Macedonian Studies Journal Journal of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies Melbourne, Australia 2014 – Vol
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Macedonian Studies Journal Journal of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies Melbourne, Australia 2014 – Vol. 1 Issue : 2 The Borders of Ancient Makedonia I: To Perdikkas III By John Melville-Jones MACEDONIAN HELLENES: FROM DARIUS TO POLIBIUS AND THE GRAECO-INDIAN KINGDOMS By Anastasios Myrodis Tamis Alexander – the Great Tactician? By Christopher A. Matthew Skopje’s Political Efficiency: Converting a National Goal to National Policy By Marcus A. Templar The Greek-Americans and Balkan Wars 1912-13: Helping the old homeland By Terry Stavridis Women and costumes of Naoussa, the end of an era By Eugenia Zaliou-Basiakouli Περιοδική Έκδοση Μακεδονικών Σπουδών Έκδοση του Αυστραλιανού Ινστιτούτου Μακεδονικών Σπουδών Μελβούρνη, Αυστραλία 2014 – Τόμ. 1 Τεύχος : 2 Publication Name : Macedonian Studies Journal Copyright © Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies Owner - Publisher : Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies Macedonian House 470 Queens Parade Clifton Hill Melbourne Victoria Australia Telephones of 061394822467 Communication : 061394823512 Website : www.aims.edu.au Editor : ACADEMY OF INSTITUTIONS AND CULTURES Internet Publication : ACADEMY OF INSTITUTIONS AND CULTURES Thessaloniki, Macedonia Hellas Website : www.academy.edu.gr E-mail : [email protected] [email protected] Year : 2014 Design Issue and custody : Georgios El. Kourtalis ISSN : Print 2204-311X Sponsor ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΤΖΙΟΛΑ Tziola Scientific Publications Τel: 0030 2310213912 Fax: 0030 2310210729 Email: [email protected] Editorial Certain Macedoslav scholars1 - primarily involved with humanities and social sciences - in an attempt to propagate their ideas and gratify desires natural in the breast of those who have been brought up as part of a pro- cess of ethnogenesis, interpret the concept of objectivity in a radical, fundamental and pseudo-liberal way. Their ap- proach is not based on primary sources but on preceded interpretations of other same-flag raising “researchers”. The said Macedoslav researchers, who select their sources to express what is really their own point of view, and then use the neutral style of writing to make it seem objective, are engaged in a form of deception. This damages the cred- Aristotle made a crucial discovery: there’s a part of the mind that can go ibility of the craft by making it seem unprincipled, dishon- wrong, and that’s the part that we’re in est, and biased. They, like the postmodernists reject the control of, where our free will reigns, very notion of objective truth, and hold that there are sep- and that there’s a part of the mind that arate realities-as well as truths-for separate groups. is safe, where we don’t need control. Hence, it is only natural that their writings often generate As a result, we can decide to check the part that can go wrong using the other, confusion and illusion and rendered to be unreliable and error-free part. That’s what we have to capricious in their content. know before we can search for a Needless to say that when the concept of objectivity method of guiding our thinking. originally evolved it was not meant to imply that scholars broadly speaking are free of bias. Objectivity called for researchers and scholars, including journalists, to develop a consistent method of monitoring, assessing, testing and document- ing information – a transparent approach to evidence – precisely so that personal and cul- tural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work. A few years ago researchers talked about something called “realism” rather than ob- jectivity. This was the idea that if they simply dug out the facts and ordered them together, truth would reveal itself rather naturally. Realism emerged at a time when the creation of knowledge and researchers were asked to separate from political party affiliations, ethno- specific legacies and propagating scenarios becoming more accurate. It coincided with the invention of what journalists call the inverted pyramid, in which a journalist lines the facts up from the most important to the least important, thinking it helps audiences understand things naturally. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, some journalists began to worry about the naïveté of realism. In part, reporters and editors were becoming more aware of the rise of propaganda and the role of press agents. At a time when Freud was de- veloping his theories of the unconscious and painters like Picasso were experimenting with Cubism, journalists were also developing a greater recognition of human subjectivity. In 1919, Charles Merz, an associate editor for the New York World, wrote an influen- tial and scathing account of how cultural blinders had distorted the New York Times cover- age of the Russian Revolution. “In the large, the news about Russia is a case of seeing not 1Reference is made here to numerous articles appearing on the Journal On the Documents of the Ss. Cyril and Meth- odius University, Skopje, FYROM. Editorial what was, but what men wished to see,” he wrote. Researchers must be trained adequately to grasp the scientific spirit, to study the evidence and verify their sources, to be disciplined by the method, to be able to distinguish between conceptions and perceptions. Although scholars in general may have developed various techniques and conventions for determin- ing facts, they have done less to develop a system for testing the reliability of “impartial” interpretation. Great Macedonian Hellene Aristotle had established a number of steps to induce his principle of objectivity. Its essentially five steps were: 1. Grasp the distinction of percepts and concepts. 2. Understand that concepts are capable of error, whereas percepts are not. 3. Learn that the functioning of concepts is under our control, whereas percepts are not. 4. Discover that we can somehow use percepts as a means to measure concepts. 5. We’ll then know that a method is necessary, and that it is possible because we know what it would consist of, by reducing the fallible part to the infallible part. The first step is to reach the distinction between percepts and concepts, what the Greeks called “sense” and “idea.” The distinction was originated by Socrates and Plato, de- pending on how one interprets his dialogues. What Plato had to do, and what Aristotle and all of us had to do, was to mentally observe similar instances of ideas in contrast to sensory experience, to our percepts. With the contrast, Plato was able to draw out a list of attributes that belonged to ideas as opposed to sense experience: 1. Ideas were general or universal (Beauty, Justice, Virtue, etc.); sense experience was particular or concrete (the beauty of a maiden, the piety of a man, etc.). 2. The One and the Many—we’re aware of countless things which nevertheless seem to have the same properties; for instance, John is the same person, no matter what age he is or any differences in his appearances. Plato realized that this physical dis- tinction actually applied to these mental phenomena, ideas. 3. Ideas are abstract, non-material, whereas the senses interact with our bodies and material objects. 4. Ideas are immutable, changeless, whereas sensory objects are always changing, coming into being and going out of existence. We hope that our Macedoslav colleagues of the University of Cyril and Methodius will be objective enough to distinguish between concepts and percepts and to acknowledge in scientific objectivity that the two Thessalonikean brothers to whom they attribute their nomenclature, namely Cyril and Methodius and for whom they have erected magnificent monument at their university campus, where not just “Macedonians”, as they ingenuously depict with much naivety in their university charter, but Macedonian Hellenes and mission- aries of the Greek language and culture, who resurrected them from the obscurity and taught them how to write the Slavic concepts and be proud of their Slavic origin. FROM THE DESK OF THE EDITOR AUSTRALIAN INSTIUTE OF MACEDONIAN STUDIES MELBOURNE Board of Directors and Editorial Committee Anastasios M. Tamis (editor), Vasilis Sarafidis (co-editor), Panagiotis Gogidis (secretary), Elias Dionysakos (I.T. expert), Kostas Hatzistavros, Helen Kalamboukas, Theophani Karabatsas, Makis Kaznaxis, Zissis Kozlakidis (I.T. expert), Panagiotis Liveriadis (Chair), Christos Mantzios (treasurer), Terry Stavridis Africa: Benjamin Hendrick and Euthymios Souloyiannis (Athens Academy) America: Spyros Vryonis (California State University) and Efrosyne Gavaki (Concordia University) Australia: Anastasios M. Tamis (Chair) (University of Notre Dame Australia and AIMS), Iakovos Michailidis (co-chair) (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Kon- stantinos Karnassiotis (co-ordinatior) (Chairman of A.I.C., Hellas), Helen Ka- lamboukas (Monash University and AIMS), Theophani Karabatsas (La Trobe University and AIMS), Panagiotis Gogidis (AIMS), Vasilis Sarafidis (Monash University and AIMS), Terry Stavridis (University of Notre Dame and AIMS), Arthur McDevitt Europe: Georgios Babiniotis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Mi- chael Bruneau, Michael Damanakis (University of Crete), George Georgis (University Cyprus), Ioannis Hassiotis (Artistotle University of Thessaloniki), Loukianos Hassiotis (Artistotle University of Thessaloniki), Evanthis Hatzi- vassiliou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Kyriacos Hat- zikyriakidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Maria Kambouris- Vamvoukou (Artistotle University of Thessaloniki), Kostis Kokkinoftas (Stud- ies Centre Kykkos Monastery, Cyprus),