Is it Macedonia by any other name?

Thu Mar 27 16:49:08 UTC 2008

from the March 27, 2008 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p20s01-woeu.html

Tatters of Alexander the Great's empire aren't arguing over territory, but
what a nation can call itself.
By Nicole Itano | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Skopje, macedonia

On a recent crisp afternoon, as he shared a park bench and the last rays
of sunlight with a friend, Zhezhouski Blazho was indignant. He's not an
educated man, he says, but after 86 years on this earth, he knows a few
things: among them what he is. "We are Macedonians," insists the retired
shepherd, from his usual bench in the Women's Park outside his country's
parliament. "What was Alexander the Great when he conquered Greece? What
was Philip [Alexander's father]?  We are the children of Alexander."

Here in this small Balkan nation sandwiched between Albania, Bulgaria,
Kosovo, Serbia, and Greece, that assertion is more than mere genealogical
trivia. Who has the right to lay claim to the legacy of Alexander the
Great, and the name of his 4th-century BC empire of Macedonia, is a very
contemporary political question that threatens hopes for a more stable
future in the Balkans not to mention NATO expansion plans in the region.
Mr. Blazho's nation calls itself the Republic of Macedonia, and many
countries, including the US, recognize it by that name.

But Greece which has no designs on the territory of this Vermont-sized
nation, but just the name says that everyone knows Alexander was Greek and
that Macedonia is in Greece (indeed, there is a region of Greece called
Macedonia). They insist that their Slavic-majority neighbor known in
Athens and at the United Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia (FYROM)  is trying to steal their heritage. That assertion
drives Blazho and his park bench mate, a retired Yugoslav major, to
distraction. "We haven't done anything bad to the Greeks," says Blazho.

"It's irrational what the Greeks want from us. To change our name," chimes
in his friend. "If the Greeks were so attached to the name Macedonia, why
didn't they call their country Macedonia?" In the ethnic caldron of the
Balkans, all national identities are comparatively new, forged as the
region's empires crumbled. Modern Macedonian identity, however, is still
very much a work in progress, and the country's government is waging a
concerted effort to claim the brand of Alexander and forge a link between
the present and that hallowed past.  Visitors to the capital, Skopje, now
arrive in the Alexander the Great Airport (though you can't fly there
direct from neighboring Greece). And milk-white classical-era sculptures
borrowed from the national collection have been mounted on the steps of
the main government building.

But at the hulking, Soviet-era Museum of Macedonia, hard evidence of those
links is harder to find. Nada Andonovska, a museum representative, sweeps
through fading exhibits of Paleolithic pottery and Bronze-Age jewelry and
pauses in a room with a handful of classical sculptures and a few Hellenic
pots, in front of a large map. Modern Macedonia was part of Alexander's
ancient empire, and later, part of the Roman administrative territory of
Macedonia, she explains. Alexander had to learn Greek, she notes. It
wasn't his native language. Though she concedes, too, that he almost
certainly didn't speak anything related to modern Macedonian a Slavic
language related to Serbian and Bulgarian that Greeks insist is a dialect
of Bulgarian, not its own language because Slavs only came to the region
in the 6th and 7th centuries AD.

Across the room, Ms. Andonovska points to a tiny bust, displayed behind
glass along with other artifacts. Doesn't it look like Alexander, she
asks? "It hasn't been written up," she adds hastily. "So there's no
absolute evidence." Andonovska hustles on to a display of old coins. The
museum has a collection of coins from Alexander and Philip's time, she
says, but they're not on display for security reasons. In fact, she
concedes, the only undisputable depiction of Alexander in the museum is a
giant gold-colored bust of his head (made of plastic) that greets visitors
in the lobby.

The dispute over the name Macedonia has haunted this young country since
it broke from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Greece initially imposed
trade sanctions and blocked its entrance to the UN until the temporary
compromise to call the country the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
was reached. UN-mediated negotiations have continued, with little success,
ever since. The dispute stirs angry passions on both sides. Like Blazho,
many Slavic speakers in Macedonia more than two-thirds of the population
claim direct descent from Alexander. That identity which is taught in
schools here though it is considered dubious by most historians gives
Macedonians a way to differentiate themselves from their other Slavic
neighbors.

Greeks doggedly refer to the country as FYROM and often respond angrily to
anyone who uses the term Macedonia to refer to the country claiming that
allowing the name to be used could lead to territorial claims. Denko
Maleski, Macedonia's first foreign minister, recalls going on vacation in
the Greek city of Halkidiki with his family a few years ago.  They enjoyed
the sun and the food, and interactions with Greeks were always pleasant.
That is until people asked where he was from, and he answered "Macedonia."
As Greeks realized he meant the independent country and not the region of
Greece, he says, "It was as if thousands of years of history came down on
our heads."

Unlike Blazho, Mr. Maleski doesn't see modern Macedonia's historical
claims in such stark literal terms. Now a professor of international law,
he considers himself a democrat, a liberal who wants peaceful, multiethnic
states in the historically tumultuous Balkan. But, he says, the idea of
Macedonia is the only thing that binds the young state together, the only
identity it has that distinguishes it from its neighbors, which spent the
first half of the 20th century fighting over and repeatedly carving up the
territory of this country.

"The definition of Macedonia and Macedonians is something that holds
people together," he says. "This is a new, modern state that is trying to
position itself in Europe. It's a little country in a big world." In the
run-up to the April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest, international
negotiations over the name dispute have moved into high gear. The US wants
the country admitted to the organization during the summit along with
Albania and Croatia but Greece is threatening to use its veto if the name
issue isn't resolved first.

Macedonians see joining NATO as a first step toward integration with
Europe and, ultimately, membership in the continent's most exclusive club:
the European Union. It was the poorest republic in the former Yugoslavia
and remains one of the poorest countries in Europe, with an official
unemployment rate of 35 percent. A list of five composite names such as
the Republic of Upper Macedonia and the Democratic Republic of Macedonia
leaked to local media have been discussed for weeks. While both countries
now seem to accept the idea of a composite name, they disagree on which
one. Late March 25, the UN negotiator Matthew Nimitz offered up a
last-ditch compromise proposal, the details of which were not disclosed
but which may include a geographic indicator to differentiate the country
from the region of Greece.

Biljana Vankovska, a professor at the University of Skopje, is a
hard-liner. She thinks Greece has no right to tell Macedonia what to call
itself and says it's humiliating that her country is considering putting
the issue to a referendum. But she also says the way Macedonia's
government is desperately trying to claim Alexander's legacy by renaming
the airport and installing ancient statues is "pathetic." "It's a
historical fact that his legacy spread all over this area. No one has a
copyright on his name," she says, over espresso in a trendy suburban
Skopje cafe. "But he belongs to the past."

Many ordinary people like Blazho disagree. The blood of Alexander, he
says, runs in his veins. "Macedonians are brave, we are fighters. Like
lions, we will defeat the tyrants."

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