Μonarchy and Irredentism.docx

Black Thursday1 made an impact on Greece rather late, namely in the year 1930. To be sure, the resources of Greece have always been limited; nevertheless, this country was able to absorb, in the early 1920s, a huge refugee influx from Asia Minor; and simultaneously the government tried hard to get Greece industrialized. But it was impossible for the latter to avoid for ever the aftermath of the Great Depression. As a matter of fact, the Greek economy finally began to be affected; and in April 1932, Eleutherios Veniselos, Prime Minister since 1928, proposed the formation of a national coalition government in order to brave the crisis.

Ottoman domination of southeastern Europe, often referred to as the Balkans, began in the fourteenth century. Initial Ottoman rule provided relative peace and stability for the region for the next three centuries. This was the pax ottomanica, or the Ottoman Peace. The long Ottoman decline began after the Ottoman defeat outside the city of Vienna in 1683. Throughout the eighteenth century, Ottoman control of southeastern Europe receded. This permitted the intrusion of Enlightenment ideas from Western Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. The concept of nationalism, imported from Western Europe, in particular caused desires for political change throughout the Balkans. Its influence would provide the main basis for conflict in southeastern Europe, lasting throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At first the self identified nationalities of the Balkans, first the Serbs, then the Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, and finally the Albanians all sought to obtain national states, mainly at the expense of Ottoman rule.

Adaptation of the Introduction to the book, The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace," 1913–1923, edited by George N. Shirinian (Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012). This essay provides a broad overview of the historical, political, economic, and social forces that led to the genocide of the Ottoman Greeks, 1912-1923, and also relates to the experience of the Armenians and Assyrians.

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Macedonian Studies Journal - Journal of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies Melbourne, Australia

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia came into existence in 1991. This newly emerging state was not a country that was recreated after centuries, nor one which, having been destroyed or absorbed by others over the years, was once again restructured and reappeared, as was the case with Chechoslovakia, Israel or Palestine. As a matter of fact, there was never a country or a state bearing the name “Macedonia”, only the geographic region of ancient Macedonia, a region affiliated and interconnected with the history, language, civilization, culture and religion of Ancient Hellas. In 146 BC, the Romans, wishing to eradicate the Hellenic identity of the Macedonians, created a large dominion extending the ancient borders of Macedonia (see relevant paper in this edition of the MSJ), and calling the new territory Macedonia Prima (Provincia Macedoniae). When Roman General Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon, Rome established a new province incorporating ancient Macedonia, which also included Epirus, Thessaly, and parts of Illyria, Paionia and Thrace. This created a much larger administrative area, to which the name of Macedonia was still applied. Hence, any sort or type of national irredentism regarding the name “Macedonia” as an ethnic or national nomenclature is anthropologically pseudonymous and politically irrational. Irredentism is the nationalist belief that a territory belonging to another country should be annexed for ethnic or historical reasons. Irredentist claims are usually justified on the basis that the irredentists' ethnic group, now or historically, formed the majority in that territory or that the territory was part of the irredentists' nation-state at some point in the past. In the case of the people of FYROM, the Macedoslavs, who try to emerge unilaterally as the “Macedonians”, nothing of the above is validated. The constitutional name of “Macedonia” that they were inspired to use for their country was never a territory exclusively or primarily or historically occupied by “Macedonians”; “Macedonians” never formed the majority in this territory and most importantly this region was never the nation-state of the “Macedonians.” Furthermore, irredentism is to be distinguished from territorial expansionism, in that irredentism claims to advocate taking back land that is "rightfully ours," while expan-sionism advocates annexation regardless of whether the territory was "ours" in the first place. Hence, the actual mode of irrational behaviour of the Macedoslavs should be called expansionism and not just irredentism in the Balkans; a tendency which inflames ethnic and national unrest and creates instability to the wider European community. The name of the hypothetical country resulting from successful annexation frequently contains the word "Greater", such as, for example, in Greater Serbia, Greater Albania, or Greater Russia, as we have recently experienced with the annexation of Crimea. Then there comes the third means of nationalism: secessionism. The scholarship on irredentism and secessionism suggests that the former is more likely to become violent and result in war than the latter. Irredentist conflicts are often instigated by sovereign states, whereas, secessionist conflicts are usually initiated by minority groups. Since sovereign states have military capability to fight full-scale wars, irredentist conflicts tend to be more violent and/or turn international. Given that minority groups lack military resources to fight for their causes, secessionist conflicts on the other hand normally do not escalate to interstate war. However, what happens if a sovereign state with a full-fledged army decides to support a secessionist cause? We refer our readers to the Ukraine experience and the prolonged civil war there. Since 2006, the Macedoslavs of FYROM, via their ultra-nationalist government of Nicola Gruevski and its agencies have attempted to implement within their new national borders and in the Macedoslavic Diaspora all three expressions of nationalism, namely irredentism, expansionism and secessionism, thus acting as a serious source of instability in the Balkans and the greater European community. They preach irredentism by posing as “Macedonians” when they never historically formed the majority in Macedonia or Macedonia Prima. In their delirious nationalism they masquerade their Macedoslavic identity and adulterate their culture with Hellenic statues and Greek cultural monuments belonging to another nation-country, namely Hellas, simply to pose as ancient Macedonians. Hence, they demonstrate disrespect and betray their own renowned Slavic culture and civilization. They preach expansionism infiltrating the conscience of the few thousands of Greek bilingual citizens in Ancient Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, a region in which they desire to find their “enslaved compatriots”, the Egejski Makedonci. Finally they preach secessionism both within their national borders as well as in the Diaspora via their propaganda machine, their consular staff and their publications producing maps of the Greater Macedonia. Historically, there have been many territories that have changed hands very often, and territories in which the ethnic composition has changed over time. This means the claims of different irredentist movements of what is "rightfully theirs" very often overlap. Since the borders of nearly all nations have changed over time, irredentist attitudes can be found in most parts of the world. Usually, they are part of nationalist ideologies, though by far not all nationalist ideologies and groups include them. Fortunately, irredentism usually does not receive the official support it once did. The Gruevski government constitutes an extreme form of irredentism, expansion-ism and secessionism, seeking to expand its newly emerged country to a maximum extent, regardless of whether the Macedoslavs ever actually formed the majority in the territory in question. The government of FYROM should be reminded that similar expressions of nationalism, expansionism and secessionism are also displayed by other ethnicities within its national borders. According to the Gallup Balkan Monitor 2010 report, the idea of a Greater Albania is supported by the majority of Albanians in Albania (63%), Kosovo (81%) and the Republic of “Macedonia” (53%). This clearly demonstrates that it would be more prudent to safeguard the welfare of the Macedoslav people, build constructive relations with neighbouring countries, reinforce the social cohesion of citizens rather than waste the country’s human and material resources to chase ghosts and imagined enemies in the south.

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The origins of Megali Idea Greece became the independent state (from the Ottoman Empire) in 1829−1833 with the crucial diplomatic, political, financial and military assistance by the UK and Russia. It was a very fact that the Kingdom of Greece incorporated at that time only around 25% of the Greeks who were living at the Balkans and Asia Minor (the Near East). Such situation created tensions between Greece and the Ottoman Empire as the Greeks wanted their total national unification what was possible only under the conditions of the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, from the very beginning of its sovereignty, the chief aim of the Greek foreign policy was to realize the idea of national unification which was some 60 years after the granting of independence officially formulated as an irredentist project of Megali Idea (Great Idea) – a territorial extension for the sake to create united (Greater) Greece 1 based on the claiming historical and ethnic Greek territories existing within the borders of the Byzantine Empire, which is considered by the Greeks as their medieval national state. Therefore, the capital of such Greater Greece would be Constantinople (the Ottoman/Turkish Istanbul). The proponents of Megali Idea, in other words, aspired to unite within the borders of a single national political unity all the areas of Greek settlement in the Near East.