Macedonia's identity crisis could shape the future of the EU

The stronger the sense of identity, the harder it is to make concessions – and Macedonians’ sense of their uniqueness is extremely strong

Mary Dejevsky
Ohrid, Macedonia
Friday 19 October 2018 14:36 BST
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Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev sign an agreement on Macedonia’s name change
Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev sign an agreement on Macedonia’s name change

As the last centenaries of the First World War approach, the troubled region where it all began is under scrutiny once again. The western Balkans is where those who favour the further enlargement of the European Union and Nato have set their sights. Tiny Montenegro (population 600,000) became the latest addition to Nato last year, and land-locked Macedonia (population 2,100,000) could be next. Both also aspire to join the EU, though the EU is split about whether this is advisable, and even if it is, how soon.

But geopolitics is not what took me to Macedonia this week. It was rather the happy coincidence of cheap end-of-season flights and a long-standing desire to visit Ohrid. Why Ohrid? Because, as anyone whose Russian studies included an element of Old Church Slavonic will know, this is where the Byzantine missionaries, Cyril and Methodius, came to preach to the Slavs in the ninth century, and where they devised the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets for the purpose of setting down the gospels in their language.

Now, I should make clear that this is a scandalous journalistic simplification and there are all sorts of scholarly caveats that should be brought to bear, not to mention academic disputes that remain unresolved. But the fact is that Ohrid claims Cyril and Methodius as its own, and still more, their local disciples, Clement and Naum. They feature in the glorious frescoes and icons to be found in various states of preservation in the town’s wealth of Byzantine churches, and their much more recent statues look out on to the lake from the waterfront. The lakeshore south and west to the Albanian border is studded with churches and monasteries.

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