Gruevski proposes "two-tier formula"

If Skopje is Macedonia Australia is Chinese!!!

Skopje should stop trying to steal someone else's name and upsetting her neighbours.

And they should pay attention to the real threat - the Albanians in their borders who want to further "Greater Albania" at the expense of Slavs and Greeks in the Balkans.....

The Slavic macedonians need to wake up. They can claim all they want, Aleksander was a Greek, not a slavic macedonian.

I am Serbian, and I think that the Macedonians ( Slavic) need to wake up. They need Greece as an ally, because god knows the albanians are gonna want to secede western macedonia in the next 10, 15 years.

Also, the serbain government needs to withdraw its name recognition of Macedonia. The old yugoslavia is over, so no need to call them by that name. Furthermore, they recognized kosovo udi, so we should retract from calling them macedonia.

That's politics right? Nothing against the slavic macedons, but if your government recognizes the UDI, then its a two way street.

> ..one name in communications with Greece, another for all other states.
Yeah - that'll work.

Very few people -myself included-expected any resolution to the current impasse.Gruevski is using the whole name issue in order to distract his impoverished citizens from more important issues such as 35% unemployment,dismal public services , which his goverment
has failed dismally to address, thus the "name issue" becomes a nationalistic posturing by a goverment unfit to be in office.

If one looks at Gruevski's actions vis-a-vis Greece,since he came to power,ie misnaming monuments ,highways,airports and streets after antiquity figures one gets the sense that he is pretending standing up for Fyrom.The truth is that he isn't but the average citizen is either to stupid or inept to realise that.

Certainly in Fyrom,the average Ahmeti on the street
expects NATO and the EU as some kind of panacea that will address all the problems
and noone is prepared to blame gruevski and his coterie-a useless pathetic bunch memsmerised by the abuse of power.

Wasn't this double-name formula already proposed and shot down? Gruevski is sounding like a broken record.

All greek nationalists should learn the facts about Macedonia before they have any expectaions about the name. It seems they have selective and limited knowledge on that subject.
To begin, Macedonia and greece have always been identified as two different lands. Never, once again, NEVER, have the name Macedonia and greece been interchangable.
The fact is that greece annexed a portion of Macedonia after the partition in 1913. The same way they annexed Thessaly in 1881. Another fact is that the word "Macedonia" was forbidden and illigal to be used in greece for a period of approx. 75 years(1913-1988). It was in 1988 that all of sudden greece fell in love with Macedonia the word and the history of the country. What happened during that 75 years? Prison, harassment, torture and even murder is what happened. All of this happened simply for saying the word Macedonia let alone saying one was Macedoinan or speaking the Macedonian language. The Province the greeks are so in love with now was called "Northern Greece" untill 1988 when all of a sudden it was renamed. Of course the greeks deny all of this, but I challenge any greek(including Leonidas and Pavlos) to try to study the greek archives and clear this up for all interested.
Once your greek gov't denies you access to all the information, you may be interested in two books that may clear all this up even for the greeks. The first is "MACEDONIA AND GREECE" written by John Shea, and the other is "MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS" written by Andrew Rossos. In case you don't recognise the name, it is greek. Both these authors attempted to study the greek archives so they may reveal the greek side of the story. As expected though, the greek gov't denied them access. They went to other countries such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia, France, England and Turkey. All of these countries welcomed them to all the information they had. It was ONLY THE GREEKS that denied them the information they looked for.
These books clearly reveal that greece has USERPED the name Macedonia and its history. They are trying to hide the truth but are unable to because the facts are also outside of the greek propaganda machine and far from the reach of the greek politicians.
For 75 years greece tried to eliminate any reference to Macedonia but failed. Now they want to claim it as there own because they are afraid the truth will be revealed and the world will know the lies and false propaganda the greeks were trying to spread.
Gruevski is applauded by many outside of his own Republic of Macedonia as well as inside for standing up for the TRUTH and not being bullied by any greek.
He is actually being reasonable by even considering the greeks. If the greeks have a valid argument they should open up their archives and let people find out the truth. It is clear they are hiding the truth because they are afraid of it.

Can anyone here propose a better solution? What should Macedonians call themselves and their country? FYROM is a terrible name?

Frankly this whole dispute is ridiculous. I can't understand why Greece is so paranoid and insecure about this issue. Do they truly feel their territorial integrity is vulnerable? That Macedonian hordes are amassing across the border ready to invade as soon as Greece recognizes the country with some form of 'Macedonia' in its name? Get real. Everyone knows Alexander the Great was Greek, not a slav. There are dozens examples of names of countries, states, cities, rivers, etc. that are mis-named given strict historical circumstances, but the names hold anyway.

Macedonia needs to wait until the political circumstances in Greece are not so complicated. Adressing this issue now won't have any positive influece abroad. I'm not sure how the slav Macedonians feel about this considering everything else going on there related to the financial crisis. Anyone from Macedonia care to comment?

The answer to Marco's question is simple. Yugoslavia no longer exists and therefore FYROM is no longer a valid name. Yugoslavia was a federation of republics one of which was REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA. The common sense name now would be its constitutional name REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA.
The greeks, however, are not too warm and fuzzy about that. The simple reason for that is they are afraid the truth would be uncovered as to how they acquired the northern province which since 1988 they renamed from "Northern greece" to "Macedonia".
The greeks are insecure because the facts about how they expelled hundreds of thousands of Macedonians from their homeland(Agean Macedonia) in the early to mid 1900's would be uncovered. That doesn't include approximately 28,000 children between the ages of 2 and 14 in 1948 alone. Agean Macedonia is another name for the province greece acquired in 1913 after the partition of the then much larger country of Macedonia. The Ottoman empire ruled that land for nearly 5 centuries and after its collapse, greece, Serbia and Bulgaria each annexed a portion of it. The books in the comment previous to yours (#6) explain this and greek insecurity in very good detail. They (greeks) are simply afraid that Macedonia will try to re-unify. With the population exchange they participated in along with Turkey and Bulgaria, that seems hardly likely. None of the Macedonians which were expelled can ever go back since greece denies them entry to their homeland. Of course, greece just denies this ever happened. As long as Macedonia was under the cloak of Yugoslavia, that was easy for them to do. Both greece and Yugoslavia were allies in this cover-up. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia, greece is now alone to deny and cover-up all these facts.
One important fact which you are mistaken about is that Aleksandar the Great was not greek, he was Macedonian. Both he and his father, Phillip, were Macedonians who conquered greece. That hardly makes them greek. If that were the case, then the Romans would also be greek along with the Ottomans since they both conquered greece. Greece was not even a country until the early 1800's(1821). If you are really interested in the truth, you should seek information outside of the greek propaganda machine and out of the influence of the greek politicians( such as these books).
The greeks simply want to hide and cover-up the truth. If this were not the case, greece would not deny access to archives to historians who would like to study and uncover the greek side of this subject.
I suppose some greeks are not to blame because that is what they have been taught and don't know any better(you can't blame them for being ignorant). I don't mean this in a crule manner, it is just what they have been taught in the greek education system. Others simply deny and refuse to accept the truth when faced with it.
A good question deserves a good answer. These are just a few of many reasons greece is insecure. The two books mentioned in comment #6 have many more facts to answer all your questons.
Thanks for asking and showing the desire to learn the truth. You are an example for many greeks to follow.

First of all, we macedonians are not stealing anything. the greeks only look at ancient history from over 2000 years ago to explain the present, but look at more recent history. have you ever heard of the internal MACEDONIAN revolutionary organization? this was long before macedonia became a republic of jugoslavija. the identity of the people in macedonia at the time of the iMro was serbian, bulgarian, greek and vlach yet they all considered themselves macedonians first -i.e Macedonian Serb, Macedonian Bulgarian- and the goal of the iMro was an independent MACEDONIA not annexation, that was the goal of the external organization. so a macedonian consciousness has existed in modern macedonia longer than the greeks make it seem.

My ancestors come from Serbia, yet i am macedonian. like ancient macedonia, modern macedonia was multinational. there were macedonians, illyrians, thracians and paionians in the kingdom of macedonia -which means that alot more than 10% of modern macedonia was part of ancient macedonia, more like 80% once alexander annexed paionia to the kingdom- and throughout history the region of macedonia has had serbs, bulgars, turks, vlachs, greeks, albanians and who knows what else. We Macedonians have different backgrounds, as you have seen on this board from serbian to belarusian. Only the greeks try to make everything pure blooded, and thats why some people replace the cross on the greek flag with a swastika.

also for the serbs, i have not met one Macedonian -and i am in macedonia right now on vacation- that supports or supported recognizing kosovo, but we have our own problems with albanians and we are a weak country with no support from any of our neighbors for anything whatsoever, so what are we supposed to do if our government recognizes kosovo, have a riot? when was the last time serbia rioted for us? BTW i love how all the neo-politicians on here try to make it seem like serbs and macedonians have bad relations with each other, try coming to a country and seeing what it is like before judging it. all summer long here in macedonia at the lakeside town of ohrid at least 85% of the tourists are serbs and every macedonian says they love serbia and knows every turbofolk song and more than half of the Maks in the north and west of macedonia have family in serbia and the rest have friends in serbia. dont let the news tell you what the reality on the ground is. Just because the government was forced to recognize kosovo by the albanian mafia does not mean macedonians and serbs are not close.

If Skopje is Macedonia Australia is Chinese!!!

Skopje should stop trying to steal someone else's name and upsetting her neighbours.

And they should pay attention to the real threat - the Albanians in their borders who want to further "Greater Albania" at the expense of Slavs and Greeks in the Balkans.....

All greek nationalists should learn the facts about Macedonia before they have any expectaions about the name. It seems they have selective and limited knowledge on that subject.
To begin, Macedonia and greece have always been identified as two different lands. Never, once again, NEVER, have the name Macedonia and greece been interchangable.
The fact is that greece annexed a portion of Macedonia after the partition in 1913. The same way they annexed Thessaly in 1881. Another fact is that the word "Macedonia" was forbidden and illigal to be used in greece for a period of approx. 75 years(1913-1988). It was in 1988 that all of sudden greece fell in love with Macedonia the word and the history of the country. What happened during that 75 years? Prison, harassment, torture and even murder is what happened. All of this happened simply for saying the word Macedonia let alone saying one was Macedoinan or speaking the Macedonian language. The Province the greeks are so in love with now was called "Northern Greece" untill 1988 when all of a sudden it was renamed. Of course the greeks deny all of this, but I challenge any greek(including Leonidas and Pavlos) to try to study the greek archives and clear this up for all interested.
Once your greek gov't denies you access to all the information, you may be interested in two books that may clear all this up even for the greeks. The first is "MACEDONIA AND GREECE" written by John Shea, and the other is "MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS" written by Andrew Rossos. In case you don't recognise the name, it is greek. Both these authors attempted to study the greek archives so they may reveal the greek side of the story. As expected though, the greek gov't denied them access. They went to other countries such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia, France, England and Turkey. All of these countries welcomed them to all the information they had. It was ONLY THE GREEKS that denied them the information they looked for.
These books clearly reveal that greece has USERPED the name Macedonia and its history. They are trying to hide the truth but are unable to because the facts are also outside of the greek propaganda machine and far from the reach of the greek politicians.
For 75 years greece tried to eliminate any reference to Macedonia but failed. Now they want to claim it as there own because they are afraid the truth will be revealed and the world will know the lies and false propaganda the greeks were trying to spread.
Gruevski is applauded by many outside of his own Republic of Macedonia as well as inside for standing up for the TRUTH and not being bullied by any greek.
He is actually being reasonable by even considering the greeks. If the greeks have a valid argument they should open up their archives and let people find out the truth. It is clear they are hiding the truth because they are afraid of it.

Can anyone here propose a better solution? What should Macedonians call themselves and their country? FYROM is a terrible name?

Frankly this whole dispute is ridiculous. I can't understand why Greece is so paranoid and insecure about this issue. Do they truly feel their territorial integrity is vulnerable? That Macedonian hordes are amassing across the border ready to invade as soon as Greece recognizes the country with some form of 'Macedonia' in its name? Get real. Everyone knows Alexander the Great was Greek, not a slav. There are dozens examples of names of countries, states, cities, rivers, etc. that are mis-named given strict historical circumstances, but the names hold anyway.

Macedonia needs to wait until the political circumstances in Greece are not so complicated. Adressing this issue now won't have any positive influece abroad. I'm not sure how the slav Macedonians feel about this considering everything else going on there related to the financial crisis. Anyone from Macedonia care to comment?

Very few people -myself included-expected any resolution to the current impasse.Gruevski is using the whole name issue in order to distract his impoverished citizens from more important issues such as 35% unemployment,dismal public services , which his goverment
has failed dismally to address, thus the "name issue" becomes a nationalistic posturing by a goverment unfit to be in office.

If one looks at Gruevski's actions vis-a-vis Greece,since he came to power,ie misnaming monuments ,highways,airports and streets after antiquity figures one gets the sense that he is pretending standing up for Fyrom.The truth is that he isn't but the average citizen is either to stupid or inept to realise that.

Certainly in Fyrom,the average Ahmeti on the street
expects NATO and the EU as some kind of panacea that will address all the problems
and noone is prepared to blame gruevski and his coterie-a useless pathetic bunch memsmerised by the abuse of power.

The Slavic macedonians need to wake up. They can claim all they want, Aleksander was a Greek, not a slavic macedonian.

I am Serbian, and I think that the Macedonians ( Slavic) need to wake up. They need Greece as an ally, because god knows the albanians are gonna want to secede western macedonia in the next 10, 15 years.

Also, the serbain government needs to withdraw its name recognition of Macedonia. The old yugoslavia is over, so no need to call them by that name. Furthermore, they recognized kosovo udi, so we should retract from calling them macedonia.

That's politics right? Nothing against the slavic macedons, but if your government recognizes the UDI, then its a two way street.

> ..one name in communications with Greece, another for all other states.
Yeah - that'll work.

Wasn't this double-name formula already proposed and shot down? Gruevski is sounding like a broken record.

The answer to Marco's question is simple. Yugoslavia no longer exists and therefore FYROM is no longer a valid name. Yugoslavia was a federation of republics one of which was REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA. The common sense name now would be its constitutional name REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA.
The greeks, however, are not too warm and fuzzy about that. The simple reason for that is they are afraid the truth would be uncovered as to how they acquired the northern province which since 1988 they renamed from "Northern greece" to "Macedonia".
The greeks are insecure because the facts about how they expelled hundreds of thousands of Macedonians from their homeland(Agean Macedonia) in the early to mid 1900's would be uncovered. That doesn't include approximately 28,000 children between the ages of 2 and 14 in 1948 alone. Agean Macedonia is another name for the province greece acquired in 1913 after the partition of the then much larger country of Macedonia. The Ottoman empire ruled that land for nearly 5 centuries and after its collapse, greece, Serbia and Bulgaria each annexed a portion of it. The books in the comment previous to yours (#6) explain this and greek insecurity in very good detail. They (greeks) are simply afraid that Macedonia will try to re-unify. With the population exchange they participated in along with Turkey and Bulgaria, that seems hardly likely. None of the Macedonians which were expelled can ever go back since greece denies them entry to their homeland. Of course, greece just denies this ever happened. As long as Macedonia was under the cloak of Yugoslavia, that was easy for them to do. Both greece and Yugoslavia were allies in this cover-up. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia, greece is now alone to deny and cover-up all these facts.
One important fact which you are mistaken about is that Aleksandar the Great was not greek, he was Macedonian. Both he and his father, Phillip, were Macedonians who conquered greece. That hardly makes them greek. If that were the case, then the Romans would also be greek along with the Ottomans since they both conquered greece. Greece was not even a country until the early 1800's(1821). If you are really interested in the truth, you should seek information outside of the greek propaganda machine and out of the influence of the greek politicians( such as these books).
The greeks simply want to hide and cover-up the truth. If this were not the case, greece would not deny access to archives to historians who would like to study and uncover the greek side of this subject.
I suppose some greeks are not to blame because that is what they have been taught and don't know any better(you can't blame them for being ignorant). I don't mean this in a crule manner, it is just what they have been taught in the greek education system. Others simply deny and refuse to accept the truth when faced with it.
A good question deserves a good answer. These are just a few of many reasons greece is insecure. The two books mentioned in comment #6 have many more facts to answer all your questons.
Thanks for asking and showing the desire to learn the truth. You are an example for many greeks to follow.

First of all, we macedonians are not stealing anything. the greeks only look at ancient history from over 2000 years ago to explain the present, but look at more recent history. have you ever heard of the internal MACEDONIAN revolutionary organization? this was long before macedonia became a republic of jugoslavija. the identity of the people in macedonia at the time of the iMro was serbian, bulgarian, greek and vlach yet they all considered themselves macedonians first -i.e Macedonian Serb, Macedonian Bulgarian- and the goal of the iMro was an independent MACEDONIA not annexation, that was the goal of the external organization. so a macedonian consciousness has existed in modern macedonia longer than the greeks make it seem.

My ancestors come from Serbia, yet i am macedonian. like ancient macedonia, modern macedonia was multinational. there were macedonians, illyrians, thracians and paionians in the kingdom of macedonia -which means that alot more than 10% of modern macedonia was part of ancient macedonia, more like 80% once alexander annexed paionia to the kingdom- and throughout history the region of macedonia has had serbs, bulgars, turks, vlachs, greeks, albanians and who knows what else. We Macedonians have different backgrounds, as you have seen on this board from serbian to belarusian. Only the greeks try to make everything pure blooded, and thats why some people replace the cross on the greek flag with a swastika.

also for the serbs, i have not met one Macedonian -and i am in macedonia right now on vacation- that supports or supported recognizing kosovo, but we have our own problems with albanians and we are a weak country with no support from any of our neighbors for anything whatsoever, so what are we supposed to do if our government recognizes kosovo, have a riot? when was the last time serbia rioted for us? BTW i love how all the neo-politicians on here try to make it seem like serbs and macedonians have bad relations with each other, try coming to a country and seeing what it is like before judging it. all summer long here in macedonia at the lakeside town of ohrid at least 85% of the tourists are serbs and every macedonian says they love serbia and knows every turbofolk song and more than half of the Maks in the north and west of macedonia have family in serbia and the rest have friends in serbia. dont let the news tell you what the reality on the ground is. Just because the government was forced to recognize kosovo by the albanian mafia does not mean macedonians and serbs are not close.