From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: SKOPJE'S SWISS DREAMS
Date: 26 Aug 92 11:05:11 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <3979.3248.uupcb@factory.com> michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos) writes:
>
>>From: vassil@cs.wisc.edu (Vassil Peytchev)
[deleted]
>>Bulgarian officials on this board? Gee, I must have missed something... And
>>which Bulgarian netter has claimed that there is a `large Macedonian minority'
>>in Greece?
>
>  These claims have been repeatedly advanced by a netter by the name Sasa
>  Koceni (a native of Vardar, I assume).

I'm not sure what Sasa has claimed or not, but he is not Bulgarian. Hence
your argument is 100% void. Sasa feels Macedonian hence he is Macedonian.

>  Don't take me wrong. This is quickly degenerating into a Greek-Bulgarian
>  arguement, and this was never my intention. The reason that I mentioned
>  the above Bulgarian military attempts was to point out the fact that
>  Greeks have legitimate reasons to worry about the existence of an officially
>  recognised "Macedonia" north of their border.

That's another subject. Sasa is not a Bulgarian. Period.

>  Perhaps Bulgaria today has the best of intentions. To be absolutely fair,
>  all attempts took place under monarchic, faschist or communist/totalitarian
>  regimes.

Hardly good knowledge in Bulgarian history. Bulgarian monarchy was one,
fascism in Bulgaria is another, and communism in Bulgaria is a third topic.
Feel free to ask for any of those subject, but don't generalize as there is
little in common there.

>           There is no reason why a democratic Bulgaria would repeat the
>  mistakes of the past.

Let's pray for that.

>  This does not change the fact that there is a past history of misuse of the
>  name "Macedonia" by both Sofia and Belgrade.

And misused by so many other people - almost the entire world is using the
name "Macedonia" - in front of me is a book "Macedonia - it's races and
their future" - issued 1906. And in almost any document/book you pick from
any time, you will find the name "Macedonia". What is this singling out of
"Sofia and Belgrade"? 

>                                            Greece has legitimate reasons
>  to hope that the misuse of the name "Macedonia" will become a thing of the
>  past.

This seems to be a subject of a discussion.

>  This is a very similar situation, only instead of naming Greece with a
>  Slav name, Slavic lands have been given a Greek name for political
>  purposes. Can you at least see why we are worried?

Look, I think that in the past there were reasons for worries of political
ambitions from somewhere. But as far as I can see - the Macedonian
government and people will come to realities with many history facts and
realities, and all claims for "minorities" and territories will disappear
(in case there are such at present). And I do understand the frustration
when you talk about "history theft". But see Michael, opening a society,
and when it becomes a truly democratic one, the politicians in the Rep. of
Macedonia will take another stand and no claims will exist during the
future. But pushing Macedonia back into YU, makes matters worse (IMHO).

>  Michael.

Regards

Luben
Xref: sparky soc.culture.yugoslavia:8325 soc.culture.greek:8202 soc.culture.europe:7899 eunet.politics:1147 talk.politics.misc:42846 talk.politics.theory:3939 soc.culture.bulgaria:1256 soc.culture.turkish:9500