Macedonia (Greek: Μακεδονία, Makedonía [maceðoˈnia]) is a geographic and historical region of Greece in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region, dominated by mountains in the interior and the port cities of Thessaloniki (or Salonika) and Kavala on its southern coastline. Macedonia is part of Northern Greece, together with Thrace and sometimes Thessaly and Epirus. It incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name Macedonia was later applied to identify various administrative areas in the Roman/Byzantine Empire with widely differing borders. Even before the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1830, it was identified as a Greek province, albeit without clearly defined geographical borders. By the mid 19th century, the name was becoming consolidated informally, defining more of a distinct geographical, rather than political, region in the southern Balkans. At the end of the Ottoman Empire most of the region known as Rumelia (from Ottoman Turkish: Rumeli, "Land of the Romans") was divided by the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913, following the Ottoman defeat in the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria each took control of portions of the Macedonian region, with Greece obtaining the largest portion; a small section went to Albania. The region was an administrative subdivision of Greece until the administrative reform of 1987, when the region was divided into the regions of West Macedonia and Central Macedonia and part of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace, the latter containing also the whole of the region of Thrace. The Skopje-Greek Conflict, by John Shea 1997 Recognition of an independent republic called Macedonia would encourage aggression, increase tensions, destabilize the Balkans, and validate a "shameless fraud." 1. The New York Times advertisement of 4/26/92 says, "4000 years of Greek History, 4000 years of Greek Culture, 4000 years of Greek Heritage... Skopje's government seeking recognition as the 'Republic of Macedonia' perpetuates a fraud." Pamphlets distributed in churches stated, "Macedonia has been Greek for 3,000 years. In ancient times Macedonians spoke Greek, worshipped Greek gods, expressed their creativity through Greek art and maintained a refined Greek culture ... all archaeological discoveries continue to unearth more information attesting to the indisputable Greekness of Macedonia." 2. "Out of the blue, in 1944, the Yugoslav communist leader, Tito, wishing to weaken Serbia on the one hand, and set the footing for future territorial claims against Greece on the other, schemingly gave South Serbia the Greek name 'Macedonia' and re-wrote the 'history' books to declare that ancient Macedonia was Slavic and that these people were descendants of Alexander the Great." 3. "The existence of a 'Slav' Macedonia could never be, and indeed, has never been supported either by historical data, or by ethnographic maps, or by statistics, or by some census, or by archaeological finds, or by even an obscure mention of such a nation from antiquity till today." 4. "Macedonia has been the name of Northern Greece for more than 3000 years. The Greek region ... has one of the most homogeneous populations in the world (98.5% Greek). Its population speaks Greek, feels Greek, is Greek." 5. "An independent 'Macedonia' would monopolize the name at the expense of the real Macedonians who are twice the number of the Slavs. The use and abuse of the name would cause widespread confusion as is already apparent." 6. "Macedonia is an indispensable part of Greece's historical heritage it cannot identify, in an ethnic sense another nation." 7. "The Skopje 'language' is undeniably Slavic." 8. "The Slavs did not set foot in the Balkans until 1000 years after Alexander the Great." 9. "The name 'Macedonia (which is etymologically Greek) was in use at least 1500 years before the arrival of the first Slavs." 10. "Every known Macedonian town, river and person had a Greek name – Philip (lover of horse), Alexander (protector of men), Archelaus (leader of people), Amyntas (defender), Ptolemy (warlike), Bucephalus (ox-head)." 11. "The Old Testament (Daniel Ch. 8) and the New Testament (Acts Ch. 17) confirm the Greekness of Alexander and the Macedonians." 12. "It was the Greek language that was taken to Asia (Bible written in Greek) and cities with Greek names and institutions that were founded." 13. "There are 60,000 archaeological finds that confirm that the Macedonians were Greek in language, culture and religion." 14. "The home of the Greek gods was in Macedonia. Is it feasible that a people would worship its national gods in a foreign country?" 15. " Yugoslav Macedonia is not even geographically in the territory occupied by ancient Macedonia."

• published: 01 Apr 2017
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