Talk:Ethnogenesis

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[edit] Greeks and Macedonians

Greeks in antiquity were in possession of diverse arrays of sophisticated disciplines of the first order: dramas, tragedies, myths, biographies, histories, sciences, material culture and a flair for exoticism, but not empire. And here, lies the greatest obstacle for the circle to be completed. Macedonians, on the other hand, were in possession of an empire and a handful of other disciplines necessary for the immediate needs and sustenance of it.

Droysen's idea to combine both, the Greeks and the Macedonians under one name is certainly appealing from a German point of view, since it finds analogous development of the German states under the strong leadership of Prussia; but it falls significantly short in balancing the immiscible union of contrastingly separate peoples.

Nineteenth century Greeks did not regard the Macedonians as people of the same ethnicity (Politis 1993:36; Dimaras 1958; Karagatsis, 1952).(1) Greeks in the late eighteen hundreds and earl nineteenth century viewed the Macedonians as conquerors of Greece. Only after the Megale Idea took up roots in the Greek scholarship, did Greeks embark on providing and securing 'evidence' for their new political vision; which was born and bred from the limbs of the rapidly decaying Ottoman Empire.

Macedonia was the only Balkan country left under the Turkish rule after the congress of Berlin in 1878. After the national uprising in 1903 that ended with catastrophic consequences for the Macedonian populace, the leadership of the country was largely decimated by the lawless bands of Turkish marauders, who mercilessly and indiscriminately slaughtered the defenseless masses. Consequently, the Macedonians found themselves too exhausted and leaderless, and lacked political will and stamina to rise up again and unite their bewildered and poor brethren into a cohesive political unit. This calamitous situation, coupled with the prevailing lawlessness and the "illness of the Sultan", was exploited by the neighbors of Macedonia who launch their own armed bands and political agitators to prepare, and secure for themselves a piece of the Macedonian territory.(2) Thus, the Serbs, the Bulgarians and the Greeks succeeded in partitioning Macedonia among themselves in 1913 with the treaty of Bucharest, and with this act most of ancient Macedonia was incorporated into the Greek state for the first time (Borza 1990).

Ever since then, Greece has fervently attempted to stamp a permanent Hellenic imprint on this land. The latest dispute about the name "Macedonia" between Greece and the newly proclaimed Macedonian Republic, which was created by the break up of Yugoslavia, signifies the enormity of the weight to establish and maintain connection with the ancient Macedonians. From the Republic of Macedonia's point of view, it is a matter of human rights and people's rights to call its own country any name its people wished to choose for it, while Greece views it as appropriation of cultural rights. For a more detailed analysis of the ongoing saga between Republic of Macedonia and Greece regarding ownership of the names "Macedonia", and "Macedonian", please see the recently published work "Macedonia: Cultural Right or Cultural Appropriation?" by Larry Reimer.(3)

At first glance the dispute appears to be centered on judicial matters of human rights, and people's right for self-determination, versus cultural inheritance, and cultural appropriation. This is the tip of the iceberg, wile the remaining bulk of the impasse is more splenetic one, and deals with who has the right to claim the ancient Macedonians as their progenitors; and thereby stake the claim on anything Macedonian.

Even though, establishing and proving a connection with the ancients is a tenuous adventure, the impetus and the stakes involved decidedly override the issue.(4) Thus, it is not surprising to find the Greeks passionately embroidered in support of their well known stands that ancient Macedonians were Greeks, and that ancient Macedonia was a Greek land.(5) Most of the Greek authors tend to show, and present uniformly packaged convictions that ancient Macedonians spoke the Greek language, had practiced the same religion as the other Greeks, that their personal names and place names are inevitably Greek (6) , and that ancient Macedonians came from the same stock as Greek people. In other words, these authors, as opposed to others whose believes are derived from their own personal convictions, tend to strictly adhere and taw the government line.(7)

It is interesting to note Peter Green's passage about modern Greeks' view of Alexander: "The Colonels, as it happened, promoted Alexander as a great Greek hero, especially to army recruits: the Greeks of the fourth century BC, to whom Alexander was a half-Macedonian, half Epirote barbarian conqueror, would have found this metamorphosis as ironic as I did" (Green 1991: xv). Hi. Werent the Albanians also involved in the Balcan Wars?

[edit] Unreferenced & religions

The article, which treats of an interesting subject, lacks sources, in particular concerning the section about religions. Making of religions a synonym of ethnic groups is indeed most surprising, and treating the Sunni and the Shi'a as two different ethnic groups is false. Both sects spread over a large part of North Africa, Middle East and Central Asia, which makes a huge territory where a lot more ethnic groups are to be found (starting, for example, with the Berbers in North Africa, the Moroccans, the Algerians, etc.). This part should be rewritten or deleted. Tazmaniacs 17:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)