Historical revisionism / negationism in the Balkans

[akritas]

Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form (see historical revisionism) it is the reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate.

Historical revisionism can be used as a label to describe the views of self-taught historians who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence. This usage has occurred because some authors who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence (such as David Irving, a proponent of Holocaust denial), have called themselves "historical revisionists.

Examples of historical revisionism in Balkans are the Macedonism and Albanianism.

MACEDONISM is the political idea prevalent in the Republic of Macedonia advocates revising history in order to project an ethnic group that formed in the 20th century - ethnic Macedonians - in the context of the 19th century and even in the middle ages. For example, Bulgarian Tsar Samuil is denied the Bulgarian nature of his kingdom, despite overwhelming evidence supporting it, and is defined as a "Slavic" or "Macedonian" king. Further attempts are made to deny the Hellenic nature of the ancient kingdom of Macedon and to seek connections between present day ethnic Macedonians and the Ancient Macedonians.

Fundamentally, history knows that the "Macedonianism" of Vardar Province's slavophone inhabitants and Albanians is exclusively based on the role played by external factors of paramount importance when in the early 1940s they were transformed into "Macedonians" for political reasons by communist dictators (Tito, Stalin, and Dimitrov) and infamous communist organizations (Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation).'" In reality, it was not even a self-ascription or ascription by others and assignment of a cause, but a dictatorial order, a forceful conversion that preceded the FYROM Slavs' self-ascription as "Macedonians," resulting in an unorthodox and scandalous creation of a new artificial ethnicity in a manner similar to Byelorussia's formation by Lenin and Stalin.

As Danforth pointed out,

"Given the common nationalist view of the immutability of identity, conversion from one identity to another [by ascription by others] is bound to raise serious questions of authenticity and legitimacy

.

He also pointed out (p. 100) that

"It is possible precisely because Greeks and Macedonians are not born, they are made. National identities, in other words, are not biologically given, they are socially constructed" (p. 87).

That is what happened to the Slavs of the People's Republic of Macedonia. They were not born ethnic Macedonians, their Macedonian ethnicity was constructed by the state in 1943-1945. In contrast, the Greek Macedonians, whose forebears always lived in Hellenic Macedonia, always spoke Greek, were not made Macedonians by a totalitarian communist system.......they were born Macedonians."

What characteristics (historical, cultural, genetic, linguistic, or anthropological) does the FYROM population possess- besides inhabiting a section of the former Vardar Province - to be described by communists first, by anthropologists later, as "Macedonian"?

Why did the Slav "Macedonians" describe themselves as Bulgarians from 1870 to 1943 -and many do so today - waiting for almost seventy-five years to be transformed into "Macedonians" by the dictatorial powers of a communist state.

[pankration]

Read the rant about revisionism on www.fightingbest.com if you want a simpler take on Akritas' position.

[akritas]

We have hear from the FYROMacedonians many options regarding theirs history. Actually theirs history is under Construction according a very clever graphic that created a diaspora Greek ling time ago. Theirs artificial history are made or support (some times involuntary) from a small number of historians but with a strong influence because the big financial (ag Soros)and political (e.g. US Administration) support.

Historical revisionism from the FYROMacedonians or better the Macedonists (like Stefou, Borza, Baddian e.t.c.) is the exercise whereby historians revise their opinions on historical events in the face of new evidence. It is an essential part of the history writing process. Revisionism(with quotes) is a distortion of history practiced by persons, usually inspired by anti-hellenism or a desire to rehabilitate the Nationalism (any kind), or both. The more accurate description of "revisionists", is "deniers". They describe themselves as revisionists because they think it gives them an air of respectability.

History (according Standard Dictionary of the English Language) is the recorded narrative of past events, especially those concerning a particular period, nation, individual, etc. It recounts events with careful attention to their importance, their mutual relations, their causes and consequences, selecting and grouping events on the ground of their interest or importance. It can be seen from this that history acknowledges the existence of events and facts and seeks to understand how they came about, what they resulted in, how they are interconnected and what they mean.

The distinctions need to be made among facts, analysis and interpretation.
Facts are demonstrably empirical events whose occurrence can be proven using evidentiary methods.
Analysis is the method of determining or describing the nature of a thing by resolving it into its parts.
Interpretation is the attempt to give the meaning of something. It follows that facts lead to analysis which leads to interpretation. And it follows that each step in the process is more subjective than the preceding step.
In this context history is innductive in its methodology, in that it accumulates the facts tries to determine their nature and their connectivities and then attempts to weave them into an understandable and meaningful mosaic.

FYROMacedonian revisionists depart from the conclusion that the Macedonians were not Greeks, did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion. Put another way they reverse the proper methodology described above thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head. That is not to say that historians never depart from a preconceived or desired resultthey often do. But in adhering rigorously to the correct methodology they accept that the result of their investigation may not be what they envisaged at the beginning. They are prepared to adapt their theories to that reality.

Indeed, they are often required to revise their conclusions based on the facts. To put it tritely, "revisionists" revise the facts based on their conclusion.
Why they do this is not the subject of this piece, but a few examples of the distortions, evasions and denials that it forces on them will illustrate how intellectually dishonest it is. And it should be remembered that they are forced on them, since FYROMacedonians (and not only) revisionists are denying a historical occurrence, then distorting the facts into accord with that denial.

I am curious what will be your next Historical Revensionist Finding ?

[akritas]

Historical revisionism can be used as a label to describe the views of self-taught historians who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence. This usage has occurred because some authors who publish articles that deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence (such as David Irning, a proponent of Holocaust Denial), have called themselves "historical revisionists".Revisionist history is also used to promote or slander persons, or promote or discredit an idea — for example, bringing evidence that Alexander was homosexual. (Actually only Greek reacted in this part of the revensionism when the FYROMacedonians make silence.)

Seferis quoted "By erasing a part of the History past ,then will erase and a part of the History future"


Slavonic Macedonians Revensionists wanted in other words, to fabricate a nation. Maria Nystazopoulou Plekidou give the best desciption and aim of the FYROMacedonian Historical Revensionism.The means that they used were the following:

1.Separate state organization:
All the local state organizations which were created, with Skopje as the centre, within the framework of the federal government of Yugoslavia, were called "Macedonian": "Macedonian government", "Macedonian Parliament", etc. Thus this term acquired a new political and state dimension, which in the course of time became established.

2. Separate language:
The Yugoslav Constitution recognized a local dialect as the official language; it was called "Macedonian" and was considered equal to the Serbo-Croatian and the Slovenian languages. This "Macedonian" dialect, which until then had only been considered a dialect of the Bulgarian language, "was purged" of lingustic elements which might create disputes in the future, became the official language of the reagion, and has been taught in schools ever since. Thus the children started using it and became accustomed to it, whichever language or dialect they used at home. In this way the new postwar generation of the region acquired a new linguistic instrument which was imposed "from above", by state will and for political reasons.

3. Independent Church:
Despite the fact that communist ideology does not accept religion, religious sentiment was deeply rooted in the inhabitants of the region and the Church was closely related to their historical traditions. It is for this reason that the "Autocephalous Macedonian Church" was founded in 1964, after communist party intervention, with Ochrid as its seat, despite the strong reactions of the Serbian Patriarchate. This emancipation was a blatant violation of the canon law of the Orthodox Church and was effected in order to reinforce the autonomy of "Macedonia" vis-a-vis Serbia - as autonomy which was expressed by the slogan "One State, one Church, one Nation".

4. Separate nationality:
In order that their political existence could be consolidated and their general political aims strengthened, it was essential that the population of the region became consious of Macedonia as a separate nation. For this reason they attempted to create and propagate a "Macedonian" national cosniousness amongst the inhabitants of Southern Yugoslavia. In this endeavour it was essential to project a separate historical past, to "fabricate" a "Macedonian" history. Historians were mobilized and an "Institute of National History" was founded in Skopje. It was instantly staffed by many scholars who started conducting extensive research in libraries and archives, gathering a huge amount of material and publishing books, reviews and journals at an impressive rate.

By means of their studies and publications they attemped to reconstruct and re-interpret historical data in order to fulfil their objectives.

Their first aim was to cut off every link between the so-called "Macedonians" and the Bulgarians, as a well as the Serbs, and to convince the people that they belonged to a separate Slavic nation, the "Macedonian" one. Therefore the history of the region, as well as the language, had to be "purged" of all Bulgarian and Serbian elements. All Bulgarian and Serbian historical data connected to that region - historical events, people, activities and intellectual work - were renamed "Macedonian", so that they could be incorporated into the new "Macedonian" history which was then being written, or, if they did not fit into the new historical frame work and guidelines, they were denounced as hostile.

The second aim was to eliminate Greek character of Macedonia and Macedonian history; and this would be achieved by minimizing the Greek presence in this region and misinterpreting or falsifying their role, specifically the cultural and intellectual contribution of Hellenism, the orthodox Greek clergy and Greek schools.

The third aim was to search for, fabricate and project the historical development of the so-called "Macedonian people", so as to prove the separate national identity of the "Macedonians", as well as their cohesion and continuity from ancient times until today. It should be noted that this attempt was the reverse of normal methods: that is, they studied modern history first and turned to the study of Antiquity later.

The fourth aim was to create a Great Idea, which would bring awareness to the masses. So the historians of Skopje started declaring that Macedonia, as a whole, was a Slavic country both in its historical tradition and its ethnic composition. For this reason, it had to be united and form a unified state. After World War II, only the Yugoslavian part was re-established nationally within the framework of the Yugoslav Federation. The other two parts, Aegean Macedonia and Pirin Macedonia would have to be restored, i.e., to be united with Yugoslav Macedonia.

Revisionist history consists in the art of discerning fraud and the courage to publicly strip illusion, even when the whole world is clamoring violently for it and the FYROMacedonians with theirs Supporters as quoted in my previous post make theirs work very well.

What we the Greeks shall we do in order to protect the Macedonia history, our History, the Hellenic History from these Revisionists ?

Helpfull Source
1-Maria Nystaozopoulou Pelekidou, The Macedonian Question, online here

[akritas]

As I mentioned except the Macedonism one other and escalated form of Historical Revsionism is the Albanianism. The greatest example came from the web site of the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Greek geographer, Ptholemeous, has witnessed the existence of Albanians and Albanian language in the second
century AD.

As you see in this quote Albaniansl revisionists change the History by the distortion of the specific historical account.
Ptolemy mentions the Illyrian tribe of the Albani, and their principal city, Albanopolis, and not the Albanians or theirs language

Albanians are the direct successors of the Illyrians

Is known that this claim is controvesial. I dont want to go further because there is a similar thread as about this Historical Revensionism.

By the end of the fifth century BC, the Illyrians entered the road of slave-ownership, and well-known cities of that time, which exist even today, like Durrahium (Durresi), Apolonia, Butroti (Butrinti), Scodra (Shkodra), Lissus (Lezha), etc, were founded mainly along the sea shore

In the specific quote is obvious that Albanians leave historical insinuations as about in whom founding these known cities . Of course not one word as about the Greek presence in the South Albania.

[akritas]

“Pro-Serbians” vs. “Pro-Bulgarians”: Revisionism in Post-Socialist Macedonian Historiography

By Ulf Brunnbauer, Institute of East European Studies, Free University of Berlin (March 2005)

After 1990, historians in the Republic of Macedonia soon settled in accepting communist-time scholarship as the base on which to build further research. The reluctance for a thorough re-evaluation of communist historiography was mainly caused by the fact that the very nation of Macedonia was a result of communist Yugoslav policies, and this historiography had played a major role in the nation-building process. Historians therefore feared that substantial critique of communist historiography and of the Yugoslav period would jeopardize Macedonian national identity.
There was also no official effort for a re-evaluation of the communist past. Cracks in this consensus occurred after 1998, when the anti-communist opposition came to power.
Revisionist tendencies appeared which portrayed Yugoslavia as a peoples’ prison and tried to rehabilitate personalities from Macedonian history, previously kept out of the national pantheon. The main dividing line was the one between historians who kept to the radical dissociation of Macedonian from Bulgarian history, and those who accepted the cultural proximity between these two peoples. Both tendencies, however, shared their basically nationalistic conceptualization of the past.

This institute, which is by far the leading historical research institution in Macedonia, was charged by law to write the history of the Macedonian people and thereby to contribute to the consolidation of the imagined community of Macedonians, to which it has been devoting almost all its efforts ever since...

An important means to make the Macedonians different from the Bulgarians and to buttress Macedonian claims for national and ethnic distinctiveness was to dissociate Macedonian from Bulgarian history and to de-emphasize, or deny any relation between these two peoples. ... They declared the 10th century empire of Samuil, which hitherto had been known only as a Bulgarian state (as such it was also called by contemporary Byzantine sources), a Macedonian affair and began to trace the differences between Macedonians and Bulgarians in the time of the Slav's arrival in the Balkans (6 to 7th centuries).


After 1990, historians in the Republic of Macedonia soon settled in accepting communist-time scholarship as the base on which to build further research. The reluctance for a thorough re-evaluation of communist historiography was mainly caused by the fact that the very nation of Macedonia was a result of communist Yugoslav policies, and this historiography had played a major role in the nation-building process.Historians therefore feared that substantial critique of communist historiography and of the Yugoslav period would jeopardize Macedonian national identity.
There was also no official effort for a re-evaluation of the communist past. Cracks in this consensus occurred after 1998, when the anti-communist opposition came to power. Revisionist tendencies appeared which portrayed Yugoslavia as a peoples' prison and tried to rehabilitate personalities from Macedonian history, previously kept out of the national pantheon. The main dividing line was the one between historians who kept to the radical dissociation of Macedonian from Bulgarian history, and those who accepted the cultural proximity between these two peoples. Both tendencies, however, shared their basically nationalistic conceptualization of the past."