Dispute Over Macedonia
The Greeks fervently insist that they have a patent on the name Macedonia while the rest of the EC, ignoring Macedonia’s pleas for recognition, goes along to avoid rocking the boat.
The Greek demand that the Republic of Macedonia change its name is absurd. Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander were not Greek. They were Macedonians with a distinct and separate culture and a language that was unintelligible to the Greeks.
Moreover, Greeks considered them to be barbarians. The fact that Alexander adopted Hellenism and spread it militarily may make him an honorary Greek, but ethnically he was an ancestor of the present-day Albanians.
The Slavic Macedonians were a much later import into the area, and they named their language, culture and tradition after the land that they settled at the end of the 6th Century AD. The ancient land that was Macedon is today divided up among Greece, Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia.
Throughout its history, Macedonia has been in the hands of Greeks, Romans, Bulgarians, Serbs and Turks. Greece has no more right to the name than do any of the others.
In fact, their demand for exclusive rights to the name is as unreasonable as would be any country’s demand for all the territory of ancient Macedonia.
KATARINA MIJATOVIC
San Francisco
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