Vasilis Giannakis, the Mayor of Florina, Greece, has continued to face criticism over his decision to halt a public musical performance because it was sung in the Macedonian language.
The Musicians’ Association of Northern Greece said the ridiculous excuses that the Banda Entopica band had been performing Slavic irredentist songs proved the Mayor had a complete lack of knowledge of history and no culture.
Kanal 5 has tried to get a stand from Florina’s local authorities on the case and also asked whether all performances in the field of art in the future that contain Macedonian cultural elements will be banned. However, it hasn’t received an answer.
Nonetheless, Protothema, citing a municipal employee, claims that the singing of “Slavic” songs in that region of Greece was assessed as an act of irredentism since it referred to Aegean Macedonia, which the Mayor couldn’t allow considering the region’s history and geopolitical tensions around it.
According to Banda Entopica, there were 2,000 people at the event, but the threats and insults came from just around 10 people, including Giannakis, who asked band members who had allowed them to sing in the “Slavic” language, while another person got on the stage and pushed a band member, shouting, “You will not be playing such songs here”.