What is Macedonia and who are Macedonians?

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Crvena zvezda

They can't be since less then 5% of FYROM is in the territory of ancient Macedon. Look below, ancient Macedon imposed on current boundaries:

Since you were so kind, and provided us with a wikipedia map, I'll provide some more maps.
Like this one:


or this one:

Originally Posted by Crvena zvezda

The Slavic presence in Aegean Macedonia is grossly exagerrated.

I wouldn't bet on that.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Impressive.. there is virtually no ancient Macedonian territory in the Republic of Skopje, FYROM, or whatever else it's called. What made them come with the idea that they are the heirs to ancient Macedonia?

Try this one:


Note that it doesn't include Skopje(Scopi), but it includes about 90% of contemporary Republic of Macedonia.

[Crvena zvezda]

I still hold the view that Slavic presence in Greece is grossly exagerrated.

Furthermore, those maps are not contigous with ancient Macedon. Very little of FYROM is part of the territory of ancient Macedon. The region now referred to as Macedonia (the wider region in your map) is not contigous with what the territory of ancient Macedon was. The FYROMians have no connection to ancient Macedon. They are not a mixture of Slavs and ancient Greeks. The slavs in what is now Greek Macedonia never were FYROMians, they were Bulgarians and most fled after WWI. There were probably only a couple of thousand left after that and most of them were expelled for communist sympathies.

Furthermore. FYROM is a relatively new nation -- created post-1945 in a region where the people did not have an ethnic/national affiliation and where the people only referred to them selves as Slavs.

[NatVox]

Originally Posted by Monolith

Try this one:

A map of Macedonian motherland, or of an expansion of the Kingdom of Macedonia?

[agamemnon]

So The Macedonians Were Isolated For Thousends Of Years Waitting To Get Mixed Up With The Fyromians.they Had No Contact With The Greeks For Thousends Of Years (if We Adopt Your Point Of View). The Fact That They Had The Same Language With The Greeks Is A Small Detail I Guess.


I Understand That All Fyromians Were Raised To Beleive That They Are Macedonians, And Its Hard To Change Their Minds.we Have Along Way For That......

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by agamemnon

So The Macedonians Were Isolated For Thousends Of Years Waitting To Get Mixed Up With The Fyromians.they Had No Contact With The Greeks For Thousends Of Years (if We Adopt Your Point Of View). The Fact That They Had The Same Language With The Greeks Is A Small Detail I Guess.


I Understand That All Fyromians Were Raised To Beleive That They Are Macedonians, And Its Hard To Change Their Minds.we Have Along Way For That......

Thousands years, don't be funny. I know who and what i am. I don't need to proof that bacause of some neighbours

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

A map of Macedonian motherland, or of an expansion of the Kingdom of Macedonia?

Photoshop mate?

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Crvena zvezda

I still hold the view that Slavic presence in Greece is grossly exagerrated.

Suit yourself.

Furthermore, those maps are not contigous with ancient Macedon.

Of course they aren't. They represent the expansion of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. And that means that ancient Macedonians(whether they were Greeks or not) had to come in the new areas of expansion physically. And that would mean that they had surely left their genetic heritage in the latter lands. They were only humans, after all.

Very little of FYROM is part of the territory of ancient Macedon.

Perhaps, but wikipedia map is just a lame excuse for a source.

The FYROMians have no connection to ancient Macedon.

This is just untrue. You don't have to be genius to figure out that Aegean Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia are the first neighbors, so they have to share genetic heritage to some degree. For example, their men share the frequency of 50% or higher, of the same genetic markers. Every nation shares some blood with its closest neighbor, and you can literally spit form one Macedonia to another. You do the math.

They are not a mixture of Slavs and ancient Greeks.

Of course they aren't, they are a mix of much more "components", like most people from the Balkans. Most people think that the ancient Greeks were "pure-blooded" people, and I think that is crap. Even in the ancient times, the Balkans was, ethnically speaking, very heterogeneous place. So there were ancient Pelasgians, Illyrians, Paeonians, Thracians etc., and they influenced Greek gene pool, and vice versa. Even the Alexander the Great was half Illyrian. And it is just plainly stupid to think that there was no mixing.

The slavs in what is now Greek Macedonia never were FYROMians, they were Bulgarians and most fled after WWI.

Define the Macedonians(Slavs) and define the Bulgarians.

Furthermore. FYROM is a relatively new nation -- created post-1945 in a region where the people did not have an ethnic/national affiliation and where the people only referred to them selves as Slavs.

That's probably because they are Slavs? And they just named themselves after the region they live in.

[NatVox]

Originally Posted by The Duke

Photoshop mate?

No. It as an ancient manuscript, hand drawn by Philippos I of Macedonia himself and scanned by his son Alexander. It looks pretty obvious, doesn't it?

[Galaico]

Most of FYROM territoty was part of ancient Paionia, not Macedonia. You don't have to be a History Doctor to know that.



Here you have a map I made myself comparing the modern borders in the Balkans with ancient Macedonia (before Philipus II conquests), following Kinder's and Hilgemann's Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. It should represent the native lands of the ancient Macedonians.

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Galaico

Most of FYROM territoty was part of ancient Paionia, not Macedonia. You don't have to be a History Doctor to know that.

Naturally. It is a known fact.
But you don't have to be a History Doctor either to understand that they have right to choose their own name. If they had chosen the name "Paionians" to describe themselves, it would not be mistake. I am repeating again that if was ethnically mixed territory, without strict ethnic boundaries.

Furthermore, there are no significant geographical barriers that could have divided the populations of Paionia and Macedonia. On the contrary, there is a Vardar river valley, that stretches from the north of the contemporary Republic of Macedonia, all the way to Kentriki Macedonia, where it mouths into the Aegean sea, near Thessaloniki.
That would mean that the ancient populations from this area have lived next to each others for generations, and it would be reasonable to conclude that they have, like many contemporary neighboring populations, shared a certain degree of common ancestry.

Here you have a map I made myself comparing the modern borders in the Balkans with ancient Macedonia (before Philipus II conquests), following Kinder's and Hilgemann's Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. It should represent the native lands of the ancient Macedonians.

To tell you the truth, your map seems to be quite accurate.

[Marulus]

There was Macedonia, there was Lynkestis (annexed by Philipp II, I think, it is south-eastern part of today's Republic of Macedonia), then there was Paeonia and Pelagonia (northern parts of the today's Republic of Macedonia or FYROM, as some of you prefer to call it).

At certain point of time even Paeonia and Pelagonia started to be called Macedonia. I am not sure when, possibly during the times of the Byzantine Empire. For a certain time Paeonia came under the rule of the Serbian Empire with Skopje as emperor Dušan's capital. In the Ottoman Empire the term Macedonia wasn't used by the Turks, they spoke of Skopje, Prizren, Thessaloniki and Manastiri (ie. Bitola) vilayets (in the 19th century), earlier sanjaks. However, the name Macedonia lived on in the minds of the Christian peoples who inhabited that region, be it Greeks, Serbs or Bulgarians. It was the area populated by people who spoke Macedonian Slavic (a dialect of Bulgarian, according to some). It was however under the Greek cultural influence, under the Patriarchate of Constantinople (through the Archbishopric of Ohrid/Achris) and I think (but I am not sure) that Greek was the language of the liturgy.

In the 19th century Macedonia (including Paeonia and Pelagonia which at that time were referred to as parts of Macedonia) became an area contested by Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians. This ended in the partition of the area brought about by the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). The part of Macedonia assigned to Serbia became one of the so-called Socialist Republics of the Yugoslav Federation in 1945, with Macedonian Slavic as its official language. This "republic" gained the international recognition as independent state in 1991. However, due to the fact that Greece disputed its claim on the name "Macedonia", it was recognized under the provisorial name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). However, a certain number of countries (Serbia among them) recognized the state in question under the name "Republic of Macedonia".

The Macedonian question (Македонско питање, Μακεδονικό Ζήτημα, Македонски въпрос) was one of the most hotly debated "nationality" issues in the Balkanic Peninsula of the second part of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The issue was seen as concerning the territory of the area of today's Republic of Macedonia or FYROM (thus: it included, in this 19th century perspective, also Paeonia and Pelagonia), of the part of Macedonia that today belongs to Greece (from Thessaloniki northwards) and of the part of Macedonia that was later assigned to Bulgaria (Pirinska Makedonija). All of these three territories were understood as being part of the geographical notion called Macedonia. It is inaccurate to say Paeonia was never considered Macedonia. Of course, at times of Philip II it wasn't. But some time elapsed since then...

[NatVox]

Originally Posted by Monolith

Naturally. It is a known fact.
But you don't have to be a History Doctor either to understand that they have right to choose their own name.

It doesn't take a Doctor in International Law to understand that there are civic limits to it, if there is a conflict of such magnitude.

They "can" call themselves whatever they wish. But whether they "have a right" is debatable. What is most important, others do have a right to object, even if only for the sake of historical accuracy.

[agamemnon]

Ok , lets say that a small orphan boy that does not know his name decides to make a new name for himself. He has the right to choose any name he wants no one can refuse that. So the boy decides to call himself Donald Trump!!!!! Does that give him the right to to the bank and get Donald Trumps money? Just because they have the same name?

Thats whats going on with Fyrom and Greece,and the Fyromians trying to take our history.

Originally Posted by Monolith

Naturally. It is a known fact.
But you don't have to be a History Doctor either to understand that they have right to choose their own name. If they had chosen the name "Paionians" to describe themselves, it would not be mistake. I am repeating again that if was ethnically mixed territory, without strict ethnic boundaries.

Furthermore, there are no significant geographical barriers that could have divided the populations of Paionia and Macedonia. On the contrary, there is a Vardar river valley, that stretches from the north of the contemporary Republic of Macedonia, all the way to Kentriki Macedonia, where it mouths into the Aegean sea, near Thessaloniki.
That would mean that the ancient populations from this area have lived next to each others for generations, and it would be reasonable to conclude that they have, like many contemporary neighboring populations, shared a certain degree of common ancestry.

To tell you the truth, your map seems to be quite accurate.

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by agamemnon

Ok , lets say that a small orphan boy that does not know his name decides to make a new name for himself. He has the right to choose any name he wants no one can refuse that. So the boy decides to call himself Donald Trump!!!!! Does that give him the right to to the bank and get Donald Trumps money? Just because they have the same name?

Thats whats going on with Fyrom and Greece,and the Fyromians trying to take our history.

A big lie, why we don't argue abouth Athens, Theba, Sparta? Because they were not Macedonians. I don't care about your history.
p.s. I'll post real maps

[Monolith]