The Macedonian question : the politics of mutation
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Abstract
The Yugoslav solution to the pre-war Macedonian question, aimed at a
surgical-type operation for the mutation of the indigenous Slav population
of Yugoslav Macedonia into ethnic “Macedonians”. This process involved
the establishment of a federative state within Yugoslavia, the transformation
of the local spoken idiom into a literary language, the establishment of an
independent Church, the rewriting of the history of Macedonia and, finally,
the formulation of a “Great Idea”. For ever four decades, this process has made significant progress within the S. R. of Macedonia. The same cannot be said, however of attempts at transplanting the mutation experiment into Bulgaria, Greece, and the Macedonian diaspora, where prevailing social and political conditions, as well as varied ethnological structures, were hardly conductive to a repetition of the exercise.
surgical-type operation for the mutation of the indigenous Slav population
of Yugoslav Macedonia into ethnic “Macedonians”. This process involved
the establishment of a federative state within Yugoslavia, the transformation
of the local spoken idiom into a literary language, the establishment of an
independent Church, the rewriting of the history of Macedonia and, finally,
the formulation of a “Great Idea”. For ever four decades, this process has made significant progress within the S. R. of Macedonia. The same cannot be said, however of attempts at transplanting the mutation experiment into Bulgaria, Greece, and the Macedonian diaspora, where prevailing social and political conditions, as well as varied ethnological structures, were hardly conductive to a repetition of the exercise.
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