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A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

spiegel.de

41–50 of 79 posts

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#41
post #40

The Slavic majority in Macedonia has a name, Walter Mayr. It is Macedonians. Western media’s ignorance of one small nation’s struggle for recognition really puzzles me. Yes we are Slavs but you don’t call Russians Slavic majority in Russia. After more than a century of neighbour's aggressive politics to stifle Macedonian’s national awakening the least I expect from the media is to call the majority of my home country…

"national awakening", umpf. People still think this is a positive thing these days.

Not to mention the blatant usurpation of the greek word "macedonia" without any linguistic, ethnic connection to it (ancient macedonians were greeks, not slavs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonians

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"national awakening", umpf. People still think this is a positive thing these days.

Not to mention the blatant usurpation of the greek word "macedonia" without any linguistic, ethnic connection to it (ancient macedonians were greeks, not slavs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonians

Nobody mentioned Ancient Macedonians.

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#43

Amazed that the article paints Croatia as a country with "rising anti-democratic forces" while for some reason not mentioning that a month ago the mayoral election in the capital city (quarter of the population) was won by a left-green coalition modelled on Podemos. They won 40% of the vote.

Well, my condolences then. I dont know where this sentiment comes from that left/green is automatically good and democratic. Thats a really weird propaganda bit that went through almost everywhere.

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#44
post #40

The Slavic majority in Macedonia has a name, Walter Mayr. It is Macedonians. Western media’s ignorance of one small nation’s struggle for recognition really puzzles me. Yes we are Slavs but you don’t call Russians Slavic majority in Russia. After more than a century of neighbour's aggressive politics to stifle Macedonian’s national awakening the least I expect from the media is to call the majority of my home country…

"national awakening", umpf. People still think this is a positive thing these days.

It was/is important for young nations and you don’t have to associate it with negative things only.

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#45

The Slavic majority in Macedonia has a name, Walter Mayr. It is Macedonians. Western media’s ignorance of one small nation’s struggle for recognition really puzzles me. Yes we are Slavs but you don’t call Russians Slavic majority in Russia. After more than a century of neighbour's aggressive politics to stifle Macedonian’s national awakening the least I expect from the media is to call the majority of my home country…

Slavic Macedonians are Bulgarians though.... and Macedonia is a made up buffer state with two different ethnicities (Slavic and Albanian), and a name that borrowed it form completely different region and time, which most of it is connected with Greece anyway.

Hence Greece was blocking NMKD to join Nato, because of the name and cultural appropriation, Bulgaria is currently blocking the ascenction to EU for similar reasons, and the Albanians there really want to join Albania if they had the chance.

It is kinda of a made up country... but so is Belgium and some others. Lets see how it goes in the long run, but if one day it disolved, where the west part goes to Albania and the Central and East part goes to Bulgaria, it makes perfect sense.

The fun fact, is that there are two villages in Albania that have a large slavic composition, and the borders were drawn in 1912 before the making of the macedonian state.

They all say they speak 'bullgarski' and consider themselves bulgars, and not Macedonian.

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the blatant usurpation of the greek word "macedonia" without any linguistic, ethnic connection to it (ancient macedonians were greeks, not slavs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonians

Nobody mentioned Ancient Macedonians.

The ancient kingdom of Macedon is geographically located in Greece:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#/m...

That region is still called Macedon and the modern inhabitants of that region are themselves called Macedonians. As opposed to the slavic macedonians, they do have strong historical, linguistic and ethnic connections to the term. Do you see the problem here?

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#47

The viewpoint that this article is missing: much of this “reversion” to anti-democratic governments in Central Europe (Visegrad+ Balkans) is coming from Western EU members pushing their newfangled cultural ideologies a little too hard. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Ex-Yugoslavia want to be a part of the EU for economic reasons, not so they can participate in American-led cultural movements. If the EU doesn’t wise up and…

I call bullshit on this. It's a propaganda tale from the controlled media in these states to avoid having to talk about oligarchs, corruption and and real issues. At least it's pretty visible in Czechia, where Andrej Babiš and the media controlled by him to use this narration. Hungary probably the same.

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#48
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"national awakening", umpf. People still think this is a positive thing these days.

It was/is important for young nations and you don’t have to associate it with negative things only.

Ui, "young nations", that sounds like a wonderful excuse. Of course, since these nations are young, almost infants actually, they need protection, right? Like small children sitting in a school bus? The first thing that came to mind when I read "young nations" was israel. A wonderful young state mostly occupied with killing off the people who were living on that land prior before the british decided to give it away. Wonderful thing such young nations.

Re: A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia

#49
post #32

The conflict in what used to be Yugoslavia is not 30 something years old. It's about 14 centuries old. It is the clash of cultures between Christians and Islamist, with the later trying to impose their beliefs on the former. I stayed over there for about one year just before the fighting would start. Yugoslavia was a beautiful country indeed.

That is a false narrative.

Yugoslavia was an ethnically mixed state, with the exception of Slovenia. Serbia tried to keep its terriorially disparate Orthodox communities in one state, but was too weak to do so in the end. There was also a growing unwillingness of the rich northern countries to pay for the less developed southern countries (just like today in the EU).

After the economic failure of communism, there was also a crisis of idealism and people were trying to find meaning in their past religious traditions. Politicians inflamed the divisions to secure their power. Islamism had hardly anything to do with it.

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