MACEDONIA AND GREECE – COMPARATIVE HISTORY

[Petro Invictus]

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<center>SKRIJ SE S’G
LOSHI LJUDI PS’NI
KOI INJI IDU
SHIRE ID’T P’G

Skrij se sega
Losi lugje pseta
Koi poinakvi idat
shirum idat pak</center>

This is an image of an ancient piece of writing on a clay tablet from the village of Gradeshica, near Vraca, in Pirin Macedonia of today’s Bulgaria. The symbols resemble those of the Cyrillic script but it looks like it is written from the right to the left. If read that way it makes out sounds, in modern Macedonian, which mean: “Hide away now, strange and evil people are coming again like dogs…” This text on the clay tablet is dated from 5000 BC by Maria Gimbutas, and 3500 BC by the Bulgarian scholars. It surely should strike the BELL for many!!!

MACEDONIA’S PRE-HISTORY from 7000 to 1500 BC


Archeological findings of the recent times show a continuous development of the culture in Macedonia throughout all historical periods, as a separate and quite distinct from the other cultures in the Balkans at all times.

The settlements at Kokino and Cocev Kamen, for example, show that there had been an active population living in those regions in pre-historic times as well, from 7000 BC onwards. The mystical statuette of Adam from Govrlevo is evidence that Macedonia’s spirituality has its roots back in the mythical times. The people of the earliest Stone Age settlements must have given their contribution in the ethno-genesis of the modern Macedonian nation. Therefore the more we know about those people the better.

The scripts found on some rock writings, as well as that of Gradeshnica, show similarity to the modern version of the Cyrillic script and the Macedonian language. This linguistic continuum from some 7000 BC until today remarkably proves that the ancient inhabitants of Macedonia were the forefathers of modern Macedonians, or in other words, the genetic lineages from those people who inhabited Macedonia throughout all the epochs have merged in a continuum that has prevailed at least linguistically even in modern times. In Ohrid only, there are findings of the pre-historic period that show a developed cultural life in all epochs.

If the language had maintained throughout the ages, with some changes that still allow the common speaker of modern Macedonian to understand the gist of it, makes me wonder, that maybe, just maybe, these Slavic people of the Medieval times are descendants of these ancient people who lived in the prehistoric times on the territory of modern day Republic of Macedonia. Who were those people who spoke some form of proto-Slavic language and inhabited the north of modern day Greece, south from the Danube, to the Black and the White(Adriatic) Sea? I wonder?!? And how did they get to be here, before the rise of the Macedonian Kingdom, and then appeared again in the Middle Ages as the Slavic tribes from the Carpathian Mountains? Or what the hack is going on here?!? Could it be that the ancient Macedonians aren’t associated with the Greeks at all, but on the contrary the ancient Macedonians were the predecessors of the proto-Slavic tribes, who were created after the exodus of the ancient Macedonians across the Danube, which happened after the Second Macedonian-Roman War, back in the 2nd century BC, the same tribes that later migrated back to the Balkans in the 6th century AD.

Earliest unofficial written record of Macedonian Kingship can be found in the accounts of the Qumran scrolls!!! To everyone’s surprise in the scientific and academic world, there was a discovery of the complete list of the Macedonian Kings back from 1500-1400 BC.

The Kings: Mino, Make and Done, and later Miho, Niko, Risto, Tane, Gone, Ilo and Pelag, were our mythical forefathers!!!

Just like the Jews have Abraham and Isaac and Moses, we have Make and Done, and Pelag, and Ilo…and many more!

This is what Wikipedia says about the Greek pre-history:

- “Greek” pre-history which they call Aegean civilization (mind you!?!) which was “one of the earliest civilizations to appear around Greece, called the Minoan civilization in Crete (mind you again!?!), which lasted approximately from 2700 (Early Minoan) BC to 1450 BC, and the Early “Helladic” period on the Greek mainland from ca. 2800 BC to 2100 BC. This is all listed under Greek pre-history!!!

This Mino (I guess the founder of the Minoan civilization) might as well be a Macedonian Mino! Don’t you think? The Macedonian King from the Qumran scroll?!?

They say that the Minoan people were of some proto-indo European origin, and spoke a language and used a script we call Linear A and no-one knows how to read it, and that they came from Cyprus, Egypt and the Aegean Islands. Totally Greek, right!!! We know that the Greek Dorian tribes raided the mainland much later from North Africa, and are of Semitic origin.

The following periods in the Greek history were classified as:

- Mycenaean “Greece”, is the next period of Greek history, also known as Bronze Age Greece, called also the Late “Helladic” Bronze Age civilization of Ancient “Greece”. It lasted from the arrival of the “Greeks” (which Greeks?!?) in the Aegean around 1600 BC to the collapse of their Bronze Age civilization around 1100 BC. It is the historical setting of the epics of Homer and much other Greek mythology (?).

This “Greek” is a very unsuitable political term restricted to modern interpretation only.

In those times the term GREEK did not exist!!!

Homer’s “Greek” language is a version of the proto-Macedonian languages used by Ilo, or Illia (Homer being his Greek form), whose works are titled “Illyad”, meaning “of Ilo” (of the light), and “Odyssey”, meaning “travel” (“odi si” meaning “go on”!).

- The Greek Dark Ages (ca. 1200 BC–800 BC) refers to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean civilization in the 11th century BC to the rise of the first Greek city-states in the 9th century BC and the epics of Homer and earliest writings in alphabetic Greek in the 8th century BC.

This truly is the beginning of the Greek ethnic presence!!!

These Dorian tribes, known as Danaans among the Macedonians (from the Rosetta stone), they were the true Greeks! The Minoans and Mycenaeans were a completely different ethnic group of people. The classification under the term “Greek” occurred in modern times, particularly after the 1820’s independence of Greece from the Turkish rule. These city-states are actually the foundation of modern democracy, and mind you, they classify this period as the Greek Dark Ages!?!

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greece)
The Dorians (Greek: #916;#969;#961;#953;#949;#8150;#962;, D#333;rieis, singular #916;#969;#961;#953;#949;#973;#962;, D#333;rieus) were one of the principal ancient Greek tribes, the other three being the Achaeans (also known as Danaans, #916;#945;#957;#945;#959;#943;, Argives, #7944;#961;#947;#949;#8150;#959;#953;, and Mycenaeans), the Ionians and the Aeolians. They were distinguished by the Doric Greek dialect and by characteristic society and historical traditions. Traditional accounts place their origins in the north, north-eastern mountainous regions of Greece, south from ancient Macedonia and east from Epirus, whence obscure circumstances drove them south into the Peloponnese, to certain Aegean islands, parts of the coast of Asia Minor and Magna Graecia. Late mythology gave them an eponymous founder, Dorus son of Hellen, the mythological patriarch of the Hellenes.
Archeology shows a collapse of civilization in the Greek world in this period. The great palaces and cities of the Mycenaean civilization were destroyed or abandoned. The Mycenaean language ceased to be written. Greek Dark Age pottery has simple geometric designs and lacks the figurative decoration of Mycenaean ware. The Greeks of the Dark Age lived in fewer and smaller settlements, suggesting famine and depopulation, and foreign goods have not been found at archaeological sites, suggesting minimum international trade. Contact was also lost between foreign powers during this period, yielding little cultural progress or growth of any sort.
By classical times, in the fifth century, Dorians and Ionians were the two most numerous and politically important Greek ethne, whose ultimate clash resulted in the Peloponnesian War fought between the allies of the two groups. The degree to which fifth-century Hellenes self-identified as "Ionian" or "Dorian" has itself been disputed.
Who were these raiders who took over the land of the Mycenaean people, and made wars, replaced the true Kings with an aristocracy, then still later, in some areas, an aristocracy within an aristocracy—an elite of the elite. Warfare became a regular activity. Slowly equality grew among the different sects of people, leading to the dethronement of the various Kings and the rise of the families (?).Writing was relearned from the Phoenicians, eventually spreading north into Italy and the Gauls.

RISE OF THE MACEDONIAN KINGDOM

So let as say that the Macedonian dynasty must have already existed in the period between 1500-1400 BC. While the Greek Doric tribes were raiding the south of the mainland and slowly making way for their expansion, the Macedonian tribes were already walking their way to a powerful monarchy that later spread its influence to all parts of the ancient world.

We do not know when it was founded because most of the writings of the ancient Macedonian writers, historians and poets like: Anhang Makedonien, Antigonus Macedo, Antiochus Aegeus, Antipater Macedo, Ariston Pellaeus, Bardesanes Edesenus, Crateras Macedo, Leo Pellaeus, Nymphis Heracleensis, Damaios, John of Stobi or Joannes Stobaeus, Fedrus and many more are in private collections or lost throughout the ages especially after the Roman conquest, and the exodus of the Macedonian population that took place.

These people have written works like: the Complete History of the Macedonian kingdom, Macedonian History from Mythology to Philip II, and other similar titles. Who knows what is there to it!?!

But we do know from archeological findings that there was a much different culture in Macedonia than in the Greek city-states, the trade was much more developed, and social life was thriving.

The discovery of the Qumran scrolls in 1945, among the many controversies, brought forth a very intriguing finding. It was a scroll containing a complete list of the Macedonian rulers, as recorded by a member of the Qumran community. Considering the fact that the Qumran community existed in the time when their country was ruled by Macedonian kings, like Herod for example, it is not such a surprising finding. But to the researchers of the Macedonian history, this was a real EURECA!!!

ANCIENT MACEDONIAN PERIOD

The first official king of the Macedonian Bronze Age was King Karan 9th century BC, followed by a lineage that takes us through Perdica I to Alexander I and Philip II, to Alexander the Great!

This period was the rise of Macedonia and the beginning of its Golden Age.
This is what Wikipedia says about the origins of the first dynasty of the Macedonians:

“Argead dynasty (in Greek: #959;#7985; #7944;#961;#947;#949;#940;#948;#945;#953; hoi Arge#225;dai) were the ruling family and founders of Macedon, a kingdom in northern Greece from c. 700 BC - c. 309 BC.
Supposedly descended from Heracles, the demigod, the family's greatest members were Philip II of Macedon, who united the Greeks(?), and Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian Empire and created the Empire of Alexander.”

This information is according to Greek sources, that is why it says “united the Greeks” (we know today that the Macedonians fought against the Greeks, and eventually conquered them, e.g. The battle of Chaeronea), while for the same period of Greek history they list the following:

- Ancient Greek Period – “Traditionally, the Ancient Greek period was taken to begin with the date of the first Olympic Games in 776 BC. The traditional date for the end of the Ancient Greek period is the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. (How smart!?!)

In the period between the 8th and 4th century BC the basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis, sometimes translated as city-state. "Politics" literally means "the things of the polis." Each city was independent, at least in theory. Some cities might be subordinate to others (a colony traditionally deferred to its mother city), some might have had governments wholly dependent upon others (the Thirty Tyrants in Athens was imposed by Sparta following the Peloponnesian War), but the titularly supreme power in each city was located within that city. This meant that when Greece went to war (e.g., against the Persian Empire), it took the form of an alliance going to war. It also gave ample opportunity for wars within Greece between different cities

Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundational culture of Western Civilization. Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe.”

The Ancient Greeks who were the descendants of the warlike Dorian tribes, who raided the Balkans in the Greek Dark Ages, are the founders of modern democracy together with the Roman legacy holders. The westerners! TAKE A CLUE!

This shows that the Doric tribes organized themselves in city-states or polis. They were not monarchic, and were treating the northern tribes as barbaric. We can assume that the Macedonian Kingdom had its origins much earlier than what the Greek sources suggest.

This is what Wikipedia says about the organizations of the Macedonians:
The Assembly
All the kingdom's citizen-soldiers gather in a popular assembly, which is held at least twice a year, in spring and in autumn, with the opening and the closing of the campaigning season.
This assembly (koin#234; ekklesia or koinon makedon#244;n), of the army in times of war, of the people in times of peace, is called by the king and plays a significant role through the acclamation of the kings and in capital trials; it can be consulted (without obligation) for the foreign politics (declarations of war, treaties) and for the appointment of high state officials. In the majority of these occasions, the Assembly does nothing but ratify the proposals of a smaller body, the Council. It is also the Assembly which votes the honors, sends embassies, during its two annual meetings. It was abolished by the Romans at the time of their reorganization of Macedonia in 167 BC, to prevent, according to Livy, that a demagogue could make use of it as a mean to revolt against their authority.
Council (Synedrion)
The Council was a small group formed among some of the most eminent Macedonians, chosen by the king to assist him in the government of the kingdom. As such it was not a representative assembly, but notwithstanding that on certain occasions it could be expanded with the admission of representatives of the cities and of the civic corps of the kingdom.
The members of the Council (synedroi) belong to three categories:
• The somatophylakes (in Greek literally "bodyguards") were noble Macedonians chosen by the king to serve to him as honorary bodyguards, but especially as close advisers. It was a particularly prestigious honorary title. In the times of Alexander there were seven of them.
• The Friends (philoi) or the king's Companions (basilikoi hetairoi) were named for life by the king among the Macedonian aristocracy.
• The most important generals of the army (h#233;g#233;mones t#244;n tax#233;#244;n), also named by the king.
The king had in reality less power in the choice of the members of the Council than appearances would warrant; this was because many of the kingdom's most important noblemen were members of the Council by birth-right.
The Council primarily exerted a probouleutic function with respect to the Assembly: it prepared and proposed the decisions which the Assembly would have discussed and voted, working in many fields such as the designation of kings and regents, as of that of the high administrators and the declarations of war. It was also the first and final authority for all the cases which did not involve capital punishment.
The Council gathered frequently and represented the principal body of government of the kingdom. Any important decision taken by the king was subjected before it for deliberation.
Inside the Council ruled the democratic principles of is#233;goria (equality of word) and of parrh#233;sia (freedom of speech), to which the even king subjected himself.
After the removal of the Antigonid dynasty by the Romans in 167 BC, it is possible that the synedrion remained, unlike the Assembly, representing the sole federal authority in Macedonia after the country's division in four merides.
Regional districts (merides)
The merit of the creation of an intermediate territorial administrative level between the central government and the cities has to be probably ascribed to Philip II: this reform agreed with the need to adapt the kingdom's institutions to the great expansion of Macedon under his rule. It was not any more easy to convene all the Macedonians in a single general assembly, and the answer to this problem was the creation of four regional districts, each supplied with a regional assembly. These territorial divisions clearly did not follow any historical or traditional internal divisions; they were simply artificial administrative lines. This said, it should be added that the existence of these districts is not attested with certainty (by the numismatics) before the beginning of the 2nd century BC.
So I wonder, if the Macedonians were living a monarchic life in the north, and the Greek tribes were exploring tyranny and democracy based on slavery, which later turned out to be the foundation of modern democracy, what is the argument that suggests that these peoples were of similar origin?!?

The language was surely different, as suggested by the ancient Greek authors who called the Macedonians – barbarian, take Demosthenes for example, and the state organization was totally different, art and craft was different, and the religious organizing was rather different, Macedonians worshiping the gods of Olympus from the other side of the mountain, with a slightly different approach in their rites. Many sanctuaries that Greece claims as Greek today were actually on Macedonian land. The mythology we know as Greek was in fact the mythology of the Macedonians too. It was rather a common mythology for all the indo-European tribes.

With Alexander I (Philhellene), Macedonian Kingdom started taking interest in the affairs of the Greek city-states in an attempt to gain access to the Mediterranean. The policy of Philip II (Alexander’s father), was to spread the kingdom north to Danube and west to the Adriatic Sea. His son, Alexander III, inherited a vast kingdom and a vision for a unified world, under a God-given King!

Philip II and then his son Alexander strengthened the Kingdom by unifying the Macedonian (Phrigian) tribes such as the Peonians, Agrians, Desarets, Epirians, Dardanians, Argeads, and other in a monarchy that later was to become the leading elite of the Ancient World.

MACEDONIAN GOLDEN AGE

From the History of Greece, in Wikipedia:

“The following period is classified as Hellenistic. Not everyone treats the Ancient and Hellenic periods as distinct, however, and some writers treat the Ancient Greek civilization as a continuum running until the advent of Christianity in the third century AD.” YEAH, RIGHT!

However, there are many serious scholars, both from the ancient times and now as well, who make a clear distinction between the Ancient Greek and what they call “Hellenistic” period today. The Hellenistic period should be more appropriately called Macedonian period, since it is the influence that the Macedonians left on the world.

The expansion of the Macedonian Empire over a short period of time proceeded with the development of a whole culture and an epoch which we sadly know as “Hellenism” today, only because the modern state of Greece has self-claimed the Macedonian heritage based on a single fact that the Macedonian expansion enabled the Hellenic influence and their script to spread to the world.

The language was not Greek it was Alexandrian because it was developed there and was the language of the Macedonian Empire. It used the earlier existing script, but we mustn’t involve modern day politics to interpret the use of the script in those times. The same script was in use by many nations in those times, and the very “Greek” alphabet is actually taken from the Phoenicians. Certainly and luckily the Alexandrian “Greek” was much different from the Doric, Attic, or Ionic “Greek”. So it is the same script, maybe, but a different language.

Can you make the difference between Latin Polish, and Latin English for example!?!

Wikipedia about the Alexandrian “Greek” language:

Koine Greek (kini) (#922;#959;#953;#957;#8052; #7961;#955;#955;#951;#957;#953;#954;#942;, "common Greek", or #7969; #954;#959;#953;#957;#8052; #948;#953;#940;#955;#949;#954;#964;#959;#962;, "the common dialect") is the popular form of “Greek” which emerged in post-classical antiquity (c.300 BC – AD 300), and marks the third period in the history of the Greek language. Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common, or New Testament Greek. Koine Greek is important not only to the history of the Greeks for being their first common dialect and main ancestor of Demotic Greek, but it is also significant for its impact on Western Civilization as a lingua franca for the Mediterranean. Koine also was the original language of the New Testament of the Christian Bible as well as the medium for the teaching and spreading of Christianity. Koine Greek was unofficially a first or second language in the Roman Empire.

Koine Greek arose as a common dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great. As the allied Greek states under the leadership of the Kingdom of Macedon conquered and colonized the known world, their newly formed common dialect was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. Though elements of Koine Greek took shape during the late Classic Era, the Post-Classic period of Greek dates from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, when cultures under Hellenistic sway in turn began to influence the language. The passage into the next period, known as Medieval Greek, dates from the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine I in 330. The Post-Classic period of Greek thus refers to the creation and evolution of Koine Greek throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman eras of Greek history until the start of the Middle Ages.

This clearly shows that there was a turning point in the development of the Greek language. With the expansion of the Macedonian empire, this form developed as a common language and was rather different from the Attic, Doric or Ionic dialects (or languages). It was a new form of a language that applied the earlier existing Greek alphabet, but adopted linguistic material from - some scholars say - as many as 40 existing languages of that time. In other words, this form of “Greek” developed as a necessity for communication among the people of the vast Empire, who needed a common tongue. An Esperanto of the ancient time! It came as a natural necessity! There is something similar happening to the English language today.

The linguistic centre of the time was Alexandria, where this form of “Greek” flourished in literature. The question is what happened to the earlier classical forms of “Greek”, the Attic, the Doric, and the Ionic? I guess the Hellenic writers were trying to promote their own vocabulary, the Macedonians would use their words if they need it, and the other nations must have done the same, and that is how it came to be used by the many as a lingua franca.

After the death of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Empire divided in four smaller empires, and founded the dynasties of Seleucid in Persia, the Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt, the Antigonid dynasty in Macedonia, and those who remained in India, which started a divisive policy against each other for the legacy of Alexander, totally disregarding their common enemy on the rise: The Romans!

The Greeks were also there to help them!

This is what Wikipedia says about that:

“Macedonian control of the Greek city-states was intermittent, with a number of revolts. Athens, Rhodes, Pergamum and other Greek states retained substantial independence, and joined the Aetolian League as a means of defending it. The Achaean League, while nominally subject to the Ptolemies was in effect independent, and controlled most of southern Greece. Sparta also remained independent, but generally refused to join any league.”

So while the Macedonians were spreading “the Greek culture” to the world, the Greeks were revolting against them!!! How absurd to call this period of MACEDONIAN GLORY with such a derogative name as “HELLENISM”!!!

The Macedonians had a very strong influence on the world during the so called “Hellenistic” period. Besides the Koine Greek (as we call it today), or the common language (Alexandrian - as they called it back then), the Macedonian rulers used their own language which was familiar only to them. They used another script, which was a syllabic one, again in use by many people of the time, but this time with Macedonian phonetics on official documents, which messed up a bit the Egyptian language, for example. They also put it in official use and the proof to this is in the Rosetta stone.

Extract: Rosetta stone

The research work of the two scientists Tentov and Bosheski brought forth an interesting issue. Apparently, they managed to decode the middle text from the Rosetta Stone (commonly treated as demotic), using the same approach that the French used to decode the Egyptian hieroglyphs from the first text. The French used Coptic to decode the language of the Pharaohs, as the closest link to the ancient Egyptians, and our scientists used Macedonian as the closest logical link to the language of the living masters of that time. We know that the Pharaoh that erected the stone was Ptolemy V. Why shouldn't he write a decree in his own language?

The fact that the two scientists could determine not only the script, but the phonetics as well, and match it to the modern Macedonian language, shows that the ancient Macedonians, were not illiterate barbarians, but a nation with its own language and script that was in use further, besides the fierce attempt of the Roman policy to erase everything that was of Macedonian glory and thus overate it. Apparently, the Romans were proud conquerors that believed that the world started with them. It is widely known of the ravaging they did over Macedonian population and wealth, scattering it throughout the empire (both people and goods). They were systematically eradicating all signs of Alexander's empire, while ironically following his steps, thus hoping to proclaim themselves as rightful heirs of the Macedonian empire.

The fact that the language was almost the same in those times, as it is today, points out that maybe what we know as Slavic in the Middle Ages is actually the language of the tribes of ancient Macedon. Maybe the migration of the Slavic tribes never took place. They might have never come from behind the Carpathian Mountains. They might have migrated from the Balkans to the steppes. This is what archeology points at. The founding of Sindidun (Belgrade today), emerges after the peace agreed between the Celts and the Macedonians in the 4th century BC. (Read the Druid of Sindidun, Vladislav Bajac)

This may go even further: Russian royalty takes its roots from Alexander the Great. (via the Byzantine Order of the Holy Tomb)

Or: The Byzantine Empire was the true heir of the Alexander's Empire. Not the West Roman! Thanks to Czar Constantine and Elena his mother who was from Naissus (Nish today).

Or: The language that we call Greek today is actually the Esperanto of the ancient world, created by linguists on the basis of 40 languages using the Greek script. It is very different from the earlier Ionic and Doric dialects. This Esperanto in those times was called "Alexandrian" because this city was the center of the Empire. So, the Greek from the Bible is actually this Alexandrian, and the Greek from Byzantium was also an upgraded form of the Alexandrian dialect. The final upgrading of this form of language was done in the 18th and 19th centuries and we have its modern form known as Greek today.

Or: Cyril and Methodius never invented a knew script! They revised the ancient morphemic symbols and upgraded the writing system of the ancient Macedonians. The Glagollic script was political, while the Cyrillic a true revision of the ancient letters. That is why the Glagollic was so easily replaced by the new Cyrillic.

There are many approaches that need revision.

I hope the world will take notice.


We know for example that Cleopatra V was the first Macedonian ruler of Egypt who spoke Coptic Egyptian besides the Alexandrian and her mother tongue. None of her predecessors spoke the Egyptian language. This has been confirmed by many historians of that time.

THE DECLINE

“Under Philip V of Macedon (221–179 BC) and his son Perseus of Macedon (179–168 BC), the kingdom clashed with the rising power of the Roman Republic. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Macedon fought a series of wars with Rome. Two major losses that led to their inevitable defeat were in 197 BC when Rome defeated Philip V and 168 BC when Rome defeated Perseus.

The overall losses resulted in the defeat of Macedon, the deposition of the Antigonid dynasty and the dismantling of the Macedonian kingdom. Andriscus' brief success at reestablishing the monarchy in 149 BC was quickly followed by his defeat the following year and the establishment of direct Roman rule and the organization of Macedon as the Roman province of Macedonia.”
“In 215 BC, however, Philip formed an alliance with Rome's enemy Carthage. Rome promptly lured the Achaean cities away from their nominal loyalty to Philip, and formed alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest power in Asia Minor. The First Macedonian War broke out in 212, and ended inconclusively in 205, but Macedon was now marked as an enemy of Rome.
In 202 BC Rome defeated Carthage, and was free to turn her attention eastwards. In 198 the Second Macedonian War broke out for obscure reasons, but basically because Rome saw Macedon as a potential ally of the Seleucids, the greatest power in the east. Philip's allies in Greece deserted him and in 197 he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Cynoscephalae by the Roman proconsul Titus Quintus Flaminius.
Luckily for the Greeks, Flaminius was a moderate man and an admirer of Greek culture. Philip had to surrender his fleet and become a Roman ally, but was otherwise spared. At the Isthmian Games in 196, Flaminius declared all the Greek cities free, although Roman garrisons were placed at Corinth and Chalcis. But the freedom promised by Rome was an illusion. All the cities except Rhodes were enrolled in a new League which Rome ultimately controlled, and aristocratic constitutions were favored and actively promoted.”
Slowly, Rome managed to take over all of the Macedonian lands, and with Cleopatra V managed to finish the rule of the Macedonian Kingdoms for all.

However, Alexandria remained to be a strong cultural and strategic centre, and maintained the Alexandrian dialect in use that was to become later the “Greek” language of the Holy Bible. It was the “Esperanto” of the Macedonian Kingdom that became the first language of the written Gospel.

THE ROMAN RULE – MACEDONIAN DARK AGES

There was a general exodus of Macedonian population, particularly those from noble descent, so people had to run away. As Cicero records, 10 000 or carts were brought to Rome from Macedonia mostly of men aged 15 and over. Those who heard about this must have run north, across the Danube river, where they must have settled and mixed with other pre-Slavic tribes and developed a new culture, we can only guess.

However, those who remained suffered a continuous genocide, assimilation, Romanization and other forms of discrimination, for a long period. The population in the remote villages remained most intact and managed to preserve their identity as Macedonians. There are many folklore remnants form this period that prove this!

The Romans were so afraid of the possible rise of the Macedonians that they destroyed everything that bore a sign of Macedonian presence, at least everything they could find. There were monuments destroyed, towns burnt down, villages ravaged and much more.

This is what Wikipedia says about it:

“Militarily Greece itself declined to the point that the Romans conquered the land (187 BC onwards), though Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life.

Although the period of Roman rule in Greece is conventionally dated as starting from the sacking of Corinth by the Roman Lucius Mummius in 123 BC, Macedonia had already come under Roman control with the defeat of its king, Perseus, by the Roman Aemilius Paullus at Pydna in 168 BC. The Rubens divided the region into four smaller republics, and in 146 BC Macedonia officially became a Roman province, with its capital at Thessalonica.

The rest of the Greek city-states gradually and eventually paid homage to Rome ending their de jure autonomy as well. The Romans left local administration to the Greeks without making any attempt to abolish traditional political patterns. The agora in Athens continued to be the centre of civic and political life.”

This is the proof of the true alliance that defeated Macedonia! Greece and Rome!

When Christianity started spreading mostly among the Macedonians in the 1st and the 2nd centuries AD, Rome was persecuting the Christians (mostly Macedonians) in most bizarre ways. Children were thrown to animals in amphitheaters, like that in Ohrid. That is why it was covered and abandoned in the 4th century, when Christianity became official religion of the Roman Empire. This has been recorded in the holy texts of the earliest Christians in Macedonia.

CHRISTIAN MACEDONIA - BYZANTIUM

We have the first accounts on the developments of Christianity in Macedonia in the earliest writings of the Apostles. Macedonia is mentioned several times in the Bible, while Greece is not mentioned at all. For example; it was a Macedonian peasant in St. Paul’s vision who asked him to come to Macedonia and preach the Gospel there so that he would save the Macedonians from the Roman tyranny!

St. Paul came to Macedonia and took a servant called Lidia, who was a Macedonian. Even Philip and Luke, were said to be of Macedonian descent. They both carry typically Macedonian names, neither Greek nor Jewish!

From Easton’s Bible Dictionary:

“Macedonia in New Testament times was a Roman province lying north of Greece. It was governed by a proprietor with the title of proconsul. Paul was summoned by the vision of the "man of Macedonia" to preach the gospel there (Act 16:9). Frequent allusion is made to this event (Act 18:5; Act 19:21; Rom 15:26; Co2 1:16; Co2 11:9; Phi 4:15). The history of Paul's first journey through Macedonia is given in detail in Acts 16:10 - 17:15. At the close of this journey he returned from Corinth to Syria. He again passed through this country (Act 20:1), although the details of the route are not given. After many years he probably visited it for a third time (Phi 2:24; Ti1 1:3). The first convert made by Paul in Europe was (Act 16:13) Lydia (q.v.), a "seller of purple," residing in Philippi, the chief city of the eastern division of Macedonia.”

Mary Magdalene might as well be Macedonian, since she was said to have been Philip’s sister. The Qumran scrolls reveal a lot more different picture of the real story behind the curtain. It is not surprising that these people were ethnic Macedonian, because after Alexander’s expansion they had settled in Palestine and Israel as well, since these lands were both under the Macedonian rule.

From Wikipedia:

“The Gospel of Philip is one of the Gnostic Gospels, a text of New Testament apocrypha, dating back to around the third century but lost to modern researchers until it was rediscovered by accident in the mid-20th century. Although this gospel may at first appear similar to the Gospel of Thomas, it is not a sayings gospel, but a collection of Gnostic teachings and reflections.

Sacraments, in particular the sacrament of marriage, are a major theme. The text is perhaps most famous as a very early source for the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. Though this is never explicitly stated in the document itself, she is described as Jesus' "lover" in some translations.”

This was the first wave of Christianization of Macedonian population. At the very beginnings!!! Archeological findings of this time show that Christianity was a cult in the earliest epoch all around Macedonia. Among other cults of that time!

It wasn’t until the 4th century AD and Czar Constantine’s acceptance of the Christian Religion as the sole religion for the whole Empire, and later the division of the Roman Empire in Eastern and Western, that Macedonians started to regain control on the Mediterranean political scene.

From Wikipedia:

“Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus was born in Naissus (modern Ni#353;, Serbia) in the province of Moesia Superior on 27 February ca. 280 to Roman general and later Western Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus, and his first wife St. Helena.

Young Constantine received a formidable education, became a fluent speaker of Greek (meaning KOINE or Alexandrian “Greek”), and was adept in philosophy.

The figures of Constantine the Great and Justinian dominated during 324–610. Assimilating the Roman tradition, the emperors sought to provide the basis for subsequent developments and for the formation of the Byzantine Empire.

Justinian was born into a Latin-speaking (probably the pre-Vlach of the Romanized ancient Macedonians) peasant family in a small village called Tauresium (near Justiniana Prima, which he founded later), very close to Skopje in what is today the Republic of Macedonia, around 482 AD.

He was born as Petrus Sabbatius; the cognomen Justinianus, which he later took, is indicative of adoption by his uncle Justin. His mother was Vigilantia, the sister of Justin, who was in the imperial guard (the Excubitors) before he became emperor.

Justin adopted Justinian, brought him to Constantinople, and ensured the boy's education. As a result, Justinian was well educated in jurisprudence, theology and Roman history. Justinian served for some time with the Excubitors but the details of his early career are unknown.”

From Wikipedia:

“The history of the Byzantine Empire is described by scholar August Heisenberg as the history "of the Roman state of the Greek nation that turned Christian". The division of the empire into East and West and the subsequent collapse of the Western Roman Empire were developments that constantly accentuated the position of the Greeks in the empire and eventually allowed them to become identified with it altogether. The leading role of Constantinople began when Constantine the Great turned Byzantium into the new capital of the Roman Empire, henceforth to be known as Constantinople, placing the city at the centre of Hellenism a beacon for the Greeks that lasted to the modern era.”

August Heisenberg was born Nov. 13th 1869 in Osnabruck, Germany, died Nov. 22nd, 1930 in Munich, Germany. He was a professor of Byzantine Language and Culture Munich-University. This was the period of nation building in the Balkans, and the time when history played a major part in the process. The recently established Greek state used the German historiographers to propagate their claims to Macedonia and Byzantium. History and archeology have advanced to a great extend since then, and now we have a much clearer picture on the developments in the Byzantine Empire, and the influence Macedonians and Greeks had, respectively.

We have seen in the extracts from Wikipedia that Czar Constantine, the founder of Byzantium and later Justinian the founder of the Roman law, were not Greek at all!!! Moreover, they were born in the territories previously ruled and settled by Macedonians.

After Czar Constantine, the Byzantine Empire (or the Resurrected Macedonian Kingdom) gave way to an array of Macedonian Kings and Queens to rule with what is to be known a 1000 years of Orthodox Christian Kingdom on Earth! Some were the following: Justinian I, Ana Komnena, Michael Paleolog, Vasili I and Vasili III, Macedonian Kings that brought Byzantium at the footsteps of a new age of light.

During the early years of the Byzantine rule, the KOINE language of Alexandria became widely accepted as the language of the Empire, and was used by many intellectuals of the time, regardless their ethnic background. The language was the foundation for the modern version of Greek, and thus got its title as: “Byzantine Greek”, even though from my perspective it looks like an updated version of the Alexandrian dialect.

However, other languages and scripts had survived in the early Christian times of Byzantium, which later had their major impact on the developments of the Eastern Christianity.

Byzantium was a complex organization ruled by kings and priests, from various ethnic backgrounds, and it would be false to proclaim the heritage of this vast Empire, both territorially and culturally as Greek, because the Byzantine culture was developed commonly in many centers across the Empire, so today there are architectural landmarks from Byzantium in Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and other countries.

Macedonia has a huge legacy from this period of Byzantium: churches, monasteries, houses, settlements… These were certainly the works of the people who lived there and accepted the Christian culture and lifestyle. We know of groups of craftsmen from Macedonia (the Miacs) who traveled all across the Byzantine Empire and painted the churches’ walls, or carved wood, or made jewelry… The Byzantine culture was developing in several stages and was bringing forward the fruits of what was known as the God-given Kingdom on Earth!

This Kingdom based on the vision for the Kingdom of Heaven might have reached its own Enlightenment if given a chance.

Instead, the Ottomans took over the stage, and the new children of Rome got their Renaissance!!!



SLAVIC BYZANTIUM

From Wikipedia:

“In the first period of the middle Byzantine era (610–867) the empire was constantly raided both by old enemies (Persians, Langobards, Avars and Slavs) as well as by new ones, appearing for the first time in history (Arabs, Bulgarians). The main characteristic of this period was that the raids were not localized to the border areas of the state but they were extended deep beyond, even threatening the capital itself. At the same time, these attacks lost their periodical and temporary character and became permanent settlements that transformed into new states, often hostile to Byzantium. Those states were referred by the Byzantines as Sclavinias.”

“Many among the Romanized and Hellenized Paionian, Illyrian and Thracian population of Macedonia were assimilated by the Slavs, but pockets of tribes that fled to the mountains remained independent.”

However, according to the early Slavic records, back in the 6th century with the “arrival” of the Slavic tribes from the north, due to the Hun raids, the people who arrived and formed the Sclavinias, were not so different from the local population they encountered on their raids, who had a culture of their own and used a script with “lines and dashes” (probably similar to the Demotic script from the Rosetta stone); they influenced Byzantium a lot, but the Empire never took restrictive measures against the Slavs; they were simply integrated, and to do so, a script was to be given to these people that were “to hear the words of God in their own mother language”. This brought forward a new epoch in the developments of the Byzantine Empire and the spreading of its Orthodox Christian influence across the Slavic population.
Extract: Macedonian Slavs
I wonder if it is just the irony of nature or a pure miracle, that what has been imposed upon us as a disgraceful name, has turned out to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We are indeed Macedonian Slavs. The link that has been missing is US!!! We are here, and have always been!

In the pre-ancient times, we ruled these lands as lords, alongside with Atlantis. Kokino is the proof! Life flourished in Macedonia and in those times we were setting the foundations of what was to become the Sun Kingdom of Macedon. What we today know as Phrigian, or Arian, was the pre-Macedonian juice. On the grounds of that mythology rest the pillars of the Macedonian Holy Arch.

The Macedonian royal lineage has developed a pantheon of their own based on the Sun god image, which flourished and created healthy tribes of healthy families, that grew in wisdom and craft. Alexander must have had a very strong influence from his own mythology of those times, to even dare to reach for such a dream as conquering the world, making it a united place, a sole Kingdom of the Sun.

Even at those times literacy was flourishing in Macedonia. The "People of Glory" was another term used for the Macedonians. "Slaveni" in their own language. They were the glorified ones, which gave the world a vision to look upon for ages to come. But the night takes the day and the shadows come forth.

Our night was Rome, which helped by the Greeks, was stabbing a deadly dagger in our backs. Steadily and deliberately, they coveted a cunning plan of how to take over the Macedonian glory and erase it completely for times to come.

That is when the genocide was initiated. All signs of the Macedonian glory were eradicated.

However cruel, the Romans could not have erased the whole population. There must have been some left in the unreachable areas like Mariovo, or Vevchani for example. These are still pretty of the track a bit, even today.:)

A vast population of the scattered Macedonians, and the refugees, running away from Rome, populated the lands across the Danube, and later probably at the pressure of another predator (the Huns) migrated south to be later known as "Sloveni" - East European medieval group of tribes.

Many remained, and within the Roman Empire, managed to create way for their own Kingdom of the Sun, this time vested in the Eastern Christian pantheon. The Macedonians created Christianity. Take into consideration Philip and Luke, these are totally not Jewish names, neither Greek. They are pure Macedonian names. Paul came to Macedonia to spread the gospel. The first European to be christened was Lidia, a Macedonian woman from near Thessaloniki. And the so many holy fathers that brought forth the greatest of all literary movements that today is to be known as Slavistika. This was the time when the old mixed with the new, and created the medieval salad of Macedonia. However, the dream prevailed.

Suddenly the "People of Glory" became known as the "People of the Word" ("Slaveni" into "Sloveni"). And it is not surprising at all, if we take into consideration the amount of writings that has been produced by the Macedonian Slav population starting from the Rock Art writings in the 4th and 5th millennium BC, to the Rosetta Stone in the first millennium BC, and the many more destroyed by Rome, to Trp Ruen in the fifth century AD, and later Cyril and Methodius and Clement and Naum in the 9th and 10th centuries AD. And all of these represented with a similar linguistic code, comprehensive even to the common reader of modern times. We are not talking about the script only, but also the language, the grammar, the vocabulary, which has prevailed in the modern Macedonian language. All around Macedonia there are writings on rocks that can be understood by the modern reader, and had probably been written by someone millennia ago. If someone used a script and a language similar to our modern Macedonian in the ancient times and in pre-history, it means that there must be a genetic continuum of the population of Macedonia, throughout time. Somehow the language must have been transmitted and it is being done through the family.

It turns out that those Macedonians that ran away north, after the exodus that Rome imposed, must have mixed with each other and created the pre-Slavic tribes, and then lived peacefully for about 7 centuries in the lowlands of Pannonia over to the Carpathian Mountains. Those areas were far from the influence of the events on the Mediterranean stage, so the people had a long period of tribal existence. I believe that the pre-Slavic tribes had a close contact with the Celtic tribes, since the cooperation had already started with the Macedonians from Philip’s and Alexander’s reign. The oral tradition started developing and new pantheon of the Nature was developed. Later in the 5th and 6th centuries, at the pressure of the Mongolic raids, the Slavic tribes (formerly Macedonian) started dispersing from their settlements to the north, west, and south, back on the Balkans, where they once had come from. The group that went south, later mixed with the population that lived in Roman Macedonia, which was already taken over by the Macedonians and Byzantium was created, which managed somehow to integrate the new Slav population, who found it easy to adjust to the customs of the indigenous people, and together created a new epoch in the history of Byzantium, known as the Slavic influence.

The language that the new Slavs brought mixed with the older form of Macedonian and they started developing a new language, Church-Slavic. But this language would have disappeared if there wasn’t for the literary mission of the two brothers from Thessalonica, the Macedonians St. Cyril and Methodius. They took up the torch and became the Word-bearers or “Sloveni”. They introduced the Cyrillic script and saved a nation, by giving it a chance to learn about God and the truth in their own language. Something that was a luxury to even imagine in those days, when the Bible was preached only in the three Holy languages: Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, and only those who knew the languages could interpret the words of God. What a position this gave to some nations! What a deed had our brothers done!!!

This work has not been completed and since those times many others have come forth to be the keepers of the Word, the Glorified Word-keepers (Slaveni Sloveni). Their names will be always looked upon as the light that shows the way.

These were: Kiril Pejcinovic, who knew the secret script, (tajnoto pismo) and used it even on his tombstone by his epitaph, the brothers Miladinovi and Krste Misirkov, who collected the scattered wisdom of the Folk-Lore...and resurrected it again for generations to come, then, Iljov, Cernodrinski, Shopov, cika Baze Koneski, Petre M. Andreevski, i niza drugi sto patot na slovoto go odat.

A toa - slovoto niz vekovi isto! The same language, the same words, the same script, the same people.

What had once been Phrigian, had became Macedonian, only to spread into nothingness and rise back as "the people of the word" (Sloveni) in the middle ages.

The truth is coming out. The archaeological findings show that there is a strong linguistic link between the Slavic Cyrillic script, the Ruenica script, the Rosetta script, and the rock writings in Kratovo area. If there is a strong linguistic link it suggests that there must have been a strong ethnic body to maintain this linguistic continuum, in such a context as the post-Roman times. In other words, the ancient Macedonians had not only survived the genocide, but also spread like a weed throughout the eastern steppes from beyond the Danube. This weed cannot be rooted out. It will always catch ground. So in the middle ages, the newly arrived Sloveni, were actually the formerly expelled Macedonians.

If this be true, given a chance to sit next to him, I could clearly understand Alexander talking to Aristotle about the new world order of the Sun.

I wonder who screwed it up so badly, so that it turned out to be the New World Order of such a Night!?!

Our dream must prevail-the Kingdom of the Sun will one day rise again on our skies.

What a day it will be!!!


The scholars of that time, like Cyril and Methodius must have known the reason why they promoted one script first, and then allowed their students to replace it with another form, that we today recognize as another form of even an older version found on rocks and other archeological findings all across Macedonia! In other words, the Cyrillic script proves to be just a continuum in the use of yet another ancient script present among Macedonian population in its secret use, according to some early Slavic writers. This script can be found in the writings of Trp Ruen from the 5th century AD and some Ukrainian writings from even earlier times.
Extract: The Truth behind Cyril and Methodius
What many people know from the work of the two brothers is that they were from Thessaloniki - ethnic background: suspicious (some think they were Greek, others Macedonian Slavs, yet others consider them Bulgarian even though at that time, i.e. The 9th century Bulgaria was ruled by the Khans, Boris I being the first of them to be converted to Christianity, and thus the first to accept the Glagollic script as an administrative language of the Bulgarian Empire, as opposed to the Byzantine Greek (which is a middle-ages variant of the Alexandrian dialect) and in favor of the increasing Slavic population. Boris was definitely a Mongolian, while we know the looks of our brothers from the many icons left behind. Earlier in the 5th century the Bulgarian Mongols had raided the lands from beyond The Danube and settled mostly in the area of Serdica (today's Sofia); they massacred the local Thracian population and intruded into the political life of the Byzantine Empire. When the Byzantine Empire was sending the two brothers on a mission to Moravia (today's Slovakia) in 826 AD the Bulgarian Empire was far from being Christian, not mentioning using the Glagollic Script for biblical studies. It came 60 years later, around 886 AD, when Boris I realized that he needed administration to rule over the mixed population in his Empire and being aware of the Slavic influence he thought it wise to use the new script for the requirements of his kingdom. Thus the first party to officially use the Glagollic script was Bulgaria. That doesn't make the brothers ethnic Bulgarian Mongols, does it?

Well the fact that by the 12th century (according to the Miracles of St.Dimitri) Thessaloniki was mostly populated by Macedonians, descendants of the ancient royal houses of the Macedonian Kingdom. Even though in the 3rd century BC Macedonia succumbed to the Roman rule, over the centuries the nobles and their families had managed to regain control over the institutions in their towns respectively, and rule in the name of their conquerors. Thessalonica was definitely ruled by the Macedonian descendants in the time when the brothers were born. What we know is that they were born in a very noble family, and given to be educated under the auspices of a very important lord in the Byzantine Court. That's how they reached up to the position of Scholars and very learned men.

However, what amazes me most is the fact that the brothers managed to introduce a new script in the chaotic religious scene in Europe that will allow for a vast population, to read and interpret the Bible in their own language, away from the influence of those who proclaim the Gospel in Latin, Greek or Aramaic only. The appearance of the Glagolic script would have certainly diminished the influence of the Roman Catholic church and the Greek influences of the Eastern church.

And another query I have is about the fact that the brothers had introduced the Glagolic script as a script which is most appropriate for use by the Moravian Slavs, only to be replaced soon after by another script, created by the brother's disciples, and named Cyrillic in honor of their Master, which soon became widely accepted because it resembled an older version of a script already present in the consciousness of the Slavs.

The Rock Art discoveries in Macedonia show a series of writings on the rocks throughout the country that have resemblance with the Cyrillic script. The work of Vasil Iljov points at certain findings and the possibility of their interpretation with the help of modern Macedonian language. There are findings dated 5000 BC and more, which can be read and understood by the modern speakers of Macedonian. This suggest that not only that the modern Macedonians are related to those of the ancient times in terms of using the same script, but are also linguistically related, which indicated that there must be a genetic lineage still present in the modern Macedonian ethnos from ancient times.

If we add the writings of Trp Ruen, an early Slavic text from the 6th century, that resembles the Cyrillic script, we may say that the language of the Ancient Macedonians was an older form of the medieval Slavic languages, and the Cyrillic was a revised version of an older script, as that of Trp Ruen, and even earlier rock writings. The script found on the rocks might not have been used by the wider public, but it might have influenced the Phoenicians to edit it and start using it widely, for administrative purposes. That's why the linguistic takes 1400s BC as the beginning of the phonetic alphabets. However we might be talking of an older script that might have been in use by a selected group of people before it somehow reached the Phoenicians. Then it became public, and was transformed from Phoenician into Greek, and then Latin. However, this secret script, the old one, must have remained in use by certain scholars or magi, through out the centuries and must have reached either the brothers of their disciples somehow. The brothers must have known about it before they had set off on their mission to Moravia. They must have known what their students had been cooking down there while they were teaching the Gospel to the Moravian Slavs in their own language. The Cyrillic, not the Glagollic, script is the revised form of the older script, known as Ruenica from the 6th century AD, or even more ambiguous: rock-art writings.

Another interesting moment in this story is the affairs at the Byzantine Court. In the time of the two brothers, Byzantium was ruled by Michael III who was an Armenian ruler (Byzantium was something like the European Union today, ruled by dynasties from various ethnic and royal descents, on several occasions ruled by ethnic Macedonian dynasties-which is where we got them in our stories as "Our Emperors":)

Well, this ruler Michael, did something unusual. He accepted Basil, a complete stranger, to rule the Court with him. He loved the man for being so brave and strong. Basil, called the Macedonian, also the Great, was a local hero in Constantinople, which was famous for his feats of bravery. The King wanted to meet him, and when he did, he sort of fell in love with him and accepted him to rule over the Empire with him. Soon after Basil killed Michael and took over his position as an Emperor of the Great Byzantine Empire. Basil was Macedonian, of the same ethnic community as the brothers living in the same time, sharing the Court... This sort of gave me a clue: what if the brothers had something to do with this sudden change of policy in the Court, or what if the new Emperor was much in favor of their plan to teach the script to his people, throughout his kingdom. So, they took up the mission and gave the people eyes to see the truth and read and learn in their own language.

The brothers appeared in the right time in history to reestablish what had been previously the Source of all script, and make it available for a wider use, thus enabling the simple people to enlighten themselves in their own language, and not according to how the Bible was interpreted only by those who could speak the Holy languages. Now it was available to everyone, which was a great loss for those who still want to erase the glory of the Ancient House of Macedon.

This shows that this linguistic genocide had been a continuous effort on behalf of those whom we call neighbors, and in return to the favor that we had given them the light to see through the darkness.

May it serve their purpose!


“At the beginning of the 9th century, the Slavic kingdom of Bulgaria (Bulgaria was populated mostly by Slavic Ants, but ruled by Bulgarian Mongols like King Asparuh, Boris, and others) conquered Northern Byzantine lands, including Macedonia B and part of Macedonia A. Those regions remained under Bulgarian rule for two centuries, until conquest of Bulgaria by the Byzantine Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty Basil II (nicknamed the Bulgar-slayer) in 1018.”

This shows that the period was very turbulent, and that ethnic groups mingled and mixed to form the later nations on the Balkans. Bulgarian Empire was first established by the arrival of the Bulgarian Mongols. Bulgaria was far from Slavic at that time, even though the Slav population was rapidly increasing in Bulgaria. Macedonian population was predominantly a mixture of Romanized ancient Macedonians, and those who accepted the KOINE language for everyday use (the so called Hellenized Macedonians). However there was a vast population that encountered the Slavic invasion in the Middle Ages, and mixed with the Slavic tribes - to a certain extend - because there was a great similarity in the languages and cultures of the newly arrived tribes and the language of the Ancient Macedonians, as the earliest records prove (that of Crnorizec Hrabar from the Ohrid Literacy School).

“By this time, the whole Macedonia region was inhabited by a few different ethnicities, with the Slavs being the overall majority, while Greek dominated along the Aegean coast.”

The Greek influence was wakening in the Empire since there was a rise in the population of the Slavs, who mingled with the population that lived in Roman and Byzantine Macedonia, and who were assimilated by the local culture, in a way that the newly created Sclavinias put a great pressure on Byzantium to find a cunning way how to spread their influence on such a vast population of ignorant and illiterate people like the newly arrived Slavs, who would not be easily Christened if made to speak an unfamiliar language like that of KOINE, or the Alexandrian dialect, or Byzantine “Greek” as referred to by the Greek propagandists, since this language was long forgotten, because the Slavs (who we might associate to the ancient Macedonians and the exodus that took place with the Roman conquest, when a vast population migrated to areas across the Danube back in the 2nd century BC), must have forgotten the Alexandrian dialect which was not their mother tongue even in the ancient time.

Therefore the Byzantine Empire needed to devise a new way how to approach the Slavic tribes and introduce Christianity to them, so that they remain loyal to the Byzantine Court. This is where we set the story of the two famous Macedonian scholars from Thessalonica, who - mind you - were not of Slavic origin, but of royal Macedonian descent from the nobility of Thessaloniki. These scholars found it suitable to introduce a very old script already present in its secret use among scholars of the age. They created a Glagollitic script first, only to obtain the support of Vatican, and later released the “new” script Cyrillic, which proves today to have a strong resemblance to earlier scripts of that kind found on rocks in Macedonia, and other written records from the 5th century, and ever earlier in the period BC.

With the Cyrillic literacy, a new form of Byzantine expansion took place. Slavic Byzantium! It spread its influence as north as the Russian steppes. How else do you think the Orthodox Christianity got to the Russians? One cannot say the Greeks took it there! Because it was the Macedonian Slavs who took up the mission to preach the Gospel to the Slavic population of the Middle Ages! The modern Orthodoxy owes a great deal to the work of the Macedonian priesthood of that time (9th and 10th centuries AD).

Parallel to the Byzantine Orthodoxy, a new wave of Bogomil Christianity (Gnostic dualistic teaching which was proclaimed a heresy in Byzantium, and those who preached it were persecuted) started spreading in Macedonia originally from Armenia, which gave rise to a new population in moving forward the feudal society to the next epoch. The rise of Samuil’s kingdom is the outcome of this movement. And much further, the European Protestantism had its origins in this movement!

The Middle Ages were turbulent, first because of the migrations, and the Mongolic raids, such as that of the Bulgarians, than later again in the 12th century onward because of the Crusader raids, so Macedonia was constantly exposed to raids and attacks, wars and terror that it is not a wonder that Macedonian settlements from that period can be located higher in the mountain regions, and the cities were sometimes even abandoned. It was the RAIDERS TIME!!! The Crusaders!!!




THE CRUSADERS

The Byzantine Empire was taken over by a group of Crusaders who formed the Latin Empire which lasted only 60 years in the 13th century, enough to shake the foundations of Byzantium and expose it to a grave danger with the Turkish tribes who raided the Empire’s territory and made it very unstable to sustain. Riots started and new kingdoms emerged!

The Balkan nations were in the process of creation here, and the smaller kingdoms were striving to gain independence from Byzantium, which was insecure and unstable for many peripheral tribes, that they preferred to try it on their own. Byzantium was something like the EU today, with the KOINE script and language as its official language, but ruled by Kings and Queens from various ethnic origins. There were Greek there too, besides the Macedonian and others!

This trend remained until the Turkish penetration deep into Byzantine territory!


TURKISH MACEDONIA (SLAVERY):

The first 200 years of the Turkish rule were difficult all over the Balkans. The population that stayed here was called “raya” by the Turks and was treated as slaves. Young children were taken to be raised as Turkish soldiers, who came to conquer their own people in behalf of the Turkish Empire. Women were kidnapped and raped, villagers slain, property taken away, and much more… There are many accounts of this practice all over the Balkans.
As Turkey was maturing throughout the 5 hundred years, the western powers were putting more and more political pressure on the Turkish state to at least allow religious freedom to the occupied people. The Sultans were reluctant at first, but later allowed the Greek Church to preach in some areas.

The Bulgarian church was claiming the same right, so was the Macedonian! But in 1765 the Greek patriarchs claimed that the Macedonian church leaders were plotting against the empire, and the Macedonian church (the Ohrid Archbishop Church) was closed. Then the Bulgarian and Greek churches started fighting for believers all across Macedonia.

During the Renaissance period when scholars of the Christian world turned their attention to science, mathematics and philosophy, Muslim scholars from occupied Spain lead them to the discovery of the ancient Greek world. Scholars, fascinated by the discovery, began to translate ancient works and published books that popularized the exploits of the Ancient Greeks making them famous worldwide.
The next turning point took place in the early 1820’s when Greece rebelled, unsuccessfully, against five hundred years of Ottoman rule but her fame in the world turned the tide in her favor.
The rebellion prompted a harsh response from Turkey against the Greek people and gained the attention of the world. Cries of sympathy and protests prompted the superpowers France, Britain and Russia to dispatch their navies and liberate Greece. At that time Greece was a small country at the foot of the Balkans, its population was a mix of indigenous Greeks, Albanians, Vlahs, Slavs, Turks and other minorities.
The unexpected liberation caught the small country by surprise and threw her population into chaos, struggling to assert their individual identities. With help from her allies she recovered and began to rebuild. During this crucial period of soul searching, Greece forged new ideas that would later have negative consequences for Macedonia.
With allied help, the Greek people formed a new government, crowned a king, revised history, created a literary language, instituted education, created a military and began to plan territorial expansions, all in a span of a few decades. The Ottoman Empire was weakening and there would be plenty of opportunities for acquiring new territories in the future. While the military was planning campaigns, scholars were busy forging a new identity for the Greek people. The new nation would be called Hellas and its people Helene. A well-chosen name and identity that would serve Greece well in the future!!!
Forward thinking politicians, revisionists and policy makers made sure nothing was left to chance. They literally designed the new nation to take advantage of the past and to exploit the future. These were also the people who decided Macedonia’s fate for the future.
Later, there were the Turkish-Greek wars, and eventually the Turkish revolution lead by the great Ataturk shook the empire a great deal.

Macedonians couldn't take advantage of the situation as our neighbors did, because of the Greek, Bulgarian, and later Serbian propagandas that took place in Macedonian territories. They were all claiming that there were no Macedonians; they were either claiming us to be Serbian, Bulgarian or Greek.

The very old traditional songs we still sing, tell us of these times. These songs were not taught to us in schools!!! Because we never had our schools, at least not until after the WW2! These songs were taught to us by ancestry. Oral tradition! Like the Celts!

Greece, due to her ownership of Christian interests inside Macedonia, was granted unrestricted access in and out of Ottoman territory, provided it was for religious purposes only. Since the abolition of the Macedonian Church in 1767 by Sultan Mustafa III of the Ottomans, having no other choice, Macedonians turned to the Greek Church for prayer. Up until the middle of the 19th century the Greek Church had exclusive rights over Christianity inside the Ottoman Empire.
At that time the Ottoman administration was not yet reformed and functioned very poorly at best. There was no statistical information available regarding the composition of nationalities in the region. When the Ottomans took a census they were only interested in numbers relating to religious affiliation mainly consisting of Muslims and Christians, not nationalities. The lack of proper statistics was opportune for the Greek census takers who quickly took advantage of the situation and cleverly substituted “Greek” for “Christian” in the old Ottoman census.
Well, Macedonians attempted to rise against the powerful Turkish Empire too early in 1903, and in stead of being supported, we were sabotaged by the Bulgarians, and Greek. This lead to Macedonia and Albania's remaining under Turkish rule until the Balkan Wars.

When Turkey was much weakened by the many wars, and internal changes that took place at the beginning of the 20th century, our neighbors decided to fight against Turkey in order to liberate Macedonia an Albania from the weak Turkish Empire. What a great deed they have done!

THE BALKAN WARS 1912-1913, THE WW1 1914-1918 and WW2 1940-1945, and GREEK CIVIL WAR (ETHNIC CLEANSING) 1946-1949

The “internationals” started the first Balkan War in 1912 only to liberate Albania and Macedonia from the Turkish rule. Albania was established as a state with the help of the western powers: Austo-Hungary and England. Macedonia had to go through another war, this time among the neighbors: Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece.

After the first Balkan War Macedonia was divided between Greece and Serbia. Bulgaria reacted by starting the second Balkan War, recruiting people from Macedonia to fight against Serbia. This is exactly what Serbian side did as well. So it turned out that brothers were recruited in different armies, to fight against each other! Or in other words, Macedonian people were recruited by Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek armies and forced to fight against each other in a fratricidal war. This is something our neighbors would deny even today, claiming that we have not existed in that time. Just because they have not integrated us politically as a different nation in their state, but wished to assimilate us totally, doesn't mean that my grandparents didn't exist. Because they did, and I am the proof!
However, after the Balkan Wars, the WW1 started and it all went downhill again. After the WW1 Macedonians representatives were not invited to attend the Versailles Conference, moreover they were sabotaged again, so Macedonia was again divided among the neighbors. This was the hardest time for all Macedonians.
As soon as Greece consolidated her control over her share of Macedonia she initiated ethnic cleansing. Macedonians affiliated with the Exarchist Church were expatriated. Serbia exerted no influence in this region, so there were no Serbians to expatriate. After the purges, the population was forced to take an oath of allegiance to the Greek Nation and denounce all others including their own. Those who refused were expatriated.

It wasn't until the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which recognized the Macedonian people in 1936, that we started to gain a grip of our own national identity, carefully, so that we don't piss anyone off!

In the meantime, the Macedonians in Bulgaria and Greece were exposed to a tremendous acts of assimilation, ethnic cleansing and even a genocide as that of 1946-1949.
At the conclusion of the war with Turkey (1920’s), Greece initiated new assimilation policies in Macedonia to forcibly Hellenize the Macedonian nation. The policies required that every name be changed to have a “Greek sounding” character. Those with Slav names were required to choose or were given new names. All traces of Cyrillic writing found in public buildings, churches, gravestones, etc. Were erased. Macedonian toponyms were also changed. Every village, mountain, lake, stream, river and road was given a Greek name. Law prohibited speaking the Macedonian language. A heavy dose of castor oil was punishment for a child caught speaking Macedonian. A hefty fine was punishment for an adult. Those who needed to communicate to do their jobs were in real trouble. For some it was safer not to speak than to risk being fined. Even animals (dogs, oxen, horses, donkeys, etc.) had to be re-educated to obey commands in Greek. Old people who could not afford the fines were sent to court and had to pay by court order, even if they had to sell their meager assets (donkey).
The next turning point was the Greek civil war (1946-1949). In spite of all attempts by Greece to ethically cleanse, forcibly assimilate, Helenize, and suppress the Macedonian nation, its Macedonian identity remained alive. During the occupation (World War II), free from Greek oppression, Macedonians began to publicly re-assert their identities. They began to talk, sing and publicly perform plays in Macedonian. Some learned to read and write for the first time using the Cyrillic alphabet. The Greek Communist Party having influence in the region took advantage of this. They promised the Macedonian people equal rights and recognition of the Macedonian nationality under the Greek nation. This created a division between those who wanted an independent Macedonia and those who wanted partnership with Greece. Greek military forces pushed out, the Partisans who wanted an independent Macedonia, across the Yugoslav border where they joined the Macedonian brigades there. The rest fought side by side with the Greeks. After the expulsion of Germany and Italy they again fought side by side with the Communist Greeks in the Greek civil war, and lost. No equal rights or recognition of the Macedonian nationality ever materialized. In contrast, the Macedonian contribution for liberating Yugoslavia from the Fascists was rewarded with the creation of the People’s Republic of Macedonia. The Macedonian people earned their place in the world by shedding blood. But Greece is still refusing to recognize them, insisting on calling them Skopians (in the Republic of Macedonia).
For their bloodshed in liberating Greece from the Fascists, the Macedonian people were rewarded with more ethnic cleansing. During the Greek civil war tens of thousands of refugee children ages four to fourteen were rounded up and evacuated to Eastern Block countries (spring of 1948). Later they were not allowed to return. Greece prepared carefully worded laws to include Greek (by origin) and exclude Macedonian children from returning. Then in the fall of 1949 the general population from Macedonia, mainly for the Lerin and Kostour regions, was evacuated as war refugees. Most of those who left the country were not allowed to come back, not even to visit family, attend funerals or light a candle at the graves of their loved ones. Between 1945 and 1949 the Macedonian demographic was so drastically altered that Macedonians became a minority in their native land.

Extract from a text titled: Baba Lena, a living witness’ account on the events from 1946-1949 in Greece:
Baba Lena is my best friend’s grandma and she is a living witness to the most recent acts of ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide against the Macedonian people, which happened in Greece (Aegean Macedonia) between 1946-1949.

Baba Lena is a woman of a lovely personality, and a modest smile, and she loves to sing traditional Macedonian songs. Despite her turbulent life, in which she lost many members of her family, she spent five years away from her baby daughter, lost her husband, and reunited again, and moved from country to country, in instability and fear, arriving in Tetovo, Macedonia, where she lives now, never to go back to her village again, she still loves to talk about it a lot, the games she played as a child in the village, the smell of the fields in summer. She has a vivid memory of the events from that time, and she loves to talk about it so much that it would be ungrateful not to record any of it. Sometimes we sit together, sing songs (she has a beautiful voice, just like Toshe, maybe because she was born on the same date as him), and talk about those dreadful times, when, as she puts it, Hell was on Earth.

She was born in the village of Strko (Plati in Greek), on the 25 January 1923, in what is today Greece, Aegean Macedonia. Her father’s name was Trajko (Evstratios in Greek), and her mother’s name was Tronda (Triendaphilia in Greek). She doesn’t fully remember when they introduced the Greek names, since she was very young. It must have been somewhere between 1926-1928. She surely knows that her grandparents could speak no Greek whatsoever; they spoke Macedonian only, as Baba Lena witnesses. Her father, besides Macedonian spoke Greek too, and her mom didn’t know the foreign language. However, at school they learned in Greek, and spoke Greek in public with others, but when with friends and family they spoke Macedonian as well. It wasn’t easy for the children, Baba Lena remembers, because it was a foreign language for them as well as their parents.

They could have forgotten the mother tongue and learned the Greek language easily, but there was a problem: the Macedonian traditional songs, they were so beautiful! And she loved to sing them in her mother tongue!
…
In 1939, when she was only 16, she remembers the army came and mobilized the men from her village. It was a Greek army. There were rumors that, Italians might land in Albania and hit on the Greek border. On 28 October 1940 the event finally happened, and Italy occupied Albania and attacked Greece along the border, which was very close to Baba Lena’s village. It was a Monday, she recalls!
…
She married Grandpa Leko (Alexandros in Greek) in 1943 on 21 November. In the spring of 1944 the Germans came to the village, they went from house to house and didn’t do much harm to anyone. In 1945, she says, there was silence!

In 1946 the Greek dictator Metaxa was elected president of Greece, and Baba Lena remembers that Macedonian language was totally ruled out of use. Until then they could speak, now and then, a bit of their mother tongue, but since this moment in history they were forbidden to use Macedonian at all. If caught they were taken to court and prosecuted, and imprisoned and beaten, sometimes to death. Just because of using their mother tongue! Outrageous!!!

Many have suffered from spies and people who would frame the humble Macedonian villagers by alleging them to have spoken Macedonian. There were people sitting at the water springs in the centre of the village, recalls Baba Lena, watching over the villagers, who would come to fill water for their households, and eliciting them to say even a word in their own language. This was very common since our villagers were not educated, and could not speak Greek perfectly, so they would say a word in Macedonian sometimes, which was fatal to them! They would be taken to the court, prosecuted, imprisoned, beaten to death!

How barbaric!!! How inhumane!!! The cradle of modern democracy has its foundations in cruel dictatorship and genocide! And this policy has prevailed throughout the democratic times of Greece, and even now in its European epoch, Greece does not do anything to soothe this shameful past; moreover, Greece is even fiercer in fighting against the Macedonian cause, and even more enthusiastic in telling the world lies about the Macedonians. They have long proclaimed us non-existent! I couldn’t disagree more having a living witness to the shameful deeds Greece had done, sitting here next to me, talking to me face to face! You know, those wrinkles on her face, tell the story on its own. Yet, Baba Lena amazes me with her spirit, and her caring smile, which haven’t faded at all throughout the years and the troubles she had. I am so grateful to have met her!
…
Besides the dictator’s military forces there were bandits, raiding the poor villages, taking away food, clothes, cattle, harassing the population. Life was already becoming hell for Baba Lena, and the worst was yet to come.

Things changed to better a bit in 1947. There was no school in that year. They removed all the old Greek teachers. The socialists had taken over, and there was a partisan movement spreading among the people. They started an Assembly, and in the village of German, they started a course in basic Macedonian. Baba Lena says they were just teaching the alphabet with poor literature, and it was going on for a couple of months only. It was their first school in Macedonian, at least since she was born. The times were so turbulent that she couldn’t have been happy about this, since her husband had to go with the partisans, and fight for the liberation of Macedonia and Greece from the dictatorship. It was 12 May 1947, in the small hours, he left with the partisans. He had to, because he was seen helping a wounded partisan earlier that spring, so if he didn’t leave, the Greek army would have arrested him and killed him in prison. That’s what they did! Once, he was beaten - Baba Lena recalls - whipped with a belt, and brought home covered in blood. She cried a lot!
The bombardment continued every day. The hills were burning, houses were destroyed, people killed. It was very risky to keep the children in the villages, so the partisan committee decided to send the children as refugees in other countries. The women were digging trenches and the men were fighting defensive battles.

On 3 April 1948 they decided to take away the children. They took young Ljuba, Baba Lena’s firstborn. It must have been heartbreaking for both of them, as well as many other mothers! They could not have known where they would take them, and if they would live at all!!! They heard that they took the children in Resen, on Yugoslavian side. They placed them in a village called Ljubojno. They suffered from hunger then, Baba Lena recalls. The children were hungry, the parents under a siege! What a trap!!!

They heard that the children were taken to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and her Ljuba was taken to Hungary. The men were drafted in the partisan movement. In 1948 the women were also drafted and the villages remained empty with only a few elders who could not fight. They were knitting socks for the partisans, or providing some food that remained in the storehouses. The villages became a waste land!!!
…
On 10 August 1949 the Greek army started the total cleansing by bombarding the villages and the area non-stop for three days. Baba Lena says that it had been a dreadful sight to look upon. Hills burning, houses devastated, bodies scattered, people covered in dirt and blood, wounded crying… During the day there were bombs, and at night the planes dropped nails to sabotage the movement of vehicles, if any.

On 13 August that year, Baba Lena, together with those who survived, was given orders to redraw from the village of Smrdez, over the village of V’mbel (Moskohori in Greek) to the Albanian border. They had been walking down the slopes of a very rocky mountain, all night in pitch dark, when Baba Lena tumbled down the hill and woke up with her foot twisted backwards. Her bones broken, her leg swelling, with a battle going on downhill! There was fire all through the night, gunshots, detonations, trees burning… Her partisan friends didn’t leave her, risking their lives alongside hers. Three of them, her heroes that she would never forget and will always be grateful to for saving her life, Petkana Nechovska (now in Tetovo – her best friend), Filip Miovski (who now lives in Gostivar), and Vangelija Noachoska (who lived in Australia). These three young people, took her on their hands, swapping turns every now and then, moving through the frontline, on a rocky mountain, to bring her to a save shelter. What a heroic deed! – She claims through tears. In truth!
…
They lived in Tashkent from 1952 to 1971 and then they heard that the Socialistic Republic of Macedonia, through Yugoslavia, was offering the Macedonian refugees from the Greek civil war 1946-1949, housing and employment in some of the cities, among which Tetovo. They were selected for Tetovo. Another big change in her life! This time for better they hoped.

And it was better then all the turmoil that she had been through in her life, she was finally among her own family. Even though she never recovered from her loss of the homeland, the family and friends she had there. She still loves to talk mostly about her childhood, sing songs from that time, because it was the only time of innocence that her life had offered to her, as far as she could remember.

When the 2001 war in Macedonia threatened to revive the scenario of her youth in Tetovo as well, she was scared she would lose this home as well. Some of the Macedonian population was fiercely forced to leave Tetovo, because of constant threats by someone from the Albanian neighborhoods.

She is now still not sure of what life can bring, and since Toshe Proeski’s death, she believes it is our people’s destiny to suffer for the good of all.

We are the Sunshine of this World that is why we have it in our Hearts, she says.

So, mote it be!

SOCIALIST MACEDONIA 1945-1990 and INDEPENDENT MACEDONIA 1990-

During the socialist time, the Republic of Macedonian existed as a federal state within the Yugoslavian federation. When Yugoslavia fell apart, and Macedonians started their independent existence, for the firs time after a long while, Bulgaria, but mostly Greece started putting pressure on us by claiming that we don't exist, we have no right to call ourselves Macedonians, we should take a different name. The name is our true legacy!

By claiming this, the Greek propaganda inspired thousands of young people from Macedonia to educate themselves about our history and we came across amazing facts, which have been lost during the Turkish reign in this region. We discovered that we have strong links with the Ancient Macedonians, not just culturally but also linguistically and genetically. The Rock Art findings in Macedonia prove that there was literacy even before the “Greek” period of Macedonia. There has never been such a period, although the Greek archeology is constantly attempting to neglect the factual conditions and claim their propagandist agenda from the recent past (particularly the agenda developed during the dictatorship of Metaxas 1936-1941).

Greece has never been fiercer in denying the truth about Macedonia! However, there is a huge array of scientific evidence coming out everywhere!