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[Loud Whispers]

So greece accepted agreement about Macedonia changing their name to North Macedonia , which, at least according to BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47002865 , caused lots of protest on Greece streets and division in government.
Can someone with more intimate knowledge about these events can explen why big part of Greece population are so upset? Doesn't name change alleviate fears about potential NM territorial ambitions and dibs on Greece cultural heritage? Or is there some other conflict beneath it?

Cultural appropriation & political consequences

[TD1]

I'm more interested in whether North Macedonia is, in terms of territory, more similar to ye olde Macedonia.

I mean, does the Greek province have greater territorial possession? It's not like they can be angry that "Macedonia" is a Greek name otherwise. It's the name of those who conquered Greece, who were at best tangentially related to Greece. It's like me, someone from the UK, getting angry that Saxony wanted to be an independent state, and the people wanted to be called "Saxons".

A genuine question, as my knowledge of non-ancient/medieval boundaries is quite lacking.

[ChairmanPoo]

IIRC 2/3rds of original Macedonia fall within modern Greece. NewMacedonia covers the final third. After that the issue devolves in which heavily admixtured population matches original Macedonians better, whose answer is probably "maybe Greek Macedonians a bit,, but probably neither". They argue a lot about North Macedonia or whatever you want to call it having heavy slavic influences in culture and populational dynamics, and shit like that, though.

You're absolutely right about ancient Greeks regarding Macedonians as foreigners, and while only tangential to the current  issue, it CAN be used to viciously troll modern Greeks, if you feel so inclined.  They go ballistic when you say Alexander wasn't Greek.

[scriver]

I'm more interested in whether North Macedonia is, in terms of territory, more similar to ye olde Macedonia.

I mean, does the Greek province have greater territorial possession? It's not like they can be angry that "Macedonia" is a Greek name otherwise. It's the name of those who conquered Greece, who were at best tangentially related to Greece. It's like me, someone from the UK, getting angry that Saxony wanted to be an independent state, and the people wanted to be called "Saxons".

A genuine question, as my knowledge of non-ancient/medieval boundaries is quite lacking.

You're example is missing one key aspect - in your example, both English and Saxons has a direct inheritance of the word (of which the Saxons are the stronger one, I'd like to say). It's more as if a bunch of Slavic people settled partially on the German Saxony and then started calling themselves Saxons too, and then modern German Saxons being pissed about that. Macedonians are Slavic and lacks any tie to ancient Macedonia beyond the area.

IIRC 2/3rds of original Macedonia fall within modern Greece. NewMacedonia covers the final third. After that the issue devolves in which heavily admixtured population matches original Macedonians better, whose answer is probably "maybe Greek Macedonians a bit,, but probably neither". They argue a lot about North Macedonia or whatever you want to call it having heavy slavic influences in culture and populational dynamics, and shit like that, though.

You're absolutely right about ancient Greeks regarding Macedonians as foreigners, and while only tangential to the current  issue, it CAN be used to viciously troll modern Greeks, if you feel so inclined.  They go ballistic when you say Alexander wasn't Greek.

The ancient Greek correctly didn't count the Macedonians as "Greek", but that doesn't change that the Macedonians were a Greek/Hellenic cultural branch that got integrated into the national identity that eventually would result in the modern Greek nationality. It's like claiming Birger Jarl, the "founding father" of Sweden, wasn't Swedish because he and his contemporaries considered him a Geat - Geats are part of the Swedish of today. Saying Alexander wasn't Greek is technically correct (and as such, I agree, an excellent source of lulz on par with claiming Tove Jansson wasn't Finnish) not exactly relevant to the conflict at hand. Alexander's Macedoniannes is a line that leads to modern Greekishness, not the completely unrelated Slavic Macedonians.

edit: I guess I pretty much just reiterated what you said, I should've read more closely before responding

[Madman198237]

North Macedonia seems to hold almost none of the most ancient borders of Macedonia....which fluctuated a lot anyway. To claim that calling themselves Macedonia is a statement that they intend to take back "their" Greek territories....what? Why don't you just claim that they're threating to redo Alexander's conquests of the ancient world by taking the name "Macedonia"? It makes just as much sense, after all.

[Reelya]

I'm more interested in whether North Macedonia is, in terms of territory, more similar to ye olde Macedonia.

I mean, does the Greek province have greater territorial possession? It's not like they can be angry that "Macedonia" is a Greek name otherwise. It's the name of those who conquered Greece, who were at best tangentially related to Greece. It's like me, someone from the UK, getting angry that Saxony wanted to be an independent state, and the people wanted to be called "Saxons".

A genuine question, as my knowledge of non-ancient/medieval boundaries is quite lacking.

The "borders" were meaningless. Modern scholars classify a region as "Greece" but no such borders actually existed. The region was first unified by Philip of Macedon into a nation which could be called "Greece" hence why Macedonia is important to Greek identity.

We only say Macedonians weren't "proper" Greeks because they came from outside some anachronistic borders of "Greece" that we now define. Sure, they came from outside the great city-states of the Greek peninsula, but that's meaningless.

Greeks were all over the place, with settlements ranging from the south coast of Spain in the west to Turkey and the Black sea in the east. So, just because Alexander's Macedonia wasn't in "classical Greece" that in no way indicates that they weren't ethnically Greek. Without DNA, the best way to determine it would be to ask what language Macedonians actually spoke. As far as I know there's no evidence that Macedonians spoke any language that wasn't Greek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#History

The Classical Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides reported the legend that the Macedonian kings of the Argead dynasty were descendants of Temenus, king of Argos, and could therefore claim the mythical Heracles as one of their ancestors as well as a direct lineage from Zeus, chief god of the Greek pantheon.

In Homer's Iliad, "Greek" as a blanket term didn't exist yet. One of the most common terms he uses to refer to Greeks as a whole is "Argives": derived from the name of the city of Argos, an important founding site of Mycenean Greece. If the kings in Macedonia were claiming to be descended from Argos and calling themselves the Argead Dynasty, that's a direct claim of Mycenean Greek heritage.

[redwallzyl]

If your asking about core territory overlap, there really is not much between ancient and modern Macedonia.

[Loud Whispers]

Disregard squabbles, rebuild Byzantine

[SaberToothTiger]

Macedonia doesn't have any right to claim historical territories of Macedonia, unlike Serbia, for Serbia is without beginning and end. Serbia is eternal. Greece is Serbia. Love is Serbia. Life is Serbia.

[Loud Whispers]

Falklands is Serbia
Taiwan is Serbia
Korea is Serbia
Tibet is Serbia
Levant is Serbia
Antarctica is Serbia
Crimea is Serbia
Mellila is Serbia
Kashmir is Serbia
Macedonia is Serbia

[SaberToothTiger]

Sweden is Serbia
Ecuador is Serbia
Russia is Serbia
Brazil is Serbia
Iran is Serbia
Australia is Serbia
Sri Lanka is Serbia
Togo is Serbia
Romania is Serbia
Oman is Serbia
Nigeria is Serbia
Guinea is Serbia

It's in the name

[hector13]

EA Sports is Serbia..?

[Teneb]

EA Sports is Serbia..?

No, it is a hell-dimension.

[Kagus]

EA Sports is Serbia..?

No, it is a hell-dimension.

Also Serbia.

[wierd]

EA Sports is Serbia..?

No, it is a hell-dimension.

Poor John madden... He hasn't been able to escape for years. This is what a deal with the devil looks like.