Telephone cards now widely used throughout Greece bear the inscription "Macedonia is one and only and it is Greek," in Greek and English, despite the… - Eugene N. Borza

It is difficult to know whether an independent Macedonian state would have come into existence had Tito not recognised and supported the development of Macedonian ethnicity as oart of his ethnically organised Yugoslavia. He did this as a counter to Bulgaria, which for centuries had a historical claim on the area as far west as Lake Ohrid and the present border of Albania.

Some of the Macedonian émigré community in North America have adopted Ernst Badian, Peter Green, and me as “their” scholarly authorities, believing (without basis) that we possess a pro-Macedonian bias in this conflict. While it is true we share certain similarities in our views about the ancient Macedonians, none of us has, to the best of my knowledge, publicly expressed any political opinions on the modern Macedonian Question. Thus, in a recent telephone conversation initiated by a fervent Macedonian nationalist from Toronto who saw in me a potential ally, the caller expressed astonishment when I said that I thought his views on the languages of ancient and modern Macedonia were without scholarly merit and bordered on the absurd. He never called back.

Here we have seen that their early history is still largely an open question. They may have had Greek origins: Whatever process produced the Greek-speakers (of that is how one defines "Greek") who lived south of Olympus may have also produced the Makedones who wandered out of the western mountains to establish a home and a kingdom in Pieria.