North Macedonia

Interested to know why that thread has been locked. Is this some sort of geopolitical statement?

 

I had some Greek students coming up to me after a lecture once complaining that I had referred to the country as they did not recognise its existence!

 

AMAZINGLY THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOL!!! THE GERMANS REALLY GOT BEAT BY THIS LOT!!!

 

If North Macedonia is directly north of Greece, where is central Macedonia and Sth Macedonia ? Presumably within the Greek borders ? Does Greece believe Nth M should be part of Greece, or just irritated at the name which suggests that the rest of Macedonia should also be independent ?

 

I have a Macedonian friend, his take on it was that Greece were kicking up a fuss over the name because the ancient region of Macedonia is spread over part of northern Greece and southern Yugoslavia. Anyway, Greece objected to them simply being named Macedonia (they previously had used the catchy name "Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia"), and said that should they ever want to join the EU Greece would always vote against it if they were simply named Macedonia. I'm sure there's more to it, but that's the bit I remember.

 

I think what Otter says above is pretty much spot on.

 

Touchy buggers the 'bubbles'. My college (Keynes) at UKC held an international post-grad student fair the theme "Understanding". The one Northern Cypriot student was (sorry for the sexist language) a mere strip of a girl and her stall (aka table) led to her receiving death threats and an official complaint from the Greek Embassy.

 

Interailing in 1991 a mate and myself decided to do something off-the-wall and focussed on touring, the newly opened Bulgaria (we planned to spend time in Sofia, Varna and Veliko Tarnovo. (which was breathtakingly beautiful). The train was from Thassaloniki to Sofia and at the border (Kulata) we had to change trains. We were slung out of the Bulgarian State Railways First Class carriage and had to sit with the hoi polloi.

The huge bloke sitting opposite us announced that he was a colonel of the district's police force and that he had just been visiting his relatives in Greece. He was a marvellous bloke and pointed out as a copper in the new republic his job was dealing with criminal not social problems. He told some Swedish guys on the train what rate of Lev to accept for their Krone, refused all offers of food/drink/fags from us and gave us his office number if we needed help. When we were discussing his relatives in Greece and how he communicated with them I loved the diplomatic way he described them as "...Bulgarian-speaking-Greeks...".