tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-374784102024-02-03T22:00:32.555+03:00Ancient and Medieval Macedonian HistoryAkritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-22503516522100676852014-09-08T17:15:00.001+03:002014-09-08T17:15:05.355+03:00Two caryatids found at the Amphipolis burial monument in Macedonia <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ2zBDOK92ZBp9AwiwQvWz2BB9fH4DhIcUWpNqd2vhjvsp259DT5u1YnY-b1VJ-dK7jPwAxtq9Hke9IPogpak95Aetin6q0gniafMVb8vs44H0emcbLJjGxDOudTgsmCqVwqjkyQ/s1600/ancient-caryatids-guarding-tomb-at-Amphipolis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ2zBDOK92ZBp9AwiwQvWz2BB9fH4DhIcUWpNqd2vhjvsp259DT5u1YnY-b1VJ-dK7jPwAxtq9Hke9IPogpak95Aetin6q0gniafMVb8vs44H0emcbLJjGxDOudTgsmCqVwqjkyQ/s1600/ancient-caryatids-guarding-tomb-at-Amphipolis.jpg" height="125" width="200" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN" style="color: #211b14; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Ministry of Culture in Greece has
announced another spectacular find at the <strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Amphipolis burial monument
in Macedonia</span></strong> – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">two
caryatids of exquisite beauty</b>, carved from thasian marble with traces of
blue and red paint. Caryatids were found when a team of archaeologists led by
Katerina Peristeri removed sandy soil in front of a sealing wall and found the
two female sculptures stood between two marble pillars supporting a beam. The
Ministry said that the presence of the caryatids supports the view that this is
an “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">outstanding monument of particular
importance</b>.”</span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #211b14; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #211b14; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #211b14; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A caryatid is a sculpted female figure
serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar
supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term ‘karyatides’ translates
to "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese. Karyai had ....</span><a name='more'></a> a
famous temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis
Karyatis.<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #211b14; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The caryatids found at Amphipolis, which
are carved from Thassos marble, are wearing a sleeved tunic and earrings, and
feature long, curly hair covering their shoulders. The right arm of the western
caryatid and the left arm of the eastern one are both outstretched, as if to
symbolically stop anyone attempting to enter the grave. The face of one of the
sculptures survives almost intact, while the other one is missing.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-80243176436611215412014-08-24T23:45:00.000+03:002014-08-24T23:45:04.434+03:00Amphipolis tomb entrance gradually revealed <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNZotXopoxiFYbW76cWxFxlC6Unkc2_Wse5GUMjMxUTcFysSFJWX6Yo4q4Xur7QnWFZbqfPlXQb9-S59z1-d07XKFM6FALs_c57p9n7sBKo6vyk_bvXwRgVh7U-xGCGMR1zJQxQ/s1600/Amphipolis_03a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNZotXopoxiFYbW76cWxFxlC6Unkc2_Wse5GUMjMxUTcFysSFJWX6Yo4q4Xur7QnWFZbqfPlXQb9-S59z1-d07XKFM6FALs_c57p9n7sBKo6vyk_bvXwRgVh7U-xGCGMR1zJQxQ/s1600/Amphipolis_03a.JPG" height="376" width="400" /></a></div>
The archaeological excavation at Kasta Tumulus in Ancient Amphipolis continues steadily, said the Culture Ministry in an announcement on Sunday.<br />
According to the announcement "ten more stones, part of the seventh and eighth row of the sealing wall were removed with three more remaining of the eleven-row stone wall.<br />
The adornment of the next part of the entrance of the tomb was......<a name='more'></a> revealed which is the same as the decoration of the side walls. A white coloured fresco that mimics the marble enclosure".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4FsUq5B3Yzt7xRYa_UWjnWNve04xBLNXMSzzoSZXEDtOdzmomD0ZhDocM1jfCMwaKd4TPryNhi_MHAW78Yw2Q4jLt4eTOC0mZIQepjHVCxSZ8c9raYNG-gf_vUKvPO-4pjFDFgw/s1600/Amphipolis_02b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4FsUq5B3Yzt7xRYa_UWjnWNve04xBLNXMSzzoSZXEDtOdzmomD0ZhDocM1jfCMwaKd4TPryNhi_MHAW78Yw2Q4jLt4eTOC0mZIQepjHVCxSZ8c9raYNG-gf_vUKvPO-4pjFDFgw/s1600/Amphipolis_02b.JPG" height="267" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2v-Cqe5q1aiijtm-67XhpzbOlpR4bLU-zo77DidP1nvss7u-eKCbSKOhSE-o4L46vPA0dC6qQ5xNjgLIFgdtrLHk0XcWsio-fXzMHPieyttON8dePy32gkkuvPZ5bz0zwJV3iQ/s1600/Amphipolis_04b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2v-Cqe5q1aiijtm-67XhpzbOlpR4bLU-zo77DidP1nvss7u-eKCbSKOhSE-o4L46vPA0dC6qQ5xNjgLIFgdtrLHk0XcWsio-fXzMHPieyttON8dePy32gkkuvPZ5bz0zwJV3iQ/s1600/Amphipolis_04b.JPG" height="267" width="400" /></a></div>
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<em>Rear view of the Ionic capital of one of the pilasters and the painted fresco </em><i>[Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture]</i></div>
<em></em><br />
Meanwhile, the side walls of the antechamber covered with Thassos marble and adorned on the upper part with ionic capitals with traces of black and red colour are gradually revealed.<br /><br /><i>Source: <a href="http://www.amna.gr/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cd1713;">ANA/MPA</span></a> [August 24, 2014]</i> <br />
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Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-68019103168219624552012-04-17T18:43:00.002+03:002012-04-17T18:43:42.054+03:00Australian Museum in Sydney:Alexander the Great, 2000 years of treasures<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TmGrwa1bydw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-19321209395416977652011-10-12T14:39:00.001+03:002011-10-12T14:39:42.999+03:00Robin Lane Fox as regards ancient Macedonia and FYROM name issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='520' height='366' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/mIRe5tnqRKM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-51036493494561563882011-08-20T12:03:00.005+03:002011-08-20T12:06:44.174+03:00The lasting legacy of Alexander the Great in Afghanistan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='620' height='366' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/b9mBLNOr8rw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-78076091257755440992011-08-08T23:14:00.000+03:002011-08-08T23:14:56.435+03:00Pr. Johannes Engels as regards the ancient Macedonian language<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSPdWGPcm12u2P_EBv7rFTSRl8haVANwi-0bjHf_KvK_wQNJcFFk-W-uGGESq6rsbjaPseSuc-HI-0t0UMd4hmodpuyEw1IO2cP9Ct5m5EGELyZ842qTzRGZJzCDCIi4mYWqwxg/s1600/File0096.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSPdWGPcm12u2P_EBv7rFTSRl8haVANwi-0bjHf_KvK_wQNJcFFk-W-uGGESq6rsbjaPseSuc-HI-0t0UMd4hmodpuyEw1IO2cP9Ct5m5EGELyZ842qTzRGZJzCDCIi4mYWqwxg/s640/File0096.jpg" width="640px" /></a></div><div closure_uid_mbw8a5="175"><br />
</div><div closure_uid_mbw8a5="175" style="text-align: center;"><span closure_uid_mbw8a5="186" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source: " Companion to Ancient Macedonia", page 95</span></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-87382387489086530582011-07-11T20:22:00.005+03:002011-07-15T18:27:21.704+03:00FYROM Statues: From ethno-cultural nationalism to National Chauvinism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_LFba3SBKE8yRL00RSel-ONzh81XOgm15DzxWUL-DrQ3lW4ZL35p5NvyCH50nj4HEkqotXisHqfjduTyWuQcKx3BtCb18-XKgLju7eF0tWxRUP7ChItVkUlhZUEiBViLSFcCY4w/s1600/Statue-Alexander-Great-almost-finished-Skopje_730958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_LFba3SBKE8yRL00RSel-ONzh81XOgm15DzxWUL-DrQ3lW4ZL35p5NvyCH50nj4HEkqotXisHqfjduTyWuQcKx3BtCb18-XKgLju7eF0tWxRUP7ChItVkUlhZUEiBViLSFcCY4w/s200/Statue-Alexander-Great-almost-finished-Skopje_730958.jpg" width="133px" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the ruling ideology of Marxism-Leninism was replaced by different ideological forces. One of them was nationalism. In FYROM, gradually and with the "withdrawal" of the Socialists in the various state power positions, the far right through the VMRO began to take their places. So we have from the late 90's a gradual transformation of <b>rampant ethno-cultural nationalism, into an explosion of national chauvinism</b> (see Andrew Heynwood, political ideologies, 2007).</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The extreme nationalist hysteria that exists on these days between the Slavmacedonians, because of the erection of two statues (one is giant) at the center of Skopje is a typical example. The far-right Prime Minister Gruevski, continuing the "<b>antiquisation policy</b>" of the Slavic population, made the next step and the Slavmacedonism enfold the "<b>national chauvinism</b>".</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>National chauvinism</b> breeds from a feeling of intense, even hysterical nationalist enthusiasm. The individual as a separate, rational being is swept away on a tide of patriotic emotion, expressed in the desire for aggression, expansion and war. The right-wing French nationalist Charles Maurras (1868-1952) <b>called such intense patriotism “integral nationalism”</b>: individuals and independent groups lose their identity within an all-powerful 'nation', which has an existence and meaning beyond the life of any single individual. (Heynwood:165) Such militant nationalism is often accompanied by..</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">militarism. Military glory and conquest are the ultimate evidence of national greatness and have been capable of generating intense feelings of nationalist commitment.</span><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So therefore, with the “<b>statues project</b>”, Gruevski regime <b>is trying to admonish</b> the Slavic population, by the martial values of absolute loyalty, complete dedication and willing self-sacrifice. When the honour or integrity of the nation is in question, the life of ordinary citizens become unimportant is one of the main points of the national chauvinism. (Heynwood:165)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>National chauvinism</b> has a particularly strong appeal for the isolated and powerless, for which nationalism offers the prospect of security, self-respect and pride. Militant or integral nationalism requires a heightened sense of belonging to a distinct national group. Such intense nationalist feeling is often stimulated by 'negative integration', the portrayal of another nation or race as a threat or an enemy.(Heynwood:165</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the face of the enemy, the nation draws together and experiences an intensified sense of its own identity and importance. <b>Slavmacedonian national chauvinism arise with a clear distinction between "them" (Bulgarians and Greeks) and "Us”</b>. National chauvinism therefore breeds from a clear distinction between 'them' and 'us'. There has to be a 'them' to deride or hate in order to forge a sense of 'us'. In politics, national chauvinism has commonly been reflected in racialist ideologies, which divide the world into an 'in group' and an 'out group', in which the 'out group' becomes a scapegoat for all the misfortunes and frustrations suffered by the 'in group'. It is therefore no coincidence that chauvinistic political creeds are a breeding ground for racialist ideas. (Heynwood:166)<b> Far right-wing VMRO party of Gruevski builds on this national chauvinism. For the Slavmacedonians, are the Greeks who steal theirs “ancient” history and the Bulgarians theirs language</b>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All forms of nationalism address the issue of identity. Whatever political causes nationalism may be associated with, it advances these on the basis of a sense of collective identity, usually understood as patriotism. For the political nationalist, 'objective' considerations such as territory, religion and language are no more important than 'subjective' ones such as will, memory and patriotic loyalty. Nationalism, therefore, not only advances political causes but also tells people who they are: <b>it gives people a history, forges social bonds and a collective spirit, and creates a sense of destiny larger than individual existence</b>. (Heynwood:154)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Certain forms of nationalism, however, are less closely related to overtly political demands than others. This particularly applies in the case of Slavmacedonian ethno-cultural nationalism. <b>Cultural nationalism</b> is a form of nationalism that emphasises the strengthening or defence of cultural identity over overt political demands. <b>Slavmacedonian ethno-cultural nationalists view the state as a peripheral if not an alien entity</b>. So the statue of the Great Alexander in the center of capital, <b>in an direct way, it provides attractive elements to propagate</b>, shamelessly, their territorial fantasies over the Greek northern regions. Also it aims at expanding the boundaries of the historical “taktovina” (fatherland) of the “Makedonci” to include wide regions of Greece and Bulgaria. It is well known, that for decades the classrooms and school textbooks of history in FYROM have been adorned with maps portraying Macedonia’s “geographic and ethnic”, i.e. Slavic boundaries extending all the way to Mount Olympus and Chalkidiki, in Greek Macedonia as well as to the Pirin district of Bulgaria. ( see : Macedonianism, FYROM'S Expansionist Designs against Greece, 1944-2006, Society for Macedonian Studies, 2007 ) Now, by claiming the patrimony of the Ancient Macedonians via the statue of a Greek historical person,, the boundaries of “Greater Macedonia” assume a much wider historical and cultural dimension in time.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, Slavmacedonian national chauvinism is obvious that it is a road without return. Wherever you look in history, where he was a national chauvinism, we have explosions similar movements such as Pan-Slavism, anti-Semitism and Pan-Germanism.<b> It is therefore obvious, that the FYROM Slavmacedonism from an ethno-cultural nationalism has transform to the dangerous of the regional peace, national chauvinism.</b></span>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-639360077194546792011-06-19T22:37:00.000+03:002011-06-19T22:37:23.084+03:00FYROM's 'warrior' monument infuriates Greece and shows clear the 'archaisation policy' of the Slavmacedonians<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.euractiv.com/sites/all/euractiv/files/imagecache/Image-article-180/gallery/Alexander%20the%20Great.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" i$="true" src="http://www.euractiv.com/sites/all/euractiv/files/imagecache/Image-article-180/gallery/Alexander%20the%20Great.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A statue of a <strong>'warrior on horseback'</strong> resembling Alexander the Great, currently being erected in the centre of FYROM capital Skopje, has sparked fury in Greece, which warned that Skopje was gambling with its EU membership aspirations with such provocations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FYROM, an impoverished EU candidate country, has reportedly spent several million euros on the statue of a Hellenic warrior resembling known images of Alexander the Great, a king of Macedon from the fourth century BC who built the largest empire in ancient history. Macedon was a small empire which under Alexander's reign extended its power to the central Greek city-states and even as far as the Himalayas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anticipating fury from Athens, the government in Skopje dropped....</span><br />
<a name='more'></a> plans to name the statue after Alexander the Great, the local press reported. Instead, the monument, which is still being assembled in a central Skopje square, is officially referred to as 'the warrior on horseback'.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, this did not prevent a Greek government spokesperson from labelling the artistic effort "risible" and directly accusing Slavmacedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of "making provocations to avoid reality".</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Gregory Delavekouras said that under other conditions, his country would be "<span style="color: blue;">honoured by the decision of the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to spend nearly €10 million to honor Alexander the Great, placing a statue of the Greek army commander in a central square in Skopje</span>".</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"<span style="color: blue;">But the 'archaisation policy' that this action is part of is […] essentially based on the effort to usurp Greek history with a view to cultivating nationalism and conflict,"</span> he claimed.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Delavekouras also stressed that the statue project undermined bilateral relations and was hampering negotiations, led by the UN, to find a solution to the long-standing name dispute pitting Athens against Skopje (see 'Background').</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Greece, NATO, EU and UN, does not recognise FYROM by its constitutional name.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"<span style="color: blue;">While Greece is pursuing the achievement of a solution consistently and in a constructive spirit, Mr. Gruevski is making provocations to avoid reality, undercutting his fellow citizens' European future. He needs to get back to reality right now and work sincerely and seriously towards achieving a solution. Otherwise, he will bear responsibility for his country's back-sliding</span>," Delavekouras warned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Greek official added that Athens would inform its partners and allies, as well as international organisations, of this provocative action. He warned that consequences should be expected with regard to "FYROM's Euroatlantic perspective".</span><br />
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</span></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-64742232001947790492011-05-17T17:57:00.001+03:002011-05-17T17:58:24.165+03:00Macedonia-Evidence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.createspace.com/Img/T347/T31/T19/ThumbnailImage.jpg;jsessionid=D52C6812FDBF51828E42FB48352AA015.cspworker00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://www.createspace.com/Img/T347/T31/T19/ThumbnailImage.jpg;jsessionid=D52C6812FDBF51828E42FB48352AA015.cspworker00" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This book contains material taken from the Website <a href="http://macedonia-evidence.org/">http://macedonia-evidence.org/ </a><b>which includes </b>the letter to President of the United States Barack Obama, supportedby by well-known scholars of Graeco-Roman Antiquity from universities, research centers and academic institutions around the world. The impetus for this task arose from the dispute between Greece and the FYROM for the name "Macedonia" which produced and disseminated misinformation and inaccuracies concerning ancient Macedonia and its king Alexander the Great. Scholars well-known for their expertise in Graeco-Roman antiquity have formed an ad hoc group to present, examine, and discuss the historical evidence concerning ancient Macedonia and Alexander the Great. The Letter to Pesident Obama, translated i<b>n three other languages</b> (German, FYROM-Slavic & Greek) from its original English, is accompanied by historical documentation, also in four languages, that supports and verifies historical facts included in the letter. <b>Articles by reputable and credible scholars regarding ancient Macedonia and the language of its people - taken from the webpage - are also included in the book.</b> The sole concern and motivation of the scholars who have co-signed the letter to President Obama is that history is not revised to fit political expediencies. The scholarly community has a duty to preserve historic truth. The aim of this book is exactly that: TO PRESERVE HISTORIC TRUTH.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>About the authors:</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The contibutors of the material of this publication and co-signers of the letter to President Obama are numerous well-known scholars of Graeco-Roman Antiquity from universities, research centers and academic institutions around the world. The sole concern and motivation of the scholars who have co-signed the letter to President Obama is that history is not revised to fit political expediencies. The scholarly community has a duty to preserve historic truth. The aim of this book is exactly that: TO PRESERVE HISTORIC TRUTH. Further information is available at: <a href="http://macedonia-evidence.org/">http://macedonia-evidence.org/</a>.</span><br />
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</div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-22118780609546835152011-05-01T13:40:00.002+03:002011-05-01T13:42:21.249+03:00Pella Katadesmos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='366' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/7m00NF7ztOE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-72703844048562027492011-04-11T12:38:00.003+03:002011-04-11T15:17:42.144+03:00Pseudoscience, "Rosetta Stone Hoax" and “University of Toronto”.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjokR-j3k-xW4Dkz7tndV0-pFnLBzAhDo1GDo99BAxpWfIz8JaIfThbvPA6jVLA7kBov0xBZwfAfuRbdqFK9pCS9Rk9AnwDOqn5ivlrIVHit7BdYjQwq_e137l3xauJQ7CVG6Vu2w/s1600/flyertogo2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjokR-j3k-xW4Dkz7tndV0-pFnLBzAhDo1GDo99BAxpWfIz8JaIfThbvPA6jVLA7kBov0xBZwfAfuRbdqFK9pCS9Rk9AnwDOqn5ivlrIVHit7BdYjQwq_e137l3xauJQ7CVG6Vu2w/s200/flyertogo2011.jpg" width="136" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="FontStyle11"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">N.C. Flemming remark that the </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pseudoscience corrupt the basis of factual knowledge available to </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the public, and particularly to students. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also corrupt and debase the methodology of establishing empirical evidence for past events</b> (in fields such as geology, archaeology, cosmology, or history), and hence the ability of students or the lay reader to distinguish fact from fantasy or invention. It follows that, in order to combat the slow but apparently remorseless growth of pseudoarchaeology, we must understand its appeal. It is impossible to provide the believer with an antidote if we do not comprehend the nature of the belief and the strength of its attraction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Why I am saying all these</b>? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Because, I read with a big surprise, that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the University of Toronto</b> will host (see the picture) two of the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">greatest </b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">promoters of the FYROM pseudoscience</span></b><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Two Slavmacedonians Engineers Dr. Tentov and Dr. Boshevski promoted...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div><a name='more'></a> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">t</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">heir <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Rosetta Stone Hoax to the Canadian public</b>, on the scope of indulging to the mind of the average Canadian, a sense of false Slavmacedonian pride based on his alleged “ancient roots”. They claim that they have found a connection between the ancient Macedonian language and the modern Slavonic Macedonian language. These two Slavmacedonian university professors are claiming that the "Demotic" script in the well known “Rosetta Stone”, in fact, is a text related to the “old Slavonic Macedonian language” and is Ancient Macedonian. <span class="nw"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dr. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Boshevski in an interview claimed that </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">they ancient Macedonians fled the Balkans and resettled north as far as Siberia, in order to avoid the Romans and they came in 6<sup>th</sup> cent A.D. Here an abstract:</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“We cannot accept the notion that the Macedonian-Roman wars "cleansed out" the entire Ancient Macedonian population as much as we cannot accept the notion that the Ancient Macedonians who fled the conflict disappeared altogether. There are well documented historic facts that prove that Ancient Macedonians not only survived the Roman invasion but many who fled north in fact, over time, returned to their ancestral lands in the Balkans.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">[http://www.maknews.com/html/articles/ristova/rosetta_stone_boshevski.html]</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #22190a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: MinionPro-Regular;">We now need to ask what happens</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #22190a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: MinionPro-Regular;"> if we take on the responsibility of deciding among the various narratives, and demonstrate that some are supported by better evidence than others, and that some are even demonstrably false. Educators who teach contrafactual narratives will appeal to the doctrine of academic freedom, which they will interpret to mean that anyone can say anything. But academic freedom was designed to allow faculty members to express opinions or discuss theories that are controversial. It was not intended to protect individuals like Holocaust deniers who seek to teach what is demonstrably false.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #22190a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: MinionPro-Regular;">In practice <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">there are established limits to academic freedom</b>. The question is whether the professors’ claims are based on sound research and warranted evidence. In my opinion I do not believe that we should continue to permit the doctrine of academic freedom to serve as a protective smokescreen for the kind of discourse that has no place in a university.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #22190a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: MinionPro-Regular;">It is through the use of evidence that we can separate good scholarship from bad, in any field. The best argument is not the one we like, or the one that is argued most persuasively, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but the one that offers the best account of all the available facts</b>. Is disgrace for the <strong>University of Toronto</strong>, to host <strong>the greatest promoters of the FYROM pseudoscience</strong>.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #22190a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: MinionPro-Regular;">More information for the “Rosetta Stone Hoax” that promoting these two Slavmacedonians Professors, in <a href="http://ancient-medieval-macedonian-history.blogspot.com/2009/09/rosetta-stone-and-tendov-boshevski.html">http://ancient-medieval-macedonian-history.blogspot.com/2009/09/rosetta-stone-and-tendov-boshevski.html</a></span></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-2159712533070540812011-04-01T18:39:00.001+03:002011-04-01T18:40:42.365+03:00Demosthenes, Philip and the "Third Philippic"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQNFr40o8dOe99Jg1GBbmrskstR5_WSKOJyCnLJt0skidpTi-s_2V_7LzwR4cFWgaIxc83E23_ukdLkBqIkJ53X15mxW-Glp3fu2uiWDzUPv1jfa1eipBIKMnfh4rESgb40bDtQ/s1600/demosthenes_assembly_athens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQNFr40o8dOe99Jg1GBbmrskstR5_WSKOJyCnLJt0skidpTi-s_2V_7LzwR4cFWgaIxc83E23_ukdLkBqIkJ53X15mxW-Glp3fu2uiWDzUPv1jfa1eipBIKMnfh4rESgb40bDtQ/s200/demosthenes_assembly_athens.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The statement found in Demosthenes 3rd Philippic has been used time and time again by our beloved Northern neighbors, in an attempt to indicate that the Makedones were not considered Hellenes..<br />
It is actually this quote that has been used:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Demosthenes<b>, </b>3rd Philippic 31<br />
But if some slave or superstitious bastard had wasted and squandered what he had no right to, heavens! how much more monstrous and exasperating all would have called it! Yet they have no such qualms about Philip and his present conduct, though he is not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honor, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
But did Demosthenes and the rest of the Hellinic world actually consider Philip and thus the Makedones as 'foreigners' which some strive to support based on the use of the term 'barbarian' ?<br />
Demosthenes clarifies this for us in a different text.. titled, "On the False Embassy".. there we read:</span></div><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><u><br />
</u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Demosthenes, On the False Embassy 304-306<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><u><br />
</u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">[304]</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <b>Was it not Aeschines?</b> Who persuaded you to send embassies almost as far as the Red Sea, declaring that Greece was the object of Philip's designs, and that it was your duty to anticipate the danger and not be disloyal to the Hellenic cause? Was it not Eubulus who proposed the decree, and the defendant Aeschines who went as ambassador to the Peloponnesus? What he said there after his arrival, either in conversation or in public speeches, is best known to himself: what he reported on his return I am sure you have not forgotten.<br />
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<u>[305]</u> <u>For he made a speech in which he <b>repeatedly called Philip a barbarian and a man of blood.</b></u> He told you that the Arcadians were delighted to hear that Athens was really waking up and attending to business. <br />
He related an incident which, he said, had filled him with deep indignation.<br />
On his journey home he had met<u> Atrestidas travelling from Philip's court with some thirty women and children in his train. He was astonished, and inquired of one of the travellers who the man and his throng of followers were;</u><br />
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<u>[306]</u> <b>and when he was told that they were Olynthian captives whom Atrestidas was bringing away with him as a present from Philip, he thought it a terrible business, and burst into tears. </b>Greece, he sorrowfully reflected, is in evil plight indeed, if she permits such cruelties to pass unchecked. He counselled you to send envoys to Arcadia to denounce the persons who were intriguing for Philip; for, he said, he had been informed that, if only Athens would give attention to the matter and send ambassadors, the intriguers would promptly be brought to justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
Here we learn that Aeschines, Philip's major supporter and the man that was accused of having been bribed by Philip for this very support.. had actually previously given him the title 'barbarian'..<br />
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But what was the reason, was it actually his origin or <b>was there a totally different reason ???</b><br />
The texts again provide...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Demosthenes, On the False Embassy <br />
<br />
<u>[308]</u> <b><u>And as for Philip,—why, good Heavens, he was a Greek of the Greeks, the finest orator and the most thorough—going friend of Athens you could find in the whole world.</u></b><br />
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And yet there were some <b><u>queer, ill-conditioned fellows in Athens who did not blush to abuse him, and even to call him a barbarian!</u></b><br />
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<u>[309] </u>Is it, then, conceivable that the man who made the earlier of those speeches should also have made the later unless he had been corrupted? <b>Is it possible that the same man who was then inflamed with abhorrence of Atrestidas on account of those Olynthian women and children, should now be content to cooperate with Philocrates, who brought free-born Olynthian ladies to this city for their dishonor?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">This quote gives us very interesting information...<br />
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<b>1)</b> Demosthenes ' sarcastic comment leaves us no doubts that the ironic statement of <b>Philip being a <i><u><span style="color: red;">Greek among Greeks</span></u></i></b>, which <u>some queer, ill-conditioned fellows abused him by calling him a barbarian </u>..(which includes both himself, Hyperides and the rest of those tht formed the group against Philip but also Aeschines that was in the other group in favor of Philip) had little to do with his bloodline but with his actions and what the Atheneans perceived as cultural inferiority in general. <br />
We already know from Isokrates' Panegyricus that the Atheneans took such great pride in their accomplishments that they actually went as far as to state that<u> thanks to them</u>, the denomination Hellenes had become synonymous to their accomplishments, intelligence and culture and not strictly an indication of their race.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Isocrates Panegyrikos 50<br />
"And so far has <b><i><u>our city</u></i> distanced the rest of mankind in <u>thought and in speech</u></b> that her pupils have become the teachers of the rest of the world; and she has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and that the title Hellenes is applied to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Hence why Demosthenes makes the sarcastic reference to Philip's "exquisite" skills in orations and the obvious political statement related to his "friendship" towards Athens.<br />
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<b>2)</b> The enslavement and dishonoring of the Olynthian women and children made Aeschines <b>inflamed with abhorrence and burst into tears..</b><br />
But what was the reason Aeschines, Demosthenes or any other Athenian would even care about some Olynthian women and children when we know that Olynthos had previously revolted against Athens and formed a 'league' of its own(Chalcidic League) ?</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The answer is once again provided from Demosthenes and his speech titled "Against Meidias"<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Demosthenes, "Against Meidias" 47<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Law<br />
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<b>If anyone assaults any child or woman or man, whether free or slave, or commits any unlawful act against anyone of these,</b> any Athenian citizen who desires so to do, being qualified, may indict him before the Judges; and the Judges shall bring the case before the Heliastic Court within thirty days from the date of the indictment, unless some public business prevents, in which case it shall be brought on the earliest possible date. Whomsoever the Court shall condemn, it shall at once assess the punishment or the fine which he is considered to deserve. In all cases where an indictment is entered, as the law directs, if anyone fails to prosecute, or after prosecution fails to obtain one fifth of the votes of the jury, he shall pay a thousand drachmas to the Treasury. If he is fined for the assault, he shall be imprisoned until the fine is paid, provided that the offence was committed against a freeman.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While the use of the word "assault" in the translation may not be clear, in the original the terminology is.. 'hubristai' from 'hubrizw' = wax wanton, run riot, in the use of superior strength or power in sensual indulgence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We easily come to the conclusion that Philip was titled barbarian<b> NOT</b> due to his 'foreign' origin, but just as we had previously seen in the face of Archelaos II... due to his actions, actions which the Athenians considered so immoral, so vulgar, so brutal that they had <b>strict</b> laws to prevent such activities from taking place in their city.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">By Phalanx(</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Orphic_Hymn</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">)<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-71234655248441247922011-03-23T20:48:00.007+02:002011-03-23T21:50:02.847+02:00BYZANTINISM AND HELLENISM by Ap. Vakalopoulos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDQJUruuAcgTTHVCNM0EFlqY4f7emndjIU4w4Jpj5gnB53AKoyOMTiRiKg3_uOk_tzDv5A6sKnE5DEEB8LR0SnSvSaAAvS1gURmElb8DdzUHao_WK1XnPfO0NuGUGB3-h_5krzw/s1600/Byzantium1204.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="139" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDQJUruuAcgTTHVCNM0EFlqY4f7emndjIU4w4Jpj5gnB53AKoyOMTiRiKg3_uOk_tzDv5A6sKnE5DEEB8LR0SnSvSaAAvS1gURmElb8DdzUHao_WK1XnPfO0NuGUGB3-h_5krzw/s200/Byzantium1204.png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>REMARKS ON THE RACIAL ORIGIN AND THE INTELLECTUAL CONTINUITY OF THE GREEK NATION</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The understanding of intellectual phenomena presupposes not only an</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">adequate stock or knowledge and possess.ion of method but also a maturity of mind, since chiefly with deep personal experience are we able to stand before the remarkable historical and sociological phenomena and try to perceive the course they take in our highly comblex life. The main reason we require much time for the consideration and understanding of phenomena is that frequendy the great changes in history come about very slowly. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They unfold gradually and imperceptibly without our being aware of them. The greatest difficulty of all is in following the pattern of these phenomena through the course of the centuries. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Such problems are: <strong><u>the famous origin of the modern Greeks</u></strong> and, second, <strong><u>other problems bound up with this first but nonetheless still thorny and much debated</u></strong>. These are problems concerning the relationships and common ground between the ideas of the Ancient and Byzantine world and those of the modern Greeks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moreover I would like to bring to mind the establishment of Roman colonies in various parts of the Greek territory, in Epirus and Macedonia.....</span> <br />
<a name='more'></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">facts which are often forgotten.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe height="549" src="http://issuu.com/Makedonas_Akritas/docs/byzantinism_and_hellenism?mode=a_p&wmode=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SOURCE: <span style="color: blue;">Vakalopoulos A., “Byzantium and Hellenism. Remarks on the racial origin and the intellectual continuity of the Greek Nation”, Balkan Studies 9 [1968], σελ 101-126</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span></span></span></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-81692179430116299632011-02-17T13:21:00.007+02:002011-02-17T13:30:47.686+02:00SLAVIC HOMER IN SKOPJE & assorted Balkan fables: the case of the Slavic Trojans<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.americanchronicle.com/img/galleries/4172/263/200_Trojans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.americanchronicle.com/img/galleries/4172/263/200_Trojans.jpg" width="137" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">by Miltiadis Elias Bolaris</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FEB 15, 2011</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">HOCUS POCUS SLAVOMAKEDONIENSIS:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bogus scholarly witchcraft in the age of Antikvizatsiyja</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In notoriously unreliable sources, such as the "Slavic Nationalist Forum" (1) or the expatriate Skopjan misinformation website "MakNews" (2), it is naturally expected to stumble upon products of pseudo-scholarly emesis such as "A new theory about the Trojan era", by Tomáš Spevák, which in all seriousness proclaims nothing less than: "Ancient Trojans were SLAVS"!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first question now is: Why should anybody waste their time answering such preposterous claims. The answer is clear: This text has been used in every internet posting imaginable to promote its obviously anachronistic case to unsuspecting readers that take its word at its face value. Why should it not? While the text is not backed up by any documentation to speak off, it does include some rather impressive quotes by none other than Homer, the poet of Iliad and Odyssey himself as well as by Tiberius Claudius, the Roman Emperor and by Professor Eugene Borza.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <br />
The "new theory about the Trojan era" starts with the following question:</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"with all the research conducted for so many years and the enormous amount of funds invested in it, why hasn´t the question, "who were the Trojans" been answered? Since Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy in 1870, no one has bothered to ask, "what was the ethnicity of the Trojans and who were the Achaeans"?"</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fair question, I would say, for anyone who has obviously never bothered to follow discussions on various Homeric questions, since this question has been asked since and partially answered. <i><br />
</i></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The assumption all along was that they were "Greek", but were they? In literature and in the movies, they are represented as Greeks; using Greek weapons, Greek architecture, Greek art, etc."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First of all we are pleased to find out that whoever this Tomáš Spevák is, he is obtaining a sufficient component of his education from Hollywood movies, a peerless source of intellectual enrichment, no doubt.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"In history books we were told without a doubt that the "Achaeans were actually early Greeks". </i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Really now, how could that be? Were 'nt we all in agreement that Homer had been writing about the Sino-Japanese wars all along? Where did this doubtful rabbit about Achaeans being Greeks appear from? <br />
<br />
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark", as a famous Makedonski (3) once said.<br />
<br />
"But, has anyone inquired as to how they arrived at this conclusion? Where is the proof that the Achaeans and Trojans actually shared a common heritage with the "Greeks"; language, culture, art, weapons or any other characteristic that would qualify them to be "Greek"?" <br />
<br />
I don´t believe that anyone can truly say what they really were."<br />
</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://historicconnections.webs.com/TABLET-72-Linear%20B%20Leaf-02.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://historicconnections.webs.com/TABLET-72-Linear%20B%20Leaf-02.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Linear B, the earliest script for writting Greek, circa 1450BC </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="http://historicconnections.webs.com/TABLET-72-Linear%20B%20Leaf-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is two options to consider here, about the Achaeans at least. Either: A. No Scholar has ever done any research on the subject of the ethnicity, language and culture of the Achaeans, waiting for Tomáš Spevák to enlighten them, or: B. Whoever this person Tomáš Spevák is, he has been obviously living in an opaque and hermetically sealed glass sphere, since he never heard of the Linear B tablets. The decipherment in 1952 by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick of the thousands of inscribed clay tablets, found in Pylos, Thebes, Knossos and Mycenae, among other locations throughout Greece, forever and irrevocably proved exactly that: The language of the Achaeans, the Mycenaeans, as they are known, was undoubtedly Greek. Once we read his next statement:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"But we can, with some certainty, say that they were not Greek."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now we know: it is definitely "B": the man obviously has no clue, or worse yet, he decides to twist the truth to fit his means! <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, we want to hear what more he has to say:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Allow me to elaborate.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Let us begin with a quote from Tiberius Claudius;</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Among these Celts, if the word is to have any significance, even the ´Achaean´ Greeks, who had established themselves for some time in the Upper Danube Valley before pushing southward into Greece. Yes, <b>the Greeks are comparative newcomers to Greece</b>. They displaced the native Pelasgians ... This happened not long before the Trojan War; the Dorian Greeks came still later - eighty years after the Trojan War." </i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is serious stuff, indeed. If Tiberius Claudius said it, indeed emphatically and in bold letters: <b>"Yes, the Greeks are comparative newcomers to Greece"</b> it must be true! <br />
<br />
Doubts about the "newcomers Greeks" now hit me like a train hits a broken down Yugo stranded on a rail pass. I had to find out what else Tiberius Claudius wrote about them, so I tried to locate the full quote, with a quick search on the internet. To my surprise, of the dozen or so websites that carried this quote, not one of them was from a University or any other scholarly source. Every single one of them was either from Slavomacedonian or Albanian ultra-nationalist sites (4), hardly sympathetic to Greeks and not necessarily intent to promote the Classics. <br />
<br />
Not knowing much about Tiberius Claudius apart that he was a Roman emperor, related to Caligula, I read up a little to find out what is known about what he wrote. It seems like he wrote on diverse subjects from the history of Augustus' reign to a history of the Etruscans and the history of Carthage. He also compiled a Latin-Etruscan dictionary as well as a book on dice. Nothing of what he wrote has survived, apart from a couple edicts, one in France and one in Egypt. With this in mind, let us now re-write what we read above, the way it SHOULD HAVE BEEN written:<br />
<br />
Let us begin with a FABRICATED quote, SUPPOSEDLY from Tiberius Claudius.<i><br />
</i></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Among these Celts, if the word is to have any significance, even the ´Achaean´ Greeks, who had established themselves for some time in the Upper Danube Valley before pushing southward into Greece. Yes, the Greeks are comparative newcomers to Greece. They displaced the native Pelasgians ... This happened not long before the Trojan War; the Dorian Greeks came still later - eighty years after the Trojan War."</i>, </span></blockquote><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">in other words:…WAAAAY LATER than either the Slavo-macedonians or Albanians who are OF COURSE "autochthonous" to the Balkans and have been there since before the Big Bang! </span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Now that we know we are dealing with a shameless nationalistic history falsifier who has no qualms about forging fake "documents" to promote his case, we need to be on alert about what we read:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The theory was, according to Herodotus and Homer, that "barbarian" tribes from the north, known as the Dorians, threatened the ancient Achaean cities even before the great (Trojan) war. They say that these tribes came from as far as the Danube River valley."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wonder where Homer says these things. To begin with, Homer NEVER EVEN MENTIONS the Danube river and he only mentions the Dorians, the best I know, ONLY ONCE:<i><br />
</i></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Κρήτη τις γαῖ᾽ ἔστι, μέσῳ ἐνὶ οἴνοπι πόντῳ,</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>καλὴ καὶ πίειρα, περίρρυτος: ἐν δ᾽ ἄνθρωποι</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>πολλοί, ἀπειρέσιοι, καὶ ἐννήκοντα πόληες. [175]</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>ἄλλη δ᾽ ἄλλων γλῶσσα μεμιγμένη: ἐν μὲν Ἀχαιοί,</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>ἐν δ᾽ Ἐτεόκρητες μεγαλήτορες, ἐν δὲ Κύδωνες,</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Δωριέες τε τριχάϊκες δῖοί τε Πελασγοί.</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Homer, Odyssey 19.148</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Crete is called a land, in the midst of the wine-dark sea,<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>a beautiful, rich land, well watered, and many men live there,<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>countless, and ninety cities. [175]<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>in speech among themselves their languages are mixed: There live Achaeans,<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>and bighearted native Cretans, there are Cydonians,<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>and Dorians of waving plumes and divine Pelasgians.</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Homer, in other words hardly mentions the Dorians in passing, just once, and there only as an anachronism, since when the Trojan war was fought the Dorians were not even known to the Achaeans and for sure they were not in Crete. It is obvious that they entered his poetry much later as it is obvious that they play no part in it. Now we go to Herodotus who, speaking of Croesus´s inquire he tells us:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>[2] ἱστορέων δὲ εὕρισκε Λακεδαιμονίους καὶ Ἀθηναίους προέχοντας τοὺς μὲν τοῦ Δωρικοῦ γένεος τοὺς δὲ τοῦ Ἰωνικοῦ. ταῦτα γὰρ ἦν τὰ προκεκριμένα, ἐόντα τὸ ἀρχαῖον τὸ μὲν Πελασγικὸν τὸ δὲ Ἑλληνικὸν ἔθνος. καὶ τὸ μὲν οὐδαμῇ κω ἐξεχώρησε, τὸ δὲ πολυπλάνητον κάρτα. (5)</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>[2] He found by inquiry that the chief peoples were the Lacedaemonians among those of Doric, and the Athenians among those of Ionic stock. These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far.</i> <i>(6)<br />
<br />
[3] ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ Δευκαλίωνος βασιλέος οἴκεε γῆν τὴν Φθιῶτιν, ἐπὶ δὲ Δώρου τοῦ Ἕλληνος τὴν ὑπὸ τὴν Ὄσσαν τε καὶ τὸν Ὄλυμπον χώρην, καλεομένην δὲ Ἱστιαιῶτιν: ἐκ δὲ τῆς Ἱστιαιώτιδος ὡς ἐξανέστη ὑπὸ Καδμείων, οἴκεε ἐν Πίνδῳ Μακεδνὸν καλεόμενον: ἐνθεῦτεν δὲ αὖτις ἐς τὴν Δρυοπίδα μετέβη καὶ ἐκ τῆς Δρυοπίδος οὕτω ἐς Πελοπόννησον ἐλθὸν Δωρικὸν ἐκλήθη.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>[3] ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ Δευκαλίωνος βασιλέος οἴκεε γῆν τὴν Φθιῶτιν, ἐπὶ δὲ Δώρου τοῦ Ἕλληνος τὴν ὑπὸ τὴν Ὄσσαν τε καὶ τὸν Ὄλυμπον χώρην, καλεομένην δὲ Ἱστιαιῶτιν: ἐκ δὲ τῆς Ἱστιαιώτιδος ὡς ἐξανέστη ὑπὸ Καδμείων, οἴκεε ἐν Πίνδῳ Μακεδνὸν καλεόμενον: ἐνθεῦτεν δὲ αὖτις ἐς τὴν Δρυοπίδα μετέβη καὶ ἐκ τῆς Δρυοπίδος οὕτω ἐς Πελοπόννησον ἐλθὸν Δωρικὸν ἐκλήθη. </i><i>(5)<br />
<br />
[3] For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian.(6)</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>[3] For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian.(6)</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i>Having seen that Homer mentions nothing or almost nothing of the Dorians, we now see that Herodotus, far from speaking of imaginary " <i>"barbarian" tribes from the north, known as the Dorians"</i>, who supposedly <i>"threatened the ancient Achaean cities even before the great (Trojan) war",</i> he also never mentions anything about Danube River valley hearsay<i> "They say that these tribes came from as far as the Danube River valley." </i><br />
<br />
Herodotus clearly calls the Dorians Greeks and he clearly states that they came south from the mountainous Pindus range areas of Epirus and Macedonia, both of which are localities in what was then and now northwestern Greece.<br />
<br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAKMlCwCOHaJQXSRZDRbt3qxsyuSZfIIkusA3Lhp-INt9wV_1ZeQqxSNiIKyK78jX7114U8lZLl1IScxMs4TWJugQQz5cP1bnlBk-td7iBMqSqiwhlYhZOx7lOhHfV18ABiCxb/s1600/1300bc.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAKMlCwCOHaJQXSRZDRbt3qxsyuSZfIIkusA3Lhp-INt9wV_1ZeQqxSNiIKyK78jX7114U8lZLl1IScxMs4TWJugQQz5cP1bnlBk-td7iBMqSqiwhlYhZOx7lOhHfV18ABiCxb/s400/1300bc.gif" width="400" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Therefore, his second quote:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The theory was, according to Herodotus and Homer, that "barbarian" tribes from the north, known as the Dorians, threatened the ancient Achaean cities even before the great (Trojan) war. They say that these tribes came from as far as the Danube River valley", </i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is proven to be a fraudulent one too. This is two out of two! One more strike and he is out!<br />
Yet he continues unabated:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Modern scholars however have doubts. There is no archeological evidence to support this theory.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>According to professor Eugene Borza:</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The theory of Dorian invasions is largely an invention of 19th century historiography, and is otherwise unsupported by either archaeological or linguistic evidence. Most archaeologists and many linguists have abandoned the belief that Greek speaking Dorians devastated Mycenaean centers at the end of the Bronze Age..."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since no book reference is given, I now have my serious doubts as to whether this one is a valid quote too. Once again, this particular quote is disseminated in the usual Skopjan internet sites that drip of anti-Greek hateful venom, so my suspicion is that this quote is also a fake. If anything, both linguistic and archaeological arguments, not to mention historic and mythological ones can be used to support a Dorian invasion. The Dorian dialect for example flowed down from the Peloponnese to a crescent that drops south to Crete and then rises up to Rhodes, and across into Caria, while on the other side it also goes west of Western Greece, beyond the Ionian Sea to Cicily and Southern Italy up to Neapolis, Naples. On the other hand, the Achaean dialect survived in mountainous Arcadia, in the center of the Peloponnese, surrounded by Dorians and it also survived in far away Cyprus, making later linguists call it the Arcado-Cyprian. The Aeolian and Ionian dialects held their ground in Eastern Greece (except Boeotia, Thebes) and the central and northern part of the Western coast of Asia Minor. As for the Archaeology, if it was not the Dorians who destroyed the fabled Achaean citadels, it must certainly be the ones who took lasting advantage of their demise. This is why it is doubtful that Eugene Borza would have written such a quote.</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since we speak of Eugene Borza, I need to say that he is the darling of the Skopjan pseudo-macedonians, since he is honestly of the (obviously naïve) opinion that the Macedonians became Hellenized by the southern Greeks, AFTER they conquered them, a first in world history where a dominant and demographically strong imperial society lets itself lose its own language by a conquered people who is not numerically superior. His arguments, real or imaginary, are all over the internet, in support of a separate (albeit closely related to Greek) Macedonian ethnicity in the ancient times, before the 4thcBC.</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Darling of the Skopjans (for the wrong reasons!) or not, Eugene Borza is still a serious academic. While the Slavomacedonians beat the drums trying to make a case for non-Greek ancient Macedonians, whose descendants (obviously) they claim to be, Eugene Borza brutally brings them back to earth:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entere</i><i>d the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions—mostly émigrés in the United States, Canada, and Australia—even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity [...] The twentieth-century development of a Macedonian ethnicity, and its recent evolution into independent statehood following the collapse of the Yugoslav state in 1991, has followed a rocky road. In order to survive the vicissitudes of Balkan history and politics, the Macedonians, who have had no history, need one…Their own so-called Macedonian ethnicity had evolved for more than a century, and thus it seemed natural and appropriate for them to call the new nation "Macedonia" and to attempt to provide some cultural references to bolster ethnic survival..."</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eugene Borza, Macedonia Redux (7)</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was of course written in 2003, years before the Antikvijatsija theories invaded Skopje via Toronto and Melbournetook and captured it by a storm and Nikola Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE party put the regime propaganda engines full blast, turning the Slavic-speaking part of FYROM's population into "Antickite Makedonci", descendants of Александар Велики<b>/</b>Aleksandar Veliki, Alexander the Great!<br />
Now we move to some hard core anti-scientific arguments…it is all about "belief" and "certainty", nevertheless:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"It is my belief that the Achaeans and the Dorians have always lived in Thessaly or on the Ionian coast. To which language group they belong I can´t say with certainty, but their language nonetheless created a large part of the classical Greek vocabulary.</i>"</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is also my belief that the Italians arrived into Italy during the late Renascence coming from the Western coast lands of southern Japan and Eastern Korea and they spoke a Classic Chinese dialect, though I am not too sure of it. How is that for a theory? And, more importantly…who in this world cares for my theory if I have nothing to back it up with and document it and, additionally, it flies in the face of every historical fact we have at our disposal. Italian Renascence art, after all, does not remind someone of Japanese, Korean or Chinese art.<br />
<br />
Further down we are treated to some infantile geopolitical analysis of the late bronze age that could be considered age-appropriate for a third grade student, had it not been written in such a mediocre way:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"If the Trojan War indeed took place, taking Homer´s word who so eloquently described it, one can conclude that it left the Achaeans and their allies devastated and in a state of weakness. The Trojan War in fact could have been far more devastating than Homer described it. Some scholars believe, mythology aside, it was a war for economic dominance. Troy, the richest city in the known world, presented a threat to the Achaeans because it controlled most of the trade through the Dardanelle pass. Troy had many allies and could have easily taken full control of the pass. Control of the pass would have meant controlling the entire sea trade between the Mediterranean and Black Seas.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The prospect of Troy controlling the pass worried the Achaeans who tried by every means possible to find a solution. Unfortunately, Troy continued to ignore them. Unable to find a peaceful solution, the Achaeans declared war on Troy.</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The Achaeans amassed a great army, a size never before seen, and set out for Troy. When they arrived, the Trojans met them before the great walls of their city. The armies clashed and fought endless battles. It was a war of the worlds as each side drew in on its allies. Each side used its genius to outdo the other and many men in great numbers on both sides were killed.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>When it was over, the Achaeans returned home victorious. Unfortunately, it was a bitter sweet victory which left them devastated. Many kings and nobles died in the battlefields and many more died at home through sinister plots and intrigues. Even the High King Agamemnon was murdered.</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Weakened, leaderless and with a population in decline, the war brought more suffering than it did prosperity. With new and inexperienced leadership, a shortage of men and material, defense from the savage invaders from the north became a serious challenge."</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Further down we are getting apocryphal: </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The Pelasgi (Belasci), the ancient settlers of the Balkans, called these new savages from the north, Xellenes (newcomers). They were later named Greeks by the Romans. "</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reader is advised not to even bother searching for either "Belasci" or "Xelenes", since they are the tail of the dog that is chasing it…all internet references bring us back to this same article: Purely invented ethnonyms. We keep the "Xellenic" on hold for now and we will return to it later on. <br />
<br />
Now the reader is leaving behind any contact with history and enters the abode of pure fantasy:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The Xellenic tribes of Dorians, arrived on the Peloponnesus eighty years after the Trojan War. They raided the countryside, destroying the rich Achaean culture, cities and enclaves along with the native Achaean population. Their arrival brought dramatic change to the region. They no longer had a High King to rule over all the tribes and cities. Art, architecture and science also changed, modified by the mixing of new cultures; Egyptians, Phoenicians, Xellenes, Pelasgians, Anatolians and others. All these people helped shape Greece to become what it was during the classical period.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>We cannot draw conclusions from studying the Achaeans and Trojan cultures alone, we need archeological evidence to corroborate our theories. Based on cultural evidence alone, we can equally assume the Trojans were a Slavic people."</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reader can now conclude, and I do not need to explain why, since it is known from Virgil who told us about the Xitalians, of Xitaly, who left Trojagrad and with the help of Korean and Egyptian colonists, established the Japanese colony of Nova Trojagrad also known as Romevo or Romavo and further north the Proto-Slavic Veneti established Venezziagradovo. It goes without saying that "Based on cultural evidence alone, we can equally assume the Xlatin Xitalians were a Slavic people." This historic dogma should be de facto accepted, no questions asked! After all, </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"According to historian Alexander Donski, if one reads the description of the customs practiced by Trojans as per Homer´s Iliad, without knowing who the Trojans were, one would get the impression that they were the modern Balkan Slavic peoples."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> </i> If my cousin the liar said it, it must be true! Aleksandar Donski (8) is pseudo-makedonism´s all time favorite Antikvizatsiyja promoter prima dona. It is well known that the Trojan proto-Slavs lived in Zadrugas inside Troy-Trojagradovo and their most famous Czar was Priam-Priamovski whose Czarina was Ecabe-Ekavska.<br />
<br />
Our torture is not over: </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"On a side note, many contemporary scholars today believe that the ancient Pelasgi, the inhabitants of the Greek Peninsula, before the classical Greeks, were proto-Slavic. Other ancient Balkan peoples such as the Thracians, Paeonians, Dardanians, Veneti, Bryges, Illyrians, Minoans and people from Asia Minor such as the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians and even Scythians and Sarmatians (Amazons) are also believed to be proto-Slavic speaking people." </i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is upsetting that these "contemporary scholars" fail to mention the Indians and the Han Chinese as proto-Slavic, but I sigh with relief that the single-breasted Amazons have been included in the lot! </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Several factors have led scholars this conclusion, art, customs, ancient relics with inscriptions of written languages, etc. Scholars Vasil Ilyov, Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Prof. V. A. Chudinov, Matej Bor, Anthony Ambrozic and others…"</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I cannot help mentioning that there are more nuts in this group of pseudo-scholars than in a macadamia nut jar.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"…have deciphered many ancient scripts from Phrygian, Venetic, Etruscan, Linear A, ancient Macedonian, Vincha, ancient Russian and other sources with the use of contemporary Slavic languages. In fact a number of so-called undecipherable scripts have now been deciphered and translated by using the Slavic languages, something never seriously done before."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The recipe is simple: is there an unknown undecipherable stone age script (or even a well known Ptolemaic one like the Egyptian Demotic (9) on the Rosetta stone ) out there? Bring it on, to Vasil Iliov (10) and he will read it be it, whether it is 5.5 or 102 thousand year old (you read it right! ), using the Cyrillic script and the Slavomacedonian language as spoken today in FYROM! </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Why didn´t anyone think of using Slavic, the vast family of languages of one of the largest nations on Earth? I believe because of political reasons: communism and all the propaganda surrounding it, not to mention the isolation the Slavic states suffered."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This quote above, these precise three sentences, have been used in their EXACT form by at least two Skopjan propagandists that I know, this one and the pseudonymous author of the Homeric Hoax par excellence: "Slavic elements in Homer" (11). Plagiarism, it seems, is unknown among these frauds, they shamelessly copy and misquote everything, even each other. The question to the reader might arise: Why do I say Skopian propagandists when the name of the author of the article in question, Tomáš Spevák, is apparently Czech? We continue with the next paragraph and the answer will become even more apparent:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"What is also interesting is that contemporary scholar Odisej Belchevsky and others are now studying the language in which Homer wrote the Iliad & Odyssey and are finding that it was written in a proto-Slavic language, closely related to modern Macedonian dialects." </i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What do we have here? Once again, exactly the same paragraph apparently plagiarized, word by word, from "Slavic elements in Homer". But the author of "Slavic Elements in Homer" is also using this article as his own source: <br />
<br />
<i>"A new theory about the Trojan era by Tomáš Spevák: On a side note, many contemporary scholars today believe…"</i> , which means that this article came first.</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Who is the author of "Slavic elements in Homer". Petrus Invictus himself. But, Petrus Invictus being his "spiritual identity and it is one I was given a loooong time ago"(sic), you can also call him John Donne. But you can also call him Perica, or Petro, or just plainly John. He admits that "Perica Sardzoski is my current identity", yet "my new identity as John Donne is my own trust me!" Of course we trust you Petro-Perica-Petrus-John (12)! Why shouldn't we?</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Furthermore, the word "contemporary scholar" has been used to describe this contemporary pseudo-scholarly fraud, Odisej Belchevski (13), by none other than the infamous, Toronto based Skopjan expatriate propagandist, the one who has raised anti-Hellenic scatology to levels of hatred previously unimaginable, Odisej´s buddy, Risto "Velikiot" (as in Aleksandar Velikiot, the Great!) himself.</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Something is happening here, obviously, more than simple plagiarism, which for a good propagandist is not a crime, anyway, but second skin. The first giveaway is the name: it is Czeck, yet nothing is to be found by this "author" again, in fact the article has been erased from the MakNews website, though at the moment this is being written it is still appearing on the list of the available articles (14).</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I sent an email to the imaginary Mr. Tomáš Spevák (at <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="mailto:brumi@neobee.net%29">brumi@neobee.net)</a> asking for his exact references for quotes used in this article yet the email was returned as undeliverable (15). The hosting company, Neobee (16), is Serbian, based in Belgrade. It is obvious that there is no Czech author writing and operating out of Beograd who is writing nonsense about the ancient Slavic Trojans. The name was made up to confuse, and the article was written to build on Odisej Belshevski´s (17) original hoax and also to become the basis for what came next, the more comprehensive "Slavic Elements in Homer". All three are interwoven and cross referenced. Who is the real author of this particular fraud? Follow the traces in the crime scene and you will find the source, is what I would suggest. All crooks leave their fingerprints or something belonging to them and racing back to their true identity, on the crime scene. There are two emails at the end of this article. One of them is long ago disconnected. If the first one fails to respond, try the second…</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An even more hilarious detail needs to be exposed. Further up on the text we found the puzzling and rather apocryphal references to "Xellenic tribes" and to "Xellenes". We keep in mind that Hellenic and Hellenes is the ethnonym of the Greeks in Greek. Hellenic in Greek is spelled Ἑλληνικόν and Ἕλληνες, respectively. If you were to spell it in Czech it would be Hellenic and Hellenes too, using the Latin script rules. But spell that in Slavomakedonski and the Cyrillic script shows us what happened. The Skopjan fraud left his traces once again: : Xэлленик became Xellenic instead of Hellenic and Xэллинес became Xellenes, instead of Hellenes, something a Czech person, used to write in his native Latinized Slavonic would never even think of...</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having said that, let´s entertain ourselves a bit longer:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"And now back to the Trojans and Achaeans. It is my belief that the Achaeans did not speak a proto-Slavic language." </i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now we are truly amazed: If Aegean Pelasgians, Illyrians Thracians, Macedonians, Trojans, Phrygians and one-breasted Amazons babes, among others, spoke proto-Slavic, why this exception with the Greek Achaeans?</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"If their vocabulary contained proto-Slavic words it is most likely they were borrowed from the Pelasgi or other Slavic-speaking tribes. I believe the Achaeans spoke a language that was more closely related to the language family of the later City States, but surely it wasn´t the same as that which was brought from Thessaly by the Dorians."</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This makes a lot of sense...or maybe not? We cannot help but note here that this Balkan hate monger cannot even bring himself to utter the word "Hellenic" or "Greek" when speaking of the language, but goes through a whole paraphrase "a language that was more closely related to the language family of the later City States", just to avoid it. This is why I insist that Risto is Velikiot, the greatest in his craft indeed: he does what he is a specialist in, namely anti-Hellenic scatology, and he does it with the passion of the convert, or the well compensated clerk. He was an office assistant before he became an "author" after all.<br />
<br />
Pseudo-historical science continues:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"The Peloponnesus was settled by various peoples. Egyptians [Ethiopians (18) as well], Phoenicians, Libyans [I believe the Sea People], Anatolians (Ionians) and Italics all contributed to the creation of the Mycenaean civilization and ethnicity.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The ancient Greek language (Attic) was less than 50% Indo-European and only 20% of Greek names and toponyms (aside the numerous Slavic ones) were Indo-European. Thus, it is no surprise that scholars classified linear B as Greek, because "Greek" encompasses elements of many languages including Egyptian, Phoenician, Anatolian and others, that don´t belong in the Balkans. In other words, all the languages spoken in the Peloponnesus before the arrival of the "Greek" Dorians.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Even the so-called "Greek gods" have roots in Egypt and elsewhere. I do not believe the inhabitants of ancient City States ever "founded" a god themselves.<br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>It is interesting that some Spartan kings claimed relation to the lords from the Middle East, Egypt and the shrine: pyramid at Menelaion. It is also interesting that the Achaean architecture has a striking resemblance to the Egyptian."</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Are we still there? Let´s take a deep breath of fresh air and dive in the mud again:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"As for the Trojans, we don´t have evidence of their written language (thus far ) (19)&(20), but we do know that most of their allies were proto-Slavic speaking peoples related to them (Trojans) whose customs are surprisingly very similar to those of the modern Balkan Slavs. According to Anthony Ambrozic and others, the Trojans were related to the Phrygians (21), whom we know were related to the proto-Slavic Veneti.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>I believe more evidence is required to conclusively prove this, but finding it for the time being is beyond the scope of this article."</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">True, but who needs boring "evidence" when "belief" and membership to the VMRO-DPMNE party is enough to get you into Slavomakedoniot paradise and all the perks associated with support of the Gruevskian regime in Skopje?<br />
<br />
"If my theory is correct, a new chapter in history will soon be written, a chapter that will include the Slav contribution to the world.",<br />
<br />
...not to speak of his contribution to endless material for stand-up comedy clubs worldwide or to the anthropology of a people that have been mesmerized by Skopje´s Antikvizatsiyja´s BIG LIE or the psychology of a pathetic liar who is passing himself off as a pseudo-Scientist.<br />
<br />
To cup it off, here is another Homeric quote, or so we are led to believe:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"As Homer puts it (describing the Slav barbarian tribes) in his epic:</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"They are numerous like leafs in the forest… with chariots and weapons decorated with gleaming gold and silver... like gods." "</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How should I put this?...: The reader is advised to not even bother tracing this quote down in Homer.! I already wasted precious time looking for it. Simply put, it simply does not exist! Yet another great day in the daily routine of forgery, fraud, deception and History falsification by the good folks of MakNews.com! Four out of four fabricated quotes in the same paper! If they were forging checks, under the "third strike and you are out" law of California, most of these pseudo-macedonians would be facing life in the slammer with no parole!<br />
<br />
The closest Homer ever said to this, that I was able to find is the following excerpt from the Iliad, when Odysseus is interrogating a Trojan captive that he and Diomedes caught on a reconnaissance mission:<br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.awesomestories.com/images/user/7e918d8d84.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Rhesos_krater_Antikensammlung_Berlin_1984.39.jpg/615px-Rhesos_krater_Antikensammlung_Berlin_1984.39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="388" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Rhesos_krater_Antikensammlung_Berlin_1984.39.jpg/615px-Rhesos_krater_Antikensammlung_Berlin_1984.39.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Dimedes killing the Thracian Rhesos and Odysseus taking Rhesos' horses</span></td></tr>
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<i>"τὸν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς:<br />
πῶς γὰρ νῦν Τρώεσσι μεμιγμένοι ἱπποδάμοισιν<br />
425εὕδουσ᾽ ἦ ἀπάνευθε; δίειπέ μοι ὄφρα δαείω.<br />
τὸν δ᾽ ἠμείβετ᾽ ἔπειτα Δόλων Εὐμήδεος υἱός:<br />
τοὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ ταῦτα μάλ᾽ ἀτρεκέως καταλέξω.<br />
πρὸς μὲν ἁλὸς Κᾶρες καὶ Παίονες ἀγκυλότοξοι</i> <i><br />
καὶ Λέλεγες καὶ Καύκωνες δῖοί τε Πελασγοί,</i> <i><br />
430πρὸς Θύμβρης δ᾽ ἔλαχον Λύκιοι Μυσοί τ᾽ ἀγέρωχοι</i> <i><br />
καὶ Φρύγες ἱππόμαχοι καὶ Μῄονες ἱπποκορυσταί.</i> <i><br />
ἀλλὰ τί ἢ ἐμὲ ταῦτα διεξερέεσθε ἕκαστα;</i> <i><br />
εἰ γὰρ δὴ μέματον Τρώων καταδῦναι ὅμιλον</i> <i><br />
Θρήϊκες οἷδ᾽ ἀπάνευθε νεήλυδες ἔσχατοι ἄλλων:</i> <i><br />
435ἐν δέ σφιν Ῥῆσος βασιλεὺς πάϊς Ἠϊονῆος.</i> <i><br />
τοῦ δὴ καλλίστους ἵππους ἴδον ἠδὲ μεγίστους:</i> <i><br />
λευκότεροι χιόνος, θείειν δ᾽ ἀνέμοισιν ὁμοῖοι:</i> <i><br />
ἅρμα δέ οἱ χρυσῷ τε καὶ ἀργύρῳ εὖ ἤσκηται:</i> <i><br />
τεύχεα δὲ χρύσεια πελώρια θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι</i> <i><br />
440ἤλυθ᾽ ἔχων: τὰ μὲν οὔ τι καταθνητοῖσιν ἔοικεν</i> <i><br />
ἄνδρεσσιν φορέειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν.</i> <i><br />
ἀλλ᾽ ἐμὲ μὲν νῦν νηυσὶ πελάσσετον ὠκυπόροισιν,</i> <i><br />
ἠέ με δήσαντες λίπετ᾽ αὐτόθι νηλέϊ δεσμῷ,</i> <i><br />
ὄφρά κεν ἔλθητον καὶ πειρηθῆτον ἐμεῖο</i> <i><br />
445ἠὲ κατ᾽ αἶσαν ἔειπον ἐν ὑμῖν, ἦε καὶ οὐκί."</i> <i></i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>"Then in answer to him spοke Odysseus of many wiles: "How is it now, do they sleep mingled with the horse-taming Trojans, [425] or apart? tell me at large that I may know." Then made answer to him Dolon, son of Eumedes: "Verily now this likewise will I frankly tell you. Towards the sea lie the Carians and the Paeonians, with curved bows, and the Leleges and Caucones, and the godly Pelasgi. [430] And towards Thymbre fell the lot of the Lycians and the lordly Mysians, and the Phrygians that fight from chariots and the Maeonians, lords of chariots. But why is it that ye question me closely regarding all these things? For if ye are fain to enter the throng of the Trojans, lo, here apart be the Thracians, new comers, the outermost of all, [435] and among them their king Rhesus, son of Eïoneus. His are verily the fairest horses that ever I saw, and the greatest, whiter than snow, and in speed like the winds. And his chariot is cunningly wrought with gold and silver, and armour of gold brought he with him, huge of size, a wonder to behold. [440] Such armour it beseemeth not that mortal men should wear, but immortal gods. But bring ye me now to the swift-faring ships, or bind me with a cruel bond and leave me here, that ye may go and make trial of me, [445] whether or not I have spoken to you according to right."</i><br />
<br />
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<tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Greeks vs Trojans and their allies in the Trojan war mentioned by Homer</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div class="article_body"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No mention of any Slavs or Proto-Slavs, of course, and we should not expect such a ludicrous anachronism: there would be no mention of Slavs by anyone, for the next 1400 to 1800 years in that area of the world.</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"For more details on the subjects covered in this article, consult the works of:</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Homer, Herodotus, Anthony Ambrozic, Eugene Borza, Mario Alinei, Vasil Ilyov, Valeriy A. Chudinov, and Sergei V. Rjabchikov."</i> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since we already checked the works of Homer and Herodotus, lets us leave the assorted delirious nuts of the Ambrozic, Alinei, Ilyov, Chudinov, and Rjabchikov type out of the mix for now and go will go back to Professor Eugene Borza, as we were asked, for a moment. <br />
<br />
We will not consult Professor Borza on the Slavic nature of the imaginary Trojan-ovskis or the single-breasted proto-Slavianki Amazon-ovas. We will ask him something simpler, to talk about the ethnic nature of the Macedonians, since that is where the juice of the matter is concentrated, and the true reason why such hilarious pseudo-scholarly articles are being crafted and so effectively promoted in the Slavomacedonian ultra-nationalist and other international Slavic-related websites:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "highlanders" or "Makedones" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin both to those who at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical "Dorians", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that northwest Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of Proto-Greek from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country... First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments) that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable."</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eugene Borza, "Makedonika", Regina Books, Claremont CA</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As for the imaginary author, the Czech named "Tomáš Spevák",</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"For comments and inquiries contact the author Tomáš Spevák at <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="mailto:brumi@neobee.net">brumi@neobee.net</a> <i>(an e-mail which we already know that does not work!)</i> or Risto Stefov at <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="mailto:rstefov@hotmail.com">rstefov@hotmail.com</a>"</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
P.S.<i>Cherry on the pie:</i><br />
Since no two liars can ever agree on the same lie, here is another loony theory from the land of loony theories. Professora Margarita Kitan Ivanoska from Skopje appearing on national TV (22) where she is in all seriousness "proving" that Troy was not in Anatolia, where Homer and the ancients tell us that it lay, and where Schliemann found it, but somewhere in Southwestern FYRoMakedonija. The question is now pseudo-"linguistic": was it Mariovo-Troyjovo (3:10 in the video), or was it in Ostrovo-Troyjovo (4:40 in the video)!<br />
<b>Zeus help us!</b><br />
<br />
<a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyBZ-IhZwfA&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyBZ-IhZwfA&feature=related</a><br />
<br />
NOTES & REFERENCES:<br />
1. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://slavija.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=4504&page=1#38083">http://slavija.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=4504&page=1#38083</a><br />
2. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.maknews.com/html/articles.html#spevak">http://www.maknews.com/html/articles.html#spevak</a><br />
3. I do not want to hear any doubts about the historic certainty that Shakespeare was a Slavomakedonski. Even if he has not been claimed as such till now, that is only because upcoming books of Donski and Stefov "proving" that he was a Skopjan, like Alexander the Great, Aristotle, George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth, among others, have not hit the Toronto and Melbourne bookstores as yet: patience!<br />
4. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://forum.kajgana.com/archive/index.php/t-21356.html">http://forum.kajgana.com/archive/index.php/t-21356.html</a>, <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://illyria.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ancientgreece&action=print&thread=23027">http://illyria.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ancientgreece&action=print&thread=23027</a> , etc<br />
5. Ηροδότου Ιστορίαι Α.56.2&3<br />
6. Ηerodotus I.56.2&3, Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.<br />
7. "Macedonia Redux", in "The Eye Expanded: life and the arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity", ed. Frances B Tichener & Richard F. Moorton, University of California Press, 1999<br />
8. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2010/06/macedonian-names-and-makedonski-pseudo_16.html">http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2010/06/macedonian-names-and-makedonski-pseudo_16.html</a>, <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2010/05/macedonian-names-and-makedonski-pseudo_29.html">http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2010/05/macedonian-names-and-makedonski-pseudo_29.html</a>, etc.<br />
9. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html">http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html</a><br />
10. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds1yjWYmb60&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds1yjWYmb60&feature=related</a><br />
11. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://issuu.com/petro_invictus/docs/slavic_elements_in_homer">http://issuu.com/petro_invictus/docs/slavic_elements_in_homer</a><br />
12. Perica and Dissosiative Identity Disorder: <br />
<a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7149853022&topic=5277">http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7149853022&topic=5277</a><br />
13. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2011/01/can-classical-mythology-be-explained.html">http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2011/01/can-classical-mythology-be-explained.html</a><br />
14. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.maknews.com/html/articles.html#spevak">http://www.maknews.com/html/articles.html#spevak</a><br />
15. Mail Delivery Subsystem<br />
to me <br />
show details 11:18 AM (22 hours ago) <br />
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:<br />
<a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="mailto:brumi@neobee.net">brumi@neobee.net</a><br />
Technical details of permanent failure:<br />
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 This account is too old and inactive. This is a permanent error. (state 14).<br />
16. NEOBEE.NET | Novi Sad, Narodnog fronta 55a | Beograd, Kralja Petra 20 | Niš, Cara Dušana 35<br />
17. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2011/02/amazingly-amusing-musings-on.html">http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2011/02/amazingly-amusing-musings-on.html</a><br />
18. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYDJ_i4cZxY&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYDJ_i4cZxY&feature=related</a><br />
19. "There was not enough evidence fruitfully to speculate upon the language of Troy until 1995, when a late Hittite seal was found in the excavations at Troy, probably dating from about 1275 BC. Not considered a locally-made object, this item from the Trojan "state chancellery" was inscribed in Luwian and to date provides the only archaeological evidence for any language at Troy at this period. It indicates that Luwian was known at Troy, which is not surprising since it was a lingua franca of the Hittite empire, of which Troy was probably in some form of dependency." From: <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_language#cite_note-3">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_language#cite_note-3</a><br />
20. Another sphere of research concerns a handful of Trojan personal names mentioned in the Iliad. Among sixteen recorded names of Priam's relatives, at least nine (including Anchises and Aeneas) are not Greek and may be traced to "pre-Greek Asia Minor".[3] On this basis Calvert Watkins in 1986 argued that the Trojans may have been Luwian-speaking. For instance, the name Priam is connected to the Luwian compound Pariya-muwa, which means "exceptionally courageous".[4]Additionally, the Alaksandu treaty describes Mira, Haballa, Seha and Wilusa (usually identified with Troy) as the lands of Arzawa, although this "has no historical or political basis",[5] suggesting that it was the language that they had in common. Frank Starke of the University of Tübingen concludes that "the certainty is growing that Wilusa/Troy belonged to the greater Luwian-speaking community".[6] <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_language#cite_note-5">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_language#cite_note-5</a><br />
21. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/44668910/Midas-and-the-Phrygians">http://www.scribd.com/doc/44668910/Midas-and-the-Phrygians</a><br />
22. <a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyBZ-IhZwfA&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyBZ-IhZwfA&feature=related</a></span> </div><div class="article_body"><br />
</div><div class="article_body">SOURCE:http://macedonianissues.blogspot.com/2011/02/slavic-homer-in-skopje-assorted-balkan.html</div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-37935541053428534822011-02-03T10:47:00.001+02:002011-02-03T10:56:35.844+02:00Re: The Importance of Historical Truth and The Macedonian Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFxAXuNnXbj-PK2YCOgL3menMzXlrmRsO4Yc0h7TZ8fqclnf7XcrbGjMlI_A6eC1fSARYZTTzVrDhh7L871gbNevo8Es1-Nuwk_-ciTe_QcaK7v9Wn7nLr-mWWAvS5n20eHU_eA/s1600/imagesCA30XBTH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="117" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFxAXuNnXbj-PK2YCOgL3menMzXlrmRsO4Yc0h7TZ8fqclnf7XcrbGjMlI_A6eC1fSARYZTTzVrDhh7L871gbNevo8Es1-Nuwk_-ciTe_QcaK7v9Wn7nLr-mWWAvS5n20eHU_eA/s200/imagesCA30XBTH.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">By </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Professor John Melville-Jones</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Following the publication of the edited version of the after-dinner talk that I gave in October, a formal complaint was made to my employer (to which a polite reply was made, stressing the importance of academic freedom), and I received an e-mailed message from the United Macedonian Diaspora (which I thought, because of its name, must be a Greek organisation until I read what it had to say), together with a number of other e-mails. Many of these were merely abusive, but this didn’t surprise me, because I know from experience that when people hold strong beliefs that are based on faith not fact, and they are shown that these beliefs cannot be true, this is distressing to them, and they will very often become agitated, as they cling to their beliefs even more vigorously. None of the messages that I received addressed the issue that I raised in my talk in Melbourne, the proposed erection of the statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje. Two of them were, however, more thoughtful, and I have had some mild and civilised exchanges with their authors, as we define our positions. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Some of the points that were made were what I would call 'diversionary', such as the statement that the present population of the Greek province of Macedonia has nothing in common with its population in ancient times, being 'colonisers', referring to the fact that many of them were brought there from Turkey in the 1920s during the exchange of populations which led to Muslims being removed from...</span></div><a name='more'></a>some areas of the Balkans, and Christians from some parts of Asia Minor. I have pointed out to the persons who made this point that this is not an accurate way to describe what happened; and it is certainly not relevant to the issue that brought me into this debate (see below). Similarly, I know that in northern Greece some of the things that have been done to the Slav minority who live there, such as discouraging them from using their own language, cannot be defended (and I wonder what has happened to any Greek speakers who still live in the FYROM, but no one has told me anything about them). But I am a specialist in the ancient world, not in modern history, and again this is not relevant to the point that I am trying to make.<span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Anyway, I composed a reply, and sent it to everyone who had contacted me, answering some of the points that had been made, and emphasising that I was not well informed on the details of what had happened in the period of Ottoman domination or the twentieth century, although I am in fact learning more. For example, I have been looking at a book called <i>The Contest for Macedonian Identity 1870-1912</i> by Nick Anastasovski, which is very scholarly and better documented, particularly in relation to Ottoman sources, than anything else that I have previously read. But it fails in its promise to show how a 'Macedonian Identity' began to be constructed in the 19th century. And one of the problems is that the word ‘Macedonian’ can be interpreted in different ways (I am reminded of the character Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s <i>Alice through the Looking Glass</i>, who said ‘When <i>I</i> use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean …’).</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">One delightful experience was my being directed, apparently seriously, to a web site produced by two scientists in Skopje, who claimed to have shown that the middle section of the Rosetta Stone (196 B.C.), the section occupying the space between the text that was presented in hieroglyphics and the text that was presented in Greek, was not, as has been generally supposed, written in Middle or Ptolemaic Demotic Egyptian (close to Coptic), but in the original 'Macedonian' language, which the Ptolemies, being Macedonians, were supposed to have used. This was combined with the suggestion that these original 'Macedonians' had been driven out of Macedonia by the Romans, but returned some seven centuries later to their homeland. Thus we would have a connection between the Macedonians of antiquity and the present inhabitants of the FYROM. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It is amazing that this world-shattering theory has not made the front pages of the international newspapers, even though, to judge from the comments that I have found on the web, some people in the FYROM are convinced by it. There are, however, obvious weaknesses that anyone, not necessarily a specialist in linguistics, can spot easily. In the first place, the web site dismisses the perfectly credible translation from Demotic which is provided by the British Museum. Also, the number of 'Macedonian' words that have been 'identified' by this 'scholarly' study is small (the authors do not offer a translation of the complete text, just a selection of supposed 'Macedonian' words). I discussed this with a linguist of my acquaintance, who said that if he studied the text in the same way, he would be able before too long to prove that some words in it were Finnish, Chinese or (Heaven forbid!) Bulgarian.</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The nature of the language spoken by the ancient <i>Makedónes</i> is hard to evaluate, because so little of it remains (I will ignore the claim concerning the Rosetta Stone, and the suggestion that there are inscriptions of an early date in one or more non-Greek languages which have been discovered, but are locked up in Greek museums and kept secret). We have about a hundred and fifty words that are specifically described as ‘Macedonian’, most of them from the <i>Lexicon</i> of Hesychius (5th century A.D., but incorporating earlier work). The material is insufficient for a firm judgement to be made (and it should be remembered that Hesychius and his predecessors were collecting rare or unusual words, rather than listing ones that were the same everywhere), but it is clear even from this limited sample that the Macedonian language was no further from Attic Greek (which became the standard form) than the Cretan or Spartan languages, which would certainly be called Greek. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Having said this, I can restate my position and develop it a bit. The origin of the <i>Makedónes</i> is unclear, but they seem to have arrived in the area around Aigai (Edessa & Vergina) by the eighth century B.C. They pushed out or absorbed the Bottiaioi who lived in that region or to the south of it, and other groups such as the Pierians and Mygdonians. Over the next two centuries they settled there and expanded their territory, and although they still had a number of separate tribes, a firm succession of kings was established, and this made them stronger than other more divided groups. Some of the names of early kings that we have may be legendary, but with Perdikkas I (7th century) we seem to be on firmer ground. The territory under the control of the <i>Makedónes</i> continued to expand, and by the beginning of the 5th century one of their kings, Alexander I, had begun to issue coins with his own name written on them in Greek. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Several passages that survive in Greek authors of the fifth and fourth centuries suggest that the Macedonians were regarded by the southern Greeks as ‘different’. This is not surprising, since they had arrived on the scene much later than the groups that had entered the peninsula during the Bronze Age and moved southward, but it is clear from the evidence that they were, although perhaps grudgingly, accepted as being Hellenes. The situation is less clear with regard to their neighbours on the north, in an area that cannot be exactly defined, but is approximately equivalent to the territory of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. These were called the Paionians, and there were frequent conflicts as they tried to expand into Macedonian territory. At the accession of Philip II to the throne of Macedonia the Paionians joined with the Illyrians in an attempt to take advantage of the inexperience of the new king, but Philip drove them back, defeating them on more than one occasion. </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">When I spoke of this in my after-dinner speech, I described this event as a ‘conquest’, which was completed by Philip’s son Alexander III. This was an overstatement. The Paionians were defeated, but their territory did not become a part of Macedonia. This is shown by the fact that the Paionian kings began issuing coins bearing their own names (written in Greek of course) during the reign of Philip II, and when Alexander started making his conquests, they provided a separate contingent of cavalry in his army. They certainly remained separate from Macedonia until the Roman conquest, as their continued issuing of coinage, first in the name of their kings, and finally in the name of the Paionians themselves in the early second century B.C., shows. And in the immediate aftermath of that conquest they were still regarded as separate, if we can believe the Roman historian Livy, who tells us (XLV, 29) that the Dardanians were not allowed by the Romans to take control of Paionia, although, as they claimed, it had once been theirs, because it had belonged to the last Macedonian king Perseus (<i>sub regno Persei</i>), and all Perseus’s subjects had now been granted political freedom (<i>libertas</i>).</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In later years the name 'Macedonia' was applied to a much larger area. It included some land to the north (Paionia), to the west and to the south (even including southern Greece for a while until a separate Roman province of Achaia was created). And in the centuries before the Ottoman conquest the geographical extent of ‘Macedonia’ (by now a purely administrative district, with no separate ethnic identity), varied considerably at different times. But now we are moving away from the issue that brought me into this naming dispute. This is that the territory of the FYROM was not, either in the fourth century B.C. or for many centuries after that, a part of Macedonia (except perhaps for a very narrow strip along its southern border), and that the erection of a statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje can never be justified, because it is based on a distortion of history by a people who, I am sorry to say, are trying to create a false identity for themselves.</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/216105" target="_blank"><span style="color: #417394; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/216105</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-31921573241902661762011-01-18T20:29:00.000+02:002011-01-18T20:29:46.508+02:00Alexander the Great at the Louvre for a unique exhibition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.visitingdc.com/images/louvre-museum-picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" n4="true" src="http://www.visitingdc.com/images/louvre-museum-picture.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Opening days: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Duration: 1 hr. 30 mins.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Alexander the Great goes .. to France next October! And not just any place in France <strong>but at ''Le Louvre''</strong>, the country's most famous museum and one of the best museums on the planet. A major exhibition entitled "In the kingdom of Alexander the Great - Ancient Macedonia'' will be hosted at the famous museum <strong>from October 2011 until January 2012</strong>. Maybe October isn't too close, preparation, however, is almost completed, so that the artifacts will be sent to France from Greece.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The curator of the department of Greek and Roman antiquities of the Louvre Mrs Sophie Deschamp has travelled to all Macedonian cities in Northern Greece in order to....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> select the 668 objects which are going to travel to Paris. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"<em>The French know that Alexander was Greek, but not Macedonian. Things are a little confused. They don't know that Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great is part of Greece. The exhibition will be a great opportunity for the all the visitors of the Louvre to learn about Alexander the Great, the origin and the timelessness of his myth</em>" said today in Thessaloniki, Mrs. Sophie Deschamp. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It should be noted that the French were the first who began excavations in the Ottoman Macedonia. During their excavations they took numerous antiquities in France, where are now presented at the Louvre. So thanks to the exhibition, the sets of the archaeological finds will be- temporarely- reunited.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The story of Alexander III of Macedonia, whom we know as Alexander the Great, is as much the stuff of history as it is of legend. His youth and extraordinary destiny granted him unparalleled glory. But what do we really know about him? Only a few contemporary accounts have come down to us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Alexander was born in 356 BC, the son of Olympias, a Molossian princess, and Philip II, the king of Macedonia. The kingdom, which was located in the north of Greece, was prosperous and possessed a powerful army. Philip was able to impose his will over the other Greek tribes and city-states, but was assassinated in 336 while he was preparing to invade the neighboring Persian Empire. Alexander, who was twenty at the time, was proclaimed king of Macedonia. He made his father's projects his own and embarked on an unprecedented military expedition, which resulted in sweeping conquests and immense spoils. Alexander's troops pushed their way into Asia as far as the Indus River, founding a number of cities along the way. The story came to an abrupt end in Babylon — Alexander, who was suffering from a high fever, died in 323 without designating an heir. The period that followed was a troubled one, in which his generals, the Diadochoi, fought over the territories that had been conquered, seeking an unrivaled rule. Nevertheless, by 306 BC they had divided up the lands and each took the title of king. This was the beginning of the Hellenistic kingdoms that were dominated by powerful dynasties. The last of these, Lagid Egypt, disappeared in 30 BC, conquered by the Romans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">sources:</span><br />
<ul><li><a href="http://www.louvre.fr/llv/activite/detail_parcours.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673407387&CURRENT_LLV_PARCOURS%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673407387&bmLocale=en"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">louvre.fr</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://athens.cafebabel.com/en/post/2011/01/14/Alexander-the-Great-at-the-Louvre-for-a-unique-exhibition2"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">athens.cafebabel.com</span></a></li>
</ul>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-23947907945148533342010-12-24T09:03:00.000+02:002010-12-24T09:03:03.429+02:00Merry Christmas from Macedonia.!!!!<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.scuolaleonardo.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/italian-christmas-presepe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: right; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" n4="true" src="http://blog.scuolaleonardo.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/italian-christmas-presepe.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="http://anastasiag.pblogs.gr/files/f/290429-christmas-tree-inside-the-house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" n4="true" src="http://anastasiag.pblogs.gr/files/f/290429-christmas-tree-inside-the-house.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-18299188774967131102010-12-22T23:54:00.001+02:002010-12-22T23:55:29.810+02:00A question from a reader as regards the "Ancient Macedonian History"<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A common question about <a href="http://macedonia-evidence.org/faq-history.html">Ancient Macedonian History</a> is: “<strong>If Alexander A' was Greek, why was he called a Philhellene?” </strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Philhellene (φιλέλλην, meaning Greek-lover) is a term commonly used of non-Greeks. It is also a term for Greeks who sacrifice themselves for the common good. Plato states that the citizens should be both Greek and Philhellenes (Republic 470E). Agesilaus of Sparta was also called a philhellene (Xenophon, Agesilaus 7.4) because he was a good Greek.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More questions about Ancient Macedonia History are answered at <a href="http://macedonia-evidence.org/faq-history.html">http://macedonia-evidence.org/faq-history.html</a>.</span>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-72765984020585295792010-12-17T13:08:00.000+02:002010-12-17T13:08:03.549+02:00Exaugustus Boiοannes and the Macedonians<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/thumb/a/aa/Skylitzis_Chronicle_iLLUMINATION.jpg/250px-Skylitzis_Chronicle_iLLUMINATION.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/thumb/a/aa/Skylitzis_Chronicle_iLLUMINATION.jpg/250px-Skylitzis_Chronicle_iLLUMINATION.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Exaugustus Boi</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">ο</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">annes (Italian: Exaugusto Bugiano), son of the famous Basil Boioannes, was also a catepan of Italy, from 1041[1] to 1042[2]. He replaced Michael Doukeianos after the latter's disgrace in defeat at Montemaggiore on May 4. Boioannes did not have the levies and reinforcements that Doukeianos had had at his command. He arrived only with a Varangian contingent. Boioannes decided on trying to isolate the Lombard rebels in Melfi by camping near Montepeloso.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">He stated the following prior to battle:</span></div><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">“ Lads, have pride in your manhood, and don't allow yourselves to have the hearts of women! What cowardice makes you always run away? <b>Remember your forefathers whose courage made the whole world subject to them. Hector, the bravest of men, fell before the arms of Achilles. Troy was reduced to flames by the Mycenean fury<u>. India knew of the gallantry of Philip. Did not his son Alexander through his bravery make the strongest of kingdoms submit to the Greeks?</u> The west and indeed every part of the world was once in fear of us. What people, hearing the name of the Greeks, dared to stand before them in the field?</b> Towns, fortresses and cities could scarcely render their enemies safe from their power. Be valiant, I pray you, remember the courage of your ancestors, and don't disgrace them by placing your trust in your feet [alone]! He who dares to fight like a man will overcome the strength of the enemy. Try to follow in the footsteps of your ancestors, and abandon now any idea of flight. All the world should know that you are men of courage. One should not fear the Frankish people in battle, for they are inferior both in numbers and in courage. ” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Normans, however, sortied from Melfi and camped on the Monte Siricolo, near Montepeloso. They captured a convoy of livestock meant for the Greek camp and forced a battle. Boioannes was defeated and captured (September 3, 1041). The Normans, as mere mercenaries, turned the captive catepan over to the Lombard leader Atenulf in Benevento. The latter accepted a large payment in return for the catepan's liberation and promptly kept the entire ransom for himself. Boioannes was free, but not in command any longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">References<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1-Chalandon, p 99. Amatus of Montecassino, John Skylitzes, and the Annales Barenses place his arrival in 1041, but Lupus Protospatharius places it in 1042. Lupus begins his year in September, so Boioannes should have arrived in Italy within that month or after. We do know, however, that he was defeated and captured in September 1041. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2-He was released in February 1042 from captivity, at which time he was replaced by Synodianos. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1-Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile. Paris, 1907. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2-Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">3-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaugustus_Boioannes<o:p></o:p></span></div>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-32880382315188621462010-12-14T11:45:00.001+02:002010-12-14T11:45:14.627+02:00Byzantine Macedonia (324-1025)<a title="View Byzantine Macedonia (324 - 1025) on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/45253336/Byzantine-Macedonia-324-1025" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Byzantine Macedonia (324 - 1025) </a> <object id="doc_487502826304853" name="doc_487502826304853" height="600" width="100%" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" style="outline:none;" > <param name="movie" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf"><param name="wmode" value="opaque"><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="FlashVars" value="document_id=45253336&access_key=key-1ibordh6ykjlv27dqbsl&page=1&viewMode=list"><embed id="doc_487502826304853" name="doc_487502826304853" src="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=45253336&access_key=key-1ibordh6ykjlv27dqbsl&page=1&viewMode=list" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="600" width="100%" wmode="opaque" bgcolor="#ffffff"></embed> </object>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-51162284020020245462010-11-27T20:39:00.000+02:002010-11-27T20:39:13.255+02:00Greece: Birthplace of the modern world?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2010/11/4/1288887699359/The-Acropolis-Athens-006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" ox="true" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2010/11/4/1288887699359/The-Acropolis-Athens-006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">by Paul Cartledge</span><br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/07/ancient-world-greece"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">guardian.co.uk</span></a><em></em><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>E </em>pluribus unum: "out of many – one". The one-time motto of the US reminds us that, much like most of the larger nation states today, ancient Greece was a mosaic of very different components: about 1,000 of them at any one time between c600BC and AD330. That is, there were a thousand or so separate, often radically self-differentiated political entities, most of which went by the title of polis, or citizen-state. Our term "Greece" is derived from the Romans' Latin name, Graecia, whereas the ancient Greeks spoke of Hellas – meaning sometimes the Aegean Greek heartland, at other times the entire, hypertrophied Hellenic world – and referred to themselves as "Hellenes".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the foundational epics attributed to Homer, however, you won't find Greeks referred to as "Hellenes" but as "Achaeans", "Danaans", or "Argives". That was because the epics are set in a period before "Hellas" and "Hellenes" had become common currency – before, that is, the eighth century BC, when Greeks first started emigrating permanently from the Aegean basin and settling around the Mediterranean and Black Seas. By the time of Plato, around 400BC, Hellas stretched from the Pillars of Heracles (straits of Gibraltar) in the west to Phasis in Colchis (in modern Georgia) in the far east. Later, following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the pale of Hellenic settlement was extended even further eastwards, as far as Afghanistan and the Indus Valley of Pakistan.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Everyone who was not a Hellene by birth, language or culture was labelled a barbaros. Originally an...... </span><br />
<a name='more'></a> onomatopoeic description of anyone who spoke a non-Greek, unintelligible language, barbaros came to acquire the pejorative connotations of "barbarous" and "barbaric". The Romans took the same sort of view of all non-Romans – excepting only Hellenes – which is how those emotive terms entered our own language.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">United Greece</span></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The transformational turning point came in the first decades of the fifth century BC, in the course of the epic conflict known from the Greek standpoint as the Persian Wars. The mighty Persian empire, the fastest growing and largest oriental empire yet, had threatened to swallow up mainland Greece as well as those Greeks who lived within the bounds of what the Persians considered their own sphere – Asia. But on the battlefields of Marathon, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale, a relative handful of Greek communities managed to unite long enough to repulse that threat – for ever, as it turned out. Indeed, Alexander turned the tables by conquering the old Persian empire and starting to create a new Helleno-Persian successor: oriental in its underlying administrative and symbolic structure, <strong>but Greek in unifying language and high culture.</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Furthermore, the Greeks' unexpected victories over the Persians of 490 and 480-479BC unleashed an era of unparalleled cultural creativity – from Aeschylus's tragic drama Persians of 472BC to the mathematical genius of Archimedes. However, united though they were by religion and common social customs and by at least partly fictional self-images, these Greeks were very much not united by one of their major contributions to the sum of human achievement – politics.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much of our everyday political language is of ancient Greek derivation: monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy, democracy – not to mention the word "politics" itself. Much of the rest is Latin-derived: constitution, republic, empire, among others. But the Latin for "democracy" was democratia, a loan-word, because actually the Romans didn't do democracy – at least not in the original ancient Greek sense of the term; and they recognised, as we all do or should, that in this sphere the Greeks had been the original pioneers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, the ancient Greeks' demokratia was hugely different not just in scale but in kind from any modern political system that claims the title of "democracy". That was partly because the fundamental ancient Greek political unit, the polis, was a strong community in a very exclusive sense: only adult male citizens could consider themselves politically entitled. Even then, the ancient Greeks typically ruled themselves directly, in that they did not select rulers to rule over and for them. Theirs were direct, participatory self-governments, whereas ours are notionally "representative".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But democracy, so far from being the ancient Greek norm, was at first a rare and rather fragile plant: only later did it become about as widely distributed as various forms of oligarchy. And only in a few cases – in Athens, above all – was it both deeply rooted and conspicuously radical. At all times and in all places it remained more or less controversial. And there was a good linguistic reason for this. Demokratia was a compound of demos and kratos. But whereas kratos unambiguously meant "grip" or "power", demos could be interpreted to mean either "people" (in a vague sense, as in Abraham Lincoln's famous words at Gettysburg: "government of the people, by the people, for the people") or very specifically "the masses": the poor majority of the enfranchised citizen body (which might range in size from as few as 500, as on the island-state of Melos in the Cyclades, to as many as the 50,000 citizens of democratic Athens).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So if you liked demokratia, it could mean People Power, but if you hated it – if, say, you were a member of the wealthy elite – then it could stand for the ancient Greek equivalent of Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By and large the Romans took the second view, which is why they went to great lengths to stamp it out within their empire – the eastern half of which was basically Greek – in the end with total success. It therefore took a great deal of effort and ingenuity in the 19th century to rehabilitate "democracy" as a viably positive term of political discourse – and even then only at the cost of draining it of the active, participatory, class-conscious dimension the Athenians had given it.</span><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Worship and sacrifice</span></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A popular proverb says that the ancient Greeks "had a word for it". But actually they didn't always. A conspicuous example is that they had no word for our "religion", which is taken from Latin. Our manifold and multifarious legacy from the ancient Greeks does not include their polytheistic religion – which was superseded and suppressed by various forms of Judaeo-Christianity and then Islam. These latter faiths are all based on the presumption of a single deity, and on privileged hierarchies of vocational officials who interpret their sacred texts and dogmas. The ancient Greeks' "things of the gods", on the other hand, needed no clergy, dogma or doctrine: formulaic rituals mattered above all.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is easy for us today to be over-impressed by the standing remains of monumental temples such as those on the Acropolis of Athens or of Greek Acragas (Agrigento in Sicily), or by reports of now lost wonders such as the huge seated cult-statue of Zeus at Olympia, crafted by master sculptor Pheidias of Athens in the 430sBC. For most Greeks the object of their greatest devotion was an altar, whether domestic or public. The most characteristic act of religious worship was the performance of a sacrifice, such as a gift of olive oil, wine or grain, or the killing of a pig or chicken. These offerings symbolised both communion between the god or goddess and their mortal worshippers, as well as the unbridgeable gulf that separated the human from the super-human. Though the Greeks' gods and goddesses were represented in human shape, they were regarded rather as powers – immeasurably more powerful than puny mortals.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Myths</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another unique feature about the Greek deities was that they didn't have a hand in creating the world. In fact, they themselves were created only after a void state of chaos. We refer to these stories about the Greek gods' supernatural origins and functions as "myths". But for the Greeks a myth was a traditional tale that could have a purely secular, mortal content. Indeed, it was a prime marker of advanced intellectuals' sceptical, rational, critical outlook that "myth" came to be downgraded as a derogatory term meaning something like a romantic fiction. And it was a condition of the Greeks' achievements in philosophy and the natural sciences that they managed to reason without invoking mythology, conducting their ideas on the understanding that the natural and human worlds could in principle be explained without recourse to the hypothesis of supernatural intervention.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Greek world's first paid-up intellectual was Thales of Miletus (on the Aegean seaboard of western Turkey today), who lived around 600BC. He not only fell down wells while contemplating the heavens (as all proper intellectuals should), but also predicted a total solar eclipse (here he was fortunate to be heir to the discoveries and records of Babylonians and Egyptians before him), thus robbing it of potential divine mystique, and once made a substantial profit by successfully predicting a bumper olive harvest. Thales and his followers had a particular interest in the kosmos: a non-human universe that was hypothetically ordered and orderly. The way to study it was through historia: empirical enquiry or research.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Science</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The results they came up with were hardly what we would call scientific. That was left for the doctors of the school of medicine, founded by Hippocrates in the fifth century BC on the east Aegean island of Kos; and the astronomers attached to the museum and library of Alexandria in Egypt in the third century BC. The latter spawned intellectual giants such as Eratosthenes from Cyrene in today's Libya, who successfully measured the Earth's circumference to within a small margin of error.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite these giant steps, it is important to remember that most ordinary Greeks were not persuaded to adopt a rationalist, non-theistic world outlook, nor were they always tolerant of the eccentric intellectuals they harboured in their midst – especially not at times of great societal crisis such as the Peloponnesian War (431–404BC). A case in point was the trial and execution of Socrates at Athens, by a democratic jury of 501 mostly "ordinary" Athenian citizens, in 399BC.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Socrates was convicted of "introducing brand-new, publicly unrecognised divinities" without the Athenian people's say-so, and of "corrupting the young". Both charges carried particular weight in the fraught circumstances of 399BC: this was just a few years after the Athenians' total defeat in the Peloponnesian war by Sparta, an enemy that prided itself on its conservative traditionalism in all matters concerning the gods. That its oligarchic junta had done to death many hundreds of ordinary Athenians was still fresh in the memory. The trial of Socrates and its outcome should remind us that democratic Athens, despite being a relatively open society, was no liberal paradise of principled religious tolerance</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Economics</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Series: Guides to the ancient worldPrevious | Next | Index Greece: Birthplace of the modern world?It had paid-up intellectuals and progressive politics, yet ancient Greece was less civil than we are inclined to remember, says Paul Cartledge</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Share88 Paul Cartledge guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 November 2010 12.00 GMT Article history </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BFR92R The Acropolis, Athens, Greece as it would have appeared in ancient times. Photograph: Classic Image/Alamy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">E pluribus unum: "out of many – one". The one-time motto of the US reminds us that, much like most of the larger nation states today, ancient Greece was a mosaic of very different components: about 1,000 of them at any one time between c600BC and AD330. That is, there were a thousand or so separate, often radically self-differentiated political entities, most of which went by the title of polis, or citizen-state. Our term "Greece" is derived from the Romans' Latin name, Graecia, whereas the ancient Greeks spoke of Hellas – meaning sometimes the Aegean Greek heartland, at other times the entire, hypertrophied Hellenic world – and referred to themselves as "Hellenes".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the foundational epics attributed to Homer, however, you won't find Greeks referred to as "Hellenes" but as "Achaeans", "Danaans", or "Argives". That was because the epics are set in a period before "Hellas" and "Hellenes" had become common currency – before, that is, the eighth century BC, when Greeks first started emigrating permanently from the Aegean basin and settling around the Mediterranean and Black Seas. By the time of Plato, around 400BC, Hellas stretched from the Pillars of Heracles (straits of Gibraltar) in the west to Phasis in Colchis (in modern Georgia) in the far east. Later, following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the pale of Hellenic settlement was extended even further eastwards, as far as Afghanistan and the Indus Valley of Pakistan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Everyone who was not a Hellene by birth, language or culture was labelled a barbaros. Originally an onomatopoeic description of anyone who spoke a non-Greek, unintelligible language, barbaros came to acquire the pejorative connotations of "barbarous" and "barbaric". The Romans took the same sort of view of all non-Romans – excepting only Hellenes – which is how those emotive terms entered our own language.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">United Greece</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Alexander the Great fighting in the Battle of Issus, ca. 310 B.C., based on Roman Mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, Italy Photograph: © Bettmann/CORBIS The transformational turning point came in the first decades of the fifth century BC, in the course of the epic conflict known from the Greek standpoint as the Persian Wars. The mighty Persian empire, the fastest growing and largest oriental empire yet, had threatened to swallow up mainland Greece as well as those Greeks who lived within the bounds of what the Persians considered their own sphere – Asia. But on the battlefields of Marathon, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale, a relative handful of Greek communities managed to unite long enough to repulse that threat – for ever, as it turned out. Indeed, Alexander turned the tables by conquering the old Persian empire and starting to create a new Helleno-Persian successor: oriental in its underlying administrative and symbolic structure, but Greek in unifying language and high culture.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Furthermore, the Greeks' unexpected victories over the Persians of 490 and 480-479BC unleashed an era of unparalleled cultural creativity – from Aeschylus's tragic drama Persians of 472BC to the mathematical genius of Archimedes. However, united though they were by religion and common social customs and by at least partly fictional self-images, these Greeks were very much not united by one of their major contributions to the sum of human achievement – politics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much of our everyday political language is of ancient Greek derivation: monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy, democracy – not to mention the word "politics" itself. Much of the rest is Latin-derived: constitution, republic, empire, among others. But the Latin for "democracy" was democratia, a loan-word, because actually the Romans didn't do democracy – at least not in the original ancient Greek sense of the term; and they recognised, as we all do or should, that in this sphere the Greeks had been the original pioneers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, the ancient Greeks' demokratia was hugely different not just in scale but in kind from any modern political system that claims the title of "democracy". That was partly because the fundamental ancient Greek political unit, the polis, was a strong community in a very exclusive sense: only adult male citizens could consider themselves politically entitled. Even then, the ancient Greeks typically ruled themselves directly, in that they did not select rulers to rule over and for them. Theirs were direct, participatory self-governments, whereas ours are notionally "representative".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But democracy, so far from being the ancient Greek norm, was at first a rare and rather fragile plant: only later did it become about as widely distributed as various forms of oligarchy. And only in a few cases – in Athens, above all – was it both deeply rooted and conspicuously radical. At all times and in all places it remained more or less controversial. And there was a good linguistic reason for this. Demokratia was a compound of demos and kratos. But whereas kratos unambiguously meant "grip" or "power", demos could be interpreted to mean either "people" (in a vague sense, as in Abraham Lincoln's famous words at Gettysburg: "government of the people, by the people, for the people") or very specifically "the masses": the poor majority of the enfranchised citizen body (which might range in size from as few as 500, as on the island-state of Melos in the Cyclades, to as many as the 50,000 citizens of democratic Athens).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So if you liked demokratia, it could mean People Power, but if you hated it – if, say, you were a member of the wealthy elite – then it could stand for the ancient Greek equivalent of Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By and large the Romans took the second view, which is why they went to great lengths to stamp it out within their empire – the eastern half of which was basically Greek – in the end with total success. It therefore took a great deal of effort and ingenuity in the 19th century to rehabilitate "democracy" as a viably positive term of political discourse – and even then only at the cost of draining it of the active, participatory, class-conscious dimension the Athenians had given it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Worship and sacrifice</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A popular proverb says that the ancient Greeks "had a word for it". But actually they didn't always. A conspicuous example is that they had no word for our "religion", which is taken from Latin. Our manifold and multifarious legacy from the ancient Greeks does not include their polytheistic religion – which was superseded and suppressed by various forms of Judaeo-Christianity and then Islam. These latter faiths are all based on the presumption of a single deity, and on privileged hierarchies of vocational officials who interpret their sacred texts and dogmas. The ancient Greeks' "things of the gods", on the other hand, needed no clergy, dogma or doctrine: formulaic rituals mattered above all.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is easy for us today to be over-impressed by the standing remains of monumental temples such as those on the Acropolis of Athens or of Greek Acragas (Agrigento in Sicily), or by reports of now lost wonders such as the huge seated cult-statue of Zeus at Olympia, crafted by master sculptor Pheidias of Athens in the 430sBC. For most Greeks the object of their greatest devotion was an altar, whether domestic or public. The most characteristic act of religious worship was the performance of a sacrifice, such as a gift of olive oil, wine or grain, or the killing of a pig or chicken. These offerings symbolised both communion between the god or goddess and their mortal worshippers, as well as the unbridgeable gulf that separated the human from the super-human. Though the Greeks' gods and goddesses were represented in human shape, they were regarded rather as powers – immeasurably more powerful than puny mortals.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Myths</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another unique feature about the Greek deities was that they didn't have a hand in creating the world. In fact, they themselves were created only after a void state of chaos. We refer to these stories about the Greek gods' supernatural origins and functions as "myths". But for the Greeks a myth was a traditional tale that could have a purely secular, mortal content. Indeed, it was a prime marker of advanced intellectuals' sceptical, rational, critical outlook that "myth" came to be downgraded as a derogatory term meaning something like a romantic fiction. And it was a condition of the Greeks' achievements in philosophy and the natural sciences that they managed to reason without invoking mythology, conducting their ideas on the understanding that the natural and human worlds could in principle be explained without recourse to the hypothesis of supernatural intervention.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Greek world's first paid-up intellectual was Thales of Miletus (on the Aegean seaboard of western Turkey today), who lived around 600BC. He not only fell down wells while contemplating the heavens (as all proper intellectuals should), but also predicted a total solar eclipse (here he was fortunate to be heir to the discoveries and records of Babylonians and Egyptians before him), thus robbing it of potential divine mystique, and once made a substantial profit by successfully predicting a bumper olive harvest. Thales and his followers had a particular interest in the kosmos: a non-human universe that was hypothetically ordered and orderly. The way to study it was through historia: empirical enquiry or research.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Science</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The results they came up with were hardly what we would call scientific. That was left for the doctors of the school of medicine, founded by Hippocrates in the fifth century BC on the east Aegean island of Kos; and the astronomers attached to the museum and library of Alexandria in Egypt in the third century BC. The latter spawned intellectual giants such as Eratosthenes from Cyrene in today's Libya, who successfully measured the Earth's circumference to within a small margin of error.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite these giant steps, it is important to remember that most ordinary Greeks were not persuaded to adopt a rationalist, non-theistic world outlook, nor were they always tolerant of the eccentric intellectuals they harboured in their midst – especially not at times of great societal crisis such as the Peloponnesian War (431–404BC). A case in point was the trial and execution of Socrates at Athens, by a democratic jury of 501 mostly "ordinary" Athenian citizens, in 399BC.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Socrates was convicted of "introducing brand-new, publicly unrecognised divinities" without the Athenian people's say-so, and of "corrupting the young". Both charges carried particular weight in the fraught circumstances of 399BC: this was just a few years after the Athenians' total defeat in the Peloponnesian war by Sparta, an enemy that prided itself on its conservative traditionalism in all matters concerning the gods. That its oligarchic junta had done to death many hundreds of ordinary Athenians was still fresh in the memory. The trial of Socrates and its outcome should remind us that democratic Athens, despite being a relatively open society, was no liberal paradise of principled religious tolerance.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Economics</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Socrates is the main participant in a fictional dialogue composed by the versatile Athenian historian Xenophon (c428-355BC), entitled (in Latin transliteration) Oeconomicus. Yet "economics" in our sense is not what the discourse is about, but rather the management of an oikos or "household".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Greeks "did" economics, practically speaking, but they did not theorise it as we do. This was partly because they did not develop a suitable macro-economic technical vocabulary but also because, like their politics and religion, their economic realities were very different from those of a capitalist, let alone a globalised, economy. Most Greeks lived on and from the land. This is not to deny that local, regional and international trading networks could be crucially important, not least when the commodity being traded was a life-giving staple such as grain. But as much as 80% of the typical population of a typical polis were employed in peasant-style, non-market-oriented agriculture, working to satisfy needs rather than maximise profit.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Women and slaves</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Women, whose public valuation by men was often distressingly low, were economically crucial within the household, where they processed food, produced children and clothing, and managed the free or unfree workforce.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The modern Greek term for housewife, noikokyra ("lady of the household") had its ancient counterpart, especially in Sparta, where women vied not just to control but to own more than one household property. Elsewhere in Greece, women's property rights were severely limited. Indeed, it wouldn't have been uncommon for a wealthy Greek house-lord to think of his womenfolk as little better than the chattel slaves he owned. Ordinary Greeks, of course, might not have had the luxury of owning even a single slave, greatly desirable though that was thought to be.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most slaves were individually and privately owned, having been bought on the market as commodities. But some slaves – such as the gaolers of Socrates – were public servants. At Athens, there was an exceptional concentration of slave worker personnel in the state-owned silver mines, who were economically vital: the product of their labours paid for Athens' navy and a wide variety of other public and political services.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Sparta they managed their servile system very differently. Although there were some chattel-type (privately owned) slaves, the dominant form of servitude here was a kind of collective serfdom, known as helotage. And whereas most chattel slaves were dispossessed, non-Greek foreigners, the Helots were born into inherited bondage: this, perhaps, a final reminder of just how alien ancient Greece can be, for all its status as one of the fountainheads of western civilisation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Paul Cartledge is AG Leventis Professor of Greek culture at Cambridge University and the author of several books, most recently Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities (Oxford University Press)</span>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-76042046160569429972010-10-30T10:53:00.002+03:002010-10-30T10:54:21.666+03:00Quran and Islam about the Great Alexander<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Qm13uuxHPM?fs=1&hl=el_GR"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Qm13uuxHPM?fs=1&hl=el_GR" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-49524235837039588112010-10-02T11:25:00.002+03:002010-10-02T11:27:05.085+03:00Population changes in Macedonia under Ottoman Rule(14th-18th cent)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3fJGno5JmHupdE6wBlphQN1jOdSyc2GrJ9gEVdrokneDILT0Rj0dUGfFIhW5PmFhCs96xKfv3IHTXrLADITHEv8GJEHvzK_3OK3hUYTnh-DXKVUgrKfofa2SrJd4-mrd8XzwxQ/s1600/Ottoman+Macedonia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3fJGno5JmHupdE6wBlphQN1jOdSyc2GrJ9gEVdrokneDILT0Rj0dUGfFIhW5PmFhCs96xKfv3IHTXrLADITHEv8GJEHvzK_3OK3hUYTnh-DXKVUgrKfofa2SrJd4-mrd8XzwxQ/s200/Ottoman+Macedonia.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first century of Ottoman rule in Macedonia is characterized <strong>by a marked decrease in the Christian population which was primarily due to Muslim Turkic colonization.</strong> The <strong>Yuruks</strong>, a semi-nomadic Turkic tribe, represented the majority of the newcomers, having already appeared in Macedonia since the 14th century. Most ofthem settled in the region of <strong>Thessaloniki, in Central and Western Macedonia (Yenitsa, Kilkis, Strornnitsa, Servia, Florina) and as far north as Monastir (Bitola)</strong>. At the same time, <strong>the Christian populations retreated</strong> either to the western and southern mountainous regions or to Chalcidice.2</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Towards the end of the 15th century it was the tum of <strong>Jews to come in lagre numbers</strong> from Central and Western Europe and settle, mainly in Thessaloniki. The <strong>Askenazim,</strong> Jews of German and Hungarian origin, were the first to arrive, but the most numerous group was that of Spanish Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. Other groups came from Sicily and Southern Italy and still more from Portugal in 1497. Jews of Western origin came to be known collectively as <strong>Sefardim (Spanish Jews)</strong>. During the 16th century the Jewish element moved towards the interior of Macedonia and by the end of the century Jewish communities had been established at <strong>Skopje (Uskub), Monastir, Kavala, Drama, Serres, Siderocausia of Chalcidice, and elsewhere</strong>.3</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, the Jews were not the only mobile part of the population during the 16th century. <strong>Christian populations</strong> also began to move towards the plains. One part headed for Chalcidice where metallurgy was flourishing:</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The most important movement ofpopulation was the <strong>resettlement of Vlachs from Agrapha and Acheloos</strong>, who began to move to Macedonia and, to a significant extent, to urbanize. The urbanization of the Vlachs as well of other local Greek and Vlach populations during the following century resulted in the depopulation of the interior of Macedonia; this <strong>facilitated the continuous flow of peasant Slav populations southwards</strong>.4</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These movements seem to be confirmed by a recent study on Western Macedonia, according to which the population <strong>decreased by one quarter before 1641, following the relative swell of late 16th century</strong>. After this period and until 1683 the population of the western Macedonian plateaux seems to have remained stable, but a new decrease followed during the years of the Austrian-Turkish wars (1683-1711).During that turbulent period the <strong>islamization process</strong>, which had not ceased during the 16th century, intensified. The most characteristic example is the case of the <strong>Valaades, Christians turned Muslim</strong> (in the 19th century they constituted 25% ofthe population of the AliaJanon valley) who, however, had been hardly turkicized by the time ofthe Greek-Turkish exchange of populations.5</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, <strong>islamization in the 17th century was not the bane of Christians only</strong>. By mid-century, the <strong>Jewish communities</strong> were divided by the preachings of the pseudo-messiah Sabetai Chvi from Smyrna. After a ten-year activity, he was arrested by the Turks and eventually, in 1666, he was converted to Islam. Subsequently, many of his followers were islamized too, preserving, however, their Jewish customs. The so-called <strong>Donmeh (converted)</strong>, although they gradually adopted the Turkish language, remained firmly aloof from genuine Muslims and Jews alike until the day of the exchange of populations.6</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Western Macedonia there was a considerable growth of population during the 1700s (about 50% from 1711 to 1788) followed by a decline towards the end of the centUry. In the sanjaks of Thessaloniki and Kavala it seems that the growth did not exceed 100% between the 16th and 18th centuries. Regarding the <strong>Christian population</strong>, in particular, whose ranks were decimated by islamization and emigration to Central Europe, the percentage of growth was only 50% -an annual rate of a mere 0.16%, compared to a 0.50% for the rest of Europe. For exactly the opposite reasons, which included extensive colonization, the<strong> Muslim</strong> share of the population grew. Considerable was the increase in the numbers of <strong>Jews</strong>, who, however, remained a small minority, some 40,000 in both sanjaks, out of an estimated total of 600,000. Of course, the value of such estimates regarding any particular district is limited. Thus, it was surmised that the <strong>Christian population</strong> of the villages in the region of Thessaloniki might have quintupled between late 15th and early 18th century’s.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the turn of the 19th century (1801) the traveller <strong>Edward Clarke</strong> estimated <u>the total population of Macedonia at 700,000</u>. The first general Ottoman census, which was waged in 1831 and covered only the male population, proved Clarke's estimate inaccurate. According to it, the vilayet of Thessaloniki (Selanik, including probably some regions of Thessaly too) had the greatest proportion of Turkish population of all the European provinces of the Empire (41.70%). The male population amounted to 240,411 (<strong>127,200 Christians, 100,249 Muslims, 7,047 Gypsies and 5,915 Jews</strong>). In the vilayet of Monastir there were 208,222 male inhabitants (120,582 Christians, 81,736 Muslims, 4,682 Gypsies, 1,136 Jews, 24 Armenians and 35 of other religious affiliations).9</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Vasilis Gounaris</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This text is from the Volume 1 of the book “<a href="http://modern-macedonian-history.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-macedonian-books-available-now-on.html">Modern and Contemporary Macedonia</a> ” and the article “Demographic Developments in Macedonia Under Ottoman Rule”, pages 44-46. Sources and bibliography at the book.</span>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-43144571544833811852010-09-21T22:54:00.000+03:002010-09-21T22:54:44.619+03:00Recent Research on ancient Macedonia by Pr. R. Malcolm Errington<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/37883250/Recent-Research-on-ancient-Macedonia-by-Pr-R-Malcolm-Errington" style="-x-system-font: none; display: block; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; margin: 12px auto 6px; text-decoration: underline;" title="View Recent Research on ancient Macedonia by Pr. R. Malcolm Errington on Scribd">Recent Research on ancient Macedonia by Pr. R. Malcolm Errington</a> <object data="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" height="600" id="doc_957769719538588" name="doc_957769719538588" style="outline-color: invert; outline-style: none; outline-width: medium;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf"> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"> <param name="FlashVars" value="document_id=37883250&access_key=key-eg78kd2oj3paxw7bw9p&page=1&viewMode=list"> <embed id="doc_957769719538588" name="doc_957769719538588" src="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=37883250&access_key=key-eg78kd2oj3paxw7bw9p&page=1&viewMode=list" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="600" width="100%" wmode="opaque" bgcolor="#ffffff"></embed> </object> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><span style="color: black;">Source:<span class="f"><cite><a href="http://www.istorie.ugal.ro/ISTORIE/CERCETARE/ABALE/%20Errington_Macedonia.pdf">istorie.ugal.ro</a></cite></span></span></em></span>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37478410.post-49107264798026655582010-09-19T13:34:00.007+03:002010-12-06T09:58:25.880+02:00Writer Marko Attila Hoare fails<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GnaS-O0zr64BOnEVSUXjd0820NwuIUDq7NggDbOhO0W_S9IlTc_dcgJjuqyl-W20oXc9x_cKu0kURSQqb_MR1xG0eu1NRi68wA6Iznz3ZgsThIhuh_gUddunR67OMyMf4D1PGA/s1600/profilepic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GnaS-O0zr64BOnEVSUXjd0820NwuIUDq7NggDbOhO0W_S9IlTc_dcgJjuqyl-W20oXc9x_cKu0kURSQqb_MR1xG0eu1NRi68wA6Iznz3ZgsThIhuh_gUddunR67OMyMf4D1PGA/s320/profilepic1.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Writer Marko Attila Hoare, a British integral nationalist (see Smith at national identity 1991, page 79) in a recent article at his blog(http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com), <strong>try to explain the nationality of the ancient Macedonians.</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>How a modern writer try to define the nationality in a field of the Classicism raise a lot of questions.</u> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Hoare's article fails in two things</strong>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>First fail</strong> is to take adequately into account the important distinction, first proposed by Max Weber (1921) and since used by social anthropologists, between<strong> objective and subjective ethnicity</strong>. Objective ethnicity is a biological category which defines groups of human beings in terms of their shared physical characteristics resulting from a common gene pool. Subjective ethnicity, however, describes the ideology of an ethnic group by defining as shared its ancestors, history, language, mode of production, religion, customs, culture, etc., and is therefore a social construct, not a fact of nature (Isajiw 1974). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Objective and subjective ethnicity may and often do overlap, and the subjective, ideological boundaries between ethnic groups may be commensurate with objective ethnic boundaries (Barth 1969), <u>especially where an ethnic group has been isolated or has rigorously avoided intermarriage</u>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Second fail</strong> is the...</span><br />
<a name='more'></a> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">subjective definitions of ethnicity. These definitions by their very nature as social constructs are open to challenge. Different people can define a particular ethnic group's genealogy in different ways according to their contingent purposes at the time. In order to define a “nationality” in ancient Greece , particularly the controverted question of the “nationality” of the ancient Macedonians, not only because language is, at best, only one of the several elements which contribute to the formation of group identity, <u>but also –and mainly– because such a debate presupposed a previous response to the question of the nature of “nationality” in ancient Greece, provided of course that this question is well formulated and admits an effective answer.</u></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Jonathan Hall</strong> (Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, page 172) in his research regarding the Macedonian nationality and in his conclusions confirms the Classists doubts about the possibility of answering the question concerning the “nationality” of the ancient Macedonians: <em>“To ask whether the Macedonians ‘really were’ Greek or not in antiquity“, he writes, “is ultimately a redundant question given the shifting semantics of Greekness between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C. What cannot be denied, however, is that the cultural commodification of Hellenic identity that emerged in the fourth century might have remained a provincial artifact, confined to the Balkan peninsula, had it not been for the Macedonians</em>”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is no consensus on the issue of Macedonian ethnicity: whether the Macedonians were of Greek or mixed descent. <strong>Of course Macedonians were not Slavs as usual claim the Slavonic officials of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. <u>Marko Attila Hoare never explains if believes what the main history stream of this tiny State claim.</u></strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the archaic and classical period the Macedonians perceived themselves to be Greeks and were also perceived to be Greeks by the other Greeks. When they first became involved in affairs that concerned the Southern Greeks, and then major players in Southern Greek politics, their ethnicity became open to rhetorical manipulation, or rather, they became vulnerable to the cultural insult ‘barbarian,’ with the help of the deployment of the ‘cultural inferiority’ meaning of ‘barbarian’, so that the accusation was not unambiguously about ethnicity. It is not that perceptions of the Greekness of the Macedonians became unstable; it was the acknowledgement of their Greekness that became unstable at the level of rhetoric, it was manipulated as a weapon. But in Greek eyes the Greek identity of the Macedonians was indelibly sealed through their admittance as participants in the Panhellenic Games, which in the Greek collective representations defined Greekness, and defined not simply the individual, but also, I hope to have made clear, his polis or ethnos, as Greek. <strong>Pr Hammond in his works the above circumstances</strong> had in his mind when wrote "<em>The Macedonians in general did not consider themselves Greeks, nor were they considered Greeks by their neighbours.”</em> Marko Attila Hoare put a sentence and tried to change the known view of Pr Hammond. Also Slav Macedonians ultranationalists from the FYROM use this point of view. I hope Marko Attila Hoare do not adopt apart or whole of all theirs thesis.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my blog I have post a lot of articles regarding the ancient Macedonian background. I suggest to Pr. Marko Attila Hoare to read these articles carefully and <strong>reject the influence of the Slavmacedonism propaganda that <u>fluid his articles regarding the Greece and Greek people</u></strong>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Finally I would like to suggest to Hoare <strong>for further reading two books:The "Hellenicity" by Jonathan Hall and the "Ancient perceptions in Greek ethnicity" by IraD Malkin</strong>. Maybe he will understand and realize that t<span class="FontStyle13"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">his confusion is a consequence of the nature of the ancient source material and the influence of modern politics, especially after </span></span><span class="FontStyle13"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Verdana; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">1991 </span></span><span class="FontStyle13"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">when the 'new state' of the FYROM was formed.</span></span></span>Akritashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05564034383394082659noreply@blogger.com4