Customer Reviews

Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History (HOOVER INST PRESS PUBLICATION)

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Rossos takes a distinctly minority perspective on Macedonia's borders, essentially arguing that Macedonia rightfully should contain all the Ottoman territory in the Balkans at the time of the 1913 partition, in which substantial lands went to Bulgaria in the east and to Greece in the south. In fact, the book cover says Rossos "was born in Greek (Aegean) Macedonia." In fact, this greater Macedonia never existed as a country and it didn't have the characteristics of a nation -- ethnic cohesion, common language, established borders -- and few Macedonians I have talked with accept this perspective. With that caveat in mind, however, the reader can gain a good sense of Balkan history from this volume.

An authoritative and extensively researched exposition of the history of Macedonians in Macedonia. A truthful account with penetrating insight of how a small ancient people of the Balkans overcame improbable odds and withstood the concerted efforts of neighbouring nations to destroy it into extinction.

This is a very biased book. It is clearly a repetition of the arguments of the Skopje propaganda machine dressed up as " history ". It grossly manipulates the avalable information and misinforms the reader about the situation in the Balkans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; it covers up the oppressive policies of the Tito regime against the Bulgarian and Greeks in Vardar Macedonia; it cooks population statistics; it never discusses the continuing suppression of the Albanian minority; it falsifies the numbers of the Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia - currently estimated to 40%; and it does not face the issues of falsification of history for which both Bulgarians and Greeks acuse the Skopje regime. Mr Rossos is obviously a very motivated Slavic Macedonian but this type of books do not help the situation in the Balkans , they just make the ultranationalists happy. Mr Rossos also avoid the real question of the future of Macedonia: what will happen when, due to their high birth rates,in one generation the Albanians will become the majority in this republic? and all the bets are that this currently suppressed minority will demand their rights?