The existence of parties with national affiliations instead of ethnic groups within the Christians of Macedonia and the undeniable fact that around 1900 national loyalties as a rule were not to be taken for granted puts the following vital question: whether in the years preceding nationalism or under the thin layer of nationalism the various Christian linguistic groups (Greek-, Vlach-, Albanian- and Slav-speakers) corresponded to different ethnic groups. In 1903 Noel Brailsford, a British journalist, met in Ochrid (medieval Achris), near the Byzantine ruins, a group of Slav-speaking village boys. When he asked them whether they knew who had built those ancient constructions they replied: 'The free men, our ancestors'. 'Were they Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks or Turks?' asked the journalist. The boys responded: 'No they were not Turks, they were Christians'.On preview: Goedel, I don't think it's that simple. Austria was basically a cat's-paw for the much more powerful Germany, which encouraged it to attack Serbia in order to set off the war they really wanted, against Russia. Had the Serbian situation been less flammable, I suspect Moltke et al would have found another excuse for their Russian war before the enemy got too powerful to take on.
If the boys' answer represents an impartial or prenationalistic view, then it is most likely that some illiterate, non Greek-speaking peasant members of the Rumi-imillet in Macedonia (certainly not many amongst the fighting bandsmen), had treasured their previous cultural loyalties as late as the early twentieth century. In spite of all the ill digested national ideologies, they had been and some still were Romii (Romans) or Rum (terms which had a strong religious connotation), followers of the Ecumenical Patriarch, members of the genos (i.e. the ethnic group). This was a notion which in many parts (some Macedonian regions included) had not yet developed into that of a modern national identity. They seemed to draw from an Eastern-Orthodox Byzantine cultural tradition which had amalgamated a variety of regional and social subcultures, myths and memories, symbols and values. A tradition which had always disregarded linguistic differences and had created a common mentality based on shared attitudes towards time, space, Muslim oppressors (i.e. the Turks), and `civilized' Europeans. In a troubled region where romantic nationalism was re-discovering and re-describing the communal past, their actions and bloody conflicts were mostly determined by cleavages which reflected real and vital interests, basically the allocation of material resources. At least for the time being some Orthodox Christian rayas in Macedonia, Thrace, and propably in other parts in the Sultan's domains had little, if any, concern for any further ethnic distinctions.
The British journalist H.N.Brailsford, a perceptive observer of conditions in Macedonia shortly after the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, offers many revealing insights into just how superficial a hold national categories had on the rural population of Macedonia. His observations also show very clearly the incredible facility with which villagers in Macedonia manipulated these categories in a constant process of negotiating identities in a manner designed to serve their interests most favorably. For example , Brailsford mentions a man who sent each of his three sons to a different school, one to be educated as a "Serb," one as a "Bulgarian," and one as a "Greek." He describes a village whose population was "Slav in blood and speech," but which belonged "to the Greek [i.e. Patriarchist] party and took no share in the Bulgarian movement". He describes another village that had been "Greek" four years earlier, but which recently became "Bulgarian" because the Bulgarians had sent the village a teacher and a priest, while the Greeks had only sent a teacher. In this way, Brailsford observes wryly, "the legend that Alexander the Great was Greek goes out one road, and the rival myth that Alexander was Bulgarian comes in the other." Brailsford adds that he heard "a witty French consul declare that with a fund of a million francs he would undertake to make all Macedonia French"Yet in the clash of nationalisms that followed in the early 1900's the slaughters from all sides were truly horrendous, involving frequently close relatives fighting each other. Add to this complex picture that there very few who claimed to belong to a distinct "Macedonian" nation at the time (the concept evolving and gaining credence with the creation of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The Slavic speakers were at the time of the struggle for MAcedonia and the Balkan wars that followed, categorized as either Bulgarian or Serb.
Greek culture celebrated the love of the bearded male for the beardless youth - what is regarded with horror today as Pædophilia. Greeks would have regarded with horror the love of the bearded male for another bearded male, let alone the idea of 'homosexual marriage'. They would have been appalled likewise by the idea of sodomic penetration, since their activity involved mutual masturbation, fellatio and frottage inter-femoral or inter-crural.posted by languagehat at 1:06 PM on November 19, 2004
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Why did he set out to conquer Persia, but then just keep going?
Alexander inherited the idea of an invasion of the Persian Empire from his father Philip whose advance-force was already out in Asia in 336 B.C. Philip's campaign had the slogan of "freeing the Greeks" in Asia and "punishing the Persians" for their past sacrileges during their own invasion (a century and a half earlier) of Greece. No doubt, Philip wanted glory and plunder. Alexander took over the ambition, but for him, "Asia" meant even more than the existing Persian Empire as far as north-west India. He himself meant to conquer all of it, out to the Outer Ocean, the eastern edge of the world. He had no idea of Burma or China or the "Far East." Perhaps his tutor Aristotle's ignorant lessons in geography had made the world seem mistakenly small to him. But Alexander also wished to excel as the supreme hero, probably in rivalry with his great father's glory: I doubt if Philip's aims ever went so far in Asia as his ambitious son's. To outshine Philip and all previous conquerors, Alexander wanted so much more. And he was supremely good at it: did the taste for victory in battle become self-feeding?
posted by matteo at 7:22 PM on November 18, 2004