#serbian quotes

[xoxojoka]

"Nobody will ever hug you this tightly,

all perturbed and pale.

I’m a sailor without a compass

whose ships always go crazy.

Nobody will ever

pour an entire last tenderness

into your bloodstream

like this,

nor find both hope and hopelessness inside of you.

Never again will you rot so wonderfully

in a common hotel,

yet not wish to get out of it.

You are the tastiest blood of this world

that I sponged with the bread

of my dark belly.

You are the salt from swollen lips

that we peeled off with our fangs

and spilled over my thighs

and your breasts.

You are the most infinite,

the deadliest sky

next to my rosy ear.

The most shameless girl

among all the women I've ever met.

The shiest woman

among all the girls I've ever met..."

— Miroslav Mika Antić, a fragment of "A Little Rocky Nocturne". Translated by me.

[religious-extremist]

“After sin comes shame; courage follows repentance.

Satan upsets the order; he gives courage to sin and shame to repentance.”

+ St. John Chrysostom

[the-acid-pear]

somethign that pisses me off about every video talking about a serbian film i've seen is that even those who bring up the intro do NOT bring up just how good of a father Milos is and how well he handles the situation of a child discovering sex while still too young. Like it really hammers home how Milos is just A Good Guy(tm).

[sanityshorror]

In a crossover no one asked for:

Vukmir: It's a pleasure to shake the hand that has jerked such a big cock.

Killian: You should feel honored and be thanking me.

[vukmir - a Serbian film; Killian Lynch - Hellcrew and creepypasta]

*that's an actual line of Vukmir's in ASF

[wildfieldz]

This latter was a handsome young man with fine features. He could be mistaken for a Caucasian highlander, and in his general appearance he came closest to such a type. Insanely brave, he had been twice severely wounded and lived in Niš for treatment. He was burdened with idleness, but they did not want to give him command of even a battalion, because they feared that he would ruin it and himself. Prince Alexander was the exact opposite of his brother. He was not as handsome as George, marred by his spectacles and slouching shoulders. He was as secretive and reserved as George was impetuous. Events came to pass in such a way that the Prince soon found himself in a position of responsibility. He became heir by unnatural means. The example of his brother was always before his eyes. He early began to be self-aware and developed self-constraint and concealment.

Grigory Nikolaevich Trubetskoy

[acebytaemin]

can you pleaaaaase translate the tags in balkan on the purple haired lee know set? the crowd is on the edge of their seat

IN BALKAN is sendinggggg me omg but ofc babe these ones aren’t even bad i can share confidently. *clears throat* so. the tags are as follows:

so first of all lutka means doll (feminine form) which i LOVE calling people in croatian men specifically. but anyway loš by breskvica is this song right here

just to paint the picture. the specific lyrics i chose ‘a ja bi da ti igram cele noći / mirišem ti na killian crne oči’ means ‘i want to dance for you all night / smell like killian / black eyes’ but the way it’s phrased is like ‘i smell like killian to/for you’ but idt he wears killian idk he smells like but to be honest it could be febreeze fuck if i care. ‘ti nisi fin bebe’ means ‘you’re not nice baby/babe’ which. self explanatory all of this tbh iykyk 🫶🏻

then loša by breskvica:

and the only lyric i mentioned was ‘zmija balkanska’ which means ‘balkan snake’ which <33 but tbh this song is kinda me in general. also loš = bad (male form) and loša = bad (feminine form) hope that helped!

[quince-of-mine]

5.

And if I'm the sun

I'm redundant: one plate is enough for each and all.

Boško Suvajdžić, "Ako sam ja vuk" ("If I am a wolf")

[princetonarchives]

That gentle youth’s suggestion that he might someday see me enrolled as a student at Princeton kept ringing in my ears, and sounded like mockery. A peasant boy from a Serb village who a little over two years previously was wearing a peasant’s sheepskin coat and cap to become a fellow student of those youths who looked like young aristocrats seemed impossible. A European aristocrat would never have suggested such a thing, and that puzzled me.

--Physicist Mihaljo "Michael" Pupin, in the Buffalo Evening News, December 4, 1924, on a chance encounter with a Princeton student in 1875

[so-na-gi]

2 things;

i feel like shit. 1 hour crying = free noko🐼 makeup (i;m not even going to fix my makeup i'll just go out like this. who tf cares)

i finished the witcher s1 yay. geralt (passed out for 99% of the episode) my sole support

[religious-extremist]

Do good to those who wish to argue with you, and you will win the argument.

One deed of compassion will bring the madman to his senses and will pacify the embittered man more quickly than many hours of conversation.

☦︎ Saint Nikolaj Velimirovich

[wiishopchanelboots]

Been thinking about this quote from Mira Furlan's autobiography (For context, Mira Furlan was an actress, known by many as Delenn on Babylon 5, who fled Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav wars in the 90s and narrowly escaped to the U.S.) "Why does an emigrant continually make mental lists of those "special people" who helped him in times of distress? Why does this not occur so prominently in lives that are "normal," unbroken? Is it because the vulnerability of your situation puts you in a place where you suddenly NEED help? From your comfortable life, you're abruptly launched into a void where nothing and nobody awaits you. It's like being suddenly stripped naked in the midst of a crowd. It's like losing your voice in the middle of a theatre production. It's like everyone dear to you dropping dead at once and leaving you alone, surrounded only by foreign, indifferent faces. Sudden change from somebody to nobody sharpens your senses so that those rare good, compassionate people almost glow in the darkness of your new, bleak world. That's why the emigrant experience is so valuable in the end, despite all its hardship. It makes you see more clearly. It makes you recognize without a doubt the good people around you. And those have been and will always be very few, even in "normal" circumstances. The only difference is that now, in this new life of yours, you KNOW this with absolute certainty." . . . "In general, though, people in America would "help" by making one or two phone calls and disappearing from our lives if those phone calls didn't produce a result. In general, people were indifferent to our "situation." Americans prefer simple stories with clear separation between the "good guys" and the "bad guys." Where did "our story" fit? A new history was being created. Nationalism in Croatia was dismissed as a necessary by-product of Serbian aggression. We, the victims of the fascist tendencies of the "good guys," were just too complicated to even try to understand. Not only America, but the world needs simple stories. And to create those, truth is most often sacrificed." - Mira Furlan, Love Me More Than Anything In The World

[jokeroutsubs]

📝ENG Translation: Joker Out in Helsinki

Article written by L.P./Promo, published on Croatian website tportal on 4.3.2024, English translation by @moonlvster and IG ireena25_, Proofread by IG GBoleyn123.

PHOTO: Vita Orehek

Joker Out played two unreleased songs in Helsinki – and it caused complete uproar!

The band Joker Out began their big European 'See You Soon' tour with two sold out concerts in Helsinki.

The Finnish audience, besides having the honour of opening the band's new tour, recieved a special gift they weren't expecting – the first performance of two completely new songs that caused an unseen hysteria in the fans! The effect was even stronger because both of the songs are in Serbian and most of the audience didn't understand a single word.

"We performed two unreleased songs for the first time in Helsinki – 'Šta bih ja' ('What would I') and 'Bluza' ('Blouse'). It's not necessary to point out that Finns don't understand the Serbian language, but the reaction was as though we were playing our absolute most popular songs. We were just looking at each other and smiling. When we returned to our hotel we saw that the reaction online was the same as the one we had experienced at the concert. A group of our fans at JokerOutSubs even activated and translated both of the songs into English using video recordings. Commenters on social media are asking us to release the songs, but they will have to wait a little because we are going to record them after the tour." – stated the band enthusiastically.

In mid-February Joker Out released their new single 'Everybody's Waiting', the sucessor of their amazing 'Sunny Side Of London'. They are going to, together with 'Šta bih ja' and 'Bluza' (which is currently a working title), be featured on the band's next studio album.

Joker Out sold all the tickets for the House of Culture in Helsinki, which means there were more than 3000 fans there. Ahead of them is a long tour that continues tommorow in Tallinn, and then in Riga, Vilnius, Krakow, Berlin, Leipzig, Malmö and many more cities. This tour, called 'See You Soon', encompasses 13 countries, including France, Belgium and Italy for the first time, with 22 concerts in some legendary, world-famous concert venues, for example, the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire.

Some of their festival appearences have also been announced, which include Sea Star Festival (23rd-26th May, Umag, Croatia), EXIT (10th-14th July, Novi Sad, Serbia) and Sziget (7th-12th August, Budapest, Hungary), at which the local fans will have the chance to hear 'Everybody's Waiting', 'Šta bih ja' and 'Bluza' live for the first time!

❗ DO NOT REPOST, and if you quote, please link back to this article.

[wildfieldz]

written by: me soft: fl studio

January the 17th. Friday. Had lessons in the morning. Had breakfast with Papá, aunt Ella, Alexander P of Serbia (Elena's brother, Ioannchik's brother-in-law) and Kostya.

Grand Duchess Tatiana's diary entry, 1913

It was also reported that he intended to make the Grand Duchess Tatiana, the late Czar's eldest daughter, his wife, and from whom the pitiless Red executioners separated him forever. As a result of their attachment he is often referred to as the protector and friend of the Russian refugees.

New York Times on Prince Alexander's alleged engagements

[djuvlipen]

♀️latscho diwes djuviale♀️

💞 I made this blog to highlight the specific struggles Romani women face based on our sex, our race and our class

💞 I'm anti-gender, anti-sex trade, anti-religion, anti-capitalist

💞 I support women's and LGB rights. My feminism is female only!

💞 I'm a half-sinti, half-white working class homosexual woman living in Western Europe

BEFORE YOU BLOCK ME, READ THIS: x

FAQ, BOOKS AND RESOURCES BELOW

General / Frequently asked questions

-> Difference between Roma and Romanian (x)

-> Difference between Roma and Sinti (x)

-> My profile picture is from De la source à la mer (1984), by Sinti-Manouche filmmaker and writer Pisla Helmstetter

-> My banner is from The Gypsies are Found Near Heaven (1975), by Emil Loteanu

Posts on the racialized misogyny targeting Romani women

-> general masterpost (x)

-> posts on Romani women being sex trafficked into prostitution in Europe (x) (x)

-> posts on the forced sterilization of Romani women in Europe (x) (x) (x) (x)

-> post on healthcare discrimination (x)

-> incest, sexual and domestic violence targeting Eastern European Romani women (x) (x)

-> Roma, religion and misogyny (x)

-> On "Gypsy witches" (x)

Inspiring Romani women you should know about

-> autobiographies by Romani women (x)

-> Sandra Jayat, French-Romani painter and poet (x)

-> Katarina Taikon, Swedish-Romani writer and antiracist activist (x) (x)

-> Elena Gorolova, Czech-Romani women's rights advocate (x)

-> Jelena Savić, Serbian-Romani feminist, poet and essayist (x)

-> Tela-Tchaï, French-Romani actress (x)

-> Amoun Sleem, Palestinian-Domari antiracist activist and feminist (x)

-> Philomena Franz, German-Romani Holocaust survivor and writer (x)

-> Vera Kurtić, Serbian-Romani lesbian feminist (x)

-> Kiba Lumberg, Finnish-Romani and butch lesbian artist (x)

-> Zilli Schmidt, German-Romani Holocaust survivor (x)

-> "15 Bad ass Romani ladies you should know about" (x)

-> Romani herstory, an "ever-growing digital library that celebrates women of Romani descent from the past and present, unsung heroines & trailblazers who refuse(d) to conform to stereotypes"

Romani feminist writings

-> Intersections of Gender, Ethnicity, and Class: History and Future of the Romani Women’s Movement, by Jelena Jovanović, Angéla Kóczé, and Lídia Balogh (x)

-> Gender, Ethnicity and Class: Romani Women's Political Activism and Social Struggles, Angéla Kóczé (x)

-> Lessons from Roma Feminism in Europe: Digital Storytelling Projects with Roma Women Activists from Romania, Spain and Sweden, Jasmine Ljungberg (x)

-> Romani women’s identities real and imagined: Media discourse analysis of “I’m a European Roma Woman” campaign, Jelena Jovanović (x)

-> Džuvljarke: Roma Lesbian Existence, Vera Kurtić (x)

-> Re-envisioning Social Justice from the Ground Up: Including the Experiences of Romani Women, Alexandra Oprea (x)

-> Angéla Kóczé on the hijacking of the Romani feminist and antiracist movement by neoliberal groups (x) (x)

-> Mihaela Drăgan on the racialization of Romani women (x)

-> quotes from Romani feminist books (x)

Learn about the Romani genocide

-> general post (x)

The Genocide and Persecution of Roma and Sinti. Bibliography and Historiographical Review (x)

Roma Resistance During the Holocaust and in its Aftermath, Angéla Kóczé, Anna Lujza Szász (eds.) (x)

O Porrajmos: the Romani Holocaust, Ian Hancock (x)

Porrajmos: The Romani and the Holocaust, Ian Hancock (x)

Responses to the Porrajmos (the Romani Holocaust), Ian Hancock (x)

Barvalipe Roma Online University (playlist of lectures about many different aspects of Romani history, politics and culture) (x)

Romani slavery in Romania

Brief overview (x)

Alternatives to the labrys flag

(first design by @/sapphos-darling)

[mariacallous]

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin continues to demonstrate that he is not interested in negotiating a ceasefire and remains focused on the total destruction of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote on Oct. 31.

This conclusion was drawn after Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's interview with Bloomberg on Oct. 30, in which he recalled his recent conversation with Putin and an attempt to discuss with him Russia's war against Ukraine and the possibility of a ceasefire. However, the Russian dictator made it clear that Russia would continue to pursue its goals in the war.

"All the goals of the special military operation, as he put it, will be achieved," Vučić quoted Putin.

The ISW stresses that these goals outlined by Putin ultimately mean the destruction of the Ukrainian state and government. He had previously rejected any ceasefire agreement during a press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in July 2024, claiming that it would allow Ukraine to regroup and rearm.

A hypothetical ceasefire under the current circumstances would only benefit Russia, giving Moscow time to further radicalize and militarize Russian society against Ukraine, as well as allowing the Russian army to rest and recover before possibly launching a new attack in the future.

The ISW also reported on the continuing Russian offensive in the Kupyansk, Svatove, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and Vuhledar sectors of the front. Russian troops have advanced southeast of Kupyansk and west of Svatove, as well as along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line. Footage published on Oct. 31 also indicates advances in Stelmakhivka and Kruhlyakivka villages, suggesting that the Russians have likely captured these areas.

At the same time, Ukrainian forces have regained positions in a wooded area southwest of Pobeda, southeast of Kurakhove.

There are also indications that Russian troops may have captured Novoukrainka, northwest of Vuhledar. The ISW has geolocation-confirmed footage showing the Russian 40th Marine Brigade advancing into the central part of Novoukrainka.

While Russian sources claim to have captured Yasna Polyana, northwest of Vuhledar, the ISW has no evidence to support this claim.

[jeannereames]

Hello Professor Reames! How has the Macedonian Question influenced the historiography around Alexander?

The Macedonian Question & Ancient Macedonian Studies

(or, Come study ancient Macedonia! We cause riots!)

I’ll begin by explaining, for those unfamiliar, the “Macedonian Question” centers on who gets to lay claim to the name “Macedonia” and (originally) the geographical region, which is ethnically diverse but majority Slavic. It arose during the First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912-13, then returned after the breakup of Yugoslavia, from 1989 on.

I’ve been a bit chary about replying to this simply because it is (still) a hot topic, if not what it used to be even 10 years ago. Also…expect maps. Let me lead with three points:

1) The ancient Macedonians certainly weren’t Slavic. Slavs didn’t arrive in the area until the 6th century CE (AD), a millennia after Alexander lived. No ancient historian claimed they were Slavs, although some Slavic Nationalists used carefully edited quotes from ancient historians to support their own claims to the ancient Macedonians.

2) A lot of different peoples have passed through the Balkans and northern Greece (and even southern Greece) between now and 2300+ years ago. The Balkans have continued to be an ethnically contested area from antiquity to modernity, and who was “in charge” depended on what century it was.

3) Ancient concepts of Greek ethnicity didn’t ossify until around the Greco-Persian Wars. Prior to that, Greeks were more aware of/concerned with their citizenship/ethnicity in specific city-states (poleis) and/or language family groupings (Ionic-Attic, Doric, Aeolic).

Furthermore, these views were based on MYTH. To be Greek (Hellenic) meant to be descended from the mythical forerunner, Hellen, son of the equally mythical Dukalion (who survived the Flood…e.g., Greek Noah). There were other children of Dukalion, including a daughter Thyia. Thyia became the mother of Makedon, the mythical progenitor of the Macedonians.

So, by ancient criteria, Macedonians weren’t Hellenes (Greek). But they were kissing cousins. The ancients took these things seriously. That’s why I wanted to explain, so when the ancient Greeks said Macedonians weren’t Greeks, it didn’t mean what we’d consider it to mean today.

Back to the Macedonian Question … the issue of the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians got tied up in modern politics when Yugoslavia fell apart. During the First Balkan War and the division of Macedonia in 1913, “Macedonian Studies” didn’t exist yet. By the Third Balkan War (collapse of Yugoslavia), they did. And history was suddenly being pressed into the service of modern political agendas.

Now, let me back up and explain—as briefly as I can (so expect some judicious epitomizing)—the emergence of modern Greece and the First and Second Balkan Wars.

The Ottoman Empire began to collapse (not just decline) in the 1800s, and was essentially kicked out of Europe entirely by the First Balkan War and World War I. The last of it fell apart with the rise of Attaturk and the Young Turk Revolution, so Modern Turkey emerged in 1923.

Greece was part of that. The Greek War of Independence started in 1821, and Greece secured statehood in 1829/30, then became the Kingdom of Greece in 1832/3, which lasted until the military junta abolished it in 1973, after which it became the [Third] Hellenic Republic. From independence until the end of WWII, Greek borders expanded (see map below). Fun detail, the late Prince Philip, Elizabeth II’s husband, was a Greek (and Danish) prince.

The First Balkan War began in 1912, which was the Ottoman’s last gasp in Europe. The Austro-Hungarians wanted to make the Balkans a subject state, Russia wanted more control over the Black Sea, and Greece wanted to push north towards Thessaloniki and “Constantinople” (Istanbul). Ignoring Austro-Hungary, Serbia wanted to reconstitute “Greater Serbia” (14th Century Serbian empire)—which included a good chunk of Greece. And Bulgaria, with the strongest regional army, was eying the whole area south to the sea.

Oh, and let’s add in a dose of religious difference (Muslim vs. Orthodox Christian) just for snorts and giggles.

But this was basically about SEA TRADE access. So, for the three allies against the Ottomans, e.g., Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, Thessaloniki, Jewel of the Aegean, was the prize.

The war began October 8th, and by November 8th (1912), the three Balkan allies all hurried their armies to converge on Thessaloniki as the Ottomans withdrew. The Greeks got there mere hours ahead of the Bulgarians.

"Θεσσαλονίκη με κάθε κόστος!" (Thessaloniki, at all costs!) E. Venizelos

The war itself ended the next year (in part thanks to the Greek fleet in Thessaloniki), and Greece kept the city, and with it, still controls a lot of shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean. Shipping remains Greece’s second most profitable industry (after tourism).

Following the war’s conclusion, several issues arose, including how to partition the land—particularly the geographical region of Macedonia. The 1913 Treaty of London split it up between Bulgaria (smallest part), Greece, and Serbia (biggest part). Again, Greece and Serbia wanted to keep Bulgaria, with the most powerful army, from gaining substantially more land.

World War I intervened, and then the rise of Attaturk in Turkey and the “Megali Idea” in Greece. The Megali Idea, proposed at the Paris Peace Conference after WWI (map below), got Greece in trouble. It would have involved retaking not just the islands off Turkey’s coast, but chunks of the Turkish mainland, to match ancient Greek land claims. All THAT led to showdowns, with ongoing human rights abuses on both sides (including the Armenian Genocide earlier, which wasn’t related to Greece).

In 1923, Greece/Hellas and the new Republic of Türkiye agreed to an exchange of populations. So, Ottoman Turks/Muslims in Greece retreated to Turkey (were kicked out), and Greeks in Turkey retreated into Greece (were kicked out). About half those Greek refugees landed in Athens, whose population exploded overnight, creating an economic crisis. Many of the rest ended up in areas of northern Greece, where land from fleeing Muslims was to be had. Ergo, many new immigrants had very strong pro-Hellenic, anti-Muslim/anyone else feeling, and hadn’t been living for ages next to their (Macedonian) Slavic neighbors, who began to feel unwelcome. It also had negative effects on their Jewish neighbors, too. (The loss of Jewish life in WWII in northern Greece, especially Thessaloniki, is both shocking and heartbreaking.)

Keep in mind that the refugees on both sides had been living in their original countries not for a few decades, but for a couple centuries, or even longer in the case of the Greeks in Anatolia/Turkey. The first Greek colonies there date to the 700s/600s… BCE. There’s a good reason the Greeks and Turks hate each other, and it’s not just Cyprus. The atrocities at the beginning of the 20th Century were awful. Neither side has clean hands.

Anyway, there was a second Balkan War in 1913, which I’m ignoring, except for the map below. It amounts to Bulgaria getting pissy about their short shrift in the earlier Macedonian land division.

Then came fallout from World War II, when Greece got the Dodecanese from Italy, et al. But I want to fast forward to the collapse of The Berlin Wall in Eastern Europe, November 9, 1989, and Yugoslavia’s dissolution shortly after. That ushered in the Third Balkan War, or Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

Compared to the Bosnian Genocide and other shit going down with Milosevic, the return of the Macedonian Question seems minor. It involved the Yugoslavian province of Macedonia asking to be called “Macedonia” and Greece having a very public, international melt-down.

The entire dust-up confused much of the rest of the world. The number of times I’ve had to explain it to (non-Greek, non-Slavic) people, who just boggled…. I’ve also seen tourists stand in polite perplexity while Greeks went on a hand-waving tear about how Macedonia has been Greek for 4000 years!!! [I’ve got a t-shirt with that on it.] Btw, 4000 years dates before the first Helladic peoples even migrated into the peninsula. Anyway….

Greeks consider the name Macedonia theirs, on historical grounds. They didn’t object to the new country, but wanted it called Skopje, after the capital, or something, anything not “Macedonia.” Meanwhile, the (Slavic) Macedonians were enormously insulted and pointed to the fact they lived in a region called Macedonia, and their ancestors had been living there for centuries, so why couldn’t they call their new country by the name of the region it occupied? Stated fears of actual territorial expansion by either side were largely scare tactics and fringe rhetoric. It really was all about the name. But increasingly, that began to include claims on the ancient Macedonians, or cultural appropriation. The new Macedonian state (FYROM, then) didn’t do itself any favors with their choice of the (ancient) Macedonian sunburst for their flag and naming their airport after Alexander, et al.

That’s how ancient history got sucked into all of this in a way it didn’t the first time.

Now, let me repeat. The ancient Macedonians were not Slavs. The Thracians were not Slavs either, nor the Paionians, nor the Illyrians, nor the Celts north of them. You won’t find the Thracians called “Slavic” in Bulgarian Museums, even while they take very good care of their regional history.

By the 1990s, Macedonian history had emerged as something more than just “Alexander the Great and Philip,” and questions arose about who these people may have been. Were they Greeks like the Thessalians and Epirotes to their south and west? Or were they non-Greeks like the Thracians, Paionians, and Illyrians to their north? This was an academic (not modern political) question, and involved: 1) what did Makedoniste (“to speak in the Macedonian manner”) mean? Was that a dialect or a different language?; and 2) to what degree did ancient Greeks really consider them non-Greeks (e.g., barbarians)? The fact we had so little epigraphy from the area complicated the language question. And ancient Greek politics complicated the second question. Were the angry repudiations by Demosthenes & Friends a real, widely held sentiment…or just ancient Athenian nationalism and anti-Philip propaganda?

This was mostly nerdy stuff that should have remained safely ensconced at dull specialist panels at academic conferences.

Except …. Manolis Andronikos had found the Royal Tombs at Vergina in 1978, and Greece was bursting with pride (as they should have been). Macedonia was back on the map! Tourists still largely stuck to the Greek south, but The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport saw an opportunity, even back then, to capitalize on tourism, so you can begin to see why it was important for “Macedonia” to remain Greek. Can’t have a country calling itself Macedonia and maybe confusing people about who Alexander and Philip had been, and where they’d lived (and syphoning off possible tourism dollars).

That may sound unduly cynical, but I’m actually with the Greeks on this, even if I’ve always rolled my eyes over the name thing. And, as noted above “Macedonia” was laying active claim to Philip and Alexander as if there was direct continuity between the ancient Macedonians and the modern ones. See below, the giant Alexander statue erected in Skopje (2011), the biggest in the whole city. It’s formal name these days is “Great Warrior,” by agreement with Greece in order to get to call themselves “Northern Macedonia” in NATO. But it’s Alexander.

Like I said, they weren’t doing themselves any favors, although those arguing in their defense liked to point out that Greece had started it, over the name.

Of course the increasingly heated rhetoric around the name, and ownership of Alexander and Philip, enveloped ancient history like the ash cloud from Vesuvius smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum. By the mid-1990s, “middle ground” wasn’t allowed. If one expressed any doubt about the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians, that was heard as, “You’re siding with the Skopjans!” This dispute was still going strong to the point there were riots and protests at the Balkan Studies’ 7th International Symposium on Ancient Macedon in Thessaloniki on October 16, 2002. These protests erupted over the presence of Kate Mortensen, Ernst Badian, and Daniel Ogden, albeit the protests involved different objections for each scholar. Badian, along with Peter Green and Gene Borza (not present), had long been in the crosshairs of the vehement “Macedonia was Greek!” crowd. But poor Kate got targeted because of her paper, “Homosexuality at the Macedonian Court,” and Daniel had the temerity to present about witchcraft at Philip’s court (UnChristian things!). There were some 40 police called in to protect the presenters. You cannot make up this shit.

Btw, by no means were all Greeks, especially not all Greek scholars, hostile to the (largely Anglophone) Macedoniasts who questioned the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians. Olga Palagia and Gene Borza remained friends and even wrote articles together, but Olga was retired and had a certain freedom from pressure. Manolis Andronikos and Gene also remained friends until Manolis’s death in 1992. But there was an Official Party Line that had to be maintained, or risk losing an academic job or other position in the Ministry. This also got tied into the identity of the occupants of Royal Tombs I and II at Vergina. Greece’s official position is that these are Amyntas III and Philip II, respectively. This is far from a settled matter, however, especially outside Greece.

For more detail from somebody right in the middle of especially the early parts of the quarrel over who’s buried in “Philip’s Tomb” and the ethnicity of the Macedonians, check out Peter Green’s chapter 10, “The Macedonian Connection,” in Classical Bearings.

To return to the question about how it’s affected historiography, other than resulting in hostility towards non-compliant ancient historians (having their work essentially banned in Greece) and the occasional riot at an academic conference (!!), it also resulted in the production of TWO quasi-competing “Companions” to ancient Macedonia at the end of the first decade of the 2000s.

The original proposal (A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Roisman and Worthington, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) had meant to include a number of high-profile scholars of both Greek and non-Greek background. But one of those was Loring Danforth (The Macedonian Conflict). When it came out that he was writing the chapter on modern Macedonia, the Greek contributors revolted en masse. (Some were genuinely furious, others had to, to keep their jobs.) Another Companion was put together with Robin Lane Fox at the editorial helm (Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon, Brill, 2011), and the Greeks (and a few others) jumped ship. That was a nice break for some younger Macedonian scholars, incidentally, who were then tapped to write chapters for the Roisman/Worthington volume—and very good chapters, I might add. But the end result is one heavily archaeological Companion (Lane Fox) and one heavily historical one (Roisman/Worthington), and which still has Danforth.

Between the arguments of the 1990s and now, however, one important shift has occurred: enough epigraphical data has emerged, and not just later [Hellenistic], to argue the ancient Macedonians did speak a form of Doric Greek. Many/most of us are now a lot more comfortable agreeing that the ancient Macedonians can be called “Greek” without feeling as if we’re selling our academic souls--even if we may still argue that’s not Philip in Royal Tomb II...an identification that some of the younger Greeks also aren’t sold on. And Philip in Tomb II was never the highly charged political issue that the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians was. It just got tied up in it for coming up around the same time. One Greek friend put it succinctly (paraphrased), “It felt like the non-Greeks, especially the Americans and Aussies, were trying to take away Philip and Alexander from us. Tomb II wasn’t Philip, and the Macedonians weren’t even Greeks.”

That may be a bit hyperbolic, but feelings don’t necessarily respond to logic, and Greece would like to have their bona fides.

So, a chunk of the tension from the 1990s has subsided. The Greekness of the ancient Macedonians is largely a non-topic in Macedonian studies today. We’re more interested in new and exciting things like revelations from recent archaeology regarding the sophistication of the Macedonian kingdom well back into the Archaic Age, the real impact of Persia and how early, and what exactly was going on up there before (and after) the Greco-Persian Wars. Or at least, those are certainly my burning questions about the Argead Kingdom up to Philip and Alexander.