Janev

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Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City

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Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 3-21© 2011 by The University of California.All rights reserved

Narrating the Nation,

Narrating the City 1

Goran JanevUniversity of Sts Cyril and Methodius,

Macedonia

AbstractThis article analyzes expressions of power relationshipsin the built environment through the concept of

study is the major remaking of public space in Skopje,the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The emerging

ethnocratic regime in Macedonia aims at the creationof an ethnocratic spatial order through the installationof symbolic markers in the built environment that

territories. The citizens of Skopje have reacted to thisdivision by crossing these new symbolic borders and byattending places at the border zone and transforming itinto a contact zone.

Introduction

Studies of inter-ethnic relations,typically provoked or inspired

and prolonged tensions, often remain

and actions. Analysis of spatiality in this branch of research is largely limited tothe notion of territoriality, which is mostclosely connected with research intonationalism and is linked to the conceptof the nation-state. As the compilers andauthors selected in the copious readeron state space demonstrate (Brenner etal., 2003), probing beyond this assumed

“territorial trap” opens up almost limitlessanalytical possibilities. I propose a morethorough elaboration on spatiality inthe study of inter-ethnic relations withina nation-state. Moreover, I extend theapplication of the notion of territoriality

to street level, in an urban setting inparticular. I will use a spatially-orientedapproach to examine the tense ethnicrelations in Macedonia in the capital city ofSkopje. I employ the concept of narrativespaces to better understand social actionin the political realm, expressed both inspatial practices and contained in the built

of the social relations thus shaped, or

the early days of independence, theRepublic of Macedonia —once famous

for its ethnic diversity and even today 2 million structured as follows: 60 percent Macedonians; 25 per cent ethnicAlbanians; and 15 per cent Roma, Turkish,Serbian, Bosnians, Vlachs and others —has been negotiating a formula for the newnationhood that can accommodate suchdiversity. The emphasis on ethnic politicshas led to the development of a political andsocial order dominated almost completely by ethnic interests. I will elaborate belowon how the emerging order of the pasttwo decades has led to the formation ofan ethnocratic regime. Yiftachel (2006, 32)

that rupture the concept of the demos infavor of a single ethno-national group.On the basis of my material I suggest thatrelocating political legitimacy to ethno-national groups and emphasizing theplural is what has caused this rupture ofthe concept of the demos. The ethnocratic

regime that has emerged in Macedonia,as I argue in this article, is best observedin the new spatial order. That is why I relyon spatiality to explore and explain theworking of ethno-politics.

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where I was born and raised. I latertrained as an anthropologist elsewhere

in Macedonia as a researcher from abroad.For this present paper I have againconducted my research from abroad.

through my interest in local governmentand the process of decentralization

there was a brief military confrontation between radical ethnic Albanians andMacedonian state security forces thatmaximized the polarization of inter-ethnic relations between Macedoniansand Albanians. The new territorialdistribution of the municipalities in 2005,designed to appease ethnic Albaniandemands, provoked a renewal oftensions. The devolution of powers tolocal government held out great promisefor a more participatory democracy but,at the same time, carried the dangerthat democratic participation would belimited to ethnic collectivities. Macedonian-Albanian inter-ethnic relations are arguably the mostappropriate for observing the subtletiesof political economy of scale (Brenneret al., 2003) as they involve troubledinternational relations in the reshapingof the region of South-East Europe, inter-ethnic relations within the Republic ofMacedonia, and local administration andregional dynamics within the country atsub-national scale. I started designingmy research in 2008 when I realized thatongoing efforts to build a number ofcultural institutions and erect a numberof monuments were increasinglygrowing beyond affordable, imaginable,or necessary dimensions. Already, bylate 2008, some of those intentions to

remake the city in nationalist fashionwere becoming apparent and I decidedto focus on this symbolic reconstruction.It was not until early 2010 that thegovernment announced the “Skopje2014” project, but it soon becameobvious that acts of planning and urbandesign were rooted in existing powerstructures of nationalism (Fenster andYacobi 2010, 1). This grandiose projectis intended to make the capital of theRepublic of Macedonia into the nationalcapital of ethnic Macedonians. Favorabledemographic distribution and ethno-political engineering in 2005 created anAlbanian-controlled municipality ofChair. The local government responded by proposing the construction of a“Skanderbeg Square” to symbolicallyexpress their indisputable right over thepart of the city that forms the nucleus ofthe old city. Therefore I decided to adjustmy analytical apparatus to accommodatethe increased importance of spatiality inmy research. In this article I will elaboratethe usefulness of the notion of narrative

spaces for the study of politicized inter-group relations in urban settings. My engagement with the city of Skopjedemanded that I make a decision aboutmy primary unit of analysis. In manyways this unit transpired to be Skopje’sOld Bazaar, a remnant of the city nucleusfrom medieval times. On the other hand,I also explore the workings of nationalistforces in a country of great ethnic andreligious diversity. Therefore, the bazaar,or charshija as it is called locally, is where I

the implications of this study are muchwider. I was familiar with the charshija since my mother, a ceramic artist, ran

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a studio/gallery in the bazaar with my

At that time I was a student of ethnologyand would often go to the gallery toallow my parents to have a break. The

engagement, for I was very familiar withthe physical terrain. The social terrain

so I needed to acquaint myself with thechanged charshija. I conducted more thantwenty in-depth interviews with variousshopkeepers and held many othershorter exchanges and conversations. Ialso organized a short survey with over400 respondents, including almost allof the shopkeepers in the Old Bazaar.Given that the word charshija still means“the talk of the town”, and given that thisparticular place still affords insights intothe traditional social order and is located between the new boundaries in theMacedonian ethnopolitical landscape, I believe that the charshija holds the key tounderstanding the emerging ethnocratic

spatial order. In recent decades, spatiality has

across various disciplines, includinganthropology. It has never beencompletely absent and there have always been researchers interested in observingsocial life through the analysis of spatialphenomena. In spite of the fact thatengagement with social space was oneof the major concerns of the founders ofthe social sciences, as noted almost half a

space, or any aspect of spatiality has yetto attain a mainstream position. The

phenomena has contributed towards a

more privileged treatment of spatiality.Increasing disciplinary specialization,however, has been accompanied by aslight neglect of spatiality in the socialsciences in general. With this casestudy of Skopje—and its Old Bazaar inparticular—I propose that spatiality is acentral aspect of inter-ethnic relations inan urban setting and requires openness between disciplinary boundaries to allowfruitful conceptual borrowings. Urban scholarship that acceptsspatiality as constitutive of socialphenomena also tends to disregard

disciplinary boundaries. This results incross-disciplinary conceptual fertilization because borrowings and adoptions of

and approaches are plentiful in currentliterature dealing with the spatial aspectof societies. Certainly, there are a greatmany sub-disciplinary divisions and sub-specializations stemming from increasedattention to spatiality. That could be usedto argue that many concepts have losttheir communicative value as they have contexts within each discipline. Creativelicense in the manipulation of concepts

could also introduce a great amountof confusion. There are also conceptsthat travel across social sciences andhumanities and we should be carefulwhen employing them if we are to avoidmisunderstandings. Rather than steering clear of such a

potentially confusing situation, I intendto engage with spatiality by borrowing aconcept of narrative space that has beendeveloped elsewhere. This concept has criticism, where it also means two similar

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but different things. Narrative space hasalready been welcomed in the socialsciences. I will use the notion of narrativespace to analyze the consequences of theestablishment of an ethnocratic regimein Macedonia and the ways in whichthis regime enforces a correspondingspatial order. Moreover, I will not limitthe construction of narrative spaces bymerely observing the narrative functionsof the built environment and symboliclandscaping. I argue that narrativespaces are also constructed by immaterialactions of spatial practices that do noteven require oral or literary expression.The approach to spatial practices andspatial acts that I use to construct myargument follows, to a certain extent,

habitus , the unspoken transmission ofspatially-learned social roles and rules.

Narrative spacesIn a comprehensive volume that setsout to take stock of developments in the

twentieth century Eade and Mele proposethat the most remarkable advancewas achieved through a cultural turn.Including the symbolic and discursivewithin urban studies has enrichedanalysis which was hitherto concernedmainly with implications stemmingfrom political economy (Eade and Mele2002, 6). The cultural turn in urbanstudies has provided a broader base forcritiquing the capitalist production of

processes that produce meaning in socialspace. Narrative space, however, is usedin a great variety of ways in spatially-

informed analysis. In the same volume

an analytical tool of urban scholars asan appropriate way to comprehend theexpanding role of identitarian politics in

globe (Fincher, Jacobs and Anderson 2002).Trubina (2010) uses the term “rhetoricalspace” to explore the construction ofthe identity of Volgograd, formerly

was the Battle of Stalingrad in World WarII. Although often referring to various andcontradictory narratives, Trubina optedfor “rhetorical space” as most expressiveof the transformations of the memory

of narrative and remains dedicated toit from the title of her book, Tales of thecity: a study of narrative and urban life , toits very last page. In her view, scholarstell their stories just as city planners,investors and people do. This perspectiveis quite similar to de Certeau’s persuasivetreatment of the planners’ view from

the top of a skyscraper that reveals thegrid organization of the urban space ofcrosscutting streets at right angles andthe acts of transgression of this order bywalkers at street level whose trajectoriescut through the planned corridors of

my argument in a similar way, but Iadd the notion of narrative space tohelp identify the emerging disjuncture between the clear-cut ethnic space of thenew urban planners in Skopje and thetrajectories cut through this space by thecitizens of Skopje. I am interested in the productionof narrative space both as a top-downprocess and the social construction of

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narrative space as a bottom-up process.In doing so I take my cue from Setha Low

between the social production and socialconstruction of space. I am only addingthe concept of narrative spaces to bettercapture the frantic developments in myresearch location. Therefore I intend toengage with narrative spaces not only asthey are intentionally produced to invokecertain identitarian connotations, butalso to understand how this productionis accepted by the local population. Inthe case of Skopje, as mentioned above,this population is extremely diverse, andthis is especially relevant, given that theproducers of symbolic meaning in Skopjeare acting as if they were oblivious to thatdiversity. With their interventions in the

along ethnic lines, the ethnocrats arecontinually challenging the citizens of thecapital city and their capacity to ignorethe new symbolic order that dividesthe city by ethno-symbolic markers. Bycontrasting different narratives —those

materialized in space by the rulingelites, and those of the immaterial spatialpractices of Skopje citizens —I disclose

discourse and the dangerous impositionof a divisive spatial order. Finally, the concept of narrative spaceaccommodates intangible components

with the built environment. Narrative

phantasmagoria of global links thatshoot through every corner of the planet

and ethno-scapes that are more than just a spatial metaphor. Pile’s (2005)more urban-bound conceptualization of

a phantasmagoria of past traces, ghostsand local histories can also be used as a basis for conceiving narrative spaces. It isin these stories and otherwise-articulatedurban imaginations that narrative spaceemerges. Narrative spaces are created by elaborated social relatedness inmemories and imaginations regardingthe past, present and future social andspatial positioning of individuals andtheir group belonging. Of course various,and even contradictory, narrativesexist simultaneously, depending onconverging or diverging positions.Which narrative prevails depends onthe actual power relationships thatdetermine the acceptance and promotionof the dominant narrative. The nationalistimaginary narrative has proved to be

narratives that legitimize it. Nevertheless, everyday practiceinvariably proves the nationalistimaginary narrative to be an impoverished

reality, while spatial practices invariablyreveal those contradictions. Rather than

point out the uses to which I will put theconcept. Applying the notion of narrativespace allows for a better understandingof symbolic interventions in the builtenvironment as expressions of the powerrelations of ethno-nationalism. I willengage this concept to unpack the powerrelationships based on ethnicity whichare turning Macedonian society into anethnocracy. The exercise of political powerin the built environment can be more orless implicit and on occasions apparentlysymbolic. The notion of narrative space ismost useful when we analyze politically-motivated interventions in public space.

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The project “Skopje 2014” and theproject for Skanderbeg Square areexamples of ongoing operations in theMacedonian capital, and the concept ofnarrative space will help to frame moreprecisely my ethnographic materialwhich is awash with ethno-politics.Since the collapse of the Socialist FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia, Macedonia has been turned into a country in whichethno-politics determine the social andphysical boundaries between membersof different ethnic groups. At the sametime, Macedonia is a country that hasdemonstrated incredible resilience tothe perpetual confrontation betweendifferent “national interests” as theyare conceived by the dominant ethno-political elites, as well as resistanceto numerous calls for ethnic violencemade by more radical individuals andpolitically-articulated organizations.This seeming contradiction is bestexplained by focusing on the spatialfeatures of ethno-politics in Macedonia.The concept of narrative space is useful

for observing the effects that the complex

reality through spatial practices, a set ofinter-related processes that form the cruxof this article. The city of Skopje is currently underintensive assault by irresponsible ethno-politicians. I reiterate that the current building offensive encompasses the entirecentral part of the capital; it is aimed at no

of the city of Skopje. Over a dozen new buildings designed in an historicist andeclectic mishmash of Neoclassical andNeo-Baroque styles are being erected in

and around the central city square andwill completely change the cityscape.Even the facades of the adjacent modern buildings are to be redecorated andadorned with Baroque ornaments. Over ahundred monuments and sculptures are being installed within the radius of onekilometer, none of them less than four

meters high and perched on a pedestalsome 12 meters above the ground. Allof the historical characters have beenchosen for their value and function inthe construction of Macedonian nationalidentity. A Macedonian Triumphal Archhas even been built at the entrance to the

is that of Alexander the Great sitting upona rearing horse and holding up a sword.This total reordering of the capital city’scenter has been dubbed “Project Skopje2014”. Macedonian political life has beenreduced to the activities of ethno-politicalparties. Naturally, the Albanians whoform the second largest ethnic groupin the country are not inactive, passiveonlookers in this spatial reordering.Their contribution to the new symboliclandscaping has not been directed towardsthe overcoming of ethnic divisions butto deepening these divides. In mid- January 2012, the leadership of the mostpowerful Albanian political party andthe local government of the municipalityof Chair, which is adjacent to the locationtargeted for Skopje 2014, inaugurated theconstruction of Skanderbeg Square. Theequestrian statue of the greatest Albaniannational hero will have no company inthe square that carries his name. Thereis one such statue in Tirana, the capitalof Albania, and one in Prishtina, the

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capital of Kosovo. The construction ofthe Skanderbeg monument disregardedlegal regulations when it appeared in

ten municipalities and Chair is oneof those in which Albanians form themajority. The Mayor of Chair is a high-ranking party member of the largestAlbanian party, the Democratic Union forIntegration, which emerged transformedfrom the National Liberation Armythat ignited the military confrontationin 2001. The total dominance of ethno-political parties and their respectivepolicies and public discourse lead to theconclusion that Macedonia has steppedout of democracy into ethnocracy. Thesecostly and gigantic projects are a directexpression of the ethnocratic regime inthe social space. The intention is to createa new spatial order with clearly-markedethnic territories within the capital. Thisnew spatial order in Skopje is a perfectexample of ethnocratic spatial order. Public space has been targeted as a

early days of Macedonian independence.

monuments, has been used to markethnic territories over the past twentyyears and has kept fragile inter-ethnic

here to fully engage with all the aspectsof these symbolic struggles (Harrison

marks out ethnic territories (Eriksen and

and would reveal the politicization of

days of independence. The most serioussymbol-related incident in Macedonia

was provoked by contested rights andregulations about the use of national

a predominantly Albanian population,refused to obey court orders to take down

th of July, police dispatched special troops

Albanians came to demonstrate, calling

people were killed in the tense shootoutthat followed. The Mayor was arrestedand sentenced for inciting hostilities onthe basis of ethnicity and religion. Helater lost his appeal at the European Court

prosecutor’s claims that he had incitedethnically and racially motivatedviolence. Today, having served his

serves as the Mayor of Gostivar. have had profound and long-lastingconsequences for the citizens of Gostivar.When I was doing my research in thetown in late 2000 and in 2001, almostevery person from any ethnic backgroundI interviewed would inevitably mention

attached to the armed confrontationconcerned the numerous arrests, injuriesand acts of police brutality that tookplace in the aftermath of the incident.

these stories, but the violence sparked

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by it remained a top priority for Gostivarcitizens, both Albanian and Macedonian,for years afterwards. Those strugglesover symbols in the hands of ethno-politicians always gain paramountimportance and achieve an atmosphereof fear and distrust by being constantlyrelated to security concerns. Socialgeography constituted in this way (cf.

by the mapping of ethnic businesses,residential zones, and religious symbols,amounts in our case to the creation ofsafe and unsafe zones, depending on theethnic composition of the neighborhoodor part of the city. Fortunately, residentialethnic segregation in urban settlementsin Macedonia is only at an early stage,yet some prevalently Albanian andMacedonian neighborhoods have gainedthe ethnic labeling that marks them as safeor unsafe depending on demographicpredominance. This ethnic labelingfurther perpetuates ethnic segregationand makes it yet more concrete. The

town of Gostivar is incredibly mixed, Albanians and next to Turks in almostevery other house—only the Roma livein relative cohesion, for multiple reasonsrelated to their exclusion. In general, theresidential segregation in practice is lesserthan the ethno-political propagandarepresentations. In Skopje such labeling practices aremore frequent and areas with a highlyvisible Albanian presence are notoriousfor drugs procurement and other illegal,

Those parts of the city with only smallnumbers of Albanians are self-proclaimedas “pure”. This could also be explained

by the fact that the composition ofthe population of Skopje is constantly

arrivals more prone to feeling insecure intheir new setting. While there is growingcorrespondence between residentialethnic segregation and ethno-politicalrhetoric, the segregation encounteredin workplaces and in cultural andeducational establishments is potentiallyfar more of an impediment to socialcohesion. The Macedonian ethnocracyhas turned the logic of minority rightson its head by creating a parallel societyeven less coherent than the pre-modernpluralist societies that managed multi-ethnicity through more accommodative

dangerous development is territorialsegregation, a direct outcome of theethnocracy established in Macedonia.

I shall now turn to another morerecent territorial ethno-symbolic incident,analyzing it in the light of the currentremaking of Skopje before focusing onone locality that still resists drives forethnic territorial divisions. Both exampleswill be used to demonstrate the effects ofethnocratic spatial reordering and thereactions and even resistance to theseimpositions. Acknowledging the symbolicdimension, signaling properties andsemiotic content of the built environmentis not novel, yet it remains somehowunderstated in social sciences. Theconcept of narrative spaces which relies

on this perspective provides immediateaccess to the political dimensions of the built environment (Bender 2002). Thisunderstanding of political meaningin buildings, aesthetics and eveninfrastructure is of particular importance

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ridden cities. Narrative space implies alayer of meaning beyond the physicalpresence of the construction materialused for building. It generates storiesand histories, perceptions, intentions,aspirations, fears and hopes that help usorient ourselves in the maze of our builtenvironment. To overlook the politicaldimension of symbolically-constructedspace is to severely impoverish ouranalysis of related social phenomena. Before approaching more directlythe case that I offer for analysis on these

grounds, let me clarify my argument aboutan implicit political spatial dimension,especially the nationalist dimension.

fathers of the social sciences —such asDurkheim and Mauss, and Morgan —engaged with social space through the

as expressions of native cosmologies.It is not my point here to criticize or

say that all these categories and manyothers that appear from ethnographicevidence are intertwined and oftencombined but almost always permeatedwith power relationships, regulatingand being regulated by intra- and inter-group relations. This leaves us with thepolitical quality of space as universaland ubiquitous in every human culture.Twenty years ago, Gupta and Ferguson

against this oft-neglected aspect of thespatial spread of the nation-state in

less critical of this practice and offers aview in which the concept of locality isseen as a historical product with layers

of accumulated practices that form socialrelations which regulate diversity byaccommodation and not by negation.Therefore locality almost alwayscontains diversity and stands as a seriousobstacle to nationalistic, territoriallyhomogenizing efforts. Those authorswho have engaged with territoriality and

the aims of nationalism to homogenizethe territory of the nation-state (Kaiser2002). I bring together concerns aboutnationalism and territoriality to the

studies in order to demonstrate that it willenrich the analysis of ethno-nationalism.Amin (2002) tackles the problem of urbanencounters of ethnic and racial groupsthat could go either way by focusing onmicro-publics, the local public sphere,and mixed neighborhoods where dailynegotiation of diversity occurs. The twoexamples I offer below demonstrate thatsome of his arguments can be appliedgenerally.

The Kale Incident

In the past few years, archaeologistshave been daily examining the OldFortress overlooking the Old Bazaar andthe central part of Skopje. The excavationand reconstruction of this fortressis one of many projects proceeding

archaeological research that has takenplace throughout Macedonia over the pastseveral years. Even some of the defending

walls of the fortress have been rebuilt.The fortress is now properly illuminated,more than ever dominating the cityskyline at evening time. This is the sitefrom which contemporary Skopje began

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a huge rock which forced the River Vardarto skirt around it and thus create an ideal

excavations at Kale, the Turkish word for

for this place, are just a fraction of manyother intensive explorations around thecountry. The government coalition ofthe Internal Macedonian RevolutionaryOrganization and the DemocraticParty for Macedonian National Unity(IMRO-DPMNU) is particularly keen onexcavating historical evidence to proveand showcase the national continuity ofMacedonia. As archaeological artifactsrequire public display, a plan was putforward to build a museum within thefortress to house the artifacts excavatedexclusively from that site. (A separate building to house the main archaeologicalmuseum with national treasures from allover the country is under constructionon the bank of the River Vardar and isconnected to the central city square by anew pedestrian bridge.) The museum inside the fortress isplanned only for those archaeological

for this museum happened to be designedin the shape of a church resemblinga medieval Byzantine basilica. Themuseum was to be built where thefoundations of such a construction had been found. In general, there is nothingprovocative or contradictory in suchan attempt to preserve the culturalheritage. As we shall see, however, this

reconstruction project was anything butcalmly accepted. It almost provokedethnic clashes in a country that barely tenyears ago somehow managed to avoid afull-scale civil war provoked by ethnic

Albanian militants. The controversialmuseum is just one part of a muchgreater undertaking that is reorderingthe Macedonian capital into a GrandNational Capital, producing territorialdivisions in a city renowned for itsdiversity and openness, in a countrythat inspired the mixed fruit dessertcalled salade macedoine . The essentialistperspective of local politicians is forcedupon Macedonian citizens by aggressiveand radical interventions in public space.The story of the museum on Skopje Kalewill help us unpack a set of complex socio-spatial or politico-spatial relationships. It was a few weeks after I had returned

ö ttingen that I

was stunned by the news of a bloodyincident involving hundreds of youngMacedonians and Albanians at Kale.During the fortnight of my absence from

museum had appeared on the horizon.The metal frames unambiguouslysuggested that the new building atthe edge of the old fortress would bea church, at least in its external form.Concerned citizens of ethnic Albanianorigin reacted to this imposition ofthe cultural symbols of the dominantethnic group in the country and alertedthe mayor of the municipality of Chair.The mayor asked the Cultural Heritage

coalition government partners—IMRO,which represents Macedonian citizensof ethnic Macedonian origin, and theDemocratic Union for Integration (DUI),which represents ethnic Albanians—agreed to disagree, but a promise wasgiven anyway that construction would be stopped until further notice.

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Despite this assurance, the Cultural

reconstruction of the Kale fortressproceeded with the construction of thechurch/museum in the evenings afterdark. Concerned citizens discoveredthis work and, led by the mayor ofthe municipality, marched to theconstruction site and chased away theworkers. They arrived with pre-prepared banners and metal-cutting machinesand began vandalizing the metal frame.The police arrived in small numbersand merely observed the protest withinterest. Television cameras were there todocument the event. After this energeticdisplay of determination, the buildingof the church/museum was stoppedfor good. This provoked an avalancheof reactions in the ethnically-polarizedpublic sphere. Hate-speech aboundedand many Facebook groups werepromptly banned as a result. One marginal radical right-wing party(TMORO-VEP) called for the defenseof Macedonian pride and scheduled aprotest on 13 February 2011. 2 Its call wasanswered by a group of football fanscalled the Komiti , named after the rebelswho fought against the Ottoman Empire.The public meeting was scheduledfor noon on a Saturday. The AlbanianNGO organization Zgjohu! (Wake Up!)was quick to organize counter-protests.Many football fans from ethnic Albanianclubs responded. When the two groupsarrived at the fortress at the same time,police were there to divide them. Firstthe Macedonians got in their round ofspeeches. As they were climbing down theslope of the fortress, Albanian youngsterssucceeded in running past the small

to get hold of the Macedonian protesters.They outnumbered the Macedonians andthe police were unable to prevent themfrom kicking and beating the corneredKomiti. Over the following hours and daysthe entire media—including Facebook—grew frantic. Public panic was so strongthat I decided to catch a plane home towhere I conduct my research.

The Skopje Old BazaarOn the following Saturday riot policein armored vehicles surrounded Kaleand secured central parts of the city to

prevent any fresh protests. The nextday I met with a friend at the entranceof the Skopje Old Bazaar just belowKale. It was the end of February but notvery cold and with copious winter sunwarming the air. It was a Sunday andmany shops in the bazaar were openand there were a number of visitors. Iobserved to my friend that the bazaar

all those years of abandonment from the

telling me how he had come here withhis wife and three-year old daughterfor a midday stroll and some Turkishtea on the weekend before the incidentat Kale. There had been hundreds ofpeople thronging the narrow streets ofthe bazaar, he said, incomparably morethan at the moment when we werespeaking. He was concerned that therecently- revived bazaar might lose itsmomentum for recovery due to renewed

ethnic tensions. As we were talking wearrived at my favorite part of the bazaarand entered a newly-opened coffee shop.

and when I wanted to pay with one ofthe larger banknotes the owner of the

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place (apparently Albanian, as I had been able to overhear in the distancehis phone conversation some minutesearlier) simply waved his hand as if tosay “it doesn’t matter” because he hadno change. I encouraged him to checkoptions, to ask a neighboring shop forchange, but he explained that we couldpay some other time. At that point myfriend took charge of the situation andfound the exact amount in his wallet. Themoment we left the coffee shop to continueour tour on the sunlit cobblestones of thetiny, winding streets of the bazaar, wesimultaneously commented that therewas still hope for the bazaar. The bazaar was the central part of the

and has witnessed many changes of

conquests, prosperity and misery. In the

the beginning of the twentieth century,

Regardless of the source of the legacyto which I want to refer, the bazaar keptalive the ideal of esnaf . An esnaf was aguild, an association of craftsmen ortraders, and was a fully-functioninginstitution under Ottoman rule whichregulated all economic activities fromproduction to trade, including theeducation and recruitment of new labor

association of shopkeepers that carriesthe generic name of esnafwhere once eachlarger group of producers used to have aseparate organization. The contemporary

the kind of organization suggested bythe same name, but the choice of thisname is an indicator of the high esteemin which the ideal of esnaf is held. In my

interviews and in the survey I organizedin the bazaar, I learnt that esnaf evokesthe highest moral qualities of decency,honesty, trustworthiness, reliability andintegrity. Many would say that it is avalue regretfully dying or even alreadyextinct. The young owner of that coffeeshop, however, proved that not all hope isgone. The bazaar itself produces a certainkind of sociability, open and receptive todiversity, since its primary values areentrepreneurial and civil, just as urbanitywas once distinguishable and praised inits own right. The bazaar is no longer thecentral public space of the city—that cityhas grow ten or twenty times bigger sincethe bazaar last commanded Skopje’strends, fashions, moods, and opinion. Yetthe bazaar keeps alive the ideals of propercivic values and its stories offer manylessons to contemporary politicians. Skopje Old Bazaar is one of thelargest bazaars preserved in the Balkans.

age for the bazaar. After the disastrous

a modern city. The Japanese Modernistarchitect, Kenzo Tange, won a UnitedNations-organized competition for thenew master-plan for Skopje. A large partof the old bazaar was incorporated inthe new city of concrete buildings andstraight boulevards. The bazaar gainedimproved infrastructural amenities andalso acquired some additional functions.Several of the old Turkish baths wereturned into art galleries, one of the oldinns was turned into a lapidarium and, behind it, a museum complex was builtto house the Macedonian Museum ofArchaeology, History and Ethnology,while another old inn was adapted to hostthe Academy of Fine Arts. The revitalized

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bazaar saw incremental progress andprosperity. The collapse of Yugoslaviaand the wars in the north in the early

products from the bazaar. The full-blowntransition to private property resultedin a mushrooming of shopping malls inSkopje and availability of vast amountsof imported goods, both luxurious andcheap. The bazaar was simply unableto restructure itself under the pressureof transition. But this political-economicexplanation of the misfortunes of the old incomplete: it was practically throughthe Albanianization of the bazaar thatethno-politics entered the main politicalstage in Macedonia, even in socialistYugoslavia. Radical demographic changesfollowed the growth of post-earthquakeSkopje. The number of citizens doubled

celebrated the happiness of industrialworkers and the newly installedindustries in Skopje needed a labor force.Not all of the workers who moved toSkopje were of ethnic Macedonian origin.

already taking shape in this period andAlbanians were often sidelined whenit came to employment or promotion.The bazaar was loosely connected to thesocialist state that had begun to tolerateprivate economic initiative, after an initialperiod of collectivization and prohibitionof capitalist modes of production. By the

of the charshija offered opportunities forself-employment. Growing numbers ofAlbanians at that time would offer largeamounts of cash to buy up the shops ofelderly shopkeepers and craftsmen. This

was an opportunity for such shopkeepersto gain cash before retirement if theyhad no one to whom they couldpass on their trade. This increasingpresence of Albanians amounted to theAlbanianization of the bazaar in thepopular imagination. This is how thestory of the bazaar can be concluded asfar as it concerns developments duringsocialism.

The period since independence sawone unfortunate incident lead to the years. The Bit Pazar riots of 6 November

a young Albanian seller of smuggledcigarettes. The boy was pushed, kicked

carried away in an ambulance. Rumorsspread fast and thousands of Albanianssoon started rioting. They clashed withthe police and gunshots were exchanged,leaving four people killed, including oneoverly-curious old lady who was shot bya stray bullet while peeking from behindher curtains. In the following days andweeks the police patrolled the area heavilyand this police presence marked a borderaround the Old Bazaar as an unsafe areaof the city. The threat to security wasseen as coming from the Albanians. Thecharshija was still popular, however, andwe continued visiting our favorite barssince police patrols would let us throughtheir barriers as soon as they heard thatwe were speaking Macedonian. Thepolice presence was reduced in lessthan a month, but the line was deeplydrawn. The new geographies of power,colored with nationalist sentiments, leftdeep scars on the map of Skopje. Theco-incidental change of consumption

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patterns that arrived with the transitionand the securitization of the perceivedAlbanianized space contributed towardsthe demise of the bazaar for a longperiod. It took almost two decades for thecharshija to come back to life and onceagain bustle with young people. Thisrevival started in 2008 with the openingof a wine bar and a small alternative clubclose by. The two friends who own thealternative club illustrate the diversitythat ethno-politics seeks to negate: oneis a woman of mixed Macedonian and

Greek ethnic origin, the other woman isof mixed Albanian and Turkish origin. Inthe following summer, the Macedonianowner of the wine bar, a busker who hadspent his youth travelling throughoutEurope, opened a beer garden above the

down in the bazaar. His businesses

rakija bar has opened offering a varietyof traditional Macedonian liquors ( rakija is a traditional spirit). Next to these bars is a Turkish-owned tea house andaround the corner is an Albanian-owned bar. The timing of this revival of the bazaar is curious. The rediscovery ofthe bazaar could have happened at any

poses the question of why the charshija ispopular again right now? I argue that themovement of people across the old StoneBridge from the city square to the SkopjeOld Bazaar is an act of protest created andexpressed by spatial practice. Pile invitesus to think beyond the dichotomiesof dominance and resistance, spatialtechnologies of governance and open actsof resistance, structural power relations

and articulated political identities: “it isnot so much the act—and its structural

(as has been the case so far), but themeanings that social action takes onin the practice of everyday life.” (Pile

creating only ephemeral trail, not evena trace, transgression is occurring acrossethnically-prescribed spaces. The spatialpractices of Skopje citizens, throughmovement, transform these ethnic spacesinto spaces of mixture and diversity.We can argue that what has occurredamounts to a transgression of ethnic boundaries, a breaking of ethnic barriersthat happens simply through the act ofsitting next to one another. The minglingof ethnic bodies in a shared space isevidence of a possibility contrary to theclaims of ethno-politicians who disregardethnic others in their urban plans andcommemorative sites. The trajectoriesthat cut through the boundaries of ethnicterritories refute ethnic segregation byshowing the impossibility of achieving

such clear-cut borders in an ethnically-mixed city. The cosmopolitanism of those new bars owners is palpable. As is thecosmopolitanism of many shopkeepersI have met in recent years who furtherattest that new and traditional valueswhich accept and accommodate diversitycan achieve synergy in this locality. Suchis the Turkish silversmith who is also atrained Islamic scholar, the Albanianowner of an antique shop who wastrained as an electrical engineer, and theMacedonian owner of a souvenir shopwho is trained as an ethnologist. Theseand many others have come to the bazaardriven by the desire to make a living; but

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they are also aware that the bazaar has ahistory, different from the history whichthe dominant political discourse wouldlike us to accept. In spite of the currentdominance of Albanian shopkeepers inthe bazaar, the charshija remains, andperhaps always will remain, a localityin which diversity is treated as an asset.The numerous stories I heard from theshopkeepers in the bazaar during my

divisive ethno-politics. The majorityof those I interviewed showed a highawareness of the political manipulationsthat endanger inter-ethnic relations inthe country, while clearly positioningthemselves as Macedonians or Albanians.The shopkeepers were even telling meabout their regular quarrels about ethno-politics that affect, but do not destroy,their neighborly or friendly relationships.This situation resembles the agonisticpolitical culture model emerging inplaces of regular contact described byAmin:

What goes on in them are notachievements of community orconsensus, but openings for contactand dialogue with others as equals, sothat mutual fear and misunderstandingmay be overcome and so that newattitudes and identities can arise fromengagement. If common values, trust,or a shared sense of place emerge, theydo so as accidents of engagement, notfrom an ethos of community (Amin

Even if they keep their ethnic identitiesentrenched, all the shopkeepers Iinterviewed would say that theirimmediate neighbors, one or two at least,were their best friends on whom theycould count in any situation. As part of

the survey, I asked shopkeepers to name

to attach ethnicity to them. Almost theentire sample responded by refusing toundertake such an exercise: they claimedthere were no such divisions, despite thereality that there are. A similar answerwas given to my question about the ethniccomposition of their customers. Thisideological position, even if only wishfulthinking, demonstrates that socializationin the bazaar entails inclusivity, notexclusivity. Almost everyone I interviewed

invoked the quality of being aproper member of esnaf as it used to beand as it is remembered. is amoral standard which socialization holdsin high esteem and which overcomesother markers of social differentiation.I realized that elder shopkeepers took acertain pride in pointing out that theyhad spent their entire lives in the bazaar.They see themselves as belonging to arare and endangered group but theyalso carry with pride their lifelong

charshija community, a communitycharacterized by a communityof hardworking, trustworthy, skilled andhonest shopkeepers. Many responsesto the survey evoked as a richword, pregnant with obligations andmoral imperatives. Those imperativesdo not overlook ethnic and religiousdifferentiations, but respect them.Sustaining or renewing those valuesis not so simple under the pressures ofan ethnocratic regime, but the suddenpopularity of the bazaar holds thepromise of an opportunity as it emergesas a site offering an alternative model fornegotiating diversity.

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Conclusion

Ethnicity in Macedonia has beenpoliticized and this affects everydaypractices; a closer look at such practices,however, reveals a resilient resistance toethno-politics. One level of resistanceconsists of a shared memory of moreharmonious inter-ethnic relations. Herethe bazaar plays a particular role asa locality that attests to those times.Secondly, esnaf is a key concept thatcontains a whole moral universe dictatingmutual respect and disregard for ethnic

characteristics of the shopkeepers in the charshija. Thirdly, the fact that the revivalof interest in the bazaar has taken placeprecisely after the greatest effort to remakepublic space in the city according to thelogic of ethno-politics can also be takenas an indicator of resistance contained inthe trajectories of movement—of revoltexpressed in spatial practices. The Kale Incident reminded Skopjecitizens that political manipulationof national sentiments can be quitedangerous. The use of archaeologyfor political purposes exaggerates theidentity-related struggles and is not onlya temporal extension of the nation, fromthe perspective of myths of continuity, but also supports the territorial claimsof the nation-state. Therefore, thatarchaeological battle can be expected,if we read Pullan’s analysis of similarprocesses in Jerusalem:

Archeology is a favoured vehicle forattempting to legitimate the settlers’presence in the Old City, primarily inorder to enhance their claim to biblicalcontinuity. In doing so, they follow along tradition of using archaeology fornationalist purposes, and sometimes

the excavations have resulted inviolent clashes (Pullan 2011, 8).

Pullan can be quoted word for word toexplain the situation in Skopje “wheremany groups and individuals wishto impose their national and religiousidentities upon the city” Pullan 2011,**). In its eventful history, Skopje hasattracted quite a few contenders. Thosepresently sharing the central governmentand controlling adjacent municipalities atlocal government level, guided by theirethno-political essentialist view, pose thegreatest threat to the ethnic balance inSkopje. In this article I argue that acts ofresistance can be of an ephemeralnature—simple acts of crossing envisagedsymbolical borders. The revolt againstdivisive policies and the awarenessof the dangerous ethnocratic order is best expressed in the action of Skopje’s

“Singing Skopjians”. Only a few days afterthe incident at Kale, this group gathered

to sing a song in both Macedonian andAlbanian just outside the police-securedzone below the fortress. The song wastitled “Injustice”, which had been written by a legendary Macedonian rock band

of Macedonians and led by an Albanian.This song was an honest reaction togrowing consumerism and emerging

was very popular at the time. The bilingualcover version of the Singing Skopjians,who are themselves composed of manyethnicities, highlighted the absurdity ofethno-politics. There are other forms ofactivism and protest that react againstthe “Skopje 2014”, like the “First

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Archibrigade” and “Freedom Square”, but here I am interested in those verballyand discursively unarticulated spatialpractices. Less overt acts of resistanceare manifested by the mere presenceof all ethnicities in the “dangerous” border-zone, thus transforming it into azone of contact and habitual encounter.This, in itself, is not a guarantee of long-lasting transformative effects againstthe divisive intentions of those in powerto carve out ethnic territories withinMacedonia and within Macedoniancities. It deserves our analytical attention,however, as it serves to correct the pictureof irreconcilable ethnic divisions. Thedominant imposition of ethnic narrativesin the built environment is met by spatialpractices that undo such divisions. Those government-led archaeologicaland architectural interventions in thepublic space of this remarkably diversecity are used to mark ethnic territories by way of unearthing material evidenceand constructing symbolically-laden buildings . production of “mythscape”, but thismaterialization of myth-scaping affectsnot only imaginary but everyday lifewith its imposed spatial order that, inturn, has its own logic and dynamic. Themutual interdependencies and habitual

in the Skopje Old Bazaar, however, makeit a typical place that contains diversemicro-publics and provides bases fordaily negotiation of diversity. Thosetraditionally-established practices basedon mutual respect are under constantpressure from the ethno-nationalisticallydriven pragmatic populism ofMacedonian ethnic politicians. The bazaaris a reminder of alternative possibilities.

The revisiting of the bazaar by Skopjecitizens demonstrates a desire and a willto overcome ethnic divisions that demandnaïve acceptance of ethnic stereotypesand prejudices. The resistance that stemsfrom the sheer fact of residential andotherwise expressed spatial mixing, asseen in the distribution of shopkeepersalong the streets of the Old Bazaar,the resistance that this mix inspires asseen in the renewed popularity of suchspaces, and the resistance expressedin the transgression of those ethniclines and contained in the trajectoriesof Skopje citizens that transgress theinvented ethnic boundaries, amountsto the creation of alternative narrativespaces totally opposite to those imposednarrative spaces of the ethnocratic spatialorder.

Notes

1

research funded by the Max Planck Institutefor the Study of Religious and EthnicDiversity, G ö ttingen, Germany.2 Tatkovinska Makedonska Organizacija

Pirin

approximates in English to “Fatherland

Macedonian Organization for Radical

Reconstruction-Vardar Aegean Pirin” (which

refers to the three parts of Macedonia: Vardar,

the current Republic of Macedonia; the Pirin part

in Bulgaria; and Aegean Macedonia in Greece).This was, allegedly, the solution to the notorious

Macedonian Question of the political destiny of

the geographical territory known as Macedonia.

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The partition that disregarded the Macedonian

national aspirations happened in 1913 after the

Second Balkan War. Seeking historical justice

reality amounts to irredentist claims made in the

21 st century.

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