Macedonian American to buy Detroit Pistons

[Daniel the Great]

Ye good on him he is rich, so why not give some money to Macedonia? invest in Macedonia? unless he already has. I would if i had over a billion dollars.

[Daniel the Great]

Didn't serbia force every Macedonian surname to be changed into ic? they changed our surname into Ristovic.

Yes i think this was back in the Kingdom of Serbia days were the Macedonians were forced to change there names to Serbian names. For example my family's last name was changed to Filipovic, Filipov was most likely my old last name but it is different now.

[Blagojce]

A question to all the people with serbianised last names, how do you feel about your last name and would you or have you changed it back to the original version ?

[Coolski]

Thats maybe the first family from Bitola which i have heard that they were forced to change their name.

Does anyone else know of someone from Bitola who was forced to change their name?

Yep. My family is from Bitola and its surrounding villages. Plenty of names were changed. If i'm not wrong, they were all systematically changed. My baba told me that depending on who was ruling at the time (she was a school student leading up to WWII), the either Serb or Bulgarian teachers would change the class rolls and call out her surname (and everyone in the classes) with -ovic or -ova suffixes.

Those Macedonians that left the part of Macedonia that was under the Yugoslav kingdom's control are likely to have a Serbianised surname, similar to Macedonians under Greek control with "Hellenised" surnames, which of course still exists to this day as Greece is still uncivilised.

[julie]

the ich got dropped and the ski went back on the end of the name prior to the old man leaving and coming to Australia 50 years ago.
I had no idea his christian name had the bla bla slav suffix until he told me he does not use it. Dedo registered the 7 children births. So much for freedom under authoritarianism Tito

[Blagojce]

Surprising how today some Macedonians sympathize with Serbia's view towards Kosovos independence. After all the Serbs done to us.

Krugot se vreti.

Our southern neighbours are next in line

[ArMakedon]

ye good on him he is rich, so why not give some money to macedonia? Invest in macedonia? Unless he already has. I would if i had over a billion dollars.

Презимето не е проблем. Јас еве не сум запознаен со неговите дела со кои би се величал како Македонец. Ајде емиграцијо да ве читам.

[Piperka]

Лобира тој за нешто?

He mentions effective lobbying methods that he uses in this interview with Voice of America. I'm not sure if that means he's lobbied for Macedonia. I assume that he has. One thing is for sure, he definitely makes being from Macedonia a good thing to those that know of him.

YouTube - Michael Ilich for VOA Macedoanian

As for investing, based on this interview, it doesn't seem like he has ever invested in Macedonia. He is asked if he will ever invest in Macedonia, in which he replies, "It's possible."

Does anyone from Detroit know if he has ever attended or supported non-MPO Macedonian events or churches in the Detroit area?

[DirtyCodingHabitz]

Doesn't this Ilitch know how to speak Makedonski?

Yes i think this was back in the Kingdom of Serbia days were the Macedonians were forced to change there names to Serbian names. For example my family's last name was changed to Filipovic, Filipov was most likely my old last name but it is different now.

My family also changed their old surname for some reason... I'm gonna have to ask my dedo why they changed it.