Revisionism in the schoolbooks of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Tymphaios
June 17, 2009
Part 2: The idea of a Greater FYROM.
The map of a Greater FYROM consisting of three main parts, the part of proper FYROM or Povardarje or Vardarska, the Bulgarian part and a Greek so-called "Aegean" part, is a permanent feature of propagandistic material in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Even school books show such a multipartite country with unredeemed territories and claim that such a country has existed from prehistoric times to our own times with its borders apparently unaltered. As we saw in the previous article
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/103639
Greater FYROM (so-called "Macedonia") is claimed to have existed with these borders since ancient times. School children trusting they are learning something useful, are actually indoctrinated to believe in a lie of no apparent purpose other than as an excuse to hate their neighbours. In modern FYROM historiography these borders persisted through the medieval and modern periods. This second part of the presentation on historical revisionism will cover the period after the Middle Ages and up to WWII.
We learn that a letter exists where the Austrian (Holy Roman) Emperor Leopold I was visited on the 26th of April 1690 by two "Macedonians" one from Kosana in Greece and another from Thessalonica, also in Greece, but who had Slavic names. The origin of this letter is obscure and at least the date on the letter seems to have been altered (dates of 1705 and 1724 also have appeared in some copies). Its source is sometimes listed as:
Representatives: defenders of the Macedonian people…. J. Radonic, Prilozi za istoriju Srba u Ungarskoj u XVI, XVII and XVIII veku. Knj. I, Matice srpske, nbr 25 and 26, Novi Sad 1908, p. 52-53.
On the basis of this uncertain evidence, a letter with the names of two alleged Slavic Macedonians, a new map was justified for the school books of FYROM. It shows the same Greater FYROM this time invaded by the Austrian Army.
Title of the map: "The intrusion of the Austrian army into Macedonia and the Karpos uprising in 1689". Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 1998, pg. 84. Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 2006, pg. 92.
Why did the Austrians invade Greater FYROM in 1690 is unclear. If we look for evidence of this incident in actual historical maps of that period we find no evidence of an Austrian incursion. There is no sign of a Greater FYROM either. No Macedonia in that location, whether as an independent state or not. A Mercator-Hondius-Jansson map from around 1933 shows Macedonia as a part of a description of New Greece (Nova Totius GRAECIAE descriptio):
The word Macedonia is written in four lines MA-CE-DO-NIA over the region of Mt Olympus in Macedonia in Greece.
A similar map of Graecia by Willem J Blaeu from around 1645 also shows no Greater FYROM. Macedonia is part of Greece and the word Macedonia occurs in three lines MACE-DO-NIA over the region of Mt Olympus in Macedonia, in Greece. Place names are all in Greek: the words Castoria and Thessalonica are visible, as well as G. de Thessalonica, the Gulf of Thessalonica.
A map from 1690, the year of the alleged Austrian campaign, by De Wit shows Macedonia as a part of Greece:
We can see no country such as Greater FYROM or a Macedonia outside Greece. Macedonia is shown to be a part of Greece and has Greek place names. There is no sign of Austria. At the time Austria and its allies were caught in a war with France.
This may seem a significant fabrication, in order to convince children to hate their Balkan neighbours for dismembering this great country and thus tarnishing the glory of the Macedonia of the past. But ignoring European history and European maps is nothing compared to the next step in the fabrication of history. In 1821-22 an important event took place in Macedonia according to the FYROM school books. There was an armed rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. The 7th Grade Primary School History book includes a "Map of South-Western Macedonia with the regions which rebelled during the Naoussa Uprising" of 1822 (Naoussa is referred to as "Njegus"). Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 95.
The battle of Naoussa, shown above on the map of Greater FYROM from 1822, not only was no Slavic uprising, it was one of the most epic battles in the Greek War of Independence. It took place in 1822 and the Greek leaders Zafeirakis Theodosiou, Tsamis Karatasos, Diamantis Nikolaou, Nikolaos Kasomoulis, Angelis Gatsos and Gregorios Salas were all members of the Filiki Etairia. The Filiki Etairia had as its aim the liberation of Greece, but no doubt this is not what the schoolchildren in FYROM learn. Those who survived the battle of Naoussa went south, fought throughout the War of Independence and became officers in the Greek army after the end of the revolution. What does this have to do with FYROM other than to support a venomous indoctrination of schoolchildren that the Greeks have stolen Macedonia from FYROM´s fictitious ancestors?
It is not only the connection of the Greek leaders with the Filiki Etairia, their Greek names and their continued fighting until Greek Independence that attests to their actual cause. The intellectuals of the time, George Gordon Byron, Percy Byshe Selley, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Eugene Delacroix and others saw their fight as the fight of Greeks. The war ended in 1829 with the independence of Greece not of FYROM. As for the consequences for Macedonia, the Consul of France in Thessalonica, named Bottú, sent frequently communiqués to Paris that make it clear it was the Greeks who had rebelled. The French Consul reported that in response to the attacks of Diamantis Nikolaou against Veria and Katerini, seventy four notables of Veria were led in chains to Thessaloniki. There were massacres in Thessaly, for example the Greeks of the town of Koulakia were massacred on Big Friday, 1822. The Vice-Consul of Danemark in Thessaloniki, a Greek named Emmanuel-Ioannes Kyriakos, was arrested and later hanged. In his communique of the 2 Jan 1822 (Archives of the French Ministry of the Exterior, File on Thessaloniki, Vol. 19 (1822)) Bottú says that Greek pirate ships blockaded the Gulf of Thessaloniki. On the 15th of February, he reports that Thessaloniki was in a state of siege as the Greeks had risen everywhere. The garrison of Thessaloniki was executing the Greek citizens. A Greek merchant from Marsaille named Balanos was arrested and two months later was beheaded along with the Orthodox bishop of Thessaloniki. In a communiqué of the 3rd of April, during the Naoussa fighting, Bottú reports fighting between Diamantis Nikolaou and the Turkish army under Abdul Abud: "For fifteen days the area is on fire. Turks, Greeks and klephts are competing in their menace to destroy these beautiful parts… The Greek ships are in constant contact with the rebels on land…". In his communiqué of the 6th of June 1822 he mentions the continued systematic confiscations of Greek property and the heavy taxation of the remaining Greeks in the city. In a communiqué of the 22nd of July, he refers to a firman from the Sultan that the Turks may use any means, however violent, to convert the Greeks to Islam. No Yugoslavs mentioned anywhere, no Slavs, by the evidence of the French diplomat this was a rebellion of the Greeks.
There were other Greek uprisings in Macedonia in the 1850s and the early 1900s. In a bizarre attempt to convince the schoolchildren that it was not the Greeks but the Slav ´Macedonians´ who were fighting, the school books of FYROM show the following picture:
It is a Greek folk painting titled "O Ai Laos" (O Agios Laos), an allegory that could be translated as "St People". The title is Greek but the painting is shown as proof of a rebellion of Slav "Macedonians" (FYROMacedonians). The angels are dressed as Greek armatoloi and hold Greek flags. That the flags are Greek could hardly be contested. But they are not supposed to be Greeks. They are said to be FYROMacedonians. This is the official history of FYROM.
The map of Greater FYROM reappears again and again. Here it is demonstrating the Illinden Uprising, in the 7th Grade Primary School History book. The title of this map is: "Macedonia during the Ilinden uprising". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 120.
The "uprising" lasted about 8 days and the citizens of Krushevo appointed a committee of Greeks, Bulgarians, Vlachs and Serbs at its head. Only a small part of the yellow area of Greater FYROM shown actually rose up. But the map of Greater FYROM is there as a reminder of the true extent of the country. It appears again and again:
This is a map from the 8th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Dismembered Macedonia after World War I". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 14. Macedonia was allegedly "dismembered" even though it had never been put together in this shape. Paradox is of no inconvenience in a school of miseducation invented in the Stalinist period by the dictator Tito.
This small inconvenience can be easily overcome by simply painting-in a Greater FYROM before its "dismemberment". The well known map of the Balkan Wars has been falsified in the schoolbooks of FYROM to show a Macedonia as a country (in yellow), before it became "dismembered". There was of course no country with that name, or district or province. The only time Macedonia appeared as the name of an administrative district in modern times was after the creation of the administrative district of Macedonia in Greece following the end of the Balkan Wars. There had been since Byzantine times no other Macedonia as an administrative unit. Byzantine Macedonia had as its official language the Greek language, the language of the Byzantine Empire.
8th Grade Primary School History book with a "Map of the Balkan Peninsula and its Kings". Vlado Velkoski, Halid Sejdi, Arijan Aljademi, Dimka Risteska and Gjorgji Pavlovski, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 16. More hate poison for children's minds. The well-known original map of 1912 has been falsified in order to show the "ethnic and geographical borders of Macedonia".
The next map is from the 7th Grade Primary School History book and is entitled: "Macedonia during the 1st Balkan war". Violeta Ačkoska, Vančo Gjorgjiev, Fejzula Šabani and Dalibor Jovanovski, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 114.
Again the actual countries involved have been airbrushed out of the picture and only what remains within he fictitious Greater FYROM is shown – as a dismembered "Macedonia".
There seems to be always space for unhistorical claims inciting hatred against Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia – but especially against Greece. The title of the next map from the 7th Grade Primary School History book is: "Macedonia after the 2nd Balkan war". Violeta Ačkoska, Vančo Gjorgjiev, Fejzula Šabani and Dalibor Jovanovski, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 115. The map shows again Greater FYROM "dismembered".
Next is another map from the 7th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Macedonia within its ethnic borders following the partition (1913)". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, 131. More poison for children's minds. At the time the only Macedonia that existed was the Greek administrative district of Macedonia. No acknowledgement of that to be seen anywhere. No explanations of why European maps only show the Greek district as Macedonia from then and until WWII. The reddish area labeled as Macedonia was actually part of the new province of South Serbia. There were no such political borders. If the borders around the reddish area were ethnic why is then the idea of a Greater FYROM presented again and again in these maps?
After the Balkan Wars the area known today as FYROM became part of Serbia, as South Serbia and later part of Yugoslavia as Vardarska Banovina, the green area at the bottom of this map:
This map, by the way, is not from a schoolbook from FYROM. It is the only map so far that agrees with historical truth.
Follows another map in a single solid color, in case the schoolchildren were not getting the message:
Title of this map: "The partition of Macedonia after the Balkan Wars and World War I". Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 2006, pg. 127.
Ridiculously "Macedonia" already "dismembered" was re-"dismembered" in 1941 – by whom? The only Macedonia that existed at the time was the one in Greece. Nevertheless, the history books of FYROM have a free license for bold colours within the imaginary borders of Greater FYROM:
Map from the 8th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Dismembered Macedonia after the 1941 conquest". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 87. The purple region was occupied by Bulgaria until 1944. About 100,000 Greeks were expelled from this region. The grandfather of the current Macedonian Prime Minister of Greece Costas Karamanlis was imprisoned and was not released until Bulgaria changed sides in the war.
Almost as soon as it was "dismembered" in 1941, "Macedonia" was apparently liberated in 1942:
Map from the 8th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Liberated regions of Macedonia in the year 1942". The apparently "liberated regions" include parts of FYROM and also parts of (Greek) Macedonia. Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 92.
The bigger picture was put together again by photoshopping away various countries and boundaries:
8th Grade Primary School History book. Title of the map: "The partition of Macedonia". Vlado Velkoski, Halid Sejdi, Arijan Aljademi, Dimka Risteska and Gjorgji Pavlovski, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 54. Amazingly this irrendentist map of an imaginary Greater FYROM currently features in Wikipedia under "Macedonia, disambiguation".
In addition to the Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks, the British were apparently also guilty of interference. Below is the cover of a publication by the Institute for National History entitled "Great Britain and Macedonia, 1945-1948 (documents)", Skopje 1996. Judging from the title, the book is probably a perfect example of former communist propaganda in a new packaging.
The map of Greater FYROM is a popular feature on book covers of what seem as rather official publications:
Publication by the Institute for National History entitled "The issue of the unification of Macedonia during World War II" by Mile Mihailov, another example of anti-Western propaganda for public consumption in FYROM.
The map reappears on every opportunity to strengthen the myth. To remind the unwitting pupils about the "true borders" of their country. Borders that were never drawn on an actual map in history. Until that is during WWII when we have the first printed propaganda map of Greater Macedonia:
http://img523.imageshack.us/i/akritasbulgarian125ip9lf4.jpg/
This map of Greater Macedonia, amid portraits of the Bulgarian King Boris, Adolf Hitler and Bulgarian slogans about a Greater Macedonia is the actual origin of all the fabricated maps populating the school books. The propaganda map in this photograph is the origin of a history projected backwards in time: a fascist dream of a Greater Lebensraum with a Mediterranean beachfront traveling backwards through the schoolbooks to 1904, 1822, 1690 and the Byzantine, Roman and "prehistoric" periods. In this bizarre pseudomacedonist narrative, the Greeks have become the fascists, just because they resisted the vision of Tito´s Balkan Confederation, now the vision of a Greater FYROM. This is a perfect irony of how meaningless the word fascism has become.
Perhaps having a written language and having some history is a sign in the minds of some people that they have become somebody. However, whereas one can invent an alphabet, one cannot possibly invent history. History cannot be unwritten. History cannot be invented. One should have some respect for future generations who will be faced with an empty "macedonian" identity, a faked history and a denial of their Slavic and Albanian identities. They will have inherited an invented fictitious victimization at the hands of imagined enemies who allegedly partitioned a country that never existed – what will these future generations think about the founders of such a State? It would seem far more sensible, if one wanted to create a new nation to make indeed a fresh start and look to the future.
Vasko Gligorijevic in a recent article titled "The Struggle for the Liberation of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)" (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/104778) made some interesting insightful observations: 1. FYROM was bypassed by the Enlightenment and Rationalism of the 18-19th centuries. At the time there was no written language or transmission of ideas. The transmission of ideas started with the adoption of a language and alphabet in the context of a Stalinist regime in 1944. 2. For the early founding fathers of Pseudomacedonian nationalism, the ultimate goal was the emancipation of the "Macedonian Bulgarian". This ideal has somehow been subverted completely to the idea of a "Macedonian" identity, even if an awkward link is made with the Bulgarian founders and the language shows a clear connection. 3. This "Macedonian ethnicity", completely unbeknown to history, is one of the last enduring legacies of the Cold War, having grown in Tito´s Yugoslavia as an organ of the Communist empire specialized in Anti-Greek predatory geopolitics. 4. Gruevski´s idea to provoke Greece in order to gain some negative diplomatic feedback and portray itself as the "savior of the endangered nation", galvanizing people around "collective virtues" is now an elaborate fascist ideology, with its thinkers, institutions, manners of manifestation, unwritten codes, popular electoral and activist base and symbolism. Gligorijevic concludes: "It is certain that this criminal situation won´t resolve out of itself". He calls for support from the European Union "in order to bring down the Pseudomacedonism, an ideology that threatens to plunge South-Eastern Europe into war and to help liberate the Slavs of FYROM from the cult of state-imposed grandomania and paranoia."
Looking indeed at the grandiose maps in the schoolbooks and the unhistorical atlases and the warrior statues of Sovietesque or Husseinesque proportions being commissioned, the middle path would be for Europe to enter into a bilateral education commission with FYROM. A bilateral educational commission between Greece and FYROM would have no chance of any success. While FYROM thinks that Greece is brainwashing the world and erasing the evidence about the identity of the Macedonians, a bilateral Greek-FYROM educational commission would accomplish nothing. It is up to the EU to sort out this mess. One must hope that a lasting improvement in education will dampen the polemics and the ideological fanaticism that has gripped FYROM.
The map of a Greater FYROM consisting of three main parts, the part of proper FYROM or Povardarje or Vardarska, the Bulgarian part and a Greek so-called "Aegean" part, is a permanent feature of propagandistic material in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Even school books show such a multipartite country with unredeemed territories and claim that such a country has existed from prehistoric times to our own times with its borders apparently unaltered. As we saw in the previous article
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/103639
Greater FYROM (so-called "Macedonia") is claimed to have existed with these borders since ancient times. School children trusting they are learning something useful, are actually indoctrinated to believe in a lie of no apparent purpose other than as an excuse to hate their neighbours. In modern FYROM historiography these borders persisted through the medieval and modern periods. This second part of the presentation on historical revisionism will cover the period after the Middle Ages and up to WWII.
We learn that a letter exists where the Austrian (Holy Roman) Emperor Leopold I was visited on the 26th of April 1690 by two "Macedonians" one from Kosana in Greece and another from Thessalonica, also in Greece, but who had Slavic names. The origin of this letter is obscure and at least the date on the letter seems to have been altered (dates of 1705 and 1724 also have appeared in some copies). Its source is sometimes listed as:
Representatives: defenders of the Macedonian people…. J. Radonic, Prilozi za istoriju Srba u Ungarskoj u XVI, XVII and XVIII veku. Knj. I, Matice srpske, nbr 25 and 26, Novi Sad 1908, p. 52-53.
On the basis of this uncertain evidence, a letter with the names of two alleged Slavic Macedonians, a new map was justified for the school books of FYROM. It shows the same Greater FYROM this time invaded by the Austrian Army.
Title of the map: "The intrusion of the Austrian army into Macedonia and the Karpos uprising in 1689". Istoriski Atlas, Skopje 1998, pg. 84. Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 2006, pg. 92.
Why did the Austrians invade Greater FYROM in 1690 is unclear. If we look for evidence of this incident in actual historical maps of that period we find no evidence of an Austrian incursion. There is no sign of a Greater FYROM either. No Macedonia in that location, whether as an independent state or not. A Mercator-Hondius-Jansson map from around 1933 shows Macedonia as a part of a description of New Greece (Nova Totius GRAECIAE descriptio):
The word Macedonia is written in four lines MA-CE-DO-NIA over the region of Mt Olympus in Macedonia in Greece.
A similar map of Graecia by Willem J Blaeu from around 1645 also shows no Greater FYROM. Macedonia is part of Greece and the word Macedonia occurs in three lines MACE-DO-NIA over the region of Mt Olympus in Macedonia, in Greece. Place names are all in Greek: the words Castoria and Thessalonica are visible, as well as G. de Thessalonica, the Gulf of Thessalonica.
A map from 1690, the year of the alleged Austrian campaign, by De Wit shows Macedonia as a part of Greece:
We can see no country such as Greater FYROM or a Macedonia outside Greece. Macedonia is shown to be a part of Greece and has Greek place names. There is no sign of Austria. At the time Austria and its allies were caught in a war with France.
This may seem a significant fabrication, in order to convince children to hate their Balkan neighbours for dismembering this great country and thus tarnishing the glory of the Macedonia of the past. But ignoring European history and European maps is nothing compared to the next step in the fabrication of history. In 1821-22 an important event took place in Macedonia according to the FYROM school books. There was an armed rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. The 7th Grade Primary School History book includes a "Map of South-Western Macedonia with the regions which rebelled during the Naoussa Uprising" of 1822 (Naoussa is referred to as "Njegus"). Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 95.
The battle of Naoussa, shown above on the map of Greater FYROM from 1822, not only was no Slavic uprising, it was one of the most epic battles in the Greek War of Independence. It took place in 1822 and the Greek leaders Zafeirakis Theodosiou, Tsamis Karatasos, Diamantis Nikolaou, Nikolaos Kasomoulis, Angelis Gatsos and Gregorios Salas were all members of the Filiki Etairia. The Filiki Etairia had as its aim the liberation of Greece, but no doubt this is not what the schoolchildren in FYROM learn. Those who survived the battle of Naoussa went south, fought throughout the War of Independence and became officers in the Greek army after the end of the revolution. What does this have to do with FYROM other than to support a venomous indoctrination of schoolchildren that the Greeks have stolen Macedonia from FYROM´s fictitious ancestors?
It is not only the connection of the Greek leaders with the Filiki Etairia, their Greek names and their continued fighting until Greek Independence that attests to their actual cause. The intellectuals of the time, George Gordon Byron, Percy Byshe Selley, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Eugene Delacroix and others saw their fight as the fight of Greeks. The war ended in 1829 with the independence of Greece not of FYROM. As for the consequences for Macedonia, the Consul of France in Thessalonica, named Bottú, sent frequently communiqués to Paris that make it clear it was the Greeks who had rebelled. The French Consul reported that in response to the attacks of Diamantis Nikolaou against Veria and Katerini, seventy four notables of Veria were led in chains to Thessaloniki. There were massacres in Thessaly, for example the Greeks of the town of Koulakia were massacred on Big Friday, 1822. The Vice-Consul of Danemark in Thessaloniki, a Greek named Emmanuel-Ioannes Kyriakos, was arrested and later hanged. In his communique of the 2 Jan 1822 (Archives of the French Ministry of the Exterior, File on Thessaloniki, Vol. 19 (1822)) Bottú says that Greek pirate ships blockaded the Gulf of Thessaloniki. On the 15th of February, he reports that Thessaloniki was in a state of siege as the Greeks had risen everywhere. The garrison of Thessaloniki was executing the Greek citizens. A Greek merchant from Marsaille named Balanos was arrested and two months later was beheaded along with the Orthodox bishop of Thessaloniki. In a communiqué of the 3rd of April, during the Naoussa fighting, Bottú reports fighting between Diamantis Nikolaou and the Turkish army under Abdul Abud: "For fifteen days the area is on fire. Turks, Greeks and klephts are competing in their menace to destroy these beautiful parts… The Greek ships are in constant contact with the rebels on land…". In his communiqué of the 6th of June 1822 he mentions the continued systematic confiscations of Greek property and the heavy taxation of the remaining Greeks in the city. In a communiqué of the 22nd of July, he refers to a firman from the Sultan that the Turks may use any means, however violent, to convert the Greeks to Islam. No Yugoslavs mentioned anywhere, no Slavs, by the evidence of the French diplomat this was a rebellion of the Greeks.
There were other Greek uprisings in Macedonia in the 1850s and the early 1900s. In a bizarre attempt to convince the schoolchildren that it was not the Greeks but the Slav ´Macedonians´ who were fighting, the school books of FYROM show the following picture:
It is a Greek folk painting titled "O Ai Laos" (O Agios Laos), an allegory that could be translated as "St People". The title is Greek but the painting is shown as proof of a rebellion of Slav "Macedonians" (FYROMacedonians). The angels are dressed as Greek armatoloi and hold Greek flags. That the flags are Greek could hardly be contested. But they are not supposed to be Greeks. They are said to be FYROMacedonians. This is the official history of FYROM.
The map of Greater FYROM reappears again and again. Here it is demonstrating the Illinden Uprising, in the 7th Grade Primary School History book. The title of this map is: "Macedonia during the Ilinden uprising". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 120.
The "uprising" lasted about 8 days and the citizens of Krushevo appointed a committee of Greeks, Bulgarians, Vlachs and Serbs at its head. Only a small part of the yellow area of Greater FYROM shown actually rose up. But the map of Greater FYROM is there as a reminder of the true extent of the country. It appears again and again:
This is a map from the 8th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Dismembered Macedonia after World War I". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 14. Macedonia was allegedly "dismembered" even though it had never been put together in this shape. Paradox is of no inconvenience in a school of miseducation invented in the Stalinist period by the dictator Tito.
This small inconvenience can be easily overcome by simply painting-in a Greater FYROM before its "dismemberment". The well known map of the Balkan Wars has been falsified in the schoolbooks of FYROM to show a Macedonia as a country (in yellow), before it became "dismembered". There was of course no country with that name, or district or province. The only time Macedonia appeared as the name of an administrative district in modern times was after the creation of the administrative district of Macedonia in Greece following the end of the Balkan Wars. There had been since Byzantine times no other Macedonia as an administrative unit. Byzantine Macedonia had as its official language the Greek language, the language of the Byzantine Empire.
8th Grade Primary School History book with a "Map of the Balkan Peninsula and its Kings". Vlado Velkoski, Halid Sejdi, Arijan Aljademi, Dimka Risteska and Gjorgji Pavlovski, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 16. More hate poison for children's minds. The well-known original map of 1912 has been falsified in order to show the "ethnic and geographical borders of Macedonia".
The next map is from the 7th Grade Primary School History book and is entitled: "Macedonia during the 1st Balkan war". Violeta Ačkoska, Vančo Gjorgjiev, Fejzula Šabani and Dalibor Jovanovski, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 114.
Again the actual countries involved have been airbrushed out of the picture and only what remains within he fictitious Greater FYROM is shown – as a dismembered "Macedonia".
There seems to be always space for unhistorical claims inciting hatred against Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia – but especially against Greece. The title of the next map from the 7th Grade Primary School History book is: "Macedonia after the 2nd Balkan war". Violeta Ačkoska, Vančo Gjorgjiev, Fejzula Šabani and Dalibor Jovanovski, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 115. The map shows again Greater FYROM "dismembered".
Next is another map from the 7th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Macedonia within its ethnic borders following the partition (1913)". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, 131. More poison for children's minds. At the time the only Macedonia that existed was the Greek administrative district of Macedonia. No acknowledgement of that to be seen anywhere. No explanations of why European maps only show the Greek district as Macedonia from then and until WWII. The reddish area labeled as Macedonia was actually part of the new province of South Serbia. There were no such political borders. If the borders around the reddish area were ethnic why is then the idea of a Greater FYROM presented again and again in these maps?
After the Balkan Wars the area known today as FYROM became part of Serbia, as South Serbia and later part of Yugoslavia as Vardarska Banovina, the green area at the bottom of this map:
This map, by the way, is not from a schoolbook from FYROM. It is the only map so far that agrees with historical truth.
Follows another map in a single solid color, in case the schoolchildren were not getting the message:
Title of this map: "The partition of Macedonia after the Balkan Wars and World War I". Istoriski Atlas, Skopje, 2006, pg. 127.
Ridiculously "Macedonia" already "dismembered" was re-"dismembered" in 1941 – by whom? The only Macedonia that existed at the time was the one in Greece. Nevertheless, the history books of FYROM have a free license for bold colours within the imaginary borders of Greater FYROM:
Map from the 8th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Dismembered Macedonia after the 1941 conquest". Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 87. The purple region was occupied by Bulgaria until 1944. About 100,000 Greeks were expelled from this region. The grandfather of the current Macedonian Prime Minister of Greece Costas Karamanlis was imprisoned and was not released until Bulgaria changed sides in the war.
Almost as soon as it was "dismembered" in 1941, "Macedonia" was apparently liberated in 1942:
Map from the 8th Grade Primary School History book, entitled: "Liberated regions of Macedonia in the year 1942". The apparently "liberated regions" include parts of FYROM and also parts of (Greek) Macedonia. Blaže Ristovski, Šukri Rahimi, Simo Mladenovski, Stojan Kiselinovski and Todor Čepreganov, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 92.
The bigger picture was put together again by photoshopping away various countries and boundaries:
8th Grade Primary School History book. Title of the map: "The partition of Macedonia". Vlado Velkoski, Halid Sejdi, Arijan Aljademi, Dimka Risteska and Gjorgji Pavlovski, Istorija za VIII oddelenie, Skopje 2005, pg. 54. Amazingly this irrendentist map of an imaginary Greater FYROM currently features in Wikipedia under "Macedonia, disambiguation".
In addition to the Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks, the British were apparently also guilty of interference. Below is the cover of a publication by the Institute for National History entitled "Great Britain and Macedonia, 1945-1948 (documents)", Skopje 1996. Judging from the title, the book is probably a perfect example of former communist propaganda in a new packaging.
The map of Greater FYROM is a popular feature on book covers of what seem as rather official publications:
Publication by the Institute for National History entitled "The issue of the unification of Macedonia during World War II" by Mile Mihailov, another example of anti-Western propaganda for public consumption in FYROM.
The map reappears on every opportunity to strengthen the myth. To remind the unwitting pupils about the "true borders" of their country. Borders that were never drawn on an actual map in history. Until that is during WWII when we have the first printed propaganda map of Greater Macedonia:
http://img523.imageshack.us/i/akritasbulgarian125ip9lf4.jpg/
This map of Greater Macedonia, amid portraits of the Bulgarian King Boris, Adolf Hitler and Bulgarian slogans about a Greater Macedonia is the actual origin of all the fabricated maps populating the school books. The propaganda map in this photograph is the origin of a history projected backwards in time: a fascist dream of a Greater Lebensraum with a Mediterranean beachfront traveling backwards through the schoolbooks to 1904, 1822, 1690 and the Byzantine, Roman and "prehistoric" periods. In this bizarre pseudomacedonist narrative, the Greeks have become the fascists, just because they resisted the vision of Tito´s Balkan Confederation, now the vision of a Greater FYROM. This is a perfect irony of how meaningless the word fascism has become.
Perhaps having a written language and having some history is a sign in the minds of some people that they have become somebody. However, whereas one can invent an alphabet, one cannot possibly invent history. History cannot be unwritten. History cannot be invented. One should have some respect for future generations who will be faced with an empty "macedonian" identity, a faked history and a denial of their Slavic and Albanian identities. They will have inherited an invented fictitious victimization at the hands of imagined enemies who allegedly partitioned a country that never existed – what will these future generations think about the founders of such a State? It would seem far more sensible, if one wanted to create a new nation to make indeed a fresh start and look to the future.
Vasko Gligorijevic in a recent article titled "The Struggle for the Liberation of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)" (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/104778) made some interesting insightful observations: 1. FYROM was bypassed by the Enlightenment and Rationalism of the 18-19th centuries. At the time there was no written language or transmission of ideas. The transmission of ideas started with the adoption of a language and alphabet in the context of a Stalinist regime in 1944. 2. For the early founding fathers of Pseudomacedonian nationalism, the ultimate goal was the emancipation of the "Macedonian Bulgarian". This ideal has somehow been subverted completely to the idea of a "Macedonian" identity, even if an awkward link is made with the Bulgarian founders and the language shows a clear connection. 3. This "Macedonian ethnicity", completely unbeknown to history, is one of the last enduring legacies of the Cold War, having grown in Tito´s Yugoslavia as an organ of the Communist empire specialized in Anti-Greek predatory geopolitics. 4. Gruevski´s idea to provoke Greece in order to gain some negative diplomatic feedback and portray itself as the "savior of the endangered nation", galvanizing people around "collective virtues" is now an elaborate fascist ideology, with its thinkers, institutions, manners of manifestation, unwritten codes, popular electoral and activist base and symbolism. Gligorijevic concludes: "It is certain that this criminal situation won´t resolve out of itself". He calls for support from the European Union "in order to bring down the Pseudomacedonism, an ideology that threatens to plunge South-Eastern Europe into war and to help liberate the Slavs of FYROM from the cult of state-imposed grandomania and paranoia."
Looking indeed at the grandiose maps in the schoolbooks and the unhistorical atlases and the warrior statues of Sovietesque or Husseinesque proportions being commissioned, the middle path would be for Europe to enter into a bilateral education commission with FYROM. A bilateral educational commission between Greece and FYROM would have no chance of any success. While FYROM thinks that Greece is brainwashing the world and erasing the evidence about the identity of the Macedonians, a bilateral Greek-FYROM educational commission would accomplish nothing. It is up to the EU to sort out this mess. One must hope that a lasting improvement in education will dampen the polemics and the ideological fanaticism that has gripped FYROM.
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