[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [balkans] Book Review: Pettifer (ed.), The New Macedonian Question. Reviewed by Goran Janev

[Agron Alibali]

  Florian Bieber <bieberf at gmx.net> wrote: From Florian Bieber Tue Jul 2 12:53:45 2002
To: balkans at yahoogroups.com
From: Florian Bieber 
Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 21:53:45 +0200
Subject: [balkans] Book Review: Pettifer (ed.), The New Macedonian Question.
Reviewed by Goran Janev

Balkan Academic News Book Review 22/2002

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James Pettifer (ed.), The New Macedonian Question. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave, 2001. 311 pp., ISBN 0-333-92066-X, USD 22.95 (paperback).

Reviewed by Goran Janev (Oxford University), Email: gorjan00 at yahoo.com.

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The history, recent and ancient, as well as the present of Macedonia is anything but boring. Sadly, Macedonia received insufficient academic coverage. Most of it by the local academia that is by rule highly biased and concerned with selfish advancement of national interests. The edited volume by James Pettifer The New Macedonian Question, the book at the center of our interest, fails to contribute better understanding of the complex problem and only adds to the confusion. The main weakness is editor’s voluntary and arbitrary treatment of the Macedonian situation best illustrated in his refusal to call Macedonians by their own name and the state by its constitutional name. Obviously the editor was unable to resist Balkan’s influences and he is apparently biased. Instead of using the rule of thumb, not the say the main principle in social sciences that the self-categorization is of highest priority, he uses the term coined by Greek nationalist propagandists and refers to Macedonians as Slav-speakers, or ‘Macedonians’ in inverted comas (pp.xiii, 16, 18, 22, 137, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145). Moreover, throughout the volume he assumes cynical tone to all things Macedonian and whenever possible tries to even undermine the state’s institutions legitimacy. In his interpretation, the police of Republic of Macedonia is called “Skopje paramilitary police” (p. 139) or “FYROM paramilitary police” (p.143), Macedonian government is “Skopje government”, “Skopje authorities” (p.142). His persistent renaming of the Macedonians and inappropriate labeling of the country’s institutions can hardly earn him the claim to impartiality.

The editor is obviously unable to overcome the confusion that transpires the whole volume. This volume is ‘organized’ in four parts. In each of the thematic parts, the editor managed to breathe uncertainty about the relation between the selected chapters and the topic of that part of the book. In general, the editor is not clear whether Republic of Macedonia, or geographical region of Macedonia is his main concern, or whether it is past or present he is dealing with. Regardless, he proposes to make a “comparisons with the past and present” (p. 15), i.e. of the Old and New Macedonian question. It is rather unattainable goal, especially with editor’s inconsistent approach that carelessly conflates, instead of comparing, two different and distant historical periods. The Old Macedonian question concerned much larger territory and its political destiny. Contemporary Republic of Macedonia has nothing to do with this issue in any other sense than regional cooperation and cross-border flow of people, goods, finances, and cultures. To know how Macedonia emerged on the world’s political map is one issue, but to seek any comparison with a period more then one century ago, and that century was rather eventful one, and the future developments of the Republic of Macedonia is very adventurous quest. The New Macedonian Question lacks coherence and is rather a collection of editor’s readings on the topic. It should also be noted that most of the contributions are reprints, some of them quiet outdated. 

Part one “The National Question in Modern Macedonia” consists of six chapters and one interview. Elisabeth Barker’s article is a reprint from 1950 and it opens this volume to familiarize the reader with the “traditional pro-Greek view of the British Foreign Office” (p. xxxviii). Reuter’s chapter Policy and Economy in Macedonia only marginally relate to this topic and Dobrkovic’s Yugoslavia and Macedonia in the years 1991-6: from brotherhood to neighborhood hardly fits into this thematic section. Pettifer’s first chapter in this book with same title is reprint from 1992. In this chapter we can see how he constructs his history in his interpretation of Treaty of San Stefano, the ill-fated attempt of Russia to get access to the warm waters. He uncritically treats the “short-lived ‘Great Bulgaria’” illusion as existing entity (p18. my italics). Even his vocabulary can hardly be justified as academic but at least it reveals that he also suffers compassionately with the “Greek political psyche”(sic!) (p.18) and tells us how badly it was hurt when on the north, that part of Macedonia that was not occupied back in 1913, now claims for itself the name so important to the national Greek cultural heritage (Kofos in his chapter cannot stop praising this heritage while claiming to stand above nationalistic passions). Pettifer also finds the fears of Greeks that Macedonia can attack Greece justified since Greece was always invaded from the north and that “awakens ancestral fears”(sic!) and “the Greek army and police will be very stretched do defend it [the border] in the event of a breakdown of good relations with the states in the north” (p.19). That Pettifer hastily jumps to the conclusions without bothering to provide any evidence is evident when he argues that Macedonia cannot be economically viable country because its economy depends on one single crop  tobacco (p.19). Such an assessment cannot be more incorrect. In fact, agricultural products contribute 20 percent to Macedonia’s exports and 30 percent of Macedonia’s GDP. It is true that export of fermented tobacco and cigarettes dominates the agricultural sector, but to claim that Macedonia is the single crop economy is way far from the reality.

Part II is entitled  “Ethnic Minorities” and the Poulton’s Non-Albanian Muslim Minorities in Macedonia covers the situation in four different countries in Macedonia as geographic region, while the three other chapters are concerned with Macedonia proper and this incoherence is the main characteristic of the whole volume. In this regard, it is dubious why the editor in the book titled The New Macedonian Question pays no attention to the Macedonian minority in the neighboring states. The most probable answer is editor’s refusal to recognize the existence of Macedonians at all. Thus, not that Pettifer is just failing to contribute to greater clarification of the issue he fails to define, but by denying the right of self-identification of Macedonians he burdens it even more. We can note Pettifer’s negative attitudes towards Macedonians most apparently in his second contribution to the volume. This chapter is impregnated with contradictions from the onset best reflected in the title The Albanians in western Macedonia after FYROM independence but is not limited to it and goes well into deviating the truth. On page 140 we learn about the misfortune of some Macedonian Albanian Assistant Minister of Defense and on the next page the author states that “…all post-1992 governments have had some Albanian representation, although generally in tokenistic positions, often as ‘Assistant Ministers’, without offices or staff, to Slav-speakers and never involving posts in the Defense or Foreign Ministries…” Besides contradicting himself he largely contradicts the reality in which every post-1992 government had between four to five Albanian Ministers, a number of Deputy Ministers and Albanian politicians always held other responsible posts in the government and in the public administration. However, Albanian representation in the executive was lesser problem then the proportional representation of Albanians in the public administration in general, but to realize that one needs to study the situation in the country instead of relying on hearsay. Capable of such constructions Pettifer endangers our trust in the facticity of many other statements he makes so nonchalantly.

Indeed, Pettifer managed to undermine his own position in the sloppy approach to the academic apparatus. In his first chapter in the book he manages to have just one reference while making numerous categorical statements. That reality obviates Pettifer’s voluntarism we can note from the unprofessionally prepared list of acronyms, that he decided to call list of abbreviations, that is crammed with mistakes and Pettifer’s idiosyncratic knowledge. For example, the capitol letters of the acronyms are sometimes standing for the words in English, sometimes for the words in Macedonian.

Part III is titled Historical Perspectives and is marginal to the old or new Macedonian question. Hibert’s contribution only illustrates how confused British were in the Balkans during WWII, how little informed they were (p.184), how confused they were by the Balkan complex realities (p.186) and how it was hard for them to have more adventures and “to be more than quartermasters or supply officers” because of the partisans independence (p.193). Nedeva and Kaytchev tells us about how national romanticism, particularly in concern of final integration of Macedonia to the Bulgarian motherland never vanes. Curiously enough, Georgi Prvanov, the young zealot from the meeting of the Sofia Macedonian Cultural-Educational Club before the collapse of the regime who “… was bold enough to refute in an open public debate a retired senior security service officer…” (p.177) is a president of Bulgaria today. 

The last part of the book is titled International Relations of the New State. It contains Mircev’s contribution on the uneasy international position of post-independence Macedonia, that is one of the few solid chapters in this volume (along Troebst’s on Macedonian historiography in part I and Winnifrith’s on the position of Vlachs in the country in part II). Kofos’ contribution helps us understand the Greek nationalistic hysteria of the early 1990s from the pen of the very experienced Greek nationalist historian. His chapter is rather entertaining, if compared to the chapter by Drezov in the first part of the book. This comparison reveals how amusing is the existence of Macedonians who reject neighboring nationalistic constructions, as presented in these two chapters.
 
To sum up, Pettifer’s volume lacks coherence and has no clear goal but to challenge the right of Macedonians to self-identification. Hence the whole enterprise is futile and redundant. What remains to be concluded is of lesser concern to the editor, who should stick to writing tourist guides and gossipy journalistic reports, but that there is a certain social and political responsibility that the influential publishing houses outside the region must assume.


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This an earlier book reviews are available at: www.seep.ceu.hu/balkans

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© 2002 Balkan Academic News. This review may be distributed and reproduced electronically, if credit is given to Balkan Academic News and the author. For permission for re-printing, contact Balkan Academic News

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