Yo.
THIS IS A BIIIIIG PROBLEM. It has nothing to do with nationalism at all.
There is no Macedonia as an independent country, if there was to be one it would be Greek.
People from Sweden, England etc dont understand the point of course... People from the US probably dont even know where Greece actually is.
You should read on if you want to learn the truth from the Greeks' viewpoint; I have never heard the other side anyway, they just claim to be Macedonians, no proof or something similar.
What is Macedonia? Double answer.
Macedonia can be seen both as the piece of land and also as the ancient Greek "empire" that, led by Alexander the Great, once conquered half the Asia.
There is no doubt that Fyrom (just like northern Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgary) is sited on the ancient Macedonian land, but what is questionable (if not funny) is the Fyroms' effort to appear as those who continue the "Macedonian tradition"...
THE LAND:
Macedonia is a large area in the Balcans, which nowadays (contrary to the ancient times) does not belong to a single country. There is the Greek part which is the biggest of all, the Bulgarian part, the Yugoslavian part, the Albanian part etc.
All these people however do not claim to be Macedonians, they are just Yugoslavians, Bulgarians and Albanians; just like Fyrom they have nothing in common with the ancient Macedonia apart from the fact that they live on the same land. At those ancient times their ancestors did probably not even know where Macedonia was, they were probably living a "bit" (a lot I'd say actually) more to the north and moved later on to the region.
"THE EMPIRE":
Macedonia as it has been known since the "ancient times", including kings like Alexander the Great, Philip etc, was something like ancient Sparta, Athens and so on. It was yet another independent GREEK city and individual country at the same time. At that time every Greek city was on its own and they usually fought each other; if there was a common enemy though they united and fought together (for example against Persia or much earlier as Homer says against Troy). There was of course no organised Greek country/nation at the time but all these people had, lets say, common ancestors.
But surely there was no Macedonian country/nation the way people from Fyrom mean it, as there was no Albanian etc.
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I bet you know that Alexander, Philip and all these names are Greek. Philip`s body was buried and has been found 50km away from my town, in a place called Vergina. You should also know that Macedonians spoke and wrote Greek and took part in the Olympic Games ( where only Greeks were allowed to do so ). I have never heard of a person named eg. Igor taking part...
Alexander for example was student of some of the greatest Greek philosophers of that time and his father Philip had won a medal in the Olympics.
Now you the "Macedonian" tell me if your ancestors spoke and wrote Greek, if they took part in the Olympic games, if they fought against the Persians and so on. Also if they had names like Alexander, Philip, Olympiad etc. If yes, you are a true Macedonian.
I guess you people from Fyrom also know where these names actually come from (I mean their root), for example, Philip = Filippos = Fil+ippos (that means "the one who loves horses" in case you dont understand the language that Macedonians spoke and wrote).
Except if you tell us that the ancient Macedonians, eg Alexander and his army, had names like Igor, Goran etc. Because all these remind me of Russian/Bulgarian/Hungarian etc names. I apologise (apology, another greek word you should know btw) to people from Russia/Bulgaria/Hungary if I mentioned them by mistake, but I hope that you get my point...
The marbles that have been revealed by the excavations right next to my town (which was in the beginning believed to be the site of the ancient Macedonian palace) have Greek words "written" (its called enscripted I think) on them, there is nothing written in ...Cyrillic. It's that simple, nothing really complex...
Search your whole country and if you find one enscription ageing back 2500 years that is not written in Greek I will believe everything you say.
And btw, tell me why you FYROMs try to "steal" (in greek it is called "kapileia", if you are a Macedonian as you claim you should be able to understand it properly) our nations' history.
Lack of own history perhaps? Lack of national identity I'd say... The saddest thing of all for a nation. You tell me.
There are some nations (including Fyrom I suppose) that have very little history, this cant be changed (sometimes thats good sometimes bad).
You got to try to live with that, instead of stealing other peoples' history, shouting out in every chance that it belongs to you and being proud of something that has nothing to do with you.
Let me give you an example...
The Egyptians built the Pyramids. At that time the Egyptians ruled lands that now belong to other countries. Could you imagine eg. the Syrians changing their country's name into "Democracy of the people of the Nile", putting a pyramid as a symbol on their flag and claiming that they themselves built the Pyramids?
It's at least FUNNY, dont you think?
But thats what these people from Fyrom are doing now...
Of course the Syrians that I mentioned above do have their own history as a nation and do not feel the need to steal pieces from others to complete the puzzle...
There is another difference. Syrians would be ""allowed"" to some extent to claim something like this because they did exist at that time as a nation, contrary to the Fyroms who, let me be generous, have a history of 1000 years and by no means 2500 or more...
Greece has existed for thousands of years now, "Macedonia" the way that people from Fyrom mean it is just another one of the many "inventions" of the USA in the Balcan and not only region in their effort to have some weak nations under their control.
Go check out the recent survey that shows which nations worlwide (not politicians but the peopleS) support the US. I bet Fyrom is top five together with Albania of course. No question why... For the same reason that there is no question for Israel and ...Afghanistan.
You claim to be a Macedonian from the country of Macedonia and that you carry on the Macedonian tradition...
So:
You must speak Greek.
You must write Greek.
You must have a Greek name.
If you match these requirements you are a true Greek, and I am very happy about that.
Otherwise, if for example you cannot read an ancient Macedonian enscription (if it's "all Greek to you"), you are free to convince yourself that Alexander the Great is part of your nation's history.
PS: F*ck racists, nationalists and all those idiots