North Macedonia's national identity

Macedonia, like America, is a geographical area. North Macedonia, like the United States, is a *country* *within* that region. The distinction and the movement to create a national identity have created problems.

Greece doesn't like North Macedonia because it has its own region called Macedonia, which is both bigger and more populous than the country. That's why, from the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 until 2019, it had to go by the cumbersome "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" -- a pretty long name for a country you can drive across in about an hour.


In antiquity, Macedonia was an area of Greece, and that's where Alexander the Great came from. For the past ~1500 years or so, though, the northern part has been populated by a Slavic people related to the Bulgarians.

So in building its national identity, North Macedonia has had to "borrow" some national heroes from other cultures.

In 2020, Bulgaria objected to North Macedonia's EU membership, and insisted that they recognize that a number of its national heroes are actually Bulgarian. https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-eu-bulgaria-veto/31910319.html

The Greeks feel the same way. Downtown Skopje has a massive statue of Alexander the Great, there's a statue of Justinian I by the river, and over that river is a bridge featuring statues of prominent figures from history. To the Greeks, that's a major party foul.

Something I noticed about the statues on the bridge was the vandalism -- someone had spray painted over the descriptions.

Whether that person was a local or not, I can't say, but it seemed clear by the way the statues themselves were untouched that they didn't have a problem with the people -- just the wording.