The dispute goes deeper than the use of the name.
It is an attempt by FYROM to discredit the ancient Macedonians’ ethnicity, break the connection between present-day Greek Macedonians and the Macedonians of antiquity, and establish a connection between FYROM’s Slavs with ancient Macedonia.The historically,linguistically and archaeologically incorrect challenge is that Macedonia was never part of Greece and the Macedonians were barbarians who spoke a language in comprehensible to theother Greeks.
Cause of this ultra-nationalist behaviour is a ideology that flourish and in FYROM borders and grow dynamically in diaspora Slavmacedonians.
This ideology call as Macedonism.
Macedonism is a political term used to refer to a set of ideas regarded as characteristic of ethnic Slavonic Macedonian nationalism. The term is mostly used in a poltical and cultural sense by opponents of such views, mainly by Bulgarian and recently sometimes from Greek authors (Sfetas, Aggelopoulou) where it has strong negative connotations. It is occasionally also used in international scholarship ( John D. Bell) and in a positive sense by Slavonic Macedonian authors themselves like Alexandar Donski.
The roots of the concept were first developed in the late 19th century, in the context of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian initiatives to take control over the region of Macedonia, which was then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. It was used to refer to the idea that Macedonians constituted a distinct ethnicity, separate from Bulgarians. The first to coin the term Macedonists in this sense was the Bulgarian author Petko Rachev Slaveykov, who used it to criticise such a view in an article The Macedonian Question published on 18th January 1871 in the newspaper Makedoniya in Constantinople. Also an early recorded use of the exact term Macedonism is in a report by the Serbian politician Stojan Novakoviζ from 1887. He proposed to employ the Macedonist idea as an ally of Serbian as opposed to Bulgarian influence in Macedonia
Among the beliefs and opinions that are often perceived as typical of Slavmacedonian nationalism and are criticised as parts of “Macedonism” by those who use that term are the following:
- The idea that there is a fundamental, ancient ethnic distinction between Slavmacedonians and Bulgarians, going much further back than the political divisions between the two nations during the 20th century
- The belief that this distinction is related to the inheritance of ethnic elements of the ancient non-Slavic tribe of the Bulgars, supposed to form an essential part of modern Bulgarian but not Macedonian heritage
- The idea that there is ethnic continuity between the Slavmacedonians and the Ancient Macedonians, the inhabitants of the kingdom of Macedon under Alexander the Great
- Irridentist political views about the neighbouring regions of Greek Macedonia (”Aegean Macedonia”) and parts of southwest Bulgaria (”Pirin Macedonia”) and about Slavmacedonian minorities living in these areas, connected to the political idea of a United Macedonia.
Other, related areas of Slavmacedonian-Bulgarian national polemics relate to:
The presence of the Bulgars in Medieval Macedonia and their connection with today Slavmacedonians
- The ethnic character of various medieval historical figures and entities, including the saints Cyril and Methodius, the medieval Tsar Samuil and his kingdom, and the medieval Archbishopric of Ohrid
- The historical role of the Bulgarian Exarchate and the ethnic character of Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
- The historical role of various Macedonian (Greeks, Bulgarian) insurgent movements during the Ottoman rule ( Ilinden Uprising) and during the Bulgarian occupation of Geographical Macedonia in World War II (National Liberation War of Macedonia).
- The opinion that a separate “Macedonian” nationhood was an artificial product of Yugoslav propaganda during the 20th century and the belief of some Bulgarians that Macedonians should naturally form part of the Bulgarian nation.
On the other hand, areas of Slavmacedonian-Greek national polemics relate to:
The origin of the ancient Macedonians and ancient Macedonian language and their relation to the today Slavonic -and close to the Bulgarian - "Macedonian" and Greek nations and languages.
- The Greeks have Sub-saharan origin ( The Arnaiz-Villena controversy)
- Greeks discover Macedonia as a name in 1988(FYROM Minister Milososki in Mega Channel,1 Nov 2007)
With these perspectives in mind, the insistence of FYROM Slavs to be called “Macedonians,” a name dictatorially established and supported by communism’s brutal force and in the present from the US administration, clashes now with the age-old freedom of Hellenic Macedonians to be called “Macedonians.”
If FYROM considers itself Macedonia, a false and audaciously daring step that brings the origin of its Slavic inhabitants close to Philip and Alexander the GreaT then the insistence of these people tobe called “Macedonians” clashes head on with the age-old freedom of others to be called “Macedonians.”
FYROM has the right to survive and prosper, but it does not have the right to acquire, by international recognition, an advantage enjoyed by no otherstate in the world:
…to use a name which of itself propagandizes territorial aspirations at Greece’s expense !!!