From: ptg2351@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Panos Tamamidis )
Subject: SKOP(L)JE/MACEDONIA: WHAT'S IN A NAME
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:26:09 GMT



		  SKOP(L)JE/MACEDONIA: WHAT'S IN A NAME?
   Sweet Vardar/Axios, flow gently, till I end my song - Edmund Spenserovitch

  The strong opposition Greece has expressed over the name Macedonia being
adopted by Yugoslavia's southernmost breakaway republic is said to have raised
smiles in some sophisticated chancelleries.  There are many sort of smiles.
Some stem from knowledge, some from ignorance, and some, even from hypocricy.

  Early last month Greece broke off talks with a delegation that came down from Skopje when it refused to discuss the issue over the name.  In this delegation
was a historian, no doubt decorated with many PhDs from Skopje Univ., who
remarked that Alexander the Great had Slavic connections.  Herr Professor
Fallermayer would have been mightily impressed; Greeks weren't sure whether to
be amused or impatient.

  On January 15 Bulgaria unillaterally recognized the independence of
'Macedonia'.  Some thought it unseemly haste.  Not at all.  It's been 
repeatedly recognizing this area for the last century because most of its 
inhabitants are Bulgarian.  So when it becomes independent - and unravels as a
state - Sofia then can embrace it more intimately.

  Meanwhile a British newspaper wondered whether Greece, (palm greased with a
little EC cash) might on this Macedonian matter "be persuaded to call its bit
something else?"  Upper Thessaly, perhaps?  It would be as if Scotland decided
to call itself England, might England be persuaded to call itself Northern
Normandy?  No, the newspaper decided, wagging its wise old hand, "Greek
feeling about Macedonia runs deep."

  This is certainly true.  Historically, the feeling goes back at least 2500
years and archaeologically probably long because Prof. Andronikos hasn't
finished digging it up.  Another reason for this tender feeling is that 
Macedonia once carried Greek culture to India and hellenized the Middle East.
It's hard to imagine Skopje-on-the Euphrates.

  That's ancient Macedonia.  Since then its changed shape more often than 
Proteus, each time at the convinience of its overlords.  The Roman Diocese of
Macedonia included Crete.  The Ottoman vilayet extended it to Skoplje.  How
Skoplje lost its 'l' and became today's Skopje is a fine point of recent Slavic
syntax, but how it became 'Macedonia' is linguistically miraculous.  Some
believe miracles can be rationally explained.  Here's a try:

  Once upon a time not so long ago (in the 1930s) there was a banovina (Slavic
for province) of Vardar, named after the river which ripples through Skop(l)je
south into Greece where it becomes the Axios (a Greek word) and flows through
a bit of Macedonia (another Greek word) to the Aegean (yet another Greek word),
a pretty body of water access to which Balkan wandervolk have been casting 
their hungry eyes for centuries.

  After World War II Tito consolidated his power over Yugoslavia and to
strengthen his southern flank he proclaimed the establishment of the Socialist
Republic of Macedonia on April 30, 1945, with its capital (at least for the
time being) at Skop(l)je.

  Tito's choice of name was extremely adroit for two counts.  The first lay in
the fact that his army was by far the most powerful in the Balkans and that 
Greece was in the midst of a Civil War.  It was the official policy of all
communists - Greek communists, too - to create an independent Macedonian state
made up of the Greek province, Vardar, and the Bulgarian region known as Pirin.
By establishing a new Macedonia from Skop(l)je, Tito put himself into the best
position to gain Thessaloniki and access to the Aegean.  So when the Greeks say
that Skop(l)je has had designs in Thessaloniki, this is because it's true. Just
last month Skop(l)je circulated a draft banknote depicting the White Tower,
emblem of Thessaloniki.  Pretty cheeky.

  There was another very good reason for Tito to pull the name Macedonia out of
his hat: this was ethological.  Macedonia is Greek; Pirin is Bulgarian; but
Vardar is a melange of Bulgarians, Serbs, Vlachs, Montenegrains, Albanians, and
gypsies.  If the area around Skop(l)je were to be called South Serbia (as it 
once was), it would alienate non-Serbians; if say, West Pirin, it would be
rejected by non-Bulgarians; west Albania would have outraged all Slavs.  So the
magic word 'Macedonia' was pronounced, and no one could possibly be offended
because there are no Macedonians.  So when the Greeks say that the people of
the banovina of Vardar stole their name, this is because it's true.

  Having abducted a name, it was now necessary to create a culture to go with
it.  Luckily, for years there had been a dialect known to the trade as Slavic-
Macedonian.  Creating a grammar worthy of a full-scale language from this
scramble of words became a cottage industry from Skop(l)jean intellectuals who
forged that mighty new vehicle of human expression now known as Macedonian,
which, we see now, even the Pope can communicate in.

  A church, too, was needed, so the autocephalous Macedonian Orthodox church
was founded in 1968.

  Nova Macedonia, however, never found its Alexander.  Tito forced Dimitrov of
Bulgaria in 1947 into accepting the Bled Agreement which whistled Yugoslavia's
design to absorb Pirin into play.  But the Cominform's denunciation of Tito in
June, 1948, put an end to eastern expansion, and with the defeat of the
communists in Greece, Aegean visions faded.

  This is not ancient history.  This is the past in the throes of becoming the
present.  The only accredited non-Hellenic historian in this Macedonia
business is the Keeper of the Keys.  At Christmas Pope John-Paul II made a
special greeting to the people of Skop(l)je.  His Macedonian Slavic was
beautiful, they say.  He's Polish.  So he also knows the virtues of solidarity
and the disadvantages of partition.  Or does he?  That's what the Orthodox
Church is worried about.  Maybe He isn't infallible.  After all, they say,
even Homerovitch nodded.

The Athenian, February 1992

Panos Tamamidis