The original manuscript of the proclaimation and other printed proclaimations of Emperor Leopold the first from 1690 with which he takes the Macedonian people under his protection

Mission Statement by the Publishers There was once a dream called Macedonia! You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile. Macedonia (ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝIΑ) once an ancient kingdom ruled by the royal Argead dynasty and home to the Macedonians, was centered in its earliest years on the shores north-west of the Aegean sea bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south. The name Pelasgian was used by classical writers to either refer to populations that were the ancestors or forerunners of the inhabitants living primarily in South-East Europe especially in the Aegean and Macedonia. In general, Pelasgian has come to mean more broadly all the early indigenous inhabitants of the region and their cultures. Populations identified as Pelasgian spoke a language or languages that at the time the writers and historians such as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Platon and others identified as “barbaric”. Large parts of South-East Europe and the Aegean had once spoke Pelasgian before becoming Venetic, Phrygian, Macedonian, Thracian, Illyrian , Etruscan, Ionic, Aeolic, and other languages and dialects. All forms of these languages and dialects although being distinct, clearly interrelated with each other derive from a common ancestor called Proto-Indo-European. Ancient Macedonian, the language of the ancient Macedonians, considered up to now either a separate and distinct Indo-European or a separate Hellenic language which was spoken in the Kingdom of Macedonia. This language was closely related to Illyrian, Thracian, Ionic, Aeolic, and other languages and dialects. It was marginalized by the use of Attic and Ionian by the Macedonian royal aristocracy during the 4th century BC, while the vernacular was used by the common Macedonians. Koine was formed and created as a universal language within the Macedonian Empire of Alexander of Macedon referred to as “the common” language. Mostly used by aristocracy, poets and historians, the newly formed language was used from the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt to the Seleucid Empire of Mesopotamia, Bactria and further. It served as the lingua franca or Esperanto of much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries. As a consequence of the Macedonians’ role in the formation of the Koine , Macedonian contributed elements in this common language as well as other languages and dialects. Due to the fragmentary attestation of the ancient Macedonian language, various interpretations and theories have emerged the last centuries for which no real long term study and detailed fact finding has been done consistently, independently and without bias. Its influence on other ancient languages and vice versa, through the centuries has been of interest to the wider linguistic community. Also its role in influencing and defining certain aspects of current contemporary literary languages of some modern political nations in South-East Europe has not been clearly analyzed and presented. For centuries the ancient Macedonian language has been declining and has almost disappeared. There are several reasons why the ancient Macedonian language has experienced this decline over the centuries: the fact that the language was primarily oral, loss of status with the Macedonian royals and