Never was a FYROM nor a Republic of Macedonia

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Thanks to Kapitan_vorias for finding this:
FYROM was called:
A postal card from Skopje (from 1911).... what was FYROM called then?

VARDARSKO VOJVODA (and that is what it should be called) Check out the Blue Stamp.... No mention at all about Macedonia which is Greek and should stay that way....

http://tinypic.com/hwfynb.jpg

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A 1939 Yugoslavia postage stamp, "Jugoslavija (i.e., land of the southern
Slavs)," depicts the eight provinces of the then Yugoslavian Federation:
Dravska, the northwest region fed by the Drava, an important tributary of the
Danube River; Hrvatska; Vrbaska; Drinska, the western region fed by the White
Drin tributary emanating from the River Drin in Albania; Dunavska, the eastern
region fed by the Danube River; Hcravska; Zetsca; and Vardarska, the
southernmost region crossed by the Vardar River.

The Yugoslavian Federation was established after World War I - originally as the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, known as "Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata I
Slovenaka." If a "Macedonian" nation had existed, it would have been the Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats, Slovenians and Macedonians. No such nation existed, however.
The Kingdom was dissolved in 1941 at the German invasion. Therefore, if World
War II had not occurred, or if after the War the Communist Party had not ruled,
there would not be a "Macedonia" issue today.

The border between Greece and Serbia was defined in 1913 on the basis of the
advances of the armies of the two nations during the 1912-13 Balkan Wars. The
border between Greece and Bulgaria was defined at the treaty of Bucharest, and
the border with Albania by the treaty of London. Since then, the borders of the
four nations had remained the same.


TOTALLY INCONCEIVABLE, NO HISTORICAL CONNECTION

Be it as it may, the land of "Macedonia" was part and parcel of the ancient
Greek system of city-states. The inhabitants of Macedonia identified themselves
as Greeks; believed in the same gods; shared the same cultural and athletic
activities; and spoke the same language: Greek. It is also of major significance
that the ancient Greeks had placed the habitat of their gods on Mount Olympus in
Macedonia. It would have been totally inconceivable for the Greeks to place the
habitat of their gods in a non-Greek, "barbarian" territory.

Above the land of the ancient Greeks of Macedonia were the lands of the ancient
Dardanians: Dardania. It was in Dardania that the Slavs descended into the
Balkans, and from Dardania to the lower Balkans in Macedonia during the Sixth
Century AD. For three centuries, the Slavs spoke their Slavic tongue - not
language, which had no written or reading form. It was not until the Ninth
Century that two Greek brothers Cyril and Methodios, both of whom were monks,
illuminated them
on Orthodox Christianity and grammatically taught the Slavs their own Slavic
language. Cyril is credited with inventing the Cyrillic alphabet - a modified
version of Greek to accommodate some of the particular non-Greek sounds -
thereby providing them with a tool to learn to read and write in their own
tongue. Accordingly, therefore, the Slavs can not, and do not, have any
historical connection with Macedonia before the Sixth Century, nor any political
bond prior to the Ninth Century.

Unless we accept the absurd notions of the late Turkish Prime Minister and
President Turgut Ozal (who, in his book, "Turkey in Europe," asserts that Homer
as well as Aristotle were Turks), the Macedonians, like all Greeks, had their
own regional identification and leaders: Pericles the Attican, Epaminondas the
Boeotian, Homer the Chian, Pyrrhos the Epirote, Leonidas the Lacaedemonian,
Philip and Alexander the Macedonians, and so on, including in later times
Domini(os) Theotokopoulos the Cretan, who signed his great art as "El Greco" The
"Macedonia question" became an issue in late 1944, and a turbulent controversy
after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990's. In 1944, with the
predominance of the Communist Party in then-Yugoslavia, Marshall Tito, for
reasons of geopolitical expediency for territorial expansion southward toward a
warm water port in the Mediterranean, arbitrarily renamed the area officially
until then "Vardarska" - as shown on the 1939 Yugoslav postage
stamp -
but also known as South Serbia to the "Socialist Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"
and its inhabitants, the "Macedonians."

Tito's action was a consequence of the 1921 Moscow resolve by the "Comintern
(the Communist International)" and the Balkan communist parties to pursue
autonomy for the Macedonia region in order to eventually include the most
strategic territory into the Communist camp.

Tito's pronouncement of a "Macedonian nation" on December 26, 1944 was swiftly
denounced by the United States. Then U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius
dispatched immediately "Circular Airgram (868.014)," determining America's
foreign policy in opposition to Tito's reprehensible action:

"The Department 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 Yugoslavia 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 or political reality, and sees
in its present revival a possible cloak of aggressive action against Greece," to
which the then-Soviet Union's arch-Communist, Joseph Stalin, boasted in 1946:
"They do not have Macedonian consciousness, but they will."

But the statement by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger suffices to
acknowledge, once more, what the Pontos-born, Roman-era historian and geographer
Strabo wrote: "Macedonia, therefore, is Greece." In 1992, Dr. Kissinger
declared in Paris, "I believe that Greece is right to object, and I agree with
Athens. The reason is, I know history, which is not the case with most others,
including most of the government and administration in Washington."

TANTAMOUNT TO A COMMUNIST VICTORY

In the final analysis, therefore, U.S. recognition of a state with the pseudonym
"Macedonia" would be tantamount to a Communist victory after the end of the Cold
War - on an issue which our nation opposed during the Cold War. Upon the
dissolution of Yugoslavia, following the fall of Communism in the early 1990's,
the remnant leaders of Tito's "Socialist Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" dropped
the "Socialist Yugoslav" for the obvious reasons and announced their breakaway
state, "The Republic of Macedonia." Immediately, they announced that the
portions of the Macedonian region within Greece, Bulgaria and Albania were under
foreign "occupation," printing the famous "White Tower" of Thessaloniki in
Greece on their monetary notes; named the city of Thessaloniki (which they call
"Solun") as their nation's "capital" under Greek occupation; printed schoolbooks
and started teaching their children that Macedonia outside their current borders
is under foreign occupation; depicted the "S
un of
Vergina," discovered during excavations of King Philip's tomb in the late
1970's, as the symbol for their "national" flag; and, among myriad other
usurpations, pronounced Alexander the Great their historical ancestor.


Lack of national identity for the Slavs of FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia) does not justify their desire to develop one by usurping someone
else's. In addition, aside from the fact that they themselves are not
Macedonians, the large Albanian and Bulgarian minorities also do not wish to be
identified as such, for they know they are not. The Albanian minority comprises
about one third of FYROM's population, and the Bulgarian minority about one
fourth. Some 250,000 of the Bulgarian minority recently applied for Bulgarian
passports, desiring to be identified as Bulgarians, since Bulgaria is on the
road to membership in the European Union, which FYROM is not primarily due to
its falsified name.

FYROM's total area of only 13,578 square miles (146 miles east-to-west and 93
miles north-to-south) comprises a strip which is a mere 20 miles wide
north-to-south from the Greek border, just one fifth of the ancient Macedonia's
total territory. FYROM's remaining four fifths is located outside the Macedonian
region, including its capital, Skopia (Skopje).

FAIR COMPROMISE


Historical backgrounds and ethnic identities clearly indicate that FYROM in its
entirety can not be accepted as "Macedonia." That its southern one fifth portion
of 20 miles wide be called its "Macedonia Province," similarly to the one in
Greece, would be proper and should not only be acceptable, but also a very fair
compromise. The solution to the FYROM/Macedonia dilemma is for the portions of
the seven southern counties (of the country's 28 total) which fall within the
area of the Macedonia region (i.e., Resen, Bitola, Prilep, Kavadarci, Negotino,
Gevgelija and Strumica) to comprise the nation's "Macedonia Province." The
remaining areas can also have their own "province" identification, in existence
today as in the past: "Planina" to the west, where the majority of the
population is ethnic Albanian and borders with Albania; "Plackovica" to the
east, where the majority of the population is ethnic Bulgarian and borders with
Bulgaria; and "Jakupica," the central and northern po
rtion,
to
include the nation's capital, Skopje, which is inhabited by Slavs, perhaps even
almost entirely by Serbs. Thus, the "Macedonia Province" would contain mostly
the so-called "Slavo-Macedonians."

The official name of the country, with its four provinces and 28 counties, can
then be called by its true identity: "Vardarska," as applied officially before
World War II, or "Dardania," if the inhabitants of the entity wish to identify
themselves with some historical past. Certainly, they should be able to discover
some Dardanian historical past in the four fifths of the land where the ancient
Dardanians lived, rather than attempting to usurp Macedonia's Greek identity of
more than five millennia.

Resolving the "name issue" with proper identification would also have many
immediate and long-term benefits for the Balkan Peninsula; the Mediterranean
region; the European Continent; and for the world at-large. For the Greeks, it
would eliminate their current concern that FYROM is attempting to usurp a
significant part of their Hellenic national identity, and that a "Vardarska" or
a "Dardania" pursue its irredentist policies by seeking to expand its borders
through absorbing the remainder of the Macedonian region, as they currently
advocate and teach in their schools. The many and enormous global problems which
the world is facing today, due to extremist teachings of the Koran by Islamic
"fundamentalists" (a misnomer, for "fanatic extremists"), are serious enough to
require understanding and cooperation to prevent future conflicts.

Continuing to teach the "Falsification of Macedonian History" - a most apropos
book title by the former Governor of Macedonia in Greece, the Honorable Nikolaos
Martis - would create a tumultuous "Balkan" problem in the decades to come,
similar to the racial tensions faced by Europeans in general, and the French in
particular, today.

Kosovo, with its twin ethno-religious problem of Albanian Moslem versus Serbian
Christian animosity, and the unsettled Bosnian triangle of Croatian Christians
versus Serbian Christians versus "Bosnian" Moslems, and also Croatian Catholic
versus Serbian Orthodox, are dangerous enough, not to mention FYROM's own
Albanian Moslem versus Slavic Christian differences. Solving the problem now
would therefore ensure order and peace for Skopje's future.

For the people of present-day FYROM, a name consistent with their true identity
- not someone else's - will, at least eventually, develop a genuine national
consciousness, thereby giving some credibility to their then-idol Joseph
Stalin's statement. Moreover, once it has its proper name, the country will have
a true identity in the United Nations; enjoy the total support of Greece for
membership to both NATO and the European Union; and have Greece's unlimited
promotion
for security of its borders, and of its territorial integrity, against any
potential aggressors, or even internal turmoil it may not be able to contain
itself. And, with proper name identification leading to good relations with its
neighbors, especially under the protection of considerably more powerful Greece,
its people will begin to develop a solid economic infrastructure away from the
chrysalis of Communism, and prosper.

It is therefore of immense and utmost importance that the world's powers,
especially the industrialized societies of Europe and America (not to mention
their own national interests), instruct, convince and lead present-day FYROM to
adhere to international law, by which it was "provisionally" admitted into the
United Nations under the "temporary" name of FYROM, until a suitable name "in
agreement with Greece" would be found. After more than a decade of
intransigence, it is ultimately in FYROM's best national interests to compromise
in line with the stipulations it accepted to become a provisional UN member.

Dr. Lomis is Director Emeritus at the University of
Delaware's International Center.



The Pan-Macedonian Association of America, Sixty one Years of Activity.

[akritas]

HOW THE LIE WAS CREATED

Otecestven Vestnik (Sofia daily), 19 June 1991

STALIN TO BULGARIAN DELEGATION (G. Dimitrov, V. Kolarov, T. Kostov)
The Kremlin, 7 June 1946

Cultural autonomy must be granted to Pirin Macedonia within the framework of Bulgaria. Tito has shown himself more flexible than you - possibly because he lives in a multiethnic state and has had to give equal rights to the various peoples.

Autonomy will be the first step towards the unification of Macedonia, but in view of the present situation there should be no hurry on this matter. Otherwise, in the eyes of the Macedonian people the whole mission of achieving Macedonian autonomy will remain with Tito and you will get the criticism.

You seem to be afraid of Kimon Georgiev, you have involved yourselves too much with him and do not want to give autonomy to Pirin Macedonia. That a Macedonian consciousness has not yet developed among the population is of no account. No such consciousness existed in Belarus either when we proclaimed it a Soviet Republic.

However, later it was shown that Belarusian people did in fact exist. ...