Conflicts of Human Civilization and a Healing Place for the Humanities: The Balkans, Macedonia, Skopje(2011)

Conflicts of Human Civilization and a Healing Place for the Humanities:

The Balkans, Macedonia, Skopje

Kim Won-Hoe

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, the Republic of Korea

luna23@hanmail.net 

Keywords: cross-cultural communication, healing through the humanities, religion, ethnic issues, the Balkans and Macedonia

I. Introduction

Macedonia, which served as a center of the ancient Greek civilization in history of Western civilization, is no longer functioning as a center in modern society. Rather, it has turned into a place for conflicts of civilization among Albanians from the Illyrian civilization, the Balkan ethnic group based on the ancient Thracian civilization, and Slavic people who came down to the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th century. These forces of civilization represented by Islam and Orthodoxy, Albanian and Slavic Macedonians coexist in Skopje, Macedonia, creating universality in their multicultural space. The creation of universalism is made possible through thinking and healing through the humanities. This research will look into various aspects of conflicts of civilization in Macedonia and look into the reasoning and healing through the humanities in Macedonia. This research will include the adaptation of double languages, joint research and education on history, embracing other cultures and a diversity of image data symbolizing the healing through the humanities. The second region, for which the research on healing through the humanities is required, is Kosovo. Kosovo is the region that currently shows the most divisive conflict of civilizations in the world. The conflict in Kosovo will be in stark contrast with that in Skopje. This research is also an intuitive study examining the possibility of healing through the humanities in Korean society, which is turning into a civilization of conflict and a multicultural society.

II. Body

 1. What kind of country is Macedonia to Korean people?

Macedonia is a country that is located at the center of the Balkan Peninsula, with Bulgaria located to its east, Serbia to its north, and Greece to its south. And it shares its borders with Albania. Due to its geopolitical position, the competition between countries has been fierce in this region since ancient times. Given the fact that Greece (Byzantine), Bulgaria, and more recently, the former Yugoslavia have been competing intensively to secure this region, Macedonia can be understood as the most important strategic place in this region.

When Korean companies or public corporations enter into the overseas markets and when the private sector begins to communicate more and more with foreign entities, Macedonia is the region that can be utilized as a bridgehead in the Balkans. Macedonia is culturally similar to South Korea. Due to its geographical position, Macedonia has not had many historical and cultural exchanges with South Korea until the 20th century. Thus, South Korean society’s interests in Macedonian ethnic groups and countries remain a mere curiosity of exotic cultures. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the socialist system, there has been a reverse-orientalism perspective of viewing Macedonia and other countries of the Balkans in South Korean society based on its capital and technological competitive edge.

Geographically, Macedonia is located far away from South Korea; but historically, it is very closely related with South Korea. The two countries share many things in common: both countries don’t have full-fledged capitalism, lack experiences of agricultural revolution and civil revolution, have a vulnerable citizen class and a strong intellectual class, have experiences of colonialism, and have walked their unique roads to modernity, which is different from the Western society’s road to modernity.

2. Macedonia, Skopje

2.1. Conflicts of Civilization in Macedonia’s History: In Ancient and Medieval Times

	Ethnic Identity
Macedonia	- When ethnicity is considered, ancient Macedonian people are not Greek. -Ancient Macedonia maintained its own culture and identity. - Ancient Macedonian people maintained their identity despite suppression from foreign powers – such as Greece.
Greece	- Ethnically, Macedonian people are Greek. -Greece and Byzantine civilization culturally assimilated this region.
Bulgaria	- Medieval Macedonian people are assimilated [e1] Bulgarian people. -They are referred to as western Bulgarians.
Serbia	- Medieval Macedonians have assimilated to become Serbians. - Assimilation took place over the course of several centuries.
	Language Identity
Macedonia	- Macedonian is an independent language.
Greece	- It’s true that the Macedonian language is a Slavic language. But it should not be used as an indicator of categorizing people in the region as Bulgarian.
Bulgaria	- There is no Macedonian language. The language used in this region is a western dialect of Bulgarian.
Serbia	- Macedonian people have traditionally used a language that is similar to Serbian.
	Territorial Conflicts
Macedonia	-Since the 19th century, the movement of restoring the country’s native land has been promoted.
Greece	-As a result of such movement, some parts of the territory were restored.
Bulgaria	-The territory of Macedonia belonged to Bulgaria until the late 19 century.
Serbia	- In medieval and modern times, Serbia occupied a significant portion of the region. Currently, it is claiming sovereignty to the territory.

(Gounaris, 1996, Kim Chul-Min, 1999 Source Data)

Greece-Bulgaria-Serbia is the axis of conflicts in Macedonia in ancient and medieval times. Greece had conflicts due to territorial and ethnic identity issues while Bulgaria has a conflict structure in all areas – including ethnic identity, and territorial and language issues. With Serbia, territorial conflicts are being emphasized and the severity of conflicts is quite low in the identity and language areas when compared with Bulgaria.

<Figure 1: Map of Macedonia and Kosovo>

2.1. History of Conflicts of Macedonian civilization: In the Early-Modern and Modern Times

<Picture1: Islam Mosque in Skopje>   <Picture 2: Orthodox Church in Skopje>

Conflicts in modern times can be divided into two: First is ethnic conflict surrounding Albanian people living in Macedonia. Second is conflict with Greece over the country name of Macedonia and over national flag.[1] In this research, we will be taking a look at only ethnic issues surrounding Albanian people.

Albanians are scatted over the Balkan Peninsula. Around 3 million Albanian people reside in Albania, and around 1.8 million and 600,000 Albanian people live in Kosovo and Macedonia respectively. Most Albanians live in the capital city of Skopje and other cities in the western Macedonian region (Altmann, 1992: 165)[e2] . Albanians living in the western region named their region Ilirida and requested autonomy of their region. Furthermore, they also requested the elevation of their region’s status to Narod given the fact that the ratio of Albanians is the largest among minorities. Such issues are still ignored by the Macedonian government due to the possibility of a second Kosovo war and equality issues with other minorities. The ethnic issue is absolutely related to issues concerning Islam and Orthodoxy. The percentage of ethnic groups in Macedonia is shown on the table below.

(Kim Chul-Min 1999: 319)

	Ethnic Group	Population	Percentage (%)[e3]
Majority	Macedonian	1,314,283	64.62%
Minority	Albanian	427,313	21.01
	Turk	97,416	4.79
	Gypsies	55,575	2.73
	Serbian	44,159	2.17
	Wlach	8,129	0.40
	Other	87,089	4.28
	Total (Minority Ethnic Groups)	719,681	35.38
	Total Ethnic Group	2,033,964	100.00

<Table1: Macedonia Population Composition >

Albanians, whose population is the largest among minority ethnic groups, argued that they have been living in the current Albania, Kosovo, and in the western and southeastern regions of Macedonia ever since the Bronze Age based on a theory on Illyrian native inhabitants (Kwon Hyuk-Jae 1998: 6). In addition, Albanians have consistently complained of discrimination against Albanians as an ethnic minority group in education, culture, and other rights-related fields.

2.2. Healing of Conflicts through the Humanities

<Pictre3: Signs in Albanian and Macedonian Language (left) and the Albanian District>

In the Macedonian Constitution, it is stipulated that Macedonians shall coexist with Albanians, Turks, Wlachs, Rumanians in the Republic of Macedonia and shall provide equal rights to all citizens residing within the country. In particular, Macedonia makes strong efforts to protect the rights of Albanian minorities. A case in point is the bilingual traffic signs both in Macedonian and Albanian. Both languages have been used even in the northern region of Skopje where the majority population is Albanian. A number of academic researches have been carried out to figure out the similarities and common grounds of the two languages based on the recognition that Albanian and Macedonian languages both belong to the Balkan language family.

Historically, Macedonia has been a place for multiple ethnic and religious groups – including Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek ethnic groups. Such various cultures and ambiguity over territorial boundaries have made it difficult to set clear boundaries between different ethnic groups and served as the major reason for the conflicts of civilization (Terzić 1995). Based on such a recognition, Macedonian and Albanian people are currently working together to establish their common history and foster their common culture. Although it is true that the Macedonian government is still wary of the possibility of the great Albanianism dominating the country, there are many national joint research projects that are underway to research Illyrian civilization and to determine the boundaries and roles of Slavic-Macedonia regions.

3. Kosovo, ‘a Powder Keg of the Balkans’ – Agony and antagonism of the aliens who are living together

The Balkan Peninsula, which became the beginning place of the First World War with a single gunshot in Sarajevo in 1914, still remains an explosive region just like the crater of an active volcano. And Kosovo in Serbia is the region where ethnic conflicts are most fierce out of many regions on the Balkan Peninsula. Historically, Kosovo was the sacred place for Serbian people. The Medieval Serbian Kingdom, which was developed based on the Principality of Raswika, established a national foundation in the era of the Serbian King Stefan Nemanja. Stefan Nemanja conquered the Pincipality of Zeta and built strong ties between the state and Orthodoxy, laying a foundation for the Medieval Serbian Kingdom in the current Kosovo-Metohija region. Stefan Nemanja’s son Stefan Nemanjić built an independent Serbian Kingdom, breaking away from the shadows of Byzantine (1217), and thanks to the effort of Saint Save, the Serbian Orthodoxy became independent from the Bulgarian Ohrid Parish in 1219. Since then, Kosovo became a sacred place for Serbians as it is the first parish of the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, the status of Kosovo as a sacred place became weak after Kosovo was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The Serbian Kingdom became divided internally over the king’s throne and eventually fell due to the invasion of the Ottoman Turks after King Stephan Dushan, who is praised as the greatest king in Serbian history, died at the age of 46 in 1335. In the fight against the Ottoman Turks during the period between 1363 and 1371, King Stephan Uroš and his brothers died, and the Medieval Serbian Kingdom became a tributary state to the Ottoman Turks. After the First Kosovo War between the Christian coalition and the Ottoman Turks in Jun 1389, Kosovo fell under the rule of Turkey and many Albanian people in the region converted to Islam. Also, an increasing number of immigrants began to come into this region. On the contrary, Serbian people who believed the Serbian Orthodoxy had left their hometown moved to Hungary or Transylvania. As a result, Albanian people became the majority and Serbian people became the minority in Kosovo (within the Serbian territory), creating a gap in the ethnic group composition (Albanians became the majority).

The conflicts in Kosovo under the Socialist Yugoslavia resulted in the consecutive victories and defeats of Albanian and Serbian ethnic groups depending on domestic or global political atmospheres. Alexander Rankovic, a Serb who made efforts to expand Serbianism (Serbian Nationalism), repressed Kosovo separatism and engaged in various maneuvers to enhance the status of Serbian people in the region. However, the eavesdropping of President Tito’s official residence in 1966 sparked a heated discussion on raising the status of Albanian people, and in 1968, Kosovo eventually earned autonomy by breaking away from Serbia. The new constitution, Novi Ustav, was adopted in 1974 as a means to maintain Yugoslavia as a multiethnic country and to prepare for the time after the death of the President Tito. And in accordance with the new constitution, Kosovo was able to exert a power of representation within the federation. The atmosphere in the region, which was focused on guaranteeing the rights of Albanian people, is well illustrated in the protests for the status of the Republic of Kosovo, which took place in May 1980 after the death of President Tito. Albanians in Kosovo called for the creation of Republika Kosova, a separated Republic under the framework of the federation, and called for the status as the majority ethnic group in the region. Under Socialist Yugoslavia, the last two important events related to Kosovo took place. The first one is Slobodan Milošević’s speech on the hill in Kosovo in 1987 when Slobodan Milošević visited Kosovo to investigate the growing protests of Albanians in the 1980s. The second one is the disposal of Kosovo’s autonomy in Mar 1989. In 1987, Slobodan Milošević made strong nationalist comments against Serbians in Kosovo and suddenly became a leading player for expanding Serbianism among Serbian people. When Slobodan Milošević was elected to be Serbian president in 1989, he abolished autonomy for Kosovo and Vojvodina and declared the expansion of Serbianism in Socialist Yugoslavia, thereby triggering the collapse of the federation and the conflicts between ethnic groups. Amid a series of bloody conflicts, on Mar 24, 1999, NATO forces conducted raids on Kosovo and Serbian lands to protect the human rights of Albanian people living in Kosovo. Since then, the Balkan region started to garner global attention. As the ‘Kosovo War’ lingered on for a long period of time against people’s general expectations, G7 countries - the US, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Japan and Canada - and the ministers of G8 countries (G7 countries and Russia) agreed in principle on the peaceful resolution of the Kosovo War on May 6th, 1999. On Jun 2nd, 1999, Russian and EU envoys met with Slobodan Milošević and delivered the message of G8 countries. On Jun 3rd, 1999,  Serbia declared that NATO-led peace keeping forces would deploy about 50,000 troops and divide Kosovo into 5 districts to conduct peace-keeping operations in accordance with the G8 countries’ ‘Kosovo peace formula,’ which was later approved in the Yugoslavian Parliament. On Jun 10th, 1999, the two sides reached a consensus on the ‘Kosovo peace formula’ for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and for the presence of UN peace keeping forces in Kosovo, thus resulting in the end of the 79-day Kosovo War.

Since then, UNMIK (The UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo) and NATO-led KFOR (Kosovo Force) have conducted and monitored peace-keeping activities in Kosovo on the basis of SCR 1244 (Security Council Resolution 1244) adopted by the UN Security Council on Jun 10th, 1999. Those peace-keeping forces in Kosovo are tasked to guarantee safety and peaceful living of residents in Kosovo, to guarantee the return of about 200,000 deportees and refugees, and to encourage Serbia to offer Kosovo large autonomy.

<Picture 5: Albanian Refugee Camps in Kosovo and A Bombed Islam Mosque >

80:20 is the ratio of ethnic groups in Kosovo. Albanian people take up as high as 80% of the population in Kosovo while Serbian people account for less than 20%. The discord and hostility between these two ethnic groups are a main source of conflicts in Kosovo. In addition, the US and western European countries’ support for Albanian ethnic groups and Russian and other Slavic countries’ support for Serbian ethnic groups are making the Kosovo situation worse.

Kosovo has become a place for confrontation between pan-Albanianism and pro-Serbianism and between pan-Illyrianism and pan-Slavism. In order to solve such confrontations and conflicts in the region, a radical method of ‘dividing Kosovo by exchanging the populations between different ethnic groups’ can be considered, or a gradual method of inducing a soft landing to ‘a multi-cultural society’ by overcoming victim mentality can also be considered. It’s the duty of humanities scholars to think about possible solutions and suggest wise choices for those who are living everyday in the fear of death and destruction in Kosovo.

III. Conclusion

Macedonia, which is called the powder keg of Europe and which went through civil war in 2001, still experiences conflicts of civilization between different ethnic groups or religious groups. However, as shown in the picture above, the conflicts occur as Albanian and Macedonian people in the region occupy the left and right side of the same background. An Albanian traditional pattern symbolizing eternal life and a Macedonian traditional doll symbolizing fertility and luck are still displayed together in every corner of the capital city Skopje. Can the solution of promoting coexistence be applied to Kosovo? And how can it be applied to an increasingly multicultural society of South Korea?

IV. References

Kwon Hyuk-Jae (1998) About Kosovo Conflict, Research on Eastern Europe, 7, 1-26.

Kim Won-Hoe, Kim Chul-Min (2009) Another Europe, Keywords in examining the Balkans, Seoul: Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Kim Chul-Min (1999) Research on Macedonian Ethnic Conflict, Research on Eastern Europe, 8, 303-326.

Altmann, F. (1992) Ex-Yugoslavia's Neighbors: who wants what?, the World Today, 8/9, 163-165.

Brown, K. (2003) The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gounaris, B. (1996) Social Cleavages and National Awakening in the Ottoman Macedonia, East European Quarterly, 29(4), 409-426.

Terzić, S. (1995) The Serbs and the Macedonian Question, in: The Serbian Question in Balkans, Beograd: Faculty of Geography, 63-82.

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[1] The issue over the country name has existed since Sep 8th, 1991 when Macedonian citizens expressed their overwhelming support for the existence of the former Yugoslav states in a national referendum. The Greek government brought up the issue of the Macedonian map on which it is named Great Macedonia and the issue of Macedonia’s national flag, which has a Virginia 16 square shape to the UN Security Council on Jan, 1993. In Aug 1993, the UN Security Council suggested F.Y.R.M (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) and approved the registration of the country in the UN. However, there are still conflicts between Macedonia and Greece as the country still sticks to its previous name of ROM (Republic of Macedonia).

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 [e1]Were assimilated by?

 [e2]This is for the sentence before correct? Moved to inside period. If for next sentence, please place at end, inside the period.

 [e3]Seems out of place with the actual table.