Macedonian People Research Articles

Yugoslav Totalitarian Society, Discrimination Against Albanian and Bulgarian Minorities in Macedonia

The Balkans as a region of Southeast Europe is one of the most sensitive regions of Europe; this is where the sparks of war arose from the time of the Ottoman Empire until 2001 when a political solution was finally given to each problem of nationalities and inequalities in this region. The former Yugoslavia as an artificial creation of a state, lacking nationality, is one of the sources of conflicts which erupted with bloody wars caused by Serbia. The Yugoslav federation which gained political power after World War II consisted of 6 republics and 2 provinces. According to the Federal Constitution of Yugoslavia, all peoples must be integrated into Yugoslavia. Unfortunately within Yugoslavia there were privileged peoples, and others who were treated as secondary-class people. Albanians in Yugoslavia, most of whom belonged to the Autonomous Province of Kosovo, did not experience the status of equal population in Yugoslavia; Bulgarians were treated the same, most of whom lived in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The Republican government in Macedonia influenced by the Federal one has directly influenced Macedonia in the manner of discrimination against national minorities such as Albanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Roma, Ashkali, Turks, etc., while the: Serbian, Montenegrin, Macedonian people have been the most privileged ones within the Republic, as well as in the Yugoslav Federation.The communist regime in Yugoslavia denied any minority efforts for equality and prosperity. The most vocal in the quest for rights were Albanians and Bulgarians, who faced torture, draconian punishments, internment, and even murder in Yugoslav concentration camps. Yugoslavia, namely the Socialist Republic of Macedonia from 1945 until 2001, was the most dictatorial regime in the history of Southeast Europe for Albanians and Bulgarians; unfortunately the Bulgarian community in Macedonia, even with the new constitution, has not resolved its political, cultural, educational status etc…

Ukrainian Studies in the Academic Heritage of Blaže Ristovski

The submitted paper is one more opportunity to pay attention to Ukrainian Studies in the great academic heritage of Blaže Ristovski (1931–2018) who was well known and highly appreciated in Ukraine as the prominent Macedonian scientist, public and cultural figure. Scientific activity of Blaže Ristovski was connected with M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology (IASFE) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for many years. He was one of the initiators of the scientific cooperation between the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts and National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine as well as the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian-Macedonian Collections (vol. 1–6). B. Ristovski has been engaged in various issues dealing with Macedonian and Ukrainian parallels of formation and development of the historical and national consciousness as the Head of the Committee on the Macedonian-Ukrainian cooperation formed at the beginning of 2000s in the frame of the Agreement about friendship and cooperation between Ukraine and Republic of Macedonia, as well as the Agreement about cooperation between two our Academies. The years of scientific and organizational activity of B. Ristovski are connected with M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was well-aware of the collections dedicated to Macedonian studies stored at V. Vernadskyi National Library of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Blaže Ristovski was a coordinator and author of a special issue of the Folk Art and Ethnology journal (no. 3, 2009), dedicated to Macedonian folkloristics and ethnology. The scholar has devoted his entire life to studying problems of Macedonian historical consciousness in historical and contemporary contexts, thus repeatedly emphasized parallels and analogies in the development and formation of the historical consciousness of the Ukrainian and Macedonian people. We consider the main works of Blaže Ristovski on this topic in the submitted article.

Revisionism and (evil) the use of history by Bulgaria towards Northern Macedonia and its integration into the European Union

History is a social science, which is concurrently humanistic since it offers not only knowledge about the past, but through the study of historical processes and phenomena influences the creation of a representation of today's concepts and social processes. History is the foundation on which the personality of each individual is built and formed, particularly in education where history models the mankind about their knowledge of themselves and others. Unfortunately, in more or less all Balkan historiographies there is a certain extent of history mythologizing, reinterpretation of facts depending on the needs of usually the government or certain structures and centers of power, and the imposition of truth that should not be discussed, or what is written in textbooks. That is why the mentioned structures create purposeful crises, and then they manage them and, if necessary, resolve them. Socio-political relations are changing and most frequently, apart from a small circle of people who have an interest, ordinary people and society as a whole suffer from long-term harmful consequences that can often get out of control. That is why history has become a powerful weapon that is very often used to manipulate and achieve various, mostly political goals. That is why it is difficult to be a historian in the Balkans! It is quite normal and logical for historians to argue and disagree about certain historical processes and phenomena, but the problem is that because of the above mentioned, historians become an instrument for achieving a certain goal and ideology. One such example is North Macedonia, which suffers consequences in its development, position in the world and realization of its strategic goals precisely because of the (mis)use of history and historical revisionism. This is particularly pronounced by the blocking of North Macedonia to start the negotiations for EU membership by Bulgaria due to the history and processes in the past that are not in line with the so-called Bulgarian historical narrative. Using an argument of force, not facts, using its better international position, Bulgaria creates and imposes a narrative on the Bulgarian identity of the Macedonian people, and the Macedonian language for the Bulgarian dialect, with the relativization of the then Bulgarian participation in the fascist coalition, and the negation of the occupying regime. This is utterly inappropriate for one state to intervene in this way on the history and historical facts of another state. Bilateral disputes are not new to Europe, but the way and pressure that Bulgaria is exerting on North Macedonia is morally and legally unjustified, in which a large part of historians are co-sponsors, becoming an instrument of certain structures. In addition to the analysis of controversial attitudes and positions as a result of historical revisionism of Bulgarian institutions and „historians“, the paper shows that the development of relations between the two countries is directly correlated with changes in government and governing structures, i.e, their ideologies and needs. The resolution of disputes related to the past is possible only with the application of modern approaches and depoliticization of history and its role in modern society.

Називите на страницата во македонските говори

Based on the corpus of dialects used from the card-index of the “Macedonian Dialects Atlas” Project of the Krste Misirkov Macedonian Language Institute and following the methodology of areal linguistics, the author of this article discusses the words for ‘stranicata, the wooden board that makes the sides of the cart’ in the Macedonian dialects. He observes that various cultures have met on the Macedonian language territory, which has become evident in the naming of the object under study from the thematic area of transport and communication. The author presents the distribution of many lexemes and their varieties on the whole Macedonian dialect area. He provides the etymology of each lexeme and double-checks their frequency and their meaning in the works of Macedonian lexicography. The richness of Macedonian inherited words and borrowings used to name “stranicata” indicates that the Macedonian language territory has long been at the crossroads of various cultures and languages. The borrowings in vernacular varieties reveal the roads that have linked the Macedonian people with other peoples throughout history. The author concludes that some Macedonian inherited words have been standardised in the Macedonian language to refer to the ‘the wooden board that makes the sides of the cart’, stranica and ražnište, but most of them and the domesticated borrowings have been standardised with other meanings, whereas some dialectal words meaning ‘stranica’ have remained to bear witness to the fact that Macedonian dialects are an endless source of enrichment of the Macedonian standard language with new words.

Russian Recognition of Macedonia’s New Name

The senseless name dispute and the renaming of the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia, which was perceived by the Western countries as a «technical obstacle» to the country's NATO and EU accession, was in fact a part of the Macedonian southern neighbor’s long-term plan to erase the Macedonian identity by violating the Macedonian people's right to national self-determination. Since, any change in the name of a country automatically entailed consequences for the national and cultural identity of the Macedonians - the titular people of the country. Russian diplomacy closely followed the events in the country and thoroughly knew the essence of the political crisis that began in 2015 which eventually ended with the renaming of the country against the will of the Macedonian people. The Russian decision to retreat from the intention to challenge the Prespa agreement in the UN Security Council as contradictory to the international law and violating Macedonian 1991 Constitution questioned the role of the Russian diplomacy in upholding the principles and norms of the rule of international law in the world. The subsequent recognition of Macedonia’s new name by Russia forced many in the Republic of Macedonia to include Russia, an indisputable fighter for justice in a multipolar world, in the list of countries involved in the national “depersonalization” of Macedonia, which appeared on the political map of Europe as a result of the anti-fascist liberation movement of the Macedonian people.

Bulgarian Vector for North Macedonia Foreign Policy: the Problem of Identity

The article is devoted to the role of the identity factor in the Bulgarian-Macedonian relations. The main controversial issues acute in the period 1991–2021 are the question of the independence of the Macedonian language and the question of the “starting point” of Macedonian history. The foreign policy of the Macedonian republic is investigated in the context of Balkan states` striving for Euro- Atlantic integration. An important part of the study is analyzing the problems of the European Union enlargement to the south-east.As a result of the research, the author comes to several conclusions: Sofia’s opposition to Skopje’s accession to the EU has a solid economic implication; relations with the Bulgarian state have always been of key importance for the Macedonian republic, regardless of plans to join NATO and the EU, since touched upon the key issues of self-determination of the Macedonian people; the rhetoric of the Bulgarian side has a certain tendency to revise the role of Bulgaria in the Second World War, which is categorically unacceptable for the EU member states seeking to withdraw the historical agenda from the negotiation process on the Republic of North Macedonia’s accession to the European Union.

Tretyakova M. Makedoniia-2001. Novyi vitok krizisa: Istoricheskie predposylki i politicheskie posledstviia. M.: Indrik, 2021. 376 s. ISBN 978-5-91674-633-4 [Tretyakova M. Macedonia-2001. A New Round of the Crisis: Historical Background and Political Consequences. Moscow: Indrik, 2021. 376 p.

This review is devoted to the book by Maria Chedomirovna Tretyakova Macedonia-2001. A New Round of the Crisis: Historical Background and Political Consequences. The author sets herself the task of studying the significance of the Albanian factor in the history of Macedonia. The author studies not just the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia, but the region's history from the middle of the nineteenth century until 2018. The author pays most attention to the demographic issue and argues the historical right of the Macedonian people to the territory of the country. The monograph was written according to the Right-Macedonian national discourse and therefore has all the pros and cons of the primordial approach in the study of interethnic tensions in the Balkans. The book is of undoubted interest for the reader who wants to get acquainted with the Macedonian vision of the Albanian question in the Balkans. Illustrative material and maps of the so-called “United Macedonia” emphasize the tragedy of the situation in which, according to the author, the Macedonian people found themselves.

Identities in Roman Macedonia during the Early Imperial Period

This paper focuses on the impact of the Roman presence in Macedonia on the collective identities of the local population from the beginning of Roman rule in the region in 167 BC until the early 3rd century AD. The societal changes taking place during the first three and a half centuries have been outlined using the available epigraphic, numismatic and onomastic evidence to analyse the evolving identities of the Macedonians and the new forms of expression of these identities. The approach taken in this paper is not one of Hellenisation or Romanisation but of acculturation, focussing on the identities of the Macedonian people that adapted and evolved in relation to the new political and cultural environment.

Македонский вопрос в освещении сербской и болгарской пропаганды в России в конце XIX — начале XX века

The article is devoted to the actions of the officials of Belgrade and Sofia to create in Russia such an image of Macedonia and its inhabitants that would prove their right to join these territories.These actions began after 1885 and continued with varying degrees of intensity until 1913. They consisted of publishing books and articles in Russia that described their point of view. Bulgarian propaganda took a passive position, because there was a well-established opinion that Bulgarians live in Macedonia. The Serbs had to be more active and take into account the situation, so their propaganda went through four stages. At the first stage, they proved that Serbs, not Bulgarians, live in Macedonia. In the second stage, the stake was placed on the existence of a separate Macedonian people. At the third stage, there was a good idea that these lands are inhabited by a Slavic population that does not have a clear national identity. At the final stage, the arguments were supplemented with political arguments. At the same time, at all stages of the propaganda, there was a historical right — the entry of Macedonia into the Kingdom of Stefan Dusan, numerous architectural monuments of the time of Serbian rule, Serbian heroes of epic tales of the Macedonian Slavs. The Bulgarian propaganda, because of its lack of initiative, only defended itself, repeated previous theses and conceded positions, and on the question of historical rights it failed to formulate a clear answer. But at the end of this discussion, there was also a Macedonian view of the history of the Balkans.The article considers the Bulgarian-Serbian dispute in its development, specifies its main participants and arguments of the parties. The research was carried out at the expense of a grant from the Russian science Foundation (project no.20–18–00294) in Scientific Research Institute of Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning, branch of the Central Institute for Research and Design of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation.

Conversion and Memory: A Dialogic Narrative Contextualisation of Liminal Identity

Ethnic and religious conversion is deeply engraved in the history and memory of the Macedonian people, yet it remains a painful taboo subject. The paper is interested in the treatment of this topic in the New Macedonian Novel, which brought this problem from the collective unconscious into the public dialogue and shed light on its reoccurrence today. The analysis focuses on the novel The Book of Heavens (2000) by Krste Chachanski since it is equally representative of the topic of conversion to Islam in the Ottoman past, the poetics of the New Macedonian Novel, and the Macedonian dialogic and liminal identity. The Book of Heavens is set at the end of the 18th century in mountainous Macedonia, the forsaken Balkan periphery of the Ottoman Empire. It is centred around Adnan Pasha, the bi-religious and bi-cultural Janissary from Macedonia, his internal turmoil, and his quest for becoming the ethical warrior of his wilful choosing. The novel is a meta-historical and multi-voiced parable of dialogism and liminality in the context of human cognition, identity, and culture. But it is also a mythopoetic and magical realist saga for the ethical warrior, for the Macedonian tragically split and persecuted identity, for the syncretic civilisational borders and peripheries, and for protecting the palimpsest memory of human culture. The literaryhermeneutical analysis of conversion in this paper is inevitably a form of cultural and methodological syncretism. Self-plurality psychology and the linguistic, semiotic, and cultural philosophies of Bakhtin, Lotman, Ricoeur, and Eco are used in the analysis.

ТHE AGREEMENT WITH THE REPUBLIC OF GREECE ON RESOLUTION THE DISPUTE OF NAME AND MACEDONIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY

On 17.6.2018, in the village of Nivitsi on the Greek coast of Prespa Lake, the heads of diplomacy of Macedonia and Greece, Nikola Dimitrov and Nikos Kodzias, signed the "Final Agreement for Disputes described in Resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993) of the United Nations Security Council to cease the validity of the 1995 Interim Accord and to establish a strategic partnership between the parties."According to the Agreement, the new name the Republic of Macedonia is "Republic of North Macedonia". It will be used erga omnes, that is, at every opportunity both in the country and abroad. The terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" in relation to the Republic of North Macedonia denote its territory, language, people and their characteristics, with their own history, culture, and heritage. The official language of the country is Macedonian, while citizenship is "Macedonian / Citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia". The agreement was also signed by UN mediator Matthew Nimetz. This agreement, also known in the public, as the Prespa Treaty, ended the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece.Following the ratification of the Agreement by the parliaments of the two countries, it commenced its implementation. In the procedure for its implementation, the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia adopted four amendments at its session on 11 January 2019: amending the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia in the Republic of North Macedonia, amending the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic, amending Article 3 and replacement of Article 49 of the Constitution (Amendments XXXIII to XXXXVI).The signing of the Agreement divided the Macedonian public. Some (the majority) supported and still support the Agreement, some strongly opposed it. The opposition has regularly been followed by criticism on the Agreement. The criticisms often contained two theses: the first of them was that by the implementation of the Agreement the identity of the Macedonian people would be lost, and the second, always related to the first, that the identity of the Macedonian state would be lost. In this paper we have made an effort to prove the inaccuracy of those theses by applying the method of content analysis based on the principles of formal logic and the dialectical method.

The Role of Macedonian Folk Songs Featured in Macedonian Films in Amplifying the Emotions

Macedonian folk songs, as a part of Macedonian traditions and culture, represent an integral part of Macedonian history marked by resistance, military feats, and tendencies for maintaining the Macedonian national identity. This paper is focused on the issue of whether two Macedonian folk songs With Torments I was Born and Listen Patriots created in the course of the 19th century – a period marked with active struggle for liberation and independence of the Macedonian nation – additionally intensify the emotions provoked by the storyline and action of the films, in which they have been incorporated. During the research process, the authors of the paper used the mechanism of cognitive appraisal as a model for content analysis, as well as psychological and ethnomusicological analysis of the resulting data. The units of content analysis were the sequences of scenes of the film, in which the two Macedonian folk songs were used. The selected songs and films, as well as the interaction between the sound and visual senses, clearly present the deep relationship between music and emotions in a specific, identity-related context. The findings of the study are in favor of the thesis that Macedonian folk songs, created as a result of the centuries-old struggle of the Macedonian people, when used in Macedonian films, intensify the patriotic emotions of the viewers and strengthen the concept of uniqueness in the Macedonian identity, due to the processes of repetition and revitalization of collective memories.

CHALENGES FOR THE MACEDONIAN SOCIETY ON THE PATH TO THE EUROPEAN UNION

The main aim of the relatively young Macedonian independent state is to achieve membership status at the Euro-Atlantic integrations. The debate related to Euro-Atlantic integrations as a path to the future Macedonian democratic and European state is lasting nearly three decades, from the beginning of its independency. This political orientation is positively accepted by the Macedonian public and is clearly presented in the serious scientific researches. Even, the larger part of the Macedonian people it evaluates on the fateful level, in the Hamlet’s manner „To be or not to be”. However, the Macedonian society is not prepared for such responsible tasks. You can say, on the European path there are many challenges for the newly Macedonian and obligation they to be successfully answered. That is, the Macedonian collective social spirit is facing its historical examines to change its self and to become part of the high civilized world, i.e. European Union and the Atlantic integrations.

The Characteristics of the Lexis in the Public Addresses of Some Prominent Figures in the Republic of Macedonia

The language as a means of communication is used for various purposes. The best example for that is the public discourse. It was an incentive to analyse the lectures, speeches and public appearances of public figures from the contemporary aspect. It is about fifteen texts from: Metodija Andonov‑Cento, Panko Brashnarov, Blazhe Koneski, Stojan Andov, Nikola Kljusev, Kiro Gligorov, Branko Crvenkovski, Ljupco Georgievski, Boris Trajkovski, Luan Starova, Goran Stefanovski, Srgjan Kerim, Nikola Gruevski i Gjorgje Ivanov, published in the book First Anthology of the Greatest Speeches of All Times from the World and Macedonia. Although public speeches can be analysed from different aspects, we will focus on some aspects of stylistic expressiveness of the speeches. From lexical perspective, the emphasis is on the use of international lexis, which, as known, is of Latin or Greek origin and has entered the language mainly from the English language. The presence of this lexis is characteristic for other languages as well, which means that it is a reality without which the contemporary languages cannot function, so as the Macedonian. Still, there is a need for folklore words, dialects, archaisms, jargons and poetic function, maybe as an antithesis of the increased presence of the international lexis. The public speeches in this anthology are chosen as important, not only for their content with utter messages in the time of particular social happenings, but also for the manner of their representation. That is the reason why they stay in the collective memory of the Macedonian people.

THE ISSUE OF THE IDENTITY OF THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE - The symbolic code for a personal and collective identity -

THE ISSUE OF THE IDENTITY OF THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE - The symbolic code for a personal and collective identity -

The present political situation and ethnic relations in Macedonia

Since it declared its independence in 1991, the Republic of Macedonia has faced several problems of key importance. Apart from the economic underdevelopment, this country has been characterised by bad ethnic relations between the two most numerous communities in the country - the Macedonian and Albanian ones. The Albanian community, which makes approximately one fourth of the total population in Macedonia, has tended to define itself as a "constitutive nation" within the newly formed and independent Macedonia. The outstanding ethnic tensions present in 1990s turned into open armed conflicts in the February-August 2001 period. More than 200 people were killed, while 100,000 people were displaced from their homes in the conflicts between the Albanian militia and regular Macedonian police and armed forces. After the USA and EU had made pressures on the conflicting parties, they adopted the Framework Agreement on 13 August 2001 in Ohrid. It proposed the amendments to the 1991 Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia. The amendments have brought out changes in the constitutional and political system of Macedonia - "double majority" in the Parliament, increased number of members of ethnic communities in the police and administration, Albanian language as an official, strengthening of the local self-rule, etc. Apart from the Macedonian people as a holder of sovereignty, the preamble of the Constitution of Macedonia includes the Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Serbs, Romans and members of other peoples who live in Macedonia. In September 2002, parliamentary elections took place in Macedonia. The coalition For Macedonia Together headed by the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia won half of the seats in the Macedonian parliament. Then were defeated the nationalistic parties VMRO-DPMNE and Democratic Party of Albanians that had been in power during the ethnic conflicts. The Democratic Union for Integration (established in 2002) won almost 70 per cent of the Albanian votes while the Party for Democratic Prosperity and People's Democratic Party were defeated at the elections. After the September elections, the new government was forded and it embraced the members of the coalition For Macedonia Together and Democratic Union for Integration - with five Albanian ministers. The Ohrid Agreement is a step forward in settling the ethnic relations in Macedonia. Apart from the fact that it was adopted under the pressure of the international community, it is a basis for constitutional and political reforms, improving the position of the Albanians as the most numerous non-Macedonian community. However, it should be said that even today there are two parallel "societies" - Macedonian and Albanian ones, with no common touch between them, living separately from each other. In spite of all obstacles, it is necessary to insist on building of confidence and reconciliation between the Albanians and Macedonians. This can be achieved by repatriation of refugees and displaced persons to their homes, by implementation of the law that includes the provisions on the positive discrimination of the Albanian community and by strengthening of security and stability in the region. As the author assesses, the bad economic situation in Macedonia could set new priorities to the government and it would include improvement of living conditions for its citizens. On the other hand, the greatest danger to the peaceful development of Macedonia is the Albanian National Army (ANA) whose substantial aim is to achieve unification of the "Albanian" territories in Western Macedonia with Kosovo and "Albanian parts" of Montenegro and southern Serbia.

SPACE AND BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE WORLDS

When we focus our attention on different cultures, what is of great importance for us is the research aiming to find out what man’s basic notions of World and of his microcosmos, in particular, are. The following analysis is based on some empiric ethnographic and folklore data referring to the traditional cultures of the Balkan peoples and of the Macedonian people

Philip of Macedon.

Philip of Macedon was one of the extraordinary figures of antiquity. Inheriting a kingdom near collapse, he left to his son Alexander the strongest state in Eastern Europe. He developed new military technology and made Macedonia the greatest power in the Western world. He created a united, multiracial kingdom based on liberal principles and added to it the resources of a Balkan empire. Most importantly, he inspired the city-states of the Greek peninsula to form a unified community, ensuring peace among its members, the rule of law in internal politics, and collective security in the face of agressors. No statesman in Europe had ever achieved so much. This book presents a narrative history of Hellenistic Macedonia from the state's rise out of obscurity under Philip to the accession of Alexander. Focusing on the character and career of Philip, Hammond discusses developments in military technology and strategy, the social composition and geography of northern Greece, and the region's political developments. He also examines the world of the city-states, the nature of their democracies, their propensity for interstate warfare, and their development of capitalism, scientific methods, and philosophical ideas. With close analysis of the literary and material evidence, including interpretations of recent archaeological discoveries, Hammond offers a portrait of Philip as a Macedonian. Including illustrations of the frescoes and artifacts found in the Royal Tombs at Vergina in 1977, the book also reveals the culture and artistry of the Macedonian people who made Philip's success possible.

Macedonian Revolutionary Folk Poetry and the National Consciousness of the Macedonian People

Macedonian Revolutionary Folk Poetry and the National Consciousness of the Macedonian People