Greece only SEE country listed as "full democracy" in Economist index

A new Economist Intelligence Unit survey of 167 countries places Greece among the world's 28 "full democracies" and seven other Southeast European countries in the group of "flawed democracies". Three other countries in the region are seen as "hybrid regimes".

Greece is the only Southeast European (SEE) country included in the group of the most democratic nations in the world, according to a new survey released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) this week.

Ranking 22nd among the surveyed 165 countries and two territories, Greece is classified as a "full democracy," along with 27 other nations. The rest of the countries fall into one of other three groups listed in the EIU democracy index -- "flawed democracies," "hybrid regimes" and "authoritarian regimes".

The index is based on the scores the countries are given for 60 indicators across five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.

For each of these categories, the surveyed nations are given scores from 0 to 10. The overall index of democracy is the simple average of the five category indexes. Almost without exception, the SEE countries' best scores are for the electoral process and pluralism and civil liberties categories.

With an overall score of 9.88 and marks of 10.00 in four of the five categories, Sweden is the highest-ranked nation in the table.

Greece's overall score of 8.13 places it behind Belgium and Japan, which share the 20th position and ahead of Britain and France, ranked 23rd and 24th, respectively. Its best marks are for electoral process and pluralism (9.58), and civil liberties (9.41), while its lowest (6.67) is for political participation.

Most of the other countries in the region are categorised in the second grouping, "flawed democracies". Leading them is Cyprus, which joined the EUin May 2004 along with Poland and eight other Central and East European countries. It shares 36th position with Botswana on the basis of an overall score of 7.60.

Like Greece and most of the other SEE countries, it has been given its highest marks for electoral process and for pluralism and civil liberties -- 9.17 and 9.12, respectively. Cyprus's lowest score of 6.25 is for political culture.

Six other SEE countries -- Bulgaria (49th), Romania (50th), Croatia (51st), Serbia (55th), Montenegro (58th) and FYROMacedonia (68th) -- also fall in the "flawed democracies" group.
Bulgaria's overall score of 7.60 is only 0.04 points better than that of its northern neighbour, Romania. The two countries, which will join the EU on January 1st, are given the same marks of 9.58 and 8.53 for electoral process and for pluralism and civil liberties. Both also got their lowest mark of 5.00 for political culture.

Although scoring slightly better than Bulgaria and Romania in this specific category, Croatia, which has an overall score of 7.04, also got its worst mark (5.63) for political culture.
Serbia and Montenegro are given overall scores of 6.62 and 6.57, respectively. They have the same best mark of 9.17 for electoral process and pluralism and the same worst mark of 5.00 for political participation.

FYROMacedonia has an overall score of 6.33. Its lowest mark of 3.75 is for political culture.

Ranked 83rd, 87th and 88th, respectively, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey are in the 30-nation "hybrid regimes" group. Their overall scores range from 5.91 points for Albania to 5.78 for BiH and 5.70 for Turkey. Their highest marks are for electoral process and pluralism. Albania's worst mark of 4.44 is for political participation, while BiH's lowest score of 3.29 is for functioning of government. Turkey's lowest mark of 3.75 is for political culture.


source
South East European Times

Ancient Macedonian Language,is a Greek?

One from the primary source to define a language is the writing system. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems defines a writing system as "a set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way". This simple explanation encompasses a large spectrum of writing systems with vastly different stylistic and structural characteristics spanning across the many regions of the globe.

So the inscription or the script was, is and will be the major definition source of a language
There is no defined line between a language and a dialect, but it is often said that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy, a statement credited to Max Weinreich.

To the question, what kind of language did the ancient Macedonians use, the answer can be given based on, what else, the existing references in ancient documents and the excavated inscriptions. What we have concluded is, that the ancient Macedonians were Hellenophon and the original dialect of the Hellenic language they used (Macedonian dialect) was very much similar to the Doric dialect (that is in accordance to Herodotus' references on the common origin of the Dorians and the Macedonians). Later on (in Hellenistic era) that dialect was gradually replaced by the Koini Attiki dialect, just like in all of the other Greek states. Every native Macedonian name, is Hellenic and is formed in the Hellenic way of producing words, as for example the names:"Adista, Philista, Sostrata, Philotas, Perdikkas, Mahatas," and hundreds more

And, of course, the strongest evidence of the Greekness of the Macedonian dialect are:

• The excavated inscriptions, where you can find only Greek characters and words
• The coins of Macedonia, where again you can find only Greek characters and words
• The quotations of the ancient writers on the Macedonians' speech
• The characteristics of the Macedonian dialect
• Etymology of some names in Macedonia
  

Some years back,a German linguist by the name Otto Hoffman wrote a book with the title "Makedonians, their language and their Ethnicity". Hoffman analyzed the paradoxical or idiomatic words (calling them languages),which past grammatical, lexicographers and more in general everyone engaged around the Hellenic language had noted them as "worthy to be analyzed" in Makedonia.

To begin with,all those people were believing that the Makedonian language was an Hellenic dialect, and exactly this is the reason mentioning certain of its peculiarities, had they believe that the Makedonian language was alien to that Hellenic one, there was not a reason mentioning those Makedonian paradoxical and/or idiomatic "languages".

According to the same Hoffman his conclusions after "supervising" other peoples work are the following:

And now after supervising the ancient Makedonian linguistic thesaurus we are posting the decisive question,if what is adding to the Makedonian language its character,are the hellenic or the barbarian elements of it,the responce can not be of any doubts. From the 39 "languages" that according to Gustav Mayer their form was "completely alien" has been proven after this research of mine,that 10 of them are clearly Hellenic,with 4 more possibly dialectical forms of common hellenic words,so from the entire collection are remaining only 15 words appearing to be justifiable or at least suspected of anti-hellenic origins. Adding to those 15, few others which with regards their vocals could be Hellenic, without till now being confirmed as such,then their number, in comparison to the number of pure hellenic ones in the Macedonian language, is so small that the GENERAL HELLENIC CHARACTER OF THE MAKEDONIAN LINGUISTIC TREASURE CAN NOT BE DOUBTED.

Another major evidence was the ancient Theaters. It is a well-known fact that only the ancient Greeks had theaters in Classical period. The four ancient theaters in Macedonia are in Dion, Vergina, Philippi, and Thassos. The theater of Dion hosted the first performance (before an audience of Greek-speaking Macedonians, of course) of Euripides world-famous tragedy Bacchae, which he wrote at Pella of Macedonia. Euripides died and was buried in Macedonia.

The official code name that given recetly from the linqustics is Ancient Macedonian language (provisional ISO-DIS 639-3.5 XMK). Subgrouping Code : Ancient Greek language or IEGreekB Group code: Greek Language or IEGreek.

ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS

Anyone can read the insriptions that found in Macedonia as also and the texts through the Epigraphical database

http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/search_main.html

Of course all are in the ancient Greek language.Also I want to add some critical points regarding the ancient Macedonian language.

Linguistically, there is no real distinction between a dialect and a language without a specific factor. People usually consider the political factor to determine whether a certain kind of speech is a language or a dialect. Since the Pan-Hellenic area consisted of many small city- states (Attica, Lacedaemon, Corinth, etc.), and larger states (Molossia, Thesprotia, Macedonia, Acarnania, Aetolia, etc.), it was common knowledge at the time that the people of all those states were speaking different languages, when in fact they were all variations of the same language, Hellenic or Greek. The most advanced of all Hellenic dialects was the dialect of Attica (Athens) or Attic. When people state “ancient Greek language” they mean the Attic dialect and any comparison of the Macedonian dialect to ancien Greek is actually a comparison to the Attic dialect.

The difference between Macedonian and Attic was like the difference between Low and High German. Nobody doubts that both are Germanic languages, although they differ from one another. Another good example of a multi-dialectal linguistic regime is present-day Italy. The official language of Italy is the Florentine, but common people still speak their own dialects. The same goes and in the present Greece. The Cretans speak their own dialect, even and for some Greeks is very difficult to understand them

As I mention in my first post German kinguistic Hoffman considers 40 names of official Makedonians found on an inscription from 423 B.C adding:

""In final analysis it is possible that the name VYRGINON KRASTWNOS is of Thracian origins,while independent remains the name DIRVE.....ALL the other names are BEAUTIFULL,CLEAR,HELLENIC CONSTRUCTIONS and only two of them NEOPTOLEMOS and MELEAGROS could have been loans from the HELLENIC MYTHOLOGY. ""

Hoffman considers the names of the populations of upper or Western Makedonia including the Orestians (Kastoria), Eordians (Ptolemais-Arnissa),Tymfaians (Pindos-Konitsa), Elimiotians (Kozani), and Lyngestians (Florina-Monastiri.

He considers and analyzes the names of the King's body-guards,of the generals,of the administrative employees,of the leaders of the Makedonian cavalry,the leaders of the name and army,and those of many other common people of the 5th and 4th and even later centuries. His conclusions?

""THE NAMES OF THE GENUINE MAKEDONIANS AND THOSE BORN OF MAKEDONIAN PARENTS ,ESPECIALLY THE NAMES OF THE ELITIC CLASS AND NOBLES,IN THEIR FORMATION AND PHONOLOGY ARE PURELY HELLENIC."

And he continues,...

""The general Hellenic character of the Makedonians linguistic treasure can not be disputed even in case some of them might be loans from the Hellenic Mythology or from non-hellenic myths or for the better pre-hellenic myths (Teytamos-Marsyas-Seilinos....*).

The reason?

Both Hellenic mythology and pre-Hellenic SUCH,contributed many of their names not only in the Makedonian but as well in thegeneral hellenic vocabulary of names. Names that in their phonology and the laws governing their formations are clearly different than those Thracians and Illyrians,and they can not even be used as "in between" those and the Greek ones.

One from the strong archaeological evidence that show what language spoken from the ancient Macedonians is the Pella katadesmos(see picture ) .Is a katadesmos (a curse, or magic spell) inscribed on a lead scroll, probably dating to between 380 and 350 BC. It was found in Pella (at the time capital of Macedon) in 1986; it was published in the Hellenic Dialectology Journal in 1993.
The tab has been dated by the original publishers to the "Mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier (letter forms, spelling)". This dating has been contested by Prof. Edmonds of Bryn Mawr College, who proposes a 3rd century BC date.

The former opinion is concurred by the Oxford Classical Dictionary, in which Professor Olivier Masson writes:

"Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it {i.e. Macedonian} an Aeolic dialect (O.Hoffmann compared Thessalian) we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). This view is supported by the recent discovery at Pella of a curse tablet (4th cent. BC) which may well be the first 'Macedonian' text attested (provisional publication by E.Voutyras; cf. the Bulletin Epigraphique in Rev. Et. Grec. 1994, no.413); the text includes an adverb "opoka" which is not Thessalian." (OCD, 1996, pp 905, 906).

Of the same opinion is James L. O'Neil's (of the University of Sydney) presentation at the 2005 Conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies, entitled "Doric Forms in Macedonian Inscriptions" (abstract):

"A fourthâcentury BC curse tablet from Pella shows word forms which are clearly Doric, but a different form of Doric from any of the west Greek dialects of areas adjoining Macedon. Three other, very brief, fourth century inscriptions are also indubitably Doric. These show that a Doric dialect was spoken in Macedon, as we would expect from the West Greek forms of Greek names found in Macedon. And yet later Macedonian inscriptions are in Koine avoiding both Doric forms and the Macedonian voicing of consonants. The native Macedonian dialect had become unsuitable for written documents."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3d/Pellatab.jpg


In English the text of Pella katasemos

On Thetima and Dionysophon the ritual wedding and the marriage I bind by a written spell, as well as (the marriage) of all other women (to him), both widows and maidens, but above all of Thetima; and I entrust (this spell) to Macron and to the daimones. And were I ever to unfold and read these words again after digging (the tablet) up, only then should Dionysophon marry, not before; may he indeed not take another beside myself, but let me alone grow old by the side of Dionysophon and no one else. I implore you: have pity for [Phila (?)], dear daimones, [for I am indeed bereft (?)] of all my dear ones and abandoned. But please keep this (piece of writing) for my sake so that these events do not happen and wretched Thetima perishes miserably [---] but let me become happy and blessed

WORDS

The 154 words are the words that recorded from the ancient writers and not those that found in the inscriptions (200 more). The majority are part of the Greek syntaxis sentences

Relatively few words of the Macedonian dialect have been preserved about 154 as i said and they are recorded by Athenaeus and in the Lexicon of Hesychios, who drew them mainly from the work of the Macedonian lexicographer Amerias. I want be should noted that ancient lexicographers did not record all the words of a language or dialect, but only those that presented a certain peculiarity or difficulty in comprehension. For this reason foreign words and idioms are recorded, and thus the proportion of foreign words is not representative of the total vocabulary of the Macedonian dialect. Many of the words which have been treasured as Macedonian occur in all Greek dialects, but in the Macedonian dialect they had a specific meaning and they were recorded by the ancient lexicographers, for example the word υπασπιστής (adjutant).

These words that were handed down as Macedonian do not bear any resemblance to the Thracian-Illyrian language. The Macedonian linguistic material (proper names, place-names and common nouns) testifies to the Greek character of the Macedonian dialect in my opinion because of :

• The etymology of the words is Greek
• the features and vowel changes are common in Greek and
• so are the inflections and endings.

As for the few words which are recorded as Macedonian in the Lexicon of Hesyxhios and which are not considered by some to be Greek, it is most likely that they are loan-words, a phenomenon that is observed in all languages, and one which does not put their origin in doubt.
Also there are another 200 words that found in several inscriptions (Posidipus,Pella katadaesmos,Dervinion ppayrus e.t..c) except of course those that recorded from the ancient writers(about 154) that has the same chareacteristiscs.



CONCLUSION

Summirize the argyments as about the Macedonian language we have 5 facts that proov the Greek origin of the ancient Macedonian language….


Fact 1-ISO Identification
Ancient Macedonian language (provisional ISO-DIS 639-3.5 XMK).
Subgrouping Code : Ancient Greek language or IEGreekB
Group code: Greek Language or IEGreek.

Fact 2-Excavated inscriptions
Were 6000 and the most famous are the Pella katadesmos and Dervenion Papyrus and of course all of them are in the Greek languages

Fact 3-Words
The known Macedonian words have Greek roots(except some of them)according the linguistics that anlyzed the ancient inscription (e.g. Pella katadesmos )

Fact 4-Evidence of non Greek inscription
There is not found yet any single non-Greek text , not only in the Macedonia but also and in the regions that Macedonian passed and leave theirs roots.

Fact 5-The Opposite side
Non of them that claim the opposite they don't have any single Linquistic proove in order to support theirs speculations

The Question now is...

is it Greek? Its up to you to deside.

Thanks for your time

Source:

1- Hellenic Dialectology Journal in 1993
2- C. Brixhe, A. Panayotou, Le Macédonien in: Langues indo-européennes,
ed. Bader, Paris, 1994, 205–220.
3-http://bibleocean.com/OmniDefinition/Pella_katadesmos
4-Hatzidakis,The language of the ancient Macedonians

Historical revisionism / negationism in the Balkans

Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form (see historical revisionism) it is the reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate.

Historical revisionism can be used as a label to describe the views of self-taught historians who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence. This usage has occurred because some authors who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence (such as David Irving, a proponent of Holocaust denial), have called themselves "historical revisionists.

Examples of historical revisionism in Balkans are the Macedonism and Albanianism.

MACEDONISM is the political idea prevalent in the FYROM advocates revising history in order to project an ethnic group that formed in the 20th century - ethnic Macedonians - in the context of the 19th century and even in the middle ages. For example, Bulgarian Tsar Samuil is denied the Bulgarian nature of his kingdom, despite overwhelming evidence supporting it, and is defined as a "Slavic" or "Macedonian" king. Further attempts are made to deny the Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom of Macedon and to seek connections between present day ethnic Macedonians and the Ancient Macedonians.Fundamentally, history knows that the "Macedonianism" of Vardar Province's slavophone inhabitants and Albanians is exclusively based on the role played by external factors of paramount importance when in the early 1940s they were transformed into "Macedonians" for political reasons by communist dictators (Tito, Stalin, and Dimitrov) and infamous communist organizations (Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation).'" In reality, it was not even a self-ascription or ascription by others and assignment of a cause, but a dictatorial order, a forceful conversion that preceded the FYROM Slavs' self-ascription as "Macedonians," resulting in an unorthodox and scandalous creation of a new artificial ethnicity in a manner similar to Byelorussia's formation by Lenin and Stalin.

As Danforth pointed out..........

"Given the common nationalist view of the immutability of identity, conversion from one identity to another [by ascription by others] is bound to raise serious questions of authenticity and legitimacy"

and

"It is possible precisely because Greeks and Macedonians are not born, they are made. National identities, in other words, are not biologically given, they are socially constructed"

That is what happened to the Slavs of the People's Republic of Macedonia. They were not born ethnic Macedonians, their Macedonian ethnicity was constructed by the state in 1943-1945. In contrast, the Greek Macedonians, whose forebears always lived in Hellenic Macedonia, always spoke Greek, were not made Macedonians by a totalitarian communist system.......they were born Macedonians.

What characteristics (historical, cultural, genetic, linguistic, or anthropological) does the FYROM population possess- besides inhabiting a section of the former Vardar Province - to be described by communists first, by anthropologists later, as "Macedonian"?

Why did the Slav "Macedonians" describe themselves as Bulgarians from 1870 to 1943 -and many do so today - waiting for almost seventy-five years to be transformed into "Macedonians" by the dictatorial powers of a communist state.

The second one is the so-call ALBANIANISM.

Albanianism as the state ideology was brought to its ultimatelimits during the rule of Enver Hodza, when there was a strong instigation from Tirana of separatist tendencies in Kosovo. The only period when this ideology was not a state one was the time between the two world wars, when the civic parties were in power. In Tirana today there is a strong political factor which is strongly opposed the official politics towards Kosovo. The opposition in Kosovo and Metohija region, gathered around Adem Demadji, is of the view that Ibrahim Rugova and his Democratic Alliance of Kosovo offering false optimism regarding the realization of the Albanian demand, while Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, they say, is transforming itself into a party fighting for a nonexistent power.

As the Albanians said"The religion of Albanians is Albanianism."

Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) Historical revisionism

The systematic counterfeiting of the history of Macedonia by the Skopjans since 1944 and their attempt to monopolize the "Macedonia" name were considered by the Hellenic people as absurd and unworthy of their attention. Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) was one from the Skopjan that use lies in order to expose his propaganda. He uses in the net name Risto Stefov but sell books with the name Chris Stefou. This article is an answer in his series book that supposed show Greek lies, produces nationalism and interism and of course has many historical un-accuracies and propaganda guide lines and can you read it in several nationalistic web sites such the known maknews.com

Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) once more use his Historical revisionism (also but less often in English "negationism"), .This term describes the process that attempts to rewrite history by minimizing, denying or simply ignoring essential facts. Perpetrators of such attempts to distort the historical record often use the term because it allows them to cloak their illegitimate activities with a phrase which has a legitimate. It is sometimes hard for a non-historian to distinguish between a book published by a historian doing peer-reviwed acedemic work, and a bestselling "amateur writer of history".

In the specific article Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) used the most known forms , parts from the most common tactics of the Historical Revisionism
-Negationism.
-The selective use of facts
-The denial or derision of known facts
-Argument from ignorance (hence the historian community's emphasis on the importance of historical memory and historical studies)
-The assumption of unproven facts
-The fabrication of facts
-The obfuscation of factsOf course the above techniques

Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) used in the whole net-work and specially in the called “Greek Lies series”.

Who is Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov)?
He is fun of the so call Macedonism. But what is Macedonism ?Is the political prevalent in the FYROM advocates revising history in order to project an ethnic group that formed in the 20th century –ethnic Macedonians- in the context of the 19th century and even in the Middle Ages. For example, Bulgarian Tsar Samuil is denied the Bulgarian nature of his kingdom, despite overwhelming evidence supporting it, and is defined as a "Slavic" or "Macedonian" king. Further attempts are made to deny the Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom of Macedon and to seek connections between present day ethnic Macedonians and the Ancient Macedonians.But Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) speak for ethnic Macedonians ? Who are they ? Loring Danforth quoted that ““the history of the construction of a macedonian national identity does not begin with alexander the great in the fourth century b.c. or with saints cyril and methodius in the ninth century a.d., as Macedonian nationalist historians often claim. nor does it begin with tito and the establishment of the people's republic of macedonia in 1944 as greek nationalist historians would have us believe. It begins in the nineteenth century with the first expressions of macedonian ethnic nationalism on the part of a small number of intellectuals in places like thessaloniki, belgrade, sophia, and st.petersburg. this period marks the beginning of the process of "imagining" a macedonian national community, the beginning of the construction of a macedonian national identity and culture.””

In this last article Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) put some questions as about the Balkan wars and the Treaty of Bucharest. As Historical propagandists and clever user forget as usual to mention some historical facts.

Mark Mazower in “the Balkan describes” in equal distances the situation. He quoted(page 103)….”” Macedonia was a region with no clear borders and not even a formal existence as an administrative Ottoman entity. A bewildering mix of different peoples, hemmed in by newly created states - Greece to the south, Serbia and Bulgaria to the north - it became the focus for their expansionist ambitions at the century's close. Its ethnography, however, posed a challenge for the most ardent Balkan nationalist and had changed out of all recognition since the days of Alexander the Great. The peasantry of the region were predominantly Orthodox, and mostly Slavs; Greek-speakers fringed coastal areas and inhabited the towns.””

Of course Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) as clever politically Historical Revisionist-Negationist abandoned the initial paragraph (the title of his thread) and in the rest of the paragraphs we have a delirium of cutting quotes from ancient and modern writers that describe the diffrneces between the ancient Greeks and Macedonians!!!

He using the below tactical Historical negoniatism elements:
-The selective use of facts
-The denial or derision of known facts
-Association fallacy
-Hasty generalization
-The use of attractive or neutral euphemisms to disguise unpleasant facts concerning their own positions
-The use of unpleasant euphemisms to describe opposing facts
-The two wrongs make a right fallacy
-Constant attack against those disputing their views (Ad hominem) (close to slander and libel)

Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) is a part of the Macedonianism System. His people speak a language understood by both Serbs and Bulgarians. They hate the Serbs because they [the Serbs] treat them as Bulgarians; and they hate the Bulgarians because they draft their sons to the army .... IMRO e.t.c.Before 1944 Carter-Norris characterized the slavophones of geographical Macedonia as a "shapeless mass of Slavs with no particular ethnicity."One thing, however, is certain: ethnologically, Tito's new "Macedonian" republic was always a fluid country inhabited by six or seven ideologically contentious groups with ties to Albania, Bulgaria, or Serbia .The 1940 official Yugoslav census recognized only two large ethnic groups in Vardar Province, Slavs(some other said Serbs) at 66% and Muslims at 31 percent. In 1945, 3 years after the formation of the People's Republic of Macedonia, the Slavs disappeared from the census which showed 66 % t "Macedonians."

And I am ask you Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov).
Was this remarkable transformation process an en lnasse genetic mutation or a census falsification?"
How could a group of people (Bulgarians and Slavs) change ethnicity, becoming "Macedonians" in five years?
Disregarding the shrill campaign about the Macedonianism of the People'sRepublic of Macedonia, who was responsible for the transformation of the Slavs and Bulgarians into "Macedonians" and the appropriation of the Macedonian name belonging to a neighbour?
How did the egregious political decision to create a new Macedonian ethnicity emerge?

There are many documents available now leading to an indisputable conclusion.Kofos quoted ““Tito's ideologically Marxist authoritarian regime was responsible. The Marxist revolutionary theory on ethnic minorities, cleverly adjusted by Lenin and Stalin to compromise communist internationalism with their own nationalist aspirations, was also responsible.””In the question as about the historical rights in the Treaty of Bucharest Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov) as Historical Revisionist-Negationist “forget” to remmeber some historical facts. The British historian Dakin quoted that the trichotomy of Macedonia did not please the British foreign minister, Sir Edward Grey. He proposed revision of the treaty, strongly opposed by Greece, Serbia, and Romania. France and Germany also rejected Grey's proposal. In the end, Russia went along with France and Germany, with Austria-Hungary remaining uncommitted. Finally, England formally recognized the treaty in the spring of 1914. Most analysts of Balkan foreign and military policy of the early twentieth century would agree that the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest was an event of great historical and political significance. Temporarily at least, it settled the differences among the four Balkan allies and pushed the Macedonian Question to obscurity. George papavizas quoted that “it was a great event for Greece because it brought back a large part of Macedonia to Greece, all the way from the Pindus mountain range in the west to the River Nestos in the east. The end of the war and the withdrawal of the Bulgarian troops from sections of eastern Macedonia raised new hopes for cooperation and peace among the tired and devastated Greek Macedonian people, but the dreams were rapidly dashed. Peace was not to come soon in the land.””The Treaty of Bucharest would soon be challenged and undermined by Bulgaria with its great appetite for more Macedonian land and later by the columnists regimes of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. With support from Austria-Hungary, the Bulgarians would still hold firmly the relay of the struggle for Macedonia, not as Macedonians, but as pure nationalist Bulgarians. Perhaps a final solution of the Macedonian problem could have been achieved if the Treaty of Bucharest had forced an exchange of populations among the three sections of Macedonia as was done later by the Treaty of Lausanne between Greece and Turkey.

George Papavizas make a clever historical quote….”” After the Balkan Wars and World War I, many leaders, diplomats, groups, parties, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) became involvedwith the problem, exacerbating it rather than solving it.””

Finally a quote from Cappeli (Bosnia issue) statement that point out ….” "international recognition by no means necessarily endows a state with legitimacy, especially when the recognition has been granted in such an impetuous manner in the midst of a crisis and if legitimacy is held to have any connection with a common history and a sense of common destiny as characteristics of the state's population, without which no state can survive””.

Every word of the above statement on Bosnia applies to FYROM .

Of course I have and my finally question to Chris Stefou(aka Risto Stefov).

Why avoid any serious debate as about the Macedonian Question if you have as you claim the historical facts with your side ?

Source:1-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism)
2-Mark Mazower,The Balkans.
3-Loring Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational Word.
4-Douglas Dakin, The Macedonian Struggle,1966
5-George Papavizas, Claiming Macedonia, 2004

Macedonia: Geography and Brief History

Macedonia was a region with no clear borders and not even a formal existence as an administrative Ottoman entity. A bewildering mix of different peoples, hemmed in by newly created states - Greece to the south, Serbia and Bulgaria to the north - it became the focus for their expansionist ambitions at the century's close. Its ethnography, however, posed a challenge
for the most ardent Balkan nationalist and had changed out of all recognition since the days of Alexander the Great. The peasantry of the region were predominantly Orthodox, and mostly Slav speakers, Greek-speakers fringed coastal areas and inhabited the towns.

The history of the Macedonians began in the seventh century B.C., and Macedonia appeared for the first time on the historical scene as a geographical-political entity in the fifth century B.C., extending from the origin of the River Aliakmon and Mount Olympus to the River Strymon. The Greek tribe of the Macedons migrated from Orestis (present-day Argos Orestikon-Kastoria district, Greek western Macedonia) eastward and occupied what the historian Thucydides called "Lower Macedonia" or "Macedonia by the Sea" (present-day central Macedonia, Greece). According to the historian Peter Green (1991, p. 4), "Lower Macedonia was the old central kingdom, founded by semi-legendary cattle barons ... and ruled over by the royal dynasty of the Argeads, to which Philip himself belonged. About 700 B.C. this noble clan had migrated eastward from Orestis in the Pindus mountains, looking for arable land".

King Philip ΙΙ, father of Alexander the Great, a visionary, dynamic Greek leader, ascended to Macedonia's throne in 359 B.C., and in less than four years he managed to build his broken-up country, defeat Macedonia's enemies, and enlarge his kingdom. A leading statesman in the Greek world by 342 B.C., proclaiming his devotion to Zeus. Apollo and Heracles. Philip made Macedonia the leading military power in Europe.' "In less than four years he transformed Macedonia from a backward and primitive kingdom to one of the most powerful states of the Greek world"


By conquests or alliances, he also united the Greek city-states into a single country, Greece. A leader with brilliant political initiative and power of persuasion, he organized the "Greek Community" (to koinon ton Ellellon) in which the Greek states were bound by oath to keep peace among themselves. "He brought into being the combination of a newly created Greek state, self-standing and self-governing, and a Macedonian state which was unrivaled in military power" (Hammond 1997, p. 20). Occupying a critical geostrategic position in the Balkans, Macedonia in its tumultuous history over two millennia witnessed three multiethnic empires that ruled vast territories in three continents. It first witnessed the unification of the Greek city-states by King Philip ΙΙ, followed by Alexander the Great's spread of a culturally and nationally diverse empire that extended to Egypt in Africa and the Hindu Kush in Asia and survived -divided into five smaller, distinct empires, Macedonia being one -for three centuries after his death in 323 B.C.2 The three post-Alexander centuries, perceived as the Hellenistic Age, saw the dissemination of Greek civilization from one end to the other of Alexander's empire (Durant 1939).


Then arrived the Romans, who, by 145 B.C., had conquered vast areas in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Under Aemilius Paulus, they annihilated the Macedonian army at Pydna, destroyed seventy Macedonian cities, abolished the monarchy, and split the kingdom into four tributary republics which they annexed to the Roman Imperilrm (Mitsakis 1973). The last Macedonian king, Perseus, was imprisoned in Italy and died of maltreatment. In 146 B.C., the Romans combined Macedonia, Epirus, and Illyria and formed a large province which they called "Provincia Macedonia." As the Romans consolidated their possessions in Macedonia, Latin was spoken from Danube south to a line from Durres, Albania, to Lake Ochris, Skopje, Strobo, Sofia, and east to the Black Sea. Greek predominated south of this line. Banac (1992, p. 46) placed the line for the Hellenic language farther north to Skopje and Sofia. After one more millennium in the Byzantine Empire, religiously and culturally distinct from the Western Roman Empire, Macedonia fell together with the remainder of Greece to the Ottomans and remained enslaved till the beginning of the twentieth century, when it was liberated by the armies of the Balkan Alliance (Dakin 1966; Mitsakis 1973). Ever since Macedonia's conquest by the Romans in 168 B.C., its borders were ill-defined, depending on the political and military designs of its conquerors and the plans of the peripheral powers that attempted to influence or annex it. It is impossible to define Macedonia's frontiers, wrote Wilkinson (1951).

The British historian Nicholas Hanmond(1972), the first to define Macedonia as a nonpolitical area, wrote: "If we try to define Macedonia on political lines, we shall be chasing a chameleon through the centuries.... As a geographical area [ancient] Macedonia is best defined as the territory which is drained by the two great rivers Haliacmon and the Vardar [Axios] and their tributaries."


Macedonia has never in modern times been a political or administrative unit. It is therefore impossible to assign it even approximate boundaries. The Roman conquerors regarded or ignored the limits of the independent Macedonian kingdom they had conquered and made part of a larger Roman province; their Byzantine successors did the same. By the Middle Ages Macedonia's location had been forgotten and designated in areas mostly outside the original Macedonian kingdom. It was then overrun by the Bulgars and the Serbs, and finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the second half of the fourteenth century. Under Turkish rule Macedonia vanished completely from administrative terrninology and survived only as a legend in the oral Greek traditions. It reappeared on West European maps ofearly modern times strangely and imaginatively designated on and around the original nucleus. Notions about its location were further conhsed in the nineteenth century by scheming politicians and diplomats, learned travellers and amateur geographers serving different causes and interests. What came to be known as Macedonia has been essentially a 'hypothetical' country whose boundaries, notably its northern ones, have nloved between the outer reaches of ancient or 'historical'
Macedonia and modern or 'geographical' Macedonia. Rediscovered by travellers, cartographers and diplomats after centuries of being ignored or forgotten, misplaced or misunderstood, Macedonia and its inhabitants have never, since the begnning of the twentieth century, ceased being imagined and invented. So too has its past, both distant and more recent, by scholars ever toiling under the illusion that they are writing a definitive history of the land.'