Macedonian Nationalism

[aleksandrov]

Aleksandrov my words you quote above were made about Nationalism. Are you telling me that Nationalism existed in Macedonia, en masse, the way we know it today, before Pulevski, before Delchev, and before Misirkov? Are you telling me that Nationalism was widespread in the Balkan region before the 19th century? ...

You don't need special insight to know that nationhood as it is known today i.e. associated with the nation state or aspirations for a nation state, is a relatively new concept. However, 'race', ethnicity and culture (that is culture in an ethnic or racial sense) date back to ancient times. Of course, they have evolved a lot since those days, as have most aspects of human civilization. A shared 'race', ethnicity and culture have historically been among the key elements in the development of modern nations, but they are not necessary or sufficient elements. Popular citizenship is probably the most defining element of nationhood as we know it today, but if you are going to suggest that that's all the Macedonian identity is based on, then you are treading dangerously close to Ivan Mihajlov's idea of a "Macedonian for the Macedonians" and of a Macedonia as a "Switzerland of the Balkans".

[aleksandrov]

...You mentioned Pribichevich to SoM yet Pribichevich claims in his book that todays Macedonians are not related to the ancient Macedonians and that the ancient Macedonians left no descendents. Are you going to try and dupe people like your friend Indigen tried to using Pribichevich - http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...?t=1706&page=7

Duping? Do you want to ask a mirror that question?

What exactly did I say about Pribichevich? Go back and cite it and tell me which part is not true.

Are you one of those black-or-white people who presume that if you agree with certain facts presented by an author you must agree with their entire theory or if you disagree with their theory you must be disagreeing with every fact on which they have based it?

Just so you don't succeed in misleading people about what Indigen has said about Pribichevich, here is a specific quote from Pribichevich that he presents in the discussion you have referred to:

In the beginning , says Dr. Mane Chuchkov, Macedonian musicologist and economic geographer, people had nothing but body movements to show how they lived. …

There are also ancient Macedonian dances performed to the beat of drums only. And there are silent dances with no instruments or singing or hand-clapping at all. They are the eeriest, sometimes interspersed with weird cries. In “silent” dances rhythm and beat are supplied either by a measured repetition of an accented dance step or by the jingling of the coins and trinkets with which the women’s dresses are adorned, or by periodic shouts. It is these strange and haunting “dumb” dances, where the feet thud in precise unison without a sound of song or music and men every once in a while leap high into the air, which more than any other stir the spectator in a profound way.

The instruments accompanying the Macedonian dances are usually the drum and various wind instruments. Among the latter is the kaval, an ordinary pipe. The longer the pipe, the more sonorous its sound.

The kaval has no “tongue” or whistle-head. You blow it as you do a pencil cap, across the edge of the opening. The zurla, a wood instrument similar to the oboe, has a double mouthpiece and two whistle-heads is a double-reed instrument. In London the zurla player of the dance group of Tanec, Slave Tashevski, created a furor. You could ask him to play this song or that or “just nothing,” that is, to improvise. He could not read music. The zurla and the drum are not Turkish, as often believed. You find them in frescoes preceding the Turks. They arrived in the Balkans before the Slavs. The Macedonian bagpipe has a seventh little hole with a straw, not for producing a tone but for ornamenting it: it does the murmuring. It is therefore called mrmorec— the “murmurer”— and is only one-and-a-half millimeters wide.


In the wild Mariovo region in southern Macedonia (RM) matriarchy still reigns, costumes and customs are still archaic and civilization has only begun to arrive with a road built recently...”.

[Pribichevich: Macedonia – Its People and History, 1982.]

Are you accusing Indigen of misquoting Pribichevich?

Furthermore, do you care to quote the exact words by Pribichevich that you rely on in your interpretation of his position on Macedonian ancient (non)ancestry?

[aleksandrov]

Aleksandrov said;

"What are the 'cultural elements' and understanding of our ancestry on which Pulevski based his assertion of Macedonian nationhood? Where did he draw or inherit them from? Are they the same or substantively similar to those relied upon by Misirkov?"

I will answer this more specifically. Pulevski may have resolved this nationalism with himself through folklore, folksongs, and whatever history he knew of the ancient Macedonians, without the aid of any German, Brit, or Frenchman.

Misirkov explains in much greater detail the Macedonians of his time and the propaganda that raged in Macedonia. He explains why Macedonians called themselves Christians and why they were called Bulgarians and why they called themselves Bulgarians.

You haven't really answered the question. I will put it to you again and suggest that you read it more carefully:

What are the 'cultural elements' and understanding of our ancestry on which Pulevski based his assertion of Macedonian nationhood? Where did he draw or inherit them from? Are they the same or substantively similar to those relied upon by Misirkov?

[TrueMacedonian]

Duping? Do you want to ask a mirror that question?

What exactly did I say about Pribichevich? Go back and cite it and tell me which part is not true.

Are you one of those black-or-white people who presume that if you agree with certain facts presented by an author you must agree with their entire theory or if you disagree with their theory you must be disagreeing with every fact on which they have based it?

Just so you don't succeed in misleading people about what Indigen has said about Pribichevich, here is a specific quote from Pribichevich that he presents in the discussion you have referred to:



Are you accusing Indigen of misquoting Pribichevich?

Furthermore, do you care to quote the exact words by Pribichevich that you rely on in your interpretation of his position on Macedonian ancient (non)ancestry?

Let's review step by step what Pribichevich states so that we can truly grasp this for what it is, not how you and indigen would like it to be;



Illyrians = Albanians, Thracians = Vlachs, Hellenes = Grks.

The part that Indigen knowingly left out of the equation because it doesn't help the "indigenous Macedonian cultural theory" he's been sporting;




Now are you going to tell me more about this black and white stuff or are you going to interpret your own version of what Pribichevich is really saying here?

Duping? Do you want to ask a mirror that question?

I suggest you and indigen stop looking at each other since you both are mirror images of each other.

[TrueMacedonian]

You don't need special insight to know that nationhood as it is known today i.e. associated with the nation state or aspirations for a nation state, is a relatively new concept. However, 'race', ethnicity and culture (that is culture in an ethnic or racial sense) date back to ancient times. Of course, they have evolved a lot since those days, as have most aspects of human civilization. A shared 'race', ethnicity and culture have historically been among the key elements in the development of modern nations, but they are not necessary or sufficient elements. Popular citizenship is probably the most defining element of nationhood as we know it today, but if you are going to suggest that that's all the Macedonian identity is based on, then you are treading dangerously close to Ivan Mihajlov's idea of a "Macedonian for the Macedonians" and of a Macedonia as a "Switzerland of the Balkans".

I recommend you don't apply Pribichevich into your theories.

[TrueMacedonian]

You haven't really answered the question. I will put it to you again and suggest that you read it more carefully:

What are the 'cultural elements' and understanding of our ancestry on which Pulevski based his assertion of Macedonian nationhood? Where did he draw or inherit them from? Are they the same or substantively similar to those relied upon by Misirkov?

Why bother answering your questions when you have clearly made up your mind of what you want to believe is right and what doesn't agree with you is simply wrong? But I guess I'll be a fair sport and answer anyways. Pulevski said that a nation is a term for people who share the same customs, songs, language and festivals.
Misirkov stated somewhat similar things. Not in the way some of you would like though because he mentions that the Macedonians were a "seperate Slav people" from those other slavs.

[Risto the Great]

SoM,

I have already gone into detail on this topic too many times over the past 18 years or so, with a constant reduction in intensity in the last 10 of those years. I have researched and analyzed the social constructs of race, ethnicity and nationhood fairly extensively, not only in a Macedonian context, but also in a universal context, in my university studies, as well as independent research. Obsessive research into the history of the development of the Macedonian ethnic and cultural identity since my mid to late teens only led me to conclusions that I could have reached with only 5% of that effort, had I not fallen into the trap of the "Macedonian question", as framed by our oppressors. I am well over exploring and analyzing those concepts in detail, and I won't do it again unless there is a very concrete and significant objective to be achieved. I don't have the brain capacity to precisely cite the relevant material off the top of my head, I don't have the time to go back to it for the purpose of this discussion, and I always avoid being imprecise when it comes to details.

These days I choose to focus more on issues like human rights and freedoms, justice, equity and self-empowerment of the Macedonian and all other oppressed peoples.

It is unjust and inequitable for ethnic Macedonians to constantly be placed in a position where their ethnic origin is questioned or disputed in a manner or to a degree that the origin of other ethnic groups is not. The tendency of too many Macedonians to allow themselves to be put in that position is a sign of insecurity, which we must eliminate if we are to reach a reasonable level of self-respect and self-empowerment.

I have no doubt about my indigenous Macedonian ethnicity and do not feel a need to engage in academic exercises of justification every time someone decides to question it. I will leave such exercises for academics to indulge in.

If ANYBODY, whether it be a Greek or Bulgarian nationalist, or a "Macedonian", wants to engage me in an exercise of having to prove the existence of an indigenous Macedonian ethnicity, they better be prepared to first justify their own sense of ethnic identity by application of the same standards of evidence they demand from indigenous Macedonians. If 'Macedonians' who are uncertain about their roots want answers to these types of questions, I recommend that they first take an academically more rigorous avenue to exploring the concept of ethnicity, including indigenous ethnicity, on a universal level, before they go into specifics in exploring their own ethnic identity and its roots. There is plenty of material out there by very competent people who have dedicated their lives to studying these matters and sharing their findings with others. The only obstacle in relation to 'elements' of the Macedonian ethnicity in particular is that much of the relevant material has not been published in English. A good command of the Macedonian literary language, and perhaps some understanding of Bulgarian and Serbian is critical. I know that being able to read Turkish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Latin, Arabic, German and/or French could take one's research much further, but, unfortunately, I don't have any personal experience in that regard.

Great response.
I find the process rather demeaning in a similar vein as extracts from books in the 1800's mentioning "Macedonians" being posted. I know they have a historically significant purpose, but I feel Macedonians are beyond justifying their existence.

The truth is that our oppressors have indeed framed the question whether we like it our not. Nobody points at an Englishman and demands such justifications for their identity. If we agree the "Macedonian Question" is not a question for Macedonians. Then we need to understand who asked it and whether this particular discussion is merely a component of that question.

[aleksandrov]

I recommend you don't apply Pribichevich into your theories.

Why?

I recommend you undertake some training in critical academic research and analysis.

[TrueMacedonian]

Why?

I recommend you undertake some training in critical academic research and analysis.

I recommend you take your own advice

[TrueMacedonian]

Aleksandrov is there a symbol for the organization you're in?

[aleksandrov]

Why bother answering your questions when you have clearly made up your mind of what you want to believe is right and what doesn't agree with you is simply wrong?

Because I choose not to give you a free reign while you cloud the issue of the Macedonian ethnic identity with vague, contradictory, logically inconsistent and academically unsubstantiated nonsense.

Pulevski said that a nation is a term for people who share the same customs, songs, language and festivals.
Misirkov stated somewhat similar things. Not in the way some of you would like though because he mentions that the Macedonians were a "seperate Slav people" from those other slavs.

You are still not answering the questions. Maybe they need to be rephrased, to make it less easy for you to evade them.

What 'cultural elements' (which is what you wanted to focus this discussion on) did Pulevski rely on in asserting that Macedonians are a separate people?

What 'cultural elements' (which is what you wanted to focus this discussion on) did Misirkov rely on in asserting that Macedonians are a separate people?

What kind of 'separate Slav' people does Misirkov say we are? What made us separate, according to Misirkov.

Whose theory do you subscribe to? Pulevski's or Misirkov's?

[aleksandrov]

I recommend you take your own advice

You are giving yourself too much credit. Your posts on this thread make it clear how much of a dilettante you are in the area of critical research and analysis. It would be an act of self-depreciation for anybody to compare credentials with you in that area, but if you want to start by presenting evidence of your own achievements in academic research and analysis, as certified by authoritative academic institutions, I would be happy to reciprocate. Your efforts on this thread are enough for me to bet my car, if not my house that you have no serious credentials in that area as judged by any qualified and independent arbiter.

[aleksandrov]

Aleksandrov is there a symbol for the organization you're in?

You mean the one you have disingenuously misappropriated for your avatar? Yes, that has been a symbol of one of the key organizations I've been involved in for about 18 years, being the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney. We recently modified it.

Now, given that I've been courteous enough to answer your irrelevant question directly, would you mind telling us the rationale for including symbols of what, according to your inferences in this thread, are two different 'ethnic' or 'national' cultures in your avatar? Which one of those is representative of your earliest known ethnic or cultural origin as a 'true' Macedonian?

[TrueMacedonian]

Ahhh I see you need to resort to an ad hominem strategy. It's cool. Considering that I've been more than open and honest about my opinions and views in this particular topic. I think the readers already see what you are about and how inadequate your arguement has become by bringing in Pribichevich, a man who states that the ancient Macedonians left no descendents. Since you have read Pribichevich maybe you can explain what he means by the spread of 'hellenism' from Alexander III empire?

[TrueMacedonian]

Because I choose not to give you a free reign while you cloud the issue of the Macedonian ethnic identity with vague, contradictory, logically inconsistent and academically unsubstantiated nonsense.



You are still not answering the questions. Maybe they need to be rephrased, to make it less easy for you to evade them.

What 'cultural elements' (which is what you wanted to focus this discussion on) did Pulevski rely on in asserting that Macedonians are a separate people?

What 'cultural elements' (which is what you wanted to focus this discussion on) did Misirkov rely on in asserting that Macedonians are a separate people?

What kind of 'separate Slav' people does Misirkov say we are? What made us separate, according to Misirkov.

Whose theory do you subscribe to? Pulevski's or Misirkov's?

I think you need to read a book on Nationalism before you continue on this topic. Seriously. I'm not joking with you either. You are just a repetetive parakeet right now. If you do not understand my response then it's time to pack it up Aleksandroff.