MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY MACEDONIA I

… The prospects for Greece and for Macedonia more specifically, whatever they may be, are bound up with the relations between the northern neighbours of Greece and her partners in Europe. In the medium term, the orientation of the heirs to Yugoslavia in the direction of accession to the Community tends to encourage centrifugal tendencies among them, perhaps also generating more regional ethnic friction. But in the long term this orientation will tend to alleviate the acute nature which such conflict has assumed in the past. Similarly, membership of a world in which people, goods and ideologies move freely from one place to another will inevitably cause artificial ‘national’ and state formations (such as that of Skopje), which were not the outcome of centuries of historical growth but were fabricated out of the specific post-war political circumstances, to sink back into obscurity. Thus, any form of ethnic ‘survival’, in multi-cultural Europe will be possible on condition that: a) it relies on a lengthy and, more importantly, constantly renewed historical tradition, and b) it is organically and dynamically interwoven with the economic, social and cultural development of the European family as a whole. This challenge is not addressed only to Greece’s northern neighbours: it also concerns the Greek nation, and in particular that part of it which lives in Macedonia…