Which Macedonia Plays Up Past Glory?

Miltiades Elia Bolaris

June 25, 2011

In his "Macedonia Plays Up Past Glory" (NYT, June 23, 2011), Mathhew Brunwasser has disappointed the better informed among his readership by chopping up the truth to the point of no recognition. (1).

To begin with, the title itself is misleading. It implies that there is a Macedonia that has a glorious past, which is obviously true but then blunders by identifying historic Macedonia (of Northern Greece and of the glorious past) with the wrong geographic entity, a former Yugoslav republic of the assumed name.

Professor Melville-Jones response to United Macedonian Diaspora article

Professor John Melville-Jones is a Winthrop Professor in Classics & Ancient History at the University of Western Australia.

Australian Macedonian Advisory Council

May 11, 2011

It has been drawn to my attention that in a recent publication by the United Macedonian Diaspora (a lovely Greek word) an attack has been made on what I have written about the erection of a statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje. I have also received a number of e-mails on this subject, some applauding what I have said, some merely abusive, playing the man and not the ball, and some disagreeing with me in a more thoughtful way, which sometimes caused me to modify what I had previously written, as I would always be willing to do if shown that I had said anything that was not correct.

The Myth of Modern Macedonia

The Myth of Modern Macedonia - inventing an identity

Australian Macedonian Advisory Council

May 02, 2011

By Professor John Melville-Jones

Last year I learned that a statue of Alexander the Great was to be erected in Skopje. I knew enough about modern history to be sure that the choice of this subject was not simply, as in some places (for example in Edinburgh), the result of a desire to commemorate a heroic figure of the past. I realised that it was part of an attempt that has been made during the last few generations to create an identity for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which can stretch back to distant antiquity. So what we have here is a myth in the making.