1. Irredentism in the Macedoslav Bibliography
(from a Sociolinguistic and Historiographic perspective)

2. Chapters and articles in refereed journals

Chapters and Articles in Refereed Journal

A wide list of articles and chapters by researchers and academics members of the AIMS, as well as scholars who were affiliated as friends of the AIMS, were published over the last twenty years in collective volumes and refereed journals. 

A very small selection of those publications appears here. For a more detailed account on the publications of the Institute’s members and its friends see also in the Google under G. Babiniotis, E. Kofos, A. M. Tamis, I. K. Hassiotis, Speros Vryonis Jr. et al.

1. Journal of Balkan Studies in the series entitled Playing with History, edited by Phaedon Malingoudis, Department of Slavonic Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1997).

IRREDENTISM IN THE MACEDOSLAV BIBLIOGRAPHY
(FROM A SOCIOLINGUISTIC AND HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE)

By Professor Dr Anastasios Tamis
School of Arts and Sciences, The University f Notre Dame Australia

This paper argues that the purpose for the existence and discourse of the Macedoslav bibliography is:
to support the birth of a nation (ethnogenesis);
to provide a point of reference for the historical, national and cultural derivation of the ‘Macedonians’ linking them to antiquity, in order to give substance to their claim of being indigenous and having a historical relation with the Balkans; and
the proliferation and continuation of irredentism to be used as a means to claim certain territories.

In the analysis that follows, certain publications of the Academy of Sciences and the Arts of the National University of Methodius and Cyrillos, the Ministry of Education and the Institute of National History of FYROM have been used selectively, and specific references have been made to the work of zealots and theorists of a macedonism. The approach used is sociolinguistic and historiographic.

Housman supported that to display facts accurately is a duty, but not necessarily a virtue. He believed as misleading the view that historical facts exist objectively and independently from the interpretation given to them by historians. Some of the most important historians of our century (Collingwood, 1946, Carr, 1961 and Aron, 1978) stress that history is a process of selection in regard to what are considered to have historical value. The evaluation criteria used for this by Macedoslav researchers are arbitrary and overstated, as a result of which the historiographic process is influenced and the historical facts distorted. This occurs because the ethnogenesis of the Macedoslav nation is promoted in their bibliography as a sought-after ideal and not a historical fact; the bibliography also concentrates on irredentism disregarding, selectively, ancestors and the past, and focusing on the descendants and their future.
The main characteristics of such an interventionist process, which is followed by Macedoslav researchers, are that:
the historiographic approach is coded in a monistic, regulatory and grammatical way, and
the basic principles governing textuality do not apply in the Macedoslav historiography. More specifically there is: (a) an intentional confusion when reference is made to chronology in the texts and a deliberate violation of the historical facts; (b) an obvious lack of cohesion and coherence of content aiming at acceptability by the readership; and (c) a manufactured intensity on information and emotion that is systematically pushed through.

For example: In the two volumes of Documents published by University of Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, entitled On the Struggle of the Macedonian People for Independence and Nation-State, one could identify, without much difficulty, significant exaggerations and arbitrary interpretations of the text which weaken the cohesion of arguments and the coherence of the analysis. Constantinos Porfyrogenitos, in his work “About Victims”, referring to the ancient Macedonians differentiates between them and the Southern Slavs. The Macedoslav researcher, however, in his article entitled “On Macedonia and the Macedonians, in the first half of the 10th century”, notes that the work of the renowned historian [Porfyrogenitos] includes useful information about the history of the southern Slavs during the early Middle Ages and concludes: “The authentic facts contained in the work "About Issues" present a special interest for the history of the Macedonian people” (p. 87). Thus, while Porfyrogenitos differentiates between the ancient Macedonians and the Southern Slavs, the commentator of Documents identifies one with the other. Similar interventions which are evident through selections and/or omissions are to be found in the letters of Emperor Michael B’ in the History of Ioannis Skylitsis, in the Chronograph of Leon Diakonos, in the Chronograph of Michael Psellos and elsewhere.

Further reading (click here)