Who Owns Alexander the Great? It's a Diplomatic Minefield
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Riots in Greece: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/20/thousands-of-g...
Riots on Macendonia: https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-name-change-protest-studen...
The people protesting weren't alive in the hey day of Alexander The Great and hero worshipping like this in any case is pretty weird. They weren't around when the empire Alexander conquered existed. Yet people will riot if you suggest Alexander was either Greek or Macedonian depending on who hears you say it. His country was a completely different nation to the modern nations in the area. Yet there's some tribalistic instinct that's getting triggered here that leads to people going pretty much insane over this.
The typical person will almost always seek to wrap their self up in - associate with - an identity greater than their own existence. Whether that's a sports team, or Alexander the Great, or a long dead empire or culture, or the success of another person/company/thing. It's seemingly so common as to apply to almost everyone on the planet I'd wager.
I think even unusual persons - those able to stand apart from standard tribalism - end up doing it to one degree or another. For example even if you focus on work, or art, instead of relating yourself to typically tribalistic things culturally, you end up wrapping your identity up in that work/art/stuff/hobby (consciously or subconsciously).
Have you ever seen people on forums lead a comment with: "I'm from such and such place, and here's how we do a thing" - they're borrowing credibility for their self, from some past people that built that credibility. I'm from Greenland and here's why we're so amazing and why you suck so much. It's exceptionally common all over discussion forums. They've wrapped themselves up in an identity greater than their self, they want to associate with it and steal some of the perceived value/amazingness (that they weren't responsible for creating).
Are people not allowed now to reference successful methods that they practice, and their origin for social proof, lest they be too uppity? That's a weird take.
If they aren't part responsible for the referenced culture, as a member of it, than who is? (Forgetting for a moment that this is irrelevant, to the point in question, and the question is solely being used to tear the person down).
You could just argue in favor of the method. That's not what they're doing, they're looking to capture: I'm better than other people because of where I come from, my culture is superior and I'm part of that culture.
Otherwise you could just drop the location identity and argue the point by itself. They want the easy credibility capture, it's a form of virtue signaling (and all you have to do is location drop and you get magic virtue points, even if you didn't earn any of those points).
Referencing the method's origins offers social proof that it works. That's often a critical aspect of persuasion. It's completely normal and common. "Credibility capture" is an invented and weird term, and it would both apply and not apply here in the inverse that you would want it to.
In the manner that it applies when offering a positive connotation, again, social proof is necessary much of the time.
In the manner that it doesn't apply when attempting negative connotation, this person has every right to "capture credibility" from the culture to which they belong; especially when referencing a cultural method.
This is a nightmare autistic-style conversation, by the way. In your attempt to de-normalize the normal. Appreciate it.
I agree with most of your post.
However, there’s also the desire to paint one’s own context, biases and giving credit to the shoulders one stands on.
How can you differentiate between negative and positive intentions of communicating one’s context? Just by (often faked) humility? And how do you spot the fake?
I don't find it weird, but it is a testament to many things about human nature, and the successes and failures of society and civilization. Some of those things are positive, many are negative.
"It is people who feel inferior looking to attach themselves to something they perceive as great. It is very difficult for many people to find meaning in their lives, so they fall into the excessive fandom / tribalistic / nationalistic / etc mentality when they do not manage to find meaning and satisfaction elsewhere."
Name changes, in countries that have witnessed recent 2-3 centuries history from within "hot zones", are not just some insignificant detail, they are often driven by and soon enough accompanied with territorial and other claims.
But even the part about not wanting some other to claim your legaly itself is not that weird. It's cultural appropriation at a national level.
Outside perspective that's a silly thing to fight over and "why don't you kids just get along" is not uncommon. But to those involved it's matter of identify, history, etc. It's a complicated thing. It depends how it's presented I guess, when it's comes with a patronizing voice, it's different than from someone from withing who wants to normalize things or reach out to the other side.
Our connection to the land is no less real than our connection to our ancestors from 2000+ years ago—both are largely social constructs, made up of stories that we tell with our modern friends and family. I don't see any compelling reason to say that the modern Greeks are more entitled to Alexander's legacy than the modern Macedonians, given that neither ethnic group is actually descended from Alexander (his family was all murdered) and neither culture bears any resemblance to the culture of Alexander.
So Italians are not any more entitled to Caesar's Legacy than the Japanese because Caesar lived thousand of years ago?
Modern Greeks are descendents of Ancients Greeks while modern Northern Macedonians are not. Alexander was an Ancient Greek living in Ancient Macedonia.
If the Japanese settled in Italy in the 500s AD and lived there for 1500 years telling stories about Caesar and spent centuries adopting him as an honorary forefather, yeah, I'd say they were entitled to his legacy. It's not like he's around to mind.
The modern French identify strongly with the Gauls (to the point where most Gallic scholarship is in French) even though their language is of Latin descent and they're mostly descended from the Germanic tribes that came later.
The modern English identify strongly with the early Britons (to the point where their largest folk hero is the King of the Britons) even though they're mostly descended from the very people who displaced them.
This is just a pattern applied across the world every time nations migrate. I'm going to need a better explanation than a Japanese straw man for why the North Macedonians shouldn't be entitled to the same kind of folk-hero appropriation that the English are.
> This is just a pattern applied across the world every time nations migrate.
So then I guess if you were a Native American and modern Americans claimed to be descendents of Geronimo you wouldn't find it ridiculous? It's factually wrong.
It seems that they did, as much as anyone else in Europe at that time. Slavic versions of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Romance (which was the main way the story of Alexander the Great was known in folklore) appear quite early.
Could you lay off the straw men and try to address the actual argument?
However, if we hypothesize that in similarity how the ancient macedonians started becoming roman and byzantine after, the same way they were actually assimilated into being slavs and mixed with them, because the slavs were in fact very open minded who was a slav and who wasnt, then we could say that the genetic line is there and in fact lots of people in the balkans and anatolia and south italy trace greek heritage.
The slavs from russia and ural are very different looking than the balkan slavs. In addition, you dont see many ethnic hungarians that look asian, even though the initial magyars were asian nomads. Same with bulgaria, the bulgars were asian nomads from the steppe, but hardly any ethnic bulgarians look asian. Meaning, the initial conquerors were a minority group being overlords or leaders of a majority local natives, who then got assimilated.
The mixing of peoples was there. The genetic trace is there. But the political rhetoric is crazy.
Says who? Citation needed.
Gosh nationalism was stupid back then and remains stupid nowadays.
Wikipedia as a source for a highly heated political matter like this? Talk about stupid things. And keep your moronic assumptions about how I am a nationalist to yourself.
They spoke Greek, they worshipped the same Gods, they did participate in the Olympics. Everything about them was Greek. There are coins with Alexander's name where the name is written exactly as I write it today, in Greek, down to the letter and to the stroke.
And maybe do some research on what Alexander himself considered his region and himself as. I am sure you would want to respect that.
I understand the need of a state to create some kind of coherent narrative to keep itself together, but enough with this charade.
"Gosh"...
> When Alexander I of Macedon petitioned to compete in the foot race of the ancient Olympic Games, the event organizers at first denied his request, explaining that only Greeks were allowed to compete. However, Alexander I produced proof of an Argead royal genealogy showing ancient Argive Temenid lineage, a move that ultimately convinced the Olympic Hellanodikai authorities of his Greek descent and ability to compete, although this did not necessarily apply to common Macedonians outside of his royal dynasty
Badian, Ernst (1982). "Greeks and Macedonians". Studies in the History of Art. SYMPOSIUM SERIES I. 10. National Gallery of Art: 33–51. JSTOR 42617918
I didn't say you are nationalist, just that it's a stupid concept. It was stupid from "mainstream" ancient Greeks to exclude ancient Makedonians and it's stupid to argue who can claim Alexander nowadays. In every state ancient or modern, every inhabitant is a genetic melange and even though there is usually some major culture there are minorities which are often excluded by the jingoistic narrative.
In any case, the notion that the people of North Macedonia have anything to do with Alexander is laughable, as Kiro Gligorov himself stated.
No, it's more like denying WASP Americans the native american heritage. Even ignoring the clouded history between the two groups, the former simply came later and have nothing to do with it.
>I don't see any compelling reason to say that the modern Greeks are more entitled to Alexander's legacy than the modern Macedonians, given that neither ethnic group is actually descended from Alexander (his family was all murdered).
The claims of legacy is not about having Alexander's family DNA - it's about historical tracing and culture and so on. In any case, even DNA wise, ancient to modern Greeks are quite close according to related studies (and unlike some western racist prejudices in the past centuries, dismissing modern Greeks right to their ancestry).
>and neither culture bears any resemblance to the culture of Alexander
Says who? Greeks have been speaking and developing the Greek culture and language since before the times of Alexander. And Greek vocabulary as developed at the time of Alexander's expansion, is still easily understood by modern Greeks.
Things did change, as they do everywhere - a culture changed after 2.3 millenia of development, is not the same as it being something alien that came from nowhere.
Does 16th or even 19th century US culture look like the modern one, if seen superficially? Not. However if traced back, and seen as a series of historical developments, it's a specific stream, discreet than say Mexican or Canadian culture or whatever. And that's just a few centuries. And of course, there being a big difference to 2024 US culture to 1780 US culture doesn't mean current Americans don't have a claim to the Founding Fathers, or Poe, or Mark Twain or whatever - or that suddenly Canadians can lay claim to those things.
Language, to name just one, maybe the most important component of a culture.
Even the application of the name to North Macedonia is more a Roman thing than anything else. We don't call all of Greece (not to mention all the other lands conquered by Alexander) "Macedonia" just because it was conquered by Macedon back then ...
The current people living in modern turkey that were greek back centuries ago and had to assimilate due to various reasons from greeks to turks, would current greeks nor accept them as part of their culture and greek identity now? Would you say that current turks and greeks share some identity despite the annihilation of the byzantinians?
Would the aromanians of modern greece not be accepted as being part of the greek identity?
Would the bulgarians not identify with their mongol steppe nomad overlords that came over in early medieval age and started a khanate over the local slav populations?
Would the modern hungarians claim that they are in fact mongol asians?
These are complicated topics, and politics are just making it worse. There is no definite answer, because the truth lies in who has more power to enforce it. Both greeks and macedonians drown their daily life struggles and sorrows by beating the nationalism drum, so that the corrupt politicians can scream stupid lies on the microphones so they can continue with their corruption, and the common people eat it up like porridge. History is much more complicated.