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After 3 decades finally Greece and Skopje have come to an initial agreement about the name of this little country. 

 

Since the agreement has not been welcomed here in Greece by the people calling the government traitors I would honestly like to hear your opinion on this subject 

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I was very surprised reading the comments on Facebook. Some people were on the verge of apoplexy callling Tsipras traitor. 

I know Macedonia has twisted history and invented facts and stolen history from Greece and Bulgaria (as so many nationalist forces do) but I don’t know why the name Macedonia has to be exclusive of Greece??????? There’s a region called Macedonia in Bulgaria too. That means that this country has rights on the name too. 

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the real criticism of the agreement is that from now on they will be called Macedonians (not North Macedonians) and their language Macedonian and that will lead to ridiculous demands from them

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I saw on the news that they will change Macedonia's name, but I'm not that informed about the drama that is going on with Greece and neither did I know that it has been happening for 3 decades. To now start calling the country by North Macedonia is strange, specially cuz (for the international general public) there isn't a South one to even justify that distinction, but everybody will get used to it as time goes by.

The Greeks should relax, they won't lose a place in History because of their neighbor nation's name; in fact, whenever I studied Greece at school Macedonia was never part of the theme, the first time I heard about it was in the 20th century subject and always as a "background character". But anyway, I prefer Macedonia (without the North) as the country's name (in Portuguese, macedonia means fruit salad lol).

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19 minutes ago, Rock said:

I saw on the news that they will change Macedonia's name, but I'm not that informed about the drama that is going on with Greece and neither did I know that it has been happening for 3 decades. To now start calling the country by North Macedonia is strange, specially cuz (for the international general public) there isn't a South one to even justify that distinction, but everybody will get used to it as time goes by.

The Greeks should relax, they won't lose a place in History because of their neighbor nation's name; in fact, whenever I studied Greece at school Macedonia was never part of the theme, the first time I heard about it was in the 20th century subject and always as a "background character". But anyway, I prefer Macedonia (without the North) as the country's name (in Portuguese, macedonia means fruit salad lol).

But Macedonia is indeed studied in schools as part of the Hellenic civilization. Alexander Magno was born in that specific part of Ancient Greece. 

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8 hours ago, karbatal said:

But Macedonia is indeed studied in schools as part of the Hellenic civilization. Alexander Magno was born in that specific part of Ancient Greece. 

Nope, not here. What we stude about Greece (or at least how it was studied back in the day) is just the Mythology (and the Olympic Games), Philosophers, Art and Democracy. Basically, just the big picture of Ancient Greece. Subjects like Macedonia and Magno are too particular and specific and so are not explored (if anything, he may be mentioned in a page or two of the History book, but not a chapter; while the region/country itself only appears briefly in the 20th century theme). If one goes to college and choose a course that deals with History, Policy, Geography, etc, Macedonia and Magno will get a deeper attention, for sure; but in the school years before that they aren't front line topics at all.

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9 hours ago, Rock said:

(in Portuguese, macedonia means fruit salad lol).

Huh? 😳 I'm a native Portuguese speaker (although I prefer to say I speak Brazilian), but it's the first time I'm hearing this. As far as I'm concerned, Macedonia has always meant... Macedonia, a region in Greece.

Anyway, I hope everyone finds a peaceful solution for that situation. 

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13 minutes ago, surannée said:

Huh? 😳 I'm a native Portuguese speaker (although I prefer to say I speak Brazilian), but it's the first time I'm hearing this. As far as I'm concerned, Macedonia has always meant... Macedonia, a region in Greece.

https://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/macedónia

Despite speaking the same language, Portugal and Brazil have some words with different meanings. Celular, for example; out there is a mobile phone, while here the word is just related to cells (science). Bala is candy there, while here is a projectile. And the list goes on and on.

:wink:

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1 minute ago, Rock said:

Despite speaking the same language, Portugal and Brazil have some words with different meanings. Celular, for example; out there is a mobile phone, while here the word is just related to cells (science). Bala is candy there, while here is a projectile. And the list goes on and on.

:wink:

Bala is a projectile here too. But yeah, there are many many differences between Portuguese and Brazilian. I hear you understand us perfectly, but it doesn't seem to happen the other way around. As for me, I understand Spanish much better than Portuguese. Go figure!

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19 minutes ago, surannée said:

Bala is a projectile here too. But yeah, there are many many differences between Portuguese and Brazilian. I hear you understand us perfectly, but it doesn't seem to happen the other way around. As for me, I understand Spanish much better than Portuguese. Go figure!

Still, bala isn't candy here lol :tongue:.

And yes, we understand you perfectly. It's just a Portuguese thing to be open to other languages (even if in this case it's the same one) and cultures.

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22 minutes ago, Rock said:


And yes, we understand you perfectly. It's just a Portuguese thing to be open to other languages (even if in this case it's the same one) and cultures.

(Not trying to hijack this thread,ok?) Another reason you have it easier is the exposure to Brazilian music and telenovelas. Like, for example, you have Mc Kevinho and Ludmila topping iTunes there right now, while the Brazilians' knowledge of contemporary Portuguese music is near zero, if not absolute zero. It hasn't always been that way, I remember when I was a kid - I'm in my fifties - I listened to Portuguese music on the radio. And I remember quite clearly I could understand Portuguese way better when I was a kid, perhaps because there was much more contact between our cultures then. I guess Brazilians started to become kind of xenophobic around the late seventies. However, I think Portugal remains a huge influence in Brazil when it comes to literature and especially cuisine. Cheers! :) 

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11 hours ago, sotos8 said:

the real criticism of the agreement is that from now on they will be called Macedonians (not North Macedonians) and their language Macedonian and that will lead to ridiculous demands from them

As a Bulgarian, I gotta say this dispute has got on too long and I m glad a decision has been reached.

I understand Greek position though, as present-day Macedonians are trying to rewritten their history: they are claiming ancient Macedonians were not a Greek tribe (they were), that ancient Macedonians were not speaking Greek (they were) etc. They claim that present-day Macedonians are direct descendants of the ancient ones - the ancient mixed with Slavic tribes and thats why their language was slavicized (in reality up till 1945 the Macedonians were simply part of the Bulgarian nation and saw themselves as Bulgarians).

Bulgaria similarly is "robbed" of part of its medieval history: for example Macedonians claim Tzar (King) Samuel is Macedonian ruler, though all the sources claim he is Bulgarian - then they try to explain this by claiming Bulgarian then didn't mean ethnicity but a political affinity etc... But one has to look at the language, history, religion: all is the same and shared between Macedonians and Bulgarians (the language of one is like a dialect of the other). Not to mention that almost all of their national heroes claimed they were Bulgarian etc. Had it Macedonia been part of Bulgaria from the beginning there wouldn't have been a Macedonian ethnicity (actually after the Russo-turkish war in 1877-1878 when Bulgaria was first liberated, it included Macedonia, but then it was return to the Ottoman empire by the Western powers).

The main reason Macedonians exist today is the politics of the neighbouring states in trying to make Macedonia part of its history. Macedonism in a way was a result of Greek policy in trying to "hellenize" the local slavs (Bulgarians).

In Ottoman times what is today Macedonia was named as "Lower Bulgaria" and "Lower Moesia" by the local Slavs and the names Bulgaria and Moesia were identified with each other. Self-identifying as "Bulgarian" on account of their language, the local Slavs considered themselves as "Rum", i.e. members of the orthodox Christians of the Ottoman empire. This community was a source of identity for all the ethnic groups inside it and most people identified mostly with it. Until the middle of the 19th century the Greeks also called the Slavs in Macedonia "Bulgarians", and regarded them predominantly as Orthodox brethren, but the rise of Bulgarian nationalism changed the Greek position. At that time the Orthodox Christian community began to degrade with the continuous identification of the religious creed with ethnic identity,[5] while Bulgarian national activists started a debate on the establishment of their separate Orthodox church.

As result, massive Greek religious and school propaganda occurred, and a process of Hellenization was implemented among Slavic-speaking population of the area. The very name Macedonia, that revived just during the early 19th century, after the foundation of the modern Greek state, with its Western Europe-derived obsession with Ancient Greece, was applied to the local Slavs. The idea was to stimulate the development of close ties between them and the Greeks, linking both sides to the ancient Macedonians, as a counteract against the growing Bulgarian cultural influence into the region. In 1845, for instance, the Alexander romance was published in Slavic Macedonian dialect typed with Greek letters. At the same time the Russian ethnographer Viktor Grigorovich described a recent change in the title of the Greek Patriarchist bishop of Bitola: from Exarch of all Bulgariato Exarch of all Macedonia. He also noted the unusual popularity of Alexander the Great and that all this looked as soon instilled on the local Slavs.

As a consequence since 1850s some Slavic intellectuals from the area, adopted the designation Macedonian as a regional label, and it began to gain a popularity. In the 1860s, according to Petko Slaveykov, the first Macedonists — intellectuals adhering the idea that Macedonian Slavs differ from Bulgarians, because they are descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, appeared. Per Kuzman Shapkarev, as result of their activity, in the 1870s the ancient ethnonym Macedonians was imposed on the local Slavs, and began to replace the traditional one Bulgarians. During 1880s, after recommendation by Stojan Novaković, the Serbian government also began to support those ideas to counteract the Bulgarian influence in Macedonia, claiming the Macedonian Slavs were in fact pure Slavs (i.e. Serbian Macedonians), while the Bulgarians unlike them were partially mixture of Slavs and Bulgars (i.e. Tatars). In accordance with Novaković's agenda this Serbian “Macedonism” was transformed in 1890s, in a process of the gradual Serbianisation of the Macedonian Slavs.

As a result those ppl exist since the 40ties at least and no matter who accepts them, they won't change.

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Good points Ilijah

Whenever a nationalism movement has to lie, twist history and claim territories using invented history it shows it is a big fat scam.

Oh and macedonia means salad fruit in Spanish too.

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On 6/22/2018 at 10:33 AM, karbatal said:

Good points Ilijah

Whenever a nationalism movement has to lie, twist history and claim territories using invented history it shows it is a big fat scam.

Oh and macedonia means salad fruit in Spanish too.

macedonia, yes, is a very sweet fruits salda, we eat in christmas.

about the country, good for the politicians that want to solve proiblems. And it´s not a weird thing to have same names in different states, we have basque country in different states, even two different Navarre parlaments, so I guess the rest of the countries are not so different.they shouldn´t be, I mean, borders and states are not always related to history, names or nations, cultures...

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