From: gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Gregory  Dandulakis)
Subject: RE: Greece's 10 Mistakes
Originator: gd8f@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 05:16:18 GMT



In article <Bv0zoJ.2Er@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
 
>> The question of the actual racial origins of the
>> ancient Macedonians cannot be answered adequately on the basis of the
>> language or of social and religious customs in historical times. It is,
>> however, historically an unprofitable question, which has only gained in
>> importance in modern times because it has been taken up by nationalists of
>> all kinds in the Balkans and elsewhere and exploited, according to the
>> answer, in the service of territorial and other claims.
>> 
>You ought to read this part very carefully. I agree with it. The Balkan
>nationalists most obviously playing this game at the moment are Greek
>ones. I wonder what Errington would feel if he knew his work was being
>quoted to support precisely the sort of attitudes he condemns above.


 Errington has written this during the 1980's, not now.
 In combination with his evaluation that the ancient macedonians (all)
 were speaking greek, this leads to the conclusion that he blames as
 nationalists not the modern greeks, while he remains sufficiently
 polite as a scholar.


>I'm not alone in thinking that this sort of argument based on mythology
>is very suspect. See the criticisms for example of E.N.Borza, a leading
>scholar of ancient Macedonia that you fail to cite, in his book In the
>Shadow of Olympus.


 I have read Borza's book. In page 78 he cleary states:

 To the *best* of our knowledge, so far, the ancient macedonians "may have
 been derived from northwest Greek stock" and were "speakers of proto-
 -Greek".

 He further goes to state that he doesn't consider them as Greeks (with
 the standard meaning of the word in reference to ancient times), becau-
 se they didn't share with them the same political structure and some of the
 social customs, (for the period which culminated to the rise of their
 power).


 So pictorially the scheme can be seen as the following:


THE MAIN EVOLUTION OF THE GREEK CULTURE PEOPLE
______________________________________________

|
|
v
PROTO-GREEKS
|
--------
|      |
v      v
GREEKS MACEDONIANS  (dissimilar: administration, similar: language)
|      |
--------
|
v
HELLENISTIC GREEKS
|
v
(GREEKS IN ROMAN EMPIRE)
|
v
-------------------
 |                |
 v                v
(PROTO-BYZANTINES LATE-GREEKS) (dissimilar: religion, similar: language)
|
v
BYZANTINE GREEKS
|
v
(GREEKS IN OTTOMAN-FRANKISH-BRITISH EMPIRE) 
                              (dissimilar: language, similar: religion)
|
v
MODERN GREEKS


 For me is just a matter of semantics, not substance:

 Ancient Southern Greek Stock  =  Greece     |-> Semantics differentiation
 Ancient Northern Greek Stock  =  Macedonia  |   useful to the modern historian

 The substance is that both ancient histories,over the time, are *unbrokenly* 
 related *culturally* (continuity of gradual change), *today*, only
 with the people who consider themselves greeks.

 Now, over the question if the Skopjians should be recognised by the 
 international political establishment as Macedonians, this is not a
 moral question. After all, it's just what it is: A Political Question.
 Greece concieves this state (not its people) as a Trojan Horse for 
 her vital interests (Greece has all the needed historical evidence
 and current internal Skopjian politics to back up her perception),
 and as such tries to avoid it. If you are looking for moral points
 in international politics arena, then look at: British moral point
 for presence in Cyprus, USA moral right to invade Grenada, Panama
 etc, etc, France's moral intervention in Algeria, Vietnam etc, USSR
 moral invasion in Afganistan etc etc. If after all you believe that
 History has finished here, and that old good tactics will not be
 repeated again and again, then "dream as you wish". But Greece is
 a valuable partner of Britain, USA etc, etc, and wants her fair portion
 of influence in the international politics for her own interests.
 After all, an alliance takes very long time to be transformed into
 an institutional form. And old good Russia is just waiting for her
 next trial in history's train.

 WE ARE PARTNERS IN THE POLITICS (THIS UNIQUE HUMAN TRAIT, WHICH TRIES
 TO RESTRAIN THE CHAOS EMANATING FROM THE LIMITLESS PEOPLE'S COMPETING

                        ***  AMBITIONS  ***

Gr
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