Уште еден, овој пат Ристо Стефов
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"Dear President Obama,
We, the undersigned scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity, respectfully request that you intervene to clean up some of the historical debris left in southeast Europe by the previous U.S. administration."
Why ask a politician to "clean up" "historical debris"?
"On November 4, 2004, two days after the re-election of President George W. Bush, his administration unilaterally recognized the ´Republic of Macedonia.´ This action not only abrogated geographic and historic fact, but it also has unleashed a dangerous epidemic of historical revisionism, of which the most obvious symptom is the misappropriation by the government in Skopje of the most famous of Macedonians, Alexander the Great."
(1) How does recognizing a country whose name was chosen by its people by referendum, repeal or cancel geographic and historic facts?
(2) How is "revisionism" dangerous when it is "scientific research" based on "historic facts"? Is revisionism "a bad thing"? Should revisionism have been "avoided" when it was discovered that the earth was not flat? Should we pretend to believe the earth is flat to avoid "revisionism"?
(3) Was Macedonia not Alexander´s homeland? If it was then how is the Skopje government "misappropriating" Alexander the Great? Putting it another way "do you mean to tell me that the Modern Greeks, descendents of the Slav, Albanian and Vlach immigrants who came to reside in Greece during the 6th and 11th to 14th centuries and later the 1.1 million Christian Turk colonists deposited in Greece have more "rights" to the Macedonian heritage than the indigenous Macedonians who lived in Macedonia for millenniums?
"We believe that this silliness has gone too far, and that the U.S.A. has no business in supporting the subversion of history. Let us review facts. (The documentation for these facts (here in boldface) can be found attached and at:
http://macedonia-evidence.org/)
The land in question, with its modern capital at Skopje, was called Paionia in antiquity. Mts. Barnous and Orbelos (which form today the northern limits of Greece) provide a natural barrier that separated, and separates, Macedonia from its northern neighbor. The only real connection is along the Axios/Vardar River and even this valley "does not form a line of communication because it is divided by gorges."
While it is true that the Paionians were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 358 B.C. they were not Macedonians and did not live in Macedonia. Likewise, for example, the Egyptians, who were subdued by Alexander, may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia.
Rather, Macedonia and Macedonian Greeks have been located for at least 2,500 years just where the modern Greek province of Macedonia is. Exactly this same relationship is true for Attica and Athenian Greeks, Argos and Argive Greeks, Corinth and Corinthian Greeks, etc".
The facts Mr. Stephen G. Miller? Do you now peddle Modern Greek propaganda as the facts? Why do you want to present the "facts" from 2,500 years ago and not the "facts" from two centuries ago when the Modern Greek state was created for the first time in 1829? How about letting President Obama know how the Western Philhellenes created the Modern Greek state? How the Philhellenes made the Modern Greeks out of the ashes of the Slav, Albanian and Vlach ethnicities and cultures that lived there in the late 18th and early 19th centuries?
How about discussing with President Obama more recent historic events like how Greece and its partners Serbia and Bulgaria invaded, occupied and brutally partitioned Macedonia and the atrocities they subsequently committed against the Macedonian people? How about discussing what Greece did with the Macedonian language? (
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/102469).
Or, how about telling President Obama of the lack of human rights for the Macedonian people living in their ancestral lands in Greece today? How come these issues are missing from your one-sided biased letter?
Perhaps these subjects might be a bit "too real" for you so you´d rather talk about abstract things that may or may not have happened 2,500 years ago. Since you are so keen in discussing "old issues" then how about clicking on the following link and answer Mr. Gandeto´s questions.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/102727
"We do not understand how the modern inhabitants of ancient Paionia, who speak Slavic – a language introduced into the Balkans about a millennium after the death of Alexander – can claim him as their national hero."
Mr. Stephen G. Miller I can make exactly the same argument about the Greeks today. "
We do not understand how the modern inhabitants of Greece who are the descendants of Slav, Albanian, Vlach and Christian Turk immigrants, who spoke Slavic, Albanian, Vlach and Turkish and who were introduced into the region in the 6th, 11th to 14th and 20th centuries AD respectively can claim Alexander the Great as their national hero?" Further, if you care to examine some of the ancient sources a bit more carefully, you will find that Alexander "conquered and subjugated" the so-called ancient Greeks and is no "national hero" to any true blooded Greek.
"Alexander the Great was thoroughly and indisputably Greek. [Says who?] His great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I, competed in the Olympic Games where participation was limited to Greeks.
Even before Alexander I, the Macedonians traced their ancestry to Argos, and many of their kings used the head of Herakles - the quintessential Greek hero - on their coins.
Euripides – who died and was buried in Macedonia– wrote his play Archelaos in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, and in Greek. While in Macedonia, Euripides also wrote the Bacchai, again in Greek. Presumably the Macedonian audience could understand what he wrote and what they heard.
Alexander´s father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi, the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete. Even more significantly, Philip was appointed to conduct the Pythian Games at Delphi in 346 B.C. In other words, Alexander the Great´s father and his ancestors were thoroughly Greek. Greek was the language used by Demosthenes and his delegation from Athens when they paid visits to Philip, also in 346 B.C.
Another northern Greek, Aristotle, went off to study for nearly 20 years in the Academy of Plato. Aristotle subsequently returned to Macedonia and became the tutor of Alexander III. They used Greek in their classroom which can still be seen near Naoussa in Macedonia.
Alexander carried with him throughout his conquests Aristotle´s edition of Homer´s Iliad. Alexander also spread Greek language and culture throughout his empire, founding cities and establishing centers of learning. Hence inscriptions concerning such typical Greek institutions as the gymnasium are found as far away as Afghanistan. They are all written in Greek."
Frankly Mr. Stephen G. Miller we are tired of the same old, same old! We have heard these arguments dozens of times from the Greek propagandists and we have more than once answered them already. You can find our answers at this link;
http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/3446
Look for the series of articles entitled "Greek Australian Advisory Council and the falsification of Ancient Macedonian history" parts 1 to 20.
"The questions follow: Why was Greek the lingua franca all over Alexander´s empire if he was a "Macedonian"? That is why the New Testament, for example, was written in Greek?"
Mr. Stephen G. Miller why was the language of Greece Greek after 1829 when we know for a fact that the so-called king of Greece was a Bavarian prince? Why am I writing in English when I am Macedonian? Are these supposed to be "convincing" arguments?
Speaking Greek hardly has anything to do with ones own ethnicity. We use English today because of convenience. Many more people worldwide will understand me if I speak and write in English.
"Greek", as you call it, or Koine at the time was a "convenient" and "available" language to use and was used by many people including the Thracians. Should we now claim the Thracians were "Greeks" because some of them spoke Koine or inscribed their coins using the Koine language? What kind of logic is that?
The bible is written in every language today so what does that really mean?
"
The answers are clear: Alexander the Great was Greek, not Slavic, [Mr. Miller "Slavic" is not an ethnicity it is a language] and Slavs and their language were nowhere near Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years later. This brings us back to the geographic area known in antiquity as Paionia. Why would the people who live there now call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia? Why would they abduct a completely Greek figure and make him their national hero?"
Why are the Modern Greeks, the descendants of Slav, Albanian, Vlach and Christian Turk immigrants who are "Greek" in name only, abducting a Macedonian figure such as Alexander the Great and make him into their national hero, especially since he conquered and subjugated the very same people modern Greeks today try to emulate?
If Macedonians are "Slavs" what then are the modern Greeks? Read your history!
"The ancient Paionians may or may not have been Greek, but they certainly became Greekish, and they were never Slavs. They were also not Macedonians. Ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian Empire. So were Ionia and Syria and Palestine and Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Bactria and many more. They may thus have become "Macedonian" temporarily, but none was ever "Macedonia". The theft of Philip and Alexander by a land that was never Macedonia cannot be justified.
The traditions of ancient Paionia could be adopted by the current residents of that geographical area with considerable justification. But the extension of the geographic term "Macedonia" to cover southern Yugoslavia cannot. Even in the late 19th century, this misuse implied unhealthy territorial aspirations.
The same motivation is to be seen in school maps that show the pseudo-greater Macedonia, stretching from Skopje to Mt. Olympus and labeled in Slavic. The same map and its claims are in calendars, bumper stickers, bank notes, etc., that have been circulating in the new state ever since it declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Why would a poor land-locked new state attempt such historical nonsense? Why would it brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor?
However one might like to characterize such behavior, it is clearly not a force for historical accuracy, nor for stability in the Balkans. It is sad that the United States of America has abetted and encouraged such behavior.
We call upon you, Mr. President, to help - in whatever ways you deem appropriate - the government in Skopje to understand that it cannot build a national identity at the expense of historic truth. Our common international society cannot survive when history is ignored, much less when history is fabricated."
A lot of words but no substance! Territorial aspirations?
Whose territories are the Macedonians aspiring? Their own? Even by your own accounts, you admit that the Macedonians have been in the region for at least 1,500 years!
How long does one need to live in Macedonia among Macedonians to qualify to be called Macedonian?
When you talk about "territorial aspirations" are you referring to the Macedonian lands Greece occupies today which it obtained by conquest and by an act of war? Or are you talking about the lands Greece confiscated from the Macedonian people it exiled over the years?
Why aren´t these issues in your letter to President Obama, Mr. Stephen G. Miller?
