What Happened to the Macedonian Salad: Ethnocracy in Macedonia
What Happened to the Macedonian Salad: Ethnocracy in Macedonia

Summary/Abstract: Macedonia must have seemed an odd and exceptional place when it inspired Western imagination to borrow its name for a mixed salad. Before modernity came to Macedonia it was a region of an incredible mixture of languages, religions, costumes, customs, or to use the favourite shortcut, cultures. When modernity arrived in Southeast Europe it was turned into a region of an unbearable mixture of peoples, ethnicities, nations. Modernity, for its complexity and ambiguity cannot be captured by making it synonymous with nationalism, but for its numerous overlaps and similarities. I will focus on this by using the case of the Republic of Macedonia. After almost two centuries of unmaking its mixture, the Republic of Macedonia that emerged as an independent country after the collapse of the Yugoslav federation still has to deal with the pronounced diversity of its population. Complicated power-sharing mechanisms have been introduced and in conjuncture with the dominant discourse of ethnonationalism brought to fruition an ethnocratic regime. In this paper I will explore the uncritical acceptance of modernity and its confrontational character based on a binary logic and the consequences for this region of remarkable long-standing diversity. To the ethnocratic reordering of the public space I juxtapose the spatial practices of Skopje’s citizens that transgress the imposed ethnic boundaries in the city.

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