Greek Australian Advisory Council and the falsification of Ancient Macedonian history Part 18
Risto Stefov
December 08, 2008
This is a response to the Australian Macedonian Advisory Council (which in fact is Greek masquerading as Macedonian) in regards to the article entitled "Risto Stefov and the falsification of Ancient Macedonian history" published on October 29, 2008 at this link: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/79306
My reply to you is "Two can play that game!" I too can provide you with just as many arguments that the Ancient Macedonians WERE NOT Greek. BUT!
It is irrelevant, at least to me, if Modern Greeks claim that the Ancient Macedonians were Greeks or not, what is relevant here is that the Modern Greeks are not related to the Ancient Greeks or to the Ancient Macedonians. They call themselves "Greeks" but have nothing to do with the ancient Greeks or Ancient Macedonians because underneath their modern artificial Greek veneer is nothing more than Albanians, Vlachs, Turks and Macedonians, the same variety of Balkanites that exists throughout the entire southern Balkans. But, if they insist on accusing me of falsifying Ancient Macedonian history, then here is my rebuttal:
WHO WAS/IS PAOLO BERTI?
Here are some extracts from reviews in the Italian press of the book "Macedonia Yesterday and Today", IL PICCOLO (Trieste) (8.X.1966)
"Georgio Nurigiani's book contains not only the impressions of a recent visit to Macedonia, but also the experience of twenty years spent in Bulgaria, where Nurigiani worked as a university teacher and a journalist. In fact, in the years immediately following the First World War he sent articles to our paper from Sofia.
His book is inspired by a deep- rooted and marked sympathy for the Macedonian people as the bearer of an ideal of patriotism and freedom, never abandoned through centuries of the most disastrous slavery. Of this desperate determination, maintained in the teeth of every appearance to the contrary, there are numerous examples of which the Ilinden rising is not even the most striking, nor the most recent.
There was, in fact, in 1941 the ´shooting at Prilep´ - an ancient town - the first armed revolt in Yugoslavia against the occupation forces.
Today Macedonia is a Republic, one of the six of Federal Yugoslavia.
According to the statistics published in Belgrade, the Macedonians constitute 5.3 % of the federal population, amounting to a total of about a million and a half citizens. Of course, these are not all the Macedonians: there are others in Greece, and others again in Bulgaria. And, to put the matter plainly, this is the reason for the Macedonians' unhappy history.
Macedonia for the Macedonians´ was the slogan of their ancient aspiration, but too many interested affectionate mothers squabbled over the baby, preventing it from growing.
In its more recent developments, the story goes back to 1912 when the Balkan States formed an alliance and, together, sent an ultimatum to the Sublime Porte, demanding autonomy for Macedonia. But this alliance had in its very beginning the canker of hypocrisy: a secret document signed together with the agreement provided, in fact, for the partition of Macedonian territory among the allies.
All things considered, then, for the Macedonian nation, the present solution [formation of the Macedonian Republic within Yugoslavia] seems the best, certainly the most realistic. And this is the impression one gets from Nurigiani's book, although he does not disguise his sympathies for the Bulgarians, the logical result of so many years of his life spent among that people.
On the other hand, the fundamental ideological agreement between Belgrade and Sofia has done much to bury the [Macedonian] problem, which even if it still survives in a few circles, will disappear with the death of the witnesses of the old Macedonian hatreds.
For the new generations the problem is no longer in any way either national or political, but only one of culture in the sense of preserving the folklore, language and traditions. And here there are no problems either now or in retrospect. As regards Greece, its position would appear to be that of denying the existence of a Macedonian problem.
Already after the First World War, the dictator Metaxas forbade the use of Macedonian language in Greece by law. Besides, long before him, Demosthenes had taken the drastic line of denying any affinity between Greeks and Macedonians. On the subject of Philip he wrote: ´Not only he is not a Greek, or in any way akin to us Greeks, he is not even a barbarian, one of those who are at any rate well spoken of, but is a dreadful Macedonian, from that Macedonia from where once people refused even to buy slaves´. And again, when Alexander the Macedonian said to Diogenes: ´I should like to be you´, he by no means returned the compliment, but was impolite, if not downright rude. In conclusion, paradoxes apart, it is in a framework of stability that the productive, economic, social and cultural forces of Macedonia can operate today.
Nurigiani's book gives an accurate and valuable map of the latter, in particular for the exploration of interesting literary and artistic productions. The book also contains more properly geographical routes, tourist hints, some suggested excursions, the description of some characteristic delicacies: in Lake Ohrid, we learn for example, there live two species of excellent trout found nowhere else in the world. They are called ´letnize´ and ´belvize´. The latter name sounds a bit aggressive to Italian ears…But now really it is only a name."
Paolo Berty
Macedonia Yesterday and Today By Giorgio Nurigiani. Published by Teleuropa, Rome, 1967 "LA MACEDONIA IERI E OGGI" di Diorgio Nurigiani Roma, 1966 Translated by Ian Robert Turnage.
ANCIENT MACEDONIANS WERE NOT HELLENES - THE EPITAPH AT CHAERONEA
I do recall reading that the Thebans and the Athenians were fighting together, for the holy soil of Hellas on August the 4th, 338 at the sleepy village of Chaeronea. The fellow Hellenes, the Athenians and the Thebans, against the barbarians from the north-the Macedonians.
Let us examine the following epitaph composed for the common grave of the fallen Hellenes:
"Time, whose overseeing eye records all human actions,
Bear word to mankind what fate was suffered,
how Striving to safeguard the holy soil of Hellas
Upon Boeotia's plain we died."
I wonder why it was that the ancient Macedonians were not fighting to safeguard the holy soil of Hellas? Instead, they attacked it.
Cheap slogans, such as "Matsedonia iz Gritz," are merely domestic tools of propaganda in today's Greek politics. They bear no resemblance to historical fact.
A MATTER OF COMMON LOGIC!
Well, let's examine a few passages from the available literature and see if we can come to some kind of consensus about the ancient Macedonians.
Case #1.
On p. 91 in "Hellenistic World" by F.W. Walbank we find: "It is necessary, in any assessment of the role of Macedonia in the Hellenistic world to bear in mind that although our sources naturally, being Greek or based on Greek writers, lay their emphasis on Macedonian policy towards Greece, Macedonia was in fact equally a Balkan power for which the northern, western and north-eastern frontiers were always vital and for which strong defenses and periodic punitive expeditions over the border were fundamental policy."
One eminent German classical scholar Conrad Bursian "failed" even to include Macedonia in his otherwise comprehensive geographical survey of Greece. (Geographie von Griechenland, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1862-1872).
Case #2.
On p. 158 "Makedonika" by E. Borza we find: "I have not cited several pieces of anecdotal evidence from the sources on Alexander that establish the continuing tension at court between Greeks and Macedonians, tension that the ancient authors clearly recognized as ethnic division. A fuller version of this study will consider these incidents to support my view that Greeks and Macedonians did not get along very well with one another and that this ethnic tension was exploited by the king himself."
Or to quote Ernst Badian "Neither Greeks nor Macedonians considered the Macedonians to be Greek."
Case #3.
In N.G.L. Hammond's book "The Macedonian State" on p. 141 Hammond states: "Philip and Alexander attracted many able foreigners, especially Greeks, to their service, and many of these were made Companions."
Case #4. In "Makedonika" on p. 164 we read: "Alexander seems to have imported troupes of performers from Greece."
One does not import from his own country, does he?
Case #5. On p. 180 in Agnes Savil's book "Alexander the Great and his Time" we find: "For a time Hellenism revived when Demetrius of Bactria, half Macedonian, half Greek, tried in 187 BC to reclaim the Indian empire of Alexander."
Half Macedonian half Greek? How is that possible?
ISOCRATES' LETTER TO PHILLIP
Speaking of Isocrates, the apostle of Hellenism, let us examine his plea to Philip II, king of Macedon: Isocrates congratulates Philip on the fact that he had not attempted "to become a tyrant in his native city", Argos, (the mythical origin of the Macedonian Royal House) but, "Leaving the area of Greece entirely"
a) That Isocrates, friend of Philip II, knew where Greece ended and Macedon began.
b) Furthermore, he distinguishes between the heritage of the ordinary Macedonians and the heritage of their king.
c) That Isocrates clearly understands the essential difference between Greeks and Macedonians.
"has decided to seize the kingship over Macedon"
a) Apparently, only non-Greeks can submit to the rule of a monarch.
b) Greeks can live without one.
"To establish a dynasty over a people of a non-kindred race"
a) Isocrates regarded Macedonians as a non-kindred race to the Greeks.
b) Greeks regarded the Macedonians as foreigners.
c) Foreigners in terms of, people different from the Hellenes.
d) Isocrates, the "apostle of Hellenism" clearly excludes the Macedonians from the Hellenes.
Peter Green writes that "Isocrates had unwittingly supplied him with the propaganda line he needed. From now on he merely had to clothe his Macedonian ambitions in a suitable Pan-Hellenic dress".
(p. 50 from "Alexander of Macedon 356-323")
No matter how hard Modern Greeks try to prove otherwise, there is always more than one side to their story!
To be continued.
Many thanks to J.S.G. Gandeto for his contribution to this article.
You can contact the author at rstefov@hotmail.com
My reply to you is "Two can play that game!" I too can provide you with just as many arguments that the Ancient Macedonians WERE NOT Greek. BUT!
It is irrelevant, at least to me, if Modern Greeks claim that the Ancient Macedonians were Greeks or not, what is relevant here is that the Modern Greeks are not related to the Ancient Greeks or to the Ancient Macedonians. They call themselves "Greeks" but have nothing to do with the ancient Greeks or Ancient Macedonians because underneath their modern artificial Greek veneer is nothing more than Albanians, Vlachs, Turks and Macedonians, the same variety of Balkanites that exists throughout the entire southern Balkans. But, if they insist on accusing me of falsifying Ancient Macedonian history, then here is my rebuttal:
WHO WAS/IS PAOLO BERTI?
Here are some extracts from reviews in the Italian press of the book "Macedonia Yesterday and Today", IL PICCOLO (Trieste) (8.X.1966)
"Georgio Nurigiani's book contains not only the impressions of a recent visit to Macedonia, but also the experience of twenty years spent in Bulgaria, where Nurigiani worked as a university teacher and a journalist. In fact, in the years immediately following the First World War he sent articles to our paper from Sofia.
His book is inspired by a deep- rooted and marked sympathy for the Macedonian people as the bearer of an ideal of patriotism and freedom, never abandoned through centuries of the most disastrous slavery. Of this desperate determination, maintained in the teeth of every appearance to the contrary, there are numerous examples of which the Ilinden rising is not even the most striking, nor the most recent.
There was, in fact, in 1941 the ´shooting at Prilep´ - an ancient town - the first armed revolt in Yugoslavia against the occupation forces.
Today Macedonia is a Republic, one of the six of Federal Yugoslavia.
According to the statistics published in Belgrade, the Macedonians constitute 5.3 % of the federal population, amounting to a total of about a million and a half citizens. Of course, these are not all the Macedonians: there are others in Greece, and others again in Bulgaria. And, to put the matter plainly, this is the reason for the Macedonians' unhappy history.
Macedonia for the Macedonians´ was the slogan of their ancient aspiration, but too many interested affectionate mothers squabbled over the baby, preventing it from growing.
In its more recent developments, the story goes back to 1912 when the Balkan States formed an alliance and, together, sent an ultimatum to the Sublime Porte, demanding autonomy for Macedonia. But this alliance had in its very beginning the canker of hypocrisy: a secret document signed together with the agreement provided, in fact, for the partition of Macedonian territory among the allies.
All things considered, then, for the Macedonian nation, the present solution [formation of the Macedonian Republic within Yugoslavia] seems the best, certainly the most realistic. And this is the impression one gets from Nurigiani's book, although he does not disguise his sympathies for the Bulgarians, the logical result of so many years of his life spent among that people.
On the other hand, the fundamental ideological agreement between Belgrade and Sofia has done much to bury the [Macedonian] problem, which even if it still survives in a few circles, will disappear with the death of the witnesses of the old Macedonian hatreds.
For the new generations the problem is no longer in any way either national or political, but only one of culture in the sense of preserving the folklore, language and traditions. And here there are no problems either now or in retrospect. As regards Greece, its position would appear to be that of denying the existence of a Macedonian problem.
Already after the First World War, the dictator Metaxas forbade the use of Macedonian language in Greece by law. Besides, long before him, Demosthenes had taken the drastic line of denying any affinity between Greeks and Macedonians. On the subject of Philip he wrote: ´Not only he is not a Greek, or in any way akin to us Greeks, he is not even a barbarian, one of those who are at any rate well spoken of, but is a dreadful Macedonian, from that Macedonia from where once people refused even to buy slaves´. And again, when Alexander the Macedonian said to Diogenes: ´I should like to be you´, he by no means returned the compliment, but was impolite, if not downright rude. In conclusion, paradoxes apart, it is in a framework of stability that the productive, economic, social and cultural forces of Macedonia can operate today.
Nurigiani's book gives an accurate and valuable map of the latter, in particular for the exploration of interesting literary and artistic productions. The book also contains more properly geographical routes, tourist hints, some suggested excursions, the description of some characteristic delicacies: in Lake Ohrid, we learn for example, there live two species of excellent trout found nowhere else in the world. They are called ´letnize´ and ´belvize´. The latter name sounds a bit aggressive to Italian ears…But now really it is only a name."
Paolo Berty
Macedonia Yesterday and Today By Giorgio Nurigiani. Published by Teleuropa, Rome, 1967 "LA MACEDONIA IERI E OGGI" di Diorgio Nurigiani Roma, 1966 Translated by Ian Robert Turnage.
ANCIENT MACEDONIANS WERE NOT HELLENES - THE EPITAPH AT CHAERONEA
I do recall reading that the Thebans and the Athenians were fighting together, for the holy soil of Hellas on August the 4th, 338 at the sleepy village of Chaeronea. The fellow Hellenes, the Athenians and the Thebans, against the barbarians from the north-the Macedonians.
Let us examine the following epitaph composed for the common grave of the fallen Hellenes:
"Time, whose overseeing eye records all human actions,
Bear word to mankind what fate was suffered,
how Striving to safeguard the holy soil of Hellas
Upon Boeotia's plain we died."
I wonder why it was that the ancient Macedonians were not fighting to safeguard the holy soil of Hellas? Instead, they attacked it.
Cheap slogans, such as "Matsedonia iz Gritz," are merely domestic tools of propaganda in today's Greek politics. They bear no resemblance to historical fact.
A MATTER OF COMMON LOGIC!
Well, let's examine a few passages from the available literature and see if we can come to some kind of consensus about the ancient Macedonians.
Case #1.
On p. 91 in "Hellenistic World" by F.W. Walbank we find: "It is necessary, in any assessment of the role of Macedonia in the Hellenistic world to bear in mind that although our sources naturally, being Greek or based on Greek writers, lay their emphasis on Macedonian policy towards Greece, Macedonia was in fact equally a Balkan power for which the northern, western and north-eastern frontiers were always vital and for which strong defenses and periodic punitive expeditions over the border were fundamental policy."
One eminent German classical scholar Conrad Bursian "failed" even to include Macedonia in his otherwise comprehensive geographical survey of Greece. (Geographie von Griechenland, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1862-1872).
Case #2.
On p. 158 "Makedonika" by E. Borza we find: "I have not cited several pieces of anecdotal evidence from the sources on Alexander that establish the continuing tension at court between Greeks and Macedonians, tension that the ancient authors clearly recognized as ethnic division. A fuller version of this study will consider these incidents to support my view that Greeks and Macedonians did not get along very well with one another and that this ethnic tension was exploited by the king himself."
Or to quote Ernst Badian "Neither Greeks nor Macedonians considered the Macedonians to be Greek."
Case #3.
In N.G.L. Hammond's book "The Macedonian State" on p. 141 Hammond states: "Philip and Alexander attracted many able foreigners, especially Greeks, to their service, and many of these were made Companions."
Case #4. In "Makedonika" on p. 164 we read: "Alexander seems to have imported troupes of performers from Greece."
One does not import from his own country, does he?
Case #5. On p. 180 in Agnes Savil's book "Alexander the Great and his Time" we find: "For a time Hellenism revived when Demetrius of Bactria, half Macedonian, half Greek, tried in 187 BC to reclaim the Indian empire of Alexander."
Half Macedonian half Greek? How is that possible?
ISOCRATES' LETTER TO PHILLIP
Speaking of Isocrates, the apostle of Hellenism, let us examine his plea to Philip II, king of Macedon: Isocrates congratulates Philip on the fact that he had not attempted "to become a tyrant in his native city", Argos, (the mythical origin of the Macedonian Royal House) but, "Leaving the area of Greece entirely"
a) That Isocrates, friend of Philip II, knew where Greece ended and Macedon began.
b) Furthermore, he distinguishes between the heritage of the ordinary Macedonians and the heritage of their king.
c) That Isocrates clearly understands the essential difference between Greeks and Macedonians.
"has decided to seize the kingship over Macedon"
a) Apparently, only non-Greeks can submit to the rule of a monarch.
b) Greeks can live without one.
"To establish a dynasty over a people of a non-kindred race"
a) Isocrates regarded Macedonians as a non-kindred race to the Greeks.
b) Greeks regarded the Macedonians as foreigners.
c) Foreigners in terms of, people different from the Hellenes.
d) Isocrates, the "apostle of Hellenism" clearly excludes the Macedonians from the Hellenes.
Peter Green writes that "Isocrates had unwittingly supplied him with the propaganda line he needed. From now on he merely had to clothe his Macedonian ambitions in a suitable Pan-Hellenic dress".
(p. 50 from "Alexander of Macedon 356-323")
No matter how hard Modern Greeks try to prove otherwise, there is always more than one side to their story!
To be continued.
Many thanks to J.S.G. Gandeto for his contribution to this article.
You can contact the author at rstefov@hotmail.com
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