while Slavic has many characteristics of the eastern (_satem_) I-E
languages.>>>

Even more evidence which shows that the Slavo Skopjians have no claim
whatsoever to Macedonia despite their delusions that Alexander the Great
spoke their Slavic Western Bulgarian dialect.

<<<The earliest Slavic texts date from the ninth century and were written
in a dialect called Old Church Slavonic (from Bulgarian-Macedonian, of
the South Slavic subgroup), using a Greek-derived alphabet invented by
SS. Cyril and Methodius.>>>

NOBODY recognises Macedonian as Slavic language. ALL linguists classify
Macedonian as a dialect of Greek. The language of FYROM is classified as
BULGARIAN.

<<<Origins of the Slavs

Very little can be said about the origins and early history of the
Slavs based on written evidence. The first certain references to them
occur about 550 in Procopius and Jordanes, who call them _Sclaveni_.
Tacitus much earlier referred to a people to the east of the Germans
called the Veneti, and this name was often used to designate Slavs by
their late antique and early medieval Latin- and German-speaking
neigbors; but while this may indicate ethnic continuity, there is in
fact no proof that the Slavs were descendants of the earlier Veneti.
Archaeological evidence for their prehistory is problematic, too, as
the identification of specifically Slavic archaeological regions
before the sixth century is purely hypothetical. It is not ascertained
what cultures in the areas northeast of the Carpathian Mountains were
exclusively Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, Dacian, Gothic, or Sarmatian.

Generally speaking, Baltic- and Slavic-speaking tribes inhabited much
of eastern Europe in the first centuries CE to the east of the
Germanic tribes and north of the Iranians, including much of present-
day Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia.  (The grouping of
Baltic and Slavic into a single branch of Indo-European is somewhat
controversial, but the exclusively shared features of the languages
far outweigh the divergences.)  The Slavic area proper was most likely
relatively small, perhaps concentrated in what is now southern
Poland.

In the early fifth century the Slavs began expanding in all directions
and by the beginning of the next century apparently established a
presence in areas north of the middle and lower Danube. They soon
expanded (initially in confederation with or as subjects of other
peoples, such as the Avars, Antae, and Lombards) into regions of the
former Roman Empire that had been abandoned by German tribes, and into
most of the Balkan peninsula following the abandonment of the
provinces there by the Byzantines.

It is difficult to attempt to reconstruct a model of ethnic formation
of the early Slavs or to even know to what extent they had any
consciousness of communal identity, as they were a decentralized
peoples very different in social organization from the other two types
of groups which came to occupy the Roman territories, i.e., the
Germanic tribes, which had a warrior-caste system, and the Central
Asian steppe peoples, who tended to aggregate around charismatic
leaders.

Christopher Ingham>>>

<<<P.S.: I don't have a stake in the current political/ethnic
disagreements among Macedonians. I should think the contending groups
involved ought to be able at some point to transcend the regressive
animosities and peacefully coexist.>>>

RUBBISH!

What you have just parroted out is pure Skopjian PROPAGANDA which blatantly
ignores the historical facts in order to deny or dilute the Greek ethnicity
and geography and language of the Macedonians.

Ancient Macedonian language
The historical development and language distribution of Macedonia is
quite complex.
The affiliation of ancient Macedonian, a now extinct I-E language, is
undetermined, although the prevailing hypothesis is that it was a
northern Greek dialect. Some conjecture that it was related to
Illyrian or Thraco-Phrygian.

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
I guess you didn't study the latest Cambridge work on that.

Here, folks:

---From Cambridge, Ancient Histories.
The evidence for the language of the Macedonians has been reviewed
and discussed by Kalleris and Hammond, Griffith, and many others, all
contending that it was a dialect of Greek.  The increasing volume of
surviving public and private inscriptions makes it quite clear that there
was no written language but Greek. There may be room for argument
over spoken forms, or at least over local survivals of earlier occupancy,
but it is hard to imagine what kind of authority might sustain that. There
is no evidence for a different "Macedonian" language that cannot be
as easily explained in terms of dialect or accent.
.

Spirit of Truth

Yes, exactly.  Despite what the nutters think, it doesn't matter what
"Macedonia" meant back in Alexander the Great's day.  The fact is that
_nowadays_ it is _also_ the name of a former Yugoslavian republic.  The
same name can refer to more than one place.  Why do some Greeks need to
feel so petty and precious about this?

Like I said before, I'm English, but I've _never_ seen anyone here
moaning that, "The Americans mustn't call their capital Washington
because that's the name of a town in England."  If we did, we'd soon be
an international laughing stock, just like those Greek loonies are!

"Christopher Ingham" <christopheringham@comcast.net

P.S.: I don't have a stake in the current political/ethnic
disagreements among Macedonians. I should think the contending groups
involved ought to be able at some point to transcend the regressive
animosities and peacefully coexist.

.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................

If that was the case you would be advised to study the actual ancient texts
rather than posit false information here.

Read the following text where the actual ancient Macedonian
region is described:

From:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=encyclopedia+thucydides
For fair use only

(PERSEUS RE THUCYDIDES):

""He went to great pains to verify his sources, carefully weeding
out the inconsistencies which memory or partiality caused""

""The cool precision of his work may cost Thucydides something
in terms of his immediate popularity, but the accuracy and reliability
of his account will give his work far more value in the long run.""

The following text wil contain : "Temenids from Argos"
The Temenid family were Greek.
Argos was a Greek city.

From:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=thuc.+2.99.1
For fair use only

Thucydides Histories 2.99.1 - 2.99.6

[2.99.1]

Assembling in Doberus, they (the Thracians) prepared for
descending from the heights upon Lower Macedonia,
where the dominions of Perdiccas lay;

[2.99.2]

for the Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland,
though Macedonians by blood and allies and, dependents of
their kindred, still have their own separate governments.

[2.99.3]

The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia,
was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas,
and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos.
This was effected by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians,
who afterwards inhabited Phagres and other places
under Mount Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon
(indeed the country between Pangaeus and the sea
is still called the Pierian gulf)
of the Bottiaeans, at present neighbors of the Chalcidians,
from Bottia,

[2.99.4]

and by the acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along
the river Axius extending to Pella and the sea;
the district of Mygdonia, between the Axius and the Strymon,
being also added by the expulsion of the Edonians.

[2.99.5]

From Eordia also were driven the Eordians, most of
whom perished, though a few of them still live round Physca,
and the Almopians from Almopia.

[2.99.6]

These Macedonians also conquered places belonging
to the other tribes, which are still theirs--Anthemus, Crestonia,
Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is now
called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces,
Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.

Spirit of Truth

(using June's e-mail to communicate to you)!