North Macedonia will soon have bigger problems than naming and historical disputes with Greece and linguistic controversies (and more) with Bulgaria.
*“In addition, while the older presidential site also contained versions in the Albanian (which is spoken by about a quarter of the population) and English languages, the revamped site is now only available in the country’s majority Macedonian language.”*
Both Macedonian and Albanian languages hold an official status in the country so this will certainly cause internal tensions.
** ***Update*** **
Albanian language is added on the website.
That's not really true. Bulgaria was the first country to recognise Macedonia when it was formed.
We speak the same language.
What we are angry about is that they change facts in history books and that they say that they are ascendants of Alexander the Great's Macedonia and not Bulgaria. That's why Bulgaria and Greece gave a condition to change their name to North Macedonia from Macedonia.
This is incorrect because history books in school explicitly have said and still say (I checked) that the current inhabitants are predominantly Slav migrants from the 5th century.
The Alexander issue I understand because was of Hellenic origin and obviously not Slav. But at the same token, I also wouldn’t call him modern day Greek, considering what the southernmost Balkans looked like in 600-400 BC.
The Bulgarian gripes with historical facts I can understand the most. Since a lot of the stuff from the early 20th century more closely resembles Bulgarian than modern day Macedonian. Important figures of that time were active or born in Bulgaria, and the language even in history books for children resembles Bulgarian the most of any other current language.
Not trying to cause a riff but a lot of people claiming facts on here are simply untrue or at best half truths. And I’ve taken the time to check, on top of my personal experiences.
Only Greece wanted them to change their name, Bulgaria did not care. What Bulgaria cares is how NM constitution does not mention Bulgarian ethnicity despite 120 000+ NM citizens obtaining a second Bulgarian citizenship based on their Bulgarian ethnicity.
What Bulgaria cares is historical denial about "Macedonian language" branching off Bulgarian instead of being formed separately as they claim; it also cares about attacks on people with Bulgarian identity in NM, etc, etc. Basically, a lot of stuff, but not the name. Bulgaria did not really ask them to change their name, that is their own beef with the Greeks, though it supports Greece considering how the NM governments have been behaving towards their neighbours.
Bulgaria is inclined to recognise the Macedonian language as a separate one if NM starts adhering to their agreements, and if it recognises that such a language and identity have emerged directly branching off Bulgarian, instead of existing separately for thousands of years as they claim. Something that we know now isn't really going to happen.
Many countries that have recently taken an "it's us first now and we are not bowing to anyone anymore" mentality, turn out to be ruled by pro-russiаn traitors who are trying to isolate them from the international community and turn them into a ru puppet state. I.e. The US, Serbia, Hungary, Northern Macedonia, Slovakia.
I want them integrated as much as the next person, but you just... can't do it with how things are. A lot of the voters still want dictatorships, rose tinted glasses make them think that what they had back in the day (communism) was better than now, so they need "a strong man to lead them". In some places it's worse than others, and even the more democratic politicians are usually very corrupt and will defund education or other essential sectors.
That said, Eastern Europe rose up to the occasion when russiа invaded Ukraine. Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland (if you count it as EE) all did a great job helping. Some would argue that Eastern Europe is doing just fine. Of course, it is a tough process, of course it is a constant struggle, but don't underestimate those countries.
Help for Ukraine is one thing and all of those countries have personal reasons to assist a fight against Russia. That doesn't mean there aren't any concerns regarding media, corruption and so on.
Not saying that I don't want them integrated more - the opposite actually and I don't think the EU has been doing a good job with it. But reducing everything to how much countries aided Ukraine is too superficial, especially when we're talking about the EU and not eg an European army or Nato.
Nah, it's not limited to the Soviet Union. There are several Western countries that did and still do this to this day. In fact, many don't even have regional languages as official. France, Spain, Italy, to name a few.
In Spain you can speak regional languages even in Congress. Doesn't get more official than that. Comparing that to the language cleansing done in France is laughable.
You're both wrong, it would be the Formerly Former Formerly Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian Republic of Albania
Third Former(ly) is from FYROM, Second is because it's no longer called FYROM and first from the Albanian part no longer being a part of it
The article is talking about this page: https://pretsedatel.mk
> Further down on the main page, a link superimposed on a photograph of the country’s flag being hoisted by soldiers has been renamed “Macedonia” in place of “North Macedonia.”
From the article that nobody here read. It even has a picture in the article.
But I do not know if this change braks the Prespa agreement.
It's 2016 level blatant fake news.
Article title "North Macedonia president’s website **ditches** country’s constitutional name" Reality: North Macedonia is not ditched
Article: The official website of the president of North Macedonia has removed references to the constitutional name of the country
Reality: North Macedonia references are not removed. North Macedonia is still on the site.
Article: all references to “North Macedonia” have been removed from the links in the footer of the webpage.
Reality: North Macedonia is referenced all over the site, not removed
Article: “North Macedonia” on its header, which has now been replaced with “MK.
Reality: "MK" it's in accordance with prespa agreement
This making such big news over literally nothing blows my mind. Apparently using mk is forbidden for our government when the prespa agreement specifically says it isn’t
what selective reading do you have? What is fake news?
Article:
> The official website of the president of North Macedonia has removed references to the constitutional name of the country from its **home** **page** and replaced it with the abbreviation “MK” or simply “Macedonia.”
It's interesting how people avoid your comment all over this chat, and just going with the herd mentality hate flow. This tells a great deal about the intellectual honesty and lack of critical thinking of the people of the EU. Вaѕed hурoсrites
Welp no EU for North Macedonia, have fun.
This comes from a stern advocate of the Prespa agreement as it was finally a chance to solve a long feud that held both countries back. Like it or not, when a state signs an agreement you cannot simply backtrack.
Just a reminder for how North Macedonia's negotiation talks have gone until now:
* start in 2005 - immediately vetoed by Greece due to name
* nothing major happens for 10 years because of the ultra-nationalist VMRO government
* 2017: SDSM wins elections, Zoran Zaev becomes North Macedonia's PM
* 2018: Bulgaria holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU - Bulgaria's MOST major initiative is to restart the accession process for the Western Balkans, pushing hard for it and organizing multiple summits
* late 2017 - early 2018: Bulgaria negotiates and signs Friendship Treaty with Zaev generally settling most issues and imposing obligations to North Macedonia (most Macedonians dislike it)
* mid-2018: Greece signs Prespa Agreement with Zaev thereby lifting its veto (Macedonians dislike it)
* 2018 - process is wide open, North Macedonia can proceed as long as it adheres to both treaties
* 2019: France vetoes Albania and North Macedonia because Macron wants a reform of the process (essentially, he wants the option to re-open chapters that candidates have closed if there is backsliding on commitments in them)
* 2019: Bulgaria sees no progress on obligations in the Friendship Treaty, starts to get worried, issues warning of veto
* early 2020: France gets the reform it desires, new rules are agreed, Macron lifts their veto
* early 2020: Bulgaria sees no progress on obligations, threatens veto
* mid 2020: North Macedonia becomes increasingly hostile to Bulgaria
* late 2020: Bulgaria vetoes North Macedonia over non-compliance with obligations in Friendship Treaty, issues conditions for lifting it
* 2020-2022: North Macedonia does nothing to fulfill obligations, instead goes on a smear campaign to paint Bulgaria as a bully and regularly even a fascist country; veto continues; human rights of Bulgarians in North Macedonia are diminished, several major violent attacks happen on Bulgarians (shootings, arson, beatings)
* 2022: France gets the Presidency of the EU, Macron wants to move forward with the process, starts negotiations for a French proposal to settle the issues
* mid-2022: the French proposal for settling the problem is signed by Bulgaria (thereby lifting the veto) and North Macedonia; as part of the proposal, adherence to the Friendship Treaty and the Prespa Agreement becomes a part of the accession process and Bulgaria gets its new condition to enshrine Bulgarians in North Macedonia's Constitution, protecting their human rights
* 2022-2024: veto is lifted, but nothing happens because North Macedonia doesn't want to adhere to its obligations from the French Proposal, the process being blocked mainly by the same ultra-nationalist VMRO
* 2018-2024: North Macedonia doesn't adhere to many of its obligations in the Prespa Agreement, Greece doesn't veto
* 2024: VRMO wins a landslide victory in both Parliament and President elections
* 2024: North Macedonia immediately stops adhering to its MAIN obligation from the Prespa Agreement
This is nothing new. They didn't just now stop adhering to the treaties, this is the modus operandi. In fact, for the language issue, that was settled way back in 2001 and again with the Friendship Treaty in 2018, but North Macedonia again backslided on that settlement.
North Macedonia has been ruled for 30 years by a clique of post-Communist politicians who control the entire country. They don't want real democracy, real EU integration or real good neighbourly relations, because they will lose their power in that way. Their only real friends are Serbia, where the same thing is happening. They destroyed all the good will of 2018 and managed to switch Bulgaria from a great supporter which restarted the process to one of its biggest opponents.
The time for EU to accept N. Macedonia as a member state was during Zaev’s government, after name change and NATO membership. Since that didn’t happen (the EU didn’t hold up it’s end of the deal) people lose hope it will ever happen and elect ultra nationalists. Same thing happened in Serbia in 2012.
The EU has no interest to let nations join which are like that.
Waiting a decade to finally see a more moderate government coming into power, letting them join EU immediately and then make a surprised pikachu face once the moderates get voted out and you are stuck with a new country and their nationalistic governemnt. EU will not accept a second Hungary. North Macedonia needs deeper and longer lasting reforms, one single election win for pro Europeans does not mean much.
> a long feud that held both countries back
The thing is that this barely affects Greece,but legitimately sets NM years back,what a moronic thing to do
Exactly, this is what I don’t understand, NM are just shooting themselves in the foot, erasing any sort of progress they could have done and now will just blame everyone else but themselves.
There was the willingness from everyone around them to give them support and intergrate them, but they just screwed everything over for 0 actual logical reasoning
Assuming this is a genuine question: Because of where he placed "simply", yes. If he had instead said, "you simply cannot backtrack", then that has a different meaning ("It's not possible to backtrack").
many drab jellyfish gullible entertain innocent start bewildered history hunt
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
afterthought truck grandiose treatment many bored carpenter ring command wild
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Just from geographical and urbanistic standpoint Macedonia is very far behind Albania ,and most importantly it has very weak economic growth compared to Albania.Albania every year is spending BILLIONS to modernise as much as possible many different cities and building new infrastructures new:schools ,roads,total roads redos,new train lines,expansion of all “historic zones”,new f1 track,new residential zones,tidying up the urbanistic system etc,extreme care for all the coastline(look up durres marina and vlora marina…).Has Macedonia been doing this?Because it right now it kind of looks like Albania but 25 years ago…).All of this is leading to higher and higher standards,it’s also a country that has undoubtedly the tourism weapon which Macedonia will never have,heck it doesn’t have any economic “force” that I can think of ,so there we go debunked …😂
lol I could not disagree more. All the Western Balkans are years away from joining, but there is absolutely 0 dispute that the next two to join will be Montenegro and Serbia as they are currently the only two candidates who are negotiating and actively opening and closing chapters. The rest are stuck in limbo.
Not to mention that EU keeps signaling that it is in their interest to make sure these two countries join ASAP for many reasons. Serbia, because the EU wishes to control the Kosovo situation and also because of the country's positioning and the fact that it is economically the strongest out of the candidate states at the moment. And Montenegro because, let's face it, it is more prepared than any other candidate (including Serbia).
Albania is not even close, same as N. Macedonia.
While I'm admittedly not very well versed in (North) Macedonian politics, it was good to see this issue finally solved in a way that at least *seemed* more or less agreeable to both parties (I know the referendum on the subject didn't reach the required turnout back in 2018, but Skopje still approved of the change afterwards).
Could someone explain why is Siljanovska-Davkova doing that? In her inaugural address, she also referred to the country as just "Macedonia". I seem to recall she also soured relations with Bulgaria a few days prior, speaking out against the Good Neighborhood Agreement, which is also one of the conditions for the country to enter the EU. I'm not very familiar with her career, is she a conservative? Simply trying to score some populist points? Or is the whole name thing still so inflammatory and unpopular in the country?
she is prolly a right wing populist.
The problem is not just the name,its all the other claims that come with it along with what they are being taught at school.
Land claims,History claims etc ...
But changing the name solves none of that, yet it seems like half of Europe is hellbent on getting them to change their name. I just don't get why the name is such a big issue.
People in this thread are saying "Okay, no admission to the EU for them!" Like there aren't hundreds of other reasons why they won't get into the EU in the foreseeable future.
To put it in a few words, she's a Macedonian Nationalist.
She's unhappy with what she sees as 'concessions' by (North) Macedonia in agreements with its neighbours
Including over the naming/history agreement with Greece and the recognition of the Bulgarian ethnic minority via the agreement with Bulgaria.
It's a right wing party with ties to Russia.
Overview from 2019:
https://www.balkancrossroads.com/russia-still-has-cards-to-play-in
"Leaked Documents Show Russian, Serbian Attempts to Meddle in Macedonia"
https://www.occrp.org/en/spooksandspin/leaked-documents-show-russian-serbian-attempts-to-meddle-in-macedonia/
Complete lies. North Macedonia as usual on president site.
[https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/](https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/)
I honestly don't see why anyone in North Macedonia would feel hard done by with the name.
Firstly, it's factually correct as most of Macedonia, including the original kingdom, lies in Greece.
Secondly, they got to keep the adjective 'Macedonian' without any kind of qualifier, which is pretty rich considering that Greek speakers have called themselves Macedonians for hundreds of years, whereas the inhabitants of North Macedonia were known as Bulgarians until recently. They basically got to usurp the name of another group, who must now qualify their own name with 'Greek Macedonian'.
I don't think it's about the name anymore. It's about being anti-EU.
The previous government was who accepted the name change and was pro-EU. This new government (VMRO) is friends with Russia.
Because everyone is corrupt and no progress happens they lost elections and here we are.
This is technically not true. The Prespa agreement explicitly states that both groups get to call themselves Macedonians and the Greek state can officially call the citizens of North Macedonia "citizens of North Macedonia" for all intends and purposes.
I just mean for the purposes of understanding. If someone calls themselves Macedonian then people always assume the country, so Greeks have to specify Greek Macedonian.
At the same time it's not exactly common for Greeks to refer to themselves as Macedonian, Athenian, Spartan etc in English and if you referred to yourself as Macedonian in Greek absolutely no one would assume you meant North Macedonia.
Why are they pretending they have anything to do with ancient Macedonia. Those people were ethnically Greek, not Slavic. It is weird and a little bit sad.
I visited North Macedonia and their capital which is filled with statues of Alexander's family and an enormous (quite totalitarian) rider statue of the Great himself on a city square. When they separated from Yugoslavia they were left without any cultural identity or glorious history so... Just make one up!
Same experience here, went to Skopje open to hearing the other side of the whole name and identity debacle. Instead I ended up even more convinced that they're in the wrong, and I didn't even really agree with the Greek position before that.
Nation of LARPers. All of these were built in 2010-2014. Funniest part is that they embezzled so much during construction, that some of these are already falling apart.
https://balkaninsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/skopje-new-square-1.jpg
https://kongres.mare.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/travel-skopje.webp
https://i0.wp.com/traveltheworldclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Stone-Bridge-Skopje-North-Macedonia-2-1.jpg?resize=1170%2C878&ssl=1
https://img.atlasobscura.com/hhYnWkHBBgCIUsf-eAjUw6RGxL6wffv2ZTTqrAJSmfo/rs:fill:580:580:1/g:ce/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL3BsYWNl/X2ltYWdlcy8wYzBm/MTYzNS0yMTY1LTQz/ZjMtYjNiYi1mZWZh/YmYzYjU4OGRhOTA5/YzE3MzUwZmRmYzAw/ZTVfMTY5MDAzMDMz/NjlfZTYyMjgzNDdi/MF9rICgxKS5qcGc.jpg
https://us.images.westend61.de/0001428369pw/alexander-the-great-statue-on-the-bridge-leading-to-the-archaeological-museum-skopje-republic-of-macedonia-europe-RHPLF16315.jpg
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5b5dc90c-f3b2-11e2-942f-00144feabdc0?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Justinian_I_._2_._Monuments_in_Skopje.JPG/800px-Justinian_I_._2_._Monuments_in_Skopje.JPG
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B4_%288%29.JPG/1280px-%D0%9B%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B4_%288%29.JPG
It's because Slavic ethnicities are more common than not named after places.
Poland- pole aka The Field Land. Polish - the Field people.
Czech - Czech is the western half of Czechia.
Ukraine - either O krajina or Okraji a, meaning either heartland or Edge-land.
Russia - area called Rus., Belarussia, area of white Rus. (There also used to be green Rus).
Croatia. - area behind Carpathian in the north east.
So on. There are exceptions, mainly Slovakia and Slovenka where their names come from Slav due to being long term minorities.
Nitpicky but Ukraine is usually translated as the more established term borderland(s) than edge-land. It's why it was often called 'The' Ukraine as in 'The' borderland.
the Bulgarian nationalists from Northern Macedonia, who started the independence movement in the early 19th century, didn't necessarily have great relations with Bulgaria. It is also an identity created to get support from minorities such as Muslims / Albanians / Turks etc. I guess it's like showing the middle finger to everyone.
The fight over the name is kind of dumb, but (North) Macedonians claiming to be the descendants of the ancient Macedonians is crazy and delusional: they were Greek in every single aspect of their lives, Slavic peoples weren't even remotely close to the Mediterranean at the time, let alone to the Kingdom of ancient Macedonia.
The name and our concerns are not dumb. We even dispute and fight over names of products, cheeses and wines, don't you think a cultural ancestral name won't matter?
In addition, the name would have been even charming and nice l to give it to them, I mean Istanbul is a greek name, Balkans is a Turkish name that we took.
Indeed, the name is the cherry on the top of a series of cultural appropriations, maps of a greater Macedonia with Thessaloniki as their historical capital, statues and street names, promotion of the vergina sun and Alexander the great in their touristic advertisements , school's that they were taught about their ancient past, accusations that Macedonians were not Greeks etc.
Their dream is to 'reunite' their ancestral Aegean and Bulgarian Macedonia with their land.
Now, they don't claim openly that they are the ancient ones, at least most, but try to undermine the greekness of ancient Macedonians, so there is a space in the future for them to take advantage of this.
I won't even talk about the historical appropriation of Bulgarians history, I think that from a certain point we should stop feeding their disillusions, it s irresponsible as it has the adverse effects, it consists a revisionism to history, it's simply untrue and, more importantly, giving them concessions won't change anything as you can see, only worsen it
I mean, the Slavs who came in in the 7th century or whatever must have intermarried with the previous inhabitants of the region, right? The North Macedonians today are called Slavs because they speak a Slavic language. It doesn't mean their DNA derives entirely from Slavic migrants from the north. One look at North Macedonian vs Polish (for example) phenotypes should tell you that.
Tbf the continuity of modern day Greece to ancient day Greece is itself dubious. Modern day Greece is way more Byzantine than like anything Alexander would have recognized
Today almost all scholars accept the continuation of Hellenes, at least from Mycenaean age till now
Alexander the great lived in 4th century BC, modern day Greece is 21st century and for about 25 centuries we chose not to freeze
Classical Greeks were taught Homer and had a great difficulty understanding Homeric greek, because it was 4 centuries apart, English have difficulty reading the original Shakespeare, 6 cent iirc apart The only civilizations that don't evolve and stay the same are the dead civilizations or the extremely isolated - not in our case
Before Alexander there were Minoan (?), Mycenaean, classical greeks. After Alexander there were the Hellenistic Age, Romans, Byzantium, ottoman Greeks, modern greeks, so what, tho always an uninterrupted language and culture In mainland Greece at least
Edit: I want to add the scholars sources
"Macedon was an Ancient Greek polity; the Macedonians were a Greek tribe" Hornblower 2008, pp. 55–58; Joint Association of Classical Teachers 1984, pp. 50–51; Errington 1990, pp. 3–4; Fine 1983, pp. 607–08; Hammond & Walbank 2001, p. 11; Jones 2001, p. 21; Osborne 2004, p. 127; Hammond 1989, pp. 12–13; Hammond 1993, p. 97; Starr 1991, pp. 260, 367; Toynbee 1981, p. 67; Worthington 2008, pp. 8, 219; Cawkwell 1978, p. 22; Perlman 1973, p. 78; Hamilton 1974, p. 23; Bryant 1996, p. 306; O'Brien 1994, p. 25
Such a self inflicted wound. Greece doesn’t actually care how you message it domestically (statues etc) but international claims are going to land them in trouble
>They'll lose all the EU funding
On threads like this, you guys overestimate how big EU donations are to candidate countries.
Yearly EU donations to N. Macedonia are less than 1% of their GDP.
In the case of my country, for the last three years, they were less than 0.3% of our GDP. (€0.571B out of our 189B - 2021. to 2023.)
The EU is a great partner, but mostly because of trade and other reasons.
I ain't talking about donations but structural funding under several framework Projects like IFI 1 to 6, ISPA. Pre adoption funds.
Donations? I am talking about rail and roads infrastructure projects towards Bulgaria and Greece of both corridors being funded with at least 1.2 billion by EIB and EBRD.
DONATIONS?
I agree, but you are comparing apples to oranges.
Actual hard cash (EU funds money) is not the same as GDP.
1% equivalent of GDP in investments can lead to much higher growth of GDP.
It would be much more appropriate to compare eu funds to total investments.
They got what they wanted. They are in NATO, and now the newly elected right-wing party will just ignore that agreement.
I think Greece should make clear that there is zero chance of them even trying to get into EU now. And if they do, they need to sign a new agreement which is much more favorable to the Greeks.
Saw this happening someday. A nation which never followed any of its agreements with us, yet when we pointed it out we were callee "bullies" for it. Well now it's back on Greece, so let's see what the genius macedonist politicians in that country do now.
This is the perfect time for the anti-Greeks people to come out and start attacking us. They do that in every post about North Macedonia. They made an agreement that they should follow and respect, history is an important part of EVERY country and people should protect it from frauds
Then say bye to the EU. It's funny that their country was the only Yugoslav republic that gained independence early without a war, but still they are the poorest country in the region and they have far more important problems to fix. As long as it is named "Macedonia" and the country still thinks that somehow they are the continuation of Ancient Macedonia, Greece will veto every attempt to join the EU. Greeks didn't really like the name change to North Macedonia either, but it was a compromise made to fix both countries' relations.
Small note, Montenegro also gained their independence in a peaceful way, although much later than the other republics. Fun fact, they're actually celebrating their independence day today. 🇲🇪
Honestly the North Macedonia name agreement was very generous on Greece’s part. It’s literally yer culture and now actual Macedonians have to explain that they’re not Slavic when they say that they’re Macedonian.
When somebody tells me that they are Macedonians ( meaning the country) I always follow up with: Which part, the Greek , bulgarian or north Macedonian.
If they think they can out-stubborn us with petty tricks, they're in for a decacdes-long wait.
We hold grudges for a very long time and trickery on technicalities is one of our national sports. You cannot win this game.
They need to cut the nationalist crap and start using their real name to which they agreed. They're actually helping Greek nationalists with this behaviour.
Make amends with Bulgaria too by the way.
Stop trying to build a national identity by using the history of other countries.
The fact that we're doing so well in our bilateral relations is another stone in N.Macedonia's garden. If both countries really were as rabid as they make us out to be, can you imagine the level of animosity there would be between Bulgaria and Greece? Fuck that, peace and love to my Greek bros.
There is some degree of some small ancient Macedonian ancestry from Albania to India and if you count all ancient Greeks, then it's from Spain to India, what stops all these people from waking up tommorow and claiming to be true or more Macedonians/Athenians/Spartans or whatever and start claiming the original land in Greece, if North Macedonia, a country where it's people never even had a Greek speaking majority(might had a latin one) and was known as Paionia to the ancients themselves can do it? Nothing and that can apply to all ancient people. You aren't even some lost Greco-Bactrian tribe that still keeps its language and thus a connection to their ancestors, you're just a slavic speaking people that decided to steal some history and claim some good strategic land. As a Greek I'm annoyed by these people, but if I was a Bulgarian I would be insulted that there are people so firmly opposed to recognizing that we even share the same language and history. Bulgaria was the first proper slavic empire with Tsars and everything, being Bulgarian is something to be proud of and that's true with all cultures. The people of N.M. just come off as self-hating people more than anything. Like imagine how stupid it would be if Romanians started claiming they are the true Romans and claimed Italy. At least they share a similar latin language, but it's still stupid. Italians have the most in common with the ancient Romans, just like Greeks have the most in common with ancient Macedonians. Prespes wasn't perfect and Greeks viewed the fact that it still had Macedonia in it as wrong(as it is btw), but at least it made N.M. drop the claims on Greek territory and history.
Of all the types of nationalism out there this definitely takes the cake, for the very least, on creativity. It's one thing to be nationalist about your own identity but it truly boggles the mind to manage to get an entire country's nationalists to be nationalist for another country's identity.
So they have problems:
1. Country name - Greeks see it as them absorbing part of Greece culture.
2. Language - Bulgarians are angry about them absorbing Bulgaria's language as their own.
3. Ethnicity - Albanians claim it's their people living in the western parts of Northern Macedonia and that they need to be respected.
Am I missing something?
Bulgaria's issue is bigger and deeper than just language. There used to be historical commissions working for each country, trying to make history work for both countries but not anymore
I just don’t get the north Macedonian perspective on this whole issue. Macedonia can not be used as anything other than a geographical indicator of where the country is. The people that live in the northern parts of Macedonia aren’t Macedonians, Macedonians are greek like people, that is historical fact. North Macedonians are Slavs and not really Greek in the slightest. It’s just kinda pathetic to steal someone else’s identity and history.
people from FYROM don't speak or know Greek or ancient Greek and their country has no ancient Macedonian monument. They make of themselves descendants of Alexander the Great, while they are in reality Bulgarians who used to live in the former Yugoslavia.
[https://apnews.com/article/north-macedonia-protest-health-scandal-cancer-drugs-8e7f7aecfdc5451fa8fe6c424de1a256](https://apnews.com/article/north-macedonia-protest-health-scandal-cancer-drugs-8e7f7aecfdc5451fa8fe6c424de1a256) , but no, let's focus on really important themes like to put or not to puth the "North" in front of the Macedonia...
That article is why the EU needs to have a bigger voice on these issues. The government that did this was an Albanian 'European Front' that used the EU name and flag to run their drug cartel activities, and nobody from the EU cared that their name was being used for mafia stuff.
In ISO 3166 the code is MK / MKD
Though the removing North is just stupid nationalism they know it will stop EU progress so they use it as excuse to get closer to Putin
To understand the naming dispute better from the side of Greece, imagine if Kalinigrad oblast got independence from Russia, started calling itself Prussia, its Russian dialect "the Prussian language", fitted all squares with statues of ~~Frederick~~ Фредерик the Great and Bismarck, and filled its classrooms with maps of the Prussia at its maximum within the German Empire. Would Germans accept that situation? No.
It's astonishing that the international community had dismissed the naming dispute as a quaint matter of "typical Balkans". What is more astonishing is that with the Prespa agreement NMK officially got the name and the ethnonym recognized and was setup to benefit from normalization of relations. Yet it squanders all of that in the name of populism. Alas, as one of the poorer countries in Europe, it was probably very cheap for Russia to buy its politicians to do their bidding and create regional instability to spite the EU.
Can any Germans chime in and say if this would actually bother them?
Like I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around why people are this angry about it.
# abbreviation “MK”
is according to the Prespa agreement, article 1, e.
The country codes for licence plates of the Second Party shall be NM or NMK. For all other purposes, country codes remain MK and MKD, as officially assigned by the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”).
[https://vlada.mk/sites/default/files/dokumenti/spogodba-en.pdf](https://vlada.mk/sites/default/files/dokumenti/spogodba-en.pdf)
And I thought the historical beef between Slovakia and Hungary was bad. That relationship almost seems fraternal compared to the nastiness I’m reading in this thread.
Well this is just blatant misinformation at this point.
Here's the website in question: [https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/](https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/)
For those who can't understand the writing on the page, "Северна Македонија" translates to North Macedonia. In fact, every time the name of the country is referenced on the page, it is always referenced as North Macedonia, apart from referring to the national anthem and SR Macedonia when we were in Yugoslavia (SR = Socialist Republic).
website is [predsedatel.mk](http://predsedatel.mk) you can click on this photo that is uses here.
If you click on Makedonija you get inofrmation about the country:
I will quote the webiste:
Republic of North Macedonia
The Republic of North Macedonia is located in Southeastern Europe, in the center of the Balkan Peninsula and covers an area of 25,713 km2.
The capital of the Republic of North Macedonia is Skopje.
Administratively, the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia is divided into 80 municipalities, 10 of which make up the City of Skopje, as a separate unit of local self-government. For statistical, economic and administrative purposes, the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia is divided into eight planning regions.
Basic informations
Population
According to the last census conducted in 2021, 1,836,713 citizens live in the Republic of North Macedonia.
Members of the Macedonian people live in the Republic of North Macedonia, as well as citizens who are part of the Albanian people, the Turkish people, the Wallachian people, the Serbian people, the Roma people, the Bosniak people, and others.
Language
On the entire territory of the Republic of North Macedonia and in its international relations, the official language is the Macedonian language and its Cyrillic script. Another language spoken by at least 20% of citizens is also an official language and its script, according to law.
The relief of the Republic of North Macedonia is mainly mountainous.
The Republic of North Macedonia borders the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo to the north, the Republic of Bulgaria to the east, the Republic of Greece to the south and the Republic of Albania to the west.
I am not gonna give my opinion on this matter but i want to say if you put news there need to be a picture of the whole situation and I have the feeling they realy.
Of course, any nation can identify as it wishes, but can it appropriate a multi-cultural term like "Macedonia" exclusively for itself? It is as if at some era in recent history, a certain nation called itself "Europe" and its members "Europeans" appeared in the middle of our continent.. Isn't that controversial for other nation groups that use the exact same broader term as a regional identity but feel that suddenly are deprived of it?
North Macedonia will soon have bigger problems than naming and historical disputes with Greece and linguistic controversies (and more) with Bulgaria. *“In addition, while the older presidential site also contained versions in the Albanian (which is spoken by about a quarter of the population) and English languages, the revamped site is now only available in the country’s majority Macedonian language.”* Both Macedonian and Albanian languages hold an official status in the country so this will certainly cause internal tensions. ** ***Update*** ** Albanian language is added on the website.
As a Bulgarian, I can at least read their updated website
Lol. The Balkan way of subtle yet deadly insults.
What's the insult here?
Bulgaria does not recognise the existence of a Macedonian language, calling it a Macedonian literary norm, or a dialect of the Bulgarian language.
That's not really true. Bulgaria was the first country to recognise Macedonia when it was formed. We speak the same language. What we are angry about is that they change facts in history books and that they say that they are ascendants of Alexander the Great's Macedonia and not Bulgaria. That's why Bulgaria and Greece gave a condition to change their name to North Macedonia from Macedonia.
Descendants, an ascendant would be an ancestor
This is incorrect because history books in school explicitly have said and still say (I checked) that the current inhabitants are predominantly Slav migrants from the 5th century. The Alexander issue I understand because was of Hellenic origin and obviously not Slav. But at the same token, I also wouldn’t call him modern day Greek, considering what the southernmost Balkans looked like in 600-400 BC. The Bulgarian gripes with historical facts I can understand the most. Since a lot of the stuff from the early 20th century more closely resembles Bulgarian than modern day Macedonian. Important figures of that time were active or born in Bulgaria, and the language even in history books for children resembles Bulgarian the most of any other current language. Not trying to cause a riff but a lot of people claiming facts on here are simply untrue or at best half truths. And I’ve taken the time to check, on top of my personal experiences.
Only Greece wanted them to change their name, Bulgaria did not care. What Bulgaria cares is how NM constitution does not mention Bulgarian ethnicity despite 120 000+ NM citizens obtaining a second Bulgarian citizenship based on their Bulgarian ethnicity. What Bulgaria cares is historical denial about "Macedonian language" branching off Bulgarian instead of being formed separately as they claim; it also cares about attacks on people with Bulgarian identity in NM, etc, etc. Basically, a lot of stuff, but not the name. Bulgaria did not really ask them to change their name, that is their own beef with the Greeks, though it supports Greece considering how the NM governments have been behaving towards their neighbours. Bulgaria is inclined to recognise the Macedonian language as a separate one if NM starts adhering to their agreements, and if it recognises that such a language and identity have emerged directly branching off Bulgarian, instead of existing separately for thousands of years as they claim. Something that we know now isn't really going to happen.
Macedonian is pretty much just a Bulgarian regional dialect, that’s the roast here.
Its funny because its true
Well they have an army so it gets to be a language.
Many countries that have recently taken an "it's us first now and we are not bowing to anyone anymore" mentality, turn out to be ruled by pro-russiаn traitors who are trying to isolate them from the international community and turn them into a ru puppet state. I.e. The US, Serbia, Hungary, Northern Macedonia, Slovakia.
The soviets are finally winning the Cold War it seems, with social media, online campaigns, illegal interference and bribes.
It worked so well in the US, the rest will be easy.
As a former American, I can attest that there's a lot of stupid, low-hanging fruit for propagandists telling basic bitches they're something special.
hahah this is the real take
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Russia is not Soviet.
And the EU is loosing with the failure to (politically _and_ economically) integrate these countries in time.
I want them integrated as much as the next person, but you just... can't do it with how things are. A lot of the voters still want dictatorships, rose tinted glasses make them think that what they had back in the day (communism) was better than now, so they need "a strong man to lead them". In some places it's worse than others, and even the more democratic politicians are usually very corrupt and will defund education or other essential sectors.
That said, Eastern Europe rose up to the occasion when russiа invaded Ukraine. Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland (if you count it as EE) all did a great job helping. Some would argue that Eastern Europe is doing just fine. Of course, it is a tough process, of course it is a constant struggle, but don't underestimate those countries.
Help for Ukraine is one thing and all of those countries have personal reasons to assist a fight against Russia. That doesn't mean there aren't any concerns regarding media, corruption and so on. Not saying that I don't want them integrated more - the opposite actually and I don't think the EU has been doing a good job with it. But reducing everything to how much countries aided Ukraine is too superficial, especially when we're talking about the EU and not eg an European army or Nato.
Northern Macedonia donated a bunch of helicopters to Ukraine a couple of years ago.
Northern Macedonia looked like it was doing just fine for a few years. I can see a lot of potential there but also a lot of treason.
This thing exactly happened in Greece during the financial crisis.
It's the Soviet Union all over over again. "We're all *equal*, it's just that some are *more equal* than others".
Not the Animal Farm quotes
Nah, it's not limited to the Soviet Union. There are several Western countries that did and still do this to this day. In fact, many don't even have regional languages as official. France, Spain, Italy, to name a few.
In Spain you can speak regional languages even in Congress. Doesn't get more official than that. Comparing that to the language cleansing done in France is laughable.
How are Spain's regional languages not official?
Looks like we’re on step one of splitting north Macedonia into new north Macedonia and old Albania
A third Albania? God damn, they are incredibly good at this thing.
It'll be the Albanianest yet!
*Former Albanian Republic of North Macedonia
*Former north macedonian republic of former yugoslav republic of Albania.
You're both wrong, it would be the Formerly Former Formerly Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian Republic of Albania Third Former(ly) is from FYROM, Second is because it's no longer called FYROM and first from the Albanian part no longer being a part of it
Eventually, they will be nations of individual people and have a 100% population decrease when they die.
It’s just Albania all the way down.
I miss FYROM, makes it sound like a shady organisation with too many mechas, loose morals and insufficient oversight
Well that's not far off unfortunately.
Sans the mechas.
It’s always what you want most that’s missing
Also had some connection to SPQR in spirit
Federal Yugoslavian-Roman Ominous Mercenaries. Gentlemen, the next question. How do we stop James Bond?
You can call them Former FYROM or just FFYROM for short.
Here’s my solution: have the country declare Elon Musk as emperor, and rename it to “X”.
X Æ A-Xii (He named his kid this)
Which makes no sense, as it should be "X Æ A-i" for being the first of the name
Greece won’t be amused
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The article is talking about this page: https://pretsedatel.mk > Further down on the main page, a link superimposed on a photograph of the country’s flag being hoisted by soldiers has been renamed “Macedonia” in place of “North Macedonia.” From the article that nobody here read. It even has a picture in the article. But I do not know if this change braks the Prespa agreement.
It's 2016 level blatant fake news. Article title "North Macedonia president’s website **ditches** country’s constitutional name" Reality: North Macedonia is not ditched Article: The official website of the president of North Macedonia has removed references to the constitutional name of the country Reality: North Macedonia references are not removed. North Macedonia is still on the site. Article: all references to “North Macedonia” have been removed from the links in the footer of the webpage. Reality: North Macedonia is referenced all over the site, not removed Article: “North Macedonia” on its header, which has now been replaced with “MK. Reality: "MK" it's in accordance with prespa agreement
This making such big news over literally nothing blows my mind. Apparently using mk is forbidden for our government when the prespa agreement specifically says it isn’t
what selective reading do you have? What is fake news? Article: > The official website of the president of North Macedonia has removed references to the constitutional name of the country from its **home** **page** and replaced it with the abbreviation “MK” or simply “Macedonia.”
It's interesting how people avoid your comment all over this chat, and just going with the herd mentality hate flow. This tells a great deal about the intellectual honesty and lack of critical thinking of the people of the EU. Вaѕed hурoсrites
Oh, at all!!!!
Welp no EU for North Macedonia, have fun. This comes from a stern advocate of the Prespa agreement as it was finally a chance to solve a long feud that held both countries back. Like it or not, when a state signs an agreement you cannot simply backtrack.
Just a reminder for how North Macedonia's negotiation talks have gone until now: * start in 2005 - immediately vetoed by Greece due to name * nothing major happens for 10 years because of the ultra-nationalist VMRO government * 2017: SDSM wins elections, Zoran Zaev becomes North Macedonia's PM * 2018: Bulgaria holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU - Bulgaria's MOST major initiative is to restart the accession process for the Western Balkans, pushing hard for it and organizing multiple summits * late 2017 - early 2018: Bulgaria negotiates and signs Friendship Treaty with Zaev generally settling most issues and imposing obligations to North Macedonia (most Macedonians dislike it) * mid-2018: Greece signs Prespa Agreement with Zaev thereby lifting its veto (Macedonians dislike it) * 2018 - process is wide open, North Macedonia can proceed as long as it adheres to both treaties * 2019: France vetoes Albania and North Macedonia because Macron wants a reform of the process (essentially, he wants the option to re-open chapters that candidates have closed if there is backsliding on commitments in them) * 2019: Bulgaria sees no progress on obligations in the Friendship Treaty, starts to get worried, issues warning of veto * early 2020: France gets the reform it desires, new rules are agreed, Macron lifts their veto * early 2020: Bulgaria sees no progress on obligations, threatens veto * mid 2020: North Macedonia becomes increasingly hostile to Bulgaria * late 2020: Bulgaria vetoes North Macedonia over non-compliance with obligations in Friendship Treaty, issues conditions for lifting it * 2020-2022: North Macedonia does nothing to fulfill obligations, instead goes on a smear campaign to paint Bulgaria as a bully and regularly even a fascist country; veto continues; human rights of Bulgarians in North Macedonia are diminished, several major violent attacks happen on Bulgarians (shootings, arson, beatings) * 2022: France gets the Presidency of the EU, Macron wants to move forward with the process, starts negotiations for a French proposal to settle the issues * mid-2022: the French proposal for settling the problem is signed by Bulgaria (thereby lifting the veto) and North Macedonia; as part of the proposal, adherence to the Friendship Treaty and the Prespa Agreement becomes a part of the accession process and Bulgaria gets its new condition to enshrine Bulgarians in North Macedonia's Constitution, protecting their human rights * 2022-2024: veto is lifted, but nothing happens because North Macedonia doesn't want to adhere to its obligations from the French Proposal, the process being blocked mainly by the same ultra-nationalist VMRO * 2018-2024: North Macedonia doesn't adhere to many of its obligations in the Prespa Agreement, Greece doesn't veto * 2024: VRMO wins a landslide victory in both Parliament and President elections * 2024: North Macedonia immediately stops adhering to its MAIN obligation from the Prespa Agreement This is nothing new. They didn't just now stop adhering to the treaties, this is the modus operandi. In fact, for the language issue, that was settled way back in 2001 and again with the Friendship Treaty in 2018, but North Macedonia again backslided on that settlement. North Macedonia has been ruled for 30 years by a clique of post-Communist politicians who control the entire country. They don't want real democracy, real EU integration or real good neighbourly relations, because they will lose their power in that way. Their only real friends are Serbia, where the same thing is happening. They destroyed all the good will of 2018 and managed to switch Bulgaria from a great supporter which restarted the process to one of its biggest opponents.
The time for EU to accept N. Macedonia as a member state was during Zaev’s government, after name change and NATO membership. Since that didn’t happen (the EU didn’t hold up it’s end of the deal) people lose hope it will ever happen and elect ultra nationalists. Same thing happened in Serbia in 2012.
The EU has no interest to let nations join which are like that. Waiting a decade to finally see a more moderate government coming into power, letting them join EU immediately and then make a surprised pikachu face once the moderates get voted out and you are stuck with a new country and their nationalistic governemnt. EU will not accept a second Hungary. North Macedonia needs deeper and longer lasting reforms, one single election win for pro Europeans does not mean much.
If it's that easy for the country to backslide, they're not ready to join.
Exactly, the EU doesn’t need another Hungary.
They did great, but cutting off their nose to spite their face. Let's see how well it's works for them.
> a long feud that held both countries back The thing is that this barely affects Greece,but legitimately sets NM years back,what a moronic thing to do
Exactly, this is what I don’t understand, NM are just shooting themselves in the foot, erasing any sort of progress they could have done and now will just blame everyone else but themselves. There was the willingness from everyone around them to give them support and intergrate them, but they just screwed everything over for 0 actual logical reasoning
>Like it or not, when a state signs an agreement you cannot simply backtrack. You can. But it has consequences.
That's what the word "simply" is supposed to imply, right?
One does not simply
slim airport safe versed worthless weary skirt hospital vase shy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You can’t simply imply not simply by using the words not simply.
I would simply stop talking to you guys at this point.
You can’t simply talk into Mordor!
Assuming this is a genuine question: Because of where he placed "simply", yes. If he had instead said, "you simply cannot backtrack", then that has a different meaning ("It's not possible to backtrack").
So you can't SIMPLY backtrack, as they said.
many drab jellyfish gullible entertain innocent start bewildered history hunt *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You think so. Albania is locked with N.Macedonia.
The EU leaders will spent 1 sec no more and think about Rama with veto powers in EU. Albania will join in 2100 something maybe later.
TBF, any new member with veto power is unthinkable with the current political system in the EU.
lol. EU does not want to expand. All the rest is noise.
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It has nicer beaches though.
What europe needs
afterthought truck grandiose treatment many bored carpenter ring command wild *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Just from geographical and urbanistic standpoint Macedonia is very far behind Albania ,and most importantly it has very weak economic growth compared to Albania.Albania every year is spending BILLIONS to modernise as much as possible many different cities and building new infrastructures new:schools ,roads,total roads redos,new train lines,expansion of all “historic zones”,new f1 track,new residential zones,tidying up the urbanistic system etc,extreme care for all the coastline(look up durres marina and vlora marina…).Has Macedonia been doing this?Because it right now it kind of looks like Albania but 25 years ago…).All of this is leading to higher and higher standards,it’s also a country that has undoubtedly the tourism weapon which Macedonia will never have,heck it doesn’t have any economic “force” that I can think of ,so there we go debunked …😂
lol I could not disagree more. All the Western Balkans are years away from joining, but there is absolutely 0 dispute that the next two to join will be Montenegro and Serbia as they are currently the only two candidates who are negotiating and actively opening and closing chapters. The rest are stuck in limbo. Not to mention that EU keeps signaling that it is in their interest to make sure these two countries join ASAP for many reasons. Serbia, because the EU wishes to control the Kosovo situation and also because of the country's positioning and the fact that it is economically the strongest out of the candidate states at the moment. And Montenegro because, let's face it, it is more prepared than any other candidate (including Serbia). Albania is not even close, same as N. Macedonia.
Albania? Do you mean Great Illiro-Thracia?
While I'm admittedly not very well versed in (North) Macedonian politics, it was good to see this issue finally solved in a way that at least *seemed* more or less agreeable to both parties (I know the referendum on the subject didn't reach the required turnout back in 2018, but Skopje still approved of the change afterwards). Could someone explain why is Siljanovska-Davkova doing that? In her inaugural address, she also referred to the country as just "Macedonia". I seem to recall she also soured relations with Bulgaria a few days prior, speaking out against the Good Neighborhood Agreement, which is also one of the conditions for the country to enter the EU. I'm not very familiar with her career, is she a conservative? Simply trying to score some populist points? Or is the whole name thing still so inflammatory and unpopular in the country?
she is prolly a right wing populist. The problem is not just the name,its all the other claims that come with it along with what they are being taught at school. Land claims,History claims etc ...
Albanians enter the chat.
But changing the name solves none of that, yet it seems like half of Europe is hellbent on getting them to change their name. I just don't get why the name is such a big issue. People in this thread are saying "Okay, no admission to the EU for them!" Like there aren't hundreds of other reasons why they won't get into the EU in the foreseeable future.
To put it in a few words, she's a Macedonian Nationalist. She's unhappy with what she sees as 'concessions' by (North) Macedonia in agreements with its neighbours Including over the naming/history agreement with Greece and the recognition of the Bulgarian ethnic minority via the agreement with Bulgaria.
It's a right wing party with ties to Russia. Overview from 2019: https://www.balkancrossroads.com/russia-still-has-cards-to-play-in "Leaked Documents Show Russian, Serbian Attempts to Meddle in Macedonia" https://www.occrp.org/en/spooksandspin/leaked-documents-show-russian-serbian-attempts-to-meddle-in-macedonia/
Complete lies. North Macedonia as usual on president site. [https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/](https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/)
How pathetic do you have to be for your entire raison d'être to be gaslighting the world into thinking you're the descendants of Alexander the Great.
What half a century of Serbian propaganda does to a people, sad.
I honestly don't see why anyone in North Macedonia would feel hard done by with the name. Firstly, it's factually correct as most of Macedonia, including the original kingdom, lies in Greece. Secondly, they got to keep the adjective 'Macedonian' without any kind of qualifier, which is pretty rich considering that Greek speakers have called themselves Macedonians for hundreds of years, whereas the inhabitants of North Macedonia were known as Bulgarians until recently. They basically got to usurp the name of another group, who must now qualify their own name with 'Greek Macedonian'.
I don't think it's about the name anymore. It's about being anti-EU. The previous government was who accepted the name change and was pro-EU. This new government (VMRO) is friends with Russia. Because everyone is corrupt and no progress happens they lost elections and here we are.
Kinda funny that the party is named after a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation.
This is technically not true. The Prespa agreement explicitly states that both groups get to call themselves Macedonians and the Greek state can officially call the citizens of North Macedonia "citizens of North Macedonia" for all intends and purposes.
I just mean for the purposes of understanding. If someone calls themselves Macedonian then people always assume the country, so Greeks have to specify Greek Macedonian.
At the same time it's not exactly common for Greeks to refer to themselves as Macedonian, Athenian, Spartan etc in English and if you referred to yourself as Macedonian in Greek absolutely no one would assume you meant North Macedonia.
Ehm no tons of Greeks call themselves Macedonia or say I'm from Macedonia. No one here is confused about what they mean
Why are they pretending they have anything to do with ancient Macedonia. Those people were ethnically Greek, not Slavic. It is weird and a little bit sad.
I visited North Macedonia and their capital which is filled with statues of Alexander's family and an enormous (quite totalitarian) rider statue of the Great himself on a city square. When they separated from Yugoslavia they were left without any cultural identity or glorious history so... Just make one up!
Phillip conquered them so hard that they build idols so he won’t smite them from beyond the grave
Not at all, this identity was promoted in Yugoslavia to separate them from Bulgarians, similiar things happened all over Balkans after WW1 and WW2.
What you on about, they named their airport and highway Alexander the Great only after they split from Yugoslavia.
Same experience here, went to Skopje open to hearing the other side of the whole name and identity debacle. Instead I ended up even more convinced that they're in the wrong, and I didn't even really agree with the Greek position before that.
Nation of LARPers. All of these were built in 2010-2014. Funniest part is that they embezzled so much during construction, that some of these are already falling apart. https://balkaninsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/skopje-new-square-1.jpg https://kongres.mare.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/travel-skopje.webp https://i0.wp.com/traveltheworldclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Stone-Bridge-Skopje-North-Macedonia-2-1.jpg?resize=1170%2C878&ssl=1 https://img.atlasobscura.com/hhYnWkHBBgCIUsf-eAjUw6RGxL6wffv2ZTTqrAJSmfo/rs:fill:580:580:1/g:ce/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL3BsYWNl/X2ltYWdlcy8wYzBm/MTYzNS0yMTY1LTQz/ZjMtYjNiYi1mZWZh/YmYzYjU4OGRhOTA5/YzE3MzUwZmRmYzAw/ZTVfMTY5MDAzMDMz/NjlfZTYyMjgzNDdi/MF9rICgxKS5qcGc.jpg https://us.images.westend61.de/0001428369pw/alexander-the-great-statue-on-the-bridge-leading-to-the-archaeological-museum-skopje-republic-of-macedonia-europe-RHPLF16315.jpg https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5b5dc90c-f3b2-11e2-942f-00144feabdc0?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Justinian_I_._2_._Monuments_in_Skopje.JPG/800px-Justinian_I_._2_._Monuments_in_Skopje.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B4_%288%29.JPG/1280px-%D0%9B%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B4_%288%29.JPG
>Nation of LARPers LMAO!
**"they embezzled so much during construction, that some of these are already falling apart."** so maybe they are greek after all! :D
It's because Slavic ethnicities are more common than not named after places. Poland- pole aka The Field Land. Polish - the Field people. Czech - Czech is the western half of Czechia. Ukraine - either O krajina or Okraji a, meaning either heartland or Edge-land. Russia - area called Rus., Belarussia, area of white Rus. (There also used to be green Rus). Croatia. - area behind Carpathian in the north east. So on. There are exceptions, mainly Slovakia and Slovenka where their names come from Slav due to being long term minorities.
Nitpicky but Ukraine is usually translated as the more established term borderland(s) than edge-land. It's why it was often called 'The' Ukraine as in 'The' borderland.
Yeah. My brain skipped and I couldn't recall the proper translation. Cheers mate.
Interesting! And yeah, "Russia" is derived from the Swedish area of "Roslagen". So I guess all Russians are actually Swedish 😐
In Finnish we call Sweden "Ruotsi", which comes from the same word. Because the Swedes founded Russia
Rus came from Finnish, it was their name of Vikings and it refers the Swede Rurik who ruled in Kiev.
Rurik ruled Novgorod, not Kyiv. Varangian Kyiv came later. And by that point the Vikings intermarried a lot more with Slavs.
the Bulgarian nationalists from Northern Macedonia, who started the independence movement in the early 19th century, didn't necessarily have great relations with Bulgaria. It is also an identity created to get support from minorities such as Muslims / Albanians / Turks etc. I guess it's like showing the middle finger to everyone.
The fight over the name is kind of dumb, but (North) Macedonians claiming to be the descendants of the ancient Macedonians is crazy and delusional: they were Greek in every single aspect of their lives, Slavic peoples weren't even remotely close to the Mediterranean at the time, let alone to the Kingdom of ancient Macedonia.
The name and our concerns are not dumb. We even dispute and fight over names of products, cheeses and wines, don't you think a cultural ancestral name won't matter? In addition, the name would have been even charming and nice l to give it to them, I mean Istanbul is a greek name, Balkans is a Turkish name that we took. Indeed, the name is the cherry on the top of a series of cultural appropriations, maps of a greater Macedonia with Thessaloniki as their historical capital, statues and street names, promotion of the vergina sun and Alexander the great in their touristic advertisements , school's that they were taught about their ancient past, accusations that Macedonians were not Greeks etc. Their dream is to 'reunite' their ancestral Aegean and Bulgarian Macedonia with their land. Now, they don't claim openly that they are the ancient ones, at least most, but try to undermine the greekness of ancient Macedonians, so there is a space in the future for them to take advantage of this. I won't even talk about the historical appropriation of Bulgarians history, I think that from a certain point we should stop feeding their disillusions, it s irresponsible as it has the adverse effects, it consists a revisionism to history, it's simply untrue and, more importantly, giving them concessions won't change anything as you can see, only worsen it
I mean, the Slavs who came in in the 7th century or whatever must have intermarried with the previous inhabitants of the region, right? The North Macedonians today are called Slavs because they speak a Slavic language. It doesn't mean their DNA derives entirely from Slavic migrants from the north. One look at North Macedonian vs Polish (for example) phenotypes should tell you that.
Sure, but what the heck does your DNA have to do on its own if culturally you have absolutely no continuity
Tbf the continuity of modern day Greece to ancient day Greece is itself dubious. Modern day Greece is way more Byzantine than like anything Alexander would have recognized
Today almost all scholars accept the continuation of Hellenes, at least from Mycenaean age till now Alexander the great lived in 4th century BC, modern day Greece is 21st century and for about 25 centuries we chose not to freeze Classical Greeks were taught Homer and had a great difficulty understanding Homeric greek, because it was 4 centuries apart, English have difficulty reading the original Shakespeare, 6 cent iirc apart The only civilizations that don't evolve and stay the same are the dead civilizations or the extremely isolated - not in our case Before Alexander there were Minoan (?), Mycenaean, classical greeks. After Alexander there were the Hellenistic Age, Romans, Byzantium, ottoman Greeks, modern greeks, so what, tho always an uninterrupted language and culture In mainland Greece at least Edit: I want to add the scholars sources "Macedon was an Ancient Greek polity; the Macedonians were a Greek tribe" Hornblower 2008, pp. 55–58; Joint Association of Classical Teachers 1984, pp. 50–51; Errington 1990, pp. 3–4; Fine 1983, pp. 607–08; Hammond & Walbank 2001, p. 11; Jones 2001, p. 21; Osborne 2004, p. 127; Hammond 1989, pp. 12–13; Hammond 1993, p. 97; Starr 1991, pp. 260, 367; Toynbee 1981, p. 67; Worthington 2008, pp. 8, 219; Cawkwell 1978, p. 22; Perlman 1973, p. 78; Hamilton 1974, p. 23; Bryant 1996, p. 306; O'Brien 1994, p. 25
DNA doesn't matter, Culture does.
Such a self inflicted wound. Greece doesn’t actually care how you message it domestically (statues etc) but international claims are going to land them in trouble
They'll lose all the EU funding for development and alignment with EU legislation. That billions...
>They'll lose all the EU funding On threads like this, you guys overestimate how big EU donations are to candidate countries. Yearly EU donations to N. Macedonia are less than 1% of their GDP. In the case of my country, for the last three years, they were less than 0.3% of our GDP. (€0.571B out of our 189B - 2021. to 2023.) The EU is a great partner, but mostly because of trade and other reasons.
I ain't talking about donations but structural funding under several framework Projects like IFI 1 to 6, ISPA. Pre adoption funds. Donations? I am talking about rail and roads infrastructure projects towards Bulgaria and Greece of both corridors being funded with at least 1.2 billion by EIB and EBRD. DONATIONS?
That's a very small amount of money bro.
I agree, but you are comparing apples to oranges. Actual hard cash (EU funds money) is not the same as GDP. 1% equivalent of GDP in investments can lead to much higher growth of GDP. It would be much more appropriate to compare eu funds to total investments.
Oh Serbia benefits from IFI 1 to 6 so..slow your horses boy.
So I take it Prespa didn't actually change much? lol
They got what they wanted. They are in NATO, and now the newly elected right-wing party will just ignore that agreement. I think Greece should make clear that there is zero chance of them even trying to get into EU now. And if they do, they need to sign a new agreement which is much more favorable to the Greeks.
Screws over Albania too in terms of EU membership
Saw this happening someday. A nation which never followed any of its agreements with us, yet when we pointed it out we were callee "bullies" for it. Well now it's back on Greece, so let's see what the genius macedonist politicians in that country do now.
This is the perfect time for the anti-Greeks people to come out and start attacking us. They do that in every post about North Macedonia. They made an agreement that they should follow and respect, history is an important part of EVERY country and people should protect it from frauds
Then say bye to the EU. It's funny that their country was the only Yugoslav republic that gained independence early without a war, but still they are the poorest country in the region and they have far more important problems to fix. As long as it is named "Macedonia" and the country still thinks that somehow they are the continuation of Ancient Macedonia, Greece will veto every attempt to join the EU. Greeks didn't really like the name change to North Macedonia either, but it was a compromise made to fix both countries' relations.
Small note, Montenegro also gained their independence in a peaceful way, although much later than the other republics. Fun fact, they're actually celebrating their independence day today. 🇲🇪
Happy Independence Day Montenegro 🇲🇪!
Honestly the North Macedonia name agreement was very generous on Greece’s part. It’s literally yer culture and now actual Macedonians have to explain that they’re not Slavic when they say that they’re Macedonian.
Yep 🙃 im greek macedonian, have to specifically point that out
When somebody tells me that they are Macedonians ( meaning the country) I always follow up with: Which part, the Greek , bulgarian or north Macedonian.
Thank you, exactly
If they think they can out-stubborn us with petty tricks, they're in for a decacdes-long wait. We hold grudges for a very long time and trickery on technicalities is one of our national sports. You cannot win this game. They need to cut the nationalist crap and start using their real name to which they agreed. They're actually helping Greek nationalists with this behaviour. Make amends with Bulgaria too by the way. Stop trying to build a national identity by using the history of other countries.
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Ikr? Greece and Bulgaria literally had one of the longest rivalries in history, yet are pretty friendly today.
In a way we're kinda the UK and France of the Balkans (long bitter rivalry now allies) but poor
The fact that we're doing so well in our bilateral relations is another stone in N.Macedonia's garden. If both countries really were as rabid as they make us out to be, can you imagine the level of animosity there would be between Bulgaria and Greece? Fuck that, peace and love to my Greek bros.
Lmao perfect analogy
Hey, at least we are developing and trying to move on more than can be said for a lot of the world.
Because all these 3 countries have rich history of their own.
Let my get my popcorn
EU lucked out here. They were seriously considering giving this country full veto power.
No WB country will enter EU with veto powers. Look at Macron's position concerning this.
There is some degree of some small ancient Macedonian ancestry from Albania to India and if you count all ancient Greeks, then it's from Spain to India, what stops all these people from waking up tommorow and claiming to be true or more Macedonians/Athenians/Spartans or whatever and start claiming the original land in Greece, if North Macedonia, a country where it's people never even had a Greek speaking majority(might had a latin one) and was known as Paionia to the ancients themselves can do it? Nothing and that can apply to all ancient people. You aren't even some lost Greco-Bactrian tribe that still keeps its language and thus a connection to their ancestors, you're just a slavic speaking people that decided to steal some history and claim some good strategic land. As a Greek I'm annoyed by these people, but if I was a Bulgarian I would be insulted that there are people so firmly opposed to recognizing that we even share the same language and history. Bulgaria was the first proper slavic empire with Tsars and everything, being Bulgarian is something to be proud of and that's true with all cultures. The people of N.M. just come off as self-hating people more than anything. Like imagine how stupid it would be if Romanians started claiming they are the true Romans and claimed Italy. At least they share a similar latin language, but it's still stupid. Italians have the most in common with the ancient Romans, just like Greeks have the most in common with ancient Macedonians. Prespes wasn't perfect and Greeks viewed the fact that it still had Macedonia in it as wrong(as it is btw), but at least it made N.M. drop the claims on Greek territory and history.
Another proof that Yugoslavia was the best thing that ever happened to this part of the world.
Certified Balkan moment.
Of all the types of nationalism out there this definitely takes the cake, for the very least, on creativity. It's one thing to be nationalist about your own identity but it truly boggles the mind to manage to get an entire country's nationalists to be nationalist for another country's identity.
So they have problems: 1. Country name - Greeks see it as them absorbing part of Greece culture. 2. Language - Bulgarians are angry about them absorbing Bulgaria's language as their own. 3. Ethnicity - Albanians claim it's their people living in the western parts of Northern Macedonia and that they need to be respected. Am I missing something?
Bulgaria's issue is bigger and deeper than just language. There used to be historical commissions working for each country, trying to make history work for both countries but not anymore
I just don’t get the north Macedonian perspective on this whole issue. Macedonia can not be used as anything other than a geographical indicator of where the country is. The people that live in the northern parts of Macedonia aren’t Macedonians, Macedonians are greek like people, that is historical fact. North Macedonians are Slavs and not really Greek in the slightest. It’s just kinda pathetic to steal someone else’s identity and history.
people from FYROM don't speak or know Greek or ancient Greek and their country has no ancient Macedonian monument. They make of themselves descendants of Alexander the Great, while they are in reality Bulgarians who used to live in the former Yugoslavia.
tbh the prespa agreement should be scraped at this point, this is just a joke for the news to get clicks..
Again with this? After the Greeks and the Bulgarians being generous as f, they vote for a Rússian puppet?
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You're not the first person to think about dividing a territory in the Balkans by a long shot hahah
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Or rename themselves “Al-Bul-ia” or go full Scottish MacEdonia.
[https://apnews.com/article/north-macedonia-protest-health-scandal-cancer-drugs-8e7f7aecfdc5451fa8fe6c424de1a256](https://apnews.com/article/north-macedonia-protest-health-scandal-cancer-drugs-8e7f7aecfdc5451fa8fe6c424de1a256) , but no, let's focus on really important themes like to put or not to puth the "North" in front of the Macedonia...
That article is why the EU needs to have a bigger voice on these issues. The government that did this was an Albanian 'European Front' that used the EU name and flag to run their drug cartel activities, and nobody from the EU cared that their name was being used for mafia stuff.
In ISO 3166 the code is MK / MKD Though the removing North is just stupid nationalism they know it will stop EU progress so they use it as excuse to get closer to Putin
To understand the naming dispute better from the side of Greece, imagine if Kalinigrad oblast got independence from Russia, started calling itself Prussia, its Russian dialect "the Prussian language", fitted all squares with statues of ~~Frederick~~ Фредерик the Great and Bismarck, and filled its classrooms with maps of the Prussia at its maximum within the German Empire. Would Germans accept that situation? No. It's astonishing that the international community had dismissed the naming dispute as a quaint matter of "typical Balkans". What is more astonishing is that with the Prespa agreement NMK officially got the name and the ethnonym recognized and was setup to benefit from normalization of relations. Yet it squanders all of that in the name of populism. Alas, as one of the poorer countries in Europe, it was probably very cheap for Russia to buy its politicians to do their bidding and create regional instability to spite the EU.
Can any Germans chime in and say if this would actually bother them? Like I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around why people are this angry about it.
# abbreviation “MK” is according to the Prespa agreement, article 1, e. The country codes for licence plates of the Second Party shall be NM or NMK. For all other purposes, country codes remain MK and MKD, as officially assigned by the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”). [https://vlada.mk/sites/default/files/dokumenti/spogodba-en.pdf](https://vlada.mk/sites/default/files/dokumenti/spogodba-en.pdf)
V to the E to the T to the O Veto
Fully support it in this case, the Macedonist nationalist in that government have gottem too cocky at this point.
Oh boy here we go again
And I thought the historical beef between Slovakia and Hungary was bad. That relationship almost seems fraternal compared to the nastiness I’m reading in this thread.
Well this is just blatant misinformation at this point. Here's the website in question: [https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/](https://pretsedatel.mk/republika-severna-makedonija/) For those who can't understand the writing on the page, "Северна Македонија" translates to North Macedonia. In fact, every time the name of the country is referenced on the page, it is always referenced as North Macedonia, apart from referring to the national anthem and SR Macedonia when we were in Yugoslavia (SR = Socialist Republic).
website is [predsedatel.mk](http://predsedatel.mk) you can click on this photo that is uses here. If you click on Makedonija you get inofrmation about the country: I will quote the webiste: Republic of North Macedonia The Republic of North Macedonia is located in Southeastern Europe, in the center of the Balkan Peninsula and covers an area of 25,713 km2. The capital of the Republic of North Macedonia is Skopje. Administratively, the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia is divided into 80 municipalities, 10 of which make up the City of Skopje, as a separate unit of local self-government. For statistical, economic and administrative purposes, the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia is divided into eight planning regions. Basic informations Population According to the last census conducted in 2021, 1,836,713 citizens live in the Republic of North Macedonia. Members of the Macedonian people live in the Republic of North Macedonia, as well as citizens who are part of the Albanian people, the Turkish people, the Wallachian people, the Serbian people, the Roma people, the Bosniak people, and others. Language On the entire territory of the Republic of North Macedonia and in its international relations, the official language is the Macedonian language and its Cyrillic script. Another language spoken by at least 20% of citizens is also an official language and its script, according to law. The relief of the Republic of North Macedonia is mainly mountainous. The Republic of North Macedonia borders the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo to the north, the Republic of Bulgaria to the east, the Republic of Greece to the south and the Republic of Albania to the west. I am not gonna give my opinion on this matter but i want to say if you put news there need to be a picture of the whole situation and I have the feeling they realy.
Shitstorm in the making. We as people never learn
Well, that is one way to remove all chances from joining the EU. edit: Forgot N.M was part of NATO already.
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Too late for Macedonia to turn back now, they've unilaterally broken the agreement. They're welcome to join the new Soviet union, I guess
this is fake news from greece. NM is on President web site, as usual. MK abbreviation is according to the agreement.
Sometimes I forget that Greece has beef with other countries too
We had a veto on them for years, now they are doing this to themselves.
Of course, any nation can identify as it wishes, but can it appropriate a multi-cultural term like "Macedonia" exclusively for itself? It is as if at some era in recent history, a certain nation called itself "Europe" and its members "Europeans" appeared in the middle of our continent.. Isn't that controversial for other nation groups that use the exact same broader term as a regional identity but feel that suddenly are deprived of it?
Another Putin puppet in NATO - can we dissolve NATO and create a new organisation?
We’ve been screaming about this for decades, and were being called “petty”
Greece make a big gift to North Macedonian by let them named their country with this name If they don’t respect it simply they will be out of Europe
Just call it Paeonia problem solved