For a detached foreign observer, the answer is deceptively simple...

>For a detached foreign observer, the answer is deceptively simple. The Bulgars are historically correct; it is difficult, unless one juggles the sources, to speak of a Macedonian national consciousness or there-fore of a Macedonian nation in 1878 or 1903.
>But the Yugoslays are politi-cally correct, for in terms of most accepted definitions, including clas-sical Marxist ones, both a Macedonian nation and a national consciousness do exist today.
>Therefore, the Yugoslays feel that they may legitimately query the intentions of those who again publicly challenge the existence of this nation, even though they use perfectly valid historical arguments, within the context of a campaign to "put patriotism on the agenda" (as one Belgrade journalist phrased it) for a new generation of Bulgars.

cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP08C01297R000400240004-0.pdf

Probably the most comprehensible and concise (although not really up to date) explanation of the Macedonian Question

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they are still not Macedonians
their entire basis for being considered Macedonians is literally from a fucking Ottoman province

Macedonian here, won't read the link, but what you posted is sufficient, ethnically we are practically the same as the Bulgarians, the basis for the existence of the Macedonian state, is political, when unification with Bulgaria was deemed impossible, the Macedonian revolutionaries shifted their aims to the liberation of the province of Macedonia, anyone inhabiting it being Macedonian to them. But, the main driving force behind the revolutionary movement was the Bulgarian element, with mostly Vlachs supporting it, so the "macedonianness" only caught on with them. They were liberals, classical liberal, and had ideals similar to those of the French revolution, they wanted a Republic, and not a monarchy, since they believed that the Sultan and the King were the same devil, they also wanted an independent and sovereign country, free from the influences of the Great Powers, and monarchs were seen as a continuation of tyranny, only this time French/German/English. They also wanted to prevent the inevitable partition of the province, if it ever came to unification with Bulgaria, wanting a unified country within "natural borders" that would prosper economically for the welfare of all "Macedonians" instead of being partitioned and becoming a backwater of Serbia\Greece/Bulgaria. There were however several prominent figures throughout Macedonian history that believed that the Macedonian people were separate and distinct, though they often had a confused idea on how exactly we were distinct. There was a Macedonian hussar regiment in the Russian army, created by Macedonian volunteers, in the document they stated that they belonged to the "macedonian nation"

>The author present the data about members of Serbian regiments in New Serbia, that is, Slavonic Serbia, who declared themselves as Macedonians. In Sevic’s regiment 74 persons declared that they came from the “Macedonian nation”. According to the Russian author Kabuzanov

>their entire basis for being considered Macedonians is literally from a fucking Ottoman province

Which is just as valid as any other, the people referred to themselves as Macedonians, and as living in Macedonia, regardless of the regional and not ethnic connotations. The struggle for Macedonia was real, wars were fought, thousands died, for better or for worse the people of the Republic of Macedonia today, who didn't appear out of thin air in 1991, decided that their internationally recognized country is going to be called the Republic of Macedonia, since it has been called Macedonia, as a province for thousands of years. Where this idea that an internationally recognized country has to defend its right to exist on taiwanese samsung phone production committees came from i do not know, and Greece is acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

>as a province for thousands of years.
lol
the only reason you call yourselves "Macedonians" is for wewuzzery reasons, you just found an excuse through living in a part an Ottoman province. Nobody would give a shit if you're a new breed of people descending from Bulgarians and Serbians, but trying to claim a name like "Macedonia" is asking for a dispute.

Agreed, Greeks are retarded, the name is not the issue, the name is the only natural and logical name for the country, the only problem is when macedonians start we wuzzing as alexander the great, that autism needs to be contested

Macedonians are a subgroup of Bulgarians, like Austrians and Germans

also there was no ottoman province of macedonia, the province was the rumelia viyalet which was divided in several eyalets, macedonia was a colliqual name of the area

>the name is not the issue, the name is the only natural and logical name for the country, the only problem is when macedonians start we wuzzing as alexander the great
You know why that happens? Because when somebody says "Macedonia", the first thing that comes to mind is Alexander the Great and the ancient kingdom of Macedon. Keeping that name would mean that FYROM has an excuse to spout propaganda for "Greater Macedonia" or whatever made up bullshit comes out

so what? maybe greece should be forbidden to be called greace because of it's pretensions towards constantinople

I agree, and as an ethnic macedonian I think that BMPO policy of antiquisation is a travesty and a detrimental to our historical true origin (slavic albeit balkanic)

it's too late for territorial changes, there's no more macedonians in aegean macedonia: after the greek-turkish war and the population exchange (and the latter greek civil war) the region was resettled almost completely by greeks
maybe we could be able to strike a deal for pirin but thats really beyond our dreams

>maybe we could be able to strike a deal for pirin but thats really beyond our dreams
kek, theres even less macedonians in pirin than in greece and albania, the pirin people identify as 100% bulgarian

Maybe if Greece was called Byzantium. Sadly, this isn't the case.

>called Byzantium
that would make no sense, the byzantines and even ottoman greeks called themselves "romei"

but i think greece is the most appropriate name, as it is a nation state of the greeks, and not the multi ethnic christian empire of old

i forgot: the link i posted in the OP is really a great condensed source and really explains better things i kept on researching for a while, check it out

see the point is that the identity border is really fluid and the pressions from the governement is not help, not even counting international problems such as the tito-stalin split (and the previous bled agreement)

I'm from near Strumica which was Bulgarian until the end of ww2, then jugo, then fyrom
the people are the same, but from different sides of the borders call themselves differently

Calling your country Northern Macedonia, in combination with abandoning the "Alexander Makedoniski" stuff would probably be the best solution for everyone imo.

>abandoning the "Alexander Makedoniski" stuff
this is being done by the new govermenent, at expenses of it's dwindling popularity and the people (those i know)are really attached to it by now

>Calling your country Northern Macedonia
there are starting new talks with greece and it could be successful

the problem is that we are a young nation and stripping ourselves from the very little national insignas we have (precipitously) gathered is bad news. we only got our own state in 1991 and recognition for our own nationhood in 1946, so backing out from it is really dangerous, we really fear assimilation from the bulgars or partition between bulgary and albania (every concession we make to the albanians is a sore punch in the small macedonian minority in greece, which is not even recognized) we fear that if we give up the insignas we got we lose our state and our nation (we are about 65% of our own state, the rest is albanian, gypsy or turks or vlachs). count that i'm one of the most progressive one on these themes so mind my words carefully

>but trying to claim a name like "Macedonia" is asking for a dispute.

And who has a right to a name? The name is logical, and you Greeks are disgusting cocksucking whores, you are the only wewuzers, your "Macedonians" cry about muh Macedonia when they are Pontic Greeks who settled Macedonia 100 years ago, after you expelled the "Slavic" "communists" from Aegean Macedonia after the civil war, the rest you bought, or assimilated, you even have the audacity to call them "slavophone Greeks" when they are "Greekefied Slavs" the region of Macedonia was never monoethnic and doesn't belong to anyONE country, but a country that has its borders 100% withing the region has the right to name itself as it wishes.

And when i say retarded sometimes i think of Greece, nobody cares, you tell people from the west or especially the US that you're from Macedonia and they don't have a clue, and so what if they think of Alexander? Just because they think something someone's right has to be denied? Pure autism.

No the best solution would be for Greece to stop being autistic, and stop the name dispute, if we are northern Macedonia is Greece southern Macedonia? A country changing its name because of an irrelevant province is disgusting, the "alexander makedonski" thing is gone and buried, once the old government was removed so were the Alexandar Makedonski bullshit, you started the thing in 1991 don't even try to claim that a few statues built in 2014 by an irrelevant country are somehow the cause. Greece is a bully plain and simple.

>they are Pontic Greeks who settled Macedonia 100 years ago
oh please, you aren't native in the region either since your ancestors invaded the lands centuries ago, don't cry about being native
>after you expelled the "Slavic" "communists" from Aegean Macedonia after the civil war
Maybe because they committed atrocities and how the communists promised them to give them Macedonia and let Yugoslavia have it all? They had it coming.
>the region of Macedonia was never monoethnic and doesn't belong to anyONE country, but a country that has its borders 100% withing the region has the right to name itself as it wishes.
You don't see the irony of this? Your country is only a part of the region Macedonia yet somehow by your logic only they have the right to call themselves that, not the Greeks or the Bulgarians or the Albanians or the Vlachs living in the region. Even Greece wasn't Greece before they established a state with most of the defining Greek areas.

>when cosplaying goes too far

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Just fucking go to war already. Or get a fucking room.

I guess reading the thread is beyond you

I actually agree with this post
But the point is that we where driven out our lands, and that's not really enjoyable, and we fear that by being stripped of our identity we might get evicted again

No sane person would like that
I'd leave nationalists kill themselves thought

Yes, in a similar fashion to how Montenegrins (and to some extent "Bosniaks") are no longer Serbs.
In case of Montenegro the points of division were always political, geographic and economic in nature. The cost of such integration is immense. Serbian and Montenegrin politicians were giving each other all sorts of headaches. But the new project of a Montenegrin nation pushed by the government is stupid. Much like the Macedonian one. Basically rewriting history to justify not being a part of another country.
Bosniaks on the other hand... sadly, the very core of the idea of Serbian nationality (which is ironically a Montenegrin idea) is incompatible with them. They are alienated by it, they are the 2nd closest thing to the enemy that Serbs rally to fight. Unfortunately the other concept of Serbian nationalism wasn't as prevalent as the Montenegrin brand.