From: chrysp@zooid.guild.org (Chrys Pelegris)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: H.N.I.N. #4 - PART 3/4
Date:  8 Jan 93 21:05:09 GMT

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS MESSAGE...
 

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 28.01.92
                                 Le Monde
 
                 MACEDONIA, THE POWDER-KEG OF THE BALKANS
 
          Leaders in Skopje, Greeks and Bulgarians all disagree
           on the historical and geographical credentials of a
             Republic transformed once more into an apple of
               discord by the disintegretion of Yugoslavia.
 
                              by Dinier Kunz
 
     A passageway and a meeting place right in the heart of the Balkans
 coveted for centuries by Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars and Turks, Macedonia has been
 at the root of numerous conflicts.  She is once more the focus of dissension
 in the midst of a Yugoslav crisis whose end is not in view.
     The disintegration of communism and of the Yugoslav Federation has
 challenged the fragile balance achieved by marshal Tito who in 1945 created
 Macedonia as a buffer state so as to limit Serbia's power from the south.
     The new Republic which contains Serbs, Albanians, Turks, Romanies and
 Bulgarians has a population of two million and occupies 39% of the
geographical
 area going by the name Macedonia. The rest of this belongs to Greece (51%),
to
 Bulgaria (9%) and to Albania (1%).
     Greeks distinguish sharply the "geographical" from the "historical"
 Macedonia of Philip the II anterior to the conquests of his son Alexander
 the Great (4th century BC).  The historical Macedonia corresponds to the
 actual Greek province by that name except for a narrow land strip of some
 dozens of kilometres beyond Greece's northern borders within present day
 Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
                         Movements of Population
     At the start of the seventh century Macedonia is overun by Slavs who are
 successively christianised and hellenised by the Byzantines (end of eighth,
 beginning of the ninth centuries).
     Bt the end of the ninth century the Bulgars completely dominate the
 region while Ochrid (close to the actual frontiers of Yugoslavia, Albania
 and Greece) becomes the center of Tzar Samuel's (997-1013) empire.  Bulgars
 and Byzantines fight bitterly for hte control of the region.  The emperor
 of the Serbs Dusan takes over Macedonia in 1345 just before the ottoman
 conquest is completed in the 15th century.
     Macedonia will remain under the ottoman yoke until 1913, when she is
 liberated after the two balkan wars.  After the Turks' departure Serbs,
 Bulgars and Greeks tear themselves apart over the region.  The treaty of
 Bucarest (10th of August 1913) draws the borders of the balkan countries in
 Macedonia.  Greece obtains 51%, Serbia 38% and Bulgaria 9%.
     This sharing out entails numerous and painful population displacements.
 From 1913 to 1925 tens of thousands of Bulgars leave Greek Macedonia.
 According to a report drawn up by the League of Nations in 1926, - as quoted
 by the Greeks - Greek Macedonia had achieved by then a high degree of
 homogeneity with 89% of its population being Greeks and no more than 5%
 Bulgars.
 
     Throughout the 19th century a time of nationalist effervescence in the
 area, Serbs and Bulgars promote conflicting claims by invoking past glories
 of emperor Dusan, the ones, of Tzar Samuel, the others.  By the end of the
 century a perceived national identity of Slavs in Macedonia begins to emerge.
 Bulgar intellectuals establish the "International Macedonian Revolutionary
 Oranisation (IMRO) which will breed the notorious "komitadjis" whose
 terrorist activities will be described in 1931 by Albert Londres.
     On the 6th of August 1903, nameday of St.Elias, an uprising organised
 by IMRO breaks out in the town of Krusevo:  it will be drowned in blood.
 The insurgents will, however, have had the opportunity to establish the
 ephemeral Rupublic of Krusevo, considered by the actual leaders of Skopje
 as the forerunner of their state and mentioned in their Constitution adopted
 last November.
     Greco-Bulgarian rivalry over Macedonia explodes in 1870 with the
 establishment of the autonomour bulgarian chirch (exarchate).  The Greeks,
 worried that they might lose Macedonia launch in 1904 the "Macedonian
 Struggle" which was an armed struggle that lasted four years.  Fighting was
 interrupted in 1908 by the revolution of the Young Turks who grant a general
 armistice and promise equal rights to all ethnic communities.
     During the second world war Bulgaria, allied to the Axis powers, first
 occupies almost the entire area of Yugoslav Macedonia and then the eastern
 party of Greek MAcedonia practicing a policy of "bulgarisation".  Tito,
 on his part, lays the foundations of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.  In
 recognizing as "Macedonians" the slav inhabitans of Yugoslav Macedonia "he
 neutralised, or hoped to neutralise the bond between this population and the
 Bulgars" observes a Greek expert on the matter.  While the civil war
 (1946-1949) creates havoc in Greece, the Yugoslavs manage by the agreement
 of Bled in 1947 to snatch for themselves the bulgarian Macedonia of
 "Pirin" so-called.  According to the Komintern's plans Greek Macedonia would,
 after the civil war, become part of a "united and independent Macedonia"
 to be incorportated either in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or in the
 wider "Communist Balkan Federation".
                           The Tito-Stalin rift
     In 1948 the break between Tito and Stalin upsets Belgrade's plans and
 challenges its hegemony in the Balkans.
     Bulgaria in line with Moscow, disowns the Yugoslav theory of a
"macedonian
 nation" and simply renames all "Macedonians" "Bulgars".
     The cold war and the spread of communist power froze attitudes so that
with
 the passage of the years the macedonian question lost some of its virulence
 but not its potential for conflict.  Passions were at times stired by Moscow
 whenever the Soviets wanted to cut the Belgrade authorities down to size.
     In the new Yugoslav Republic a "macedonian consciousness" starts to
emerge
 with the creation of a written language (a mixture of serbian and bulgarian),
 of the autocephalous Church of Macedonia in 1967 (unrecognised by the
 Serbian patriarchate and the other orthodox Churches), and of a "macedonian
 history".
     The "macedonisation" of a large part of bulgarian and greek history and
 cultural heritage, provokes continuous disputes betwene Sofia and Athens on
 the one hand and Skopje on the other.  A number of "macedonian" nationalists
 aspire to create a "Greater Macedonia" which would encompass part of
Bulgaria,
 of Albania and of Greek Macedonia or so called "Aegean Macedonia".
     There is tention between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria because Sofia insists
 that the slavomacedonians are really Bulgars.  In doing this, Sofia heightens
 Yugoslav fears that given a chance Bulgars will try - as they have done in
 the past - to annex Macedonia.
     "Usurping" the name of Macedonia - as the Skopjians did - is
"intolerable"
 in Greek eyes.  Macedonia is part of a cultural heritage which Athens refuses
 to auction off.  This matter is "non-negotiable" as Mr. Antonis Samaras,
 the Greek Foreign Minister, explained to his EC partners(...) if a politician
 accepted to compromise on this point he would commit "political suicide"
 according to responsible people in Athens, thereby indicating that internal
 political considerations play a non-negligible part in shaping the attitude
 of Greece.
                           Nationalist Designs
     According to Mr.Mitsotakis government the region is "volcanic" and
 Macedonia risks once again to "erupt".  The Constitution adopted in November
 by Skopje and amended in December functions as a "destabilising factor in
 the Balkans" and paves the way for a "Greater Bulgaria" in Greek eyes.
 
     Greek officials quotes supporting evidence the "nationalist designs" of
 the VMRO some of whose leaders conjure up the notion of a "larger Macedonia"
 with Thessaloniki as its macedonian port on the Aegean.
 
     The Greeks have notified their european partners that they would do their
 utmost, including the use of their veto, to stop Yugoslav Macedonia from
 being recognised as long as she continues to use "the historical greek
 name"...
 
     Last December the 16th, during a meeting of the Twelve who set conditions
 for the recognition of Yugoslav Republic, Athens obtained a paragraph which
 asked of the Republic of Macedonia - without quoting it by name - to commit
 itself to "adopt constitutional and political guarantees to the effect that
 it had no territorial claims against a neighbouring country member of the EC,
 and that it would take no propaganda action against this state, including
 the use of a name implying territorial claims".
 
     Leaders in Skopje have since made numerous appeasing statements,
repeating
 often that they had "no territorial claims".  They have also amended their
 Constitution.  Not enough, say the Greeks who continue to oppose recognition
 because of "important issues yet to be resolved".
 

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                               il Giornale
 22.04.92
                                MACEDONIA,
                           THE NAME OF DISCORD
                            by Nicola Crocetti
 
 ATHENS:
     The souvenir shop displays a rich variety of menentoes portraying
 Alexander the Great with the slogan "Macedonia has been greek for 3,000
 years".  A couple of tourists ask for elucidation and the young salesman goes
 into a long explanatory statement in english whose sense is soon lost to his
 audience.  They buy a jumper and leave fairly unenlightened on the
subject(...)
 The "macedonian issue" though complex is vivid not just in the minds of greek
 politicians but to the whole spectrum of public opinion.
 
     To understand the degree of popular participation we need only remind
 readers of the boycot against Italian goods applied by Greeks after an
 offensive, to them, statement by Mr.Flaminio Picolli President of Christian
 Democracy(...) The episode shows how worried and sensitive the Greeks are
 on the subject(...)
 
     The crux of the matter concerns the recognition of an independent
 yugoslav Macedonia or "republic of Skopje" as Greeks call it.  The entire
 international community, with the exception of France which backs Greece,
 is favorably inclined towards a quick recognition.  A few countries such as
 Bulgaria and Turkey have already done so.
     On the 16th December last year the foreign ministers of the EC agreed to
 recognise the new republic provided it does not put forward territorial
 claims, and does not raise issues about minorities outside its borders.  A
 third condition set by the Greek foreign minister Mr.Antonis Samaras was also
 accepted by the Twelve:  The new state must choose itself a name which will
 not be controversial to any of its neighbours(...)
 
     Why is the greek side so stubbornly insisting on the issue of a name? It
 is plainly obvious that Athens does not object to the independence of Skopje
 but only to its recognition by the name of Macedonia.
 
     The truth is, Greece is mistrustful.  People will grant you here that the
 integrity of greek Macedonia is not in jeopardy and the three conditions set
 by the EC(...) will guarantee Greece from any kind of territorial claim. 
They
 point out, however, that for the last forty years Skopje has been in the
 forefront of Tito's aggressive nationalist onslaught against greek territory.
 Tito is no more, but why do leaders in Skopje continue to proclaim that "the
 whole of Macedonia has never been liberated" and that only the part under
their
 control is really free?  Does this assertion not imply that Greek Macedonia
 (...) and Bulgarian Macedonia(...) must sometime be also "liberated"?  Could
 this view be an indirect avowal of expansionist designs?
 
     If, to cut a long story short, the name is not so important as the
 champions of recognition repeat in chorus, why do the Skopjans not agree to
 give their future state a name other than Macedonia?  After all they do not
 really have a language of their own, and they lack traditions.  There are
 subtle aspect to this issue.  No matter how well grounded her fears, Greece,
 like the salesman talking to the tourists, has not always been able to
convince
 the international community of the justness of her cause(...)
 

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 10.05.92
                                 EL MUNDO
 
                           THE WAR OF THE NAMES
                             by Alfonso Rojo
 
     It seems an idle academic debate but it is not:  The vigorous refusal by
 Greece to recognise the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia by that name
 is not just a linguistic controversy or a discussion about historical
 "copyright".
     Prime Minister Mitsotakis in a message sent yesterday to the President of
 Macedonia Kiro Gligorov, proclaims Athens willingness to assist the new
 republic as long as Skopje accept to call themselves by a name which will not
 contain the term Macedonia.
     In his message Mitsotakis insists that they may choose any other name
 they wish which will secure for them not just the recognition of their
 independence but close future cooperation with Greece(...)
     (...) On 2nd of May, in Guimaraes the EC ministers decided to ask Skopje
 and Athens to agree on a name but european politicians do not seem to have
 grasped the real meaning of events.
     Marshal Tito created in 1944 the Republic of Macedonia, as one of the six
 which constituted the, now defunct, Yugoslavian Federation.  It was Tito
 personalyl who decided to give Macedonia its name.  One could, however,
 overlook the artificial character of the name and disregard the fact the
 republic if populated by an amalgam of Bulgars, Albanians and Slavs.  What
 could not be ignored by any witness to the nearby slaughter taking place is
the
 risk involved in creating a republic by the name of Macedonia.
     In certain capitals there is surprise at the nationalist wave which has
 overwhelmed Greece and scepticism at the warnings issued by Athens that as
soon
 the Slavomacedonians gain their independence they will start dreaming about
 "Greater Macedonia" asking for the incorporation of the Greek Macedonians in
 their state only to end up demanding an outlet to the Aegean Sea: 
Thessaloniki
 is a mere 250 kilometres away from Skopje.
 
     Two years ago anyone who would have said that the federal Yugoslav army
 would litter Bosnia and Herzegovina with corpses in order to create a greater
 Serbia, would be considered a mental case.  Yet, this is exactly what
happened.
 When lives and security are at stake, it pays to show foresight rather
 than scepticism.
 

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 11.05.92                        Diario16
 
                                MACEDONIA,
                             ANOTHER PROBLEM
 
                            by Pedro Gonzalez
 
     While many reports predicted war and dismemberment of Bosnia, the EC
 decided, when it did, to recognise the independence of this Yugoslav republic
 arguing that in this way it would avert hostilities.
     This recognition did not prevent the way nor the imminent carve up of
 the area.  During the recent Council of Ministers at Guimaraes, the European
 Community seemed willing to recongise Macedonia within existing borders. 
Here
 the issue takes on a new shape because it touches directly, through Greece,
 on the borders of the Community.
     The Council of General Affairs, meeting on Monday, is the one to open
 the way towards this recognition if there is unanimity on the name to be
 adopted by the newly independent Republic.  Greece is opposed to the
 falsification of history implied in the recognition of the new republic as
 Macedonia.  Is is in fact true that Marshal Tito reactivated in 1945 this
 particular yugoslav republic under the name of Macedonia as a springboard for
 future expansion and annexation of the macedonian territories of Greece and
 Bulgaria.
     This attitude gained significant grassroots support as in the course
 of the last forty years there has been much talk in Yugoslavia about the
 "enslaved macedonian territories".  Greece will not allow the EC to force her
 into acceptance of this name as long as the geographical term Macedonia is
 linked with an alleged "national macedonian identity" (non existent in
Greece).
     Athens believes that this strategy paves the way towards action to
achieve
 a greater unified Macedonia, a course which can only mean conflict and
 territorial readjustments.  It would be convenient if the EC did not make a
 new mistake which would fuel existing tensions in the Balkans.
     Greece who always refers to the former Yugoslav republic by the name of
its
 capital "Skopje" would agree to recognise it provided the new state foregoes
 any territorial claim against neighbouring countries, any hostile propaganda
 activity as well as the above mentioned name.
     The European Community should lend its support to these conditions so
that
 tensions may give way to cooperation in the area.
 

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                               THE EUROPEAN
 3-6.09.92
 
                A FORCE FOR GOOD IN A CAULDRON OF TURMOIL
 
             Understanding Greece's anxieties is a necessary
                    step to stabilising its neighbours
 
                             by Jonathan EYAL
 
     At almost every level, Greece is being criticised for complicating the
 handling of the Yugoslavian war - ignoring sanctions imposed on Serbia,
 persecuting ethnic minorities within its borders, or fuelling a long dispute
 with Turkey.
     The criticism has reached such a crescendo that many wonder whether
 admitting Greece into the EC was a mistake.  Many of these mutterings are
 based on fundamental misconceptions.
     Greece is not suffering from a terminal case of "neurosis" as many of
 its detractors allege(...)  The Balkans are still a geographical expression,
 not a medical term, and Greece's behavious is perfectly rational, for it is
 determined by western Europe's manifest unwillingness to tackle the problems
 of the area.
     The end of the Cold War has offered Greece no respite.  Instead of the
 largely hypothetical danger of a Soviet attack, the Greek government now has
 to contend with an exploding Yugoslavia to its north, an utterly impoverished
 Albania in the west, and Turkey, whose importance in the region is enhanced.
     Turkey is the gateway to the Middle East and the Caucasian republics, and
 is courted by every western government.  For the Greeks this situation has
 clear strategic implications.  The Greeks have searched for their security
 within European institutions.  Suddenly they find that these institutions
 are no longer welcoming.
     After strenuous diplomaic efforts, the Greeks were accepted as full
 members of the Western European Union at last year's summit.  Yet they were
 also asked to provide guarantees that they will never invoke some of the
 security provisions in this organisation, a requirement at best contradictory
 and at worst downright insulting against a full member of the EC.
     Nevertheless, Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis went out of his way
 to solve many of the disputes with Turkey.  The leaders of the two countries
 meet frequently and military incidents over the Aegean Sea are deliberately
 played down.  Greece, Turkey and the ethnic communities of Cyprus have just
 completed yet another round of negotiations at the UN to sort out the
problems
 of this divided island.  The negotiations failed, but none of the UN Security
 Council's members blames Greece for this outcome.  Far from being a thorn in
 the side of hte Balkans, the government in Athens has contributed to regional
 security.
     Nevertheless, Greece is pilloried for refusing to accepted Macedonian
 independence, a stance which supposedly theatens to enlarge the Yugoslavian
 civil war.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  First, swift
 international recognition for every Yugoslav republic is not necessarily the
 best solution, as the example of Bosnia now indicates.  More importantly,
 Greece has never opposed Macedonian independence, provided the republic
 changed its name(...)
     It is not copyright over the name of Macedonia which is at stake, but
 security arrangements in the Balkans.  Sandwiched between sworn enemies,
 Macedonia cannot fail to attract Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and Greece into a
 new competiion for spheres of influence, as it has done often in the past.
     While Greece is accused of stifling the republic's independence
Macedonia's
 other neighbours are advancing arguments which can be devastating to regional
 security.  Bulgaria recognised independence, but will not recognise the
 existence of a Macedonian nation; Albania refuses to deal with the Macedonian
 authorities as long as the republic's ethnic Albanians are not accepted as a
 separate nation.  Seen in this light, Greek sensitivity to Macedonia's name
 is hardly the most demanding.
     Kiro Gligorov, the Macedonian president, elicited a great deal of
sympathy
 when his republic first applied for independence.  Months later, the picture
 is slightly murkier.  Gligorov claims that he cannot contemplate changing his
 country's name.  Yet, was it wise for the Macedonians to adopt as their coat
 of arms a Greek historic symbol, thereby unnecessarily aggravating the
 conflict? In a region wher history is politics, all Balkan states play with
 such symbols and Greece is certainly not the worst offender.
     Europe promised never to allow another war on the continent; the Yugoslav
 war has gone on for more than a year.  The West has vowed to punish any
 aggressor, yet the lesson in the Balkans is that an aggressor can defy the
 world and attract no greater retribution than a visit from Lord Carrington.
 Unlike any other EC government, the authorities in Athens do not have the
 luxury of debating the finer points of principles and strategy.
     With severed overland trading routes and a full - scale war on their
 frontiers, the Greeks now know that they stand alone in a cauldron of
turmoil.
     Those who suggest that it was a mistake to accept Greece into the EC are
 not only adding to the country's sense of insecurity, but also distorting the
 very purpose of the institution which they wish to safeguard.  The EC was
 conceived as an organisation which can transcend national rivalries:  The
 reconciliation between France and Germany is touted as its greatest
 achievement.
     The continuation of this tradition dictates Greece's deeper integration
 into the EC, not the country's isolation.  Yes, the EC could choose to remain
 an exclusive club for the rich, an organisation which states join after -
 not before - they have solved all their problems.  Yet by doing so, the
 EC will forfeit any influence which it ay still have over security debates
 on the continent.
     The Balkans are gripped by a challenge which transcends the carnage in
 Yugoslavia.  Bereft of any security structures, an entire region is on a
 precipise.  Greece, as a country which has made the transition from
 dictatorship to democracy and from isolation to European integration, should
 be supported in playing a contructive role in the area.  If Greece is
isolated,
 the Yugoslavian war will turn out to be a mere foretaste of bigger tragedies.
     Understanding and addressing Greece's fears are a necessary requirement
 in stabilising the Balkans.
 

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 12.09.92
                              THE SPECTATOR
 
                        A CLEAN SHEET FOR PAEONIA
      A defence of Greece against accusations of bullying Macedonia
 
                         by Patrick Leigh Fermor
 
     "I can Assure you, Mr. Trelawny, you will find nothing in Greece but
 robbers, rocks and vermin", said Byron's valet Fletcher, as they lay becalmed
 in the Ionian Sea aboard the brig Hercules.  Byron heard him from the upper
 deck, and shouted down:  "It's very true.  Everything is hoggish, looked at
 through hog's eyes".  Trelawny elaborated this exchange in two versions, but
 I think, my colation of the two by memory is about right, and it drifted into
 my mind halfway through Noel Malcom's interesting, and at first, rather
 puzzling piece called "The new bully of the Balkans" (15 August).  It must
 have been the single-minded focus I divined behind his words which gave the
 simile an apposite touch.  I usually enjoy his articles, but not this one.
 His theme - Greece's objections to the name of Macedonia for the Yugoslav
 breakaway "Republic of Skopje" - has brought him to Greece and given rise to
 a number of views which seem unjust and unhelpful and badly handicapped by
the
 Fletcherite glance.
 
 << small type >>
     "Never ouside the commmunist bloc have I had such a sense of an all-
 pervading and unanimous campaign, in which all levels of public life are
 mobilised to whip up popular feeling.  If one adds the world-wide campaign
 run under the cover of the Greek Tourist Board, it must be the most expensive
 publicity campaign in Greek History.  It is also the silliest."
 
 << regular type >>
     "Unanimous campaign... to whip up popular feeling?  If it is unanimous,
it
 is whipped up already, surely?  Oddly enough, this queer phrase is the only
 part of the passage that gets the right end of the stick.  Unlike state-
 imposed propaganda, the Greek reaction to the "Macedonia" question really
 was a spontaneous outburst of the whole country, half of it to blow off
steam,
 half to catch the eyes of foreign visitors in the hope of enlisting their
 support.  In this case they met the wrong pair of eyeballs and evoked lofty
 comment: "crude posters" and "more hysterical than grammatical" puts these
 rustic zealots, at grips with foreign syntax, in their place.
     The public actually reproached their rulers with their delay in falling
in
 with the country's mood.  They soon caught up and posters became better
spelt.
 For a country given to banners and demonstrations, the visual drive struck me
 as pretty mild, amoulting, in my area, to some girls in Macedonian costume
 performing a modern version of the Pyrrhic dance.
     The author sharply dismisses Greek historical rights to the name of
 Macedonia:
 
 << small type >>
     "This way madness lies... One might as well complain that the frontiers
of
 modern Germany do not correspond to what Tacitus meant by 'Germania'."
 
 << regular type >>
     An odd exaple; they do, more or less - the angle of the Alps and the
Rhine
 with a hinterland fading east to a Slav grey area - but that is not the
point:
 he maintans that, without "Macedonia", the incumbents of the new republic
have
 no other name for their territory.  But they have.  In this 'Who were the
 Macedonians?', Professor Nicholas Hammond, the distinguished archaeologist
 and historian, explains very clearly that the cradle of the Macedonian
 Kingdom lay on the north-east foothills of Mount Olympus.
 
 << small type >>
     "The origins of the Greek-speaking Macedonians and their Macedonian
 homeland have no connection whatever with southern Yugoslavia."
 
 << regular type >>
     Phillip II extended the kingdom among non-Greek-speaking peoples, and the
 lastwon and northernmost of his annexations is exactly covered by the new
 emerging republic under discussion.  It bore the ancient and euphonius name
 of Paeonia.  No doubt the hardy and courageous race who live there now, if
the
 name were adopted, would go on calling themselves "Macedonians" among
 themselves, rather like the Magyars in Hungary.  The name would be genuinely
 theirs by right of possession, and not, like "Macedonia", a usurpation.
     History may be bunk to Mr. Malcolm, but the Greeks have every right to
 rejoice in Phillip's unification of the Greek states and in the campaigns
 of Alexander; legends of the Lord Iskander still haunt the air from the
Pillars
 of Hercules to the Hindu Kush.  We all know something of the Hellenistic
 world that followed, the division of the Roman Empire, the prevailing
 Greekness of the surviving eastern half under Byzantium, and - though one
 can't cram Gibbon, Bury and Runciman into a paragraph - we have an inkling of
 the ravage of the barbarians.  But the most important developments of all,
 and at first blush the least conspicuous, were the waves of Slaves in the
Dark
 Ages which made their way from the woods and fens north-east to Tacitus's
 Germania, across all Europe, over the Danube and the broken fences of the
 Byzantine world, until they flooded the whole Balkan peninsula.  Many soaked
 into the Greek mainland population and those in the north became Slav states.
 Of them, the Bulgars settled in the east, the others - latterly, Yugoslavia -
 in the west and, except for the Croatians, who looked homewards, became
 Orthodox Christians under the influence of Byzantium.  There were saints,
 conquerors, mystics, heresiarchs, apostasies, kingdoms and emperors and wars
 that bequethed a lasting tangle of rivalries.  Then the Turks swallowed them
 up in a sort of cultural Snakes and Ladders - back to the start for all, and
 lose five centuries.
     It was when the Turkish Empire fell into decline, with the Russian Empire
 still in the ascendant, that the present trouble surfaced.  The astute and
 expansionist Count Ignatieff, after advancing Russia's dominion in Central
 Asia ("the Great Game"), planned, by a balancing westward spread under the
 aegis of "Panslavism", to outflank the Straits and win overland access to the
 Mediterranean by driving the Turks out of Bulgaria.  The country was to
 become an enormous satellite state running from the Black Sea to the Albanian
 mountains and embracing the whole of Macedonia north of Salonika.  With the
 Turks duly driven out, it was presented to Bulgaria by Russia at the Treaty
of
 San Stefano in 1878 and taken away again four months later at the Treaty of
 Berlin, and this brief vision of Naboth's vineyard - which was not really
 Bulgaria's fault in origin - has hag-ridden the Balkans ever since.  At the
 turn of the century, when rival preemptive claims, assassinations, guerilla
 clashes, secret societies and comitadjis prepared the way for the carving-up
 of Turkey in the first Balkan War, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
 Organisation (IMRO) - sometimes wholly, and sometimes partly (with Bulgarian
 backing) urging an autonomous republic - was the most ruthless.  But the
 frontiers, at the end of the second Balkan War, were roughly the same as they
 are today.  Alliance with the Turks and the Germans in the Great War thwarted
 their aims yet again, and the great tracts of Greece - ruled with extreme
 harshness - which rewarded their help to Hitler in his 1941 attack were lost
 yet again.  They changed sides overnight at the approach of the Russians:
 Tito, their new ally, turned the Paeonian part of the Macedonian region, for
 the first time in its history, into a defined political entity.  Until Tito's
 withdrawal, linking Hoxha's Albania to Dimitroff's Bulgaria, it threatened,
 with likeminded help from the south, to ease Greece behind the Iron Curtain.
 Now, with Yugoslavia's eclipse, "the Republic of Macedonia" - or Skopje, or
 Paeonia - is on its own.
 
     But not really.  Its first supporters naturally enough, were their
 Bulgarian kinsmen, ever ready to steep themselves in Macedonian matters.
 Almost the first act of the new republic was to print a picture of the White
 Tower of Salonika - deep into Greece and universally emblematic of
Macedonia's
 capital - on the notes of their new currency.  The next was to declare
 responsibility for all Macedonia, and "Macedonians" lying outside their
 borders, a pretention revoked (and judging by their later doings, with their
 fingers crossed) at the insistence of the EEC.  Ominously, their largest
 political party is the VMRO-DPMNU, the direct descendant and heir of the same
 Imro which gave the 20th century in the Balkans such a bloodthirsty
beginning;
 leading parties in Bulgaria share their aims.  The savage Bulgarian misrule
 of the Greek regions bestowed on them by Hitler has left bitter memories;
 many of the leading figures among the retreating Greeks, who had hoped to
place
 their country inside the Eastern bloc, are now prominent in Skopje, and many
 grim events, best forgotten, flood back to mind.  A few days ago the new
 republic adopted as its national flag the 16-pointed gold star, the presumed
 emblem of Phillip II.  This was found on a casket escavated at Verghina in
 1977 by Professor Andronikos, on the spot indicated to him by his friend
 Nicholas Hammond as the sight of Aegae, the home of the ancient Macedonian
 king, well over 100 miles south of the Paeonian heartland, and deep in both
 ancient and modern Greece.  Though Mr.Malcolm seems to brush these doings
aside
 as boyish peccadillos, I confess that if I were a Greek, bearing the grim
 past in mind and the present day contagion of mischief and the dangers of
 possible future combinations, I would find these grasping birth-pangs of the
 new state very sinister.  I would contest their implications, and especially
 the misappropriation of the name of "Macedonia" as a single entity, with
 vigour.  Why can't they use the real one and start with a clean sheet?
     At least there is no pretence of objectivity in Mr.Malcolm's approach.
 He arrives in Greece full of prejudice and hostility, armed with his black
 book, his sottisier, his probing glance and his flair, and a manner which
 varies between silky bedside condolence for proteges and an abrasive ironical
 hectoring he keeps for his surprised Greek interlocutors;  his interviews
seem
 to end in raised voices and probably, I suspect, in slammed doors.
     Wandering about northern Greece years ago, I stayed now and then with
Slav
 country-folk - if only the misleading word "Slavophone" could be abandoned -
 and I found them either contentedly settled, or intermittently wondering with
 a sigh whether they should have chosen differently.  They got on well with
 their fellow villagers and they reminded me very much of Greeks I had met in
 the same quandary, years before, in southern Bulgaria and along the Black Sea
 coast.  All countries in central and eastern Europe have frontier problems
 and, it goes without saying, skeletons in cupboards and catalogues of their
 opponents' misdeeds - some true, some half-true and some invented - and in
 times of stress these are taken out and reciprocally rattled and trumpeted.
 (I first ran into this in 1934, with the Bulgarians rejoicing over the murder
 of King Alexander of Yugoslavia.  Like the Greeks, the Serbs were hated for
 their share in the territories Imperial Russia had so temptingly and
damagingly
 promised Bulgaria 56 years earlier).
     Mr. Malcolm's mission was to unearth Greek provincial misdeeds and
 oppressions:  vetoes on Slavonic wireless programmes on the Greek State
 Network, for instance; the suppression of monthly minority newsletters and
 cultural societies he sought out near the Skopjian border; and he cites more
 serious charges: "torture and ill-treatment of Turks in Greek prisons".
 (Surely, if only to keep himself in countenance, he should have mentioned the
 infamous abominations of Turkish jails?)  If these matters are anything more
 serious than the Insolence - or the Ignorance - of Office versus Patient
Merit,
 they should be taken up by Amnesty International, and, if proved, all those
 guilty of such misdeeds (including, it seems, Great Britain) should get it in
 the neck.  But it is not the vague cause of general righteousness which
 propels Mr.Malcolm.  He has a special axe to grind and a hatchet job to do.
 He quotes helpful statistics, but living as I do in the depths of the Morea,
 I cannot get hold of the traditional counterstatistics such things always
 engender.  These polemics invariably remind me of custard-pie battles in
 old-fashioned films.  - Wham! Sloch! Wham! - with each dripping contender
 wiping his face and reaching for the last clinching plateload, and not much
 light shed.  His flair leads him into odd corners, to hunting down slanderous
 chauvinistic rags no one has ever heard of but which, I suppose, flourish
 in the dark in all countries;  he punctiliously unfolds an unenlightening
 disquisition on the Vlachs, merely, it emerges in the end, to sneer at the
 poor scholarship of some wretched scribbler.  One would hardly have thought
 these victims worth his powder and shot, until one realises that there is no
 target too small.
     Wandering among the Turks (left behind in the Rhodope mountains in Greek
 Thrace at the 1922 exchange of populations, ike the Greeks in Constantinople)
 used to be a great delight; they and indeed the Pomaks and the Kizilbashi,
 lived on excellent terms with the Greeks.  But it seems things have changed.
 Mr. Malcolm, after a six-hour drive from Salonika to Komotini, mentions,
 among other items, the present delay in the granting of tractor licences to
 Turkish farmers, and other vexations.  What has gone wrong?
     The answer is easy and extremely sad.  It is Cyprus.
     In the Fifties I wrote two consecutive articles for The Spectator on what
 I thought, and still think, was wrong in our handling of the Cyprus problem.
 Since then, as we all know, the Turks have invaded and illicitly occupied the
 north of the island.  In Constantinople, as a direct result, riots, looting,
 destruction, murder, coercion and general hounding have reduced the 90,000
 post-war Greek population of the old city to 4,000, and the figure is
shrinking
 fast.  Of course this induces bad blood on the Greek side of the border,
 and puts difficulties about tractor licences and blocked parliamentary
 candidatures in a totally different light.  Resentment runs high; they are
not
 living in leafy Bucks, and Constantinople is only an hour and a half away.
     From the title at the start, to the tawning on muscular Turkey at the
end,
 and the final conniving innuendo about chicking Greece out of the EEC, Mr.
 Malcolm's pages are unblushingly slanted.  He urges the Community to endorse
 a controversial and ambiguous name for an emerging state (backed now by
 a misappropriated flag), depriving it of the goodwill of a neighbour which
 would have been forthcoming in abundance; and, possibly, opening the road to
 serious future complications.  This would turn the Community into a very
 strange kind of fairy godmother; the Ignatieff touch, perhaps.
     As we know, the correct name for the state is there for the asking and
one
 wishes it luck, whatever happens.  I could not help remembering, with
 recurring amazement that the object of the writer's sneers and invective was
 not merely an old and trusted friend but our own ally in Great Britain's most
 lonely and dangerous moments this century.  We had managed to keep the sky
 from falling.  Reading on, I feld uncomfortable by association, until these
 unfashionable thoughts carried me straight back to Trelawny and his ghostly
 lordship and the Nottinghamshire valet aboard the brig Hercules, becalmed in
 the Ionian Sea.
 
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