THE TRUTH - Part 11

THE TRUTH

The truth is Macedonians are not “Slavs”, they are Macedonians. They speak the Macedonian language, practice Macedonian traditions, have their own folklore and enjoy their own music. Unlike the Greeks who have an imposed language, the Macedonian language is the mother tongue of the Macedonian people which has been with them for at least 75 generations. The Greek language on the other hand was imposed on the Greek people after Greece became a nation state for the first time in 1829. The reason Greeks call Macedonians “Slav” is because in their minds “Slavs” are apparently an unworthy species of human that does not deserve to grace Macedonian lands or have any human rights. This goes back to the “Aryan” heydays when it was popular to abuse people for various reasons, reminiscent of what the Nazis did to the Jews. Even though this type of practice is no longer popular and most of its practitioners fell off the “Aryan” bandwagon a long time ago, it appears no one bothered to tell Greece. So to this day some Greeks continue to practice “Macedonian bashing” like it’s still in style! If you have been reading these types of articles (BIG Greek Lies) by now you would know that the so-called “Greek nation” is nothing more than a politically manufactured entity. It is a real shame that the Macedonian people who belong to a unique, rich and ancient culture are being punished for being “real” and all this is done for the sake of propagating another BIG Greek lie. BIG Greek Lie # 15 - “Greeks are Hellenes”

(Modern Greeks believe they are Hellenes)

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Hellenism is “the culture, ideals, and pattern of life of ancient Greece in classical times. It usually means primarily the culture of ATHENS and the related cities in the Age of Pericles [495-429 BC]. The term is also applied to the ideals of later writers and thinkers who draw their inspiration from ancient Greece. Frequently it is contrasted with Hebraism – Hellenism then meaning pagan joy, freedom, and love of life as contrasted with the austere morality and monotheism of the Old Testament. The Hellenic period came to an end with the conquest of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. It was succeeded by the Hellenistic civilization.” [9] If you ask a Modern Greek today to identify his or her “ethnicity” they will say they are “Greek”. If you ask them what is that in “Greek”? They will say “Ellinas” or “Ellinida”. There is no word for “Greek” in the Greek vocabulary. If there is (Graekos) it is rarely used and unknown to most Greeks. According to most modern Greeks today, “Greek” and “Ellines” are synonymous. In other words a “Hellene is a native of either ancient or modern Greece; a Greek”. If I am to understand this correctly “a Hellene is a person who shares the culture, ideals, and pattern of life of ancient Greece in classical times” and “who is a native of either ancient or modern Greece”. In other words, again if I understand this correctly, any person of any ethnicity who is native to either ancient or modern Greece and who shares the culture, ideals and pattern of life of ancient Greece in classical times qualifies to be a Hellene. Can a person be a Hellene and something else at the same time? According to Modern Greek standards, NO! One cannot be a Hellene and a Turk at the same time; according to some Greeks, why would they want to? “A Hellene is a superior being!” Also, according to some Greeks, “to be a Hellene one must be a descendant of the ancient Hellenes”. Obviously there are people today who call themselves “Hellenes” or more accurately, “Ellines”. My question here is, “Who are these people and how did they become the Hellenes?” Modern Greeks today consider themselves to be the inheritors of the ancient Greek and Byzantine civilizations and cultures. Historically, the self-perception of the Greeks and the definition of Greekness have varied, but with the emergence and consolidation of the nation-state, from the late 18th century, Greekness was redefined along the lines of what some people call romantic nationalism.

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes, depending on the particular manner of practice, the language, race, culture, religion and customs of the "nation" in its primal sense of those who were "born" within its culture. This form of nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the "top down", emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence. Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from God. Greece accepts all those who agree with this principle and rejects those who disagree. So what exactly is this principle and what are the criteria for belonging to it? Or, what is this club called “Hellas” and how does one sign up to join it? Is it ethnicity? Obviously not! Modern Greece is made up of Slav speakers, Albanians, Vlachs, Turks, Christian Turks, Roma, etc. Is it the Christian Orthodox Religion? Obviously not, even though most conservative Greeks like it to be! The so-called ancient Hellenes were Pagan.

So what exactly is a “Hellene” then in modern terms?

A Modern Hellene is a person who has rejected his or her real ethnicity, forsaken his or her real culture for the sake of belonging to a “CLUB”. A Modern Hellene or Modern Greek, since Hellene and Greek are synonymous, has abandoned reality and the truth for the sake of living an Idea. When Greece was coming together as a country for the first time in the early 1800’s, ethnically it could not hold itself together because of the various ethnicities living together and pulling in different directions. It is well known and every Greek should know that the majority of their national heroes of the “Greek uprising” against the Turks were not Greeks. They were Albanians (Arvanites), Vlachs and Slav Speakers (mostly Macedonians). Even though there were many roads Greece could have taken during its national awakening it chose the road to “Hellenism”. Unfortunately, appealing as it might have been to the Greek State it was destructive and devastating to the indigenous people of the region who are reeling from it to this day. Greece wiped out half a dozen natural cultures and vibrant languages for the sake of resurrecting something that had died two thousand five hundred years ago so that it could re-live the old glory days and satisfy the imperial ambitions of the Great Powers of the day. THE TRUTH

The truth is “there are no Hellenes living today”, and as per the Columbia Encyclopedia definition, they died, came to an end with the conquest of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. You Greeks can all pretend to be “Hellenes” but the only ones you’re fooling are yourselves, which is fine by me. Unfortunately when you claim that the Macedonians, a real, vibrant living people don’t exist, I take offense to that. When you adamantly insist that Macedonia belongs to Greece, a group of people who fabricated their own identity, and not to the real Macedonians, I take offence to that. When Macedonians are murdered, sent to prison, exiled from their homes and lands, forbidden to speak their mother tongue, not being recognized as people in their native lands, for the sake of propagating a Greek lie, I take offence to that. When Macedonian names and toponyms are erased, Macedonian Bibles and tombstones eradicated, and peoples’ identities stripped from them for the sake of creating “Hellenes” an identity that died many eons ago, I take offense to that too. So please take a good look at your creation and tell me that “Hellenism” is not another BIG Greek lie!

BIG Greek Lie # 16 - “The Macedonian Language does not exist”

(Most Modern Greeks believe the Macedonian language doesn’t exist)

“If you peel away all that Greece has taken from others, you will find an empty carcass of a people shocked to find that they have been living a lie-a lie that they invented and a lie that will ultimately destroy them.” (Steve S). There are some western academics and authors today who believe that the suppression of the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia has arisen out of Greek efforts at nation-building. After Macedonia’s occupation and partition in 1912, 1913, a great effort was made to turn its inhabitants into the citizens of the Greek nation-state. In order to make sure its citizens were loyal to the Greek state, politicians and intellectuals rewrote history, creating a myth that ALL Greek residents were “ethnic Greeks”. “Ethnicity” was purposely confused with “nationality” which led directly to the denial of the existence of the Macedonians. Denying the existence of the ethnic Macedonians quickly led to the denial of everything that was Macedonian and for those who insisted otherwise, denigration and human rights abuses followed. After denying the ethnic existence of an entire nation, it was not difficult for Greece to deny the existence of the Macedonian language. Unfortunately for Greece, it was not as easy to hide a language as it was to hide an entire ethnicity. Ever since Macedonia’s occupation and partition in 1912, 1913, Macedonians living inside Greece or should I say inside Greek occupied Macedonia, continued to speak their language even at the risk of being persecuted. After numerous efforts on the part of the Greeks to ban this language and make it illegal, Macedonians continued to speak it. Having to explain themselves why there are so-called “Greeks” speaking a non-Greek language inside Greece, Greek authorities resorted to calling the language “Slav”, “Bulgarian”, “Serbian” and even an “idiom” but never Macedonian. This idiom, according to some Greek explanations, was some sort of lost Slavic dialect probably a remnant of the “Bulgarian schools” from the Exarchate days when Macedonia was still under Ottoman rule. “...I asked him what language they spoke, and my Greek interpreter carelessly rendered the answer Bulgare. The man himself had said Makedonski. I drew attention to this word and the witness explained that he did not consider the rural dialect used in Macedonia the same as Bulgarian, and refused to call it by that name. It was Macedonian, a word to which he gave the Slav form of Makedonski, but which I was to hear farther north in the Greek form of Makedonike”.[10]

The Greeks may have been able to fool their own people and outsiders with no interest in Greek or Macedonian affairs, but they could not fool those people who actually had interest in learning the truth and those who spoke Macedonian and whose mother tongue has been Macedonian for dozens of generations. In fact some believe that Macedonians spoke Macedonian and lived on Macedonian lands before the so-called “Ancient Greeks” were civilized. One thing is certain, Macedonians spoke Macedonian before the Bulgars descended from the Volga. “The Greeks will not admit the Slav language in Churches or schools; the inhabitants of Macedonia are in the great majority Slavs; they call themselves now Macedonians, and what they desire and what we ardently desire for them is an autonomy under European control. -In whatever way Macedonia might be divided, the people would always be discontented, and would fight again as soon as possible. The only hope I can foresee is in a strong autonomy, which neither Greeks nor Bulgars nor Serbs would dare attack; then the Macedonians, who are really intelligent and docile when they are well treated, would peacefully develop this beautiful fertile country, and might learn to be civilized. -Surely Europe will not leave Macedonia under people whom the Macedonians hate, and whom they will continually fight. As the little Balkan states can never agree, but always fight for Macedonia, let none of them have it. -We might then have peace, the Catholics would again have heart, and all the years of hard work among them would not have been wasted.” Catholic Sister of Charity, Augustine Bewicke, January 4th 1919. Letter to Ian Malcolm, a British diplomat. Sister Augustine lived in Macedonia for 33 years. The Macedonian language is at least three thousand years old and fifteen-hundred years ago formed the basis of what we now call Church Slavonic, the language of Kiril and Metodi from Solun and the language of all Slavonic Churches. There are also people who believe that the Slavic family of languages began in Macedonia and was spread throughout Eastern Europe by Macedonians. Here is what Christian Voss has to say. “The case of the Slavic-speaking minority, which until today is officially denied in its very existence, in a comparative perspective is very strange, especially in view of their large number. The Slavic dialects in Aegean Macedonia - a territory of about 35.000 square kilometers - have approximately 200,000 potential speakers. Since only one third of them makes active use of the vernacular, which since 30-40 years is not the primary code any more, the term “Slavic-speaker” presents a more or less ethnic category which is supported on the sociological level [11]. The demographic development in the region is determined by several waves of ethnic cleansing in form of population exchange between Greece and Bulgaria (Neuilly 1919) and Greece and Turkey (Lausanne 1923) as well as in form of expulsion (during the Balkan Wars 1912-1913 and at the end of the Greek Civil War 1948-1949). As a result, the indigenous Slavic-speaking population, which until 1912 constituted the majority in Aegean Macedonia (with 30-40%), became minorised – except the western part, i.e. the prefecture of Florina, where they are still the majority and where many villages had no settlement of Asia Minor and Pontos refugees. [12] My survey of 270 villages in Northern Greece, where until today Slavic dialects are spoken, results from fieldwork conducted in the area between 1999 and 2003 [13], 112 of them are in Western Macedonia (i.e. the prefectures Kastoria, Florina, and the northern part of Kozani), 121 of them belong to Central Macedonia (i.e. the prefectures Pella, Kilkis, Thessaloniki and the northern part of Imathia), 38 of them in Eastern Macedonia (i.e. the prefectures Serres and Drama).” So, without going into details, it is not a case where a Macedonian language never existed or a case where a Macedonian language did exist and became extinct and is no longer in use.

It is a case where a Macedonian language existed, exists and is spoken by Macedonians today. So, the big question here is why is Greece insisting that there is no such thing as a Macedonian language? And why do they insist that the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia are “Slavic Speaking Greeks”? Yes, the Macedonian language is a “Slavic language” but so is Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, etc. The Greeks have no problem with the Russians calling their language Russian or with the Poles calling theirs Polish. So why do they have a problem with Macedonians calling their language Macedonian?