"Macedonian Redux" - Borza

[The Blood of Dorus]

The "scholars" over at Maknews regard Borza as a hero - yet they always seem to ignore the fact that Borza has never stated that the ancient Macedonians were the same as the Slavs of modern FYROM.

However, in this excerpt from "Macedonia Redux" which was written by Borza, he specifically states that the inhabitants of modern FYROM are not the same as the ancient Macedonians. This has incensed the "scholars" over at Maknews.

"Macedonia Redux", Eugene N. Borza
The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity
Frances B. Titchener and Richard F. Moorton, Jr., editors

In the second century B.C. the Romans ended the independence of the five-century-old kingdom of the Macedonians. During that period the Macedonians had emerged from the Balkan backwater to a prominence unanticipated and much heralded. Under the leadership of Philip II, the Macedonians conquered and organized the Greek city-states as a prelude to Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire. Macedon continued to produce talented kings during the Hellenistic era, sufficient to threaten the new Roman order in the East, and perhaps even Italy itself.

The Macedonian kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire, never to recover its independence. During medieval and modem times, Macedonia was known as a Balkan region inhabited by ethnic Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Turks. With the collapse of Ottoman rule in Europe in the early twentieth century, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs fought for control of Macedonia, and when the final treaty arrangements were made in the 1920s, the Macedonian region had been absorbed into three modem states: Greece, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. Despite population exchanges, ethnic minorities were preserved in all states, for example, Slavs and Turks in Greek Macedonia and Thrace, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Greeks in Yugoslav Macedonia, Greeks in Albania, and Greeks and Turks in southwestern Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia). Thus, recent claims based on ethnic conformity and solidarity notwithstanding, the region of Macedonia has, until well into the twentieth century, housed Europe's greatest multiethnic residue, giving its name to the mixed salad, "macédoine."

Peaceful ethnic pluralism has not been a common feature of Balkan life, save under authoritarian regimes such as the Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires and Yugoslavia under Tito. Attempts to establish ethnic purity in the region have varied from simple legal and religious restrictions against cultural expression to outright violence, as in the case of the Bosnian "ethnic cleansing" campaign of the 1990s. In modern Greece the purification device is "Hellenization," the absorption of non-Hellenes into the general Hellenic culture. In the forefront of the Hellenization movement has been the Orthodox Church, centered in the Greek partriarchate at Constantinople. 8 Its centuries-old effort to Hellenize the non-Hellenic Orthodox population of the Balkans was in keeping with the long-standing tradition of the Greek Church as the repository and protector of ancient Hellenism and Hellenic Christianity. Its success in this regard can be measured by the custom of the Turks, in their census reports, of identifying all Orthodox, without respect to ethnicity, as Greek, that is, adherents of the Church centered in Constantinople. With the growth of Serbian and Bulgarian nationalism, the Patriarchy unsuccessfully opposed the establishment of autonomous Serbian and Bulgarian churches in the nineteenth century, as it has the Macedonian church in the twentieth.

The emergence of a Macedonian nationality is an offshoot of the joint Macedonian and Bulgarian struggle against Hellenization. With the establishment of an independent Bulgarian state and church in the 1870s, however, the conflict took a new turn. Until this time the distinction between "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian" hardly existed beyond the dialect differences between standard "eastern" Bulgarian and that spoken in the region of Macedonia,9 and, while there had been disputes over which dialect should be the literary language, the arguments were subordinated to the greater struggle against Hellenization. By 1875, however, the first tracts appeared favoring a Macedonian nationality and language separate from standard Bulgarian,10 and the conflict had been transformed from an anti-Hellenization movement into a Bulgarian-Macedonian confrontation.

The region of Macedonia was freed from Turkish rule by the Balkan Wars (1912-13), and it was partitioned among Serbia (the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918, then Yugoslavia after 1929), Bulgaria, and Greece. Both Macedonian nationalism and a literary language continued to develop, despite the hostility of the three states that now laid claim to the region. 11 Serbs and Bulgarians continued to regard Macedonian as a dialect, not a real language, although, as Thomas Magner once pointed out, the decision about when a dialect becomes a language is sometimes a political, not a linguistic, act.12 The Greeks, under provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), were obligated to permit education and cultural outlets in native tongues for the minorities under Greek administration. Accordingly, a Macedonian grammar was produced in Athens in 1925,13 but never used because of an anti-Slav political climate in Greece in the late 1920s and 1930s, and Greek governments have prohibited the public and private use of Macedonian ever since.14"

"The development of a Macedonian ethnicity continued apace as an internal phenomenon. During World War II, the German forces occupying Yugoslavia exploited latent nationalist feelings, most infamously in organizing the fascist Ustashi group in Croatia. Less well known, however, is the German recognition of Macedonian nationalism. When the Allies persuaded Bulgaria to abandon the Axis in the autumn of 1944, the Germans were forced to reorganize the occupation of Macedonia—which hitherto had been under Bulgarian control—and to assume direct occupation themselves. German administration of Macedonia was short-lived, but the fact that Bulgarian postage stamps used in the area were overprinted "Macedonia" in Macedonian suggests that the Germans were consistent in their policy of encouraging local ethnicity in Macedonia, as they had in several other places in Europe.

Thus it is clear that Tito did not invent either a Macedonian ethnicity or a Macedonian language—as has been alleged—when he created a Macedonian Republic as a part of the postwar Yugoslav federal state. He rather provided legitimacy and support for a movement that had been under way since at least the late nineteenth century.15 Whatever the merits and flaws of Tito's Yugoslavia, it was an experiment in ethnic diversity, based on his recognition that the best hope for a unified South Slav state against traditional antagonists was to recognize and encourage ethnic development within the Yugoslav federal system. Tito's imprimatur on a Macedonian state was an attempt to counter traditional Bulgarian influence in the region of Macedonia. From the Yugoslav federal point of view, one of the best safeguards against the Bulgarians, who were traditional enemies of the Serbs, was to give recognition to the Macedonians as a separate south Slavic ethnicity. (As of this writing, the Bulgarians, like the Greeks, still do not recognize the Macedonians as a distinct nationality.) Tito's policy was the culmination of a process that had been under way for the better part of a century; he provided legitimacy for Macedonia and accelerated a natural passage of nation-building already well under way.

Which modern state has the most legitimate claim to the territory of the ancient Macedonian kingdom? All and none. If the claim is purely geographical, Greece, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Macedonia have equal claims on the land of the ancient Macedonians now lying within the boundaries of these respective national states. That is, the regions south of Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia, around Thessaloniki in Greece, and around Blavgoegrad in southwestern Bulgaria are equally situated within the land of ancient Macedonia, and the residents of all three areas can claim legitimacy based on present occupancy.

If the claim is based on ethnicity, it is an issue of a different order. Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions—mostly émi-grés in the United States, Canada, and Australia—even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity. 16 For contemporary Greeks, however, it is a different matter, as it is an article of faith among most of them that the ancient Macedonians were Greek, and that no one but modem Greeks may claim rights to the name and culture of the ancient Macedonians.17 No matter that genetic purity in the Balkans is a fantasy, or that there is no such thing as a cultural continuity in the Macedonian region from antiquity to the present. Politics in the Balkans transcends historical and biological truths.

The propaganda campaign in Greece has been forceful. And one need not look to Greek governments as the source of the propaganda; the feelings are widespread and deeply felt. There are sufficient private political, cultural, and academic societies to formulate and maintain anti-Macedonian sentiments.18 In 1992, my students and I boarded an Olympic airplane in Santorini for the flight to Athens. Pasted to the exterior of the fuselage next to the rear door through which we entered was a printed Olympic Aviation pilots' union sticker that read "MACEDONIA IS GREEK. Always was, Always will be. STUDY HISTORY!" in English. During the short flight to Athens, the cabin attendants passed out copies of the sticker to the passengers, most of whom were foreign tourists. The phrases "Macedonia. 4000 years [sic] of Greek history" and "Macedonia is Greek" became a feature of ordinary Greek life, forming postmarks on letters processed in the mail system, and even adorning the paper table mats distributed by an Athenian wine company to Greek restaurants in the United States. Telephone cards now widely used throughout Greece bear the inscription "Macedonia is one and only and it is Greek," in Greek and English, despite the fact that for most of the 2,600 years since the genesis of the ancient Macedonian kingdom ethnic Greeks have been a minority of the population. The overwhelming Hellenic impact on Greek Macedonia is largely the result of the settlements and population exchanges of the early 1920s. Even Thessaloniki, with its rich Byzantine architectural heritage, counted far fewer Greeks than either Sephardic Jews or Turks until after the Balkan Wars of 1912-13.

Rumor was rife in Athens that the paper currency of the Republic of Macedonia featured the White Tower of Thessaloniki, a monument that, although probably Turkish in origin, had come to symbolize the city since its incorporation into the Greek state in 1912. In fact, no monument that has at any time been within the boundaries of the Greek state appears on any Macedonian currency. The currency designs consist mainly of medieval churches, fortifications, and quaint village scenes. 19 And until recently, many persons in Athens believed the false rumor that the airport in Skopje had been named after Alexander the Great.

Nowhere is the battle fought more fiercely than among Greek and Macedonian émigré communities in Australia, Canada, and the United States.20 Some of the energy in this conflict results from the passion of post-World War II immigrants from Macedonia who introduced a more intense anti-Bulgarian nationalism than had existed among the older generations of émigrés, some of whom still had some pro-Bulgarian feelings dating from the early twentieth century. Some of the conflict was generated by Greek immigrants reacting against the writings and demonstrations of the Macedonians, often exacerbated by the residue of hatreds generated by the Greek Civil War. And certainly the fervency and frequency of clashes among émigrés can be explained by the simple fact that they were freer to express their political views in their newly adopted Western democracies than they had been in their Balkan homelands. Such is the concentration of feeling among the émigrés that it is difficult to know whether they are being driven by governments in Athens and Skopje or are the driving force themselves. Among Greek and Macedonian émigrés, much of the hostility is directed toward one another, but there is another, more subtle, campaign designed to influence public opinion in the English-speaking world.

Among the opening rounds fired in the struggle for public opinion was an exhibition of antiquities that included recently excavated materials from the ancient Macedonian royal burials at Vergina in northern Greece. Opening in Washington in 1980, the exhibition and its offshoots toured a number of U.S., Canadian, and Australian cities during the next two years, under the title "The Search for Alexander." While undeniably a lavish display of rich and beautiful objects as well as a tribute to the skills of Greek archaeologists whose efforts produced the materials, the exhibition—for which the Greek government amended its own antiquities law in order to permit these items from the national heritage to travel abroad—was widely seen as a device to link modern Greece with ancient Macedonia.21 The Macedonian community responded by establishing a chair in (Slavic) Macedonian Studies at the University of Melbourne, much to the outrage of the active Greek community in Australia.

In response, the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies sponsored the First International Congress on Macedonian Studies, designed to "trace the Greek origins of the people who inhabited Macedonia from earliest antiquity through to modem times." 22 It became clear to all concerned that many aspects of the Congress would become politicized, as the large Macedonian community in Melbourne was determined to disrupt the proceedings, which they believed were part of a "world-wide campaign organized by the Greek government" to deny the legitimacy and identity of the Macedonian people. For Melbourne is a hotbed of ill feeling between the Greek and Macedonian communities. There were shouting matches and occasional minor bloodshed in the streets.

In an effort to repair the damage done from a politicized 1988 conference, the Institute sponsored a second international congress in 1991, with its theme strictly confined to ancient Macedonia. Unlike the first congress, which was dominated by Greek speakers with a clear political agenda, the second was coordinated with faculty from the University of Melbourne, and a number of foreign scholars—including this author—were invited to participate. In general, the quality of papers, most of which were on "safe" subjects, was high. But Balkan political passions, always lying just beneath the surface, erupted as it became dear that both Greek and Macedonian émi-grés and some scholars from Greece were unable to separate the past from the present. Analyses of the ancient Macedonians, however soundly based on impartial scholarship, that did not seem to support modem political views, were attacked, and at one point the Greek delegation from Thessaloniki refused to continue their participation in the scholarly sessions until a certain Western scholar apologized for having presented conclusions that appeared to them to be politically incorrect.

In 1989 (during which year, incidentally, a new exhibition of ancient Macedonian antiquities toured three Australian cities), the Pan-Macedonian Association, an umbrella organization of local Hellenic Macedonian cultural societies in the United States and Canada, produced a five-day symposium cosponsored by Columbia University, "Macedonia: History, Culture, Art," a program of public lectures and seminars for high-school and college teachers on ancient, medieval, and modem Macedonia. Despite efforts by the Greek and American participants to avoid the most sensitive political issues, parts of the symposium were disrupted by Macedonian demonstrators from Toronto who had been denied an opportunity to present their point of view. In 1988, the Smithsonian Institution in cooperation with the Embassy of Yugoslavia presented a two-day symposium in Washington on the heritage and culture of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. In 1990, the Smithsonian Associates presented a lecture series on the glories of Greece, with an emphasis on the Greek heritage in Macedonia.

Macedonian and Greek disputants, both private and government-sponsored, have thus courted the international scholarly community to provide a dignified venue for the continuing struggle. It appears to lend to the conflict the legitimacy of the Academy: Columbia University, the University of Melbourne, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution. But each of these events was marked by behavior that could not be controlled, as extremists from one side or the other disrupted proceedings or— worse—the papers and discussion presented by representatives of the scholarly community failed to provide the analysis of the past so eagerly sought by the contending factions. Scholars neutral in the conflict and whose conclusions are based upon the rules of evidence are looked upon with scorn: Greeks and Macedonians do not want neutrality, they want support, and, failing to get it from those who possess legitimate scholarly credentials, they feel betrayed and become hostile. 23

Many Greeks today on both official and popular levels are disappointed and bitter that the publicity given over to the Macedonian Question within Greece, much of it designed to influence foreign opinion, has had little effect By 1994, most governments had recognized the new Macedonian state. Newspapers, geographers, cartographers, international postal authorities, and even beauty pageants throughout the world, like individual foreign governments, accepted the state as "Macedonia," although, even at the present writing, Greece continues to refer to it as Macedonia (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). That is, the Greeks have not been successful in their efforts to persuade the rest of the world of their position.24 One Greek critic of the situation (see n. 25 below) has written with reference to German journalists visiting Greece: "They might have lent a more sympathetic ear to Greece's apprehensions and taken them more seriously had they not been greeted at every turn by the vast, shoddy industry that has been made out of the sacred names and symbols of Macedonia and the kings of the Macedonian dynasty purely for domestic consumption; had they not been peremptorily commanded by signs and leaflets at airports and stations to study Greek history, and dragged round museums and archaeological sites to be shown things they regarded as self-evident—with precisely the opposite effect from that which was intended."

Thus, whatever other reasons may account for the Greek failure, the style with which the Greek position was presented may have been a contributing factor. It was a negligence also to pay heed to the warning made in the 1920s by one of the greatest statesman in Greek history, when Eleftherios Venizelos warned that Europeans would not be moved by arguments about "Greek rights." The appropriate term is "Greek interests," a framework for persuasion that, if presented effectively, might help sway world opinion to the Greek side on matters of international concern.25 In fact, sentimental Greek rights, not Greek interests, have dominated the Greek position in the present dispute. There is a strong Greek "interests" case to be made for stability, the recognition of existing frontiers, protection against external pandering to irredentist notions among ethnic minorities within Greece, and economic cooperation in this part of the Balkans. But the Greeks have attempted mainly to appeal to "rights" based on the distant past, and in the doing so, have made claims about that past that have dubious scholarly foundations (although see n. 32).

This is a tale of two Balkan nation-states. One has a long, distinguished history based in part upon the fame of an ancient society and the heritage of Byzantine Christianity. Modern Greeks point with pride to the power and glory of their past. But there may be something else at work in the Greek mentality. Until the early nineteenth century, Greeks of the Diaspora had been prominent throughout Europe in diplomacy, commerce, and cultural affairs. The courts and counting houses employed or were managed by Greeks whose skills in these matters were legendary in Europe for centuries, and who had a telling influence on European life out of proportion to their small numbers. With the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence and the consequent establishment of the modern Hellenic state in the 1820s and 1830s, many of these talented Greeks joined the effort to build the new nation. But in so doing, Greek influence abroad waned. 26 In time, the Greeks, who had once been prominent in antiquity, in Byzantine times, and in modern Europe found that they were now relegated to obscurity, dependent upon major European states to provide financial resources and military security against the Turks, struggling to maintain a cohesive govern-merit in a remote tip of the Balkans, and engaged in an internal conflict between an imported authoritarian monarchy and the liberal notion that the inventors of democracy should have progressive constitutional government. Thus emerged one of the enduring characteristics of modern Greek life: a desperate attempt to regain a past glory, rooted in the cultural accomplishments of antiquity and the religious and political might of Byzantium. An identification with the ancient Macedonians is part of that attempt.

On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish their singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians. One need understand only a single geopolitical fact: As one measures conflicting Serb and Bulgarian claims over the past nine centuries, they intersect in Macedonia. Macedonia is where the historical Serb thrust to the south and the historical Bulgarian thrust to the west meet. This is not to say that present Serb and Bulgarian ambitions will follow their historical antecedents. But this is the Balkans, where the past has precedence over the present and the future.

The twentieth-century development of a Macedonian ethnicity, and its recent evolution into independent statehood following the collapse of the Yugoslav state in 1991, has followed a rocky road. In order to survive the vicissitudes of Balkan history and politics, the Macedonians, who have had no history, need one. They reside in a territory once part of a famous ancient kingdom, which has borne the Macedonian name as a region ever since and was called ''Macedonia'' for nearly half a century as part of Yugoslavia. And they speak a language now recognized by most linguists outside Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece as a south Slavic language separate from Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian. Their own so-called Macedonian ethnicity had evolved for more than a century, and thus it seemed natural and appropriate for them to call the new nation "Macedonia" and to attempt to provide some cultural references to bolster ethnic survival. One of these cultural references was the 16-pointed sunburst that was a symbol of the ancient Macedonians, as known from recent archaeological discoveries at the old Macedonian center of Aegae, near the Greek village of Vergina. 27 The yellow sunburst became the centerpiece of the new red Macedonian national flag, and was featured on a postage stamp. It was perhaps no coincidence that in the spring of 1992, only a few months after the declaration of Macedonian independence, the Greek government released a 100-drachma coin that bore the same symbol.28 The sunburst appears on the arm patches of the uniforms of crowd-control police in Athens. It replaces the letter 0 in the logo of the Greek television network "Makedonia." It is the symbol of the Bank of Macedonia Thrace. It adorns some military vehicles on the streets of Athens, and is prominently displayed at the gates of an army camp at Litochoro below Mount Olympus. The Greek Parliament made the sunburst an official symbol of the Greek state, and the Great Sunburst War commenced, both sides claiming rights to the sunburst, with Greeks adamantly demanding that the Macedonians abandon their official use of the symbol. The conflict raged for three years, apparently ending in September 1995 when Macedonia agreed to relinquish the sun-burst as a national symbol as part of negotiations designed to resolve a number of outstanding issues.

It is difficult to know whether an independent Macedonian state would have come into existence had Tito not recognized and supported the development of Macedonian ethnicity as part of his ethnically organized Yugoslavia. He did this as a counter to Bulgaria, which for centuries had a historical claim on the area as far west as Lake Ohrid and the present border of Albania. What Greeks seem not to have understood is that a viable small Macedonian state in the region where Bulgarians and Serbs have clashed in the past is perhaps the best security that Greeks could hope for along their northern border. Instead of encouraging the development of such a state, they have done virtually everything short of military action to thwart its continued existence. Common sense would dictate that a Greek-Macedonian alliance would be mutually beneficial. The Vardar-Axios river valley is the ancient historically significant route from the Aegean Sea to the inner Balkans. Close ties would benefit Thessaloniki, the outlet for such trade.

Moreover, Macedonia is poor and economically undeveloped; it had remained the backwater of modern Yugoslavia, as anyone who traveled in the region before the breakup of Yugoslavia knows firsthand. The Greeks possess the Balkans' finest skills in banking, trade, and technology, much needed in Macedonia. Both nations would profit enormously from a sound economic and geopolitical link. 29

It remains to be seen whether the Greeks will abandon their hostility to a neighboring state bearing the name of a famous ancient kingdom with which the Greeks claim kinship. Or whether the Macedonians will honor their pledge not to harbor irredentist notions or to intervene on behalf of the Macedonian minority in Greece.30 Or whether the Bulgarians will reassert their historic medieval claims on the region. Or whether the growing Albanian minority in Macedonia will continue to provoke repressive measures on the part of the government in Skopje.31 It is, all told, a very Balkan problem, in a part of the world where many people prefer a past bent out of shape rather than a reasonable and peaceful vision of the future.32"

[Tsontos]

The Macedonian kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire, never to recover its independence. During medieval and modem times, Macedonia was known as a Balkan region inhabited by ethnic Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Turks.

He jumps straight from the Roman invasion to 'medival times'. Does he beleive that the Roman invasion wiped out the Macedonians? Or was it gradual? In any case I think he knows that if he admits the Macedonians simply became like all the other Greeks under Roman rule and then became Romaioi (Byzantine Greeks) then it would hurt his signature claim, the claim that has made him famous; that the ancient Macedonians werent Greeks


Btw what is the other historian whose babies skops want to carry? Green. what is his opinion

[The Blood of Dorus]

Originally Posted by Voulgaroktonos

He jumps straight from the Roman invasion to 'medival times'. Does he beleive that the Roman invasion wiped out the Macedonians? Or was it gradual? In any case I think he knows that if he admits the Macedonians simply became like all the other Greeks under Roman rule and then became Romaioi (Byzantine Greeks) then it would hurt his signature claim, the claim that has made him famous; that the ancient Macedonians werent Greeks

Yeah, he is vague on this in the article but I think that even though he believes the ancient Macedonians were "not regarded as Greeks", that they eventually became Greeks and even had Greek origins:

In his book "Before Alexander: constructing early Macedonia” (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1999), Borza is "strongly opposed" to attempts "to define the Macedonians in terms of some other people": according to Borza they were "a unique people in antiquity who gradually became Hellenized, and who are unrelated to any modern people" (pg 39 n. 21).

Borza also states they the ancient Macedonians "gradually became Hellenized".

In an earlier paper Borza also states:

"Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house.

The 'highlanders' or 'Makedones' of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin to those that at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical 'Dorians', and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians.

That is, we may suggest that northwest Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of proto-Greek from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country."

Here he implies a Greek origin to the ancient Macedonians (though he also states in sibsequent works that later they were viewed as a separate ethnos from the Greeks during their heyday).

So originally Greek, then "regarded" as a separate ethos, and finally becoming Hellenized during Hellenistic and Roman times.

Even though the FYROMians love him, he never, ever equates the ancient Macedonians with them, even when he is disparaging Greeks.

So in reality he is of no benefit to their attempts to prove that the modern Slavs of FYROM have any link at all to the ancient Macedonians.

As Borza states:

If the claim is based on ethnicity, it is an issue of a different order. Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions—mostly émi-grés in the United States, Canada, and Australia—even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity.

[Tsontos]

I was just on maknews and I am pleased to announce that I have a new signature made from a quote on maknews:

They were also women in the macedonian ancient army and also they were part of macedonian olympic games

[akritas]

Originally Posted by BigTakis

I was just on maknews and I am pleased to announce that I have a new signature made from a quote on maknews:

I think that we must open a thread with all bourdes that Skopjans have said in the web

[Tsontos]

Originally Posted by Eugene Borza

Rumor was rife in Athens that the paper currency of the Republic of Macedonia featured the White Tower of Thessaloniki, a monument that, although probably Turkish in origin, had come to symbolize the city since its incorporation into the Greek state in 1912. In fact, no monument that has at any time been within the boundaries of the Greek state appears on any Macedonian currency. The currency designs consist mainly of medieval churches, fortifications, and quaint village scenes. 19 And until recently, many persons in Athens believed the false rumor that the airport in Skopje had been named after Alexander the Great. "

Did anyone notice how wrong Borza is here? Obviously about the airport but also about the currency. it was no rumour. it existed and then they took it out of circulation. Do you homework Borza!

[Foti66]

Originally Posted by Voulgaroktonos

Did anyone notice how wrong Borza is here? Obviously about the airport but also about the currency. it was no rumour. it existed and then they took it out of circulation. Do you homework Borza!

Voulgaroktone,
Where did you get the quote above? Are you sure it is not fictitious?

[Tsontos]

Is what ficticious?

The excerpt about the airport and the bank note is from Borza's Macedonian Redux which was published in 1999!