The Political and Historical Myths and Their Role in the Ideological Struggles Over the Republic of Macedonia at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Authors

  • Magdalena Rekść University of Łódź

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.11.2014.30.15

Keywords:

Macedonia, myth, historical policy, Balkans

Abstract

The Republic of Macedonia, especially at the turn of the the 20th century, is an excellent example of the ethnic manipulation phenomena which can be understood as a tendentious attempt of proving that a given area is inhabited by a large number of people belonging to a certain ethic group or nationality in order to justify one’s territorial demands. A number of such attempts was conducted in many different ways over the years. Nevertheless, the main idea of this work is to look for arguments found in history or rather to look on the tendentiously rewritten history, to be precise, which was supposed to suit current political programmes. Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians but also, in a lesser extent, Romanians, Turks, Albanians and Montenegrins tried to prove their rights to the Macedonian lands by propagating, among other things, national and political myths. Sometimes, the search for justification of the territorial demands in the freely interpreted history could be described as a grotesque process. People were willing to accept such implausible stories as a truth, because a myth is not something to discuss but rather something to believe in. One has to remember that in that time history was treated freely, as a set of stories that could be freely modified in accordance with actual needs. The scientific value and the act of reaching towards the truth was considerably less important than a skilful shaping of a given story. The intellectuals of Romanticism emphasised that history has a certain mission to fulfil, that is has to guard the national interest.

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Author Biography

Magdalena Rekść, University of Łódź

Works as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of International and Political Studies at the University of Łódź. Moreover, she works as the Secretary of the Academia at the Research Centre of the University of Łódź “Balkans at the turn of the 21st Century”. The field of her scientific interests covers: qualitative factors in political science explanation, historical policy as far as political, social and cultural problems in the Balkan region are concerned. Magdalena Rekść is the author of one monograph: The National Myths and Their Role in Creating Politics as Exemplified by the Former Yugoslavia’s States. She has also published over 30 scientific papers.

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Published

2014-07-26

How to Cite

Rekść, Magdalena. 2014. “The Political and Historical Myths and Their Role in the Ideological Struggles Over the Republic of Macedonia at the Beginning of the 20th Century”. Politeja 11 (4 (30):145-61. https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.11.2014.30.15.

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 4 (30) (2014): Macedonia in 20th and 21st century

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Articles

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