Talk:Macedonian Slavs/Naming

The naming issue

This section is the description of the dispute. It is not intended for furthering the dispute or for general discussion. Please treat it is as an article, i.e. feel free to copyedit the text, add resources, etc., but try to keep it NPOV and take any comments to the comments section below.

There has been a long running heated debate about the name of the people who form the ethnic majority in the Republic of Macedonia, henceforth People X. The article has been called "Macedonian Slavs" for several years, but there were dozens of edit wars in other articles over references to People X, with groups of editors reverting between "Macedonian Slavs" and "Macedonians". The article details the dispute over the name and Wikipedia's involvement with the dispute should go no further than that. What is left to do is what we do in other similar cases: make the editorial decision about which name to use in this encyclopaedia, stick with the choice unless there are good reasons for individual deviations, and disambiguate where appropriate.

Agreed facts

There is a general agreement among editors, as well as historians and political authorities, on the following issues:

People X are a distinct ethnic group with a recognised language (the Macedonian language). Governments of some neighbouring countries have historically denied the existence of separate People X, but only Bulgaria and Greece continue to do so, officially.
People X inhabit a part of the historic region of Macedonia. They are the majority in the Republic of Macedonia, which includes about 38% of the wider region territory. There are also some people in Greek and Bulgarian parts of the region who identify themselves with People X, but their numbers are disputed.
People X are distinct from ancient Macedonians of Macedon. People X speak a Slavic language, while ancient Macedonians were either Greek or closely related to Greeks (depending on definitions which changed through time). It is plausible and quite possible that People X have inherited genetic material from ancient Macedonians, but most scholars would agree that they're not their descendants in a cultural or ethnic sense.
Greece rejects the use of the term "Macedonians" and "Macedonia" to refer to People X and the country that they inhabit. The country is recognised internationally as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", although an increasing number of countries (including China, Russia and the USA) recognise it by its constitutional name as the "Republic of Macedonia". Most Greeks argue that the term "Macedonians" can only legitimately be assigned to the Greek inhabitants of the region of Macedonia, plus their ancient counterparts.
People X identify themselves as "Macedonians" (Македонски, Makedonski), although it is generally accepted that they were not identified as such prior to the 20th century.

Please see the lower sections of the poll for information about how this matter is treated by other international organizations, countries, media, books of references etc. There is a Google test, also.

Options

There are two names that are proposed for Wikipedia to use to refer to People X — "Macedonian Slavs" and "Macedonians". This is a list of arguments for and against each of them:

Why call People X "Macedonian Slavs"?

because it is the name of their choise at the beginning of their revolutionary struggle in 1943. The Slav-Macedonian National Liberation Front (Slavjano-Makedonski Narodno Osloboditelen Front, or SNOF) and its military arm, the Slav-Macedonian National Liberation Army (Slavjano-Makedonska Narodno Osloboditelna Vojska, or SNOV).
Avoids any ambiguity with other inhabitants of the region of Macedonia, as well as with ancient Macedonians.
The creation of a "Macedonian" ethnicity is an old commintern (1923)plan in order to create territorial claims against Greece
None has the right to steal a nation's history
It avoids the first step on a wider plan for the destabilization of the area
Because all school books of FYROM are filled with territorial claims against their neighbours (mostly against Greece & Bulgaria). All of these ultra-nationalist claims are based on the name of Macedonia. The first step is the incorporation (stealing) of the name.
Because until the late 40's the people X was self-introduced as Bulgarian. The creation of a new ethnicity was organized by the Jugoslav Communist party in the mid 40's.
the term Slav is not a slur and should not be offensive. "Macedonian Slavs" is not imposed by Greece. The Greek POV is that "Macedonian" should be completely avoided for describing People X as people X try to falsificate history. Many Greeks may not accept even "Macedonian Slavs" as a NPOV.
because the term Macedonia is also geographical and all the people who live in the area have the right to use it Greek-Macedonian, Slav-Macedonian or Albanian-Macedonian. As a standalone term describes only the ancient Macedonians.
because any people X has the right to call themselvses as they wish but they may not use a name already in use by others. (e.g. The French do not have the right to change their name to Germans)

Why call People X "Macedonians"?

It's what people X call themselvses and wish other people to call them.

Why not call People X "Macedonian Slavs"?

Any potential ambiguity of "Macedonians" can be easily avoided in prose. Ambiguity in article names can be avoided by following standard naming conventions.
Macedonian Slavs is also ambiguous, as it can refer to other Slavs living in the wider region of Macedonia, e.g. Bulgarians. It is often used in medieval contexts to mean "Slavs living in the region of Macedonia".
Many members of the People X feel that the name "Macedonian Slavs" is imposed by Greece and find its use offensive.

Why not call People X "Macedonians"?

Many Greeks feel that People X are appropriating the cultural heritage of ancient Macedonians by insisting on the use of the name.
The name confuses political, geographical and ethnic identities, in that many inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are not ethnic People X (mostly being Albanians instead); and that the geographical region of Macedonia, of which the Republic of Macedonia constitutes only about 40%, is inhabited by multiple peoples who might all be termed "Macedonians" in a geographical sense.

Resources

Google test

These are the results of the Google test. Note: While the usage on the Internet can provide useful pointers, it is not necessarily useful as the deciding factor, especially if numbers of hits are low or differences between options are small.

All the following searches were limited to pages written in English (at least "thought by Google to be written in English"), and exclude the pages with the word "wikipedia" — we're interested in what other people use:

Macedonian Slavs

"Macedonian Slavs" -wikipedia [1] 4,880 hits.
9 of the first 50 hits refer to "Slavs of Macedonia" (mostly in the context of Middle Ages). This is not meant to imply that exactly or approximately 82% of all hits for "Macedonian Slavs" refer People X.

Macedonians

To find pages where "Macedonians" refers to People X and not to Ancient Macedonians or Greek Macedonians, it was necessary to exclude a long list of words, those refering to Greece, ancient Macedon, as well as the New Testament.
- macedonian -wikipedia -greece -greek -ancient -alexander -testament -paul -site:.gr[2] returns 45,600 hits.
- 2 out of the first 50 hits refer to ancient Macedonians. This is not meant to imply that exactly or approximately 96% of all above hits are references to People X.
"ethnic macedonians" -wikipedia [3] returns 10,600 hits.

Governments

The following governments use the following names to refer to People X:

Macedonian Slavs

Romania (in the 2002 census results: "macedoneni slavi")
The state government of Victoria (Australia) (inconsistently) uses the term Slav Macedonians for the people and Macedonian (Slavonic) for the language, but this has been the object of controversy and litigation; other Australian state governments and the federal government have also used these or similar terms on occasion ([4])

Macedonians

Republic of Macedonia
Other former Yugoslav Republics
Australia (but see above also) ([5])
Canada ([6])
France ([7])
United Kingdom ([8])
United States ([9] vs. [10])

http://www.mpa.gr/article.html?doc_id=522728

International organisations

The following international organisations use the following names to refer to People X (It should be noted that UNO,NATO and EU (See 1) do not recognise the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name. The temporary designation F.Y.R.O.M. is used):

Macedonians vs Macedonian Slavs

Council of Europe ([11] vs [12])
European Union ([13] vs [14])
NATO ([15] vs [16])
United Nations ([17] vs [18]

Media

The following major media outlets use the following names to refer to People X:

Macedonian Slavs

...

Macedonians

BBC: regularly "Macedonians" [19], rarely "Macedonian Slavs" [20]
CNN: Mostly "Macedonians" [21], sometimes "Macedonian Slavs" [22]
London Times: Mostly "Macedonians" [23], sometimes "Macedonian Slavs" [24]
Google news (not a real news outlet, but rather a compendium of current online news): [25] vs. [26]

Works of reference

The following works of reference use the following names to refer to People X:

Macedonian Slavs

Encarta
Generally, printed matter published in any language before 1940 use the term Macedonian in order to describe the inhabitant of ancient Macedonia.
THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES & ARTS of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on a proposal published on May 13 1999 for the solution of the Albanian problem in the area accepts the term Slav Macedonians. It says between others ......The Paeonians, a part of the ancient Macedonians and other tribes in Macedonia were in the 6th century A.D. absorbed by the Slavonic Macedonian masses who laid waste the Byzantine state system, and at the time of the great European migration of peoples, were stabilized in this region. The Macedonian Slavs remained the basic ethnic factor in Macedonia.........

Macedonians

Britannica
CIA - The World Factbook [27]
The Columbia Encyclopedia
The Harvard Dictionary of Music
Philip's Encyclopedia
The Macmillan Encyclopedia
Crystal Reference Encyclopedia
Penguin Encyclopedia of Places
The Companion to British History

Applicable pages on Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Naming convention

Comparable situations

Close parallels

The Belgians, a people of Germanic/Latin heritage, are called after the Belgae, an ancient Celtic tribe.
The Egyptians, an Arabic speaking nation, are called after the ancient Egyptians, the founders of some of the first human civilizations. The original Egyptian language is extinct.
The Palestinians, as a term almost exclusively used to describe the Arabic speaking nation inhabiting the geographical region of Palestine, was usually referred to anyone living in Palestine: Arab, Jew or other, under the British mandate period from 1918 to 1948. The origin of the name is Egyptian or Greek.
This is not entirely correct. See Definitions of Palestine. Moreover there is not "one" Arabic speaking nation inhabiting the geographical region of Palestine (unless you're talking about Jordan). I spoke to a professional geographer last week, and he said that Jordan is not considered a "Palestinian nation" - even though nearly all of its territory is within Palestine. Uncle Ed 16:33, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Lithuanians, people living in a minor region of the former mostly slavic Great Duchy of Lithuania. Litvins is an old-fashioned name for the Belarusians, and many nationally-oriented people in Belarus object against the ethnonym Lithuanians.

Loose parallels

The Canadians, a people of English/French heritage, are called after the Huron-Iroquoian word Kanata, meaning "village", "settlement", or "collection of huts"
American, is a name commonly used to describe a citizen of the USA, (originating from the name of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci), although the Spanish - speaking word considers this culturally aggressive, because the word in Spanish habitually includes the inhabitants of the entire New World.
The Russians - a people of Slavic heritage, are possibly named after the Varangian Normanic tribe called Rus'. However, this is opposed by most Russian historians. See Etymology of Rus and derivatives, for more information.
The Bulgarians, a people of predominantly Slavic heritage, are named after the Bulgars, a non-Slavic people of Central Asia. The Turkic etymology most often given for their name is Bulgha meaning sable and is of totemistic origin.
The Bosniaks, a Slavic speaking, predominantly Muslim nation, have collectively agreed in the early 90's that they should be referred as Bosniaks, although they have declared themselves and referred to as Bosnian Muslims before that. Two other nations inhabit the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina - the Croats and the Serbs.

Comments

Old comments are at Talk:Macedonian Slavs/Poll.

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