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ANSWERS TO PROFESSOR VICTOR FRIEDMAN'S

ALLEGATIONS ON MACEDONIA
by Theodore Spyropoulos, assisted by Marcus A. Templar, published 2009

Dr. Victor Friedman the so-called expert linguist from the University of Chicago in his
interview with Christopher Deliso of Balkanalysis.com on Macedonia, states: its been that way
ever since modern Macedonians began to call themselves Macedonians. The Greeks have been denying
the existence of its Macedonian minority since acquiring Greek Macedonia at the Treaty of Bucharest
following the Second Balkan War (1913)
Even though Dr. Friedman projects an aura of expertise as a Professor of Slavic and Balkan
Linguistics, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, his answers
to Christopher Deliso makes one wonder about his basic Balkan historical knowledge. It is therefore
compelling to remind the good Professor of some historical facts regarding the Balkans.
The history of the FYROM is very recent. It started approximately in the fifth century AD.
Originally the southern Slavs were called Venedi, but the Byzantines changed their name to Sklavini
when they migrated to the south part of the Balkans because the Slavs established alliances, or unions
amongst themselves called sklavinije. These Sklavinije asserted as their high commanders a regular
hierarchy of princes such as Hatson, Akamir and Prvud. In the middle of the 5th century AD the
southern Slavs crossed the Carpathian Mountains and settled in the former Roman provinces of
Panonia (modern day Hungary) and Dacia (modern day Romania). The first Slavic and Turkic tribes of
the Bulgarians started attacking the Balkan areas jointly in the 5th century AD. In the beginning, they
robbed the Byzantine population, devastating the countryside and then returning to their bases. Former
FYROM President Gligorov verified the above with his statement: "according to the history of the
Macedonian people the prevailing view is that we are Slavs. We came from the Balkan [Mountains] in
the sixth, seventh century and settled on the land called Macedonia. Even so, this is not what gives the
identity of our people" (Kiro Gligorov, Skopje, 2000, 354).
Lasting settlements of Slavs in parts of the Macedonian area began at the end of the sixth
century. Up to the middle of the seventh century the seven Slavic tribes, namely Draguviti, Bereziti,
Sagudati, Rinhini, Strumljani, Smoljani, Velegeziti, Milingi, Ezerites, Timoani, Abodrini, and
Moravijani united in tribal unions, thus turning into an important political and ethnic factor in the
history of the Balkans. They are the ancestors of the current Slavic population of the FYROM.
According the Yugoslavian Military Encyclopedia (ed. 1974) the Timoani, Abodrini, and Moravijani,
at present, are part of the Serbian Nation.
The terms Vardar Macedonia, Macedonia of Pirin and Aegean Macedonia used by the citizens
of the FYROM were tricks by the former Yugoslavia to serve effectively its aggressive and political
purposes.
There are no official or unofficial records or statistics, according to which the FYROM
inhabitants are called Macedonians. As all ethnologist scientists agree no separate Macedonian
ethnos ever existed in history, (Arnold van Gennep: Trait comparatif des nationalits. Paris, 1922. A,
212;). The expression Macedonian nation is the creation of Pan-Slavism, used first by the Russian N.
S. Zarganko in 1890, having the meaning of a nonexistent separate ethnicity being the Trojan horse for
the Slavic aggression against Greece. Suddenly and out of nowhere a Macedonian ethnos was created
in Southern Yugoslavia, known by names such as South Serbia and Peoples Republic of Macedonia.
The Manifesto of Krushevo of 1903 is a testimony to the geographic nature of the term Macedonia and
Macedonian people. The hero of the FYROM Goce Delchev states in an authenticated letter that they
"are Bulgarians" while the so-called father of FYROM's "Macedonism" affirms the Slavonic culture of
the "Macedonians" (Giorgio Nurigianni, 1972).
In the official Turkish census of 1904-1905 there is no mention of any Macedonians. The
population of the European part of the Ottoman Empire, during the census was a total of 4,183,575
people and had the following structure: 1,823,500 Moslems, 1,619,300 Greeks, 455,000 Bulgarians,
151,235 Jews, 95,350 Armenians, 16,550 Serbs, 13,750 Vlachs and 8,890 Roma. The census was
organized by the Inspector General Hilmi Pasha, who was appointed by the Sultan.
The same census shows that in the Vilayet of Manastir the population consisted of 670,250
people and had the following structure: 250,000 Greeks, 223,000 Moslems, 143,000 Bulgarians, 13,150
Serbs, 6,150 Vlachs and 4,950 Jews. The same census also shows that the population of the Vilayet of
Thessaloniki, except the Sanjak of Divris and Elbasan consisted of 1,070,100 people and had the
following structure: 423,500 Moslems, 362,000 Greeks, 128,000 Bulgarians, 69,200 Jews, 8,650
Roma, 7,350 Vlachs and 1,400 Serbs. (These figures are taken from the book THE COLLUSION
AGAINST MACEDONIA by Theodore Sarandis, page 25). The same numbers were reflected in the
ethnographic map appended to the work of the Italian ethnographer Amatore Virgili.
A census took place in Yugoslavia in 1940. The official results of this census showed no
mention of a Macedonian nation. According to the census, the population of the Region of present day
FYROM, amounted to 1,071,426 people and had the following structure: 710,676 Slavs (66%),
334,285 Albanians & Turks (31.2%) and 26,465 Vlachs & Greeks (2.8%).
However what happened to the Slavs residents of Southern Yugoslavia, which was also part of
the Vardarska Banovina area for a time after the name change of the region into the Peoples Republic
of Macedonia in August 1944? Did they all disappear? Did they migrate somewhere else? None of the
aforementioned happened. Titos totalitarian regime in August 1944, accompanied by Stalins mandate,
direction and blessing and the slavish cooperation and allegiance of all totalitarian consanguineous
parties and governments, aimed to rename the region Peoples Republic of Macedonia and its
inhabitants to become Macedonians overnight. All Eastern bloc countries were aiming to usurp
Greek Macedonia with its warm port of Thessaloniki as their trophy.
During the Balkan Wars 1912-13 there was no Macedonian army to fight the rights of the
supposed Macedonians. During the negotiating talks of the Bucharest Treaty, there were no
representatives of any Macedonian Nation. The 1914 Carnegie Report (Report of the International
Commission to Report on the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars) not only did not record the
existence of a Macedonian army, but neither did it record the existence of any ethnic Macedonian
civilians.
In 1921 in Moscow, the Komintern (3rd Communist International) overviewed the seizure of
Macedonia and Thrace in Greece, placing them into the communist bloc. Based on this decision, and
when other efforts had no results, the then powerful Yugoslav Communist leader Tito had to find
another approach. He suddenly discovered that the Macedonians, are not Greek and the
Macedonian language is not the Greek language andScholars from the Peoples Republic of
Macedonia were commissioned to re-write their history books to include the ancient Macedonian
History according to the wishes of the League of Communists of communist Yugoslavia, accompanied
by perverted maps showing their "Macedonia" going all the way down to the northern half of Mount
Olympus. Also, linguists led by Blagoj Konev, a.k.a. Blae Koneski, were appointed to create the
alphabet for and refine the "newly discovered" Macedonian language, which, of course, was made to
sound as if it were the natural development of the ancient Macedonian language. Through their
control of mass media and education, the government of Peoples Republic of Macedonia then
introduced this language and claimed that it is the language that was spoken by the ancient
Macedonians. However, this language is grammatically nearly identical to Bulgarian and, due to
continuous government interventions its vocabulary tends to include more Serbo-Croatian words that
have replaced the Bulgarian words. Former FYROM Prime Minister Georgievski affirming this fact
wrote: "I will give an example with the newly formed stupidity expressed in the term 'classical
Macedonian language' (language in Ancient Macedonia as a basis of modern Macedonian language?!).
The whole story about Ancient Macedonia sounds undoubtedly very nice. However, there is a great
problem, a huge hole of about 2,000 years during which we have neither oral nor written tradition, nor
a single scientific argument!" (Ljubco Georgievski, FOCUS, 31 March 2008 ).
It is truly unnecessary to be forced to defend the well-known historical facts about ancient
Macedonias Hellenism after so many books and reputable, respected world historians and
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archaeologists have written articles about it. The archaeological findings in Macedonia proper and all
the way to Central Asia, Egypt and India where Alexander the Great went, including cities with Greek
names, coins and statues with Greek inscriptions, letters written by simple Macedonian soldiers and by
simple Macedonian women as the curse of the Pella Katadesmos, written in Northwestern Greek
dialect, architectural styles of temples, writings by ancient historians, all demonstrate the Hellenism of
Macedonia. The marble statues and gravestones in two continents speak Greek! There is not a shred of
evidence that a language other than Greek was spoken in ancient Macedonia and in countries
conquered by Alexander the Great.
A practical question could be posed to Professor Friedman. Mount Olympus is in Macedonia,
Greece. Would the Athenians, Spartans, and the other Greeks have their Gods (Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo,
Aphrodite, etc) living on a mountain belonging to Macedonia if that province was not part of the Greek
world?
Dr. Federico Krutwig Sagredo, President of Hellenic College of Bilbao in Spain in a lecture
stated: Macedonians were only the people who were members of a Greek tribe ...Those who are now
saying that the Slavs of Skopje are Macedonians are either lying or lack knowledge or they have hidden
irredentist purposes ....'' (Hellenic Education, Ancient Greek Courses - 7th Lesson, p. 117).
There is not one scientific argument regarding the imaginary amalgamation of the Slavs with
the ancient Macedonians, who according to Fanula Papazoglus dissertation were Greek speakers
(Fanula Papazoglu, Skopje 1957, 333). The newly authenticated inscription of Katadesmos brings the
Macedonian dialect in the realm of Northwestern Greek dialects along with Acarnanian and Aetolian,
which verifies Titus Livius' statement that "Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Macedonians are people of the
same speech." Katadesmos bears "the phenomena that distinguish the Northwest Greek dialects" as
pointed out by Carl D. Buck (Carl D. Buck, 1907, 241-276).
Dr. Friedman argues that the Bulgarian language differs from the "Macedonian" language
because their bases are different. The Bulgarian language has its basis in Sofia whereas the
"Macedonian" comes from the Veles, Bitola, Prilep and Kichevo area. If the FYROM language has its
basis on the dialect of Veles, Bitola, Prilep and Kichevo area, that statement proves that FYROM Slavic
was born in 1945. The government of the People's Republic of "Macedonia" imposed that basis on its
people during that time. Based on Friedman's argument, what was the basis of the pre-1945
"Macedonian" language? Sofia? It had to be because the "Macedonian" language did not exist on its
own since there were two additional equal dialects, the one of Stip-Strumica and one of Skopje. In
addition, as a matter of political agenda and policy successive governments of Skopje inserted through
controlled education and press vocabulary from other Slavic languages, especially from Serbian,
aiming to create a completely different language from the one the people of that Republic spoke in
1945. To safeguard anything "Macedonian" after its independence the government of the FYROM
passed the Penal Code (articles 178 and 179) making the challenge to anything "Macedonian a crime."
That includes the universities. What happened to democracy? What happened to the academic freedom
and non-attribution?
Regarding the loss of the infinitive, it is a fact that it is a regional issue applying to all south
Balkan languages. In the case of the FYROM language it never had one since its mother language,
Bulgarian, has long lost its infinitive with a few traces of the old infinitive remaining in the negative
Imperative, which has almost disappeared.
FYROM is a small landlocked country in the southern Balkans with serious domestic issues,
which exports problems and instability to its neighboring countries. It is the only country in Europe that
reciprocity and compromise are unknown, while irredentism and aggression are the norm. It is the
result of an ultra-nationalistic government that follows Macedonism, a nationalistic concept created by
the communists based on a history that they purposely falsified in order to hide imperialistic and
revanchist views. The present ultra-nationalist government of the FYROM continues the communist
policies based on the lie of Macedonism. Therefore, if the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
needs a lie in order to exist, its existence is redundant.

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THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST:
BORDERS OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES AS OF 10 AUGUST 1913
by Marcus A. Templar, published 2017

Photo credit: Dr. Nicholas L. Wright, Field Archaeologist and Numismatist

It is routinely publicized that the Peace Treaty of Bucharest split "Macedonia" into three
segments. According to this information, Greece received 51.56%, Serbia 38.32%, and Bulgaria
10.12%. The above information is incorrect, because it is based on false assumptions. Over 90% of true
Macedonia is within Greece.
If by Macedonia one considers the conquest of the area of ancient Paionia (i.e. the FYROM),
following the same logic one has to consider Afghanistan as being Macedonia, as well. Macedonia is
considered only the region that at the ancient times was inhabited by the Macedonian Greeks.
Conquests are temporary; they do not count.

>> FIRST ASSUMPTION: the Existence of the "Macedonian" People in 1913

One of the main cries of the FYROM Slavs is that Greece denies the existence of the
"Macedonian" people. The FYROM historians claim that the "Macedonians" are the ones who created
the Ilinden Uprising, but as we saw above, the insurgents were Bulgarians living in geographic
Macedonia. Not one of them was ethnic "Macedonian." The FYROM Slavs further state that the
Carnegie report uses the term "Macedonian" in an ethnic sense.
However, the Carnegie report refers only to the Bulgarians and Greeks living in Macedonia.
When the report suggests the adjective "Macedonian," it clearly means and without any exception all
inhabitants of Macedonia in the spirit of the Manifesto of Krushevo. As pointed out above, the Slavic
people of Macedonia kept declaring themselves ethnically Bulgarian. Brailsford, in his famous book

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regarding Macedonia, used the term Macedonian as a geographic term that encompassed Turks,
Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Gypsies, Jews, Dnme, and others.

>> SECOND ASSUMPTION: The Treaty split Macedonian Territories in 1913

The area of Macedonia would have been "51.56% to Greece, 38.32% to Serbia, 10.12% to
Bulgaria" if Macedonia included the FYROM areas north of Gradsko and Bakarno Gumno - Krushevo.
Nevertheless, that is not the case.
Dr. Fanula Papazoglu stated that Macedonia's territory reached as north as the area of Bakarno
Gumno in the towns of Krushevo and Prilep, which means that the areas north of Gradsko were not
included in Macedonia even in modern times. If the whole area of the FYROM was within Macedonia
in 1913 when the Treaty of Bucharest was signed, is it not interesting that the borders were moved in
1917 and later by 100 kilometers to the south? Taking into consideration the above, one could argue
that the division was more or less 70% to Greece, 11 % to Bulgaria, and 16% to Serbia and a strip of
3% to Albania." The Academy of Athens elevates the territories of the Macedonian Homeland
belonging presently to Greece to 90%.
In the same interview, Fanula Dimitriou-Papazoglou told the author that before WWII Skopje
was an Old Serbian town and the Capital of the pre-War Vardarska Banovina. She also stated that the
only reason for it being the capital of the newly emerged People's Republic of Macedonia was that it
was the largest city in the area. Bitola was too small.

Photo credit: Public Domain | Territorial Modifications in the Balkans


according to the Treaty of Bucharest

Immediately after the division of the Ottoman vilayets of Selanik and Manastir, the Greek
government established the "General Administration of Macedonia" for its part of Macedonia, officially
recognizing and utilizing the term Macedonia first after the fall of the Byzantine Empire. The Treaty
of Neuilly of 1919 corrected the few errors of the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913 and re-christened
Serbia's and Greece's part of Macedonia South Serbia and Northern Greece respectively.

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>> THIRD ASSUMPTION: The Treaty of Bucharest has an expiry

The FYROM Slavs created this assumption for internal consumption starting with the
misinterpretation of President Gligorov's statement requesting the revision of the Treaty of Bucharest,
but externally it indicates ignorance because treaties setting borders are permanent. The only treaties
that include in their text an expiry are treaties of leasing with a usual clause of 99 years.
In order for the treaty of Bucharest to be officially re-visited, it would require all signatory
countries to exclusively agree to it, something that would be nearly impossible since many countries'
national interests and their stability would be directly or indirectly affected. Since this Treaty is one of
the fundamental treaties that set some of the borders in the Balkans, a revision or re-negotiation of the
treaty would set a chain reaction that would invalidate or alter successive treaties. In the end, the
opening and renegotiation of the treaty would not guarantee that the FYROM would gain territories,
nor would it guarantee the FYROM's own existence.

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