tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9230592.post8802812327600957317..comments2023-06-14T09:10:27.097-04:00Comments on Gray Falcon: Missing the Point, AgainCubuCokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14128683147101484237noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9230592.post-11241938714957549902009-02-02T10:17:00.000-05:002009-02-02T10:17:00.000-05:00The Macedonian royal house was “definitely” regard...The Macedonian royal house was “definitely” regarded as Greek. This very issue was debated and decided when Alexander I of Macedon competed in the Olympic games, some years before the Persians invaded Greece, when the Spartans attempted to deny him his victory on those very grounds. Since the judges ruled in his favour, and they were probably the people most competent to decide, his successors, including Alexander the Great, would “have”, I believe, to be regarded as fully Greek. <BR/><BR/>As for the Macedonian people, they did speak a distinctive form of Greek – that’s been very clear since Aegaia was excavated – but then, there was a fair amount of variety in what the southern Greeks spoke. By any “modern” standards of what constitutes a nation (language, religion, etc) I would definitely think of the ancient Macedonians as being Greeks. However, I must admit that the southern Greeks did not always use those standards. For example Macedonia did not have a polis structure – they did have cities, but they were not independent in the southern Greek tradition, but part of a wider Macedonian identity; and since part of the definition of a Greek was being a citizen of a polis (quite as much as language, culture, religion and ethnicity) that would probably have been enough to exclude the Macedonians from the Greek world in the eyes of many. For instance, I don’t think any Macedonians outside the royal house ever competed in the Olympics. Also, by Philip’s day, some Athenian democratic politicians regarded monarchy itself as barbarian – although to be logical, they would have had to exclude their own ancestors if they were to apply those standards. <BR/><BR/>Actually, one can argue that the Macedonians had always been a bastion of the Greek world in the north – one to which the southern Greeks (especially Athens) had never been the slightest bit grateful, invariably trying to undermine it, by hosting pretenders and subsidising rebellion (even though it had always been faced with extinction at the hands of the Thracians, Illyrians, Paeonians and others) simply in order for Athens to have unrestricted access to exploit the resources of the north – Macedonian timber, and silver and gold from the mines of Pangaeon. <BR/><BR/>Of course, to judge by the speeches of Athenian politicians like Demosthenes, the Macedonians were definitely a barbarian people; but then, as you of “all” people would know, what a democratic politician says to the voters has “never” been a guarantee of its truthfulness! Especially when it’s about a distant country he’s trying to persuade the voters to declare war on! <BR/><BR/>Oddly enough, if one uses the “modern” meaning of the word barbarian, there are many grounds for thinking that the Macedonian monarchy was healthier than the city states of the southern Greek world. It was a society far less based on slaves, for instance. And under this monarchy, it turned out to be much easier for other peoples to be included within the kingdom, and retain their own traditions and autonomy: in that regard, I suppose one could say that the Macedonian system, not that of the southern Greek states, was the model not only for the Hellenistic kingdoms, but was the one which the Roman Empire eventually adopted, and the medieval states that followed it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14408702588743585198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9230592.post-55065269783168817792008-12-13T04:53:00.000-05:002008-12-13T04:53:00.000-05:00I am surprised that the US establishment didn't bl...I am surprised that the US establishment didn't blame the 9/11 hijackers' motives on "trauma" caused by "Serbian aggression" in Bosnia and Kosovo. Everyone seems to be blaming Serbs... I suppose its easier to blame a group of people who don't fight back (rather than those who riot at the slightest "insult") rather than take a long hard look at themself in the mirror.Deucaonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09912203797099601649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9230592.post-90056777976750862912008-12-12T05:45:00.000-05:002008-12-12T05:45:00.000-05:00Not that you need more proof of the need to keep a...Not that you need more proof of the need to keep arguing your case on-line GF, but as you know, The ‘Balkans Problem’ is not just a problem for the Balkans – it gets used in disturbing and malicious ways. <BR/><BR/>Take this - <BR/><BR/>“it is well-reknown that Serbia and Milosevic undertook a deliberate policy to create a "pure" Serbian state with no evidence to convict him with while Israel, with ever more documents to suggest that such a policy was in effect albiet by mouth and intent (and not in writing per se) is still innocent of such charges that the world was so quick to pin on Serbia. The consequences: Palestinians with no state, Yugoslavia broken into little statelets (and Kosovo to boot)”<BR/><BR/>From <A HREF="”www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/12/im-an-antizionist.html#comment-6a00d8341cc8ad53ef0105365d5d56970c”" REL="nofollow">Here</A><BR/><BR/>You ignore one corner of the world’s problems, and it only pops somewhere else.CAPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861096695503969576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9230592.post-79049376376984841022008-12-12T04:55:00.000-05:002008-12-12T04:55:00.000-05:00Macedonians are overwhelmingly cognate with Bulgar...Macedonians are overwhelmingly cognate with Bulgarians. They had a rebellion that coincided with the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 and used a Bulgarian lion as their symbol. Because it *WAS* a Bulgarian rebellion and part of the wider April rising. As if that was not enough, they staged another rebellion in 1878 when it became clear San Stefano borders would be revised and that they would not be a part of Bulgaria after all. Between the world wars VMRO operated from Bulgaria and its goal was unification with Bulgaria not independence. Even before, after the Ilinden uprising VMRO styled itself in everything including the very name after Vasil Levski`s VRO. Not to mention the supposed medival Macedonian state is everywhere outside former Yugoslavia considered another reincarnation of the Bulgarian state. <BR/><BR/>Prior to the actual 2nd Balkan War Serbia showed next to no ambition to expend into Macedonia (other than the northern outskirts which were Serbian Torlak influenced) until it became clear to her that she would not get Northern Albania, because Austria-Hungary but particularly Italy diplomaticaly interveened, and then seeked to revise the deal with Bulgaria that it had made beforehand where most of Vardar Macedonia would have gone to Bulgaria.<BR/><BR/>I do not know why this is controversial. Ethnogenesis is a very complex thing. It is never linear or clear cut. There are million of cases elsewhere. The Dutch and the Germans used to be one people. The Dutch national anthem actualy in original speaks of this one "Duytschen" blood. What is more, there used to be a transition dialect Plaffdeutsch that was neither wholly Dutch nor wholly German, one part of speakers of that dialect became Dutch and the other part became German. Jet they were kin! <BR/><BR/><BR/>And a word on the Muslims. They did indeed refer to themselves as Turks, but that was not ethnic or national identification. Being even more Ottoman than the Ottomans themselves the concept of the nation in the modern sense was completely absent from their mindset so their designation was simply that of class identity. It meant they were proper citizens of the Ottoman Empire in contrast to the infidel dhimmis. Once the Empire retreated the designation stuck, but now it was only a designation that conveyed their seperatness. It was only a way of saying they were not Serbs or Christians and it could only stick because there were no actual ethinc Turks around them to compare themselves to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com