From: rsakella@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Rizos Sakellariou)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: Confusions...
Date: 12 Sep 92 14:49:26 GMT

During the last weeks, some people in this newsgroup keep on posting
material concerning Macedonia from sources which are of unknown origin
(i.e. Makedonsko Abstralisko Prijeatelstvo, Abstralisko Makedonski Nedelnik,
etc.), presenting entertaining views of history which have nothing to do
with history (i.e. Gligor Apoleski's history), and sometimes this material 
has nothing to do with this newsgroup (i.e, a poem from Ante Popovski).
The history of Macedonia is well documented and anybody interested in it
can consult his local library. However, it is sad to see some people
insisting on quoting single parts of history in order to create confusions...
The use of a name, which has been widely used throughout the centuries,
helps this confusion...

In <1992Sep11.164833.3778@sunbim.be> sk@groo.sunbim.be (Sasa Konecni) quotes
part from a book by one John Shea(who is he?) :

>     1) Macedonia has existed for thousands of years ;
Certainly, since the name has been used in ancient names in order to
denote the geographical area that today constitutes the northern part
of Greece. The name Macedonia in Ancient Greek means "high-land" or
"land of tall people". 
The quoted statement has nothing to do with the x-Yugoslavia's "People's 
Socialist Republic of Macedonia".


>     2) In ancient times the Macedonians and the Greeks saw
>        themselves as separate peoples;
In ancient times, Athenians and Cretans saw themselves as separate peoples;
so what? The ancient Macedonians were a Doric tribe (like the Spartans)
and all the incriptions that have been found are written in ancient Greek
using the Greek alphabet...
Again, the quoted statement has nothing to do with the x-Yugoslavia's 
"People's Socialist Republic of Macedonia".


>     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? Furthermore, what is defined here as Macedonia and
what as Greece?


>     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?


>     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...

In all the above statements I observe the use of the name Macedonia
with different meanings; the common characteristic is that 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?

--r.