Who was Alexander the Great?

Who exactly was Alexander the Great? Greek? Macedonian? Or was he in fact Albanian? That's the latest theory on Alexander's identity, put forward by the historians such as Nijazi Muhamedi.



In a detailed research Mr Muhamedi has published that Alexander the Great was Albanian and as the Macedonians threat any historian that has come to the same conclusion, "will be well aware that he is wading into a debate that is already highly emotive". Yes, every historian is aware of what they are publishing and what they studied and i am sure Mr Muhamedi has done his research and have published based on his findings as have the other historians done in the case of Alexander the great. If we know where and when he fought, surely Mr Muhamedi and other historians do know who he was, Albanian, Greek or Macedonian!

We do know that Alexander the Great was a brilliant general and King of ancient Macedon, whose army swept across Asia Minor, Persia, and all the way to India, around 300 BC. Every world ancient map shows that it is in the territories of Albania and any theory of Alexander being Greek or Macedonian which in fact Macedonia did not exist as a country at the time of Alexander the great and the area was illyria today Albania just eaten by it's neighbors.

How closely Alexander would associate himself with any modern nation-state is a moot point, but he is now at the centre of a very contemporary dispute about identity.

Greece has long claimed Alexander the Great as its own, stressing the cultural continuity between ancient Macedon and modern-day Greece but on the other hand Greece also claim that Albania’s Skenderbeu (Gjergj Kastioti) was Greek which is nonsense to even a 6 year old but those are the Greeks that even claim the Irish dancing and tango are from Greece.

But Greece's northern neighbour, which calls itself the Republic of Macedonia (and is recognised as such by most other countries, although not by the Greeks, who have succeeded in preventing that name from being officially adopted at the United Nations) has, in recent years, made a determined bid to claim Alexander's heritage. For example, its capital, Skopje, now boasts an "Alexander the Great Airport".

Albanian and also Greeks are outraged by this, seeing it as a deliberate appropriation of their history. History shows that Albanian Neighbors have always been fighting to get territories of Albania and many have succeeded, Macedonia has half of it's territory Albanian, Greece has a good part of Albanian territory and pushed away the Albanians, Montenegro has more then half of it's territory from Albania, I have attached the real Albanian map which basically was Albanian early 19th century and there are reasons that half of Macedonia are Albanians and speak Albanian and a good part of Greece are Albanian and they were killed and pushed out of the area as late as in the beginning of the second world war which to this day Greece denies the genocide of as many as 2 million Albanian people being killed and thrown out of their homes who have settled now in Turkey and in Albania.

There are as many as 8 million Albanians now living in Turkey which were living in Albanian territories now occupied by Greece and that is the place where Alexander the great was born.

But the Republic of Macedonia, (or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM, as the Greeks prefer to call it) is itself a badly divided society, with an Albanian minority that often feels discriminated against.

Macedonian's know and have published themselves that they came to Balkans very late and there was never a country called Macedonia but because of the Serbian empire they occupied half of Macedonia's territory from Albania and the other half from Bulgaria. Macedonia was created by Serbia and every history of origins book is written that Serbs came from Russia in the 13th century and settled in Balkans in the 13th century so if Alexander lived and fought in 300bc, 1600 years before the Macedonian’s and Serbs settled in Balkans, he could have not been Macedonian, the questions which most historian’s need to answer is, are the Greeks just trying too hard to make everything theirs!?

Mr Muhamedi's theory implies that Albanians have been around a lot longer than that. This row will run and run. As the Balkans tries to define its future, the past remains a fertile battleground. (Erind Kurti)