Can ALL of Macedonia (the OTL Greek and Bulgarian sections as well as the OTL country) be part of Greece?
AHC: Macedonia Part of Greece
- Thread starter TickTock The Witch's Dead
- Start date
Have the revolutions in Macedonia succeed during the Greek War of independence, or have the Greeks join the Russian side of the war during the Great Eastern Crisis. The latter is less likely than the former to gain ALL of Macedonia, but the former is also probably more likely to happen. Either way, without significant ethnic cleansing, they are unlikely to hold all of it. They would only be able to hold the parts that Greece currently controls, as well as the minor Greek speaking part of the FYROM.
GdwnsnHo
Banned
If you're willing to go further back, have any Roman population transfers that makes Macedonia all Greek. Or have stronger defences on the Balkans borders so the Slavic groups don't overwhelm them, and maybe just allow them to immigrate in small groups - boom, Balkans is massively more Greek, and Illyria is considered part of Greece too (assuming no other great cultural shifts)
Zlorfik
Banned
I thought about similar POD's
The issue is, this calls for a complete, utter collapse of the ottoman balkans through the ripping out of its center of gravity (Thessaloniki)
Russia doesn't have a free hand here, as the great powers will stop it short of this goal. Greece can't really accomplish it on its own either.
I think a more a more fruitful source of modern POD's would be the 1st/2nd balkan wars
Um... they are Bulgarians, and they speak a Bulgarian dialect. They speak a different language and are a different ethnicity from the rest of Greece. Unless they are given SIGNIFICANT autonomy they won't like it. AT. ALL.
The PoD would need to be much earlier than the Balkan Wars themselves. Basically during the 19th century Greece would need to become at least slightly bigger than OTL. And she'd need to be much more powerful in comparison to Bulgaria and Serbia so she can take the head start on influencing Macedonia, and the leading role in its conquest/liberation.
I' m afraid the answer is NO, Greece cannot have the entire Macedonia, simply because she does not havd the interest in doing it. Other than the OTL Greek Macedonia, only Monastiri (Bitola,) had been in the Greek plans. Greece aimed for Southern Macedonia for the Greek population, Thessalonika, and as a bridge to Thrace. There was no interest for the northern macedonian towns with solid Bulgarian, Slav and Albanian populations and little presence of Greek merchant capital.
Just how are Macedonian Slavs *not* going to be aware that they speak an entirely different language from the Greeks?
Well, they seem to be able to convince themselves they're a descendant of Greek Macedon in OTL so maybe it could happen.
They can be aware that they speak a different language, but that does not necessarily equate to the development of a separate national identity based on that.
What about Bulgarian Macedonia? Are there too many Bulgarians for that?
That would be easier than a Greek one; before the development of the Macedonian identity, they were considered to be Bulgarians.
No like the part which consists of southwestern Bulgaria.
Ah. Well this depends on when you go for it. If you try to acquire it after the Bulgarian national awakening then you're probably out of luck (same for the rest of Slavic Macedonia, actually).
I think he was talking about Bulgarian GREEK Macedonia.
I guess this a little easier, I think there is a recent TL with that happening.
Talking about the main challenge I guess that if Greece manages to gain more land in the first rebellion and then gradually become the center and main supporter of the rebellion they could assimilate some Slavs, BTW how much/many did the Bulgarian and Slavic Macedonian population assimilate to Greece culture during OTL Ottoman and Greek rule?
How many cases are there in modern Europe of *fundamental* differences in language not leading to national movements--of nations willingly acquiescing in rule by a nation with a totally different language? (I am not talking about multilingual federations like Switzerland.) True, nationalism may not exist where the language is spoken by very small numbers of people and they are surrounded by a larger nation, so that independence is obviously impractical--as with the Sorbs in Germany. Or again it may not exist when the languages are very closely related--one reason Belarusan nationalism has been so weak is that the language is so close to Russian. But neither of these conditions exists with regard to the Macedonian Slavs vis-à-vis the Greeks.