A massive rally in Syntagma square against the use of the term Macedonia by FYROM in Athens, Greece on February 4, 2018. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved.On February 4, Greece took to the streets. This time, the issue wasn’t a bailout package, impending reforms or massive layoffs. It was simply a matter of preserving history; preventing FYROM ( the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) from laying claim to the legacy of Macedonia and Alexander the Great. Protesters were demanding that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras did not make an agreement at the UN headquarters in New York which would allow for the neighbouring country to the north to include “Macedonia” in its name.
The dispute started in 1990 with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. What was then the Macedonian prefecture formed the parliament of the “Socialist Republic of Macedonia.” One of its aims was to unite all the Macedonian people under one state. This was later entrenched in the 1991 constitution in Article 5, which sought to protect "the rights of the portions of the Macedonian people, which live as an ethnic minority in neighbouring countries." The country became a member of the UN in 1993 and has been recognised by over 130 states.
Macedonia is a geographical area that, throughout history, has been ruled by many different ethnic groups. Its poster child, Alexander the Great, unified the different city-states of Greece in an empire, often through bloody wars. He was born in what is today Greece, even though there was no such thing at the time. His, the Romans’, the Ottomans’ and the Yugoslavians’ “Macedonia” included the territories of FYROM.
