Daniel Tompkins
Dept. of Greek & Roman
Classics
Temple University
July 15, 2009
Responding to Professor Miller
To Colleagues:
[Note: in what follows, I follow the lead of 125 nations,
including four of the five permanent UN Security
Council members, and use Macedonian as the appropriate
adjective for the Republic of Macedonia. Note that it was the usage of the Journal
of Modern Greek Studies as early as 1996.
Use of a politically correct term would have required, as Chase and Phillips
put it, laborious periphrasis.]
[I'm updating this letter regularly, redating it each time, partly because I've received interesting and important criticisms.]
Stephen Miller, an American archaeologist, has circulated
a number of versions of a statement about Balkan politics, with the expressed
intent of influencing the Obama administration. I append the version to which I respond below. It differs somewhat from the online versions
posted May 20, 2009 at:
http://modern-macedonian-history.blogspot.com/2009/05/letter-to-president-barack-obama-as.html
and updated to May 26 at:
http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html
Although the ostensive topic is Alexander the Great, the
statement commits the author and the many scholars whove co-signed to two
extreme positions: that President Bushs 2004 recognition of the Republic of
Macedonia by that name was clearly the catalyst for the fantasies of a Slavic
Alexander" or unleashed a dangerous epidemic
of historical revisionism, and that the inhabitants of the Republic
have no right to call themselves Macedonians. The first of these claims is easily disproved: the Republic of Macedonia had sought to
appropriate, or share, Alexander long before 2004. As to the second, the Republic occupies land that has long
been called Macedonia, and is, to boot, a sovereign state.
In other words, Prof. Miller takes extreme positions
that are not required in a
scholarly discussion of ancient ethnicity, and in the process converts the thicket of Balkan politics into a
lawn. His challenge
to the sovereignty and name of the neighboring state puts himself and his
co-signers to the right of the Greek government. Thats quite an achievement.
The form of the letter –its seemingly dispassionate
appeal to scholars, its assurance in one draft that many of us would prefer to
avoid politics – should not blind readers to its tendentious and
inaccurate historical claims, or to its extreme conclusions.
Lets start at the beginning. This spring, Professor Miller circulated a draft ( dated January 22, 2009) of the
letter we now have. He criticized an article in the January / February 2009 Archaeology Magazine
by Matthew Brunwasser: Letter from Macedonia. Modern Macedonia Lays its Claim
to the Ancient Conqueror's Legacy. Professor Miller complains that the magazine would not print his response (which ran to 1500 words, almost as long as Brunwasser's original). Professor Miller has not shared his correspondence with the magazine.
In his short piece, Brunwasser interviews some archaeologists and
visits some sites, and says, "Greece insists that Macedonia should
change its name, claiming that it implies ambitions over Greek territory
-- the northern province of Greece is also called Macedonia -- and opposes the
name as an appropriation of Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the
Great), whom the country claims as Greek." A bit later he adds:
"But the subtle relations between the ancient Macedonians and Greeks are
sometimes lost in today's acrimonious debate over who has the exclusive claim
to Alexander's homeland."
If I, or I think most of the co-signers, were intent on ridiculing Greek
claims, wed be somewhat more assertive and vicious. Brunwasser does mention a
Macedonian kitchen utility salesman who likes Alexander as a countryman, but
then quotes workmen with the opposite opinion:
"If we had to choose between Alexander and
joining the EU and NATO, wed choose Europe," says Goran Nikolovski.
"History is in the past," says his colleague Zlatko Petreski.
"We want the name of the country to remain Macedonia because we are
Macedonians," says Nikolovski. "But we want to move forward."
Sick of Alexander? History is in the past? That is not the way people talk when theyre out to
undermine the scientific basis for our professional lives, as Prof. Miller puts it, perhaps a tad
portentously.
In the body of his letter, Professor Miller comments
problematically on both ancient and modern history:
a) The ancients:
Professor Miller recites literalist claims
about early Macedonia, of the sort found on many Greek disapora websites. The general goal is to demonstrate a linear and
unbroken sequence of Greekness from antiquity to today, relying partly on Herodotus' presentation of Alexander I of Macedon.
Linearity, however, is the stuff of propaganda, not of
history. Discussing the Macedonia
issue a decade ago, some very prominent Greek social scientists mentioned the
strategic manipulation of nationalist ideology by the Greek government in its
presentation of political and cultural myths. They noted that The historical trajectory of the nation has
been traced in a linear form and without ruptures or discontinuities from
antiquity to modernity. Thus, any questioning of the 'Hellenicity' of
Alexander the Great is perceived as a threat to the very essence of the nation
because it casts doubt on the continuity of the national community through
history. The nationalist feelings of the population have been manipulated by
political parties as a campaigning device. (Triandafyllidou, Calloni & Mikrakis [1997])
Any country seeking to map itself onto ancient history confronts a host of problems. Herodotus illustrates these clearly in his portrayal of Alexander I, who is sometimes a satrap engaged in lucrative dynastic marriage-relations with Persian royalty, and sometimes a "Hellene." He is one of only two people in Herodotus accused of committing or advising athemista, lawlessness. Other Greeks challenge his standing as a Hellene. Much of this is well discussed by David Fearn, in a fine recent essay, "Narrating Ambiguity: Murder and Macedonian Allegiance (5.17-22)," which I recommended to Professor Miller two months ago, when he floated his letter. There is no sign that he has read Fearn or is disturbed by the paradox of this nearly unique Greek satrap (Lycaretus is another: 5.27).
The claim to be a Hellene is one, but only one, of
several cards this Alexander plays.
He protects himself and his people by cannily playing the odds (and using the talent of silver his
mines produced daily). Thats why Spartans and Athenians treat him with such
contempt at the end of Book 8. Scholars of ethnicity and acculturation in
antiquity wont be surprised at his ambiguous status, especially given Jonathan
Hall's warning against a "transhistorically static definition of
Greekness." (Hall, p. 166) Prof. Miller's letter shows no
awareness of the anthropologically sophisticated work on ancient ethnicity
now being produced in our field.
Now, it is true that both the Greek and Macedonian
governments, as well as their diaspora supporters, have gone to
absurd lengths to claim ancient ties. The list of examples is
endless. A textbook claims that Alexander I, far from being a wily and self-serving border king, "is the founder of the unbroken unity and acme of the Macedonian state. Having full consciousness of his Hellenicity, he tried, where possible, to help the southern Greeks i the fight against the Persians." (Hamilakis, "Learn History," 55) Classicists seeking the
ancient Via Egnatia may be surprised to observe that it now begins in Igoumenitsa not Durres, and lies
wholly within Greek borders. The
Greek-American Pan Macedonian Union urged not only denial of its northern
neighbor's right to name itself and the return of the Marbles, but US
intervention on behalf of the "Kalash of the northern Himalayan
region of the Hindu Kush Mountains of Pakistan [who] are Hellenic
descendants of the armies of Alexander the Great." Skopje
claims its own Nepalese "relations" – an initiative the
supposed propagandist Mathew Brunwasser has reported many Macedonians find funny or
pathetic. (International Herald Tribune, October 2, 2008)
For an even-handed comment on the name issue,
consider Roudometof in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies:
In the case of the controversy between Greece and FYROM, two
identifications have been developed with respect to one homeland (that of
Macedonia). Consequently, two narratives have formed, each of which seeks to
establish a genealogical tie between a people and the land which that people
inhabits. The affirmation of minorities is interpreted, according to the
nineteenth-century Balkan mentality, as representing the first step toward
irredentist activity.
Both sides operate with the assumption that
nationhood provides the essential component for nation-building. Both view
national narratives as providing an essential ingredient for their national
identity. The two national narratives, however, encroach upon one another,
tending to claim Macedonia
exclusively for their particular side. For Greeks, Macedonia is a name
and a territory that is an indispensable part of the modern Greek identity. For
Macedonians, it provides the single most important component that has
historically differentiated them from Bulgarians.
Elsewhere, Roudometof says, Greeks rallied to defend
their national narrative--in effect, denying the claim of the Macedonians to
stand for an independent nation. (1999: 459)
b) Turning to the modern world, what is noticeable is Prof. Millers insistence that the
Republic of Macedonia has shown deplorable manners: "Why would a
poor land-locked new state attempt such historical nonsense? Why
would it brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor?"
Prof. Miller treats the question as a rhetorical one. But its not rhetorical. State-building often relies on archaeology and history, especially if there is pressure from neighbors. Greek scholars have noticed that archaeology and history have been abused for propagandistic purposes within Greece, and similar patterns have emerged elsewhere, especially in new states. Zahariadis and Sutton shown that the international community was not won over by Greek historical claims in the 1990s, with Zahariadis mentioning the "opaqueness and incoherence" of these claims (1996). Former Ambassador Monteagle Stearns and Susan Woodward in 1997 stressed the danger that the Greek blockade and other acts would bring.
Like Julian, the Greek government certainly responded oppressively. Along with Serbia in the early 90s it may fleetingly have weighed carving up the new Republic.. Milosevic seems to have proposed
the idea. See the discussion of this topic, of the Samaras Pincer, and
of Virginia Tsouderous convenient 1992 discovery of Hellenized Vlachs in need
of rescue in Macedonia, in Michas, pp. 53ff. Michas provides some testimony about initial Greek willingness
to invade, though he has no documentary proof.
Then came the "economic blockades" (as Le Monde, the Wall St. Journal, and BBC among others called them) from the Greek side. I use the plural because Michas
mentions unofficial blockades as well as the official one. For 20 months in 1994-95, Greece
imposed a crippling embargo. One Greek official proclaimed, "We will choke Skopje into
submission." Export earnings for the Republic of Macedonia fell by 85%,
imports of food by 40%, of crude oil by two thirds. Inflation soared.
How many classicists co-signed complaints about that?
Unembarrassed by such cruelty and seemingly blind to irony, Prof. Miller pours
on the self-pity: The USA can effect just about anything it wants with smaller
countries, he complains, ignoring the fact that Greece, not the USA, tried to choke its far smaller and weaker
neighbor into submission -- and boasted about
it. Short of gunfire, blockades are the closest a
state can come to an act of war.
Officially sanctioned
indignities have continued, on a smaller scale, up to the present day. And all Macedonians are conscious that
by keeping Macedonia out of NATO and the European Union, Greece is keeping
Macedonia poor. Macedonians I met
in January marveled at the reports of Athenian youth rioting because they
earned only 750 euros / month.
The brutal 1994-95 blockade backfired, cementing a sense
of national unity in much of the Republic. As Mark Mazower, a
real historian, remarked in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies:
[T]he development of modern Macedonian
nationalism, and its extension from small groups of intellectuals to a
more popular base, depended upon the combined idiocies of three
nation-states--Greece, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia / Serbia.
Mazower, p. 233
Macedonians call their neighbors "the
wolves." (Pettifer : 476)
The serious problems to be settled in this region trump the name-calling about Alexander. These include the personal and property rights of those who were forced out of the country in the civil war of the '40s. Since the 1980s some former fighters were allowed to return in 1982 -- but only those who were Greeks by genos or who renounced a more complex ethnic identity. (The precise meaning of "Greek by genos" is a topic of discussion: the law has recently been interpreted to refer not to "ethnic identity" but "national consciousness." Konstantinos Tsitselikis, after reviewing the complexities of all this as regards citizenship, states that the law singles out: "persons coming from a different nation and who, by their actions and general behaviour have expressed sentiments testifying to the lack of a Greek national consciousness, in a way that [shows that] they cannot be considered as having assimilated into the Greek nation.” After commenting on older laws that denied a "right to regain or acquire Greek citizenship" to Muslims and Jews after World War II, he mentions the commission established to determine the "evidence of ... Greek national consciousness" of Civil War veterans who lived in the USSR after 1948. "Greek law," Tsitselikis concludes, "has invented exclusive categories for those who accept the respective norms on the basis of an objective racial relationship, a concept, which is a priori incompatible with the fundamental principal of non-discrimination, as it has been established in the Constitution and in the international conventions for the protection of human rights."[155])
Cases are pending in the European Court of Human Rights and The
Hague about some of these issues. Greece also faces a blizzard of negative human rights
reports, including one from the US State Department; Athenian human rights
expert Alexis Heraclides has been quoted as warning that current court cases
may blow up in Greeces face, but he appears to be in a minority.
The area the Republic occupies has been called "Macedonia" on maps for many years, though the borders have long been disputed or unrectified. Livanios, while showing that the Great Powers and surrounding nations have been more opportunistic than dispassionate in defining Macedonian ethnicity, says that it is widely accepted that Macedonia comprised the Ottoman vilayets of Salonica, Monastir and Kosovo. (4, 46, 67, 77; note his reference to the monumental paternalism of the British, 113.) Greek sources sometimes claim that the name of the Republic will spark irredentism, but irredentism requires not pictures on t-shirts but military or political action, and Greece, with a military budget 50x that of the Republic and a per capita GDP of $32,000 versus Macedonias $9,000, has experienced difficulty making the case for looming danger. The behaviors Greece brands irredentist barely merit mention in Myron Weiners scholarly analysis of irredentism in the Balkans and elsewhere. Pettifer observed in 1992 that Macedonia seemed likelier to suffer from its neighbors' irredentism than to initiate an attack on any of them.
The effort to prove Macedonian "irredentism" makes frequent use of maps and documents from the north. Prof. Miller, for instance, provides a map and a "bank note":
http://macedonia-evidence.org/documentation.html
These have appeared on multiple anti-Macedonian websites. Though Professor Miller titles the page "Documentation," documentation is precisely what is lacking. The "bank note" with the White Tower is dated to 1991, but we need to know where and when it circulated, and why. Kiro Velkovski tells us (in a comment at http://archaeoastronomy.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/macedonia-from-bad-to-worse/ ) that this was "a mockup by some individuals while we still had the Yugoslav dinars. It is in no way connected to the government or National Bank." A political scientist in Macedonia adds, "It was made as a proposal by a nationalist group and printed on normal paper ... it was never accepted." (Personal communication.) Velkovski does the great service of showing that the "bank note" is wholly missing from the current inventory of Macedonian bank notes.
Prof. Miller provides no translation of the language surrounding the map he parades. What does the text say? Macedonians certainly are entitled to recall the days -- before the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913 and the demographic changes consequent upon the Asia Minor disaster in 1922, and Civil War in the 1940s -- when they were more numerous in the area around Thessalonki. To show that this automatically implies a current territorial claim requires more argument.
So, what Prof. Miller gives the reader here is the rawest kind of raw data, like some unexamined find from the earth. The data may be meaningful, but it does not speak for itself. It is important to add that despite the rhetorical noise, Greece and Macedonia now have important trade relations.
In short, it is hard not to be dismayed at this letter, which rejects modern scholarship on ethnic formation, reads the text of Herodotus as if it was a newspaper, complains about imagined verbal slights in a bland magazine article – and ignores the immense material damage Greece has done to its neighbor.
There remains ample room to argue about Alexander the
Great, and about the supposed linear trajectory without ruptures or
discontinuities from Alexander to the present. We ought to be able to do this without endorsing violation
of sovereignty or applauding or ignoring efforts to impoverish others.
Prof. Miller hopes to influence the Obama administration, which has acted with cool realism in the Balkans. He says he prefers the goal of right-wing Greek nationalism: a blanket prohibition on use of the name Macedonia. But he acknowledges that that is unachievable. (Two Greek diplomats have publicly recommended dropping the name issue.) He doesnt mention NATO or the European Union, though they are an important part of the picture. Should Obama, then, force Macedonia to drop its claims to Alexander? It is hard to see why, and even harder to see how this issue can be separated from other matters, including NATO, the EU, and the rights of ethnic Macedonians in Greece.
Interestingly, many of the sources Ive cited above are
Greek. There are plenty of fine
academics, human rights attorneys, and others in Greece who do not follow the
company line (one Athenian friend who does not found a swastika painted on his
house). Ive not consulted with
anyone Ive quoted, but hope Ive represented them fairly. I also recognize that Ive passed over some
issues.
Ive worked on Greek causes since 1969. But I happen to believe that the current
nationalist policy toward Macedonia is disastrous and has brought no gain.
Dan Tompkins
Department of Greek and Roman Classics
Temple University
Bibliography
Graham T. Allison, editor. The Greek Paradox. Cambridge,
Mass: MIT Press 1997.
Mary Beard, "A don's life. Was Alexander the Great a Slav?" TLS Online, June 3, 2009:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2009/07/was-alexander-the-great-a-slav.html
K. S. Brown, and Yannis Hamilakis, editors. The Usable Past. Greek Metahistories. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2003.
Mathew Brunwasser, Macedonia Dispute has Asia Flavor; Claiming
Alexander's Heritage, Pakistanis Enter the Fray. International Herald
Tribune (October 2, 2008).
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Kristin Fabbe. "Defining Minorities and Identities. Religious Categorization and State-Making Strategies in Greece and Turkey." Paper for Graduate Student Pre-Conference in Turkish and Turkic Studies, University of Washington. October 18, 2007:
David Fearn. "Narrating Ambiguity: Murder
and Macedonian Allegiance (5.17-22)." In Elizabeth Irwin and
Emily Greenwood, editors, Reading Herodotus. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007.
Jonathan Hall.
"Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within
Evolving Definitions of Greek Identity." In Irad Malkin, ed.,
Ancient Perceptions of Ethnicity,
Washington DC: Center for Hellenic
Studies, 2001.
Yannis Hamilakis . "Learn History! Antiquity, National Narrative and History in Greek Educational Textbooks". In Brown and Hamilakis, 39-68.
D. Kalekin-Fishman and P. Pitkanen, editors. Multiple Citizenship as a Challenge to European Nation-States. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. 2006
Dimitris Livanios. The Macedonian Question: Britain and
the Southern Balkans 1939-1949. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008.
Anastasia Karakasidou. “Cultural illegitimacy in Greece: the Slavo-Macedonian 'non-minority.'” In Clogg, 122-164.
Gay McDougall. Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development. Report of the independent expert on minority issues, Addendum. Mission to Greece. (8-16 September 2008)
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,4565c22529,465463672,49b7b2e52,0.html
Greek government responses:
a) UN Ambassador Verros undated but apparently March 13, 2009)
http://www.greeceun.ch/Statements/Oral%20statement%20minorities%20McDougall.pdf
Webcast:
http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/archive.asp?go=090313
b) Prime Minister Karamanlis: “There is no 'Macedonian' minority in Greece. There never has been.” July 10, 2008:
http://www.ana.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=6644459&maindocimg=6560221&service=6
Related:
United States Department of State. 2008 Human Rights Report: Greece.
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eur/119082.htm
Council of Europe. Report by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, following his visit to Greece on 8-10 December 2008. Original version.
Strasbourg, 19 February 2009
Human rights of minorities
Mark Mazower, Introduction to the Study of Macedonia. Journal
of Modern Greek Studies 14.2 (1996),
229-235.
Takis Michas. Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia in the
Nineties. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002.
James Pettifer, "The New Macedonian Question." International Affairs 68 ( 1992), pp. 475-485
Victor Roudometof. Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece
and the Macedonian Question. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14.2 (1996) 253-301.
Victor Roudometof.
Invented Traditions, Symbolic Boundaries, and National Identity in
Southeastern Europe: Greece and Serbia in Comparative Historical Perspective
(1830-1880). East European
Quarterly 32.4 (1999) 429 – 468.
Roland Schmieger. "The Situation of the Macedonian Language in Greece: Sociolinguistic Analysis," International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131 (1998) 125-155.
Stearns, Monteagle. Greek Security Issues, in Allison, 61-72.
David E. Sutton. “Local Names, Foreign Claims: Family Inheritance and National Heritage on a Greek Island.” American Ethnologist 24 (1997) 415-437.
Anna Triandafyllidou and Andonis Mikrakis, Greece. A Ghost Wanders Through the Capital."
In The New Xenophobia in Europe edited
by Bernd Baumgartl and Adrian Favell (Leiden: Brill, 1995)
Anna Triandafyllidou, Marina Calloni & Andonis Mikrakis.
New Greek Nationalism.
Sociological Research Online 2.1 (1997)
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/1/7.html
Anna Triandafyllidou. National identity and the `other. Ethnic
and Racial Studies 21.4 (1998)
593 – 612.
Anna Triandafyllidou and Anna Paraskevopoulou. When is the Greek
Nation? The Role of Enemies and Minorities. Geopolitics 7.2 (2002) 75 – 98.
Konstantinos Tsitselikis, "Citizenship in Greece." In Kalekin-Fishman and Pitkanen, 145-170.
Voutira, Eftihia A. " Post-Soviet Diaspora Politics: The Case of the Soviet Greek." Journal of Modern Greek Studies 24.2(2006), 379-414.
Myron Weiner. The Macedonian Syndrome: An Historical model of International Relations and Political development World Politics 23.4 (1971) 665-683.
Woodward, Susan L. Rethinking Security in the
Post-Yugoslav Era. In Allison, 113-122.
Zahariadis, Nikolaos. "Is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia a Security Threat to Greece?" Mediterranean Quarterly 5 (1994) 84-105.
________________. "Nationalism and Small State Foreign Policy: The Greek Response to the Contemporary Macedonian Issue." Political Science Quarterly 109 (1994) 647-667.
________________. "Greek Policy toward the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 1991-1995." Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14 (1996) 303-3
Dan Tompkins
Addendum
Just as Jonathan Hall and others have opened up the study
of race in antiquity, scholars like Anna Triandafyllidou have enriched our
understanding of ethnicity in modern Greece. This is particularly urgent
since the government continues to insist that there are no ethnic minorities
there. Though her current scholarship concerns immigration -- a pressing
problem in Greece -- she's written well on ethnicity too. Her overall
perspective is one that classicists would do well to consider when they
try to discuss modern ethnicity.
Triandafyllidou has shown, for instance, the
problems of the current policy of treating "Turks" not as an ethnic
but as a religious minority, noting "the changing character of civic,
ethnic and religious identities of the Muslim minority in relation to the
Christian Greek Orthodox majority." This concept of
"change" permeates her discourse: history is dynamic not
static, Greece has changed and is changing. The "dynamic
nature of national identity" led to a moment (around 1922) in which
"Greek national identity abandoned its irredentist character and
shifted towards an ethnic but also territorial and civic definition of the
nation in the early twentieth century, through interaction and conflict with
neighbouring countries as well as internal social and political changes."
Many of these "conflict dynamics ... developed between the
nation and the ... other," and the other, too, must constantly be
reinvented.
I would recommend any of the essays listed below,
especially the most recent. As long ago as 1998, Triandafyllidou was noting
that "the claim of FYROM over the Macedonian cultural heritage has led
Greeks to incorporate Alexander the Great into the classical Greek tradition
and emphasize his centrality to the Greeks.'" This was, she says, a
shift from nineteenth-century resistance toward all "foreign (including
Macedonian) domination. It began long
before President Bush became president and supposedly "catalyzed" the
Alexander craze in Macedonia, as Prof. Miller claims. After
the disappointments of Andreas Papandreou's final term, she notes, it was
convenient to restore "national pride ... in a political discourse
which concentrated on the injustice caused by foreigners.'"
Triandafyllidou is bolder than many of her colleagues in
asserting that "the Greek government and most Greek intellectuals ...
tacitly ignored the fact that the indigenous Slavic speaking population of the
Greek region of Macedonia was subjected to forceful Hellenization during the
first half of this century." She adds that "National
consciousness makes sense only in contrast to some other nation," and that
Macedonia's displacement of Turkey in the demonization derby has given new
prominence to the perceived or imagined virtues of Alexander and Philip.
__________
Note: Many other good Greek social scientists write
about related issues. The Journal
of Modern Greek Studies is one worthwhile
source.
Anna Triandafyllidou and Andonis Mikrakis. Greece.
A Ghost Wanders Through the Capital. In The New Xenophobia in Europe edited by Bernd Baumgartl and Adrian Favell (Leiden:
Brill, 1995)
Anna Triandafyllidou, Marina Calloni & Andonis
Mikrakis. New Greek Nationalism. Sociological Research Online 2.1 (1997)
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/1/7.html
Anna Triandafyllidou. National identity and the
`other. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21.4
(1998) 593 – 612.
Anna Triandafyllidou and Mariangela Veikou. Greek immigration policy. The Hierarchy of Greekness: Ethnic and
national identity considerations in Greek immigration policy. Ethnicities 2 (2002); 189-208
Anna Triandafyllidou and Anna Paraskevopoulou. When
is the Greek Nation? The Role of Enemies and Minorities. Geopolitics 7.2 (2002) 75 – 98.
Professor Millers
letter
Dear Colleagues,
During
the past few years we have seen an extraordinary development: Alexander the Great has become
Slavic. Not only does his name
grace the international airport in Skopje and the PanEuropean highway where it passes through FYROM, but the
national sports stadium has been named for his father, Philip. Modern statues of Alexander with Slavic
inscriptions are scattered around FYROM, and there is a proposal for a gigantic
statue in a central fountain of Skopje that will sing Slavic popular
songs.
At
one level, these developments are so ridiculous that they defy comment, but at
another level they threaten the basis of our discipline. I have always felt, and I think you
will agree, that our job is to analyze the factual evidence for the history of
ancient Greece, to add to it, and to share our understanding of the
significance of that evidence with the next generation. But the very basis of our work –
the facts – is being perverted.
Can we, as professionals, tolerate the destruction of the basis of our
science any more than a chemist could tolerate the theft of basic chemicals
from his laboratory, or the mathematician could tolerate the "new"
truth that 1+1=3? If the
facts are removed/changed/denied, then history surely becomes fantasy. The popular press has been promoting
that fantasy without any scholarly brakes.
Further,
when Archaeology, a publication of the
Archaeological Institute of America, publishes an article entitled Owning
Alexander: Modern Macedonia lays its claim to the ancient conquerors legacy
and refuses to publish a factual rebuttal
to the claim, then I believe that the scientific basis for our
professional lives is in serious danger.
What is our value to society if history can be fabricated to suit
specific ephemeral goals?
If we had the ear of the general public,
it might be possible to present the facts. But we do not have such connections and we have to make
those connections through the President of the USA. This is because the Bush recognition of FYROM, as the
Republic of Macedonia was clearly the catalyst for the fantasies of a Slavic
Alexander. These fantasies
are being accepted by the media, and therefore by the public. Again, what is our value to our society
if this ignorance of history is allowed to continue? Would the mess in Iraq have happened if George Bush
had ever read Thucydides VII?
Many
of us would prefer to avoid politics, but the politicians obviously are not
consulting with us and we must, therefore, go to them. We must make history a part of our
common experience. For us that
means ancient history, and just now Macedonia.
The
current problem was not created in the White House, but it was exacerbated
there, and that fact alone would justify an appeal to President Obama. There is, moreover, the international
notion that the USA can effect just about anything it wants with smaller
countries. Again, we can hope that
President Obama has been sincere in his declarations of an administration based
on science. I do not know what
specific steps are available to him. The name Macedonia, in some form, is
probably going to continue for the ancient Paionia, but if he can show an
adherence to historical fact with regard to Alexander, and let that dictate his
policy, then perhaps Alexander can be allowed to read and write Greek.
Please
read below the letter to President Obama with the supporting
documentation. I hope that you
will then join with those of us who think that history is so important that its
factual basis must be preserved.
If so, please send back to me your NAME, TITLE, and INSTITUTION as you
would like them to appear. You
will see examples of the format on page 3 of the letter.
I
would ask that you return that information no later than this Saturday, May 16,
so that the letter can go out shortly thereafter to President Obama. It is important that it not be
circulated beyond our own discipline before it arrives on his desk.
Sincerely,
Stephen G. Miller
============================
May
18, 2009
The Honorable Barack Obama
President, United States of America
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama,
We,
the undersigned scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity, respectfully request that
you intervene to clean up some of the historical debris left in southeast
Europe by the previous U.S. administration.
On
November 4, 2004, two days after the re-election of President George W. Bush,
his administration unilaterally recognized the Republic of Macedonia. This action not only abrogated
geographic and historic fact, but it also has unleashed a dangerous epidemic of
historical revisionism, of which the most obvious symptom is the misappropriation by the government in Skopje of the most famous of
Macedonians, Alexander the Great.
We believe that this silliness has gone too far, and
that the U.S.A. has no business in supporting the subversion of history. Let us
review facts. (The documentation
for these facts (here in boldface)
can be found attached and at: http://macedonia-evidence.org/)
The
land in question, with its modern capital at Skopje, was called Paionia in
antiquity. Mts. Barnous and Orbelos (which form today the northern
limits of Greece) provide a natural barrier that separated, and separates,
Macedonia from its northern neighbor.
The only real connection is along the Axios/Vardar River and even this
valley does not form a line of communication because it is divided by gorges.
While
it is true that the Paionians were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 358 B.C. they were not
Macedonians and did not live in Macedonia. Likewise, for example, the
Egyptians, who were subdued by Alexander, may have been ruled by Macedonians,
including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and
Egypt was never called Macedonia.
Rather,
Macedonia and Macedonian Greeks have been located for at least 2,500 years just where the modern Greek province of Macedonia
is. Exactly this same relationship is true for Attica and Athenian Greeks,
Argos and Argive Greeks, Corinth and Corinthian Greeks, etc.
We
do not understand how the modern inhabitants of ancient Paionia, who speak
Slavic – a language introduced into the Balkans about a millennium
after the death of Alexander – can
claim him as their national hero.
Alexander the Great was thoroughly and indisputably Greek. His great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I,
competed in the Olympic Games where participation was limited to Greeks.
Even
before Alexander I, the Macedonians traced their ancestry to Argos, and many of
their kings used the head of Herakles -
the quintessential Greek hero - on their coins.
Euripides – who died and was
buried in Macedonia– wrote his play Archelaos
in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, and in Greek. While in Macedonia, Euripides also
wrote the Bacchai, again in Greek. Presumably the Macedonian audience
could understand what he wrote and what they heard.
Alexanders
father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi, the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in
ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete. Even more significantly, Philip was
appointed to conduct the Pythian Games at Delphi in 346 B.C. In
other words, Alexander the Greats father and his ancestors were thoroughly
Greek. Greek was the language used by Demosthenes and his delegation
from Athens when they paid visits to
Philip, also in 346 B.C. Another
northern Greek, Aristotle, went off to
study for nearly 20 years in the Academy of Plato. Aristotle subsequently returned to Macedonia and became the tutor
of Alexander III. They used Greek in their
classroom which can still be
seen near Naoussa in Macedonia.
Alexander
carried with him throughout his conquests Aristotles edition of Homers Iliad. Alexander also spread Greek language and culture throughout
his empire, founding cities and establishing centers of learning. Hence
inscriptions concerning such typical Greek institutions as the gymnasium are
found as far away as Afghanistan. They are all written in Greek.
The
questions follow: Why was Greek
the lingua franca all over Alexanders
empire if he was a Macedonian?
Why was the New Testament, for example, was written in Greek?
The
answers are clear: Alexander the
Great was Greek, not Slavic, and Slavs and their language were nowhere near
Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years later. This brings us back to
the geographic area known in antiquity as Paionia. Why would the people who live there now call themselves
Macedonians and their land Macedonia?
Why would they abduct a completely Greek figure and make him their
national hero?
The
ancient Paionians may or may not have been
Greek, but they certainly became Greekish, and they were never Slavs.
They were also not Macedonians.
Ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian Empire. So were Ionia and Syria and Palestine
and Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Bactria and many more. They may thus have become Macedonian
temporarily, but none was ever Macedonia. The theft of Philip and Alexander by a land that was never
Macedonia cannot be justified.
The
traditions of ancient Paionia could be adopted by the current residents of that
geographical area with considerable justification. But the extension of the
geographic term Macedonia to cover southern Yugoslavia cannot. Even in the
late 19th century, this misuse implied unhealthy territorial
aspirations.
The same motivation is to be seen in school
maps that show the pseudo-greater
Macedonia, stretching from Skopje to Mt. Olympus and labeled in Slavic. The same map and its claims are
in calendars, bumper stickers, bank notes, etc., that have been circulating in the new state ever since it
declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Why would a poor land-locked new state attempt such
historical nonsense? Why would it
brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor?
However
one might like to characterize such behavior, it is clearly not a force for historical accuracy, nor for stability
in the Balkans. It is sad that the
United States of America has abetted and encouraged such behavior.
We
call upon you, Mr. President, to help - in whatever ways you deem appropriate -
the government in Skopje to
understand that it cannot build a national identity at the expense of
historic truth. Our common international society cannot survive when
history is ignored, much less when history is fabricated.
Sincerely,
NAME TITLE INSTITUTION
Harry C. Avery, Professor of Classics, University of
Pittsburgh (USA) Elizabeth C. Banks, Associate Professor of Classics (ret.),
University of Kansas (USA)
Elizabeth Baughan, Assistant Professor of Classics and
Archaeology, University
of Richmond (USA)
Efrosyni Boutsikas, Lecturer of Classical Archaeology,
University of Kent (UK)
Keith Bradley, Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of
Classics, Concurrent Professor
of History, University of Notre Dame (USA)
Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture,
University of Cambridge
(UK)
Paavo Castrn, Professor of
Classical Philology Emeritus, University of Helsinki (Finland)
William Cavanagh, Professor of Aegean Prehistory, University
of Nottingham (UK)
Angelos Chaniotis, Professor,
Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (UK)
Paul Christesen, Professor of
Ancient Greek History, Dartmouth College (USA)
Ada Cohen, Associate Professor of Art History, Dartmouth
College (USA)
Randall M. Colaizzi, Lecturer in Classical Studies,
University of Massachusetts-Boston
(USA)
Michael B. Cosmopoulos, Ph.D., Professor and Endowed Chair
in Greek Archaeology, University of
Missouri-St. Louis (USA)
Monessa F. Cummins, Assistant Professor of Classics,
Grinnell College (USA)
Kevin F. Daly, Assistant Professor of Classics, Bucknell
University (USA)
Wolfgang Decker, Professor emeritus of sport history,
Deutsche Sporthochschule,
Kln (Germany)
Luc Deitz,
Ausserplanmssiger Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin,
University of Trier (Germany), and Curator of manuscripts and rare books, National
Library of Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
Michael Dewar, Professor of Classics, University of Toronto
(Canada)
John D. Dillery, Associate Professor of Classics, University
of Virginia (USA)
Sheila Dillon, Associate Professor, Depts. of Art, Art
History & Visual Studies and
Classical Studies, Duke University (USA)
Douglas Domingo-Forast, Professor of Classics, California
State University, Long
Beach (USA)
Pierre Ducrey, professeur honoraire, Universit de
Lausanne (Switzerland)
Michael M. Eisman, Associate Professor Ancient History and
Classical Archaeology,
Department of History, Temple University (USA)
Mostafa El-Abbadi, Professor Emeritus, University of
Alexandria (Egypt)
R. Malcolm Errington, Professor fr Alte Geschichte
(Emeritus) Philipps- Universitt,
Marburg (Germany)
R. Leon Fitts, Asbury J Clarke Professor of Classical
Studies, Emeritus, FSA,
Scot., Dickinson Colllege (USA)
Robin Lane Fox, University Reader in Ancient
History, New College, Oxford (UK)
Heide Froning, Professor of Classical Archaeology,
University of Marburg (Germany)
Peter Funke, Professor of Ancient History, University of
Muenster (Germany)
Traianos Gagos, Professor of Greek and Papyrology,
University of Michigan (USA)
Robert Garland, Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of
the Classics,
Colgate
University, Hamilton NY (USA)
Douglas E. Gerber, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University
of Western
Ontario (Canada)
Sander M. Goldberg, Professor of Classics, UCLA (USA)
Christian Habicht, Professor of Ancient History, Emeritus,
Institute for Advanced
Study, Princeton (USA)
Donald C. Haggis, Nicholas A. Cassas Term Professor of Greek
Studies,
University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA)
Judith P. Hallett, Professor of Classics, University of
Maryland, College Park, MD
(USA)
Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology,
University of
Arizona
(USA)
Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos, Director, Research Centre for
Greek and Roman Antiquity,
National Research Foundation, Athens
(Greece)
Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, Prof. Dr., Freie Universitt Berlin
und Antikensammlung
der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Germany)
Steven W. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Classics and
History, Tufts University
(USA)
Frank L. Holt, Professor of Ancient History, University of
Houston (USA)
Dan Hooley, Professor of Classics, University of Missouri
(USA)
Meredith C. Hoppin, Gagliardi Professor of Classical
Languages, Williams
College,
Williamstown, MA (USA)
Caroline M. Houser, Professor of Art History Emerita, Smith
College (USA) and
Affiliated Professor, University of Washington (USA)
Anthony Kaldellis, Professor of Greek and Latin, The Ohio
State University
(USA)
Andromache Karanika, Assistant Professor of Classics,
University of
California,
Irvine (USA)
Robert A. Kaster, Professor of Classics and Kennedy
Foundation Professor of Latin,
Princeton University (USA)
Vassiliki Kekela, Adjunct Professor of Greek Studies,
Classics Department, Hunter
College, City University of New York (USA)
Karl Kilinski II, University Distinguished Teaching
Professor, Southern Methodist
University (USA)
Denis Knoepfler, Professor of Greek Epigraphy and History, Collge de France (Paris)
Ortwin Knorr, Associate Professor of Classics, Willamette
University (USA)
Robert B. Koehl, Professor of
Archaeology, Department of Classical and Oriental Studies Hunter
College, City University of New York (USA)
Lambrini Koutoussaki, Dr.,
Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Zrich (Switzerland)
David Kovacs, Hugh H. Obear
Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA)
Peter Krentz, W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History,
Davidson College
(USA)
Friedrich Krinzinger, Professor of Classical Archaeology
Emeritus, University of
Vienna (Austria)
Michael Kumpf, Professor of Classics, Valparaiso University
(USA)
Donald G. Kyle, Professor of History, University of Texas at
Arlington (USA)
Prof. Dr. Dr.
h.c. Helmut Kyrieleis, former president of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany)
Steven Lattimore, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University
of California, Los Angeles
(USA)
Gerald V. Lalonde, Benedict Professor of Classics, Grinnell
College (USA)
Mary R. Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the
Humanities, Emerita
Wellesley
College (USA)
Daniel B. Levine, Professor of
Classical Studies, University of
Arkansas (USA) Vayos Liapis, Associate Professor of Greek, Centre dՃtudes
Classiques & Dpartement
de Philosophie, Universit de Montral (Canada)
Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Professor of
Greek Emeritus, University of Oxford (UK)
Yannis Lolos, Assistant
Professor, History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, University of Thessaly
(Greece)
Anthony Long, Professor of
Classics and Irving G. Stone Professor of Literature, University
of California, Berkeley (USA)
Julia Lougovaya, Assistant
Professor, Department of Classics, Columbia University (USA)
Hugh J. Mason, Professor of
Classics, University of Toronto (Canada)
Maria Mavroudi, Professor of
Byzantine History, University of California, Berkeley (U.S.A.)
James R. McCredie,
Sherman Fairchild Professor emeritus; Director, Excavations in
Samothrace Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (USA)
Margaret M. Miles, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classical
Studies, American
School of Classical Studies at Athens
Stephen G. Miller, Professor of Classical Archaeology
Emeritus, University of California,
Berkeley (USA)
Margaret S. Mook, Associate
Professor of Classical Studies, Iowa State University (USA)
Anatole Mori, Associate
Professor of Classical Studies, University of Missouri- Columbia (USA)
Richard Neudecker, PD of
Classical Archaeology, Deutsches Archologisches Institut Rom (Italy)
James M.L. Newhard, Associate
Professor of Classics, College of Charleston (USA)
Carole E. Newlands, Professor
of Classics, University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA)
John Maxwell O'Brien, Professor of History, Queens College,
City University of
New York (USA)
James J. O'Hara, Paddison
Professor of Latin, The University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill (USA)
Olga Palagia, Professor of
Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Vassiliki Panoussi, Associate Professor of Classical
Studies, The College of William
and Mary (USA)
Anthony J. Papalas, Professor
of Ancient History, East Carolina University (USA)
Nassos Papalexandrou, Associate
Professor, The University of Texas at Austin (USA)
Robert Parker, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, New
College, Oxford (UK)
Karl Reber, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University
of Lausanne (Switzerland)
John C. Rouman, Professor
Emeritus of Classics, University of New Hampshire, (USA)
Peter Scholz, Professor of
Ancient History and Culture, University of Stuttgart (Germany)
Antony Snodgrass, Professor
Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge (UK)
Andrew Stewart, Nicholas C.
Petris Professor of Greek Studies, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Oliver Stoll, Univ.-Prof. Dr.,
Alte Geschichte/ Ancient History,Universitt Passau
(Germany)
Richard Stoneman, Honorary
Fellow, University of Exeter (England)
Ronald Stroud, Klio
Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature
Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
Stephen V. Tracy, Professor of
Greek and Latin Emeritus, Ohio State University (USA)
Vasiliki Tsamakda, Professor of
Christian Archaeology and Byzantine History
of
Art, University of Mainz (Germany)
E. Hector Williams, Professor
of Classical Archaeology, University of British Columbia (Canada)
Ian Worthington, Frederick A. Middlebush Professor of
History, University of Missouri-Columbia
(USA)
Panos Valavanis, Professor of
Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece)
Speros Vryonis, Jr., Alexander S. Onassis Professor (Emeritus) of Hellenic Civilization
and Culture, New York University (USA)
[and we hope many many others]
==========================
Obama letter documentation: [to be posted at http://macedonia-evidence.org/]
misappropriation . . . . of Alexander the Great: More recently even
Alexanders father, Philip, has also been abducted:
When Macedonia renamed Skopje
airport for Alexander the Great in 2007, this seemed a one-off to annoy Greece.
More recently, however, the government has broadened a policy the opposition
calls antiquisation. The main road to Greece has been renamed for Alexander
and the national sports stadium named after his father, and plans are afoot to
erect a huge statue of Alexander in central Skopje. The Economist April 2, 2009
Even
the popular but supposedly serious periodical Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of
America, has recently (January-February 2009) published an article with the
name Owning Alexander: Modern
Macedonia lays its claim to the ancient conquerors legacy.
called Paionia in antiquity: The geographic
situation is made clear by Livys account of the creation of the Roman province
of Macedonia in 146 B.C. (Livy 45.29.7 and 45.29.12). The land north of Mt. Barnous and Mt. Orbelos was inhabited
by Paionians. The natural barrier
formed by these mountains must be acknowledged. Barnous (modern Voras or Kaimaktsalan) reaches a height of
2524 meters, while Orbelos (the whole range extending to east and west of the
Strymon; the western ridge is the
modern Beles or Kerkini with a height of 1474 meters) has a maximum height
toward the east of 2211 meters.
Strabo
(7. frag 4), writing a few years before the birth of Christ, is even more
succinct in saying that Paionia was north of Macedonia and the only connection
from one to the other was (and is today) through the narrow gorge of the Axios
(or Vardar) River.
does not form a line of communication: M. Sivignon, in M. Sakellariou (ed) Macedonia
(Athens 1982) 15.
subdued by Philip II: Diodorus Siculus
16.4.2 See also Demosthenes (Olynthian
1.23) who tells us that they were enslaved by the Macedonian Philip and
clearly, therefore, not Macedonians.
Isokrates (5.23) makes the same point.
for at least 2,500 years: See, for example,
Herodotus 5.17, 7.128, et alibi.
about a millennium after the death of Alexander: For
the first appearance of the Slavs in the Balkans in the mid-6th
century after Christ, see Walter Pohl, Justinian and the Barbarian Kingdoms,
in Michael Maas (ed.), Age of Justinian (Cambridge 2005)
469-471; for their devastating
path through Greece in the 580s, see Anna Avramea, Le Ploponnse du IVe
au VIIIe sicle, changements et persistances (Paris 1997) 67-80
thoroughly and indisputably Greek: In the
words of the father of history I happen to know that [the forefathers of
Alexander] are Greek (Herodotus 5.22). The date of when Alexander I competed at Olympia is
not sure, but it certainly occurred between 504 and 496 B.C. He established his Hellenic roots by
tracing his ancestors back to Argos and, ultimately to Herakles. Hence the coins with the head
of Herakles wearing the skin of the Nemean
Lion from Archelaos and Amyntas, among others.
Euripides – who died and was buried in Macedonia: Thucydides apud Pal. Anth. 7.45;
Pausanias 1.2.2; Diodorus Siculus 13.103.
Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and
Delphi: Plutarch, Alexander
3.9 and 4.9; Moralia 105A. Philip advertised his victories,
and therefore his Greekness, by
minting coins commemorating those victories. Below is a silver coin with the head of Olympian Zeus on the
front and Philips victorious horse on the reverse, labeled with his name of
Philip in Greek. A gold coin with
the head of Apollo of Delphi on the front, and Philips winning two-horse
chariot on the reverse, again labeled with his hame of Philip in Greek.
conduct the Pythian Games: Diodorus Siculus 16.60.2
delegation from Athens: See, inter
alios, Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione, and Aischines, De Legatione. It is the tirades of
Demosthenes against Philip (e.g. 9.30-35 in which he calls Philip not only not
a Greek, nor related to a Greek,
nor even a barbarian from someplace that can be called good) that have
given rise to the notion that the Macedonians were not Greek, but Demosthenes
tended to call all his enemies barbarian, even fellow Athenians (e.g. 21.150).
Another northern Greek, Aristotle:
Because Aristotles native city, Stageira, was established in the 7th
century B.C. before the Macedonians had developed their kingdom, Aristotle
cannot be called a native Macedonian, although his
father, Nikomachos, was the friend and doctor of Amyntas III
(393-369) according to Diogenes Laertius 5.1. Philip later, as a part of his conquest of the whole of the
Chalkidike in 348 B.C. (Demosthenes, 19.266) , seems to have laid waste to
Stageira, but rebuilt it in 342 B.C. at Aristotles request (Diogenes Laertius
5.4). Clearly the relationship
between him and Macedonia was close.
tutor of Alexander:
Diogenes Laertius 5.4; Plutarch, Alexander
7.2-8.1. Aristotle also taught a
number of Alexanders peers and comrades, some of whom later became kings like
Ptolemy of Egypt.
classroom which can still be seen:
A spacious room cut back into natural bed rock with cuttings for roof
supports and a bench for the students is easily repeopled in the visitors
imagination with Aristotle standing in the middle and Alexander and his pals on
the bench.
It was Aristotle who advised Alexander to treat the Greeks as if he were their leader, other
peoples as if he were their master (Plutarch, On the
Fortune of Alexander 329B). In the event, Alexander did not take
this advice for his wives were only non-Greek orientals.
Aristotles edition of Homer: Plutarch, Alexander
8.2
founding cities and establishing centers of learning:
Although cities like Pergamon and Alexandria in Egypt became major
cultural centers under the successors of Alexander (the Attalids and the
Ptolemies, respectively), it was Alexander who laid their foundations. See Diodorus Siculus 20.20.1 and Justin
13.2, and Arrian 3.1.5, respectively.
as far away as Afghanistan: Excavations at Ai
Khanoum on the northern border of modern Afghanistan have produced great
quantities of Greek inscriptions and even the remnants of a philosophical
treatise originally on papyrus. One of the most interesting is the base of a
dedication by one Klearchos, perhaps the known student of Aristotle, that
records his bringing to this new Greek city, Alexandria on the Oxus, the
traditional maxims from the shrine of Apollo at Delphi concerning the five ages
of man:
In
childhood, seemliness
In
youth, self-control
In
middle age, justice
In
old age, wise council
In
death, painlessness
Klearchos
inscription, ca. 300 B.C., now in Kabul Museum
For
further information about the Greekness of Ai Khanoum, see Robin Lane Fox, The
Search for Alexander (London 1980) 425-433,
and figures on pages 390-393, and elsewhere; and Paul Bernard, Les fouilles dAi Khanum (Paris 1973).
Slavs and their language were nowhere near Alexander or
his homeland until 1000 years later: see above.
The ancient Paionians: The
ancient Paionians may have been of Hellenic stock, but relatively little is
known about them, partly because no Paionian Philip ever dominated Greece, and
no Paionian Alexander ever conquered the known world ( Irwin L. Merker, The
Ancient Kingdom of Paionia, Balkan Studies 6 (1965) 35).
Nonetheless,
they appear already in the Trojan War (albeit on the Trojan side; Homer, Iliad 2.848-850, 16.287-291, 17.348-351), they fought
against Philip who subdued them and with Alexander against the Persians,
especially in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C. (Quintus Curtius, History
of Alexander 4.9.24-25.
They
enjoyed, even under the Macedonians, a certain degree of autonomy as is shown
by their negotiations with Athens (IG II2
127) and the many coins minted under a series of Paionian kings, whose
names are Greek and inscribed in Greek on the coins. See, for example, the following silver issue of Patraos,
probably depicting the slaying of a Persian satrap by the Paionian Ariston as
told by Quintus Curtius (see above):
Even
more significantly for the assimilation of Paionia into the Greek world are the dedications of statues
of Paionian kings made at Delphi and Olympia, and especially the bronze head of
a Paionian bison, also at Delphi. See BCH
1950:22, Inschriften von
Olympia 303; and Pausanias 10.13.1,
respectively.
Greekish:
No Paionians are recorded as
victors in the Olympic or other Panhellenic games. This may, of course, be a reflection of a lack of athletic
ability rather than a lack of Greekness.
territorial aspirations:
We
would note that in 1929, in an effort to submerge unruly local identities into
a unified Yugoslav nation, King Alexander of Yugoslavia named the region the
Vardarska province, after the major river that runs through it. See, for
example, the Yugoslav stamp of 1939 with the ancient Paionia labeled with the
name Vardarska.
This
effort to reduce ethnic tensions was rescinded by Tito, who used the
Macedonian identity as leverage against Yugoslavias Greek and Bulgarian
neighbors. The (mis)use of the name Macedonia at that time was
recognized by the United States State Department in a dispatch of December 26,
1944, by then U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius:
The Department [of State] has
noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and
semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating
principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources,
with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected
state. This government considers talk of Macedonian nation, Macedonian
Fatherland, or Macedonian national consciousness to be unjustified
demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its
present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece.
[Source:
U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations vol viii, Washington,
D.C., Circular Airgram (868.014/26Dec1944)]
school maps:
The following map shows the real Macedonia (in
Slavic) which includes ancient Paionia, the Greek province of Macedonia (the
historical Macedonia), and a part of southwestern Bulgaria (which was also
inhabited by Paionian tribes in ancient times).
Other
maps, such as the one below published in an 8th grade history book
in 2005, maintain that, as of 1913 and thereafter, Macedonia included parts
occupied by Albania (yellow), Bulgaria (purple), and Greece (red).
bank notes:
The
White Tower of Thessalonike in Greek Macedonia, fronting onto the Aegean Sea,
is the central decoration of this note printed in Skopje in 1991.
mock and provoke its neighbor: An apt analogy is at hand if we imagine a certain
large island off the southeast coast of the United States re-naming itself
Florida, emblazoning its currency with images of Disney World and distributing
maps showing the Greater Florida.
characterize such behavior: It is nuts, sighs one
diplomat (The Economist April 2, 2009).