Macedonia acuerda con Grecia cambiar su nombre

Macedonia agrees to a new name, ending a 27-year dispute with Greece

Even Alexander the Great — or Alexander of Macedon — was drawn into the name dispute. This statue of the ancient warrior is in Thessaloniki, Greece. (Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP/Getty Images)

by Chico Harlan | The Washington Post

VALLETTA, Malta — Leaders from Greece and Macedonia managed a breakthrough Tuesday in one of Europe’s most intractable foreign policy fights, announcing they had agreed on a new name for a country born 27 years ago from the rubble of Yugoslavia.

If the deal goes through — and the countries still could put it to parliamentary votes or referendums — Macedonia will formally change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, and Greece will drop its opposition to the small Balkan nation joining NATO and the European Union.

What is known in neighboring Macedonia and Greece simply as the “name dispute” has burned for years amid accusations big and small — about cultural appropriation, about national identity, about statues and museums, about airports named for Alexander the Great. Athens accused Skopje of having designs on its northern territory, which is also called Macedonia.

The agreement could help stabilize one of Europe’s poorest and most turbulent regions, one where Russia has battled for influence and discouraged countries from joining NATO. Last month, U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said that Macedonia was showing “resistance” to Moscow and that he hoped talks with Greece would “bear fruit soon.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday evening in a statement that the agreement would set Macedonia “on its path to NATO membership. And it will help to consolidate peace and stability across the wider Western Balkans.”

Macedonia joined the United Nations more than 20 years ago on the Greek condition that it refer to itself internationally as FYROM — the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Still, many countries, including the United States, recognize the country by the name it uses in its constitution: the Republic of Macedonia.

Analysts say Macedonia and Greece made progress recently with the hope of having a deal in place before an E.U. summit in late June. Negotiations have been brokered with the help of diplomats from the United Nations.

The two countries are led by left-leaning prime ministers who will face domestic opposition over the name change — particularly in Greece, where Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s coalition partner in government says it doesn’t back the deal. Tsipras — who announced the deal on national television — will face reelection in the next year and a half, and polls suggest his party trails conservatives by a significant margin.

“Greece is tricky,” said James Ker-Lindsay, a fellow at the London School of Economics who studies the Balkans. “Have you taken a look at Macedonia? It’s impoverished. Landlocked. It’s not going to be a threat to Greece.”

Macedonia has tried to win Greek goodwill. This year, it removed the name of Alexander the Great from the airport in its capital.

“Concerning the [Macedonian] people, I don’t know how they will react,” said Denko Maleski, a retired law professor who was Macedonia’s minister of foreign affairs in the early 1990s. “But the government had to make this move to get out of isolation.”

Por qué tanto quilombo con el nombre Macedonia

Macedonia: What's in a name?

The naming dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has roots that go back to antiquity. The problem is that the boundaries of the region known as Macedonia have changed greatly over time.

DW




As well as Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the geographic region of Macedonia extends into Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia as well as small areas of Kosovo (which you can't quite see here).


Today's definition of the geographical region of Macedonia includes the present Greek administrative region of Macedonia as well as the whole of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). However, it also includes parts of Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia and small pieces of Kosovo.


Modern Macedonia, as a geographic rather than a political construct, extends into six countries, including Kosovo

Originally, the ancient kingdom of Macedonia — or Macedon — was a relatively small part of the present-day Greek province of Macedonia. It first expanded under King Perdiccas I, then widened to take in other areas, including the three-fingered peninsula of Halkidiki and parts near to the border with present-day Albania.

Tiny kingdom achieves world domination

Neighboring areas like Thrace (which includes European Turkey) and Paeonia (the modern-day FYROM) became dependent territories of Macedonia. King Philip II went on to subdue the Greek mainland before his son Alexander the Great took the whole of Greece. Alexander would go on to conquer the First Persian Empire and extend his boundaries as far east as India.


A 17th-century map showing the extent of Alexander the Great's empire

Arguably, at this point, Macedonia's realms stretched as far as the Indus River and the Nile in Egypt. By the time Alexander was in power, though, Macedonia was very much "Hellenized" – or culturally Greek. As a result, the language, culture and genes that Alexander's empire carried eastward were Greek.

Roman expansion, then a shift east

After the fall of the Greek Empire, the Romans — who admired Alexander — used the old name Macedonia for the province encompassing much of northern Greece and the area north of it, including much of the modern-day Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The province, at least for a time, stretched westward to the Adriatic and south into central Greece.

With the breakup of the Roman Empire into East and West, this region was overrun by the Slavic invasions. An entirely new province far to the east, in modern-day Turkey, was named Macedonia by the Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens. The entire region subsequently fell to the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman root of modern boundaries

The geographic region known as Macedonia today equates to the part of the Ottoman Empire known as Ottoman Vardar Macedonia. It included Greek and Slavic areas and was split into three administrative units, but the concept of Macedonia persisted.  This remained the case for centuries and so this idea — of what Macedonia is — has stuck.

An "awakening” nationalism among ethnic Slavs in the region who identified as Macedonian took place in the late 19th century. The emergence of this Macedonian identity among the Slavs living in the region is still seen as a relatively new one.


The boundaries of Macedonia have changed, as has the ethnic makeup of the region

As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, the Slavic or western Bulgarian part of Vardar Macedonia eventually became a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia known as Southern Serbia. The area was later called Vardar Banovina (a banovina being a province of the Yugoslav kingdom). The name Macedonia was prohibited.

Macedonia's re-emergence, Greek consternation

After occupation in World War II, the old banovina was pared down and it became the People's Republic of Macedonia — subsequently the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. Yugoslav authorities now sought to promote Macedonian nationalism, and the Macedonian language, which had been thought of until then as a western Bulgarian dialect, was codified.

The fact that this Macedonian language was Slavic did not go down too well with the Greeks.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, things got worse. Athens became anxious about a movement within the new Republic of Macedonia to appropriate the legacy of Alexander the Great. Specifically, it feared the concept of a United Macedonia that could include Alexander's heartland in Greece itself.

The Greeks also accused the new republic of hijacking symbols such as the Vergina Sun – a symbol of ancient Macedonia – which feature on the new country's first flag. In 1995, the young state was forced to change its flag to feature a rayed sun instead.


The flag featuring the Vergina Sun (here in the foreground) was replaced by one featuring a rayed sun

It's the name Macedonia that rankles most with Greece, though. The new country was admitted to the United Nations only on condition that it used the provisional description FYROM. Athens insists that if the FYROM must use the name Macedonia at all, it should be preceded by a geographic qualifier such as Northern or Upper Macedonia.

As if that weren’t complicated enough, there's another meaning of the word Macedonia. In Greece and many Latin language-speaking countries, it's also a fruit salad. The name is thought to have been popularized at the end of the 18th century, referring to either the ethnic diversity of Alexander's vast empire, or the ethnic mix of Ottoman Macedonia.

A Macedonia can refer to a fruit salad as well

Grecia no quiere que Macedonia tenga ese nombre

Macedonia and Greece: Locked in naming dispute

The dispute between Greece and its neighbor Macedonia over the latter's name is still very much alive. The long-running quarrel can take on very nationalistic overtones, as Jannis Papadimitriou describes from Athens.
DW


Flags of Greece and Macedonia (Colourbox)

It was the biggest demonstration in Greek post-war history: More than a million people gathered in Thessaloniki in February 1992 to protest against a planned compromise in the dispute over the name of the Republic of Macedonia. A government crisis ensued in Athens: The conservative premier Konstantinos Mitsotakis dismissed his foreign minister, Antonis Samaras, known as a hard-liner, but then had to step down himself.

His successor Andreas Papandreou favored a hard stance and imposed a temporary embargo on Greece's neighbor. Even today, Athens still insists that the country should change its constitutionally enshrined name of "Republic of Macedonia." Greece views that name as part of its history and a threat to its northern region that is also called Macedonia.

Seeking compromise

However, Greece has since backed away from its absolute rejection. For some time now, it has accepted its neighbor's continued use of "Macedonia" in some form, and the left-wing government of Alexis Tsipras wants to stay on this path.


Thessaloniki saw a recent huge rally

"Gorna Makedonija" (Upper Macedonia) was proposed in the latest round of UN-held negotiations, and Athens has reportedly said it is prepared to vote for the name.

But now, protesters against the compromise are weighing in. At the end of January, there was a huge rally in Thessaloniki, and on Sunday Athens is the backdrop for a similar one. The counter-movement behind the rally, which calls itself "Macedonian Associations," says it wants to protect the traditions of Greece's Macedonian region.

"It is a patriotic gathering," Georgia Bitakou, the initiative's spokesperson, said in a TV interview. "The name Macedonia is non-negotiable."

Tolerance for nationalism

The re-emergence of such demonstrations is typical of a part of Greek society, the political scientist Levteris Koussoulis told DW. "Some here feel connected to this history in a strangely backward way," he said. "They are stuck in the past and don't understand that the world has moved on."

There is also concern that right-wing populist and nationalist voices may join the protests. Parliamentarians from the far-right Golden Dawn party already took to the streets in Thessaloniki but stopped short of making political statements. Their presence would be tolerated at Sunday's protests in Athens should they appear, said rally organizer Bitakou, adding that the rally was open to all who wanted to "defend" their country.

Other right-wing representatives also plan to take part, such as Kyriakos Velopoulos, a former parliamentarian for the Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) and now the head of the pro-Russian movement "Greek Solution."

"The Americans want a protectorate north of Greece to keep Russian interests in check," he told a local TV broadcaster. He said there were just two solutions to the quarrel with the Republic of Macedonia: either no compromise name, or Greece should strive to have a common border with Serbia, which sits above the Republic of Macedonia.

When asked by the journalists whether he would be prepared to see a war between Greece and Macedonia on this account, Velopoulos responded: "Of course not — economic war is also an option."

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos is among the right-wing populists against a compromise in the dispute, although he has remained largely silent on the issue. While he is out of the country during Sunday's protests, he said he had encouraged his family to participate. Supporters of his party would take part as "ordinary citizens," he added.

Kammenos, as a junior partner in Tsipras' ruling coalition, faces a dilemma: If he refuses to budge, the coalition's fragile parliamentary majority will be put at risk, but toeing the government's conciliatory line would disappoint his own followers.


Matthew Nimetz is the UN Special Representative in the naming dispute

Outlet for popular anger

The organizers are at least prudent enough not to allow any out-and-out right-wingers onto the podium on Sunday. The main speakers that have been announced so far are the constitutional expert Jorgos Kassimatis and the composer Mikis Theodorakis.

In a recent public statement, Theodorakis, a left-wing idol, warned against backing down in the naming dispute. "The memory of Yugoslavia is fresh; our country will be the next victim," he said. Theodorakis has lately drawn attention to himself with anti-Semitic remarks, among other things, and the fact that he, at 92, is being roped in for a patriotic rally has been observed unfavorably by some commentators.

Political scientist Koussoulis said he does not see Sunday's protests as specifically nationalist in nature. "The movement has nationalistic roots, but is supported and interpreted by many people from many backgrounds," he said. "It's a way to protest the government in general."

Is the issue of the naming dispute being used as a chance to vent anger against the left-wing government of Tsipras? That seems possible. "I'll be there on Sunday because I want to protest against government policy," said the conservative radio host Aris Portosalte.

Conservative opposition leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has not gone so far and said that people should decide for themselves whether to demonstrate on Sunday or not. He declined to say whether he would take part himself.