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Question: The name issue between Greece and "Macedonia"!?
Hello everyone, I was learning in school about the naming issue between the two countries but then all I hear are the two countries saying their own parts of the story and it makes me confused on which side is the right story!. Can somebody please tell me the real history but don't make it that long!? Im only in middle school so thanks!. And I really kind of think that the Greek side is the correct one because Alexander the Great's army was Macedonia and Slavic language didn't come until a longer period!. Thanks for your help!Www@QuestionHome@Com
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Excuse me, but I've got a question: do the young greek pupils learn about the naming issue in school!? I've finished school 6 years ago and the history lessons referred until the facts of about 40 years ago!.
Anyway!. During the Ottoman Occupation of the Balkans there were two vilayets that constitute what is called geographically Macedonia: the vilayet of Selanik (Thessalonike), which included central and eastern macedonia, and the vilayet of Manastir (Monastiri in greek, Bitola in slavic), which included NW Macedonia!. The northern FYROM was never included in those vilayets but in the one of Kosovo (including Skopje)!. There many ethnicities (I distinguish them according to language and religion) used to dwell: greeks, bulgarians, mogleno-romanians, aromanians, jews, albanians,serbs, arvanites and of course turks!. The Ottoman Empire and the Sultan recognised only three ethnicities (millet): The Rum one, which included only the orthodox christians of macedonia (greeks, bulgarians, most mogleno-romanians, aromanians,serbs, arvanites), the Turkish one (albanians, turks, islamisized former christians) and the Jewish one (jews from Iberian peninsula and greek-speaking jews)!. Since the bulgarians wanted an independence from the other christians and in that way to annexe Macedonia to Bulgaria, their church was differentiated from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople and they organised partisans who tried to make all Macedonian christians to convert to their Exarchate-religion, through terrorism against the christians of the Patriarchate (1903)!. Greeks reacted and other partisans were organised who would defend the patriarchic populations of Macedonia against the Bulgarian exarchate supporters!. So in the end of that informal war within the borders of Ottoman Empire two groups of christians had been created: the Bulgarians, which included the bulgarian-speaking exarchate supporters and some aromanian-speaking ones, and the Greeks (or just Rum), which included greek-, bulgarian-,aromanian-, arvanitic-, megleno-romanian- speaking patriarchate supporters!.
1st Balkan War (1912): All christian balkanian nations against Ottoman Empire!. Turkey loses almost all its balkanian parts and macedonia is divided in mainly two pieces: the bulgarian and the greek!.
2nd Balkan War (1913): Greece and Serbia against Bulgaria!. Bulgaria loses what is now called FYROM to Serbia, some parts of now Greek Macedonia to Greece and Eastern Thrace to Ottoman Empire!.
WW2(1941): Nazi troops invade in Greece and ocupy it along with their Italian, Bulgarian and Albanian allies!. Bulgaria occupies eastern greek Macedonia and FYROM!. FYROMians welcome the Bulgarians as liberators from the Serbs and Bulgarians try to cleanse ethnically Eastern Macedonia from the greeks!.
After WW2: Tito, the Yugoslavian Communist leader gets FYROM back and tries to create a new ethnicity in southern Yugoslavia, to protect it from the Bulgarians!. He calls them Macedonians and their language Macedonian, although it was a western bulgarian dialect!. He supports they are descendants of ancient Macedonians and have no relation with their neighbors (Bulgarians)!. also, he says that "mean"
greeks and bulgarians have divided illegally Macedonia in three pieces and that the "Aegean" and the "Pirin" part must be liberated from the Occupation!.
Of course, his propaganda was too powerful and now 1,5 million of slav FYROMians claim everything that Tito had promissed them with the support of the USA!.
@ Brian A!. Lincoln
Ethnic cleasing of Turks in the Balkans never happened!. In 1821 there was a war between Greeks and Turks and when Greeks won, Turks (a small minority in southern Greece) left the southern Greece, because they feared for the revenge for what they had done to their former subjects!. In 1923, when Turkey won Greece, the Turkish leader, Ataturk demanded a population exchange between Greece and Turkey: 1,5 million Greeks left Turkey to Greece(while 0,5 million Greek civilians had been massacred in the previous years) and 0,5 Turks left northern Greece and the islands to Turkey (Win Treaty of Lausanne for Turkey)!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Macedonians have been there for centuries, so have the Greeks, but never ever get into an argument of "who came first", this is a logical fallacy, it is not about who was there first, it is about who lives there and if they either deserve their land or if they can defend that land!.
If you study a book like "Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922" by Justin McCarthy, you'll learn that the Greeks and other Balkan nations (not just Greeks) did make the Macedonians suffer tremendous horrors!. Greece has been known for oppressing the Macedonians and the Macedonians hence are not very friendly with them!.
There is definitely some sort of major naming issue, Albanians say the Greeks are not the same Greeks that are referred to in classical times, and the argument continues!. It is mainly a pointless argument because it doesn't really matter!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
first of all i am Greek and yes we learn about that at school!.
i'm going to explain it shortly!.Some of the people who used to leave in the part of Greece named Macedonia one day left and and went to leave to the place now called FYROM!.But in FYROM went to leave many people from differnt countries(Albanians,Bulgarians etc)!.The people in FYROM now claim that because they are the ancestors of the people who left Macedonia once their country should be called Macedonia!.The problem is that a big part of Greece is still called Macedonia!.
search the google for more info!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Macedonia was a part on Ancient Greece (in Alexander's time)!. They weren't recognized as an independent country until 1993!. Although, in antiquity (ancient history) neither Thebes, Athens, Sparta nor most of the other Greeks thought of Macedonia as Grecians--but as barbarians!.Www@QuestionHome@Com