From: cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: Confusions...
Date: 13 Sep 92 13:06:08 GMT
Organization: University of Keele, England

From article <rsakella.716309366@p4.cs.man.ac.uk>, by rsakella@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Rizos Sakellariou):
 
> The ancient Macedonians were a Doric tribe (like the Spartans)

No, there were legends to this effect which are uncheckable. Very few
scholars now believe in the Dorian invasion and these Dorians were
always, rather embarassingly, archaeologically invisible.

> and all the incriptions that have been found are written in ancient Greek
> using the Greek alphabet...

Can we please stop using this non-sequitur argument from archaeological
evidence. All the inscriptions from Roman Britain are in Latin using
Latin script, yet the vast majority of the people spoke Celtic. Another
good example would be the Jewish community of classical Alexandria in
Egypt. This group was certainly not Greek, indeed riots between the two
communities were frequent, however the language used by the Jewish
community in their writings and inscriptions was Greek. To take a modern
and homely (to me at least) further example  British coins to this day carry inscriptions in Latin, but
you would be rather ill-advised to seize upon this as evidence of mass
Latin speaking in England or worse still that a substantial community of
the descendants of the ancient Romans still lived here. No one speaks
Latin, the language is used for prestige only.
All the epigraphic evidence from Macdonia proves is that some people in Macedonia thought
Greek was worth imitating, it doesn't prove that they were Greek or that
they even spoke Greek most of the time. I have been told, but would like
clarification on this that the inscriptions found in Macedonia are in
deiffering dialects of Greek. This seems to support the point of view
that Greek was not the normal language spoken as then you would expect
the epigraphic record to use the one dialect normally in use in the area.

Just a further thought, what about the ancient authors who say there was
Macedonian language?
 
 
>>     3) Both Macedonia and Greece have changed dramatically in
>>        ethnic mix over the past two thousand years;
> Movements of population are a common characteristic in world history...
> So what?

Given the racialist arguments being deployed in this argument to the
effect that only 'ethnic Greeks' whatever they may be, can be Macedonians it seem a very
salutary point to make. 

 
>>     4) Most of the lands of the present Republic of Macedonia
>>        have always been called Macedonia and
> Where does this "always" start? On the other hand, all the lands around 
> the city of Veria in today's Greece have always been called Macedonia. 
> So what?

I think the point is that the Greeks have no monopoly on this name.

 
>>     5) The people of Macedonia have called themselves
>>        Macedonians (despite the efforts of various conquering powers
>>        to change this).
> And the people of America call themselves Americans. This doesn't prove
> anything for their nationality. When the name Macedonia denotes a
> geographical term, certainly the inhabitants are called Macedonians. 
> However, there was *never* a Macedonian nationality until 1944 when suddenly 
> this nationality appeared with the help of the Yugoslav communists' magic
> wand...

Well a journalist working for the Manchester Guardian called Brailsford who travel in the region at the turn
of the century certainly thought there was, not only does he belive in
slavic Macedonians as opposed to Bulgarians, Serbs, etc and that there
was a distinct Macedonian language, he also mentions slavic nationalist songs which 'mention Macedonia in every chorus'


> all these different interpretations are used in order to imply a relation
> between the x-Yugoslavia's "People's Socialist Republic of Macedonia"
> and the use of the name Macedonia since antiquity...
> 
> Does such a relation exist?

Yes 

Andy