Post by BigBlackBeast on Dec 14, 2007 10:26:16 GMT -5
donnie said:
There's a good probability that the Russians got their name from the Varangians (Vikings from Sweden who traveled eastwards). These Germanic settlers formed colonies in modern day Russia and Ukraine, making Kiev their centre. They were called 'Rus' by contemporary sources -- the Slav masses seem to have adopted their ethnically foreign aristocracy's ethnonym as time progressed. Even today, the Finnish word for Sweden is Ruotsi. It would make little sense to call the Russians deceitful imposters in a pursuit to steal Swedish history. Likewise, the Slav Macedonians have been accustomed to their current ethnonym. Modest and intellectual ones such as GreekSlav understand that this does not connect them to Alexander the Great, since there is an approximate gap of 800 years or so between Alexander's death and the Slavs' arrival in the Balkan peninsula. But they will not be calling themselves 'Skopjians' anytime soon. For that sake, take my advice and encourage people such as GreekSlav who acknowledge the historical legacy of Aegean Macedonia, yet still wish to maintain their current name, as opposed to making them join those radical Slav Macedonians who go as long as to claim Alexander the Great & Philip II as their own, as speakers of the same language as they.
Hardly the same thing Donnie...
The adoption of the originally Scandinavian 'Rus' name by the Slavs we know as 'Russians' today was a result of a long process and had much to do with the actual Scandinavian Rus themselves through the development of the colonies/states they created in certain regions of that huge land. It could thus be said to have come about 'organically' over a good period of time just as it did with the adoption of the Turkic 'Bulgar' name by the Slavs we know now as Bulgarians.
In contrast the 'Macedonian' situation is very much the end result of the attempt by the old Yugo regime to stick it up Greece's rear end... this from a state that succeeded in making its 'Macedonians' out of its Bulgarians; 'Bosnians' out of its Muslim Serbo-Croats and 'Yugoslavs' out of the whole lot of them. Come to think of it it was actually a rather an inventive regime ... The Yugoslav 'Macedonian' program was of-course designed also for export to Greece and Bulgaria (and to a far lesser extent Albania).
I do have sympathy for GreekSlav and his mother's situation - her people are the product of a process out of their control - but find his preaching a little misguided and somewhat tiresome (I have encountered it in other forums).
The simple fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of the population of Greek Macedonia considers itself to be Greek and at the same time to be 'Makedones'. The relationship to this label will of-course vary with respect to the specific origin of these people. That is, the indigenous Greek-speaking Macedonians see the term as unambiguously and directly theirs. Those Greeks of indigenous Slav- or Vlach- speaking background see it as a term connecting them at once to the land and to their place in the Greek nation as a whole. The Greeks of refugee origin are proud to be living in Macedonia, the land of Alexander, Greeks in a historic Greek land. While completely proud of their specific origin (Pontian; Thracian, Smyrniot; Constantinopolitan etc) they perceive themselves as belonging to the same Greek stock that gave rise to the ancient Macedonians and in view of the tragedy that brought their grandparents to the land are instinctively keen to defend it. Their grandparents and great-grandparents were refugees ... they, however, were born in Macedonia and they are not.
My point is this. It is entirely presumptuous on the part of the consciously Slav population of the wider area we conventionally know as Macedonia to insist that they are THE Macedonians. Greek-Slav and his ilk would have Greece recognize them by this name and, whats more, to do so within her own territory. In other words Greece should recognize a 'Macedonian' minority, by that very name, within her own Macedonia and amongst her own 'Makedones' - who form the overwhelming majority of the population. How utterly arrogant, not to mention suicidal. It would be like telling the Greek 'Makedones' that this group of Slavs in their midst - in their Makedonia - are the Macedonians and should be referred to as such. In my mind this is dangerous state-of-affairs given the obvious questions of pre-eminence, ownership and legitimacy this entails ... the 'Macedonian' minority clearly has a more legitimate connection to the land whose name it would bear. So who/what are we? would be an obvious - angry - response from the Macedonian Greeks... Just imagine how the recognition of a separate non-Greek 'Cretan' minority in Crete would be received!
Greece may have an obligation to recognize a minority if one exists and to afford it every right belonging to it under law ... but she has absolutely no moral obligation whatsoever to promote the old Yugo experiment within her borders. The Slavs of Macedonia may now be 'accustomed' to their 'Macedonian' label thanks to the process that has given birth to it, but their monopolistic use of this term, and their demands they be recognized as its primary carriers, cannot fail to be offensive to Greeks and to be seen as hostile by them.