Macedonia - A Nation Forced into Changing its Name

Ethnic Policy

Welcome to our new episode of Ethnic Policy podcast, where we discuss and discover topics around ethnicities, ethnic conflicts, and minority politics around the world. Ethnic policy is an entity concerned with identity and ethnic related studies.
The use of the country name "Macedonia" was disputed between Greece and Macedonia (now "North Macedonia") between 1991 and 2019. Pertinent to its background is an early 20th-century multifaceted dispute and armed conflict that formed part of the background to the Balkan Wars. The specific naming dispute was reignited after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the newly gained independence of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1991.
Since then, it was an ongoing issue in bilateral and international relations until it was settled with the Prespa agreement in June 2018, the subsequent ratification by the Macedonian and Greek parliaments in late 2018 and early 2019, and the official renaming of Macedonia to "North Macedonia" in February 2019.
We discuss in this episode with Dr Biljana Vankovska, the treaty and its implications on identity politics in an already turbulent region, the history of and the statehood of the Republic of "North Macedonia", and the country's aspirations to join the European Union.
Dr Biljana Vankovska is a political scientist and peace researcher; a university professor at Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, the oldest university in Macedonia. You can follow Dr Biljana here.
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