Give Macedonia and Its People Their Dignity

According to an Ellis Island ship manifest, on December 28, 1906, Anastas Risteff, a thirty-five year old tailor from Tzaivli, Macedonia and considering himself a Macedonian born in Macedonia, arrived in New York on the S.S. Cassell , which had left Bremen, Germany on the 15th. Upon arrival, the intake clerk on Ellis Island "corrected" his entry on the ship register in bold dark ink, crossing out his place of birth, nationality and country of origin. He was made into a "Bulgarian" born in "Turkey"(Ellis Island). Almost a century ago, a immigrant tried to call himself a Macedonian from Macedonia but other people didn't want to allow this. He was not alone. Greece is preventing the same thing today. Almost a century later, in 2003, Marko Ivanoski, an Orthodox seminarian, took a trip by bus from Prilep, Macedonia to visit the "Holy Mountain", Mount Athos, Greece, which used to be a part of Macedonia.

The Socialist Republic of Macedonia highlighted in...

English: Location of the former Yugoslav Republic ...

English: One of the ethnic symbols of the Macedoni...

By the time he arrived on Athos, Greeks asked him where he was from, he learned to say that he was "from Prilep, south of Skopje". He wanted to say "I'm a Macedonian from Macedonia" and share with the Greek, Russian and Bulgarian Orthodox on Mount Athos that he is Macedonian Orthodox, but he encountered too many arguments (Ivanoski). Macedonians should be recognized as Macedonians even if some people think they aren't Macedonians and want to control an idea of where Macedonia exists today.

The Macedonian people reside in four different nearby countries today, one of which is the Republic of Macedonia. One of many historic maps is located on the cover page of this paper, showing the geographic area of Macedonia in 1885 (Branconi) shows what is historically considered to be Macedonia. Today, outside the Republic and Macedonian parts of Greece, parts of historic Macedonia...