From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bulgaria
Subject: Re: Serbo-Croatian and Greco-Bulgarian "stuff"...
Date: 4 Oct 92 10:46:50 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.greek
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <92277.172939PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu> PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu writes:

[deleted]

>There is another thing though that, I feel, I must remind you:
>Mr.Pavlovic has been very consistent over the  "Macedonia=Hellas"
>notion  for a long time now,  and  I have every reason to believe
>that he uses the term  referring to  MAKEDONIA  (which is clearly
>within the current Greek frontier).

I would have skipped this if it came from other, but from somebody
pretending for accuracy and who has provided (indeed) good examples of
research, after 'strange' initial postings. But what one can read
from above is really ridiculous. For those curious to read something
serious on the matter, here is one:

"... If he goes north from Salonica Slav names appear, holding divided
sway with the Turkish, having driven out the Greek. He is reminded that
Macedonia, ... has been mainly Slav under Turkish rule for hundreds of
years.
    Ancient Macedonia was first a kingdom, then a Roman province; but the
district to which we now commonly apply the name has never been a national
entity, though ITS NATURAL BOUNDARIES ARE WELL ENOUGH DEFINED [emphasis is
mine]. It may be said to consist of the valleys of four great rivers, the
Mesta, the Struma, the Vardar, and the Vistritsa. Its eastern boundary is,
first the lower Mesta, then the Dospad range; its northern follows the
lofty Rila Dagh, the heights, lesser but still almost impassable from north
to south, between the Struma and Kyustendil and the Morava, and between the
Morava and Vardar; its western is the great chain of mountains beginning
with the Sar Planina, which separate it from Albania and cut it off from
the Adriatic. To the south there is no barrier comparable to these, and the
boundary here may be described as running along Latitude 40 to the sea at
Olypos. The mountains on three sides are of savage grandeur and as inaccessible as any
in Europe, impassable for the purposes of trade or war except the corridors
cut by certain rivers. Those to the west form the strongest barrier of all,
the peaks being 7,000 feet high and the steep-faced ridges all along from
4,000 to 5,000 feet. HARDLY ANYWHERE HAS NATURE SHUT OFF ONE LAND FROM
ANOTHER MORE COMPLETELY THAN HERE [emphasis is mine]." [1]

>proposition would be   u n a c c e p t a b l e  by the Greeks for
>a bunch of reasons out of which I will stretch two:

Andronicus, what will happen if some Serbians start claiming that Macedonia
is nothing more than Serbia and Bulgarians start claiming that that's
nothing more but Bulgaria. And according to all books from the start of
this century and the end of last one, it's more than clear that the
majority of the population of the very well defined region of Macedonia was
not Greek but Slav, that the name Macedonia was used a lot and Greeks
knew, accepted and never objected to that name, that the people (the Slavs)
populating Macedonia were called 'Macedonians' and you can read this in ANY
book you take, but this name (as quoted above) has "never been a national
entity". Only because of this last reason (and fact), to start inventing
a new definitions geography and history will lead you to the
'Australian-Macedonian' guide of the new history of the world.

[a lot of stuff, which was hardly expected from you - deleted]

>    Your sentence "friend",ALL that MAY succeed in, is to impress
>    a couple of other non-Balkan-nationalities,who may not be ve-
>    ry familiar with the matters in the neighborhood..and get the
>    w r o n g  idea (which I'll explain in a minute).

It's up to Svilen to answer, but I'm afraid that it's not only
"non-Balkan-nationalities" who are not "very familiar with the matter in
the neighborhood". A list of more than 40 (by non-Balkan-authors in 4
languages) books can be provided for those who want to acquire such
familiarity. The fact that many contemporary Macedonian-Macedonians have
not read about the real flow of events in world history during the last
century, hardly leads to the 'right' to spread 'curious' and even false
information on the subject (I doubt that there are many left who read on
this topic but ...:-( )

>                                                        A.Romanos

Regards

Luben

PS. What do you think about Sir Arthur Evans' observations ? Do you know
who he is and what he has done?



[1]. "History of the Great War, Military operations: Macedonia (from the
outbreak of War to the spring of 1917)", [compiled by Cyril Falls]. This is
the first of 2 volumes with the same title (i.e. 'Macedonia') from "History
of the Great War". This multi volume edition is based on official documents
by direction of the historical section of the committee of imperial
defence,  Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1933.



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