Finally got the scene where the sordid history of the Dorian Invasion theory is described. And I can't seem to find the research I had, particularly specifics about how it got picked up by certain authors in Germany and became part of the whole Aryan Origin nonsense.
Well, I guess the details don't matter so much. The Dorians are prominent in the story only because they are the Atlantis stand-in for this one; some pseudo-archaeological theory that can be chased after for a while.
In fact, the point I wanted to make about why ownership of history can matter is being made by something rather different. I'd been researching what was happening in Athens that month to find some amusing incidents and I discovered there was a referendum on the Prespa Agreement that weekend. Well, actually the referendum was not in Greece. And the big demonstrations were in Thessaloniki, not Athens. But given the Athenian's fondness for demonstrations, I doubt anyone will complain if I have a small riot anyhow.
I'd also been reading up on the abandoned buildings near the National Archaeological Museum I'd noticed when I was in the area myself. And between those and a few other things I have a couple chapter's worth of almost-getting-in-trouble before my protagonist actually does get in bad with the cops.
So in short North Macedonia (generally referred to by Athenians as "FYROM," "Skopje" or even "Skopia" (for their capital) and, when stressing their non-Greek ethnicity, "slavs,") is the bit of heritage claiming and openly irredentist mythologizing. And there's so much fun stuff there. And, yes, Alexander the Great is all over this. Which makes me look like I had planned it all along because as early as Chapter Two I had an out-of-nowhere conversation about the meeting between Alexander and Diogenes. And that's not the only mention, either.
(Quora has been extremely helpful in this. In a whole range of threads about Greek history and language, some Skopje fanatic just has to pop up -- seriously, they are as bad as the Flat Earthers who also keep crashing other threads -- to argue about how Alexander wasn't Greek and/or the people of the former Yugoslavia are as Macedonian as Thessalonikans. What I am after as a writer after all isn't the bare facts, but the ways people talk about them. The common arguments, the language used, the kinds of put-downs.)
Yeah, I did the Athenian Student scene. 3,000 words of arguing about politics. I realized part-way in all the voices were too alike so made one of them swear a lot, and since they had made a big deal of speaking English he is mostly swearing in that language, and very creatively. So he turned out to be a lot of fun to write for. However! I tried to put in too much, lost focus, and the voices aren't clear enough, and there's some basic timing issues. So I will probably keep his idioms, even whole exchanges, but the entire conversation has to be re-done.
The big LA project arrives in our shop early next week. I'm not sure I'll have draft done by the end of October.
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