Fabricating Identity from Ancient Shards: Memory Construction and Cultural Appropriation in the New Macedonian Question
Fabricating Identity from Ancient Shards: Memory Construction and Cultural Appropriation in the New Macedonian Question

Summary/Abstract: In the Republic of Macedonia, the use of archaeology to support the construction of national identity is a relatively new phenomenon, but it has been steadily growing since the declaration of independence in 1991. In sharp contrast to the nationbuilding process of the Greeks, Serbians, and Bulgarians, whose main ideological components were drawn from a “glorious past,” Macedonian nationalism in the mid-twentieth century looked to an equally “glorious future.” This paper analyzes the construction of popular archaeology in the Republic of Macedonia, and particularly the creative mechanisms driving it, its relation with the national and international academic world, its spread to a public of non-specialists through new media, its reception by society and its political utilization in constructing the national identity.

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