Ethnonationality’s Evolution in Bosnia Herzegovina and Macedonia by Arianna Piacentini

Author:Arianna Piacentini
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030391898
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The Fluctuating Path of Inter-Ethnic Relations

The ethnonational groups in Macedonia, especially the two biggest ones—ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians—have always lived apart. The Yugoslav generation surveyed, in fact, remembered how relations have never been close—yet, according to their memories and life experiences, it seems contacts have followed a ‘fluctuating path’. These fluctuations mirrored the politico-institutional changes happening in the small republic which, as seen, entailed majority–minority issues and dynamics; and, inevitably, the notion of ethnonationality—as both belonging to a majority or minority group, and the size of the group itself, became decisive to obtain and enjoy a variety of politico-institutional rights and socio-economic benefits alike. From a temporal perspective, there emerged three main ‘fluctuations’ characterizing inter-ethnic contacts, which can be described as: (1) relaxed but superficial during Yugoslavia; (2) tense and distant from independence until the signing of the OFA (decade 1991– 2001); and (3) currently going back to normality, with ‘normality’ meaning superficial but relaxed, however featured by both sides’ collective frustrations and dissatisfactions. Let’s thus have a closer look at these fluctuations.

(1) Brotherhood and Unity?

In the Yugoslav decades relations between the groups composing the multiethnic society of Macedonia, and Skopje more specifically, were ‘good but artificial’,9 ‘forcedly close’10 even if within the framework of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’. People already had clear-cut identity boundaries, hard to overcome even in the capital city of Skopje. The parents, however, did not link this social distance to the different languages spoken by the two main communities, nor to their religious traditions. On the contrary, and as a consequence of collective experiences and feelings, the explanation furnished was either based on cultural difference or institutional injustice.

The ethnic Macedonian parents explained long-term social distance between them and the other major group by saying that the ethnic Albanians were ‘culturally different’: ‘Albanian people were not educated and did only physical work. Maybe for us Macedonians they were second-class citizens …we did not speak with each other very much.’11 As they recalled, the two groups ‘have always been separated. […] Albanians did not do the same things we did, they stayed home with their families’,12 therefore groups of friends have always been mainly monoethnic, and relationships with the other communities were never close and intimate. According to the ethnic Albanians the nature of the social distance was not based on cultural superiority/inferiority, but it was institutional and political, being the ‘Macedonians […] more powerful than the Albanians [and the ethnic Albanians] the last to gain some benefit’.13 Although the Yugoslav system was trying to assure both national and social equality, particularly after the constitutional changes enacted in 1963 and 1974, the Macedonian society was apparently featured by both disparities. And the two major groups living in it had thus interiorized a different, collectivity-grounded perspective from which they viewed and understood their living environment. In turn, collective experiences and memories informed individuals’ opinions, perceptions, and behaviours, making clear how crucial and meaningful ethnonationality has always been in the Macedonian society. It is worth mentioning that the ethnic

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