Being Macedonian: Different Types of Ethnic Identifications in the Contemporary Republic of Macedonia

Abstract

The article reviews different forms of ethnic Macedonian (Macedonist) identities in the contemporary Republic of Macedonia. The classic model elaborated in the post‑war Yugoslavia – postulating that Macedonians are a separate Slav nationality forged in the medieval period and marked in its genesis by the influence of Sts. Cyril and Methodius and their pupils – after 2006 was substituted by a different paradigm making the nationality a thousand years older and deriving it from ancient Makedones and the state of Alexander the Great. The focus of the contribution is on a third little known variety of ethnic Macedonian identity that claims that the distinct Macedonian nation is a comparatively recent phenomenon forged in the years around the Second World War. Such views are spread among two wider groups: firstly, those of the elder Macedonians, contemporaries of 1940s that personally experienced the national transformation at the time, and, secondly, that of the younger educated citizens that respect the imperatives of reason and search for the rational resolution of different societal problems including the nation‑related ones. Since the current environment in the Republic of Macedonia strongly discourages the articulation of such viewpoints they have a semi‑dissident statute. Nevertheless, some prominent members of the intellectual elite have the courage to disclose their views, most consistent among them being Prof. Denko Maleski, former foreign minister and permanent representative to the UN and the son of the creator of the text of the Macedonian national anthem, as well as the journalist Branko Trichkovski. Both stem from the old left‑wing Yugoslav‑Macedonian elite. On the other hand, figures from the right‑wing political spectre, including the former prime minister Lyubcho Georgievski, though departing from a different starting point, are coming to similar conclusions on the recent naissance of the Macedonian nation. These identifications are in harmony with the dominating concepts in the European historiography affirmed and developed in the later decades by authors such as Hugh Poulton, Jan Rychlík and Ulf Brunbauer. The contribution limits its scope to the three different types of identifications within the Macedonist framework and does not study the Macedonian Slav identities that remain beyond its range – those of Macedonian Bulgarians and of Macedonian Serbs.