NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/rec/folkdan/2020

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-22 | 7.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!eddie.mit.edu!minya!jc
From: [e-mail] (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: rec.folk-dancing
Subject: Re: International Folk Dancing and "The Macedonian Question"
Summary: Here's some history/archaeology ...
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Nov 92 20:40:00 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Lines: 127

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jonathan H. Young) writes:

[Hi, Jonathan!]

...

> In conversation with the protesters it was unclear how we could have
> avoided take a partisan position.  They argued that "Yugoslav
> Macedonia" was a fiction promulgated by Tito in the 1940s with
> expansionist intent, and that the only true Macedonia was entirely
> contained within Greece.  Furthermore, they stated that there was no
> authentic indigenous culture or ethnicity north of Greece, because it
> had all been supplanted by slavic pseudo-culture imposed by the
> communist regimes over the last 40 years.

This is mostly propaganda, of course.  The history is (as usual)  much
more  complicated.   The  people who call themselved "Makedonski" have
been there since roughly the 9th century.   When  they  colonized  the
area, it was pretty much uninhabited.  The area had a historical name,
"Makenodia",  which  was  used  by  a  much   earlier   Greek-speaking
population, but they had abandoned the area some centuries earlier.

Archaeologists (and climatologists) have explained much of  the  story
in  recent  decades,  but  the  history  doesn't seem to have had much
effect on the area's politics, or the media's understanding of it.

The basic outline is that from roughly the 4th to  the  10th  century,
the  northern  hemisphere went through a very warm period (somewhat as
is happening now).  One of the major reasons for the collapse  of  the
Roman  Empire,  it turns out, was that the interiors of the Italic and
Balkan peninsulas became deserts, and no crops (other than semi-desert
plants like olives) could be reliably grown. By the year 400, there is
little evidence of human habitation in these peninsulas, except  along
the  coasts, and in a few valleys that had wetter micro-climates, plus
a few monasteries.  Agriculture had essentially drawn to a close.

This had very little impact on  the  Greek  culture,  which  had  been
mostly  seagoing (fishermen and merchants) for about a thousand years.
The inland Greeks were a fringe population, who migrated elsewhere (or
died of starvation). They did continue to refer to the central area as
"Makedonia", but it was just a place name.  There were no longer  many
Greeks  (or  anyone else) living to the south of the Danube (where the
Roman population continued into modern times).

Far to the north, it became possible to grow crops in Scandinavia, and
the population slowly grew, as it did in central Asia ...

Along about the 9th century, the climate  started  to  cool.   In  the
north, crops started to fail, and the people had a choice: emigrate or
starve.  Thus the Viking period.  The inhabitants of central Asia were
mostly nomadic, and took to wandering in southerly directions.  To the
southwest, this put pressure on the  Slavonic-speaking  population  in
what is now Ukraine. The interior of the Balkan peninsula was starting
to become more habitable,  and  that  was  an  obvious  direction  for
landless people to migrate.  It was in part recolonized by Greeks, but
they were a tiny minority, and they were newcomers like the much  more
numerous Slavs (and Magyars a bit farther north).

By the time the climate settled down in the 10th  century,  there  was
once  again  a  significant  human population in the Balkans, and they
mostly spoke Slavonic.  They also became Christianized;  most  of  the
oldest  Slavonic  religious  documents were from what is now Bulgaria.
The old Slavonic language has with time split into a lot  of  dialects
that are (or are on the verge of being) separate languages. There is a
recognizable group of closely-related dialects spoken in  the  central
area  (which  is  a bit of a basin, geologically), and of course those
dialects are collectively called "Makedonski".

The new inhabitants tended to use  whatever  place  names  were  still
known.   The  central  part  of the peninsula was traditionally called
"Makedonia", and the newcomers adopted that name, because "That's what
it's  called." This is, of course, a rather common failure of logic in
the human mind, but it's usually of little political consequence. Thus
here  in Massachusetts, the remnant Amerind population doesn't seem to
object to the European immigrants using their place names.

But in recent decades, the story has been different with  "Makedonia".
Various  Greeks  have found it politically expedient to claim the area
as Greek.  They tend to take  the  attitude  that  "Those  people  are
Greeks,  and  they  should  learn to be Greeks, dammit!" But it hasn't
been Greek for roughly 1600 years now.  And the Slavic-speaking people
there  didn't  take it over by force.  True, there were a few battles,
there always are; but they aren't the main story. The Slavs came to be
there primarily as refugees moving into a land that was underpopulated
and had room for them.   The  Greeks  didn't  take  advantage  of  the
improving  climate,  because by then they were sailors, fishermen, and
merchants,  and  the  slowly-cooling  inland  areas  weren't  a   very
attractive alternative to the much wealthier Islands and the Sea.

An amusing aspect of this is that, even in ancient  times,  the  Greek
population  pretty much held the inhabitants of Makedonia in contempt.
Part of the attention paid to Alexander's success is that he was  from
Makedonia.   It  is  clear  from many historical sources that, to most
Greeks, the idea of a fellow from such an  uncivilized  area  becoming
the leader of all Hellas was, well, sort of like an Arkansaw hillbilly
becoming the American president.  Who'd a-thunk it?

> How can international folk dancers continue to refer to this region
> without causing an international incident?  In general, we defer to
> our workshop leaders in choosing the appropriate adjectives to refer
> to their dances.  Do we have to resign ourselves to controversy any
> time we learn dances from a region of the world whose name is in
> dispute?

It's probably hopeless.  The only reasonable  choice  is  "We'll  call
people  by the name they call themselves, or as close as we can get to
it in our language."  This would mean that the  proper  name  for  the
area,  people  and  language of the central Balkans is "Makedon-" plus
some appropriate suffix.

Of course, we should also call the Greeks by  some  name  that  starts
with  "Ella-", but we have English-language traditions to fight there.
And we should do away with the ridiculous Italian  name  "Montenegro";
the  proper  name  is  "Crnagora".   Similarly, Wales should be Cymri;
Germany should be Deutschland; Finland should be Suomi;  Japan  should
be Nippon; China should be any of a dozen names ....

Nah; it's hopeless.

(But at least we've stopped putting "the" before "Ukraine". And we now
refer to Persia by its correct historical name, "Iran".  ;-)

--
All opinions Copyright (c) 1992 by John Chambers. Inquire for licensing at:
1-617-647-1813 ...!{bu.edu,harvard.edu,eddie.mit.edu,ruby.ora.com}!minya!jc
--
Pensu tutmonde; agu loke.