with Michael Seraphinoff

Papers :: by Michael Seraphinoff, PhD

:: Critical Papers ::
Dimensions of the Greek-Macedonian Name Dispute
The independence of the Republic of Macedonia upon the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 inflamed nationalist passions in Greece. Greeks of all major political parties united in their demand that their neighbors to the north cease calling themselves Macedonians, no longer call their state the Republic of Macedonia, and refrain from any use of names or symbols taken from Macedonian antiquity.

The Greek position is quite clear, Macedonia was, is, and always will be Greek. The Macedonian position, on the other hand, is mainly an extension of their state tradition within the Yugoslav federation, established at the end of World War Two. This includes use of an official, standardized Macedonian literary language in public life, the use of names and symbols that identify the people as Macedonians, and an understanding of history that, at the very least, connects their society to documented medieval roots that date back to the 9th century.

All major Macedonian political parties are united in their refusal to alter their identity to satisfy Greek demands, particularly when those demands have not been supported by other nations. Their position is that the name dispute is essentially a Greek-Macedonian problem, since over 120 nations recognize the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name.

In the most recent period, however, the name issue has become a concern of other nations due to the upcoming votes in NATO and the EU on Macedonian membership. Greece has threatened to veto Macedonian entry if the name dispute is not resolved to their satisfaction. The chief concern of other states is the further destabilization of the Balkans that continued Macedonian exclusion might cause at a time when many serious issues, such as the future of Kosovo, require regional cooperation.
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A Survey of Macedonian Literature
in English Translation
Presented at the Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, April 2006

Macedonian may arguably be the oldest written Slavic language as the basis for Kiril and Methodius’ nineth-century translations of Christian liturgical texts into what we today call the Old Church Slavic language. However, it is also the most recent Slavic language to receive official recognition and standardization after the establishment of the Republic of Macedonia as part of Yugoslavia in 1946.

The number of literary works by Macedonian authors in English translation today is surpassed only by translations in Serbian and/or Croatian during the existence of the former Yugoslavia. Particularly since the full independence of the Republic since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the pace of publication of English language translations has increased dramatically.

This is due in part to the large concentrations of Macedonian immigrants, numbering in the tens of thousands, in major cities throughout English-speaking Canada, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, and a dramatic increase in communication and collaboration among members of the Macedonian diaspora and Macedonians in the home country with improved means of travel and the effective spread of internet communication worldwide.
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Confronting Ethnic Cleansing
in Tetovo, Macedonia
The fact that members of nearly every ethnic group have at some time victimized their neighbors has provided outsiders with an easy rationale for ignoring desperate pleas for help from individuals and communities under attack. “Those people have always been killing each other” is a mantra that is often used to drown out the cries of the victims.

For those who choose the lovely simplicity of this response, there is little that one can say or do that would stir them to action on behalf of the victims of ethnic cleansing. It is responses such as this that allowed a ship filled with thousands of Jews to be sent back to Germany from a U.S. port of entry during the height of the Holocaust. This is why 6000 unarmed men in Srebrenica, Bosnia could be slaughtered by Serbian soldiers while U.S. jet fighter planes sat idly nearby in 1995. This is why nearly a million people of Rwanda, men, women and children, could be slaughtered by their raging neighbors while the world looked on.

Yet I know that there are those who would, in the name of justice, bear witness to such crimes against humanity. To them I offer the following documented accounts of the brutal campaign of intimidation and murder of Macedonians in western Macedonia by organized Albanian groups. In the absence of widespread public knowledge and condemnation of the ethnic-based violence committed against these people, their suffering will only serve the aims of their tormentors. It will only serve the forced eviction of the minority ethnic Macedonian community in western Macedonia from ancestral homes in thousand-year-old settlements
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Through a Child’s Eyes
Presented at the North American Macedonian Studies Conference
Ohio State University, May 2003

Macedonian literature has a number of works with child narrators that are worthy of note. These include Makedoncheto (The Macedonian Boy) by Petros G. Vocis, whose childhood memoir is written in the child narrator’s voice of five-year-old Petros, who recounts his life in the lost world of his family’s ancestral home village of Setina in northern Greece. The book is a memoir of a year when the Greek Civil War raged in his home village. The author recounts the tragedy of a family and a community torn apart by the events of that war.

Another work that deserves our attention is Zhivko Chingo’s novel, Golemata Voda (The Big Water) that is narrated by the young boy Lem during his time in an orphanage in post–World War II Macedonia.

A third noteworthy work in which a child frequently appears as narrator is the collection of short stories by Jadranka Vladova, Voden Znak (Water Sign). Her child narrator often evokes a certain magic and romance in everyday family life in Macedonia’s capital Skopje in the 1950s and 60s.
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:: Personal Papers ::
Why I Love the Balkans
Email journal entry from Michael Seraphinoff to friends in the US from Ohrid, Macedonia, August 2000

Some of the best things in life defy any easy explanation. My delight in Macedonia, even if it is only my occasional Balkan promised land, is such a thing, and lasting and ever so real for me.
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My Second Home
December 22 was cold and bright, and there was freshly fallen snow on the ground. We all rose early that day, and as soon as breakfast was over, Aunt Darya wrapped a freshly baked loaf of bread in a clean white linen cloth, Uncle Tome poured hot sugared brandy into a small flask, and Cousin Trpana prepared a small bowl of boiled wheat grain sprinkled with sugar. When all was ready, Uncle Toma and I, dressed in our Sunday best, collected these items and followed the sound of the tolling church bell up the narrow winding stone-walled streets of the village until we arrived at a white-washed little Eastern Orthodox church.
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:: Book Reviews ::
The Descendants of Alexander of Macedon
Book by Aleksandar Donski, Grigor Prlichev-Sydney, 2005
Review appeared in The Descendants of Alexander the Great
of Macedon
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Review of Children of the Bird Goddess
Book by Kita Sapurma with Pandora Petrovska, Pollitecon Books
Review appeared in Macedonian Weekly, Toronto, Canada
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The Village of Leshhok Tetovo
Book by Ilija Petrushevski, Mi An Press, 2006
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