Macedonian Nationalism

[Risto the Great]

I apologise for not participating on this thread as much as some have. I have my reasons, one of them has to do with my pride in my identity and how debating about whether Macedonia is or when or why it became a nation upsets me. The other reason is due to my extreme workload at the moment.

Having said that, Silver, your speculation about any of Soldier of Macedon's intentions or statements is absolutely offensive to me and highly inappropriate. His fervour for the Macedonian Cause and Identity absolutely inspires and motivates me. I will not accept such attacks on someone I regard so highly on Macedonian matters.

I cannot see how anyone can come to your conclusions about my fellow forum Administrator and strongly suggest you read each and every one of his posts before you begin to question his commitment or beliefs.

When will Macedonians ever be able to support other Macedonians in their pursuits without looking to cut down the tall poppies? If the pursuits assist the Cause, support should always be offered.

[George S.]

RTG i have to agree with you your administratorSOM is one of the best .He does put other forums to shame & is for the cause.He is merely doing his job as ADministrator & If one looks at the threads he is really asking for more evidence & asks members to corborate their statements.
He does an excellent job even if people can't see the wood from the smoke he is there battling for the cause.Let the guy be & give him a chance!.

[Silver]

Risto The Great,

Out of respect for you, your forum, and for your opinion about my behavior towards your fellow administrator I humbly accept that I have been out of line and will take your advice. Please understand that I too am a busy person and can only take snapshots of what goes on here. I'm very emotional about my background and family history which is full of sadness and tragedy. Having said that, I'm not at all a bad person who can't adjust, I simply tend to go into combat mode a little too loosely (obviously) as a result, whenever Macedonia and the Cause come into focus.

Whenever I intend on participating in the future I promise everyone that I will try to be less abrasive or combative and more constructive in the future.

SoM, my accusations were wrong and I sincerely apologize.

Pozdrav

[TrueMacedonian]

Risto said;

I have my reasons, one of them has to do with my pride in my identity and how debating about whether Macedonia is or when or why it became a nation upsets me.

Risto when your work load recedes I would like to discuss this with you on a Macedonian to Macedonian basis if you are willing to look past your pride for a bit. I think the impression many readers and participants have gotten from this topic is wrong and view it as an attack on Macedonians when that is not my intentions at all.

[George S.]

In response to TM it's hard for all of us to adjust to talking about Macedonian Nationalism,when everything has been done by our enemies to destroy us.The 1913 treaty of Bucharest was more of adeath sentence for a nation who only wished to beFREE.Many Macedonians will never forget what was done & the attrocities committed by our enemies.It is hard to look at Nationalism properly in the light of modern nationalism.One needs to look at the tragic words of the national anthem "Ne placi Makedonio....." to see it's a sad & tragic story.
Congrats to Silver for apologising to SOM,

[Sovius]

I believe that the supposition of Macedonian national discontinuity at any point in time during written history needs have the following questions properly addressed prior to putting forth such an argument:


At what point in time did non-Macedonians quit thinking of the people who lived in Macedonia as not being Macedonian?


At what time did they again come to regard non-Macedonians living in Macedonia as Macedonian?


Does changing what we call a people or generally refer to them as over various periods in time actually change who a people truly are or were?


Does being invaded and occupied by another nation automatically transform the occupied nation into the invading nation?


At what point in time did Macedonia’s population get replaced by non-Macedonian people who wished to continue being referred to as Macedonians and were thought of as Macedonians by people outside of Macedonia?


As things are constantly changing, when did Macedonia change into something that was not Macedonian and why is it still considered Macedonian even though (according to this hypothetical line of reasoning) its clearly not the original Macedonia, given the assumption of discontinuity?



If it wasn’t for the Pan-Slavicist (De-Nationalist) movements of the 19th Century, I don’t believe this discussion would be taking place. Evolution is a constant, but evolution in and of itself does not necessarily equate to something changing into something that it was not before. Its simply change along a natural course, nothing more.

[Bill77]

Risto The Great,

Out of respect for you, your forum, and for your opinion about my behavior towards your fellow administrator I humbly accept that I have been out of line and will take your advice. Please understand that I too am a busy person and can only take snapshots of what goes on here. I'm very emotional about my background and family history which is full of sadness and tragedy. Having said that, I'm not at all a bad person who can't adjust, I simply tend to go into combat mode a little too loosely (obviously) as a result, whenever Macedonia and the Cause come into focus.

Whenever I intend on participating in the future I promise everyone that I will try to be less abrasive or combative and more constructive in the future.

SoM, my accusations were wrong and I sincerely apologize.

Pozdrav

A) You were so wrong about SOM and i think you knew that all along and i think that not for one minute did you believe in your own words.

B) I am glad you have pride and emotional about our Macedonia and wish all Macedonians had it. Brat, i am the last person who should talk about controlling there emotions and pride
ama nekoj pat mora da pod pushtish i da se smirish duri da razberish tochno shto saka da kazi chojeko. nie makedoncite mozime da bidime mnogu brzi.

C) No you are not a bad person (like you said). You are a Macedonian full of tragedy and pain like all of us. I have so much respect for you now that you apologized to SOM and admitted you were wrong. I aplaud that. The end of the day, this shows that you control your pride and this pride does not control you.

[indigen]

There have been about 75 generations that have passed since 300BC.

This means, that for any one of us to exist today, we have billions of ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc) since the year 300BC.

That is only a theoretical proposition, as you have previously pointed out. There should be a fair bit of regional shared ancestry as people mainly intermarried from their local area and blood relations are taken into account only for a few generations before further mixing can happen.

So to claim that every single person that we descend from has been a 'pure-blooded' Macedonian and thus claiming a pure-blooded Macedonian descent is perhaps unrealistic (you'll never know if there is at least one Thracian, Ilyrian, Roman, etc somewhere in the mix), particularly when factoring in the turbulent history of Macedonia throughout the last 2,300 years.

Macedonian, Thracian, Illyrian, Paeonian, amongst others, are all inter-related parts of an indigenous population of the Macedonian Peninsula. There might have been some cultural difference due to Macedonians advancing a bit further as they assimilated/adapted more advanced political and cultural elements from Persians, "Hellenes", and others, especially after establishing an empire (and its successor states), but, for starters, I would say that various elements of all the indigenous tribes were fused into the Macedonian nation before and, in the main, during the reigns of Filip II and Aleksandar III Makedonski. Whilst this process continued in the time of the successors, there might have been some occasional tribal relapses during the Antigonid dynastic rule in parts of these populations due to the political state of flux caused by the wars with Rome. But, IME, consolidation of the fusion would have been re-established after the Roman conquest and the political organisation of Macedonia as a Roman province.

It is also recorded in history that many women from all over Alexander's empire were sent to Macedonia by their fathers, to have children Macedonian men, in the hope that they would be like Alexander;

I have never heard of this before, would you mind providing the source for this claim?

But I don't think that anyone here is claiming an absolute 'pure-blooded' descent from the ancient Macedonians. Rather, the claim is that we do descend from the ancient Macedonians, the extent of which is not measured, and not particularly relevant, the point is that actual ancestral connection.

Yep! Even the more patriotic Slavoman Mk historians such Blazhe Ristovski have stated as much in the past (1983)!

“Ако историјата на турко-монголските Бугари се прима како неразделен дел од историјата на современиот бугарски народ, зошто Македонците да не го почитуваат минатото и славата на својата земја, на своето име и на дел од својата крв ? Зашто, како што вели Д. Македонски во 1871 година, не зинала земјата, па да ги голтне тие стари Македонци, ами тие се влеале во масата на овој народ. … Денешното македонско име потекнува не само од географскиот поим Македонија, туку и од античкото народно име Македонци, бидејќи при прифаќањето на ова име како од туѓинците, така и од самите Македонски...., последните се сфаќани не само како наследници на територијата на македонската држава на Филип и Александар Македонски, туку и како потомци на старите Македонци, кои што беа прогласени за најстари Словени на Балканот.

~ Блаже Ристовски, “Македонскиот народ и македонската нација”, 1983 година

Alternatively, to claim that not one of our ancestors (ancient) was Macedonian, is equally as absurd, if not more, particularly when there is no historical record for any point in history which tells us that the Macedonians were completely wiped out and we, the Macedonians, are the only ethnic group that is unique to Macedonia.[

Not only is it absurd, it smacks of RACISM and delusional belief in GENOCIDE of only the Macedonians whilst the "Greeks", "Illyrians" and "Thracians" all survived in part or in the main and respectively being represented by the modern "Greeks", "Albanians" and "Bulgarians". Without any qualms, it is even accepted by the Western (and RM) establishment that the Gypsies (Roma) of Ohrid are "Egyptians", "descendants of people who arrived with the returning soldiers of Aleksandar III Makedonski". Now how is it possible that these "Egyptians" all survived but the nation that provided the soldiers for the conquest of Persia, Egypt and many other nations has magically vanished and left no direct descendants?

[Rogi]

It is also recorded in history that many women from all over Alexander's empire were sent to Macedonia by their fathers, to have children Macedonian men, in the hope that they would be like Alexander

I have never heard of this before, would you mind providing the source for this claim?

Now you are testing my memory, I read that quite some time ago, though I will try and remember and find the book that made the claim.

[indigen]

Now you are testing my memory, I read that quite some time ago, though I will try and remember and find the book that made the claim.

To tell you the truth, I find it hard to believe your claim as back then, as now (or recent past, especially in traditional pre-modern society), parents always place/d a high value on the chastity of their unmarried daughters and it would go against the mores and values of any such society to encourage pre-marital sex let alone to "send their daughters" to travel unaccompanied long distances to Macedonia for such an immoral purpose.

As I have read all the main sources dealing with AleKsandar III Makedonski and also quite a few modern historians dealing with Alexander and his successors (and never having come across such a claim), I wonder if you have confused it with the "mass marriage" of Macedonian soldiers to Persian women just before Alexander's death?

[Venom]

Seriously there is no need for threads like this.

The fact of the matter remains, there is substantial evidence, on this site and many others, that Macedonia has been continually populated with Macedonians for thousands of years. Not slavs, (whatever they are), not greeks, not anything but Macedonians.

Getting into an in-fight about single families' bloodlines is fucking ridiculous. Come on guys, we can do better than this. Concentrate on the enemies.