This is an archive of past discussions about North Macedonia. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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About FYROM
I m sorry to hurt your feelings but under the current status this state is formally referred by the UN as Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia which is abbreviated as FYROM. Till there is another settlement within UN this and only this is the oficial undisputed name.
Italiotis09:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
STOP THE PROPAGANDA of the SKOPIAN GOVERNMENT.
THIS IS A THREAT TO THE REPUTATION OF WIKIPEDIA, SINCE YOU HAVE ADOPTED A TITLE THAT IS NOT RECOGNIZED BY THE UNITED NATIONS.
CHANGE THE TITLE IMMEDIATELY AND STOP THIS GOEBBELIAN PRACTICE.
THE ISSUE HAS BEEN RESOLVED BY THE UNITED NATIONS GIVING THEM THE NAME FYROM.
DON'T YOU RECOGNIZE THAT? IF YES WHY YOU PROTECT THE PAGE UNDER THE NAME republic of macedonia AND NOT UNDER THE FYROM NAME? FIRST COME FIRST SERVE? OR THE ALBANIANS HAVE DONATED A SERIOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY TO YOU SO YOU CANT RESIST?
I HOPE YOU WONT ERASE THIS VOICE EVEN IF IT NOT PLEASANT TO YOU.
IF THE ALEXANDER WASNT HELLENIC WHY DID HE SPEAK GREEK AND READ AND WRITE GREEK AND WORSHIP GREEK GODS? DO U SKOPS KNOW WAT THE STAR OR VERGINA MEANS ???? UR COUNTRY WAS A SLAVIC LIE BY TITO ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Wikipedia uses the direct translation of whatever name a country calls itself to title articles about a country. The UN has no affiliation to wikipedia so there is no particular reason wikipedia would choose to instead use the UN for it's naming convention especially since while there are some countries that are not members of the Un there are no countries that have no name they recognize themselves by. For english this policy obviously means the title of the article is going to be Republic of Macedonia.Zebulin23:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I think that all this is actually propaganda and it is obvious by the fact that the title of this article is still Republic of Macedonia, as the country calls itself. If we accept that articles about countries should be titled in Wikipedia by the name they call officialy themselves, then Greece should had been titled Hellenic Republic, Germany as Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland), France as French Republic (République française)and so on for the most countries. Of course, if i type Federal Republic of Germany (as named by itself), i will be redirected to an article titled Germany (as named in the United Nations) and so on with the rest of the countries. Does something equivalent happens if i type Republic of Macedonia (as named by itself)? No. I 'm directed to the article titled Republic of Macedonia. So, i ask everyone, which are the criteria to title the articles of the countries? If not the UN, the right thing would be to retitle all this articles using the names the countries use to call themselves, as it is with Republic of Macedonia or just retitle this article which is under dispute. The moderators should take a more stable thesis and not contradict with themselves, neither by reason nor by action. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.63.34 (talk) 16:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi P.MIC.K. I read your comments concerning FYROM and I have to inform you that this is not a field where we are attempting to make politics. We are a neutral society of editors.
We try to revert the most neutral,less offensive and most accurate information.
For most of us being ivolved in Wikipedia it is just a simple and very pleasant hobby, nothing more than that.
The way that you express yourself is extremely rude and uncivilised lucking of manners and courtesy.
I will not even try to erase your statement as it constitutes a perfect example and a proof that even within highly elaborated european societies such as the greek one there are some sad oddities.
P.S. Next time that you decide to make such statements at least volunteer to sign your text and not try to hide. It is very easy to spot you through the page history as you ve already realised.Italiotis15:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
The horse is dead, please stop flogging it. We've been over this a billion times, Yes, the Un calls it FYROM on it's website, but the country calls itself Macedonia and so does a good portion of the world. Samuell02:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Look, It's called itself the Republic of Macedonia so it is the Republic of Macedonia. Greece doesn't have a dispute with Eritrea, even though there's a greek city calle Eretria which is practically the same. A large number of people think that the greek province of macedonia should be part of the republic of macedonia anyway. Even though I don't necessarily agree with that its called the Republic of Macedonia. Let's keep the status quo. 86.163.116.13121:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for highlighting the irridentic claims that the continuation of the name "Macedonia" implies and the complications regarding the greek province of macedonia.
I assure you that the greek ministry of international affairs has already and with great success
highlighted the same issue to its major NATO allies and EU members and both organisations have decided not to allow F.Y.R.O.M. s candidateship to proceed until the name issue is resolved with a way that shall mutually satisfy both countries based on the principles of a compound name and not plainly Macedonia. All the best Italiotis16:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Please, Wikipedia has no allegiance to a nation, we are neutral community of people from around the world. If we did change the name to FYROM it would just upset the people in Skopje. The name FYROM is far from undisputed at this time, at current, the community has decided the most neutral name of the two (or more) options. I am not communist (although I fail to see what communism has to do with this), anti-Greek or pro-Macedonian. I really have no concern in this issue, other than the fact that this is an important way to preserve the neutrality that is so important to wikipedia. Please stop using this page as a place for angry rants about how your right and every one else is wrong. Please just stop. Thank you -- Samuell (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
This has been discussed a zillion times, but let me state once again that the ACTUAL neutral position is FYROM, adopted by almost every international organization since there are ongoing diplomatic discussions between the two countries. If Wikipedia adopts any other name before the dispute is resolved, it takes sides. Do not adopt Republic of Skopje or Vardaria or any other proposals Greece has made (THIS is the Greek POV, not FYROM...), but do not adopt Republic of Macedonia also, which is Skopje's POV. So much for Greeks imposing their opinion... --Avg00:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
First of all the real name is REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA !!! NOT FYROM !!! Who do thay think the Greeks are. Only Macedonia can tell what the true name is. The Greeks have their Greek Macedonia but that is a part of Macedonia that has been taken after the Balkanic War II with the Bucharest Peace Contract. Even if the name in the UN is FYROM that will change. Plus that in the Bucharest Peace Contract says that after 2013 Macedonia should reunite if until then exists Macedonian people and Macedonian country. Pirin Macedonia and Greek Macedonia should reunite in one country as Republic Of Macedonia. The Greeks are afraid of that so they want to change the name so Macedonia can't reunite.
I just want to ask what do you know about our name and our history. The Macedonian history was always different from the Greek's. Macedonia was and it always will be a diferent country, with different people, different cultures and everything different.
I don't wanna argue but stop acting dumb! It's NOTRepublic Of Macedonia, it's FYROM!!!
I agree. the united nations consideration should be adopted and not the one who wants republic of macedonia or the other who officially does not want the word macedonia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by P. MIC. K. (talk • contribs) 23:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
First of all the real name is REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA !!! NOT FYROM !!! Who do thay think the Greeks are. Only Macedonia can tell what the true name is. The Greeks have their Greek Macedonia but that is a part of Macedonia that has been taken after the Balkanic War II with the Bucharest Peace Contract. Even if the name in the UN is FYROM that will change. Plus that in the Bucharest Peace Contract says that after 2013 Macedonia should reunite if until then exists Macedonian people and Macedonian country. Pirin Macedonia and Greek Macedonia should reunite in one country as Republic Of Macedonia. The Greeks are afraid of that so they want to change the name so Macedonia can't reunite.
About the name of Macedonia
There are a couple of points that I would like to stretch about the Macedonia name dispute. And I m going to stretch both historical , etthnical, and linguistic points. First of all Macedonia as an area has been altered substantially through time. Initially it was the name used to designate the ancient greek kingdom of Macedon and its greek inhabitants. This area is completely encompassed within the borders of modern Greece and constitues today the greek province of Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians were one the the seven ancient greek tribes that constituted the greek nation according to the cosmogony of Isiodus. On top of it Herodotus further stretches that Macedonians were Greeks of Doric origin, who never followed the doric descent to the southern greece but remained in their original area Macedon. Macedon from the the 4 century BC were speaking Attic Greek and whatever writing findings we have before that time that signify that the ancient Macedonian Language was simply another Greek dialect closely related to the doric form of greek. So it is widely accepted that ancient macedonians were simply Greeks. Some dispute however rises from some scholars who challenge this issue. Those scholars belong to the same school of thought that initiated the theory of Black Athina simply stating that that the ancient Athenians and perhaps the ancient greeks where of African/Nubian and not of european origin . This school of thought came in existence as the result of an attempt to rewrite the history and forge a new perception of a multiroot origin of classical civilisations. All those theories of course never become dominant among the scientific community remaining isolated opinions of some scholars, but opinions and not reality nontheless. However it was this school of thought that suggested that the ancient Macedonians were not greeks in an attempt to include the slavic people into the group of people who produced classical civilisations. This exact forgery -that was never managed to be imposed universally- Tito, the communist president of the republic of Yogoslavia for decades,managed to exploit. Among Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Bosnia he created a sixth state encompassing the area of ancient Paionia, and named ir Yugoslavic republic of Macedonia. This area was inhabited by Serbians, Albanians and finally by a substatial Bulgarian minority who Tito used to built upon his irridentic claims on the whole area of the Ottoman province of Macedonia. Macedonia under the Ottomans was the name of an area much wider than the ancient Macedonia(alocated today in northern Greece). It constituted further the ancient paionia, most wisely known as Vardar Macedonia constituting the current state of the self called republic of macedonia, and Pirin Macedonia, currently the pirin mountains, the land gains of serbia and Bulgaria respectively during the Balkan wars of 1912-1913. Those Bulgarian people Tito groomed to develop a totally different national identity from the rest of Bulgarians. He named their language , a dialect of bulgarian language , as macedonian, and raise a forged irredetic claim during the cold war on greek Macedonia. The years passed ,communist regimes collapsed and with them Tito s regime. Nonetheless the fragile Yogoslavia splited in parts and the little southern republic emerged to a state still using the name of macedonia and sstill raising direct or indirect claims on the region of Macedonia and the greek history of ancient hellenistic roman and byzantine Macedonia. Those people, Bulgarians by origin speaking a bulgarian dialect, are still bearers of Tito s irredentism and self determine themselves mistakenly as ethnic Macedonians. All the world concider them as a people of slavic origin with the right to self determine themselves as distinct of Bulgaria. Nonetheless it is rational for them to bear a name that will describe them distict from Bulgarians but at the same distict from the name of macedonia which describes an important part of the greek history and culture. The current description as republic of Macedonia is completely inaccurate and a huge historical mistake that will have to be corrected the soonest, and those people must finally acquire an accurate and real description of their nationality A nationality that came in existence only 60 years ago. And don t forget till today people from FYROM still acquire bulgarian passports in order to come and work in EU on the basis that they are bulgarian by origin —Preceding unsigned comment added by Italiotis (talk • contribs) 15:27, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I would like to say that the text above is not supported by facts and is a work of Greek fiction. I am not angry at the author of the text because this is what he has been thought at school an at home but this is just Greek propaganda. There are many facts that disprove the text above. In my opinion you can find the true history of Macedonia on this page http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/ where you can find many extracts from ancient and modern books with the names of the authors of the books. I can not write anything here because it is copyrighted.
The only truth i found in the text is the fact that many of my fellowcitizen believed that in the Bucharest agreement signed in 1913 (in which the neighboring countries divided 1/3 of my country to themselves) there is a clause that states that the agreement will expire after 100 years which is not true and will never happen.
And another truth is that many people from my country acquire Bulgarian passports in order to come and work in EU on the basis that they are Bulgarian by origin, but that is because we are a poor country and many people are unemployed.
(BobiMK (talk) 19:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC))
Yeah right!!! And Bulgaria grant passports to all people from FYROM willngly as an act of charity for christmans and not because the FYROM people are indeed Bulgarians!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.208.48 (talk) 10:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Language
I think that the languages spoken are serbian,bulgarian and albanian. There is no such thing as macedonian language. It is the language of the country, but it is nonsense (as if we are talking of australian or brazilian language)85.74.51.20912:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I am Bulgarian, and I have been living with two Macedonians for three years now... I will not make statements whether or not their language is BG or whatever, but I will tell you that we understand each other perfectly, and we are good friends.
I can't understand Serbs or Croats that way, and I talk in English with them. But Macedonians - no problem at all. I did not have to learn Macedonian at all - I just had to "get used" to it for 1 month. Now I can speak it relatively well.
So therefore is the Fyromian language a dialect of bulgarian? If so, are we allowed to state that, or like their nations' name, if they want to say it is one thing, we all have to agree? Reaper723:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I once heard a saying that a language is a dialect with an army. :-) See Macedonian language#Classification and related languages for info on the classification of the language. I should note that scholars don't have universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, but the experts do seem to take the view that that Macedonian is sufficiently distinct to be described as a language. For instance, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) treats Macedonian as a distinct language for classification purposes. -- ChrisO23:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Chris you were looking for this. Also, in terms of abstand, their language could well fall within the definition of a Bulgarian dialect. However, linguists say that a language is a language if its speakers say so. And there's no doubt about what they say it is. NikoSilver23:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Nice catch on the quote, Niko! I'd forgotten the "-and a navy" bit, but in hindsight it wouldn't have been very appropriate in the context, would it? Though there is a Swiss Navy, sort of... -- ChrisO00:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
To Reaper7. Its really interesting to me how in your profile it says that you are born in England and you have never been to Bulgaria but you have been to Greece and here you say you are Bulgarian and can understand Macedonian very easily when i am Macedonian (not Greek to be clear) and i have much difficulty understanding Bulgarian. By the way the current Macedonian language (like many other countries including Bulgaria) uses the letters That Cyril and Metodij wrote, So it has to be similar.
(BobiMK (talk) 19:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC))
FYROM
I know it is being disputed for ages and it will be disputed for centuries but nevertheless, this f*** country's OFFICIAL name is FORMER YUGOSLAV Republic of Mecedonia!!!!
At least, when you begin the article about this country, write the full damn name and then call it whatever you want!! I know it will not change much but at least make it official!
Do you hear anybody disputing an article about calling Istanbul Constantinople?? No!Because like it or not it's Istanbul NOWDAYS! And like it or not, the official name of FYROM is FYROM for crying out loud! (oh, sorry FYROMacedonia...oh yea, and the northern province of Greece is GRMacedonia or should we call it something else after 2500 years to make the Skopjians happy?)
By the way i hate being rude and sarcastic but sometimes it's completely impossible to hold oneself. I didn't ask to change the whole article, just the beginning (put the official, recognized by the UN, name pleeeeease...)-- kompikos
Piss off Kompikos. Why don;t you go shave your fat, hairy greek mother's beard
Hahaha, how funny, swearing. Kompikos is actually right, the official name is FYROM and I do not know why the name here is Republic of Macedonia. Why should we call Greek Macedonia Greek Macedonia then? It's real name is Makedonia in Greek, so the name should be Macedonia there aswell, at least as long as the same thing applies to FYROM. You POVers are irritating me. - Beares15:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
The official name of the country is Republic of Macedonia. Part of the countries and international organizations use FYROM in the international diplomatic relations, but that doesn't make it the official name. ElectionworldTalk?20:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
What is it's name in the UN? There you go, pal: FYROM. Until the UN changes the name to Republic of Macedonia or Macedonia, it should be called FYROM. Now if some countries do not want to bother using the entire name is another matter. End of discussion. Beares11:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Since when does the UN decide the official name of a country. It is up to the countries themselves to decide their official names. Nowhere the right is given to the UN to make these kinds of decisions. I am aware that the UN and part of its members uses the diplomatic name FYROM, but that doesn't make it the official name. Article one of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia is clear: The Republic of Macedonia is a sovereign, independent, democratic and social state. The sovereignty of the Republic of Macedonia is indivisible, inalienable and nontransferable. [1]. Please stop your POV towards the Republic of Macedonia. BTW As a short name I would use the official name, to distinguish it with other regions inside Macedonia. ElectionworldTalk?12:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
The official name of a country is not what it calls itself, that is the inofficial name, what name is used in for example the Olympics? FYROM. Now what a country chooses to call itself internally is irrelevant in this article(The Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia). You are pushing your POV and accusing me for doing it. - Beares17:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The official name of a country is the right of any country itself. I am not POV in this issue, neither form Greece or from Fyrom, not even from the region. The name of the country is according to its constitution Republic of Macedonia. ElectionworldTalk?18:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Again, no, the official name is what all other countries (The UN) calls it, and how it is recognized. If Greece suddenly changed its name to Albania, do you think it would be accepted? No, but a compromise would be reached. As has been done with FYROM. Which, again, means that FYROM is the politically correct and neutral name (Don't say that it is what the Greeks call it because they call it Skopje or in Greek Ta Skopja). And because Wikipedia is, or at least is supposed to be, a neutral site, the right name for this country is FYROM, not Republic of Macedonia. End of discussion right there, pal. - Beares11:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with that, you have your opinion and I have mine, but I have a problem with the other guy insulting Kompikos for no apparent reason in a way that sounds racist. - Beares09:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Getting back to the issue where you disagree, I'd like to note to my fellow philhellen Beares the following: It is indeed crazy and confusing that they call themselves Macedonians -period. See Macedonia (terminology), or this edit to have a small idea why it is so. Regardless, (and unfortunately/wrongly/mistakenly/unjustly/confusingly/...) most English speakers have chosen to call them that. It is sad, but true. It is a fact of life. Wikipedia does not take position on whether this is correct or not. Wikipedia just uses the most common reference in English, and if there is doubt (which is indeed arguable), it uses the self-identifying name. Hopefully, the whole world (<--ahem, mouseover here) will change their minds. But until then, we are doomed to title the article as such.
To highlight the absurdity of it all, please read and then mouseover the following sentences:
You may not agree to all I say above, but fact is: WP will not change the world; the world will change WP.NikoSilver13:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately you are right, NikoSilver, in a world were most people ignore facts and prefer looking at a map instead, this will be the consequence. BTW, has anyone noticed that Wikipedia is not seen as a word/name? It gets this red thing under it (Don't know what to call it). Quite funny IMHO, considering that this is Wikipedia... Anyway, the main reason to why I reacted was because of the other posters (Not Electionworlds) insult. Just wanted to say that :P. - Beares16:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Ох, ЛУДАЦИ... I think that everybody from this discussion should GET A LIFE, WAKE UP & start thinking about his/her OWN PROBLEMS. Macedonia or fyrom is not yours neither my problem. In the end we can't do a sh** to change that...
"linguists say that a language is a language if its speakers say so" - I believe you are mistaken, a professional linguist would never say such nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.247.249.65 (talk) 13:22, August 30, 2007 (UTC)
That's not even relevent Alinor. A country has the right to decide whatever name it wishes. There is Ireland and Northern Ireland and people don't care about the naming. Do the other countries of North America care that citizens of the USA call themselves 'American'? Do members if the European countries care that citizens of Cyprus refer to themselves as European even though the island is geographically part of Asia? Macedonia has every right to choose whatever name it likes without interference from other countries. Everyone accepts that it's called Macedonia but on paper and in the United Nations they use FYR of Macedonia just to please the Greeks. 217.200.200.5422:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "F" in "Former" be Capitalized?
"Macedonia gained its independence peacefully from Yugoslavia in 1991, but Greece's objection to the new state's use of what it considered a Hellenic name and symbols delayed international recognition, which occurred under the provisional designation of "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." In 1995, Greece lifted a 20-month trade embargo and the two countries agreed to normalize relations. The United States began referring to Macedonia by its constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia, in 2004 and negotiations continue between Greece and Macedonia to resolve the name issue." - CIA Factbook
When referring to the name that the Greeks prefer, including the word "former," it would seems that it would be proper to capitalize the "F". Note that that is the convention accepted by the CIA, the BBC, IOC, IANA and other major international organizations.4.243.146.15701:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The short answer is no. See Macedonia naming dispute (with added bolding): "It should be noted that this is purely a provisional reference — describing how the UN calls the state — rather than a determination by the UN of what the state's name should be (hence not a provisional name). This is emphasized by the fact that the expression begins with the uncapitalised words "the former". The UN also did not seek to set a standard for how others should refer to the republic, emphasizing that the reference had been adopted for use only "within the United Nations". The same convention was adopted by many other international organizations and states but they did so independently, not as the result of being instructed by the UN. The United Nations Security Council has emphasized that the reference is purely descriptive and "merely reflected the historic fact that it had been in the past a republic of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."" -- ChrisO01:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
In the late 6th century AD, Byzantine control over the area disintegrated, and the region was conquered by Slavic tribes from the north, assimilating the preexisting Greek, Latin, Illyrian and Thracian-speaking inhabitants.
The greeks stayed within the walls of Salonika during this time and did not assimilate or suddenly start speaking slav. Reaper711:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
You're a goofy little shit. Can you imagine Italy throwing a fit because the United States has a Latin motto? Or Israelis throwing fits because people from any number of European countries give their children Hebriac names like Isaac and Simon? Or the aboriginal population in Australia throwing complaining because the white settlers adopt their words and give their cities aboriginal names? That's how absolutely absurd the Greek argument is in this matter. I side with the Greeks on most everything - from their dispute with Turkey regarding Cyprus to your 2000 Olympic bid - but on this matter you're behaving like a bunch of Turks. The mindless, pointless, absolutely nonsensical rambling about something as inconsequential as the name of a country which has NEVER DONE ANYTHING TO GREECE - which hystorically was part of the region of Macedonia (SO THE NAME IS ACCURATE) - is absolute lunacy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.183.178.138 (talk) 03:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC).
Of course i agree with the above you said, but why is FYROM trying so desperate to prove that the ancient Macedonians have nothing to do with Greeks? And i'm not talking about some few ultra nationalist people in FYROM and abroad, i'm talking about the government too... why is that? Also since you said "FYROM is a part of Macedonia region, so the name is accurate", what about the other regions? Why FYROM to monopolize a name, that don't belong only to them (but Greece and Bulgaria too). So the appropriate is to choose a name (with the term Macedonia) that separates you from the Greek and Bulgaria Macedonia and of course to stop claiming other nations history (i'm talking about ancient Macedonia). If you can do that, then i'm sure we have nothing else to argue ;-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sakis79 (talk • contribs) 09:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC).
>> And this is way Modern Macedonians have nearly nothing in common with Ancient Macedonians. And all those slavs are part of the Bulgarian nation! Yavor00:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
And modern America has nearly nothing to do with Ancient Rome, but they have a latin motto on their money. What kind of crazy nonsense is that?? I think Italy should protest this outrage before the UN security councel!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.183.178.138 (talk) 04:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC).
>>> And to be fair, shouldn't Kuber's Bulgars who settled in Macedon (lowest estimates are 80 000) be added? Or are we ignoring facts?
There is nothing wrong with "monopolising" names. Where do you think of when you say America? Do you think of the two continents of the western hemisphere, or the USA? If I were to say Brussels is the capital of Europe would you think I meant the whole continent or the EU? New Guinea is part of Australia but not Australia. Are all the people of the British Isles British? I wouldn't try that in the Republic of Ireland.
So as you can see "monopolising" names isn't new, nor something to get to caught up in, and certainly shouldn't be allowed to affect the ease of understanding of the article. Scroggie19:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Umm, I don't know what sprung off this comment, but all the examples you stated have different official names that disambiguate adequately. I don't think that Greece wold raise issue if that solution were to be applied, and some people euphemistically/for-simplicity used Americans to refer to the inhabitants of the USA.(<---mouse over these) As for Australia, I doubt New Guinea would be able to monopolize the name instead of the Australian Commonwealth which occupies -say- 95% of the continent. In our case the country occupies only 30% or so, with Greece occupying 51% (not to mention the unrelatedness in historic background). NikoSilver20:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
User 24.183.178.138, I suggest you refrain from participating on this site until, 1/ you cease using apparently derogatory remarks about our Turkish friends,("[Greeks] behaving like a bunch of Turks"). 2/ Until you learn to contextualise each individual case regarding names and appelations. Politis20:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Their Eurovision candidate is one very beautiful girl if it helps. I was almost stunned (and that's rare). Also, the Greek commentator's tongue slipped to say plain "good luck Macedonia", to be quickly corrected by her almost angry colleague. I just say this to verify that the above official/simple distinction could also even occasionally apply in Greece! (and because I really liked the girl) NikoSilver21:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
From Monastiri and beautiful? She must be of Greek Vlach origin. Go for it Karolina, Greece is behind you! ;-) Politis21:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, she is one very beautiful F.Y.R.O.M. girl born in Bitola and she has very good voice. We Macedonians are happy that she succeeded to go in the final. Niko, I'm glad that you liked her;) MatriX11:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
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as i saw myself, the text says that United nations recognise that country as FYROM, so i cant understand why you keep the name Macedonia.. Instead you should refert to it as FYROM..
Did someone remove the image of the FYROM money note depicting the white tower??
I know this was discussed so many times, but it is a fact that the Albanian is not an official language throughout Macedonia. It is not used in the Government, it the police, in the army, in the international relations, on the border crossings etc. If you put it in the intro along with the Macedonian, it looks like they have the same importance and that is simply not true. The government in Macedonia didn't accept so far the Albanian as the second official language throughout the country. For example, see the following info taken from [2]:
But, the talks suffered a setback on Tuesday when the Slav parties rejected two of the Albanians' key demands - that Albanian be made one of Macedonia's official languages and that a local police force be set up independent of the Interior Ministry (IM).
In a statement released Wednesday, U.S. and EU envoys said the draft political settlement on the table provides for retaining Macedonian as the "primary official language" throughout the country, and IM central control over the police.
Albanian would become an official language "in some areas and in restricted circumstances," the statement said.
The last situation is that in April the prime minister Gruevski held talks with the Albanian opposition leader Ahmeti and they have some progress regarding the possible adoption of a special languages law that will define clearly the usage of languages in Macedonia (see [4]):
"Progress has been made on several open issues, but there will be additional talks. We await for the DUI proposal on the law on languages. Afterwards, we will see what they ask and whether this is acceptable", stated Gruevski.MatriX18:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Matrix, no WP:OR. The fact of the matter is that real encyclopedias see fit to treat both languages equally [5]. Original researchis not enough to overrull this.--Ploutarchos14:07, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Albanian is an official MINORITY language, meaning that it does not have the same status as Macedonian. For example, on Macedonian currency, the name on it is REPUBLIKA MAKEDONIJA, there is no Albanian name. So if the Macedonian name is the official name of the country as it is shown on the currency, then why are we adding the Albanian name on Wikipedia if its not even on their currency???Uuttyyrreess22:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The bottom line is that Macedonians all over the world are very offended when seeing this wikipedia article and seeing that the name of their country is in Albanian. As I said Albanian language is not at the same status as Macedonian language, it is not divided 50/50 as you can see the Albanian language is not taught in schools where there are'nt Albanians, it is not on the currency, it is not on the passports, there is not Albanian version of the anthem, etc. Uuttyyrreess22:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
conventional long form: Republic of Macedonia
conventional short form: Macedonia
local long form: Republika Makedonija
local short form: Makedonija
Therefore the Albanian does not apply for the name of the country, passports, currency, etc. Obviously the britannica source is a misunderstanding and an error because they assumed that since Albanian is a minority language that every thing was split 50/50 including the name of the country, but they were wrong.Uuttyyrreess 22:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The Albanian name is not the official name of the country.Uuttyyrreess23:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Currency was issued mostly in 1996 before the Ohrid Agreement. The text of the Ohrid agreement stats that there will be passports, street signs and currency in Albanian language. Mr. Neutron00:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
"6.8. Any official personal documents of citizens speaking an official language other than Macedonian will also be issued in that language, in addition to the Macedonian language, in accordance with the law."
"6.5. Any other language spoken by at least 20 percent of the population is also an official language, as set forth herein. In the organs of the Republic of Macedonia, any official language other than Macedonian may be used in accordance with the law, as further elaborated in Annex B. Any person living in a unit of local self-government in which at least 20 percent of the population speaks an official language other than Macedonian may use any official language to communicate with the regional office of the central government with responsibility for that municipality; such an office will reply in that language in addition to Macedonian. Any person may use any official language to communicate with a main office of the central government, which will reply in that language in addition to Macedonian. " Mr. Neutron00:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Personal documents could mean a whole other range of documents excluding passports and currency (despite that fact that passports and currency of Macedonia upto date is all written in Macedonian). The bottom line is that this does not supply us with enough information to conclude that the actual official name of the whole country is being changed to Albanian.Uuttyyrreess00:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Read the infobox on the Romania article. German, Serbian, Hungarian, etc. all are official languages of Romania (at local levels just like Macedonia) yet the name of the country is always represented by its official primary language, Romanian. The same is also true for articles on the People's Republic of China, and especially Russia.Uuttyyrreess00:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe some modifications in the relevant section (Republic_of_Macedonia#Languages) so as to describe and clarify the whole controversy are in order:
Instead of this text:
Macedonian is the only language explicitly designated as an official national language in the constitution. It also provides however that languages spoken by over 20% of the total population are also official - at present, only Albanian fulfils this requirement. Additionally, in municipalities where at least 20% of the population is from other ethnic minorities, their individual languages are used for official purposes in local government.
We could change to:
As a result of the Ohrid Agreement, the constitution provides that languages spoken by over 20% of the total population are also official, along with Macedonian. Only the Albanian language fulfills the constitutional provision at a national level. However, as of 2007, Macedonian is still the only language explicitly designated as an official national language in the constitution, with the official recognition of other languages restricted to municipalities where at least 20% of the population is from other ethnic minorities, and that "in addition to Macedonian".
Whoah! Please look what I came up with by browsing the sources: Regarding the earlier example, compare the language treatment here with the one here. I am re-adding the Albanian language in the infobox and intro. Now it is officially sourced. If you read Britannica's note #2, it even says: "Albanian was made an official language in June 2002." I'm glad we are all stepping out of the train of WP:OR interpretations with this! NikoSilver15:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
As I already said, Albanian has not the same importance as the Macedonian and it just have a special privileges to be used in some circumstances. Moreover, the Macedonian constitution clearly specifies the official name of the country - using the Macedonian alphabet - for that reason I suggest keeping the only official naming of the country in the intro and in the infobox as well.MatriX16:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Britannica cannot be more relevant than the Macedonian constitution where the official name is defined using the Macedonian alphabet only. MatriX16:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The Britannica source is obviosly a flaw as it goes against the CIA World Factbook, also this other Brittanica article says that the official name of the country is Republika Makedonija only [7]. So there is obviously a flaw on the on-line version, so if anyone as acess to the hard copy of the Britannica book, mabey you can scan it and show everyone here what it says. Uuttyyrreess19:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, because the Albanian name is not shown on the official currency of Macedonia, and because Albanian is official only in locally (not through out the country), Macedonia falls under the same situation as Romania, read the infobox on that article, you'll see that there is more than one official language in Romania, but the official name of the country is shown in Romanian. Uuttyyrreess19:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
As a side note, claiming there's "a flaw" in the country page (which is linked from the introduction page), is just _laughable_. I am sorry you feel that strongly about the Albanians. Maybe this attitude reflects what type of information is being pushed within the modern republic's borders... It is really sad, and I hope the new country gets over it. NikoSilver20:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Until another language is shown on the country's currency, which upto date is written all in Macedonian with the official name Republika Makedonija, then the official name of the country is Macedonian. What more can I say? Uuttyyrreess21:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
?? What is written on the currency has no bearing in what languages are official or not in a state. Surely you know that>? Reaper722:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Instead of quibbling about the sourced (vs WP:OR) practice of including the Albanian name, perhaps we should consider including a footnote next to the name similar to Britannica's highlighting the FYROM name further.--Ploutarchos08:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Nobody is feeling that strongly about the Albanians, but why you are so insisting that their language is official at national level where it is not? I said a lot of times already - it has special privileges - but it is not used at national level and putting the Albanian name in the intro you are equalizing the status of the Albanian with the one of the Macedonian. That is why I'm opposing it so strongly. MatriX16:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
MatriX you so lost!
"6.5. Any other language spoken by at least 20 percent of the population is also an official language, as set forth herein. In the organs of the Republic of Macedonia, any official language other than Macedonian may be used in accordance with the law, as further elaborated in Annex B. Any person living in a unit of local self-government in which at least 20 percent of the population speaks an official language other than Macedonian may use any official language to communicate with the regional office of the central government with responsibility for that municipality; such an office will reply in that language in addition to Macedonian. Any person may use any official language to communicate with a main office of the central government, which will reply in that language in addition to Macedonian. " Mr. Neutron17:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Neutron, you are so blind:
In a statement released Wednesday, U.S. and EU envoys said the draft political settlement on the table provides for retaining Macedonian as the "primary official language" throughout the country, and IM central control over the police.
Albanian would become an official language "in some areas and in restricted circumstances," the statement said. MatriX17:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
How do you mean!? Here is what it says: Following Macedonian accusations that they were willing to grant equal status to the Albanian language, Mr Leotard and Mr Pardew were forced to issue a statement. Their proposals retained Macedonian as the country's primary official language, they said.MatriX17:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
It says that the Macedonian would retain as the primary official language in the country and that the Albanian would not be equalized with the Macedonian. You should finally accept that the Macedonian is the only official language at national level and stop reverting the article. MatriX18:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Mr. Neutron, enough is enough, you asked for a source and you got it, now its time to stop and think what you're doing. Uuttyyrreess17:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Dear wikipedians. For me it is clear: Macedonian is the national official language of the RoM, but Albanian is also an official language. There is a justification of adding the name in Albanian too. I think it is a real problem on pages like this one that nationalism dominates a lot of contributions. ElectionworldTalk?18:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your thoughts, but the reality is different: Albanian is not used in the Government, policy, army, border crossings, in the international relations of the Republic of Macedonia etc. As the Albanian has some special status in the country, I agree that it should be correctly explained in the article (as it is in the info box already), but we should find some other formulas different from the one that puts both names in the intro section (it is obvious that it irritates the Macedonian editors as it doesn't reflect the reality that we face each day here in the country). MatriX18:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Correctness of the articles is not based on whether Mac. editors are irritated. In this case, if they are irritated, the problem is with them, not with wikipedia. Original research and falsifying sources will not be tolerated! Mr. Neutron18:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
And, to conclude, the only official name of the country is the one described in the Macedonian constitution and is written in Macedonian alphabet. The Albanian name of the country is not an official name of the country, it is not used in the constitution, it is not used everywhere at national level. MatriX18:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Just look at the Romania page. Hungarian, German, Romani, Ukranian and Serbian are all official languages of Romania (info box). So why isn't the name "Romania" written in these languages? Because the primary ofiicial language is Romanian. Uuttyyrreess18:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you see the difference in language treatment between this and this? Albanian in FYROM is certainly not the same as German... in Romania.--Ploutarchos19:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Romanian and Macedonian are primary languages, German and Albanian are official local languages, both Romania and Macedonia are in the same situation. There is no difference. Uuttyyrreess19:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Did you even look at the sources??? Britannica treats "Macedonian" and Albanian equally in the FYROM page, but doesn't even mention German in the Romania page. Being official nationwide is all that's required, even if it's never used (see Romansch at Switzerland which is spoken by 1% of the total pop.)--Ploutarchos19:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Come on, Switzerland is a confederation, whereas Macedonia is an unified country, with just one official language that is used throughout the country - Macedonian. The Albanian name you extensively put into the intro section is not an official name of this country. MatriX17:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
North Macedonia? New Macedonia?
What about if FYROM adopted a name like North Macedonia or New Macedonia? Would Greeks be satisfied?
See Macedonia naming dispute#Greek position for an answer. I think yes. Not to mention that the prevailing position in Greece is that we are brought to this position due to our stubbornness. More specifically, the then MFA Antonis Samaras allegedly rejected the proposal for "Slavomacedonia/n/s" against the PM Constantine Mitsotakis's wishes. When he was replaced, he overthrew the government. That was easy because despite the large percentage of the governing party in votes (~48%), the then electoral law gave it only marginal parliamentary majority with 151/300 members. NikoSilver19:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, I remember a few days ago some statements by today's PM and MFA, who both said something like:
"We covered already our part of the distance [i.e. quit rejecting Mk name inclusion] between the two positions; now it is the turn for Skopje to do the same [i.e. quit rejecting anything but plain Mk]."
Of course, that raises the question of whether any Greek government wants to cross the howling ultranationalists who reject any usage of the name "Macedonia" at all. One suspects that these people might not be too happy. -- ChrisO19:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I've no idea Chris; I really wish they did. Actually I wish they had done so there and then when it was "hot". To tell you the truth I'm almost confident most Greeks want such a solution, given that I didn't spot any serious reactions on the government's widely discussed alleged acceptance of Nimetz's last proposal for "Makedonija-Skopje".
However, I've reasons to expect any party being on the opposition to reject it as "treason" for stealing votes, thereby fueling the ultra-nationalists. Regardless, I think we elect leaders for being wise, not for being feathers in the wind.
Anyway... the worst part is that I've come to a point not to expect such a proposal any more given the circumstances... The whole situation in our neck of the woods definitely smells like "divide et impera": See Yugoslavia, see Kossovo, see Iraq being split shortly, see Kurdistan becoming autonomous, see next Turkey and Iran being split to those bits... For Greece, see Cyprus, see alleged minorities of (Slavo)Macedonians,[1] and now of Albanians on the northwest(!),[2] see Aegean dispute... NikoSilver20:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
For any such compromise name to have any hope of viability, it would have to be extended to both the predominant ethnic group and language of the neighbouring state, and any illusions of descent from ancient Macedon abandoned in official discourse and the education system. New Zealanders have no connection to Zealand, for example, other than the name. If this were applied here, it might just work. ·ΚέκρωΨ·23:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm wondering, Greece is opposing the usage of the name Macedonia of its neighboring country and for the reason that it uses the same name for its northern province. Why don't you then change the name of your province to something like, for example: Greek Macedonia (as you are saying that Macedonia was Greek)? That way everyone would make a distinction between our Macedonia and yours? MatriX17:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
MatriX: Interesting way of thinking; in addition, we can call Greek Macedonia “Real Macedonia” and your country “Pseudo-Macedonia”, how about that? Now until then, let’s get serious: I suggest you read a few good history books, because it seems like you do need them badly… Helladios17:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, you do really need a lot of history books… Btw, does the name Vardarska Banovina reminds you of something? Helladios18:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Different names were used throughout the history, but we remained what we are. Did you forget that both our countries also were part of the Ottoman empire and called differently then? MatriX18:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
If the country was created later, that doesn't mean that the people didn't existed and didn't wanted to create its own country.MatriX18:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Since we talk for the past, lets remember what Krste Misirkov said about a century ago:
• Some will ask why I speak of breaking away from the Bulgarians when in the past we have even called ourselves Bulgarians and when it is generally accepted that unification creates strength, and not separation.
• And, anyway, what sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?
[15]: Nurigiani (1972) calls "the founder of the Modern Macedonian literary language" published In Macedonian Matters (Sofia, 1903). There he stated that the Macedonians are "a separate and independent Slav people). I think this is not a forum where we should interpret the history, this talk page is about the contents of the article, not how Macedonia or your northern province should be called, neither what Misirkov said in 1903, so I'll quit the discussion. MatriX18:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Did it occur to any of you that we all come from Adam and Eve? Did you ever think that Onassis' or Kennedy's or Einstein's son can be a total looser? That the beggar's daughter in the corner of the street can become Madonna? So who gives a shit if my or your grandpa's balls were "truly" Macedonian? Just try to make sure you live up to his expectations. The rest is bullshit, and is pursued by people who have no other way to make themselves "distinct"! NikoSilver23:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
"Stealing" some neighbor's history is immaterial; your kids can become equally clever without it!
"Protecting" your "own" history is bollocks; your kids can become equally dumb with it!
Macedonia is big. It (mainly) contains 3 distinct ethnic groups, with various ancestries. The rest is semantics; and semantics is a really lame reason to argue about... Has any neighbor of the three ever thought that we have many more reasons to stick together rather than arguing about bullshit? That most our (perceived) "enemies" are common? That we share a common culture? That these "problems" we have between us may be planted, because we shouldn't even fucking care? Great. Now what are we doing about it? NikoSilver23:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Update
Following ChrisO's question, there was an unofficial poll carried out in 2004 that I just spotted: [16]. For those of you who can't read Greek, 68-75% support a solution with "Macedonia plus something". (There's a comment quoting the poll results "before reset" which raises the number of participants to c.270 -with the same results). Also, I found this fantastic opinion/article in Kathimerini by the prominent Greek journalist Athanassios Ellis, which states "We requested the maximum [i.e. "no Macedonia in the title"], hence we lost the minimum.[i.e. not even a dab]" The journalist also reconfirms that each political party accuses the other one for "treason" even if the solution chosen is similar to the one provided by the accusatory party! I posted these here to confirm my initial response. NikoSilver13:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
That's all well and good, Niko, but it doesn't justify the intransigence of the other side. Greece made the first move by accepting the initial Nimetz proposal as a "basis for negotiations"; the ball's squarely in their court now. ·ΚέκρωΨ·13:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
According to a recent sourced addition of an anonymous user in Macedonia naming dispute about "Gorna Macedonia", it may not be entirely their fault. See this diff [17], which blames the Tetovo crisis for yet another failure in a definite solution. Jeez, I hope this all comes to an end at some point! NikoSilver15:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Or it could just be that they used the Albanian insurgency as an excuse not to reach a painful but inevitable (for both sides) compromise with Greece, in which case it is very much their fault. ·ΚέκρωΨ·15:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
And I'm pretty sure it was Gorna Makedonija, Slavic for Upper Macedonia. Gorna Macedonia must be a typo on E's part. ·ΚέκρωΨ·04:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Obviously I have nothing intelligent to add to the name dispute, since the dispute itself is moronic, but since I am already here, I will throw in my 2c though nobody asked me for it :) I am baffled, dazed and confused how did it come to this state of affairs and how come Macedonia and Greece are not the closest allies on the Balkans? For God's sake, Greece is Macedonia's exit to sea, and Macedonia is Greece's highway to Europe! The two countries NEED each other! And instead of being allies and stand together (since pretty much every other neighboring country hates them both, for different reasons though :) they are going bananas over some stupid name and some second hand history from 2000 years ago, passed down by who knows how many drunken Roman and Byzantine historians until it reached us as something just a little more than a fairytale! I live in the 21st century AD, not in the 5th BC! I couldn't give less crap about what happened 2500 years ago, I care how is my life today (well, to be exact I live on a different continent, but those are details :).. So what I propose is: kill all the politicians (both Greek and Macedonian), get drunk together (both rakija and Ouzo are fine :) and I am sure the people themselves will come a commonly agreeable solution :)) -me out Capricornis05:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
As about your comment "some second hand history from 2000 years ago" I strongly disagree. History is not something that we are allowed to leave for the past and just forget it, or worse, re-modify it for our diplomatic or political needs but something that we have to learn from in order for humanity to gain wisdom from its experiences and its mistakes (imagine for example someone like Hitler uprising to power because we did not take a lesson from WW2). As for the rest of the conversation I think you are partly right. This kind of rivalry is more dangerous than moronic and is one more reason why nobody should forget history. It seems that many people have forgotten that this kind of rivalries drived us to the Balkan Wars that created a lot of misslocations, immigrancy, misery and national hate between our countries. Moronically we find war and dispute much easier than trying to get along and make an objective view of the truth without rights and wrongs and without sublimation and demonalization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.44.77 (talk) 12:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Culture Section
Needs cleanup. The text reads, "The Republic of Macedonia is amongst one of the countries with the most beautiful preserved Byzantine fresco paintings, mainly from the period between the 11th and 16th centuries." A reference for that would not even be useful. Peacock phrases like "most beautiful" are against Wikipedia's editing policy. And phrases like "exquisite beauty" aren't any better. It sounds like a tourist brochure.Acumensch04:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Albanian language
I THe Albanian language is recognised as an official language in RoM. But it is not THE national language.
So i urge the editors to exclude the Albanian version of Republic of MAcedonia from the intro section
Someone (ie a human who wants to learn about this nation who does not know it already) will see what we see now. A sat picture of a piece of land, no boarders to indicate where it begins or ends, a piece of land that seems unfortunately for reality to go half into Hellenic non-slav terority and appears to show your nation as a mediterranean one and not a land locked one like we know it to be. It is ok for the people of Fyrom - within their boarders to create any reality or history they please, that is their right, but for goodness sakes, non Fyromian kids read wiki, at least they deserve to see the real boarders of your land and not some ambiguous sat image which carelessly engulfs a big part of Hellas. Reaper701:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Slight historical inaccuracy concerning the First Bulgarian Empire
In the start of the third paragraph in the History section of this article, I wish to point out what I believe is an error.
"In the late 6th century AD, Byzantine control over the area disintegrated, and the region was invaded by Slavic tribes from the north, assimilating the preexisting Greek, Latin, Illyrian and Thracian-speaking inhabitants in the regions of today's Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, where they formed eventually the First Bulgarian Empire, centered at the city of Ohrid.[4]"
Ohrid was a major cultural center of Bulgaria, yes, but the only time when Ohrid could be called the 'center' of the First Bulgarian Empire was near the end of the empire, when Byzantium had conquered Eastern Bulgaria.
Not only this, but the First Bulgarian Empire didn't hold Macedonia in its creation, Macedonia was later acquired through conquest, whereas other territories, now Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian were, in fact, part of Bulgaria through the first empire. (I'm not sure what the paragraph above tries to convey, but what it does convey, is inaccurate.)
Perhaps the article should read:
"In the late 6th century AD, Byzantine control over the area disintegrated, and the region was invaded by Slavic tribes from the north, assimilating the preexisting Greek, Latin, Illyrian and Thracian-speaking inhabitants in the regions of today's Republic of Macedonia, where they were eventually absorbed into the First Bulgarian Empire. A city of the region, Ohrid, became one of Bulgaria's leading cultural centers throughout the first empire."
chris289
Yes very good point. I suggest you go ahead and implement that change. In fact I would go further to elaborate a little. " In the ......... today's RoM. THis area was subsequently conquered/ incorporated into the First Bulgarian empire. A city or the region........ In fact, after the fall of the Bulgarian capital in 972, the area corresponding to today's RoM continued to assert independence against the Byzantines, before also falling finally in ? 1041".
Hxseek21:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
PS just put a source in or I;m sure our comrade Greek wikipedians will object the change and claim it's falsifying history
It is not sure if it is right to say that The First Bulgarian State/Bulgarians don't call it Empire/ ABSORBED or CONQUERED these lands. If you take a look at our history, you'll see, that The Proto-bulgarians or The Bulgars are more likely to have UNITED with the Slavs! The central government was given to the first, and the local - to the Slavs. Later the khans started a process of "slavinization", which led to assimiation of The Proto-bulgars. You cannot say that we CONQUERED The Slavs in the region of Macedonia. I believe that they united with us! I haven't heard of any military conflicts between slavs there. We have only studied a few conflicts and they were round today's Serbia, Bosnia, Western Romania and Hungary, and concerned only a few tribes of The Slavs.
And you know that they say: "The King is dead. Long live the King" /or something like that/ The same is with Preslav and Ohrid ;) Ohrid became the capital of Bulgaria 82.199.193.21713:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)yavor
Recent developments of Albanian language in Macedonia
The Britannica source concerning the official name of the Republic of Macedonia is no longer reliable or upto date since recent developments in Macedonia's government rejected full complete official use of the Albanian language [18] and also rejected bilingualism. According to another news report, [19], the Albanian party claims that Prime Minister Gruevski doesn't have enough power to "prevent it from being announced as a second official language in Macedonia". This was their response to Gruevski's comment that nobody should hope for bilingualism in Macedonia.
From the same news report, it also says that on July 19th, Nikola Gruevski said there’s an agreement with DUI leader Ali Ahmeti. They agreed on three points, while the language issue was still hanging.
The Republic of Macedonia has a Constitution and Framework Agreement, which do not provide for bilingualism in Macedonia and none of the parties should hope for one because it is not mentioned neither in the Constitution, nor in the Framework Agreement. We do not intend to fulfill somebody’s wishes, which are out of the Constitution and Framework Agreement,” Gruevski said.
This does not talk about a political decision, only about inclination of Gruevski to reject it. Wikipedia is not a Crystal Ball. If a decision is made, it could be reflected in the article. Also, I dont see a decision to overthrow the Ohrid Agreement, which I assume is therefore still in effect, and according to which every language with more than 20% total speakers is official on national level. Mr. Neutron16:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
VMRO-DPMNE and DUI are having an ongoing political dispute but Gruevski's decision has not been made official. So until the dispute is solved between the parties the Albanian language will be official. 16:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Albanian should be removed from this article as an official language as per the Macedonian constitution. Article 7 of the constitution states:
The Macedonian language, written using its Cyrillic alphabet, is the official language in the Republic of Macedonia.
This is quite succinct, it says that Macedonian is the official language of Macedonia, and even succinctly states that Macedonian written in Cyrillic is the official language, which means that Macedonian written in the Latin alphabet is not official. Article 7 then goes on to say:
In the units of local self-government where the majority of the inhabitants belong to a nationality, in addition to the Macedonian language and Cyrillic alphabet, their language and alphabet are also in official use, in a manner determined by law. In the units of local self-government where there is a considerable number of inhabitants belonging to a nationality, their language and alphabet are also in official use, in addition to the Macedonian language and Cyrillic alphabet, under conditions and in a manner determined by law.
Yes, Albanian would be covered under this section of Article 7, but the operative words here are units of local self-government. This does not equate to Albanian being an official language on the national level, but an official language on the local level. This means that the official languages of Tetovo municipality are Macedonian (as explicitly stated in the constitution) and Albanian (as allowed for in the constitution), whilst the official language of Dojran municipality is Macedonian, whilst the official language of Centar Župa municipality is Macedonian and Turkish (interesting to note that the entry for Centar Župa municipality redirects to Merkez Jupa municipality.
What is needed is a reliable source that explicitly states that Albanian is an official language of the Republic of Macedonia (i.e. the country as a whole), otherwise Albanian should be removed as the Constitution of Macedonia already says it is not. --Russavia22:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Out of curiousity, can you please quote the exact text from the Ohrid Agreement which makes Albanian official, as what I am reading (as in the link to the full agreement from the O.A. page) only makes provisions for (not set in stone) and inline with Annex B, which is basically the same as what I quoted above from the constitution, as in local government munipical areas. --Russavia15:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The Skaviniai were eliminated by the Byzantine Emperors, who would submit or expel the Slavic invaders from the Greek peninsula in successive waves[5]. The elimination of the Slavic element in Greek-Byzantine Macedonia reached its peak with Justinian II, who is said to have removed as many as 200,000 from Macedonia to central Anatolia[5].
I think this is not accurate, aimed at subtely colouring the article. The slavs raided northern greece and were eventually pacified, yes. But they were not all expelled. This is testamount by the existence of slavophone Greeks, as well as macedonians and southern bulgarians ! It would be more accurate to say that the slavic threat on Thessaloniki was quelled, and many were exiled or forcibly Hellenized, but obviously many, if not most, remained -under Byz rule. Back then the byzantine empire reached far further north than northern greece. Obviously the slavs were not expelled
New state university in Macedonia - added to education section
There is a new state university being started in Macedonia, called 'Goce Delchev' and is located in Shtip. I think October 2007 is when the first classes commence, but I am not sure, maybe it was October 2006. The university doesn't have a web page yet (I think), but here is an advertisement from 'The Economist' soliciting computer equipment tenders for the new university http://www.economist.com/classifieds/view_ad.cfm?sitd=6058&sitd_type=TCapricornis04:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Please, could anyone upload a picture of a monument of Gotse Delchev from the Republic of Macedonia, especially of the famous statue from Skopje? A quality picture of Delchev's grave will be even more appropriate. I think that such pictures are necessity in the article Gotse Delchev. Greetings, Vulgarian11:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Although you might find it irrelevant, it is not. Recently a poll decided to rename the article from Myanmar to Burma, even if Myanmar is the name preferred by the country itself. So the primary criterion for Wikipedia article naming seems not to be self-determination but something else? How can this apply to RoM/fYRoM?--Avg03:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I suspect it's not directly comparable. There's a dispute within the country about its name - the opposition prefers Burma, the junta prefers Myanmar - and the country's constitution still defines it as Burma. The name is genuinely not settled as a point of self-identification. Contrast this to the RoM, where the population and parties are overwhelmingly supportive of the current name and unambiguously self-identify by it. The naming dispute there is external to the country, not within it as in the case of Burma/Myanmar. -- ChrisO09:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
The official name is Union of Myanmar. The people of Myanmar do not object to the name because they consider it the same word. The opposition prefers Burma for strictly political reasons. The UN and most of its members separately have recognised it as Myanmar. We adopt Burma because we don't like the junta (which is undoubtedly the case, but should be irrelevant to an encyclopaedia that supports NPOV) or because this is how the US and UK refer to it (which is clearly systemic bias)? So the connection I'm making here is that there are very prominent instances where the naming guidelines are not followed. --Avg14:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course, if the guideline isn't being followed consistently then it should be. But the Burma/Myanmar case strikes me as an unusual one. It certainly can't be said that "the people of Myanmar do not object" because (very obviously) they don't have a say in the matter. All we can say for sure is that the opposition clearly does object, as do overseas Burmese groups. The basic premise of a self-identifying name is that the subjects should identify by it; we can't say that's so in this case. -- ChrisO19:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
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So many times already discussed, but could you guys read your own constitution?
Article 7
"The Macedonian language, written using its Cyrillic alphabet, is the official language in the Republic of Macedonia.
In the units of local self-government where the majority of the inhabitants belong to a nationality, in addition to the Macedonian language and Cyrillic alphabet, their language and alphabet are also in official use, in a manner determined by law. In the units of local self-government where there is a considerable number of inhabitants belonging to a nationality, their language and alphabet are also in official use, in addition to the Macedonian language and Cyrillic alphabet, under conditions and in a manner determined by law."--Avg00:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
They have read their own constitution, and that is why Albanian was removed. Some people are thinking that because a language is official in a local government unit, then it is also official in the entire country. The way that this is being mis-interpreted by people, example, Miami has 3 official languages, therefore, this means that English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole are official languages of the US, and we all know this is not the case. People have also quoted the Ohrid Agreements, which clearly states on levels of self-government and does not cover the country on the whole. --Russavia11:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Russavia and Phantom IP on this one. Avg seems to have missed the difference between a language being official in some parts of the country and the language being an official language of the country. Russavia mentioned the case of Miami and the US, and there are many other similar cases. Look at Spain and you'll see the name of the country in the Spanish language, not in Catalan, Basque or Galician even though all three of them are official languages of not only municipalities but even whole regions of Spain. That situation is exactly the same as in Macedonia with a language being recognised on a municipal level but not being an official language of the country. Same thing in Italy; GermanandFrench are both official languages of many municipalities and in fact of a region each, but they are not official languages of Italy and the official name of Italy isn't given in German and French. Of course all the Macedonian municipalities in which Albanian is official should have their names given both in Macedonian and Albanian, just as is the case with Catalan, Galician and Basque municipalities in Spain or French and German municipalities in Italy. JdeJ10:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
6.5. Any other language spoken by at least 20 percent of the population is also an official language, as set forth herein. In the organs of the Republic of Macedonia, any official language other than Macedonian may be used in accordance with the law, as further elaborated in Annex. Albanian is clearly an official language on national level. ForeignerFromTheEast21:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
There are problems with this approach - specifically, the Ohrid Agreement is a primary source and thus needs to be dealt with under the guidelines set out at WP:PRIMARY. I think we're getting into original research territory here by trying to interpret the meaning of the Agreement ourselves. It would be preferable to find a secondary source that explains what the wording of the agreement actually means. I'll have a look around and see what I can find. -- ChrisO00:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Ohrid Agreement was signed under one very important condition: Macedonian must be the only official language on national level. DUI is fighting for albanian as second official language on national level but Gruevski clearly said: No. Aagain: "Republika Makedonija" is the only official name of the country. Only the Macedonian municipalities in which Albanian is official should have their names given both in Macedonian and Albanian.--Phantom IP08:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I tried to redirect the article "Republic of Macedonia" to "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" or "FYROM" but it has been redirected again by someone called Black and Decker threatening to delete me from contributing to the english wikipedia due to long discussions on the macedonian matter on this page and predisposing me not to try argue on the matter for it is rather impossible to persuade the wikipedia community for that change, before even trying. After posing some argument and questions to that administrator, I have been left with no answer whatsoever. I would like to ask if there is another administrator to whom I may pose my questioning pending on a reply. Thank you.--Dimorsitanos20:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
This has already been addressed numerous times. First, moving pages by copying-and-pasting them isn't allowed, because it doesn't move the page history with it. Second, under Wikipedia's naming conventions, we name articles on countries by the English equivalent of a country's own name for itself. Since the English equivalent of "Република Македонија" is "Republic of Macedonia", that's what the article is called. The RoM doesn't call itself "Former Yugoslavic [sic] Republic of Macedonia" or "FYROM", so the article isn't at either of those names. -- ChrisO22:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, ok that's understandable. Still, howcome one is not allowed to start a new article under the "FYROM" name clarifying to the readers that this is the name by which world institutions, Greece and other non-123 countries around the world recognize this state! The "FYROM" page is locked! I cannot start a new article, and regarding to the copy-paste and discussion matter, I had been left with no reply from the person deleting it on how (or if i'm entitled) to start this article...--Dimorsitanos14:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
124 countries have recognised Republic of Macedonia under it's constitutional name. It's nearly two thirds of UN members.--Phantom IP19:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
You know better than me (but are afraid to admit) that all these countries have recognised fYRoM with its constitutional name just because they want to establish diplomatic relations with your young state. It's not that they "agree" in any form with your outrageous beliefs, no matter how you want to spin it. They recognise the STATE, not the NAME. And of course they have all accepted the UN jurisdiction over the naming dispute. As soon as the dispute is resolved they will recognise fYRoM with its proper name.--Avg20:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Assuming you're replying to me, I'd appreciate your clarification on which part of my comment was nationalistic. Otherwise, an apology would be a nice idea. Thanks. --Avg20:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
The general tone of your comment was inappropriately hostile, bordering on a personal attack. I'd suggest toning it down - there's no need to provoke other editors. -- ChrisO23:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I've temporarily protected the article to stop the edit war over the country's name/official language. Please work it out here on the talk page. -- ChrisO21:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Wer do you have this information from? It seem that you are making up numbers. If not i'd like the hear what census are you takeing this info from... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.140.6.120 (talk) 09:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Change proposal
Introduction paragraph seems fine. There is no need to mention that, "The Republic of Macedonia forms approximately 38.3% of the land and 44% of the population of the wider geographical region of Macedonia", especially since, that region is a fluid entity and not recognised as a European region. If we mention it, then we go into all sorts of complications such as having to clarify that the largest population in 'the region' are the Greek Macedonians (over 2 million) - it just gets silly. Please remove for the sake of the article. Politis (talk) 10:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The other necessary is change is the the Byzantin section. The Byzantine Theme of Macedonia covered today's Thrace. Also, that section if far too long, after all this is about the country, per se. Politis (talk) 13:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The lead, as is, is fine. It clearly identifies Macedonia (country) as part of the larger Macedonia (region). The point is well made, should stay, and does not require further elaboration. Jd2718 (talk) 00:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
QUESTION
English, French, and German are compulsery languages in primary and secondary education levels in Macedonia. Should they also be included in the ofifcal languages section of the info-box ? Fatmanonthehorse19:08, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how Alexander's conquests are relevant to this article, other than as a rather poor attempt to claim modern ownership over them. Philip II is relevant because it was he who conquered Paionia, which covered most of today's FYROM. The expansion of Macedon under Alexander, on the other hand, had no immediate effect on this land, as it was already part of the empire when he ascended the throne. A simple link to Macedon should therefore suffice. ·ΚέκρωΨ·05:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Borders of Macedon by Philip II
There is a problem with the borders of Macedon described in the article. At first there are no scientifical proves that Macedon covered part of today RoM before Philip's II reign. On the contrary all discovered Macedonian cities in RoM as for example Heraclea Lyncestis were build from Philip and only in southern regions. There are no Macedonian archeological findings before his reign in RoM. More, we have detailed description of the borders on the territory of RoM :
The Macedonian border fortresses are not a myth or a fiction. Exactly those fortresses that were built by the Macedonian soldiers of Philip II of Macedonia and his son Alexander III The Great or even Philip V and his son Perseus, today very clearly draw the northern border of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Well known are the points western of Bitola, as well as northern of Heraclea Lyncestis at the border with the Deuriopi and Pelagonia. Amphaxitis following the course of the river Vardar is in a similar condition. The western line along the high mountain Kojuv is not well conceived in the archaeology, but it is almost unbelievable the fact that this mountain did not attract Philip II, due to the gold mining shafts. The border of ancient kingdom of Macedonia under Philip II and Paeonia in the middle of the Vardar Valley was traced in the zone between Demir Kapija and Udovo (a village in Southern Macedonia in Valandovo municipality). The Macedonian border continues along the Belasitsa mountain range between Amphaxytis (Valandovo region) and the Paeonian town Doberus (Strumica). Source: Macedonian Center for Archeological resurch. - Republic of Macedonia.[21]
According to Encyclopedia Britannica the land of the Paeonians, originally including the whole Axius (Vardar) River valley and the surrounding areas, in what is now northern Greece, Macedonia, and western Bulgaria. The Paeonians, who were probably of mixed Thraco-Illyrian origin, were weakened by the Persian invasion (490 BC), and those tribes living along the Strymon River (in western Bulgaria) fell under Thracian control. The growth of Macedonia forced the remaining Paeonians northward, and in 358 BC they were defeated by Philip II of Macedonia. The native dynasty, however, continued to be highly respected: about 289 BC, King Audoleon received Athenian citizenship, and his daughter married Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Under the Romans, Paeonia was included in the second and third districts of the province of Macedonia. By AD 400, however, the Paeonians had lost their identity, and Paeonia was merely a geographic term. [22]Jingby12:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
According to Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition - They occupied the entire valley of the Axius (Vardar) as far inland as Stobi, the valleys to the east of it as far as the Strymon (Struma), and the country round Astibus and the river of the same name, with the water of which they anointed their kings. Emathia, the district between the Haliacmon (Bistritza) and Axius, was once called Paeonia; and Pieria and Pelagonia were inhabited by Paeonians.In consequence of the growth of Macedonian power, and under pressure from their Thracian neighbours, their territory was considerably diminished, and in historical times was limited to the N. of Macedonia from Illyria to the Strymon. They frequently made inroads into Macedonian territory, until they were finally subdued by Philip, who permitted them to retain their government by kings.[23]Jingby12:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
According to another source: At some point thereafter, the Paionian princedoms colalesced into a kingdom centered in the central and upper reaches of the Vardar and Struma rivers. They joined with the Illyrians in resisting the northward expansion of the Macedonian state. In 360-359 AD, southern Paionian tribes were launching raids into Macedonia (Diodorus XVI. 2.5) in support of an Illyrian invasion. Macedonian was throne into a state of uncertainty by the death of Perdiccas, but Philip assumed the throne, reformed the army (providing his Greek-style phalanx with the long sarissa), and proceeded to stop both the Illyrian invasion and the Paionian raids. He followed his success in 358 BC with a campaign deep into Paionia, which reduced that kingdom (then ruled by Agis) to a semi-autonomous, subordinate status. A native dynasty, however, continued through the reigns of Lycaeios (359-340 BC), Patraios (340-315 BC), Audoleon (315 -286 BC), Ariston (286 BC), Leon (278-250 BC) and Dropion (250-230 BC). [24] This is also confirmed by the next map :
NOTA BENE !!! Even into а pro - Macedonistic and nationalistic site History of Macedonia is a map which shows the borders of the Kingdom of Macedon unter Philip's II reign in the same shape!!! It is ridiculous but there are also pure Greek, Illyrian, Paeonian and Thracian territoties shown as Ethnic Macedonian??? [25]Jingby19:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Conclusions:
1. Before Philip II Macedon did not cover any part from the territory of today RoM!
2. During Philip's reign it concuered the southern most parts from the territory of today RoM!
3.The Kingdom of Paeonia on the most from the territory of today RoM was reduced to authonomus status!
According to the Official portal of City of Skopje it's history is unclear! -
...The history of Skopje can be traced back some twenty-five centuries. Archeological findings at Skopje's Kale fortress show that an unidentified people lived here in prehistoric times, between the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages. Scientists think that they date back to before 4,000 B.C. Actual evidence and records of the Skopje region date from the IV century B.C. According to some scholars, the Paionians initially settled the town. In the III century BC, Skopje and the surrounding area was invaded by the Dardani. However, the expansion of ancient Macedonia during the time of Philip II of Macedonia and Alexander III of Macedonia throughout the then known world certainly had positive influence on Dardania, which is confirmed by the tomb plate found on the Skopje fortress. The Roman occupation of Macedonia, after the Macedonian-Roman wars, meant also the occupation of Scupi. The Roman historian Titus Livius made the first historical reference to Scupi. Being a part of the Roman prefecture Illyricum, Scupi was latinized, especially through the colonization of Roman veterans from the VII legion. During the time of Tiberius, there was the first partition of the Balkan provinces, which were eventually defined by the emperors Diocletian and Constantine I. From the Moesia Superior, a new province was extracted, Dardania, with Scupi as the administrative center. [26]Jingby14:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Ancient Dardania
According to another Macedonian site the city of Skopje for the first time has been mentioned by Klaudius Ptolomei, under its ancient name "Skupi". In the III century B.C. Skupi was founded by the Dardanians, and later with the coming of the Romanians it came under their rule. In this period, the city experienced real bloom on several fields, it became a large religious centre with its own bishop. [27]Jingby14:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
According to Encyclopedia Britannica - Skopje began as Scupi, a settlement of an ancient Illyrian kingdom. Under the Roman Empire it was made the capital of the Dardania district in the 4th century AD. [28]Jingby14:31, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
According to the Archaeological site - Skupi - the ancient town of Skupi, Skopje’s predecessor, is at the foot of Zajcev Rid Hill, on the left side of the river Vardar, near the Skopje suburb of Zlokukjani. It is one of the many archeological sites in Macedonia. Before the arrival of the Romans on these grounds, the famous tribe of the Dardanians inhabited the city, and with the Roman colonization, and the romanisation of the natives, this town grew into a colony and began its prosperity. Skupi was located on an important road connecting the Aegean Sea with Central Europe as well as Thrace with the Adriatic Sea. Its location, as well as its size and the unusual rectangle frame, points to the fact that this town was a legion castrum (military barracks site) once. [29]Jingby14:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Conclusions:
1. The northern regions of today RoM probably never foll under Macedonian rule!
2. These territories were more in Dardanian then in Paeonian sphere of influence!
3. Later these parts of the country were attached to Illyricum, but most likely to Moesia!
According to this map from A History of the Ancient World by George Willis Botsford Ph.D., published by The MacMillan Company in 1913, Alexander's Macedonian Empire certainly did cover Skopje and as far north as the Danube River as well.Fatmanonthehorse20:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Conclusions:
Southern regions of the RoM were always part of ancient Macedon
Skopje was on the border of Paeonia in Philip's Empire, and was completely covered by Alexander's Empire (which reached the Danube River)
Relations between the Kingdom of ancient Macedon and the Kingdoms of Upper Macedonia.
...Contrary to popular belief there was almost always a rivalry between Mountain kingdoms and the Macedonia state, resembling the one of the greek city-states, since as always happening in the greek world, no greek kingdom city-state ever saw positively the subjection in one or the other way to someone else. As a matter of fact, before Philip’s time, these mountain kingdoms were independent. Lyncestis was the northern kingdom having at its borders Lake Lychnitis. Lyncestis bordered in the south Orestis and to the south-east again was lying Elimiotis. We could found south of Elimiotis, Tymphaea. Usually these kingdoms are described by geographers – Upper Macedonia. Hecataeus and Strabo identified these mountain Macedonia kingdoms as of Epirote stock...[51]
...Through out Macedonian history before the time of Philip, Macedonia was split into two regions, Upper and Lower Macedonia . Upper Macedonia was a collection of different tribes with their own kings and royal families. These tribes include the, Illyrians in the West, Lyncestis, with Orestis and Epirus forming the Molossian. In contrast, one king ruled all the lands and tribes in Lower Macedonia. There were great hostilities between the tribes of Upper and Lower Macedonia.... [52]
Pelagonia, Bottiaia, Almopia and Lynkestis were a regions (in earlier times, a small kingdoms) of Upper Macedonia which was ruled by kings, lords and independent or semi-independent chieftains till the later Argead rulers of Macedon (Amyntas IV, Philip II) neutralized their independence. The names of Upper Macedonian rulers are often not apparently Greek (Arrhabaios, Sirrhas), and scholars such as Eugene Borza have used this to argue that the Macedonians of Upper Macedonia retained many of the supposedly non-Hellenic original Macedonian names later lost among the Macedonians to the south. Others argue these names may be in fact Hellenic although many do not yet have clear Hellenic etymologies, while others argue that the names were borrowed from Illyrians or Paionians or Thracians.The Macedonian tribes of Lynkestis (Greek: the Land of the Lynx) were known as Lynkestai.In Book VII. Chapter VII. 8. Getae, Macedonia, Black Sea, Strabo says the rulers of Lyncestis, under Arrhabaeus, claimed descent of the race of the Bacchiadae of Corinth. Strabo goes on to say Irra was the daughter Arrhabaeus, and his grand-daughter was Eurydice, the mother of Philip II.
References
Errington, Robert Malcolm, History of Macedonia, 1986
According to Columbia Encyclopedia Alexander I (d. 450 B.C.) was the first Macedonian king to enter into Greek politics; he began a policy of imitating features of Greek civilization. For the next century the Hellenic influences grew and the state became stronger. With Philip II (reigned 359–336 B.C.) these processes reached their culmination, for by annexing Upper Macedon, Chalcidice, and Thrace he made himself the strongest power in Greece. [56]Jingby (talk) 12:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
According to Encyclopedia Britannica the Paeonians were weakened by the Persian invasion of 490 BC, and the tribes living along the Strymon River fell under Thracian control. The growth of ancient Macedonia forced the remaining tribes north, and they were defeated by Philip II in 358 BC.[57] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jingiby (talk • contribs) 13:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
"Freedom or death" was the motto of the Greek revolution of 1821 against the Turkish. It's not "Macedonian"-Skopian or anything else. Please correct that —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.181.29 (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Is there some sort of copyright in country and revolutionary mottos? If that's the case then Bulgaria and Italy are going to the courtroom as well :) To ALex: About the Bulgar/Bulgarian stuff I'm not sure I'll be able to answer you in a single Wiki article :) No, seriously I might try right after getting all the wine that I drunk the last two days in Melnik behind my back. --LaveolT21:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I notice that there are several locator maps used for European countries. Macedonia's is Mercator, and extends far north and west, leaving the country looking tiny (if it weren't already quite small). Compare at the map used for Italy, which seems to be far more suitable for showing countries on the European mainland, especially towards the south. Can the other base map be adapted for use here? Jd2718 (talk) 01:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I was the originator of the PNG locator maps as used in Italy and various other European countries, which are consistent with maps used for most other countries. Surprisingly, there was a prior edit war regarding these maps, with some arguing that the horrid orange Mercator maps should remain without there really being a prior consensus to keep them. Anyhow, it is my intent to produce SVG maps for all European countries when able, but I have been delayed in doing so. This is still on my to-do list, so stay tuned! Quizimodo (talk) 15:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
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References to ancient Macedon in the History section
"Over the centuries the territory which today forms the Republic of Macedonia was ruled by a number of different states and former empires, but Macedonian blood has always run in the genes of the Macedonians living in this region."
Could someone clarify this statement for me? How is "Macedonian blood" defined encyclopedically? Should Wikipedia rely on a nationalist, gene/blood-related definition of ethnicity (see Blood and soil)? If Wikipedia were to rely on such a definition, then this statement would definitely need to cite a credible peer-reviewed source (preferably one including comparative DNA tests performed on the remains of people living in the region during the past 2816 years).
Of course it could be the case that the author intended a different meaning whereby, at any point in time, the people living in the region called themselves Macedonians. So, in that case, the Greek inhabitants of ancient Macedon called themselves Macedonians in ancient times; while, in our times, the predominantly Slavic inhabitants also call themselves Macedonians. If that is the case, then the whole statement should be removed on the grounds of relying on circular reasoning, as this ambiguity would confuse many of the readers (particularly when viewed in the context of the Macedonia naming dispute - i.e. in what context is the word "Macedonian" used and in what context is the word "Macedonians" used in this statement).
Moreover, the part that refers to the "Ancient Period" contains numerous ambiguities with regards to its references to ancient Macedon. While it mentions early on that "The kingdom of Macedon took over Paionia", it then goes on to refer to Alexander the Great as "Philip's son Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), the King of Macedonia" and "Alexander was born in 356 BC in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia". This begs the question of whether the word "Macedonia" here refers to ancient Macedon or to the former Yugoslav Republic. I am not trying to flame anyone here; all I am trying to say is that you people should pick a naming convention and then stick to it... you can't use the words Macedon and Macedonia interchangeably, in this article, for fear of confusion! This is an encyclopedic article; we can't assume any knowledge of history on behalf of the reader, so it is essential to avoid such situations. As a final remark, I should note that since this is not part of the history of the "Republic of Macedonia" [sic] per se, but of the history of the "Region of Macedonia", this should not be a part of this article for fear of confusion.
You're absolutely right. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to transmit knowledge, let's make sure people are not getting "technically" correct but ultimately misleading information. You seem to imply that the blurb on ancient history is sloppily written; however, I think it is intentionally hazy. It is perfectly accurate, yet can lead an unknowing reader to the impression that the Republic of Macedonia has some sort of cultural continuity with ancient Macedon. I conquer, Radjenef, that that whole section should either be clarified or moved to a different article. This also goes for some of those photos appearing in the margin (i.e. readers could be confused into thinking that the emperor Justinian was an "ethnic Macedonian").
Anyway, I find it sadly ironic that in this same article, we learn that:
"The Macedonian State Religion Commission denies the group (the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric) to be registered as a religious group saying that only one group may be registered for each confession and that the name was not sufficiently distinct from that of the Macedonian Orthodox Church."
The government of the Republic of Macedonia seems capable of recognizing the obvious problems in the overlap of religious groups' names, but not in the overlap of the names of countries and cultures.... But perhaps I am delving too far into politics here! Nojamus (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
The Justinian pic needs to go. He was actually born in Leskovac, Central Serbia, which is quite far from the border with FYROM, he was certainly not a Slavic Macedonian, nor is that mosaic of him located on the territory of FYROM. Therefore there is not a single valid reason why that pic should be included in this article. --Tsourkpk (talk) 19:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
According to all other historic and geographical information provided by wikipedia, there cannot be, neither exist a country with the name "Repubic of Macedonia" in the world geography since the start of human being!
Macedonia was part of ancient Greece, they spoke Greek, they believed in the same gods with the rest of ancient Greeks and they had same culture with the rest of the ancient Greeks.
Those who can claim to be "Macedonians" nowadays are only people of Greece living in the land of ancient Macedonia. The rest are Slavs speaking the Slavic language who came to the land of Vardarska (FYROM) 1000 years after Alexander's empire!
It is at least humiliating for the whole mankind’s ancient history that the glorious route and empire of Alexander the Great is not found as the first reference by you when someone seeks information entering the word “Macedonia” in Google’s search. Instead he finds a country self named as “Macedonia” that has nothing to show about ancient Macedonia to the rest of the world!
"We are Slavs who came to this area in the 6th century. We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians."
Kiro Gligorov, FYROM's President, February 26 1992.
They are still not a republic. Self-declaring something is not encyclopedic fact. It's just news. The same thing is with Skopje. Self-declaring a name doesn't mean that is fact/closed case. We should wait. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.103.155.16 (talk) 22:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
It is very biased to describe the Republic of Kosovo as a Serbian Province. We should adopt the neutral sounding "Kosovo" rather than "breakaway province of Kosovo" or "Republic of Kosovo".
Clearly, Kosovo fulfills the all attributes of a state - it has a defined territory, a defined people and defined government.
The only countries that refuse to accept it are countries without a vested interest in preventing the right of countries to declare independence, bacaue they have provinces which might want to breakaway, for example:
Canada with Quebec; Spain with the Basque Country; Serbia which claims Kosovo; Bonsia with the Republic of Srpska; Russia with Chechnya; Cyprus with Northern Cyprus; Sri Lanka with the Tamil Northern areas; China with Taiwan and Tibet; Azerbajan with Nagorno-Karabakh; Georgia with South Ossetia and Abkhazia Moldova with Transnistria
Countries without a vested interest in preventing independence have invariably recognized the independence of Kosovo. There is no chance that Kosovo will not achieve universal recognition shortly - most countries who have not yet recognised Kosovo have explicitly stated that the will not be among the first to do so, so as not to *support" independence. In three months, one year's time, will anyone say Kosovo is not independent. No - those who currently deny its independence will shortky find themselves standing on the wrong side of history. 2007apm (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Wow, you're way off base. First of all, Canada has not recognized Kosovo's independence but, judging from its very pro-US government right now, it really is only a matter of days or weeks before it does so. Secondly, there are examples of countries with territorial disputes that HAVE recognized its independence. Have you forgotten the UK and that pesky trouble in Northern Ireland, for example? The point is this: it is impossible to draw many general conclusions about who is supporting and who isn't supporting Kosovo's independence. The only pertinent one I see is that the West generally is, and the East generally isn't, supporting it. This has more to do with who gets to benefit from small, weak, dependent states than it does with whether a country has its own territorial squabbles. But why are we discussing Kosovo on this page, anyway? Nojamus (talk) 18:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Your speculation that the UK should have a vested interest because of Northern Ireland is completely nonsensical; Northern Ireland has historically been a problem and the territory is hardly cherished. If you would like to provide a source to show that the current government of the UK is desperate to retain the province, then I'll be happy to accept your point. The Unionists, naturally, would have a vested interest in preventing independence, but the Government of Serbia does not run from Kosovo, so the two situations are not comparable. Your citing of 1 relevant country with a bias in its political dealings does not validate your flippant dismissal of 2007apm's recognition of the undeniable correlation between states failing to recognize Kosovan independence and their own potential breakaway provinces. But why are we discussing Kosovo on this page, anyway? That would be because of the conspicuously over-wordy phrasing "and its partially recognized breakaway province" before "Kosovo" in the introduction. I think either simply "Kosovo" with an inconspicuous link to the list of countries which recognize her, or "(and Kosovo)" after the mention of Serbia- would be most acceptable. LaFoiblesse (Talk) 02:27, 9 March 2008 (GMT)
I think that it is verz bad that Kosovo is stated as the country, because it is not yet recognized fully as a country, as far as most of the countries in the world recognize it as the Serbian province. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marko2m (talk • contribs) 13:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
This does not depict the precise image who disputes Kosovo's status.
I proposed the following order:
1) Montenegro conducts a delimitation of the border with Kosovo: we're introducing Kosovo (as part of Serbia, but introduce in the beginning)
2) Montenegro recognizes Kosovo: we mention it normally along the other three countries, but note its disputed status (by Serbia)
3) Kosovo internationally recognized: normally mentioned along the other countries, with a footnote saying it's claimed by Serbia
4) Serbia recognizes independence: normal
For instance, I support(ed) introducing Kosovo to the Republic of Macedonia intro, because it is conducting a delimitation (which means that it indeed border Kosovo and not Serbia, also factually recognizing independence - Montenegro conducted no such thing and it "really does" [whatever that meant] border Serbia at Kosovo). --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 01:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but then we'll have tons and tons of users and complaints who keep saying that it is POV, because it depicts the views of a minority of the international community, undermining the majority.
It's no CRYSTAL, it's just a plan when/if to introduce the reference.
Cheers, friend. --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 01:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Ah, well, my post was only about the removal of Kosovo from the list of countries/territories/whatever surrounding Montenegro on the Montenegro article. My point was that maps from 2008 now paint Kosovo and Serbia as two separate entities, so Kosovo should be on the list of entities surrounding Montenegro. Identical argument for the map on Republic_of_Macedonia#Demographics having Kosovo listed there too. My post had nothing to do with the rest of the conversation above, if just looked like being a normal continuation of the conservation by my sheer dumb luck :) Pax, I can't reply to your comment because, unfortunately, I have no idea of what are you talking about, I have no idea of what order you are talking about or of what section of the article you are talking about. I'll leave it to other editors to reply. Sorry for any confusion I might have caused. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Someone remove the redundant weasel tactic monastery pic and restore the map with the Thracians pertaining to the antiquity to its proper position and size .Megistias (talk) 19:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Please rename to FYROM or mark that the neutrality of this article is disputed
The fact that an illegal name is being used instead of the legal FYROM one, as has been seen all along through all these discussions, makes it clear that this article has to be tagged as such. Not following the United Nations is already an insult, but making illegal names as if they were worthy is completely unacceptable. Either you rename the article as FYROM or you tag the whole article as 'neutrality disputed'. 87.219.85.149 (talk) 19:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Adding that FYROM does not claim Greek history and territory
I think that in order to calm down things a little bit, it would be wise to add to the article the declarations of the Skopjan President and his ministers, stating that:
1) They do not want to claim any ancient Greek history related to the ancient Macedonia and Alexander the Great.
2) They do not have any territorial claims on Greece and that their constitution clearly forbids it.
3) That they know they are slavs that have nothing to do with the ancient Macedonia and have made clear that everything that was attacking Greek history or territory was spread by propagandistic irredentists who have no official nor legal power to do so.
NOTE: I'm trying to be productive here. If you find any other text that could be added so that fellow Greek users will calm down, go ahead. Goodwill is always welcome. 87.219.85.149 (talk) 20:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Irony and sarcasm are an unnecessary provocation. Yes, I have read the article, but no, I still do not agree the way it is redacted. Sorry for expressing my humble opinion. 87.219.85.149 (talk) 23:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I was actually being serious. I wasn't referring to you (although your original contributions weren't helpful...) but other nationalists who just complain about moving the page and attack everyone for being "Anti-Greek". BalkanFever00:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you. Considering that the topic is hot, I would try to persuade them with good manners. Calming the situation is the priority. Anyhow, about the three points I wrote in the beginning, which do you think would be applicable (in a better resentenced way, of course). 87.219.85.149 (talk) 00:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry to say this, and I'd wish it was the other way round. Really. But please check the official sources listed in United Macedonia, where it is evident that the reality is totally different. Sadly, the state declares that they do not, but in many side ways they officially do. They do it in the schoolbooks, and they do it inn governmental publications. Repeatedly too. I would accept a wording that brings the whole aspect to the reader's attention, but simple aphorisms of officials that "we do not claim anything", while in reality they do is unacceptable. BTW, if it were my country doing that to someone else, I'd be the first to out them, so that they fix their mistakes. I hope you do the same. NikoSilver16:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
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