Abstract
This article explores the extended dimensions of Europeanisation, beyond the conventional socio-political and economic aspects, to include cultural values and memory narratives. Examining the Europeanisation process of North Macedonia, specifically in the context of European Union membership aspirations, the study emphasises the influential role of culture and memory in this transformative process. While the European Union negotiation process imposes strict rules, the article argues that the pressure to conform to perceived ‘European’ norms is unmistakable. Using the example of Bulgaria’s influence on North Macedonian history within the European Union membership framework, the analysis demonstrates how the European Union internationalises and Europeanizes historical disputes, with implications for state and international diplomacy. The article highlights the power dynamics in historical disputes. It contends that the European Union’s insistence on resolving historical disputes as a condition for accession leads to negative outcomes, such as hate speech and nationalism, undermining the democratisation goals of Europeanisation.
In December 2020, Bulgaria vetoed the start of European Union (EU) negotiations with North Macedonia. Despite having waited 15 years since being granted EU candidate status in 2005, Bulgaria disagreed with the proposed negotiation framework and demanded that it also address bilateral issues between itself and North Macedonia. According to Bulgaria, North Macedonia pursued ‘non-European’ and ‘totalitarian historical narratives’ that needed to be revised before entering the EU (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, 2020). Bulgarian politicians expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the Macedonian state and explicitly negative feelings about its nationhood, language and identity. For instance, Ekaterina Zaharieva, the Bulgarian minister of foreign affairs, stated, ‘The self-determination of that nation, created since 1944, should not be based on lies and anti-Bulgarian campaigns but on the truth’ (Gerasimovski, 2020). In one of its written statements, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences stated, ‘The Macedonian language does not exist because it is a written-regional standard of Bulgarian’ (Gerasimovski, 2019). Bulgarian denial of the existence of a distinct Macedonian ethnic identity and language has been an official policy since at least the 1960s. According to the Bulgarian historian Marinov, the official Bulgarian positions we hear today were formulated precisely during communist times. He notes that ‘part of the Bulgarian historical narrative about Macedonia dates back earlier, particularly the theses on medieval history, the 19th-century national revival, etc.; however, its final codification took place specifically during socialism’ (Marinov, as cited in Georgievski, 2020c). This denial is deeply ingrained in the country’s stance on the ‘Macedonian Question’, which refers to historical issues dating from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, concerning disputes and issues related to the identity and territorial claims of the people and territories associated with the name ‘Macedonia’ (Danfroth, 1993).
In October 2019, the Bulgarian parliament adopted a declaration listing about 20 demands that the North Macedonian government would need to fulfil during the accession talks. The declaration states: ‘Bulgaria will not allow the EU integration of the Republic of North Macedonia to be accompanied by European legitimization of an anti-Bulgarian ideology’ (Gov.bg and Bulgarian Government, 2019). The declaration demands that North Macedonia abandon any claim regarding the existence of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. In addition, it requires North Macedonia to remove the term ‘Bulgarian Fascist Occupation’ from all Second World War historic landmarks in North Macedonia and to commence the rehabilitation of Bulgarians who suffered under former Yugoslav rule due to their Bulgarian identity. Bulgaria also urged the EU not to use the term ‘Macedonian language’ in official documents, as Bulgaria does not recognise the Macedonian language.
The calls by Bulgaria to Macedonian officials to ‘Europeanize’ its history were addressed in the Bulgaria-Macedonia friendship agreement from 2017, when both countries agreed to form a ‘joint multidisciplinary expert commission on historical and educational issues’. Nonetheless, Macedonian politicians remained steadfast in their refusal to incorporate the Bulgarian demands into the official negotiation framework for EU accession talks. Despite intense diplomatic efforts on the part of North Macedonia, the EU eventually acquiesced to the Bulgarian demands, and they were included as conditions in the official negotiation framework for North Macedonia.
The inclusion of historical narratives and heritage interpretation in the official negotiation framework for North Macedonia, as per Bulgarian demands, marks a notable departure from previous approaches in Eastern European and ex-Yugoslavian countries. Unlike earlier instances where these aspects were not formal criteria, they have now become integral to the ‘Europeanization’ process. Despite North Macedonia’s vigorous diplomatic efforts, the EU yielded to Bulgarian demands, establishing them as official conditions. In this context, the Europeanization process of the country expanded beyond mere socio-political and legislative reforms.
It is worth noting that historical revisionism and the reframing of memory narratives have not been unfamiliar to many Eastern European countries throughout their Europeanisation and EU accession negotiations. For example, in the case of the Baltic states, issues related to the legacy of the communist period, as well as the historical reinterpretation of World War II, were integral to their EU negotiations. Similarly, in countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, heritage concerns around minority protection, such as the Czech-German, Polish-German and Hungarian-Romanian historical legacies, were prominent in the EU integration discourse. While these themes were not formal conditions for accession, they were certainly influential in shaping the negotiations. Nevertheless, these processes have typically run parallel to the official negotiation proceedings rather than being directly intertwined with them. The case of North Macedonia presents a departure from this norm, as conditions for revising history and commemorative practices are now directly integrated into the negotiation process. In this context, Europeanisation is not only a transitional process of ‘catching up’ with the Western European model – characterised by the market economy and parliamentary democracy – but also about alignment with European cultural values and memory narratives.
For nearly three decades, the Western Balkans, a term employed by the EU to denote candidate or potential candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro), have undergone a process of Europeanisation. This encompasses a political, cultural and social journey intricately connected to the region’s aspirations for EU membership.
While the EU imposes stringent rules and conditions as part of the negotiation process for member states, the realm of culture and memory is usually subject to a more subtle approach. And while in most cases, there are no official criteria for how history should be Europeanised, the process of Europeanisation encompasses a profound re-evaluation and reorganisation of historical narratives, memories and commemorative spaces. The pressure of expectation on what is deemed ‘European’ or ‘non-European’ is far from inconspicuous. In this context, Europeanisation is the ‘arena where the very definitions of what is European (and what is not) are negotiated’ and where we should always ask: ‘What are the imaginaries that these discussions are based on, and how are the definitions of Europe and European justified?’ (Heikkinen, 2021, 4).
It is important to note that the term Europeanisation, which I will frequently use throughout this article, refers to a broad field of study that examines the ‘influence of the EU’ or the ‘domestic impact of the EU’ (Sedelmeier, 2011: 5). The term has become embedded in European legislative documents, speeches by EU officials and academic discourse, evolving into a significant area of political science focused on ‘the empirical effects of European integration on domestic political structures and public policy’ (Exadaktylos and Radaelli, 2015: 271). It is often framed as an inevitable process, a necessary step for countries aspiring to align with or join the EU. However, while I employ the term to describe the EU integration process, I maintain a critical stance towards the concept of Europeanisation itself. I argue that it is not only politically inadequate and historically illogical – claiming exclusivity of ‘Europeanness’ for the EU – but also aggressively denies the European identity of non-EU members, excluding the possibility of alternative forms of European identity beyond the one constructed by the EU. This approach is not merely symbolic or rhetorical; it represents an ideological starting point that requires non-EU countries to adopt so-called ‘European values’, implicitly dismissing their pre-existing values as non-European. Such a framework perpetuates a hierarchical and exclusionary vision of Europe, reinforcing power imbalances and undermining the diversity of European identities.
Petrović (2014: 4) characterises the Balkans as a region under constant supervision, guidance and influence from the West, where every action is scrutinised and evaluated, including the narratives of the past. It is a peculiar situation in which young non-EU nations are engrossed in constructing new national myths while struggling to detach themselves from the complex emotions associated with existing historical myths or, indeed, more recent memories that now seem outdated.
This article explores the intricate dynamics of the historical dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, occurring against the backdrop of Bulgaria’s EU membership. It examines how the EU, by incorporating Bulgarian demands into the Negotiation Framework for North Macedonia, has internationalised and Europeanised this dispute, revealing a pragmatic rather than principled stance by the EU in taking sides between two sovereign nations. I aim to analyse not only the history and memory politics at work here as pre-conditions for EU accession, but also the consequences of engaging in these memory politics at such a high level, closely mediated by state and international diplomacy. I will examine the power dynamics inherent in these disputes, specifically the role-played by multidisciplinary intergovernmental commissions as part of the process of Europeanising the past, and the crucial role such a process plays in political developments within North Macedonia itself. In the presentation, I use the term North Macedonia, which refers to the modern state, and Macedonia, which refers to the region of Vardar Macedonia, here in particular the part occupied in 1941 and annexed by Bulgaria in 1942 until 1944.
I will argue that, while the pursuit of unique national identities may appear contrary to the goal of creating a larger European memory framework, the current setup of EU integration and the universalisation of memory narratives, in particular, can function as an arena for a single member state to pursue national interests in the most direct and unfiltered manner. I argue that the EU’s insistence on solving historical disputes – and, moreover, making them a condition for EU accession – has failed to deliver a constructive solution and has even led to the emergence and incitement of hate speech and nationalism. I also argue that, while democratisation is one of the main goals of Europeanisation, the settling of historical disputes as conditions for EU membership leads to a fundamentally undemocratic state-centred control and narration of the past.
In my analysis, I employ the terms ‘memory politics’ and ‘history politics’. ‘History politics’ encompasses actions such as formal apologies, reparations and memorialisation. On the contrary, ‘memory politics’ involves discussions about the past, addressing how historical events should be documented, remembered and disseminated (Zubrzycki and Woźny, 2020: 175). While both terms are pertinent to the historical dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, ‘memory politics’ covers policies related to distinguishing between true and false histories and encompasses regulations, including memory laws, that dictate how history should be narrated and interpreted (Zubrzycki and Woźny, 2020: 175).
Bulgarian objection to North Macedonian history
The need for North Macedonia to resolve identity and history-related disputes with its neighbours has been a long-standing requirement for its potential accession to the EU. This has resulted in placing history at the forefront of addressing political conflicts and advancing political agendas, giving rise to distorted interpretations of historical events, whether distant or recent. Thus, the first opposition to the Macedonian state came with the name dispute with Greece and the contested Hellenic past. Greece contested the use of the name ‘Macedonia’, asserting its inherently Greek nature, leading to a dispute that extended beyond mere linguistic differences into a broader contention over historical claims. The resolution of the Greek dispute was achieved with the Prespa Agreement, which resulted in the country changing its name to ‘North Macedonia’.
However, just as everyone thought all the historical issues had been overcome, Bulgaria vetoed Macedonia’s accession to the EU, demanding the country confront its ‘falsified history’ and embrace ‘the truth of its Bulgarian origins’ (Vangelov, 2023). Thus, while the name dispute with Greece was settled back in 2018, historical issues with Bulgaria now take precedence in public discussion and decision-making, overshadowing other, perhaps more pressing concerns, such as corruption and a dysfunctional judicial system.
In 2017, Macedonia and Bulgaria signed a bilateral Friendship Agreement, in which both countries agreed to establish an intergovernmental multidisciplinary commission to address historical and educational matters. At this point, Bulgaria openly supported Macedonia’s EU accession. The multidisciplinary commission, consisting of seven experts from each country, was duly formed and held regular meetings. However, despite several years of discussions, there was little progress in reaching a shared understanding of historical events and personalities.
In 2019, the Bulgarian government adopted a Framework Position stating its stance on EU enlargement and the Macedonian identity issue. Among other points, the declaration strongly opposes the ‘potential European legitimation of Communist ideology with an anti-Bulgarian character’ and the ‘rewriting and appropriation of the history of part of the Bulgarian people after 1944, which forms the basis of the anti-Bulgarian ideological framework of Yugoslav totalitarianism’ (Gov.bg and Bulgarian Government, 2019). Notwithstanding that terms such as ‘anti-Bulgarian character’ and ‘anti-Bulgarian ideological construction’ are vague and without further explanation, the declaration also demands that North Macedonia abandon any notion of a Macedonian ethnic minority within the territory of Bulgaria (Gov.bg and Bulgarian Government, 2019). Furthermore, the Bulgarian government, as a contribution to the conclusions of the EU Council held in March 2020, indicated that the accession of North Macedonia will be fully conditioned by Bulgaria’s interpretation of the Friendship Agreement between the two countries.
In 2020, Bulgaria used the lack of progress to block accession negotiations for North Macedonia’s EU membership. At the time, some EU members opposed the Bulgarian position. For example, the Slovenian Member of the European Parliament, Tanja Fajon, said that the Bulgarian veto was irresponsible and should be withdrawn (quoted by SlobodenPecat, 2020). The Czech Republic and Slovakia refused to sign a document for EU enlargement in which, at the request of Bulgaria, the phrase ‘misinterpretation of history’ appeared. In a joint declaration, the countries’ foreign ministers stated: Considering the crucial role of this document and after careful consideration, we cannot agree with the final text presented today for adoption. As it stands, the text contains elements, including the idea of falsifying history, which, in our view, will be detrimental to the enlargement process and may contribute to further complications. (. . .) We will not allow the EU to be the judge of our shared history, how we identify ourselves or the language we speak. (quoted by Mihajlovski, 2020)
In support of this stance, in June 2023, the German Bundestag adopted a resolution supporting the Macedonian language, culture and identity. German Minister of State for Europe and Climate Anna Lührmann explained: ‘With this resolution, we pay deep respect to the Macedonian identity, language, culture, and history’ (quoted by Reed, 2023). Yet, the obligation to resolve the dispute with Bulgaria entered the EU Negotiation Framework. As a result, the negotiation framework now includes a signed protocol, mandating fulfilment as a prerequisite for North Macedonia’s accession (Council of the EU Presidency, 2022).
The Framework Position includes a list of further requirements that North Macedonia must fulfil if it wants approval from Bulgaria in its negotiations with the EU. Among many provisions, it demands that North Macedonia remove plaques from monuments and commemorative spaces related to the Second World War that include the phrase ‘Bulgarian fascist occupier’. It also states that EU documents should use the phrase ‘official language of the Republic of North Macedonia’ (instead of the Macedonian language), and if the term Macedonian language is accidentally used, it should be clarified that ‘the language norm in the Republic of North Macedonia is connected to the evolution of the Bulgarian language and its dialects in the former Yugoslav Republic after their codification in 1944’ (Gov.bg and Bulgarian Government, 2019). Furthermore, in the so-called ‘Explanatory Memorandum’ sent by Bulgaria to all other EU member countries, it is claimed that ‘after World War II, the overwhelming majority of the Slavic population (of today’s North Macedonia) clearly identified as Bulgarian’ and that ‘Belgrade tried to eradicate the Bulgarian identity of this population’ (Aktuelno.bg, 2020).
The protocol from the second meeting (17 July 2022) of the Joint Intergovernmental Multidisciplinary Commission specifically addressed commemorative practices: The two states should adhere to the approved texts by the Joint Intergovernmental Commission under Article 12, as a basis for organising joint or individual commemorations, as well as to abide by them in public speeches and statements regarding shared personalities and events for which such commemorations are organised (SDK, 2022).
Bulgaria thus insists that commemorative practices that take place in North Macedonia and the way in which they are conducted need the prior approval of Bulgaria. Bulgaria also demands that all historical textbooks in North Macedonia be vetted by the Intergovernmental Multidisciplinary Commission, thus also requiring Bulgarian approval. There is even a request that institutions in the two states prepare lesson plans on events and historical figures ‘from [a] shared history for which the commission has reached consensus’ (quoted by Reed, 2023) and that approved textbooks be included in the official curricula ‘and should be taken into account and reflected in the content of inscriptions on plaques, historical monuments, memorials, and informational materials in museums and other objects of educational and cultural significance’ (quoted by Reed, 2023). A further requirement that applies only to North Macedonia is that within 1 year, the country should ‘fully disclose the archives of the repressive apparatus of the former State Security Services, including the police, civilian and military intelligence, and counterintelligence, during the communist period from 1941 to 1991’ (SDK, 2022). Elsewhere in the Framework Position, there is a requirement that ‘all historical and literary sources from the 19th and 20th century [before the codification of the Macedonian language in 1944], be presented in Macedonian school textbooks in their original form’ (Vangelov, 2022: 153). This means that Macedonian textbooks cannot include anything ‘related to the expression of a distinct Macedonian ethnic, cultural, or linguistic identity prior to 1944, i.e. prior to the establishment of Macedonia as a state within the framework of Socialist Yugoslavia’ (Vangelov, 2022: 153).
By incorporating Bulgarian conditions into the negotiation framework, the bilateral dispute has been internationalised, and the Bulgarian stance has become the official position of the EU. Within the negotiation framework, Bulgarian requirements for Macedonia are labelled as a ‘neighbourhood dispute’, and resolving this matter is a pre-condition for North Macedonia’s EU accession. However, this expression inadequately captures the complexities of the bilateral interaction, which involves imposed conditionality rather than being solely a dispute between two states. In this case, established conditions for North Macedonia entail concrete expectations aimed at influencing its memory policies and commemorative practices. Conversely, North Macedonia has limited room for manoeuvring or setting conditions as a counterparty and is rather compelled into neutralising threats by bargaining with its own national history in order to safeguard the EU negotiation.
The Second World War as a problematic past
One of the significant obstacles in the bilateral relationship between North Macedonia and Bulgaria has been the divergent interpretations and portrayals of the Second World War. To understand how these demands are underpinned, it is important to mention that in 1941, the Kingdom of Bulgaria allied itself with Nazi Germany, hoping to regain territory that had previously been part of Bulgaria. Thus, in April 1941, Bulgaria participated in the German-led attack on Yugoslavia and Greece and took over Greek Thrace, Yugoslav Macedonia and Pirot County in eastern Serbia. According to Macedonian historical accounts, Bulgarian military forces occupied Yugoslav Macedonia and are referred to as fascist occupiers. Bulgarian historians and officials, on the contrary, refuse to be labelled as Bulgarian occupiers during WWII or as fascist occupiers. Instead, they insist on using the term ‘Bulgarian administrators’ for those who administered the territories occupied by Bulgarian forces.
Macedonian politicians, in a continuous state of ‘tip-toeing’ around Bulgarian officials after the signing of the Agreement of Cooperation and Friendship, were trying to find a quick fix to the demand regarding memorial plaques and the removal of the words ‘Fascist’ and ‘Occupiers’ when associated with Bulgaria. Hence, shortly after the signing, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev revealed that in the city of Strumica, there was a memorial plaque honouring a fallen Macedonian hero, which stated he was killed ‘by a bullet from the Bulgarian fascist occupier’. To resolve the issue, Zaev announced that the plaque had been modified, now indicating that he ‘was killed by a fascist bullet’. This new wording was criticised and ridiculed by the public for being depersonalised and for sounding almost as if the bullet fired on its own accord, completely indifferent to who—or more specifically, under whose direction—it was fired. The Prime Minister and his advisers decided to remove the word ‘occupier’ from the memorial plaque while choosing to retain the term ‘fascist’. However, Macedonian members of the multidisciplinary commission, Dimitrov and Spaskovska, argue that the term ‘fascist’ is more negotiable in this case, as the extent to which the Bulgarian monarchy aligned itself with fascism as an ideology is a subject of some debate (Georgievski; Vasilevska). They suggest that using the term ‘pro-fascist’ instead of ‘fascist’ might be acceptable for Macedonian historians. Conversely, the term ‘occupation’ is commonly used in relation to the role played by Bulgaria in Macedonia during that period and can be found in academic publications by historians and political scientists (see Nadege Ragaru, Hans Joachim Hoppe, Stefan Troebst). Furthermore, the occupation received international confirmation after the war and was acknowledged in the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the agreements arising from the Paris International Peace Conference of 1947, including the Treaty of Peace with Bulgaria signed on 10 February 1947. The treaty was signed between the Allied and Associated Powers on one side and Bulgaria on the other side, formally recognising Bulgaria as an occupying force in the Second World War and requiring it to pay reparations to Yugoslavia and Greece. Trajanoski (2021) has also noted that the term is not uncommon in Bulgarian historical documents, and it was actively used by members of the Third Reich and Bulgarian ministers and military officers who issued orders during the occupation. In this sense, for Macedonian academics and historians, it should be non-negotiable that the territory of the then Yugoslav Macedonia (today’s state of North Macedonia) was under triple occupation by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, as there were German, Italian and Bulgarian military forces present on that territory, with effective control established by these three states.
Yet, according to the official Bulgarian national narrative, Macedonians were considered Bulgarian until 1945, and as a result, they are perceived not as occupied, but rather as liberated from Yugoslavia (Georgievski, 2020a). This narrative, portraying Bulgaria as the liberator of the region of Macedonia, features prominently in Bulgarian history books. For instance, a chapter of the Bulgarian history textbook for seventh-grade students states that the Bulgarian Army liberated Macedonia in an attempt at ‘national unification’ and that they were welcomed by the local population (Trajanoski, 2021). In the same chapter, there is no mention of fascist, Nazi or antifascist ideologies, the Allies, or the fact that Bulgaria signed an accession agreement to the Tripartite Pact, participated in the German-led attack on Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941, and declared war on Britain and the United States on 13 December 1941.
Another contested event related to the WWII past is the deportation of Macedonian Jews, which remains a stumbling block on the road to good neighbourly relations. The question of Bulgarian participation in the Holocaust is still a highly emotionally charged issue in Bulgaria today and continues to cause resentment in North Macedonia.
It is an incontrovertible fact that approximately 48,000 Jews in Bulgaria, comprising almost the entire Bulgarian Jewish community from the ‘old’ kingdom, were spared from the horrors of the Holocaust due to the intervention of the tsar, the Bulgarian government and protests from the Bulgarian population (Kofalt, 2020, 26). At the same time, an estimated 11,343 Jews in the territories of Yugoslavia and Greece occupied by Bulgarian forces in April 1941 were ‘arrested by the Bulgarian police and army; interned in temporary detention camps; and deported to Treblinka, where they were exterminated’ (Ragaru, 2023, 14). Among them, 7136 Jews were from the territory of Vardar Macedonia (Troebst, 2013: 107).
To this day, while it is firmly anchored in Bulgarian national collective memory that Bulgaria protected its Jewish population from extermination, its WWII history remains one of the least researched aspects of Bulgarian history, with numerous questions lingering regarding the Bulgarian tsarist dictatorship and its collaboration with the Axis powers, awaiting further and more comprehensive investigations (Opfer-Klinger, 2021; Ragaru, 2023). The official account is that Bulgaria was forced to hand over the Jewish population of the Bulgarian-occupied territories to the Reich due to excessive pressure and in view of the allegedly large German military presence in the country (Ragaru, 2023; Sage, 2017).
According to the official position of the Bulgarian government, as reflected in the unanimously adopted declaration of the Bulgarian Parliament on the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the region in March 2013, commemoration of the Holocaust in North Macedonia is acknowledged, but any attribution of responsibility to Bulgarians or the Bulgarian state is contested: ‘While condemning the atrocity committed under Hitler’s command, we express regret that the Bulgarian local administration was unable to prevent it’ (Delimitov, 2018). However, this position has been challenged by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, which criticised the declaration for distorting historical facts and failing to acknowledge the role of the Bulgarian authorities in the deportation of over 11,000 Jews from the occupied territories of Yugoslavia and northern Greece. In an open letter, the Committee stated that these deportations were not merely imposed by Nazi command but were actively carried out by the Bulgarian administration, both locally and centrally. It further emphasised that the Bulgarian state had negotiated, planned and executed these actions independently, fully aware that those deported were being sent to their deaths. The Committee condemned the Bulgarian Parliament’s refusal to recognise state responsibility for this complicity in genocide and called for an honest reckoning with the past, including an official apology to the victims (Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, 2013). This position remains controversial and unacceptable for the Macedonian Jewish community, which views this memory politics as denying the historical fact that Bulgaria adopted and implemented a racial code against its Jewish citizens based on the German Nuremberg Laws. While Bulgaria granted citizenship to its Jewish population, it did not extend this citizenship to Macedonian Jews, a decision that ‘eventually led to their deportation’ (Crampton, 1997: 176; Ragaru, 2016: 119).
For Goran Sadikariu, Director of the Macedonian Holocaust Museum, the Bulgarian occupiers played a crucial role in the deportation of the Jews: I dare not even consider that this fact will be ignored, overlooked, swept under the rug, or, God forbid, compromised for something else. This is an issue that should not have any compromise whatsoever. A reasoned approach should be taken in the entire case. (quoted by Delimitov, 2018)
Ragaru, in her extensive study ‘Bulgaria, the Jews and the Holocaust’, elaborates extensively on this issue. However, although the Macedonian Jewish organisation has grown more vocal and active, particularly following the inauguration of the Holocaust Museum in 2011, the Holocaust was not studied as a separate aspect of World War II within Macedonian official historiography, especially during the Yugoslav period. Instead, it was remembered under the broader category of fascist crimes. Throughout the time of Yugoslavia, the exploration of the Jewish experience was largely confined to its connection with the partisan movement, intertwining Jewish struggle and tragedy with broader partisan struggles (Ragaru, 2023; Troebst, 2013). Consequently, the deportation of Jews from Vardar Macedonia, northern Greece and occupied Serbia was attributed to pro-Nazi Bulgaria, which collaborated with Nazi Germany, facilitating the deportation.
The acknowledgement of the Holocaust as a distinct and independent historical memory, separated from the partisan struggle, only gained prominence in Macedonia after the collapse of Yugoslav socialism. This shift in perspective was seen as a way to boost the legitimacy of the European project by anchoring it in a shared historical narrative.
However, the re-emergence of the history of the deportation of Macedonian Jews in both countries might still be considered one of the more fruitful aspects of the bilateral historical disagreements. The recent bilateral conflict has sparked debates on Macedonian collaborations, challenging the prevailing public discourse that tends to adopt a narrative of ‘collective Macedonian innocence’ and refrains from acknowledging collaboration during the Jewish deportation. Similarly, in Bulgaria, discussing the survival of Bulgarian Jews has become increasingly difficult without addressing the deported Jews from the occupied territories. Moreover, in Bulgaria, the rediscovery of the Jewish predicament has played an important role in refuting right-wing claims that the pre-communist era had been flawless, supposedly standing for civilisation and modernity.
At the same time, despite these positive advancements towards fostering more open debate, there remains a significant gap to bridge before a consensus is reached concerning the deportation of Macedonian Jews between the two countries.
The Yugoslav past
Another problematic area for Bulgarian politicians is the Yugoslav past. In one of his statements, President Radev said: ‘Let us not allow the legitimization of Macedonism; there is no place for ideologies from former Yugoslavia in the EU’ (quoted by Filipov, 2020). Ekaterina Zaharieva, who was the Bulgarian Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time, expressed her disapproval during the opening of an exhibition dedicated to Josip Broz Tito in Skopje and criticised the existence of public schools in North Macedonia that still carry Tito’s name: ‘To mark the death of the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in Skopje is like the mayor of Berlin deciding to commemorate the death of Adolf Hitler in Berlin’ (Zaharieva, as quoted by Makfax, 2022).
While the comparison between Tito and Hitler might be easier to dismiss as neither appropriate nor meaningful due to their differing ideologies, policies and historical contexts, the insistence on categorising and equating Yugoslavia with other former communist Stalinist totalitarian regimes deserves more attention. Radev’s statement, ‘Let us not allow the legitimisation of Macedonism; there is no place for ideologies from former Yugoslavia in the EU’, directly links the legitimacy of the Macedonian state to its Yugoslav past. This connection stems from the fact that Macedonian statehood is directly linked to ASNOM – the Anti-Fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia, which served as the founding institution of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia within Yugoslavia. ASNOM laid the groundwork for the modern Macedonian state by defining its territory and institutions; its role as a founding institution and its decisions are also referenced in the preamble of the Macedonian constitution, providing constitutional-legal continuity for the Macedonian state.
Hence, by delegitimising the Yugoslav past as totalitarian, Bulgarian officials also aim to delegitimise the legal continuity of the Macedonian state. The official Bulgarian position asserts that the Macedonian people and language were fabricated by former Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, portraying Macedonian identity as an ‘anti-Bulgarian ideological construction’ and communist propaganda intended to undermine Bulgaria’s legitimate claims to the Macedonian people and language (Vangelov, 2023). Bulgaria also negates the existence of the Macedonian resistance groups active during the Second World War, namely the National Liberation Army (NOV) and the Partisan detachments, which were part of the Yugoslav Partisans who fought against Axis forces and collaborated with the Allies to liberate the region.
The Bulgarian dismissal of Macedonian identity as communist propaganda is perceived in Macedonia as a direct attack on Macedonian sovereignty and an attempt to ‘re-engineer’ the country’s identity into what Bulgaria perceives to be its authentic Bulgarian identity (Vangelov, 2023). Bulgarian officials, on the contrary, point to existing European memory legislation such as the Council of Europe’s adopted Resolution on the necessity to condemn totalitarian communist regimes, which is further supported by the European Parliament, initially through the adoption of August 23 as the ‘European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of all Authoritarian and Totalitarian Regimes’.
Macedonian scholars, on the contrary, refute the accusations and highlight Bulgaria’s own communist legacy. Despite its own communist past, Bulgaria was not required to establish an international commission of historians during its EU accession negotiations, a requirement imposed, for instance, on the Baltic States and Romania.
Hegemonic discourse: EU integration and memory politics
The historical disputes that North Macedonia has faced over the past three decades have undoubtedly been the primary stumbling blocks on its path to EU integration. At the same time, persistent issues such as high levels of corruption, dysfunctional democracy and weak rule of law have also hindered progress. Over the years, the social democrats have demonstrated greater openness to negotiating and bargaining with the national past compared to the conservative VMRO-DPMNE, which is currently in power. However, despite VMRO-DPMNE’s occasional reliance on nationalist rhetoric, its actions in government have generally been pragmatic and EU-focused. That said, its approach to negotiations with Bulgaria may prove less flexible, particularly regarding constitutional changes, revisions to historical textbooks or the recognition of a Bulgarian minority without reciprocal recognition of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. While VMRO-DPMNE’s rhetoric may complicate certain aspects of the accession process, its governance has not fundamentally derailed North Macedonia’s EU integration efforts.
The bilateral dispute about historical events between nations could be viewed as an opportunity to open the debate and reassess certain histories, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of shared historical experiences, thus providing an opportunity to revise national narratives in a dialogical way and study the past beyond nation-making political narratives. However, this would require a certain equality and power balance in the negotiation process. It should not be possible for any of the parties involved to claim a monopoly over the authority of knowledge about a given past, whether recent or more distant.
The Bulgarian position showcases political hegemony and represents an evident infringement on the self-identification process of another country. The motives behind these policies are multifaceted. On one hand, they stem from a romanticised perception of Bulgarian ethnic identity spanning over a millennium. The formation of Yugoslavia was perceived as a threat, specifically under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Since the late nineteenth century, Bulgaria has consistently considered Macedonia and Macedonian identity as inherently Bulgarian, and this perspective has played a crucial role in Bulgaria’s nation-building processes. With North Macedonia’s bid to join the EU, Bulgaria sees an opportunity to use its position to once again try to re-engineer what it considers to be the ‘ethnic and linguistic engineering that has taken place’ in North Macedonia since the Second World War (Georgievski, 2020b).
This intervention in the internal affairs of a weaker state can only be viewed as a hegemonic act (Watson, 2013: 116). In such a power dynamic, it becomes challenging to expect any genuine dialogue from which a revision of the past could occur, considering not only the two different or opposing national narratives, but also taking into account the perspectives of other social or ethnic groups.
This power asymmetry is framed as a dispute over Europeanisation. Bulgarian officials have repeatedly suggested that Macedonia needs to Europeanise its past by detaching itself ideologically from the Yugoslav past. Thus, Andrey Kovatchev, a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament, stated that the modern Macedonian state is a ‘product of the totalitarian regime of Yugoslavia’ and cannot be legitimate as it is built on oppression, adding: ‘To remind you, communist regimes, along with fascist and national socialist ones, are declared totalitarian by the European Parliament and by most European countries, including Germany’ (Popovski, 2020). From this position, the official European stance on memory politics, specifically its condemnation of totalitarian regimes, is used to condemn the Yugoslav past and the reality of the Macedonian state as ideological propaganda.
Academics studying the Yugoslav past have challenged this normative view of communism, often supported by European memory legislation, which simplifies the complex history of Yugoslavia and its socialism, presenting it as a totalitarian system that invaded all spheres of public and private life and denied any possibility for active citizenship (Ghodsee and Lišková, Ghodsee and Lišková, 2016; Milošević and Touquet, 2018; Petrović, 2016). The dismissal of all socialist experiences as totalitarian and the grouping together of all post-communist countries under the general term ‘totalitarian’ trivialises the complex experiences and living memories of a large population.
According to Petrović, this reductionism persists even when people discuss the ‘positive, progressive, and emancipatory aspects of Yugoslav socialism’, which are often framed merely as a ‘totalitarian deviation’ (Petrović, 2016: 515). The experience of the socialist past differed between countries, and not all ex-communist countries experienced totalitarian regimes to the same extent or in the same manner. Moreover, the uncritical and generalised approach to anti-totalitarianism could lead to the de-contextualisation of the past, with unforeseeable consequences, ‘at the price of erasing clear historical causality and indisputable responsibilities’ (Morsch, 2012: 128).
The refusal to acknowledge the autonomy of people identifying themselves as Macedonians suggests that their identity was produced and determined solely by the historical circumstances of communism. This stance contradicts the EU’s expressed memory and heritage goals of creating multi-layered and inclusive interpretations of the past, which will promote dialogue and ‘foster the development of a peaceful and stable society, founded on respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law’ (Council of Europe, 2005). The task of ‘Europeanising the past’ seeks to do justice to the multiplicity of existing historical memories in Europe by fostering a culture of remembering that facilitates mutual understanding and reconciliation within and between European nations. It aims to base judgments of the past exclusively on the examination of historical facts while renouncing the notion of a singular ‘historical truth’ (Prutsch, 2015: 6). Bulgaria, as a member state assuming the role of a historical judge, has arrogated the right to determine the historical truth of North Macedonia and how it will be constructed. There is little regard for cultural, political or historical differences in the Bulgarian stance. Instead, Bulgaria – as a member of the EU – can, as noted by Horvat and Štiks (2012: 40), ‘discipline, educate, and punish’ the ‘accession country’, in this case dictating the ‘true’ historiography that must align with EU expectations, effectively monitoring its path to ‘normalisation’ into Europeanness.
In recent years, non-EU Balkan countries have, in different ways, tried to Europeanise their pasts by finding links with the prevailing European memory narrative. The European memory framework refers to the ‘collection of policies, resolutions and decisions by the European Commission and the European Parliament (EP) that reflect the collective memory and political attitudes towards the past’ (Milošević and Touquet, 2018).
While not obligatory, it offers a comprehensive grasp of EU policy and places significant emphasis on the fundamental values of EU memory policy. It serves as a primary point of reference for aspiring member states seeking to align their official national memory politics with the EU and embrace an Europeanised national identity. Nonetheless, some scholars have criticised the European memory narrative, primarily due to its predominant emphasis on the West European perspective of the past, which often overlooks the nuanced understanding of the intricate complexities embedded within East European history (see Milošević and Trošt, 2021; Petrović, 2014).
North Macedonia is no exception when it comes to facing pressure to renounce its communist past by simplistically characterising it as strictly totalitarian and oppressive. The entire Balkan region is engulfed by various attempts and projects to ‘intervene’ in history and adapt collective memory to new realities, with the modification of collective memories aimed at achieving higher political goals, most notably becoming (more) European. In their attempts to become more European and Europeanise their national histories, Balkan countries have turned towards the most Eurocentric versions of European history – a history that is depicted as the source of progress, democracy, religious tolerance, scientific traditions, philosophical thought and artistic masterpieces (Cole and Ther, 2010).
In certain instances, this quest for Europeanisation takes on extreme and bizarre forms, as states attempt an ‘instant’ Europeanisation of the country. One notable example is the renowned, controversial and remarkable anti-quisation of the past and public space in North Macedonia. According to Ljubomir Frčkovski, a Macedonian politician and academic, this historical insecurity, existing in a state of both timelessness and evolution, being European but never European enough, gives rise to a situation where the view of the past is ‘full of anxiety’ and characterised by a ‘wandering confusion and discomfort’. It becomes a strange situation in which ‘young nations in the Balkans are almost fantasising the new national myth while at the same time finding it difficult to hate the recent past’ (Frckoski, 2016). This reinvention of the past results in both arbitrariness and a lack of narrative consistency, further stimulating misinterpretations and distorted versions of history.
Consequently, this often leads to increased fracturing polarisation, a loss of cultural cohesion and a disconnection from our once-shared heritage and values. As political tensions between North Macedonia and Bulgaria have escalated, there has been a notable emphasis and normalisation within the Bulgarian media of the demonisation of Macedonian identity as a betrayal of the true Bulgarian cause. This has unfortunately sparked a proliferation of rhetoric that incites hatred towards Macedonians (Reed, 2022). Conversely, the rise in hate speech against Bulgarians on Macedonian social media platforms has been a concerning development (Blazevska, 2021). These dynamics have prompted strong reactions from Bulgarian politicians in response to the situation.
The politicisation of historically contested issues carries the risk of creating an elitist re-writing of history. This is evident in the control exerted by multidisciplinary commissions in determining and shaping national history. This re-writing of history takes place within a framework closely monitored by the EU, with historical narratives playing a central role in political speeches and election agendas. On a European level, the European memory framework, while undoubtedly significant, should not be shielded from criticism, but rather approached with an ‘awareness of its complexities and inherent biases’ (Dechev, 2018). Previous scholarly investigations into the European memory framework, particularly in the context of Balkan Europeanisation, have raised criticisms concerning the dominance of Western European historical narratives and their lack of a nuanced understanding of the two prevailing themes in European memory: totalitarian regimes and the Second World War (Petrović, 2014; Milošević and Touquet, 2018). The limited attention the framework pays to the nuances and distinctions between communist countries in Eastern Europe contributes to an oversimplified and reductionist portrayal of the region’s wider history. Treating all communist countries as homogeneous entities employs a reductive perspective, ultimately ‘flattening and simplifying the otherwise complicated and diverse lived experiences under the (often starkly) different socialist systems in Eastern Europe’ (Jelaca et al., 2020). This approach inadvertently overlooks the distinctiveness of the Bulgarian communist experience when compared to that of Yugoslavia. Hence, it is important to view the European memory framework through a critical lens, recognising the need for a more comprehensive understanding that accounts for the diverse historical trajectories of each individual country within the broader Eastern European context.
The revisiting of history on a bilateral level becomes a highly nationalistic project, where the nation’s identity is either portrayed as threatened or strategically used in diplomatic negotiations to legitimise territorial, cultural or political claims, thereby creating support for specific policies. This process often employs the strategy of the ‘victim-perpetrator binary’ to mobilise support (Wodak, quoted by Zubrzycki and Woźny, 2020). Such a version of history is divorced, not only from historical facts, but also from recent memories. At best, it disregards alternative perspectives, while at worst, it simply dismisses them, including oral traditions, local narratives and collective memories that may challenge or provide different interpretations of the official or dominant historical accounts. By excluding vernacular memory and leaving history solely to historians, strictly controlled and administrated narratives dominated by national myths emerge.
Huyssen (2019), who has extensively explored the conceptual limits of European memory, emphasises that while the boundaries of citizenship must be legally, administratively and politically defined, the cultural aspects of European memory cannot be fortified, meaning they cannot be guarded or preserved in an unchanging or rigid way. Instead, memory needs to remain fluid and open for interpretations, allowing for diverse memory circulations. It should not be simplified or reduced to over-generalised terms, underscoring the importance of embracing the nuanced complexities inherent in European memory.
Conclusion
North Macedonia, as a young state, grapples with an evolving and yet to be fully crystallised national history, necessitating the addressing of its shared past with neighbouring countries in the future. However, the highly politicised approach towards its national memory narrative, coupled with its utilisation as a condition for EU membership, has narrowed the space for diplomatic negotiations and only intensified polarisation in both countries. By introducing Bulgarian demands into the negotiation framework, cultural memory and memory politics have assumed a prominent role in the EU accession process, transforming memory and heritage from soft power into potent tools with the ability to shape an entire country’s destiny.
The Macedonian case exemplifies the top-down curation of memorial practices and historical narratives, where political elites shape history to align with external diplomatic pressures, using historians from multidisciplinary commissions to legitimise state-controlled narratives in the context of EU accession negotiations. History has become a central political tool for ruling parties, making their historical interpretations and rhetoric highly sensitive. A single controversial action or statement can provoke backlash, potentially undermining their hold on power. This approach neglects other voices, memories or contested views of the past, undermining the purported polyvocality of the European memory framework. Instead, it perpetuates nationalised and state-curated historical and memory narratives.
Moreover, this process provokes nationalistic tendencies, as every political movement creates its own language, introducing new terms and metaphors, appropriating historical names to contextualise contemporary political situations (Molden, 2016). Such a state-directed and politically motivated manner of managing and curating the past conflicts with the European goal of memorialisation, which strives for a more comprehensive and inclusive approach.
