Transnational Influences on National Conflict: The Macedonian Question

Abstract

In the present era of globalization, ethnic nationalism can no longer be understood simply in terms of relationships between ethnic minorities and the nations in which they live. Diaspora communities have become deeply involved in the political affairs of their homelands and, as a result, transnational national communities are being constructed. Together with international organizations like the United Nations and the European Union, such communities are increasingly important participants in nationalist struggles throughout the world. Nation-states are being challenged simultaneously from without and within by international organizations and by ethnic minorities. 1 In this paper, I examine how participants of the 1990 meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) dealt with the issue of the human rights of the Macedonian minority of northern Greece. At the meeting, a transnational Macedonian delegation made up of representatives from the Republic of Macedonia (which was then one of the states of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), from Macedonian minorities in Bulgaria and Greece, and from Macedonian diaspora communities abroad was able to shift the balance of power in its favor and away from the Greek nation-state by appealing to the pluralist definitions of national identity and human rights that prevail in the context of international organizations like the CSCE. The Macedonian Question in Balkan History The Macedonian Question-that is, the issue of who would control the people and the territory of Macedonia-has dominated Balkan history and politics for over one hundred years. During the Ottoman period, which lasted in Macedonia from the fourteenth century until 1913, the population of Macedonia included numerous ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups-Slavic-and Greek-speaking Christians, Turkish and Albanian speaking Moslems, Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies. Ottoman authorities continued to divide the population of the empire into administrative units, or millets, on the basis of religious identity rather than language, ethnicity, or nationality. The hegemony which the Greeks exercised over the Orthodox Christian millet was seriously challenged for the first time by the establishment of