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Update From Pollitecon Publications
January 2017
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Below are some of the numerous additions to the Pollitecon website
over the past few months.
The Life in Aegean Macedonia book
has been updated with new articles.
My Life in Neret and Pemberton
My
Life in Neret and Pemberton by George Germanchev is a new article in
Pollitecon's online book, Life in Aegean Macedonia. Mr Germanchev was
born in 1936 and the article is addressed to his grandchildren so they
can know about his early life in the village of Neret and his new life
in Manjimup and Pemberton in southern Western Australia, an area that
has had many Macedonian migrants. Mr Germanchev's story is one of how
Macedonians can overcome early difficulties to achieve success in business
and family life and pass on their Macedonian story and heritage. The
article is here.
Interview with Tanas Mechkarov
In
2010 I did a wide ranging interview with Macedonian-Australian businessman,
Tanas Mechkarov, of Perth. The interview was about his early life in
the village of Neret and during the Greek Civil War before he came to
Australia at the age of 14. Later, when he retired, Tanas was for many
years the Treasurer of the Macedonian Community of WA. Tanas recently
passed away and I have updated the interview with some old photos and
a postscript about his life. The interview is here.
Family Names of Banitsa Inhabitants
Family Names of Banitsa Inhabitants, by Ted Nitchov, is a list of the
names of 70 families who at one point lived in the village of Banitsa.
The list has both the original Macedonian names and the "Greek"
version given to each family during the years that followed the Treaty
of Bucharest. The list is here.
Macedonian Communities in Turkey
The Macedonian Communities Around the World page http://www.pollitecon.com/html/communities/index.htm
has a new link under Macedonian Communities in Turkey. This is to a
Telegrak.mk article about the village Mustafapasha in Cappadocia in
central Turkey. The villagers moved from Kostur a hundred years ago.
An 87 year old grandmother is recorded speaking Macedonian and the village
invites Macedonian tourists to visit. The article is here.
Free Ebooks
There are many new books in Pollitecon's Free
Ebooks Library.
The Truth About Greek Occupied Macedonia
A new addition to Pollitecon's Free Ebooks library is The Truth About
Greek Occupied Macedonia by Hristo Andonovski & Risto Stefov. The
book starts with many stories and examples of early Macedonian writing
and culture before focusing on many lesser known aspects of the Greek
takeover of Greek-occupied Macedonia and what it did to the Macedonian
people. The book was first published in 1970 by Hristo Andonovski, and
Risto Stefov has translated the book and added new information. The
English version is here.
The Macedonian version, Vistinata za Egejska Makedonija, is here.
Greece's Compliance with the International Elimination of Racial
Discrimination
The Parallel Report on Greece's Compliance with the International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was prepared
for the United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
(CERD) and its 2016 review of Greece. Authored by Greek Helsinki Monitor/
Minority Rights Group - Greece, the report looks at race-based issues
in Greece including the Golden Dawn group, how racially based court
cases are handled, how international treaties and international court
judgments are rarely applied or not applied at all, and the non-recognition
of the Macedonian and Turkish minorities including how Greek authorities
have refused to execute European Court of Human Rights rulings to register
Turkish and Macedonian minority associations, in some instances for
more than 20 years. The report is here.
Australian-Macedonians and their Language(s)
Dr Jim Hlavac has authored a book on the Australian Macedonians titled
"Three Generations, Two Countries of Origin, One Speech Community
- Australian-Macedonians and Their Language(s)". The book focuses
on Macedonians from both Aegean Macedonia and the Republic of Macedonia.
The book has over 500 pages and looks at the use of Macedonian in a
variety of daily settings such as home, work, church and socially as
well as inter-generationally. It says that Macedonian is the twelfth
most widely spoken language and one of the best maintained minority
languages in Australia. Mr Hlavac is Senior Lecturer at the School of
Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University.
The book is edited by international academic, Professor Christian Voss,
and published by Biblion Media in Germany. A 60 page sample with the
contents, introduction, and summaries in English, Macedonian and Greek
is available on the Free Ebooks section of the pollitecon website and
can be downloaded here.
The book can be purchased here.
Other papers by Dr Hlavac on the Macedonian and other languages in Australia
are available here.
An Interview with Risto Stefov
Macedonian-Canadian author and translator Risto Stefov gives his views
on a wide range of Macedonian issues in a new book titled Analysis of
Historical Events in Greek Occupied Macedonia - An interview with Risto
Stefov. After years of research and writing, he packs a lot into 218
pages and does it in a very readable and chatty style. The book is here.
While the first book deals with historical issues, in Part 2 Risto
discusses current issues such as the 'name' dispute, his views on the
so called Slavic invasion theory, and the situation of Macedonians in
Greece today, among others. Part 2 is here.
Three Pascal Kamburovski books
Three new ebooks are by Pascal Kamburovski and translated by Risto Stefov.
Mystery of Alexander's Grave looks at the events around Alexander's
death, the procession to return the corpse to Macedonia, and the theories
about what happened to the sarcophagus and Alexander's body. There is
plenty of political intrigue. The Mulberry Tree is a long short story
written to preserve the memory of the villagers from Kondorobi in Kostursko.
It uses real names to tell the stories of their repression at the hands
of the Greeks. Trnitsta is the Macedonian language version. It is written
in the dialect the people spoke and includes about 550 dialectical words.
Mystery of Alexander's Grave is here.
The Mulberry Tree is here.
Trnitsata is here.
The Jews of Macedonia
The Jews had lived in Macedonia for over 2,000 years, but 98 per cent
of them were sent to the death camps by the German and Bulgarian fascists.
Holocaust of the Macedonian Jews by Martin Trenevski tells this story.
The book is translated and edited by Risto Stefov. The English version
is here.
The Macedonian version is here.
Why Greek Governments Can't be Trusted
It can be an expensive mistake to forget that Greek Governments can't
be trusted. Just ask European banks. Pollitecon has added the European
Commission's report "Greek Government Deficit and Debt Statistics"
to its Free Ebooks page. The report examined the huge differences between
Greece's stated finances and its real finances - the ones that led to
its debt crisis and the world record of €100 billion of debt forgiveness
because Greece wouldn't pay its debts. The report says it found evidence
of "Severe irregularities" ... "including submission
of incorrect data, and non-respect of accounting rules and of the timing
of the notification." The report says in 2009, the Greek authorities
gave Eurostat two different sets of data which revised the deficit from
5% of GDP to 7.7% and revised the planned deficit for 2009 from 3.7%
of GDP to 12.5%. It says "Revisions of this magnitude in the estimated
past government deficit ratios have been extremely rare in other EU
Member States, but have taken place for Greece on several occasions."
But faulty or fraudulent data goes back to at least 2000. The Greek
government's data "have been persistently contested by Eurostat,
far more frequently than for any other Member State". Eurostat
devoted "far more resources and more missions to the country than
to any other EU Member State" but despite its the best efforts,
Eurostat says it "was unable to fully detect the degree of interference"
in the Greek deficit data." The report is here.
The Greek Debt Restructuring: An Autopsy
Also on the theme of Greece's massive financial troubles and incompetence
is the paper The Greek Debt Restructuring: An Autopsy, by Jeromin Zettelmeyer,
Christoph Trebesch, and Mitu Gulati. This analysis says the Greek debt
exchange "set a new world record in terms of restructured debt
volume and aggregate creditor losses, easily surpassing previous high
water marks such as the default and restructuring of Argentina 2001-2005."
It says the design of the restructuring created a large risk for European
taxpayers, and set precedents – particularly in its very generous
treatment of holdout creditors – that are likely to make future
debt restructurings in Europe more difficult. The report is here.
Izmeshani Svetovi
The
novel Izmeshani Svetovi, or Mixed Worlds, by Macedonian-Australian author
Nove Mladenovski is a science fiction novel in Macedonian. It is set
on the planet Armez and follows the dilemma of the people Mi in the
country Ma. The people have an existential problem with the Global Council
- whether they will support being renamed or becoming nameless. There
is no third option.
The novel was published in book form in 2011 by Skopje-based Magor.
The ebook is here.
Books by Other Publishers
Life Under the Ottomans
Anarchy
in Macedonia: Life under the Ottomans, 1878-1912 Victor Sinadinoski
is available in paperback and Kindle editions. The book says Ottoman
rule in Macedonia was always unfavorable to the Macedonians as the Turks
were ruthless and oppressive. The last four decades of Turkish rule
can be seen as the bloodiest and most chaotic years of Macedonia's existence
with anarchy, violence and poverty. More information here.
Macedonian Recipes
MACEDONIA
Recipes from the Balkans, by Katerina Nitsou has 105 of Macedonia's
most classic and celebrated dishes and full color photos. Ms Nitsou
is a Macedonian and a classically trained Cordon Bleu chef who is originally
from Toronto and now lives in Los Angeles. The book took six years to
write. More information here.
Australian Short Stories
Australian
Snake is a collection of 18 short stories by Macedonian migrant to Sydney,
Dr Vasko Gorgievski. The publisher, "August 2" from Stip,
says the stories tell of the psychological life of a child from Bitola
who moved to Sydney and grows into youth. The stories are in Macedonian.
Australian Snake is the author's third collection of stories. The author
can be contacted by email.
More Links
The Links page has four new
links.
I am Macedonian
The youtube video I am Macedonian is a thoughtful look at the politics
of self-identification and how they apply and don't apply to Macedonians.
The clip has had 358,238 views so far. The video is here.
Interview with Panayote Dimitras
In
an interview in English for Macedonian TV, spokesperson for Greek Helsinki
Monitor, Panayote Dimitras, says that Greece and Bulgaria are isolated
in their fantasy that they do not have Macedonian minorities. He says
that this is a taboo subject. "Greece has probably the worst record
on human rights within the EU on the issue of minorities," he says
and that it must be forced to recognize its minorities. He also says
that despite the myths, human rights is not a concern of the EU. The
in-depth and forthright interview is in English after a short introduction
in Macedonian. The interview is here.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States
An
extract of the video Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States
that deals with the Greek Civil War has a lot of very good historical
footage, including Churchill talking about the post WW2 deal with Stalin
that Britain would keep Greece. This deal ultimately led to the Macedonian
participation in the Civil War. How sad to see it juxtaposed with Truman
saying the US would support those peoples who were resisting subjugation.
If the British and US had given a bit more freedom to the Macedonians,
it's likely the Macedonians wouldn't have supported the communists (who
did promise freedom) and it would have been a much shorter war. Churchill's
imperialism and Truman's ignorance or hypocrisy led to thousands of
unnecessary deaths. The video extract was made by Zoran Karapancev and
is here.
Makedonija Newspaper
The Macedonian Newspaper Makedonija is a monthly published in Mississauga,
Canada. It was first published in 1984 and has many stories on Macedonian
culture, language and identity. Makedonija is here.
Canadian Macedonian Books
A reminder that Canadian Macedonian Books has a great selection of Macedonian
books in English from around the world. These include non-fiction, fiction,
children's and cook books. Canadian Macedonian Books is run by Virginia
Evans, a former co-president of the Canadian Macedonian Historical Society
and founder of the Macedonian Film Festival in Toronto. Canadian Macedonian
Books is here.
Discount for Complete Set of Books
A reminder that a complete set of 12 Macedonian books published by Pollitecon
can be purchased at a discount of free postage in Australia and reduced
airmail postage overseas. See Here.
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Thank you
Victor Bivell
Pollitecon Publications
PO Box 3411
Wareemba NSW 2046 Australia
Ph 02 9705 0578
Email vbivell @ pollitecon.com
Web http://www.pollitecon.com
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