The Construction of Macedonian National Identity
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Loring M. Danforth. The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. xvi + 273 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-691-04357-9. Reviewed by Nicholas Miller Published on HABSBURG (January, 1996) Loring M. Danforth's The Macedonian Conflict Greek emigrant to Macedonian nationalist in Aus‐ examines the formation of the national identity of tralia. The fnal chapter draws conclusions re‐ the people of Macedonia from an anthropological garding the construction of national identity perspective, and it is an absorbing work. For all of among emigrants from northern Greece in Aus‐ the immediacy of the conflict between Greece and tralia. Macedonia that the book describes, the work Danforth believes that Macedonian, Greek, makes its most intriguing contribution by taking and other national identities are socially con‐ the question of the origins of national identity out structed and therefore in fux. This is not a radical of the speculative realm and providing the reader departure, as he demonstrates in the review of lit‐ with a case in progress. erature that constitutes much of the frst chapter. Danforth divides his book into eight chapters The work of Fredrik Barth provides his frame‐ that reveal the wide range of the study. A brief work, although he pays homage to recent contri‐ overview of the various theories of nationalism is butions by Ernest Gellner, E.J. Hobsbawm, Bene‐ followed by a chapter on the background to the dict Anderson, Anthony D. Smith, and others. conflict between Greek and Macedonian Slav When Danforth writes, "Any successful analysis of claims to the territory and history of Macedonia. nationalism must, therefore, balance an emphasis The third chapter delineates the development of a on the obvious modernity of nationalism as a po‐ Macedonian national identity, and the fourth con‐ litical principle with the equally obvious preexis‐ cerns the "transnational" nature of that process. A tence of the identities, traditions, and cultures chapter on the status of the Macedonian-speaking from which it draws" (p. 16), he is mediating the population of northern Greece is followed by a contributions of Gellner and Smith. Gellner is an discussion of the use of symbols in the conflict be‐ advocate of the interpretation of national identity tween Greece and Macedonia. The seventh chap‐ as a necessity of the modern industrial state, ter is a case study of an individual's odyssey from whereas Smith urges the examination of the his‐ H-Net Reviews torical depth of ethnic identities. The value of the who do not consider themselves Greek. In spite of Macedonian case is precisely that the observer official Greece's attempts to stifle Macedonian can trace with some precision exactly how the identity, "[t]he existence of a Macedonian human preexisting identities and traditions are reinter‐ rights movement effectively refutes the Greek preted and ultimately recast in the modern na‐ government's claims that there are no Macedo‐ tion. nians in Greece, only 'Slavophone Hellenes with a Danforth then examines the history of the Greek national consciousness'" (p. 108). So the construction of Macedonian identity. He is rightly Greek refusal to recognize Macedonians as citi‐ cautious about providing a particular date for the zens now faces a Macedonian movement de‐ emergence of a Macedonian nation. Few Slavs in manding that the government recognize their hu‐ the region saw themselves as a separate Macedo‐ man rights -- in this case, the right to use one's nian people until after the First World War. mother tongue and the right to claim a given na‐ Greece came into possession of southern Macedo‐ tionality. nia (as part of Greece, it is known as Aegean There are parallels elsewhere in southeastern Macedonia) in 1913, and thereafter the Greek gov‐ Europe: Kosovo springs to mind, where Albania ernment's hostility to the Slavs of the region demands that the Serbian government recognize helped convince those Slavs that they were a their rights are lost on a Serbia that will not ac‐ unique people. The interwar period "was the time knowledge the validity of the Albanian presence that many of them fnally came to the conclusion in the region --although the Serbian government that they were Macedonians and not Greeks" (p. has never asserted that the Kosovars are "Al‐ 72). Greek hostility to the Slavic communities of banophone Serbs". Other examples of govern‐ northern Greece produced tensions that eventual‐ ment refusal to acknowledge the presence of mi‐ ly found expression in separatism, of which the norities include the Pomaks and Turks of Bulgaria Greek civil war was an example. That separatism -- although it should be noted that none of these was reinforced by Yugoslavia's support of the cases is a direct parallel to the Macedonian situa‐ Communists in the civil war, since Yugoslavia's tion in Greece. new regime encouraged the growth of Macedo‐ Given the inability of Greeks and Macedo‐ nian national consciousness. Following the war, nians to communicate successfully or to mediate the Slavs of Yugoslav (Vardar) Macedonia did be‐ their differences, Danforth evaluates the state of gin to feel themselves to be Macedonian, assisted contemporary Greco-Macedonian relations in by a government policy that nurtured the sepa‐ their proper context: as the outgrowth of a sym‐ rateness of that population. The former Yugoslav bolic discourse, which makes those relations diffi‐ republic of Macedonia is now the home of the cult to decipher for the uninitiated. "The most hot‐ Macedonian nation. ly contested symbol in the global cultural war tak‐ In contrast to Yugoslavia after 1945, in Greece ing place between Greeks and Macedonians has the rigid nationalist identification of the Greek been without a doubt the name 'Macedonia'" (p. state and the Greek nation has never permitted 153), he writes. The Greek position regarding the the existence of citizens who do not "speak Greek, name is simple: "because Alexander the Great and who are not Orthodox Christians, or who simply the ancient Macedonians were Greek, and be‐ do not identify themselves as Greek..." (p.110). cause ancient and modern Greece are linked in an Greek educational policy, judicial behavior, and unbroken line of racial and cultural continuity, rights of citizenship all are affected by official re‐ only Greeks have the right to identify themselves fusal to admit the existence of people in Greece as Macedonians" (p. 32). The Macedonian position 2 H-Net Reviews is that "a Macedonian is defined as 'a person by "the construction of national identity as a short- inheritance who speaks a Slavonic language com‐ term biographical process that takes place over ing from that area of Europe known as Macedonia the course of the lifetime of specific individuals" whether such is part of Greece, Yugoslavia, Bul‐ (p. 197). He pursues that goal in the fnal chapter garia, or Albania'" (p. 44). of the book, entitled "Construction of a National The fundamental inability of Greeks and Identity," which treats case studies of emigrants Macedonians to agree on the very status of the from northern Greece who live in Australia. name of the land and its people seems to be a In this chapter, it becomes clear that the rigid product of their use of entirely different criteria definitional battles fought between Greeks and in defining basic terms -- for Greeks, the word Macedonians only serve to give their struggle an "Macedonia" and all that it symbolizes is the criti‐ imaginary fnality: "No one buys his nationality; cal issue; the goal of the Macedonians is recogni‐ no one chooses his mother. I inherited this nation‐ tion of their ethnospecificity. Other symbols are ality. It's my inheritance, the milk of my mother" contested: they range from Alexander the Great to (p. 224). Such a statement could come from the the star of Vergina (possibly an emblem of mouth of either a Greek or a Macedonian. "Real Alexander's dynasty), but also include the person‐ Greeks" and "real Macedonians" understand each al names of the people of Macedonia. Petkov be‐ other, even in their often violent struggle. But in comes Petropoulos, Markov becomes Markidis: the comparative freedom of the diaspora, the "We all have two names," noted one of Danforth's most compelling of Danforth's case studies con‐ interviewees (pp. 160-61). cern those whose identities break down our as‐ The hostility of the Greek government to the sumptions and the strictures of official nationalist development of a Macedonian national identity ideologies. has driven the Macedonian nationalist movement Danforth's thesis is that national identity is out of Greece proper. Australia has become one of constructed, not primordial, and the most com‐ the focal points of that movement, Canada anoth‐ pelling evidence (to my mind) for the verity of his er. Today there are between 20,000 and 50,000 assertion is that there are individuals today who Macedonian speakers remaining in Greece, of confound the definitions, break the barriers that which Danforth estimates 10,000 have a Macedo‐ seemingly divide Greeks and Macedonians. One, nian national identity (p. 78). There are, according who speaks Macedonian, is "a Greek frst...a Greek to Danforth's sources, 323,000 Greeks in Australia, from Macedonia" (p. 233). Others claim varying of which 55,000 are Greek-Macedonians (Greeks degrees of Greekness or Macedonianness, usually from Macedonia) (p. 86). In 1988, there were with certainty. In many of those cases, the sub‐ about 75,000 Macedonians in Australia, of whom ject's identity has shifted within his or her own one-third had come from Greece. lifetime. "From a Macedonian and even a Greek Danforth's treatment of that diaspora commu‐ nationalist perspective, such people may seem in‐ nity and its role in the development of a Macedo‐ congruous, their nationality suspect, but from an nian national identity is one of the major focuses anthropological perspective, the claims to Greek of his book.