Albanians Outraged Over Macedonia Encyclopaedia

Tirana | 23 September 2009 |

Albanian academics in Tirana have slammed a new encyclopaedia published by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences, MANU, which describes the country's ethnic-Albanians as “settlers”.

Adding his voice to a growing number of academics, politicians and NGO members who have sharply critcised the encyclopaedia, the Deputy Head of the Albanian Academy of Sciences Muzafer Konkurti in an open-editorial for the Tirana daily Shqip called the publication “a manipulation of history, anti-scientific and with a clear political background”.

For historian and veteran politician Sabri Godo “such a publication aims to destroy the peaceful coexistence between Albanians and Macedonians”.

Pullumb Xhufi, another historian and politician, recalled that the same academy in 2001 had published a policy paper arguing in favour for the partition of Macedonia. Calling the academy “intolerant”, Bufi noted that the Macedonia Academy of Sciences does not recognise the coexistence between Slavs and Albanians.

Going further, Dritan Egro a researcher and professor of Ottoman History in the University of Tirana, said to the daily Shekulli, that such a publication “is out of place”, considering that Albanians have documented their presence in the Balkans back to times before Macedonia is “even mentioned”.

Well known Albanian writer Dritero Agolli, told the newspaper Bot Sot, which is published in New York that the encyclopaedia “was and offense to the Albanian nation”.

“This publication is nothing less than a manipulation of Albanian and Balkan history,” he added.

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Macedonian Encyclopaedia To Be Changed

Skopje | 23 September 2009 | Sinisa-Jakov Marusic

In an emergency session on Wednesday the editorial committee of Macedonia's Academy of Sciences and Arts's, MANU, that prepared the country's first encyclopaedia decided to revise the disputed parts of the book that refer to the history and present life of the large Albanian community living in Macedonia.

After receiving heavy flak from the country’s Albanians, as well as objections from neighboring Kosovo and Albania who all disputed the book's historical analysis and accused MANU of stirring ethnic intolerance, the academy head Georgi Stardelov announced that while partly rewritten, the edition as a whole will not be withdrawn.

The book promoted last week as one of the highest academic achievements of the country in the presence of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, was quick to cause political outrage that quickly spilled over into the neighbouring countries.

On Monday, Albanian NGOs and political parties in the country demanded that MANU should immediately withdraw its newly published Macedonian Encyclopaedia and apologise to Albanians for referring to them as “settlers” in the book.

The demonstrators said it is not true that Albanians were settlers who arrived in western Macedonia in the 16th century.

The protesters also objected to the way that the leader of the country's 2001 ethnic Albanian insurgency, Ali Ahmeti, is described as a “war crimes suspect”. Ahmeti now leads the junior coalition partner in the government, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.

In the meantime the US and UK embassies also reacted. They urged MANU to change the part in which the book says theat their military personel took part in training of the Albanian insurgents in 2001.

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I kinda of feel sorry for FYROM,they really do have an identity crisis......big time

Who didn't know that they make it up as they go along????????????

Fuckin s

Those Slavomacedonians are really itching for a fight with Albanians and the subsequent partition of their country. Greece would have helped the Albanians if it wasn't for the rampant Albanian nationalism. Man, we truly live in a shitty neighbourhood.

Everytime the macedonian issue is brought up, I find it HILARIOUS.

I really like the Aleksandar Veliki deal. If you ask them, not one person knows what Alexander means. It comes from the Ancient language of the Spaghetti nation they ll tell you.

Macedonian Albanians Prepare Protests

Skopje | 28 September 2009 | Sinisa-Jakov Marusic

Several ethnic Albanian parties from Macedonia, Thursday will stage a protest in front of the government building to express their objections to the new publication of the Macedonian encyclopaedia.

Calling it a “political pamphlet” that “inflicted great evil upon the Albanian population” the parties say they cannot guarantee that all the protesters will take their advice and restrain themselves from burning the Macedonian flag as an act of “emotional revolt”.

The organisers from the National Democratic Union and from the Party for Democratic Prosperity, two relatively small parties currently in opposition, said in a press conference they hold the government responsible for the encyclopaedia. The book calls the Albanians in the country “settlers”, who came to Western Macedonia in the 16th century, and calls them “Shiptari”, a term that is considered offensive.

Last week the former Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko in a panel discussion on the Tirana based Klan TV said that “the Albanians (in Macedonia) have God’s right to burn the Macedonian flag in the heart of Skopje”, after the book was published.

The Macedonian Academy of Science that issued the book is funded by the state, and has already said it will revise the problematic passages.

But the Albanian parties, including the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, as well as high ranking officials from neighboring Albania and Kosovo have asked for a complete removal of the book and an apology from Skopje.

“If (Ali) Ahmeti (The head of DUI) decides, we are ready to leave our posts at once,'' DUI’s vice president, Rafiz Aliti told media on Monday when asked whether his party is considering stepping out of the governing coalition it currently holds with the centre-right VMRO DPMNE party.

Macedonian Prime Minister and VMRO DPMNE head, Nikola Gruevski has distanced himself from the book, and on Sunday blamed retrograde forces in the country for the offensive passages.

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Yes, every instance of ridiculous nationalism and historical revisionism, every ethnic cleansing, every horrible event in the Balkans, what do they all have in common? Absolutely no Greek participations. The Greeks are wonderful people living in a region packed with barbarians.

So, back in the real world Greece (like Turkey) has been through a pro-western period of dictatorship, and prior to that (like Turkey) established its state by cleansing as much land as it could of undesirable groups.

So if the Macedonians are living for a national myth that involves a distortion of history for their own purposes, and that they try to make everyone within their borders conform to that national myth, you might remember that they're a nation state, and that's WHAT NATION STATES DO. You might not like their idea of what their nation is, but I'd like to remind you that that's why YOU DON'T LIVE THERE.

And they're having problems with minorities? Well I'm sure that's never happened in any of Macedonia's neighbours: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovë/Kosova/Kosovo, Serbia.

Truly it is not only unique to Macedonia but is in and of itself evidence of the inferiority of Macedonian national identity, and by extension, reason to hate the country, its citizens, and its government.

They are not a viable nation state. One third of them are Albanians and the other 2/3rds are Bulgarian in language/culture/names, etc.

The ruleing clique will never be able to force a "macedonian" identity on the entire population, and when the Albanians start buring the flag and having nother forms of "emotional revolts" the Bulgarians majority will all of a sudden "rediscover" their roots in Sofia.

Just watch.

Look, just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's doomed. If every time I didn't like how a state's identity was stacked, Israel would've disappeared several times over.

No but that's a perfect example. Israel's identity "the new Jew" is totally artificial. The "real identity" of the original settlers should have been Eastern European Ashkenazim. Newer settlers have failed to integrate (which I blame on Ashkenazi Eurocentrism) and the non-white Jews are still a completely separate group. Meanwhile, an even greater percentage of the populace (the Palestinians) living there (in abominable conditions, thanks to their religions: Greek Orthodoxy and Sunni Islam) will never accept an Israeli identity. What's more, if this identity ever fell apart, the first group (Ashkenazis) would probably flee to Russia (where there are many Jews who are "just like them") and the United States (ditto).

AND YET, against everything I see and would like to say, I must admit that Israelis who flee Israeli (a not insignificant group) tend to have a Sabra identity, and I imagine that long term, those few decades of independence might stick.

Just like the Macedonians who MAY OR MAY NOT BE BULGARIANS might have been affected by decades living with Serbs in their "artificial" state. (All states are artificial, but if that hurts anyones feelings, feel free to pretend I'm wrong.)

Oh, here's an other one! The United States of America! The majority of the populace belongs to new world English culture, like the group in Canada who call themselves "English". We haven't been able to turn the blacks into us, and they're not happy being mistreated, and they occasionally start nationalist movements in defense of their rights. (We always kill the leaders.) Is it just a matter of time before most Americans just accept that they are actually Canadian English?

45% of Peru is Ameridian. They're not happy being part of Hispano-American culture a lot of the time. Is it just a matter of time before this artificial identity collapses and Peruvians accept that they are Spanish? Or Argentinian? While we're on the subject, if Macedonians are "just Bulgarians" why hasn't Pan-Americanism happened yet? Why hasn't Pan-Arabism? Okay, fine, in both cases the CIA was involved, but they probably split up Yugoslavia too.

Regardless, you get what I mean. I hope.

Regardless of if the name "Macedonia" or "Macedonians" is correct from a historical or geographical point of view (which is not really relevant), I think we can't deny that today a slavo-macedonian ethnic identiy dinstict from the bulgarian exists. It is possible that the western part of the country is going to be lost to Albania in the future, but the rest of the country will most probably continue to exist as an independent country. I think it's very unlikely that they get united with Bulgaria.

Your post is interesting, I think I agree, but I just have a question to be sure that I got it right:
What's a Sabra identiy?

It's just an Israeli identity, removed from the state. I'm just observing that when Israelis go to the US, or Argentina, or Russia, or Kazakhstan, or Greece, or Turkey, or wherever, the ones who were BORN in Israel tend to be distinct from their cousins who were born in the country in question. Even though within Israel itself one who comes from Germany is distinct from one who comes from Iran, back in Germany, the Sabra whose family came from Frankfurt and the Deutschland-born Yeke are distinct.

Sabra is just what those Zionists call those born into their evil system.

Regardless, my point is that sadly, Israelis are still Israelis even though some of us wish they would remember those of us out here in the diaspora, carrying on with quiet dignity the lifestyle their ancestors carried on for centuries before they decided to give it all up and kill Palestinians instead.

I'm glad to hear a Greek agree with me, I was afraid for a second that the Greek/Macedonian issue was one as completely devoid of mutual understanding as the Turk/Armenian one.

I agree that every state is artificial, and the same goes for the national identities who are based on them. If the Slavo-Macedonians feel they are different from Bulgarians, then they are. And this seems to be the case today, after so much time living in a different state. The fact that their language could also be a bulgarian dialect is irrelevant, there are plenty of cases in Europe and elsewhere where people who share the same or a very similar language have different national identities (e.g. Germany-Switzerland, Netherlands-Belgium, Serbia-Croatia-Bosnia etc).

@ yahud(can i call you that?it`s actually kaya who came up with that nick ) and afro


There are several thousands FYROMIANS who have obtained Bulgarian citizenship not to mention FYROM`s former Prime Minister - who was the then party leader for the nationalists VMRO at that time - Ljubco Georgevski who publicly has stated many times that he`s proud of his slavic heritage and has also obtained Bulgarian citizenship.

Unfortunately, and as I have said before, this issue could have been solved a long time ago if Greece would had accepted the name Slavic Macedonia at that time.They didn`t, and what Greece demands now, is what FYROM would have accepted back in the 90s.But anyway, that`s all history now.Greece is now willing to accept a composite name with the name Macedonia in it.FYROM is ready to do that too on the condition that the composite name is only used between Greece and FYROM which Greece opposes.Greece wants the composite name of FYROM to be used internationally too but FYROM opposes this.

Anyway, I can`t see FYROM joining the EU or NATO without finding a compromise with Greece.Not to mention that the patience of the Albanians in FYROM is running out.