Antiquization

Did You Know?

• The expression "antiquization" originates from the history of arts, describing the Renaissance practice of giving a city the appearance of ancient Rome or Athens through classical structures.
• Critics use the term to reveal state-framed actions such as direct interventions in public space and the public sphere.
• Externally, antiquization negatively influenced the name dispute with Greece and deteriorated North Macedonia's international position, while internally it fostered inter-ethnic tensions.

Narrative referred to as 'antiquization'

The narrative promoted by VMRO-DPMNE traces a line from the ancient Kingdom of Macedon through early Christian figures, historical rulers born in or around Skopje, and freedom fighters for Macedonian independence. In this version, Philip II united the Greek city-states, and his son Alexander the Great expanded the empire, spreading Hellenistic culture. While scholarly discourse debates whether the Ancient Macedonians were Greek and whether their language was a form of Greek, the VMRO-DPMNE narrative asserts that Alexander was not Greek and that cultural achievements usually attributed to Greece are actually ethnic Macedonian. According to this view, Hellenism should be called Macedonianism, and North Macedonia is the rightful owner of a great cultural heritage that was long denied. The then Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski stated that the country could finally present its true, silenced history, with North Macedonia seen as the cradle of European civilization.

Examples

VMRO-DPMNE politicians promoted this recollection of a heroic past through (pseudo-)scientists, media, and civil society. The cultural politics included renaming public places: the former City Stadium became "Philip II Arena", Skopje International Airport was named "Alexander the Great", and a central square was called "Pella Square" after the ancient capital. History schoolbooks also reflected antiquization. The most visible manifestation was the Skopje 2014 urban development project, which erected statues of supposed Macedonian heroes, a triumphal arch called Porta Makedonija, and new buildings in neo-Baroque and Neoclassical styles, giving the impression of identity politics carved in stone.

Historical antiquization

Some trace the background of antiquization to the 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically the "myth of ancient descent among Orthodox Slavic speakers in Macedonia," partly adopted due to Greek cultural inputs. In an 1871 newspaper article, Petko Slaveykov reported that in the 1860s, some young Slavic intellectuals from Macedonia claimed they were not Bulgarians but descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, though they provided no proof. In 1875, Georgi Pulevski published a dictionary stating that the homeland of the Macedonian nation is Macedonia, famous for the rule of Alexander the Great, based on the incorrect claim that Ancient Macedonians were Early Slavs. In 1934, communist activist Vasil Ivanovski criticized Greek chauvinists for claiming the ancient Macedonian tribe and its leaders as part of the ancient Greeks. Greek institutions, both secular and religious, spread the myth of origin from Alexander the Great to persuade the local Orthodox Slavic-speaking population to turn away from Slavic influence and accept Athenian authority. This occurred in the late 19th century in the Ottoman region of Macedonia, where Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia each claimed the Christian Slavs based on medieval imperial histories.