“EUROPEANIZATION” OF THE MACEDONIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY
“EUROPEANIZATION” OF THE MACEDONIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY1

Summary/Abstract: The subject of discussion in this paper is national identity and the question is whether national identity is a form of identity that can sustain a political community of the state and/or a union of states. The effectiveness of a political community, whether the nation, the state or the European Union, relies on the legitimacy derived from its members. We are in the realm of collective identities and particularly cultural identity that brings this discussion about new forms of identity in contemporary Europe into the area of nationalism studies. European identity, at this stage in history cannot be cultural, for culture being historically constructed is too contested. “Europeanization” means a construction of a new collective identity, a new understanding of identity and its dissociation from the ethnically dominated territory of the nation-state. With this in mind, this article turns to concepts of identity as the term is employed in national discourses and argues that political integration of culturally diverse communities requires a form of identity beyond the boundaries of standard vocabulary of nationalism even in its civic form. This study is supported by the case of the Republic of Macedonia on two matters, Macedonian-Albanian relationships in the country and the relation between Macedonia and Greece on the “name issue” in order to draw implications for “Europeanization” of the Macedonian national identity.

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