---Macedonia Podcast - NEW SCRIPT INTRODUCTION: - 5. Sergio (1:05) - So this semester, our cohort of new graduate students in UT’s Center for RUssian, East European and Eurasian Studies MA program has been working with Dr. Mary Neuburger on a project that analyzes North Macedonia’s quest for EU accession, which was blocked for over 25 years by Greece and since 2019 has been held up by a Bulgarian ultimatum. Since both Greece and Bulgaria are EU members, they have veto power over Macedonian accession – which has put the country now called North Macedonia into an untenable position in relation to European integration. Today we will talk a little about the Greek case for background, but then focus on the Bulgairan case – which is yet to be resolved. We really want the full beginning sequence here – as the “it’s not typical Texas seems random without it” Sergio - So Taylor, how should we go about trying to understand the current Macedonian conundrum. 6. Taylor - To help us understand the complexity of this situation we did our own research, but also talked to a number of scholars and policy analysts including… * Dr. Kiril Avramov - Assistant Professor in the Dept of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at UT Austin, and Director of the Global DIsinformation Lab. Sergio - Stefan Detchev - Associate-Professor of History at South-West University of Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Taylor - Aleksej Demjanski - UT alumnus from the CREEES and LBJ School dual MA program, and currently the Assistant Program Officer - Southeast Europe Desk at the National Endowment for Democracy * We will share with you some insightful clips from these conversations in the course of this episode…. 7. Sergio (1:12) So Taylor to provide a little preliminary context for our listeners, where is North Macedonia anyway. 8. Taylor (2:15) Well I’m glad you asked…. It is a small country in Eastern Europe in the Balkan region north of Greece. It is also situated between Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo, all minor or major players in the history and politics of Macedonia and the region. 9. Sergio (2:25) OK, so why has Macedonia had such a difficult time on its path to EU accession? 10. Taylor (2:40) North Macedonia began the process for EU accession in 2005. Before this it spent 25 years since independence in 1991in a dispute with Greece over the name Macedonia and various bits of messy history that get caught between the two countries. So after the Prespa Agreement which we will discuss later North Macedonia is now confronted with Bulgaria setting another series of ultimatums that must be met before they can join. Many experts agree that Bulgaria is operating under the precedent set by Greece— basically if Greece can get what they want from North Macedonia so can Bulgaria. Sergio…can you tell us a little bit more about the Bulgaria ultimatums? 11. Sergio (3:31) To clarify the ultimatums a little bit… many of them essentially boil down to these following points. First, the Macedonian language should be referred to as a dialect of Bulgarian in an international context. Macedonian textbooks have to be revised to expunge any mentioning of Bulgarian occupation of the country during WWII (remember, Bulgaria allied itself with the Axis Powers) National heroes, like Goce Delčev, need to be referred to as Bulgarian heroes, not strictly Macedonian. Any public discourse in Macedonia about a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria should cease—so North Macedonia can’t officially recognize a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, but Bulgaria can recognize a Bulgarian minority in Macedonia. – So Taylor why is this shared history so important. (this feels out of the blue) I think we need to cut or change transition) 12: Taylor (4:52) - Well..It’s extremely important because (maybe just cut) the Bulgarian ultimatum is directly connected to interpretations of the Macedonian past, that have serious implications for the present. The dominant narrative in Bulgaria (which, by the way, is shared by the Greeks) is that Macedonians have no history of their own prior to 1945. That is, that the Macedonian nation was an artificial creation of post-war communist Yugoslavia. Because the Macedonian language is so close to Bulgarian – the widespread Bulgarian assumption is that Macedonians – even today – are really Bulgarians, who have appropriated the Bulgarian past and called it their own…or as the case of WWII and beyond are just misinterpreting major historical events. If Bulgarians today talk about a “shared history” with Macedonia, the implication is that BULGARIA is sharing its history with Macedonia, and that therefore they should be able to dictate the terms of Macedonian interpretations of the past. - Dr. Kiril Avramov explained to us the depth of the Bulgarian attachment to Macedonia and it’s contemporary implications… 13. Kiril quote (5:10) We were brought up…. 14. Taylor (6:32) Of course not all Bulgarians agree with ultimatum, Dr. Avramov is himself Bulgarian and he has a very critical perspective on the use of history as a political tool in the region. 15. Kiril quote (6:39) In the 21st Century… 16. Sergio - (7:00) We should start with the precedent for what’s going on right now between Bulgaria and North Macedonia..which is the Prespa Agreement of 2018, which was 27 years in the making. Greece disputed the name Macedonia since North Macedonia’s independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, due to Greece’s own cultural claims and history attached to the word “Macedonia”. So after the breakup of Yugoslavia, North Macedonia became known as FYROM--the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. However, when North Macedonia began the conversation with the European Union, Greece created a list of grievances against this potential assession of North Macedonia – starting with the name and history that the newly formed country was trying to claim. SO…In order to achieve EU status, Macedonia finally agreed to a series of concessions in terms of its public use of the historical figures, symbols, and names regarding Ancient Macedon. The most important compromise was the use of the Republic of North Macedonia as the new official name of the Macedonian polity, but there was also the renaming of important public sites in Macedonia that had carried the name Alexander the Great or Phillip II (such as the airport and a soccer stadium). 17. Taylor (8:45) Quite understandably, these concessions were a hard sell to the Macedonian citizens and political elites. Apparently, the Prespa Agreement required quite a bit of internal political maneuvering in North Macedonia in order to get the agreement signed into law. Aleksej Demjanski provided us with detail on how that process played out. 18. Aleksej (9:05) The actual process of changing the name.. 18a. Taylor - So Sergio - so what is Ancient Macedon, why is it important, why do Greece and Macedonia both lay claim to it, what is going on there? 19: Sergio (11:05) In antiquity, Ancient Macedonia, also called Macedon, was a kingdom at the edge of the famous ancient Greek city-states (like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes). The ancient Macedonians spoke a dialect of Greek and even though the ancient Greeks themselves didn’t really consider the Macedonians Greek per se , ancient historians would trace their roots to mythical Greek heroes, which is one of the unwritten requirements for “Greekness” in the ancient world. They were culturally similar, although distinct in certain aspects. For modern purposes, they comprise part of modern Greek heritage, even if the ancient Greeks had differing opinions about the ancient Macedonians. This is of course a prestigious history to have attached to the very name “Macedonia”--not only did Alexander the Great conquer everything between Greece and the Indian subcontinent in 13 years, but his father, Philip II, was also a critical figure in ancient history. 20: Taylor (13:00) OK… So Greece has long standing claims to Ancient Macedonia – but so do many people in North Macedonia who claim to be direct descents of Ancient Macedonia. Still, as we noted – a critical mass of Macedonians have been willing to set aside such claims aside for the promise of EU Accession by signing the Prespa agreement in 2018. Since then however, issues over “shared” or contested history with Bulgaria have stood in the way. 21. Sergio (13:10) So as we discussed earlier, the Prespa agreement between Greece and Macedonia became a model for what is currently going on between Bulgaria and Macedonia. Now, moving on from matters of antiquity, we’ll turn to Macedonia during the medieval and Ottoman periods. 22. Taylor (13:20) There are a number of figures that both sides claim as their own - such as Tsar Samuil who ruled from 977-1014 as leader of the first self-proclaimed “Bulgarian Empire”. The territory that Tsar Samuil acquired and ruled over spans both the modern day territories of both Bulgaria and North Macedonia (and beyond). 23. Sergio (14:10) And in addition to Tsar Samuil two noteworthy disputed figures from this period are Cyril and Methodius, UH two Orthodox Christian missionaries--later canonized as saints--originally from Thessaloniki. They developed the alphabet that became the basis for the Cyrillic – from the name Cyril - making these two extremely important figures that are claimed by both Bulgaria and Macedonia…. 24. Taylor - (14:50) This brings us to a discussion of Nationalism as a concept. In fact, in these premodern periods there was nothing like a modern sense of national identity 25. Sergio - (14:90) Well right… my understanding is that the modern day sense of nation and nationalism is a relatively recent development of human civilization mainly having arisen in the 19th century in Europe. 26. Taylor - (15:20) This helps explain at least in part why it is so difficult to settle disputes about the “national origin” of premodern figures like Alexander the Great, Tsar Samiul, or Cyril and Methodius in a period when people generally identified with their religion, clan, social group, village or region–as opposed to a so defined national group. At the same time, nationalist forces but also the general population in the Balkans (and elsewhere) today are generally convinced of their unitary claims to the past. In Bulgarian and Macedonia such conflicting claims are by no means new – but for the first time – after signing a “Friendship Treaty in 2017” – a historical commission was formed to try and hash out such differences. Stefan Detchev, gave us some details on the tasks and the challenges this commission faced. 27. Stefan (15:30) I was not part of this commission (and) First task was.. 28. Taylor (18:05) Ok. Sergio – Let’s move on to the Ottoman period. Give us a little bit of a scene setter or context here. 29. Sergio (18:15) The territories of modern-day Bulgaria, Greece, and Macedonia were conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Empire from roughly the 14th century until the 19th and early 20th centuries. The population of the Ottoman empire specifically in the Balkan region was incredibly diverse, mostly centered around religious diversity. Many Bulgarians, Greeks, and North Macedonians have similar interpretations of this period as a “dark age” of “foreign” domination, often called the “Ottoman Yoke. So Taylor, can you tell us a little bit about what was happening at the end of the Ottoman period. 30. Taylor (19:00) So towards the end of the Ottoman period, with nationalism in Europe firmly on the rise since the mid-19th century, we see peoples in the Balkans begin to craft new national identities and nationalist movements resulting in various revolts, diplomatic interventions and gaining of autonomy and independence from the Ottomans. Bulgaria was granted autonomy in 1878 by the Treaty of San Stefano, which gave them all of Modern-day Macedonia, but Macedonia was taken away in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin and Bulgaria has been trying to take it back ever since. During this period - a Macedonian movement also emerged and staged the Ilinden Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1903. But both Bulgaria and Macedonia claim the main figures of this movement such as Gotse Delchev. This period is a major sticking point for Bulgaria and Macedonia. Stefan Detchev talks about why Macedonia can’t compromise on this period and the turn of events. 31. Stefan (20:10) In the Buglarian and Macedonian debate… 32. Sergio (21:05) The late 19th century is clearly a minefield when it comes to Bulgarian Macedonian historical disputes. But then we have the 20th century, in which a series of wars transformed the face of this part of the Balkans. In the Balkans Wars of 1912-3 – The Ottomans lost their last Balkan territories including Macedonia which was partitioned between neighboring independent Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. During World War I Macedonia was occupied by Bulgaria (which allied itself with the Central Powers) but then Bulgaria was on the losing side of the war and lost Macedonia yet again. The Serbian portion of Macedonia was then incorporated into the first Yugoslav state, which was ruled by the Serbian royal family until World War II…. 33. Sergio (21:25) - Following the invasion of Yugoslavia by NAZI forces, and its quick surrender in April 1941, the country was partitioned by Axis partners, and Bulgaria yet again occupied much of Macedonia. While most of these basic facts are not disputed, interpretations and representations of the events of World War II have nevertheless become hotly contested between Bulgaria and Macedonia. 34. Detchev (21:50) Generally speaking…. 36. Sergio (23:40) The end of World War II leads directly to the communist period of Macedonia’s history. So Tito having been a leader of the antifascist resistance in occupied Yugoslavia emerges as the new leader of communist Yugoslavia. The People’s Republic of Macedonia was created as one of the six constituent republics of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. For the remainder of the communist period, the Macedonian Republic provided the institutions and structures for a Macedonian national identity to be formed and flourish. The Macedonian language was standardized and taught in schools, and an entire educational apparatus was established to promote the language, culture and history of the Macedonians as a separate people—that is, separate from the Bulgarians. 36a. Taylor - This process of Macedonian identity formation happened in a region where – as we noted before – identity had been historically fluid, not just in the pre-modern, pre-national period, but well into the 20th century. Aleksej, explains this well through the prism of his own family… 37. Aleksej (24:30) People identified in weird ways before … 38: Sergio (25:30) Let’s turn now to the post communist period…Taylor what happened with the disintegration of Yugoslavia? 39. Taylor (25:40 The disintegration of Yugoslavia followed closely on the heels of the collapse of communism and the call for free elections across Eastern Europe and the USSR starting in 1989 and ending in 1991. In 1991 Macedonia sought recognition as an independent country and began to gradually seek integration into NATO and the EU. Interestingly, the very first state to recognize Macedonia was neighboring Bulgaria, but Greece blocked Macedonian integration into these institutions until quite recently. Now, as we discussed the issue for Macedonian EU accession is Bulgaria. 40. Sergio (28:35) But then there is a more fundamental question lurking here in the background, namely- should Macedonia even join the EU in the first place? 41. Aleksej (28:50) I was one of those people… 42. Taylor (29:30) Like Aleksej all of our guests this semester were pretty pessimistic that this issue will be resolved any time soon. We can hear in more detail Stefan Detchev’s analysis of the difficulties that will keep this stalemate in place. 43. Stefan (24:45) I published ..an article recently… 44. Sergio (30:50) Public opinion is clearly a huge issue in both Bulgaria and Macedonia. Dr. Avramov explains the Bulgarian position and how it is tied to internal politics. 45. Kiril (31:00) If you look at it from…. 46. Sergio (31:45) But Dr. Avramov went on to offer a critique of the Bulgarian approach to this issue and its negative effect on Bulgarian-Macedonian relations. 47. Kiril (31:55) My personal opinion is that Sofia has done….(and) from the past couple of years…. --- 48. Taylor (32:45) Based on the many discussions we’ve had with experts and colleagues and the research we’ve done, we’ve come to the conclusion that US and other external policy makers (from within or outside the EU) should continue to foster dialogue between Bulgaria and Macedonia, and if possible act as mediators in this dispute. But as far as resolving this issue..the future is uncertain. Sound Effects Collapse of Communism… ​​Minute 1:59 – Mr Gorb. – tear down this wall! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCO9BYCGNeY News reel… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Dws0xV1tw War / Collapse of Yugo.. at approx.. .33 – Milosevic speech…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOcxJ1UO3UE Newsreel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzA_o_NfkQ Awesome quote – 1st leader declaring Macedonia independent in 1991! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paX38Amac-8&t=2s MUSIC Macedonian folk..options https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHKVLko9SXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UG4n7aGRak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6PWBUFZck Something more haunting.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyNxPICvbqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4pItxKYSU&t=20s Medieval (starting at 32 sec… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYAZ5RZBMgk&list=RDdbBK1sudndo&index=4 Or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93CdoNgLE Ottoman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN9qaOw4164&t=9s Or… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9No8kVSXqQ Yugo anthem in Macedonian! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru-EIOqvbb0 1990s macedonia band..LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxAeDpx4uLo Bulgarian voices…for wherever…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXIej6ni6VI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFVUcDNjtqI Modern Macedonian folk… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVFrkD3KWQ