Response to the obvious and provable falsehoods and untruths published in Basil Coronakis’ magazine New Europe: https://www.neweurope.eu/article/north-macedonia-must-join-the-bloc-but-still/
By: Bruce Gorjanski
Tags: European Union, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Macedonian

Note: there is no hate speech or any kind of discrimination in the story below. All the facts that are a response to the untruths discussed in Basil Coronakis’ article in his own magazine “New Europe” are easily verifiable on the Internet. This story’s main purpose is to expound on the blatant untruths that are commonly used against N. Macedonia and the Macedonians, without any regard to the provable and verifiable historical facts and evidence.

Response to the untruths in https://www.neweurope.eu/article/north-macedonia-must-join-the-bloc-but-still/ New Europe article by Basil Coronakis.

Mr. Coronakis wrote:

“If the hope is lost, the country will be split among Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia and Greece, creating new geostrategic equilibria in the Balkan peninsula.”

How in heavens would this ever happen to a NATO member country? And Mr. Coronakis has mentioned this impossible thesis in previous articles about N. Macedonia as well. Why? How is this anything else but some kind of unrequited fantasy? Do you know, Mr. Coronakis, of any NATO member country, ever, that was attacked and split amongst its neighbors? Has that happened, ever, in the entire history of NATO existence? I am pretty sure Mr. Coronakis is well familiar with NATO “Article 5” — an attack on one is an attack on all. Why does Mr. Coronakis keep repeating this rubbish that can never happen realistically, bar another World War and a total collapse of the World Order? There is a much greater possibility that Turkey will attack Greece and annex it back to reestablish its former colony of Yunanistan, than N. Macedonia being attacked and divided by anyone in any way. EU does not guarantee the territorial integrity of N. Macedonia or any other member. NATO does, and does it well.

Mr. Coronakis wrote:

“the late Michalis Papakonstantinou, in a rather animated discussion, told me, “can you understand Vassili that if this country did not exist, we should have invented it?””

What does this mean? Does it mean that N. Macedonia is a buffer state between the Hellenic Republic and its “barbarian” neighbors, just like Ancient Macedonia was “The Shield of Greece” from the barbarians to the north? Half-mouthed insinuations are neither welcome nor helpful.

Mr. Coronakis wrote:

“Premeditated or not, this grotesque error will provide any Greek government, present or future, in times of domestic political difficulties to turn the Prespes Agreement into a piece of paper, good only to wrap fish./”

Why such hostility and evil-wishing, Mr. Coronakis? The actual reality on the ground shows that such ill predictions are simply not true in reality. Kiryakos Mitsotakis, the arch-enemy of Syriza, had plenty of opportunity to try to annul the Prespa Agreement, and yet, not only he has not done so, but he even welcomed the Macedonian PM in Greece multiple times on very friendly terms. To imagine that some “future” Greek government would annul the Prespa Agreement because of some narrow, daily-pollical purposes is simply a misplaced fantasy. Short of the Nazis and convicted criminals from Chrissy Avgy/Golden Dawn, no other government would even consider it, the main reason being that the agreement simply recognizes the situation on the ground: that Ethnic Macedonians have been referring to themselves as such, and to their language as Macedonian since at least the late 1700s. There are nations out there like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. with much shorter history, and yet nobody denies them their validity. Calling this fact, a “grotesque error” harkens back to the policies of the fascist dictator Metaxas and his “name changes to sound Greek” at a gunpoint, or, more recently, the propaganda of the convicted criminals from Chrissy Avgy/Golden Dawn.

Here we can gloss over Mr. Coronakis’ emphasis on the lack of loyalty of the Macedonian Albanian minority and their wish for “Greater Albania”, as such thing is next to non-existent in 2020. The Albanians from Albania Proper, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and yes, from Greece (where they go by the moniker “Arvanites”, but they are still Ethnic Albanians by DNA) — increasingly see each other as distinct, and Edi Rama has a better relationship with Serbian Prime Minister Vucic than with former Kosovo Prime Minister Thaci.

Mr. Coronakis wrote:

“When North Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia, the language spoken was Serbo-Croatian. After the split, a local dialect was adopted as the official language which was named “Macedonian””

I am not sure why would Mr. Coronakis write such obvious and verifiable falsehoods. Even a cursory look at Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica (or Americana) would prove that the Macedonian Literary Language was first linguistically and scientifically described in 1903 (Krste Misirkov’s book “On Macedonian Matters”) and then formally codified in 1943/1944 (during ASNOM and before the Greek Civil War) and has ever since been the official language of SR/R/N/Macedonia until this day. There are modern official languages that were codified later than that. Serbo-Croatian was the language of communication across the entire Yugoslav Federation (including Slovenia, Bosnia, Montenegro, etc.) on a federal level, while on a state level, each republic had its own national language as its spoken, written and official language. For SR Slovenia that was the Slovenian language, for SR Macedonia that was the Macedonian language. This is easily verifiable in all the official documents and laws from that period. The anecdote that Mr. Coronakis’ describes with his Bulgarian friend speaking “fluently” Macedonian falls flat in front of the fact that all South Slavic languages are mutually intelligible. Mr. Coronakis could have had with him a Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian or a Montenegrin friend and they would be able to understand Macedonian and speak “fluently” just as well as his Bulgarian friend, and probably even better, since the Bulgarian language has many Russian and Turkish words that never existed in any of the South Slavic languages of Federal Yugoslavia.

Finally, Mr. Coronakis wrote:

“To this effect, Zaev has only one move left. Go first to Sofia and then to Athens and beg Boyko Borisov and Kyriakos Mitsotakis for “unconditional” help. He may never get into the bloc but at least he will deliver the country to his successor one piece, as he got it.”

I am really at a loss as to how did Mr. Coronakis arrive at the preposterous conclusion in this paragraph? Why would Zaev “beg” Mitsotakis for anything at all? The Prespa agreement has already been ratified by both parliaments and is a legally binding document for all future governments of both countries, Greece and N. Macedonia. The Macedonian Nation and the Macedonian Language are fully recognized by the Hellenic Republic’s former and current government and all future governments. What is there to “beg” for? The United Nations has recognized the Macedonian Language as spoken in N. Macedonia since the 1977 UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names.

Even more puzzling is Mr. Coronakis’ conclusion that Zaev needs to beg Borisov, a former mobster (allegedly), who is on his last legs in Bulgarian politics, with the protests against him and his government having been ongoing for over 150 days now, with no signs of abating. Borisov will be out by the time of the Bulgarian Spring Election, together with his hodge-podge coalition of criminals (allegedly) and assorted extremists, and all Zaev has to do is wait 4 months and start fresh with the new Bulgarian government.

No need for artificial drama or pathos or any kind of rush.

-Bruce Gorjanski