Macedonia: the name game

Source: OXFORD ANALYTICA

Macedonia's hope for NATO admission could be dashed by Greece this week because of a dispute over Macedonia's name, which it shares with a northern Greek province. The roots of the dispute with Athens lie in the breakup of Yugoslavia 17 years ago.

The country that the UN, IMF and others call 'FYROM' achieved a measure of geographical and political stability only after 1945, when it joined the new Communist Yugoslavia as the People's Republic of Macedonia. In 1991, under pressure from Macedonian nationalists, it joined the rush to the exit, announcing itself to the world in its new constitution as the Republic of Macedonia.

It immediately ran into trouble with Athens. Across its southern border lies the Greek region of Macedonia, centred on the Aegean port of Thessaloniki. Popular fury in Greece denounced Skopje's 'misappropriation' of the name 'Macedonia', insisting that dark territorial designs on Greek territory lurked beneath its choice. As a temporary compromise, Skopje was admitted to the UN in 1993 as the 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' (FYROM). Pending agreement on a definitive name, FYROM is the strictly correct term -- although the United States among others has preferred plain Macedonia.

Ancient Macedones
The ancient Macedones were a tribal people on the edge of the Hellenistic world, around Pella, inland from Thessaloniki. Speaking -- according to their enemies -- a bastard form of Greek, they erupted into the Classical world, under their kings Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, who defeated the ancient city states, Thebes, Athens and Sparta. When the Romans conquered in turn, they carried over the name 'Macedonia', although the Roman province's borders far exceeded those of Philip's kingdom. Byzantines and Ottomans put the name to use for territories within their empires, although the precise borders kept changing.

Present-day Macedonians' connection with the Macedones is neither ethnic nor linguistic. Whereas national groups usually derive their name from their supposed ancient forbears, the Macedonians are named geographically. Their origins lie with Slavic tribes entering the Balkans in the sixth century CE, long after Alexander.

The four wolves
During the Balkan wars before the First World War, rising nationalisms competed over the dying Ottoman Empire for Macedonia -- Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Albanians. Macedonians call them the 'four wolves', eager to gobble them up. Bulgarians even used to claim that the Macedonians are really Bulgarians, with Macedonian simply a dialect of Bulgarian, but Sofia is usually too tactful to repeat such views these days. But for the Treaty of San Stefano being overturned by the great powers in Berlin in 1878, Macedonia would now be a part of 'Greater Bulgaria'.

It is this recent geographical instability that explains Greece's sensitivity about the issue. Greece itself only settled within its present borders in 1947, when the Dodecanese islands were incorporated. Former Yugoslavia and the young Macedonia have been provocative, Tito suggesting a 'Balkan Federation' with borders on the Aegean, Skopje taking Philip's Star of Vergina as a Macedonian emblem and naming the little airport at Petrovec near Skopje after Alexander the Great.

Upper Macedonia?
Macedonia's problem is existential: Who are the Macedonians? A solution to the vexed name issue attaching some geographical qualifier – 'Upper' Macedonia -- might serve. Unfortunately, neither the Greeks nor the Macedonians are strong enough to be generous and offer a compromise. Macedonian insecurity has been further stretched by tensions with the ethnic Albanian minority, and the Greek government's parliamentary majority is on a knife-edge.