
Originally Posted by
atanas
Hello,
let me introduce myself, I'm Atanas from Skopje, Macedonia.
I can tell you a little over the Macedonian-Greek issue. It dates back from the period of the late 19th - early 20th century, when Macedonia was still an Ottoman province
All indepdent countries / kingdoms at that time, were trying to place their education and languages in the schools and churches all over Macedonia: Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek, in order to expell the Turks from Macedonia and the conquer much more land for themselves.
If reason for the First Balkan War was the end of the Turks in Europe, then the Second one was for the division of Macedonia between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece (please see Aegean, Vardar, Pirin parts of Macedonia). What is today's Republic of Macedonia is used to be the Vardar part which was given to Kingdom of Serbia, later Yugoslavia.
The problem with Greece is the following: Greece has almost half of ethnical-geographical Macedonia into Greek borders, has expelled, brutally by force or killed over 500.000 ethnic Macedonians from that region. Today there are many of them living in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Australia, USA/Canada and Poland, which still cannot enter Greece to visit their parents native places. Greek government denies the existense of Macedonians, therefore no Macedonian can be spoken in the Greek schools, although the Macedonian language is widely spoken in large areas of north Greece.
That's the main reason why Macedonia has become Greek since 1980 and why Republic of Macedonia today is not a NATO member country.