Preface: Though this blog post touches on many sensitive topics, I am writing this to be an observation about life in Macedonia and not a valuative judgment on any person, ethnicity, political party, or organization. And now, more than ever, the following disclaimer should be recalled "The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the US Government or the Peace Corps"
"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon"
--Napoleon Bonaparte
“History is a weapon ”
--Howard Zinn
"History is written by the victors"
--Unknown
A few year's ago, I read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", in which he provides a counter-narrative to the history that we were taught in school. This book (which I highly recommend) was careful to point out that it was merely ANOTHER history of the US, not THE history of the US. THE history of the US, in the sense that there is one absolute way that things happened, is impossible. Not to say that the past is subjective. We know that Bunker Hill was a battle fought, that Lewis & Clark explored the west, that Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller established empires, that we fought in WWII. The facts are there. They are objective. The history around these facts however, is subjective. In the US though, we have a standard history that we more or less agree upon. Revisionists continue to help shape this narrative (just look at how tarnished the reputations of Andrew Jackson and Christopher Columbus have become), but they're attempting to re-shape the history that people commonly agree upon. It is with this common understanding of the past of the US that we understand our place in the world of yesterday and today and project this past into our future. This sort of thing doesn't exist in Macedonia. The land of Macedonia was home to Alexander, Saints Cyril and Methodius, and Tsar Samuel, and though there are facts about these heroes, there is no history.
Certainly there is the history in Macedonia that children learn in schools and is talked about on TV, but the moment you start talking to people here, you realize that there is no single unifying narrative. Every person here has a different interpretation of what was. If history is written by the victors, what does it mean when you've had five different "victors" in living memory who've taught different versions of history to different generations of currently Macedonian citizens? Was this person a hero or a villain? Were they Macedonians or Bulgarians? Were they freedom-fighters or terrorists? In Macedonia, it all depends on the age, hometown, ethnicity, and political affiliation of who you ask.
In America, we created our national narrative earlier with the freedom of geographical isolation of competing narratives and later with cultural, military, and economic hegemony. Macedonia has never had that luxury. In this global age, any narrative of the nation's history has to compete with a hundred other narratives from the neighboring countries. Any person reading the news reported by international news agencies is instantly bombarded with opinions regarding not only the current political affairs but about the historical legitimacy of an ethnically separate Macedonian people. Even within the country some people believe that there were historical "proto-Macedonians", others believe that the emergence of a Macedonian ethnicity is a evolutionary innovation, while yet others believe that the ethnicity was created by revolutionary leaders to give the country legitimacy in seeking self-rule. I take a neutral stance to all of this, but the people I talk to tend to be very fervent in their beliefs...and rightly so...it's their self-identification...their heritage.
Further complicating this question is its heavy ties to party politics. Just taking one stance or another is a political statement. It's difficult to talk to people about the past without one's statements appearing to support one faction or another within the country. It's a loaded conversation even from the start. Say something one way and you're supporting the ruling party. Say it another way and you're supporting the opposition. Say it a third and you're supporting Greek or Bulgarian interests. Say it a fourth and you're supporting Albanian separatism. With my still basic level of the Macedonian language, I've had countless conversations I've had to just drop for the sake of non-partisanship. When history is all political, how do you even talk about it?
Wilsonian self-determination applied to the Westphalian concept of the nation-state may have worked in cases where borders closely approximate ethnic lines, but are we tied to it? The Ohrid Framework was certainly an attempt to break the mold, but its success or failure is debatable. Can we honestly talk about creating a nationally-neutral, multi-ethnic democracy when the UK and Belgium are fracturing along ethnic lines? It's a question that's really worth asking.
I, myself having only lived here a relatively short period of time, certainly can't pretend to have the answers to all the questions that I've presented in this blog. I love living here in Macedonia, but it's certainly a challenge at times. It's so much easier living in a place with a common understanding of the past. It's difficult to learn from history to work for the future if everyone is working from a different understanding of what the past is. I'm not saying that having a common view of history here is possible, or even desirable, it's just a challenge that only Macedonia can decide how it is going to overcome. Is this country going to be a "Macedonia for Macedonians" or a a pan-ethnic state working for the future, I don't know. I do know, however, that living in this historical land without a common history is giving me a new perspective from which to view things in the US: a perspective of working for an America that isn't restricted by our common history but is based on collaborating for our common future.
