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Like, what the ...? The article named "Macedonia (Slav)" talking about an ethnic group? User:RN, could you have picked a sillier and syntactically trivially incorrect name? -- Joy [shallot] 22:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
The only proper name for this ethnic group is Macedonians. All other names are only Greek and Bulgarian propaganda against Macedonian people. How would Greeks felt if the article about Greeks had title "Indoeuropeans from Greece", or how would Bulgarians felt if the article about Bulgarians had title "Slavs from Bulgaria" or what ever. If Wikipeadia use any other name than Macedonians for this article then it obviously would be acceptance of Greek and Bulgarian POV. I am not Macedonian but Serb, and this Greek-Bulgarian crusade against Macedonians on Wikipedia looks really pathetic to me. Besides this, ancient Macedonians were not Greeks but Thracians. Greeks have no right to Macedonian name. User:PANONIAN
Macedonia (Slav) is not a name for ethnicity, that's for sure. But, if Ryan Norton wants to "satisfy" the Greek propagandators, no one has the right to object... Bomac 16:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
REX claims that the numbers haven't changed. What the hell is all that about then? http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=MKJ Revert on your own Miskin 15:24, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
No Miskin, you're wrong. Your link is from the 2000 edition. My link is from the 2005 edition. If you used your brain for a change and read what was at the heading of yours. REX 16:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I can help you a little. According to official census in Serbia in 2002, there were 25,847 Macedonians in Serbia, of which 14,062 lived in Central Serbia and 11,785 in Vojvodina. User:PANONIAN
I think I can help you little more. I have one interesting book: Pavel Rudjakov, Seoba Srba u Rusiju u 18. veku, Beograd, 1995. The book speaks about Serbs who immigrated to Russia in 1752. The book also contain the list with recorded names and nationality of people who immigrated to Russia in the mentioned year. Many of those people were Serbs, but others belonged to several other nationalities. It is interesting that many of those declared that their nationality is Macedonian. And here are the names of some of these Macedonians: Stepan Andrejev, Sava Makrejev, Ivan Petrov, Fjodor Atepanov, Matvej Tokarev, Kirila Nebrikajev, etc. Present day Macedonians have very similar names. This list is a proof that people who considered themselves Macedonians existed in 1752. User:PANONIAN
Dear Bomac, you reverted the disambiguation paragraph:
characterizing it as "Greek NPOV is not NPOV". I am frankly surprised. I expected to be crucified by the Greek nationalists on this. Surely you acknowledge that "Macedonian" by itself can refer to many different groups of people, including not only the Slavic-speaking ethnic group, but also all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia (some of whom are not ethnically Macedonian) and all residents of a larger geographic area, part of which lies in the Republic of Macedonia, part in Greece. For that matter, historically, it can also refer to the ancient ethnic group (which may or may not be a Greek ethnic group, but is surely not Slavic), to a Bulgarian political party before the Balkan Wars, to an ancient Greek political party/faction led by Aeschines, etc.
There is nothing unusual about this—lots of other ethnic/regional/political/national groups have this kind of ambiguity)—and there is nothing in it which either promotes or denies any particular group's claims to the name. It is descriptive of the facts on the ground, that is, NPOV. The only thing which might be unusual is reporting that there is some dispute about the name. Again, the above wording does not say whether this is a stupid dispute or a valid dispute, just that it is a dispute. That seems indisputable, as witness this page. It doesn't even say it is a widespread or important dispute--just a dispute among some of the other groups.
Finally, let me recall that the Macedonian hero Goce Delčev called for the "elimination of chauvinist propaganda and nationalist dissentions that divide and weaken the population of Macedonia". -- Macrakis 17:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Why you simply do not write 4 different articles about Macedonians, and make a Macedonians disambiguation page, which can contain all 4:
I see that this disambiguation page already exist. So, since it exist what problem these Greek nationalists have with this article? Greeks have no right to tell to Macedonians how they should call themselves. The name "Macedonian Slavs" exist only in the heads of Greek nationalists. Ethnic Macedonians do not use this name for themselves. User:PANONIAN
To conclude: all nations of this World have democratic right to call themselves with the name what they choose. Greeks are the one who do not have right to tell to their neighbours how they should call themselves. One more thing: Greece was the birthplace of democracy, but seems that some modern Greeks do not understand what the word democracy means. This Greek crusade against Macedonians can be compared only with the crusade of Adolf Hitler against Jews. I maybe was little harsh, but it is the only concluision what one neutral observer like me can to have here. User:PANONIAN
Well, the current name of the article is really bad. Even name "Macedonian Slavs" is better than "Macedonia (Slav)". The second name is supposed to describe region of Macedonia, not people. Could the title be changed into "Macedonians (Slavs)" or something like that? User:PANONIAN
I'm not sure why you want to take it to the arbitration committee, but at any rate I moved it to ethnic group as that seems to be acceptable to most here. Any comments? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 05:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I support the move as well. GrandfatherJoe ( talk • contribs) 07:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sick and tired of a certain group of users who disrespect everything. There was a poll, long discussions and all these are ignored by less than 10 editors. This is absolutely unfair and against the wikipedia (theoritical) spirit.
See also Talk:Macedonia#POV_dispute.3F. +MATIA ☎ 08:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA, what is the problem here? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 09:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Reality is the problem? Or maybe WP policies and guidelines, I don't know. I had participated in long discussions in the past about Macedonia related articles. You may check
Talk:Macedonia#POV_dispute.3F,
Macedonia_(region)#External_links,
agreed facts and many other pages were I had tried to help. Or you may file an RFC against me and have a neutral party check my contribs in depth. Or you can take a look at
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/REX where I'm already involved and try to prove that I am not an elephant. And if you do these, then you can give a better answer than mine on your question "MATIA, what is the problem here?", I'm afraid I cannot, the same way I cannot parse
all these or find more. With my best regards to RN.
+MATIA
☎ 11:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
And finally as long as the agreed facts of Talk:Macedonian Slavs/Poll are not part of the article, a proper tag should be placed here. The neutral admins should check what would be that tag. +MATIA ☎ 12:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that everyone should know that
Macedonians (ethnic group) really is the most appropriate name. It is not found offensive by the ethnic group in question (unlike the name Macedonian Slavs, which is as offensive to them as calling the Arvanites of Attica Albanians). I'm sure that MATIA would agree with me that names which are found offensive by the people in question shouldn't be used in Wikipedia. If he applies those rules to the Arvanites only and not to the Macedonians, then that will be
double standards. Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Columbia Encyclopedia, The Harvard Dictionary of Music, Philip's Encyclopedia, The Macmillan Encyclopedia, Crystal Reference Encyclopedia, Penguin Encyclopedia of Places, The Companion to British History, the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia and Ethnologue all call these people Macedonians. Wikipedia's naming policy also directs us to use the name Macedonians. There is no good reason whatsoever to use the name Macedonian Slavs and I applaud the defenders of the right
self-determination who managed to finally move this article to
Macedonians (ethnic group). My congragulations and gratitude to
Bomac who's initiative, guided by the cunning of
The Almighty, managed to arrive to such an unexpected twist of fate, where
NPOV managed to return to this Wikipedia article and to force out the Pro-Greek
Propaganda which imposed the false and offensive name Macedonian Slavs on this article. Wikipedia policies have finally been implemented despite forcible Greek propagandistic pressure who claimed that a consensus had been reached. I is well known that that is a lie, as a consensus requires 60% of the vote and that the poll was a tie. Oh Joy :-)
REX 15:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The article in its present form satisfies only the Macedonian Slav POV. And as long as it doesn't have the agreed facts (check my previous comments here) it is also inaccurate, therefore I reverted the tag removal by GrandfatherJoe.
+MATIA
☎ 10:15, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
To quote him: "it is against Wikipedia policy to remove this sign" 18 October 2005. +MATIA ☎ 10:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Why does +MATIA feel that he can add a POV tag to articles when he feels like it? I am here and ready to discuss and he is also around, but is unwilling to discuss. Bad Faith! +MATIA, If you have a problem with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, please 'share' them with the world. If you wish to ignore Wikipedia's policies and the consensus reached on naming disputes
Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Dealing with self-identifying terms. You are violating a consensus and a RFC will be filed against you if you persist in refusing to co-operate and
disrupting Wikipedia.
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
To quote him 14:50, 8 September 2005: it's all written, perhaps you should read them again and remove the POV tag. GrandfatherJoe ( talk • contribs) 10:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
+MATIA however many times you accuse me of pa, it will never come true. You are being spiteful and disruptive and it's time for the world to know about it That RFC is being prepared.
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
spiteful? disruptive? It's supposed that you are descedant of civilized Macedonians. I think you are not. An you know what? You are not interested about historic truth. Finally wikipedia comes to end as it concerns NPOV. As ethnic groups Greeks, Slavs, Turks, Anglo-Saxons -whatever the hell they are- are capable of changing historic truth so easily there is not NPOV. That's the reason why nobody is taking you serious. Even the big boss of wikipedia admits that you are simple a cultural hole. Now respect national treaties and more or less go read them, read serious history -not this one you are taught in your school as we have been taught in our schools- and then we can talk seriously, if we need to talk at all--
Kalogeropoulos 12:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
+MATIA is defying a
consensus.
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Anyway, It's not important what +MATIA thinks. The consensus is that this ethnic group is to be called Macedonians with the designation (ethnic group). This is how it is in the light of WP policy and this is how it shall remain. I'm feeling so happy that Greek POV is finally quashed :-)))
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I find it fascinating that
your group let the world know that
you are preparing a RFC against me. I'm sure it'll be much better than
REX's previous attempt (no-one ever clarified it or gave me a chance to defend myself against invisible as you would say accusations). FYI no-matter if you are a group and I'm on my own you can't keep a good man down.
+MATIA
☎
Reading the discussions, it seems that other users also find the article POV (for different reasons than mine). I've "splitted" the tag into POV and disputed. The second tag is because the agreed facts of the poll are not part of the article. The first tag (POV) is for the reasons I've stated before and for other users, read what they wrote and where they disagree. +MATIA ☎ 15:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA, there were no agreed facts of the poll. That poll was a tie, can't you understand that? REX 18:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I had an idea which is not really a compromise, but might be acceptable to both sides. Coming right after a lengthy introduction.
In our coverage of ethnic groups and nations, we mostly do not go into defining which is which, because it's (a) contentious and (b) not meaningful. Hence the articles Germanic peoples, Latin peoples, Slavic peoples, etc. Our categories mostly follow that (see category:Indo-European peoples, category:Germanic peoples, category:Baltic peoples), but, unfortunately, not the ones dealing with Slavic peoples. We have category:Slavic ethnic groups and category:Slavic nations, which are weirdly connected to other categories, plus the division just makes things harder to find. This article is currently in neither of them. So, what I suggest that we do is that we merge those to categories into category:Slavic peoples and make this article a member of that.
And here comes the final bit: if we want to avoid the ethnic group vs. nation question and just call them a people, this article should theoretically live at Macedonians (people). As this is still quite ambiguous, mostly because of ancient Macedonians, I propose we move this article to Macedonians (Slavic people). This would allow PeopleXians to have themselves refered to as they wish, and it would be clearly disambiguated from any Greek sense of the word "Macedonians". Zocky 10:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I propose Macedonian (disambiguation) to be moved to Macedonians and Macedonia (region) to be moved (as it was before one month) to Macedonia. The Macedonians should be permanently protected and if someone prooves that something should be added there, then it would be temporarily unprotected and edited. And Macedonia should be watched by neutral admins. +MATIA ☎ 11:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I also prompt +MATIA to read
nationality,
citizenship and
ethnicity. It will do him the world of good!
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 12:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
First of all, as I say above, Wikipedia usually refers to ethnic groups and nationalities as "Peoples", see above examples. I don't see how calling them a Slavic people is an ethnic slur (frankly, as a Slav, I'm mildly disconcerted by the suggestion). Zocky 13:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
It can be an ethnic slur, Grandfatherjoe does have a point. The word "Albanian" is an ethnic slur in Greece and while simply calling someone an Albanian would not be found offensive, but incorporating it into one's form of address would be found offensive. Miskin has often called the Macedonians a "Slavic crowd" and he was using the word 'Slavic' in a derogatory way (it is a racial slur, as Macedonians themselves have said). While no one is denying the fact that they are Slavs, singling this ethnic group out and appending thw word Slav to their name could be interpreted as a racial slur. Personally I can't see anything wrong with 'ethnic group', it is accuate and not misleading and is certainly not found offensive by anyone. A fragile balance has been achieved. Let's not wreck it. REX 13:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Ah MATIA, I see you're not WP:COLD any more, very nice. Have you cleared the calumnies against you, cleared your
Criminal record and obtained that "formal apology" yet? However, I believe that your vicious circles have come to an end, given that if you had read the conclusions on
Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict you would know why what you are suggesting is not possible. Also, I find it most interesting that you are so keen on naming the Macedonians against their will, while you displayed such sensitivity when it came to the Arvanites (of which the ones in Epirus and Western Macedonia call themselves Albanians). If I'm not mistaken, you
said: YOU CANNOT LABEL PEOPLE THE WAY YOU WANT AGAINST THEIR WILL AND/OR AGAINST THE FACTS. Strange how that that doesn't apply here. The fact that some Arvanites call themselves Albanians doesn't count, but if a few Macedonians acknowledge their Slavic ancestry then a racial slur must be imposed on them.
Tut tut! Anyway, in addition to the fact that it is a racial slur, it is misleading, because there are at least two Slavic Macedonian peoples. This ethnic group and the Bulgarians (we mustn’t forget them). Saying ethnic group, though is true as there is only one ethnic group which identifies solely as Macedonians. I fail to see why you are so keen to impose this racial slur on a reluctant population. You know how much they loathe it: you remember that incident when 10% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia sent letters of protest and requesting to be called by the name they use for themselves. The word Slavs denotes their origin. You don’t see articles called
Irish (Celtic people) or
English (Germanic people). No, it is
Irish people and
English people. Unless of course you would prefer calling them
Macedonian people the best thing to do would be to leave it as it is now
Macedonians (ethnic group). It is true, accurate and not found offensive by anyone.
REX 14:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
And I enjoy your slander and libel. It makes me feel sooo good :-) REX 14:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC) (i would advise you to stop saying that whoever disagrees with you is making personal attacks. It is totally transparant)
Let's say I propose the article to live at Macedonians (Slavic people) as the permanent solution. Let me review the rationale for this solution:
For now we have one Greek editor saying that Macedonians (Slavic people) is probably acceptable. Some people have suggested that calling Macedonians a Slavic people might be an ethnic slur and we have yet to hear what Macedonian editors think about this. From my experience with Macedonians, I don't expect this to be a problem.
I would like more directly interested editors to voice their opinion, but please take any flaming to some other section. Zocky 15:09, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I've been off from this discussion for a while. I agree with the move. It is a descriptive title, not prescriptive. Macedonians call themselves Macedonians, and they are an ethnic group. The prescriptive way of dealing with this matter is naming this ethnic group with a name that some editors decided that Wikipedia should use, such as Macedonian Slavs, Slavic Macedonians, Slavomacedonians, etc. and therefore taking a prescriptive approach to this problem. This is explained at Wikipedia:Naming conflict. -- FlavrSavr 15:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
As for the current Zocky's proposal, before stating my opinon, I have a question: Does this solution implies that we will use Slav Macedonians, Slavic Macedonians, Macedonians Slavs or similar solution in texts? -- FlavrSavr 15:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
In that case, Macedonians (ethnic group) is OK, because we are emhpasising the fact that the ethnic-group is being discussed, but the Slavic element in them will be (and is now) discissed in the history section. REX 16:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The problem is that Slavic refers to the ancestry of these people and carries a slightly racist meaning. It is possible that many Macedonians (ethnic group) are not Slavs and imposing such a label in them may seem like one is trying to assert the "ethnic purity" of this ethnic group. Macedonians have been saying that they finds being called a Slavs (that incident with the thousands of letters saying callme by my name etc) a racial slur and I must say that I agree with him. I mean no one says English Germanic people, or Irish Celtic people, or Spanish Visigoth people. Macedonians (ethnic group) is perfect, because unlike Macedonians Slavic people (which is not according to WP policy which just uses people), it is not misleading as there are at least two people who would qualify to be called that way (the Macedonian Bulgarians). Macedonians (ethnic group) is perfect as it signifies the ethnicity, something which the Greek Macedonians and the Bulgarian Macedonians lack (therefore it shouldn't annoy them and they cannot cause confusion with them. REX 15:36, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I would also like to remind you that Wikipedia policy requires that these people be called Macedonian people and not Macedonians (Slavic people). Therefore calling them Macedonians (ethnic group) is a massive concession and attempt to compromise. It is perfect, there is no other ethnic group which uses that name. It is not open to misinterpritation. REX 15:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I note that somebody moved this page to Macedonians (ethnic group) and I'd like to ask how my fellow contributors feel about this.
Does it succeed or fail, in conveying the idea that Wikipedia is taking no sides in the controversy over what the "real, true name" of this group is?
I ask this from the vantange point of knowing very little about this group. Frankly, I've been careful to learn as little about them as possible, while concentrating purely on the linguistic and administrative aspect of the dispute.
Is it fair or accurate to say that this group of people are an ethnic group?
Has Wikipedia also taken into account the objections of Greeks (or Greece itself) to the use of Macedonians to describe this group? Note that I myself am not taking sides, or at least I am trying not to. It looks to me like Greeks prefer / insist that Macedonia should be used only to mean the sector of Greece which Greeks call "Macedonia": some sort of province or county within its borders, I guess. Likewise with Macedonian (adj.) and Macedonians.
My hope is that readers of Wikipedia, as well as its volunteer contributors, will agree to allow Wikipedia to avoid taking sides in this dispute. I'm trying to get the articles to convey the current state of the real-world dispute, which of course remains unresolved despite recent developments. Uncle Ed 14:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This move is prescriptive, POV, it takes a side, and was made in a night by a small group of editors. And they call it consensus, while everyone else was sleeping. You may check my previous comments here and on other related articles.
+MATIA
☎ 14:29, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
PERSONAL ATTACK ALARM! I really am anjoying this abuse directed at me by MATIA :-(
REX 14:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC) (I was agreeing with Uncle Ed and you know it)
Please review the policy pages on personal remarks and attacks ( Wikipedia:No personal attacks). I suggest that we all avoid saying things like:
I'm not deleting, merely "marking up" with HTML strikeout. Uncle Ed 14:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA - I read your comments before but I am asking what would be acceptable to you NOW. Also, people - Long, protracted arguments are getting us nowhere here. Policy isn't really getting us anywhere here either, so lets forget about that for a moment. MATIA doesn't like the current state - so then what would be acceptable to MATIA and others? Macedonians (Slavic ethnic group)? Let's try to keep our responses, to say, no longer then 20 words or so, lest we be arguing forever :). Ryan Norton T | @ | C 23:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I can't understand why MATIA doesn't like Macedonians (ethnic group). What is wrong with the current state? At least it's not a racial slur. REX 23:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, let me first point out some things:
Currently there seems finally to exist the momentum for calling this page Macedonians (something), which in view of the overwhelming evidence was to be expected. We now have to decide what that (something) will be. I think that we should chose a name that will be accurate and non-controversial, so that we don't have to revisit this debate on regular basis.
"ethnic group" and "nation" are bad choices, as they're ambiguous and often controversial terms. The convention is to use "people". Macedonians (people) would make me entirely happy. But, if we use any of these without further disambiguation, we're bound to have another round of this nonsense the next time some Greek editor says "(Ancient Macedonians|Modern Greek Macedonians) are also an (ethnic group|nation|people)", and they'll actually have a good case. I'm getting tired of this debate. I was hoping to do some work on the article, but while we're having the age-long edit war about the name, it's hardly worth it.
So, if we decide to go with further disambiguation in order to preclude future edit wars, how do we go about it? In the whole somewhat silly paradigm of ethnicity/race, Macedonians are one of the Slavic peoples, which in turn are a kind of Indo-European peoples. "Slavic people" just seems like the logical choice. Other ideas for further disambiguation just seem worse to me: Macedonians (people of RoM)? Macedonians (not Macedonian Slavs)? Macedonians (non-Greek people)? Macedonians (modern people)? Yuck.
The only statement that Macedonians (Slavic people) makes is "Macedonians are one of the Slavic peoples". This has been a part of our agreed facts, which both sides have used in their arguments, for months. It can hardly be construed as an ethnic slur without implying an insult to all Slavic peoples.
I will drop the proposal and humbly admit being wrong if anybody provides evidence
Zocky11:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe Macedonians (Slavic decendants)?
If I understand this right, your concern is with the somewhat exceptional disambiguation, rather than with the statement that "Macedonians are a Slavic people". (Note that our articles on
Russians,
Slovenians,
Czechs, etc. include similar statements - they are no more true there than here in the literal/genetic sense and no less true in the language/hystorical/cultural sense.)
I can understand that, but I thought a lot about this and simply don't see a different option with any hopes of being a stable solution for some time. I don't like the sound of "modern people" (plus modern is a new ambiguous term), but the real problem is that sooner or later somebody will say "modern people living in the (Greek|Bulgarian|whole) region of Macedonia are no less
Macedonians (modern people) than people X."
Another thought: many people would say that our current naming of Ireland, Republic of Ireland, China, People's republic of China and Republic of China leaves much to be desired, but it turns out that although not many people really like it, most people find it acceptable, the issue is stalled (not necessarily resolved) and people actually get some work done on the articles. That would be a change for the better in this case. Zocky 14:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Right, I have nothing against the statement Macedonians are a Slavic people, and therefore I do not oppose your proposal. Linguistically, there is no doubt about that, and there is nothing wrong in the statement that they have a rich Slavic cultural heritage. However, I can not accept unjustified adding of Slavic Macedonians, Macedonian Slav and similar terms within texts, instead of plain Macedonians, or ethnic Macedonians (as the Greek Helsinki Watch refers to them). What I asked from you (or the administration as a whole) was to stop such labels within texts - there is no difference between Macedonian Slav and Slavic Macedonian, and it's common use within texts is something I cannot accept, although Slavic Macedonians or better Slavic speaking Macedonians, can be used in some cases, when disambiguation is really needed. I didn't understand your view about this? Are you implying that we should commonly use "Slavic Macedonians" or plain "Macedonians", within texts? -- FlavrSavr 14:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
And I slight remark - if you say that Macedonians (modern people) "modern people living in the (Greek|Bulgarian|whole) region of Macedonia are no less Macedonians (modern people) than people X", you must also consider that there will be folks who'd say that "Slavic peoples (namely the Bulgarians) living in the region of Macedonia are no less Macedonians (Slavic people) than people X". Man, this issue is really a Gordian knot :-)... -- FlavrSavr 14:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, you are seeking for a stable solution for this, and so am I, but your proposal won't end edit wars - within texts, somebody (read: the Greek editors) will always add "Slav" to everything that has plain "Macedonian" in it, and somebody else (read: the Macedonian, Albanian, and Bulgarian editors) will always revert that. Either way you turn, a greater involvement of the neutral admins on this matter is an objective need. -- FlavrSavr 14:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll take that to mean acceptable on the title of this article. We'll burn other bridges when we get to them, let's first see what people think about the title.
OK, so that is one Macedonian editor who says acceptable and one Greek editor who says more acceptable than something else, which means at least somewhat acceptable. That's more than we had for any other proposal :)
So, other ethnic Macedonian and Greek editors, do you find the title Macedonians (Slavic people) acceptable (not necessarily good, right or fine)? Zocky 14:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
A little remark, again: acceptable, IF (I said what) :-). Also, a friendly remark - there are other involved parties in the dispute, it is not necesarilly a Macedonian-Greek consensus. So, I'm leaving the discussion for a while, obligations. Regards to all. --
FlavrSavr 14:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Consider a mythical land called Sardonia, known for their sarcastic comments about their neighbors. The modern English word sardonic is named for them.
Two millienia later, this ancient region no longer has any political integrity - we might even say the original people lacked personal integrity (but that would be your opinion, buster! ;-)
By 1963, the Yossarians had left Mimsy, which allowed Souse and Floom to combine into the Republic of Flimsy, which had the most Sardonic population. But a province of neighboring Mylandia was called Sardonia by the Mylandistas. Everybody clear with the scenario?
Then the Flimsies decided to call their country "Sardonia" (formally: Republic of Sardonia) and all hell broke loose. The king of Mylandia said, "This is my land! You can't say that your country or anyone in it is Sardonic!!" Uncle Ed 16:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
In order to understand the posible real reason behind all this issue of the naming of Macedonia, please read the text taken from [ |Rainbow Pary Website], the party of the Macedonian minority in Greece:
2005 October 21 European Court of Human Rights Rules Against Greece and Bulgaria The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Greece and Bulgaria for the way they treat their Macedonian minorities and violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Also you might find these following links useful:
[ | The whole text of the article, on Greek], [ | The full text of the final decision of the court in the case against Greece], [ | The full text of the final decision of the court in the case against Bulgaria].
Here, you can see very clearly just couple of examples of the treatment of the Macedonian minority in Greece and Bulgaria. If these represions and assimilation attempts are happening now, in the 21st century, can someone imagine what was happening there some 50 or 100 (or more) years ago, when the Human rights on the Balkan were not important issue.
Also, here are 2 links of google search where you can find enormous ammount links full of information concerning the treatment of the Macedonian minorities in Greece and Bulgaria: | The Human rights of the Macedonians in Greece, | The Human rights of the Macedonians in Bulgaria.
Also, some interesting information about the treatment that Macedonians were receiving in the region can be found here: [ |The Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia, which is nowdays a part of Greece], [ |The Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia, which is nowdays a part of Bulgaria]. The last 2 links are from a web site which is clearly supporting the Macedonian side of the story about both history and culture, but the facts about the treatment of the Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria are supported by any major Human Righst organizations in the world.
It is more than clear that if the world was so concirned about the human rights some 50 years ago, Greece would never become a EU country. Macedonian 06:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Are we supposed to be taking arguments from blatantly nationalist websites as evidence now?One just has to read this juicy tidbit to get an idea of the quality of information presented there:
"This is a non-issue. Before the Greek propaganda changed, you could not say the "M" word to a Greek. They vehemently denied the existence of such a land, people, or language. Now they claim that the land is Greek, but there are still no ethnic Macedonian people or language, that it is simply "Slavic" or "Bulgarian".
In Greece, the government tried to eliminate any trace of Macedonia. Since the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, however, a concerted programme was implemented in order to prove the "Greekness of Macedonia". Institutions such as the "University of Macedonia" opened in Solun (Greek name-Thessaloniki), the "Museum of Macedonia" and a news agency called the "Macedonian Press Agency".
* "In August 1988 Greece renamed "Northern Greece" as "Macedonia". Only since this renaming have Greek claims to Macedonian heritage gained widespread publicity." 5
* "...Greece did not refer to any part of its current territory as Macedonia until 1988, when Papandreou's government officially adopted the name Macedonia to replace that of Northern Greece. This point added weight to the notion that the dispute with Macedonia was a manufactured one." 6"
In short, it is claimed that a whole region and its inhabitants were renamed in one fell swoop, overnight and without any resistance.They also claim that this was in some magical way kept hidden from the rest of the world.I think people travelling to, or conducting some sort of business with this "North Greece" region must have been thoroughly surprised when it disappeared overnight. In fact, "North Greece" was the name of the administratorial division of Greece that contained the regions of Macedonia and Thrace.It was not called Macedonia because it was not equal to the province of Macedonia, but in fact quite larger.It had its own ministry that was in fact called "Ministry of Northern Greece".The administratorial division of North Greece has since been renamed to "Macedonia and Thrace", partly because of the naming dispute, in order to reflect just what "North Greece" is made of(This is probably where this silly claim originated).The region of Macedonia had never been renamed to anything, nor its existance denied.Someone trying to claim that a land that had been so influential in world history in ancient times as well as in the 20th century (Macedonian question, Balkan wars) had suddenly disappeared in 1913 would have to be extremely stupid.-- Jsone 18:27, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes you have posted google search links.Unfortunately the first 5 pages (as much as i bothered to read) are littered with websites propagandizing the idea of a "United Macedonia",a nationalist pipe dream concerning the annexation of Bulgarian and Greek territories to finally "liberate" an arbitrarily defined version of Macedonia.Funnily enough, links to these sites were posted underneath the heading "The real reason behind this issue".Oh, sweetest irony...
The decision of the European Court of rights you posted relates to Greek police being unable or unwilling to protect the offices of the Macedonian minority party in Greece from an attack by an angered mob.I agree that this behavior was wrong, but it is a huge stretch from being evidence of massive persecution of said minority.I have read reports by human rights oragnizations about the treatment of said minority in Greece.The only issue that comes up in a substantial amount is the fact that they are denied to publicaly call themselves or any sort of unions they create "Macedonian".We should note that terms like Slavo-Macedonian or other compound terms are not banned.This ban is a product of the naming issue and not its origin, as people have implied here.
Christian Foss, in his article (or speech, whatever it is), only says what I have already mentioned above:That several institutions in the Greek Region of Macedonia have been renamed to "macedonian" in recent years(a huge distance from what the nationalist websites claim).That's not a secret to anyone.Again, these renamings are a product of the naming issue and not its origin.Inhabitants of Macedonia (the Greek region), felt the need to emphasize what they considered their identity to be, faced with FYROM's claim.No credible person or organization has ever repeated the idiotic claim that the region itself was renamed, or that its existance was denied.No one could possibly pull of the en masse renaming of a region, its institutions and brainwashing of its entire populace in a tiny amount of time and hope to keep it a secret, like these websites claim happened.The fact that residents of the region thought of themselves as Macedonians (Note, "Macedonians" as a regional identifier, not national) is recorded in an enormous amount of books,maps,school manuals, even songs an poems.I will return with examples later.-- Jsone 11:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we need to get ourselves in order here.
VMRO, Macedonian...can you cite any sources? It's the best defense. You know the trouble with any article on this question from a historian aligned one way or another with Macedonia or Bulgaria: there will be an opinion. Can you cite disinterested sources? -- VKokielov 06:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Our ruler, and the first that is mentioned as a Serbian King is King Bodin of Doclea. According to his annals, in 1072 he helped the uprising of Slavs in Macedonia. His annals seperate this people from Bulgarians, and from that point onwards, he and his descendents call the people there excplicitly Macedonians. HolyRomanEmperor 13:17, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The Bulgarians held heavy influence over the Macedonian people only for two short periods of time - during the First and the Second Bulgarian Tsarinate (Empire). Tsar Samuilo is, as far as we know, a Macedonian Slav, not a Bulgarian. HolyRomanEmperor 13:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The Serb Empire of Tsar Stefan Dušan recognized three constitutional peoples - Serbs, Albanians and Greeks. Then he recognized also the Bulgarians as a constitutional minority (living in today's western Bulgaria) HolyRomanEmperor 13:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Macedonians' ancestors were then concidered Serbs, they contibuted greatly to the Serbian littarature, and, although most of them were working the fields, many worked as Stefan's courtiers. We today learn these Serbian national songs, but we make no doubts that they were written in old-Macedonian, and that Macedonians wrote them! HolyRomanEmperor 13:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Macedonians' ancestors were then concidered Serbs, they contibuted greatly to the Serbian littarature, and, although most of them were working the fields, many worked as Stefan's courtiers. HolyRomanEmperor 13:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
We today learn these Serbian national songs, but we make no doubts that they were written in some old-Macedonian, and that Macedonians wrote them! HolyRomanEmperor 13:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Although how the Macedonian people got ther name is a bit sporadic, their autochtonous civilization isn't. The foreigners used Macedonian traditionally for Bulgarians. The Serbian Princes and Kings fought against this, especially Prince Mihailo Obrenović. This can be seen in the support given to the Илинденски устанак of 1903. HolyRomanEmperor 13:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
after the Bulgarians became the bad guys in the First World War, the Serbs (especially Jovan Cvijic) saw this as an excellent opportunity to assimilate the Macedonian people. Because of the present situation, this was aproved by the international community. HolyRomanEmperor 14:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
After the wars were over (Balkan Wars and WWI) the Serbs were victories and most successful (together with Macedonians) and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes issued the Serbo-Croatian as the only language that should be used. The official population census of 1921 mentions Macedonians as others and as a minority, since most declared themselves as Serbs (because of the recent facts) HolyRomanEmperor 14:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The people of the Military Frontier declared themselves as Kraishniks (Frontiersmen) and of Slavonia as Slavonians. Both of the entities were majorily Serb-populated, but the mention of Serbs is in the minority. the Austro-Hungarian historian Karl von Czoernig conducted an official population census and concidered themselves as Serbs :) even though they didn't declare themselves that way. HolyRomanEmperor 14:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The Montenegrins declared themselves as Serbs since the first census of 1909. After WWII the they all became Montenegrin; and the number is constantly fading in favor of Serbs until the present. Nevertheless, they are internationally represented as Montenegrins, no matter of their historical background or origin. HolyRomanEmperor 14:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Should we move this article to Macedonians (Modern ethnic group)? A problem I see is that modern may be interpreted in different ways. To some people, modern is everything from the 19th century, and up. But I think we can disambiguate some more without bringing the word Slav into the issue. I want to get this article settled on a name already, but it has to be a name with as little systemic conflict as possible. Given that in history we have two ethnic groups calling themselves Macedonians, we have a systemic conflict (we are dealing with two different ethnic groups, at least as different as ancient Latins and modern Italians). - Alexander 007 05:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
If these facts are agreed upon:
Greek MP calls on Government to recognize Macedonia's name
Athens, 20:04
The deputy of the ruling New Democracy Nikos Georgiadis called the Greek Government to put an end to the name dispute, which poses as rift between Skopje and Athens since 1991, and to accept the name Macedonia, which, as he put it, is used by all countries in the world.
We should acknowledge that we lost that battle. The more we opposing, the more we risk losing, said Georgiadis in his article published in "Kathimerini".
According to the MP, the diplomatic battle Greece is conducting has pushed the country into isolation.
The moment has come for the ruling power to say "one big 'Yes' and to demonstrate realism and courage", Georgakis said. I would prefer a different name, but we cannot change it now. The sooner we accept it, the greater benefit we shell gain, he stated, adding that Athens has lost a great deal in the 15-year long dispute.
Sources: | MakFax, the independant news agency which also can be found here | MakFax link No.2, or you can reffer to this one | Source: Reality Macedonia. Macedonian 04:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Kathimerini
Please find the source.
Nikos Georgiadis = "Νίκος Γεωργιάδης"
Skopje = "Σκόπια"
Macedonia = "Μακεδονία
Let's check the Greek edition of Kathimerini:
All 3 key words. No results.
The first 2 keywords. No results.
The first and the 3rd keyword. No results.
Conclution: Either your sources lie or they made a mistake (all of them!!??) about which newspaper wrote this.
Anonymous, 7:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Kathimerini had a nice article with comments on Nicholas Burns' agenda for the Balkans, before two weeks (probably Sunday edition). Do look it up.
response to REX: You seem to believe that calling me names is the same thing as me expressing my opinion, but
WP:RPA cannot apply
on your changes that you choose to repeat today. Don't vandalize my comments.
+MATIA
☎ 08:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
response to MATIA: If you can blank out all comments which you feel are personal attacks, but we can't do the same to your offensive personal remarks and attacks, you are sadly mistaken. If you can vandalise my comments, then I can vandalise yours. If you restore your comments, please restore mine, [User:Macedonian]]'s and whoever else's you may have vandalised. Regards, REX 10:20, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA, either all PA has to be marked, or none at all. I fail to see why only my and Macedonian's PA has to be marked. Are your words too holy or something, whereas Macedonian and I are too low down the food chain? Personally, I think that marking PA is a waste of time, but if you think that you can mark the offensive parts or my posts, then by God I can mark the offensive parts of yours. I certain that if I had said that move in one night bit to you, you would have reacted in indignation, calling it a personal attack and started telling us about your "honour". REX 12:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I would like to add something interesting on the Egyptians: see Kosovar Egyptians HolyRomanEmperor 16:54, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
user:VMORO, please read what I had said carefully before making such statements; the thing that you said has nothing to do with what I said. Konstantin Bodin was a Serbian ruler, not a Bulgarian Emperor. Stefan Dushan proclaimed himself Tsar of all Serbs, Albanians and Greeks; later including the Bulgarian title. But what are you trying to say with that anyway? HolyRomanEmperor 13:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Like, what the ...? The article named "Macedonia (Slav)" talking about an ethnic group? User:RN, could you have picked a sillier and syntactically trivially incorrect name? -- Joy [shallot] 22:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
The only proper name for this ethnic group is Macedonians. All other names are only Greek and Bulgarian propaganda against Macedonian people. How would Greeks felt if the article about Greeks had title "Indoeuropeans from Greece", or how would Bulgarians felt if the article about Bulgarians had title "Slavs from Bulgaria" or what ever. If Wikipeadia use any other name than Macedonians for this article then it obviously would be acceptance of Greek and Bulgarian POV. I am not Macedonian but Serb, and this Greek-Bulgarian crusade against Macedonians on Wikipedia looks really pathetic to me. Besides this, ancient Macedonians were not Greeks but Thracians. Greeks have no right to Macedonian name. User:PANONIAN
Macedonia (Slav) is not a name for ethnicity, that's for sure. But, if Ryan Norton wants to "satisfy" the Greek propagandators, no one has the right to object... Bomac 16:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
REX claims that the numbers haven't changed. What the hell is all that about then? http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=MKJ Revert on your own Miskin 15:24, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
No Miskin, you're wrong. Your link is from the 2000 edition. My link is from the 2005 edition. If you used your brain for a change and read what was at the heading of yours. REX 16:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I can help you a little. According to official census in Serbia in 2002, there were 25,847 Macedonians in Serbia, of which 14,062 lived in Central Serbia and 11,785 in Vojvodina. User:PANONIAN
I think I can help you little more. I have one interesting book: Pavel Rudjakov, Seoba Srba u Rusiju u 18. veku, Beograd, 1995. The book speaks about Serbs who immigrated to Russia in 1752. The book also contain the list with recorded names and nationality of people who immigrated to Russia in the mentioned year. Many of those people were Serbs, but others belonged to several other nationalities. It is interesting that many of those declared that their nationality is Macedonian. And here are the names of some of these Macedonians: Stepan Andrejev, Sava Makrejev, Ivan Petrov, Fjodor Atepanov, Matvej Tokarev, Kirila Nebrikajev, etc. Present day Macedonians have very similar names. This list is a proof that people who considered themselves Macedonians existed in 1752. User:PANONIAN
Dear Bomac, you reverted the disambiguation paragraph:
characterizing it as "Greek NPOV is not NPOV". I am frankly surprised. I expected to be crucified by the Greek nationalists on this. Surely you acknowledge that "Macedonian" by itself can refer to many different groups of people, including not only the Slavic-speaking ethnic group, but also all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia (some of whom are not ethnically Macedonian) and all residents of a larger geographic area, part of which lies in the Republic of Macedonia, part in Greece. For that matter, historically, it can also refer to the ancient ethnic group (which may or may not be a Greek ethnic group, but is surely not Slavic), to a Bulgarian political party before the Balkan Wars, to an ancient Greek political party/faction led by Aeschines, etc.
There is nothing unusual about this—lots of other ethnic/regional/political/national groups have this kind of ambiguity)—and there is nothing in it which either promotes or denies any particular group's claims to the name. It is descriptive of the facts on the ground, that is, NPOV. The only thing which might be unusual is reporting that there is some dispute about the name. Again, the above wording does not say whether this is a stupid dispute or a valid dispute, just that it is a dispute. That seems indisputable, as witness this page. It doesn't even say it is a widespread or important dispute--just a dispute among some of the other groups.
Finally, let me recall that the Macedonian hero Goce Delčev called for the "elimination of chauvinist propaganda and nationalist dissentions that divide and weaken the population of Macedonia". -- Macrakis 17:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Why you simply do not write 4 different articles about Macedonians, and make a Macedonians disambiguation page, which can contain all 4:
I see that this disambiguation page already exist. So, since it exist what problem these Greek nationalists have with this article? Greeks have no right to tell to Macedonians how they should call themselves. The name "Macedonian Slavs" exist only in the heads of Greek nationalists. Ethnic Macedonians do not use this name for themselves. User:PANONIAN
To conclude: all nations of this World have democratic right to call themselves with the name what they choose. Greeks are the one who do not have right to tell to their neighbours how they should call themselves. One more thing: Greece was the birthplace of democracy, but seems that some modern Greeks do not understand what the word democracy means. This Greek crusade against Macedonians can be compared only with the crusade of Adolf Hitler against Jews. I maybe was little harsh, but it is the only concluision what one neutral observer like me can to have here. User:PANONIAN
Well, the current name of the article is really bad. Even name "Macedonian Slavs" is better than "Macedonia (Slav)". The second name is supposed to describe region of Macedonia, not people. Could the title be changed into "Macedonians (Slavs)" or something like that? User:PANONIAN
I'm not sure why you want to take it to the arbitration committee, but at any rate I moved it to ethnic group as that seems to be acceptable to most here. Any comments? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 05:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I support the move as well. GrandfatherJoe ( talk • contribs) 07:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sick and tired of a certain group of users who disrespect everything. There was a poll, long discussions and all these are ignored by less than 10 editors. This is absolutely unfair and against the wikipedia (theoritical) spirit.
See also Talk:Macedonia#POV_dispute.3F. +MATIA ☎ 08:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA, what is the problem here? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 09:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Reality is the problem? Or maybe WP policies and guidelines, I don't know. I had participated in long discussions in the past about Macedonia related articles. You may check
Talk:Macedonia#POV_dispute.3F,
Macedonia_(region)#External_links,
agreed facts and many other pages were I had tried to help. Or you may file an RFC against me and have a neutral party check my contribs in depth. Or you can take a look at
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/REX where I'm already involved and try to prove that I am not an elephant. And if you do these, then you can give a better answer than mine on your question "MATIA, what is the problem here?", I'm afraid I cannot, the same way I cannot parse
all these or find more. With my best regards to RN.
+MATIA
☎ 11:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
And finally as long as the agreed facts of Talk:Macedonian Slavs/Poll are not part of the article, a proper tag should be placed here. The neutral admins should check what would be that tag. +MATIA ☎ 12:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that everyone should know that
Macedonians (ethnic group) really is the most appropriate name. It is not found offensive by the ethnic group in question (unlike the name Macedonian Slavs, which is as offensive to them as calling the Arvanites of Attica Albanians). I'm sure that MATIA would agree with me that names which are found offensive by the people in question shouldn't be used in Wikipedia. If he applies those rules to the Arvanites only and not to the Macedonians, then that will be
double standards. Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Columbia Encyclopedia, The Harvard Dictionary of Music, Philip's Encyclopedia, The Macmillan Encyclopedia, Crystal Reference Encyclopedia, Penguin Encyclopedia of Places, The Companion to British History, the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia and Ethnologue all call these people Macedonians. Wikipedia's naming policy also directs us to use the name Macedonians. There is no good reason whatsoever to use the name Macedonian Slavs and I applaud the defenders of the right
self-determination who managed to finally move this article to
Macedonians (ethnic group). My congragulations and gratitude to
Bomac who's initiative, guided by the cunning of
The Almighty, managed to arrive to such an unexpected twist of fate, where
NPOV managed to return to this Wikipedia article and to force out the Pro-Greek
Propaganda which imposed the false and offensive name Macedonian Slavs on this article. Wikipedia policies have finally been implemented despite forcible Greek propagandistic pressure who claimed that a consensus had been reached. I is well known that that is a lie, as a consensus requires 60% of the vote and that the poll was a tie. Oh Joy :-)
REX 15:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The article in its present form satisfies only the Macedonian Slav POV. And as long as it doesn't have the agreed facts (check my previous comments here) it is also inaccurate, therefore I reverted the tag removal by GrandfatherJoe.
+MATIA
☎ 10:15, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
To quote him: "it is against Wikipedia policy to remove this sign" 18 October 2005. +MATIA ☎ 10:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Why does +MATIA feel that he can add a POV tag to articles when he feels like it? I am here and ready to discuss and he is also around, but is unwilling to discuss. Bad Faith! +MATIA, If you have a problem with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, please 'share' them with the world. If you wish to ignore Wikipedia's policies and the consensus reached on naming disputes
Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Dealing with self-identifying terms. You are violating a consensus and a RFC will be filed against you if you persist in refusing to co-operate and
disrupting Wikipedia.
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
To quote him 14:50, 8 September 2005: it's all written, perhaps you should read them again and remove the POV tag. GrandfatherJoe ( talk • contribs) 10:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
+MATIA however many times you accuse me of pa, it will never come true. You are being spiteful and disruptive and it's time for the world to know about it That RFC is being prepared.
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
spiteful? disruptive? It's supposed that you are descedant of civilized Macedonians. I think you are not. An you know what? You are not interested about historic truth. Finally wikipedia comes to end as it concerns NPOV. As ethnic groups Greeks, Slavs, Turks, Anglo-Saxons -whatever the hell they are- are capable of changing historic truth so easily there is not NPOV. That's the reason why nobody is taking you serious. Even the big boss of wikipedia admits that you are simple a cultural hole. Now respect national treaties and more or less go read them, read serious history -not this one you are taught in your school as we have been taught in our schools- and then we can talk seriously, if we need to talk at all--
Kalogeropoulos 12:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
+MATIA is defying a
consensus.
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Anyway, It's not important what +MATIA thinks. The consensus is that this ethnic group is to be called Macedonians with the designation (ethnic group). This is how it is in the light of WP policy and this is how it shall remain. I'm feeling so happy that Greek POV is finally quashed :-)))
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 10:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I find it fascinating that
your group let the world know that
you are preparing a RFC against me. I'm sure it'll be much better than
REX's previous attempt (no-one ever clarified it or gave me a chance to defend myself against invisible as you would say accusations). FYI no-matter if you are a group and I'm on my own you can't keep a good man down.
+MATIA
☎
Reading the discussions, it seems that other users also find the article POV (for different reasons than mine). I've "splitted" the tag into POV and disputed. The second tag is because the agreed facts of the poll are not part of the article. The first tag (POV) is for the reasons I've stated before and for other users, read what they wrote and where they disagree. +MATIA ☎ 15:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA, there were no agreed facts of the poll. That poll was a tie, can't you understand that? REX 18:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I had an idea which is not really a compromise, but might be acceptable to both sides. Coming right after a lengthy introduction.
In our coverage of ethnic groups and nations, we mostly do not go into defining which is which, because it's (a) contentious and (b) not meaningful. Hence the articles Germanic peoples, Latin peoples, Slavic peoples, etc. Our categories mostly follow that (see category:Indo-European peoples, category:Germanic peoples, category:Baltic peoples), but, unfortunately, not the ones dealing with Slavic peoples. We have category:Slavic ethnic groups and category:Slavic nations, which are weirdly connected to other categories, plus the division just makes things harder to find. This article is currently in neither of them. So, what I suggest that we do is that we merge those to categories into category:Slavic peoples and make this article a member of that.
And here comes the final bit: if we want to avoid the ethnic group vs. nation question and just call them a people, this article should theoretically live at Macedonians (people). As this is still quite ambiguous, mostly because of ancient Macedonians, I propose we move this article to Macedonians (Slavic people). This would allow PeopleXians to have themselves refered to as they wish, and it would be clearly disambiguated from any Greek sense of the word "Macedonians". Zocky 10:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I propose Macedonian (disambiguation) to be moved to Macedonians and Macedonia (region) to be moved (as it was before one month) to Macedonia. The Macedonians should be permanently protected and if someone prooves that something should be added there, then it would be temporarily unprotected and edited. And Macedonia should be watched by neutral admins. +MATIA ☎ 11:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I also prompt +MATIA to read
nationality,
citizenship and
ethnicity. It will do him the world of good!
GrandfatherJoe (
talk •
contribs) 12:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
First of all, as I say above, Wikipedia usually refers to ethnic groups and nationalities as "Peoples", see above examples. I don't see how calling them a Slavic people is an ethnic slur (frankly, as a Slav, I'm mildly disconcerted by the suggestion). Zocky 13:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
It can be an ethnic slur, Grandfatherjoe does have a point. The word "Albanian" is an ethnic slur in Greece and while simply calling someone an Albanian would not be found offensive, but incorporating it into one's form of address would be found offensive. Miskin has often called the Macedonians a "Slavic crowd" and he was using the word 'Slavic' in a derogatory way (it is a racial slur, as Macedonians themselves have said). While no one is denying the fact that they are Slavs, singling this ethnic group out and appending thw word Slav to their name could be interpreted as a racial slur. Personally I can't see anything wrong with 'ethnic group', it is accuate and not misleading and is certainly not found offensive by anyone. A fragile balance has been achieved. Let's not wreck it. REX 13:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Ah MATIA, I see you're not WP:COLD any more, very nice. Have you cleared the calumnies against you, cleared your
Criminal record and obtained that "formal apology" yet? However, I believe that your vicious circles have come to an end, given that if you had read the conclusions on
Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict you would know why what you are suggesting is not possible. Also, I find it most interesting that you are so keen on naming the Macedonians against their will, while you displayed such sensitivity when it came to the Arvanites (of which the ones in Epirus and Western Macedonia call themselves Albanians). If I'm not mistaken, you
said: YOU CANNOT LABEL PEOPLE THE WAY YOU WANT AGAINST THEIR WILL AND/OR AGAINST THE FACTS. Strange how that that doesn't apply here. The fact that some Arvanites call themselves Albanians doesn't count, but if a few Macedonians acknowledge their Slavic ancestry then a racial slur must be imposed on them.
Tut tut! Anyway, in addition to the fact that it is a racial slur, it is misleading, because there are at least two Slavic Macedonian peoples. This ethnic group and the Bulgarians (we mustn’t forget them). Saying ethnic group, though is true as there is only one ethnic group which identifies solely as Macedonians. I fail to see why you are so keen to impose this racial slur on a reluctant population. You know how much they loathe it: you remember that incident when 10% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia sent letters of protest and requesting to be called by the name they use for themselves. The word Slavs denotes their origin. You don’t see articles called
Irish (Celtic people) or
English (Germanic people). No, it is
Irish people and
English people. Unless of course you would prefer calling them
Macedonian people the best thing to do would be to leave it as it is now
Macedonians (ethnic group). It is true, accurate and not found offensive by anyone.
REX 14:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
And I enjoy your slander and libel. It makes me feel sooo good :-) REX 14:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC) (i would advise you to stop saying that whoever disagrees with you is making personal attacks. It is totally transparant)
Let's say I propose the article to live at Macedonians (Slavic people) as the permanent solution. Let me review the rationale for this solution:
For now we have one Greek editor saying that Macedonians (Slavic people) is probably acceptable. Some people have suggested that calling Macedonians a Slavic people might be an ethnic slur and we have yet to hear what Macedonian editors think about this. From my experience with Macedonians, I don't expect this to be a problem.
I would like more directly interested editors to voice their opinion, but please take any flaming to some other section. Zocky 15:09, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I've been off from this discussion for a while. I agree with the move. It is a descriptive title, not prescriptive. Macedonians call themselves Macedonians, and they are an ethnic group. The prescriptive way of dealing with this matter is naming this ethnic group with a name that some editors decided that Wikipedia should use, such as Macedonian Slavs, Slavic Macedonians, Slavomacedonians, etc. and therefore taking a prescriptive approach to this problem. This is explained at Wikipedia:Naming conflict. -- FlavrSavr 15:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
As for the current Zocky's proposal, before stating my opinon, I have a question: Does this solution implies that we will use Slav Macedonians, Slavic Macedonians, Macedonians Slavs or similar solution in texts? -- FlavrSavr 15:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
In that case, Macedonians (ethnic group) is OK, because we are emhpasising the fact that the ethnic-group is being discussed, but the Slavic element in them will be (and is now) discissed in the history section. REX 16:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The problem is that Slavic refers to the ancestry of these people and carries a slightly racist meaning. It is possible that many Macedonians (ethnic group) are not Slavs and imposing such a label in them may seem like one is trying to assert the "ethnic purity" of this ethnic group. Macedonians have been saying that they finds being called a Slavs (that incident with the thousands of letters saying callme by my name etc) a racial slur and I must say that I agree with him. I mean no one says English Germanic people, or Irish Celtic people, or Spanish Visigoth people. Macedonians (ethnic group) is perfect, because unlike Macedonians Slavic people (which is not according to WP policy which just uses people), it is not misleading as there are at least two people who would qualify to be called that way (the Macedonian Bulgarians). Macedonians (ethnic group) is perfect as it signifies the ethnicity, something which the Greek Macedonians and the Bulgarian Macedonians lack (therefore it shouldn't annoy them and they cannot cause confusion with them. REX 15:36, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I would also like to remind you that Wikipedia policy requires that these people be called Macedonian people and not Macedonians (Slavic people). Therefore calling them Macedonians (ethnic group) is a massive concession and attempt to compromise. It is perfect, there is no other ethnic group which uses that name. It is not open to misinterpritation. REX 15:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I note that somebody moved this page to Macedonians (ethnic group) and I'd like to ask how my fellow contributors feel about this.
Does it succeed or fail, in conveying the idea that Wikipedia is taking no sides in the controversy over what the "real, true name" of this group is?
I ask this from the vantange point of knowing very little about this group. Frankly, I've been careful to learn as little about them as possible, while concentrating purely on the linguistic and administrative aspect of the dispute.
Is it fair or accurate to say that this group of people are an ethnic group?
Has Wikipedia also taken into account the objections of Greeks (or Greece itself) to the use of Macedonians to describe this group? Note that I myself am not taking sides, or at least I am trying not to. It looks to me like Greeks prefer / insist that Macedonia should be used only to mean the sector of Greece which Greeks call "Macedonia": some sort of province or county within its borders, I guess. Likewise with Macedonian (adj.) and Macedonians.
My hope is that readers of Wikipedia, as well as its volunteer contributors, will agree to allow Wikipedia to avoid taking sides in this dispute. I'm trying to get the articles to convey the current state of the real-world dispute, which of course remains unresolved despite recent developments. Uncle Ed 14:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This move is prescriptive, POV, it takes a side, and was made in a night by a small group of editors. And they call it consensus, while everyone else was sleeping. You may check my previous comments here and on other related articles.
+MATIA
☎ 14:29, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
PERSONAL ATTACK ALARM! I really am anjoying this abuse directed at me by MATIA :-(
REX 14:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC) (I was agreeing with Uncle Ed and you know it)
Please review the policy pages on personal remarks and attacks ( Wikipedia:No personal attacks). I suggest that we all avoid saying things like:
I'm not deleting, merely "marking up" with HTML strikeout. Uncle Ed 14:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA - I read your comments before but I am asking what would be acceptable to you NOW. Also, people - Long, protracted arguments are getting us nowhere here. Policy isn't really getting us anywhere here either, so lets forget about that for a moment. MATIA doesn't like the current state - so then what would be acceptable to MATIA and others? Macedonians (Slavic ethnic group)? Let's try to keep our responses, to say, no longer then 20 words or so, lest we be arguing forever :). Ryan Norton T | @ | C 23:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I can't understand why MATIA doesn't like Macedonians (ethnic group). What is wrong with the current state? At least it's not a racial slur. REX 23:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, let me first point out some things:
Currently there seems finally to exist the momentum for calling this page Macedonians (something), which in view of the overwhelming evidence was to be expected. We now have to decide what that (something) will be. I think that we should chose a name that will be accurate and non-controversial, so that we don't have to revisit this debate on regular basis.
"ethnic group" and "nation" are bad choices, as they're ambiguous and often controversial terms. The convention is to use "people". Macedonians (people) would make me entirely happy. But, if we use any of these without further disambiguation, we're bound to have another round of this nonsense the next time some Greek editor says "(Ancient Macedonians|Modern Greek Macedonians) are also an (ethnic group|nation|people)", and they'll actually have a good case. I'm getting tired of this debate. I was hoping to do some work on the article, but while we're having the age-long edit war about the name, it's hardly worth it.
So, if we decide to go with further disambiguation in order to preclude future edit wars, how do we go about it? In the whole somewhat silly paradigm of ethnicity/race, Macedonians are one of the Slavic peoples, which in turn are a kind of Indo-European peoples. "Slavic people" just seems like the logical choice. Other ideas for further disambiguation just seem worse to me: Macedonians (people of RoM)? Macedonians (not Macedonian Slavs)? Macedonians (non-Greek people)? Macedonians (modern people)? Yuck.
The only statement that Macedonians (Slavic people) makes is "Macedonians are one of the Slavic peoples". This has been a part of our agreed facts, which both sides have used in their arguments, for months. It can hardly be construed as an ethnic slur without implying an insult to all Slavic peoples.
I will drop the proposal and humbly admit being wrong if anybody provides evidence
Zocky11:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe Macedonians (Slavic decendants)?
If I understand this right, your concern is with the somewhat exceptional disambiguation, rather than with the statement that "Macedonians are a Slavic people". (Note that our articles on
Russians,
Slovenians,
Czechs, etc. include similar statements - they are no more true there than here in the literal/genetic sense and no less true in the language/hystorical/cultural sense.)
I can understand that, but I thought a lot about this and simply don't see a different option with any hopes of being a stable solution for some time. I don't like the sound of "modern people" (plus modern is a new ambiguous term), but the real problem is that sooner or later somebody will say "modern people living in the (Greek|Bulgarian|whole) region of Macedonia are no less
Macedonians (modern people) than people X."
Another thought: many people would say that our current naming of Ireland, Republic of Ireland, China, People's republic of China and Republic of China leaves much to be desired, but it turns out that although not many people really like it, most people find it acceptable, the issue is stalled (not necessarily resolved) and people actually get some work done on the articles. That would be a change for the better in this case. Zocky 14:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Right, I have nothing against the statement Macedonians are a Slavic people, and therefore I do not oppose your proposal. Linguistically, there is no doubt about that, and there is nothing wrong in the statement that they have a rich Slavic cultural heritage. However, I can not accept unjustified adding of Slavic Macedonians, Macedonian Slav and similar terms within texts, instead of plain Macedonians, or ethnic Macedonians (as the Greek Helsinki Watch refers to them). What I asked from you (or the administration as a whole) was to stop such labels within texts - there is no difference between Macedonian Slav and Slavic Macedonian, and it's common use within texts is something I cannot accept, although Slavic Macedonians or better Slavic speaking Macedonians, can be used in some cases, when disambiguation is really needed. I didn't understand your view about this? Are you implying that we should commonly use "Slavic Macedonians" or plain "Macedonians", within texts? -- FlavrSavr 14:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
And I slight remark - if you say that Macedonians (modern people) "modern people living in the (Greek|Bulgarian|whole) region of Macedonia are no less Macedonians (modern people) than people X", you must also consider that there will be folks who'd say that "Slavic peoples (namely the Bulgarians) living in the region of Macedonia are no less Macedonians (Slavic people) than people X". Man, this issue is really a Gordian knot :-)... -- FlavrSavr 14:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, you are seeking for a stable solution for this, and so am I, but your proposal won't end edit wars - within texts, somebody (read: the Greek editors) will always add "Slav" to everything that has plain "Macedonian" in it, and somebody else (read: the Macedonian, Albanian, and Bulgarian editors) will always revert that. Either way you turn, a greater involvement of the neutral admins on this matter is an objective need. -- FlavrSavr 14:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll take that to mean acceptable on the title of this article. We'll burn other bridges when we get to them, let's first see what people think about the title.
OK, so that is one Macedonian editor who says acceptable and one Greek editor who says more acceptable than something else, which means at least somewhat acceptable. That's more than we had for any other proposal :)
So, other ethnic Macedonian and Greek editors, do you find the title Macedonians (Slavic people) acceptable (not necessarily good, right or fine)? Zocky 14:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
A little remark, again: acceptable, IF (I said what) :-). Also, a friendly remark - there are other involved parties in the dispute, it is not necesarilly a Macedonian-Greek consensus. So, I'm leaving the discussion for a while, obligations. Regards to all. --
FlavrSavr 14:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Consider a mythical land called Sardonia, known for their sarcastic comments about their neighbors. The modern English word sardonic is named for them.
Two millienia later, this ancient region no longer has any political integrity - we might even say the original people lacked personal integrity (but that would be your opinion, buster! ;-)
By 1963, the Yossarians had left Mimsy, which allowed Souse and Floom to combine into the Republic of Flimsy, which had the most Sardonic population. But a province of neighboring Mylandia was called Sardonia by the Mylandistas. Everybody clear with the scenario?
Then the Flimsies decided to call their country "Sardonia" (formally: Republic of Sardonia) and all hell broke loose. The king of Mylandia said, "This is my land! You can't say that your country or anyone in it is Sardonic!!" Uncle Ed 16:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
In order to understand the posible real reason behind all this issue of the naming of Macedonia, please read the text taken from [ |Rainbow Pary Website], the party of the Macedonian minority in Greece:
2005 October 21 European Court of Human Rights Rules Against Greece and Bulgaria The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Greece and Bulgaria for the way they treat their Macedonian minorities and violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Also you might find these following links useful:
[ | The whole text of the article, on Greek], [ | The full text of the final decision of the court in the case against Greece], [ | The full text of the final decision of the court in the case against Bulgaria].
Here, you can see very clearly just couple of examples of the treatment of the Macedonian minority in Greece and Bulgaria. If these represions and assimilation attempts are happening now, in the 21st century, can someone imagine what was happening there some 50 or 100 (or more) years ago, when the Human rights on the Balkan were not important issue.
Also, here are 2 links of google search where you can find enormous ammount links full of information concerning the treatment of the Macedonian minorities in Greece and Bulgaria: | The Human rights of the Macedonians in Greece, | The Human rights of the Macedonians in Bulgaria.
Also, some interesting information about the treatment that Macedonians were receiving in the region can be found here: [ |The Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia, which is nowdays a part of Greece], [ |The Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia, which is nowdays a part of Bulgaria]. The last 2 links are from a web site which is clearly supporting the Macedonian side of the story about both history and culture, but the facts about the treatment of the Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria are supported by any major Human Righst organizations in the world.
It is more than clear that if the world was so concirned about the human rights some 50 years ago, Greece would never become a EU country. Macedonian 06:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Are we supposed to be taking arguments from blatantly nationalist websites as evidence now?One just has to read this juicy tidbit to get an idea of the quality of information presented there:
"This is a non-issue. Before the Greek propaganda changed, you could not say the "M" word to a Greek. They vehemently denied the existence of such a land, people, or language. Now they claim that the land is Greek, but there are still no ethnic Macedonian people or language, that it is simply "Slavic" or "Bulgarian".
In Greece, the government tried to eliminate any trace of Macedonia. Since the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, however, a concerted programme was implemented in order to prove the "Greekness of Macedonia". Institutions such as the "University of Macedonia" opened in Solun (Greek name-Thessaloniki), the "Museum of Macedonia" and a news agency called the "Macedonian Press Agency".
* "In August 1988 Greece renamed "Northern Greece" as "Macedonia". Only since this renaming have Greek claims to Macedonian heritage gained widespread publicity." 5
* "...Greece did not refer to any part of its current territory as Macedonia until 1988, when Papandreou's government officially adopted the name Macedonia to replace that of Northern Greece. This point added weight to the notion that the dispute with Macedonia was a manufactured one." 6"
In short, it is claimed that a whole region and its inhabitants were renamed in one fell swoop, overnight and without any resistance.They also claim that this was in some magical way kept hidden from the rest of the world.I think people travelling to, or conducting some sort of business with this "North Greece" region must have been thoroughly surprised when it disappeared overnight. In fact, "North Greece" was the name of the administratorial division of Greece that contained the regions of Macedonia and Thrace.It was not called Macedonia because it was not equal to the province of Macedonia, but in fact quite larger.It had its own ministry that was in fact called "Ministry of Northern Greece".The administratorial division of North Greece has since been renamed to "Macedonia and Thrace", partly because of the naming dispute, in order to reflect just what "North Greece" is made of(This is probably where this silly claim originated).The region of Macedonia had never been renamed to anything, nor its existance denied.Someone trying to claim that a land that had been so influential in world history in ancient times as well as in the 20th century (Macedonian question, Balkan wars) had suddenly disappeared in 1913 would have to be extremely stupid.-- Jsone 18:27, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes you have posted google search links.Unfortunately the first 5 pages (as much as i bothered to read) are littered with websites propagandizing the idea of a "United Macedonia",a nationalist pipe dream concerning the annexation of Bulgarian and Greek territories to finally "liberate" an arbitrarily defined version of Macedonia.Funnily enough, links to these sites were posted underneath the heading "The real reason behind this issue".Oh, sweetest irony...
The decision of the European Court of rights you posted relates to Greek police being unable or unwilling to protect the offices of the Macedonian minority party in Greece from an attack by an angered mob.I agree that this behavior was wrong, but it is a huge stretch from being evidence of massive persecution of said minority.I have read reports by human rights oragnizations about the treatment of said minority in Greece.The only issue that comes up in a substantial amount is the fact that they are denied to publicaly call themselves or any sort of unions they create "Macedonian".We should note that terms like Slavo-Macedonian or other compound terms are not banned.This ban is a product of the naming issue and not its origin, as people have implied here.
Christian Foss, in his article (or speech, whatever it is), only says what I have already mentioned above:That several institutions in the Greek Region of Macedonia have been renamed to "macedonian" in recent years(a huge distance from what the nationalist websites claim).That's not a secret to anyone.Again, these renamings are a product of the naming issue and not its origin.Inhabitants of Macedonia (the Greek region), felt the need to emphasize what they considered their identity to be, faced with FYROM's claim.No credible person or organization has ever repeated the idiotic claim that the region itself was renamed, or that its existance was denied.No one could possibly pull of the en masse renaming of a region, its institutions and brainwashing of its entire populace in a tiny amount of time and hope to keep it a secret, like these websites claim happened.The fact that residents of the region thought of themselves as Macedonians (Note, "Macedonians" as a regional identifier, not national) is recorded in an enormous amount of books,maps,school manuals, even songs an poems.I will return with examples later.-- Jsone 11:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we need to get ourselves in order here.
VMRO, Macedonian...can you cite any sources? It's the best defense. You know the trouble with any article on this question from a historian aligned one way or another with Macedonia or Bulgaria: there will be an opinion. Can you cite disinterested sources? -- VKokielov 06:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Our ruler, and the first that is mentioned as a Serbian King is King Bodin of Doclea. According to his annals, in 1072 he helped the uprising of Slavs in Macedonia. His annals seperate this people from Bulgarians, and from that point onwards, he and his descendents call the people there excplicitly Macedonians. HolyRomanEmperor 13:17, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The Bulgarians held heavy influence over the Macedonian people only for two short periods of time - during the First and the Second Bulgarian Tsarinate (Empire). Tsar Samuilo is, as far as we know, a Macedonian Slav, not a Bulgarian. HolyRomanEmperor 13:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The Serb Empire of Tsar Stefan Dušan recognized three constitutional peoples - Serbs, Albanians and Greeks. Then he recognized also the Bulgarians as a constitutional minority (living in today's western Bulgaria) HolyRomanEmperor 13:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Macedonians' ancestors were then concidered Serbs, they contibuted greatly to the Serbian littarature, and, although most of them were working the fields, many worked as Stefan's courtiers. We today learn these Serbian national songs, but we make no doubts that they were written in old-Macedonian, and that Macedonians wrote them! HolyRomanEmperor 13:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Macedonians' ancestors were then concidered Serbs, they contibuted greatly to the Serbian littarature, and, although most of them were working the fields, many worked as Stefan's courtiers. HolyRomanEmperor 13:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
We today learn these Serbian national songs, but we make no doubts that they were written in some old-Macedonian, and that Macedonians wrote them! HolyRomanEmperor 13:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Although how the Macedonian people got ther name is a bit sporadic, their autochtonous civilization isn't. The foreigners used Macedonian traditionally for Bulgarians. The Serbian Princes and Kings fought against this, especially Prince Mihailo Obrenović. This can be seen in the support given to the Илинденски устанак of 1903. HolyRomanEmperor 13:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
after the Bulgarians became the bad guys in the First World War, the Serbs (especially Jovan Cvijic) saw this as an excellent opportunity to assimilate the Macedonian people. Because of the present situation, this was aproved by the international community. HolyRomanEmperor 14:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
After the wars were over (Balkan Wars and WWI) the Serbs were victories and most successful (together with Macedonians) and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes issued the Serbo-Croatian as the only language that should be used. The official population census of 1921 mentions Macedonians as others and as a minority, since most declared themselves as Serbs (because of the recent facts) HolyRomanEmperor 14:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The people of the Military Frontier declared themselves as Kraishniks (Frontiersmen) and of Slavonia as Slavonians. Both of the entities were majorily Serb-populated, but the mention of Serbs is in the minority. the Austro-Hungarian historian Karl von Czoernig conducted an official population census and concidered themselves as Serbs :) even though they didn't declare themselves that way. HolyRomanEmperor 14:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The Montenegrins declared themselves as Serbs since the first census of 1909. After WWII the they all became Montenegrin; and the number is constantly fading in favor of Serbs until the present. Nevertheless, they are internationally represented as Montenegrins, no matter of their historical background or origin. HolyRomanEmperor 14:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Should we move this article to Macedonians (Modern ethnic group)? A problem I see is that modern may be interpreted in different ways. To some people, modern is everything from the 19th century, and up. But I think we can disambiguate some more without bringing the word Slav into the issue. I want to get this article settled on a name already, but it has to be a name with as little systemic conflict as possible. Given that in history we have two ethnic groups calling themselves Macedonians, we have a systemic conflict (we are dealing with two different ethnic groups, at least as different as ancient Latins and modern Italians). - Alexander 007 05:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
If these facts are agreed upon:
Greek MP calls on Government to recognize Macedonia's name
Athens, 20:04
The deputy of the ruling New Democracy Nikos Georgiadis called the Greek Government to put an end to the name dispute, which poses as rift between Skopje and Athens since 1991, and to accept the name Macedonia, which, as he put it, is used by all countries in the world.
We should acknowledge that we lost that battle. The more we opposing, the more we risk losing, said Georgiadis in his article published in "Kathimerini".
According to the MP, the diplomatic battle Greece is conducting has pushed the country into isolation.
The moment has come for the ruling power to say "one big 'Yes' and to demonstrate realism and courage", Georgakis said. I would prefer a different name, but we cannot change it now. The sooner we accept it, the greater benefit we shell gain, he stated, adding that Athens has lost a great deal in the 15-year long dispute.
Sources: | MakFax, the independant news agency which also can be found here | MakFax link No.2, or you can reffer to this one | Source: Reality Macedonia. Macedonian 04:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Kathimerini
Please find the source.
Nikos Georgiadis = "Νίκος Γεωργιάδης"
Skopje = "Σκόπια"
Macedonia = "Μακεδονία
Let's check the Greek edition of Kathimerini:
All 3 key words. No results.
The first 2 keywords. No results.
The first and the 3rd keyword. No results.
Conclution: Either your sources lie or they made a mistake (all of them!!??) about which newspaper wrote this.
Anonymous, 7:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Kathimerini had a nice article with comments on Nicholas Burns' agenda for the Balkans, before two weeks (probably Sunday edition). Do look it up.
response to REX: You seem to believe that calling me names is the same thing as me expressing my opinion, but
WP:RPA cannot apply
on your changes that you choose to repeat today. Don't vandalize my comments.
+MATIA
☎ 08:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
response to MATIA: If you can blank out all comments which you feel are personal attacks, but we can't do the same to your offensive personal remarks and attacks, you are sadly mistaken. If you can vandalise my comments, then I can vandalise yours. If you restore your comments, please restore mine, [User:Macedonian]]'s and whoever else's you may have vandalised. Regards, REX 10:20, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
MATIA, either all PA has to be marked, or none at all. I fail to see why only my and Macedonian's PA has to be marked. Are your words too holy or something, whereas Macedonian and I are too low down the food chain? Personally, I think that marking PA is a waste of time, but if you think that you can mark the offensive parts or my posts, then by God I can mark the offensive parts of yours. I certain that if I had said that move in one night bit to you, you would have reacted in indignation, calling it a personal attack and started telling us about your "honour". REX 12:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I would like to add something interesting on the Egyptians: see Kosovar Egyptians HolyRomanEmperor 16:54, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
user:VMORO, please read what I had said carefully before making such statements; the thing that you said has nothing to do with what I said. Konstantin Bodin was a Serbian ruler, not a Bulgarian Emperor. Stefan Dushan proclaimed himself Tsar of all Serbs, Albanians and Greeks; later including the Bulgarian title. But what are you trying to say with that anyway? HolyRomanEmperor 13:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)