Macedonian nationalism. No Balkan nationalists allowed! Please read before commenting.

Let's understand each other, shall we?

I haven’t written in a while.  I decided to come back and see how this blog is doing.  WordPress has changed some of the software.. the inner workings look different.  Any way, I found this comment on one of my blog posts.  I let it show up because I want people to see an example of someone who did not read my post and posted utter and complete nonsense.  Let me remind you that the idea of that blog post, Macedonia’s name and the issue of cultural heritage, was to claim that really, on the Balkans, we should all get along, because we really are very very similar and can all claim to have been influenced by the great civilizations that have thrived on our small bit of the world.

I’m perfectly willing to listen, if you’re willing to listen to me.

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to tear apart nationalistic crap on my blog, so I’ll give it a go.

Go check igenea or other institutes for genetics
Macedonian DNA exist and its different than the “greek” one or bulgarian…

Since when is DNA a prerequisite to belonging to a certain nation or cultural entity?  Okay I give, my DNA stops me from calling myself Chinese or Korean, sure. (Really though, I’m sure if I wanted to learn their culture and be one of them, they would welcome me with open arms.)  But the differences in DNA of Balkan peoples are extremely small. Insignificant.  We’re all human beings anyway.

Stop calling us bulgars,slavs… fashist politics

Did I call Macedoneans Bulgarians?  No! Good job reading my blog post!

do you know my friend why the language we speak its called ‘’slavic” or macedonian???
learn some history before you post non-sense.
Have you heard about St. Kiril and Metodij???
that wikipedia stupid greek fashist propaganda can show to somebody else

Several inconsistencies here.  First, if you claim you are different from Slavs (see previous quote bit), then why are you defending your language as being slavic?  And why are you defending Macedonian (the idea) as being Slavic?

Post from iGENEA to 02.10.2008

Oh good! He’s bringing in an intellectual buddy to refute my blog post, which he didn’t read! Note: After reading through the next part, I realized that it had been ‘translated’ from German.  I wonder if the percentages were also translated as liberally as the words were?

A antic (from renovatio:  what does this mean??) macedonian genetic profile exists and has been discovered through the comparison of archaeological funds and persons with macedonian roots. These studies enable us to determine the macedonian roots of a person. We have 30% of macedonians in Macedonia, 20% in Greece an minorities in Bulgaria and Albania.

So 20% of Greeks do, or rather, 20% of Greek genetic ancestry is, have Macedonian descent?  You’re shooting a hole in your claim that you are the only descendants of Alexander.  Also, these presentations of archaeological DNA don’t impress me much.  How do you know that the person in what is supposed to be a Macedonian’s grave wasn’t an adopted Thracian or Greek?

It is very important to differ between politics and genetics, we are a genetic institute and we don’t have politic aims.

Presenting your evidence as nonpartial when it really is provides a clue as to how verifiable the evidence is. Note: I still don’t think genetic percentages are ‘evidence’ of any sort.  It’s grasping at straws to show how different you are from others.

Albania:
30% Illyrians
15% Phoenician
14% Hellenen
18%Thraker
2% Vikings
20% slavs

Albanians are more slavic than Bulgarians.  They also have no Macedonian genetic influence.  Huh??

Greece:
10% Germanic
10%illyrians
20% slavs
20% phoenician
5% macedonian (in north more than 18%)
35% Hellenen

Let’s just say that this is ridiculous.  First off, Greeks are more slavic than Bulgarians.  Secondly, it doesn’t even correspond to the presented Macedonian descent of Greeks given in the first article!

Bulgaria:
49%Thraker
11%macedonian
15%slavs
15%hellenen
5% pheonician

Great!  Who cares in today’s world?

Macedonia:
30%macedonian
10% illyrian
15% hellenen
5%phoenician
20% germanic
5% hunnen
15% slavs

20% Germanic??? Did Germans colonize Macedonia while I wasn’t looking??  Also, according to this, Macedonians are more hunnic than Bulgarians! Why are you calling Bulgarians Tatars??  And why do all of Macedonia’s neighbors except for Serbia have Thracian ancestry, but Macedonia doesn’t?

Bosnia
50% Illyrer
4% Thraker
20% Germanen
6% Hunnen
15% Slawen
15% Kelten

I’m getting tired of this.  German (non)-translation obvious here.  Bosnians are more Albanian than Albanians are?

Serbien:
30% Slawen
9% Phönizier
21% Illyrer
14% Kelten
8% Hellenen
2% wikinger
18% Germanen

I’m tired.  This genetic ancestry crap doesn’t even matter in today’s world.  It only matters where people are more concerned with history than with real life dynamics.

your opinion is a result of the fashist politic of greecce, stop calling us slavs cause the greece is more slavic country than MACEDONIA!

Whew, I got to the end of it.  What I was doing was claiming that the Balkans are cultarally similar.  We all have the tendency to bite each other where it most hurts and to plant our little flag and shout how great we are.  Except that most of us don’t.  Only the vocal ones are heard though.  Most of us, myself included, just want this nonsense nationalism to end, and to move on to a brighter future where we all help each other achieve and prosper.

Long live the men of goodwill who can get past nationalism, pride and past glories!

Let's work together!

A “Federal Union of Bulgaria and Macedonia”?

An interesting (though overtly pessimistic) article I recently read mentioned that there are rumors circulating about a federal state in the making between Bulgaria and Macedonia.  While it might be possible, and Bulgarians would certainly like the idea, I’m not so sure how much Macedonians would like to be part of such a union.  Macedonians still feel that Bulgarians want Macedonia to be incorporated into a larger Bulgaria.  I’m not certain that there is any mainstream political party (except for Ataka, maybe) who even has this goal.  In fact, Bulgaria unconditionally recognized the existance of Macedonia as a nation a long, long time ago.  And though many people claim that Bulgaria didn’t recognize the Macedonian ethnicity and language, the Bulgarian premier who recognized Macedonia, Philip Dimitrov, has repeatedly said that Bulgaria recognized all aspects of Macedonian independence, such as statehood, ethnicity, and language.

I think it would certainly be an interesting experiment, anyway.  As long as the two countries enter into such a union willingly and for good reason.  Here’s what it says on the article: “It is interesting to note that widespread rumors for an eventual “Federal Union” between FYROM and Bulgaria are beginning to circulate, an event that will have ramifications probably more important and intense than Kosovo independence.”  Not to mention that it might be the only way for Macedonia to get into NATO and the EU in the near future.  That is, if the recent trouble between Russia and Georgia doesn’t force Greece to be more lenient with its northern neighbor.

I personally think it’s in the regions interest if all nations work at building closer ties and develop more economic links.  What would be very interesting is if the idea of a Yugoslavia sees a rebirth, stemming from the creation of such a union.  This time, though, Bulgaria would be included.  I think later on I’ll examine how and why it was a mistake and detrimental for Bulgaria to not join (since after World War II Stalin meant for Bulgaria Yugoslavia until Tito took a more independent course) the old Yugoslavia, both for Bulgaria and Yugoslavia as a whole.

Macedonia’s name and the issue of cultural heritage

The articles and press reports covering the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece have largely died out nowadays, when the anti-climactic NATO summit in Bucharest came and went without an invitation being extended to Macedonia. That doesn’t mean the dispute has ended, however, nor have its roots been thoroughly examined. The key issue at stake here is cultural heritage, and what ownership of cultural heritage means for the people of the Balkans. Recognition by the world (including Greece) as the Republic of Macedonia, implicates that the people of Macedonia, Macedonians, own a right to the cultural heritage bequeathed to the region by the ancient Macedonians (Philip, Alexander, etc). In the Balkans, this right to cultural heritage translates into other kinds of entitlement, such as entitlement to territory once ruled by the ancient Macedonians. It is this local belief, combined with the fact that the Greeks see themselves as the cultural and ethnic descendants of Alexander the Great and his people, that has caused the matter of self-determination to become an inflamed dispute involving the entire NATO alliance.

The first question that needs to be answered is why the Macedonians want to call themselves Macedonians. Ethnically and linguistically, modern Macedonians are southern Slavs with close ties to the Bulgarians. The term, Macedonia, though, acquired a geographic meaning rather than an ethnic meaning during the Roman era, with the establishment of the Roman province of Macedonia. Thus, after the Slavs migrated into the geographic lands called Macedonia and absorbed the local populace, they adopted the name Macedonians in part because they indeed were Macedonians (people living in an area often delineate themselves as a member of that community, New Yorker, for example). In the wake of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan wars (which were fought over Macedonia), the people living in the region used the name to rebuff claims that they were Bulgarian, Greek, or Serbian, thus entrenching the name Macedonia into the region’s communal identity.

In effect, the people were forging a distinct national identity out of the simple fact that they lived near each other. That’s not a horrible reason to form a nation, and it certainly has its merits. By the time that the Ottoman Empire was on the decline, most of her Slavic subjects had been under her control for at least the greater part of five centuries. Most of what survived was the Slavic dialect (though heavily influenced by Turkish; the local languages were ‘purified’ after liberation), the local religion (usually Orthodox Christianity), and the knowledge that they were second class citizens in the empire. During the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, a national consciousness began to form each of the separate groups living in the region. These groups identified with previous kingdoms or empires on the peninsula, and thus was the continuity between the Middle Ages and the 19th century born. Macedonia’s case, thus, isn’t all that different from the other countries on the peninsula. It just got to the game a little later and wasn’t able to legitimize itself before its neighboring countries were able to ‘prove’ their ties to history.

What does all of this have to do with the name? The battle over the name signifies a battle over the cultural heritage left by the ancient Macedonians. Also, the Balkan states were all founded on the principle of one people, one history, one nation. The national consciousnesses that were formed were extremely strong; and each nation sought to incorporate into their modern state everything that was seen as historically theirs. For Serbians that meant Kosovo, for Bulgarians that meant Thrace and Macedonia, for Greeks that meant the whole of the territory once owned by the Byzantine Empire (there was talk of a coup from within in the Ottoman Empire to place the Greeks in command and create a successor of the Byzantine Empire). Finally, for Macedonians, that means the region of Macedonia, part of which is in Bulgaria and Greece. Notwithstanding the fact that there have been Macedonian agitators for a ‘Macedonia with a port on the Aegean’, the Greek people themselves have been through this process of nation building themselves, and know the feelings that it can generate.

The solution isn’t as simple as a simply giving Macedonia a new name. The fact of the matter is, many, most, probably, Macedonians feel like genuine Macedonians, descended from the noble tribe of Alexander the Great. But then, the Greeks feel that they are the true descendants of Alexander and his kin. So it’s not a conflict over a name, it’s a name for a conflict. This conflict can only be resolved through the realization that, in fact, the cultural heritage of Alexander the Great belongs to all peoples of the region. The concept of one people, one history, is ridiculous. A regions history may belong to more than one people, especially when the region is small as the Balkans and as populated as it is by different ethnic groups.

What needs to happen is a concerted effort to stamp out the nascent cultural nationalism present in every Balkan country. It’s not needed. The countries are all neighbors, and they all stand to profit from eased relations. Economically, socially, and politically, the more the people of the Balkans realize that they have much more in common than they thought, and that they have many common goals to pursue, the better off the region will be.

And the world can finally stop using the Balkans as a negative stereotype.