Abstract
This analyses tries to map out a methodological pluralism and define the complex notion of the politicization of history, at least in its philosophical, political, and epistemological multidisciplinarity. This approach relativizes the traditional and evaluates the politicization of history as an exclusively negative social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Because of its complexity and what is colloquially understood by the term “politicization,” it could be more precise to use the more general notion of “ideology.” Furhter this analyses seeks to chronicle the development of the Macedonian collective political and cultural identity, which is currently disputed. This brief review focuses only on the modern and contemporary period of the emergence of the Macedonian nation, that is from 1941 to 2018, key years in which latent tendencies to finalize these historical processes in the form of a differentiated political identity—a modern Macedonian state—are most explicitly manifested.
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Notes
- 1.
It is indicative that Amy Allen’s methodology starts from Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), and that Said started from the methodology of Karl Marx, summarized in his famous stance, “They cannot represent themselves, but must be represented,” set out in his 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852).
- 2.
My only remark (as a Macedonian) to Todorova (as a Bulgarian) is that she makes the usual mistake that many Bulgarian intellectuals do when it comes to the “Macedonian issue.” Here, unfortunately, she turns out to be a weak student of perhaps the biggest multicultural scientist of the twentieth century, Edward Said. To Said’s criticality, objectivity, and honesty only John M. Hobson can come close, with his two excellent studies: Hobson 2004 and Hobson 2004.
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Skalovski, D. (2021). The Politicization of History in North Macedonia (1941–2018). In: Ognjenovic, G., Jozelic, J. (eds) Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the Former Yugoslavia. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65832-8_11
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