Country: ---- Republic of Macedonia ----

République de Macédoine - Republik Makedonien - Δημοκρατία της Μακεδονίας - República de Macedonia - Республика Македония - Republika Makedonija - Makedonya Cumhuriyeti - Mazedoniako Errepublika - Poblacht na Macadóine - מקדוניה - مقدونیه - マケドニア共和国 - 馬其頓共和國

"Macedonia has its own interests and its own politics which belong to the Macedonians. The one who works for joining of Macedonia to Bulgaria, Greece, or Serbia, can consider himself as a good Bulgarian, Greek, or Serb, but not as a good Macedonian". Gotse Delchev (1872-1903)

"People who are of the same origin and who speak the same words and who live and make friends of each other, who have the same customs and songs and entertainment are what we call a nation, and the place where that people lives is called the people's country. Thus the Macedonians also are a nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia". Gjorgi Pulevski (1838-1895)

In his "Dictionary of Three Languages" Pulevski laid claims to Alexander the Macedonian: "Macedonia was praised," he says, "in the time of the great tsar Alexander". Next, Pulevski mentions with pride that the first books of the brothers Cyril and Methodius were in our language: "... The Macedonian language is the one which is the closest to Church Slavonic books and it is Old Slavonic", "We are called Slavs because when Cyril and Methodius translated the church books from Greek into Slavonic, they found it would be good to write in Old Slavonic and the Old Slavs lived in Macedonia".
Gjorgi Pulevski (1838-1895)

"Yes, Macedonian culture and history are quite separate from Bulgarian and Serbian culture and history; they have never been the object of an impartial and detailed study. The Serbs and the Bulgarians most unfairly took from Macedonian culture only what they could make use of for the glory of their own national names; ignoring facts of capital importance either because they did not concern them, or because they contradicted their own national aspirations. Unfortunately, the Macedonians themselves are only now beginning to study Macedonian history, having realized, towards the end of last century, that they could no longer trust the historians of Belgrade or Sofia..." Krste Petkov Misirkov (1874-1926)

"I am not Bulgarian, nor Greek, nor Tzintzar, I am pure Macedonian as were Philip and Alexander the Macedonian and Aristotle Philosopher." Gjorgi Pulevski (1838-1895)

"... not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honors, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave" - Demosthenes, Third Philippic, 31.

(Alexander speaks:) "The Macedonians are going to judge your case," he said. "Please state whether you will use your native language before them." (Philotas:) "Besides the Macedonians, there are many present who, I think, will find what I am going to say easier to understand if I use the language you yourself have been using, your purpose, I believe, being only to enable more people to understand you."
(Then the king said:) "Do you see how offensive Philotas find even his native language? He alone feels an aversion to learning it. But let him speak as he pleases - only remember he as contemptuous of our way of life as he is of our language." Quintus Curtius Rufus

Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian from 1st century AD quoted Alexander's words where the king himself separates the Macedonians from the Greeks as distinct nation: "When you see the Greeks walking about among the Macedonians, do they not look to you like demi-gods among so many wild beasts?" (Alex.51.2)

"Neither Greeks nor Macedonians considered the Macedonians to be Greeks." Eugene Borza

"The tension at court between Greeks and Macedonians, tension that the ancient authors clearly recognized as ethnic division." Eugene Borza

On the Macedonian language: "The main evidence for Macedonian existing as separate language comes from a handful of late sources describing events in the train of Alexander the Great, where the Macedonian tongue is mentioned specifically." Eugene Borza

"The handful of surviving genuine Macedonian words - not loan words from Greek - do not show the changes expected from Greek dialect." Eugene Borza

So little do the Macedonians seem to have belonged to the Hellenic community at the beginning, that they did not take part in the great Games of Greece, and when the Kings of Macedon were admitted to them, it was not as Macedonians, but as Heraclids. Isocrates, in the 'Philip' praises them for not having imposed their kingship on the Hellenes, to whom the kingship is always oppressive, and for having gone among foreigners to establish it. He, therefore, did not regard the Macedonians as Greeks." PIERRE JOUGUET (Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World)

"And though Philip did not give a fig for Panhellenism as an idea, he at once saw how it could be turned into highly effective camouflage (a notion which his son subsequently took over ready-made). Isocrates had, unwittingly, supplied him with the propaganda-line he needed. From now on he merely had to clothe his Macedonian ambitions in a suitable Panhellenic dress." Peter Green

"What did others say about Macedonians? Here there is a relative abundance of information", writes Borza, "from Arrian, Plutarch (Alexander, Eumenes), Diodorus 17-20, Justin, Curtius Rufus, and Nepos (Eumenes), based upon Greek and Greek-derived Latin sources. It is clear that over a five-century span of writing in two languages representing a variety of historiographical and philosophical positions the ancient writers regarded the Greeks and the Macedonians as two separate and distinct peoples whose relationship was marked by considerable antipathy, if not outright hostility." Eugene Borza