RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IS RECYCLED AND SEAPS THROUGH AT KEY MOMENTS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS

A theory contrary to historical facts has been shared at key moments for the state over the years, among those who have shared it is a person with a PhD

Whenever North Macedonia takes a significant step on its western course, “by accident” Russian influence begins to be published and shared on the media air. The current situation is not excluded from this trend when the country needs to be approved for the framework to start negotiations with the European Union. On November 16th, Professor Tanja Karakamisheva posted a screenshot of the text on her Facebook profile and wrote in the description “Good morning, famous Macedonians … our name is big, that’s why they want to destroy us!”

As can be seen in the screenshot, at the time of writing this article the post has over 2,000 interactions and 750 shares, figures that prove that the post reached a large number of Facebook users in a relatively short amount of time. The main point of the text in the screenshot is that the Russians and the Muscovites (a name for the Russians during the Middle Ages) were descendants of the ancient Macedonians and that they spoke the language that the ancient Macedonians once spoke. We have not been able to find information on whether there is a 7th-century Chronicle in the Moscow Public Library, but anyone who has studied history in primary school knows that this theory is contrary to the historical facts which say that in the sixth century the Slavs (where the Russians came from)  began migrating northeast and southwest of the area north of the Carpathians, so there is no way that Russians could be descendants of the ancient Macedonians.

What was more interesting about the research was if and when this post appeared on the Internet and social networks. The F2N2 team was able to find evidence that it has been present since 2007, so chronologically we will show you how this post was recycled and published over the years. Let us start from the beginning:

2007 – This claim arises from the speech of the historian Petar Popovski in the show “In the center”, broadcasted in 2007.

2012 – The first written record that the F2N2 team managed to find was published on strumjan.blogspot.com, on March 27th, 2012.

2014 – The entry was published on the website Macedonian Nation, on August 13th, 2014.

2016 – Historian Petar Popovski was again a guest on the show “In the center” where he spoke on the same topic (the date on which the show was broadcast is not known, because the video was removed from YouTube), but an excerpt from his visit was posted on the Facebook page “Sekula Vojvoda Fan Club“, on January 14th, 2016.

2018 – On March 9th, 2018, the exact same post was published on the Facebook page “Macedonia and Russia † Orthodox Union“. On August 14th  of the same year, the post was published on the Dudinka portal, and on the same day it was published on the Facebook page “Milenko Nedelkovski” (the Dudinka portal is owned by Milenko Nedelkovski). The next day, on August 15, the excerpt from the quote was published on the portals Vesnik-Ilinden.com and Horoskop-krajnicki.com. The quote was published on the portal Pogled.mk on September 16th , 2018, and on the 22nd of the same month, on the portal Makedoniaese.com.

2019 – The website “Macedonian Nation” again published the statement of Petar Popovski on September 18th, 2019.

2020 – On August 15th this year, the Facebook page “Makedonija na Makedoncite” published the quote, the post also mentions the visit of former President Gjorge Ivanov to the Kremlin in 2017, and a video of the president’s statement was published of Russia, Vladimir Putin, given on May 24th, 2016. It is worth noting that the post has more than 1,200 shares. The same day, the post was republished on the Facebook page “Vidi Vidi“. On November 12th, the Facebook page “Macedonia and Russia † Orthodox Union” republished, i.e. republished the post from the page “Sekula Vojvoda Fan Club” published in 2016. As we can conclude from the beginning of our article, the last post of this entry is on the profile of Professor Tanja Karakamisheva. The only portal that published her post is the portal Makedonskivesnik.com.

For eight years, the same statement, which incorrectly presents history, has been circulating on social networks and media, and was first published 13 years ago. We assume that it will reappear in the future, because the influence that comes from Russia and refers to the Balkans is always present. Here you can learn more about Russian influence in North Macedonia.