The Long Sad Story of North Macedonia

The Long Sad (diplomatically speaking) Story of Macedonia FYROM North Macedonia.

That is a statue of Alexander the Great on Horseback in Skopje

As far as the annals of ex-Yugoslavian states go, North Macedonia’s story isn’t terrible. Just unlucky.

After Slovenia skipped of the Yugoslavian Federation, the remaining states had a vote to stay in or leave as independent states. Bosnia and Macedonia both voted to stay in the Federation, if Croatia and Serbia did (Slovenia had already left), but Croatia decided to leave, and therefore Macedonia (and Bosnia) left. The lucky part for Macedonia is that Serbia and Croatia went to war immediately, then in Bosnia after that. Macedonia was left to leave the union rather unscathed.

Macedonia prides itself on being home to Alexander the Great, along with the other countries in the region. Which has caused issues with Greece and Bulgaria.

Macedonia was admitted to the UN but could not use their chosen name due to the issue with Greece over being the true heirs to Alexander the Great. “Greater Macedonia” refers to the Macedonia the country as well as two regions in Greece and parts of Bulgaria. 

Greece insisted the country could not be called Macedonia, and so it entered the UN as FYROM – “Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia”. And Greece blocked FYROM from NATO until 2018, because of the name issue. This word play - so as not to hurt the Greek Government’s feelings – lasted from 1993 to 2018. Twenty-five years later Greece finally allowed that FRYOM could be named “North Macedonia”.

A similar bizzarro issue is preventing North Macedonia from joining the European Union. In the EU, every country has a veto over expansion. Bulgaria is veto’ing North Macedonia’s entry until North Macedonia agrees to a bunch of crap that the populist President of Bulgaria has made up as red meat for his base. The official line:

The explanation from Bulgarian side was: no implementation of the Friendship treaty from 2017, state-supported hate speech, minority claims, and an 'ongoing nation-building process' based on historical negationism of the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader region of Macedonia.

Which we know is diplomatic speak for so much bullshit.

As for a visit, I have heard different things. If you are a lover of brutalist architecture, (I am not one, per say), the capital Skopje is supposed to be amazing. This is because in 1963 Skopje suffered a pretty bad earthquake. It had to rebuilt during the Socialist Realism construction phase of Yugoslavia – which, let’s face it, loved concrete. Here are some Skopje brutalist “masterpieces”.

I mean, as far as brutalism goes, these are freaking amazing. But that isn't going to hold my interest for more than about 2 hours, then what do we do?

Well, apparently I am not alone, so North Macedonia started a plan called Skopje 2014. It was not started, nor completed in 2014, but let's ignore that, shall we?

Skopje 2014 was / is an attempt to turn the rather non-discript city center into a tourist area. Unfortunately, the result has been what many call the Disneyfication of the sity.