|
|
| 1."The
Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock, as their
traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify."
[John
Bagnell Bury, "A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander
the Great", 2nd ed. (1913)]
|
| 2.
"That the Macedonians and their kings did in fact speak a dialect
of Greek and bore Greek names may be regarded nowadays as certain."
[Malcom
Errington, "A History of Macedonia"]
|
| 3.
"Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greek all
had their origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip
II." [Malcom
Errington, "A History of Macedonia"]
|
| 4.
"What language did these Macedones speak? The name itself is
Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means highlanders,
and it is comparable to Greek tribal names..."
[N.G.L.
Hammond, "The Macedonian State" (1989)]
|
| 5.
"The toponyms of the Macedonian homeland are the most significant.
Nearly all of them are Greek." [N.G.L.
Hammond, "The Macedonian State" (1989)]
|
| 6.
"And yet if we take into account the political conditions,
religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened
that they were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians."
[Ulrich
Wilcken, "Alexander the Great", (1967)]
|
| 7.
"Nowadays historians generally agree that the Macedonians form
part of the Greek ethnos; hence they also shared in the common religious
and cultural features of the Hellenic world."
[M.Oppermann,
"Oxford Classical Dictionary", 3rd ed. (1996), p.905]
|
| 8.
"Hesiod first mentioned 'Makedon', the eponym of the people
and the country, as a son of Zeus, a grandson of Deukalion, and
so a first cousin of Aeolus, Dorus, and Xuthus; in other words he
considered the 'Makedones' to be an outlying branch of the Greek-speaking
tribes, with a distinctive dialect of their own, 'Macedonian'."
[N.G.L.Hammond,
"Oxford Classical Dictionary", 3rd ed. (1996), pp.904,905]
|
9.
"The Macedonians were located between the Thracians and the
Greeks, inhabiting the fertile plains drained by the Vardar and
Struma rivers. From antiquity to the present the question has been
debated as to whether these early Macedonians were Greeks or barbarians.
The Macedonian rulers claimed to be descendants of Heracles and
therefore genuine Greeks, a claim which the orators of the Athenian
assembly scoffed at and rejected. The debate has continued to the
present day, enlivened by the conflicting claims of modern Balkan
states to the Macedonian lands.
Recent philological and archaeological research indicates that the
ancient Macedonians were in fact Greeks, whose civilization had
not kept up with that of the tribes which had settled further to
the south. Their language closely resembled the classical Greek
from which it differed no more than one English dialect from another.
Various non-Greek peoples apparently had come under the rule of
the Macedonian nobles and kings, but these latter definitely were
Greeks in language and outlook, and invited Greek men of learning
to their courts." [L.S.
Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453, (2000), p.18]
|
| 10.
"All in all, the language of the Macedones was a distinct and
particular form of Greek, resistant to outside influnces and conservative
in pronunciation. It remained so until the fourth century when it
was almost totally submerged by the flood tide of standardized Greek."
[Hammond
and Griffith, "A History of Macedonia" Vol ii, 550-336
BC.]
|
| 11.
"In general, however, the Macedonian Slavs differ somewhat
both in appearance and character from their neighbours beyond the
Bulgarian and Servian frontiers: the peculiar type which they present
is probably due to a considerable admixture of Vlach, Hellenic,
Albanian and Turkish blood, and to the influence of the surrounding
races. Almost all independent authorities,however, agree that the
bulk of the Slavonic population of Macedonia is Bulgarian. The principal
indication is furnished by the language, which, though resembling
Servian in some respects (e.g. the case-endings, which are occasionally
retained), presents most of the characteristic features of Bulgarian."
[The
1911 Edition Encyclopedia, found online at: http://36.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MA/MACEDONIA.htm]
|
| 12.
The racial situation in Macedonia: Greeks and Slavs
"Although
in some areas [of Macedonia] the various groups were all inextricably
intermingled, it is pertinent to point out that in other sections
a given race decidedly predominated. In the southern districts,
for instance, and more particularly along the coast, the Greeks,
a city people given to trade, had the upper hand, while to the
north of them the Slavs, peasants for the most part working the
soil, held sway. These Slavs may properly be considered as a special
Macedonian group, but since they were closely related to both
Bulgars and Serbs and had, moreover, in the past been usually
incorporated in either the Bulgar or Serb state, they inevitably
became the object of both Bulgar and Serb aspirations and an apple
of discord between these rival nationalities. As an oppressed
people on an exceedingly primitive level, 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 ther own particular Macedonian
consciousness."
[Ferdinand
Schevill, "A History of the Balkans", p.432]
|
| 13.
"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."
"There
is some confusion about the identity of the people of this country."
[FYROM's
Ambassador to Canada, Gyordan Veselinov in an interview with the
Ottawa Citizen, 24 February 1999]
|
| 14.
"We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century...
we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians."
[FYROM'S
President Mr. Kiro Gligorov, Foreign Information Service Daily
Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992, p. 35.]
|
| 15.
"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)."
[FYROM'S
President Mr. Kiro Gligorov, Toronto Star newspaper, March 15,
1992]
|
| 16.
"We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great."
"We are Slavs and we speak a Slav language."
[FYROM'S
Ambassador in Washington, Mrs. Ljubica Acevshka, 22 January 1999]
|
| 17.
"It should be remembered, to begin with, that there is no Macedonian
race, as a distinct type. Macedonians may belong to any of the races
of Eastern Europe or Western Asia, as, indeed, they do. A Macedonian
Bulgar is just the same as a Bulgar of Bulgaria proper, the old
principality, that in October, 1908, at Tirnova, was proclaimed
independent of Turkey. He looks the same, talks the same, and very
largely, thinks the same way. In short, he is of the same stock.
There is no difference, whatsoever, between the two branches of
the race, except that the Macedonian Bulgars, as a result of their
position under the Turkish government, have less culture and education
than their northern brethren."
[Arthur
Douglas Howden Smith, "Fighting the Turk in the Balkans:
An American's Adventures with the Macedonian Revolutionists",
1908, p. 4-5]
|
| 18.
"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...
"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."
[Mr.
Edward O'Hara of the British Parliament]
19. "It is
the national identity of these Slav Macedonians that has been
the most violently contested aspect of the whole Macedonian dispute,
and is still being contested today. 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."
[Elisabeth Barker, "Macedonia, its place
in Balkan power politics",
(originally published in 1950 by the Royal Institute of International
Affairs), p.10]
20."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 Skoplje
region, in the north west, have ever shown much tendency to regard
themselves as Serbs. The feeling of being Macedonians, and nothig
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",
(originally published in 1950 by the Royal Institute of International
Affairs), p.10]
21."May
the heroic Serb people at last find the necessary moral force--and
they have it, it dwells within them--to recognize spontaneously
what has long and unanimously been recognized by history, science,
and the national sentiment of the Macedonian population itself,
which sees in the Bulgarians its brothers in language and blood,
and which has fought hand in hand with them for religion, life,
and liberty."
[N.S. Derzhavin, "Bulgaro-Serb Relations
and the Macedonian Question", (1918)]
22. "Cultural
autonomy must be granted to Pirin Macedonia within the framework
of Bulgaria. Tito has shown himself more flexible than you - possibly
because he lives in a multiethnic state and has had to give equal
rights to the various peoples. Autonomy will be the first step
towards the unification of Macedonia, but in view of the present
situation there should be no hurry on this matter. Otherwise,
in the eyes of the Macedonian people the whole mission of achieving
Macedonian autonomy will remain with Tito and you will get the
criticism. You seem to be afraid of Kimon Georgiev, you have involved
yourselves too much with him and do not want to give autonomy
to Pirin Macedonia. That a Macedonian consciousness has not yet
developed among the population is of no account. No such consciousness
existed in Byelorussia either when we proclaimed it a Soviet Republic.
However, later it was shown that a Byelorussian people did in
fact exist."
[Stalin to Bulgarian Delegation (G. Dimitrov, V. Korarov, T. Kostov)
on 7 June 1946]
23."The Department has noted
with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and
semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia,
emanating principally 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 nor political reality, and
sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions
against Greece"."
[The Secretary of State, Edward Stettinius,
to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Officers, U.S. State Department,
Foreign Relations Vol. VIII, Circular Airgram (868.014 / 26 Dec.
1944)]
|
| |
|
|
