Vangeli A. Quest For The Glorious Past Reconsidered. Alexander The Great Between Greece, Macedonia and The Liberal-Democratic Perspectives

Quest for the Glorious Past Reconsidered
Alexander the Great between Greece, Macedonia and the Liberal-Democratic

Perspectives
Anastas Vangeli
Center for Research and Policy Making, Skopje
anastas.mk@gmail.com; vangeli@crpm.org.mk
Paper presented at the 15th Annual ASN World Convention

Nations and States: On the Map and in the Mind
Columbia University in the City of new York, 15-17 April 2010
-work in progress-
-citation upon author's agreement-
Abstract
The paper starts from the premise that the future analytical work on the
Greek-Macedonian dispute should overcome the rather limited, exhausted and
even inadequate methodological frameworks in which it has been carried so
far. It is conceptualized as a comparative study of the two colliding national
discourses in the light of the symbolic nature of the conflict over the
ownership of symbolic capital that stimulate the groupness, connectedness
and the image of commonality among many Greeks and Macedonians
respectively. The paper focuses on the capacity of representations of
Alexander the Great and Ancient Macedonia to generate such symbolic capital.
Through the normative lenses of nationalism theory, it discusses the modes of
political use of this potential, and the various phases and manifestations of the
Greek-Macedonian contestation. In the final section it critically discusses the
creation, but also the silent approval and the defense of these new or renewed,
symbolically coded political discourses built around these symbols, as contrary
to values of liberal democracy.
Keywords: Greece, Macedonia, symbolic capital, national myth, liberal democracy

Anastas Vangeli, Quest for the Glorious Past Reconsidered, ASN World Convention 2010
Introduction
The infamous “name issue” or “the revived Macedonian Question” can be barely grasped by
common and conventional methodologies. The international relations theory, along with the legalist
approaches and generally, the common-sense conjectures cannot commit a deeper analysis of the issue
than a mere descriptive narration of the obvious. It does not require a special expertise to identify the
case, for example, in realist terms - as a conflict between a relatively strong state and a weak one, in
which, reasonably or not, the strong one has effectively put an effort in what it says is defending its
own security and interest. Furthermore, it is enough to just examine the “Interim Accord” (1995)
between the two sides in order to realize the bizarre character of this unprecedented international
conflict.
A good portion of the literature produced on the topic has been concerned with the moral
components of the dispute. Indeed, it is arguable that answering the question how exactly Macedonia
threatens Greece and whether the existence of the dispute is justifiable or not, is not an easy task. One
very strong and valid argument is that Greece, no matter its reasons, interferes Macedonia's right to
self-determination. Yet, at the end of the day, it has been practically proven that as long as Greece
claims being threatened, it will keep on acting accordingly, regardless of what anyone says, recommends
and protests about.
This paper starts from the premise that the future analytical work on the dispute should
overcome the rather limited, exhausted and even inadequate methodological frameworks in which it has
been carried so far. The delicate nature of the issue, that for people coming from the two countries can
be very emotionally appealing, necessarily demands a distance from what is presented as “the big
picture”. It is precisely the academics' job to discuss beyond the vernacular categories and what is
considered to be a common-sense approach. With some rare exceptions seen in the seminal works of
Victor Roudometof (1996; 1998; 2000; 2001; 2002), Loring Danforth (1995), Anastasia Karakasidou
(1993; 1997; 2000) and Keith Brown (1994; 2000) that examined the roots of the dispute, the bulk of
studies of the Greek-Macedonian issue has predominantly descriptive nature, perpetuates the existing
paradigms, and in that sense, does not supply the study of the case with much novelties. Often the
authors can not avoid politicization, historicization and even archaeologization of their discourse,
accompanied with reification of fundamental categories such as nation, ethnicity and identity.
Moreover, the common approach to the issue tends to bring practical categories in the analytical
discourse, which on a long term restrains the scholarly debate. Often this work flirts with conspiracy
theories, uncritical and emotional narratives that undermine the credibility of intellectuals.
Nonetheless, the idea for this paper is not to discuss existing literature on the topic of the
Greek-Macedonian dispute, but to basically to fill in several gaps in the study of the issue that have
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been often omitted. The main taks is to answerwhat are the implications of the politics of symbols and
symbolic conflict in the light of contemporary political ethos. Therefore, the paper primarily is
conceptualized as a comparative study of the colliding national discourses in the light of the symbolic
nature of the conflict. The paper starts from the premise that the “name dispute” is a reflection of
what is a deeper, discursive conflict over the ownership of symbolic capital that stimulate the
groupness, conenctedness and the image of commonality among many Greeks and Macedonians
respectively.1 It precisely focuses on the capacity of representations of Alexander the Great to generate
such symbolic capital and through the normative lenses of nationalism theory. It also discusses the
modes of political use of this potential, and the various phases and manifestations of the Greek-
Macedonian contestation. In the final section, the paper critically discusses the silent approval and the
defense of these new or renewed, simbolicly coded political discourses built around ancient symbols, as
contrary to contemporary political values of liberal democracy. The paper is also an attempt to adopt
the sugestions for overcoming common misconceptions in the study of nationalism (Brubaker, 1998),
the trap of groupism (Brubaker, 2002) and the misuse of the term identity (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000)
in the case of the Greek-Macedonian dispute.
Symbolic Power and Alexander the Great
Symbolic power can be basically defined as power that springs from the accumulation of
symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1989). Symbolic capital itself is a form of resource that provides honor and
prestige to the subject, whose highest form comes in the form of credit and recognition (Bourdieu,
1989; 1990).
“The power to impose upon other minds a vision, old or new, of social divisions depends on the social
authority acquired in previous struggles. Symbolic capital is [...] the power granted to those who have
obtained sufficient recognition to be in a position to impose a recognition.” (Bourdieu, 1989 : 23)
Symbolic capital, colloquially said, can be generated through the exhibition any symbol (in the
broadest meaning of the term) that can serve to the one who displays it in the pursuit of any kind of
social power. It can be accumulated (and subsequently used) by a singular or plural protagonist, by
individuals or by organizations. In terms of political power, symbolic capital can be generated through
the usage of symbolic narratives such as military experience (for instance, war heroes running for a
public function), display of image of purity (typical for conservatives), manipulating one's own physical
look (“erotic capital”) or charisma, usage of particular jargon, etc.
In Bourdieu's theory, the most powerful thing about symbolic power is that it makes or can be
1 The term “Macedonian” is used to refer to the people in the Republic of Macedonia that have declared that
their nationality is Macedonian in the official censuses or by any other means. According to the last official
census in the Republic of Macedonia held in 2002, there are 1.297.981 citizens that have declared themselves
Macedonian by nationality (State Statistical Office of the Republic of Macedonia, 2002 : 34)
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used to make groups (or I would rather say categories) where they do not exist, or contributes to
achieving higher level of groupness where they do (Bordieu 1989; 1990). In other words, the highest
forms of symbolic power manifest with the (possibility for) creation and/or homogenization of new
performative categories that further determine the common social taxonomy. As well, it is important
that the outcome of this can vary from total successes, to complete failures in the process of group-
making or achieving groupness. Such categories that has been called into being in both the practical and
subsequently normative discourse through the use of symbolic capital, are ethnicities and nationalities
(see Brubaker, 2002) and the most important agency that uses symbolic, but also forms of economic
and non-economic capital is the state (Bourdieu 1994). The state, as Bourdieu (1994 : 7-8) argues, by
combining the various forms of capital, “moulds mental structures and imposes common principles of
vision and division [...]. And it thereby contributes to the construction of what is commonly designated
as national identity”.
The set of symbols that provides the most substantial symbolic capital for the maintanence of
ethnicities and nationalities is derived from the image of the common origin and subsequently depicts
the tendency of present connectedness and attitudes of groupness. In the language of nationalism
theory, this particular symbolic capital is accumulated through the complex of national symbols, myths
and rituals. The symbol that generates crucial amount of symbolic capital in the case of Greek-
Macedonian dispute is the representation of Alexander the Great. Generally, its potential to generate
symbolic capital has been as durable as the memory of the glorious king himself. Alexander, in an
unprecedented manner held almost all of the major authority honors and titles at his time – he was
simultaneously the king of Macedon, the Hegemon of the Hellenic alliance (the Corinthian League),
the Shah of Persia, and the pharaoh of Egypt (Robinson, 1957). Thriving to leave a hallmark of his era,
he erected cities bearing his name (Bosworth, 1993), he allegedly put a lot of effort in the
homogenization of the population of his empire - by some claimed even an effort to homogenize
humanity (Badian, 1958), and the cult of his personality has been often accompanied by worship and
deification in various communities. He became an absolute sovereign from the Mediterranean to the
Himalayas, with a mythological status (Allen, 2005). As Robinson (1957) argues, Alexander's death was
the inauguration of the institution of the western concept of divine monarchy.
Therefore, claims to his legacy have been as important for the historical developments as he
was himself. He died very young without leaving a legitimate successor of his huge empire, which has
led to immediate contest between his generals. The only way one could prove that they were the
legitimate heir was to prove their close relation to the dead ruler, and the best way for this to be shown
was to demonstrate rights over the emperor's dead body. The two contestants for the throne, generals
Ptolemy and Perdiccas, were plotting and managed to hijack Alexander's corpse from one another. In
the end Ptolemy turned out to be more successful and Alexander's dead body ended up as a mummy in
Egypt, exposed in a transparent coffin made of glass and displayed in front of the people so that they
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could admire the king's greatness but also obey their new emperor - the owner of the corpse (Erskine,
2002). Alexander's corpse was considered to be the talisman of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which only spoke
to the capacity of the image of Alexander the Great to generate symbolic power.
Later in history, some of the Roman emperors and world leaders, such as Caesar, Mark
Anthony and Octavian August utilized the symbolic capital of Alexander's corpse by honoring it with
all the ceremonies as if he had been a Roman Emperor, in order to earn the sympathies of Egyptians,
but also to improve their image as world leaders. During his reign, the eccentric Caligula had taken away
the jewelry and the armor off the corpse, and wore it during public appearances in an attempt to
present himself as an incarnation of the Ancient Macedonian king (Saunders, 2007).
Finally, after Christianity was introduced as an official religion in the Roman Empire, the corpse
of Alexander began to be perceived as part of the pagan past and was sometimes even attributed with
Antichrist-like features (Cary, 1954). However, his appealing image remained to exist primarily among
Balkan peoples, where Alexander was originally from. In the Middle Ages, a novel titled “Alexandrida”
or simply “The Alexander Romance”, in which Alexander was portrayed as a heroic knight was spread
among Balkan people (Stoneman, 1991).
With the coming of age of the concept of nationalism, the image of Alexander the Great has
been refashioned to suit the new trends and to fit the new needs of the “nation-awakening” and
nation-building projects for narratives that could generate symbolic capital. The revised representation
of Alexander the Great was now fitted in the myths of origin of the nation-to-be with ancient peoples.
During the revival of Hellenism in 19th century's Modern Greece, the myth of origin from Alexander
had been initially spread among a small number of poets and writers, though later it became used as
one of the official narratives of origin. It has been since incorporated within the nation-building
process, providing an important symbolic capital with regard to the foreign policy, annexation and the
nation-building in Greek Macedonia, and was later re-evaluated with the discoveries in Vergina in the
late 1970s.
In the 19th century, the myth of origin from Alexander the Great was also common for some of
the Slavic speakers from the region of Macedonia, partially due to the influence of the Greek
schooling. However, their project did not succeed, yet the image of Alexander the Great maintained its
capacity to generate symbolic capital primarily among Slavic speakers from the newly annexed Greek
region of Macedonia (in Northern Greece). The symbolic capital of Alexander the Great was utilized
by the Yugoslav Macedonian nation-building and has been kept and perpetuated after Macedonia's
independence, by tracing the ethno genesis of Macedonians back to times ancient.
In addition to this two main claims to direct link with him, it is worth mentioning that
Alexander the Great generates enough symbolic capital to inspire other ethno-national narratives of
origin. Some of the modern Albanian romantics have claimed Alexander as proto-Albanian, owing to
the Epirian and Ilyrian roots of his mother Olympia. As the ‘ethnic’ make-up of the Ancient Epirote
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kingdom remains an open question, one of the Albanian modern-day national myths traces a direct
lineage between the ancient kingdom and the modern-day nation (Lubonja, 2002). Furthermore,
Alexander the Great and Ancient Macedonians in general, have been claimed as ancestors by Vlachs
and Balkan Egyptians. Some Vlachs claim that after the fall of Rome, their ancestors had retreated to
the remote mountainous areas, far from the influence of the various rulers in the years to come. That is
how they have managed to preserve their authentic language, culture and collective memory of
Alexander since ancient times. Among other things they point to the fact that their ethnic symbol
approximates the Star of Vergina, the ancient Macedonian one (Winnifrith, 1997). Balkan Egyptians
claim that their migration from Egypt towards the Balkans happened as a result of the increased
internal mobility within Alexander's empire. Hence, their coming to the region is related precisely with
Alexander the Great and he is claimed as a central figure in their history (Hadzi Ristic, 1996).
The Variety of Symbolic Capital Generated by Representations of Alexander the Great
Some aspects of the representation of Alexander the Great can generate universal symbolic
capital. In these cases, the representation of Alexander may or may not have an aspect of ethno
genesis. Such cases are for example the representation of Alexander-the-Great-Warrior, Alexander-the-
Homosexual-Icon and Alexander-the-Great-Humanist, which can serve to generate symbolic capital on
the basis of Alexander's alleged military valor, fluid sexuality and self-imposed civilizing mission. On
the other hand, the subject of interest for this paper is another type of capacity of the representation
of Alexander the Great to generate symbolic capital, which we are going to call a case-specific one. By
“case-specific” hereto I refer to the symbolic capital generated in the context of the cases of Modern
Greece and Macedonia via the claims to uninterrupted ethno genetic continuity from times ancient.
The most adequate manner to analyzing this plurality of functions that the representations of
Alexander can have, is by using theories of (national) myths. The crucial feature of representations of
Alexander the Great that makes them mythological is not their historical inaccuracy, although there is a
serious case for such a statement which will be elaborated later. Rather it is their symbolic plausibility to
the recipients and therefore its capacity to create, maintain and enhance groupness. Their plausibility is
achieved through uncritically claiming exclusive historical truth, an act that is necessarily accompanied
by (un)intentional omissions, alterations and simplifications in the historical and historiographic
discourses. This are not acts of falsification, forgery or fabrication of facts, but a mere creation,
invention and enhancement of one narrative's capacity to generate symbolic capital. The distortion of
historical facts is only a method to invest, so to say, in the symbolic capital of the given myth and it will
be a subject of further inquiry in this paper.
From here, we are going to analytically label the particularistic representations of Alexander the
Great that generate symbolic capital that can be used to create, maintain and homogenize groups as
Greek and Macedonian national myths of origin from Alexander the Great. Although the starting point of
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analysis is based on the positions of the state-framed discourses, it is of utter importance to make a
notion that these myths have never been monolithic as no one single Greek or Macedonian myth has
been unchallenged by counter-myths.
In addition to the image of Alexander's glory, the assumed uninterrupted link between today's
political units with Ancient Macedonia, provides the capacity of “self-definition” – the name, the
emblem, the narrative of common ancestry, which are the basic constituents and pillars of the national
and ethnic discourses (Smith, 1999). The myth has served for identity transfer, initiating the re-shaping of
the identification of people from one set of dominant narratives to another (Schöpflin, 2000). The
myth of origin from Alexander the Great, in the Greek case was used primarily for shifting the
identification of Orthodox Greek and non-Greek-speaking urban population, primarily from the
region of Macedonia, into Hellenes (Taškovski, 1967). After the Vergina excavations, it certainly had a
role in boosting the low morale of the Greek population in the period following the oppressive Regime
of the colonels (see Kotsakis, 1998). In the Macedonian context, on the other hand it helped in
abandoning the Yugoslav (Communist) identification in the early 1990s (Georgievski, 2009) and it has
later initiated a shift in the identitarian policies, known as antique-ization.2 In fact, its rootedness in the
remote past, makes the myth of origin from Alexander a very fitting tale for the seekers of the myth of
antiquity or autochthonism of nations. Autochthonism or authenticity is the principle that determines the
historical right of the particular nations over controlling certain territories and symbols – the older the
nation is imagined, the more powerful it is, and the more right it has to manifest its dominion (Kolstø,
2005). In fact, both Greek and Macedonian governments to legitimize the right to the name of
Macedonia use the assumed direct historical link with ancient Macedonia. It is also used as an argument
in the (ethno) national prejudiced rhetoric towards the Others, which are considered settlers and
members of less historic communities, which should therefore have less political rights. Here it is
important to note that the cases of Greece and Macedonia have substantial differences in the official
regulation of the status of the Others (Greece has failed to recognize demographic diversity, while
Macedonia accepted it as its foundation).
At the same time, myths of antiquity in the case of Greece and Macedonia have been used in
the effort to brand the nations in the eyes of the foreigners. In the case of Greece Kotsakis (1998)
discusses the respective functions of the ancient past as an “extrovert symbolic capital” that was used
to show the longevity and continuity of Hellenism to outsiders and Hamilakis and Yalouri (1996) argue
that in the lack of economic, political and other forms of capital, Greece has utilized the precise
2 The term antique-ization was one of the hottest topics in the presidential elections. The term itself is
borrowed from the history of art. “antiquization is a term coined by architectural historians to refer to the
Renaissance practice of giving a city the appearance of ancient Rome or Athens through the introductions of
structures organized in the classical mode. These were occasionally temporary, as in the case of the
“cérémonies à l’antique” – public events of a political content – but more frequently permanent. This
phenomenon became visible in Rome and Florence and in the other major Italian towns around the fifteenth
century and spread through the cities of the north – Lyon, Paris, Antwerp and London – throughout all the
world, up to our times.” (Tzonis & Lefaivre, 1986 : 263)
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symbolic capital of antiquities to improve its own position in the international relations arena and to
generate profits from it. This has to do a lot with 19th century Philhellenism demonstrated by the West,
which has been kept even nowadays. A contemporary example for that can be seen in a statement by
Barack Obama during a bilateral meeting with the Greek Prime Minister did not miss to stress that the
United States Founding Fathers have been “inspired by the values of ancient Greece”(The White
House, 2009). Lately, Macedonia has also tried to use the potential of antiquity to generate “extrovert
symbolic capital” - by renaming the airport, its gate to the world, after the glorious ruler and also by
using images of antiquity in tourism advertisements broadcasted on international television stations.
The representation of the epoch of Alexander the Great as a period of prosperity, in which the
national culture had blossomed, can be also seen as creating a myth of historical Golden Age (Smith,
1997). The term itself, refers to the memory of the triumphant past that is considered to be the peak
of the nation's glory. The Golden Age is always an ended epoch, and often the reasons for its fall or
fading away has been perceived a historical injustice or simply an interruption of the spontaneous flow
of history. Therefore, the Golden Age is a stage of the national development that has a moral
component; it imposes the obligation of national renewal and affects the group ontology by offering a
narrative that seems worth uniting for. The Golden Age, in this sense, is considered to have more
capacity to generate symbolical capital and is discursively more significant than any other narrative
about the origin of the nation since it is precisely designed to inspire political movements and to
legitimize political leadership. Generally, in the political rhetoric, the image of the glorious past, is
contrasted to the image of the questionable or degraded present, and is served to sketch the path for
the future of the nation (Levinger & Lyttle, 2001). In the Greek perception, the era of Alexander has
been depicted as an era of political and cultural “Hellenization” of the biggest part of the known
world, which served as a basis for the inclusion of Byzanthium into the national Greek narrative, and
has provided moral support for the Megali Idea and the reclaiming of Greek territories in Epirus,
Thesally, Macedonia, the Greek Isles and Asia Minor. Except the last one, everything else has been
more or less conquered in the course of the last 150 years. In the Macedonian revised official history
on the other hand, Alexander's epoch is seen as an era of “Macedonization”, and the era of the glory
of the historic Macedonian nation. Although the Macedonian state has given up any possible irredentist
claims, the image of the Golden Age of Alexander helps in the perpetuation of the mental map of so
called Greater Macedonia (Voss, 2007).
The mobilization aspect of symbolic power refers to the group-making and groupness-
increasing effect of the performance of a particular symbol (Brubaker, 2002). The symbolic
representations of Alexander and Ancient Macedonia, thus, have extremely high mobilization potential.
For instance, in the early 1990s, in Greece, protests for the preservation of Ancient Macedonian legacy
have attracted far more population than protests regarding the Turkey and Albania issues, although
those have been far more threatening for Greece than the Macedonian one (Loizides, 2010). The
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relevance of the myth is important even today, as in 2009, Alexander the Great has been chosen as the
biggest Greek person ever, as an outcome of a media campaign in Greece called “The Great Greeks”
(Press Article from Bulgarian Dnevnik, 2009). In Macedonia, the largest grassroots protest ever, took
place in 2008. The posters for the protest, originally intended to preserve the country's name, have
called people in defense of the 7000 thousand years old Macedonian culture. The protest featured
many ancient symbols and references to Alexander the Great (Author attended).
However, there is another component of symbols' work, which is complementary to this
group-making, mobilization function. I propose here using the term escapist to denote these particular
functions myths of ancient nationhood have. Colloquially said, the deeper the political discourse digs in
the spheres of the mythological and mystical, the less politics keeps in touch with achieving objective
goals. At the same time, it serves as a distraction to its recipients and harms the public deliberation
process. A very fitting example for this escapist function of myths of antiquity can be found in a
political cartoon from a Greek newspaper from the 1990s when Greece faced the threat of mad cow
disease. The cartoon portrays a worried clerk from the Ministry of Health explaining the Prime
Minister Simitis: “It is not a Minotaur Mister Simitis, it is a mad cow!” (Mason, 2002). That cartoon
speaks much to the general essentialism attributed to the ancient past by politicians: the governments,
consciously or not, put all of their problems on the waiting list because what is perceived as most
important is the politics of symbols. The over-exploitation of the myth, as Schöpflin says, can even
cause leaders to block reforms and change the general political discourse and to initiate “culturalization
of politics” and “cognitive delimiting” of the population, by simplifying complex reality and offering
simplified “explanations for the fate of community” (Schöpflin, 2000). This is especially the case in
post-2006 Macedonia, where, similarly to the witticism about Simitis and the Minotaurs, one can make a
parallel with Gruevski and the phalanges of Alexander. A common remark made to Gruevski's
government has been it continuously prioritize cultural policies over objective problems. For example,
the Macedonian government, in the middle of the global financial crisis, is spending vast amounts of
the state budget on “cultural elevation” by erecting sculptures, constructing monumental buildings and
undertaking archaeological excavations in which the Macedonian continuity from antiquity has the
central place. At the same time, the myths have been a very plausible political narrative for mobilization
of the masses even beyond political partisanship; needless to say that the myths have also been utilized
in attracting voters.
Symbolic capital derived from the image of origin from Alexander the Great, as seen, means a
lot in both Greece's and Macedonia's political contexts. However, the amount of symbolic capital, as in
any type of capital, is rather limited and its distribution happens by the rules of a zero-sum game,
meaning that the level of possession by the one side, directly determines the level of possession by the
other. The more one side possesses, the less is left for the other one. That is why, Alexander the Great
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cannot be possibly “shared” between the two parties, and that is why, both sides have a conflict over
the exclusive right to claim his legacy and to use its symbolic potential.
Symbolic Conflict over the right to claim Alexander's Legacy
Simon Harrison (1995; 2006) argues that “symbolic practices” are sometimes perceived as
“inalienable possessions.” Thus, symbols, practices and everything that constitutes “identity” can be a
subject of ownership or possession contest. Such case is the Greek-Macedonian dispute, where both
sides insist on the privileged possession of the historical rights over Ancient Macedonia. In fact, many
times throughout the history of the conflict, claims of the Others have been condemned as attempts to
steal history, culture, or even identity, as if they were material possessions that can be stolen. Harrison
(1996) therefore points to four ideal types of symbolic conflicts or four phases through which such
contests related to symbols go through. His theory proposes logic of a conflict as a complex and
somewhat dialectical process, in which one symbol can undergo all four of the phases. That is why one
has to explore the historical context out of which symbols emerge. This premise is in line with Rogers
Brubaker's proposal that if we want to explore nationalist practice we should do it across time.
In the typology of Harrison, the state of the Greek-Macedonian dispute in the 1990s, serves as
an example of a proprietary contest:
“A European case [of proprietary contest] is the current dispute between Greece and the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the use of the name of Macedonia and of certain other symbols
associated with the ancient kingdom of that name. One such symbol is the figure of Alexander the
Great, and another the emblem of the sixteen-pointed sun, or Star Vergina [...]” (Harrison, 1995 : 258)
Theoretically, a proprietary contest, is the one in which the ownership over, or the right to use
certain symbols is at stake. Contestants insist on their monopolistic right to claim a certain set of
symbols. The contested symbols, however, should be of the same value in the two contesting domains
in order to have a proprietary contest, meaning that they should stand equally in the respective systems
of values. In terms of the Greek-Macedonian case, we can discuss about a proprietary conflict only
across those periods in time when the myth of origin of Alexander the Great has been equally valued
by both sides. This time interval (the early 1990s up to the Interim Agreement, and from 2007
onwards) corresponds to the period when the international conflict has been rather aroused and
resembled a threat for the region.
Discursively close, or consequent to the proprietary contest or the proprietary phase, is the
expansionary one. It happens when one side “tries to displace its competitors' symbols of identity with
its own symbols” (Harrison, 1996). In this type of contest, the more powerful contesting side prvails
over the other and imposes its own symbols and symbolic practices upon the, conditionally said,
defeated one. In the Greek-Macedonian case, the expansionary aspect of the contest can be seen in the
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period of Greek foreign policy in parts of Greek Macedonia populated by Slavic speaking Orthodox
Christians in the 19th century and especially after the annexation of Greek Macedonia in 1913. The
Greek institutions prevailed over the contesting ones (in first place the Bulgarian), and the population
that used to be inclined towards the Slavic narratives, gradually shifted towards the Greek symbols and
narratives of ancient origin, or more precisely, towards the idea of Ancient Macedonia. Furthermore, if
we move beyond the notion of “imposing” one group’s symbols and focus primarily on the act of
overpowering, a different perspective on the expansionary aspect of the contest can be set. Namely, if the
more powerful side utilizes its advantage over the weaker one in order to affect its usage of symbols
and symbolical practices, then the competition over the ownership of a certain symbol or set of
symbols could be forcefully closed by the stronger side's actions. The outcome here would practically
depend on the will and the interests of the more powerful contestant - when a proprietary conflict
escalates, the more powerful side could adopt expansionary behavior and affect the symbolical practices
of the antagonistic side, in order to preserve the exclusivity over the contested symbols. In this respect,
the various forms of pressure by Greece (as the more powerful side) that have affected the symbolical
practices in the Republic of Macedonia have elements of expansionary contest. Most recently, as a
result of the Greek overpowering Macedonian official institutions are modifying the originals symbols
from antiquity in order not to enrage Greece – for instance, in some cases, the original Star of Vergina
is depicted with 12 or 8 instead of 16 rays, and in another case, a monument that was originally
intended to be the one of Philip II, Alexander's father, is now going to be labeled simply as
“Equestrian”.
Yet, while the Greek expansionary strategies may have affected the state-framed symbolic
practices, it seems that they have been counter-productive in terms of cultural symbolic practices, as the
flag depicting the Star of Vergina has been re-evaluated after Greece insisted on its change. Although
the flag was not very emotionally appealing during the years “in power”, after the Interim Accords and
its official repeal, it started being used more often and its usage has its peak in the last few years
(Trajanoski, 2008).
The fact that there can be a case of proprietary contest only in when the contested symbols are
equally valued among the contesting sides bring us back to the notion of plurality of symbols and
narratives within one discourse. In order to clarify the hierarchy of meanings, proprietary discourses go
through valuation contests. Through the valuation contest it is determined “how much” of the symbolic
capital in the society the particular symbol denotes, with regard to other symbols.
This type of contest takes places within one community only, meaning that there are at least
two valuation contestations – one among Greeks, and another one among Macedonians, where the
value of symbols and myths of origin is being evaluated compared to other narratives. Furthermore,
one symbol can generate variable amounts of symbolic capital across time. In the context of Greece
and Macedonia, the discussion has been related to the dilemma whether Ancient Macedonia and
11
Alexander the Great should or should not be incorporated in the collective memory; and if they are
incorporated, what is their importance in the hierarchy of all the other national myths.
In the case of the Greek nation building, the state has been ambiguous towards the
interpretation of the ancient past. In terms of the moral component, the image of antiquity has been
based on the idealized image of “Athenian virtues”, on the expense of the rest of the ancient Hellenic
commonwealth, since Athens had been the center of ancient philosophy and the “cradle of
democracy” and an inspiration for the Phihellenic “West” (Gourgouris, 1996; Skirinis, 2003). In terms
of their Greekness in ethno-national sense however, the rest of the Hellenic polities have been
considered to be equally Greek as Athens. Finally, the projected image of Classic Hellenism, besides the
Hellenic polities (and the Kingdom of Macedon), included the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenean
civilizations, and even considered the fictional events from the Homeric epics to be episodes of the
Greek national history (Skirinis, 2003). Consequently, the historical notion of heterogeneous ancient
tribalism has been gradually replaced with an imperial image of a homogeneous Hellenic realm
(Bakaoukas, Bernal). Regarding the concept of Ancient Macedonia, there have been various
interpretations and debates within the Greek and the European Philhellenic realm. As Victor
Roudometof (2002) argues,
"[t]he thorny issue of whether the ancient Macedonians were part of the ancient Greek world or
whether they were “barbarians” who were acculturated into the ancient Greek civilization has been a
topic of discussion for close to 2,500 years" (p. 13)
Among the plurality of representations of the Ancient Macedonian rulers, both in terms of
ethics and their origin, paradigmatic the works of the Victorian historian George Crote on one side,
and the father of Greek national historiography, Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos on the other
(Demetriou, 2001). For them, the question of whether Alexander was Hellene has not been just a
question about his origin only, but also a question about his values and ruling ethos. Crote portrayed
Alexander as a barbarian (“not a Greek, but Macedonian and Epirote”), who had primitive methods
and along with his “hordes” destroyed Hellenism, since the “golden (Hellenistic) period” of Athens's
democracy (as quoted in Demetriou, 2001). He also argued that Alexander adopted many Asian cultural
features throughout his military campaigns, and gave up the Hellenic, European ones, leading to a
rather rigorous final statement, that Alexander was not a civilized Greek but a “savage Illyrian warrior,
partially orientalised” and that “[i]nstead of hellenising Asia, Alexander was tending to asiatise Hellas”
(as quoted in Demetriou, 2001). The vision of Paparrigopoulos, have been totally contrasted to the one
of Crote, as he argued that Alexander was culturally a Hellene, that the Macedonian conquest of
Hellenic polities was in fact unification of the Hellenic commonwealth; furthermore Alexander took
vengeance for Athenian struggle against Persia and Hellenized Asia. He even proclaimed Alexander as
“apostle of Hellenism”. (Demetriou 2001). Paparrigopoulos' stance was not the single one among
12
Greek Enlighteners,3 yet out of the plurality of perceptions it was the one adopted as official by the
Greek state. This representation of Alexander provided the imperialist background for the Monarchy;
furthermore, the Greek state was now supposed to re-unite the segmented Hellenic domains like Philip
did, and bring the Enlightenment to the Orient like Alexander (Roudometof, 2001). Paparrigopoulos'
narrative has also provided a territorial framework for the territorial claims towards the territory
Macedonia and set the framework for the foreign policy towards Macedonia.
Narratives of Ancient Macedonian nationhood were not very obscure to Slavic-speakers from
Macedonia in the 19th century as well. During the process of the so called national Rebirth, also
referred to as Revival or Enlightenment, taking place autonomously from the military struggle, there
was a valuation contest between various ancient and Slavic narratives about the origin of the
Macedonian people (Taškovski, 1967). Both of the narratives have been reflected in some of the works
dating back to the 19th century and the Macedonian Revival as well as in the oral literature. The ancient
stream was represented by authors like Gjorgija Pulevski, one of the carriers of the so called
Macedonian national Revival (Crvenkovska-Ristevska, 2005; Dodovska, 2006). However, later in the
19th century, another so called Macedonist stream emerged through the work of Slavic Macedonian
intellectuals educated abroad, which has soon prevailed over the pro-ancient one. The claim to origin
from Alexander the Great has been later re-introduced when the state of Democratic Federal
Macedonia (later People's Republic of Macedonia and Socialist Republic of Macedonia) became part of
Yugoslavia, yet it was subordinated to the Brotherhood-and-Unity motto, antifascist rhetoric and South
Slavic national mythology. The myth was re-evaluated in the years of the Macedonian independence,
which has manifested with the adoption of the state flag depicting the Star of Vergina. After it has lost
the value because of the pressure by official Athens, it was reintroduced with the policies of antique-
ization from 2007 onwards.
Finally, the dynamics of the valuation and proprietary conflicts is to a great extent determined
by the fluctuations of the symbolic capital the contested symbols provide. These fluctuations can be
affected by employing innovation strategies. The innovation phase of the symbolic conflict takes place
when the respective sides try to innovate new meanings and functions for the symbols in question in
order to increase their symbolic capital, but also to appropriate them. New features are added to
existing ones and new means of utilizing the capacity are also invented, corresponding to the concept
3 There have been plenty of examples from Modern Greek literature in the 18th and 19th century that held that
Ancient Macedonians were alien to Hellenism and were a separate community (Roudometof, 1996). The
“poet of the Greek nation”, Adamantios Korais in his works even used the terms “Macedonian” as a
synonym for an enemy. (Korais, p. 156) Unlike Korais, another Greek hero, Rigas Velistinlis (Pheraios), of
Vlach origin, one of the pivotal Enlighteners before the establishmet of the Greek state, had tried to use
Alexander the Great's image as an inspiration for the Greek national liberation and the establishment of a
“civic” Greek state that would unite all of the “enslaved” Christian peoples (Rum millet) that had been under
the Ottoman rule and will destroy the Patriarchate, considered to be an agency of oppression. In his vision, in
this kind of Greece, all of the linguistic, ethnic and religious differences of the people would have been
respected, in a similar way to the organization of Alexander the Great's empire. This idea was quite opposed
to the one of the historic homogeneous, ethnically defined Greek nation. (Dimaras, 1972; Mazower, 2000)
13
of invention and mass-production of tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1992). The innovation according to
Harrison (1996) happens when “the same symbolic form [is] competitively elaborated in some [other]
way” or when new categories of symbolic forms are “competitively created” (p. 261). That is why the
innovation contest (or phase) ontologically sometimes takes place before the valuation and proprietary
contest – it entirely affects the perception and reception of symbols, thus the amount of capital they
generate.
In this respect, the most significant innovation aspects in the Greek-Macedonian issue have
been related with the epochal archaeological findings from Vergina, the alleged capital of Ancient
Macedonia, 40 km away from Thessaloniki, in 1977. In general, archaeology plays an important role in
nationalist projects (Kohl 1998; Hamilakis 2007). The artifacts from the past, as Hamilakis and Yalouri
(1996) and Hamilakis (2007) argue, are central to the Greek national imagination, because they are seen
as materialization, or a physical proof of antiquity. In Vergina, massive excavations were undertaken
under the supervision of Manolis Andronikos, whose team managed to find the tomb of the Ancient
Macedonian Royal House, including the golden larnax (royal coffin) of Philip II and Ancient
Macedonian paraphernalia whose main feature was the later disputed 16-point Star. The potential of
these findings was prodigious, since they were a novelty to world history and the knowledge of Ancient
Macedonia, although many archaeologists and experts in the field challenged the accuracy and the
academic objectivity of the research (Lehman, 1980; Fredricksmeyer, 1981; Hamilakis 2007). Yet, for
Greek public, low and in despair after the years of the military junta (1967-1974), was going through a
national reshaping as in 1976 the Greek language was finally standardized, the value of these findings
was indisputable. They were attributed with a sacred meaning for the Greek national identification, also
known as the “Vergina syndrome” (Kotsakis, 1998). Alexander the Great started increasingly being
referred to in political speeches as a national hero, his portrait was put on the national currency (the
coin of 100 drachmae), and new scholarly work on the “Northern Hellenism” was presented
(Danforth, 1995). As Roudometof (2002) argues, the findings from Vergina “gave a more physical
aspect to the historical legacy of Ancient Macedonians”. Consequently, Andronikos was glorified as a
shaman of the nation (Hamilakis, 2007), at the same time causing severe politicization and harm to
Greek archaeology (Kokkinidou and Nikolaidou, 2004).4
These innovation processes in which the Ancient Macedonian symbols were given a new
political meaning were also plausible to the redefinition of the self-understanding of ethnic
Macedonians / Slavic speakers originating from Greek Macedonia that were forced to migrate before
and especially after the Civil War (Danforth, 1995). Many of them and their ancestors had adopted the
myth of Ancient Macedonian nationhood from the Greek schooling system before the refuge and kept
4 In fact, archaelogists in both Greece and later in the Republic of Macedonia, popularly portrayed as local
versions of Indiana Jones, have enjoyed a great support and launched political careers based on their findings
about the glorious past. For theoretical background why “a handful of archaeologists have become
individuals of significant political importance”, see McGuire (2008).
14
on nurturing it in their new habitats. The identification with Alexander the Great , for many of them,
provided an opportunity to oppose to the state-framed Yugoslav Macedonian narratives. Many refugees
from the Greek Civil War developed negative sentiments towards Yugoslavia and Tito and therefore
perpetuated the Ancient Macedonian myth as an important alternative. Furthermore, the idea that
Alexander the Great is the ancestor to Macedonians and not to Greeks, fit in the confronting attitudes
towards the Greek state. This has ultimately led to several encounters between members of the
Macedonian and Greek diaspora communities in the late 1980s and in the 1990s during football
matches in Australia (Danforth, 1995) as the rivalry between clubs founded by ethnic Macedonians on
one side, and the ones established by Greek migrants on the other escalated. Fans of these teams all
used iconography featuring the Sun of Vergina and other ancient Macedonian symbols and clashed
over the issue who is rightful claimer of them, ergo the “real” descendant of Alexander the Great.
Other innovation efforts are evident in the reshaping of the image about the political
significance of the myths of Ancient Macedonia by the government of the Republic of Macedonia in
terms of the antique-ization policies since 2007. New aspects of the image of Ancient Macedonia,
such as the linguistic discovery by two physicists on the existence of Ancient Macedonian language and
script through the re-decoding of the famous historical artifact, the Rosetta Stone (Tentov & Boševski,
N/A). Their study showed that the roots of contemporary Macedonian can be found in Ancient
Macedonian language. Although these findings have been denounced by experts in the field as
incompatible with the postulates and methodologies of classic philology and Egyptology (Ilievski,
2008), have been accepted by the institutions. After the Government of Macedonia had renamed the
reconstructed City Stadium in Skopje into National Arena Philip II, there has been a picture of the
Ancient Macedonian king added on the outside of the stadium, under which his name is written in
script as on the Rosetta Stone.5 This innovation was designated to increase the image of the unique
culture of “non-Hellenic Ancient Macedonia”, and therefore, to increase its symbolic capital. Other
similar efforts can be seen in the archaelogization of Macedonian politics and the promotion of the
Macedonian counterpart of Andronikos, the eccentric archaeologist Pasko Kuzman, into an important
political figure and a holder of public function. Kuzman (as interviewed to Trajkoski, 2009) himself has
claimed that Macedonia can only win the dispute with Greece if it proves that it is the real descendant
of Alexander the Great. In line with this, the Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski has stated that
historical artifacts could aid Macedonia in the dispute (Marusic, 2009).
One particularly interesting act of innovation in the Macedonian case, was the organized visit
by royalties from the Burusho tribe, from the Hunza region in Pakistan, claimed to be descendants
5 The decoding of the Rosetta Stone has not been the single linguistic “discovery”. Many “researchers” have
come up with similar efforts. A duo of undercover authors has even published a so-called Ancient Macedonian
dictionary, in which many international words and names are claimed to be of Macedonian origin:
“Armagedon”is said to mean “armakedon - the land of Macedon”, “angel” comes from “ja glas - me +
voice”, “Buddha” means “buden - awake”, “Zoroaster” means “zora aster - morning star” etc. (Edni
Makedonci, 2008 : 249-424).
15
from the soldiers that fought in Alexander's army. The “Hunzas”, welcomed as “brothers and sisters”,
were treated with highest honors and were even met by the Prime Minister (Brunwasser, 2008). Their
story went on even after their departure from the country, as during the presidential elections in 2009,
the two major candidates, one of them later elected president were associated with the Hunza visit to
Macedonia (Geleva, 2009).
Myths at Work and The Liberal Democratic Perspective
Through the examination of various modes of use and contestation of symbols through the
case of the myth of origin from Alexander the Great in Greece and Macedonia across time, the paper
has inevitably touched on the present-day situation. In this section, the paper examines the
contemporary symbolic conflict with regards to its compliance with the liberal democratic system of
values, building upon the theoretical work of Arash Abizadeh (2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2005).
In the vernacular of political practice that is commonly identified as a liberal democratic one,
there are value concepts such as good governance, transparency, equality and rationality, and from what
has been discussed so far in the paper, one of the practical functions of national myths was labeled as
escapist, consisting of culturalization of politics, cognitive delimiting and simplifying complexities.
While one of the crucial aspects of liberalism is the emphasis of individualism, it was argued that myth
was an instrument of group-making strategy. Moreover, the elements that prevail in the Greek-
Macedonian dispute and the related myth-making and myth-maintenance bring in a lot of prepolitical
and illiberal elements to the discourse, such as for instance, not recognizing the Other's particularity or
the silent approval of irredentism.
Thus, we can identify some general directions of the contradiction of a discourse that
approves of the utilization of national myths on one side, and tries to adopt liberal democratic ideals
on the other. Yet, the discussion on these features would risk to reify many of the accounts of political
liberalism and therefore the analysis will be reduced on discussing certain normative principles. That is
why liberal democracy here is broadly defined in a Rawlsian and Habermassian sense - as affluent
discursive category, in which the central idea is the one of social order that would allow free and equal
individuals to associate for achieving common well-being and participate in the decision-making
process through public deliberation. Defined like this, liberal democracy is not compatible with the
dissemination or the defense of mythological narratives.
First of all, the so called “liberal nationalist” tendency that stands for the indispensability of
shared national culture for the establishment of a successful liberal democratic order has been
discussed as fallacious (Abizadeh 2002, 2004a, 2004b). By shared national culture, we do not only refer
to the shared myth of origin, but also the shared linguistic and other cultural points of reference (for
example beliefs, symbolic practices and rituals, or even the system of values imagined as “ethnic” or
16
“national”). The “affective identification” that can be a result of shared objective and discursive cultural
proximities among individuals is not the sole case when a field for futher social integration occurs.
Moreover, the mutual trust and the cooperation likehood are not determined by the level of cultural
homogeneity (Abizadeh 2002). Moreover, the notion of shared national culture being an instrumental
necessecity to liberal democracy is contradicting the principle of legitimation through consent
(Abizadeh 2004b). Furthermore, the “Schmittian” argumentation that the nation and the sovereign
state, and their “collective identity” (which is quite a troublesome concept) presuppose an external
“cultural Other” and tehrefore tend to be particularistic, can not maintain their logic (Abizadeh 2005).
The feature that makes the concept of national myths especially illiberal is their claim to
historical truthfulness (Abizadeh, 2004a). Mythological discourses, as seen in this paper, distort
historical facts and images in order to enhance the capacity of certain narratives to generate symbolic
capital. Similar to this, John Coakley theorizes myths as “nationalist images of history” as if it were a
“grab-bag” from which the mythmakers select some of the narratives while omitting others on purpose
(Coakley, 2004). The omission of past events forces certain myths to remain packed in the “grab-bag”
and never see the daylight of academic debate. Margaret MacMillan refers to this type of reading of
history as “bad history”, that reifies the past, “claims knowledge that it could not possibly have”, makes
generalizations, produces grand narratives and ignores the unfitting facts (MacMillan, 2009 : 34-36).
These arguments open a whole new perspective about the intentional forgetting of some episodes of
history, leading us back to the postulates of Ernest Renan. “Forgetting, and I would even go far as to
say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation” (Rennan, as quoted in Coakley, 2004)
noted the famous French philosopher in his opening statements on nationalism. The national myth,
although focused on remembering and commemorating segments from the past, does so only to the
ones that serve its purpose, while it stimulates un-remembering almost every other historical trait. Not
only it remembers given things and un-remembers others, it also sets exclusive and self-proclaimed
official national discourses, and the main argument for this is the arbitrary one-sided claim to historical
truthfulness. For instance, in the case of Greece and Macedonia, the key aspect of the mythologization
of Alexander the Great is that imagined as Greek and Macedonian respectively, in the sense of the
meaning of the terms today, which is an act of teleological projections of present categories in the
past, and by that, equalizing the present and the past.6
The focus of this critique is put on liberal democratic protagonists who acknowledge and are
aware the existence of such myths. As Pål Kolstø (2005) has argued, their approach can vary between
two-ideal types: enlightening and functionalist. The former is characterized by a Hobsbawmian pledge to
6 Furthermore, he is represented as macho-style heterosexual, besides the historical accounts on his fluid
sexuality. His conquest is imagined as “liberation” of the oppressed people, although it was carried in the age
of slavery, when huge portions of the population held the status of slaves and servants regardless of the
political developments. His realm is imagined as unitary and sovereign empire, although has fallen apart in a
very short period of time.
17
deconstruction and the latter is associated with the loyalty to the nation. The difference between the
two in terms of their attitudes towards national myths is that “enlighteners treat [them] as the opposite
of 'facts'” and put effort in their debunking, while functionalists “see myth-making as an inevitable
element of human existence” and they prefer the utilities of the myth rather than the discussion of
historical facts. Sometimes the functionalist reading of the myths acknowledges the questionable
truthfulness, but nonetheless it justifies the cause (Kolstø, 2005). In the case of Greece and Macedonia
and the quest for the glorious past, functionalists would be those who argue that regardless of the
historical validity of the narrative, the exclusive representations of Alexander the Great are important
factor for maintaining groupness, for which they would use terms such as social cohesion, social
integration or national unity. On the other hand, enlighteners would be those who argue that the
(re)production of national myths, and not just the one of Alexander the Great, is a dangerous task that
undermines the social order.
Drawing on Abizadeh (2004a) I argue that such functionalism is opposed to the very foundations
of liberal democracy. The main reason for this is the fact that functionalism “abandons truth as a
criterion” in the discussion of national myths, on the expense on myths' symbolic capital that generates
commonality and connectedness among members of the nation. By this, the functionalist approach
restrains the right to dissent and to challenge the status quo, which is the fundament of public
deliberation. Since the truthfulness “is not important”, any attempt to disagree (in enlightening fashion)
with the national myth on the basis of its historical accuracy is condemned to fail. Furthermore, the
functionalists consciously undermine the starting position of enlighteners, since by not accepting
truthfulness as a criterion for the value of myths; they directly support the claims to truthfulness by
myth-makers and myth-believers. As a consequence, in the general discourse, any attempt to oppose to
national myths becomes an attempt to confront what is uncritically accepted as truth, which
undermines the starting position in the public deliberation of enlighteners, and in the worst case
scenario, it even endangers their freedom of expression. Enlighteners therefore are considered to do a
shameless and thankless job, and a harm to the “national interest”.
Many of the functionalists and the apologists of the concept of national myth misinterpret
Rennan and Smith, assuming the functional importance of myths for the maintenance of the nation
building is normatively indispensable. However, while it is out of scope to study the existence and the
work of nations-without-myths, it is here examined how the concept of political necessity of national
myths is opposed to certain norms of liberal democracy.
The prerequisite for the dissemination of such myth is what Abizadeh (2004a) calls
“epistemological asymmetry”: there are myth-makers (not necessarily all of them) who know about the
questionable truthfulness of certain narratives but still claim myth as truth (supported by
functionalists), and there are myth-believers who believe that the given myth speaks the actual historical
truth. Myth-makers, with the support of functionalists, deploy this truth-claiming myth in order to
18
mobilize the believers around it, for fulfilling deeds of any kind, ranging from the dirtiest to the most
benevolent ones. However, the process itself is insincere and illiberal. It produces inequality in the
starting positions which can be described as a situation in which pastors who know that there is no
God or at least doubt the existence of God, still preach the God's will to their herd. In the case of
Greece and Macedonia, people who know that Alexander belonged to antiquity, and who are aware of
the mythological aspects of all of the narratives of autochthonous origin, support myth-making and
official identitarian policies based on such myth-making simply because they are plausible to the
population. This stimulates the production of a second-order mythologization, about the character of
the process of public deliberation itself about the character of the myth-making agencies themselves,
since in order to believe the myth, one has the believe that the “Ministry of Myth” is actually a
“Ministry of Truth” (Abizadeh, 2004a). In other words, this second-order mythologization is reflected
in the opinion that there is a fair deliberation process through which certain narratives, and especially
unfeasible historical myths, can be challenged. However, while to a certain extent one is free to
challenge the state-framed myth-making process, it is very probable that this challenges would end up
treated as anti-state and anti-truth efforts which would damage the publicity of the challenger but
would also be a factor of decline of the general level of the public deliberation.
This has been reflected in the recent political practice in Macedonia. For example, in 2009 the
Macedonian government broadcasted a video featuring Alexander the Great as an episode from what
they called a campaign for boosting the morale of the population. In the high-quality video, Alexander
does not follow the advice of his scout to give up the idea of battling Persians, although the
Macedonian army is portrayed as much weaker. At the end, the narrator makes a point that if
Alexander gave up he would have never succeeded and that therefore “it is not Macedonian” to give up
in front of big challenges. The video ends with an image of a hand pointing towards the viewer, which
says “You are Macedonia!” (available on YouTube). This video clip has been accompanied by plenty of
other actions of promotion of the myth, such as The publicity landscape after such a state-framed
mythologization of th public discourse is quite deteriorated. Myth-believers are encouraged to believe
stronger and to internalize the values set, as the myth is now state-framed and therefore, above any
contesting narrative. They believe that mythmakers (in this case, governmental institutions) are truth-
speakers; and consider anti-myth oriented enlighteners to be anti-truth oriented “fiends of the national
identity”. Functionalists would argue that the claim to truthfulness. is not important, as myth-makers
had produced a generally useful product (video) which is used for a good cause. In Macedonia this
constellation of the public deliberation has resulted in the popular adoption of a whole new political
vernacular that consists of labels such as patriot and “real” or “straight” Macedonian (prav Makedonec)
that refers to the one sharing or supporting the governmental use of official myths of ancient
Macedonian nationhood (including functionalist public persons); a traitor, spy, prostitute, a foreign
mercenary and degenerate from the nation for the ones that adopt either enlightening discourse, or
19
dissent to the myths of antiquity by any other means. Verbal violence and threats are not uncommon
for such a discourse. This type of narrowed publicity (in)directly caused by the state-framed identitarian
attitudes, needless to elaborate, is not an outcome nor a proof of liberal democratic values – in fact, it
is quite opposed to it. The political language of the ruling elites though, has also underwent substantial
changes, most notably seen in denouncing journalists that had adopted critical attitudes towards the
antique-ization as enemies to the Macedonian cause.
A Greek example for anti-liberal attitudes emerging from the will to defend myths can be found
in the personal experience of Anastasia Karakasidou. Her work, through which she has examined
primarily the mythologized meaning of Macedonia as an exclusively Greek possession, has been a
matter of a fierce attacks and the initial attempt to publish her book faced censorship. As she testifies,
she has been accused of “stupidity,” “cannibalism” and being a “secret agent of the FYROM” and has
frequently been asked if she still feelings Greek. She goes on to note that she felt “like a woman who
unwittingly violated taboos by peering behind the veils and revealing the “sacred flutes” of Greek
national ideology” (Karakasidou, 1997).
The debate on nation-related issues determines to a great extent the process of public
deliberation, as the nation is the most dominant socio-political category today. The functionalist
tendency, besides abandoning the truth criterion, by assuming the necessity of myths in order to
achieve higher level of groupness among members of the nation, contributes to the process of
officializing mythological discourses and their imposition as conditions for equal participation in the
public sphere. In other words, for one to become equal with the others has to accept or at least not to
object to myth's claims to truth. That in fact, transforms the public sphere into a nationalized sphere,
where the starting position is the assumption of the truthfulness of the national myths and objection is
a taboo, which if broken, results with expulsion of the objector. As Abizadeh (2004a) points, “defense
of myths [...] requires a curtailment of publicity, public justification and freedom of expression”, which
is contrary to what liberal democracy stands for.
Concluding remarks
One of the prerequisite and ideological pillars of the dystopian society in Orwell's 1984 was the
belief in the revised past. "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls
the past" and among other things “Ignorance is Strength” were the main slogans of the syncretistic
totalitarian government of Oceania. Although prosaic, it seems that the saying can outline the case of
Greece and Macedonia. Through the paper it was argued that in the two countries, there is political
struggle over the control of the narratives related to the antiquity of the nation, centered on the epic
figure of Alexander the Great. The representations of Alexander have inspired political leaders,
20
national poets and archaeologists throughout the course of modern history to exploit the narrative's
possibilities for generating symbolic capital that can be utilized to gain social power, often by (un)
consciously disseminating historical un-truths claiming to be truths.
What is happening especially in the Republic of Macedonia, which is undergoing the process of
antique-ization, is by no means an exclusive case of manipulating symbol. Moreover, it features a lot of
elements already seen in the Greek nation building, which adds a sort of “mimetic” flavor to the
conflict (Harrison, 2003). On the other hand, the analysis of the symbolic practices and contentions
across time has shown that in the both cases the narrative of origin from Alexander the Great has
undergone phases of valuation contest, where its value within the respective communities has been
examined. In the periods of time when it has been treated as official, state-framed myth of origin by
the both sides, they have entered the proprietary phase in which they contested each other's right of
ownership over the narratives of antiquity. There have also been phases where the objectively stronger
side (Greece) has affected the symbolic practices of the weaker one in two ways – by imposing its own
symbols (among Slavic speakers that became subjects of Greek foreign policy and later the Greek
state); or, consequently to the proprietary contest, by forcing the opponent to abolish contested
symbolic practices (the forced “abdication” from Alexander's throne by the Macedonian government in
the 1990s and the probable trend of auto-censorship in the exhibition of ancient heritage). During all
these phases, the both sides have employed various innovation strategies in order to affect the capacity
of the symbols from antiquity to generate capital.
Many “ignorant” or simply uninformed myth-believers, and many people aware of the obvious
reality of that national myths’ work is based on distorted vision of the past claiming to be truth have
supported these innovation efforts, or the creation, perpetuation and dissemination of national
mythological narratives. The functionalists have claimed that the mythologization of the discourse is
justified as it is for a good cause – for instance, strengthening the national cohesion. However, what
functionalists have failed to see is that the use of myths in order “to revise and control the past” is
utterly against the principles of the liberal democratic order as it imposes the acceptance of the myth-
claiming-to-be-truth as a condition for participation in the public sphere, even if one has the argument
why the precise mythological narrative is not a truth. That attitude, reduces the meaning of the public
sphere to a nationalized sphere, in which the equal starting positions are offered only to the myth-
believers and myth-supporters. Myth-makers and functionalists have the upper hand of the former
because of their cognitive advantage – they know that the myth is not the truth while the believers do
not. That double standard in fact produces further meta-mythologization of the public discourse – a
myth about its own fairness. At the same time, the promotion of myths as “truth” and as a condition
of participation in the public sphere, endangers the right to publicity and the freedom of expression of
the ones disputing the validity of myths.
All of this can be seen in the context of Greece and Macedonia. And while it is clear that such
21
practice will drag the two Balkan countries further away from the liberal democratic ideal, one question
rising in the paper is when will the mythologization cease? Or, what are the perspectives if it does not
stop any time soon? The findings in this paper suggest that regardless of the illumination some find in
the glorious past - the future that such discourses bring is not very bright.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to Židas Daskalovski, Sanja Vrbek, Miša

Popović and Žarko Trajanoski for their comments and suggestions throughout
various phases of the work on this paper. I would also like to thank the
Regional Research Promotion Programme in the Western Balkans and the
Center for Research and Policy Making for awarding me a travel grant to attend
the ASN World Convention.
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Vangeli A. Quest For The Glorious Past Reconsidered. Alexander The Great Between Greece, Macedonia and The Liberal-Democratic Perspectives

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Vangeli A. Quest For The Glorious Past Reconsidered. Alexander The Great Between Greece, Macedonia and The Liberal-Democratic Perspectives

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Quest for the Glorious Past Reconsidered

Alexander the Great between Greece, Macedonia and the Liberal-Democratic

Paper presented at the 15th Annual ASN World Convention

Keywords: Greece, Macedonia, symbolic capital, national myth, liberal democracy

Symbolic Power and Alexander the Great

The Variety of Symbolic Capital Generated by Representations of Alexander the Great

Symbolic Conflict over the right to claim Alexander's Legacy

Myths at Work and The Liberal Democratic Perspective

I would like to express my gratitude to Židas Daskalovski, Sanja Vrbek, Miša

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